CHAPTER IX.

Violante's first evening at the Lansmeres, had seemed happier to her than the first evening, under the same roof, had done to Helen. True that she missed her father much--Jemima some what; but she so identified her father's cause with Harley, that she had a sort of vague feeling that it was to promote that cause that she was on this visit to Harley's parents. And the Countess, it must be owned, was more emphatically cordial to her than she had ever yet been to Captain Digby's orphan. But perhaps the real difference in the heart of either girl was this, that Helen felt awe of Lady Lansmere, and Violante felt only love for Lord L'Estrange's mother. Violante, too, was one of those persons whom a reserved and formal person, like the Countess, "can get on with," as the phrase goes. Not so poor little Helen--so shy herself, and so hard to coax into more than gentle monosyllables. And Lady Lansmere's favorite talk was always of Harley. Helen had listened to such talk with respect and interest. Violante listened to it with inquisitive eagerness--with blushing delight. The mother's heart noticed the distinction between the two, and no wonder that that heart moved more to Violante than to Helen. Lord Lansmere, too, like most gentlemen of his age, clumped all young ladies together, as a harmless, amiable, but singularly stupid class of the genus Petticoat, meant to look pretty, play the piano, and talk to each other about frocks and sweethearts. Therefore this animated, dazzling creature, with her infinite variety of look and play of mind, took him by surprise, charmed him into attention, and warmed him into gallantry. Helen sat in her quiet corner, at her work, sometimes listening with almost mournful, though certainly unenvious admiration at Violante's vivid, yet ever unconscious eloquence of word and thought--sometimes plunged deep into her own secret meditations. And all the while the work went on the same, under the same noiseless fingers. This was one of Helen's habits that irritated the nerves of Lady Lansmere. She despised young ladies who were fond of work. She did not comprehend how often it is the source of the sweet, womanly mind, not from want of thought, but from the silence and the depth of it. Violante was surprised, and perhaps disappointed, that Harley had left the house before dinner, and did not return all the evening. But Lady Lansmere, in making excuse for his absence, on the plea of engagements, found so good an opportunity to talk of his ways in general--of his rare promise in boyhood--of her regret at the inaction of his maturity--of her hope to see him yet do justice to his natural powers, that Violante almost ceased to miss him.

And when Lady Lansmere conducted her to her room, and, kissing her cheek tenderly, said, "But you are just the person Harley admires--just the person to rouse him from melancholy dreams, of which his wild humors are now but the vain disguise"--Violante crossed her arms on her bosom, and her bright eyes, deepened into tenderness, seemed to ask, "He melancholy--and why?"

On leaving Violante's room, Lady Lansmere paused before the door of Helen's; and, after musing a little while, entered softly.

Helen had dismissed her maid; and, at the moment Lady Lansmere entered, she was kneeling at the foot of the bed, her hands clasped before her face.

Her form, thus seen, looked so youthful and child-like--the attitude itself was so holy and so touching, that the proud and cold expression on Lady Lansmere's face changed. She shaded the light involuntarily, and seated herself in silence, that she might not disturb the act of prayer.

When Helen rose, she was startled to see the Countess seated by the fire; and hastily drew her hand across her eyes. She had been weeping.

Lady Lansmere did not, however, turn to observe those traces of tears, which Helen feared were too visible. The Countess was too absorbed in her own thoughts; and as Helen timidly approached, she said--still with her eyes on the clear low fire--"I beg your pardon, Miss Digby, for my intrusion; but my son has left it to me to prepare Lord Lansmere to learn the offer you have done Harley the honor to accept. I have not yet spoken to my lord; it may be days before I find a fitting occasion to do so; meanwhile, I feel assured that your sense of propriety will make you agree with me that it is due to Lord L'Estrange's father, that strangers should not learn arrangements of such moment in his family, before his own consent be obtained."

Here the Countess came to a full pause; and poor Helen, finding herself called upon for some reply to this chilling speech, stammered out, scarce audibly--

"Certainly, madam, I never dreamed of--"

"That is right, my dear," interrupted Lady Lansmere, rising suddenly, and as if greatly relieved. "I could not doubt your superiority to ordinary girls of your age, with whom these matters are never secret for a moment. Therefore, of course, you will not mention, at present, what has passed between you and Harley, to any of the friends with whom you may correspond."

"I have no correspondents--no friends, Lady Lansmere," said Helen deprecatingly, and trying hard not to cry.

"I am very glad to hear it, my dear; young ladies never should have. Friends, especially friends who correspond, are the worst enemies they can have. Good-night, Miss Digby, I need not add, by the way, that, though we are bound to show all kindness to this young Italian lady, still she is wholly unconnected with our family; and you will be as prudent with her as you would have been with your correspondents--had you had the misfortune to have any."

Lady Lansmere said the last words with a smile, and pressed a reluctant kiss (the step-mother's kiss) on Helen's bended brow. She then left the room, and Helen sate on the seat vacated by the stately, unloving form, and again covered her face with her hands, and again wept. But when she rose at last, and the light fell upon her face, that soft face was sad indeed, but serene--serene, as if with some inward sense of duty--sad, as with the resignation which accepts patience instead of hope.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

PIPE-CLAY AND CLAY PIPES.

I have an eccentric friend, whom I meet occasionally. He can not be said to have an inquiring turn of mind, or usually to busy himself with the science of industrial economy. Babbage is an unknown writer to him; and he has not yet contrived to "get up" any interest in the recent Reports on Her Majesty's Customs. In fact, I should not be surprised if he never opened the interesting volumes in question. He is a man with an active mind, nevertheless; but this activity is expended, as a rule, in eccentric pursuits. He has one confirmed antipathy--he hates a purpose. Since he heard that I had written a paper on the wrongs of factory children, he has treated me with marked coolness. Yet he is a man with an excellent heart. Let me at once give the key to his character. Most people have one serious object in life, therefore he is opposed to all serious objects. Lately, I met him walking briskly on his way homeward, and I consented to accompany him. Suddenly, he remembered that he must make a call before he entered his chambers.

This call led us out of a great thoroughfare, through two or three narrow and dark streets, to the door of a dingy house. As we paused on the threshold, my companion asked me if I had ever seen a tobacco-pipe manufactory. I expressed my inexperience; and, having been cautioned against sermons on what I was about to see, followed my eccentric friend down a dark passage, which terminated in a very dirty and a very dark warehouse. A few samples of tobacco-pipes lay upon a counter, and one side of the warehouse was skirted with drawers full of "yards of clay"--my eccentric friend's ordinary expression when alluding to his pipes. In a dark corner, a strong man was savagely punching huge blocks of clay with a heavy wooden bar; in another corner lay a huge pile of clay-blocks in the rough state--apparently a heap of dirt, of little use to any body. A mild woman--the wife of the manufacturer--showed us about with a cheerful manner. My friend, who took an evident interest in all the processes we witnessed, still contrived to maintain his eccentric habit, by continually expressing his unconcern. As we looked at the skillful action of the workmen's fingers, my friend allowed that they played the fiddle well, but added that they could _only_ play the fiddle. However, I left him to pursue his eccentric way, and wandered about with unfeigned curiosity.

Turning from the muscular fellow who was beating the rough clay with the wooden bar, and moistening it, that it might yield to the pressure of the mould, I suddenly saw a black gaping mouth before me, that seemed to be in the agony of swallowing a dense stack of tobacco-pipes; this, I learned, was the pipe-kiln. The pipes were arranged in exact rows, and in vast quantities. I ventured to express my astonishment at the number of pipes in the capacious kiln; whereupon the clay-beater paused from his labor, and, with a smile that expressed pity for my ignorance, declared that there was a mere handful on the premises.

"There are a few still, up there," he added, pointing to the roof of the warehouse.

I followed the direction of his finger, and saw above me a roof of tobacco-pipes piled in regular rows on brackets. The number appeared incalculable, but the clay-beater contemptuously pronounced it insignificant. He informed me that I might see "a few more," if I would have the goodness to go up stairs. My eccentric friend vowed that the trouble was excessive--that our business was with the pipes when they had tobacco in them; and not with the people who made them; and, as he remarked (having had a sharp pecuniary altercation with the manufacturer's wife), who took particular care to charge a remunerative price for them. But he mounted the stairs, in spite of his objections, and followed me into the room where the battered clay of the beater below was undergoing other processes. Here and there men seemed to be printing off pipes--the action of their arms, and the movement of their presses nearly resembling those of hand-printing. A pale woman sat in the centre of the room with a counter before her, and two or three delicate tools; but we went past her at once to the man who had a mound of soft gray clay before him. He was working briskly. He first seized two lumps of clay, each of the average size of an apple, and having carelessly kneaded them with his fingers, seemed to throw them contemptuously upon the board before him. Then, with the palms of his hand he rolled them sharply out on the board, leaving one end of each lump very thick, and producing, altogether, two clay tadpoles of a large size. These he took up, and placed with others in a row, all pressed and sticking together. The apparent unconcern and indifference with which the entire operation was performed struck us particularly. When we had sufficiently noticed the manufacture of gigantic tadpoles, we crossed the room to an opposite bench where a man was working rapidly. Here we found a confused heap of clay tadpoles, ready to be run through and burnt into seemly pipes.

We watched the operations of the second skilled laborer with intense interest. First, with a weary air he took up a bundle of limp clay tadpoles, and threw them down close beside him. He then took a fine steel rod in his left hand, and seizing a tadpole, drew its long slender tail on to the rod. This operation was so dexterously performed, that the rod never protruded the least to the right or to the left, but was kept, by the fine touch of the right-hand fingers, exactly in the centre of the tube. The spitted tadpole was then laid flat in the lower half of the metal pipe mould; the upper part was pulled down over it, and then pressed. On lifting the mould from the press, the workman quickly cut away the superfluous clay that stood up beyond the bowl, opened the mould, and disclosed, to the undisguised admiration even of my eccentric friend, the graceful flow of his usual "yard of clay." But it was not yet ready for smoking; very far from it.

It was still a damp, leaden gray pipe, with two broad seams of clay projecting from it, throughout its entire length. It was ragged too. On these deficiencies my friend began to offer a few pungent remarks; when the workman interrupted him by pointing toward an industrious woman, who seemed to be in a desperate hurry; yet she was not at all excited. My friend suggested that steam must be circulating in her nimble fingers, instead of blood. She smiled at the pleasantry; and said meekly enough, that it was custom. She was as clumsy as I should be when she began--but long, long days of experience--there, sitting before that board, and cutting incessantly those seams that curl so neatly off the rough pipes, give that dexterity, and it is well, perhaps severely, paid for. The work-woman wears a serious, dull face generally. It struck me, as I watched the repetition of her movements, that in their dreadful monotony there must be a deadening influence upon the mind and heart. I even thought that she must find it a relief now and then to break a pipe, or drop one of the glistening steel rods. First, she took up one of the rough pipes, and with a sharp steel instrument, smoothed all the rough clay about the bowl. Then she smoothed the stem with a flat instrument--then she cut the mouthpiece even. Having thus rapidly traveled over the moulder's work, she withdrew the fine steel rod from the tube, blew down the pipe to assure herself that the air passed from the bowl to the mouth-piece, and then carefully added it to a row, placed upon a frame beside her. The finished pipe was hardly deposited in its place before another was in her hands, and in rapid process toward completion.

A roaring fire crackled in the grate, and the heat of the atmosphere was oppressive. Above were more endless rows and galleries of pipes; waiting to be baked, and in a fair way, I thought, of undergoing that process where they lay. I could hear the dull, heavy sounds of the clay-beater's weapon below, and in the rooms the incessant click of the closing moulds. The workmen were proud to show their dexterity, as they well might be. Our friend in the farther corner, as he talked pleasantly to us on various subjects, still carelessly made his clay tadpoles; the woman never paused from her rapid work when she exchanged occasional sentences with a boy who stood near her; and the wife of the manufacturer surveyed the busy scene with sparkling eyes.

I thought once or twice of the damp clay streaming about these workpeople; and of the hard, stern work going on to provide receptacles for lazy men's tobacco. Pipe-clay seemed to force itself every where; about the rafters, on the benches, on the floor, in the walls. My friend's curiosity was soon satisfied: for his anxiety to avoid contact with the raw material of his favorite manufactured article, drove every other consideration from his mind. He vowed that he did not wish to appear in the streets of London in the guise of a miller--that, generally, he preferred a black coat to a piebald one, and that not being a military man, the less pipe-clay he took away in the nap of his clothes, the better. But I had one or two questions to put to the tadpole-maker--not with the view, as my friend stoutly asserted, of writing a sermon, but perhaps with an object sufficiently laudable. I learned that a workman, "keeping to it" twelve hours, can make "four gross and a half" of pipes per day.

My friend was struck with this astonishing fact; and, forthwith, began to prove from this assertion that he ought to have the half-gross he wanted at a very low price indeed. It was only when the workman paused, for the first time, from his work to discuss the beauties of various pipes, that my friend felt himself quite at home in the manufactory. Hereupon, the workman placed a variety of pipes in juxtaposition, and began to talk of their relative excellences and beauties with the tact of an artist. This man was not without a shrewd sense of art; he had his ideal of a tobacco-pipe, as the political dreamer has his ideal of a model state, or a sculptor of his ideal beauty. He had shrewd, unanswerable reasons for a certain roundness in the bowl; his eye wandered critically down the graceful bend of the tube, and his hand tested nicely the finish of the surface. His skill lay, certainly, only in the manufacture of tobacco-pipes; but, still, herein his mind was active, and his taste was cultivated.

"What would become of you if smoking were put down by Act of Parliament?" my friend asked, with a sarcastic air. But the man was a match even for the practiced eccentricity of my companion.

"Why, sir," said the man, "most likely more snuff would be consumed instead, and I should shut up the kiln, and take to making snuffboxes."

My friend was silenced; and, as we walked away from the manufactory, down the dark, narrow streets, he allowed, in a whisper, that there was wisdom in the pipemaker's answer. And then he began to make calculations as to how many people flourish in every country on the bad habits and vices of their fellow-citizens. He wove a chain of terrible length, to show how many men were interested in the drunkenness of the country. A man reeled past us in the imbecile, singing stage of the vice. "That man," said my eccentric friend, "has done the state some service to-night. He has been helping to swell the Excise returns; presently, he will create a disturbance; a policeman will gallantly walk him off to the station-house, and be promoted; his hat will be broken, to the great advantage of a hatter; his shirt front will be torn, to the benefit of some poor, lone sempstress; and there, he has broken his yard of clay, to the advantage of the manufactory we have just left. Delirium tremens will come at last; and with it a surgeon; and, with the surgeon, herbs which are now growing under the burning heat of Indian skies." Thus my eccentric friend ran on, and I did not interrupt him; for, in his words, I detected sparks of light that led us merrily forward to our journey's end, where we found half-a-gross of "yards of clay;" "a perfect picture," according to my friend--lying, all white as snow before us, trimmed, I knew, by the serious, nimble-fingered woman we had seen at her work. And she is at it now, still cutting the seams off, and blowing down the tubes!

HABITS AND CHARACTER OF THE DOG-RIB INDIANS.[7]

[Footnote 7: From Sir John Richardson's Arctic "Searching Expedition," just published by Harper and Brothers.]

Few traces of the stoicism popularly attributed to the red races exist among the Dog ribs; they shrink from pain, show little daring, express their fears without disguise on all occasions, imaginary or real, shed tears readily, and live in constant dread of enemies, bodied and disembodied. Yet all, young and old, enjoy a joke heartily. They are not a morose people, but, on the contrary, when young and in a situation of security, they are remarkably lively and cheerful. The infirmities of age, which press heavily on the savage, render them querulous. They are fond of dancing, but their dance, which is performed in a circle, is without the least pretensions to grace, and is carried on laboriously with the knees and body half bent and a heavy stamping, having the effect of causing the dancers to appear as if they were desirous of sinking into the ground. It is accompanied by a song resembling a chorus of groans, or pretty nearly the deep sigh of a pavier as he brings his rammer down upon the pavement. They are great mimics, and readily ape the peculiarities of any white man; and many of the young men have caught the tunes of the Canadian voyagers, and hum them correctly.

The Dog-ribs are practical socialists; and, as much of the misery they occasionally experience may be traced to this cause, the study of the working of such a system may be instructive in a community like this, whose members owe their condition in the social scale solely to their personal qualities, and not to inheritance, favor, or the other accidents which complicate the results in civilized life. Custom has established among them a practice universally acted upon--that all may avail themselves of the produce of a hunter's energy and skill; and they do not even leave to him the distribution of his own game. When it is known in the camp that deer have been killed, the old men and women of each family sally forth with their sledges, and, tracing up the hunter's footsteps to the carcasses of the animals he has slain, proceed to divide them among themselves, leaving to the proper owner the ribs, which is all that he can claim to himself of right. He has also the tongue, which he takes care to cut out on killing the deer. It is not in the power of these people to restrain their appetites when they have abundance; and the consequence is, that when the chase is successful, all the community feast and grow fat, however little many of the men--and there are not a few idle ones--may have contributed to the common good. The hunter's wife dries the rib-pieces, after cutting out the bone, in the smoke, or over a fire, to carry to a fort for the purposes of trade; but, unless there is a superabundance, little provision is made by the party for a time of scarcity, which is sure to arrive before long; since the deer, when much hunted, move to some other district. Taught by their frequent sufferings on such occasions, the more active hunters frequently withdraw themselves and their families from the knowledge of the drones of the community, leaving them at some fishing station, where, with proper industry, they may subsist comfortably. A fish diet is not, however, agreeable to the palates of these people for any length of time; and, as soon as rumors of a hunter's success reach them--which they do generally much exaggerated by the way--a longing for the flesh-pots is instantly excited, especially among the old, and a general movement to the hunting-ground ensues. If, on their march, the craving multitude discover a hoard of meat stored up by any of the hunting parties, it is devoured on the spot; but they are not always so fortunate. Before they reach the scene of anticipated abundance, the deer may have gone off, followed by the hunters, with uncertain hopes of overtaking them, and nothing remains for the hungry throng, including the old and the lame, but to retrace their steps, with the prospect of many of them perishing by the way, should their stock of food have been quite exhausted. Such occurrences are by no means rare; they came several times under our immediate notice during our winter residence at Fort Confidence, and similar facts are recorded by Mr. Simpson of the same tribe. This gentleman expresses his opinion that the charge made against this nation, of abandoning their infirm aged people and children, had its origin in the _sauve qui peut_ cry raised during a forced retreat from some one of these most injudicious excursions; and I am inclined fully to agree with him; for I witnessed several unquestionable instances of tenderness and affection shown by children to their parents, and of compliance with their whims, much to their own personal inconvenience. The grief they show on the loss of a parent, is often great and of long continuance, and it is the custom, both for men and women, to lament the death of relations for years, by nightly wailings.

Hospitality is not a virtue which is conspicuous among the Dog-ribs, who differ in this respect from the Eythinyuwuk, in whose encampments a stranger meets a welcome and a proffer of food. It is not customary, however, for the Dog-rib to receive the traveler who enters his tent with the same show of kindness. If he is hungry, and meat hangs up, he may help himself without eliciting a remark, for the 'Tinnè hold it to be mean to say much about a piece of meat; or he may exert his patience until some cookery goes on, and then join in the meal; and should there be venison at hand, he will not have long to wait, for every now and then some one is prompted to hang a kettle on the fire, or to place a joint or steak to roast before it.

Of the peculiarities of their religious belief I could gain no certain information. The interpreters to whom I applied for assistance disliked the task, and invariably replied, "As for these savages, they know nothing; they are ignorant people." The majority of the nation recognize a "Great Spirit," at least by name, but some doubt his existence, assigning, as a reason for their atheism, their miserable condition; or they say, "If there be such a being, he dwells on the lands of the white people, where so many useful and valuable articles are produced." With respect to evil spirits, their name in the Dog-rib country is legion. The 'Tinnè recognize them in the Bear, Wolf, and Wolverene, in the woods, waters, and desert places; often hear them howling in the winds, or moaning by the graves of the dead. Their dread of these disembodied beings, of whom they spoke to us under the general name of "enemies," is such that few of the hunters will sleep out alone. They never make any offerings to the Great Spirit, or pay him an act of adoration; but they deprecate the wrath of an evil being by prayer, and the sacrifice of some article, generally of little value, perhaps simply by scattering a handful of deer hair or a few feathers.

MONTHLY RECORD OF CURRENT EVENTS.

THE UNITED STATES.

In Congress, during the past month, there has been copious discussion of a great variety of subjects, but no important action upon any. The influence of the approaching Presidential election makes itself felt upon the debates of Congress, coloring every speech and often superseding every other subject. Memorials have been presented in favor of authorizing another Arctic expedition in search of Sir John Franklin, for which Mr. Henry Grinnell again tenders the use of his ships--asking only that the government will send a small steamer with them and men for officers and sailors. Commander Wilkes has also addressed Congress on the subject; proposing a very large Expedition--sufficient indeed to establish a permanent settlement in the Arctic regions, from which the search may be prosecuted. Nothing has been done with regard to either.----Governor Kossuth has addressed to Congress a letter of thanks for the reception given him, which was presented in the Senate on the 17th of February, and gave rise to a long debate on the proposition to print it: it was ordered to be printed by 21 votes to 20 against it.----In the Senate a bill has been reported by Commitee to establish a branch mint in the city of New York, on condition that the city donate land for a site and the State exempt it from taxation.----A good deal of the attention of the Senate has been devoted to a debate upon the Public Land policy of the country, the question coming up on a bill granting large tracts of land to Iowa to aid in the construction of certain railroads. Mr. Sumner, of Massachusetts, spoke in favor of ceding all the public lands to the States in which they lie, mainly on the ground that the exemption of those lands from State taxation had created in those States an equitable title to them. On the 24th of February Mr. Geyer, of Missouri, spoke in favor of the same policy, basing his argument in its support upon the same facts. Mr. Underwood offered an amendment to the effect of distributing among the seventeen States in which there are no public lands, fifteen millions of acres. He spoke in defense of it at length. No vote has been taken upon the subject.----Further debate has been had upon the resolutions on the subject of non-intervention. On the 26th of February, Mr. Miller, of New Jersey, spoke against the policy of intermeddling at all in the affairs of foreign nations. He represented intervention in foreigns affairs as the habitual policy of European monarchies, which Washington had resisted; and he urged the duty and necessity of adhering strictly to the ground of neutrality which was adopted during the early history of this country. The subject was then postponed until the 9th of March, when Mr. Seward of New York, spoke upon it. He urged the absolute independence of every State, and the duty of all States to recognize and respect it. He entered upon a historical review of the connection of Hungary and Austria to show that Hungary was fully entitled to this right, and that it had been grossly violated when her freedom and constitution were destroyed by the armed intervention of Russia. He then urged that the United States, although recognizing the existing rule in Hungary from motives of political necessity, can not be indifferent to such usurpation, and may lawfully protest against it, and especially against any new intervention should it be intended by Russia. He referred to the diplomatic history of the United States to show that this principle has always been recognized and practiced by them, and insisted that there was no reason why it should now be abandoned. Upon the conclusion of his speech the subject was postponed for a week.----A debate of personal rather than general interest occurred in the Senate on the 27th and 28th of February, between Mr. Rhett of South Carolina and Mr. Clemens of Alabama. The former read a very long paper which he had prepared to expose the political inconsistencies of Mr. Clemens, and in which he used strong language in characterizing his course. Mr. Clemens replied with passionate warmth and with increased vituperation Their speeches have no general interest or importance.----In the _House of Representatives_ discussion, although it has comprehended various subjects, has grown mainly out of bills to appropriate public lands to certain railroads in Missouri and Illinois. They have been debated with a good deal of warmth, and almost every speaker has connected with them the discussion of the Presidential question. In the course of the debate a letter from Gen. William O. Butler, addressed to a personal friend, was read, in which he declares his entire assent and approval of the Compromise Measures of 1850. On the 1st of March, Mr. Fitch of Iowa offered a resolution deprecating all further agitation of the questions growing out of these measures as useless and dangerous: and a vote was taken on a motion to suspend the rules so as to allow its introduction: there were ayes 119, nays 74. As two-thirds were required to pass it, the motion failed.----On the 20th of February a message was received from the President, transmitting, in reply to a resolution of the House, copies of the correspondence between the officers of the Mississippi and the Government concerning Kossuth. It was quite voluminous, embracing letters from other American functionaries as well as naval officers. They show on the part of all of them a strong distrust of Kossuth's plans and great dissatisfaction at the marks of respect paid to him at the various ports on the Mediterranean, at which the Mississippi touched. His returning thanks to the people at Marseilles who cheered him, is especially censured.

The month has been marked by several literary discourses of more than common interest. At the anniversary meeting of the New York Historical Society, held on the 23d of February, Hon. Daniel Webster read an elaborate paper upon the dignity and importance of History, and making sundry detailed criticisms upon the historical writings of ancient and modern historians. He dwelt somewhat minutely upon all the great writers of Greece and Rome, and passed more hastily over those of England. He sketched the early history of the United States, dwelling especially upon the proceedings of the first Congress after the Constitution, and pronouncing a high eulogy upon the great men to whose hands the legislation of that important era was intrusted. He closed by alluding to the dangers which had recently menaced the Union and the Constitution, and declared himself ready to co-operate with those of every party who would rally in their defense. The discourse was heard with marked attention by an immense and intelligent audience.----On the evening of the 27th, a very large meeting was held in New York to testify regard for the memory of the late J. Fenimore Cooper. The occasion was distinguished by the attendance, as presiding officer, of Mr. Webster, and by the presence of a great number of distinguished literary gentlemen. Mr. Webster made a brief address, expressing his cordial interest in the occasion, and the high respect which he entertained for the writings of Cooper, as being preeminent for their thorough American feeling and high moral tone, as well as great intellectual ability. William Cullen Bryant delivered a commemorative address, rehearsing Mr. Cooper's life, and making passing criticisms upon his successive works.----On the evening of March 8th, Archbishop Hughes read a Lecture on the Catholic Chapter in the History of the United States, the leading purpose of which was to show that in this country no religious denomination has any claim to supremacy--that it is neither Protestant nor Catholic--but that the Constitution prohibits all legislation upon the subject, and that all stand upon precisely the same level.----A Whig State Convention was held in Kentucky, at Frankfort, on the 24th of February. Hon. Chilton Allan presided. A series of resolutions was adopted, pronouncing in favor of the Compromise measures of 1850, and of the course pursued by the President of the United States in securing the execution of the laws. They also declared in favor of public appropriations for internal improvements, against granting the public lands to the States in which they lie, and in favor of maintaining strict neutrality in the affairs of all foreign nations. The Convention declared its willingness to abide by the nomination of a Whig National Convention, but presented President Fillmore to the consideration of that body, as a "statesman of such approved prudence, experience, firmness, and wisdom as to unite the entire Whig vote of Kentucky."----A large public meeting was held in New York, on the 5th of March, of those in favor of the nomination of Mr. Webster for the Presidency, subject to the decision of a National Whig Convention. Mr. George Griswold presided. An address was adopted rehearsing the public history of Mr. Webster, and referring to his services to the country in the various public offices which he has held.----A Whig State Convention in Indiana adopted resolutions nominating General Scott for the Presidency.----Washington's birth-day was celebrated at the National Capital by a banquet, got up mainly by members of Congress. Senator Stockton presided, and speeches were made by several gentlemen--mainly directed against the policy of intermeddling to any degree or for any purpose in the affairs of foreign nations. Mr Clay, whose illness prevented his attendance, wrote a letter, saying that the serious efforts made to subvert the policy of neutrality established by Washington, called for energetic measures of resistance. The attempts made to induce this country to plunge, by perilous proceedings and insensible degrees, in the wars of Europe, rendered it proper to recall attention to his principles by celebrating his birth-day.

From CALIFORNIA we have intelligence to the 2d of February. Col. JOHN B. WELLER (Democrat) has been elected United States Senator in place of Col. Frémont. He was once candidate for Governor of Ohio and more recently chief of the Mexican Boundary Commission.----Governor Bigler has sent to the Legislature a special message, concerning the financial affairs of the State, in which he urges upon the Legislature the early adoption of measures to relieve the burden of the State's liabilities, and exhibits the amount of her indebtedness. According to the Controller's report, $1,000,000 still stands against the State from the expenses of last year's military expeditions. The aggregate indebtedness, civil and military, of the State, on the 31st December was $2,242,339.74.----There had been no further disturbances from the Indians, though further precautions against them had been taken by sending troops into their neighborhood.----Hon. T. B. King has published a letter recommending the relinquishment of the public lands to actual settlers, and the confirmation by Congress of the rules established by the miners themselves, defining the rights of those who may be employed in the collection of gold, or who may invest capital in machinery for the purpose of working the vein mines.----Intelligence from the mining districts continues to be encouraging. The quartz mining companies are generally doing well, though from defects in machinery some failures have occurred. New discoveries continue to be made.

From OREGON our advices are to Jan. 24. The Legislature and Judiciary disagree about the seat of government, part of the members meeting in the place fixed by judicial decision, and others refusing to concur in the decision and meeting elsewhere. The dispute has been transferred to the people, by the adjournment of the Assembly on the 21st of Jan. It is canvassed with great warmth and earnestness.----Some doubts having arisen as to the true boundary line between Oregon and California, the Surveyor-general has been directed to make the necessary observations to determine it.

In the Territory of NEW MEXICO, from which we have news to Jan. 31st, fresh Indian outrages have occurred. An escort of United States troops, consisting of a sergeant and four men, was proceeding southward when they were attacked by a band of Apaches in ambush, and four of the party were killed; the other succeeded in making his escape. Four murders were perpetrated also near Polvodera in the early part of January, and soon after the Indians attacked a party of nine persons of whom they killed five. The scene of these outrages is the desert region called the Jornada, lying on the route from Santa Fé to Chihuahua. The daring nature of the attacks of the several tribes of Indians had created great alarm throughout the country. A body of troops had been sent out to punish the Indians for these murders, but returned without success.----Movements are in progress in Santa Fé to work the gold placers known to exist in that vicinity. The chief difficulty has hitherto arisen from the want of water for washing the dust: this is now to be remedied by digging wells. A gold hunting company of forty men has left Santa Fé for a thorough exploration of the Gila region: they expected to find others on the way to join them, so as to swell their number to a hundred and fifty which would be sufficient for self-defense.

From UTAH the last California mail brought news that the Mormons at the Great Salt Lake city had published a declaration of independence, announcing their determination to setup a republic for themselves--that they had put the United States' authorities at defiance--that all the United States' officers had left, and the people were preparing to resist all authority, by fortifying their settlements. The delegate in Congress from Utah, Mr. John W. Bernhisel, published a card on the 1st of March, pronouncing the report untrue, so far as the latest intelligence from home which had reached him enabled him to give an opinion. He said he thought the rumor was merely an exaggerated statement of difficulties previously known. On the other hand, another gentleman who left California on the 16th of December, expresses the belief that the accounts are true. He says that the news was by no means unexpected to the people of Oregon and California, as they had long been aware of their hostile and ambitious designs. For decisive intelligence we shall be obliged to wait for another arrival.

From NORTHERN MEXICO we have news of a renewed repulse of Carvajal, whom our last Record left on the Rio Grande, recruiting his forces. General Avalos fortified Matamoras against an expected attack, which had created great alarm among the inhabitants. On the 20th of February Carvajal attacked Camargo with a force of over 500 men, but he was repulsed with decided loss. He succeeded in escaping to the American side of the Rio Grande. Of his whole force it is stated that only 84 were Mexicans.

From SOUTH AMERICA we have intelligence of a later date. In _Venezuela_, from which we have news to the 1st of February, Congress opened on the 25th of January. The Message of President Monagas announces a great improvement in the financial condition of the country. All the obligations on account of the public service have been met--the expenses of the wars of 1848 and 1849 have been partially liquidated--the interest on the domestic debt, which has not been satisfied since 1847, has been paid, and the installments on the foreign debt, which have been neglected for some years, have been promptly remitted to London--thus improving the national credit abroad.----From the _La Plata_ we have intelligence of an engagement, about the 1st of January, between the forces of Rosas and Urquiza, which is said to have resulted in the victory of the former, and in the desertion to his standard of five thousand of Urquiza's troops. It is not easy to say how much of this is reliable.----Political offenders in _Chili_ have been for some years banished to the Straits of Magellan. An insurrection took place among them lately, in which they killed the governor, seized the garrison, and declared themselves independent of Chili. It is said that they have also seized two or three American vessels.

GREAT BRITAIN.

The political events of the month in England have been of striking interest and importance. The expulsion of Lord Palmerston from the Cabinet, mainly for offenses against etiquette--the meeting of Parliament, and the subsequent defeat and retirement of the Russell Ministry, with the reinstatement of a Protectionist Cabinet, are certainly events of more consequence than are usually crowded into a single month.

Parliament met on the 3d of February, and was opened in person by the Queen. Her speech announced that she continued to maintain the most friendly relations with Foreign Powers. She had reason to believe that the treaty between Germany and Denmark, concluded at Berlin year before last, will soon be fully executed. Although tranquillity has prevailed throughout the greater part of Ireland, certain parts of the counties of Armagh, Monaghan, and Louth have been marked by the commission of outrages of the most serious description. Bills have been prepared founded upon the reports of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the practice and proceedings of the Superior Courts of Law and Equity, which are commended to deliberate attention. The act of 1848 suspending the previous act which conferred representative institutions on New Zealand, expires early next year; and no reason exists for its renewal. The large reductions of taxes which have taken place of late years have not been attended with a proportionate diminution of national income. The revenue of the past year has been fully adequate to the demands of the public service, while the reduction of taxation has tended greatly to the relief and comfort of the people. The Queen states that it appears to her that "this is a fitting time for calmly considering whether it may not be advisable to make such amendments in the act of the late reign, relating to the Representation of the Commons in Parliament, as may be deemed calculated to carry into more complete effect the principles upon which that law is founded." She had "the fullest confidence that, in any such consideration, Parliament would firmly adhere to the acknowledged principles of the Constitution, by which the prerogatives of the Crown, the authority of both Houses of Parliament, and the rights and liberties of the people are equally secured."

Previous to the meeting of Parliament, the public was taken completely by surprise by the retirement of Lord Palmerston from the Ministry, and the appointment of Earl Granville as his successor. In the House of Commons explanations took place on the first day of the session. The reply to the Queen's speech was moved by Sir Richard Bulkeley; but, before the question was taken, Sir Benjamin Hall called upon the Premier for explanations of the disruption of the Ministry. Lord John Russell immediately entered upon the subject, and after declaring his former confidence in Lord Palmerston's management of Foreign Affairs, and stating that in 1835, and again in 1845 and 1846 he had strongly recommended him for that department, went on to state his conception of the position of the Foreign Secretary toward the Crown and the Prime Minister. He believed it to be the duty of the Minister to give to the Crown the most full and frank details of every measure, and either to obey the instructions he may receive, or resign. It "did so happen," he said, "that in 1850 precise terms were laid down in a communication from the Queen to Lord Palmerston--in which Her Majesty required, first, that Lord Palmerston should distinctly state what he proposes in a given case, in order that the Queen may know as distinctly to what she is giving her Royal sanction; and, secondly, that having once given her sanction to a measure, that it be not arbitrarily altered or modified by the Minister. The Queen further expected to be kept informed of what passes between the Foreign Secretary and the Foreign Ministers, before important decisions are taken based upon that intercourse--to receive the foreign dispatches in good time, and to have the drafts for her approval sent to her in sufficient time to make herself acquainted with their contents before they must be sent off."--In reply to this communication, Lord Palmerston said he would not fail to attend to the directions which it contained.--As for the Prime Minister, Lord John Russell said he considered him, in fact, responsible for the business of the department. At a meeting of the Cabinet, on the 3d of November, Lord John expressed his opinion on the situation of Europe, which he deemed very critical. There was a prospect of seeing social democracy, or absolute power triumphant on the Continent; and in either case the position of England would be very critical. He thought it necessary, therefore, for England to preserve a strict neutrality, and to exercise the utmost vigilance to prevent any cause of offense being given. Yet very soon after that, Lord Palmerston received a deputation, and listened to addresses containing expressions in the highest degree offensive to sovereigns in alliance with England. Still Lord John said he was willing to take the responsibility for all this, as he thought the Secretary had merely committed an error.--The next cause of difference occurred immediately after the usurpation of Louis Napoleon on the 2d of December. The next day a cabinet meeting was held, at which a request was presented from Lord Normanby, the English Minister at Paris, that he might be furnished with instructions as to the continuance of diplomatic relations with the new Government. In conformity with the decision then made, Lord Palmerston, on the 5th, instructed him to make no change in his relations with the French government. On the 6th, Lord Normanby wrote saying that he had called on M. Turgot, the French Minister, and informed him of this decision, to which M. Turgot replied that it was of less consequence as he had two days since heard from M. Walewski, the French Minister in London, that Lord Palmerston had expressed to him his entire approbation of the act of the President, and his conviction that he could not have acted otherwise than he had done. On seeing this dispatch, Lord John asked Lord Palmerston for an explanation, but got no answer. On the 13th of December, he received a letter from the Queen, requesting an explanation; but Lord Palmerston maintained the same disdainful silence. On the 17th, he received another dispatch from Lord Normanby to Lord Palmerston, complaining that Lord Palmerston should use one language in his instructions to him and another to the French Minister in London, and that while enjoining him not to express any opinion of French politics, he should himself have expressed a very decided judgment. Such a course, he added, subjected him to misrepresentation and suspicion. Lord Palmerston, in reply to this, stated that Lord Normanby's instructions related only to his conduct, and not to opinions: but that if he wished to know Lord Palmerston's opinion concerning French affairs, it was, that "such a state of antagonism had arisen between the President and the Assembly, that it was becoming every day more clear that their coexistence could not be of long duration; and it seemed to him better for the interests of France, and through them for the interests of the rest of Europe, that the power of the President should prevail, inasmuch as the continuance of his authority might afford a prospect of the maintenance of social order in France, whereas the divisions of opinions and parties in the Assembly appeared to betoken that their victory over the President would be the starting-point for disastrous civil strife." Lord John Russell said that this dispatch contained no satisfactory explanation of Lord Palmerston's course; that the merits of the French government had now nothing to do with the case: but that the real question was, whether the Secretary of State was entitled of his own authority, to write a dispatch, as the organ of the Government, in which his colleagues had never concurred, and to which the Queen had never given her sanction. He thought, therefore, that he could not without degrading the Crown, advise her Majesty longer to retain Lord Palmerston in the Foreign department, and he had accordingly advised her to request his resignation, which she had done. In continuing his remarks Lord John expressed his belief that the President of France had acted under a belief that the course he had taken was the one best calculated to insure the welfare of his country; and proceeded to censure the course of the English press toward Louis Napoleon, as calculated to excite the animosity of the French nation, and perhaps to involve the two countries in war. Lord Palmerston replied in a very moderate tone, substantially admitting the truth of Lord John's statements, though denying the justice of his inferences. He repelled the intimation that he had abandoned the principles he had always maintained--that he had become the advocate of absolute power, or in favor of the abolition of Constitutional governments. He concurred in what Lord John had said of the relations that ought to exist between the Foreign Secretary and the Crown, and said he had done nothing inconsistent with them. In regard to the deputation he had received, he admitted that he had been surprised into a false position. His delay in answering the letters of Lord John Russell had been entirely owing to the great pressure of business; and his expressions of opinion concerning Louis Napoleon were unofficial and in conversation. Other members of the cabinet had expressed the same opinions, and under circumstances quite as objectionable, certainly, as those under which his own conversation was held. Lord Palmerston rehearsed the outlines of the policy he had pursued in managing the foreign relations of Great Britain, and concluded by saying that, on quitting office, he left the character and reputation of England unsullied, and standing high among the nations of the world.----In the House of Lords the debates following the reading of the Queen's speech, had greater incidental than direct interest. The Earl of Derby took occasion to speak in very strong terms of what he termed "the injudicious and unjustifiable language of a large portion of the English press upon the French government." He insisted that it was the duty of the press to maintain the same tone of moderation in discussing public affairs which is required of public men; and he styled it worse than folly for the press in one breath to provoke a French invasion, and in the next to proclaim the unpreparedness of the English people to meet it. He was followed by Earl Grey, who expressed his hearty concurrence in what he had said of the press, as did also Lord Brougham. The London journals, and among them pre-eminently the _Times_ and the _Examiner_, have taken up the challenge thus thrown down, and have vindicated the press from the censures of the Lords in some of the ablest writing of the day.

On the 9th, Lord John Russell introduced his new Reform Bill. Its provisions may be very briefly stated. The £10 franchise was to be reduced to £5; the £50 county franchise gives way to one of £20; that of copyholders and long leaseholders is to be reduced from £10 to £5; and a new class of voters is to be created out of those who, resident in either county or borough, pay direct taxes to the amount of 40 shillings. In 67 boroughs additions are proposed to the electoral boundaries; the property qualification is to be abolished, and the oaths of members to be put in such a form as to create no invidious distinctions. A member taking office under the crown vacates his seat; but if he merely changes it, he may retain his representative capacity. The Premier made a speech upon the subject, over an hour in length, and remarkably free from feeling of any sort. The main objections urged to the bill are that it does not concede the ballot, that it does not remedy the evils of unequal representation, and that the changes it does make in the existing law are of very little importance. Notice has been given of an intention to move amendments to the bill which would remedy these defects.----On the 19th, Lord Naas proposed a resolution severely censuring the Earl of Clarendon's employment of the _World_ newspaper to support the government, as being "of a nature to weaken the authority of the executive, and to reflect discredit on the administration of public affairs." The Earl was defended warmly by Lords Russell and Palmerston, both of whom urged that, irregular as the proceeding might have been, it was of trifling consequence compared with his lordship's eminent services to the country. The resolution was rejected 229 to 137.----On the 16th, Lord John Russell introduced a bill for the establishment of a local militia force. He gave a sketch of the recent history of the military organization of England, and set forth the reasons which, in his judgment, rendered it important that some more effectual provision should be made for the defense of the country against possible hostilities. The general provisions of the bill were that persons of the age of 20 and 21 years should be subject to being balloted for as militia men--that one-fifth of the whole number should be chosen--and that they should be drilled for 14 or 28 days each year. The entire force thus raised, he thought, would be about 70,000 the first year, 100,000 the second, and 130,000 after that; the forces could not be taken out of their own counties, without their consent, except in case of invasion or danger. The subject was very slightly discussed at that time, but came up again on the 20th, when Lord John Russell again spoke in support of the bill. Lord Palmerston expressed his entire concurrence in the principle of the bill, but moved as an amendment, to strike out the word _local_ from the title, in order to make the title correspond with the character of the bill itself. Lord John Russell said he could not understand the object of such a motion, and that he should oppose it. After some further debate the amendment was put and carried, ayes 136, noes 125, showing a majority against the Ministry of 11. Lord John Russell expressed great surprise at the vote, and said that he should hold office no longer. The resignation of the Ministry under such circumstances created a good deal of surprise. In the course of three or four days a new cabinet was formed under the leadership of the Earl of Derby--late Lord Stanley--which is thoroughly Protectionist in its sentiments. The Earl is Prime Minister; Mr. Disraeli is Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader in the House of Commons; Mr. G. F. Young is Vice President of the Board of Trade; Duke of Northumberland, first Lord of the Admiralty; Lord John Manners, Commissioner of Woods and Forests; Sir F. Thesiger, Attorney General; Earl of Eglintoun, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; Duke of Montrose, Lord Steward; Lord Stanley, Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs. It is supposed that the new Ministry will break ground at once against the corn-law policy established by Sir Robert Peel, hostility to which is the only bond of union among its members; and the universal belief is that the new administration will fail to be sustained by the country on that question.

One of the earliest topics to which the attention of the Earl of Granville, Lord Palmerston's immediate successor, was called, was the degree of protection which England should afford to political refugees from other countries. In reply to representations on this subject from the Austrian Government, Earl Granville, in a dispatch dated January 13, spoke of the right of asylum which England always had granted, and could never refuse to political refugees; and added that the English government would, nevertheless, consider any intrigues, carried on there against governments with which they were at peace, as a breach of hospitality, and would not fail to watch the conduct of suspected refugees, and to prevent them from abusing the privileges afforded them by English laws. Prince Schwarzenberg, in reply, expressed satisfaction at the tenor of these assurances, but said, that until the words of the English government were followed by deeds, it would be necessary for Austria to take measures of precaution and protection against the dangers which the ceaseless machinations of foreign refugees on English soil created. The Imperial government would be especially rigid in regard to English travelers, and would, moreover, reserve the right of taking into consideration ulterior measures, if, unhappily, the need of them should still make itself felt.----A terrible disaster from floods occurred in the north of England on the 5th of February. Several of the factories of the town of Holmfrith, near Huddersfield, were supplied with water by large reservoirs, in which an immense body of water had been accumulated. Owing to the heavy rains one of the largest of them broke its banks, and the water poured through the town, sweeping houses away in its path and causing an immense loss of life and property. Over one hundred persons were drowned. Very great injury had been sustained by other towns in that vicinity. In the south of Ireland also, especially in the counties of Limerick and Clare, much property and some lives have been lost by the swelling of the smaller streams.----The dispatches of Earl Grey recalling Sir Harry Smith from the government of the Cape, have been published: they show that his incompetence for the post has been the real cause of his removal, and that the policy of the government is to prosecute the war with increased vigor, so as to reduce the Kaffirs and Hottentots to unconditional submission.----We mentioned in our Record for March, the repulse of the English slave squadron while attempting to ascend the river, to the town of Lagos, on the coast of Africa, contrary to the commands of the chief. Later advices report the renewal of the attempt, and the overthrow of the chief's authority, though at a very heavy cost on the part of the English. The town of Lagos has long been the stronghold of the slave trade on that part of the coast, and the English have directed their efforts toward the suppression of the traffic there. The chief of the town named Kosoko, was actively engaged in the trade himself, in connection with Portugese and Brazilian dealers. He had obtained power by expelling a rival named Akitoye, who sought aid against him in an alliance with the English. When Kosoko, therefore, refused permission to the English to bring their armed boats to Lagos, the commander of the squadron concerted an attack upon the town, with the adherents of the expelled chief. The town was defended with a good deal of skill and bravery, and the assault upon it lasted three days, at the end of which time it was found to have been deserted. The English lost 16 killed and 64 wounded. It is said that the destruction of this town will do much toward the suppression of the slave trade.----A new expedition in search of Sir John Franklin has been resolved upon by the British Government, and Sir Edward Belcher has been appointed to the command. He will leave England about the middle of April, with the four ships which composed Captain Austin's late expedition. His attention will first be directed to Beechey Island, where Sir John is known to have passed the winter of 1845-6. The great object of this new expedition is to examine the upper part of Wellington Strait as far as possible beyond Captain Penny's northwest advance.

FRANCE.

Political affairs in France remain substantially unchanged. The law organizing the Legislative body has been published. The Legislature is to consist of 261 deputies, elected by the people, in the proportion of one for every 35,000 electors in the first instance, with one more deputy for every 25,000 beyond that number. Algeria and the Colonies are not to be represented. All electors are eligible except public functionaries. Every Frenchman of the age of twenty-one, who has not forfeited his civil rights, has the vote.----We mentioned in our last Record the protest of the testamentary executors of Louis Philippe against the decree of confiscation, issued by the President. The Princes of Orleans--the Duke de Nemours, and the Prince de Joinville--have addressed a letter of thanks to the executors, in which they resent with becoming indignation the insults heaped upon the memory of their father, which they say are "especially odious when brought forward by a man who on two different occasions received proofs of the magnanimity of King Louis Philippe, and whose family never received any thing from him but benefits." To the honor of the country which they had always loyally served and would ever love, they say, "these disgraceful decrees, and their still more disgraceful preambles, have not dared to appear except under the _régime_ of a state of siege, and after the suppression of all the guaranties which protected the liberties of the nation." The Duchess of Orleans has also addressed the following brief and indignant protest to the President:--"Monsieur--As I do not acknowledge your right to plunder my family, neither do I acknowledge your right to assign to me a dotation in the name of France. I refuse the dowry.--HELENA D'ORLEANS."----The new Ministry of Police has been organized by decree. The Minister is to have attached to his office three directors-general, who are to appoint inspector-general, special inspectors, and commissaries of police in the departments. Prominent among the duties of all of these officials are those of watching and reporting every attempt to influence public opinion against the government, keeping a close eye on the press and on publications of every sort--upon theatres, prisons, schools, and political and commercial associations. They are all to be under the immediate direction and control of the Minister of Police. The organization spreads a complete network of precaution over every form of public opinion in France.----Louis Napoleon gave a magnificent entertainment to a large number of the English nobility at Paris, on the 1st of February, at the Elysée---the whole party numbering 44. It is stated that after the dinner was over, he took occasion to complain of the attacks upon him in the English press, and to say that he should be obliged to exclude them from France. He also spoke of the rumors that he intended to invade England as absurd.----Jerome Bonaparte is appointed President of the Senate, with the _petit_ Luxembourg as his official residence in Paris, the Palace of Meudon for his country-seat, and a salary of 150,000 francs, besides 800,000 francs for entertaining, a year.----It is stated that Madame George Sand recently had an interview with the President, and made very strong representations to him of the sufferings of the peasantry in the rural districts from the immense number of arrests that had been made of suspected persons, and urgently requesting him to grant a general amnesty. The President is said to have expressed great interest in the subject, but to have declined any compliance with the request.----The decree for the regulation of the press has been promulgated. It is almost needless to say that it destroys every semblance of freedom of the press, and makes it a mere subservient tool in the hands of the Government. It consists of four chapters, and the following are their provisions: (1.) No journal can be published without first obtaining permission of the Government; nor can any foreign journal be admitted into France except by the same permission: and any person bringing into France an unauthorized paper will be liable to a year's imprisonment and to a fine of 5000 francs. Every publisher must deposit caution-money, from 15,000 to 50,000 francs, before he can issue a paper, under heavy penalties. (2.) Stamp duties are imposed upon all journals whether published in France, or introduced from other countries; and the authorities are enjoined to seize all publications violating these regulations. (3.) Every violation of the article of the Constitution which prohibits Legislative reports, is punishable by fine of from 1000 to 5000 francs. The publication of false news subjects to a fine, and if it be of a tendency to disturb the public peace, imprisonment is added. No account of the proceedings of the Senate or Council of State, and no report of trials for press offenses, can be published; and in all affairs, civil, correctional, or criminal, the courts may forbid the publication of their proceedings. Every editor is bound to publish official documents, relations, and rectifications which may be addressed to him by any public authority; if he fail to do so, he may be fined and his journal seized No one can carry on the bookseller's trade, or issue or sell engravings, medals, or prints of any kind, without obtaining permission of the authorities, and becoming subject to the same restrictions as are imposed upon journals. (4.) With regard to existing journals, three months are allowed for them to deposit the caution money required, and to conform to the other provisions of the new law.----The President, by decree, has abolished all fête days except the birth-day of the Emperor, on the ground that their celebration recalls the remembrance of civil discord; and that the only one observed should be that which best tends to unite all minds in the common sentiment of national glory----The Paris correspondent of the London _Times_ reports that a correspondence of general interest has taken place between the governments of France and Russia. It is said that the Czar wrote to his minister in Paris, expressing dissatisfaction at the adoption by the President of the emblems of the Empire, stating that he saw in all these movements the preliminaries of the re-establishment of the Imperial era. While he approved of the _coup d'état_ which had put an end to republicanism in France, he could only regard Louis Napoleon as the temporary chief, and could not approve any attempt to give another and more important character to his authority. It is said that Louis Napoleon replied to this note, when it was read to him, by complaining that his intentions had been misunderstood and misrepresented;--that, in re-establishing the emblems of the Empire, and in reverting to the constitution of the year VIII., he only meant to establish a strong authority in his hands; that the recollections of the Empire constituted his strength, and invested him with popularity among the masses; that there was nothing astonishing in the fact of his seeking in the institutions of the Empire what was certain to re-establish authority in France; that he had no intention of re-establishing the Empire, or of making himself Emperor; that he did not want either, for the accomplishment of the mission to which he had been called; that his title of President sufficed for him; that he had no reason to trouble himself about an Imperial dynasty which has no existence; and that there was no reason for the Emperor Nicholas troubling himself about it.

The relations of France to Belgium are assuming a character of considerable interest and importance. The fact that most of the exiled Frenchmen found refuge in Belgium, excited the fears of the government that they would thence exert a dangerous influence upon French affairs. Strong representations were therefore made to the Belgian authorities, who have adopted every possible means of satisfying the French government, by suppressing distrusted journals, exercising strict vigilance over refugees, and ordering many of them out of the country, or away from Brussels. It is also stated that the Duke of Bassano, the new French envoy to the Belgian court, has been authorized to demand from that government the removal of the monumental lion erected by the British government to commemorate the battle of Waterloo, and to demolish the other trophies. The rumors of hostile designs on the part of Louis Napoleon, have led to the publication of an official denial in the _Moniteur_. That article states that the French government has addressed no demands whatever to foreign powers, excepting Belgium, where it was necessary, in order to prevent a system of incessant aggression. It has not armed a single soldier, neither has it done any thing to awaken the least susceptibility in its neighbors. All the views of the power in France are bent upon interior improvements. "It will not depart from its calm demeanor, except on the day when an attack shall have been made on the national honor and dignity." The London _Morning Chronicle_ states, as a fact of considerable historical interest, that, as early as 1849, Louis Napoleon distinctly solicited General Changamier to join with him in such a usurpation as he has since achieved, offering to make him Constable of France, with a million of francs a year and the palace of the Elysée for a residence; and that he was met by a peremptory refusal.

SPAIN.

An attempt to assassinate the Queen of Spain was made by a priest named Martin Marino, on the 2d of February. The Queen was proceeding along the principal gallery of her palace toward the grand staircase, intending to go out upon a fête occasion, for which splendid preparations had been made, when she was approached by the priest, who kneeled to present a memorial. Her Majesty reached out her hand to take it, when he suddenly drew a dirk and made a stab at her side. Her arm, however, partially averted the blow, though she was severely wounded. She leaned against the wall, and one of her aids came up just in time to prevent a second blow. The assassin was arrested and confessed the crime--saying that his object was to render a service to humanity; and denying that he had any accomplices. He was tried on the 3d, and sentenced to death by strangulation. On the 7th, he was executed by the _garote vil_. He conducted himself with the most brutal indifference, refusing any of the usual offices of religion, and abusing all who came near him. The Queen suffered considerably from the wound, but was convalescent at the last accounts. Several arrests had been made, of persons suspected of having been concerned as accomplices with him, but no evidence was found to implicate any.

CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE.

No events of special importance have occurred in any of the continental nations. All the governments seem to be more or less agitated by rumors of differences with England and France, and their policy is somewhat affected by them. The suspicion of hostile intentions on the part of Louis Napoleon toward Belgium has enlisted a good deal of suspicion, and letters from Brussels, dated the 19th February, state positively that a convention had been entered into, by which Russia agrees to furnish 100,000 men for the defense of that territory in case it should be invaded or seriously menaced by France. Prussia has also promised similar assistance, and the Prince de Ligne is said to be now in Berlin for the purpose of arranging the details. These important statements, however, do not seem to be made on authority sufficient to command full credit.

In AUSTRIA, it is said, that Prince Schwartzenberg is preparing a general statement of the views of Austria concerning the state of Europe, and an indication of the line of policy which she will pursue. The mediation of Austria between Sardinia and the Pope has also been proposed, and amicable relations are again to be established between the Sardinian and Austrian governments. A new treaty has been concluded, by which Austria is to supply Russia annually with large quantities of salt.

In SWITZERLAND the only movements of importance relate to the demand made by the French government that the Council should promise hereafter to expel any fugitive who might be designated as dangerous. The Federal Government, while firmly refusing to enter into any such engagement, avowed its readiness to take all proper and necessary precautions against the sojourn of political refugees in Switzerland becoming a source of disquietude to neighboring states. An official report on the subject states that in June last there were but 235 political refugees in the Swiss states, and that they were all under the strict _surveillance_ of the police. Those who had taken any active steps likely to compromise the interests of other states, had been promptly expelled. There was a great deal of public interest manifested throughout Switzerland concerning the relations between their country and France, and considerable apprehension prevailed that their rights and liberties might not always be rigidly respected.

The government of the Duchy of HOLSTEIN was formally transferred by the Commissaries of Prussia and Austria to the Commissary of Denmark, Count Reventlow-Criminil, on the 8th of February, in an official conference held at Kiel.

In both GREECE and TURKEY there have been changes of Ministry. In the former country the change has no general importance. In Turkey, it is significant of reaction. Reschid Pacha, the most liberal and enlightened minister ever placed at the head of affairs in the Ottoman empire, has been dismissed, and is succeeded by Raaf Pacha, a man upward of eighty years of age, who was prime minister in 1838. The negotiation in regard to the Holy Sepulchre has been abandoned, and the French minister was to leave Constantinople forthwith.

Editor's Table.

Science, it has been said, is essentially unpoetical. It must be acknowledged, nevertheless, that it not unfrequently furnishes some of our choicest similes. Homer had, indeed, long ago compared thought to the lightning; but how much more definite, and, on this account, more effective, is the kindred simile drawn from the discovery of the modern electric telegraph. And yet, is there not here something more than simile? Is not the communication from soul to soul literally, as well as figuratively _tele-graphic_, that is, _far-writing_, or _writing from afar_? We hope to interest our readers by a brief examination of the query we have started.

An identity might, perhaps, be shown in the very medium of communication, so far as the process has a material medium. There is no difficulty, and no danger, in admitting that the electric fluid may be the agent in the cerebral and organic transmission, as well as in the galvanic battery. But it is mainly in the process itself that we may trace the striking correspondence between the two modes of intelligence. The primary element of all thought is a spiritual _emotion_. The end of all communication, mediate or immediate, is to produce the same emotion or feeling in another soul. To this every other step is subordinate. Even thought is not so much an end, in itself, as is the spiritual feeling, or exercise of soul corresponding to it. This spiritual emotion, then, must first be brought under the form of a conception, or an objective picture, without which it can not be distinctly read and understood, even by the soul in which it first exists, much less communicated to another. So far the process is strikingly the same with that adopted in the telegraphic dispatch. The soul, by its own spiritual energy, first turns the emotion or feeling into a thought. It translates the thought from the abstract to the concrete, from the intuitional to the conceptive. It brings it down into the soul's chamber of imagery, and imprints it on the brain. In other words, the message is reduced to writing and given to the clerk at the station-house, who translates it into telegraphic signals. The more immediate transmitting power is now set in operation. An influence is imparted from the brain to the nerves (or wires) of the vocal organs. It is continued to the lungs, and sets in motion a current of air. This impinges on the outward atmosphere, and is carried on through successive undulations until it reaches the other station for which it was designed. It enters the office-chamber of the ear, communicates with the other cerebral battery, and then writes off from the auditory nerve or wire, the signals which, by the other logical and linguistic faculty, or the clerk at the second station, are translated into the pictorial symbols understood by all, and thus written on the second brain. The spiritual inhabitant to whom it is directed, again translates it, in a reverse order, from the verbal to the conceptive, from the conceptive to the emotional--the intuition is spiritually _seen_--the emotion is _felt_--and thus the circuit is completed.

This is substantially the process every time we hold intercourse by means of speech. The operation is ever imperfect in all, and more imperfect in some than in others. We make mistakes in translating our own intuitions and emotions. We make still greater mistakes in taking off from the wires, and in re-translating the conceptual language which brings to us the feelings and intuitions of others. But there is no other way. The author of our spiritual and material constitution hath literally _shut us up_ to this, and we can not get out of the limits within which He has confined our intercourse with other spirits. Clairvoyance boasts of having broken through them, or over them; but clairvoyance is yet a fact to be established. Even, too, if it has any claims upon our belief, it will doubtless be found, in the end, to be only a stenographic shortening of some of the steps, without being, in reality, any more an _immediate_ action of mind upon mind than the ordinary process.

Spirit can only communicate with spirit through outward symbols, and by more or less steps, all of which may be regarded as _outward_ to the most interior effect. By long familiarity this circuitous chain assumes to us the appearance of directness. But in truth we never see each other; we never hear each other; if by the terms be meant our very _self_--our very spiritual form, our very spiritual voice. Even to our human soul may be accommodated without irreverence the language which Paul applies to the Deity. Even of us it may be said, although in a far lower sense, "_Our invisible things are only understood by the things that are done_," even our temporal power and humanity. Each soul is _shut up_ in an isolation as perfect, in one sense, as that which separates the far distant worlds in the universe. Had there been round each one of us a wall of adamant a thousand feet in thickness, with only the smallest capillary apertures through which to carry the wires of telegraphic signals, we could not, as to the essential action of the spirit, be more secluded than we are at present. We say the essential, or first action of the soul--for doubtless there may be various degrees of difficulty or facility in the modes of mediate communication. But in this more spiritual sense each one of us exists by himself. We live apart in utter loneliness. The seclusion of each spirit knows no infraction. Its perfect solitude has never been invaded by any foreign intrusion.

To one who deeply reflects on the fact to which we have been calling attention, the first feeling, and a just feeling too, might be one of pride. The dignity of our nature would seem enhanced by such a constitution. Each man's "mind is his kingdom," in which he may be as autocratic as he wills. It makes even the lowest in the scale of humanity such an absolute sovereign within his own spiritual boundaries, so perfectly secure, if he please, against all foreign intervention. It sets in so striking a light what in its physical and etymological, rather than its moral sense, may be styled the _holiness_--_the wholeness_, _hale-ness_, or _separate integrity_ of each man's essential being. It is in this point of view, too, that to every hale mind the pretensions of clairvoyance must appear so inexpressibly revolting. We allude to its assumption of having the power of committing what, for the want of a better name, we can only characterize as spiritual burglary--in other words, of breaking into our spiritual house, and taking its seat in the very shrine of the interior consciousness. What can be more degrading to our human nature than to admit that any other human power, or human will, can at any time, and from any motive, even for purposes of the most frivolous amusement, actually enter this inner sanctuary, turning the immortal spirit into a paltry show-house, and rudely invading, or pretending to invade, the soul's essential glory, its sacred and unapproachable individuality?

There is, however, another aspect of the thought in which it may give rise to a very different, if not an opposite emotion. There may be, too, at times, a feeling of the deepest melancholy called out by that other consideration of our spiritual solitude, of our being so utterly alone upon the earth--a feeling which has never been set forth with so much power and, at the same time, truthful simplicity, as in the touching language of inspiration--"_The heart knoweth its own bitterness, and a stranger meddleth not with its joy._" And then, again, although we would in general shrink from it as a painful ordeal, there are periods when we long for a more searching communion with other spirits than can ever be expected from the most intimate methods of mediate intercourse. There are periods when we are irresistibly drawn out to say--O that some other soul were acquainted with us as we think we are acquainted with ourselves, not only with our fancied virtues and our mere real sins, as they appear imperfectly manifested by misinterpreted signals from within, but with our very soul itself. Yes, there is sadness in the thought that we are so unknown, even to those who would be thought to know us best--unknown alike in that which makes us better as in that which makes us worse than we seem;--for we are all better, and we are all worse than we appear to our fellow-men.

And here, we think, may be found an argument for the existence of Deity, built on stronger and more assuring ground than is furnished by any of the ordinary positions of natural theology. It is an argument derived from one of the most interior wants of our moral constitution. There is no doubt that in our fallen state a feeling of pain--at times of intense pain--may connect itself in our minds with the recognition of the Divine idea; but there is also an element of happiness, and, if cherished, of the highest and most serious happiness, in the thought that there is One Great Soul that does penetrate into our most interior spirituality. There is one Soul that is ever as intimately present with us as our own consciousness--that holds communion with us, and with whom we may hold communion, in a manner impossible for any other. There is One that thinks our thoughts, and feels our feelings, even as we think them, and as we feel them, although, along with this, in another manner, too, of its own, that transcends our thinking "even as the heavens are high above the earth," and is as far removed from all the imperfections of our own spiritual exercises. There may seem an inconsistency in this apparent mingling of the finite and the infinite in the Divine Nature, but it is the belief of both which unlocks for us the meaning of the Scriptures, and sheds light over every page of revelation and of providence. There is a higher Soul that pervades our spiritual entity, not as an impersonal or pantheistic abstraction, but as the most distinctly personal of all personalities--not as a mere Law of nature, but as a Father "who careth for us," as a Guardian "who numbereth the very hairs of our heads," as a Judge who taketh note of every thought, and gives importance to all our forgotten sins, while He is, at the same time, present with, and caring for every other individual soul in the universe. As in some previous musings of our Editorial Table, we might have adverted to the Divine physical power as the ever-present dynamical entity in the seeming vacuities of space, and binding together the isolated material worlds, so here we may regard the Higher Spiritual Presence as the true bond of union among all those isolated souls that fill the spiritual universe. Thus viewed, the fact of such communion would be the highest truth in philosophy, as a belief in the reality of its possible consciousness would be the highest article of faith.

HISTORY IS PHILOSOPHY TEACHING BY EXAMPLE.

The thought has been deemed so profound as to give rise to some discussion respecting its origin. As a definition, however, the maxim is liable to serious objection. It presents, rather, the uses, or the chief use, of history, than the essential idea. The individual memory may also be said to be _philosophy teaching by example_; but then it becomes only another name for that experience which is but the application of remembered facts to the guidance of the future life. So history may be called THE WORLD'S MEMORY--the memory of a race--of a nation--of a collective humanity.

It is in vain, then, for us to say what facts, in themselves, _ought_ to constitute history. The matter is settled. It is not what any philosophy, or any theology, or any science of history may deem _worthy_ of remembrance, but what has actually been thus remembered, or is now so entering into the common mind as to form the ground of memory in the future. The parallelism in this respect between the individual and this national, or common mind, is striking and complete. The true history of each man is not so much what he has done, as what he has thought and felt. The thought is the _form_ of the feeling, and the act merely the outward testimony by which both are revealed. It is not, therefore, every act, or _doing_, which enters into his history--not even those which have formed the greater part of his constant daily exercise--but simply such as for any reason have made the deepest impression on the inner man, and which, therefore, stand out in the records of his memory when all else has perished. What this chronicles is the man's veritable history. However important other parts of his conduct may appear externally, this is his true spiritual life. It is the record, the imperishable record of that which has reached and stirred the depths of his soul, while other acts, and other events, have had their lodgment only in the outward un-emotional existence.

Such memory, or such history, may not be what it ought to have been; it may not be the measure of accountability. All that we insist upon is the fact, that, whether right or wrong, it is the true history of the individual, because it is his real life. But then there are degrees of memory. It is not always, in all its parts, either present to the mind, or capable of recall at will. Still, what has once in this manner truly _affected_ his soul, has by this become a part of it, and can, therefore, never be lost. Like some old historical record it may be laid aside for a season, but sooner or later must it come forth, and claim its place as belonging to that individual personality into which it enters as a constituent and inseparable portion.

The parallel may be traced to almost any extent. Like the memory of our earliest years, so is the dawning history of a young world or nation, except so far as positive revelation has shed its light upon it. Both are _mythical_. In other words, facts are remembered, not as they are in themselves, but as seen through the magnifying and coloring influence of the emotional medium with which they are ever afterward associated. Like stars observed through a densely refracting atmosphere, they stand apart, each in its own seclusion, and hence they loom upon the vision without any of those mutually connecting associations that belong to our subsequent thinking. There is, too, in both cases, the same chronicler--the pure remembrance, a _tradition_ unaided by any of those outward helps that are afterward employed. At a later period more regular annals succeed this mythic handing down of isolated facts. The state has its formal remembrancer, its [Greek: syngrapheus], or historical _arranger_ of events in a _connected_ story, and in their mutual relations. Corresponding to this, then, arises in the individual that orderly habit of thinking which produces associations, having a similar effect in causing a stricter union between the outer and inner relations of the soul.

Again, there are times when the man gets to himself what may be called an _artificial_ memory. He would change the natural flow of thought, and determine what he _will_ remember, and what he _ought_ to remember--forgetting that before he can effectually do this he must be changed himself in the innermost springs of his being. He studies mnemonics. He manufactures new laws of association. But this effort ever fails in the end. Nature will have her way. The old course of memory will return; and with it the spiritual history of the man will go on as before.

So, too, the state or nation may have its artificial periods, and its systems of political mnemonics. The mythical, the epic, the heroic, and not only these, but the later, yet not less thrilling chronicles of stirring events that carried with them the whole heart of the national humanity, give way to statistics, and documents of trade, or tables of revenue, or in a word, to what are deemed the more important records of _political economy_. Here, too, there may be an attempt to change the course of nature, and make that to be history which never can be such, except at the expense of some of those attributes, which, although liable to great and dangerous perversions, are still the noblest parts of our humanity.

Such artificial records of history may be highly useful in their connection with the interests of particular classes and occupations. The time also may come in which they may gather around them an antiquarian value, blending with some of the more universal emotions of our common nature. But aside from this, although they may furnish rich materials for other departments of useful knowledge, they are not history, simply because they lack that catholic element, by which alone they enter into the common memory, and thus become a part of the common national mind.

Some say the world has heretofore been all wrong in the matter. History has been but a record of wars, of tumultuous national movements, of theological dogmas, of religious and political excitements. It has been but the biography of monarchs and royal families, or a narrative of popular commotions as connected with them. It has presented us only with names of isolated pre-eminence. The time has now come when we "must change all that." The daily pursuits of the masses, and all the statistics of ordinary life--these ought to have been history, and good writers will henceforth make them so, not only for our times, but for the periods that are past. "The history of the world," it has been said, "is yet to be written." But, alas! for these plausible and philanthropic reforms, there are two serious obstacles in the way. In the first place, the records of such matters as they would make the grounds of history are too scanty and uncertain, because they never have had that catholic interest which would give them an abiding place in the common national memory. In the second place, it will be equally difficult to secure for them such lodgment in the universal thinking of the present age, or of ages yet to come. Not that the world will always continue the same, or that there will not be ever new matters of genuine historical interest. The course of things and thinking may greatly change. Wars may cease. Monarchy may expire. Even democracies may become obsolete. Such changes may be for the better or the worse. Faith may go out. Those religious dogmas and discussions, which politicians and political economists have regarded as such useless and troublesome intruders into the province of history, may lose their hold upon the mind. Still our essential position remains unchanged. It will not be what the masses severally _do_ but what _moves_ the masses, not their _several_ occupations and pursuits, but what has a deep and moving interest for the common national soul, that will constitute history. The wars of the White and Red Roses were the true history of England for that period, because they were the only subjects that could be said to occupy all minds alike. It was not because the chronicler forgot the masses, and thought only of the great, but because he wrote for the masses, and for the masses not only of his own time, but of times to come.

Events may have more or less of a personal connection with monarchs, but it would not follow from this that the history which records them is a history alone of kings and statesmen. It is only so far as they and their acts were the representatives of the national heart, and the national thought, that they came down in the national memory, and the national records. The separate ordinary pursuits of men may, in one sense, occupy more of our ordinary thinking, but the other or historic interest we recognize as being of a higher, a more exciting, and even a more absorbing kind, because belonging to us, and felt by us in common with multitudes of other souls. The mechanic or farmer may consult books of a professional or statistical nature, but _as history_ they will be ever unreadable. Even in the workshop and in the field, although the habitual current of his thoughts may be upon what would seem to him the nearest, and therefore the more important concerns of life, these other elements of history will yet have the greater charm, and occupy a higher place both in his feelings and his intelligence.

It is what he thinks _with others_ that constitutes the higher life of his being. Hence the tendency of the popular mind, in all ages, to be absorbed in the recital of deeds most remote from the daily associations of ordinary life. Hence the popularity of the rhapsodist, the minstrel, the chronicler, and, in our own age, of the Magazine and the Newspaper. Hence, too, in the more free and popular governments of modern times, the universal devotion to what is called _politics_. Why is the farmer more excited by an election than by the sale of his wheat? Most false as well as unphilosophical is the view which would ascribe this to any calculating patriotism, to any utilitarian vigilance, or to what is commonly called an _enlightened self-interest_. The mechanic thinks more of politics than of his trade; for the same reason that led his ancestor to the crusade or the tournament. Instead of being the offspring of utilitarian views, this _public spirit_ is often most blindly destructive of the _private_ interest, and most directly opposed to all the teachings of that political economy which recognizes its own utilities as alone the true and rational ends of human action. In a much higher sense, too, is all this true, when a religious element enters into the common or catholic feeling.

To illustrate the view we have endeavored to present, let us select some particular date--say the 5th day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy. What was the history of our own country for that day? What the masses were doing would be the answer which some of the new school would promptly make. But even could this be ascertained it would not be history. On that day the three millions of our land were engaged in the various avocations connected with their ordinary life and ordinary interests. On that day, too, there was a particular, and, perhaps, ascertainable state of agriculture, of the mechanic arts, of education, &c., such as might furnish the ground of a most valuable statistical essay. There were also, doubtless, thousands of striking incidents every where transpiring. But none of these constituted the then history of our country. This was all taking place in one narrow street of one single city, away off in one remote corner of our land. A quarrel had arisen between a few foreign soldiers and a collection of exasperated citizens, in the course of which some few of the latter were slain. In this event was centred, for the time, the whole history of the English colonies in North America, and of what afterward became the great American nation. Among all the acts and states, and influences of that day, this alone was history, because it alone, whether right or not, entered into the universal national memory. It was _thought_ by all, _felt_ by all, and therefore became, for the time in which it was so thought and felt, the one common history of all. Again--on the 19th day of April, 1775, the one fact which afterward formed the common thought and the common memory, was the battle of Lexington. On the 4th of July, 1776, it was the Declaration of American Independence. On the 23d day of September, 1780, there might have been seen, in a secluded valley of the Hudson, three rustic militia men busily examining the dress of a British officer. One of them is in the act of taking a piece of paper from the prisoner's boot. This, in a most emphatic sense, was American history for that day; may we not say the history of Europe also, and of the world. And so in other departments. A single man is standing before a company of statesmen and ecclesiastics. It is Luther before the Diet of Worms. This is the one common thought which represents that momentous period in the records of the Church. The subject tempts us with further illustrations, but we call to mind that our Drawer and Easy Chair are waiting impatiently for the delivery of their contents. It is time, therefore, to exchange the prosings of the Editor's Table for their more varied, and, as we trust the reader will judge, more attractive materials.

Editor's Easy Chair.

Our _now_, when we write, stands morally as far off from what will be _now_ to our readers, when this sheet comes before them, as though the interval measured half the circumference of the Ecliptic, instead of being bounded between these dull March days and the bright April morning, when our Magazine will be lying by many an open window from Maine to Georgia. Our Easy Chair chit-chat must take its coloring from our _now_, and not from that of our readers.

* * * * *

The town has just woke up from its wintry carnival of sleighs and bells, and wears much the aspect of a reveler who is paying the penalty for too free over-night potations. Broadway no longer flows along like a stream of molten silver, but resembles nothing so much as the mud-river of Styx--"darker far than perse" of the great Florentine; and instead of the fairy-like sleighs of the month gone by, is traversed only by the lumbering omnibuses, scattering far and wide the inky fluid. To cross the street dry-shod is not to be thought of, save at one or two points where philanthropic tradesmen, mindful of the public good--and their own--have subsidized a troop of sweepers to clear a passage in front of their doors. We accept the favor with all gratitude, and do not inquire too closely into the stories of silver goblets, presented by grateful ladies to these public benefactors. Under such circumstances all lighter matters of gossip are things of the past--and of the future, let us hope.

* * * * *

Into the current of graver talk several pebbles have been thrown, which have rippled its surface into circlets wider than usual. The meeting in commemoration of COOPER was a worthy tribute to the memory of one who has shed honor upon his country by adding new forms of beauty to the intellectual wealth of the world. It was singularly graceful and appropriate that the funeral discourse of the greatest American Novelist, should have been pronounced by the greatest American Poet--and should we say the greatest living poet who speaks the tongue of Milton and Shakspeare, who would dare to place another name in competition for the honor with that of BRYANT?

* * * * *

Public "Lectures," or the "Lyceum," as one of the lecturing notabilities not very felicitously denominates the institution, had begun to assume a somewhat mythical character in the estimation of townsmen, as relics of ages long gone by, of which man's memory--the Metropolitan man's, that is--takes no note. We have indeed had rumors from the "Athens of America," and other far-away places, that Lectures had not fallen into utter desuetude; but we were, on the whole, inclined to put little faith in the reports. During the last few weeks, however, the matter has again forced its way into the town talk. The "Tabernacle" weekly opens its ponderous jaws, for the delivery of the "People's Lectures," where, for the not very alarming sum of one shilling--with a deduction in cases where a gentleman is accompanied by more ladies than one--a person may listen for an hour to the mystic elocution and seer-like deliverances of EMERSON, or may hear KANE depict the dreamy remembrances of those Hyperborean regions where sunrise and sunset are by no means those every-day occurrences that they are in more equatorial regions. To us, as we sit in our Easy Chair, it seems as though this system of cheap popular public lectures were capable of almost indefinite expansion. Why should not SILLIMAN or GUYOT address three thousand instead of three hundred hearers? Why should they not unswathe the world from its swaddling-clothes before an audience which would fill our largest halls? Why should not ORVILLE DEWEY discourse on the great problems of Human Destiny and Progress before an assemblage which should people the cavernous depths of the "Tabernacle," as well as before the audience, relatively small, though doubtless fit, assembled before the frescoes of the Church of the Messiah? We throw these suggestions out lightly, by way of hint; a graver consideration of them would belong rather to our Table than to our Easy Chair discourses.

* * * * *

As a sort of pendant to the nine-days' talk of the Forrest divorce case, we notice the unanimous verdict of approval which has been accorded to the exemplary damages awarded in the case of a savage and cowardly assault committed by one of the principals in that scandalous affair. Though no pecuniary award can make reparation to the person who has suffered the infliction of brutal personal outrage, yet as long as there are ruffians whose only susceptible point is the pocket-nerve, we are glad to see the actual cautery applied to that sensitive point.

* * * * *

If things continue much longer in their present downward course, it will be necessary for any man who hopes to gain acceptance in respectable society to have it distinctly noted on his cards and letters of introduction, that he is not a Member of either House of Congress. The last month has been signalized at Washington by several exhibitions of Congressional scurrility, which in no other city in the Union would have been tolerated beyond the limits of the lowest dens of infamy. In one of these affairs, the summit of impudence was crowned by one of the interlocutors, who, after giving and receiving the most abusive epithets, excused himself from having recourse to the duello, that _ultima ratio_--of fools--on the plea that he was a member of a Christian church; which plea was magnanimously accepted by his no less chivalrous compeer in abuse. It would be no easy task to decide which was the most disreputable, the "satisfaction" evaded, or the means of its evasion.

* * * * *

This is not the place to discuss the stringent "Maine Liquor Law," which is proposed for adoption in the Empire State; but we can not avoid chronicling the almost sublime assumption of one of its opponents, who challenged its advocates to name any man of lofty genius who was not a "toddy-drinker." As this side of the measure seems sadly in want of both speakers and arguments, we consider ourselves entitled to the gratitude of the opponents of the law, for insinuating to them that the defense of punch by Fielding's hero, that it was "a good wholesome liquor, nowhere spoken against in Scripture," is capable of almost indefinite extension and application.

* * * * *

A somewhat characteristic reminiscence of JOHN NEWLAND MAFFITT has been lying for a long while in our mind; and we can not do better than accord to it the honors of paper and ink. It happened years ago, when that eccentric preacher was in the height of his reputation; when he was, or at least thought he was in earnest; before the balance of his mind had been destroyed by adulation, conceit, vanity, and something worse.

During these days, in one of his journeyings, he came to a place on the Mississippi--perhaps its name was not _Woodville_, but that shall be its designation for the occasion. Now, Woodville was the most notoriously corrupt place on the whole river; it was the sink into which all the filth of the surrounding country was poured; it was shunned like a pest-house, and abandoned to thieves, gamblers, desperadoes, and robbers.

Maffitt determined to labor in this uninviting field. He commenced preaching, and soon gathered an audience; for preaching was something new there; and besides, Maffitt's silvery tones and strange flashes of eloquence would at that time attract an audience any where. Those who knew the man only in his later years know nothing of him.

Day after day he preached, but all to no purpose. He portrayed the bliss of heaven--its purity and peace--in his most rapt and glowing manner. It was the last place which could have any charms for his Woodville audience.

He portrayed the strife and turmoil of the world of woe. Apart from its physical torments--and they felt a sort of wild pride in defying these--they rather liked the picture. At all events, it was much more to their taste than was his description of heaven.

So it went on, day after day. Not a sigh of penitence; not a wet eye; not a single occupant of the anxious seat. His labors were fruitless.

Finally, he determined upon a change of tactics. He spoke of the decay of Woodville; how it was falling behind every other town on the river--"Oh!" said he, "might but the Angel of Mercy be sent forth from before the Great White Throne, commissioned to proclaim to all the region round that there was a revival in Woodville, and what a change there would be! The people would flock here from every quarter; the hum of business would be heard in your streets; the steamers, whose bright wheels now go flashing past your wharf, would stay in their fleet career; these dense forests, which now lour around, would be hewn down and piled up for food for these vast leviathans; and thus a golden tide would pour in upon you; and Woodville would become the wealthiest, the most beautiful, and the happiest place on the banks of the great Father of Waters!"

A chord had been touched in the hitherto insensible hearts of the Woodvillers. Thought, emotion, feeling, were aroused; and soon the strange electric sympathy of mind with mind was excited. The emotion spread and increased; the anxious seats were thronged; and a powerful, and to all appearance genuine revival of religion ensued. The character of Woodville was entirely changed; and from that time it has continued to be one of the most moral, quiet, thriving, and prosperous of all the minor towns upon the Mississippi.

* * * * *

Turning our eye Paris-ward, our first emotion is one of sorrow--for their sakes and our own--at the present sad fate of our French brethren of the quill. The bayonet has pitted itself against the pen, and has come off victor--for the time being. The most immediate sufferers are doubtless political writers, who must stretch their lucubrations upon the Procrustean bed furnished by the Prince-President. But the sparkling _feuilletonists_ who blow up such brilliant bubbles of romance from the prosaic soap-and-water of every-day life, can not escape. How can Fancy have free play when the Fate-like shears of the _Censure_ or the mace of the new press-law are suspended over its head? Besides, the lynx-eye of despotism may detect a covert political allusion in the most finely-wrought romance of domestic life. The delicate touches by which the _feuilletonist_ sought to depict the fate of the deserted girl whose body was fished up from the Seine, may be thought to bear too strongly upon the fate of poor LIBERTÉ, betrayed and deserted by her quondam adorer, the Nephew of his Uncle; in which case, the writer would find himself forced to repent of his pathos behind the gratings of a cell, while his publisher's pocket would suffer the forfeiture of the 'caution-money.' Parisian gossip can not, under such circumstances, furnish us any thing very lively, but must content itself with chronicling the brilliant but tiresome receptions of the Elysée.

An occasional claw is however protruded through the velvet paws upon which French society creeps along so daintily in these critical days, showing that the propensity to scratch is not extinct, though for the present, as far as the President and his doings are concerned, "I dare not waits upon I would" in the cat-like Parisian salon life.

* * * * *

The subject of gossip most thoroughly French in its character, which has of late days passed current, is one of which the final scene was Genoa, and the prominent actor unfortunately an American. We touch upon the leading points of this as they pass current from lip to lip.

Our readers have no great cause of regret if they have never before heard of, or have entirely forgotten, a certain so-called "Chevalier" WYKOFF, who, a few years since, gained an unenviable notoriety, in certain circles in this country, as the personal attendant of the famous _danseuse_, FANNY ELSSLER. Since that time the Chevalier has occasionally shown his head above water in connection with Politics, Literature, Fashion, and Frolic.

In due course of years the Chevalier grew older if not wiser, and became anxious to assume the responsibilities of a wife--provided that she was possessed of a fortune. It chanced that, about these times, a lady whom he had known for many years, without having experienced any touches of the tender passion, was left an orphan with a large fortune. The sympathizing Chevalier was prompt with his condolences at her irreparable loss, and soon established himself in the character of confidential friend.

The lady decides to visit the Continent to recruit her shattered health. The Chevalier--sympathizing friend that he is--is at once convinced that there is for him no place like the Continent.

Having watched the pear till he supposed it fully ripe, the ex-squire to the _danseuse_ proposed to shake the tree. One evening he announced that he must depart on the morrow, and handed the lady a formidable document, which he requested her to read, and to advise him in respect to its contents.

The document proved to be a letter to another lady, a friend of both parties, announcing a deliberate intention of offering his fine person, though somewhat the worse for wear, to the lady who was reading the letter addressed to her friend. This proposal in the third person met with little favor, and the Chevalier received a decided negative in the second person.

The Chevalier, however, saw too many solid charms in the object of his passion to yield the point so easily. The lady returns to London, and lo! there is the Chevalier. She flees to Paris, and thither he hies. She hurries to Switzerland, and one morning as she looks out of the Hospice of St. Bernard, she is greeted with the Chevalier's most finished bow of recognition. She walks by the Lake of Geneva, and her shadow floats upon its waters by the side of that of her indefatigable adorer. He watches his opportunity and seizes her hand, muttering low words of love and adoration; and as a company of pleasure-seekers to whom they are known approaches, he raises his voice so as to be heard, and declares that he will not release the hand until he receives a promise of its future ownership. Bewildered and confused, the lady whispers a "Yes," and is for the moment set at liberty. No sooner is she fairly rid of him than she retracts her promise, and forbids her adorer the house.

She again flies to the Continent to avoid him. He follows upon her track, bribes couriers and servants all along her route, and finally manages at Genoa to get her into a house which he declares to be full of his dependents. He locks the door, and declares that marry him she must and shall. She refuses, and makes an outcry. He seizes her and tries to _soothe_ her with chloroform. Once more she is frightened into a consent.

But the Chevalier is now determined to make assurance doubly sure; and demands a written agreement to marry him, under penalty of the forfeiture of half her fortune, in case of refusal. To this the lady consents: and the ardent admirer leaves the room to order a carriage to convey her to her hotel. She seizes the opportunity to make her escape.

On the day following, the adventurous Chevalier involuntarily makes the acquaintance of the Intendant of Police, and finds that his "bold stroke for a wife" is like to entail upon him certain disagreeable consequences in the shape of abundant opportunity for reflection, while a compulsory guest of the public authorities of Genoa.

Ought not the Chevalier WYKOFF to have been a Frenchman?

Editor's Drawer.

The following anecdote of a legal gentleman of Missouri, was compiled many years ago from a newspaper of that State. There is a racy freshness about it that is quite delightful:

Being once opposed to Mr. S----, then lately a member of Congress, he remarked as follows to the jury, upon some point of disagreement between them:

"Here my brother S---- and I differ materially. Now this, after all, is very natural. Men seldom see things in the same light; and they may disagree in opinion upon the simplest principles of the law, and that very honestly; while, at the same time, neither, perhaps, can perceive any earthly reason why they should. And this is merely because they look at different sides of the subject, and do not view it in all its bearings.

"Now, let us suppose, for the sake of illustration, that a man should come into this court-room, and boldly assert that my brother S----'s head" (here he laid his hand very familiarly upon the large "chuckle-head" of his opponent) "is _a squash_! I, on the other hand, should maintain, and perhaps with equal confidence, that it was _a head_. Now, here would be difference--doubtless an honest difference--of opinion. We might argue about it till doom's-day, and never agree. You often see men arguing upon subjects just as _empty_ and trifling as this! But a third person coming in, and looking at the neck and shoulders that support it, would say at once that I had reason on my side; for if it was _not_ a head, it at least occupied the _place_ of one: it stood where a head _ought_ to be!"

All this was uttered in the gravest and most solemn manner imaginable, and the effect was irresistibly ludicrous.

* * * * *

Washington Irving, in one of his admirable sketches of Dutch character, describes an old worthy, with a long eel-skin queue, a sort of covering that was "a potent nourisher and strengthener of the hair." This was in "other times;" and here is a "Tail" of that remote period:

"A Tale I'll tell of "other times," Because I'm in the mind: You may have seen the tale before, I've seen it oft behind.

"There's no detraction in this tale, Nor any vile attack, Or slander when 'tis told, although It goes behind one's back.

"Impartial auditors it had, Who ne'er began to rail, Because there always was an ear For both sides of the tale.

"But oh, alas! I have forgot, I am not in the queue; The tale has just dropped from my head. As it was wont to do!"

* * * * *

A clergyman in one of our New England villages once preached a sermon, which one of his auditors commended.

"Yes," said a gentleman to whom it was mentioned, "it _was_ a good sermon, but he _stole_ it!"

This was told to the preacher. He resented it, at once, and called upon his parishioner to retract what he had said.

"I am not," replied the aggressor, "very apt to retract any thing I may have said, for I usually weigh my words before I speak them. But in this instance I will retract. I said you had stolen the sermon. I find, however, that I was wrong; for on returning home, and referring to the book whence I thought it had been taken, I found it there, word for word!"

The angry clergyman "left the presence," with an apparent consciousness that he had made very little by his "motion."

* * * * *

We gave in a late "Drawer" some rather frightful statistics concerning snuff-takers and tobacco-chewers: we have now "the honor to present" some curious characteristics of the kinds of _materiel_ which have regaled the nostrils of so many persons who were "up to snuff."

Lundy Foot, the celebrated snuff-manufacturer, originally kept a small tobacconist's shop at Limerick, Ireland. One night his house, which was uninsured, was burnt to the ground. As he contemplated the smoking ruins on the following morning, in a state bordering on despair, some of the poor neighbors, groping among the embers for what they could find, stumbled upon several canisters of unconsumed but half-baked snuff, which they tried, and found so grateful to their noses, that they loaded their waistcoat pockets with the spoil.

Lundy Foot, roused from his stupor, at length imitated their example, and took a pinch of his own property, when he was instantly struck by the superior pungency and flavor it had acquired from the great heat to which it had been exposed. Treasuring up this valuable hint, he took another house in a place called "Black-Yard," and, preparing a large oven for the purpose, set diligently about the manufacture of that high-dried commodity, which soon became widely known as "Black-Yard Snuff;" a term subsequently corrupted into the more familiar word, "Blackguard."

Lundy Foot, making his customers pay liberally through the nose for one of the most "distinguished" kinds of snuffs in the world, soon raised the price of his production, took a larger house in the city of Dublin, and was often heard to say,

"I made a very handsome fortune by being, as I supposed, utterly ruined!"

* * * * *

Somebody has described Laughter as "a faculty bestowed exclusively upon man," and one which there is, therefore, a sort of impiety in not exercising as frequently as we can. One may say, with Titus, that we have "lost a day," if it shall have passed without laughing, "An inch of laugh is worth an ell of moan in any state of the market," says one of the old English "Fathers." Pilgrims at the shrine of Mecca consider laughter so essential a part of their devotion that they call upon their prophet to preserve them from sad faces.

"Ah!" cried Rabelais, with an honest pride, as his friends were weeping around his sick bed; "if I were to die ten times over, I should never make you cry half so much as I have made you laugh!"

After all, if laughter be genuine, and consequently a means of innocent enjoyment, _can_ it be inept?

* * * * *

Taylor, an English author, relates in his "Records," that having restored to sight a boy who had been born blind, the lad was perpetually amusing himself with a hand-glass, calling his own reflection his "little man," and inquiring why he could make it do every thing he did, _except to shut its eyes_. A French lover, making a present of a mirror to his mistress, sent with it the following lines:

"This mirror _my_ object of love will unfold, Whensoe'er your regard it allures; Oh, would, when I'm gazing, that might behold On its surface the object of _yours_!"

This is very delicate and pretty; but the following old epigram, on the same subject, is in even a much finer strain:

"When I revolve this evanescent state, How fleeting is its form, how short its date; My being and my stay dependent still Not on my own, but on another's will: I ask myself, as I my image view, Which is the real shadow of the two?"

* * * * *

It is a little singular, but it is true, that scarcely any native writer has succeeded better in giving what is termed the true "Yankee dialect," than a foreigner, an Englishman, Judge Haliburton, of Nova Scotia, "Sam Slick." Hear him describe a pretty, heartless bar-maid, whom he met at the "Liner's Hotel, in Liverpool:"

"What a tall, well-made, handsome piece of furniture she is, ain't she, though? Look at her hair--ain't it neat? And her clothes fit so well, and her cap is so white, and her complexion so clear, and she looks so good-natured, and smiles so sweet, it does one good to look at her. She's a whole team and a horse to spare, that's a fact. I go and call for three or four more glasses than I want, every day, just for the sake of talking to her. She always says,

"'What will you be pleased to have, sir!'

"'Something,' says I, 'that I can't have,' looking at her pretty mouth--about the wickedest.

"Well, she laughs, for she knows well enough what I mean; and she says,

"'Pr'aps you'll have a glass of bitters, sir,' and off she goes to get it.

"Well, this goes on three or four times a day; every time the identical same tune, only with variations. It wasn't a great while afore I was there agin.

"'What will you be pleased to have, sir?' said she agin, laughin'.

"'Something I can't git,' says I, a-laughin' too, and lettin' off sparks from my eyes like a blacksmith's chimney.

"'You can't tell that till you try,' says she; 'but you can have your bitters at any rate;' and she goes agin and draws a glass, and gives it to me.

"Now she's seen _you_ before, and knows you very well. Just you go to her and see how nicely she'll curtshy, how pretty she'll smile, and how lady-like she'll say,

"'How do you do, sir? I hope you are quite well, sir? Have you just arrived? Here, chamber-maid, show this gentleman up to Number Two Hundred. Sorry, sir, we are so full, but to-morrow we will move you into a better room. Thomas, take up this gentleman's luggage.' And then she'd curtshy agin, and smile so handsome!

"Don't that look well, now? Do you want any thing better than that? If you do, you are hard to please, that's all. But stop a little: don't be in such an almighty, everlastin' hurry. Think afore you speak. Go there, agin, see her a-smilin' once more, and look clust. It's only skin-deep; just on the surface, like a cat's-paw on the water; it's nothin' but a rimple like, and no more. Then look cluster still, and you'll discarn the color of it. You laugh at the 'color' of a smile, but do you _watch_, and you'll _see_ it.

"Look, _now_; don't you see the color of the shilling there? It's white, and cold, and silvery: _it's a boughten smile_, and a boughten smile, like an artificial flower, hain't got no sweetness into it. It's like whipt cream; open your mouth wide; take it all in, and shut your lips down tight, and it ain't nothin'. It's only a mouthful of moonshine, a'ter all."

Sam goes on to say that a smile can easily be counterfeited; but that the eye, rightly regarded, can not deceive.

"Square, the first railroad that was ever made, was made by Natur. It runs strait from the heart to the eye, and it goes so almighty fast it can't be compared to nothin' but 'iled lightning. The moment the heart opens its doors, out jumps an emotion, whips into the car, and offs, like wink, to the eye. That's the station-house and terminus for the passengers, and every passenger carries a lantern in his hand, as bright as an argand lamp; you can see him ever so far off.

"Look to _the eye_, Square: if there ain't no lamp there, no soul leaves the heart that hitch: there ain't no train runnin', and the station-house is empty. Smiles can be put on and off, like a wig; sweet expressions come and go like lights and shades in natur; the hands will squeeze like a fox-trap; the body bends most graceful; the ear will be most attentive; the manner will flatter, so you're enchanted; and the tongue will lie like the devil: _but the eye never_.

"But, Square, there's all sorts of eyes. There's an onmeanin' eye, and a cold eye; a true eye and a false eye; a sly eye, a kickin' eye, a passionate eye, a revengeful eye, a man[oe]uvring eye, a joyous eye, and a sad eye; a squintin' eye, and the evil-eye; and more'n all, the dear little lovin' eye. They must all be studied to be larnt; but the two important ones to be known are the true eye and the false eye."

An American writer, somewhat more distinguished as a philosopher and psychologist than Mr. Slick, contends that the "practiced eye" may often deceive the most acute observer, but that there is something in the play of the lines about the mouth, the shades of emotion developed by the least change in the expression of the lips, that defies the strictest self-control. We leave both theories with the reader.

* * * * *

That was a pleasant story, told of an English wit, of very pleasant memory, who was no mean proficient in "turning the tables" upon an opponent, when he found himself losing. On one occasion he was rapidly losing ground in a literary discussion, when the opposite party exclaimed:

"My good friend, you are not such a rare scholar as you imagine; you are only an _every-day_ man."

"Well, and you are a _week_ one," replied the other; who instantly jumped upon the back of a horse-laugh, and rode victoriously over his prostrate conqueror.

* * * * *

We know not the author of the following lines, nor how, or at what time, they came to find a place in the "Drawer;" but there is no reader who will not pronounce them very touching and beautiful:

I am not old--I can not be old, Though three-score years and ten Have wasted away like a tale that is told, The lives of other men

I am not old--though friends and foes Alike have gone to their graves; And left me alone to my joys or my woes, As a rock in the midst of the waves

I am not old--I can not be old, Though tottering, wrinkled, and gray; Though my eyes are dim, and my marrow is cold, Call me not old to-day!

For early memories round me throng, Of times, and manners, and men; As I look behind on my journey so long, Of three-score miles and ten.

I look behind and am once more young, Buoyant, and brave, and bold; And _my heart_ can sing, as of yore it sung, Before they called me old.

I do not see her--the old wife there-- Shriveled, and haggard, and gray; But I look on her blooming, soft, and fair, As she was on her wedding-day.

I do not see you, daughters and sons, In the likeness of women and men; But I kiss you now as I kissed you once My fond little children then.

And as my own grandson rides on my knee, Or plays with his hoop or kite, I can well recollect I was merry as he, The bright-eyed little wight!

'Tis not long since--it can not be long, My years so soon were spent, Since I was a boy, both straight and strong. But now I am feeble and bent.

A dream, a dream--it is all a dream! A strange, sad dream, good sooth; For old as I am, and old as I seem, My heart is full of youth.

Eye hath not seen, tongue hath not told, And ear hath not heard it sung, How buoyant and bold, tho' it seem to grow old, Is the heart forever young!

Forever young--though life's old age, Hath every nerve unstrung; The heart, _the heart_ is a heritage, That keeps the old man young!

* * * * *

That is a good story told of an empty coxcomb, who, after having engrossed the attention of the company for some time with himself and his petty ailments, observed to the celebrated caustic Dr. Parr, that he could never go out without catching cold in his head.

"No wonder," said the doctor, rather pettishly; "you always go out without any thing in it!"

We have heard somewhere of another of the same stamp, who imagined himself to be a poet, and who said to "Nat. Lee," whose insane verse was much in vogue at the time:

"It is not easy to write like a madman, as you do."

"No," was the reply; "but it is very easy to write like _a fool_, as _you_ do!"

There was some "method" in the "madness" that dictated that cutting rejoinder, at any rate.

* * * * *

"I was once a sea-faring man," said an old New York ship-master one day, to a friend in "The Swamp," "and my first voyage was to the East Indies. To keep me from mischief, the mate used to set me picking oakum, or ripping up an old sail for 'parceling,' as it was called. While engaged one day at this last employment, it occurred to me that a small piece of the sail would answer an admirable purpose in mending my duck over-trowsers, as they were beginning to be rather tender in certain places, owing, perhaps, to my sitting down so much. I soon appropriated a small piece, but was detected by the mate while 'stowing it away.'

"He took it from me, and while he was lecturing me, the captain, a noble fellow, with a human heart in his bosom, came on deck, when the whole matter was laid before him.

"'A----,' said he, 'always _ask_ for what you want; if it is _denied_ to you, then steal it, if you think proper.'

"I remembered his advice; and in a short time afterward had another piece of canvas snugly 'stowed away.' I carried it forward, and gave it to my 'chummy,' an old 'salt,' who had the charge of my wardrobe (which consisted of six pairs of duck-trowsers, the same number of red-flannel shirts, a Scotch woolen cap, and a fine-tooth comb), and performed my mending.

"The next day I went on deck with a clean pair of trowsers on, neatly patched. As I was going forward the captain hailed me:

"'You took that piece of canvas, sir!'

"'Yes, captain,' I replied, 'I _did_. You yourself told me to ask, and if I was refused, to do the _other_ thing. I was refused, and _did_ do the 'other thing.''

"'Well,' rejoined the captain, 'I have no great objection to your having the canvas, but let me tell you that you will never make a sailor if you carry your flying-jib over the stern!'

"My 'chummy,' sewing from the inside, had 'seated' my trowsers with a piece of canvas marked 'F. JIB!"'

* * * * *

There used to be quite popular, many years ago, a species of letter-writing in poetry, in accomplishing which much ingenuity was tasked and much labor expended. The ensuing lines are a good example of this kind of composition by comic writers who have not sufficiently advanced in joking to get "out of their _letters_." The lines were addressed to Miss Emma Vee, who had a pet jay, of which she was very fond:

"Your jay is fond, which well I know, He does S A to prove; And he can talk, I grant, but O! He can not talk of love.

"Believe me, M A, when I say, I dote to that X S, I N V even that pet J, Which U sometimes caress.

"Though many other girls I know, And they are fair, I C, Yet U X L them all, and so I love but M A V.

"M A, my love can ne'er D K, Except when I shall die; And if your heart _must_ say me nay, Just write and tell me Y!"

* * * * *

The following "_Welsh Card of Invitation_" is a very amusing example of the avoidance of pronouns:

"Mr. Walter Morton, and Mrs. Walter Morton, and Miss Sandys's compliments to Mr. Charles Morgan, Mrs. Charles Morgan, Miss Charles Morgan, and the Governess (whose name Mr. Walter Morton, Mrs. Walter Morton, and Miss Sandys do not recollect), and Mr. Walter Morton, Mrs. Walter Morton, and Miss Sandys request the favor of the company of Mr. Charles Morgan, Mrs. Charles Morgan, Miss Charles Morgan, and the Governess (whose name Mr. Walter Morton, Mrs. Walter Morton, and Miss Sandys do not recollect), to dinner on Monday next.

"_Mr. Walter Morton_, _Mrs. Walter Morton_, and Miss Sandys, beg to inform Mr. Charles Morgan, Mrs. Charles Morgan, Miss Charles Morgan, and the Governess (whose name Mr. Walter Morton, Mrs. Walter Morton, and Miss Sandys do not recollect), that Mr. Walter Morton, Mrs. Walter Morton, and Miss Sandys can accommodate Mr. Charles Morgan, Mrs. Charles Morgan, Miss Charles Morgan, and the Governess (whose name Mr. Walter Morton, Mrs. Walter Morton, and Miss Sandys do not recollect), with beds, if remaining through the night is agreeable to Mr. Charles Morgan, Mrs. Charles Morgan, Miss Charles Morgan, and the Governess (whose name Mr. Walter Morton, Mrs. Walter Morton, and Miss Sandys do not recollect!)"

This is an exact copy of an authentic note of invitation to a dinner-party. In point of roundaboutativeness, it is on a par with the long legal papers which used to be served upon pecuniary delinquents.

* * * * *

If you would enjoy a bit of most natural and felicitous description, read the following by that classical and witty writer--no longer, with sorrow be it spoken, of this world--the author of "The American in Paris." The passage has been in the "Drawer" for many years:

"There is a variety of little trades and industries which derive their chief means of life from the wants and luxuries of the street; I mean trades that are unknown in any other country than Paris. You will see an individual moving about at all hours of the night, silent and active, and seizing the smallest bit of paper in the dark, where you can see nothing; and with a hook in the end of a stick, picking it up, and pitching it with amazing dexterity into a basket tied to his left shoulder; with a cat-like walk, being every where and nowhere at the same time, stirring up the rubbish of every nook and gutter of the street, under your very nose. This is the 'Chiffonier.' He is a very important individual. He is in matter what Pythagoras was in mind; and his transformations are scarcely less curious than those of the Samian sage. The beau, by his pains, peruses once again his worn-out dicky or cravat, of a morning, in the 'Magazin des Modes;' while the politician has his linen breeches reproduced in the 'Journal des Debats;' and many a fine lady pours out her soul upon a _billet-doux_ that was once a dish-cloth. The 'chiffonier' stands at the head of the little trades, and is looked up to with envy by the others. He has two coats, and on holidays wears a chain and quizzing-glass. He rises, too, like the Paris gentry, when the chickens roost, and when the lark cheers the morning, goes to bed.

"All the city is divided into districts, and let out to these 'chiffoniers' by the hour; to one from ten to eleven, and from eleven to twelve to another, and so on through the night; so that several get a living and consideration from the same district. This individual does justice to the literary compositions of the day. He crams into his bag indiscriminately the last vaudeville, the last sermon of the Archbishop, and the last essay of the Academy.

"Just below the 'chiffonier' is the 'Gratteur.' This artist scratches the livelong day between the stones of the pavement for old nails from horses' shoes, and other bits of iron; always in hope of a bit of silver, and even perhaps a bit of gold; more happy in his hope than a hundred others in the possession. He has a store, or 'magazin,' in the Faubourgs, where he deposits his ferruginous treasure. His wife keeps this store, and is a '_Marchande de Fer_.' He maintains a family, like another man; one or two of his sons he brings up to scratch for a living, and the other he sends to college; and he has a lot 'in perpetuity' in Père la Chaise. His rank, however, is inferior to that of the 'chiffonier,' who will not give him his daughter in marriage, and he don't ask him to his _soirées_."

* * * * *

A sad and "harrowing" event (after the manner of "the horrid" poetical school), is recorded in the subjoined wild "Fragment:"

"His eye was stern and wild; his cheek Was pale and cold as clay; Upon his tightened lip a smile Of fearful meaning lay:

"He mused awhile, but not in doubt; No trace of doubt was there; It was the steady, solemn pause Of resolute despair!

"Once more he looked upon the scroll, Once more its words he read; Then calmly, with unflinching hand, Its folds before him spread.

"I saw him bare his throat, and seize The blue, cold-gleaming steel, And grimly try the temper'd edge He was so soon to feel!

"A sickness crept upon my heart, And dizzy swam my head: I could not stir, I could not cry, I felt benumbed and dead!

"Black icy horrors struck me dumb, And froze my senses o'er: I closed my eyes in utter fear, And strove to think no more!

* * * * *

"Again I looked: a fearful change Across his face had passed; He seemed to rave:--on cheek and lip A flaky foam was cast.

"He raised on high the glittering blade; Then first I found a tongue: 'Hold! madman! stay the frantic deed! I cried, and forth I sprung:

"He heard me, but he heeded not: One glance around he gave: And ere I could arrest his hand, He had--BEGUN TO SHAVE!"

We can recall some half-dozen specimens of this style of writing; one, at least, of which, from an erratic American poet, must be familiar to the general reader.

Literary Notices.

_Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli._ (Published by Phillips, Sampson, and Co.) The subject of these volumes has left a reputation for strength and brilliancy of intellect which, we imagine, will hardly be justified hereafter by the perusal of her writings. No one, however, can read this touching tribute to her memory without perceiving that she was a remarkable woman. It at once explains the secret of her success, and of her want of general recognition. From her early childhood, she displayed a wonderful precocity of genius. This was stimulated by constant mental inebriation, produced by the excitements of an ambitious and ill-judged education. Her girlish studies were devoted to subjects which demanded the mature experience of a masculine intellect. Deprived of the frolic delights of childhood, a woman in cultivation while young in years, goaded to the wildest intensity of effort by the urgency of an exacting parent, and attaining an extraordinary mental development at the expense of her physical nature, she must, of course, soon have become the object of marked attention and wonder--a prodigy to her friends, and a mystery to herself. Thus she was early placed in a false position. She grew up self-involved, her diseased mind preying on itself, and the consciousness of her personal importance assumed a gigantic magnitude, which threatened to overshadow all healthy manifestations of character. In this condition, she was accustomed to claim more than she could give--more than others were content to grant. The loftiness of her self-esteem was the measure of her lavish disdain. Hence, with the exception of those with whom chance had made her intimate, she was more formidable than attractive to the circle of her acquaintance; her presence in society called forth aversion or terror; as she dispensed the scathing splendors of her Jove-like lightnings, rather than the sweet refreshments of womanhood. But beneath this social despotism, were concealed a genuine kindliness of nature, a large sympathizing heart, a singular power of entering into the condition of others, and a weird magnetic charm which drew to her closest intimacy the most opposite characters. She was, moreover, generous and noble to an uncommon degree, in all the more sacred relations of life; with a high sense of duty; never shrinking from sacrifices; a wise and faithful counselor where her confidence was invoked; absolutely free from every trait of petty or sordid passion; the very soul of honor; and with a sense of justice that seemed to ally her with Eternal Truth.--In these volumes, she is left in a great measure to speak for herself. Her letters and private journals present a transparent record of her character. The editorial portion, by R. W. Emerson, James F. Clarke, and W. H. Channing, is executed with beautiful candor. The most truthful simplicity graces and fortifies their statements. With no other aim than to exhibit an honest portraiture of their friend, they have in no case, that we can discover, allowed their private feelings to gain the mastery over their sterner judgments.--Her residence in Italy reveals her heroism, devotion, and womanly tenderness, in a light that would almost induce the belief, on the part of those who had met her only in the antagonisms of society, that she had changed her identity. A profound, mysterious pathos hovers around her Italian experience, preparing the reader for the tragic close of a life, which was itself a tragedy. The description of her last hours presents a scene of desolation, before which grief can only bow in mute tears.

_Charity and its Fruits_, by JONATHAN EDWARDS, edited by TRYON EDWARDS. A new work from the pen of the illustrious Northampton pastor can not fail to be welcome to the admirers of his profound and original genius. Combining a rare acuteness of metaphysical speculation, with a glowing fervor of religious sentiment, Edwards has called forth the most expressive eulogiums from the philosophers of the old world, while his name is still "familiar as a household word" in the primitive homes of New England. His character presented a striking union of intellectual vigor with earnest piety. The childlike simplicity of his tastes was blended with the refined subtlety of a mediæval schoolman. The apostle of disinterested love, his soul was inspired and thrilled with contemplating the glories of redemption, and the triumphs of grace over the ruins of humanity The Lectures contained in this volume are devoted to his favorite theme. They illustrate the principle of love as the foundation of the Christian character, and the expression of reconciliation with the Lord. In the high standard of duty which they present, in their deep and comprehensive views of human nature, and in the force and sweetness of their style, they compare favorably with the standard productions of their author, and are certainly not surpassed by any religious treatise of modern times.

The manuscripts from which these lectures have been prepared were nearly ready for the press, as left by the writer. They were afterward placed in the charge of Dr. Hopkins and Dr. Bellamy, and are now for the first time given to the public by the present editor. He justly deserves the gratitude of the religious world for this valuable gift. (Published by R. Carter and Brothers).

Harper and Brothers have issued a neat octavo edition of Sir JOHN RICHARDSON'S _Arctic Searching Expedition_, comprising a copious journal of a boat-voyage through Rupert's Land and the Arctic Sea, in search of Sir John Franklin--a variety of interesting details concerning the savages of that region--and an elaborate treatise on the physical geography of North America. Sir John Richardson left Liverpool in March, 1848, and after landing in New York, proceeded at once to the Saut Ste. Marie, where he arrived about the last of April. Starting in a few days from the Saut, he reached the mouth of the River Winnipeg on the 29th of May, and arrived at Cumberland House, on the Saskatchewan, June 13--a distance of nearly 3000 miles from New York. His various adventures on the overland route to Fort Confidence, in 66 degrees of north latitude, where the winter residence of the party was established, are related with great minuteness, presenting a lively picture of the manners of the Indians, and the physical phenomena of the icy North. The history of Sir John Franklin's Expedition, and the present state of the search for that intrepid navigator, is briefly recorded. With the prevailing interest in every thing connected with Arctic discovery, this volume is a most seasonable publication, and will be read with avidity by our intelligent countrymen.

_The Future Wealth of America_, by FRANCIS BONYNGE, is a volume of curious interest, describing the physical resources of the United States, and the commercial and agricultural advantages of introducing several new branches of cultivation. Among the products enumerated by the author as adapted to the soil and climate of this country are tea, coffee, and indigo, the date, the orange, the peach fruit, and the guava. The work, though written in an enthusiastic spirit, is filled with practical details, and presents a variety of useful suggestions in regard to the conditions of national prosperity. Mr. Bonynge is familiarly acquainted with the culture of tropical products, having resided for fourteen years in India and China. His book is well-deserving the attention of the American public.

The Twenty-second Part of COPLAND'S _Dictionary of Practical Medicine_ is published by Harper and Brothers, reaching to the eight hundredth page of the third volume of the work, and to the commencement of the letter S. For laymen who have occasion to refer to a medical work, this Dictionary forms a valuable book of reference, and may be consulted with convenience and profit. Its merits are too well known to the profession to demand comment.

_A Reel in the Bottle, for Jack in the Doldrums_, by Rev. HENRY T. CHEEVER. Modern allegory is a dangerous species of composition. The taste of the age demands clearness, brevity, point; it prefers practical facts to mystic symbols; and, above all, rejects artificial tamperings with Oriental imagery. Imitations of the venerable simplicity of the Bible are always offensive to a correct mind; and scarcely less so is the ancient form of allegory disguised in fashionable trappings. The volume now put forth by Mr. Cheever forms no exception to these remarks. He has met with but indifferent success, in an attempt where a perfect triumph would have brought little credit. The frequent sacrifices of nature and good taste, which his plan demands, illustrate his ingenuity at the expense of his judgment. He reminds us of John Bunyan, whom he takes for his model, only by contrast. We should as soon expect a modern Hamlet from Bulwer as a second Pilgrim's Progress from the present author. (Published by Charles Scribner.)

_The Head of the Family_, by the gifted author of "The Ogilvies," forms the One Hundred and Sixty-seventh number of Harper's "Library of Select Novels." It is distinguished for the absorbing interest of its plot, the refinement and beauty of its characterizations, and its frequent scenes of tenderness and pathos.

NEANDER'S _Practical Exposition of the Epistle of James_ has been translated by Mrs. H. C. CONANT, and published by Lewis Colby. We have before spoken of the success of Mrs. Conant, as the translator of Neander. She has accomplished her present task with equal felicity. Biblical students are greatly in her debt for introducing them to the acquaintance of such a profound and sympathizing interpreter of Holy Writ. Neander wisely avoids metaphysical subtleties. Nor is he a barren, verbal critic. He brings a sound, robust common sense to the exposition of his subject, seeking to detect the living spirit of the writer, and to reproduce it with genuine vitality. A new glow breathes over the sacred page under his cordial, feeling comments, and we seem to be brought into the most intimate communion with the inspired writer. It is no small praise to say of the translator, that she has transferred this lifesome spirit, to a great degree, into her own production.

Redfield has published a spirited translation of ARSENE HOUSSAYE'S work on the _Men and Women of the Eighteenth Century_ in France. A more characteristic portraiture of that egotistic and voluptuous age is not to be found in any language. It places us in the midst of the frivolous court, where the love of pleasure had triumphed over natural sentiment, where religion was lost in hypocrisy, and earnestness of character laughed out of countenance by shameless adventurers. The brilliancy of coloring in these volumes does not disguise the infamy of the persons whom it celebrates. They are displayed in all their detestable heartlessness, and present a wholesome warning to the reader by the hideous ugliness of their example.

BON GAULTIER'S _Book of Ballads_. These clever parodies and satires, whose cool audacity and mischievous love of fun have secured them a favorite place in the English magazines, have been republished in a neat edition by Redfield. Our too thin-skinned compatriots may find something to provoke their ire in the American Ballads, but the sly malice of these effusions generally finds an antidote in their absurdity. For the rest, Bon Gaultier may be called, in Yankee parlance, "a right smart chap," excelling in a species of literature which the highest genius rarely attempts.

We have a new edition of WALKER'S _Rhyming_ _Dictionary_ from Lindsay and Blakiston--a welcome aid, no doubt, to scribblers in pursuit of rhymes under difficulties. We hope it will not have the effect to stimulate the crop of bad poetry, which of late has been such a nuisance to honest readers.

* * * * *

MISS MITFORD, in her _Literary Recollections_ gives some specimens of poetical charades by Mr. Praed, the most successful composer of lyrical _jeux d'esprit_ of this kind. In the review of her work by the _Athenæum_, the two following charades are quoted, the latter of which, Miss Mitford says, is still a mystery to her, and proposes a solution to her readers:

I.

"Come from my _First_, ay, come! The battle dawn is nigh; And the screaming trump and the thundering drum Are calling thee to die! Fight as thy father fought; Fall as thy father fell; Thy task is taught; thy shroud is wrought, So; forward and farewell!

"Toll ye my _Second_! toll! Fling high the flambeau's light; And sing the hymn for a parted soul Beneath the silent night! The wreath upon his head, The cross upon his breast, Let the prayer be said, and the tear be shed, So,--take him to his rest!

"Call ye my _Whole_, ay, call, The lord of lute and lay; And let him greet the sable pall With a noble song to-day; Go, call him by his name! No fitter hand may crave To light the flame of a soldier's fame On the turf of a soldier's grave.

II.

"Sir Hilary charged at Agincourt,-- Sooth 'twas an awful day! And though in that old age of sport The rufflers of the camp and court Had little time to pray, 'Tis said Sir Hilary muttered there Two syllables by way of prayer.

"My _First_ to all the brave and proud Who see to-morrow's sun; My _Next_ with her cold and quiet cloud To those who find their dewy shroud Before to-day's be done; And both together to all blue eyes That weep when a warrior nobly dies."

A correspondent of the _Literary Gazette_ furnishes the following poetical solution of the two charades in one:

"No more we hear the sentry's heavy tramp Around the precincts of the drowsy _camp_; All now is hush'd in calm and sweet repose, And peaceful is the lovely evening's close; Save when the village chimes the hours forth-tell, Or parting souls demand the passing _bell_. Would I could grasp a _Campbell's_ lyric pen! I then might justice do to 'arms and men,' And sing the well-fought field of Agincourt, Where, hand to hand, mix'd in the bloody sport, The hosts of France, vain of superior might, By English valor were o'erthrown in fight, And bade to fame and fortune long _Good Night_!"

* * * * *

Messrs. Clark of Edinburgh have in preparation, translations of the following works: viz.--Dr. JULIUS MULLER'S great work on the _Doctrine of Sin_, translated under the superintendence of the author.--Professor MUSTON'S _Israel of the Alps_, the latest and most complete History of the Waldenses, translated with the concurrence of the author.--DORNER on the _Person of Christ_, translated by the Rev. Mr. KINGSFORD, one of the Chaplains to the Hon. East India Company.--BENGEL'S _Gnomon of the New Testament_, translated by the Rev. PETER HOLMES, of the Plymouth Royal Grammar School.

* * * * *

Mr. Bohn announces the following important Works as about to appear shortly: KIRBY and KIDD'S _Bridgewater Treatises_.--_Coin-Collector's Hand-Book_, by H. N. HUMPHREYS, with numerous engravings of Ancient Coins.--_Greek Anthology; or Select Epigrams of the Greek Classic Poets_, literally translated into Prose, with occasional parallels in verse by English Poets.--OERSTED'S _Soul in Nature_, and other works, translated from the Danish, with Life of the Author.--_Rome in the 19th Century_; with Maps and Diagrams.--KUGLER'S _Historical Manual of Sculpture, Painting, and Architecture, Ancient and Modern_.

* * * * *

The election of the Greek Professor in the University of Edinburgh was fixed for the 2d of March. The number of candidates in the field was very large, but it was thought that many would retire before the day of election. The principal struggle was supposed to be between Dr. William Smith, of New College, London, the learned author of the Classical Dictionaries; Dr. Price, late of Rugby, the friend of Dr. Arnold; Professor Macdowall, of Queen's College, Belfast; and Professor Blackie, of Aberdeen. The emoluments of the chair are upward of 800_l._, and the college duties extend only over about half the year, during the winter session from November to May.

* * * * *

Professor ROBINSON, our townsman, whose proposed expedition to Palestine we lately announced, was at Berlin, at the latest accounts, and expects to be at Beyrout on the 1st of March. He intends to occupy most of his time in visiting the more remote districts of the country, and those villages off the usual routes, which are least known to travelers. Toward the completion of the topography and geography of Palestine, we may expect many new facts to be thus obtained. One of the American missionaries in Syria, the Rev. ELI SMITH, and Mr. WILLIAM DICKSON, of Edinburgh, are to join Professor ROBINSON at Beyrout, and accompany him in the journey. The identification of the site of the Holy Sepulchre, about which there has been much dispute lately, is one object to which special attention will be given. Dr. Robinson was in London, on his route to the Continent, and attended the meetings of the Geographical and other Societies.

* * * * *

The wife of Professor ROBINSON has recently published a protest in the London _Athenæum_ against a garbled English edition of her work on the Colonization of New England. Mrs. ROBINSON says, "A work appeared in London last summer with the following title: 'Talvi's History of the Colonization of America,' edited by William Hazlitt, in two volumes. It seems proper to state that the original work was written under favorable circumstances _in German_ and published in Germany. It treated only of the colonization of _New England_:--and that only stood on its title-page. The above English publication therefore, is a mere translation--and it was made without the consent or knowledge of the author. The very title is a misnomer; all references to authorities are omitted; and the whole work teems with errors, not only of the press, but also of translation--the latter such as could have been made by no person well acquainted with the German and English tongues. For the work in this form, therefore, the author can be in no sense whatever responsible."

* * * * *

A late number of the _London Leader_ in a review of HERMAN MELVILLE'S _Moby Dick, or the Whale_, says, "Want of originality has long been the just and standing reproach to American literature; the best of its writers were but second-hand Englishmen. Of late some have given evidence of originality; not _absolute_ originality, but such genuine outcoming of the American intellect as can be safely called national. Edgar Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman Melville are assuredly no British off-shoots; nor is Emerson--the _German_ American that he is! The observer of this commencement of an American literature, properly so called, will notice as significant that these writers have a wild and mystic love of the super-sensual, peculiarly their own. To move a horror skillfully, with something of the earnest faith in the Unseen, and with weird imagery to shape these phantasms so vividly that the most incredulous mind is hushed, absorbed--to do this no European pen has apparently any longer the power--to do this American literature is without a rival. What _romance_ writer can be named with HAWTHORNE? Who knows the horrors of the seas like HERMAN MELVILLE?"

* * * * *

A bill has been introduced by the Lord Advocate for abolishing tests in the Scottish universities for all professional chairs but those of the theological faculties. At present every professor, before induction, is required by law to sign the Westminster Confession of Faith, and the other formularies of the Scottish Established Kirk. In many cases the signature is not actually required, or it is given as a mere matter of form. Many of the most distinguished professors in Scotland do not belong to the Established Church of that country.

* * * * *

Count DE MONTALEMBERT'S formal reception as a Member of the Académie Française took place on the 5th of February; and as an event of literary and political importance, excited extraordinary sensation. The _salle_ of the Academy was thronged to excess by the _élite_ of Parisian society, and hundreds who had obtained tickets were unable to secure admission. As usual on such occasions, the Count delivered an harangue, the text of which was the merits, real or supposed, of the deceased member to whose chair he succeeded--but the burden of which was an exposition of the Count's opinions on things political, and things in general. As usual, also, one of the Academicians replied by a complimentary discourse to the new member, and it so chanced that the respondent was no less a personage than M. Guizot. These two distinguished men are what the French call "eagles of eloquence," and under any circumstance the liveliest interest would have been felt to see the two noble birds take an oratorical flight; but on this occasion it was immensely increased, by the fact that they are recognized chiefs of two different creeds in religion, the Catholic and the Protestant; of two hostile political parties, that of absolutism, and that of liberty; and of two contending schools in philosophy--one, which imposes authority on the mind of man, the other, which maintains his right to free examination.

* * * * *

CAVAIGNAC is stated to be employing the leisure of his voluntary exile in writing his own memoirs. This may be one of the mere rumors which float idly about in an age of interrupted sequence and disturbed action, but should it prove true, the public may hope for a curious and exciting narrative from the hero of June. Godfrey Cavaignac, his brother, was one of the wittiest and sternest of republican writers under Louis Philippe--and his own avowed opinions were the cause of much suspicion to the government, though his brilliant exploits in Algiers rendered it impossible to keep him down. Of course, however, the chief interest of his memoirs would centre in the pages devoted to his share in events subsequent to 1848.

* * * * *

A letter-writer from Paris to a London journal, presents some sound comments on the recent infamous law for the suppression of the freedom of the press: "President Bonaparte has this day promulgated his long-expected law on the press. It is of unexampled harshness and oppression. Old Draco himself, if living in these days, would not have made it so atrociously severe. It ruins newspaper and periodical proprietors; it strips editors, and writers, and reporters of the means of obtaining their bread by their honest industry; it altogether annihilates the political press. And not content with this, it prohibits the entrance into France of _foreign_ political journals and periodicals, without the special authorization of the government.

"A few months ago the number of daily political newspapers in Paris exceeded thirty; it now does not amount to ten, and of these ten some are certain to disappear in the course of a short time. It is a very moderate computation to suppose that each one of the twenty and odd suppressed journals gave regular employment at good salaries to ten literary men, as editors, contributors, reporters, correspondents, or critics, and that each one afforded occasional employment to at least the same number of feuilletonistes. Here, then, we have upward of twice two hundred men, who, as regards intelligence, are of the _élite_ of society, suddenly deprived of 'the means whereby they lived,' without any fault of their own. What is to become of them? What of their helpless wives and families? Few of them have any aptitude for any other calling, and even if they had, what chance have they, in this overstocked world, of finding vacant places? The contemplation of their misery must wring every heart, and the more so as, from a certain _fierté_ they all possess, they feel it with peculiar bitterness. But, after all, they are but a small portion of the unfortunates who are ruined by the ruining of the press: there are the compositors, who must exceed two thousand in number; there are the news-venders, who must amount to hundreds, there are the distributors, and the publishers, and the clerks, and all the various dependents of a journal, who must amount to hundreds more--all, like Othello, now exclaiming, 'My occupation's gone.' And then paper-makers and type-founders must surely find work slacker and wages lower, now that the newspapers are dead. And then, again, the cafés and the reading-rooms--a very legion--can they do the same amount of business when they have no newspapers to offer? I wonder whether the French Dictator has ever thought of the wide-spread misery he has occasioned, and is causing, by his enmity to the press. It may be doubted--else, perhaps, he would never, from motives of personal or political convenience, have annihilated such an important branch of human industry, which gave bread to tens of thousands. It is a fine thing to have a giant's strength, but tyrannous to use it as a giant."

* * * * *

The German papers say that DR. MEINHOLD, the author of the _Amber Witch_, has left among his papers an unfinished manuscript, entitled "Hagar and the Reformation"--which, they add, is now in an editor's hands, and will be shortly given to the public.

* * * * *

LAMARTINE'S new periodical, the _Civilisateur_, is receiving fair support. The subscriptions are coming in rapidly, and the first number will appear shortly.

* * * * *

_The Mysteries of the People_, by EUGENE SUE, is announced to be completed immediately. The sale of this eccentric novel, to say no more, has been prodigious. Eugene Sue is in Switzerland.

* * * * *

Dr. NEUMAN, Professor of History in the University of Munich, has completed his long-promised _History of the English Empire in Asia_. It is on the eve of publication.

* * * * *

Herr HARTLEBEN, the publisher at Pesth and Vienna, whose meritorious efforts to familiarize his countrymen with the best works of English literature, has just published a translation of Mr. DICKENS'S _Child's History of England_. A German edition of Mr. WARBURTON'S _Darien_ is preparing for publication.

* * * * *

The German letter addressed to the Countess HAHN-HAHN on her two works--_From Babylon to Jerusalem_, and _In Jerusalem_--in Germany generally ascribed to Dr. NITZSCH, of Berlin, has been translated and published by Mr. Parker. It is very clever, and will probably amuse and interest the readers of that lady's former novels. The restless longing after new sensations, and the logicless action of a vain and ambitious mind, have seldom been analyzed so well or satirized so keenly as in _Babylon_ and _Jerusalem_. A sharp preface from the translator also adds to the reader's zest.

* * * * *

GUTZKOW, the German critic and novelist, has just published a collected edition of his works in thirteen volumes, to which he is about to add a fourteenth volume, containing the memoirs of his earlier years. His gigantic novel, the _Knights of the Spirit_, has reached a second edition.

* * * * *

An English newspaper, _The Rhenish Times_, is about to be published at Neuwied, on the Rhine. This new organ, which has not many chances of success, is to be devoted to polite literature, politics, &c.; from the contributions of a number of "eminent English authors," now residents of Neuwied and its environs.

* * * * *

The Austrian government, in order to secure the improvement of Hebrew works of devotion for its own subjects, has authorized the establishment of a special printing press at Goritz, in Illyrïa; and it calculates that it will henceforth be able to supply the vast demand which exists in the East. Heretofore the Jews of Eastern Europe, of Asia, and of Northern Africa, have obtained their religious books principally from Amsterdam or Leghorn.

* * * * *

"Of the language and literature of Hungary," says the _Literary Gazette_, "little is known in England. No European nation has excited so much political interest, with so little intellectual communion, or literary intercourse with other nations. By deeds, very little by words, has Hungary gained the sympathy and respect of the Anglo-Saxon freemen on both sides of the Atlantic. Few Englishmen have ever heard of the names of Garay, and Petöfi, and Kisfaludy, and Vörösmartz, whose lyric strains stir the hearts of the Magyars. The literature of so noble a people can not remain longer neglected in England. Besides the political importance which the country will yet assume, there is beauty and originality in the language itself deserving study. Of all European tongues, it has most of the Oriental spirit and form in its idioms. We are glad to find that an elementary work, entitled 'The Hungarian Language; its Structure and Rules, with Exercises and a Vocabulary,' is in the press, by Sigismund Wékey, late aid-de-camp to Kossuth. Both in Great Britain and America, we have little doubt, the book will be popular."

* * * * *

The Edinburgh papers record the death, upon the 14th, at the early age of forty-four, of ROBERT BLACKWOOD, Esq., the head of the firm of eminent publishers of that name. For the last two years the state of Mr. Blackwood's health compelled his withdrawal from a business which, for the previous fifteen years, he had conducted with admirable energy, sagacity, and success. In the discharge of the difficult duties which devolved upon him, from his position with reference to the literary men of the day, Robert Blackwood uniformly displayed the same strong practical sense for which his father, the founder of the Magazine, was distinguished. He was respected and beloved for his simple and manly qualities by all who had the happiness to know him. His judgments were independent, clear, and decided; his attachments strong and sincere, and by many his name will be long and warmly remembered as that of a stanch and cordial friend.

* * * * *

The friends and admirers of the late LORENZ OKEN, one of the most eminent anatomists and natural philosophers of modern Europe, have set on foot a subscription for a monument to his memory. Oken's writings have been widely read in Europe and in America--and have, we believe, been translated into French, Italian, and Scandinavian, as well as into English. The character of the monument can not be determined until the probable amount of the subscription shall have been ascertained--but it is expected to take the form of a bust or a statue, to be set up in the Platz at Jena.

* * * * *

Baron D'OHSON died recently at Stockholm, aged 73. He was a member of the Academy of Sciences, and President of the Royal Society of Literature in that city. He was one of the most eminent Oriental scholars of the day, and author, among other things, of an important work on the peoples of Caucasus, and of a valuable history of Chinese Tartary, He was born at Constantinople, of Armenian parents, but was educated at Paris. He became secretary to Bernadotte, accompanied him to Sweden, and subsequently fulfilled several diplomatic missions to Paris, London, &c.

* * * * *

Turin journals announce the death of SERANGELI, an artist of celebrity. He was born at Rome, in 1770, and became a pupil of the celebrated David. At an early age he distinguished himself by a painting in one of the annual exhibitions at Paris, and commissions of importance were given to him by the government. His principal works are: _Eurydice dying in the arms of Orpheus_; _Orpheus soliciting her release from the King of Hell_; _Sophocles pleading against his Sons_; a _Christ Crucified_; and the _Interview of the Emperors Napoleon and Alexander at Tilsit_. Of late years he confined himself principally to portrait-painting, and his skill as an historical painter declined in consequence.

Three Leaves from Punch.

THOUGHTS ON FRENCH AFFAIRS.

(_Selected from a Course of Lectures by_ PROFESSOR PUNCH.)

The President has been elected for ten years. By the time this period has closed, it will be found that not only the term of the President's power, but the prosperity of France will be Decade (_Decayed_).

"ELECTION," according to the Dictionaries, is a synonym for "Choice.'" But in Louis Napoleon's new Political Dictionary we find the significant addendum:--"'_Hobson's' understood_."

The two parties in France, who are the one in favor of a King and the other in favor of a Commonwealth, are easily distinguished by the denominations of Monarchists and Republicans; but there is some difficulty in finding a denomination for those in favor of an Empire, unless we adopt that of _Empirics_.

The President is said to be a firm believer in the _Thompsonian practice_ of medicine. This is probable, from the fact that he has treated the Insurgents with _Cayenne_.

In honor of the vote for Louis Napoleon "the Tower of Notre Dame was decorated with hangings." Considering the origin of the present government, which is based on so many _shootings_, a very appropriate decoration is by means of _hanging_.

The French trees of Liberty have been cut down and the wood given to the poor for fuel. The only liberty which the French have is--to warm themselves.

The French have long been well instructed in Deportment; the President is now giving them lessons in Deportation.

France is still quiet; she is taking her little _Nap_.

This plate represents the "PRINCE PRESIDENT" taking possession of the effects of his deceased Uncle. From an old chest he has rummaged out the Imperial globe, crown, eagle, and collar. The Code Napoleon, a pair of military boots--too large to fit the new owner--and a bayonet, make up the remainder of the contents of the chest. The sceptre is surmounted by an expanded hand, the thumb of which comes in suspicious proximity to the nose of a bust of the Uncle. From an open closet the Imperial eagle, reduced to the last state of emaciation, is looking out. In the fireplace is the Imperial chair, to which an old hag, who might pass for the Avenging Nemesis, is setting fire, probably with the wood of the Trees of Liberty. Sundry hoards, left by the former occupant of the house, have been discovered, from which the young heir's ghostly attendant is helping himself. The new tailor, Monsieur GENDARME, is in the act of measuring the President for a suit of "Imperial purple, first quality." Mademoiselle LIBERTE, accompanied by her mother, Madame FRANCE, comes to demand the fulfillment of the promises he has made her, and has brought the wedding-ring; but he refuses to fulfill his solemnly sworn engagement; and offers money to the mother, who rejects it with an expression of countenance that brooks no good to the gay deceiver. "The characters in this picture," says Heir SAUERTEIG, "are admirably developed; the stupid brutality of the heir, the grief and shame of the poor deceived LIBERTE, the anger of FRANCE, which, it is clear, will not be satisfied with words, the greed and avarice of the peculating priest, and the business-like air of the tailor--perfectly indifferent whether he fits his patron with an imperial robe or a convict's blouse--are worthy of the highest admiration."

THE SEVEN WONDERS OF A YOUNG LADY.

I.

Keeping her accounts in preference to an Album.

II.

Generously praising the attractions of that "affected creature" who always cut her out.

III.

Not ridiculing the man she secretly prefers--nor quizzing what she seriously admires.

IV.

Not changing her "dear, dear friend" quarterly--or her dress three times a day.

V.

Reading a novel without looking at the third volume first; or writing a letter without a post-script; or taking wine at dinner without saying "the smallest drop in the world;" or singing without "a bad cold;" or wearing shoes that were not "a mile too big for her."

VI.

Seeing a baby without immediately rushing to it and kissing it.

VII.

Carrying a large bouquet at an evening party, and omitting to ask her partner "if he understands the language of flowers."

Spring Fashions.

The sunny days of April, after our long, cold winter, are peculiarly inviting to promenaders, who have been housed for four months. Fashion, always on the alert to please, and as prompt in her ministrations, as the breath of spring to the buds, is unfolding her beauties in the world of mode, and, within another month will bring forth her creations in full bloom. In the mean while, new costumes for the drawing room and the saloon are not wanting. We present our readers this month with a report of in-door costumes only, but hope to give them something acceptable in our next, concerning dresses for the carriage and the promenade. The fabrics and colors suitable for March yet prevail, with few changes.

The figure on the right (Fig. 1) in our first illustration exhibits a FULL DRESS TOILET, at once rich, chaste, and elegant. It is particularly adapted to youthful matrons, or ladies who may have doubled their teens without being caught in the noose of Hymen. The head-dress is very elegant. The parting of the hair in the middle of the forehead is very short, and the whole front hair is arranged in small curls, short in front, and gradually lengthening toward the sides. A band of pearls goes all round the head above the curls, and is brought round behind to hold the back hair.

Dress of antique watered silk, open all the way down from top of body. The body is cut so as to form lappets and has no seam at the waist; the lappet, quite smooth, goes round behind. The skirt is put on and gathered just under the edge of the lappet. The trimming of this dress is silk net in puffed _bouillonnés_. There is some round the body, on the sleeves, and all down the fore parts of the body and the dress. The _bouillons_ on the top of the body and sleeves are confined by pearl loops. A rich brooch of pearls and diamonds, conceals the junction of the _bouillés_ at the top of the body on the breast. The _bouillonnés_ of the edges of fore part are confined by pearl cords, and at every other _bouillon_, the strings of pearls are double and go from one edge to the other. The body leaving open a space of two or three inches at the waist, just shows the bottom of an under-body of white satin. The under-skirt is satin, embroidered to represent an apron, with very rich pattern worked in white silk and with the crochet. Two rows of Alençon lace decorate each sleeve; a little white chemisette reaches beyond the body. The silk crochet embroidery may be replaced by one executed in silver, &c.

FIG. 2.--BALL COSTUME.--The season for balls is about closing, yet we give another illustration of a very elegant style: Hair in puffed bands; wreath of roses, laid so as to follow the curve of the bands, forming a point in front, and meeting behind in the back hair. Dress, white satin, covered with embroidered silk-net, and ornamented with bouquets of roses. The body is close, plain, and straight at top, and cut in three pieces in front; the point is long, the silk-net of sprigged pattern is laid even on the body, and follows its cut. The satin skirt has hollow plaits, and the net one is placed over it, so as to puff a good deal, without following the same plaits as those in the satin skirt. The effect of this black silk-net with black flowers over white satin, is very striking. In the front of the skirt, and from left to right, ten or eleven bouquets of moss roses and rose-buds are scattered at random, and this is a most appropriate occasion to apply Boileau's verse, in which he says, that "fine disorder is the effect of art." The short sleeves are puffed a little, and are trimmed with _engageantes_ of scolloped-edged black blonde.

FIG. 3 represents a portion of an elegant DRESS-TOILET. Over the head is seen the upper part of a rich _sortie de bal_ of white silk, trimmed with broad white galloon, watered, rather more than three inches wide. This galloon is sewed on flat about an inch from the edge. A galloon of an inch and a half begins at the waist, and comes, marking the shape of the breast, to pass over the shoulder, and form a round at the back. The galloon serves as an ornament, and it is below that the body of the garment assumes the fullness for fluting. A double trimming of white, worsted gimp, embroidered with white jet, forms a pelerine. The upper one is raised, like a _fanchon_, to cover the top of the head, without muffling the neck and chin. The bottom is also trimmed with a deep gimp, gathered, in sewing on. The dress is yellow _moire antique_, figured with a lampas pattern, reaching to the top. In the front, at the middle, by an effect of white satin, obtained in the manufacture, the imitation of a beautiful white ribbon is interwoven in the figured part, beginning at the waist, diverging on either side as it descends, and running round the bottom of the skirt. This admirable dress has received the name of _Victoria_.

We denominate FIG. 4 a FANCY COSTUME for a little girl, because it has not been in vogue for the last three-fourths of a century. It represents the costume of a girl at about the time of our Revolution.

It was the dress, not only of children, but of girls "in their teens." It must be admitted, we think, that Fashion has not grown wise by age. In elegant simplicity this costume is far in advance of the flaunting exhibitions of finery, which little girls of our day often display. We recommend it to our Bloomer friends, as a practical historical evidence that their notions are not "new-fangled," but have the consecration of age, and the sanction of the generation when our good Washington flirted with the gay belles of Virginia.

[Transcriber's Note:

Variant spelling has been retained. Minor corrections to punctuation have been made without note.

Oe ligature denoted by [oe] in the text version.

Superscript denoted with caret (^) in the text version.

A Table of Contents has been provided for the HTML version.

Small caps replaced by all caps and italics denoted by "_" in the text version.

Correction of printer's errors:

Page 588: "...would to tend the horses..." changed to read "...would be to tend the horses..."

Page 595: "...the fasts, the v.gils, the penances..." changed to read "...the fasts, the vigils, the penances..."

Page 606: "...aided by my colleage, Moulins..." changed to read "...aided by my colleague Moulins..."

Page 607: "...that thunberbolt may be..." changed to read "...that thunderbolt may be..."

Page 607: "...sagacious transferrence of the meeting..." changed to read "...sagacious transference of the meeting ..."

Page 661: "...he said was one one of the counsel..." changed to read "...he said was one of the counsel ..."

Page 665: "...himself to Borriboola-Gha..." changed to read "...himself to Borrioboola-Gha..."

Page 666: "...made a similar responce." changed to read "...made a similar response."

Page 666: "...the utmost discription Ada could give..." changed to read "...the utmost description Ada could give..."

Page 678: "...it it was Woman..." changed to read "...it was Woman..."

Page 687: "...Douglas could scarcly have called him ..." changed to read "...Douglas could scarcely have called him..."

Page 690: "...the man was a a match..." changed to read "...the man was a match..."

Page 693: "...washing the dus: this is..." changed to read "...washing the dust: this is..."

Page 696: "...Lord Lieutenant of Ireand; Duke of Montrose..." changed to read "...Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; Duke of Montrose..."

Page 696: "...a good deal of skil and bravery..." changed to read "...a good deal of skill and bravery..."

Page 706: "...the color of the shiling there?" changed to read "...the color of the shilling there?"

Page 708: "...she was a reremarkable woman." changed to read "...she was a remarkable woman."

Page 710: "...the Greek Professsor in the University..." changed to read "...the Greek Professor in the University..."]