CHAPTER VI.

Mr. Egerton glanced over the pile of letters placed beside him, and first he tore up some, scarcely read, and threw them into the waste-basket. Public men have such odd out-of-the-way letters, that their waste-baskets are never empty: letters from amateur financiers proposing new ways to pay off the national debt; letters from America (never free!) asking for autographs; letters from fond mothers in country villages, recommending some miracle of a son for a place in the king's service; letters from freethinkers in reproof of bigotry; letters from bigots in reproof of freethinking; letters signed Brutus Redivivus, containing the agreeable information that the writer has a dagger for tyrants, if the Danish claims are not forthwith adjusted; letters signed Matilda or Caroline, stating that Caroline or Matilda has seen the public man's portrait at the Exhibition, and that a heart sensible to its attractions may be found at No. -- Piccadilly; letters from beggars, impostors, monomaniacs, speculators, jobbers--all food for the waste-basket.

From the correspondence thus winnowed, Mr. Egerton first selected those on business, which he put methodically together in one division of his pocket-book; and, secondly, those of a private nature, which he as carefully put into another. Of these last there were but three--one from his steward, one from Harley L'Estrange, one from Randal Leslie. It was his custom to answer his correspondence at his office; and to his office, a few minutes afterward, he slowly took his way. Many a passenger turned back to look again at the firm figure, which, despite the hot summer day, was buttoned up to the throat; and the black frock-coat thus worn, well became the erect air, and the deep full chest of the handsome senator. When he entered Parliament-street, Audley Egerton was joined by one of his colleagues, also on his way to the cares of office.

After a few observations on the last debate, this gentleman said:

"By the way, can you dine with me next Saturday, to meet Lansmere? He comes up to town to vote for us on Monday."

"I had asked some people to dine with me," answered Egerton, "but I will put them off. I see Lord Lansmere too seldom, to miss any occasion to meet a man whom I respect so much."

"So seldom! True, he is very little in town; but why don't you go and see him in the country? Good shooting--pleasant old-fashioned house."

"My dear Westbourne, his house is '_nimium vicina Cremonæ_,' close to a borough in which I have been burned in effigy."

"Ha--ha--yes--I remember you first came into Parliament for that snug little place; but Lansmere himself never found fault with your votes, did he?"

"He behaved very handsomely, and said he had not presumed to consider me his mouthpiece; and then, too, I am so intimate with L'Estrange."

"Is that queer fellow ever coming back to England?"

"He comes, generally every year, for a few days, just to see his father and mother, and then goes back to the Continent."

"I never meet him."

"He comes in September or October, when you, of course, are not in town, and it is in town that the Lansmeres meet him."

"Why does not he go to them?"

"A man in England but once a year, and for a few days, has so much to do in London, I suppose."

"Is he as amusing as ever?"

Egerton nodded.

"So distinguished as he might be!" continued Lord Westbourne.

"So distinguished as he is!" said Egerton, formally; "an officer selected for praise, even in such fields as Quatre Bras and Waterloo; a scholar, too, of the finest taste; and as an accomplished gentleman, matchless!"

"I like to hear one man praise another so warmly in these ill-natured days," answered Lord Westbourne. "But, still, though L'Estrange is, doubtless, all you say, don't you think he rather wastes his life--living abroad?"

"And trying to be happy, Westbourne? Are you sure it is not we who waste our lives? But I can't stay to hear your answer. Here we are at the door of my prison."

"On Saturday, then?"

"On Saturday. Good-day."

For the next hour, or more, Mr. Egerton was engaged on the affairs of the state. He then snatched an interval of leisure (while awaiting a report, which he had instructed a clerk to make him), in order to reply to his letters. Those on public business were soon dispatched; and throwing his replies aside, to be sealed by a subordinate hand, he drew out the letters which he had put apart as private.

He attended first to that of his steward: the steward's letter was long; the reply was contained in three lines. Pitt himself was scarcely more negligent of his private interests and concerns than Audley Egerton--yet, withal, Audley Egerton was said, by his enemies, to be an egotist.

The next letter he wrote was to Randal, and that, though longer, was far from prolix: it ran thus:

"DEAR MR. LESLIE--I appreciate your delicacy in consulting me, whether you should accept Frank Hazeldean's invitation to call at the Hall. Since you are asked, I can see no objection to it. I should be sorry if you appeared to force yourself there; and, for the rest, as a general rule, I think a young man who has his own way to make in life, had better avoid all intimacy with those of his own age, who have no kindred objects, nor congenial pursuits.

"As soon as this visit is paid, I wish you to come to London. The report I receive of your progress at Eton, renders it unnecessary, in my judgment, that you should return there. If your father has no objection, I propose that you should go to Oxford, at the ensuing term. Meanwhile, I have engaged a gentleman, who is a fellow of Baliol, to read with you; he is of opinion, judging only by your high repute at Eton, that you may at once obtain a scholarship in that college. If you do so, I shall look upon your career in life as assured.

"Your affectionate friend, and sincere well-wisher, "A.E."

The reader will remark that, in this letter, there is a certain tone of formality. Mr. Egerton does not call his _protégé_ "Dear Randal," as would seem natural, but coldly and stiffly, "Dear Mr. Leslie." He hints, also, that the boy has his own way to make in life. Is this meant to guard against too sanguine notions of inheritance, which his generosity may have excited?

The letter to Lord L'Estrange was of a very different kind from the others. It was long, and full of such little scraps of news and gossip as may interest friends in a foreign land; it was written gayly, and as with a wish to cheer his friend; you could see that it was a reply to a melancholy letter; and in the whole tone and spirit there was an affection, even to tenderness, of which those who most liked Audley Egerton would have scarcely supposed him capable. Yet, notwithstanding, there was a kind of constraint in the letter, which perhaps only the fine tact of a woman would detect. It had not that _abandon_, that hearty self-outpouring, which you might expect would characterize the letters of two such friends, who had been boys at school together, and which did breathe indeed in all the abrupt rambling sentences of his correspondent. But where was the evidence of the constraint? Egerton is off-hand enough where his pen runs glibly through paragraphs that relate to others; it is simply that he says nothing about himself--that he avoids all reference to the inner world of sentiment and feeling. But perhaps, after all, the man has no sentiment and feeling! How can you expect that a steady personage in practical life, whose mornings are spent in Downing-street, and whose nights are consumed in watching Government bills through a committee, can write in the same style as an idle dreamer amidst the pines of Ravenna or on the banks of Como.

Audley had just finished this epistle, such as it was, when the attendant in waiting announced the arrival of a deputation from a provincial trading town, the members of which deputation he had appointed to meet at two o'clock. There was no office in London at which deputations were kept waiting less than at that over which Mr. Egerton presided.

The deputation entered--some score or so of middle-aged, comfortable-looking persons, who nevertheless had their grievance--and considered their own interests, and those of the country, menaced by a certain clause in a bill brought in by Mr. Egerton.

The Mayor of the town was the chief spokesman, and he spoke well--but in a style to which the dignified official was not accustomed. It was a slap-dash style--unceremonious, free, and easy--an American style. And, indeed, there was something altogether in the appearance and bearing of the Mayor which savored of residence in the Great Republic. He was a very handsome man, but with a look sharp and domineering--the look of a man who did not care a straw for president or monarch, and who enjoyed the liberty to speak his mind, and "wallop his own nigger!"

His fellow-burghers evidently regarded him with great respect; and Mr. Egerton had penetration enough to perceive that Mr. Mayor must be a rich man, as well as an eloquent one, to have overcome those impressions of soreness or jealousy which his tone was calculated to create in the self-love of his equals.

Mr. Egerton was far too wise to be easily offended by mere manner; and, though he stared somewhat haughtily when he found his observations actually pooh-poohed, he was not above being convinced. There was much sense and much justice in Mr. Mayor's arguments, and the statesman civilly promised to take them into full consideration.

He then bowed out the deputation; but scarcely had the door closed before it opened again, and Mr. Mayor presented himself alone, saying aloud to his companions in the passage, "I forgot something I had to say to Mr. Egerton; wait below for me."

"Well, Mr. Mayor," said Audley, pointing to a seat, "what else would you suggest?"

The Mayor looked round to see that the door was closed; and then, drawing his chair close to Mr. Egerton's, laid his forefinger on that gentleman's arm, and said, "I think I speak to a man of the world, sir."

Mr. Egerton bowed, and made no reply by word, but he gently removed his arm from the touch of the forefinger.

MR. MAYOR.--"You observe, sir, that I did not ask the members whom we return to Parliament to accompany us. Do better without 'em. You know they are both in Opposition--out-and-outers."

MR. EGERTON.--"It is a misfortune which the Government can not remember, when the question is whether the trade of the town itself is to be served or injured."

MR. MAYOR.--"Well, I guess you speak handsome, sir. But you'd be glad to have two members to support Ministers after the next election."

MR. EGERTON, smiling.--"Unquestionably, Mr. Mayor."

MR. MAYOR.--"And I can do it, Mr. Egerton. I may say I have the town in my pocket; so I ought, I spend a great deal of money in it. Now, you see, Mr. Egerton, I have passed a part of my life in a land of liberty--the United States--and I come to the point when I speak to a man of the world. I'm a man of the world myself, sir. And if so be the Government will do something for me, why, I'll do something for the Government. Two votes for a free and independent town like ours--that's something, isn't it?"

MR. EGERTON, taken by surprise.--"Really, I--"

MR. MAYOR, advancing his chair still nearer, and interrupting the official.--"No nonsense, you see, on one side or the other. The fact is, that I've taken it into my head that I should like to be knighted. You may well look surprised, Mr. Egerton--trumpery thing enough, I dare say; still, every man has his weakness, and I should like to be Sir Richard. Well, if you can get me made Sir Richard, you may just name your two members for the next election--that is, if they belong to your own set, enlightened men, up to the times. That's speaking fair and manful, isn't it?"

MR. EGERTON, drawing himself up.--"I am at a loss to guess why you should select me, sir, for this very extraordinary proposition."

MR. MAYOR, nodding good-humoredly.--"Why, you see, I don't go all along with the Government; you're the best of the bunch. And maybe you'd like to strengthen your own party. This is quite between you and me, you understand; honor's a jewel!"

MR. EGERTON, with great gravity.--"Sir, I am obliged by your good opinion; but I agree with my colleagues in all the great questions that affect the government of the country, and--"

MR. MAYOR, interrupting him.--"Ah, of course, you must say so; very right. But I guess things would go differently if you were Prime Minister. However, I have another reason for speaking to you about my little job. You see you were member for Lansmere once, and I think you came in but by two majority, eh?"

MR. EGERTON.--"I know nothing of the particulars of that election; I was not present."

MR. MAYOR.--"No; but luckily for you, two relatives of mine were, and they voted for you. Two votes, and you came in by two! Since then, you have got into very snug quarters here, and I think we have a claim on you--"

MR. EGERTON.--"Sir, I acknowledge no such claim; I was and am a stranger to Lansmere; and, if the electors did me the honor to return me to Parliament, it was in compliment rather to--"

MR. MAYOR, again interrupting the official.--"Rather to Lord Lansmere, you were going to say; unconstitutional doctrine that, I fancy. Peer of the realm. But, never mind, I know the world; and I'd ask Lord Lansmere to do my affair for me, only I hear he is as proud, as Lucifer."

MR. EGERTON, in great disgust, and settling his papers before him.--"Sir, it is not in my department to recommend to his Majesty candidates for the honor of knighthood, and it is still less in my department to make bargains for seats in Parliament."

MR. MAYOR.--"Oh, if that's the case, you'll excuse me; I don't know much of the etiquette in these matters. But I thought that, if I put two seats in your hands, for your own friends, you might contrive to take the affair into your department, whatever it was. But, since you say you agree with your colleagues, perhaps it comes to the same thing. Now, you must not suppose I want to sell the town, and that I can change and chop my politics for my own purpose. No such thing! I don't like the sitting members; I'm all for progressing, but they go _too_ much ahead for me; and, since the Government is disposed to move a little, why I'd as lief support them as not. But, in common gratitude, you see (added the Mayor, coaxingly), I ought to be knighted! I can keep up the dignity, and do credit to his Majesty."

MR. EGERTON, without looking up from his papers.--"I can only refer you, sir, to the proper quarter."

MR. MAYOR, impatiently.--"Proper quarter! Well, since there is so much humbug in this old country of ours, that one must go through all the forms and get at the job regularly, just tell me whom I ought to go to."

MR. EGERTON, beginning to be amused as well as indignant.--"If you want a knighthood, Mr. Mayor, you must ask the Prime Minister; if you want to give the Government information relative to seats in Parliament, you must introduce yourself to Mr. ----, the Secretary of the Treasury."

MR. MAYOR.--"And if I go to the last chap, what do you think he'll say."

MR. EGERTON, the amusement preponderating over the indignation.--"He will say, I suppose, that you must not put the thing in the light in which you have put it to me; that the Government will be very proud to have the confidence of yourself and your brother electors; and that a gentleman like you, in the proud position of Mayor, may well hope to be knighted on some fitting occasion. But that you must not talk about the knighthood just at present, and must confine yourself to converting the unfortunate political opinions of the town."

MR. MAYOR.--"Well, I guess that chap there would want to do me! Not quite so green, Mr. Egerton. Perhaps I'd better go at once to the fountain-head. How d'ye think the Premier would take it?"

MR. EGERTON, the indignation preponderating over the amusement.--"Probably just as I am about to do."

Mr. Egerton rang the bell; the attendant appeared.

"Show Mr. Mayor the way out," said the Minister.

The Mayor turned round sharply, and his face was purple. He walked straight to the door; but, suffering the attendant to precede him along the corridor, he came back with a rapid stride, and clenching his hands, and with a voice thick with passion, cried, "Some day or other I will make you smart for this, as sure as my name's Dick Avenel!"

"Avenel!" repeated Egerton, recoiling--"Avenel!"

But the Mayor was gone.

Audley fell into a deep and musing reverie, which seemed gloomy, and lasted till the attendant announced that the horses were at the door.

He then looked up, still abstractedly, and saw his letter to Harley L'Estrange open on the table. He drew it toward him, and wrote, "A man has just left me, who calls himself Aven--" in the middle of the name his pen stopped. "No, no," muttered the writer, "what folly to re-open the old wounds there," and he carefully erased the words.

Audley Egerton did not ride in the Park that day, as was his wont, but dismissed his groom; and, turning his horse's head toward Westminster Bridge, took his solitary way into the country. He rode at first slowly, as if in thought; then fast, as if trying to escape from thought. He was later than usual at the House that evening, and he looked pale and fatigued. But he had to speak, and he spoke well.

ANECDOTE OF A DOG.

The Lyons diligence was just going to start from Geneva. I climbed on the roof, and chose my place next the postillion: there was still a vacant seat, and the porter, after closing the door of the _coupé_, called "Monsieur Dermann!" A tall young man, with a German style of countenance, advanced, holding in his arms a large black grayhound, which he vainly tried to place on the roof.

"Monsieur," said he, addressing me, "will you have the kindness to take my dog?"

Bending over, I took hold of the animal, and placed him on the straw at my feet. I observed that he wore a handsome silver collar, on which the following words were tastefully engraved: "_Bevis--I belong to Sir Arthur Burnley, given him by Miss Clary_."

His owner was, therefore, an Englishman; yet my fellow-traveler, who had now taken his place by my side, was evidently either a Swiss or a German, and his name was Dermann. Trifling as was the mystery, it excited my curiosity, and, after two or three hours' pleasant conversation had established a sort of intimacy between us, I ventured to ask my companion for an explanation.

"It does not surprise me," he answered, "that this collar should puzzle you; and I shall have great pleasure in telling you the story of its wearer. Bevis belongs to me, but it is not many years since he owned another master whose name is on his collar. You will see why he still wears it. Here Bevis! speak to this gentleman."

The dog raised his head, opened his bright eyes, and laying back his long ears, uttered a sound which might well pass for a salutation.

M. Dermann placed the animal's head on his knees, and began to unfasten the collar.

Instantly Bevis drew back his head with a violent jerk, and darted toward the luggage on the hinder part of the roof. There, growling fiercely, he lay down, while his muscles were stiffened, and his eyes glowing with fury.

"You see, Monsieur, how determined he is to guard his collar; I should not like to be the man who would try to rob him of it. Here, Bevis!" said he, in a soft, caressing tone, "I won't touch it again, poor fellow! Come and make friends!"

The grayhound hesitated, still growling. At length he returned slowly toward his master, and began to lick his hands; his muscles gradually relaxed, and he trembled like a leaf.

"There, boy, there," said M. Dermann, caressing him. "We won't do it again, lie down now, and be quiet."

The dog nestled between his master's feet, and went to sleep. My fellow-traveler then turning toward me, began:

"I am a native of Suabia, but I live in a little village of the Sherland, at the foot of the Grimsel. My father keeps an inn for the reception of travelers going to St. Gothard.

"About two years since, there arrived at our house one evening a young Englishman, with a pale, sad countenance; he traveled on foot, and was followed by a large grayhound, this Bevis, whom you see. He declined taking any refreshment, and asked to be shown to his sleeping-room. We gave him one over the common hall, where we were all seated round the fire. Presently we heard him pacing rapidly up and down; from time to time uttering broken words, addressed no doubt to his dog, for the animal moaned occasionally as if replying to, and sympathizing with his master. At length we heard the Englishman stop, and apparently strike the dog a violent blow, for the poor beast gave a loud howl of agony, and seemed as if he ran to take refuge under the bed. Then his master groaned aloud. Soon afterward he lay down, and all was quiet for the night. Early next morning he came down, looking still more pale than on the previous evening, and having paid for his lodging, he took his knapsack and resumed his journey, followed by the grayhound, who had eaten nothing since their arrival, and whose master seemed to take no further notice of him, than to frown when the creature ventured to caress him.

"About noon, I happened to be standing at the door looking toward the direction which the Englishman had taken when I perceived a dark object moving slowly along. Presently I heard howls of distress, proceeding from a wounded dog that was dragging himself toward me. I ran to him, and recognized the Englishman's grayhound. His head was torn, evidently by a bullet, and one of his paws broken. I raised him in my arms, and carried him into the house. When I crossed the threshold he made evident efforts to escape; so I placed him on the ground. Then, in spite of the torture he was suffering, which caused him to stagger every moment, he dragged himself up-stairs, and began to scratch at the door of the room where his master had slept, moaning at the same time so piteously, that I could scarce help weeping myself. I opened the door and with a great effort he got into the room, looked about, and not finding whom he sought he fell down motionless.

"I called my father, and, perceiving that the dog was not dead, we gave him all possible assistance, taking indeed as much care of him as though he had been a child, so much did we feel for him. In two months he was cured, and showed us much affection; we found it, however, impossible to take off his collar, even for the purpose of binding up his wounds. As soon as he was able to walk, he would often go toward the mountain and be absent for hours. The second time this occurred we followed him. He proceeded as far as a part of the road where a narrow defile borders a precipice; there he continued for a long time, smelling and scratching about. We conjectured that the Englishman might have been attacked by robbers on this spot, and his dog wounded in defending him. However, no event of the kind had occurred in the country, and, after the strictest search, no corpse was discovered. Recollecting, therefore, the manner in which the traveler had treated his dog, I came to the conclusion that he had tried to kill the faithful creature. But wherefore? This was a mystery which I could not solve.

"Bevis remained with us, testifying the utmost gratitude for our kindness. His intelligence and good-humor attracted the strangers who frequented our inn, while the inscription on his collar, and the tale we had to tell of him, failed not to excite their curiosity.

"One morning in autumn, I had been out to take a walk, accompanied by Bevis. When I returned, I found seated by the fire, in the common-hall, a newly-arrived traveler, who looked round as I entered. As soon as he perceived Bevis, he started and called him. The dog immediately darted toward him with frantic demonstrations of joy. He ran round him, smelling his clothes and uttering the sort of salutation with which he honored you just now, and finally placing his fore-paws on the traveler's knees began to lick his face.

"'Where is your master, Bevis? Where is Sir Arthur?' said the stranger, in English.

"The noble dog howled piteously, and lay down at the traveler's feet. Then the latter begged us to explain his presence. I did so; and as he listened, I saw a tear fall on the beautiful head of the grayhound, whom he bent over to caress.

"'Monsieur,' said he, addressing me, 'from what you tell me, I venture to hope that Sir Arthur still lives. We have been friends from childhood. About three years since, he married a rich heiress, and this dog was presented to him by her. Bevis was highly cherished for his fidelity, a quality which unhappily was not possessed by his mistress. She left her fond and loving husband, and eloped with another man. Sir Arthur sued for a divorce and obtained it; then, having arranged his affairs in England, he set out for the Continent, followed only by his dog. His friends knew not whither he went; but it now appears that he was here last spring. Doubtless, the presence of Bevis, evermore recalling the memory of her who had so cruelly wronged him, must have torn his heart, and at length impelled him to destroy the faithful creature. But the shot not having been mortal, the dog, I imagine, when he recovered consciousness, was led by instinct to seek the house where his master had last slept. Now, Monsieur, he is yours, and I heartily thank you for the kindness you have shown him.'

"About ten o'clock the stranger retired to his room, after having caressed Bevis, who escorted him to his door, and then returned to his accustomed place before the fire. My parents and the servants had retired to rest, and I prepared to follow their example, my bed being placed at one end of the common-hall. While I was undressing, I heard a storm rising in the mountains. Just then there came a knocking at the door, and Bevis began to growl. I asked who was there? A voice replied--'Two travelers, who want a night's lodging.' I opened a small chink of the door to look out, and perceived two ragged men, each leaning on a large club. I did not like their look, and knowing that several robberies had been committed in the neighborhood, I refused them admission, telling them that in the next village they would readily find shelter. They approached the door, as though they meant to force their way in; but Bevis made his voice heard in so formidable a manner, that they judged it prudent to retire. I bolted the door and went to bed. Bevis, according to his custom, lay down near the threshold, but we neither of us felt inclined to sleep.

"A quarter of an hour passed, when suddenly, above the wailing of the wind, came the loud shrill cry of a human being in distress. Bevis rushed against the door with a fearful howl; at the same moment came the report of a gun, followed by another cry. Two minutes afterward I was on the road, armed with a carbine, and holding a dark lantern; my father and the stranger, also armed, accompanied me. As for Bevis, he had darted out of the house, and disappeared.

"We approached the defile which I mentioned before, at the moment when a flash of lightning illumined the scene. A hundred yards in advance, we saw Bevis grasping a man by the throat. We hurried on, but the dog had completed his work ere we reached him; for two men, whom I recognized as those who had sought admittance at our inn, lay dead, strangled by his powerful jaws. Farther on, we discovered another man, whose bloody wounds the noble dog was licking. The stranger approached him, and gave a convulsive cry: it was Sir Arthur, the master of Bevis!"

Here M. Dermann paused; the recollection seemed to overcome him; and he stooped to caress the sleeping grayhound, in order to hide his emotion. After awhile, he finished his recital in a few words.

"Sir Arthur was mortally wounded, but he lived long enough to recognize his dog, and to confess that, in a moment of desperation, he had tried to kill the faithful creature, who now avenged his death, by slaying the robbers who attacked him. He appointed the stranger his executor, and settled a large pension on Bevis, to revert to the family of the inn-keeper, wishing thus to testify his repentant love toward his dog, and his gratitude to those who had succored him.

"The grief of Bevis was excessive; he watched by his master's couch, covering his dead body with caresses, and for a long time lay stretched on his grave, refusing to take nourishment; and it was not until after the lapse of many months that the affection of his new master seemed to console him for the death of Sir Arthur."

As my fellow-traveler finished his recital, the diligence stopped to change horses at the little town of Mantua. Here M. Dermann's journey ended, and having taken down his luggage, he asked me to assist the descent of his dog. I shook hands with him cordially, and then called Bevis, who, seeing me on such good terms with his master, placed his large paws on my breast, and uttered a low, friendly bark. Shortly afterward they both disappeared from my sight, but not from my memory, as this little narrative has proved to my readers.

THE DOMESTIC LIFE OF ALEXANDER, EMPEROR OF RUSSIA.

BY ALEXANDRE DUMAS, TRANSLATED BY MISS STRICKLAND.

The tragedy of which Paul I. was the victim, called Alexander to the throne of all the Russias in the twenty-fourth year of his age. He had been carefully educated under the eye of his grandmother, the able Catharine. Her choice of a preceptor in La Harpe, a Swiss republican, who had fraternized with the revolutionists of France, was a problem the sovereigns of Europe could not solve; but after all, republicanism can not be very far removed from despotism, if we may judge from its consequences, since history shows us that republics end in despotic sovereignties. Catharine was doubtless aware of this fact when she gave La Harpe the direction of her grandson's education. It was prudent to avoid Russian ascendency in a matter so important to herself, for Catharine was a foreigner and a usurper, a fact of which a native instructor might have availed himself to her disadvantage. In educating her grandsons, the great empress excluded the fine arts. She wished to make them rulers, not professors of music and painting; and she was right; La Harpe inspired, it is said, his imperial pupil with lessons of generosity and truth it was no easy task to eradicate during his eventful life. The policy of Catharine made her determine to give wives to her grandsons as soon as they were marriageable. Her jealousy, or her profound judgment, made her overlook Paul in the succession of Russia, by a mental but not a public exclusion. Alexander was destined by her to the throne of which she had robbed his father Constantine, she proudly hoped to place on one she designed to win from the Sultan, an ambitious desire which was never realized.

Three German princesses came to the court of St. Petersburg, in order that Catharine might make choice of suitable brides for her grandsons. The empress thoughtfully expected the arrival of her guests, whose approach she watched from a window of her palace.

The empress, whose motions were dignified and graceful, attached great importance to deportment; she formed her opinions of young people by that standard. The destinies of these princesses were decided the instant they alighted from their traveling carriage. The first leaped down without availing herself of the step. The empress shook her head, "She will never be empress of Russia, she is too precipitate," was her internal remark. The second entangled her feet in her dress, and with difficulty escaped a fall. "She is not the empress, for she is too awkward," and Catharine again turned her eyes on the carriage with anxious curiosity. The third princess descended very gracefully; she was beautiful, majestic, and grave. "Behold the future Empress of Russia," said Catharine. This princess was Louisa of Baden.

Catharine introduced these ladies to her grandsons, as the children of the Duchess of Baden-Durlack, born Princess of Darmstadt, her early friend, whose education she wished to finish at her court, since the possession of their country by the French had left them without a home. The great dukes saw through this artifice, and upon their return to their own palace talked much of Catharine's _élèves_.

"I think the eldest very pretty," said Alexander.

"For my part," rejoined Constantine, "I consider them neither pretty nor plain. They ought to be sent to Riga to the princes of Courland; they are really quite good enough for them."

The Empress Catharine was informed, that very day, of the opinion of her grandsons. The admiration of Alexander for Louisa of Baden sympathized with her intentions. The Grand Duke Constantine had done the personal attractions of this young princess great injustice, for Louisa of Baden, besides the freshness of her youth, had lovely fair ringlets, hanging in rich profusion on her magnificent shoulders, a form light and flexible as that of a fairy, and large blue eyes full of sweetness and sensibility. The following day, the empress brought the princesses to the palace of Prince Potemkin, which she had appointed for their residence. While they were at their toilet, she sent them dresses, jewels, and the cordon of St. Catharine. After chatting with them upon the topics she considered suitable to their age, she asked to see their wardrobe, which she examined, article by article, with interest and curiosity. Having finished her scrutiny, she kissed the princesses, and remarked, with an emphatic smile,

"My friends, I was not so rich as you when I came to St. Petersburg." In fact, Catharine was very poor when she arrived in Russia, but she left her adopted country a heritage in Poland and the Crimea.

The predilection of Alexander for Louisa of Baden was responded to by that lovely princess. The grand duke at that time was a charming young man, full of benevolence and candor, with the best temper in the world, and the young German did not attempt to disguise her tenderness for him. Catharine, in announcing to them that they were destined for each other, believed she was rendering them perfectly happy.

The behavior of the bride was admirably adapted to the circumstances in which she was placed. She acquired the Russian language with grace and facility, and accepted a new name with the tenets of the Greek religion. She received those of Elizabeth Alexiowena, the same borne by the imperial daughter of Peter the Great.

Notwithstanding the fortunate presages of the Empress Catharine, this early marriage was not one of happiness. The inconstancy of Alexander, indeed, withered the nuptial garland while yet green on the brow of the bride, and made it for her a crown of thorns.

The tragedy that elevated Alexander to the throne, restored to the devoted wife the wandering affections of her husband. His profound grief made her sympathy necessary to him, and the young empress, almost a stranger to Paul, wept for him like a true daughter. The secret tears of Alexander were shed at night on the bosom of his consort, whose tender concern for him consoled him for the restraint he imposed upon his feelings during the day.

The regretful remembrance of Alexander for his father, outlasted the reviving affection he had during that dolorous period felt for his wife.

The empress, still a young woman, was an old spouse, and the emperor had inherited the passionate and inconstant temperament of Catharine. But, gracious and smiling as he always was with the ladies, or polite and friendly to the gentlemen, there crossed his brow from time to time a gloomy shadow, the mute but terrible memorial of that dreadful night, when he heard the death struggle of his father, and was conscious of his agony without the power to save him. His perpetual smile was the mask beneath which he disguised the anguish of his mind, and as he advanced in life, this profound melancholy threatened to deepen into malady. He did not yield, however, without maintaining a warfare with his remorse. He combated memory with action. His reforms, his long and laborious journeys, had but one aim. In the course of his reign, he is supposed to have traversed fifty thousand leagues. But, however rapidly he performed these journeys, he never deviated from the time he fixed for his setting off or return, even by an hour, and he undertook them without guards and without an escort. He, of course, met with many strange adventures, and was amused with rendering his personal assistance whenever he met with accidents or encountered difficulties by the wayside. In his journey to Finland in company with Prince Pierre Volkouski, the imperial carriage in traversing a sandy mountain rolled back, notwithstanding the efforts of the coachman, upon which the emperor jumped out, and literally lent his shoulder to the wheel, leaving his companion asleep.

The rough motion of the carriage disturbed the slumbers of the prince, who found himself at the bottom of the carriage and alone. He looked about him with astonishment, when he perceived the emperor, with his brow bedewed with perspiration, from the effects of his toil in assisting to drag him and the vehicle to the top of the mountain, the precise point at which he had awakened from his sleep.

At another time, while traversing Little Russia, while the horses were changing at a certain station, the emperor expressed his determination to travel on foot for a few miles, ordering his people not to hasten their arrangements, but to let him walk forward. Alone, with no mark of distinction, dressed in a military great-coat, that gave no clew to the rank of the wearer, the emperor traversed the town without attracting attention, till he arrived at two roads, and found himself obliged to inquire his way of an individual who was sitting before the door of the last house smoking a pipe. This personage, like the emperor wore a military great-coat, and by his pompous air seemed to entertain no small opinion of his own consequence.

"My friend, can you tell me which of these roads will bring me to ----?" asked the emperor.

The man of the pipe scanned him from head to foot, apparently surprised at the presumption of a pedestrian, in speaking to such a dignitary as himself, and between two puffs of smoke he growled out very disdainfully the ungracious reply, "The right."

"Thank you, sir," said the emperor, raising his hat with the respect this uncivil personage seemed by his manner to command. "Will you permit me to ask you another question?"

"What do you want to know?"

"Your rank in the army, if you please."

"Guess," returned he of the pipe.

"Lieutenant, perhaps?"

"Go higher."

"Captain?" rejoined the emperor.

"Much higher;" and the smoker gave a consequential puff.

"Major, I presume?"

"Go on," replied the officer.

"Lieutenant-colonel?"

"Yes, you have guessed it at last, but you have taken some trouble to discover my rank."

The low bow of the emperor made the man with the pipe conclude he was speaking to an inferior, so, without much ceremony, he said, "Pray, who are you? for I conclude you are in the army."

"Guess," replied the emperor, much amused with the adventure.

"Lieutenant?"

"Go on."

"Captain?"

"Much higher."

"Major?"

"You must still go on."

"Lieutenant-colonel?"

"You have not yet arrived at my rank in the army."

The officer took his pipe out of his mouth. "Colonel, I presume."

"You have not yet reached my grade."

The officer assumed a more respectful attitude. "Your Excellency is then Lieutenant-general?"

"You are getting nearer the mark."

The puzzled lieutenant-colonel kept his helmet in his hand, and looked stupid and alarmed.

"Then it appears to me that your Highness is Field-Marshal?"

"Make another attempt, and perhaps you will discover my real position."

"His Imperial Majesty!" exclaimed the officer, trembling with apprehension, and dropping the pipe upon the ground, which was broken into twenty pieces.

"The same, at your service," replied the emperor, laughing.

The poor lieutenant-colonel dropped upon his knees, uttering the words in a pitiful tone, "Ah! sire, pardon me."

"What pardon do you require?" replied the emperor. "I asked my way of you, and you pointed it out, and I thank you for that service.--Good day."

The good-tempered prince then took the road to the right, leaving the surly lieutenant-colonel ashamed and astonished at the colloquy he had held with his sovereign.

He gave a proof of intrepidity and presence of mind during a tempest which befell him on a lake near Archangel, when, perceiving the pilot overwhelmed with the responsibility his imperial rank laid upon him, he said, "My friend, more than eighteen hundred years have elapsed, since a Roman general, placed in similar circumstances, said to his pilot, 'Fear not, for thou hast with thee Cæsar and his fortunes.' I am, however, less bold than Cæsar; I therefore charge thee to think no more of the emperor than of thyself or any other man, and do thy best to save us both." The pilot took courage, and relieved from his burden by the wisdom of his sovereign, guided the helm with a firm hand, and brought the tempest-tossed skiff safely to the shore.

The Emperor Alexander was not always so fortunate. He met with several dangerous accidents, and his last journey to the provinces of the Don nearly cost him his life. A fall from his droski hurt his leg, and left him incurably lame. This misfortune was aggravated by his disregarding the advice of his medical attendant, who prescribed rest for some days; but Alexander, who was a strict disciplinarian, did not choose to delay his return to St. Petersburg an hour beyond the time he had fixed. Erysipelas attacked the limb, and the emperor was confined to his bed for many weeks, and never recovered his lameness. The sight of his wife, pale and melancholy, whom his infidelity had injured, increased his mental despondency. That princess watched over him with the conjugal tenderness which no neglect could extinguish, but her fair face had forever lost the smile which once lighted up, like a sunbeam, every beautiful feature, and he felt himself the cause of that secret sorrow which had banished the bloom from her cheek and the smile from her lips. Elizabeth had borne him two daughters, but her children had not survived their fifth and seventh years. A childless mother and forsaken wife, Elizabeth the Empress resembled no longer the bright Louisa of Baden, the object of Alexander's first love, the princess who had shed tears of happiness when the joyful start and impassioned look of her lover had assured the Empress Catharine how willingly he accepted the hand of the princess she had destined for him. The heart of the wife had never swerved from her devotion; her love had increased with time, but she knew not how to share his affections with a rival.

Alexander was solitary in his habits; repose was necessary to a man who loved privacy, and hated those prestiges of power which had surrounded him from infancy. He had inherited his imperial grandmother's love for Tzarsko Zelo, a palace situated between three and four leagues from St. Petersburg. This palace stood upon the site of a cottage formerly belonging to an old Dutch-woman named Sarah, a person well known to Peter the Great, with whom that mighty prince was accustomed to chat and drink milk.

The fruitful plains covered with grass and waving corn, lately redeemed by the plow from their native sterility, pleased the legislator who was an _habitué_ at the abode of Sarah, and at the death of the old woman, he presented the cottage to the Empress Catharine, with the surrounding lands, as a suitable situation for a farm-house. Catharine, as simple in her tastes as her imperial consort, gave her architect proper directions respecting this grange. He, however, thought fit to build her a fine mansion. Her daughter, the Empress Elizabeth, found this house too costly for a farm-house, and too mean for an imperial residence. She pulled it down and built a magnificent palace after the design of Count Rastreti. This Russian had the barbarous taste to gild the building within and without. The bas-reliefs, statues, caryatides, roof and basement, glittered with a waste of this precious metal. The count wished to make this palace surpass Versailles, and so it did in wealth undoubtedly. The Empress Elizabeth invited the French embassador to the fête she gave at the inauguration of her golden house, which outshone even the celebrated one built by Nero. The palace of Tzarsko Zelo, was considered by the whole court the eighth wonder of the world.

The silence of the Marquis de Chetardie surprised her majesty, who with some pique requested his opinion, adding, he appeared to think something was wanting.

"I am seeking for the case of this jewel, Madam," dryly replied the embassador; a _bon mot_ which ought to have gained him a sitting in the academy of St. Petersburg, where wit was a surer passport than learning.

The golden roof of Tzarsko Zelo was ill-calculated to stand the rigor of a Russian winter. The noble architect had built it for summer. Cold had been forgotten in his calculation. The expensive repairs every spring brought in its course, compelled Catharine the Great to sacrifice the gilding. She had scarcely issued her orders, before a customer appeared for the article she was excluding from her palace, for which a speculator offered her an immense sum. The empress thanked him for a liberal offer none but a Russian sovereign would have declined, assuring him with a smile, "that she never sold her old chattels."

This empress loved Tzarsko Zelo where she built the little palace for her grandson Alexander, and surrounded it with spacious gardens, which she was aware he loved. Bush, her architect, could discover no supply from whence he could obtain water in the immediate neighborhood, yet he prepared lakes, canals and fish-ponds, upon the responsibility of the empress, being sure that his reservoirs would not long be empty if she ordered water to come. His successor Baner did not leave the empress to discover its source. He cast his eyes upon the estate of Prince Demidoff, who possessed a super-abundant quantity of the precious fluid the imperial gardens wanted. He mentioned the aridity of Tzarsko Zelo, and the courteous subject dutifully bestowed his superfluous moisture upon the imperial gardens. In despite of nature, copious streams rushed forward, and at the bidding of the architect rose into cascades, ran into canals, filled fish-ponds, and spread in expansive lakes. The Empress Consort Elizabeth, upon beholding these wonders, playfully remarked, "We may fall out with all Europe, but we must take care not to quarrel with Prince Demidoff." In fact, that obliging noble could have killed the whole court with thirst, by stopping the supply of water he allowed to the imperial family.

Educated at Tzarsko Zelo, Alexander was attached to a place filled with the recollections of his infancy. He had learned there to walk; to speak, to ride, to sail, to row. He had passed there the brightest and happiest part of his life. He came with the first fine days, and only left his favorite residence when the snows of winter compelled him to take up his abode in the winter palace.

Even in this luxurious solitude, where the emperor wished to enjoy the repose which affords to princes the same pleasure amusement offers to persons of less exalted rank, Alexander found his privacy invaded and his attention claimed by those who had the temerity to break through the invisible circle with which Russian etiquette fenced round a despotic sovereign.

A foreigner at St. Petersburg, in the summer of 1823, ventured to seek the Emperor Alexander in the delicious gardens of Tzarsko Zelo, in order to present a petition, with which delicate commission he had been charged by a friend. He thus relates his adventure:

"After a bad breakfast at the Hotel de la Restauration, I entered the park, into which the sentinels permitted every body to walk without opposition. Respect alone prevented the Russian subject from entering the gardens, I knew, yet I was about to break this boundary and to intrude myself upon the emperor's notice. I was told he passed a great deal of his time in the shady walks, and I hoped chance would obtain for me the interview I sought. Wandering about the grounds, I discovered the Chinese town, a pretty group of five houses, each of which had its own ice-house and garden. In the centre of this town, which is in the form of a star, whose rays it terminates, stands a pavillion, which is used either for a ball or concert-room, which surrounds a green court, at the four corners of which are placed four mandarins, the size of life, smoking their pipes. This Chinese town is inhabited by the _aid-de-camps_ of the sovereign. Catharine, attended by her court, was walking in this part of her garden, when she beheld, to her surprise, the mandarins puffing forth real smoke, while their eyes appeared to ogle her, and their heads to bow in the most familiar manner in the world. She approached in order to find out the cause of this sudden animation on the part of these statues. Immediately the loyal mandarins descended from their pedestals, and made Chinese prostrations at her feet, reciting some complimentary verses to the imperial lady, to please whom they had transformed themselves into the images of the men with pig-tails. She smiled, and quickly recognized them for the Prince de Ligne, Potemkin, Count Segur, and M. de Cobentzal.

"Leaving the Chinese town, I saw the huts of the lamas, where these inhabitants of the south are kept and acclimated to a temperature very different from that at the foot of the Cordilleras. These animals were presented to the emperor by the Viceroy of Mexico, and their original number of nine has been reduced, by the rigor of the Russian winters, to five; from which, however, a numerous race have succeeded, who bear the cold much better than the parent stock.

"In the middle of the French garden stands a pretty dining-room, containing the celebrated table of Olympus, imitated from a whim devised by the Regent Orleans; where the wishes of the guests are supplied by invisible hands from beneath. They have only to place a note in their plate expressive of their desire, when the plate disappears, and in five minutes after reappears with the article required. This magic originates in a forecast which anticipates every possible want. A beautiful lady finding her hair out of dress, wished for curling-irons, feeling assured that such an odd request would defy even the enchantment of the Olympian table to procure. She was astonished at finding her plate return with a dozen pair. I saw the curious monument raised to commemorate three favorite greyhounds, pets of the Empress Catharine. This pyramid, erected by the French ambassador, Count Segur, contains two epitaphs: one, by himself, is a sort of burlesque upon the old eulogistic style so prevalent in the last century; the other is by Catharine, and may be literally translated into English:--

"'Here lies the Duchess Anderson, Who bit Mr. Rogerson.'

"I visited successively the column of Gregory Orloff, the pyramid erected in honor of the conqueror of Tchesma, and the grotto of Pausilippo, and passed four hours wandering along the borders of lakes, and traversing the plains and forests inclosed in these delicious gardens, when I met an officer in uniform, who courteously raised his hat. I asked a lad employed in taking a walk 'the name of this fine gentleman,' for such he appeared to me to be. 'It is the emperor,' was his reply. I immediately took a path which intersected that he had taken, yet, when I had advanced about twenty steps, I stopped upon perceiving him near me.

"He divined, apparently, that respect to his person prevented me from crossing his walk; he therefore kept on his way, while I awaited him in the side walk, holding my hat in my hand. I perceived he limped in his gait from the wound in his leg, which had lately re-opened; and I remarked as he advanced the change that had taken place in his appearance since I had seen him at Paris, nine years before. His countenance, then so open and smiling, bore the expression of that deep and devouring melancholy which it was said continually oppressed his mind, yet his sorrowful features still were impressed with a character of benevolence, which gave me courage to attempt the performance of my hazardous commission. 'Sire,' said I, advancing a single step toward him.

"'Put on your hat, sir,' was his kind and gracious reply; 'the air is too keen for you to remain uncovered.'

"'Will your majesty permit--'

"'Cover your head, sir, then; cover your head;' but, perceiving my respect rendered me disobedient to his commands, he took my hat from my hand, and with his own imperial one replaced it on my head. 'Now,' said he, 'what do you wish to say to me?'

"'Sire, this petition,' and I took the paper from my pocket, but the action disturbed him, and I saw him frown.

"'Sir, why do you pursue me here with petitions? do you know that I have left St. Petersburg to be free from such annoyances?'

"'Yes, sire, I am aware of it, nor dare I disguise the boldness of an attempt for which I can only expect pardon from your benevolence. This, however, seems to have some claim to your majesty's consideration, since it is franked.'

"'By whom?' inquired the emperor, with some quickness in his manner.

"'By his Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Constantine, your majesty's august brother.'

"'Ah!' exclaimed the emperor, putting out his hand, but as quickly withdrawing it again.

"'I hope your majesty will for once infringe your custom, and will deign to accept this supplication.'

"'No, sir; I will not receive it; for to-morrow, I shall have a thousand, and shall be compelled to desert these gardens, where it seems I can no longer hope to enjoy privacy.' He perceived my disappointment in my countenance, and his natural kindness would not suffer him to dismiss me with a harsh refusal. Pointing with hand toward the church of St. Sophia, he said--'Put that petition into the post-office in the city, and I shall see it to-morrow, and the day after, you will have an answer.'

"I expressed my gratitude in animated terms.

"'Prove it,' was his quick reply.

"I declared my willingness to do any thing he required, as the test of that feeling.

"'Well, tell nobody that you have presented me a petition and got off with impunity,' and he resumed his walk.

"I followed his advice, and posted my paper, and three days after received a favorable reply to my petition."

[From Eliza Cook's Journal.]

AN EMPTY HOUSE; OR, STRUGGLES OF THE POOR.

Who has not seen at some time an empty house which has struck them as the picture of desolation? They may know a hundred uninhabited tenements, but they look as well kept and prosperous, as though they would soon be filled again. They do not impress the senses in the same way as that peculiar one, which appears to be condemned, like some outcast, to perpetual seclusion in the midst of happy neighbors, who mock, and flout, and taunt it with their bright windows and clean steps, and fresh paint and shining door knobs and knockers, just as Mr. Well-to-do, who is making money, and dresses well, and lodges luxuriously and feeds plentifully, may treat with scorn poor Do-nothing, who, unable to find employment of any sort, wears a patched threadbare coat, dwells in a leaky garret, and does not know where on earth to look for to-morrow's dinner. Indeed there is something more in this comparison than appears at first sight, for the world of the streets is apt to treat the empty house much as it does the poverty-stricken man. The ragged lads who play about the avenues of streets, and bask about the sunshiny nooks, draw back and cease their jokes and are decorous in the presence of Mr. Trim or Mr. Broadcloth, but they have a sarcasm or a coarse epithet for poor Patch, and for poorer Tatter possibly a sly pebble or a dab of mud.

Some years ago there was an empty house opposite to mine, which brought such thoughts as these to my mind. There was a dirty bill in one of the windows, and the remains of another upon one of the window shutters, with directions where to inquire as to rent, &c., but nobody seemed to dream of any body taking it. The neighborhood was a respectable one, and in striking contrast with this one unfortunate tenement, and happy faces at the windows of its neighbors seemed to make them crow over it, as Mrs. Fruitful with her half-dozen of handsome children triumphs over Mrs. Childless, who would give her ears to call the half of her friend's little flock her own. Not that my empty house was utterly lonely either, for its door-step was, in fine weather, the chosen resort of a group of little specimens of humanity in dirt and rags, who from the seclusion of some neighboring alley brought them chalk, and pieces of tiles and slate, with which they scratched uncouth figures upon the doors and shutters as high up as they could reach; and with mud from the gutter they made their dirt pies, and left the remnants to accumulate upon the dingy sill. There was a plentiful supply of stones, too, in the macadamized road, and a large family of boys, unable to resist the tempting opportunity for mischievous "shies," paid rough attentions to the empty house with the flints, till the sunshine which had long been denied admittance, through the dusty and begrimed panes, found its way unimpeded through empty and dismantled sashes. Possibly, too, in consequence of this, the very sparrows, usually so bold, which used to build under the eaves and twitter upon the window sills and house-top, forsook the ill-fated building and left it to its destiny.

I do not know what it was, but there was something which powerfully attracted my attention to the place, and I often sat at my window and mused upon it. Sometimes I thought it was in Chancery, for it had just the look of a house which the lawyers had thoroughly riddled; and sometimes I thought it had the reputation of being haunted, for somehow or other people always give ghosts credit for the very worst taste, and seem to think them incapable of choosing any but the most uncomfortable habitations.

Passers-by would often stop to look at the house, and not unfrequently some of them would look over it; and then the owner or his agent would come with them, bringing the rusty key which turned with difficulty in the lock, and setting free the creaking door, which moved so lazily upon its hinges. This person was such a human likeness to the house, that I sometimes wondered he did not, out of pure sympathy, come and live there himself. He was a little battered-looking old man, whose rusty dirty suit of black just matched the doors and shutters, and I could almost fancy that his very spectacles, like the windows, were cracked and broken by boys throwing stones at him.

These inquiries, however, always resulted in nothing, except the great discomfiture of the children, who held dominion over the door-step, and who were always summarily routed and driven off by peevish exclamations and feeble cuffs from the rusty little old man. I suppose most of those who came were merely actuated by curiosity. I was more than once tempted by the same motive to go and look at the inside myself, and those who really had serious designs of settling there were frightened out of them by the combined dismalness of the place, and the warder who had charge of it. At last, there really was some sign of the empty house being let. I noticed one evening that a respectable, quiet-looking young couple, with an old lady in widow's weeds, whom I immediately decided was the widowed mother of either husband or wife (for of course they were husband and wife) went to look at the empty house, attended by the little old man; and from the fact, that after looking at the premises for a longer time than visitors usually did, the party came out, and, contrary to custom, all four walked away together, I was led to suppose that I might have opposite neighbors.

The next morning, before I left home for business, I saw at once that I was right as to the house having been taken. The little old man, notwithstanding he looked so rusty, must have been a diligent, as well as a quaint, old-fashioned fellow, for there were ladders and steps, and painters, plumbers, bricklayers, and laborers all at work upon the house. Some were upon the top replacing cracked tiles, others were making the windows weather-proof, and others again were intent upon counteracting the ravages of chalk, sharp slates, and dirt upon the paint of the doors and window shutters. The group of children came as usual, but they did not venture to attempt to take up their old station; the apparition of the old man scared them from that, and perhaps they were altogether too much struck with astonishment at the altered character of the scene to attempt it. But they were very unwilling to give up their old sovereignty and abandon the spot. They lingered doubtfully for some days about the place, sometimes looking at the tall ladders and the workmen, and sometimes sitting upon the heaps of broken tiles and brickbats, watching the Irish hodman stirring the mortar about, with much the same feelings, perhaps, as a red Indian lingers about the white man's clearing, formerly the hunting-ground of his fathers. Possibly the youngsters thought that all the men and ladders might be cleared away, and that they would succeed to the again vacant door-step, with the added advantages of a newly-painted door to scratch upon, and these hallucinations were not thoroughly dispelled for about a week, when they saw a charwoman scouring the passage and front steps. That sufficed to wither all their hopes; repairs they could have survived, for they remembered something of the sort once in their own alley, but scrubbing and washing were entirely unmistakable, they understood at once that somebody was "coming in," and dispersed to seek another place of resort.

It may be supposed that the diligence of the little old man, who never left the laborers all day, soon had the little house fit for the reception of its new inmates, in spite of occasional damages in the glass department, till the boys became reconciled to its new smartness. He was there the first thing in the morning, sitting on a three-legged stool which I believe he brought with him, and he went to the public house with the men when they had their meals, so that they should not stay too long. Under such vigilant superintendence, the last ladder and pair of steps were taken away in about a week, and the inmates--the two young folks, and the old widow lady I have already mentioned, and their household goods made their appearance. The furniture showed at a glance that both the past and the present had contributed their quotas to the household, for there were the old-fashioned, large-seated, heavy high-backed chairs of half-a-century since, with a heavy, square table, and a quaint, antique cabinet, matching well with the aged widowed mother; while the light caned seats and other modern requisites, represented the young people just entering upon life. I knew at once what afterward I found to be the case, that by probably a hasty marriage two households had been mingled into one.

I was always a solitary, secluded man, given to make observations and to pick up information about those who interested me, but not to cultivate acquaintances, and so it was from what I saw from my windows and from hearsay, that I picked up what I knew of the new comers. Slight as this source of information may seem to be, it is wonderful what a deal of knowledge of a certain kind is obtained in this manner; indeed, if any one were to examine the sources of his own knowledge, he would find that if not the largest, a very large proportion had been picked up from the chit-chat of society.

I was peculiarly favorably situated for acquiring knowledge in this way, for my landlady, a chatty, good-tempered widow, knew the private history of most of her neighbors, and was extremely well versed in the gossip and scandal of the place; and her extensive knowledge, added to the equally diversified lore of the fat old half-laundress, half-charwoman, who had lived all her life in the vicinity (and was the very person who had scared the before-mentioned urchins by scouring the once empty house), and the tit-bits of sayings and doings, communicated by the baker, butcher, green-grocer, and milkman, furnished a stock of history which, reinforced by my own habits of observation, fully qualified me for giving the little narrative which follows; and which I am tempted to give to the world not so much for its intrinsic interest, or because it contains any record of great deeds, but because it shows industry and perseverance triumphing over the obstacles of the world, and bearing the burdens of misplaced benevolence.

To begin then our tale in earnest. The head of the house opposite was Thomas Winthorpe, who acted as book-keeper to a large outfitting house in the city. He was a rather taciturn, grave young man, and bore these characteristics upon his face, but he was fond of knowledge, and had acquired no small portion for a man in his position. Well-principled, and untiringly energetic, and industrious, he had risen from a low station more from the passive habit of steady good conduct, than the active exercise of any brilliant qualities, and he felt a pride in the fact; never hesitating, though he did not parade it, to utter the truth that he was first hired to sweep the offices, light the fires, and do other menial jobs. There was a striking similarity between him and his little wife, Kate Winthorpe (who had just changed her name from Stevens), which you saw in their faces, for Kate was grave, and habitually rather silent too. But her gravity had a shade more of pensiveness in it than Thomas's, which might have told the keen observer that it had not the same origin.

Such indeed was the fact, for what difficulty and early poverty had done for Thomas, youthful plenty and after troubles had done for Kate though the bright smiles which I could now and then see chasing the shadows over Kate's comely but not pretty face, as she bade her husband good-by in the morning or welcomed him home at night, told that happiness was bringing back much of her original character.

The old lady, Mrs. Stevens, Kate's mother, was a good sort of old lady, so far as I could learn, with a respectful tenderness for Thomas, and a fond affection for Kate, who had been the prop of her age and the solace of her troubles; but without any thing remarkable in her character beyond a meek resignation, which well supplied the place of a higher philosophy, and led her cheerfully to accept the present and be content with the past.

So far as I could glean, Mrs. Stevens was the widow of a once affluent yeoman in one of the western counties, who lived in the "good old English style," liked his dogs, and gun, and horses, was not averse to a run with the hounds--had a partiality for parish and club dinners, and was fond of plenty of company at home. This sort of life might have done tolerably well in the palmy times of farming, when with war prices, corn was, as Hood has it, "at the Lord knows what per quarter;" but when lower prices came with peace, and more industry and less expenditure was required, poor Stevens was one of the first to feel the altered times, and as he could not give up his old habits, difficulties began to press upon and thicken around him. After a few years, creditors became clamorous, and the landlord urgent for the payment of rent in arrear, and the result was that he was compelled to give up his farm and sell his stock, to save himself from a prison. This left him a small remnant upon which, if he had been a prudent, self-denying man, he might have begun the world afresh, but he took his downfall so much to heart, that in a few months he died of his old enemy, the gout.

Mrs. Stevens was thus left a widow with two children, Kate, a young girl of fifteen or sixteen, and Charles, a fine young man of three or four and twenty, who held a small farm in that neighborhood, and had hitherto depended more upon his father's purse than his own industry. Little as Mrs. Stevens knew of the world, she felt that it would not do to depend upon Charles, who was one of those jolly, good-tempered, careless fellows every body knows--men who go on tolerably well so long as all is smooth, but wanting providence and foresight, are pretty sure to founder upon the first dangerous rock ahead. To do Charles justice, however, he would willingly have shared his home with his mother and sister, and for a long time managed to remit enough to them to pay their rent.

When the first grief of widowhood was over, Mrs. Stevens and her daughter, without any very definite plan, but drawn by that strange attraction that impels alike the helpless, the inexperienced, and the ambitious to the great centres of population, came up to London with the small sum of money which, after every debt had been scrupulously discharged, was left to her. Beyond that resource she had none, save the address of a first cousin who, report said, had grown very rich in trade, and to whom she hoped she might look for aid and advice. In this, however, she was speedily undeceived, for upon calling upon her cousin, and introducing herself and Kate, she was received by the withered old miser very curtly, and told that as he came up to London a poor boy with five and ninepence in his pocket, and had managed to get on fairly, she with fifty pounds in her pocket could do very well without help. Perhaps if the widow had let Kate plead her suit she might have fared better, for the old man patted Kate's back, and seemed to dip his hand in his pocket with the half intention of making her a present, but it was only a half intention, and the widow went away with a heavy heart, convinced that she must not look for assistance in that quarter.

I need not tell what little I know of the efforts of Mrs. Stevens to find for herself a useful place in the great, busy, unfriendly, or at least, coldly-indifferent world of London-life--how she found thousands as eager and as anxious as herself--how, although she pinched and stinted, and denied herself every luxury, she saw her small stock of money silently wasting away, and no apparent means of getting more; all these things are unhappily so every-day and commonplace, such mere ordinary vulgar troubles, that every body knows them, and nobody cares to hear more about them.

At last one day, after a weary walk, under a scorching sky, in search of employment, the widow and her daughter saw in the window of an outfitter's shop, the welcome announcement "good shirt hands wanted." So the widow and Kate entered, and with some little trembling saw the person whose business it was to give work to the needlewomen, and made known their errand. Mr. Sturt, a sharp, rather rough man, who had the management of this department, said, "Yes, they did want 'hands,' but they required some one to become security for the work given out."

The widow's chagrin was as great now as her hopes had been high a few minutes before, and she said at once that she did not know any one who would become security, at which Mr. Sturt was turning coldly away; but suddenly thinking of her cousin, she said to herself that he would surely not refuse her this one favor, and she told Mr. Sturt that she would try and come again, and timidly gave that gentleman her address. As soon as the widow's back was turned, Mr. Sturt threw the address on the floor, for he was perfectly sure of having plenty of applications, and it did not matter to him whether the widow ever came again or not; but Thomas Winthorpe, who was employed in a different department of the business, happened to be a witness of the scene, had seen the widow's hand shake, and lips quiver with hope and disappointment, and had marked the anxious look of Kate; and with that sympathy which past poverty so often begets for the poor, he picked up the "rejected address," resolving that he would inquire, and if Mrs. Stevens and her daughter deserved it, he would help them to the work.

It was more than a year since Mrs. Stevens had seen her rich cousin, and when she hastened to his house to prefer her humble petition it was shut up, and all the information she could gain from the neighbors was, that Mr. Norton had gone no one knew whither. This was a sad blow to Mrs. Stevens and Kate; what to do they knew not, and as they wended their way back to their now almost destitute home, their poverty appeared more hopeless than ever; for disappointment is far harder to bear than mere trouble, just as the sky never looks so dismal and threatening as when a bright ray has just departed, and the sun has sunk behind a thick, dark cloud.

Thomas Winthorpe, however, carried his good intention into effect directly he left business, and little as he was able to glean in their neighborhood of their life and past history, he was convinced that Mrs. Stevens and her daughter deserved help. How, however, to afford them assistance without wounding their feelings was for some time a difficult question; but at last he determined to become surety for them at the shop without their knowledge, and then to call, as if it were a matter of business, and tell them that they could have work.

The next morning accordingly, he told Mr. Sturt that he intended to become surety for Mrs. Stevens, and took no notice of that individual's shrugs, and winks, and inuendoes--which were meant to insinuate a sinister motive upon the part of Thomas--further than by looking at him so fixedly and composedly, and withal with such an expression of contempt, that Mr. Sturt, although not a very bashful personage, was fairly confused; and in the evening Thomas called and introduced himself to Mrs. Stevens, and told her that, in consequence of inquiries which had been made, she might have the work when she pleased. The widow and Kate, who had not stirred out of the house that day, and were in the depths of despair, not knowing which way to turn for help, looked upon Thomas as a preserving angel, and could have almost worshiped him for the unexpected good news of which he was the bearer; nor was their estimation of him lessened when the widow, remembering what had been said about security, questioned him as to how that obstacle had been overcome; and, after a few awkward attempts at parrying and equivocation, Thomas, who was but a poor dissembler, confessed the kindly part he had acted, and was overwhelmed with their expressions of gratitude. From that moment they became intimate, and before the interview, which was a somewhat long one, concluded, Thomas saw, partly from their conversation, partly from the relics of furniture they had managed to transport to London, that they had moved in a more comfortable station, and were simple country folks; and with a feeling possibly prompted by an unconscious heart-leaning to the quiet Kate, and a latent wish to keep her away from the shop, he offered, as he lived close by, to take their work to and fro for them, and so to save them the trouble of going into the city, an offer which Mrs. Stevens who, in her depressed circumstances, shrunk from strangers, and had no wish to face the rough Mr. Sturt, thankfully accepted.

From this time the widow and her daughter sat down earnestly to work, and though luxuries are not the lot of those who live by shirt-making, yet as the house they were employed by was a respectable one, and paid something better than slop prices, and as Thomas contrived that they should have the best description of work, and Charles Stevens, from time to time, remitted to them sufficient to pay their rent, they, with their simple wants, soon began to feel tolerably comfortable and independent. Thomas, too, who was an orphan, did not neglect his opportunities of knowing them better, and became a close and dear acquaintance, whose coming every evening was regularly looked for. At first, of course, he only made business calls, and now and then sat and chatted afterward; then he brought a few flowers for their mantle-piece, or a book, or newspaper, which he thought might amuse them; and, by-and-by, he read to them: and, at last, business, instead of being the primary object of his visits, was the last thing thought of, and left till he was going away: occasionally, too, Thomas thought that they were working too hard, and that a walk would do them good, and he became the companion of their little promenades.

Of course the experienced reader will see in all this that Thomas was in love with Kate; and so he was, but Thomas was a prudent man. Kate was young as well as himself; he had but a small salary, and it was better to wait till he could offer Kate such a home as he should like to see her mistress of. And Kate, what of her? did she love Thomas Winthorpe, too? Well, we don't know enough of the female heart to answer such a question. How should an old bachelor, indeed, get such knowledge? But, perhaps, our better informed lady friends may be enabled to form an opinion, when they are told that Kate began to dress herself with more care, and to curl her luxuriant dark hair more sedulously, and that she was more fidgety than her mother as the time for Thomas to call approached, and grew fonder of reading the books he brought, and the flowers of his giving. Mrs. Stevens, however, saw nothing of all this, and Thomas never spoke of love, and Kate never analyzed her feelings, so that we suppose if she was in love, she had glided into it so gently, that she did not know it herself.

Something like three years had passed away in this humble, but tranquilly happy state of existence, during which Thomas had been silently adding to his stock of furniture, and quietly saving money out of his small salary, when a new misfortune fell upon the Stevenses. The mother had had weak eyes when a child, but as she grew up to womanhood the defect had disappeared. Still there was a latent tendency to disease, which it seemed close application to needlework in her declining years had developed. For a long time Mrs. Stevens had felt this, but concealed it from Kate, till her eyes became so dim, that she could not go on any longer, and Kate became aware of the truth. This was a sad blow, and Kate, who had come to look instinctively to Thomas for advice, took the opportunity, when her mother was out of the room for a few minutes, at his next visit, to tell him the fact, and her fears that her mother was going blind. This was their first confidence, which I have been told goes a great way in love affairs, and from that time they were drawn still closer together. Thomas advised immediate medical assistance, and not liking to offer Kate the fee, arranged to get an hour or two the next day but one, and accompany them to an eminent oculist. This was done, and the surgeon, after examining the widow's eyes, said that skill could do nothing for her, but that rest was indispensable, and that she must not exert her sight.

The whole of the work was now thrown upon Kate, and unmurmuringly did the noble girl bend herself to the task of providing for herself and her nearly blind mother. The first dawn of light saw her, needle in hand, and Thomas found her at night stooping over her task. Their little walks were given up, and she denied herself almost the bare necessaries of life, so that her mother might not feel the change. This could not go long without Kate's health suffering, and Thomas saw with grief the pale cheek, and the thinning figure, and the red tinge round the eyelids, which spoke of over-work and failing strength. These changes did not improve Kate's good looks, but when did true love ever think of beauty? He saw that the poor girl must soon break down, and then there were but two courses open, either to offer his hand, which he was sure would be accepted, or to offer them assistance.

From motives of prudence, Thomas had rather that the time when he should become a housekeeper for himself had been longer delayed; but he did not like to offer her money, for he felt as though such an obligation would make her feel dependent, and draw her from him; and so he resolved at once to make her his wife, and save her from the fate which otherwise seemed impending over her.

How the declaration was made, and where, and whether or not there were many blushes or smiles, or tears or kisses, I really do not know; but from Thomas's practical manner, and Kate's earnest, truthful, straightforward mind, and the length of time they had been as intimate and confidential as brother and sister, I should think that there was little of what some folk choose to call "the sentimental," although, perhaps, there was not any the less of true sentiment. But certain it is, that Thomas was accepted, the widow did not object, and all the neighborhood soon knew that Kate Stevens and Thomas Winthorpe were about to be married.

Of course, as is usual upon such occasions, there was plenty of comment. A good many young ladies who had done their best to "set their caps" at Thomas, intensely pitied poor Kate for choosing such a quiet stupid sort of fellow, and not a few old ladies, who would have jumped at Thomas for a son-in-law, were "sincerely" glad that it was not their daughter. And there was a universal chorus of prophecy, as to the troubles that awaited the young couple; for what (said the prophets) could they do with Thomas's small salary, and Kate's old mother, if they came to have a family? and so forth.

Kate and Thomas knew nothing of all this, and if they had, it would not have affected them much, for confident in their quiet earnest affection for each other, they looked forward to the future, not as a period of easy enjoyment, but as one of effortful, though hopeful industry. The preliminaries were soon arranged; Thomas had no friends to consult, and Charles Stevens was glad to hear that his sister was about to be married--a license was dispensed with, and the vulgarity of banns resorted to to save expense. The bride was given away by a young mechanic, a friend of Thomas's, whose sister acted as bridesmaid; there was a quiet dinner at Thomas's lodgings, no wedding tour, and the next day they went into the empty house, which had been done up for their reception, and suited their scanty means, and when filled with the new furniture of Thomas, and the old relics of the widow, Kate thought, ay, and so did Thomas too, it made the most comfortable home they had ever seen. I have purposely hurried over this part of my story, because it is so very commonplace. After people have been deluged with brides in white satin and Brussels lace vails, supported by a splendid train of bridesmaids, all deluging their cambric-worked handkerchiefs in sympathetic tears, what could I say for a marriage with a bride in plain white, and Miss Jones, in a dyed silk, for a bridesmaid, and dry pocket-handkerchiefs, into the bargain, to make it interesting? Obviously nothing. Yet for all that, it was, possibly, as happy a wedding as was ever solemnized at St. George's, Hanover-square, and chronicled in the _Morning Post_, with half a dozen flourishes of trumpets.

My readers now know all about the people who came into the empty house, and made it look as cheerful as it had before looked miserable. Of their domestic life I, of course, knew little: they kept no servant, and Kate was occasionally to be seen through the windows dusting and brushing about; but long before Thomas came home she was neat, and even smart, and her ready smile as she opened the door, told me how happy they were. It made even me half romantic, and if I could have found just such another Kate, I half thought that I should have renounced an old bachelor's life. Of their pecuniary affairs I, of course, knew little, but I saw that their baker called regularly, and that Kate went out with her market-basket, and if they had run in debt I was sure that I should have heard of it.

After a little while, though, I began to notice that Thomas had a habit which gave me some uneasiness for the future of the young couple. When he came home he staid for about an hour, or just long enough to have his tea, and then went out again for about two hours. It is true that he did not exhibit any symptoms of dissipation when he returned, but I did not like the habit. My mind, however, was set at rest by my landlady, who could tell me all about it. She knew young Jones the cabinet-maker, who was present at the wedding, and informed me that Thomas Winthorpe, who was a good mechanic, employed his spare time in working with Jones, and that both of them prudently put by the earnings of their leisure time as a fund for future contingencies, so that my mind was set at rest upon this point.

In due time, a little Kate blessed the household of my opposite neighbors, and next, a little Thomas, and every thing appeared to go on as happily as ever; and the old grandmother who had only partially recovered the use of her eyes, leading her little grand-daughter, and led in her turn by Kate, who also carried the baby, would often go out for a walk, leaving the servant girl in charge of the house (for Thomas's salary having increased, they could afford to keep a girl now without being extravagant), and a happier family group it would not be easy to find.

It was about this time, I observed a new addition to the family in the shape of a stout, ruddy young man, who wore a green coat, with bright buttons, and looked like a country farmer. I at once guessed that this was Kate's brother, of whom I had heard, on a visit to his sister, and though I was right as to the person, the other part of my guess was incorrect. It was Charles Stevens, but he was not there upon a visit. The fact was, that Charles, whose foresight never went the length of looking a year ahead, had been totally ruined by a failure in the wheat crops of his farm. All his property had been sold, and he left destitute of every thing except a few pounds in his pocket, and without any great stock of energy and intelligence to fall back upon, had sought the refuge of his brother-in-law's roof, which, no doubt, was at first cheerfully afforded him. But it was soon evident that Charles was likely to bear heavily upon the Winthorpes, for he did not seem disposed to exert himself to gain a livelihood. He appeared to lounge about the house all day, and toward the evening, evidently to Thomas's chagrin, came out to lean on the gate and smoke his pipe in the open air, thus giving the house an air somewhat different from its former aspect of respectability. I saw, too, as I sat up late reading (a bad habit of mine) that a light burned till midnight in the Winthorpes' windows, and sometimes hearing a heavy knocking, I looked out and saw at their door the bright buttons of Charles Stevens shining in the light of the gas lamp.

So far as I could learn, Thomas Winthorpe never visited these offenses of the brother upon his wife, but for her sake suppressed his indignation at the careless, thoughtless, lazy habits of Charles, and bore all in silence; but I heard that he talked of them to young Jones and lamented the moral obligation he felt to support Charles even in idleness. These feelings, we may be assured, were not lessened when Kate made a third addition to the family, and passed through a long and dangerous, and, of course, expensive illness, and I was told (the gossips knew all this through Miss Jones, the bridesmaid) that Thomas had been obliged to devote the earnings of his overtime to pay the doctor's bill, and the quarter's rent, for which he had been unable otherwise to provide.

When Kate got up and resumed her family duties, there were other indications of poverty in the household, one of which was that the servant girl was discharged, notwithstanding that there was more necessity than ever for her assistance. Kate's morning walks were given up--she, as well as her husband, looked more careworn--the old grandmother acted the part of housemaid, and Thomas wore a more threadbare coat than usual. Nobody looked jolly and comfortable, except the "ne'er do well," who was the cause of these uncomfortable changes, but he looked as ruddy and careless, and smoked his pipe at the front gate as composedly as ever, disturbed only by the recollection that he had once been so much better off, and the knowledge that he had not so much money to spend as he used to have; for by this time the cash he had brought with him from the country, and of which he had never offered Thomas a penny, was well-nigh gone.

Still, Thomas, though hard-pressed, worked on patiently and perseveringly, hoping for better times, and these fortunately were close at hand. People say that "Troubles never come alone," and I am inclined to think Fortune also sends her favors in showers. Be that as it may, just at this time, Charles, who was getting disgusted at idleness without plenty of pocket-money, received and accepted an offer to go out to Australia, with an old farming acquaintance; and a few days more saw his chest put into a cab, into which vehicle he followed, while Kate and his mother (Thomas was away at business) bade him a tearful farewell; and within a few days Thomas's employers, more than satisfied with his conduct, promoted him to a post where his salary was doubled.

What a change came over the house and family! The old servant girl came back, and seemed so glad and brisk that she was never tired of work, and made the place look brighter and neater than ever. The walks, too, were resumed, and Thomas, justified in ceasing his evening work, made one of the party after tea. Kate's cheek grew round and rosy again, and Thomas's eye was brighter, and his old grave smile came back, as he enjoyed the happiness and comfort he had so well earned: and to crown all, I am told that the young Winthorpes will be very rich, for that little rusty, shabby old man, who used to show the empty house, is Mrs. Stevens's rich cousin, whom Kate had not recognized, and the old lady was too short-sighted to notice, and who had left his former house, and assumed the name of Willis, so that he might not be found out and worried by his poor relations. My landlady informs me that the old man, who knew his relations from the first, was struck with Thomas's punctuality in always paying the rent on the day it was due, and by his untiring industry (qualities which probably found an echo in his own nature), and that the beautiful children (strange that such a little, withered old miser should love blooming, careless children), have completed his liking for the family. Thomas, however, has refused all the old man's offers of assistance, and insists on continuing to pay the rent for the house; and the old gentleman, who is now a frequent visitor, and really does not look half so rusty as he used, unable in any other way to confer obligations upon the family, has claimed to stand godfather for the third child, and has bequeathed to the youngsters all his large property, so we may fairly presume that the worst difficulties of the Winthorpes are over, and that a happy future is in store for them.

Reader, my little tale, or, without plot as it is, you may say my long gossip, is at an end. It began about an empty house, and has run through the fortunes of a family. How like a path in life, where the first step ushers us onward we know not where; or, to compare small things with great, how like a philosopher picking up at random a simple stone, and thence being led on to the comprehension of the physical history of the world. But plotless tale, or rambling gossip, whichever it may be, I hope it has not been without its usefulness, but that it has served as one more piece of proof that integrity, charity, industry, and self-denial, if they do not always command success, give a man the best possible chance of obtaining it on the only condition which renders success worth having, namely, the preservation of self-respect.

[From Tait's Edinburgh Magazine.]

COLDS AND COLD WATER.

Who has not had a cold? or rather, who has not had many colds? Who does not know that malady which commences with slight chilliness, an uneasy feeling of being unwell, which does not justify abstinence from the ordinary business and occupations of the day, but deprives one of all satisfaction and enjoyment in them, and takes away all the salt and savor of life, even as it deprives the natural palate of its proper office, making all things that should be good to eat and drink vapid and tasteless? Who does not know the pain in the head, the stiff neck, the stuffy nose, the frequent sneeze, the kerchief which is oftener in the hand than in the pocket? Such, with a greater or less amount of peevishness, are the symptoms of the common cold in the head; which torments its victim for two or three days, or perhaps as many weeks, and then departs, and is forgotten. Few people take much notice of colds; and yet let any one, who is even moderately liable to their attacks, keep an account of the number of days in each year when he has been shut out by a cold from a full perception of the pleasures and advantages of life, and he will find that he has lost no inconsiderable portion of the sum total of happy existence through their malign influence. How many speeches in Parliament and at the Bar, that should have turned a division or won a cause, have been marred because the orator has had a cold which has confused his powers, stifled his voice, and paralyzed all his best energies! How many pictures have failed in expressing the full thoughts of the artist, because he has had a cold at that critical stage of the work when all his faculties of head and hand should have been at their best to insure the fit execution of his design! How many bad bargains have been made, how many opportunities lost in business, because a cold has laid its leaden hand upon them, and converted into its own dull nature what might have resulted in a golden harvest! How many poems--but no: poetry can have nothing in common with a cold. The Muses fly at the approach of flannel and water-gruel. It is not poems that are spoiled, but poets that are rendered of impossible existence by colds. Can one imagine Homer with a cold, or Dante? But these were southerns, and exempt by climate from this scourge of the human race in Boreal regions. But Milton or Shakspeare, could they have had colds? Possibly some parts of "Paradise Regained" may have been written in a cold. Possibly the use of the handkerchief in "Othello," which is banished as an impropriety by the delicate critics of France from their version of the Moor of Venice, may have been suggested by familiarity with that indispensable accessory in a cold. Colds are less common in the clear atmosphere of Paris than in the thick and fog-laden air of London; and this may account for the difference of national taste, on this point. It is said of the great German Mendelssohn, that he always composed sitting with his feet in a tub of cold water. This was not the musician, but his grandfather, the metaphysician, and father of that happy and contentedly obscure intermediate Mendelssohn, who used to say, "When I was young, I was known as the son of the great Mendelssohn; and now that I am old, I am known as the father of the great Mendelssohn." But who ever was known to compose any thing while sitting with his feet in a tub of _hot_ water, and with the composing draught standing on the table at his side, to remind him that in the matter of composition he is to be a passive, and not an active subject? How many marriages may not have been prevented by colds? The gentleman is robbed of his courage, and does not use his opportunity for urging his suit; or the lady catches a cold, and appears blowing her nose, and with blanched cheeks and moist eyes:

"The sapphire's blue within her eyes is seen; Her lips the ruby's choicest glow disclose; Her skin is like to fairest pearls I ween; But ah! the lucid crystal tips her nose."

And so the coming declaration of love is effectually nipped in the bud by the unromantic realities of the present catarrh.

Napoleon, as is well known, lost the battle of Leipsig in consequence of an indigestion brought on by eating an ill-dressed piece of mutton; and Louis Philippe, in February, 1848, fled ignominiously from the capital of his kingdom because he had a cold, and could not use the faculties which at least might have secured for him as respectable a retreat to the frontier as was enjoyed by his predecessor Charles the Tenth. He might have shown fight; he might have thrown himself upon the army, or upon the National Guard; he might have done a hundred things better for his own fame, rather than get into a hack cab and run away. But it was not to be: Louis Philippe had the influenza; and Louis Philippe with the influenza was not the same man who had shown so much craft and decision in the many previous emergencies of his long and eventful life. Louis Philippe, without a cold, had acquitted himself creditably in the field of battle, had taught respectably in schools, had contrived for himself and his family the succession to a kingdom, had worked and plotted through all the remarkable events with which his name is associated, and by which it will ever be remembered in the romance of history; but Louis Philippe, with a cold, subsided at once and ingloriously into simple John Smith in a scratch-wig.

Of places in which colds are caught it is not necessary to be particular. For, as a late Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench laid it down in summing up to a jury, in a case of sheep-stealing, after some time had been wasted in showing that the stolen sheep had been slaughtered with a particular knife--any knife will kill a sheep--so it may be said that a cold may be caught any where: on the moor or on the loch; traveling by land or by water; by rail or by stage; or in a private carriage, or walking in the streets; or sitting at home or elsewhere, in a draught, or out of a draught, but more especially in it. Upon a statistical return of the places in which colds have been caught, by persons of both sexes, and under twenty-one years of age, founded upon the answers of the patients themselves, it appears that more colds are caught upon the journey in going to school, and at church, than at the theatre and in ball-rooms. Upon a similar return from persons liable to serve as jurymen in London and Middlesex, it appears that a majority of colds is caught in courts of justice; to which statement, perhaps, more confidence is due than to the former, as it is not known that Dr. Reid has ventilated any of the churches or theatres in the metropolis. Indeed, if the ancient physical philosophers, who had many disputes upon the first cause of cold, had enjoyed the advantage of living in our days and country, they might have satisfied themselves on this matter, and at the same time have become practically acquainted with the working of our system of jurisprudence, by attending in Westminster Hall, when they would go away perhaps with some good law, but most certainly with a very bad cold in their heads. Upon the returns from ladies with grown-up daughters and nieces, it appears from their own statements, that more colds are caught at evening parties than any where else; which is in remarkable discrepancy with the statements of the young ladies themselves, as before mentioned. The same curious want of agreement is found to prevail as to the number of colds caught on water-parties, pic-nics, archery-meetings, and the like, which, according to one set of answers, never give rise to colds, but which would certainly be avoided by all prudent persons if they gave implicit belief to the other.

Of the remedy for colds something may now be said. As with other evils, the remedy may exist either in the shape of prevention or of cure, and of course should be most sought after, by prudent people, in the former. Much ancestral wisdom has descended to us in maxims and apothegms on the prevention and management of colds. Like other venerable and traditional lore which we are in the habit of receiving without questioning, it contains a large admixture of error with what is really good and true; and of the good and true much occasionally meets with undeserved disparagement and contempt. Our grandmothers are right when they inculcate an active avoidance of draughts of air, when they enjoin warm clothing, and especially woolen stockings and dry feet. Their recommendation of bed and slops is generally good, and their "sentence of water-gruel" in most cases is very just, and better than any other for which it could be commuted; but when they lay down the well-known and authoritative dogma, stuff a cold and starve a fever, they are no longer to be trusted. This is a pernicious saying, and has caused much misery and illness. Certain lovers of antiquity, in their anxiety to justify this precept, would have us to take it in an ironical sense. They say, stuff a cold and starve a fever: that is, if you commit the absurdity of employing too generous a diet in the earlier stages of a cold, you will infallibly bring on a fever, which you will be compelled to reduce by the opposite treatment of starvation. This, however, may be rejected as mere casuistry, however well it may be intended by zealous friends of the past. Our British oracles were not delivered in such terms of Delphic mystery, but spoke out plain and straightforward; and even this one permits of some justification with out doing violence to the obvious meaning of the words. For every cold is accompanied with some fever, the symptoms of which are more or less obvious, and it indicates the presence in the system of something which ought not to be there, and which is seeking its escape. Every facility should be given to this escape which is consistent with the general safety of the system. We may reasonably leave a window open, or a door upon the latch, to favor the retreat of a disagreeable intruder, but we should not be willing to break a hole in the wall of the house. All the remedies of hot water for the feet, warming the bed, exciting gentle perspiration, are directed to this object. Occasionally, the excitement of an evening passed in society, especially if there is dancing, and in a room of somewhat elevated temperature, is sufficient to carry off an incipient cold. So a cold may be stopped, _in limine_, by the use of a few drops of laudanum; and so, perhaps, the stimulus of some slight excess in eating or drinking may operate to eject the advancing cold before it has completely lodged itself in the system. But this is dangerous practice, and the same object may be effected far more safely and surely by the common nursing and stay-at-home remedies.

Of all prophylactic or precautionary measures (in addition, of course, to prudent attention to dress and diet), the best is the constant use of the cold bath. It is only necessary to glance at the ironmongers' shops to see that of late years the demand for all kinds of washing and bathing apparatus has much increased, and that many persons are aware of the importance of this practice. The exact method of applying the cold element must depend on the constitution of the patient. For the very vigorous and robust, the actual plunge-bath may not be too much; but few are able to stand this, for the great abstraction of animal heat by the surrounding cold fluid taxes the calorific powers of the system severely; nor is a convenient swimming or plunge-bath generally attainable. A late lamented and eminent legal functionary, who lived near the banks of the Thames, bathed in the river regularly every morning, summer and winter, and, it is said, used to have the ice broken, when necessary, in the latter season. He continued this practice to a good old age, and might have sat for the very picture of health. The shower-bath has the merit of being attainable by most persons, at any rate when at home, and is now made in various portable shapes. The shock communicated by it is not always safe; but it is powerful in its action, and the first disagreeable sensation after pulling the fatal string is succeeded by a delicious feeling of renewed health and vitality. The dose of water is generally made too large; and by diminishing this, and wearing one of the high peaked or extinguisher caps now in use, to break the fall of the descending torrent upon the head, the terrors of the shower-bath may be abated, while all the beneficial effects are retained. It has, however, the disadvantage of not being easily carried about during absence from home, and the want of it is a great inconvenience to those who are accustomed to use it. None of the forms which are really portable are satisfactory, and all occupy some time and trouble in setting up and taking down again, unless, indeed, you are reckless of how and where you fix your hooks, and of the state of the floor of the room after the flood has taken place, and perhaps benevolently wish that the occupants of the room beneath should participate in the luxury you have been enjoying. For nearly all purposes the sponge is sufficient, used with one of the round flat baths which are now so common. Cold water, thus applied, gives sufficient stimulus to the skin, and the length of the bath, and the force with which the water is applied, are entirely under command. The sponging-bath, followed by friction with a rough towel, has cured thousands of that habitual tendency to catch cold which is so prevalent in this climate, and made them useful and happy members of society. The large tin sponging-bath is itself not sufficiently portable to be carried as railway luggage, but there are many substitutes. India-rubber has been for some time pressed into this service, either in the shape of a mere sheet to be laid on the floor, with a margin slightly raised to retain the water, or in a more expensive form, in which the bottom consists of a single sheet of the material, while the side is double, and can be inflated so as to become erect, in the same manner as the india-rubber air-cushions. Either form may be rolled up in a small compass. The latter give a tolerably deep bath, capable of holding two or three pails of water; but it is not very manageable when it has much water in it, and must be unpopular with the housemaids. As there is no stiff part about it, it is difficult, or rather impossible, for one person to lift it for the purpose of emptying the water; and the air must be driven out before it can be packed up again, which occasions a delay which is inconvenient in rapid traveling. Besides, on the Continent at least, where the essential element of water is not to be had, except in small quantity, the excellence of holding much is thrown away. Traveling-boxes have lately been made of that universal substance, gutta-percha, which serve the double duty of holding clothes or books on the roads, and of baths in the bed room. The top can be slipped off in a moment, and is at once available as a bath; and when ever the whole box is unpacked, both portions can be so employed. But the one disadvantage which prevents gutta-percha from being adopted for many other purposes tells against it here. It becomes soft and pliable at a very low temperature, which unfits it for hot climates, and for containing hot water in our own temperate regions. There is also the danger of burning or becoming injured by the heat, if left incautiously too near the fire. But for this drawback, it seems as if there was nothing to prevent every thing from being made of gutta-percha. It is almost indestructible, resists almost all chemical agents, and is easily moulded into any required form. But like glass, it has its one fault. Glass is brittle--gutta-percha can not resist moderate heat; and but for this, these two materials might divide the world between them. It is related that a certain inventor appeared before the Emperor Tiberius with a crystal vessel, which he dashed on the pavement, and picked up unhurt; in fact, he had discovered malleable glass, the philosopher's stone of the useful arts. His ingenuity did not meet with the success it deserved; for the emperor, whether alarmed at the novelty, and wishing to protect the interests of the established glass-trade or wishing to possess the wonderful vase, and to transmit it in the imperial treasure-chambers as an unique specimen of the manufacture, immediately ordered his head to be cut off, and the secret perished with him. Any one who rediscovered it, or could communicate to the rival vegetable product the quality of resisting heat, would make his fortune; and although he might find the patent-office slow and expensive, would nowadays be better rewarded by a discerning public than his unfortunate predecessor was by the Roman tyrant. But to return to our baths: a very good portable article may be made by having a wooden traveling-box, lined with thin sheet zinc. It may be of deal or elm, and painted outside. The lid may be arranged to slip on and off, like the rudder of a boat, on eyes and pintles, or on common sliding hinges; and there may be a movable tray, three or four inches deep, to be lined also with zinc, which serves for holding the immediate dressing-apparatus, and all that need be taken out for a single night's use. This tray, together with the lid laid side by side on the floor, makes a fair enough sponging-bath; and if the box itself is placed between them, and half-filled with water, a most luxurious bathing-apparatus is at once established. The zinc lining should be painted, or, what is still better, japanned; and the lock should open on the side of the box, and be fitted with a hinged hasp, which can be turned up, out of the way, upon the side of the lid, when it is detached and in use as a bath. The lock should not open upward in the edge of the box, or the water might enter it, and damage the wards; and the hasps sticking up from the edge of the lid would be in the way. A box on this plan has been made, and has been in use for some months with perfect success, and may possibly be exhibited for the instruction of foreigners in the Great Exposition of 1851. The only objection is the increased weight arising from the metallic lining; and this might be removed by employing sheet gutta-percha in its place, or by relying on good workmanship and paint alone to keep the box water-tight. The gutta-percha would, in this case, be supported by the wood of the box, and could not get out of shape; but it still would be liable to injury if used with warm water.

Little need be said of sponges. The best fetch a high price, but are probably most economical in the end; for a good sponge, used only with cold water, will last a long time. There is an inferior kind of sponge, very coarse, ragged and porous, which formerly was not sold for toilet use, but which is now to be found in the shops, and is sold especially for use in the sponging-bath. It is much cheaper than the fine sponge; and readily takes up, and as readily gives out again, a large quantity of water; and on the whole, may be recommended. Our old friend, India-rubber, appears again as the best material of which the sponge-bag can be made. Oil-skin is efficient while it lasts, but it is very easily torn; and sponges are apt to be impatiently rammed into their bags in last moments of packing.

Armed with his sponge and his portable bath, a man may go through life, defying some of its worst evils. Self-dubbed a Knight of the Bath, he may look down with scorn upon the red ribbons and glittering baubles of Grand Crosses and Commanders, and may view with that calm philosophy to which nothing so much contributes as a state of high health the chances and changes of a surrounding world of indigestions and catarrhs. With his peptic faculties, in that state of efficiency in which the daily cold effusion will maintain them, he will enjoy his own dinners; he will not grudge his richer neighbor his longer and more varied succession of dishes, and he will do his best to put his poorer one in the way to improve his humbler and less certain repast. With his head and eyes clear and free from colds, he will think and see for himself; and will discern and act upon the truth and the right, disregarding the contemptuous sneezes of those who would put him down, and the noisy coughs of those who would drown his voice when lifted up in the name of humanity and justice.

SINNERS AND SUFFERERS; OR, THE VILLAINY OF HIGH LIFE.

"Then you believe in the justice of this world, after the fashion of our old nursery-tales, in which the good boy always got the plum-cake, and the bad one was invariably put in the closet?" said Charles Monroe, addressing at once Lady Annette Leveson and her temporary squire, old Judge Naresby, as they paused in a moral disquisition, on which her ladyship had employed the greater part of their afternoon's stroll through Leveson Park, interrupted only by an occasional remark from her niece Emma, a girl just returned from school, who hung on Charles's arm, and called the party's attention to every woodland prospect and grand old tree they passed.

Lady Annette had relations in the peerage, though they were not reckoned among the wealthiest of that body. Her husband had been similarly connected, but he was long dead; and his childless widow's jointure consisted of little more than a castellated mansion, a park, renowned for the antiquity of its oaks, on the borders of one of the midland counties, and an old-fashioned house in Park-lane, London. These possessions were to descend, on her death, to the orphan daughter of her husband's brother, who, having besides a dowery of some five thousand in the funds, was, by the unanimous vote of her family, placed under Lady Annette's guardianship. In speeding on that orphan girl's education from one boarding-school to another, in dipping a short way into all the popular philosophy of the age, and taking an easy interest in all its social improvements, Lady Annette had spent her limited income and quiet years, without the usual excitements of either working altar-cloths or setting up a Dissenting chapel. Lady Annette was, of course, a sort of positivist in her way. She had an almost material faith in virtue rewarded. Good for good, love for love, was the substance of her creed regarding time's returns; and being somewhat zealous in the doctrine, she had exerted all her eloquence to prove it to the satisfaction of the Judge. He was a man after her own faith and fortunes--well born, as it is called, and gifted with a cool, clear head, which, just fitting him for the study of law, and no more, had calmly raised him through the intervening steps of his profession to the bench; but his experience of life had been far wider, and he had seen certain occurrences in its course which made him doubt her ladyship's philosophy.

The Judge's opposition had ceased, nevertheless, and Lady Annette remained mistress of the field when Charles Monroe volunteered the above interpretation. Considering that, besides her title, the lady had full twenty years the start of him in life's journey, the attack was bold; but Charles was known at Leveson Park as her Scottish cousin, belonging to a poor but honorable family north of Tweed, and already named as a rising barrister, though comparatively young in the profession. He had been engaged for sundry cases on the circuit which the Judge had just completed--as concerned her ladyship's county, with a maiden assize, where, after white gloves and congratulations had been duly presented, the evening was devoted to a family dinner and chat with Lady Annette, preparatory to justice and he taking their way on the morrow to the neighboring shire.

Lady Annette and the Judge were old acquaintances, and he had come early enough to find the three among the old oaks, where it was pleasant to talk in that bright summer afternoon till the dinner-hour and the rest of the party arrived; so they found time for argument.

"Well, Charles," said Lady Annette, whose habitually good temper seemed slightly ruffled by her cousin's remark, "there are sounder lessons taught men in the nursery than most of them practice in after-life; and the teaching of those tales appears to me a truth verified by every day's experience. Do we not see that industry and good conduct generally bring the working-classes to comparative wealth, while the best families are reduced by extravagance and profligacy? Does not even the popular mind regard virtue with honor, and vice with contempt? Surely there is, even in this world, an unslumbering Providence, which, eventually rewards the good and punishes the wicked?"

"Sometimes," said Charles.

"Well, your response is amusing," said Lady Annette, smiling; "but let us hear your view of the subject."

"I fear it is not very definite," said her cousin. "Perhaps I am not clearsighted enough; but this life has always seemed to me full of inconsistencies and contradictions; yet, one thing I believe, that moral goodness does not always lead to good fortune, nor moral evil to bad. Sometimes that for which I have no name but the ancient one of friendly stars, and sometimes a practical knowledge of men and things as they are, or the want of these, conducts us to the one, or leaves us to the other."

"Oh, Charles, what a pity that pretty girl should be lame!" whispered Emma, as they now emerged on a broad walk, which, being the most direct route to a neighboring village, had been long open to pedestrians. And a young girl, evidently of the servant class, who walked with considerable difficulty, laid down a small bundle she carried, and leant for rest against a mossy tree. The girl was not more than eighteen; her soft dark hair, fine features, and small, but graceful figure, were singularly attractive, in spite of a sickly pallor and remarkable lameness; but the face had such an expression of fearless honesty and truth as made it truly noble, and took the whole party's attention.

"That's a fine face," said the Judge, when they had passed. "There looks something like goodness there; and, _apropos_ of our controversy, it somehow reminds me of a case which is to be tried to-morrow, in which the principal witness is a young girl, who defended her master's house single-handed against two burglars, and actually detained one of them till he was arrested."

"Oh, aunt, we must go to hear the case," said young Emma, earnestly.

"It certainly will be interesting," said Lady Annette. "What a noble girl in her station too! Charles, I hope you will allow there is some probability of her being rewarded?"

"Perhaps," said Charles.

"Oh, never mind him," interrupted the Judge, who got very soon tired of moral questions; "he debated the same subject with Thornley and me t'other evening, and would have totally routed us if we had not taken refuge in whist."

Charles made no reply, for his attention was once more engaged by the girl, who, with a flushed cheek, and all the speed she could muster, passed them at that moment, and the Judge had succeeded in diverting Lady Annette's thoughts to another channel.

"Thornley should be an able antagonist," said she, "I am told he is very clever. It was but t'other day that, in looking over one of his mother's old letters from Florence, I recollected she had mentioned his Italian tutor's predictions of the great figure he should make at Cambridge. By the way, Charles, he was your class-fellow there. How far were they fulfilled?"

"The only time ever I remember him to make a figure," answered Charles, vainly endeavoring to suppress a smile, "was, when he refused the challenge of a wild Welsh student, on whose pranks he had been rather censorious, saying a duel was contrary to his principles; and though the Welshman actually insulted him in the very streets, he preferred a formal apology to fighting."

"What a high-principled young man!" exclaimed Lady Annette and her niece in the same breath.

"Yes," said the Judge, "so much conscientiousness and moral courage is worth a world of talent."

"It must be a comfort," continued her ladyship with enthusiasm, "to Mr. Thornley, to find the pains bestowed on his son's education so well repaid. Do you know he would never allow him to enter a public school, saying, that knowledge in such places was paid for with both morals and manners; and Edmund was educated under his own eye, by some of the best scholars in Florence."

"Mr. Thornley had great discernment," remarked the Judge; "I wonder he didn't show it, more in his pecuniary affairs."

"Ah, what a falling off was there!" half sighed Lady Annette. "It vexes me to think of it, they were such old friends of ours. What a belle poor Mrs. Thornley was!--they tell me she has grown very old and dowdy now. And how he used to sport! and yet one might have known the estate would go to creditors. But his misfortunes improved him greatly, they say, turned his attention entirely to high subjects--Italian progress, and all that. Do you know, when they lived in Florence, the Austrian police had quite an eye upon him, and he was proud of that, poor man! I wish you had seen his letters."

Here her ladyship stopped short, for a figure was seen rapidly approaching, which all the party know to be that of Edmund Thornley. The gentleman whose education, character, and family history had been thus freely discussed, was a tall, well-proportioned man, with fair complexion, and curling auburn hair. There was something almost feminine about his small mouth and pearly teeth; but his full blue eyes and smooth white brow had no expression but those of health and youth, retaining the latter to an extreme degree, though he was rather advanced in the twenties. The story of his parentage and prospects, was already talked over by the Thornleys' old friends in Leveson Park. An only son, born in the ranks of English gentry, but brought up in Italy, to which pecuniary embarrassment had early obliged his father to retire, he had been educated, it was said, most carefully under the paternal roof, with all home influences around him--sent first to the University of Cambridge, and, subsequently, to the study of English law, partly by way of scope for his talents, and partly, as the best provision for the heir of a deeply-mortgaged estate.

Edmund Thornley was a young man for whom friends did every thing. His parents and tutors, in Italy, had promised and vowed great things in his name, to his relatives in England; and, though they could not believe the report, for he had, as yet, astonished neither Cambridge, nor the Temple, it was proper for them to allow there was talent in him which must come out some day, and all that interest and solicitation could do, was done with the Thornleys' old acquaintances, to secure patronage for their son. By that influence the judge had been induced to make choice of him for his marshal, as it is legal etiquette to style a sort of humble companion or assistant, on the circuit. Hitherto, he had filled the post to his superior's entire satisfaction; but Naresby, who specially understood the art of making his dependents useful, had that day left him some letters to write previous to joining Lady Annette's party.

The hostess warmly welcomed the son of her old friends, whose doings she had just canvassed. Charles received his former class-fellow with cold civility; and, warned by the dinner-bell, the company adjourned to Leveson Hall, in time to meet the rector and his lady, a quiet country pair, who completed their party. It was soon manifest what advantage Thornley's gentle, attentive manner, gave him in the eyes of the ladies compared with the sometimes abrupt, and often careless address of their Scotch cousin. Emma found him particularly agreeable; and the subject of the approaching trial being renewed after dinner, both she and her aunt were charmed with the enthusiastic admiration of the young girl's courage and devotedness, which he expressed in the warmest terms; while Charles merely hoped that those whom she had served so well, would not forget her poverty.

"Such," said Lady Annette, in a whispered dissertation on the contrast of the young men, while she and the judge sat at whist by themselves, "Such are the natural effects of a home education, and a mother's influence."

"Oh, yes," responded Naresby, somewhat confused by the cards which he was shuffling; "Thornley is an excellent person, and very accommodating. He never troubles one with a view of his own, like other lads."

On the following day there was a crowded court-house in the assize town of the neighboring county. The case to be tried had been the topic of gossip and wonder there for many a week, and Lady Annette and her niece were not the only members of the surrounding gentility among the audience. Charles Monroe had the honor of escorting them, for the first time in their lives, to a court of justice; and all his explaining powers were put in requisition by Emma's whispered inquiries, till, the usual preliminaries being gone through, the prisoner was placed at the bar. He was a dark-looking, muscular fellow, whose way seemed to have laid through the wild places of low life; but when he pleaded "Not guilty," in a strong Welsh accent, some strange recollections appeared to strike Charles, and he whispered to Lady Annette, "That man used to look after game-dogs for Harry Williams, with whom Thornley wouldn't fight at Cambridge; and they told me Harry had been expelled."

"Yes," replied her ladyship, in a low, but triumphant tone, as she cast a glance of more than approbation on the marshal, now occupying his usual place near the judge; "men are even in this world rewarded according to their works."

Charles smiled incredulously, but his smile changed to a look of surprised recognition, for the principal witness, who just then stood up to take the oath, was none other than the girl they had met in Leveson Park. Many a curious eye was turned on that fair honest face; the judge himself seemed to recognize her, and the marshal to forget his habitual composure, in astonishment that one so young and pretty, should be the heroine of such a tale; but, without either the vanity or the bashfulness nearly always allied to it, which would have upset most young people in her position, the girl told her story modestly and plainly, like one who felt she had done her duty, and made no display about it. Her evidence was simply to the effect that her name was Grace Greenside, that she was a servant at Daisy Dell--the local designation of a property occupied by one of the better class of farmers in the shire--and had been for two years maid-of-all-work at the farm-house, which was situated in a solitary part of the country, and at some distance from the high road. On the fifth of the previous month, it being Sunday, and the other three servants having gone in different directions, her mistress took their little boy and girl with them to the parish church, about a mile distant, leaving her alone in the house, with strict orders not to quit it, and admit none but special friends of the family till their return; on account, as she believed, of a considerable sum of money which her master had drawn from the bank but a few days before, for the purchase of an adjoining farm. Soon after they were gone, two men, one of whom was the prisoner, knocked loudly at the front door, and demanded admission, which, owing to her orders, and their suspicious appearance, she refused, when they tried to force an entrance; but, arming herself with her master's loaded gun, she defended the premises, which were well secured--being built, as the girl described, in old fighting times--till, by sounding one of those antiquated horns, kept for similar purposes in many an old country house, she alarmed half the parish, and men were seen coming across the fields, on which the assailants fled. The prisoner, however, carried with him a fine vest of her master's, which, owing to an accident, had been spread out to dry on a hedge hard by; and, bitterly blaming herself for leaving the article within his reach, the girl pursued him in hopes of recovering it, and actually overtook, laid hold of, and detained him till the neighbors came up and completed the capture, in spite of his blows, by which she had been so seriously injured as to be confined to the house till the previous day, when she walked with great difficulty about two miles to see her relatives.

Her tale was confirmed by the evidence of several country people who had assisted in securing the prisoner, by that of her master, a hard-looking, worldly man, of her father, a clownish laborer, and of an ill-tempered, slatternly woman, who proved to be her stepmother. Grace dropped a courtesy, and quitted the witness-box, amid a general murmur of applause. The jury, without retiring, found a unanimous verdict of "Guilty;" and, after a lengthy address, equally divided between eulogy of the girl's conduct and reprobation of the criminal's, not forgetting some prophetic hints touching the future destiny of his companion who had escaped, the judge commanded sentence of death to be recorded against him, and a small sum of money to be immediately bestowed on Grace, not only in testimony of the court's sense of her merits, but by way of compensation for the injuries she had received, as his lordship phrased it, "in the service of justice and good order."

"A poor reward, but, perhaps, not unacceptable," thought Charles, glancing at her apparel, which, though clean and neatly worn, was such as indicated almost the lowest state of feminine funds, as with a grateful countenance she stepped out to await the leisure of the court functionaries in that matter, and another case came on.

"Let us go now," said Lady Annette to her niece, "How very interesting it was, and how delighted Edmund Thornley seemed!"

"He has just gone out, aunt," remarked Emma, who had grown singularly alive to the marshal's motions; and Charles, as he resumed the duties of a cavalier, silently recollected that, throughout the trial, while Thornley conversed with the judge or took notes for him, according to custom, his eye had often wandered toward Grace Greenside, and he had left the court the first unobserved moment after she quitted it. The young barrister was, therefore, not surprised, on crossing one of the outer divisions, to find him there by her side, talking in a most animated manner. They were words of praise he had been uttering; and there was a glow on the girl's cheek, and a light in her eye, which neither the judge's encomiums nor the applause of a crowded court had called forth; yet, at their approach, a sudden confusion came over Thornley for an instant, but the next he saluted the ladies with his usual courtesy, and more than his usual warmth.

"You find me conversing with the heroine of Daisy Dell," said he; and the remnant of his speech was so low, that Charles could only catch, "artless simplicity," and "mind above her station." It reached the girl's ear, nevertheless; and a wild, waking dream of hope, or passion, or it might be vanity, passed over that young face.

"Oh, aunt, let us speak to her," said Emma, and fully conscious of the honor and reward which a few words from her patrician lips must confer on plebeian merit, Lady Annette stepped up, and addressed some complimentary inquiries to Grace.

The gratified girl replied with many a courtesy. There was an asking-leave look in young Emma's face as it turned to her aunt for a moment, and then, like one determined to venture, she drew a small turquoise ring from her finger, and pressed it into the girl's hand, with a low whisper, "You have been very good and honest; take this from me."

"It is the first ring I ever wore," said Grace, endeavoring to force the small circlet on one finger after another, which hard work had roughened and expanded; but Emma's turquoise could find rest only on the little one. "It is the lucky finger," said she, blushing to the brow; "and a thousand thanks, my lady; but it is too fine for the like of me."

"May it be lucky to you, my girl!" half murmured Charles, emptying his light purse almost unperceived into her other hand, while Lady Annette was assuring her that good conduct always had its reward; and before the girl had time to thank him, he hurried away with the delighted Emma, while Thornley conducted her ladyship to their carriage over the way.

Scarce had Charles handed in his charge when one of his clients, who had litigated a garden-fence for four years past, pounced upon him with a lately-discovered evidence for his claim, which occupied some hours in explanation; and before he returned to the court-house, Grace Greenside had received her money, and went her way. The marshal was busy writing a note for the Judge, and his lordship was passing sentence on a turnip-stealer.

Next day Charles gained the case touching the garden-fence, according to the county newspapers, by a display of legal learning and eloquence never before equaled in that court-house; but the same evening a letter brought the hard-working barrister the joyful intelligence that a legal appointment in one of the West India Islands, for which he had canvassed and despaired till it was refused by some half-dozen of the better provided, had been conferred upon him.

It is doubtful if three years can pass over any spot of this inhabited earth without bringing many changes, and they had brought its share to the border of that midland county since Lady Annette convinced the judge, and vanquished her Scotch cousin, on a great moral question, among the old trees of Leveson Park. Leveson Park and Hall were lonely now in the summer-time, for another uncle had died, leaving Emma some additional thousands, and her aunt removed to the house in Park-lane every London season, to have her properly brought out.

In the adjoining shire, trials of still greater interest (for there was a murder and two breaches of promise among them) had long superseded in the popular mind the case of Daisy Dell; but the neighbors for miles round that solitary farm-house still talked at intervals of Grace Greenside, how a fine gentleman who had spoken to her in court came many a day after the assizes privately about the fields to see her, and how she had been seen driving away with him in a chaise from the end of the green lane late one evening, when her mistress imagined she was busy in the diary. The girl's relatives said he was nephew to the judge who had been on the circuit that year, and would soon be a judge himself; that he had taken Grace to London, and made a real lady of her; but their neighbors knew the way of the world too well to place entire faith in that statement, and the master of the house she had defended (it was said gratuitously) gave it as his private judgment that the girl had been ruined by being made so much of.

The old house in Park-lane looked as comfortable as handsome but antiquated furniture could make it. It was the height of the London season, and Lady Annette Leveson had given a dinner-party--as it was understood, by way of welcome to her cousin, Mr. Monroe, who had just returned from Barbadoes, with an older look, a darker complexion, and his footing made sure in Government employ at home. His residence was now in London; and his near relationship, of which Lady Annette had grown singularly mindful of late, made him an intimate visitor at her house, where, on the present occasion, he did the honors to a number of gentlemen, still conversing over their wine; while, as British etiquette prescribes, Lady Annette had led the fairer portion of her company to small talk and the drawing-room.

Useful as Charles was often pronounced by her ladyship, and a rising cousin as he had become, the assiduous attentions and quietly agreeable manner of Edmund Thornley made much greater way in the secret favor of both aunt and niece. Edmund was by this time called to the bar. He made no great figure there, but friends were still doing for him, and he had sundry relations who took care of his interests in London. The chief of these was a brother-in-law of his father; but Miss Thornley had been his first wife, and a second had reigned for eleven years in her stead. Mr. Crainor was a barrister of the West-end, who worshiped respectability, and had no family but two married daughters. It was through him that all advices and letters of credit came from Italy, where Thornley senior still found it convenient to sojourn; and he was Edmund's counselor in all things. Being an acquaintance of Emma's last bequeathing uncle, that gentleman had thought proper to make him one of his executors; he had, consequently, considerable influence at the house in Park-lane, and was believed to use it in favor of his nephew-in-law, who, shrewd people said, might form an eligible connection there; but, as yet, rumor went no further on the subject. There were also those who thought Charles Monroe might be a successful rival, as his prospects were now more promising, and his talents known to be superior; but Emma's private opinion of him was, that he looked wonderfully old, had no sensibility, and an almost vulgar way of conducting himself to ladies. He had left her a school-girl, not sixteen, and found her a graceful, accomplished woman of the harmlessly sentimental school, who shed tears at tragedies, and gave largely, considering her purse, at charity sermons, made collections of poetry, and never inquired beyond the surface of her own circle, except regarding some very romantic story of real life.

Edmund Thornley sat on an ottoman between Lady Annette and her niece, turning over for their edification the leaves and plates of one of those richly got up annuals so dear to London drawing-rooms at a period within most people's memory. He never lingered long with the gentlemen, at least, in Park-lane.

"Oh, what a lovely picture!" said Emma, as a Swiss scene turned up. "And that figure," she continued, pointing to one at a cottage door, "how much it reminds of the girl--I forget her name--who defended the farm-house against robbers. Don't you remember, Mr. Thornley, how you called her the heroine of Daisy Dell?"

"Oh, yes," said Edmund, after a trial of recollection. "It is like her, but I think she was not quite so pretty."

"Certainly not so tastefully dressed," said Lady Annette; "these Swiss have so much the advantage of our peasantry; but she was a most interesting creature. And yet, Mr. Thornley," added her ladyship, who retained the taste for morality, "I fear the transaction did not turn out to her benefit. They had strange reports in that part of the country, and my niece and I have often observed her since we came to London."

"Oh, aunt!" interposed Emma, "but she dressed and looked so--so--very properly. I am sure she has married some person of her choice, and lives happily. It would just complete her story."

The mention of a story after dinner, in the height of the London season, is sufficient to wake up any drawing-room, and had its natural effect on Lady Annette's.

"Oh, pray what was it?" demanded half a dozen voices; and Emma was of course obliged to relate the tale, with frequent applications for assistance to Mr. Thornley, whose replies, though always brief, were satisfactory, as he turned over the annual, apparently the least interested person in the room. When they had marveled sufficiently over her narrative, Lady Annette, being a little proud of Miss Leveson's sentiments, felt bound to acquaint them with the episode of the ring, which she had just finished when the first of the dining-room deserters straggled in.

"The last time I saw her she looked sickly and careworn--far worse than that day we met her in the Park. You recollect it, Charles. We are speaking of Grace Greenside," said Emma, addressing her aunt's cousin, as he took the nearest seat.

"What of her now?" said Charles, bending eagerly forward; but here Mr. Crainor interposed, with a petition that Emma would sing them that charming song with which she enchanted Lady Wharton's party, as he, and in fact the whole company, was dying to hear it. In less than five minutes, which were consumed in general pressing, Emma was conducted to the piano by Mr. Thornley. There was a deal of music, tea, chit-chat, and a breaking-up, but no more talk of Grace Greenside.

"My dear boy," said Mr. Crainor, taking his nephew's arm with something of the warmth of wine in his manner, when they were fairly in the streets, it being eleven o'clock on a calm summer's night, and part of their way the same. "My dear boy, you are not aware of what injury you are doing to your best interests, as one may say, by keeping that girl so long about you. She has been notorious; and notorious people--women, I mean--are always dangerous. Weren't they talking of her at Lady Annette's to-night? Depend on it, the story will ooze out, you are so well known, and so much visited now. Then people will call you dissipated, and I can't tell what. Such tales always spoil a man's chances with advantageous ladies."

"I was thinking of that myself," said Edmund; "but it's a delicate point, and one wouldn't like a scene, you know."

"True," responded his adviser; "but a little management will prevent that. Captain Lancer is your man, if you want to get clear off. Just introduce him, and the whole business is done."

"Do you really think so?" said Edmund, with a languid smile.

"I'll stake ten to one on it," replied Crainor; "Lancer has tenfold your attractions for any woman, irresistible as you think yourself--a fine, forward-looking military man, who has fought half a dozen duels, not to speak of his experience. Don't you know the captain is married, though he passes for a bachelor here? married an old ebony, with a whole sugar-plantation in Jamaica, five years ago! That's what he sports upon; while rum, they say, consoles the lady for his absence. He told me the other day he was in want of some occupation, and I advise you to give him one; but good night," added the sage counselor, for by this time they were near Edmund's lodgings; and even through the gaslight a pale face might be seen at the front window, looking anxiously out for him.

Sadly indeed was Grace Greenside altered since the day when the four passed her in the walk through Leveson Park. The lameness was long gone--her naturally good constitution had shaken off the effects of that fearful struggle; her dress was of somewhat better materials and a neater cut. She herself had something of a town look about her, as one whom three years' residence had made familiar with the noisy streets of London; but in the thin face and sunken eyes there were lines of care, and weary look, which told of lonely winter evenings and pining summer days. For three long years the girl had shared Edmund Thornley's apartments, in the strangely-blended capacities of mistress and valet. That a maid-of-all-work in a solitary farm-house, who was eighteen, could scarcely read, and had a cross stepmother, should have been induced to enter on such a course by a man so far her superior in fortune and education, not to speak of eight years' seniority, must be matter of marvel to those only whose wisdom and virtue are of the untried sort. But so it was; and farm-servant as she had been, it was wonderful how little poor Grace was spoiled by her change of position. It might be that the girl was by nature too simple or too honest to take its ordinary advantages, such as they are; perhaps it was not fine things and nothing to do alone that she expected in London with Edmund, when leaving behind her good name and country summers--the only good things that life had given her; at all events, she lived humble and retired days, aiming only to take care of Thornley's domestic interest to the utmost of her power, and make herself generally useful to him in sickness and health. There was a suitability in that conduct to the peculiar tastes of the gentleman. Like most selfish people, he was a great admirer of self-devotedness in others; and, long after the days of first fancy and flattery were over, continued to value Grace as a contributor to his comfort, in the fashion of an easy chair or a good fire. Did not she keep every thing in order for his comings and goings, which, with Edmund Thornley, were as regular as the clock on the mantle-piece, for he was a most quiet bachelor, and never forgot himself; but now the convenience might cost him too dear, and must be parted with, according to his uncle's counsel. So, with it on his mind, and the usual calm smile on his face, he received her kindly greeting, heard and repeated the intelligence of the day over a nice supper, and retired to rest.

Next day, Mr. Crainor introduced Captain Lancer to his nephew, at a coffee-house; and Thornley brought him home to dine, and introduced him to Grace, after which, as his servant remarked, "it was hextonishing how often that ansum capting called, and how many messages the master sent him home with to Miss Greenside; till one day he eard her speak monstrous loud up stairs, and there was a door slammed, and the Capting came down looking all of a eap."

The servant might also have observed that, during the day, Grace looked impatiently for his master; but Edmund did not come, for he and Captain Lancer dined together at a tavern.

The nights were growing long, and the harvest moon could be seen at intervals through the fog and smoke of London. Grace thought how it shone on corn-fields and laden orchards far away, and how long it was since she left them; but other and more troubled thoughts passed through her mind as she sat waiting for Thornley. It was not yet eight, but that was his knock, and in another minute he stepped into the room.

"Edmund, dear," said the girl, eager to unburden her mind, "I have a strange story for you to-night. That Captain Lancer is a bad, bad man. Would you believe it, Edmund, he told all sorts of stories on you this day, and asked me to go with him to France, the villain!"

"Indeed!" said Thornley, seating himself, with a look of prepared resolution. "That was a good offer, Grace. The captain is very rich, and might marry you."

Grace stared upon him in blank astonishment. "You see," continued the unmoved Edmund, "you and I can live together no longer; my character would suffer, and my prospects too, Grace. You would not injure my prospects? Besides, you want country air; it would be good for you to go home a little time, and I would give you something handsome, and see you off on the Middlesex coach."

The amazement had passed from the girl's face now; for all that she had half suspected, and tried not to believe so long, was proved true to her.

"Is it Emma Leveson you are going to marry?" she said, growing deadly pale.

"Perhaps," said Thornley. "But, dear me, what is the matter?" as Grace looked down for an instant at the ring on her little finger, then sunk down on a chair, and covered her face with her hands.

"Here," continued Edmund, pulling out his pocket-book, which contained the only consolation known to him, "I have not much to myself, but here are two hundred pounds; it will make you live like a lady among them;" and he laid the notes in her lap.

Grace never looked at him or them; she sat for about a minute stiff and silent, then rose, letting the bank-paper scatter on the carpet, and walked quickly out. Edmund heard her go up stairs, and come down again; there was a sound of the hall-door shutting quietly, and when he inquired after it the servant told him Miss Greenside had gone without saying any thing. Edmund gathered up the notes, and locked them in his desk, smoked a cigar, read the _Court Journal_; but Grace did not come back, nor did she ever again cross the threshold. When Thornley told Mr. Crainor, on the earliest opportunity, that gentleman averred that the girl had looked out for herself before Captain Lancer came, and Edmund said, "It was wonderful that she left the notes behind her, for all the money she could have was some savings in a little purse."

One Sunday, about six weeks after the event we have related, Charles Monroe, on search of a short way from the Scotch church to his chambers, was passing through a poor but decent street, known as Cowslip-court, though a Cowslip had never been seen there within the memory of man, when his attention was attracted by an old woman in dingy black, looking for something on the ground, with a most rueful countenance.

"What have you lost, my good woman?" inquired Charles in some curiosity.

"It's a ring, sir," said the dame, "was left me by a poor soul as was buried this morning. Some people thought it strange to see her so young by herself, but she wor a decent creature for all that, and did what she could in honesty. First she took to sewing, sir; but that didn't do, for she was sickly, and got worse, till at last she died, all alone in my two-pair back. And I'm sure that ring wor a love-token, or something of the sort, for she used to cry over it when no one was by, and once bade me take it when she was gone, because I minded her in her sickness; and I was just going to show it to Mrs. Tillet, when it dropped out of my fingers. But lauk, sir, there it is!"

"It's Emma Leveson's ring," said Charles, picking up the little turquoise from among the dust at his feet. "Was the woman's name Grace Greenside?"

"Just the same sir," said its new owner, clutching at the ring; "an' she was--"

"A fool," added a more than half-intoxicated soldier, with a long pipe in his mouth, lolling on the steps of an empty house as if they had been a sofa. "I tell you she was a fool; and I was a gentleman once in my day, but I was unfortunate. They wouldn't let me stay at college, though I kept the gamest pack in Cambridge; and after that I took--to a variety of business," said he, with another puff; "but if that girl had taken me at my word, I would have stood by her. See the foolishness of women! She would keep the old house, and transport Skulking Tom; he partly deserved it for hitting her so hard, and there's what's come of it." With a repetition of his last aphorism, the soldier smoked on, and Charles after a minute inspection, recognized in the dirty and prematurely old man his once boisterous class-fellow, Harry Williams. The time for remonstrance or improvement was long past with him, and Charles had grown a stranger to his memory; so, without word or sign of former acquaintance, he purchased the ring from that communicative old woman at about three times its lawful price, collected what further information he could regarding the deceased, and went his way.

"Ay," said Charles, gazing on the ring some time after, when the whole particulars of her story were gathered, "had she been worse or wiser, poor Grace would have fared better in this world;" and then he thought of the ring's first owner. But, before the period of his musings, Lady Annette and her niece had gone with some of their noble relations to spend the winter in Italy, Edmund Thornley accompanying them on a visit to his father's residence; and, in her latest letter to a confidential cousin, Emma had mentioned that his fine sense of propriety, and his enthusiasm for all that was great and good, made him a most delightful companion on the Continent.

THE GOLDEN AGE.

The father sits, and marks his child Through the clover racing wild; And then as if he sweetly dream'd, He half remembers how it seem'd When he, too, was a reckless rover Among the bee-beloved clover: Pure airs, from heavenly places, rise Breathing the blindness from his eyes, Until, with rapture, grief, and awe, He sees again as then he saw.

As then he saw, he sees again The heavy-loaded harvest wain, Hanging tokens of its pride In the trees on either side; Daisies, coming out at dawn, In constellations, on the lawn; The glory of the daffodil; The three black windmills on the hill, Whose magic arms fling wildly by, With magic shadows on the rye: In the leafy coppice, lo, More wealth than miser's dreams can show, The blackbird's warm and woolly brood, With golden beaks agape for food! Gipsies, all the summer seen, Native as poppies to the green; Winter, with its frosts and thaws, And opulence of hips and haws; The mighty marvel of the snow; The happy, happy ships that go, Sailing up and sailing down, Through the fields and by the town;-- All the thousand dear events That fell when days were incidents.

And, then, his meek and loving mother-- Oh, what speechless feelings smother In his heart at thought of her! What sacred, piercing sorrow mounts, From new or unremembered founts, While to thought her ways recur. He hears the songs she used to sing; His tears in scalding torrents spring; Oh, might he hope that 'twould be given. Either in this world, or in heaven, To hear such songs as those again!

--But life is deep and words are vain. Mark yonder hedgerow, here and there Sprinkled with Spring, but mainly bare; The wither'd bank beneath, where blows, In yellow crowds, the fresh primrose: What skill of color thus could smite The troubled heart-strings thro' the sight What magic of sweet speech express Their primeval tenderness? Can these not utter'd be, and can The day-spring of immortal man?

"GIVE WISELY!" AN ANECDOTE.

One evening, a short time since, the curate of B., a small village in the north of France, returned much fatigued to his humble dwelling. He had been visiting a poor family who were suffering from both want and sickness; and the worthy old man, besides administering the consolations of religion, had given them a few small coins, saved by rigid self-denial from his scanty income. He walked homewards, leaning on his stick, and thinking, with sorrow, how very small were the means he possessed of doing good and relieving misery.

As he entered the door, he heard an unwonted clamor of tongues, taking the form of a by no means harmonious duet--an unknown male voice growling forth a hoarse bass, which was completely overscreeched by a remarkably high and thin treble, easily recognized by the placid curate as proceeding from the well-practiced throat of his housekeeper, the shrewish Perpetua of a gentle Don Abbondio.

"A pretty business this, monsieur!" cried the dame, when her master appeared, as with flashing eyes, and left arm a-kimbo, she pointed with the other to a surly-looking man, dressed in a blouse, who stood in the hall, holding a very small box in his hand. "This fellow," she continued, "is a messenger from the diligence, and he wants to get fifteen francs as the price of the carriage of that little box directed to you, which I'm sure, no matter what it contains, can't be worth half the money."

"Peace, Nanette," said her master; and, taking the box from the man, who at his approach, civilly doffed his hat, he examined the direction.

It was extremely heavy, and bore the stamp of San Francisco, in California, together with his own address. The curate paid the fifteen francs, which left him possessed of but a few sous, and dismissed the messenger.

He then opened the box, and displayed to the astonished eyes of Nanette an ingot of virgin gold, and a slip of paper, on which were written the following words:

"To Monsieur the Curate of B. "A slight token of eternal gratitude, in remembrance of August 28th, 1848. "CHARLES F----. "Formerly sergeant-major in the --th regiment; now a gold-digger in California."

On the 28th of August, 1848, the curate was, on the evening in question, returning from visiting his poor and sick parishioners. Not far from his cottage he saw a young soldier with a haggard countenance and wild bloodshot eyes, hastening toward the bank of a deep and rapid river, which ran through the fields. The venerable priest stopped him, and spoke to him kindly.

At first the young man would not answer, and tried to break away from his questioner; but the curate fearing that he meditated suicide, would not be repulsed, and at length, with much difficulty, succeeded in leading him to his house. After some time, softened by the tender kindness of his host, the soldier confessed that he had spent in gambling a sum of money which had been entrusted to him as sergeant-major of his company. This avowal was made in words broken by sobs, and the culprit repeated several times, "My poor mother! my poor mother! if she only knew--"

The curate waited until the soldier had become more calm, and then addressed him in words of reproof and counsel, such as a tender father might bestow on an erring son. He finished by giving him a bag containing one hundred and thirty francs, the amount of the sum unlawfully dissipated.

"It is nearly all I possess in the world," said the old man, "but by the grace of God you will change your habits, you will work diligently, and some day, my friend, you will return me this money, which indeed belongs more to the poor than to me."

It would be impossible to describe the young soldier's joy and astonishment. He pressed convulsively his benefactor's hand, and after a pause, said,

"Monsieur, in three months my military engagement will be ended. I solemnly promise that, with the assistance of God, from that time I will work diligently." So he departed, bearing with him the money and the blessing of the good man.

Much to the sorrow and indignation of Nanette, her master continued to wear through the ensuing winter, his old threadbare suit, which he had intended to replace by warm garments; and his dinner frequently consisted of bread and _soupe maigre_.

"And all this," said the dame, "for the sake of a worthless stroller, whom we shall never see or hear of again!"

"Nanette," said her master, with tears in his eyes, as he showed her the massive ingot, whose value was three thousand francs, "never judge hardly of a repentant sinner. It was the weeping Magdalen who poured precious ointment on her Master's feet; it was the outlawed Samaritan leper who returned to give Him thanks. Our poor guest has nobly kept his word. Next winter my sick people will want neither food nor medicine; and you must lay in plenty of flannel and frieze for our old men and women, Nanette!"

MONTHLY RECORD OF CURRENT EVENTS.

POLITICAL AND GENERAL NEWS.

UNITED STATES.

In Politics the past month has been distinguished by the occurrence of elections in several of the States, and by a general agitation, in every section of the Union, of questions connected with the subject of slavery. The discussions through the press and before public audiences, have been marked by great excitement and bitterness, and have thus induced a state of public feeling in the highest degree unfavorable to that calm and judicious legislation which the critical condition of the country requires. We recorded at the proper time, the passage by Congress of the several measures generally known as the "peace measures" of the session--the last of which was the bill making more effectual provision for the recovery of fugitive slaves. Congress had no sooner adjourned than these measures, and especially the last, became the theme of violent public controversy. In the Northern States, several attempts to regain possession of fugitives from slavery in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and other places, were resisted with great clamor, and served to inflame public feeling to a very unhealthy extent. In our last number we mentioned some of the incidents by which this agitation was marked. It influenced greatly the elections in New York, Massachusetts, and other states, where nominations for Congress and state officers were made with special reference to these questions. The result of these elections is now to be recorded.

In our last number we mentioned the action of the Whig State Convention at Syracuse, the secession of forty members in consequence of the adoption of a resolution approving the course of Senator SEWARD, and their subsequent meeting at Utica, and renomination of the same ticket. Mr. HUNT, the Whig candidate for Governor, wrote a letter expressing acquiescence in the peace measures of Congress, but adding that the Fugitive Slave Law contained many unjust provisions, and ought to receive essential modifications. A convention representing the Anti-Renters of the state afterward assembled, and nominated Mr. HUNT as their candidate for Governor. On the 22d of October he wrote a letter to the Committee declining to recognize the action of any organization except that of the Whig party from which he had first received his nomination, and adding that, if elected, his "Constitutional duties could not be changed, nor his conduct in the discharge of them influenced, by the course taken in the election by any particular class of our citizens or any organization other than the party to which he belonged." Under all circumstances, he said, it would be his highest aim to execute his official trust with firmness and impartiality. He would "be actuated by an honest desire to promote justice, to uphold the supremacy of the law, to facilitate all useful reforms, to second legitimate endeavors for the redress of public grievances, and to protect the rights and advance the welfare of the whole people."

In the City of New York, meantime, there had been a growing feeling of apprehension at the tone of current political discussions and at the opposition everywhere manifested at the North to the Fugitive Slave Law, and on the 30th of October a very large public meeting was held at Castle Garden of those who were in favor of sustaining all the peace measures of Congress, and of taking such measures as would prevent any further agitation of the question of slavery. Mr. GEORGE WOOD, an eminent member of the New York Bar, presided. A letter was read from Mr. WEBSTER, to whom the resolutions intended to be brought forward had been sent, with an invitation to attend the meeting. The invitation was declined, but Mr. WEBSTER expressed the most cordial approbation of the meeting, and of its proposed action. He concurred in "all the political principles contained in the resolutions, and stood pledged to support them, publicly and privately, now and always, to the full extent of his influence, and by the exertion of every faculty which he possessed." The Fugitive Slave Law he said, was not such a one as he had proposed, and should have supported if he had been in the Senate. But it is now "the law of the land, and as such is to be respected and obeyed by all good citizens. I have heard," he adds, "no man, whose opinion is worth regarding, deny its constitutionality; and those who counsel violent resistance to it, counsel that, which, if it take place, is sure to lead to bloodshed, and to the commission of capital offenses. It remains to be seen how far the deluded and the deluders will go in this career of faction, folly, and crime. No man is at liberty to set up, or to affect to set up, his own conscience as above the law, in a matter which respects the rights of others, and the obligations, civil, social, and political, due to others from him. Such a pretense saps the foundation of all government, and is of itself a perfect absurdity; and while all are bound to yield obedience to the laws, wise and well-disposed citizens will forbear from renewing past agitation, and rekindling the names of useless and dangerous controversy. If we would continue one people, we must acquiesce in the will of the majority, constitutionally expressed; and he that does not mean to do that, means to disturb the public peace, and to do what he can to overturn the Government." The resolutions adopted at the meeting, declared the purpose "to sustain the Fugitive Slave Law and its execution by all lawful means:" and that those represented at the meeting would "support no candidate at the ensuing or any other election, for state officers, or for members of Congress or of the Legislature, who is known or believed to be hostile to the peace measures recently adopted by Congress, or any of them, or in favor of re-opening the questions involved in them, for renewed agitation."

This meeting was followed by the nomination of a ticket, intended to represent these views, and those candidates only were selected, from both the party nominees, who were known or believed to entertain them. Mr. SEYMOUR (Dem.) was nominated for Governor; Mr. CORNELL (Whig) for Lieutenant Governor; Mr. MATHER (Dem.) for Canal Commissioner; and Mr. SMITH (Whig) for Clerk of the Court of Appeals. This movement in New York City in favor of these candidates, caused a reaction in favor of the others in the country districts of the state. The election occurred on the 5th of November, and resulted as follows:

_Whigs._ _Democrats._

_Gov._ HUNT 214,353 SEYMOUR 214,095 _Lieut. Gov._ CORNELL 210,721 CHURCH 217,935 _Canal Com._ BLAKELY 213,762 MATHER 214,818 _Prison Ins._ BAKER 207,696 ANGEL 217,720 _Clerk_ SMITH 210,926 BENTON 217,840

From this it will be seen that Mr. HUNT was elected Governor, and all the rest of the Democratic ticket was successful. Thirty-four members of Congress were also elected, there being 17 of each political party. The Legislature is decidedly Whig. In the Senate, which holds over from last year, there is a Whig majority of 2; and of the newly elected members of Assembly, 81 are Whigs, and 47 Democrats. This result derives special importance from the fact that a U.S. Senator is to be chosen to succeed Hon. D.S. DICKINSON, whose term expires on the 4th of March, 1851. The vote on the Repeal of the Free School Law was as follows:

Against repeal 203,501 For repeal 168,284 -------- Majority against repeal 35,217

In NEW JERSEY a state election also occurred on the 5th of November. The candidates for Governor were Dr. FORT, Democrat, and Hon. JOHN RUNK, Whig. The result of the canvass was as follows:

FORT 39,726 RUNK 34,054 ------- Fort's majority 5,672

Five members of Congress were also elected, 4 of whom were Democrats, and 1 Whig.

In OHIO the election occurred in October, with the following result:

WOOD, Democrat 133,092 Majority 11,997. JOHNSTON, Whig 121,095 SMITH, Abolitionist 13,826

Twenty-one members of Congress were elected, of whom 8 were Whigs, and 13 Democrats.

In MASSACHUSETTS the election took place on the 12th of November, with the following result for Governor--there being, of course, no election, as a majority of all the votes cast is requisite to a choice:

BRIGGS, Whig 55,351 BOUTWELL, Democrat 36,245 PHILLIPS, Free Soil 27,811

Of 9 Congressmen, 3 Whigs are chosen, and in 6 districts no choice was effected. Hon. HORACE MANN, the Free Soil candidate, succeeded against both the opposing candidates. To the State Senate 13 Whigs and 27 of the Opposition were chosen; and to the House of Representatives 169 Whigs, 179 Opposition, and in 79 districts there was no choice. The vacancies were to be filled by an election on the 25th of November. A U.S. Senator from this State is also to be chosen, to succeed Hon. R.C. WINTHROP, who was appointed by the Governor to supply the vacancy caused by Mr. WEBSTER's resignation.

No more elections for Members of Congress will be held in any of the States (except to fill vacancies) until after March 4th, 1851. The terms of 21 Senators expire on that day--of whom 8 are Whigs, and 13 Democrats. Judging from the State elections already held there will be 6 Whigs and 15 Democrats chosen to fill their places. The U.S. Senate will then stand thus:

Holding over 18 Whigs 23 Democrats. New Senators 6 " 5 " -- -- Total 24 38

The House of Representatives comprises 233 members, of whom 127 have already been chosen, politically divided as follows--compared with the delegations from each State in the present Congress:

1850. 1848. _Whig._ _Dem._ _Whig._ _Dem._

Missouri 3 2 5 Iowa 2 1 1 Vermont 3 1 3 1 Florida 1 1 Maine 2 5 2 5 South Carolina 7 7 Pennsylvania 9 15 15 9 Ohio 8 13 10 11 New York 17 17 32 2 New Jersey 1 4 4 1 Wisconsin 3 1 2 Michigan 2 1 1 2 Massachusetts[11] 3 3 Illinois 1 6 1 6 Delaware 1 1 -- -- -- -- 50 77 75 52

Should the remaining 16 States be represented in the next Congress politically as at present, the Democratic majority would be about 30. In reference to the contingency of the next presidential election devolving upon the House, for lack of a choice by the people, 9 of the above States would go Democratic, five of them Whig, and one (the State of New York), would have no vote, its delegation being equally divided. The delegations of the same States in the present Congress are as follows, viz., 7 Whig, 7 Democratic, and one (Iowa) equally divided.

While such have been the results of the elections in the Northern States, and such the tone of public feeling there, a still warmer canvass has been going on throughout the South. We can only indicate the most prominent features of this excitement, as shown in the different Southern States.

In GEORGIA a State Convention of delegates is to assemble, by call of the Executive, under an act of the Legislature, at Milledgeville, on the 10th of December: and delegates are to be elected. The line of division is resistance, or submission, to the Federal Government. A very large public meeting was held at Macon, at which resolutions were adopted, declaring that, if the North would adhere to the terms of the late Compromise--if they would insure a faithful execution of the Fugitive Slave Bill, and put down all future agitation of the slavery question--then the people of the South will continue to live in the bonds of brotherhood, and unite in all proper legislative action for the preservation and perpetuity of our glorious Union. Hon. HOWELL COBB, Speaker of the House of Representatives, made a speech in support of these resolutions. Hon. A.H. STEPHENS, R. TOOMBS, Senator BERRIEN, and other distinguished gentlemen of both parties, have made efforts in the same direction, and public meetings have been held in several counties, at which similar sentiments were proclaimed. The general feeling in Georgia seems to be in favor of acquiescence in the recent legislation of Congress, provided the North will also acquiesce, and faithfully carry its acts into execution.

In SOUTH CAROLINA, the whole current of public feeling seems to be in favor of secession. At a meeting held at Greenville, on the 4th of November, Col. MEMMINGER made a speech, in which he expressed himself in favor of a Confederation of the Southern States, and if that could not be accomplished, then for South Carolina to secede from the Union, stand upon and defend her rights, and leave the issue in the hands of Him who ruleth the destinies of nations. He was answered by General WADDY THOMPSON, who depicted forcibly and eloquently the ruinous results of such a course as that advised, and repelled the charges of injustice urged against the Northern States. The meeting, however, adopted resolutions, almost unanimously, embodying the sentiments of Col. MEMMINGER. And the tone of the press throughout the state is of the same character.

In ALABAMA public opinion is divided. A portion of the people are in favor of resistance, and called upon Gov. COLLIER to convene a State Convention, to take the matter into consideration. The Governor has issued an address upon the subject, in which he declines to do so, at present, until the course of other Southern States shall have been indicated. He says that while all profess to entertain the purpose to resist aggression by the Federal Legislature on the great southern institution, public opinion is certainly not agreed as to the time or occasion when resistance should be interposed, or as to the mode or measure of it. He apprehends renewed efforts for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and pertinacious exertions for the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law; that California will be divided into several States, and that the North will thus acquire power enough so to amend the Federal Constitution as to take away the right of representation for the slaves--a result which he, of course, regards as fatal to the South. He believes that any State has a right to secede from the Union, at pleasure, but thinks that a large majority of the people of Alabama, are strongly disinclined to withdraw from the confederation, until other measures have been unsuccessfully tried to resist further aggression. Under these circumstances, he recommends the people of the State so to develop their resources, establish manufactures, schools, shipping houses, &c., as to become really independent of the North. This is the policy which, in his judgment, will prove most effectual in securing the rights, and protecting the interests of the South. Hon. Mr. HILLIARD has written a letter to the citizens of Mount Meigs, declaring that, though opposed to the admission of California, he sees nothing in the measures of the last session which would justify the people of the Southern States in resisting them, or furnish any ground for revolution. A very large mass meeting of the citizens of Montgomery county, held on the 20th of October, adopted resolutions, first reciting that a systematic and formidable organization is in progress in some of the Southern States, having for its object some form of violent resistance to the Compromise measures passed by Congress at its last session; and that if this resistance is carried out according to the plans of a portion of the citizens of the Southern States, it must, inevitably, lead to a dissolution of the Union; and that the Montgomery meeting, though they do not approve of them all, do not consider these measures as furnishing any sufficient and just cause for resistance; and then declaring, 1. That they will rally under the flag of the Union. 2. That they will support no man for any office, who is in favor of disunion, or secession, on account of any existing law or act of Congress. 3. That they acquiesce in the recent action of Congress. And, 4. That if the Compromise should be disturbed, they will unite with the South in such measures of resistance as the emergency may demand.

In MISSISSIPPI the contest is no less animated. It was brought on by the issuing of a proclamation by Gov. QUITMAN, calling a State Convention, for the purpose of taking measures of redress. A private letter, written by Gov. QUITMAN, has also been published, in which he avows himself in favor of secession. On the last Saturday in October, a mass meeting was held at Raymond, at which Col. JEFFERSON DAVIS was present, and made a speech. He was strongly in favor of resistance, but was not clear that it should be by _force_. He thought it possible to maintain the rights of the South in the Union. He was willing, however, to leave the mode of resistance entirely to the people, while he should follow their dictates implicitly. Mr. ANDERSON replied to him, and insisted that the Federal Government had committed no unconstitutional aggression upon the rights of the South, and that they ought, therefore, to acquiesce in the recent legislation of Congress. Senator FOOTE is actively engaged in canvassing the state, urging the same views. He meets very violent opposition in various sections.

In LOUISIANA indications of public sentiment are to be found in the position of the two United States Senators. Mr. DOWNS, in his public addresses, takes the ground that the South might as well secede because Illinois and Indiana are free States as because California is. He admits that California is a large State, but he says she is not half so large as Texas, a slave State, brought into the Union five years ago. Mr. SOULÉ, the other Senator, having expressed no opinion upon the subject, was addressed in a friendly note of inquiry first by Hon. C.N. STANTON, asking whether he was in favor of a dissolution of the Union, of the establishment of a Southern Confederacy, or of the secession of Louisiana, because of the late action of Congress. Mr. SOULÉ, in his reply, complains bitterly of the "vile abuse" heaped upon him, charges his correspondent with seeking his political destruction, and refers him to his speeches in the Senate for his sentiments upon these questions. A large number of the members of his own party then addressed to Mr. SOULÉ the same inquiries, saying that they did it from no feeling of unkindness, but merely to have a fair and proper comprehension of his opinions upon a most important public question. Mr. S., under date of Oct. 30, replies, refusing to answer their inquiries, and saying that their only object was to divide and distract the Democratic party. Senator DOWNS, in reply to the same questions, has given a full and explicit answer in the negative: he is not in favor of disunion or secession.

A letter written during the last session of Congress, dated January 7, 1850, from the Members of Congress from Louisiana, to the Governor of that State, has recently been published. It calls his attention to the constant agitation of the subject of slavery at the North, and to the fact that the legislature of every Northern State had passed resolutions deemed aggressive by the South, and urging the Governor to recommend the Legislature of Louisiana to join the other Southern States in resisting this action. The opinion is expressed that "decisive action on the part of the Southern States at the present crisis, is not only not dangerous to the Union, but that it is the best, many think, the only way of saving it."

Among the political events of the month is the publication of a correspondence between Hon. ISAAC HILL, long a leader of the Democratic party in New Hampshire, and Mr. WEBSTER, in regard to the efforts of the latter to preserve the peace and harmony of the Union by allaying agitation on the subject of slavery. Mr. HILL, under date of April 17, wrote to Mr. WEBSTER expressing his growing alarm at the progress of ill-feeling between the different sections of the country, and his conviction that "all that is of value in the sound discrimination and good sense of the American people will declare in favor of Mr. WEBSTER's great speech in the Senate upon that subject. Its author," he adds, "may stand upon that alone, and he will best stand by disregarding any and every imputation of alleged inconsistency and discrepancy of opinion and practice, in a public career of nearly half a century." Mr. WEBSTER, in acknowledging the letter, speaks of it as "an extraordinary and gratifying incident in his life," coming as it did from one who had long "belonged to an opposite political party, espoused opposite measures, and supported for high office men of very different political opinions." They had not differed, however, in their devotion to the Union; and now, that its harmony is threatened, it was gratifying to see that both concurred in the measures necessary for its preservation. His effort, he says, had been and would be to cause the billows of useless and dangerous controversy to sleep and be still. He was ready to meet all the consequences which are likely to follow the attempt to moderate public feeling in highly excited times, and he cheerfully left the speech to which Mr. HILL had alluded, "with the principles and sentiments which it avows, to the judgment of posterity."

A public dinner was given to the Hon. JOHN M. CLAYTON on the 16th of November, by the Whigs of Delaware, at Wilmington, at which Mr. C. made a long and eloquent speech in vindication of the policy pursued by the late President TAYLOR and his Administration. He paid a very high tribute to the personal character, moral firmness, patriotism, and sagacity of the late President, and vindicated his course from the objections which have been urged against it. He expressed full confidence in the perpetuity of the Union, and ridiculed the apprehensions that have been so widely entertained of its dissolution. A large number of guests were present, and letters were read from many distinguished gentlemen who had been invited but were unable to attend. Preferences were expressed at the meeting for Gen. SCOTT as a candidate for the Presidency in 1852.

Colonel RICHARD M. JOHNSON, Vice President of the United States for four years from 1836, died at Frankfort, Ky., on the 19th of November, aged 70. He has been a member of Congress, and Senator of the United States from Kentucky, and acquired distinction under General Harrison in the Indian war of 1812. At the time of his death he was a member of the Kentucky Legislature.

GREAT BRITAIN.

The event of the month which has excited most interest, has been the establishment by the Pope of Roman Catholic jurisdiction in England. The Pope has issued an Apostolic Letter, dated September 24th, which begins by reciting the steps taken hitherto for the promotion of the Catholic faith in England. Having before his eyes the efforts made by his predecessors, and desirous of imitating their zeal, and carrying forward to completion the work which they commenced, and considering that every day the obstacles are falling off which stood in the way of the extension of the Catholic religion, Pius IX. believes that the time has come when the form of government should be resumed in England such as it exists in other nations. He thinks it no longer necessary that England should be governed by Vicars Apostolic, but that she should be furnished with the ordinary episcopal form of government. Being confirmed in these thoughts by the desires expressed by the Vicars Apostolic, the clergy and laity, and the great body of English Catholics, and, also, by the advice of the Cardinals forming the Congregation for Propagating the Faith, the Pope decrees the re-establishment in England of a hierarchy of bishops, deriving their titles from their own Sees, which he constitutes in the various Apostolic districts. He then proceeds to erect England into one archiepiscopal province of the Romish church, and divides that province into thirteen bishoprics.

The promulgation of this letter created throughout England a feeling of angry surprise, and nearly the whole of London has teemed with the most emphatic and earnest condemnation of the measure. In order somewhat to mitigate the alarm of startled Protestantism, Dr. Ullathorne, an eminent Catholic divine, has published a letter to show that the act is solely between the Pope and his spiritual subjects, who have been recognized as such by the English Emancipation Act, and that it does not in the slightest degree interfere with the laws of England, in all temporal matters. He shows that the jurisdiction which the Pope has asserted in England, is nothing more than has been exercised by every communion in the land, and that nothing can be more unfair than to confound this measure, which is really one of liberality to the Catholics of England, with ideas of aggression on the English government and people. In 1688, he says, England was divided into four vicariates. In 1840, the four were again divided into eight; and, in 1850, they are again divided and changed into thirteen. This has been done in consequence of efforts begun by the Catholics of England, in 1846, and continued until the present time. By changing the Vicars Apostolic into Bishops in ordinary, the Pope has given up the exercise of a portion of his power, and transferred it to the bishops. This letter, with other papers of a similar tenor, has somewhat modified the feeling of indignation with which the Pope's proceeding was at first received, and attention has been turned to the only fact of real importance connected with the matter, namely, the rapid and steady increase of the Roman Catholics, by conversions from the English Established Church. The _Daily News_, in a paper written with marked ability, charges this increase upon the secret Catholicism of many of the younger clergy, encouraged by ecclesiastical superiors, upon the negligent administration of other clergymen, and upon the exclusive character of the Universities. Very urgent demands are made by the press, and by the clergy of the Established Church, for the interference of the Government against the Pope's invasion of the rights of England; but no indications have yet been given of any intention on the part of ministers to take any action upon the subject.

A good deal of attention has been attracted to a speech made by Lord STANLEY, the leader of the Protectionist party in England, at a public dinner, Oct. 4th, in which he urged the necessity, on the part of the agricultural interests of the kingdom, of adapting themselves to the free-trade policy, instead of laboring in vain for its repeal. The speech has been very widely regarded as an abandonment of the protective policy by its leading champion, and it is, of course, considered as a matter of marked importance with reference to the future policy of Great Britain upon this subject. The Marquis of Granby, on the other hand, at the annual meeting of the Waltham Agricultural Society, held on the 19th of October, again urged the necessity of returning to the old system of protection, and exhorted reliance on a future Parliament for its accomplishment. The subject of agriculture is attracting an unusual degree of attention, and the various issues connected with it, form a standard topic of discussion in the leading journals.

The Tenant Right question continues to be agitated with great earnestness and ability in Ireland. A deputation from the Ulster Tenant Right Provincial Committee waited on the Earl of Clarendon during his visit to Belfast to present an address. The earl declined to receive them, but wrote a letter, dated Sept. 18, in reply to one inclosing a copy of the address. He expressed great satisfaction at the prevalence of order and at the evidence of agricultural prosperity, and assured them of the wish of the government to settle the rights of tenants on a just and satisfactory basis. A great Tenant Right meeting was held at Meath, October 10th, at which some 15,000 persons are said to have been present.

The Committee of Prelates appointed by the Synod of Thurles to carry into execution the project of establishing a Catholic University in Ireland, on the model of the Catholic University at Louvain, have resolved that regular monthly collections, on the plan of that for the Propagation of the Faith, be made throughout the kingdom by local committees, of which the parochial clergy are to be ex-officio members. They have published a long address to the Catholics of Ireland, insisting on the grave evils to faith and morals of separating religion from secular education, and calling loudly for support to their projected establishment.

The month has been distinguished in England by an extraordinary prevalence of crime. Murders, burglaries, and other offenses against the law have been frequent beyond all former experience. The details of these incidents it is not worth while to give. The Household Narrative gives a chapter, written after the manner of Ledru Rollin, in which the state of England during the month of October is presented in a most unpromising light. The writer says that, notwithstanding the gloominess of the picture, every fact stated in it is true, and every inference is false. There have also been an unusual number of accidents during the month.

Miss Howard, of York Place, has assigned over to trustees £45,000, for the erection of twenty-one houses on her property at Pinner, near Harrow, in the form of a crescent; the centre-house for the trustees, the other twenty houses for the use of twenty widows, who are to occupy them free of rent and taxes, and also to receive £50 a year clear of all deductions. The widows of naval men to have the preference, then those of military men, and, lastly, those of clergymen. This is justly chronicled as an act of munificent charity.

The Free Grammar School at Richmond, erected as a testimonial to the memory of the late Canon Tate, who was one of the most successful teachers in England, was opened with much ceremony on the 3d of October.

A Temperance Festival was held on the 14th, at the London Tavern. The company, between five and six hundred, were entertained with tea, speeches, and temperance melodies. The principal speaker was Mr. George Cruikshank, the celebrated artist, who was vehemently applauded.

Negotiations have been entered into with the Lords of the Admiralty and Government authorities for the establishment of a Submarine Telegraph across St. George's Channel, upon a similar though much more extensive scale to that now being undertaken between England and France. From the extreme western coast of Ireland to Halifax, the nearest telegraphic station in America, the distance is 2155 miles; and as this might be accomplished by the steamers in five or six days, it is apprehended that England, by means of telegraphic communication, may be put in possession of intelligence from America in six days, instead of as now in twelve or fourteen.

The QUEEN and Prince ALBERT have returned from their visit to Scotland. They remained at Balmoral till the 10th Oct., on the morning of which day they departed for the South. They arrived at Edinburgh about seven in the evening. Preparations had been made to give a loyal welcome; and among the features of the demonstration, was a bonfire piled to the height of forty feet on the summit of Arthur's Seat. The blazing mass consisted of thirty tons of coal, a vast quantity of wood saturated with oil and turpentine, and a thousand tar-barrels. It was kindled at five o'clock, and the flames are said to have been seen by the Queen for many miles of her route on both sides of the Forth. The party left Edinburgh next morning, and arrived in the evening at Buckingham Palace; and on Saturday, the 12th, they went to Osborne.

Intelligence has been received from the Arctic Expedition in search of Sir John Franklin. The North Star, which went out as a tender-ship to the expedition of Sir John Clark Ross a year and a half ago, returned unexpectedly to Spithead on the 28th of September, bringing dispatches from the ships of the four expeditions which went out early this year. The Prince Albert, a ship dispatched in July last, under Captain Forsyth, to make a special search beyond Brentford Bay, returned to Aberdeen on the 29th ult. Dispatches from Captain Ommaney, Captain Penny, Sir John Ross, and Captain Forsyth, have been published by the Admiralty; but they throw little or no light on the fate of the missing voyagers.

The British Government has decided to send all letters and newspapers for the United States by the first steamer, whether American or English. Hitherto they have invariably been detained for a British steamer, unless specially marked for transmission by the American line.

A Dublin paper states that Dr. WISEMAN, who has been made Archbishop of Westminster by the Pope, is a native of Seville, where his parents, who are natives of Waterford, Ireland, resided several years. His father was a wine-merchant in Andalusia.

The Lord Mayor of York gave a splendid entertainment to the Lord Mayor of London, on the 25th of October, which was attended by a great number of the leading men of England. Prince Albert was present, and made a very sensible and pertinent extempore speech. Its leading feature was a marked and impressive eulogy on Sir Robert Peel. In alluding to the interest taken by Sir Robert in the great Industrial Exhibition, Prince Albert took occasion to say that he had assurances of the most reliable character that the works in preparation for the great Exhibition were "such as to dispel all apprehension for the position which British industry will maintain."

At the meeting of the Canford Estate Agricultural Show on the 22d of October, the lady of Sir John Guest made a brief but most admirable speech, expressing her regard for the laboring classes of England, and her earnest desire that the utmost efforts should be made for their elevation and improvement. This unusual incident, and the admirable spirit which it evinced, elicited great applause.

The Town Council of Manchester are taking vigorous steps to compel the manufacturers of that city to consume the smoke of their furnaces, and thus to rid the city of the dense cloud which has hung over it hitherto. The process is found to be perfectly practicable, and decidedly economical. Some of the heaviest manufacturing establishments in the city testify to a saving of _one-third_ in coal. The issue of the experiment will be important.

The rapid increase of burglaries and thefts in Birmingham has elicited from Mr. D.H. Hill a suggestion for the suppression of crime, which is regarded as pertinent and important by the leading journals. He proposes that whenever a jury is satisfied that an accused party is addicted to theft, he shall be compelled to prove a good character, and to show means of subsistence, on penalty of being adjudged a thief, and punished accordingly, under an old statute.

Emigration from Ireland to the United States continues and increases. A great part of those who leave are described by the Irish papers as being farmers of the most respectable class, and considerable apprehensions are expressed of the injurious effect of the movement on the prosperity of the country.

A letter from BRAZIL, written by Lieut. BAILEY of the royal navy, details some rather prompt proceedings on his part in the capture of slavers. He was sent out to the Brazil station, and arrived off Rio Janeiro June 18th, and in sight of the harbor captured a vessel engaged in slave-trading, and sank her the same night. On the 20th, he captured a second, and sent her to St. Helena for adjudication; and on the 23d, he seized another, taking her out of a Brazilian port, which has hitherto been contrary to law. The affair excited a good deal of feeling in Brazil, and was likely to lead to a misunderstanding with the English government. The effect of such proceedings, in exasperating a government which might be induced by friendly appeals to put an end to slave-trading, is forcibly urged.

The Paris correspondent of the London Times has developed an alleged secret plot of the Red Republicans, to revive the revolutionary fever throughout Europe, and the substance of his statements is also given in the Paris _Patrie_--both accounts being evidently derived from the same source. It is asserted that the Socialists have leagued themselves together and that a secret congress of their chiefs was held in Paris on the 2d of June, where they planned a gigantic conspiracy, the ramifications of which extend to the whole of Europe, and even to the heart of Russia, where it is said to menace a terrible explosion. The motto which has been adopted is, "_Sans pitié ni merci_," and it has been resolved that all the chiefs of states shall be assassinated. It is added that in one of the numerous secret meetings held by the initiated under the presidency of the principal agents, the death of the Bonapartists was sworn, and would be the signal for the destruction of all the Bourbons, and of all their friends and supporters. The threat uttered by one of the German chiefs of the conspiracy was to the effect that "on the field of battle we shall spare no one, and we will strike down our dearest friends if they are not unconditional Communists." After indicating the dépôts of arms formed by the Communist conspirators in all the capitals where it has established seats, enumerating the means employed to ensnare the foolish and the ambitious, and, in fact, indicating all its resources and all its plans, the document informs us that the object of the conspiracy is to arrive, by means of general confusion and a sanguinary combat, at the extermination of all those who possess a foot of land, or a coupon of _rente_, and that it has sworn the oath of Hannibal against all the monarchies of Europe. _Plunder and assassination form the basis of the plan._ The document terminates thus, "The soil of Europe is undermined, so as to render a frightful catastrophe imminent." The pretended revelation is ridiculed in nearly all quarters.

On the destruction of the Roman Republic, the Roman Representatives appointed a National Committee, of which Mazzini was the head, with extensive political powers. This committee has just issued an address, dated at London, calling on all Italians and all Italian provinces to join their standard, promising them eventual success. In the course of the address they declare that they have effected such an organization of the forces of the movement as circumstances permit, and insist on the necessity of Italy becoming an independent nation.

We have hitherto alluded to the public agitation started in the British Colony of New South Wales in favor of independence, by Dr. Lang, who had organized an association for the purpose of accomplishing the object which he declared to be so desirable. The movement has been represented by the English papers as being unsupported by the colonists, and as, therefore, of no importance. We see, however, that Dr. Lang has recently been elected mayor of the City of Sydney, which shows that the people there, at least, have confidence in his character and respect for his views.

FRANCE.

Nothing important has occurred in France during the month, except a change in the War Department, growing out of the supposed efforts of the President to attach the army to his interests. On the 3d of October the President reviewed a great body of troops near Versailles. He was accompanied by the Minister of War, and by General Roguet, his aid-de-camp. General Changarnier left Paris an hour before the President. Though entitled to take the command he did not do so, General Neumayer acting in his room. After the review the President gave a collation to the officers and non-commissioned officers, and ordered 13,000 rations to be distributed to the soldiers. The President joined the collation given to the general officers, but General Changarnier declined being present, and returned to Paris. The frequency of these reviews, the manner in which the troops were feasted by the President, the manifestations made by the soldiers, and the rumor that a difference of opinion existed between the President and General Changarnier on the subject, led to an extraordinary meeting of the Commission of Permanence. The Minister of War, General Hautpoul, having been called on to explain the circumstances with reference to the late reviews, replied that he wished to inform the Commission that he held no command from the Assembly, and that, consequently, he could deny the right of the Commission to put any questions to him. He, however, waived these objections; and, in reply to the question, said that the accounts published in the papers respecting the reviews were grossly exaggerated; and that nothing whatever had occurred there of an unconstitutional or an unmilitary character. The Minister further observed that it would be impossible to publish an order of the day preventing the soldiers from expressing their feelings of attachment and respect to the chief of the State, and if it were possible he would not do so. With respect to the review that was to take place on the following Thursday, he pledged himself for the maintenance of the most complete tranquillity on that occasion. When the Commission was about to separate, the President again addressed the Minister of War, and said, "General Hautpoul, I am desired by the committee to apprise you that in case General Changarnier be removed from his command, or that any other steps be taken against him, we are determined to convoke, forthwith, the Legislative Assembly." To this the Minister made no reply, and the Commission adjourned.

On Thursday the 10th, the review referred to by the Minister of War took place. There were 25,000 troops, chiefly cavalry. The President was accompanied by General Hautpoul, the Minister of War, and several other general officers, besides his usual brilliant staff. When the defiling of the troops in front of the President took place, he was loudly hailed by part of the cavalry, who cried "Vive l'Empereur!" "Vive Napoleon!" After the troops had defiled, the usual refreshments were served out to them, and the President, accompanied by his staff, paid a visit to the camp, but General Changarnier left the ground.

The _Proces-verbal_ of the meeting of the Council of Permanence, held on the 12th, drawn up by M. Dupin to the President, was to the following effect: The violation of the promises made by the Minister of War, and the unconstitutional manifestations, provoked or tolerated, are severely blamed. The committee did not think proper to invite the Minister of War to give further explanations. Deploring the incidents of the review, it still expressed complete confidence in the loyalty of the army, and is satisfied that the cries were not spontaneous on the part of the soldiers, but instigated by certain officers. In order to avoid alarming the country in the absence of imminent peril, it has not deemed proper to convoke the Assembly; but it deeply disapproves reviews so frequent, into which habits altogether unusual and foreign to military traditions have been so boldly introduced.

As a sequel to these disputes, General Hautpoul has found it necessary to resign his place in the government, and has gone to Algeria as governor of that colony. He is succeeded as Minister of War by General Schramm. Soon after the accession of the latter, an official notification appeared in the _Moniteur_ that General Neumayer had been removed from the command of the 1st division and appointed to the 15th. The reason given for this removal is said to be that General N., at the last review at Satory, expressly enjoined the troops not to give utterance to any cry whatever, deeming silence to be more strictly in accordance with the regulations of the army, and in conformity, too, with the instructions he had received from the Commander-in-Chief. This, it is said, much displeased both Louis Napoleon and the Minister of War. At all events, General Changarnier was greatly offended at the removal, and a complete breach has occurred between him and the President. He refuses to resign until the Assembly shall have passed judgment in the matter.

THE DANISH WAR.

The war between _Denmark and the Duchies_ is bloody and disastrous. The army of Schleswig-Holstein has made several attempts to take the city of Friedrichstadt by storm, none of which have been successful, and the losses sustained by General Willisen have been considerable, particularly in officers. After bombarding part of the town during the whole of the 4th of October, the town was in the evening attacked by two battalions of infantry and a detachment of riflemen. After a desperate struggle, in which both sides must have suffered very heavy losses, the Danes gave way a little, but only to seek the cover of new entrenchments and barricades thrown up in the middle of the town. The resistance which they met with here was so violent and determined, that notwithstanding the most brilliant bravery, the Schleswig-Holsteiners were compelled to retire at midnight. They took up a new position somewhat in advance of the old, and the conflict was renewed on the following morning, but with no better success. The fighting continued till near midnight. Sixteen officers out of twenty belonging to the 5th battalion were slain. General Christiansen covered the retreat with his battery, while the flames of the burning city cast a ghastly light upon the retiring troops. After the failure of this desperate assault, General Willisen withdrew his troops from before Friedrichstadt. The heavy guns were taken back to Rendsburg, and the two armies were again in the same position they occupied before the 29th of September; the only result having been the almost total destruction of the unfortunate town, and the loss of many brave men on both sides.

The Danish journals of the 16th state that orders have been issued for the return to Copenhagen of all the Danish ships of war, except the smaller craft, in consequence of the advanced season of the year, and its accompanying storms, which render it nearly impossible for vessels to hold to the coast.

A rumor has obtained currency through the _Times_ that the aid extended to the Schleswig-Holsteiners by Prussia, has led to the interference of Russia and of France, and that these two powers have jointly proposed to England that the three powers shall peremptorily require Prussia to fulfill her recent engagement with Denmark, and withdraw the support she still continues to give to the Schleswig-Holstein army. In the event of Prussia hesitating to comply with this reasonable demand, Russia and France are prepared to back it, by an invasion of the Silesian provinces of Prussia on the one side, and the Rhenish on the other. The British Government, in reply, it is said, declines to join with Russia and France in such a note as that described, but proposes that all three powers shall separately remonstrate with Prussia on her present breach of faith with the Danish Government. These rumors have created a good deal of interest and anxiety, as threatening the peace of Europe.

INDIA AND CHINA.

The accounts from India are from Bombay to October 3, and from Calcutta to September 21st. Great preparations were on foot for the great Industrial Exhibition at London. The Maharajah has ordered specimens of every kind of Cashmerian product to be got ready without delay. The shawls intended for the purpose are described as remarkably splendid. The heir to the throne, Rajah Runheer Singh, having heard of the distinguished "success" at London of the Nepaul Envoy, is anxious to visit England himself; but the prospect of a disputed succession, in the event of his father's death, will probably keep him at home.

The whole of _British India_ was tranquil, but the petty civil war on the Nizam's borders still continued.

The native state of _Oude_ seems inclined to rival the Nizam's territories in anarchy and misgovernment. Some months since an English officer was killed and two guns lost in an attack on the fort of a refractory vassal of the King of Oude. A second event of the same nature has occurred. The Rajah of Esanuggur had shown himself for some time unwilling to pay the portion of revenue due from him to the Oude government, and in endeavoring to obtain these dues from him, Lieut. P. Orr, with a small party, had a brisk fight, each side losing a considerable number. Lieut. Orr was forced to retreat, and took refuge in the districts of a rival Rajah.

The present aspect of the _Punjaub_ is most encouraging; the population, now disarmed, have settled down into their former habits of industry. The breadth of land under cultivation this season is said to be unprecedented, and the crops are every where most promising.

The most important piece of intelligence from _Hong-Kong_ is the continuation of the fearful mortality among the British troops. This mortality was chiefly in the 59th regiment, which had lost ninety men in about two months. This sickness, therefore, is ascribed to the unhealthiness of the barracks and the want of sufficient sanitary precautions. The mortality, however, had begun to abate.

A formidable _insurrection_ against the Chinese government had broken out in the province of Kwang-si. The leader, who is named Li-ting-pang, is said to be at the head of 50,000 men. He has assumed the title borne by the highest Tartar generals, and threatens to exterminate the present, and restore the old Chinese dynasty.

In Bombay, the culture of cotton is rapidly extending. Two years ago, the whole of the land under cultivation with American cotton in that Presidency, was under twenty thousand acres. At the present moment the quantity exceeds one hundred thousand acres, and there is every certainty of a rapid increase taking place.

At a court martial held in Bombay, Lieut. Rose was found guilty of a want of spirit, in applying to the civil power for an escort of police to protect him from Mr. Lang, editor of the Mofussilite, with whom he had a quarrel. He was sentenced to be reprimanded by Sir Charles Napier, and to lose his staff appointment.

TURKEY.

The question as to the Hungarian refugees is not yet arranged. Numerous communications have taken place on this subject between the Porte and the Austrian internuncio, and a recent conference has been held between the British embassador and General Aupick. The Divan, considering itself pledged to Austria by its anterior declaration, is unwilling to break, inconsiderately, an engagement of this nature, by which its relations with the Court of Vienna might be gravely compromised. In order, therefore, to conciliate all parties, the Porte has written on this subject to its embassador at Vienna, directing him to confer with the Austrian Cabinet on the modifications that it may be possible and desirable to make in the situation of the refugees. The Russian Minister affects not to interfere in this affair, but, notwithstanding this, it is obvious to every one that he is in private communication with the Austrian internuncio. The Turkish fleet, which had been for some time cruising in the Archipelago, has returned to Constantinople.

TUSCANY.

The Representative Constitution and the Liberty of the Press have been destroyed in _Tuscany_. On the 23d Sept. two Decrees were promulgated; the first announced the dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies and declared that till a fresh convocation of the legislature, all power would be exercised by the Grand Duke in the Council of State. The second declared that no journal or periodical should be published without first obtaining the written authorization of the Minister of the Interior, to whom the names and other circumstances of the director and of the proprietor of the printing establishment are to be communicated.

EASTERN AND SOUTHERN EUROPE.

A frightful calamity has occurred at the place of pilgrimage called Herrgott, in _Austria_. At one of the public-houses the pilgrims (of whom there were 3000 assembled at Herrgott) were spending the night in eating and drinking. While baking the fish the oven took fire. Behind the inn were a number of stables and barns, in which hundreds of the pilgrims were reposing, and almost all perished in the flames. Scarcely half of the pilgrims were saved, and those who survived have for the most part been much injured.

From _Poland_ there is a singular account of a forest on fire. Near Cracow, adjoining the line of railway, there is a large peat ground, part of which runs below an immense forest. Some sparks from a locomotive engine were blown in that direction, and fell on the peat. A few days after, the ground in the forest was found to be very warm, and some rumbling and crackling noises were heard. Several large trees fell as if cut down by an ax, and the leaves of others withered. As it was naturally considered that a subterranean fire must be burning under the forest, the officers charged with the inspection of it caused large trenches to be cut. This conjecture turned out to be well-founded, for the fire soon afterward burst forth, and still continued its ravages. The forest presented the appearance of a vast sea of flame, which was every day extending. The country round to the extent of six leagues was perfectly illuminated, and it has been found impossible to stop the progress of the fire.

The long expected Constitution for Galicia has at length appeared. That Crown land will have three districts, Cracow, Lemberg, and Stanislawow--each with a separate administration. In Cracow the specific Polish, and in Stanislawow the Ruthennian element is prevalent. Lemberg, the capital of Galicia, is the seat of the Provincial Government. In the Lemberg district the two branches of the same race (the Sclavonic) are mixed.

The Constitution for the Bukowina has also been published. This remote Crown land is divided into six districts or captaincies, which are under the immediate control of the Stadtholder of the province, who has still to be appointed. Count Goluchowski had been sworn in as Stadtholder of Galicia.

Letters from Ravenna, in the _Genoa Gazette_, give appalling accounts of the progress of brigandage in the Roman states. Two persons, considered as spies by the bandits, had been decapitated by them in the vicinity of the above-mentioned town, and their heads placed on poles at a cross-road. The diligence of Imola has lately been stopped and robbed of 1000 scudi (5500f.) belonging to the Pope. At Lugo, three individuals carried off 11,000f. from a bank, and passed triumphantly through the town with their booty, without any one daring to stop them.

An extensive conspiracy has recently been discovered at Teheran. The most influential members of the clergy were at the head of it, and its object was to overthrow the present Shah, to replace him by a descendant of Ali, and to drive all the Turks out of Persia. Numerous arrests have been made at Teheran, and in the principal towns. The greater number of those arrested belong to the body of Ulemas.

LETTERS, SCIENCE, ART, PUBLIC MEN, ETC.

UNITED STATES.

The past month has not been marked by any movements of importance in any of these departments. Our publishers have generally confined their issues to works especially intended for the holiday season. Most of our public men have been recruiting themselves from the fatigues of the late protracted session of Congress, or preparing, by taking part in the political canvass, for the session that is at hand. Mr. CLAY was received at Lexington with abundant demonstrations of enthusiastic personal and political affection. He has remained at home during the vacation.

Mr. WEBSTER has been spending some weeks at his farm in Marshfield, and at his native town, Franklin, N.H. During his stay at the latter place a number of his old friends and neighbors paid him a visit, and sat down to an old-fashioned dinner, at which friendly greetings were exchanged with their distinguished host. The occasion was one of rare enjoyment. Mr. WEBSTER's health has been very sensibly benefited by this greatly needed interval of relaxation from public duties. In some remarks made at an informal meeting with some friends in Boston, Mr. W. said that for six months during the last session of Congress, he had not slept two hours any one night.

A public dinner was recently given at Boston to AMIN BEY, the Turkish Envoy to the United States, by some of the merchants of Boston. THOMAS B. CURTIS presided, and a large number of distinguished guests were present. AMIN BEY replied to a toast complimentary to the Sultan, by expressing his warm sense of the friendliness with which he had been received in this country, and his earnest desire for an extension of commerce and of mutual kind offices between his own government and that of the United States. Mr. WEBSTER made a brief and eloquent response to a toast thanking him for his efforts in behalf of the Union. In the course of his remarks he said that "the slavery question New England could only interfere with as a meddler: she had no more to do with it than she had with the municipal government of a city in the Island of Cuba." Very eloquent speeches, breathing similar sentiments, were made by EDWARD EVERETT, Mr. WINTHROP, and others and J.P. BROWN Esq., the interpreter of AMIN BEY, responded happily to a toast complimenting Hon. GEORGE P. MARSH the American Minister at Constantinople. Mr. BROWN said that as a diplomatist and a scholar Mr. Marsh enjoyed, in an eminent degree, the respect and esteem of the enlightened young Sultan of Turkey, and all his Ministers.

M. ALEXANDRE VATTEMARE, who is known as the founder of the system of International Exchanges, has taken leave of the United States in a very warm and eloquent address, expressing his gratitude for the kindness of his reception, his brilliant anticipations of the great results which time will develop from the system to which he has devoted his life, and commending it to the favor and aid of the American people. The world has seen few instances of rarer or more disinterested devotion to high public objects than this amiable and enthusiastic gentleman has exhibited.

The statue of JOHN C. CALHOUN, made by POWERS for the City of Charleston, and which was lost by shipwreck off Fire Island, has been recovered, and sent forward to its destination. The left arm was broken off at the elbow: with this exception it was uninjured.

At a recent meeting of the Academy of Design in New York, it was stated by the president, Mr. DURAND, that the institution had incurred a considerable debt beyond its resources, and mentioned a proposition that the artists connected with it should paint pictures to be disposed of for the benefit of the Academy. In regard to the mode of disposing of them a raffle was suggested: but Mr. COZZENS, the President of the Art-Union, being present as an honorary member, at once offered to purchase them at such a price as might be fixed upon them by the Academy. The proposition was at once accepted, and has given great and general satisfaction as an indication of good feeling between two institutions which have been sometimes represented as hostile to each other.

Mr. WM. D. GALLAGHER, who is very favorably known as a literary gentleman of ability, has received the appointment of confidential clerk in the Treasury Department at Washington.

Mr. WILLIAM W. STORY, son of the late Judge STORY, has recently returned from Italy, where he has been perfecting himself in the art of sculpture, for which he abandoned the profession of law a few years since. He brought with him a number of very beautiful models made while at Rome. He has executed a bust of the distinguished jurist, his father, for the Inner Temple, London. He will return to Rome in the spring.

We understand that the painting and gilding of white china, imported from England and France, is engaging considerable attention in this country, and that there is one establishment in Boston where above a hundred persons are constantly employed.

Prof. FILOPANTI, an Italian scholar of some distinction, has been delivering a series of lectures in New York, on the Influence of Secret Societies on the Revolutions of Ancient and Modern Rome.

Hon. DANIEL D. BARNARD has sailed for Europe to enter upon his duties as American Minister at Berlin. Previous to his departure his fellow citizens of Albany addressed him a very complimentary letter, expressing their regret at the loss of his society, and their admiration of his character. Mr. B. is one of the most cultivated and scholarly of American statesmen.

It is stated, though we know not upon what authority, that Col. BLISS is preparing a History of the Campaigns of General TAYLOR. Such a work would be of great value and interest, historically and in a literary point of view.

G.P.R. JAMES, Esq., is delivering his lectures on the History of Civilization in different northern cities. He intends to spend the winter at the South. He has placed one of his sons at Yale College, and the other in the Law School at New Haven.

Mr. CRAWFORD, the American sculptor, is soon to commence modeling the statue of Washington, which our government has commissioned him to execute. From a granite basement, in the form of a star of six rays, rises a pedestal, upon which stands the equestrian statue, in bronze, sixteen feet in height. The six points of the star are to be surmounted with six colossal figures. The casting will be executed either at Paris or Munich.

Steps have been taken to erect a suitable monument to the memory of General WARREN. A committee of which Mr. Everett was chairman have reported in favor of a statue to be placed in Faneuil Hall, Boston.

A bust of ETHAN ALLEN has just been completed by a Vermont artist, Mr. KINNEY. He had a great deal of difficulty in procuring an accurate likeness; the grandson of Allen, Colonel HITCHCOCK of the army, is said to bear a striking personal resemblance to the old hero.

The Bulletin of the American Art-Union contains information concerning American Artists which has personal interest:--

DURAND has not yet removed from his residence on the Hudson. KENSETT and CHAMPNEY have been sketching among the White Hills of New Hampshire. CROPSEY is at his country studio, at Greenwood Lake. CHURCH and GIGNOUX have returned from the coast of Maine with their portfolios well stocked with sketches. RANNEY continues to work upon his picture of _Marion, with his Army, crossing the Pedee_, which will soon be completed. MATTESON, now residing at Sherburne, has nearly finished a picture representing _A Trial Scene in the Backwoods_, which, it is said, will advance his reputation. JONES, a sculptor who has a high reputation at the West, has removed to New York; he has already modeled busts of General Taylor, Lewis Cass, Henry Clay, Thomas Corwin, and other notabilities, and is now employed on a spirited head of General Scott, at the order of some friends in Detroit.

EDWIN WHITE is diligently pursuing his studies in Paris. HALL, we believe, has also gone to Paris from Düsseldorf. PAGE has arrived in Florence, which place he intends to make his residence for several months. He has formed a warm intimacy with POWERS, whose portrait he is painting. WHITRIDGE and MCCONKEY have lately sent home several pictures which indicate improvement, although they are somewhat tinged with the mannerism of the Düsseldorf school, where these artists have been studying so long. They propose to leave Germany very soon, and after visiting Italy and France, to return home in the spring. LEUTZE is at work on his great picture of _Washington Crossing the Delaware_. The size of this painting is the same with that of those in the Rotunda of the Capitol, twelve feet by eighteen feet. It will probably be completed in the spring, when the artist intends to accompany it to this country, from which he has been absent now about ten years. UPJOHN, the architect was, by the last accounts, in Venice. GLASS has returned to his residence at Kensington, near London, from the neighborhood of Haddon Hall, where he has been assiduously engaged in sketching. He is at work upon a group of paintings, illustrative of scenes in the wars of the Stuarts. He is an artist of decided merit and increasing reputation.

GREAT BRITAIN.

In ENGLAND very few books of special value or interest have been published or announced. The most important book of the month is the first part of a very able and laborious compilation on _Commercial Law_ by Mr. LEONE LEVI. The object of the entire undertaking, is to survey the principles and administration of all the various commercial laws of foreign countries, with a view to a direct comparison with the mercantile law of Great Britain. Mr. Levi appears to have been engaged for years, with this object, in correspondence with the merchants of upward of fifty countries remarkable more or less for distinct and separate commercial usages; and to have obtained in every instance the information he sought. His ultimate object, is the establishment of a national and international code of commerce among all civilized countries, rejecting what is inconvenient or unjust in all, and retaining and codifying what is best in each.

A life of WORDSWORTH, by the Rev. Christopher Wordsworth, is announced as in press. Its appearance will be awaited with interest.

M. MAZZINI has just republished his letters, orations, and other tracts on Italy, with an eloquent and earnest appeal to the English people, in a small volume entitled _Royalty and Republicanism in Italy_. M. Mazzini repels in this book the charge so often brought against him of having distracted and divided the forces of his native country, at the time when they ought to have been concentrated on the paramount duty of driving out the Austrians.

A curious incident connected with American History is mentioned in the closing volume of SOUTHEY's Life, which has just been published in London. While JARED SPARKS was examining the state papers in the public offices of the British Government, so much matter was ferreted out that the government "wished to tell its own story," and SOUTHEY adds, that his "pulse was felt," but he declined writing it on the ground that others could perform the task as well, and he had other engagements on hand.

SOUTHEY, in 1829, declined a proposal from Fraser to write a popular history of English literature in four volumes. It is to be regretted that he did not write such a work.

In a letter to a friend, speaking of the Foreign Review, SOUTHEY says that of its contributors, he "only knows that _an Edinburgh person_, by name Carlyle, has written the most striking papers on German literature." This style of reference to one who is now one of the most eminent English writers, strikes a reader as curious. In the same letter he speaks of Heraud, as "a man of extraordinary powers, and not less extraordinary industry and ardor."

In 1835, Sir ROBERT PEEL wrote to SOUTHEY, informing him that he had advised the king to "adorn the distinction of the baronetage with a name the most eminent in literature, and which had claims to respect and honor which literature alone could never confer"--that of SOUTHEY himself. He accompanied this with a private letter, begging to know if there was any way in which the possession of power would enable him to be of service to Mr. SOUTHEY. The latter replied, in a letter marked by the utmost propriety, declining the baronetcy, as he had not the means of supporting it, and asking for an increase of his pension, which was then £200. Sir Robert soon after added to this a new pension of £300, on a public principle, "the recognition of literary and scientific eminence as a public claim." He conferred, at the same time, a similar pension on Professor Airey, of Cambridge, Mrs. Somerville, Sharon Turner, and James Montgomery.

The _Athenæum_ says that an experiment, set on foot by the liberality of a few humane persons in the vicinity of London, has proved conclusively that the number of idiots exceeds that of lunatics, and that very much may be done, not only to promote their physical comfort, but to bring the small germs of intellect which exist even in the most imbecile minds, into intelligent and useful activity. Encouraged by this success, they have appealed to the public for aid in establishing an institution for the relief of that unfortunate class. They propose to erect a building suitable for three hundred patients.

The proprietors of the Marine Telegraph between England and France propose, instead of laying a wire like the one which the storm broke recently, to have new wires inclosed in ropes of four or five inches in diameter--the first layer being made of gutta percha, and the outer one of iron wire, all chemically prepared to resist the action of water and the attacks of marine animalculæ. In each cable there will be four lines of communication, and two cables will be laid down at a distance of three miles apart, to provide for any accident that may happen to one of them. The whole, it is said, will be ready in May next, and a grand inauguration is proposed, Prince Albert being at one end of the wire and Louis Napoleon at the other.

A project is on foot to reclaim from the sea, at Norfolk, 32,000 acres of land, said to be of great agricultural value. The estimated expense of doing it is £640,000.

Mr. Halliwell has addressed a letter to the _Times_, complaining of an unauthorized republication in London of an edition of Shakspeare, with introductions and notes by himself, published with considerable success in New York.

Miss Martineau has been exciting a good deal of mirth in England by a published account of having succeeded in mesmerizing a sick cow.

Dr. Maitland is urging the formation of a society to bring out new editions of the most celebrated and least accessible works on Church History. His plan is received with favor by the literary and religious journals.

The foundations of several old walls, supposed to have formed a Roman burial mound, have recently been discovered in Hertfordshire, and means have been adopted to give the locality a thorough exploration. Several human skeletons were found in the vicinity.

New statues of Newton, Shakspeare, Milton, and Bacon, are to be set up on the four new pedestals in the British Museum; models of them have been made by Sir Richard Westmacott. An elaborate piece of sculpture has also been prepared for the tympanum of the pediment, representing the progress of man from a savage condition up to the highest state of intellectual advancement.

Mr. GODWIN has addressed a letter to the Lord Mayor elect of London, on the subject of improving the character of the annual city "show" on the 9th of November, and urging that some little invention and taste might be exercised upon it, in lieu of repeating year after year the same dull and effete routine. He thinks that so ancient a custom ought not to be abandoned, and proposes to raise it out of the monotonous and prosaic routine into which it has fallen, by the introduction, among other changes, of emblems and works of art, accordant with its ancient character, and worthy of the present time.

The effect of the great Industrial Exhibition upon the health of London is engaging considerable attention. It is estimated that not less than a million of people will pour into the city at that time, and it is contended by medical men of eminence that, unless wise and vigorous measures be adopted, so vast and sudden an influx will create a pestilence. The remedy proposed is to secure in some way the daily distribution of the arrivals over a large area in London, and a series of cheap trains which would carry off a portion of the pressure daily, spreading the gathered millions over thirty or forty miles of movable encampment.

Sundry relics, ropes, canvas, bones, &c., were recently brought to England by the Prince Albert, which were found at Cape Riley, in the Arctic Seas, and were supposed to afford traces of Sir John Franklin. They were submitted by the Admiralty to Captain Parry, Sir John Richardson, and others for examination, and the conclusion arrived at is, that they were left at Cape Riley by Sir John Franklin's expedition about the year 1845. It is supposed that being stopped by ice, Sir John remained there for a short time making observations, &c. The reports are elaborate, and evince careful and minute investigation. The conclusion at which they arrive is very generally credited, so that the first part of Sir John's adventures in the Arctic Seas is supposed to be at length known.

The building for the Great Exhibition in London has been commenced, and the work upon it goes forward with great rapidity. It is said that the exhibition will probably have the effect to create several local museums of great interest and importance. The advantages of such institutions, especially to inventors, would be very great.

DELAROCHE's great picture of "Napoleon crossing the Alps," has reached London, where it is on exhibition. It is described as being wonderfully exact in copying nature, but as lacking elevation of purpose and the expression of sentiment. An officer in a French costume, mounted on a mule, is conducted by a rough peasant through a dangerous pass, whose traces are scarcely discernible through the deep-lying snow--and his aid-de-camp is just visible in a ravine of the towering Alps. These facts, the _Athenæum_ says, are rendered with a fidelity that has not omitted the plait of a drapery, the shaggy texture of the four-footed animal, nor a detail of the harness on his back. The drifting and the imbedded snow, the pendent icicle which a solitary sun-ray in a transient moment has made--all are given with the utmost truth. But the lofty and daring genius that led the humble Lieutenant of Ajaccio to be the ruler and arbiter of the destinies of the largest part of Europe, will be sought in vain in the countenance painted by M. Delaroche.

A curious discovery has been made in a collection of ancient marbles at Marbury Hall, in Cheshire, formed at Rome in the middle of the last century. A fragment of the frieze of the Parthenon has been found, and is unmistakably identified by its exactly fitting the parent stone in the British Museum.

The people of Sheffield are subscribing and soliciting subscriptions in other cities for a monument to the memory of the poet EBENEZER ELLIOTT. It is not intended that the monument should be vast or expensive, but that a neat cenotaph or column, at a cost of twelve or fifteen hundred pounds, should be erected and placed in a position suitable to do honor to the genius whose memory it is to perpetuate.

The statue in honor of Chief Justice TINDAL is nearly completed. The inscription for the pedestal, contributed by Justice TALFOURD, speaks of the illustrious man in whose honor it is erected, as "a Judge, whose administration of English law, directed by serene wisdom, animated by purest love of justice, endeared by unwearied kindness, and graced by the most lucid style, will be held by his country in undying remembrance."

The Roman Government has ordered the students of art, before admission to the academies of the city, to be examined as to the state of their morals and their opinions on politics. Mr. HELY, an English sculptor, has been commanded to quit the Roman territories; the marriage of his sister to the celebrated Dr. ACHILLI is supposed to have been the reason for this command. The London papers complain that the Americans are the only people in Rome who are permitted to "exhibit their political, artistic, and religious heresies with impunity;" and they cite in proof POWERS's emblematic statue of the Republic of America trampling under its feet the kingly diadem; CRAWFORD's design for the monument to WASHINGTON, which the _Athenæum_ says is original and striking; and the fact, that the American residents have just obtained permission to erect a Protestant Church, the first ever built in the Eternal City.

A good deal of difficulty has been experienced in deciding on the erection of a bridge at Westminster. The _Athenæum_, is reminded, by the investigations, of a story told of a board of magistrates in the west of Ireland who met to consider the propriety of erecting a new jail, when, after a protracted and bewildering discussion, they formally passed three resolutions; namely, that a new jail should be built--that the materials of the old jail should be used in constructing the new one--and that the prisoners should be kept as securely as possible in the old jail until the new one was ready for their reception!

A new college--with peculiar features which give it general interest--is about to be established in Glasgow. It is to consist of two distinct parts; the school proper and the college. In the first, as is deemed suitable in a great commercial city, youths will be grounded in the elements of a sound commercial education; in the second the senior students will go through the usual course of preparation for the Universities. The college is to be self-supporting, unsectarian, and non-political. The fees are settled on a scale so low as to make the trial interesting as an experiment--and the lectures are to be open to ladies: a library and reading-room are to form parts of the establishment.

The _sanctum_ of the DUKE OF WELLINGTON at Walmer Castle is described as a room of but ordinary size, destitute of ornament, and with but scanty furniture, bearing very much the appearance of the apartment of a petty officer in a garrison. On the right is an ordinary camp bedstead, with a single horse-hair mattress, and destitute of curtains. Over this is a small collection of books, comprising the best English classical authors, French memoirs, military reports, official publications, and Parliamentary papers. In the centre of the room is an ink-stained mahogany table, at which the Duke is occupied in writing some two or three hours each day; and near this is a smaller portable desk, used for reading or writing while in bed; besides these, the furniture of the room consists of some two or three chairs. The window looks out upon the sea, and a door opens upon the ramparts where, until recently, the Duke was always to be found as early as six o'clock, taking his morning walk.

GUTZLAFF, the missionary to China, presents one of the most striking examples of activity upon record. He was born in 1803, in Pyritz, a Pomeranian village, and commenced his missionary labors at about thirty years of age. He is now on a journey through Europe, the object of which is to establish a Christian Union for the evangelization of China. In person he hardly realizes the usual romantic idea of a missionary hero. He is short and stout, with a ruddy face, broad mouth, and eyelids sleepily closed. His voice is strong and not pleasant; and he gesticulates violently. It has been often remarked that persons who have long resided among the American Indians, become assimilated to them in personal appearance. A similar assimilation would seem to have taken place in the person of Gutzlaff. His features have assumed an aspect so thoroughly Chinese, that he is usually taken by them for a fellow countryman.

A correspondent of an English journal furnishes some personal sketches of the men concerned in the government of the Sandwich Islands, which have considerable interest. The king, TAMEHAMEHA III., according to this writer, is a man of some education, for a native, and appears to take some interest in matters of state. He was formerly addicted to intemperance, but some years since, through the influence of the missionaries, abandoned the habit; but is said lately to have returned to it. He receives an income of $12,000, besides rents from his estates to the amount of probably $25,000 more. All the principal departments of government, with but a single exception, are filled by foreigners. The Minister of Finance occupies the most important post, and exercises the most powerful influence. This is Mr. G.P. JUDD, an American, a man of good education and sound judgment, and undoubtedly the fittest man in the kingdom for the post. The Minister of Foreign Affairs is Mr. R.C. WYLLIE, a Scotchman. He was formerly a wealthy merchant, whom a roving disposition brought into the Pacific in 1844. He is a clever, social gentleman of nearly fifty years of age, who fills the office he holds with decided ability, and resolutely declines all compensation for his services. The Minister of the Interior is Mr. JOHN YOUNG, a half-breed, whose father was an Englishman. He is about thirty-five years of age, and is said to be the handsomest man in the Islands. He does no discredit to his post, although like other half-breeds, he can hardly be considered as of equal capacity to his European colleagues. The Minister of Public Instruction is Rev. B. ARMSTRONG, until some two years ago a missionary, who is said to be the best scholar in the Hawaiian language in the islands. He and Mr. JUDD, exercise the real government of the islands, which could hardly be in better hands. The salary of the ministers is $3000 per annum.

Lord JOHN RUSSELL has intrusted the execution of the national Peel Monument to Mr. GIBSON at Rome.

Great complaints are made of injury done to books, and other valuable works, in the British Museum.

Among the distinguished men who have died within the last month, we notice Mr. WATKINS, the son-in-law and biographer of Ebenezer Elliott; NIKOLAUS LENAU, a German poet, who died in a madhouse; C.F. BECKER, "the genial," whose philological works have gained him a lasting reputation in the world of letters; CARL ROTTMAN, painter to the King of Bavaria, one of the first artists of the day; WENZEL JOHANN TOMASCHEK, one of the first musical composers of modern times--"the ancient master of Bohemian music," as he was fondly called at Prague.

FRANCE.

M. Taboureau has discovered a method of converting the mud of the newly macadamized Boulevards at Paris into bricks; and so confident is the expectation of thus using it, that the government has invited bids for the privilege of using it for a series of years. "Cheap as dirt" has lost its meaning.

A new shell has just been invented by a chemist named Lagrange, which is said to be capable of sinking a ship of 120 guns in a few minutes. Some experiments made with it in the presence of skillful officers were entirely successful.

An artist named Garnier died lately in Paris, whose only claim to distinction lay in the incredibly long time which he spent on incredibly poor pictures. One of them representing the entrance of Napoleon and Marie Louise into the Tuileries, took him _thirty-seven_ years, and when finished was a wretched daub. A notice of his life was read in the Academy.

The French papers state, that a number of workmen are employed in fixing a wire from the Bastile to the Madeleine, as an experiment for a new company that has proposed to establish an electric telegraph throughout Paris for the transmission of messages.

A Belgian engineer, M. Laveleye, proposes to connect the Seine and the Rhine by means of a canal, by constructing which, navigation would be open from London to the Black Sea and Constantinople, through the heart of the Continent, and by means of the great watercourses on or near whose banks lie the materials of nearly all the internal and external trade of Europe. The estimated cost is £1,600,000.

Preparations are in active progress for the grand exhibition of French pictures and sculpture at the Palais National, which is to commence on the 15th of December. The official notification which has been issued directs artists to send in their works from the 2d to the 15th of November. The exhibitors themselves are to choose the jury of selection, each exhibitor naming any one he may think fit. The first exhibition of the kind which ever took place in France was in 1673; and the first time a selecting jury was formed was in 1745. After the Revolution of 1848 the jury was abolished, and every body was allowed to exhibit; but this was found to be impracticable for the future, and the present system of the artists electing the jury themselves came into operation the following year. For upward of a century, the members of the Academy of Painting and Sculpture enjoyed the exclusive privilege of exhibiting.

Although the censorship on theatrical pieces in Paris has been re-established in even more than its wonted strictness, the prefect of police does not think it sufficient. He has recently directed the commissaries of police (there is one in every theatre every night) to pay particular attention to every performance, and to notify him if there be any thing "in the words, style, play, or costume of the actor, or in the applause or disapprobation of the public," which may appear politically objectionable. This proceeding of the prefect has caused profound dissatisfaction in the theatrical circles.

The Paris "_Débats_" announces two new works from the pen of M. GUIZOT, to be published at the end of this month. The first is entitled "Monk; Fall of the Republic, and Re-establishment of the Monarchy in England in 1660." The second is "Washington; Foundation of the Republic of the United States of America."

An experiment has been made at the arsenal of Metz, of mortars, hand grenades, and bombs made of zinc, which has completely succeeded.

A vessel arrived at Bordeaux on the 18th inst. from Canton, having on board a curious collection of Chinese arms and costumes for the Museum of Paris.

Several works concerning Joan of Arc have recently been published in France. The one which attracts most attention is devoted to her martial exploits, and shows that she did not hesitate in combat to put her foe to death with her own hand. It is also cited as completely exonerating the English from the odium of having had any part in her horrid execution, since it shows that she was tried, condemned, and executed by the Inquisition--that the charges against her were purely and wholly ecclesiastical; that her trial was conducted in the pure ecclesiastical form, just as those of any other suspected sorcerer, witch, or heretic; and that in virtue of ecclesiastical laws she was sentenced and burned.

An article on Madame de Genlis and the system of education which she adopted with the late King Louis Philippe, written by the eminent critic and academician M. de Saint-Beuve, has excited some attention. The writer dwells upon the prodigious memory of Louis Philippe, and says that he knew a good deal of almost every possible subject, and had a great faculty of displaying this multifarious knowledge in conversation.

The members of the Académie des Sciences, at Paris, have lately been racking their brains and wearying their tongues, in an attempt to decide _what_ forms the centre of the earth--whether it be a globe of fire or a huge furnace, as some say--a perfect void, as others maintain--a solid substance, harder than granite, according to some--or a mass of water according to others: but, as might readily be anticipated, these discussions have had no practical or useful result.

The subject which has excited most attention at the meetings of the Academy has been the inquiry made in Algiers, by Bernard and Pelouze, upon the fearful poison called the Woorari. The composition of this deadly matter has long been kept a mysterious secret among the priests and sorcerers of the Rio Negro and the Amazon. It was analyzed by Humboldt, and the experiments that have now been made confirm his views. It is a watery extract from a plant of the genus Strychnos. A weapon with the smallest point covered with the matter kills as instantaneously as prussic acid. Various experiments have been tried upon animals that show how immediate is its action, and the singular changes that result in the blood, which in a moment becomes of a death-black color, and does not, after death, on exposure to air, recover its usual redness.

The trials at Algiers have ceased to excite any attention. There are 66 persons accused of a conspiracy to seize the Government; the reports come down to the 13th of September.

We learn from the Paris _Siècle_ that the Academy of Sciences has at present under consideration a project of a most extraordinary character, being neither more nor less than a suspension bridge between France and England. M. Ferdinand Lemaitre proposes to establish an aerostatic bridge between Calais and Dover. For this purpose he would construct strong abutments, to which the platform would be attached. At a distance of every 100 yards across the channel he would sink four barges, heavily laden, to which would be fixed a double iron chain, of peculiar construction. A formidable apparatus of balloons, of an elliptical form, and firmly secured, would support in the air the extremity of these chains, which would be strongly fastened to the abutments on the shore by other chains. Each section of 100 yards would cost about 300,000f., which would make 84,000,000f. for the whole distance across. These chains, supported in the air at certain distances, would become the point of support to this fairy bridge, on which the inventor proposes to establish an atmospheric railway. This project has been developed at great length by the inventor, and seems to be discussed with great gravity by the Academy.

MM. BARRAL and BIXIO, whose two former ascents in crazy and ill-fitted balloons we noticed some time since, are now superintending the construction of an aerial machine better adapted for enabling them to pursue a course of studies in the atmosphere. Its dimensions are to be fifty-four feet by forty-five, and will be capable of carrying up twenty persons, if inflated with pure hydrogen; if with carbonated hydrogen, twelve. We may now hope that the balloon will be redeemed from the service of charlatanism, and will contribute to the advancement of science.

GERMANY, ITALY, ETC.

As a natural result of the disturbances in Germany, its current literature has to a great extent assumed the form of political pamphlets and romances. Among the works of more general interest, which have recently made their appearance, we note the following: The Book of Predictions and Prophecies: a complete collection of all the writings of all the prominent prophets and seers of the present and past; to wit, of Ailly, Bishop Müller, Peter Tarrel, &c., with predictions concerning Jerusalem, Orval, the End of the World, &c. Popular History of the Catholic Church, brought down to the present time, by J. SPORCHIL. The Present: an Encyclopædic Representation of Contemporary History. This, though in some respects, an independent work, may yet be considered as a supplement to the celebrated Conversations-Lexicon. It is published in parts, of which two or three appear each month, twelve parts forming a volume. The Parts which have just been published, contain the history of the German National Congress; the Hungarian Revolution; the Local and Political state of Nassau; the Insurrection in Schleswig-Holstein in 1848; State and town of Frankfort. It is published by Brockhaus, of Leipzig, who also announces New Dramatic Poems, by OEHLENSCHLAGER. History of the Heretics of the Middle Ages, especially of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, by C.U. HAHN. Henrietta Herz, her Life and Reminiscences, edited by J. FURST. The authoress passed a long life on terms of intimate friendship with men of science and literature. Her reminiscences, though written late in life, present a lively and good-humored picture of the society of Berlin for a long course of years, embracing sketches of Mirabeau, Jean Paul, Müller, the historian, Schleiermacher, Humboldt, Ludwig Börne, and others.

A bronze statue of the celebrated agriculturist, ALBERT THAER, has just been erected at Leipzig. The costume is that of a German farmer, slightly idealized, and wearing a broad mantle. The right hand is raised as if in the act of teaching; the left holds a roll, with the inscription, "National Husbandry;" and upon the marble pedestal is inscribed, "The German Cultivators to the honored teacher, ALBERT THAER."

At the royal foundry in Munich preparations are making for casting in bronze three colossal statues: that of Gustavus Adolphus, for Göttenburg; that of the Swedish poet Tegner, for Stockholm; and that of Walter of Plettenberg, a celebrated Livonian general, surnamed "The Conqueror of the Russians." The last statue was modeled by Schwanthaler; the others are the works of two young Swedish sculptors, MM. Fogelberg and Quarnstroem, both residing in Rome.

An extract of a private letter from Rome states that the Coliseum is in process of restoration.

LESSING'S great picture--"The Martyrdom of Huss," is described at length by a Düsseldorf correspondent of the Leipzig _Grenzboten_. It is eighteen feet by fifteen, and contains some twenty-seven figures of the size of life; which, contrary to the practice of the French painters in pictures of this size, are so carefully finished, that they can be looked at close at hand. There is not a superfluous figure in the picture--none introduced to fill a space, as is too frequently the case in large paintings. The clearness of the general idea is not marred by the effect of the separate parts: the artistic separation of the group suffers the main figure first to attract the eye. In this picture Lessing has given proof of his ability in landscape as well as in figures. The next work upon which he is to be engaged is a large picture, commissioned by the King of Prussia, representing the imprisonment of Pope Paschal by Henry V.

An association has been formed in Jerusalem for the investigation of subjects connected with the Holy Land, including history, language, numismatics, statistics, manufactures, commerce, agriculture, natural history, and every other subject of literary and scientific research, with the exception of religious controversy. From the names of those engaged in the project, it is hoped that the association will make large additions to our present stores of information respecting Palestine.

The Leipzig journals contain notices of the recent productions of Polish literature, which are not without interest even in this country. A romance, by the Countess Ludwica Offolinska, recently published at Cracow, has excited considerable attention. It is entitled "The Fate of Sophia," and is written with great simplicity, and the deepest religious feeling. The heroine receives at home a religious training, and then is thrown out into the world. She appears in succession as the waiting-maid, and then the friend of her mistress; then as maid to a worn-out woman of fashion, and at last as governess to the children of her first beloved mistress and friend. The sound principles she had learned at her father's house, serve her as a defense amid all the perils which surround her in her career. The same authoress has put forth two comedies: "The Holy Christ," and "Vespers in the Country."

VINCENT POL, a poet, and for a short time Professor of Geography in the University of Cracow, is one of the most distinguished geographers of the day. His "Glance at the Northern Waters of the Carpathians and their Districts," is an earnest of important contributions to geographical science from the Slavic countries.

F. ANTONIEWICZ, an ecclesiastic, has published "A Festival-day Lecture to our People," written with great eloquence. RYCHCICKI, otherwise known as a historian, has put forth a "History of the celebrated Chancellor Skarga, and a Description of the Century in which he lived."

From the Warsaw press have appeared, among other works, "A Lexicon of Polish Painters," comprising all artists who were born, or lived in Poland, or whose works refer to that country. It is by RASTAWIECKI, contains two volumes, and is ornamented with portraits. DORBRSKI'S "A Few Words more about the Caucasus," is a continuation of a former work.

From Wilna appears the "Athenæum," by the prolific KRASZWSKI. It contains from the pen of the editor a work of great value, "Lithuania under Witold," and a romance. "The Wilna Album" contains seventy sheets of views of interesting and remarkable places in that city.

There are now published in Russia 154 periodicals, of which 108 are in Russian, 29 in German, 8 in French, 5 Polish, 3 Lettish, and 1 Italian. Of these 64 are published in St. Petersburgh, 20 in the East-sea German provinces, 13 in Moscow, 5 in Odessa, and 52 in the remaining parts of the empire.

BROCKHAUS, the great Leipzig publisher, announces a translation into German of TICKNOR'S History of Spanish Literature, by Dr. R.H. JULIUS, of Hamburg; with the assistance of FERDINAND WOLF, of Vienna, and other scholars. The German editor has labored for several years in this department of literature, and will also avail himself of Dozy's learned work on Arabian-Spanish literature, which appeared in Holland in 1849.

A paragraph in the London Builder states that a very curious discovery has been made in the Mosque of St. Sophia, at Constantinople. In the course of cleansing and repairing the interior, the original decorations in mosaic have been brought to light, including, as it is said, a portrait of Constantine. Drawings have been made, and are on their way to England. The Sultan, to prevent the necessity of removing them, as portraits are prohibited by the Koran, has considerately ordered them to be covered up again.

A newly invented locomotive steam engine has been tried at Charleroi, with full success. The inventor, M. Hector de Callias, a Sardinian engineer, proposes to increase the speed of locomotives, to give them an adherence four times greater than they now have, and to decrease the expense of fuel. By the pressure of only one atmosphere the wheels made, in the trial referred to, 300 revolutions a minute, which would give a speed of 24 leagues an hour. The Belgian Minister of Public Works has appointed a committee of engineers to report to him on the experiments which are to take place on the government lines, and has ordered every assistance to be given to the inventor to facilitate his object.

MEYERBEER is engaged in composing the music for the choruses of the Eumenides of Æschylus, which is about to be represented at Berlin, at the special request of the King of Prussia, who is passionately fond of the old Greek drama.

Interesting descriptions are given of the _Volks-Fest_, or great festival of the Bavarian people, celebrated at Munich on the first of October, in which the peasants from all the royal possessions receive from the king, in presence of the assembled multitude, prizes for the good results of their labor in rearing cattle, &c. The week this year opened with wet weather, which did not, however, prevent the attendance of an immense number of the people of all classes and conditions. The King Maximilian, with his brother Otho, King of Greece, was present, occupying a splendid pavilion in the centre, around which were ranged boxes for the gentry and seats for the people. Three days were devoted to the exhibition of cattle, grain, and agricultural products of all kinds, intermingled with various sports and gymnastic exercises, and the fourth was set apart for the unvailing of the gigantic statue of _Bavaria_, the colossal gift of the Ex-King Ludwig to his people. This great statue was commenced in 1844, and is now only so far finished as to warrant the removal of the wooden screens by which it has been concealed. It is fifty-four feet high, and stands upon a granite pedestal of thirty feet. It is cast in bronze, of which not less than 125 tons were consumed, and is described as a work of imposing sublimity and profound beauty. It has for the back-ground a white marble temple, called the "Hall of Heroes," of Doric architecture, composed of a centre and two wings, and forming a semi-circle behind the figure. To convey some idea of the size of the statue it is stated that the face is equal to the height of a man, the body twelve feet in diameter, the arm five, the index finger six inches, and two hands can not cover the nail of the great toe. The grandeur of the features is sanctified by the gracious sweetness of the expression; the clustering hair falls on either side from the noble brow, and is entwined with a circle of oak-leaves, one uplifted arm holding the fame-wreath of laurel, the other grasping a sword, beneath which sits the lion. Skins clothe the vast body to the hips; solemn folds of massive drapery, passing off the large symmetry of the limbs to the feet. The material difficulties attendant upon the casting were very great. The unvailing of this great work was made the occasion for a carnival of _fun_. Men of every trade brought for display gigantic specimens of their respective callings, made upon the same scale as the statue, which were exhibited with great parade and amidst magnificent music, and processions, &c. After the multitude had been collected in front, the screen was suddenly removed, and the colossal statue stood revealed, and was greeted with shoutings, and the voice of an immense band of singers. An oration in honor of the king was then pronounced by Teichlein the painter, from the steps of the pedestal, after which the throng dispersed.

The director of the observatory at St. Petersburg, M. Kuppffer has applied to the French government to establish a number of stations in different parts of the country for taking meteorological observations, with the view of aiding him in the vast studies he has been for some time past making, respecting the climates of different countries. In England and Germany it appears such stations have been formed, and have proved of great utility. Before complying with M. Kuppffer's request, the government has requested the opinion of the academy on the subject. It can not but be favorable. It is pleasant to see the several nations of Europe, in the midst of their fierce political dissensions and struggles for supremacy, thus uniting for the promotion of science.

In this number of the New Monthly will be found an interesting account of the character and life of the distinguished German scholar, Kinkel, who is imprisoned by the Prussian government for his liberal opinions. Late European papers state that his friends requested permission for him to continue a work he had commenced on the Fine Arts among the Christian nations, but it was peremptorily refused. He is not allowed pens and ink, or books of any kind, and it is said that he is treated with unusual and cruel rigor.

Artin Bey, late Prime Minister of Egypt, has not, as was expected, gone on to Constantinople, but has retired to the mountains of Lebanon, in Syria, where he awaits the final result of the step he took in flying from Egypt.

On the 17th Oct. Prince Paskiewitch completed the fiftieth year of his service in the Russian army. The emperor held a grand review on that day, and presented him personally with a Field Marshal's baton, in acknowledgment of his fidelity.

M. Freiberg, the director of the opera at Berlin, has brought an action against Madame Fiorentina, for a breach of engagement, and against Lumley, of London, for engaging her; he has laid his damages at eighty thousand francs.

The Pope has performed a popular act of clemency, by pardoning, only an hour before the execution was to have taken place, the three individuals convicted of complicity in the attempt to assassinate Col. Nardonic, Chief of the Roman Police, on the 19th of June last. The attempt having failed, Pius IX. commuted the pain of death to that of the hulks for life, without hope of further remission. It was a political crime, the death of the odious re-actionist having been decreed in a secret democratic society.

The commission appointed in Rome to ascertain and estimate the damage done to the monuments of Rome, buildings, and ruins, during the siege of the last year, have concluded their report, and fixed upon the sums of 508,800 francs, as the total, estimated in money, of the damage done by the besieging French forces, and 1,565,275 francs, of that inflicted by the Romans themselves.

The rise of the Nile this year has been unsatisfactory. The river has already begun to fall, and it is feared that a vast extent of land will not have been sufficiently watered, and that next year's crops will be short.

A project has been started to erect a monument to Columbus, at Palos de Maguer, opposite the Convent of St. Ann, whence the great discoverer set sail on his first voyage. The design proposed is a colossal statue, twenty feet high, surrounded by groups of figures, forming a base of forty feet in circumference. The lowest estimate of the expense is $100,000.

ITEMS OF GENERAL NEWS.

A rather extraordinary contest has arisen between the manufacturers of embroidered articles at Nancy and the wholesale merchants in Paris. The former demand a complete prohibition of the imports of the articles which they manufacture. The merchants, on the other hand, defend the principle of the freedom of commerce, and demand that the embroidered muslins of Switzerland be admitted into France. M. Dumas, the Minister of Commerce, has pronounced in favor of the manufacturers of Nancy.

During the last two years and a half, the houses of 1951 families have been leveled in Kilrush, Ireland, and 408 other families have been unhoused.

The tide of emigration is continued as vigorously as ever. From Kerry considerable numbers were proceeding to Cork and Limerick, to embark for the United States.

Preparations, it is said, are in active progress for the reorganization of the Dublin Trades Union--a body which, some years since, possessed considerable influence in the conduct of political affairs in the metropolis.

A society has been formed in London for the reform of abuses in the Court of Chancery.

It is proposed to erect a monument in Edinburgh to Wallace, the Scottish hero.

More than 2000 members of the Methodist Society have been expelled at Bristol, because they are in favor of a reform in the polity of their Society.

A sailors' home on a large scale is about to be established at Plymouth.

A great chess match, to be played by amateurs of all nations during the Exhibition of 1851, is being arranged for.

Five new whalers are to be added to the whaling fleet of Peterhead next season.

Large purchases of wine continue to be made in the Douro, at high prices.

Upwards of five hundred members have already joined the Liverpool Freehold Land Society.

A mummy brought from Thebes by Sir J.E. Tennent was unrolled in the Museum at Belfast.

Numerous bales of moss have lately been imported into London from Cork.

Meyerbeer is at present at Paris, and has attended several public as well as private concerts.

The library left by Dr. Neander is to be sold by auction. There are about 4000 volumes; among them some of the best editions of the old church Fathers, presented by the theological students to Neander on his birth-day. An attempt is making to purchase the library for the use of the theological students at the University. The total sum demanded is not more than $4000.

An immense layer of sulphur has been discovered near Alexandria. It can be obtained in large quantities so cheaply, that it is expected the price of the article will be reduced in Europe.

The English population of Madrid increases in a remarkable degree. The Aranjuez railroad, the gas works, the mines of Guadalajara, and various other industrial enterprises, afford employment to many of them.

A verdict of manslaughter has been returned by the coroner's jury against Captain Rowles, of the bark New Liverpool, lately arrived at Southampton, in which some Lascar seamen had died from neglect.

The Madrid aeronaut, when preparing last week for his aerial voyage over Europe, to convince the world that a balloon can be guided in any direction, found a large rent in the silk. The voyage has, therefore, been delayed for some weeks.

A steam company is on the eve of being formed at Constantinople for towing vessels through the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles. The capital is to be £150,000, in fifteen hundred shares of £100 each. The Sultan and most of the ministers are on the list.

A Transylvanian nobleman, writing to a friend in England, speaks of the pleasure with which he read of the reception of Haynau in England. He states that General Count Leiningen, an hour before his execution, said, "You will see our infamous murder will excite the greatest sensation in England, and I recommend Haynau not to venture on a visit to England, for the people will stone him."

The landed interest of the late Sir Robert Peel was not much under £35,000 a year.

A private in the 56th regiment of the line was sentenced to death by court-martial in Paris for having struck a corporal.

The circulation of all the Paris newspapers has greatly diminished, under the operation of recent laws.

About one hundred Mormons passed through Liverpool lately, on their way to the Salt Lake Valley, North America.

It is stated that about £70,000 was paid by the Government of Spain for the steamships Hibernia and Caledonia.

Louis Napoleon has purchased fifty head of fallow deer, of Mr. Fuller, of England, with which to stock the park of St. Cloud.

Leipsig fair, which has just terminated, proved very satisfactory. Worsted and cotton goods of English manufacture were in good demand.

A revolt has broken out in Morocco, in consequence of a decree by the emperor, ordering the skins of all slaughtered animals to be considered as his exclusive property.

An iron lighthouse of vast dimensions is about to be erected on the Fastnett, a solitary rock several miles out in the Atlantic, off the coast of Cork and Kerry.

In London, under the patronage of the Lady Mayoress, a large carpet is in progress of preparation for the Exhibition. It is to be thirty feet in length, twenty in width, and to consist of one hundred and fifty squares.

It is stated upon good authority, that in the articles of rice and tobacco alone, a mercantile firm in Liverpool will this year realize £300,000, supposed to be the largest sum ever made by any mercantile house in Europe in one year.

The foreign merchants and shippers of London have agreed to establish a "club for all nations," to meet the requirements of the strangers, merchants and others, who will be in town during the Exhibition of 1851. The club will be provided, in addition to the usual accommodations, with interpreters acquainted with all the languages of the East and of Europe, guides and commissioners, and departments for information. A committee of gentlemen, merchants of London, has been elected to carry out the undertaking.

About two years ago, the scientific world was surprised by the announcement that Drs. Krapf and Rebman, who had been zealously employed in connection with the Missionary Society in Eastern and Central Africa, had discovered a mountain or mountains within one degree of the Equator, and about two hundred miles distant from the sea, which were covered with perpetual snow, and which there was every reason to suppose were no other than Ptolemy's "Mountains of the Moon." It now appears that there is no doubt of the fact.

A curious exhibition is in course of preparation for the World's Fair, by Mr. Wyld, M.P., the eminent map-engraver. He is constructing a huge globe, of fifty-six feet in diameter, which will be provided with a convenient mode of ingress and egress; the different countries of the world will be represented upon the inner, and not upon the outer surface, and the interior will be fitted up with galleries and staircases, so as to enable the visitor to make a tour of the world, and visit each of the countries whose industry or productions will be displayed in the Great Exhibition.

The wife of Mr. Maclean, late M.P. for Oxford, has been killed, by being thrown from her carriage at Castellamare, near Naples.

In many of the provincial towns a strong feeling prevails in favor of making the Peel monument assume the shape of useful institutions, such as libraries.

A new monthly magazine, adapted to meet the wants of the advanced section of the Nonconformists, has been announced.

The inmates of St. Luke's Hospital were treated to the entertainments of music and dancing at a lunatics' ball. The success of the experiment will lead to its repetition.

A new dock, called the Victoria Tidal Harbor, has been opened at Greenock.

Highway robbery is becoming very prevalent in the neighborhood of Liverpool.

A movement is in progress for the erection of a monument at Newcastle to the late George Stephenson, "the father of railways."

The great water-works for the supply of Manchester are rapidly approaching completion.

The _Manchester Guardian_ notices the arrival at Manchester of a consignment of 250 bales of saw-ginned cotton from India.

The trade of Paisley continues in a satisfactory state, and weavers are in great demand.

The tonnage of the port of Liverpool has increased from 1,223,318 tons, in 1836, to 3,309,746 in 1849.

The subscriptions of the City of London Committee toward the Great Exhibition amount to £26,189 18s. 9d.

The South Devon Railway Company lost £364,000 by the atmospheric bubble.

The money sent by the Irish emigrants in America to their starving relatives at home equals, it is said, the whole of the Irish poor-rates.

The Prussian Commissioners, on the subject of the Exhibition of 1851, have issued an address recommending a hearty co-operation in the design.

The Koh-i-noor diamond, or Mountain of Light, will, it is said, be placed among the collection of minerals at the Exhibition in Hyde Park next year.

The county expenditure for the West Riding of Yorkshire, was in 1824 £38,860; in 1832 it had risen to £53,477; and went on increasing until 1847, when it had risen to £103,561.

A French paper, the _Courrier du Nord_, says that the Minister of Agriculture, while recently visiting the coal mines of the Anzin Company, at Denain, discovered a rough diamond, fixed in a stone which had been extracted from the coal.

An Englishman, Col. Daniels, has left his estate of nearly two millions of dollars to a bookseller in New Haven, Connecticut, who was kind to him while sick and without friends in the United States. Two claimants have appeared for the bequest. Mr. Levi H. Young and Mr. Charles S. Uhlhorn, who were in partnership at the time referred to.

The Hungarian exiles at Constantinople, it is said, are about to issue a journal. The Italians there have published flying sheets for some time past.

A correspondent of a Philadelphia paper writes that caricatures on American subjects abound in Paris.

Capt. Stansbury, of the Topographical Engineers, and party, arrived at St. Louis, Nov. 12, on their return from an exploring expedition to the Great Salt Lake.

A Paris paper asserts that Guizot refused a nomination as a candidate for the National Assembly from the department of the Cher.

LITERARY NOTICES.

John S. Taylor has published the third edition of _The Salamander_, the exquisite prose poem by Mrs. E. OAKES SMITH, which found such a cordial appreciation from the most genial critical tastes on its first publication. The present edition has received the title of _Hugo_, from one of the principal characters in the story, though we think that a more appropriate and suggestive name might have been _The Lost Angel_. Under whatever title, however, the work belongs to a unique and most difficult branch of literary composition. Essentially poetical in its conception, it is clothed in the forms of prose, which the most consummate artistic skill can hardly mould into an adequate expression for such bold and lofty speculations as pervade the whole structure of this work. The language, which is singularly beautiful and impressive, is made the vehicle for an allegory of a very refined and subtle character, appealing but indirectly to the mass of human sympathies, and illuminated only by the dim and fitful light of the supernatural. It is no wonder that the allegorical mode should present such potent seductions to genius of the highest order. It leaves such ample scope to the imagination, allows such indulgence to the largest liberty of invention, and is so fruitful in materials for vivid and effective illustration, that it offers the most enticing charm to writers whose consciousness of power is embarrassed in the usual forms of expression. At the same time, unless like the allegories of sacred history, the import is too obvious to be mistaken, or like those of John Bunyan, it lays open the secrets of universal experience, this mode of writing is too far removed from the popular mind to contain the most powerful elements of success. Even in the creative hands of Dante and Spenser, the allegory is regarded rather as a hindrance than an aid, by the warmest admirers of their poetry. Hence we consider it no discredit to the author of "Hugo," that she has not entirely conquered the difficulties of this style of literary art. Her production is studded with beauties of thought and phrase that betray a genius of rare vigor and versatility. She has nobly dared to deviate from the beaten track, and has thus constructed a work, which must be regarded as a gem of precious quality, for its exquisite brilliancy of coloring, its transparent beauty of texture, and the vivid and natural truthfulness with which it gives back the lights of a radiant imagination.

_A Pastor's Sketches_, by Rev. ICHABOD S. SPENCER (published by M.W. Dodd), is a unique volume, presenting a highly instructive record of the experience of the author, during an active and varied pastoral intercourse. The sketches, which are all drawn from real life, describe the mental operations under the influence of strong religious emotion, in a manner equally interesting to the psychologist and the theologian. Most of the instances related occurred at a period of unusual excitement, but they are free from any tincture of fanaticism, and may be studied to advantage by all who are interested in the moral and religious advancement of their fellow men. The author displays a remarkable insight into human nature, a strong attachment to the doctrines of the church in which he is a minister, a rare power of close, consecutive reasoning, which is used with great effect in disposing of skeptical objections, a fluency of language and a variety and aptness of illustration, that must always make him a master in the work of dealing with troubled, or erring, or diseased consciences. His volume can not fail to become a favorite on the table of the pastor, and, indeed, of all who are curious in the narratives of religious experience.

Harper and Brothers have published _The History of Madame Roland_, by J.S.C. ABBOTT, an agreeable compilation of the principal events in the life of that extraordinary woman, forming one of the most readable volumes of the day.

Baker and Scribner have published a second and revised edition of _Sketches of Reforms and Reformers_, by HENRY B. STANTON, a work which has attained a great and deserved popularity. It is written with vigor, animation, and impartiality, presenting a lucid, systematic view of the progress of political reform in Great Britain, with lively portraitures of the most eminent men who have been distinguished in the movement.

Lewis Colby has published _The Churches and Sects of the United States_, by Rev. P. DOUGLASS GORREE, giving a brief account of the origin, history, doctrines, church-government, mode of worship, usages, and statistics of the various denominations in this country. The copious information which it presents, although reduced within a narrow compass, will be found to comprise most of the essential facts concerning the different topics treated, and from the diligence and candor evinced by the author, we have no doubt of its entire reliability.

The same publisher has issued _A Cenotaph to a Woman of the Burman Mission_, being a memoir of Mrs. HELEN M. MASON, whose devoted piety and modest worth eminently entitled her to this feeling commemoration by her husband.

Tallis, Willoughby, and Co. continue the serial publication of _The Life of Christ_, by JOHN FLEETWOOD, beautifully illustrated with steel engravings; and _Scripture History for the Young_, by FREDERICK BANBRIDGE, profusely embellished with appropriate plates, representing the most remarkable incidents in the Old and New Testaments.

Ticknor, Reed, and Fields have published a new volume of _Poems_ by GRACE GREENWOOD, consisting of a selection from her contributions to the Magazines, with several pieces which we have not before seen in print. Like all the productions of that popular authoress, they are marked with strong traces of individuality, varying with the mood of the moment, now expressing a deep and melancholy pathos, and now gay with exuberant hope and native elasticity of spirit. A transparent atmosphere of intellectuality is the medium for the loftiest flights of her fancy, inspiring confidence even in her most erratic excursions, and giving a healthy tone to her glowing effusions of sentiment.

We have also from Ticknor, Reed, and Fields a new edition of _The Grandfather's Chair_, by NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, with _Biographical Stories_ from the lives of Benjamin West, Sir Isaac Newton, Dr. Johnson, Oliver Cromwell, Benjamin Franklin, and Queen Christina. Mr. Hawthorne's narratives for juvenile reading are no less original and attractive in their kind, than the admirable tales and descriptions by which he is known to the majority of readers.

A cheap edition of the powerful sea-story, _The Green Hand_, has been published in one volume complete, by Harper and Brothers, enabling the admirers of that racy production to enjoy its flavor without making "two bites of the cherry."

_The New-Englander_, for November (published at New Haven by J.B. Carrington), is an able number of this bold and masculine periodical, discussing various topics of interest with a healthy grasp of intellect, and a fresh energy of expression, which show that it has escaped the incubus of a lifeless religionism, and breathes a free, independent, and aspiring spirit, equally removed from presumption and timidity. Among the articles, is an elaborate and able reply to Professor Agassiz, on "The Original Unity of the Human Race," an admirable Review of "Tennyson's In Memoriam," a paper on California, with others of no less interest.

The _Bibliotheca Sacra_, conducted by B.B. EDWARDS, and E.A. PARK, for November (Andover, W.I. Draper), abounds in choice and recondite learning, with a sufficient sprinkling of popular articles to attract the attention of general readers. "The Life and Character of De Wette" gives an instructive account of the position and influence of that eminent German theologian. The whole number is highly creditable to the condition of sacred literature in this country.

Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, Boston, have published _Lyrics of Spain and Erin_, by EDWARD MATURIN, a neat volume of spirited and graceful poetry, consisting of Spanish Ballads, Legends and Superstitions of Ireland, and Miscellaneous Pieces.

We have also from their press ASTRÆA, _A Phi Beta Kappa Poem_, by O.W. HOLMES, gleaming with brilliant flashes of wit, and playfully scoring some of the prevalent follies of the day; a volume of _Biographical Essays_, by THOMAS DE QUINCEY, a work of extraordinary interest, as presenting the judgment of that bold and vigorous thinker on such names as Shakspeare, Pope, Lamb, Goethe, and Schiller; and _Numa Pompilius_, translated from the French of FLORIAN, by J.A. FERRIS.

_Jamaica in 1850_, by JOHN BIGELOW (published by Geo. P. Putnam), is less a book of travels than a treatise on practical economy, suggested by a short residence on that island during a part of last winter. The largest portion of the volume is devoted to a discussion of the causes to which the commercial and industrial decline of Jamaica may be ascribed, and of the measures which, in the opinion of the author, would restore that delightful and fertile island to more than its ancient prosperity. The root of the evil, according to Mr. Bigelow, is to be found in the degradation of labor, the non-residence of the landholders, the encumbered condition of real estate, and the monopoly of the soil by a small number of proprietors. He warmly maintains the importance of developing the vast industrial resources of the island, and establishing the laboring classes in a state of personal independence. His views are set forth at considerable length, and with a variety of illustrations. The discussion is often enlivened by descriptions of local customs and manners, narratives of personal experience, and lively sketches of incident and character. Mr. Bigelow's style has the fluency, ease, and vivacity, with the occasional inaccuracies, which naturally proceed from the habit of perpetual and rapid composition, inseparable from the profession of a newspaper editor. Some portions of this volume have already appeared in the _New York Evening Post_, of which Mr. Bigelow is one of the conductors, where they produced a very favorable impression. They lose none of their interest in the present form, and will be found to present a mass of important information in an unusually agreeable manner.

Messrs. Tappan, Whittemore, and Mason have recently published _Cantica Laudis; or, The American Book of Church Music_, being chiefly a selection of chaste and elegant melodies from the most classic authors, ancient and modern, with harmony parts; together with Chants, Anthems, and other set pieces, for choirs and schools; to which are added, Tunes for Congregational singing, by LOWELL MASON and GEORGE JAMES WEBB. Also, by the same authors, _The Melodist_, a collection of popular and social songs, original and selected, harmonized and arranged for soprano, alto, tenor, and base voices.

_Beranger; Two Hundred of his Lyrical Poems, done into English verse_, by WILLIAM YOUNG (published by George P. Putnam), is a selection from Beranger's Songs, of which one hundred have already appeared in a London edition, and are here reproduced, after careful revision, the remainder being now printed for the first time. On many accounts, Beranger is less suited for representation in a foreign language than most poets who have gained such wide popularity among their own countrymen. Many of his most brilliant effusions have a strong tincture of licentiousness; they are marked by a freedom of delineation and of language which every decent English translator would wish to avoid; and their publication in any other land than that of their origin, would be an ungracious enterprise. Besides, his productions are singularly idiomatic in their style; growing out of the current events of the day; abounding in local and political allusions; and strongly impressed with the national characteristics of France. The external form of these popular lyrics seems to be the necessary costume of their spirit. You can not separate one from the other without violating the integrity of the piece. Its vitality resides in the light, airy, evanescent structure of the rhythm. This delicate vase can not be broken without wasting the precious aromas which it incloses. With these formidable difficulties in the way of the translator, we must give Mr. Young the highest credit for the felicitous manner in which he has accomplished his task. His selections are made with an admirable balance of taste. He has excluded all pieces, that could justly be condemned on the score of grossness or a frivolous treatment of sacred things, while he has not yielded to the suggestions of an over-fastidious and morbid prudery. The translation bears the marks of pains-taking diligence and a scrupulous desire for accuracy. It is the result of a profound study and a familiar knowledge of the author. It renders the general outlines of the original with almost the fidelity of a daguerreotype. The reader who has no acquaintance with French poetry may obtain from it a sufficiently distinct idea of the costume, the movement, and the verbal harmonies of Beranger. Nor is this all. Many of the songs are alive and tremulous with gayety and feeling. They are written as the author would have written in English. If the racy and delicious flavor of the original is not always preserved, it is no fault of the translator. Literary art has not yet discovered the secret of retaining the freshness of inspiration through the process of transplanting into a foreign tongue. A neat biographical sketch of Beranger is a welcome appendage to the volume.

C.S. Francis and Co. have issued a neat edition of HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN'S popular juveniles _The Story Teller_, _The Ugly Duck_, _Little Ellie_, and other tales, illustrated with wood-engravings.

_The Gem of the Western World_, published by Cornish, Lamport, and Co., is the title of a new Annual for 1851, edited by Mrs. MARY E. HEWITT, containing several original articles from her own pen, with contributions from a variety of well-known popular writers. The admirable taste of the editress is a guarantee for the excellence of the literary matter which she has admitted into the volume.

D. Appleton and Co. announce a magnificent collection of Gift-Books for the approaching holidays, which in the chaste and elevated character of their contents, and the exquisite beauty of their embellishments have not been surpassed by any similar publications in this country. _Our Saviour with Apostles and Prophets_, edited by Rev. Dr. WAINWRIGHT, contains a series of portraits of the sacred personages described in the text, from designs by Finden and other artists of acknowledged eminence in England. They are beautifully engraved on steel, presenting with great fidelity to character, the ideal traits of the prophets and martyrs, whose features they are supposed to represent. Each plate is accompanied with an original essay, prepared expressly for this volume, and written with uniform propriety and good taste. The writers are among the most distinguished American divines in their respective denominations. They have performed the task assigned to them in the preparation of this elegant work, with good judgment, fidelity, and eminent success. Instead of attempting to "gild the refined gold" of the sacred writers with the thin tinsel of modern rhetoric, they have preserved the decorum appropriate to the subject, and expressed the reflections which it suggests, in grave, modest, and forcible language. Hence, this volume possesses an intrinsic value, as a work on Scripture Biography, which recommends it to the notice of the religious public, independently of the beauty and impressive character of its pictorial illustrations. We are greatly indebted both to the Editor and the Publishers for such a valuable addition to the tempting literature of the holidays.

Another of their illustrated publications, of a less expensive character, is entitled _Sacred Scenes_, describing various passages in the life of our Saviour by artistic representations, accompanied with suitable selections from the works of distinguished English writers.

_Evenings at Donaldson Manor_ is a charming collection of tales and narratives from the pen of MARIA J. MCINTOSH, which with _Midsummer Fays_, by SUSAN PINDAR, is adapted to the younger classes of readers, forming beautiful and appropriate gifts for the season of social congratulations and the exchanges of friendship and domestic affection.

_The National Cook-Book_, by A LADY of Philadelphia, published by Robert E. Peterson, is a treatise adapted to American tastes and habits, and will, of course, be satisfactory to those who prefer a bill of fare in their own language. Great attention has been paid to that department of cookery exclusively adapted to the sick or convalescent, most of the dishes having been prepared according to the directions of eminent physicians of Philadelphia.

_The Relation between the Holy Scriptures and some Parts of Geological Science_, is reprinted by Robert E. Peterson, of Philadelphia, from the fourth London edition, greatly enlarged by its veteran author, JOHN PYE SMITH, the distinguished Professor of Divinity in the College at Homerton. The work, which consists of a series of Lectures, illustrated by copious notes, displays extensive and diligent research, uncommon strength and fairness of argument, and an animated and impressive style. It has met with brilliant success in England, and has gained a highly favorable reputation in this country.

Little and Brown, Boston, have issued the Second Volume of _The Works of John Adams, with a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations_, by his Grandson, CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, the first volume, which has not yet made its appearance, being reserved for the Life of President Adams, announced on the title-page. The present volume is composed of a Diary, some portions of an Autobiography, and Notes of the earlier debates in the Provincial Congress at Philadelphia. The Diary was commenced in 1755, the year of the author's graduation at Harvard College, and continues to 1778, the period of his first departure for Europe as Envoy to the Court of Versailles. It presents a curious picture of the youth and early manhood of the celebrated statesman, and of the gradual development of political events till their consummation in the war of the Revolution. The sketches which are also given of several of the Massachusetts politicians, whose names have since become identified with the history of their country, derive a peculiar interest from the freedom and unconsciousness with which they are drawn, the writer having no idea of publicity, and intending his record of current events as merely the pastime of a leisure hour. His frank and copious details, which are published without alteration by the Editor, often give an amusing illustration of the domestic life of New England, and with a few homely touches, reveal the spirit of the people which led to resistance against British aggression. The manner in which the work has been prepared for publication is in a high degree creditable to the fidelity, impartiality, and excellent judgment of the Editor. He gives all necessary explanations in cases of doubt or obscurity, but never distracts the attention of the reader by a superfluity of comment. With an evident tenderness for the reputation of his venerable relative, he allows him to depict himself in genuine colors, making no attempt to gloss over his infirmities, or to place his virtues in an exaggerated light. The volume is issued in a style of great typographical elegance, with a portrait of President Adams in his youth, and a very natural sketch of the primitive old Yankee homestead in Quincy.

_The Broken Bracelet and Other Poems_ (Phil., Lindsay and Blakiston), by Mrs. C.H.W. ESLING, is the title of a volume of poems, which, in another form, have been favorably received by the public, and are now collected by the suggestion of the literary friends of the author, formerly Miss Waterman. They are justly entitled to the compliment of a reprint, on account of their true poetic sentiment, their graceful versification, their delicate appreciation of beauty, and their pure and healthy sympathies with the varied aspects of humanity. The poem, from which the volume takes its name, is a romantic Italian story, abounding in natural touches of pathos, and many of the smaller pieces show a depth of feeling and versatility of expression that can not fail to make them general favorites.

_The Immortal; A Dramatic Romance, and Other Poems_, by JAMES NACK (published by Stringer and Townsend), is introduced with a memoir of the author, by GEORGE P. MORRIS, who gives an interesting description of the circumstances which, at an early period of life, decided his future position. Mr. Nack was the son of a merchant in the city of New York. He soon displayed a love of study, which gave promise of future intellectual distinction. His genius for poetry received a remarkably precocious development. But he had scarcely attained his ninth year when he met with a severe accident, which resulted in the total destruction of his hearing. He was thus deprived of the power of articulation to so great a degree, that he has since confined himself to writing as the medium of intercourse with others. His natural energy and perseverance, however, have enabled him to overcome the obstacles to literary culture, which, to most persons, would have been insurmountable. The poetry in the present volume, in addition to the interest excited by the situation of the author, possesses the decided merits of a vivid imagination, great tenderness and purity of feeling, and usually a chaste and vigorous diction.

Baker and Scribner have issued an edition of MILTON'S _Paradise Lost_, in one handsome duodecimo volume, edited by Professor JAMES R. BOYD, containing original, explanatory, and critical notes, with a copious selection from the commentaries of Newton, Todd, Sir Egerton Brydges, Stebbing, and others. The edition is illustrated by engravings from the celebrated designs of Martin.

_A General View of the Fine Arts_ (published by G.P. Putnam), is the production of a lady, who, while devoting her leisure hours to its composition, was practically engaged with the pallet and colors. It is intended to diffuse a taste for the study of the fine arts, by gathering into a small compass, the information which was before diffused through many expensive and often inaccessible volumes. Under the different heads of Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, and Music, the author has presented a variety of historical sketches, discussions of theoretical principles, anecdotes of celebrated artists, and descriptions of their most important productions. Without making any pretensions to entire originality, the work displays a lucid arrangement, an extent of information, and a pleasing vivacity of style, which give a very favorable idea of the diligence, conscientiousness, critical judgment, and artistic enthusiasm of the anonymous author. An appropriate introduction by Huntington, the distinguished American painter, accompanies the volume.

G.P. Putnam has published the _Artist's Chromatic Hand-Book_, by JOHN P. RIDNER, a convenient practical treatise on the properties and uses of the different colors employed in painting.

FOOTNOTE:

[11] Six vacancies.

Fashions for December.

The extremely mild weather which has prevailed during the autumn, has somewhat retarded the preparations for winter; yet the _modists_ have not been unmindful of the passage of the months, and the fact that December always promises frosts and snows. From Paris, the great fountain of taste in dress, elegant bonnets have been received. Some are of white, lilac, pink, and green satin, covered with black lace of rich pattern; others are of black and colored velvets, trimmed with a small feather on each side; the inside trimming composed of velvet flowers and foliage, in tints harmonizing with the color of the bonnet. _Pardessus_, wadded, and of the same material as the dress, are now generally worn, the patterns varying but little from those depicted in our last Number. Dresses, mantelets, and other articles of costume, are ornamented with braid and embroidery. Embroidered silks are worn, of which the gray, shot with white, and ornamented with embroidered flowers and foliage of gray silk, the stems and tendrils being white, are most in vogue. The corsage is low, open in front, sleeves demi-long. Another seasonable material for a plain walking and in-door dress, is a French fabric called _amure_, which consists of a mixture of silk and wool. It is woven in dress lengths.

The figure on the left in Figure 1, represents an elegant ball costume. The dress is composed of white crape, the skirt, which is full, being handsomely trimmed with white lace and fullings of crape put on at equal distances; the upper row of lace, reaching to a little below the waist. Plain low corsage, the top part encircled with a double fall of lace, forming a kind of _berthe_, and headed with a narrow fulling of crape, similar to that on the skirt. This _berthe_ entirely conceals the plain, short sleeve; the whole is worn over a skirt of white satin. The hair is simply arranged in a cable twist, being confined at the back with a gold or silver comb. The figure on the right represents a visiting costume. The dress is a rich plaided silk, composed of a mixture of purple, red, green, and white. The skirt is made quite plain; low corsage, trimmed with a double row of white lace across the front, one row standing up, and the other drooping over the front. _Pardessus_ of the same material, trimmed all round with a quilling of plain purple ribbon. This is repeated upon the lower part of the pagoda sleeves, and also serves to attach the _pardessus_ across the front of the bosom. Under pagoda sleeves are of white lace. The bonnet is of _paille d'Italie_, lined with white silk, and decorated with pink roses, the exterior having a doubled plaited frill of white silk, and a beautiful white ostrich feather.

FIG. 2 represents an evening costume. The dress is of satin, of a rich deep American primrose hue, the skirt made quite plain and very full, _en petit train_; low pointed corsage, trimmed with a fulling of satin ribbon, the same color as the dress, which is put on to form a kind of shallow cape round the back part, and descends upon each side of the front, finishing on either side of the point, and gradually narrowing from the shoulders. It is trimmed with a fall of white lace upon the lower edge, a narrower one forming a beading to the plaiting round the neck. The centre of the corsage is adorned with _noeuds_ of the same colored ribbon, placed at regular distances; the short sleeves finished with a row of fulled ribbon, similar to that on the corsage, edged with a very narrow lace. The _coiffure_ represents the front of the figure on the left.

FIG. 3 is given chiefly to show an elegant style of _coiffure_ for a ball or evening party. A portion of the hair is brought forward in plaits, and fastened at the parting, at the top of the forehead, with a rich pearl ornament, forming a kind of festoon on each side of the head. The remainder of the front hair is disposed in a thick curl, which descends to the curve of the neck. The dress is of lilac satin; the skirt plain and full. The corsage is low, headed with white lace, and trimmed on one shoulder, with fullings of satin ribbon, of the same color as the dress, and upon the other with puffs and _noeuds_ of the same. Open short sleeves composed of two deep falls of white lace. On one side a fall of lace extends from the centre of the corsage, and connects with the sleeves.

FASHIONABLE COLORS depend entirely upon the complexion; for example, for ladies who are brunettes, with a fresh color, light blue, straw color, pink, and pale green, are most in favor; while those of a blonde complexion universally adopt black, red, and very dark hues.

Transcriber's Notes:

Words surrounded by _ are italicized.

Obvious punctuation errors have been repaired, other punctuations have been left as printed in the paper book.

Erroneous page numbers in Table of Content corrected.

Captions added or corrected to match List of Illustrations.

Obvious printer's errors have been repaired, other inconsistent spellings have been kept, including: - use of hyphen (e.g. "bag-pipe" and "bagpipe"); - accents (e.g. "dépôts" and "depôts"); - proper names (e.g. "Leipzig" and "Leipsig"); - capitalisation (e.g. "Post-Office" and "Post-office"); - any other inconsistent spellings (e.g. "ambassador" and "embassador").

Following corrections are by removal or addition of a word: - Pg 23, word "of" added (the course of Mary Stuart's career); - Pg 60, word "a" added (in a low, guarded voice); - Pg 73, word "get" removed (could get [get] in); - Pg 135, word "the" removed (surnamed [the] "The Conqueror).