CHAPTER VII.--THE GHOST'S WALK.

While Esther sleeps, and while Esther wakes, it is still wet weather down at the place in Lincolnshire. The rain is ever falling, drip, drip, drip, by day and night, upon the broad flag terrace-pavement, The Ghost's Walk. The weather is so very bad, down in Lincolnshire, that the liveliest imagination can scarcely apprehend its ever being fine again. Not that there is any superabundant life of imagination on the spot, for Sir Leicester is not here (and, truly, even if he were, would not do much for it in that particular), but is in Paris with my Lady; and solitude, with dusky wings, sits brooding upon Chesney Wold.

There may be some notions of fancy among the lower animals at Chesney Wold. The horses in the stables--the long stables in a barren, red-brick court-yard, where there is a great bell in a turret, and a clock with a large face, which the pigeons who live near it, and who love to perch upon its shoulders, seem to be always consulting--_they_ may contemplate some mental pictures of fine weather, on occasions, and may be better artists at them than the grooms. The old roan, so famous for cross-country work, turning his large eyeball to the grated window near his rack, may remember the fresh leaves that glisten there at other times, and the scents that stream in, and may have a fine run with the hounds, while the human helper, clearing out the next stall, never stirs beyond his pitchfork and birch-broom. The gray, whose place is opposite the door, and who, with an impatient rattle of his halter, pricks his ears, and turns his head so wistfully when it is opened, and to whom the opener says, "Woa gray, then, steady! Noabody wants you to-day!" may know it quite as well as the man. The whole seemingly monotonous and uncompanionable half-dozen, stabled together, may pass the long wet hours, when the door is shut, in livelier communication than is held in the servants' hall, or at the Dedlock Arms; or may even beguile the time by improving (perhaps corrupting) the pony in the loose box in the corner.

So the mastiff, dozing in his kennel, in the court-yard, with his large head on his paws, may think of the hot sunshine, when the shadows of the stable-buildings tire his patience out by changing, and leave him, at one time of the day, no broader refuge than the shadow of his own house, where he sits on end, panting and growling short, and very much wanting something to worry, besides himself and chain. So now, half-waking and all-winking, he may recall the house full of company, the coach-houses full of vehicles, the stables full of horses, and the outbuildings full of attendants upon horses, until he is undecided about the present, and comes forth to see how it is. Then, with an impatient shake of himself, he may growl, in the spirit, "Rain, rain, rain! Nothing but rain--and no family here!" as he goes in again, and lies down with a gloomy yawn.

So with the dogs in the kennel-buildings across the park, who have their restless fits, and whose doleful voices, when the wind has been very obstinate, have even made it known in the house itself: up-stairs, down stairs, and in my lady's chamber. They may hunt the whole country-side, while the rain-drops are pattering round their inactivity. So the rabbits with their self-betraying tails, frisking in and out of holes at roots of trees, may be lively with ideas of the breezy days when their ears are blown about, or of those seasons of interest when there are sweet young plants to gnaw. The turkey in the poultry-yard, always troubled with a class-grievance (probably Christmas), may be reminiscent of that summer morning wrongfully taken from him, when he got into the lane among the felled trees, where there was a barn and barley. The discontented goose, who stoops to pass under the old gateway, twenty feet high, may gabble out, if we only knew it, a waddling preference for weather when the gateway casts its shadow on the ground.

Be this as it may, there is not much fancy otherwise stirring at Chesney Wold. If there be a little at any odd moment, it goes, like a little noise in that old echoing place, a long way, and usually leads off to ghosts and mystery.

It has rained so hard and rained so long, down in Lincolnshire, that Mrs. Rouncewell, the old housekeeper at Chesney Wold, has several times taken off her spectacles and cleaned them, to make certain that the drops were not upon the glasses. Mrs. Rouncewell might have been sufficiently assured by hearing the rain, but that she is rather deaf, which nothing will induce her to believe. She is a fine old lady, handsome, stately, wonderfully neat, and has such a back, and such a stomacher, that if her stays should turn out when she dies to have been a broad old-fashioned family fire-grate, nobody who knows her would have cause to be surprised. Weather affects Mrs. Rouncewell little. The house is there in all weathers, and the house, as she expresses it, "is what she looks at." She sits in her room (in a side passage on the ground floor, with an arched window commanding a smooth quadrangle, adorned at regular intervals with smooth round trees and smooth round blocks of stone, as if the trees were going to play at bowls with the stones), and the whole house reposes on her mind. She can open it on occasion, and be busy and fluttered; but it is shut-up now, and lies on the breadth of Mrs. Rouncewell's iron-bound bosom, in a majestic sleep.

It is the next difficult thing to an impossibility to imagine Chesney Wold without Mrs. Rouncewell, but she has only been here fifty years. Ask her how long, this rainy day, and she shall answer, "fifty year three months and a fortnight, by the blessing of Heaven, if I live 'till Tuesday." Mr. Rouncewell died some time before the decease of the pretty fashion of pig-tails, and modestly hid his own (if he took it with him) in a corner of the church-yard in the park, near the mouldy porch. He was born in the market town, and so was his young widow. Her progress in the family began in the time of the last Sir Leicester, and originated in the still-room.

The present representative of the Dedlocks is an excellent master. He supposes all his dependents to be utterly bereft of individual characters, intentions, or opinions, and is persuaded that he was born to supersede the necessity of their having any. If he were to make a discovery to the contrary, he would be simply stunned--would never recover himself, most likely, except to gasp and die. But he is an excellent master still, holding it a part of his state to be so. He has a great liking for Mrs. Rouncewell; he says she is a most respectable, creditable woman. He always shakes hands with her, when he comes down to Chesney Wold, and when he goes away; and if he were very ill, or if he were knocked down by accident, or run over, or placed in any situation expressive of a Dedlock at a disadvantage, he would say if he could speak, "Leave me, and send Mrs. Rouncewell here!" feeling his dignity, at such a pass, safer with her than with any body else.

Mrs. Rouncewell has known trouble. She has had two sons, of whom the younger ran wild, and went for a soldier, and never came back. Even to this hour, Mrs. Rouncewell's calm hands lose their composure when she speaks of him, and unfolding themselves from her stomacher, hover about her in an agitated manner, as she says, what a likely lad, what a fine lad, what a gay, good-humored, clever lad he was! Her second son would have been provided for at Chesney Wold, and would have been made steward in due season; but he took, when he was a schoolboy, to constructing steam-engines out of sauce-pans, and setting birds to draw their own water, with the least possible amount of labor; so assisting them with artful contrivance of hydraulic pressure, that a thirsty canary had only, in a literal sense, to put his shoulder to the wheel, and the job was done. This propensity gave Mrs. Rouncewell great uneasiness. She felt it with a mother's anguish, to be a move in the Wat Tyler direction: well knowing that Sir Leicester had that general impression of an aptitude for any art to which smoke and a tall chimney might be considered essential. But the doomed young rebel (otherwise a mild youth, and very persevering), showing no sign of grace as he got older, but, on the contrary, constructing a model of a power-loom, she was fain, with many tears, to mention his backslidings to the baronet. "Mrs. Rouncewell," said Sir Leicester, "I can never consent to argue, as you know, with any one on any subject. You had better get rid of your boy, you had better get him into some Works. The iron country farther north is, I suppose, the congenial direction for a boy with these tendencies." Farther north he went, and farther north he grew up; and if Sir Leicester Dedlock ever saw him, when he came to Chesney Wold to visit his mother, or ever thought of him afterward, it is certain that he only regarded him as one of a body of some odd thousand conspirators, swarthy and grim, who were in the habit of turning out by torch-light, two or three nights in the week, for unlawful purposes.

Nevertheless Mrs. Rouncewell's son has, in the course of nature and art, grown up, and established himself, and married, and called unto him Mrs. Rouncewell's grandson: who, being out of his apprenticeship, and home from a journey in far countries, whither he was sent to enlarge his knowledge and complete his preparation for the venture of this life, stands leaning against the chimney-piece this very day, in Mrs. Rouncewell's room at Chesney Wold.

"And, again and again, I am glad to see you, Watt! And, once again, I am glad to see you, Watt!" says Mrs. Rouncewell. "You are a fine young fellow. You are like your poor uncle George. Ah!" Mrs. Rouncewell's hands unquiet, as usual, on this reference.

"They say I am like my father, grandmother."

"Like him, also, my dear--but most like your poor uncle George! And your dear father." Mrs. Rouncewell folds her hands again. "He is well?"

"Thriving, grandmother, in every way."

"I am thankful!" Mrs. Rouncewell is fond of her son, but has a plaintive feeling toward him--much as if he were a very honorable soldier, who had gone over to the enemy.

"He is quite happy?" says she.

"Quite."

"I am thankful! So, he has brought you up to follow in his ways, and has sent you into foreign countries and the like? Well, he knows best. There may be a world beyond Chesney Wold that I don't understand. Though I am not young, either. And I have seen a quantity of good company too!"

"Grandmother," says the young man, changing the subject, "what a very pretty girl that was, I found with you just now. You called her Rosa?"

"Yes, child. She is daughter of a widow in the village. Maids are so hard to teach, nowadays, that I have put her about me young. She's an apt scholar, and will do well. She shows the house already, very pretty. She lives with me, at my table here."

"I hope I have not driven her away?"

"She supposes we have family affairs to speak about, I dare say. She is very modest. It is a fine quality in a young woman. And scarcer," says Mrs. Rouncewell, expanding her stomacher to its utmost limits, "than it formerly was!"

The young man inclines his head, in acknowledgment of the precepts of experience. Mrs. Rouncewell listens.

"Wheels!" says she. They have long been audible to the younger ears of her companion. "What wheels on such a day as this, for gracious sake?"

After a short interval, a tap at the door. "Come in!" A dark-eyed, dark-haired, shy, village beauty comes in--so fresh in her rosy and yet delicate bloom, that the drops of rain, which have beaten on her hair, look like the dew upon a flower fresh-gathered.

"What company is this, Rosa?" says Mrs. Rouncewell.

"It's two young men in a gig, ma'am, who want to see the house--yes, and if you please, I told them so!" in quick reply to a gesture of dissent from the housekeeper. "I went to the half-door, and told them it was the wrong day, and the wrong hour; but the young man who was driving took off his hat in the wet, and begged me to bring this card to you."

"Read it, my dear Watt," said the housekeeper.

Rosa is so shy as she gives it to him, that they drop it between them, and almost knock their foreheads together as they pick it up. Rosa is shyer than before.

"Mr. Guppy," is all the information the card yields.

"Guppy!" repeats Mrs. Rouncewell. "Mr. Guppy! Nonsense, I never heard of him!"

"If you please, he told _me_ that!" says Rosa. "But he said that he and the other young gentleman came from London only last night by the mail, on business at the magistrates' meeting ten miles off, this morning; and that as their business was soon over, and they had heard a great deal said of Chesney Wold, and really didn't know what to do with themselves, they had come through the wet to see it. They are lawyers. He says he is not in Mr. Tulkinghorn's office, but is sure he may make use of Mr. Tulkinghorn's name, if necessary." Finding, now she leaves off, that she has been making quite a long speech, Rosa is shyer than ever.

Now, Mr. Tulkinghorn is, in a manner, part and parcel of the place; and, besides, is supposed to have made Mrs. Rouncewell's will. The old lady relaxes, consents to the admission of the visitors as a favor, and dismisses Rosa. The grandson, however, being smitten by a sudden wish to see the house himself, proposes to join the party. The grandmother, who is pleased that he should have that interest, accompanies him--though, to do him justice, he is exceedingly unwilling to trouble her.

"Much obliged to you, ma'am!" says Mr. Guppy, divesting himself of his wet dreadnought in the hall. "Us London lawyers don't often get an out; and when we do, we like to make the most of it, you know."

The old housekeeper, with a gracious severity of deportment, waves her hand toward the great staircase. Mr. Guppy and his friend follow Rosa, Mrs. Rouncewell and her grandson follow them, a young gardener goes before to open the shutters.

As is usually the case with people who go over houses, Mr. Guppy and his friend are dead beat before they have well begun. They straggle about in wrong places, look at wrong things, don't care for the right things, gape when more rooms are opened, exhibit profound depression of spirits, and are clearly knocked up. In each successive chamber that they enter, Mrs. Rouncewell, who is as upright as the house itself, rests apart in a window-seat, or other such nook, and listens with stately approval to Rosa's exposition. Her grandson is so attentive to it, that Rosa is shyer than ever--and prettier. Thus they pass on from room to room, raising the pictured Dedlocks for a few brief minutes as the young gardener admits the light, and reconsigning them to their graves as he shuts it out again. It appears to the afflicted Mr. Guppy and his inconsolable friend, that there is no end to the Dedlocks, whose family-greatness seems to consist in their never having done any thing to distinguish themselves, for seven hundred years.

Even the long drawing-room of Chesney Wold can not revive Mr. Guppy's spirits. He is so low that he droops on the threshold, and has hardly strength of mind to enter. But a portrait over the chimney-piece, painted by the fashionable artist of the day, acts upon him like a charm. He recovers in a moment. He stares at it with uncommon interest; he seems to be fixed and fascinated by it.

"Dear me!" says Mr. Guppy. "Who's that?"

"The picture over the fire-place," says Rosa, "is the portrait of the present Lady Dedlock. It is considered a perfect likeness, and the best work of the master."

"'Blest!" says Mr. Guppy, staring in a kind of dismay at his friend, "if I can ever have seen her. Yet I know her! Has the picture been engraved, miss?"

"The picture has never been engraved. Sir Leicester has always refused permission."

"Well!" says Mr. Guppy, in a low voice, "I'll be shot if it an't very curious how well I know that picture! So that's Lady Dedlock, is it?"

"The picture on the right is the present Sir Leicester Dedlock. The picture on the left is his father, the late Sir Leicester."

Mr. Guppy has no eyes for either of these magnates. "It's unaccountable to me," he says, still staring at the portrait, "how well I know that picture! I'm dashed!" adds Mr. Guppy, looking round, "if I don't think I must have had a dream of that picture, you know!"

As no one present takes any especial interest in Mr. Guppy's dreams, the probability is not pursued. But he still remains so absorbed by the portrait, that he stands immovable before it until the young gardener has closed the shutters; when he comes out of the room in a dazed state, that is an odd though a sufficient substitute for interest, and follows into the succeeding rooms with a confused stare, as if he were looking every where for Lady Dedlock again.

He sees no more of her. He sees her rooms, which are the last shown, as being very elegant, and he looks out of the windows from which she looked out, not long ago, upon the weather that bored her to death. All things have an end--even houses that people take infinite pains to see, and are tired of before they begin to see them. He has come to the end of the sight, and the fresh village beauty to the end of her description; which is always this:

"The terrace below is much admired. It is called, from an old story in the family, The Ghost's Walk."

"No?" says Mr. Guppy, greedily curious; "what's the story, miss? Is it any thing about a picture?"

"Pray tell us the story," says Watt, in a half whisper.

"I don't know it, sir." Rosa is shyer than ever.

"It is not related to visitors; it is almost forgotten," says the housekeeper, advancing, "It has never been more than a family anecdote."

"You'll excuse my asking again if it has any thing to do with a picture, ma'am," observes Mr. Guppy, "because I do assure you that the more I think of that picture the better I know it, without knowing how I know it!"

The story has nothing to do with a picture; the housekeeper can guarantee that. Mr. Guppy is obliged to her for the information; and is moreover, generally obliged. He retires with his friend, guided down another staircase by the young gardener; and presently is heard to drive away. It is now dusk. Mrs. Rouncewell can trust to the discretion of her two young hearers, and may tell _them_ how the terrace came to have that ghostly name. She seats herself in a large chair by the fast-darkening window, and tells them:

"In the wicked days, my dears, of King Charles the First--I mean, of course, in the wicked days of the rebels who leagued themselves against that excellent King--Sir Morbury Dedlock was the owner of Chesney Wold. Whether there was any account of a ghost in the family before those days, I can't say. I should think it very likely indeed."

Mrs. Rouncewell holds this opinion, because she considers that a family of such antiquity and importance has a right to a ghost. She regards a ghost as one of the privileges of the upper classes; a genteel distinction to which the common people have no claim.

"Sir Morbury Dedlock," says Mrs. Rouncewell, "was, I have no occasion to say, on the side of the blessed martyr. But it _is_ supposed that his lady, who had none of the family blood in her veins, favored the bad cause. It is said that she had relations among King Charles's enemies; that she was in correspondence with them; and that she gave them information. When any of the country gentlemen who followed His Majesty's cause met here, it is said that my lady was always nearer to the door of their council-room than they supposed. Do you hear a sound like a footstep passing along the terrace, Watt?"

Rosa draws nearer to the housekeeper.

"I hear the rain-drip on the stones," replies the young man, "and I hear a curious echo--I suppose an echo--which is very like a halting step."

The housekeeper gravely nods and continues.

"Partly on account of this division between them, and partly on other accounts, Sir Morbury and his lady led a troubled life. She was a lady of a haughty temper. They were not well suited to each other in age or character, and they had no children to moderate between them. After her favorite brother, a young gentleman, was killed in the civil wars (by Sir Morbury's near kinsman), her feeling was so violent that she hated the race into which she had married. When the Dedlocks were about to ride out from Chesney Wold in the King's cause, she is supposed to have more than once stolen down into the stables in the dead of night, and lamed their horses; and the story is, that once, at such an hour, her husband saw her gliding down the stairs, and followed her into the stall where his own favorite horse stood. There he seized her by the wrist; and in a struggle or in a fall, or through the horse being frightened and lashing out, she was lamed in the hip, and from that hour began to pine away."

The housekeeper has dropped her voice to little more than a whisper.

"She had been a lady of a handsome figure and a noble carriage. She never complained of the change; she never spoke to any one of being crippled, or of being in pain; but, day by day, she tried to walk upon the terrace; and, with the help of a stick, and with the help of the stone balustrade, went up and down, up and down, up and down, in sun and shadow, with greater difficulty every day. At last, one afternoon, her husband (to whom she had never, on any persuasion, opened her lips since that night), standing at the great south window, saw her drop upon the pavement. He hastened down to raise her, but she repulsed him as he bent over her, and looking at him fixedly and coldly, said, 'I will die here, where I have walked. And I will walk here, though I am in my grave. I will walk here until the pride of this house is humbled. And when calamity, or when disgrace is coming to it, let the Dedlocks listen for my step!'"

Watt looks at Rosa. Rosa, in the deepening gloom, looks down upon the ground, half frightened, and half shy.

"There and then she died. And from those days," says Mrs. Rouncewell, "the name has come down--The Ghost's Walk. If the tread is an echo, it is an echo that is only heard after dark, and is often unheard for a long while together. But it comes back, from time to time; and so sure as there is sickness or death in the family, it will be heard then."

"--And disgrace, grandmother--" says Watt.

"Disgrace never comes to Chesney Wold," returns the housekeeper.

Her grandson apologizes, with "True. True."

"That is the story. Whatever the sound is, it is a worrying sound," says Mrs. Rouncewell, getting up from her chair, "and what is to be noticed in it is, that it _must be heard_. My lady, who is afraid of nothing, admits that when it is there, it must be heard. You can not shut it out. Watt, there is a tall French clock behind you (placed there, a' purpose) that has a loud beat when it is in motion, and can play music. You understand how those things are managed?"

"Pretty well, grandmother, I think."

"Set it a-going."

Watt sets it a-going--music and all.

"Now, come hither," says the housekeeper. "Hither, child, toward my lady's pillow. I am not sure that it is dark enough yet, but listen! Can you hear the sound upon the terrace, through the music, and the beat, and every thing?"

"I certainly can!"

"So my lady says."

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

THE RUSSIAN CZAR AT A PUBLIC BALL.

To provide resources for the invalids of the Russian army, great care is taken; and in addition to more fixed estimates, the emperor makes extraordinary exertions, by balls, and lotteries, and masquerades, of a charitable nature, to augment the ways and means of the veterans who have been disabled in his service. Sometimes the ball, the lottery, and the masquerade are all combined in one festive display. Of course, such displays take place in winter, which is the St. Petersburg season. It is not two years since I was present on one of these occasions, round which the emperor threw all the attractions of his gorgeous court. And, as the festivities were for the especial benefit of the military invalids, I may be excused for lingering for awhile on the details which I witnessed. Besides, often as the emperor, who is the real commander-in-chief of all the Russian forces, has been described, the subject is far from being picked to the bone; and what I saw of him it will gratify the curiosity of the reader to learn.

It is the military frequenters, with their prodigious variety of costumes, who give so much splendor to the celebrated masquerades of St. Petersburg. These are conducted on the model of the still more celebrated masquerades of old, in Venice. The approximation is the less complete, of course, because the climate is so different. Open-air assemblies, for pleasure's sake, are out of the question, in a northern winter. The merry-makers would have little else to do but rub each other's noses with snow, to prevent their falling off gradually after they had been bleached by the leprous-looking frost-bite. There are nights when it is hardly an exaggeration to say that, if a person spits out, it is a pellet of ice which rattles against the ground. The sudden transition from such a winter to the intense heat of the Petersburg summer is one among several conditions which render a residence in that capital so unfriendly to the health of foreigners, unless they come in the plastic time of childhood, and grow, with many precautions, acclimatized.

The place of assembly for these great festive or charitable demonstrations (the only kind of "demonstration," except such as are military, which can be seen in Russia) is not unworthy of its purposes. It is probably the finest of its kind in Europe or in the world, and is called the "Hall of Nobility"--_Salle de Noblesse_--a vast edifice, capable of receiving seven thousand guests, supported inside by splendid scagliola columns, richly decorated, skillfully laid out, distributed into a vast pit for dancing, with circumambient galleries and balconies, with retiring or withdrawing apartments for the emperor and his court, and with general refreshment-rooms in the outer circuit. This scene is lit up by clusters of wax-lights the beams of which are multiplied by crystal pendants; while the wax-lights themselves are many thousands in number, more numerous, in fact, than the stars visible to the naked eye on a bright frosty night.

A great masquerade ball for the benefit of the invalids, in such a place, with the additional attraction of the promised presence of the Emperor Nicholas, was irresistible. I determined to go, and my determination was the more natural inasmuch as I happened to possess a free ticket. On entering, I was struck by the novel and somewhat grotesque feature imparted to the scene by the lottery prizes, which had lain there "on view" for some days previously. I found a crowd which was afterward estimated at seven thousand; but, I dare say, it numbered five or six only.

Perfectly lost in the vastness of the place, the multitude assembled, and the grotesque horror of beautiful forms without human faces, I sat down for awhile, near the orchestra. The benches, on one of which I was, rose here in successive tiers, from the vast, pit-like saloon to the surrounding gallery, which was overhung by another gallery, and abutted upon several splendid refreshment-rooms. Before and below, the crowd was particularly dense around a little rostrum, on which a glass wheel and several officials who plied it, stood together. The press, the throng, the hustling, the jostling, the redness of faces where they could be seen, and the activity of elbows where they could be insidiously inserted, were raging around. A similar apparatus, besieged by similar votaries, stood at the other three corners of the saloon. In the ancillary apartments there were more of these shrines of gambling; a gambling in which only one class was sure to win, a class unvexed by the excitement of the game, the invalided veterans, the brave old disabled soldiers of the empire. For their sakes was all this gorgeous commotion; for their sakes this splendid mob bustled about the "_Ailetpii Allegri_;" that is, the wheels of fortune, the lottery stands, the stalls of fate. All round these, and between them, circulated the pervading immensity of the masquerade.

Tired of this part of the scene, I asked the person next me, in what part of the room the emperor was. I had already seen Alexander, the crown prince, or, as he is called, the _Grand Duc Héritier_, walking about with a lady on his arm, his handsome open countenance radiant with the smiles that are so easily lit there.

"The emperor," said the person whom I had asked, "passed this way about a quarter of an hour since, and must be somewhere yonder," and he pointed to the end of the saloon, opposite the orchestra.

I arose, ascended the flights of stairs that conducted to the Boulevard-like gallery, and I began to thread my way behind the scagliola columns. Beyond these, across the width of the corridor, arose the wall which was the running boundary of the corridor on the other side; and into this wall were let tall mirrors, which multiplied every particular of the confused and shifting splendor of the rooms.

When I reached the further end of the gallery, a spectacle was offered to me, which arrested all my attention. I must premise, that when the emperor attends these festivities, or others of a like nature, he evinces certain likings, feelings, tastes. He is not entirely indifferent as to what his subjects may do. If there be one thing more than another which he abhors, it is that in these scenes of familiar relaxation, in which he mingles to unbend his own mind, while contributing indirectly a new interest to the revels of others, he should be saluted as emperor, or beset by the unmannerly siege of a universal stare. It is strictly understood, or, as the fashionable jargon is, _de rigueur_, that he is present as any other stranger, not to be noted, not to be quoted, quite incognitus. Here he comes, like any one else, to amuse himself, to forget imperial cares for a brief moment. Nothing pleases him more than to let him pass. Can he not be as any other of the countless visitors, who engage in the intricate tactics of these grave and sober saturnalia--this game of small mystery--this strategic maze of hushed frolic--these profound combinations of grown-up gentlemen and ladies at hide-and-seek?

I had easily figured to myself, that it was easier for the emperor to let people know that such was his wish, than for others to affect an unconsciousness which they did not feel, or an indifference which they felt still less. I had guessed that, in such scenes, his desire to be allowed to move about unnoticed, was difficult to be reduced to perfect practice. But I was far indeed from being prepared for what I beheld.

Sauntering idly along, I became conscious, not of a start among the throng--not of any exclamation--not even of any particular hush, but of an indefinable _sensation_ around me. Crowds have their general physiognomies like individuals. This sensation was as perceptible as a change of countenance, and as silent. I looked up, and in the midst of a vacant place, from which every one had shrunk back, as from a plague-stricken spot, or a haunted floor, or a "fairy-ring," about ten yards onward and facing me, I saw the emperor (his head bare), standing alone, with his back against the opposite wall. I had often seen him before in the streets, but never with so good an opportunity of noting his physiognomy, deportment, figure, and whole appearance.

"Now," said I to myself, "let me realize this with accuracy. It is not so much the Sovereign of Russia whom you see there, as it is Russia itself--a power--a sway, in a single person. He is the only surviving instance or ensample of types, such as loomed before the minds of the prophets of God aforetime, and have been thought worthy to be the themes of their awful predictions. This is Cyrus, or the second Cæsar; this a mystic statue--not that of which the head was of fine gold, but the breast and the arms of silver, and the belly and the thighs of brass, and the legs of iron; the feet part of iron, and part of clay."

Not such; yet assuredly such like.

I forgot every thing around me, except that great mighty figure towering aloft. It were useless to describe very particularly the present Emperor "of all the Russias." People in England still remember him, as he was when he visited us in his magnificent youth. Years have indeed made some change. His hair is thin, which was then so abundant. Public care has written some lines on a face, far more commanding, though perhaps less haughty, and certainly less blooming than in those days. But he has still the same marvelous width of chest and shoulder, the same royal-looking height, the same large open blue eye, full of authority and instinct with mind; a forehead which is even broader and loftier than of old, and which never yet belonged to one whose mental powers were not extraordinary; and that statuesque set of the head, which, if it wore no crown, would yet make you know it for the head of some mighty king.

"They would have proclaimed him," said I to myself, "on their shields, in the days of Attila, or of Clovis."

On the present occasion, the emperor was standing alone, as I have said; his back resting against the wall, and a crowd of the most persistent gazers around. He looked vexed--even melancholy. They would not grant him this casual moment of amusement untormented. He had the air of one at bay. He faced the crowd full, and wherever his glance fell, I could see all eyes sink before it immediately. It rested a moment on myself. I had often heard, and often read, that it was difficult to return his look; and why I know not. It is but an eye; yet, whether it was the involuntary sympathy I felt for a king thus bayed in his moments of relaxation, or whether it was that in his piercing glance, there is an expression as if he were about to address you, and thus to make you the object of universal notice, or whatever else it may be, I too dropped my looks to the ground.

A couple of masks approached him as if to speak; he turned full upon them, to give the opportunity; their hearts failed them at once, and with a low courtesy, they shrank back again.

I saw him again several times during the evening, once walking with a lady (deeply masked, if I remember). His dress was that of a general officer, and he wore a lofty hussar's cap, with a single tall feather at its side. It made his stature seem still more colossal.

As I was defiling through the crowd, I felt shortly afterward a sharp blow on my elbow. Turning, I saw a mask, who, looking at me for a moment, retreated. I followed till my guide had sat down in a place where there was room for two, making me to understand that I was to occupy the vacant spot. I considered her figure for a moment, and then feeling perfectly sure that it was not that of an acquaintance, I declined. Without any answer, I strolled my way. Having seen what a masquerade was at the "_Nobles' Hall_," I soon afterward left the rooms altogether, hoping sincerely that the proceeds might be ample, for the sake of the veteran invalids; and meditating much on the Czar, whom I had had so good an opportunity of seeing, and whom these veterans regarded as by right divine their perpetual "Generalissimo."

A SLEEP TO STARTLE US.

BY CHARLES DICKENS.

At the top of Farringdon-street in the city of London, once adorned by the Fleet Prison, and by a diabolical jumble of nuisances in the middle of the road called Fleet Market, is a broad new thoroughfare in a state of transition. A few years hence, and we of the present generation will find it not an easy task to recall, in the thriving street which will arise upon this spot, the wooden barriers and hoardings--the passages that lead to nothing--the glimpses of obscene Field-lane and Saffron-hill--the mounds of earth, old bricks, and oyster-shells--the arched foundations of unbuilt houses--the backs of miserable tenements with patched windows--the odds and ends of fever-stricken courts and alleys--which are the present features of the place. Not less perplexing do I find it now, to reckon how many years have passed since I traversed these by-ways one night before they were laid bare, to find out the first Ragged School.

If I say it is ten years ago, I leave a handsome margin. The discovery was then newly made, that to talk soundingly in parliament, and cheer for Church and State, or to consecrate and confirm without end, or to perorate to any extent in a thousand market-places about all the ordinary topics of patriotic songs and sentiments, was merely to embellish England on a great scale with whited sepulchres, while there was, in every corner of the land where its people were closely accumulated, profound ignorance and perfect barbarism. It was also newly discovered, that out of these noxious sinks where they were born to perish, and where the general ruin was hatching day and night, the people _would not come_ to be improved. The gulf between them and all wholesome humanity had swollen to such a depth and breadth, that they were separated from it as by impassable seas or deserts; and so they lived, and so they died: an always-increasing band of outlaws in body and soul, against whom it were to suppose the reversal of all laws, human and divine, to believe that society could at last prevail.

In this condition of things, a few unaccredited messengers of Christianity, whom no bishop had ever heard of, and no government-office porter had ever seen, resolved to go to the miserable wretches who had lost the way to them; and to set up places of instruction in their own degraded haunts. I found my first Ragged School, in an obscure place called West-street, Saffron-hill, pitifully struggling for life, under every disadvantage. It had no means, it had no suitable rooms, it derived no power or protection from being recognized by any authority, it attracted within its wretched walls a fluctuating swarm of faces--young in years but youthful in nothing else--that scowled Hope out of countenance. It was held in a low-roofed den, in a sickening atmosphere, in the midst of taint, and dirt, and pestilence: with all the deadly sins let loose, howling and shrieking at the doors. Zeal did not supply the place of method and training; the teachers knew little of their office; the pupils, with an evil sharpness, found them out, got the better of them, derided them, made blasphemous answers to scriptural questions, sang, fought, danced, robbed each other; seemed possessed by legions of devils. The place was stormed and carried, over and over again; the lights were blown out, the books strewn in the gutters, and the female scholars carried off triumphantly to their old wickedness. With no strength in it but its purpose, the school stood it all out and made its way. Some two years since, I found it, one of many such, in a large, convenient loft in this transition part of Farringdon-street--quiet and orderly, full, lighted with gas, well white-washed, numerously attended, and thoroughly established.

The number of houseless creatures who resorted to it, and who were necessarily turned out when it closed, to hide where they could in heaps of moral and physical pollution, filled the managers with pity. To relieve some of the more constant and deserving scholars, they rented a wretched house, where a few common beds--a dozen or a dozen-and-a-half perhaps--were made upon the floors. This was the Ragged School Dormitory; and when I found the school in Farringdon-street, I found the dormitory in a court hard by, which in the time of the cholera had acquired a dismal fame. The dormitory was, in all respects, save as a small beginning, a very discouraging institution. The air was bad; the dark and ruinous building, with its small close rooms, was quite unsuited to the purpose; and a general supervision of the scattered sleepers was impossible. I had great doubts at the time whether, excepting that they found a crazy shelter for their heads, they were better than in the streets.

Having heard, in the course of last month, that this dormitory (there are others elsewhere) had grown as the school had grown, I went the other night to make another visit to it. I found the school in the same place, still advancing. It was now an Industrial School too; and besides the men and boys who were learning--some, aptly enough; some, with painful difficulty; some, sluggishly and wearily; some, not at all--to read, and write, and cipher; there were two groups, one of shoemakers, and one (in a gallery) of tailors, working with great industry and satisfaction, Each was taught and superintended by a regular workman engaged for the purpose, who delivered out the necessary means and implements. All were employed in mending, either their own dilapidated clothes or shoes, or the dilapidated clothes or shoes of some of the other pupils. They were of all ages, from young boys to old men. They were quiet, and intent upon their work. Some of them were almost as unused to it as I should have shown myself to be if I had tried my hand, but all were deeply interested and profoundly anxious to do it somehow or other. They presented a very remarkable instance of the general desire there is, after all, even in the vagabond breast, to know something useful. One shock-headed man, when he had mended his own scrap of a coat, drew it on with such an air of satisfaction, and put himself to so much inconvenience to look at the elbow he had darned, that I thought a new coat (and the mind could not imagine a period when that coat of his was new!) would not have pleased him better. In the other part of the school, where each class was partitioned off by screens adjusted like the boxes in a coffee-room, was some very good writing, and some singing of the multiplication-table--the latter, on a principle much too juvenile and innocent for some of the singers. There was also a ciphering-class, where a young pupil teacher out of the streets, who refreshed himself by spitting every half-minute, had written a legible sum in compound addition, on a broken slate, and was walking backward and forward before it, as he worked it, for the instruction of his class, in this way:

Now then! Look here, all on you! Seven and five, how many?

SHARP BOY (in no particular clothes).--Twelve!

PUPIL TEACHER.--Twelve--and eight?

DULL YOUNG MAN (with water on the brain).--Forty-five!

SHARP BOY.--Twenty!

PUPIL TEACHER.--Twenty. You're right. And nine?

DULL YOUNG MAN (after great consideration).--Twenty-nine!

PUPIL TEACHER.--Twenty-nine it is. And nine!

RECKLESS GUESSER.--Seventy-four!

PUPIL TEACHER (drawing nine strokes).--How can that be? Here's nine on 'em! Look! Twenty-nine, and one's thirty, and one's thirty-one, and one's thirty-two, and one's thirty-three, and one's thirty-four, and one's thirty-five, and one's thirty-six, and one's thirty-seven, and one's what?

RECKLESS GUESSER.--Four-and-two-pence farden!

DULL YOUNG MAN (who had been absorbed in the demonstration).--Thirty-eight!

PUPIL TEACHER (restraining sharp boy's ardor).--Of course it is! Thirty-eight pence. There they are! (writing 38 in slate-corner.) Now what do you make of thirty-eight pence? Thirty-eight pence, how much? (Dull young man slowly considers and gives it up, under a week.) How much, you? (to sleepy boy, who stares and says nothing.) How much, _you_?

SHARP BOY.--Three-and-twopence!

PUPIL TEACHER.--Three-and-twopence. How do I put down three-and-twopence?

SHARP BOY.--You puts down the two, and you carries the three.

PUPIL TEACHER.--Very good. Where do I carry the three?

RECKLESS GUESSER.--T'other side the slate!

SHARP BOY.--You carries him to the next column on the left hand, and adds him on!

PUPIL TEACHER.--And adds him on! and eight and three's eleven, and eight's nineteen, and seven's what?

--And so on.

The best and most spirited teacher was a young man, himself reclaimed through the agency of this school from the lowest depths of misery and debasement, whom the committee were about to send out to Australia. He appeared quite to deserve the interest they took in him, and his appearance and manner were a strong testimony to the merits of the establishment.

All this was not the dormitory, but it was the preparation for it. No man or boy is admitted to the dormitory, unless he is a regular attendant at the school, and unless he has been in the school two hours before the time of opening the dormitory. If there be reason to suppose that he can get any work to do and will not do it, he is admitted no more, and his place is assigned to some other candidate for the nightly refuge: of whom there are always plenty. There is very little to tempt the idle and profligate. A scanty supper and a scanty breakfast, each of six ounces of bread and nothing else (this quantity is less than the present penny-loaf), would scarcely be regarded by Mr. Chadwick himself as a festive or uproarious entertainment.

I found the Dormitory below the School: with its bare walls and rafters, and bare floor, the building looked rather like an extensive coach-house, well lighted with gas. A wooden gallery had been recently erected on three sides of it; and, abutting from the centre of the wall on the fourth side, was a kind of glazed meat-safe, accessible by a ladder; in which the presiding officer is posted every night, and all night. In the centre of the room, which was very cool, and perfectly sweet, stood a small fixed stove; on two sides, there were windows; on all sides, simple means of admitting fresh air, and releasing foul air. The ventilation of the place, devised by DOCTOR ARNOTT, and particularly the expedient for relieving the sleepers in the galleries from receiving the breath of the sleepers below, is a wonder of simplicity, cheapness, efficiency, and practical good sense. If it had cost five or ten thousand pounds, it would have been famous.

The whole floor of the building, with the exception of a few narrow pathways, was partitioned off into wooden troughs, or shallow boxes without lids--not unlike the fittings in the shop of a dealer in corn and flour, and seeds. The galleries were parceled out in this same way. Some of these berths were very short--for boys; some, longer--for men. The largest were of very contracted limits; all were composed of the bare boards; each was furnished only with one coarse rug, rolled up. In the brick pathways were iron gratings communicating with trapped drains, enabling the entire surface of these sleeping-places to be soused and flooded with water every morning. The floor of the galleries was cased with zinc, and fitted with gutters and escape-pipes, for the same reason. A supply of water, both for drinking and for washing, and some tin vessels for either purpose, were at hand. A little shed, used by one of the industrial classes, for the chopping up of fire-wood, did not occupy the whole of the spare space in that corner; and the remainder was devoted to some excellent baths, available also as washing troughs, in order that those who have any rags of linen may clean them once a week. In aid of this object, a drying-closet, charged with hot-air, was about to be erected in the wood-chopping shed. All these appliances were constructed in the simplest manner, with the commonest means, in the narrowest space, at the lowest cost; but were perfectly adapted to their respective purposes.

I had scarcely made the round of the Dormitory, and looked at all these things, when a moving of feet overhead announced that the School was breaking up for the night. It was succeeded by profound silence, and then by a hymn, sung in a subdued tone, and in very good time and tune, by the learners we had lately seen. Separated from their miserable bodies, the effect of their voices, united in this strain, was infinitely solemn. It was as if their souls were singing--as if the outward differences that parted us had fallen away, and the time was come when all the perverted good that was in them, or that ever might have been in them, arose imploringly to Heaven.

The baker who had brought the bread, and who leaned against a pillar while the singing was in progress, meditating in his way, whatever his way was, now shouldered his basket and retired. The two half-starved attendants (rewarded with a double portion for their pains) heaped the six-ounce loaves into other baskets, and made ready to distribute them. The night-officer arrived, mounted to his meat-safe, unlocked it, hung up his hat, and prepared to spend the evening. I found him to be a very respectable-looking person in black, with a wife and family; engaged in an office all day, and passing his spare time here, from half-past nine every night to six every morning, for a pound a week. He had carried the post against two hundred competitors.

The door was now opened, and the men and boys who were to pass that night in the Dormitory, in number one hundred and sixty-seven (including a man for whom there was no trough, but who was allowed to rest in the seat by the stove, once occupied by the night-officer before the meat-safe was), came in. They passed to their different sleeping-places, quietly and in good order. Every one sat down in his own crib, where he became presented in a curiously fore-shortened manner; and those who had shoes took them off, and placed them in the adjoining path. There were, in the assembly, thieves, cadgers, trampers, vagrants, common outcasts of all sorts. In casual wards and many other Refuges, they would have been very difficult to deal with; but they were restrained here by the law of kindness, and had long since arrived at the knowledge that those who gave them that shelter could have no possible inducement save to do them good. Neighbors spoke little together--they were almost as uncompanionable as mad people--but every body took his small loaf when the baskets went round, with a thankfulness more or less cheerful, and immediately ate it up.

There was some excitement in consequence of one man being missing; "the lame old man." Every body had seen the lame old man up-stairs asleep, but he had unaccountably disappeared. What he had been doing with himself was a mystery, but, when the inquiry was at its height, he came shuffling and tumbling in, with his palsied head hanging on his breast--an emaciated drunkard, once a compositor, dying of starvation and decay. He was so near death, that he could not be kept there, lest he should die in the night; and, while it was under deliberation what to do with him, and while his dull lips tried to shape out answers to what was said to him, he was held up by two men. Beside this wreck, but all unconnected with it and with the whole world, was an orphan boy with burning cheeks and great gaunt eager eyes, who was in pressing peril of death too, and who had no possession under the broad sky but a bottle of physic and a scrap of writing. He brought both from the house-surgeon of a Hospital that was too full to admit him, and stood, giddily staggering in one of the little pathways, while the Chief Samaritan read, in hasty characters underlined, how momentous his necessities were. He held the bottle of physic in his claw of a hand, and stood, apparently unconscious of it, staggering, and staring with his bright glazed eyes; a creature, surely, as forlorn and desolate as Mother Earth can have supported on her breast that night. He was gently taken away, along with the dying man, to the workhouse; and he passed into the darkness with his physic-bottle as if he were going into his grave.

The bread eaten to the last crumb; and some drinking of water and washing in water having taken place, with very little stir or noise indeed; preparations were made for passing the night. Some, took off their rags of smock frocks; some, their rags of coats or jackets, and spread them out within their narrow bounds for beds; designing to lie upon them, and use their rugs as a covering. Some, sat up, pondering, on the edges of their troughs; others, who were very tired, rested their unkempt heads upon their hands and their elbows on their knees, and dozed. When there were no more who desired to drink or wash, and all were in their places, the night officer, standing below the meat-safe, read a short evening service, including perhaps as inappropriate a prayer as could possibly be read (as though the Lord's Prayer stood in need of it by way of Rider), and a portion of a chapter from the New Testament. Then, they all sang the Evening Hymn, and then they all lay down to sleep.

It was an awful thing, looking round upon those one hundred and sixty-seven representatives of many thousands, to reflect that a Government, unable, with the least regard to truth, to plead ignorance of the existence of such a place, should proceed as if the sleepers never were to wake again. I do not hesitate to say--why should I, for I know it to be true!--that an annual sum of money, contemptible in amount as compared with any charges upon any list, freely granted in behalf of these Schools, and shackled with no preposterous Red Tape conditions, would relieve the prisons, diminish county rates, clear loads of shame and guilt out of the streets, recruit the army and navy, waft to new countries fleets full of useful labor, for which their inhabitants would be thankful and beholden to us. It is no depreciation of the devoted people whom I found presiding here, to add, that with such assistance as a trained knowledge of the business of instruction, and a sound system adjusted to the peculiar difficulties and conditions of this sphere of action, their usefulness could be increased fifty-fold in a few months.

My Lords and Gentlemen, can you, at the present time, consider this at last, and agree to do some little easy thing! Dearly beloved brethren elsewhere, do you know that between Gorham controversies, and Pusey controversies, and Newman controversies, and twenty other edifying controversies, a certain large class of minds in the community is gradually being driven out of all religion? Would it be well, do you think, to come out of the controversies for a little while, and be simply Apostolic thus low down?

LOUIS NAPOLEON AND HIS NOSE.

The following passage from a letter is amusing, as well as instructive:

"Trifles are said to amuse weak minds, and probably by a similar process of reasoning, they may be said to annoy great minds. The extreme susceptibility of the President respecting any attempt to turn either his person or policy into ridicule has been frequently noticed, and this excessive susceptibility has gradually attained an intensity which gives it the air of absolute monomania. The police have peremptory orders to ravage any shop in which any work or engraving is to be found in any way reflecting upon that prominent feature in the Presidental visage which has secured for him the time-honored title of '_Noscitur a naso_.' Any semblance of a caricature on the Presidental proboscis exposes the unfortunate possessor (as George Robins would have said) to the persecution of the police. A short time past Paris was inundated with a ludicrous counterfeit portrait of the President's features, which were fashioned into a crockery tobacco-pot. The resemblance was so striking, and yet so irresistibly ludicrous withal--for you know there is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous--that these tobacco-pots were eagerly purchased, and the designer made a small fortune in his way. The police have of late busily occupied themselves in hunting out the purchasers of these crockery caricatures, which are seized and broken without mitigation or remorse. The crockery shops have been ransacked, and whenever any have been found the shopkeepers have been exposed to considerable annoyance and persecution. Some weeks since two girls were condemned to fine and imprisonment for having openly declared that they never could fall in love with Louis Napoleon. But the Prince now appears disposed to carry the matter still further; for it is alleged that rather sharp notes have been sent to Belgium by the Minister of Foreign Affairs with respect to a masquerade which took place at Ghent in the latter part of the Carnival. Some young men, it appears, promenaded through the streets, a man on a horse, wearing a dress to represent the President of the Republic, and with a gigantic false nose. This man carried in his hand a whip with which he struck from time to time a set of puppets which he carried in his hand--the puppets, each of which had a lock on his mouth, being intended to represent the French Senators and Deputies. The Belgian government is said to have replied that it disapproved of the parody, and offered to dismiss the commissary of police who did not fulfill his duty by preventing it. But the French government not considering this satisfaction sufficient, requires, it is said, the dismissal of the governor, who was on the balcony when the masquerade passed."

Monthly Record of Current Events.

THE UNITED STATES.

In Congress, during the past month, debate has turned mainly on topics connected with the approaching Presidential contest. In the Senate, the resolutions upon the subject of non-intervention have been still further discussed, but no vote has been taken upon them. On the 18th of March, Senator Jones, of Tennessee, replied at length to the speeches of Senators Cass and Seward upon this subject--seeking to establish, by copious citation of authorities, that it had never been the policy of this country to take any part whatever in the affairs of other nations, and urging the importance of still adhering to this course. He was opposed to protesting against the violation of international law by Russia, unless we were prepared to enforce that protest by war. Senator Cass rejoined, defending his positions from the assault of Senator Jones. On the 22d, Senator Soulé, of Louisiana, spoke upon the subject. Whatever might be the fate of the resolutions, he said, their discussion had given the country a chance of expressing its sympathy with the oppressed and down-trodden nations of the earth. He then entered upon a historical argument of some length to show that the neutrality advocated and enforced by Washington, during the war between England and France, was simply a matter of necessity--a temporary measure, which the exigencies of the time demanded; and that it was not regarded by Washington as a permanent rule for the action of this country. And further, even if this were not so, and if Washington had really set forth the doctrine, that this country must always remain indifferent to the movements of other nations, Senator Soulé urged, our national growth and progress would render it obsolete. The policy of this nation could not remain the same from century to century; it must change with changing circumstances, and keep pace with the rapid increase of our national population and power. Upon the conclusion of his remarks, the subject was again postponed. On the 26th, a message from the President announced that certain papers, connected with the prosecution of Mexican claims, which had been placed on file in the State Department, had been abstracted therefrom; and asking for the adoption of measures for the better protection of public documents and papers. On the 19th, Senator Cass made a statement of his views on the Wilmot Proviso, in reply to some remarks in a published letter from Senator Davis, of Mississippi. He denied the right of Congress to impose upon a territorial government any restriction in regard to its legislation upon slavery, claiming for the Legislature the right to establish or prohibit slavery, as it may see fit. He also justified the first settlers of California in the steps they took for the establishment of a government, and complained that many gentlemen at the South did not make a just and proper allowance for the sentiments of the North concerning slavery. In the _House of Representatives_, the proceedings have been wholly unimportant. A bill to supply deficiencies in the appropriations for the last fiscal year, has been made the occasion for discussing the prospects of political parties, and the relative claims of various candidates for the Presidency. On the 10th of March, Mr. Richardson, of Illinois, spoke in defense of Senator Douglass, from imputations made upon his political course; and Mr. Breckenridge, of Kentucky, vindicated General Butler from similar censure. On the 18th, Mr. Marshall, of Kentucky, defended President Fillmore against various assailants, and the discussion was pursued from day to day.

Political Conventions have been held in several States during the month. In Louisiana, the Whigs held one at Baton Rouge on the 16th of March, at which resolutions were adopted in favor of nominating Mr. Fillmore for President, and Mr. Crittenden for Vice-President--declaring the unabated devotion of the people of the State to the Union--demanding the protection of Government for the commerce, agriculture, and manufactures of the country--affirming the mission of this Republic to be, "not to propagate our opinions, or impose on other countries our form of government, by artifice or force, but to teach by example, and show by our success, moderation, and justice, the blessings of self-government, and the advantages of free institutions;"--sustaining the Compromise measures, and pledging the Whigs of the State to support the nominee of the National Convention. The Democratic State Convention declared its preference for General Cass, as the Presidential candidate, by a vote of 101, to 72 for Judge Douglass.----In Virginia, a Democratic Convention assembled at Richmond on the 24th of March: a good deal of difficulty was experienced in effecting an organization. On the third day of the session, resolutions were adopted, affirming the resolutions of 1798-9; denouncing a protective tariff and a division of the public lands among the States; and re-affirming the Baltimore platform. They also resolved to appoint four delegates from each Congressional District to the Baltimore National Convention, who shall in that body sustain the two-thirds rule, and be untrammeled in their choice of a candidate for the Presidency, but vote for such a one as can command the greatest strength with the Democracy, and whose principles are known to conform most strictly to the cardinal tenets of the Democratic faith.----In Pennsylvania, a Whig State Convention met at Harrisburgh, on the 24th. Resolutions were adopted, expressing a desire to act in harmony with the Whig party throughout the Union, declaring in favor of a protective tariff, proclaiming devotion to the Constitution and the Union, commending the administration of President Fillmore, and nominating General Scott unanimously as the Whig candidate for the Presidency. A resolution was also adopted, expressing regret at the illness of Mr. Clay.----The Legislature of Mississippi adjourned on the 16th of March. No United States Senator was chosen for the full term, to commence at the close of the present Congress. In both Houses a bill was rejected which proposed to provide for the payment of the bonds of the State issued on account of the Planters' Bank, but both Houses passed a bill, which has become a law, submitting the question of their payment to a vote of the people. The bill for districting the State, for the election of five members of Congress, was lost, from disagreement between the two Houses--both being willing to pass the bill, but they could not agree as to the composition of the districts.----In Alabama, a Southern Rights State Convention met on the 4th. Only a small portion of the State was represented. Resolutions were adopted in favor of maintaining the separate organization of the Southern Rights party, but acquiescing in the decision of the Southern States against secession for the present.----A message from Governor Bigler, of Pennsylvania, in regard to the debt of that State, states that there is now due and unpaid two millions four hundred and ninety-one thousand two hundred and fifty-five dollars of the bonds of the Commonwealth, bearing an interest of six per cent., and a balance of near one hundred thousand dollars due to domestic creditors, bearing a like interest, besides one million three hundred and ninety thousand dollars, at five per cent.; over two millions will fall due in 1853, and about three millions in 1854. He recommends that the matured bonds, and such as may fall due during the year, be canceled by the negotiation of a loan, and that bonds of the Commonwealth be issued, reimbursable at the expiration of ten or fifteen years, at a rate of interest not exceeding five per cent., with interest certificates attached, or in the usual form, as may be deemed proper.

Mr. Webster happening to visit Trenton, N.J., to take part in a legal argument, was received by the Legislature of the State, on the 26th of March. He was welcomed in a highly eulogistic speech, to which he replied briefly, paying a high compliment to the gallant devotion of New Jersey to the cause of the country during the Revolution, and expressing his thanks for the distinguished attentions which had been shown to him. Senator Stockton, who happened to be present, spoke in terms of high admiration of Mr. Webster, commending his political course, and alluding incidentally to various topics of public interest.----Hon. JEREMIAH MORROW, a distinguished citizen of Ohio, died on the 25th of March, at the advanced age of 73. He was a member of the Territorial Legislature of Ohio in 1800, a member of the Convention to form a State Constitution in 1802, the first member of Congress from that State, afterward Senator and then Governor, serving in the latter capacity two terms, and then returning to Congress. He was a man of ability, influence, and marked integrity.----A serious accident happened in the East River, near New York, on the 26th of March. M. Maillefert, a French scientific gentleman, had been for some time engaged in blasting under water the rocks forming the whirlpool known as Hell-gate, by lowering upon the rock very heavy charges of powder, and exploding them by a galvanic battery. On this occasion, through some misunderstanding, the wrong wire was put into his hands, and he exploded a canister lying in a boat and containing sixty or seventy pounds of gunpowder. Three men were killed, and two or three others, including M. Maillefert himself, were seriously injured.----Ninety of the Americans, captured in Cuba and released by the Queen of Spain, reached New York on the 13th of March.----An extract of a private letter from Mr. Clay has been published, in which he declares his preference for Mr. Fillmore as the Whig candidate for the Presidency, on the ground that he has administered the executive government with signal success and ability. Either Gen. Scott or Mr. Webster, he says, "might possibly administer the government as well as Mr. Fillmore has done. But neither of them has been tried." Mr. Fillmore has been tried, and Mr. Clay thinks that "prudence and wisdom should restrain us from making any change without necessity."----Seven vessels of war are fitting out at New York to join the squadron in the East India seas. It is stated that in connection with other duties, Commodore Perry, the commander of this squadron, is to be instructed to make commercial arrangements with Japan, and for the better treatment of shipwrecked American sailors, who have been heretofore barbarously treated by the Japanese in several instances; and possibly may be required to make reclamations for injuries and losses heretofore sustained by American citizens. Japan has now no treaty with any Christian government except Holland.

From CALIFORNIA we have intelligence to the 1st of March. The steamship North America running from Panama to San Francisco, went ashore on the 28th of February, about seventy miles south of Acapulco. The vessel is a total loss; she had over 750 passengers, all of whom were saved.----Both political parties in California had chosen delegates to the National Conventions. No further injury had been sustained from attacks of the Indians, and in the southern part of the State every thing was quiet. Mr. Bartlett, of the Boundary Commission, had reached San Francisco, after a very severe journey across the desert. A bill was pending in the Legislature authorizing the call of a State Convention to revise the Constitution, and the project of dividing the State continued also to be pressed. Crime had increased considerably in San Francisco, and the Vigilance Committee had again been organized. The anniversary of Washington's birthday was celebrated at that city with great spirit. Col. Berzenczey, who came to the United States in Kossuth's suite had arrived at San Francisco on his way to Chinese Tartary, which he intends to explore in order to discover, if possible, the origin of the Magyar race: it has been stated that a tribe of Magyars still exists in some part of that vast and unknown region. The United States sloop of war St. Mary's had reached San Francisco, under orders to take on board and return to their homes a number of shipwrecked Japanese. From the mines the news is not important. Owing to lack of rain the labors of the miners had been less productive than usual. Rich quartz veins continue to be found, and very extensive preparations are being made for working them. The whole amount of gold exported from San Francisco during the year ending December 31, 1851, was $34,492,633. Judge Tefft, with three other persons, was drowned, while attempting to land from the Ohio at San Luis Obispo, in a small boat--the surf being high.

MEXICO.

We have news from the City of Mexico to the 28th of February. Both Houses of Congress had voted the suppression of the justices of the peace, but the Government had refused its sanction to the act. It is stated that claims to the amount of twenty or thirty millions of dollars will be brought against the United States, under the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, for outrages committed by Indians and invaders on the frontier. The administration of Gen. Arista is losing strength, and rumors were current of new plans of revolution of which Santa Anna is at the head.

Intelligence from the Rio Grande fully confirms the defeat of Caravajal and the suppression of the insurrectionary movement in that quarter. On the 21st of February that chief led his forces, consisting of about 300 men to the attack on Camargo, when he was met by about 250 Mexican cavalry. The latter charged upon him three times, when the force under his command broke in confusion and fled across the river. His loss is stated at between thirty and sixty. This ends the revolutionary attempt in Northern Mexico.----Serious annoyance is experienced from the ravages of the Indians in that quarter. On the evening of the 21st a party of sixteen attacked a party of Americans and Mexicans near San Antonio, and killed several of the latter. About two hundred of them were encamped at Lake Espantoza, near the junction of the Leona and Nueces rivers. On the 16th, a party of dragoons attacked a body of Indians near Belleville, and dispersed them after killing four.

SOUTH AMERICA.

We have at length reliable news of decisive events on the Rio de la Plata. Rosas has been routed by Urquiza, and has fled to England. The control of the whole country, therefore, passes into new hands. From Buenos Ayres our intelligence is to the 3d of February. The passage of the Parana by the liberating army under Gen. Urquiza, commenced on the 22d of December, and was accomplished on the 8th of January. His force consisting of 28,000 men, with 50,000 horses, and 50 pieces of artillery, was brought together on the Diamanté, one of the strongest points upon the river, and he was at once joined by the citizens of the whole province of Santa Fé, and by 4000 troops of Rosas. The Governor of the Province fled toward Buenos Ayres. On the 10th of January the inhabitants of San Nicolao, the frontier town of the province of Buenos Ayres, pronounced against Rosas, and repelled an attack made upon them by a large cavalry force stationed near them. On the 15th Gen. Urquiza passed the frontier, with his whole army; and in a march of twelve days obtained possession of the entire northern part of the province, driving out all the cavalry of Rosas, which had been detached for its defense. On the 29th of January, his advanced guard reached the Rio Conchas, within six leagues of Buenos Ayres, having forced General Pacheco to retreat across that river with the small force remaining of those with whom he had gone to the defense of the province. Rosas had divided his force into three parts--one division of 4000 under Echaqué, another of 3500 under Mancilla, and the third of 5800 under Pacheco. This disposition of them rendered it easy for Urquiza to attack and defeat them separately. On the 27th of January Rosas set out for Santos Lugares, where his main force had been collected. A general engagement at once took place along the whole line of defense, which lasted for several hours, and resulted in the total defeat of the forces of Rosas, General Urquiza remaining master of the field. Rosas immediately fled on board a British vessel in the harbor of Buenos Ayres, with the intention of proceeding to England at the earliest opportunity. He had been engaged for some weeks in securing large amounts of treasure, in apparent preparation for such a flight. General Urquiza immediately followed up his victory by investing the city of Buenos Ayres. Deprived of its governor, of course it could make no long defense, and steps had already been taken to organize a constitutional government under the new auspices. The intelligence of the fall of Rosas had created the liveliest satisfaction in England, and was followed by an immediate and very considerable rise in the market value of Buenos Ayres bonds. This change in the political prospects of that portion of South America, it is believed, will lead to a largely increased emigration thither from the southern parts of Europe. The government of Rosas has been for many years an object of terror and distrust in Buenos Ayres, and has greatly retarded the industry and progress of the country. It has at last been overthrown--not by the intervention of foreign states, but by the independent exertions of the people themselves. General Urquiza, the successful soldier, seems disposed to use his power so as to promote the best interests of the country, and under his guidance a new organization of the several states may be expected.----The Congress of _Venezuela_ was still in session on the 10th of March. The affairs of the country were highly prosperous.----The revolted convicts at the Straits of Magellan had been seized by the British war steamer Virago, and taken heavily ironed to Valparaiso. There were in all 350, of whom 180 were taken from the British brig Eliza Cornish, which they had seized:--the rest had taken the American bark Florida, but were afterward subdued by a counter-plot on board, and were delivered up. The officers of the Cornish had been shot in cold blood by the miscreants, who were guilty of shocking barbarities. They were landed at Valparaiso, February 25, and delivered over to the authorities.----In _Peru_ an expedition had been organized by General Flores, against Ecuador. It is said he has enlisted two or three thousand men, and sent out four or five vessels loaded with men and munitions, for an attack on the city of Guayaquil. Great excitement prevailed at the latter place, where preparations had been made to give the invaders a warm reception.----Panama papers record the successful result of an expedition to the reputed gold placers on the coast of Choco, in the southern part of the kingdom of _New Grenada_, about 150 miles south of Panama. About 1500 ounces of pure gold dust were exhibited in the latter city, as the first-fruits of the enterprise. There seems to be no doubt of the existence of the _oro_ in that vicinity in large quantities.

GREAT BRITAIN.

The political intelligence of the month has little interest. The Derby Ministry still retains office, but without any definite announcement of the line of policy it intends to pursue. On the evening of February 27, the Earl of Derby made a statement of the reasons which had induced him to take office. With regard to the intentions of the new ministry, he said he should seek to maintain peace with foreign nations by calm and conciliatory conduct, and by strict adherence to the obligations of treaties. He was for rigidly respecting the right of every nation, great and small, to govern themselves in their own way. So far as the national defenses were concerned, he thought the preparations wisely made by his predecessor should be continued, so as to screen the country from the possibility of invasion. As regarded refugees, while England was the natural refuge of all political exiles, it was the duty of the latter not to abuse her hospitality; and the government was bound to keep watch of them, and warn their governments of any steps they might take hostile to their peace. With regard to financial measures, although he avowed his belief that a revision of the existing system was desirable, he was aware that it could only be effected by reference to the clearly expressed wish of the people. So large a question could only be dealt with by a government strong in popular confidence, and not by one called suddenly to office. He did not know whether he had a majority in that House; he knew he was in a minority in the other--but he had not felt that the public interest would be consulted by a dissolution at this period of the year and in this condition of the world. Government would have to appeal to the forbearance of its adversaries and to the patience of its supporters, but he had too much confidence in the good sense of the House of Commons to believe that it would unnecessarily take up subjects of controversy while there were legal and social reforms for which the country was anxious. In reference to the measures introduced by the late government, he said that he was most desirous to crush corruption to the utmost of his power, but that, as regarded the proposed reform bill, he should not follow it up, and he warned his hearers, especially members of the House of Commons, against the danger of perpetually unsettling everything, and settling nothing. He did not contend that the system established in 1831 was perfect, or did not require amendment, but he wished to be sure that a proposed remedy would not aggravate the evils complained of. As regarded education, the feelings of all classes had united in the conviction that the more you educated the safer was the country; but he was opposed to the mere acquisition of secular knowledge, dissociated from the culture of the soul. And although he looked on all engaged in education as his fellow-laborers, his chief reliance would be on the parochial clergy. This explanation on the part of the new ministry has not been received as sufficiently explicit to be satisfactory, and it meets, therefore, with very warm hostility. Lord John Russell, in announcing his own retirement, took occasion to say that, for the future, he should think it his duty to oppose, out of office, as he had opposed in office, any restoration of the duty on corn, whether under the name of protection or of revenue;--that he should support an extension of the suffrage to those who are fit to exercise the franchise for the welfare of the country; and that he should use the little influence he might possess for the maintenance of the blessings of peace.--Parliament, after these explanations, adjourned until the 12th of March.--Mr. Disraeli, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, has issued a brief address to his constituents, stating that on the 12th of March he should ask for a re-election. The first duty of the new administration, he said, would be to provide for the ordinary exigencies of the government; but at no distant period they hoped to establish a policy in conformity with the principles which in opposition they had felt it their duty to maintain. "We shall endeavor," he adds, "to terminate that strife of classes which of late years has exercised so pernicious an influence over the welfare of this kingdom; to accomplish those remedial measures which great productive interests, suffering from unequal taxation, have a right to demand from a just government; to cultivate friendly relations with all foreign powers, and secure honorable peace; to uphold in their spirit, as well as in their form, our political institutions; and to increase the efficiency, as well as maintain the rights, of our national and Protestant church." Other members of the government had issued similar addresses to their respective constituencies, and several of them had already been re-elected.--At a subsequent session, the ministry intimated that they would no longer resist the demand of the country for a dissolution.

The advent of the Protective Ministry has called into new life the Anti-Corn Law League at Manchester. A meeting of the League was held on the 2d of March, at which resolutions were adopted reorganizing the association, and taking measures to urge upon their friends throughout the kingdom, not to return members in favor of restoring the duties on corn; it was also resolved to petition the Queen for an immediate dissolution of Parliament in order that the question of Free Trade might be decided by a prompt appeal to the people. Mr. Cobden was present, and made a long speech vindicating the operation of the existing system, and resisting the policy of allowing the Ministry to strengthen themselves for the restoration of the protective system. He wished the friends of cheap bread to unite in order to drive the government into one of three courses--either to recant forever the principle of protection, resign their seats, or dissolve Parliament. It was within their power to compel one or the other of these steps to be taken. A very large subscription was immediately raised to defray the expenses of the projected agitation.

The Earl of Derby, on taking office, tendered to Mr. Layard a continuance in office as Under Secretary of State. The offer, however, was declined.----Ireland lost two of its most celebrated men on the 26th of February--THOMAS MOORE, the sweetest and best of her poets, and Archbishop MURRAY, the mildest and best of the prelates of the Roman Catholic Church in that country. Moore was in his 72d year, the Archbishop in his 83d year. Moore died at his cottage at Sloperton, near Devizes. For several years he had been alive only in the body. Like Sir Walter Scott and Southey, the tenacity of physical existence outlived the term of the mind. He was buried, according to his long-ago expressed wish, in the quiet church-yard of the village where he died. Sir HERBERT JENNER FUST, Dean of Arches, and long connected with law proceedings and law literature, died on the 20th February, in the 76th year of his age.

FRANCE AND CENTRAL EUROPE.

The elections for members of the Legislative corps were held throughout France on the 29th of February, and resulted in the success of the Government candidate in nearly every instance. Gen. Cavaignac and Carnot are the only Opposition candidates of any prominence who have been elected. What course they will pursue is still a matter of conjecture. It is clear, however, that such a thing as an opposition party in the Legislature will scarcely exist.

The President continues the issue of decrees for the government of France. They embrace, of course, the entire scope of legislation, as the country for the present has no other source of law. One of the most important of these decrees is that authorizing the establishment of Mortgage Banks, the object of which is to enable owners of real estate to borrow on mortgage, and repay the loans by means of long annuities; that is, in addition to the interest the borrower is obliged to pay annually say one per cent. as a sinking fund, which will extinguish the debt in forty years. The banks are to loan on double real estate security. They are allowed to issue notes or bonds. They are not to require more than five per cent. interest, nor more than two nor less than one per cent. as a sinking fund. An article in the _Moniteur_ followed the publication of this decree for the purpose of explaining its provisions, from which it appears that there are $160,000,000 of mortgaged debts in France, paying, inclusive of various expenses, an average interest of eight per cent., and that these debts are increasing at the rate of $12,000,000 yearly. It is claimed that the new law will remedy this state of things, and Germany is pointed to in proof of the beneficial effects of mortgage societies.----Another financial decree directs that the holders of five per cent. government funds will receive hereafter only four and a half per cent. or the principal at par value, at their option. The effect of this change will be to reduce the annual interest on the national debt, by about three and a half millions of dollars. The holders of these securities of course complain of it as an unjust reduction of their incomes.----Another decree directs the entire organization of the College of France to be put under the immediate control of the President, until the law for its permanent establishment shall have been prepared. New officers have been appointed throughout--a number of the most distinguished scholars of France being superseded.----It has also been decreed that judicial officers shall be disqualified at seventy years of age. By this means the President secures the displacement of a large number of judges, whose seats he will fill with persons more acceptable to himself.----It is decided that M. Billault is to be President of the Legislative corps.----Several distinguished Frenchmen have died during the month. Marshal MARMONT, Duke of Ragusa, the last of the Marshals of Napoleon, died at Venice on the 2d of March. He received his highest military title on the battle field of Wagram. He forsook Napoleon's cause when Napoleon was falling, held high offices under the restoration, and has lived in exile since 1830. Having forsaken Napoleon in 1814, and opposed the revolution of July, his name was erased from the list of Marshals by Louis Philippe's Government, and a black vail drawn over his portrait in the Hall of the Marshals at the Tuileries.----ARMAND MARRAST, who acquired distinction as editor of the _National_ and by his close connection with the provisional government of 1848, died March 10.----The President has offered a prize of fifty thousand francs in favor of the author of the discovery which shall render the pile of Volta applicable with economy, whether to industrial operations, as a source of heat, or to illumination, or to chemistry, or to mechanics, or to practical medicine. Scientific men of all nations are admitted to compete for the prize. The competition shall remain open for the space of five years.----He has also presented to M. Leon Foucault, the young _savant_ of Paris, distinguished for his works on electricity and light, and especially for the experiment with the _pendulum_ illustrative of the earth's rotary motion, the sum of ten thousand francs.

On the 21st of March, the President reviewed the troops, and bestowed upon them the medal, instituted by the confiscation of the Orleans estates. In the speech which he made to them upon the occasion, he said, his object in instituting this medal was to make some more adequate compensation for the services of the army, than they usually received. It secures to each soldier, who shall have it, an annuity of 100 francs for life; the sum is small, but the evidence of merit, which the medal carries with it, adds to its value. He urges them to receive it as an encouragement to maintain intact their military spirit. "Wear it," he says, "as a proof of my solicitude for your interest, and my affection for that great military family of which I am proud to be the head, because you are its glorious children."

The demands of France upon BELGIUM were mentioned in our last Record. It is stated that they have been boldly met and repelled. The King of Belgium at once made an appeal to England and the Continental courts, and he has received from all the European Powers the most positive assurance that they will not suffer any aggressive step whatever of Louis Napoleon against Belgium. The French Cabinet had required the Belgian Government to remove the Lion which had been placed on the field of Waterloo; but that demand was refused. It is said, upon reliable authority, that the "decree" for annexing Belgium to France had been prepared and even sent to the _Moniteur_ for publication; and was only withdrawn in consequence of the strenuous opposition of those who have more prudence than the President, and who fortunately possess some influence over him.

The Paris correspondence of the London _Morning Chronicle_, furnishes the details of a diplomatic correspondence between the principal Continental Powers, which has decided interest and importance. It is stated that, on the 7th of February, Prince Schwarzenberg addressed a note to the representatives of Austria at St. Petersburg and Berlin, in which he urged that the object of the Northern Powers ought now to be to put down all that remained of constitutional government on the continent of Europe; and that for this purpose they ought to insist on the representative form of government being abolished in all the States where it was still tolerated, and more especially in Piedmont and in Greece. He further declared that Louis Napoleon, by his _coup d'état_ of the 2d of December, which, while it put an end to constitutional government, restored military government in France, had merited the applause of all the Northern Powers, and he suggested that they ought to concur in giving him their united and cordial support, even to the exclusion of both branches of the House of Bourbon, because none of the members of that illustrious House could reascend the throne without according representative government in some shape. The representatives of Austria at Berlin and St. Petersburg having been directed to communicate this dispatch to the governments to which they were accredited, did so, but the manner in which the communication was received by the two Powers was very different. The Prussian government at once declared that it strongly disapproved of the suggestion of the Austrian government, and that, as it looked upon a certain degree of constitutional freedom as necessary in the present state of Europe, it highly disapproved of the attempt of Louis Napoleon to establish a military despotism. The Russian Czar, who sets up as the arbiter of all that is done to Germany, gave a very characteristic answer to both Powers. He recommended to the Austrian government not to be so enthusiastic in its admiration of Louis Napoleon, and to the Prussian government, not to be so determined in its hostility to that personage; and thus, says the writer, the affair for the present rests.

Concerning the SWISS question, we have more authentic intelligence. The French diplomatic agent at Berne had delivered to the Federal Authorities a note, dated January 25th, containing an explicit demand from Louis Napoleon, "That the formal promise be made to me that all the expulsions of refugees which I may ask be accorded to me, without any examination as to what category the French political refugees affected by this measure belong; and, in addition, that the orders of the central power be executed according to terms prescribed in advance, without being mitigated or wholly disregarded by the cantonal authorities, as I can prove, by examples, has been done in previous instances. The French embassador only is in a condition to know the individuals whose former connections and present relations render impossible the prolongation of their stay in the territory of the Helvetic Confederation; as also those who can be tolerated provisionally, if their future conduct renders them worthy of this tolerance. The first should depart from the moment that I have designated them by name. The others should be told that they can continue to reside in Switzerland only on condition that they give no reason for complaint." It seems scarcely possible that so peremptory and insulting a demand should have been made, even by the French autocrat, upon any independent power; but the text of the letter is given. Austria also made a similar requisition; and the _Assemblée Nationale_ says that the Cabinet of Vienna distinctly announced to the Federal Council its intention to occupy the canton of Ticino with Austrian troops, unless the demands for the expulsion of certain refugees were complied with, and guarantees given for preventing their return, as well as the renewal of conspiracies against the peace of Lombardy. Prince Schwarzenberg sent instructions to M. Hubner, the Austrian embassador at Paris, to propose to the French government a simultaneous action in the same views, and the occupation of Geneva and the canton of Vaud by the French troops. The government of Louis Napoleon declined to co-operate with Austria in invading the Swiss territory; and Austria was also persuaded to desist from this enterprise. The firm attitude of the cabinets of London and Berlin, backed perhaps by the counsels of Russia, is supposed to have procured this result. But no sooner was the project of the joint violation of the neutral territory baffled, than a new scheme was adopted by the two conspiring Powers, which threatens to be equally ruinous to Switzerland. The French and Austrian governments have entered into a convention for the commercial blockade of that country. In order to carry this into effect Piedmont must be forced to join the league and stop her frontier against Swiss commerce. In the way of such a result stand the government of Sardinia and British influence at the court of Turin. How much these will avail remains to be seen. Subsequent advices state that Switzerland had acceded to all the President's requisitions--they having been repeated in less offensive terms.

From GERMANY there is no news of interest. The Emperor of Austria left Vienna, February 25th, for Trieste and Venice, to meet the Grand Prince of Prussia. The Second Chamber of Wurtemberg, in its sitting of the 26th, adopted, by 54 votes to 32, resolutions, declaring that the fundamental rights proclaimed by the National Assembly of Frankfort continue to have legal force in the kingdom, and can only be abolished in the form presented by the Constitution. The Chamber rejected, by 66 votes to 20, a resolution protesting against certain measures of the Germanic Diet; and it rejected, by 48 votes to 38, a motion relative to the dissolution of the Chamber in 1850. M. de Plessen, after these votes, made a declaration, in the name of the Government, that the Chamber would probably be dissolved.

In SPAIN it is said that the Government is about to reinforce the garrisons of Cuba and Porto Rico by an addition of three or four thousand men. General Concha has been recalled from the Governorship of Cuba; his successor, Gen. Caredo, was to sail from Cadiz on the 20th of March. Extensive changes were taking place in all departments of the public service.

THE EAST.

From TURKEY we learn that Reschid Pasha, whose dismissal was noted in our last, has been received to favor again, and restored to office. The Sultan has lately shown his magnanimity to rebels against his authority, by bestowing upon Aziz Bey and his brother Ahmed Bey, rebel Kurdish chiefs, near Bagdad, conquered by the Sultan, and brought to Constantinople six months ago, a pension of three thousand piastres a month. This clemency to political offenders is said to be common with the Turkish Sovereign. The Turkish Government has recently forbidden the loan of money to farmers at more than eight per cent. interest: it also forbids the payment of all engagements hitherto made at higher rates. A third bridge has just been finished across the Golden Horn. A splendid ball was given at the close of the Carnival by the British Embassador, at which about eight hundred persons were present.

In PERSIA the recently dismissed Grand Vizier, Mirza-Taghi-Khan, has been put to death, by having his veins opened in a bath, and his treasures have been seized by the Shah.

From INDIA we have news of further difficulties between the English and the Burmese. Previous advices stated that Commodore Lambert had complained to the King of Ava of the conduct of the Governor of Rangoon in refusing compliance with certain demands of reparation for injuries sustained by the British. The King professed a ready submission to the Commodore's requisitions, but his sincerity was doubted, and Commodore Lambert consequently resolved to remain with his squadron, for some days longer, in order to test the truth of his suspicions. Scarcely had the new Governor or Viceroy been placed in authority, than he commenced a series of annoyances against all British subjects, which rendered it imperative on the part of Commodore Lambert to seek an interview with him, which was not only refused, but all communication between the shore and fleet strictly prohibited. In this war-like aspect of affairs many of the British took refuge on board the English vessels, while those who remained behind desirous of securing their property, were cast into prison. The fleet remained at anchor for twenty-four hours on the opposite side of the river, when intimation was received from the Viceroy that he would fire on the squadron should the Commodore attempt to move down the river. On the 10th of January the Fox was towed down, and anchored within a few hundred yards of the stockade erected by the Viceroy, when the steamer having returned to bring away with her a Burmese man-of-war, was fired on, which was immediately returned with great vigor. The enemy dispersed after some three of them were slain. The squadron then proceeded on its course, and the river ports of Burmah were proclaimed to be in a state of blockade. Commodore Lambert then proceeded to Calcutta for further instructions. Another campaign was therefore deemed unavoidable, which, it was supposed, could not be commenced before October.

Editor's Table.

Credulity and skepticism are often, in fact, but different aspects of one and the same state of mind. No man is more credulous than the infidel in respect to all that would make against the truth of Christianity. Hindoo legends, Chinese chronologies, unmeaning Egyptian hieroglyphics, are suffered at once to outweigh the clearest declarations of that volume which alone sheds light on history, and solves the otherwise inexplicable problem of our humanity.

Nowhere is this remark more strikingly exemplified than in the pretensions of what may be called the pseudo-spiritualism of the day. Men whose credulity can not digest the supernatural of the Bible are most remarkably easy of belief in respect to spiritual rappings, and spiritual table-liftings, and spiritual communications in Hebrew translated into ungrammatical and false-spelled English. Prophecy and inspiration are irrational; the belief in a Divine regenerating influence on the human soul is superstitious and fanatical; but clairvoyance and _clairvoyant prevision_, and mental alchemy are embraced without difficulty, by the professors of this more transcendent faith. They see and feel nothing of that grandeur of conception, that holy seriousness, that impressive truthfulness of style, that superhuman elevation above all that associates itself with the absurd, the grotesque, the low, and the malignant--in a word, those traits which every where characterize the miraculous of the Scriptures, and have ever awed the most thoughtful into a recognition of its reality. And yet some of these lecturers and _professors_ have even the impudence to baptize their naturalistic jargon with the name of spiritualism, and while treating the human soul with less reverence than is justly due to the lowest form even of vegetable life, dare to talk of the _moral_ uses of their pretended science, as though it had any more place for the word and the idea than might be found in the jerking automaton of the toy-shop.

Sometimes the pretense can be characterized by no milder term than mocking blasphemy. One of these impostors, who has made some noise lately, is said to have accurately foretold the words and ideas of a discourse which was to be delivered by another person on a subsequent day. It was no hypothetical prediction, grounded on a scientific calculation of assumed causes and effects, but, in fact, a _clairvoyant prevision_, not from any Divine impression (an idea which this blasphemous pretender is known wholly to deride), but from a transcendent subjective state of his natural intelligence. And yet some who are known to believe only in an ideal Christ, and an ideal resurrection, are not ashamed to signify a half assent to this monstrous assertion of one of the highest conceivable attributes of the Almighty. Every one who thinks at all must see that here there is no possible middle ground. It is this claim, awfully profane and daring as it is, or a downright imposture.

There is nothing derogatory to the human mind in the belief of the _marvelous_. In fact, such belief is an element of its higher life. The wonder is, that there is not more of it. But no degree of evidence can justify us in giving credence to the _absurd_. The ridiculous is ever proof of the presence of falsehood. The higher we rise in the scale of truth, the more do we find ourselves ascending into a region of seriousness. An impression of a sterner reality, of a deeper interest, of more dread importance, of a more solemn consistency, accompanies every genuine advance. Truth, as it grows purer and clearer, is ever found to be more and more a fearful thing--joyful, indeed, and soul-inspiring, yet finding the very fullness and solidity of its joy in that graver element which gives it its highest and most real interest for the human soul. A faith that has no awe proves itself a delusion. A religion that has no fear, or is not deeply solemn, is a contradiction in terms. For the absurd and the ridiculous even pure falsehood is too stern a thing. They have their existence only in that grotesque mixture of truth and error, in which the distortion of the one concealing the malignity of the other gives birth to all revolting and ludicrous monstrosities.

We need no better test. Apply it to the supernatural of the Scriptures, and it furnishes one of the strongest evidences of their truth. So serious a book can not be a lie. Bring to this criterion the modern charlatanry, which so wantonly assumes the name of faith, "obtruding itself with its fleshly mind" into the domain of the true supernatural, and yet denying the supernatural--bring it to this criterion, we say, and it is at once shown to be "earthly, sensual, devilish"--a grotesque reflection of some of the worst things of this world thrown back in lurid distortion from the darkness visible of the Satanic realms. But even this may be assigning to it too high a rank. The position can not be charged with irrationality which assumes that the "mocking fiend" may sometimes be permitted to practice his jugglings on those rash fools, who would venture too near to his domain of falsehood. But in most of the modern cases of this kind, we are beginning to have little doubt that sheer imposture is the predominant if not the only element.

On the outward evidence, however, we can not at present dwell, since it is with the reasoning of these charlatans we design that our brief strictures shall be mainly occupied. In this, too, we find the proof of falsehood. For we return again to our text--the marvelous may be believed, the absurd no amount of evidence can prove. And here some thoughts suggest themselves to which we must give expression. What amount of solid thinking, what discrimination of ideas, what right knowledge of words, what degree of logical training, which, although not the discoverer of truth, is the surest guard against error--in a word, what amount of general, solid, mental culture must there be in an age distinguished for the extensive circulation and approbation of such works as Davis's Revelations of Nature, and Davis's Great Harmonia, and Dodd's Psychology, &c., &c.? Could it have been so when Butler wrote his immortal Analogy; or, farther back, when Howe preached his Living Temple as evening lectures to a country congregation, and Baxter's tracts were found in every hamlet in England? Could it have been so in our own land, when Edwards preached his deep theology to plain men in plain New England villages? The marvelous, we may well suppose, would have had no lack of believers in those days. But would such absurdities in reasoning have ever gained currency in those thinking though little scientific periods? With all our talk of science, and progress, and universities, and common schools, and the schoolmaster being abroad in the land, there must be, somewhere, something wrong in our most modern ideas and modern modes of education. Is not the physical element too predominant, and is it not to the common smatterings in this department that such a pretended spiritualism, yet real materialism, is directly to be traced? A superficial sciolism, extensive enough in its facts, but utterly hollow in its philosophy, is the food with which the common mind is every where crammed even to satiety, while there is such a serious lack of the logical, the theological, the Biblical, the classical, the historical--in short, of those elements which must furnish the foundation of all right thinking, and without which other knowledge is more likely to lead to error than to truth.

But we can at present only hint at this. In respect to the reasonings of these scientific discoverers (as they claim to be), we may say that their fallacies get currency from this very cause, namely, the general want of discrimination in respect to the true bounds of fundamental ideas, and that abuse of language which is the necessary result. If the consequences were not so serious, nothing could be more amusing than their pretensions, or their method. They would have us believe that they are the martyrs--Galileos--Bacons--Harveys, all of them. Each one is a suffering Servetus, while all the bigotry of the theological world, with all its inquisitorial priests and furious Calvins, is ever ready to crush their new science, and give the crown of martyrdom to its devoted teachers.

They have, too, the sagacity to perceive that audiences, in general, love to be addressed in the technics of a scientific style, whether rightly used or not. The vender of quack medicines has discovered the same secret; and hence he, too, has his array of causes and effects, and fluids, and mediums, and counteracting forces, and grand systems of circulation, and positive and negative states. To be thus addressed raises the hearer or reader at once in his own estimation, and thus prepares him, sometimes, for the reception of almost any kind of nonsense. He acquires, too, an interest in these high matters; and if not himself an actual martyr to science, becomes at least a sympathizer with those who are doomed to all this infamous persecution.

The usual course has now become so stereotyped, that one who has attended a number of lectures of this kind, will be able to predict the general method of remark quite as well as Davis is said to have foretold that of Dr. Bushnell. He will be certain of the very places where the peculiar and most original cant of the school will be sure to come in. He will know just when and where to look out for Galileo and the priests, and the Puritans and the Quakers, and Fulton and the steam-engine. He anticipates precisely the spot where the lecturer will tell us how Bacon "used up" the Stagyrite, and how wonderfully knowledge has grown since that remarkable event, and how all previous progress was preparatory to this new science, which it has been reserved for our bold martyr not only to discover in its elements, but to present full formed and full grown to his astonished hearers,--and which, moreover, he generously offers to teach to private classes (the ladies to be by themselves) at the exceedingly reasonable rate of ten dollars per course.

Sometimes the whole of this scientific claptrap will consist of the dextrous use of some one long new-coined term, very much like those that are invented for the venders of soaps and perfumes to express the psychology of their most ingenious and philosophical compounds. The lecturer has discovered a new word, and it stands to him in place of a mine of thought. In Martinus Scriblerus we read of a project to banish metaphysics out of Spain. It was to be done by forbidding the use of the compounds and decompounds of the substantive verb. "Take away from the scholastic metaphysician," says this ingenious reformer, "his _ens_, his _entitas_, his _essentia_, &c., and there is an end of him." So also we have known lectures, and even books, on some of these new psychologies from which the abstraction of a single term would cause the whole to collapse. And yet to the quackish lecturer it is the key to unlock all his scientific treasures. He has somehow picked up a _word_, and he is deluding himself, and trying to delude others, into the notion that he has really caught an _idea_. The connection of soul and body is no longer a mystery. Science has at length dragged it out of its dark retreat. Nothing can be simpler than the explanation at length afforded of the fact which had so long baffled all inquiry. It is wholly owing to the _nervo-vital_ fluid. But how is this? Is this connecting medium mind, or matter, or a compound of both, or a tertium quid? If it is either the first or the second, the mystery is just where it was before. If it be said that it is the last (the only answer which does not at once annihilate itself), the further query arises--How is that to be a medium which needs itself a medium, or rather two other distinct media, to serve as connecting links between it and the two worlds it would unite? Or is it a bridge without an abutment on either shore?

But what are all such difficulties to our modern Galileo, or to his scientific audience? It is the _nervo-vital_ fluid, whether or no. There is a charming philosophy in the very sound, and it is impossible that so good a term should not mean something. It is an admirable word--a most euphonic word--and since the parts are certainly significant, there can be no reason why the whole compound should not be so likewise.

Another of these magic words is _electricity_. It is getting to be the _universal solvent_ for all scientific difficulties. It is life, it is gravitation, it is attraction, it is generation, it is creation, it is development, it is law, it is sensation, it is thought, it is every thing. "Give me a place to put my lever," said Archimedes, "and I will move the world!" Give us electricity and nervo-vital fluids, say our biologists, and we will explain the mystery of all organizations, from the animalcule to the universe!

We repeat it, The downright impositions in respect to facts, are not so insulting to an audience, as the quackish reasoning which is often presented by way of explanation. To state an example: One of the most common performances of these mountebanks consists in the pretended control of one mind or one person over the senses, the actions, the volitions, and even the moral states of another. The performance is generally contemptible enough in itself, but it is rendered still more so when our man of science undertakes, as he generally does, to explain to his audience the profound rationale of his proceedings. The lecturer most modestly and reverently disclaims for himself the possession of supernatural powers. It is all science--all strictly in accordance with "_natural laws_" and performed on the most rational and scientific principles. He had broken no law of mind or matter, as he would make perfectly level to the understandings of his most respectable auditory. The grand agent in the whole process was electricity, or the nervo-vital fluid. By means of this, the mind of the operator was transferred to the soul of the subject, and hence it is perfectly plain that the emotions and mental exercises of the one become the emotions and mental exercises of the other. A terrific scene was fancied (in the case which we have now in mind it was a picture of serpents), and the patient was thrown into a state of most agitating fright. Now that an impostor, or a juggler, might deceive the senses of an audience, is nothing incredible, and implies nothing derogatory to their intelligence. That some physical effect may have been produced on the nervous system of some peculiarly sensitive subject, is by no means beyond belief; or that in some way, explicable or inexplicable, the agitation and convulsion may have had a real existence. So far it may have been wholly false, or partly false and partly real. Again, whether there may or may not be unknown fluids through which one mind or one body affects another, is not the question. If it were so, it would only be analogous to the ordinary modes of mediate communication by air, and light, and sound, and would be liable in kind, if not in degree, to the same imperfections. Still would it be true, whatever the media, ordinary or extraordinary, that only as mind is communicated to mind _as it really is_, can one affect the emotions, and exercises, and states of the other. There may be less, there never can be more, in the effect than in the cause.

Here, then, is the palpable absurdity, which should bring a blush of shame upon every audience, and every individual calling himself rational, who is for a moment affected by it. The mind of the operator, it is maintained, is, for the time being, the mind of the patient. It has taken possession of his thinking and feeling province. This is the philosophy that Aristotle never knew, and of which even Bacon hardly had a glimpse. Let us test it. As the lecturer is a very frank and fearless man, he invites the fullest examination, not only of his facts, but of his reasoning. Some one may, therefore, be supposed to present the following or similar questions: You _willed_, did you, the scene and the state of mind which produced these alarming results? Exactly so. Was it, then, a simple volition of the _effect_, as an effect (if such a thing were possible), or accompanied in your own mind, by a conception of the scene presented? Certainly, replies the triumphant lecturer, the whole rationale, as you have been told, consisted in throwing my mind into that of the subject. He thought what I thought--he felt what I felt. Very well. But were you frightened at the snakes? Did terror constitute any part of the exercises of your own mind? This is a puzzler, but there is an apparent way of surmounting the difficulty. The patient, it may be said, _believes_ in the reality of the scene presented, while the operator does not. But this only suggests a still greater absurdity. This belief, or non-belief, is certainly a very important part of the mental and emotional state. How comes one of the most essential ingredients to be left behind in the psychological transfer? Does the operator _will_ it thus to be? We have never heard any such thing alleged; but if it were so, it would only be the crowning folly of this superlatively foolish process--this very lunacy of nonsense. Such volition itself would then become a part of the mental state, and must pass over to the patient along with the other thoughts and emotions, and with all the absurdity involved in it, or require another volition to keep it back, and still another volition for this, and so on, _ad infinitum_. Have any of our readers ever seen a foolish dog running round and round after his own tail, and ever jerking it away just when he seemed to himself to be on the point of catching it? Nothing can furnish a better illustration of the exceeding folly that has often in this way been presented as profound and scientific reasoning to what have been styled enlightened and respectable audiences.

There is another fallacy running through all these pretended sciences--from phrenology and phreno-mesmerism to the most stupid exhibitions that have been ever given, under the names of "electrical psychology" and "mental alchemy." It is that view which, in effect, wholly denies any thing like a spiritual unity to the human soul, making it a series of separate impulses, or, like the keys of a piano, each when struck from without giving an isolated sound. Let one be touched, the machine lifts up its hand, and is supposed to pray. Strike another, and it blasphemes. And so, by turns, it hates and loves, and fears and trusts--not different objects, which would be perfectly consistent with a spiritual unity, in which the whole moral and intellectual state is represented in every exercise, but the same objects, and with transitions so sudden as to be almost simultaneous. We might, in a similar way, expose the absurd reasoning contained in all this, but we would rather dwell at present on the moral aspect of the case--the shocking irreverence it manifests toward the human soul, making its faith, its reason, its love, its conscience, as worthless as the lowest bodily appetites--sinking it, indeed, below the dignity of respectable organic or inorganic matter, with which such tricks can not be played, and reducing all that have heretofore been regarded as the highest moral truths to the rank of physical phenomena.

In some former remarks of our Editorial Table, there was an allusion to the revolting claim clairvoyance makes to meddle with the soul's sacred individuality. The thought is applicable to all those kindred pretensions which are now so rife. Their tendency is to destroy all reverence for our own spirituality, and with it all reverence for the truly spiritual every-where. If this be true of what is called biology and mental alchemy, in a still more impressive sense may it be charged upon that other compound of blasphemy and Satanic mummery, which has grown directly out of them. We allude to the pretense of holding intercourse with departed spirits through mesmerized mediums, or what are usually called _spiritual rappings_. The first class of performances are an insult to the human intelligence; this is a moral outrage upon the most tender, the most solemn, the most religious feelings of our nature. The one is a profane trifling with all that is most sacred in life--the other is a violation of the grave, and of all beyond, of which it is the appointed vail. It is hard to write or speak with calmness here. The mischief done and doing in this direction, defies all proper estimate. These proceedings are sending lunatics to our asylums, but this is by no means the sorest evil that may be laid to their charge. It is the soul-hardening familiarity they are every where producing with the most awful subjects that can be offered for human contemplation. Such an effect, too, in relation to the spirit of man must soon be followed by a similar one in respect to the still more tremendous idea of Deity. To use a strange but most expressive term, first employed by De Quincey (although applied to a different subject) we know of nothing in human experience that threatens to be so utterly _de-religionizing_--in other words, so fatally destructive of all that reverence for the spiritual, that awe of the unseen, that tender emotion, as well as solemn interest, which connect themselves with the idea of the other life, and without which religion itself, in any form, can have no deep or permanent hold upon the mind. We find it difficult to conceive how any man possessed of the smallest share of these holy sympathies, can bring himself to give any countenance whatever to such practices. We appeal to those who have lost the nearest relatives--a parent, a brother, a sister, a dear departed child--how should every right feeling of the soul revolt against the thought of holding intercourse with them, even though it were possible, through such means? Who that has a Christian heart would not prefer the silence of the grave to the thought of the dear departed one in the midst of such imaginings, and such scenic associations as are connected with the usual performances of this kind? Through that silence of the grave the voice of faith may be heard speaking to us in the language of revelation--_He is not dead but sleepeth_. Blessed word,--so utterly unknown to all previous philosophy--never heard in any other revelation than that of the gospel! They are not dead but _sleep_. "They enter into _peace_," says the prophet. And then the precious and consoling addition--They sleep _in Jesus_. Surely the term thus employed can imply no cessation of consciousness, no torpor of the higher and better faculties of the soul; but it does denote, beyond all doubt, a state of rest, of calmness, of security, of undisturbed and beatific vision--a state far removed from all resemblance to this bustling life--a state in all respects the opposite of that which fancy pictures as belonging to the scenes presented in the manifestations of spiritual rappings, and spiritual table-liftings, and, in a word, those spiritual pantomimes, which seem to be becoming more and more extravagant and grotesque in proportion to the infidel credulity with which they are received.

Such are every where the scriptural ideas in respect to the condition of the pious dead, and from the other class we seek not to draw that vail which it has thrown over them. Nothing shows more strikingly the extreme secularity of the age in which we live than the disposition, even among many who are professedly religious, to look upon the other world as only a continuation of the activities of the present; but we affirm with all boldness, that such a view receives no support from the Bible. Rest, security, calmness, peace, removal from all agitation, from all excitement, from all commingling in the scenes of this busy, restless, probationary life--these are the thoughts which are suggested by its parables, its metaphors, its visions, its direct and positive assertions. Especially clear and prominent is the idea of entire separation from the present world. They have "entered into rest"--they are in "Abraham's bosom"--they are "with Christ in Paradise." To the same effect would the spiritually-minded reader interpret certain phrases employed in the Older Scriptures. They are in "the secret of his pavilion," in the "hiding-place of his tabernacle"--they abide "under the shadow of the Almighty." Such expressions may have a meaning in connection with this life; but their fullest import is only brought out when their consoling assurances are referred to the state of the departed in the spirit-world.

And here the thought most naturally suggests itself--How striking the difference between the sensual obtrusiveness, the impious pretensions, the profane curiosity exhibited in connection with this modern charlatanry, and what may be called the _solemn reserve_ of the Holy Scriptures. The Bible never condescends to gratify our curiosity respecting what may be called the physiology, or _physical_ theory of the other life. On the other hand, the _moral_ effect is ever kept in view, and to this, in all its communications, it ever aims at giving the deepest intensity. In the light of this thought let any one contrast the sublime vision of Eliphaz (Job iv.) with any of these modern spiritual manifestations. The vail is for a moment withdrawn. A light just gleams upon us from the spirit-world, not to show us things within, but to cast its moral irradiation upon things without. The formless form, the silence, and the voice leave all things physical, or psychological as much unknown as before; but how deep the moral impression! There are no disclosures of the scenery or topography of the unseen state; no announcement of "great truths about to break forth;" nothing said of "throwing down barriers between the two worlds." But instead of this, a most solemn declaration of a Divine moral government, and a moral retribution, to which all that is physical, or physiological, or psychological even, is intended ever to be kept subservient.

Thus it is throughout the Bible. Paul had visions of the third Heavens. Christ descended into Hades, and rose again; but he has told us nothing of the state or doings of departed spirits. Where the sacred penmen draw back, and scarce afford a hint, except as to the certainty of retribution in another world, modern mystics, modern impostors have given us volumes.

Fools rashly venture in Where angels dare not tread.

And so, too, in respect to death itself. The impostor Davis profanely assumes to describe the process of the elimination of the spirit from the struggling body, and some have pronounced the unfeeling caricature worthy of the genius of Dante or of Milton. But with what solemn reserve does the Scripture cast a vail over this dread event, and reveal to us only its moral consequences. It is a going down into a "Valley of Shadows," and all that the believer is allowed to know of it is, that in that Valley there is one to take him by the hand, one who will walk with him through its darkness, and "whose rod and staff shall comfort him" through all that dreary way. To this correspond the terms expressive of the idea in primitive languages. It is a going into _Hades_, the _Invisible_, the _Unknown_, not in the sense of any doubt, implied as to the real existence of a spirit world (for men have never been without a distinct belief in this, as matter of fact), but unknown as to its physical states and modes of being. In the Hebrew it is _Beth Olam_, the _Hidden House_ (imperfectly rendered _the long home_, Eccles. xii.), where "the souls of the dead take no part in things that are done beneath the sun." The living go to them, but they come not back any more to us. And what right-feeling heart would have it otherwise. They are

Not dead, but parted from their house of clay.

They still dwell, too, in our memories; they are enshrined in our hearts. Who would not trust them to the Scripture promises of rest and peace, rather than imagine them as subject to the unrest, and sharing in the agitating and tumultuous scenes of this pseudo-spiritualism. The believer in rappings charges his opponent with a Sadducean lack of faith. But we would take issue with him on the term. The naturalistic spirit-hunter is a stranger to the idea. With him it is only the sensualism and sensual scenes of this earth carried into a supposed spiritual world. It is a faith which has no trust, no patient waiting. It is not "the evidence of things unseen." It is not "the substance of things hoped for." It is rank materialism, after all. It is, moreover, _essentially_ irreligious. As far as it extends, it threatens, to an awful degree, to de-religionize the human soul--not only to take away all true spirituality of view, but to render men incapable of those ideas, on which alone a right religious belief can be founded.

We hope our readers will not think that we have indulged in a train of thought too serious or sombre for the pages of a literary Monthly Magazine. It is directly forced upon us by our subject, if we would treat it as it deserves to be treated; and our only apology for choosing such a theme, is found in the fact that it is connected with one of the most wide-spread and mischievous delusions of the day. We should indeed think that we had discharged a most important editorial duty, could we only convey to the many thousands of our readers our deep impression, not only of the falsehood and wickedness of these "_lying wonders_," but also of the immense moral evil of which they threaten to be the cause.

Editor's Easy Chair.

The Spring hangs fire, like a rusty match-lock; and even as we write--though the almanac tells stories of "pleasant showers about this time"--the snow-flakes are dappling the distant roofs, and shivering under a northern wind. The early-trout fishers upon the south-shore of the Island, are bandaged in pea-coats, and the song-making blue-birds twitter most scattered and sorry orisons.

It is a singular circumstance--and one of which the meteorologic men must give us the resolution--that the seasons of the Eastern and Western Continents balance themselves so accurately as they do. Thus, the severe winter which, leaning from the Arctic Circle, has touched our Continent with an icy _right_ hand, has kindled with a warm _left_, the north of Europe into a premature Spring. The journalists tell us of flowers blooming in Norway, through all the latter half of February; and the winter in Paris has proved as sham a winter, as their Republic is sham republic.

Is there any tide of atmosphere which makes flux and reflux of cold--kindred to the sweep of the ocean? And may not that Northern Centre, which geographers call the POLE, have such influence on the atmospheric currents, as the moon is said to have upon the sea?

* * * * *

Poor Sir John, meantime, shivering in the Northern Regions, or--what is far more probable--sealed up in some icy shroud, that keeps his body whole, and that will not break or burst until the mountains melt--is not forgotten. Even now the British Admiralty are fitting out another expedition, to flounder for a season among the icebergs, and bring back its story of Polar nights, and harsh Arctic music.

A little bit of early romance, associated with the great navigator, has latterly found its way into the journals, and added new zest to the talk of his unknown fate. Lady Franklin was, it appears, in her youthful days, endowed with the same poet-soul--which now inspires her courage, and which then inspired her muse. Among other rhymed thoughts which she put in print, were some wild, weird verses about the Northern realms, and the bold navigators who periled life and fortune among the Polar mountains. The verses caught the eye and the sympathies of Sir John Franklin. He traced them to their source, and finding the heart of the lady as true and brave, as her verse was clear and sound, he challenged her love, and won such wife as became the solace of his quieter days, and the world-known mourner of his fate.

* * * * *

Domestic talk plays around the topic of the coming Presidential campaign, and not a dinner of the whole Lenten season but has turned its chat upon this hinge. And it is not a little curious to observe how the names of the prospective Presidents narrow down, as the time approaches, to some two or three focal ones, toward which converge all the rays of calumny and of laudation. Yet in this free speech--thanks to our privilege--we offer a most happy contrast to that poor shadow of a Republic, which is now thriving in embroidered Paris coats, and whose history is written under the ban of Censors. It is amusing to recall now the speeches of those earnest French Republicans, who, in the debates of 1848, objected so strongly to any scheme of representation which should bear that strong federal taint that belonged to our system. "It is an off-shoot," said they, "of British and lordly birth, and can not agree with the nobler freedom which we have established, and which has crowned our Revolution."

May God, in his own good time, help the French--if they will not help themselves--and give them no worse a ruler, than the poorest of our present candidates!

* * * * *

Some little time ago we indulged in a pleasant strain of self-gratulation, that the extraordinary woman, Lola Montes--_danseuse_, _diplomate_, widow, wife, _femme entretenue_--should have met with the humblest welcome upon American shores, and by such welcome given a lift to our sense of propriety. It would seem, however, that the welcome was only stayed, and not abandoned. The cordial reception which our national representatives have given the Bavarian Countess, was indeed a matter to be looked for. Proprieties of life do not rule high under the Congressional atmosphere; nor is Washington the moving centre of much Christian enterprise--either missionary or other. But that Boston, our staid rival, should have shown the _danseuse_ the honor of Educational Committees, and given her speech in French and Latin of the blooming Boston girls, is a thing as strange as it was unexpected. We observe, however, that the officer in attendance upon Lola, pleads simple courtesy as a warrant for his introduction, and regrets that newspaper inquiry and comment should make known to his pupil-_protégées_ the real character of the lady introduced. It certainly is unfortunate--but still more unfortunate, that the character of any visitor should not be proof against inquiry.

Lola, it seems, resents highly any imputation upon her good name, and demands proof of her losses.

Her indignation is adroit, and reminds us of a certain old "nut for the lawyers," which once went the round of the almanacs:

"Will Brown, a noted toper, being out of funds, and put to his wits, entered the beer-shop, and called for four two-penny loaves of bread. After ruminating awhile, with the loaves under his arm, he proposed to exchange a couple of the loaves for a mug of ale. Bruin of the bar assented to the bargain. Will quietly disposed of his ale, and again proposed a further exchange of the remaining loaves, for a second mug of the malt liquor.

"Will quietly discharged his duty toward the second tankard, and as quietly moved toward the door. Bruin claimed pay. Will alleged that he had paid in two-penny loaves. Bruin demanded pay for the bread; but Will, very imperturbably swore that he did not keep the bread, and challenged poor Bruin to prove his indebtedness."

* * * * *

Jenny Lind has latterly slipped from the public eye into the shades of her newly-found domestic life. Rumor, however, tells the story of one last appearance, during the Spring, when all the world will be curious to see how she wears her bridal state, and to take fuller glimpse of the man, who has won her benevolent heart. Can the married world explain to us, how it is that matrimony seems to dull the edge of triumph, and to round a grave over maiden glory? Why is Madame Goldschmidt so much less than Jenny Lind? Simply in this way: she who has conquered the world by song and goodness, has herself been conquered; and the conqueror, if rumor tells a fair story, is no better, or worthier, or stronger than the average of men. The conclusion, then, is inevitable, that she, having yielded, is, in some qualities of head or heart--even less than he; and so reduced to the standard of our dull every-day mortality.

Rumor says again, that the songstress, after a visit only to her own shores, is to return to the pleasant town of Northampton for a home. The decision, if real, does credit to our lady's love of the picturesque; for surely a more sightly town lies no where in our western world, than that mass of meadow and sweeping hill which lies grouped under the shoulder of Holyoke.

* * * * *

With the spring-time, the city authorities are brushing the pavements--very daintily--for the summer's campaign. Mr. Russ is blockading the great thoroughfare, for a new fragment of his granite road; and "May movings," on the very day this shall come to the eye of our reader, will be disturbing the whole quiet of the metropolis. High rents are making the sad burden of many a master of a household; and a city paper has indulged in philosophical speculations upon the influence of this rise in rent upon the matrimonial alliance. The matter is not without its salient points for reflection. Young ladies, whose extravagance in dress is promoting high prices of all sorts, must remember that they are thereby cheapening their chances of a home and a husband. The good old times, when a thousand or two thousand a year were reckoned sufficient income for a city man to marry upon, and to bring up such family as Providence vouchsafed him, are fast falling into the wake of years.

A wife and a home are becoming great luxuries--not so much measured by peace as by pence.

Would it not be well for domestically inclined clerks--whose rental does not run to a large figure--to organize (in the way of the Building Associations) cheap Marriage Associations? We do not feel competent to suggest the details of such a plan, but throw out the hint for younger men to act upon.

It is pleasant to fancy the "Special Notices" of the Tribune newspaper lit up with such sparkling inducements for bachelors as these:

The BLOOMER MARRIAGE ASSOCIATION will hold its regular meeting on Friday at half past seven. Those who appreciate the advantages of a good wife, at small cost, with reliable men for trustees, will not fail to attend. The stock is now nearly all taken. A few shares are left. Several new names of modest and marriageable young ladies--also two thriving widows with small families--are registered upon the books of the Association. Every information supplied.

JEDEDIAH RULETHEROOST, _Secretary_.

CHEAP WIVES for poor and deserving young men. The CAROLINE FRY Marriage Association is the best and oldest of similar organizations. Hundreds of young men are now in the enjoyment of estimable partners for life, and all the endearments of the domestic circle through the agency of this Association. Shares are still to be sold, and the surplus of capital already amounts to the incredible sum of fourteen thousand dollars.

Particular attention paid to proper matching of temperaments. Only two unfortunate marriages have thus far been contracted under the auspices of this Association. The best of medical advisers.

Remember the number, 220 Broadway.

SILAS WIDDERS, _Secretary_.

* * * * *

English Punch is busy nowadays in twisting the Jew locks of the new leader in the House of Commons. The personal peculiarities of Mr. Disraeli make him an easy subject for the artists of Fleet-street. We shall expect, however, to see some rare debates led off by the accomplished Hebrew. Disraeli has his weaknesses of manner and of action; but he is a keen talker, and can make such show of brilliant repartee as will terribly irk the leaders of the Left.

The Earl of Derby, notwithstanding his fine and gentlemanly bearing, comes in for his share of the Punch caricature. Few British statesmen are so accomplished and graceful speakers as the Earl of Derby; and, with the burden of the Government upon his shoulders, to spur his efforts, we shall confidently look for such strong pleading, as will surpass any thing yet heard from Lord Stanley.

* * * * *

French talk is tired of political prognostic, and has yielded itself, with characteristic indolence and _insouciance_, to the gayeties of the _mi-caréme_. Balls have broken the solemnities of Lent, and a new drama of the younger Dumas, which turns upon the life and fortunes of a _courtisane_ of the last century, seems to chime with the humor of the time.

The broidered coats are thickening under imperial auspices; and Napoleon is winning a host of firm supporters among the broidering girls of Nancy and of the metropolis. The Americans, it would seem, are doing their part toward the festivities of the season; and forget Lent and Republic, in the hilarity of balls and routs. An American club, holding its meetings in the old saloon of Frascati, is among the _on dits_ of the winter.

A proposition for shaving the beards of judges and advocates, has wakened the apprehensions of all the benchers; and, in defense of their old-time prerogatives, the subjects of the proposed edict have brought to light an old pleading for their hirsute fancies, which may well have its place.

The shaved chin is an incongruity as connected with the toga; the beard, on the contrary, is in perfect keeping. If it had not existed by a wise provision of Providence, it must have been invented. What more imposing spectacle than a court rendering a solemn decree, in the presence of both chambers--and what measure of authority would not the white beard of the judge give to the sentence he pronounces!

If then, you have a real care for your dignity, oh magistrates, curb not the flowing beard, but rather tempt its honors, with all the aids of art. And if the eccentric sallies of some brother gownsman, or some naïve testimony of an unkempt witness, put your gravity in peril, you can laugh--in your beard. Thus nature will have her rights, and your dignity rest unmolested.

We commend these opinions to their honors of the New York Bench; only adding, that such aldermanic judges as are proof against wit--as they are proof against sense, might yet value the beard to hide their blushes.

* * * * *

All European travelers know the value and the awkwardness of passports, and the importance of securing them _en regle_.

The Count B----, wishing latterly to pass into Austria with a domestic and a favorite horse, sent to the legation for the necessary papers, charging his secretary to see that all was in order.

"As to the domestic," said the official, "he will have a separate passport; but there are some formalities as to the horse; we must have a perfect description of him, to insert in the passport of his owner."

"Very good," said the secretary, "I will send the groom with it."

The embassador proceeded to fill up the passport: "We, Envoy Extraordinary, &c., invite the civil and military authorities to allow M. le Comte, with his horse, to pass, and in case of need, to render all possible aid and assistance to ----"

Here occurred a blank, in view of the fact that the applicant might possess either wife or family. The good embassador (whom it is reasonable to suppose a bachelor) reckoning the horse equivalent to one or the other--filled up the blank with the word "them."

The signature being appended, the task of filling up the description was left to the _attaché_.

In due time the groom arrived. The sub-officia copied faithfully the description of the count's gelding.

_Age_--three years and a half. _Height_--fourteen hands. _Hair_--dark sorrel. _Forehead_--spotted with white. _Eyes_--very lively. _Nose_--broad nostrils. _Mouth_--A little hard. _Beard_--none (the count was a veritable Turk). _Complexion_--none. _Private marks_--ears very long; small star branded on the left thigh.

In course of time the count departed, his passport in the guardianship of his accomplished secretary.

The frontier officers are not, travelers will remember, either very brilliant men, or very witty men. They have a dull eye for a joke.

The count's passport was scrutinized severely; the description did not accord accurately, in the opinion of the _sergent_ of police, with the actual man. The _sergent_ pulled his mustache, looked wise--and put Monsieur le Comte under arrest. The story about the horse was a poor story. The _sergent_ was not to be outwitted in that fashion.

The consequence was a detention under guard for four days, until the necessary explanations could be returned from Paris, and the _sergent_ be fully persuaded that the description attached to the count's horse, and not to some dangerous political refugee.

* * * * *

Under the head of "Touching Matrimonial Confidence," a French provincial paper gives the following: A certain Gazette of Auvergne published, a few days since, this notice (not unknown to our newspaper annals):

"No person will give credit to the woman Ursula-Veronica-Anastasia-Cunegonde Piot--my wife, as I shall pay no debts of her contracting."

The same Gazette published, a few days after, the following rejoinder (which we commend to all wives similarly situated):

"Monsieur Jerome Barnabas, my husband, could have spared himself the trouble of his late notice.

"It is not to be supposed that I could get credit on his account; for, since he pays no debts of his own, nobody would count on him to pay any debts of mine.

"FEMME BARNABAS--NEE PIOT."

We should not be greatly surprised if the precedent here afforded, should lead to a new column of city advertisements.

* * * * *

_Apropos_ of the late balls in Paris, a very good story is told of a bouncing student at law (with rooms and _ménage_ in the quarter of the Pantheon), who recently made his _débût_, under the auspices of his father, at a ball of the Chaussée d'Antin.

His father, a stout provincial, but bolstered into importance by a fat vineyard, and wine cellars to match, insisted upon introducing his son to the high life of the capital. The son declined, urging that he did not dance (the truth being that his familiarity was only with the exceptional dances of the _Chaumière_ and such grisette quarters).

"_Mon Dieu_--not dance!" said the old gentleman.

"_Oui_--after a fashion, but in a way not appreciated, I fear, in such salons."

The old gentleman chuckled over his son's modesty--he could imagine it nothing else--and insisted upon the venture. The student was a guest; but determined to keep by the wall, as a spectator of the refined gallopades of the quarter d'Antin. The first look, however, at the salon polka plunged him into a profound reverie. Was it indeed true that he was in the elegant saloon of the _Marquise_ M----? thought he, gaining courage.

It was his method precisely--the very dance that Amy had taught him--practiced with all their picturesque temerity. Sure of his power, and using all the art of the _Mabile_, he gave himself up to two hours of most exhilarating pastime.

"They have calumniated the _beau monde_," mused he in leaving. "I find it very entertaining. Our dances are not only understood, but cultivated--practiced; and, _ma foi_, I rather prefer handling these countesses, to those very greedy grisettes."

Our brave student at law might possibly find his paces as well understood, in some American saloons as in those of the Chausée d'Antin!

* * * * *

We close our long chat for the month with a little whimsicality of travel, which comes to us in the letter of a friend.

Major M'Gowd was of Irish extraction (which he denied)--had been in the English service (which he boasted), and is, or was two years ago, serving under the Austrian flag.

He was not a profound man; but, as majors go, a very good sort of major, and great disciplinarian--as the following will show:

You have seen the Austrian troops in review, and must have noticed the curious way in which their cloaks are carried around their necks, making the poor fellows look like the Vauxhall showman, looking out from the folds of a gigantic anaconda.

On one occasion, the major, being officer of the day, observed a soldier with his cloak lying loosely upon his arm.

"Where's your cloak, rascal?" was the major's peremptory demand.

"Here, sir," was the reply.

"What's the use of a cloak if it's not rolled up?" thundered the major; and the poor scamp was sent to the lock-up.

Thus much for the major's discipline. But like most old officers of no great depth of brain, the major had his standard joke, which had gone the rounds of a hundred mess-tables. Latterly, however, he had grown coy of a repetition, and seems to cherish a suspicion that he has not cut so good a figure in the story as he once imagined.

A little after-dinner mellowness, however, is sure to bring the major to his trump card, and in knowledge of this, Ned and myself (who had never heard his story), one day tempted the major's appetite with some very generous Tokay.

Major M'Gowd bore up, as most old officers are able to do, to a very late hour, and it was not till eleven that he seemed fairly kindled.

"Well, major, now for the story," said we.

"Ah, boys, it won't do" (the major looked smilingly through his glass), "it was really too bad."

"Out with it, major," and after as much refusing and urging as would seat half the girls in New York at the piano, the old gentleman opened:

"It's too bad, boys; it was the most cutting, sarcastic thing that perhaps ever was heard. You see, I was stationed at Uxbridge; you know Uxbridge, p'raps--situated on a hill. I was captain, then; young and foolish--very foolish. I wrote poetry. I couldn't do it now. I never have since; I wish I hadn't _then_. For, do you see, it was the most cruel, cutting thing--"

The major emptied his glass.

"Go on, major," said Ned, filling for him again.

"Ah, boys--sad work--it cut him down. I was young, as I said--stationed at Uxbridge--only a captain then, and wrote poetry. It was there the thing happened. It's not modest to say it, but really, a more cutting thing--fill up your glasses, my boys.

"I became acquainted with a family of the name of Porter--friends of the colonel; pray remember the name--Porter. There was a daughter, Miss Porter. Keep the name in mind, if you please. Uxbridge, as you know, is situated on a hill. About fifteen miles away was stationed another regiment. Now, a young officer of this regiment was very attentive to Miss Porter; don't forget the name, I beg of you.

"He was only a lieutenant, a second son--nothing but his pay to live on; and the old people did not fancy his attentions, being, as I said, second son, lieutenant; which was very sensible in them.

"They gave him a hint or two, which he didn't take. Finally they applied to me, Captain M'Gowd, at that time, begging me to use my influence in the matter. I had not the pleasure of acquaintance with the lieutenant; though, apart from his being second son, lieutenant, small pay, &c., I knew nothing in the world against the poor fellow.

"The more's the pity, boys; as I had no right to address him directly on the subject, I determined to hit him off in a few lines of poetry--those fatal, sarcastic lines!" sighed the major, finishing his glass.

"I had the reputation of being witty, and a poet; and though I say it myself--was uncommonly severe.

"They commenced in this way," (the major threw himself into attitude.)

"The other day to Uxbridge town--

"You recollect the circumstance--I was at Uxbridge--young and foolish--had made the acquaintance of the Porters (remember the name)--young lieutenant was attentive to Miss Porter (lively girl was Mary Jane); poor, second son, not agreeable to old people, who, as I told you, called on me to settle the matter. So I wrote the lines--terribly sarcastic:

"The other day to Uxbridge town--

now you're coming to it--

"A major (he was lieutenant, you know) of dragoons (he was in the infantry) came down (Uxbridge is on a hill). It was a very sarcastic thing, you see.

"The other day to Uxbridge town A major of dragoons came down--

now for the point, my boys,

"The reason why he came down here 'Twas said he had--

You remember the name--Porter, and how I was at Uxbridge, situated on a hill, was Captain M'Gowd, then--young lieutenant, &c., devilish severe verses--but now mind--here they are:

"The other day to Uxbridge town A major of dragoons came down, The reason why he came down here 'Twas said he had a love (remember the name) for--Beer!"

If you have never heard a maudlin, mess-table story, told over the sixth bottle, you have at the least, read one.

Editor's Drawer.

The readers of the "Drawer" will be amused with a forcible picture, which we find in our collection, of the ups-and-downs of a strolling player's life. One would think such things enough to deter young men and women from entering upon so thorny a profession. "In one of the writer's professional excursions," runs our extract, "his manager finds himself in a woeful predicament. His pieces will not 'draw' in the quiet New England village where he had temporarily 'set up shop;' he and his company are literally starving; the men moodily pacing the stage; the women, who had kept up their spirits to the last, sitting silent and sorrowful; and the children, little sufferers! actually crying for food.

"I saw all this," says the manager, "and I began to feel very suicidal. It was night, and I looked about for a rope. At length I spied just what I wanted. A rope dangled at the prompt-side, and near a steep flight of stairs which led to a dressing room. '_That's_ it!' said I, with gloomy satisfaction: 'I'll mount those stairs, noose myself, and drop quietly off in the night; but first let me see whether it is firmly fastened or no.'

"I accordingly approached, gave a pull at the rope, when '_whish! whish!_' I found I had set the rain a-going. And now a thought struck me. I leaped, danced, and shouted madly for joy.

"'Where did you get your liquor from?' shouted the 'walking-gentleman' of the company.

"'He's gone mad!' said Mrs. ----, principal lady-actress of the corps. 'Poor fellow!--hunger has made him a maniac. Heaven shield _us_ from a like fate!'

"'Hunger!' shouted I, 'we shall be hungry no more! Here's food from above (which was _literally_ true), manna in the wilderness, and all that sort of thing. We'll feed on rain; we'll feed on rain!'

"I seized a hatchet, and mounting by a ladder, soon brought the rain-box tumbling to the ground.

"My meaning was now understood. An end of the box was pried off, and full a bushel of dried beans and peas were poured out, to the delight of all. Some were stewed immediately, and although rather hard, I never relished any thing more. But while the operation of cooking was going on below, we amused ourselves with parching some beans upon the sheet-iron--the 'thunder' of the theatre--set over an old furnace, and heated by rosin from the lightning-bellows.

"So we fed upon rain, cooked by thunder-and-lightning!"

There is nothing in the history of IRVING'S "Strolling Player" more characteristic of his class than the foregoing; and there is a _verisimilitude_ about the story which does not permit us to doubt its authenticity. It is too natural _not_ to be true.

* * * * *

Think of a patent-medicine vender rising at the head of his table, where were assembled some score or two of his customers, and proposing such a toast as the following:

"Gentlemen: allow me to propose you a sentiment. When I mention _Health_, you will all admit that I allude to the greatest of sublunary blessings. I am sure then that you will agree with me that we are all more or less interested in the toast that I am about to prescribe. I give you, gentlemen,

"PHYSIC, and much good may it do us!"

This sentiment is "drunk with all the honors," when a professional Gallenic vocalist favors the company with the annexed song:

"A BUMPER of Febrifuge fill, fill for me, Give those who prefer it, Black Draught; But whatever the dose a strong one it must be, Though our last dose to-night shall be quaffed. And while influenza attacks high and low, And man's queerest feelings oppress him, Mouth-making, nose-holding, round, round let I go, Drink our Physic and Founder--ugh, bless him."

* * * * *

The reader may have heard a good deal from the poets concerning "_The Language of Flowers_;" but here is quite a new dialect of that description, in the shape of mottos for different fruits and vegetables in different months:

_Motto for the Lilac in April_: "Give me leave." _For the Rose in June_: "Well, I'm blowed!" _For the Asparagus in July_: "Cut and come again." _For the Marrowfat Pea in August_: "Shell out!" _For the Apple in September_: "Go it, my Pippins!" _For the Cabbage in December_: "My heart is sound: my heart is my own."

* * * * *

Now that "shads is come;" now that lamb has arrived, and green peas may soon be looked for; now that asparagus is coming in, and poultry is going out, listen to _the Song of the Turkey_, no longer seen hanging by the legs in the market, and rejoice with him at his emancipation:

"The season of Turkeys is over! The time of our danger is past: 'Tis the turn of the wild-duck and plover, But the Turkey is safe, boys, at last!

"Then hobble and gobble, we'll sing, boys, No longer we've reason to fear; Who knows what a twelvemonth will bring, boys, Let's trust to the chance of the year!

"The oyster in vain now may mock us, Its sauce we can proudly disdain; No sausages vulgar shall shock us, We are free, we are free from their chain!

"Then hobble and gobble, we'll sing, boys, No longer we've reason to fear; Who knows what a twelvemonth will bring, boys. Let's trust to the chance of the year!

"What matters to you and to me, boys, That one whom we treasured when young, With a ticket, "Two dollars! look here!" boys, In a poulterer's window was hung!

"Then hobble and gobble, we'll sing, boys, No longer we've reason to fear; Who knows what a twelvemonth will bring, boys, Let's trust to the chance of the year!

"Then mourn not for friends that are eaten, A drum-stick for care and regret! Enough that, the future to sweeten, Our lives are not forfeited yet!

"Then hobble and gobble, we'll sing, boys, No longer we've reason to fear; Who knows what a twelvemonth will bring, boys, Let's trust to the chance of the year!"

* * * * *

Somewhat curious, if true, is an anecdote which is declared to be authentic, and which we find among the _disjecta membra_ of our _ollapodrida_:

Lieutenant Montgomery had seen much military service. The wars, however, were over; and he had nothing in the world to do but to lounge about, as best he could, on his half-pay. One day he was "taking his ease in his inn," when he observed a stranger, who was evidently a foreigner, gazing intently at him. The lieutenant appeared not to notice him, but shifted his position. After a short time the stranger shifted _his_ position also, and still stared with unblemished, unabated gaze.

This was too much for Montgomery. He rose, and approaching his scrutinizing intruder, said:

"Do you _know_ me, sir?"

"I think I do," answered the foreigner. (He was a Frenchman.)

"Have we ever met before?" continued Montgomery.

"I will not swear for it; but if we have--and I am almost _sure_ we have," said the stranger, "you have a sabre-cut, a deep one, on your right wrist."

"I have," said Montgomery, turning back his sleeve, and displaying a very broad and ugly scar. "I didn't get this for nothing, for the brave fellow who made me a present of it I repaid with a gash across the skull!"

The Frenchman bent down his head, parted his hair with his hands, and said:

"You did: you may look at the receipt."

The next moment they were in each other's arms.

Now this story _seems_ a little problematical; and yet it is vouched for on what ought to be considered reliable authority. In short, it is _true_ in every respect.

* * * * *

Some ambitious juvenile once sung, with an aspiration "peculiar to our institutions,"

"I wish I was the President Of these United States, I never would do nothing But swing on all the gates."

He little knew the miseries, the ennui, the mental dyspepsia, which afflicts the wretch who has nothing to do. One of these unhappy mortals it is, who says, in the bitterness of his spirit:

"Sir, I have no books, and no internal resources. I can not draw, and if I could, there's nothing that I want to sketch. I don't play the flute, and if I did there's nobody that I should like to have listen to me. I never wrote a tragedy, but I think I am in that state of mind in which tragedies are written. Any thing lighter is out of the question. I whistle four hours a day, yawn five, smoke six, and sleep the rest of the twenty-four, with a running accompaniment of swearing to all these occupations except the last, and I'm not quite sure that I don't sometimes swear in my dreams.

"In one word, sir, I'm getting desperate, for the want of _something to do_."

* * * * *

There is a good deal of humor in the sudden contrast of sentiment and language exhibited in the verses below. They purport to be the tragi-comical tale of a deserted sailor-wife, who, with a baby in her arms, comes often to a rock that overlooks the main, to catch, if possible, a glimpse of a returning sail. At length, in despair, she throws her infant into the sea:

"A gush of tears fell fast and warm, As she cried, with dread emotion, Rest, baby! rest that fairy form Beneath the rush of ocean; 'Tis calmer than the world's rude storm, And kinder--I've a notion!

* * * * *

"Now oft the simple country folk To this sad spot repair, When wearied with their weekly yoke, They steal an hour from care; And they that have a pipe to smoke, They go and smoke it there!

"When soon a little pearly bark Skims o'er the level brine, Whose sails, when it is not too dark, With misty brightness shine: Though they who these strange visions mark Have sharper eyes than mine!

"And, beauteous as the morn, is seen A baby on the prow, Deck'd in a robe of silver sheen, With corals round his brow-- A style of head-dress not, I ween, Much worn by babies now!"

What somebody of the transcendental school of these latter days calls the "element of unexpectedness," is very forcibly exemplified by the writer from whom we have quoted.

* * * * *

We have often laughed over the following scene, but couldn't tell where it is recorded to save our reputation for "general knowledge." All that we _do_ know is, that it is a clever sketch by a clever writer _whoever_ he may be. The scene is a military station; and it should be premised that a certain surly, ill-tempered major, whose wife and sister are in the habit of visiting him at the barracks, gives orders, out of spite to subordinate officers, whose families have hitherto enjoyed the same privilege, that "no females are to be allowed in barracks after tattoo, under any pretense whatever:"

"It so happened that the morning after this announcement appeared in the order-book, an old lieutenant, who might have been the major's grandfather, and whom we used to call "The General," on account of his age and gray hairs, was the officer on duty. To the sergeant of the guard "the General" gave the necessary orders, with strict injunctions to have them obeyed to the letter.

"Shortly after tattoo, sundry ladies, as usual, presented themselves at the barrack-gate, and were, of course, refused admission; when, to the surprise of the sentinel on duty, the major's lady and sister-in-law made their appearance, and walked boldly to the wicket, with the intention of entering as usual. To their utter astonishment, the sentry refused them permission to pass. The sergeant was called, but that worthy was quite as much of a precisian as the ladies, and his conscience would not permit him to let them in.

"'Do you know who we are, sir?' asked the major's lady, with much asperity of voice and manner.

"'Oh, sartingly; I knows your ladyships wery well.'

"'And pray, what do you mean, sir, by this insolence?'

"'I means no imperance whatsomdever, marm; but my orders is partickler, to let no female ladies into this here barracks a'ter tattoo, upon no account whatever; and I means for to obey my orders without no mistake.'

"'Then you have the effrontery, do you, to refuse admittance to the lady of your commanding officer?' screamed the Honorable Mrs. Snooks.

"'And her sister!' joined in the second lady.

"'Most sartingly, marm,' replied the non-commissioned officer, with profound gravity: 'I knows my duty, marm.'

"'Good gracious, what assurance!' exclaimed both ladies in a breath.

"'No insurance at all, marm: if your ladyships was princesses, you couldn't come in after tattoo; my orders is partikler!'

"'Don't you know, stupid, that these orders can not be intended to apply to _us_?'

"'I doesn't know nuffin about _that_, my lady: all I know is, that orders is _orders_, and must be obeyed.'

"'Impudence!'

"'Imperance or no imperance, I must do my duty; and I can tell your ladyships if my superior officers was for to give me orders not to let in the major himself, I would be obligated for to keep him off at the p'int of the bay'net!'

"The officer of the guard was sent for, and the officer of the guard sent for the orderly-book, which, by the light of the guard-room lantern, was exhibited to the ladies by 'the General,' in justification of his apparent rudeness."

It might, doubtless, have been added, that the effect of such a lesson upon the major, was of a salutary nature; for the chalice was commended to his own lips, which he had prepared for others, in downright earnest.

* * * * *

These lines, from the pen of a Southern poet, are very tender and touching. They were printed some ten years since:

"My little girl sleeps on my arm all night, And seldom stirs, save when, with playful wile, I bid her rise and place her lips to mine, Which in her sleep she does. And sometimes then, Half-muttered in her slumbers, she affirms Her love for me is boundless. And I take The little bud and close her in my arms; Assure her by my action--for my lips Yield me no utterance then--that in my heart She is the treasured jewel. Tenderly, Hour after hour, without desire of sleep, I watch above that large amount of hope, Until the stars wane, and the yellow morn Walks forth into the night."

* * * * *

In the final disposition of his characters, DICKENS excels any living author. There is no confusion--no infringement of the natural. In "Barnaby Rudge," for example, the old lethargic inn-keeper, Willett, retiring in his dotage, and with his ruling passion strong upon him, scoring up vast imaginary sums to imaginary customers, and the lament of the elder Weller at the death of good old Master Humphrey, are not only characteristic, they are perfect specimens of their kind. "And the sweet old creetur," says the elder Weller "has bolted. Him as had no wice, and was so free from temper that an infant might ha' drove 'im, has been took at last with that ere unawoidable fit of the staggers, as we must all come to, and gone off his feed forever!" "I see him," continues the old stage-coach driver, "I see him gettin' every journey more and more groggy. I says to Samivel, says I, 'Samivel, my boy, the Gray's a-going at the knees;' and now my predilection is fatally werified; and him as I could never do enough to serve or to show my likin' for, is up the great uniwersal spout o' natur'!"

* * * * *

It is poor Tom Hood, if we have not forgotten, who describes a species of "Statistical Fellows" as

----"A prying, spying, inquisitive clan, Who jot down the laboring classes' riches, And after poking in pot and pan, And routing garments in want of stitches, Have ascertained that a working man Wears a pair and a half of average breeches!"

Of this kind was the "Scientific Ass-sociate" mentioned in the "Table Talk of the late John Boyle." The Professor is setting forth one of his "various important matters connected with every-day life." The learned gentleman spoke of shaving as follows:

"The mode of shaving differs in different individuals. Some are very close shavers; others are greater adepts at cutting unpleasant acquaintances than themselves. It is, however, most important that the art of shaving should be reduced to a nicety, so that a man can cut his beard with the same facility as he could cut his stick. It is also of consequence that an accurate calculation should be made of the number of shaving brushes and the number of half pounds of soap used in the course of the year by respectable shavers, for I have observed that some of them are very badly off for soap. There is also a very great variation in the price of labor. Some barbers undertake to shave well for threepence; others charge a much higher sum. This is probably the effect of competition; and I must say, that the Government deserves well of the country for not encouraging any monopoly. At the same time there is a looseness in the details of the profession, which I should like to see corrected. An accurate register ought to be kept of the number of individuals who shave themselves, and of those who shave daily, every other day, and once a week only. We can hardly contemplate the immense benefits which science would reap, if such matters as these were properly attended to!"

Who has not seen just such statistics as these dwelt upon with unction by your thorough "statist?"

* * * * *

Never forget this "_Receipt of Domestic Economy_." When you have paid a bill, always _take_, and _keep_, a receipt of the same:

"O, fling not the receipt away, Given by one who trusted thee; Mistakes will happen every day. However honest folks may be; And sad it is, oh, _twice_ to pay, So cast not thy receipt away!

"Ah, yes; if e'er in future hours, When we this bill have all forgot, They send it in _again_! ye powers! And swear that we have paid it not; How sweet to know, on such a day, We've never cast receipts away!"

* * * * *

The following is one of the pen-and-ink portraits that have found their way into the "Drawer." The sitter was a subject of our own Gotham.

"He was a Scotchman by birth, and had, without exception, the ugliest face I ever saw on a man's shoulders, or a monkey's either, for that matter. But by a perversity of taste, not unusual in the world, the man made a complete hobby of his 'mug,' homely as it was; and was full of the conceit that on fit occasions he could summon to it a look of terrible and dignified sarcasm, that was more efficacious than words or blows. He was rather insolent in his deportment, and was consequently continually getting into scrapes with some one or other, in which he invariably got the worst of it; because instead of lifting his hand, and giving blow for blow, he always trusted to the efficacy of his _look_. His various little mishaps he used to relate to his fellow-boarders at meal-times, always concluding his narrations with, 'But didn't I give the dirty rapscallions one o' my _looks_?' And then twisting his 'ugly mug' into a shape impossible to be described, he fancied he had convinced his hearers that his antagonists, whoever they were, would be in no hurry to meddle with _him_ again!

"The last time I saw him, he was giving an account of an insult he had received the night before at some porter-house in the neighborhood, where a little fellow, who was a perfect stranger to him, had insisted upon drinking at his expense, and who, when he refused to pay for the liquor, had not only abused him most shamefully with his tongue, but had actually _kicked_ him.

"'Kick you!' exclaimed a fellow-boarder.

"'Yes!' said he, growing warm with the recital; 'he kicked me here!' and he laid his hand on that portion of his valorous person that had come in contact with the stranger's boot.

"'And what did you say to _that_?' asked a second listener.

"'What did I _say_ to it?' he replied, as if astonished that any body should be ignorant of his invariable rejoinder to similar assaults. 'What did I _say_? I said nothing at all. The kick was but a soft one, and the fellow that gave it a wee bit of a 'jink-ma-doddy,' that I could have throttled with one hand on the spot. But I just contented myself with giving him one of my looks!'

"Here Sawney 'defined his position' to the company, by giving them one of his awful glances. But _this_ time he managed to convey an expression of ugliness and comicality so far beyond any thing he had ever called up before, that the inference was irresistible that the kick he had received must have been a good deal harder than he was willing to acknowledge."

* * * * *

Any man or woman walking up or down the sunny side of Broadway, on a pleasant summer day, will see various little bipeds, with thin legs, faded countenances, and jaded air, flourishing little canes, who may, perhaps, bring to mind the following lines:

"Some say there's nothing made in vain, While others the reverse maintain, And prove it, very handy, By citing animals like these-- Musquitoes, bed-bugs, crickets, fleas, And, worse than all--A DANDY!"

But Nature, as the poet adds, "never made a dandy;" he was cast in a fictitious mould altogether.

* * * * *

There is something not over-complimentary to us, magazine-editors, in the remonstrance which "Chawls Yellowplush" makes to his employer against his discharging him from his employ, because he has ascertained that he writes in magazines, and other periodicals:

"'Sir,' says I, claspink my 'ands, and bursting into tears, 'do not, for Eving's sake, do not think of anythink of the sort, or drive me from your service, because I have been fool enough to write in magazeens! Glans but one moment at your honor's plate; every spoon is as bright as a mirror; condescend to igsamine your shoos; your honor may see reflected in them the faces of every one in the company. If occasionally I've forgot the footman in the lit'ry man, and committed to paper my remindicences of fashionable life, it was from a sinsear desire to do good and promote nollitch; and I apeal to your honor--I lay my hand on my busm, and in the face of this honorable company, beg you to say--when you rung your bell, who came to you first? When you stopt out till mornink, who sat up for you? When you was ill, who forgot the nat'ral dignities of his station, and answered the two-pair bell? Oh, sir,' says I, 'I knows what's what: don't send me away! I know them lit'ry chaps, and, bleave me, I'd rather be a footman. The work is not so hard--the pay is better--the vittels incompyrably shuperiour. I've but to clean my things, run my errints, you put clothes on my back, and meat in my mouth.'"

This was written by one who was himself, in his own person, an admirable illustration of what success and honor a _true_ literary man is capable of achieving; but Yellowplush's "lit'ry men" were of a different calibre.

* * * * *

The learned "science-women" of the day, the "deep, deep-blue stockings" of the time, are fairly hit off in the ensuing satirical sonnet:

I idolize the LADIES! They are fairies, That spiritualize this world of ours; From heavenly hot-beds most delightful flowers, Or choice cream-cheeses from celestial dairies, But learning, in its barbarous seminaries, Gives the dear creatures many wretched hours, And on their gossamer intellect sternly showers SCIENCE, with all its horrid accessaries. Now, seriously, the only things, I think, In which young ladies should instructed be, Are--stocking-mending, love, and cookery!-- Accomplishments that very soon will sink, Since Fluxions now, and Sanscrit conversation, Always form part of female education!

Something good in the way of inculcation may be educed from this rather biting sonnet. If woman so far forgets her "mission," as it is common to term it nowadays, as to choose those accomplishments whose only recommendation is that they are "the vogue," in preference to acquisitions which will fit her to be a better wife and mother, she becomes a fair subject for the shafts of the satirical censor.

* * * * *

The following bit of gossip is especially "Frenchy," and will remind the readers of "The Drawer" of the man described by the late ROBERT C. SANDS, who sued for damages in a case of breach-of-promise of marriage. He was offered two hundred dollars to heal his breaking heart. "Two hundred dollars!" he exclaimed; "two hundred dollars for ruined hopes--for blighted affection--for a wretched existence--a blasted life! Two hundred dollars! for all this!! No--never! _Make it three hundred, and it's a bargain!_" But to the French story:

"A couple very well known in Paris are at present arranging terms of separation, to avoid the scandal of a judicial divorce. A friend has been employed by the husband to negotiate the matter. The latest mission was in relation to a valuable ring given to the husband by one of the then sovereigns of Europe, and which he wished to retain. For this he would make a certain much-desired concession, The friend made the demand--

"What!" said the indignant wife, "do you venture to charge yourself with such a mission to _me_! Can you believe that I could tear myself from a gift which alone recalls to me the day when my husband loved me? No: this ring is my only _souvenir_ of a happiness, now, alas! forever departed! 'Tis all that I now possess of a once-fond husband!"

Here she threw herself upon a _fauteuil_, and covered her face with her hands.

But the husband's friend insisted. The lady supplicated--grew desperate--threatened to submit to a public divorce, as a lesser evil than parting with that cherished ring--and at last confessed that she had--_sold the ring six months before!_

Wasn't _that_ a climax?

* * * * *

A very quaint and pretty scrap of verse is this, from the old German:

"Should you meet my true love, Say, I greet her well; Should she ask you how I fare, Say, she best can tell.

"Should she ask if I am sick, Say, I died of sorrow; Should she then begin to weep, Say, I'll come to-morrow!"

* * * * *

It has been thought strange, that when a malefactor is executed at "_The Tombs_," that curiosity should be excited to know how the unfortunate wretch behaved at the last, and at the same time great anxiety is manifested to obtain the slightest relic connected with his ignominious death. This propensity is well hit off in the following episode in the life of "_A Criminal Curiosity-Hunter_." A friend visits him, and he thus describes the interview:

"He received me with extreme urbanity, and asked me to sit down in an old-fashioned arm-chair. I did so.

"'I suppose, sir,' said he, with an air of suppressed triumph, 'that you have no idea that you are now sitting in a very remarkable chair!'

"I assured him that I was totally unconscious of the fact.

"'Let me tell you, then,' said he, 'that it was in that chair that Fauntleroy, the banker, who was hanged for forgery, was sitting when he was arrested!'

"'Indeed!'

"'Fact, sir! I gave ten guineas for it! I thought, also, to have obtained the night-cap in which he slept the night before his execution, but another collector was beforehand with me, and bribed the turnkey to steal it for him.'

"'I had no idea,' I said, 'that there could be any competition for such an article.'

"'Ah, sir!' said he, with a deep sigh, 'you don't know the value of these interesting relics. I have been upward of thirty years a collector of them. When a man devotes himself to a great object, he must go to it heart and soul. I have spared neither time nor money in _my_ pursuit; and since I became a collector I have attended the execution of every noted malefactor throughout the kingdom.'

"Perceiving that my attention was drawn to a common rope which served as a bell-pull, he said to me:

"'I see you are remarking my bell-cord; that is the identical rope, sir, which hanged Bellingham, who murdered Mr. Perceval in the House of Commons. I offered any sum for the one in which Thistlewood ended his life, to match it, but I was disappointed.... The Whigs, sir, have swept away all our good old English customs, and deprived us of our national recreations. I remember, sir, when Monday was called 'hanging-day' at the Old Bailey; on that morning a man might be certain of seeing three or four criminals swung off before breakfast.'"

The criminal curiosity-hunter now takes his friend into an adjoining room, where he shows him his general museum of curiosities, comprising relics of every grade of crime, from murder to petty larceny; among them a door-mat made of oakum picked by a "lady"-culprit while in the penitentiary; a short clay-pipe, once in the possession of Burke, the wholesale murderer; and the _fork_ belonging to the _knife_ with which some German had cut his wife's and children's throats!

* * * * *

"Misery," it is said, "loves company." What a juvenile "company," when the last thaw came--(and so many came, after what was supposed to be the _last_ snow, this season, that it would be difficult to count them)--what a juvenile company, we say, there was, to lament with the skate-vender who poured out his griefs in the following affecting parody upon the late THOMAS MOORE'S lines, "I never loved a dear gazelle," &c.:

"I never wrote up 'Skates to sell,' Trusting to fickle Nature's law, But--when I advertised them well, And puffed them--it was sure to thaw. Yes; it was ever thus--the Fates Seem adverse to the trade in skates.

"If a large lot I chanced to buy, Thinking 'twas likely _still_ to freeze Up the thermometer would fly, All in a day, some ten degrees. Their presence in my window-pane, Turns ice to mud, and snow to rain."

But, after all, our skate-vender has no great need of fear. We have had deep snows in April, and May _may_ bring him his season yet: for what says the Almanac of past years? Why, that

"Monday, fourth of May, Was a very snowy day!"

_Literary Notices._

_Austria in 1848 and '49_, by W.H. STILES (Harper and Brothers). This work, in two octavo volumes, by the late Chargé d'Affaires of the United States, at the Court of Vienna, furnishes the most complete history that has yet appeared of the political affairs of Hungary, with ample and accurate details of the late disastrous revolutionary struggle. From his diplomatic position at Vienna, Mr. Stiles had rare opportunities for observation, of which he has availed himself in a manner that is highly creditable to his acuteness and good sense. He has evidently made a diligent study of his subject in all its bearings; the best authorities have been faithfully consulted; conflicting views have been cautiously weighed; but his final conclusions are derived from the free exercise of his own judgment. Hence his work is quite free from the spirit of partisanship. It is critical in its tone, rather than dogmatic. Aiming at entire impartiality, it may seem too moderate in its statements to satisfy the advocates of extreme views on either side. Mr. Stiles shows an ardent attachment to the principles of liberty; he is thoroughly imbued with the spirit of American institutions; but he has no sympathy with the Communism or Red Republicanism of Europe. An admirer of the heroic enthusiasm of Kossuth, he displays no wish to conceal the defects of his character. He is opposed, with strong conviction, to the interference of America in the affairs of Hungary. At the same time he deprecates the tyranny of which she has been the victim, and presents a candid and intelligent view of the nature of her recent struggle. His volume contains many felicitous portraitures of the leading actors on both sides. A number of valuable and interesting documents, illustrative of the Revolutionary movement, are preserved in the Appendix.

The following description of the Seressâners, a portion of Jellachich's troops, presents a favorable specimen of the picturesque style in which the author often temperately indulges:

"_Seressâners_ are the wild border soldiers from Montenegro, and bearing a stronger resemblance to the Indians of the North American forests than to the ordinary troops of the European continent. The frame of such a borderer seems to be nothing but sinew and muscle; and with ease, nay, without appearing to be at all affected by them, he endures hardships and fatigues to which the most seasoned soldiers are scarcely equal. A piece of oaten bread and a dram of _sklikowitz_ (plum brandy) suffice him, on an emergency, a whole day, and with that refreshment alone will march on untired, alike in the most scorching heat and the most furious snow-storm; and when night comes, he desires no other couch than the bare ground, no other roof than the open sky. Their costume is most peculiar, as well as picturesque. There is something half Albanian in some portions of the dress--in the leggings and full trowsers fastened at the knee, and in the heavily gold-embroidered crimson jacket. But that which gives decided character and striking originality to these sons of war is the cloak. Over these giant frames hangs a mantle of scarlet cloth, fastened tightly at the throat; below this, on the breast, depends the clasp of the jacket, a large silver egg, made so as to open and serve as a cup. In the loose girdle are to be seen the richly-mounted pistols and glittering kandjar--Turkish arms chiefly; for every _Seressâner_ is held, by old tradition, to have won his first weapon from the Turk. The mantle has a cape, cut somewhat in the shape of a bat's wing, but which, joined together by hooks and eyes, forms a sharp pointed hood, resembling those of the Venetian _marinari_, but higher and more peaked. Over the crimson cap, confined by a gold band upon the brow, falling with a gold tassel on the shoulder, rises this red hood, usually overshadowing such a countenance as a Murillo or a Vandyke would delight to portray. The brilliant rays of the long dark eye repose beneath a thick fringe of sable lashes; but you feel that, if awakened, they must flash forth in fire. The brow, the mouth, and the nose are all essentially noble features; and over all is spread a skin of such clear olive-brown, that you are inclined to think you have a Bedouin before you."

Our readers will remember the controversy which has recently produced some excitement in London, with regard to a person claiming to be a Hungarian baroness, employed in the political service of Kossuth. The following curious anecdote sets that question at rest, while it explains the romantic manner in which Mr. Stiles was put in possession of the dispatch from Kossuth, requesting his intervention with the Imperial Government:

"On the night of the 2d December, 1848, when all communication between Hungary and Austria had ceased, large armies on either side guarding their respective frontiers, the author was seated in the office of the Legation of the United States at Vienna, when his servant introduced a young female, who desired, as she said, to see him at once upon urgent business. She was a most beautiful and graceful creature, and, though attired in the dress of a peasant, the grace and elegance of her manner, the fluency and correctness of her French, at once denoted that she was nearer a princess than a peasant. She sat and conversed for some time before she ventured to communicate the object of her visit. As soon as the author perceived that in the exercise of the utmost caution she desired only to convince herself that she was not in error as to the individual she sought, he told her that, upon the honor of a gentle man, she might rest assured that the individual she saw before her was the diplomatic agent of the United States at the court of Vienna. Upon that assurance, she immediately said, 'Then, sir, I am the bearer of a communication to you.' She then asked, 'Have you a servant, sir, in whom you can rely, who can go with me into the street for a few moments?' The author replied that he had no servant in whom he could rely, that he feared they were all in the pay of the police, but that he had a private secretary in whom he reposed confidence, and who could accompany her. The secretary was immediately called, they descended together into the street, and in a few moments returned, bearing with them the rack of a wagon. This rack, which is a fixture attached either to the fore or back part of a peasant's wagon, and intended to hold hay for the horses during a journey, was composed of small slats, about two inches wide and about the eighth of an inch thick, crossing each other at equal distances, constituted a semicircular net-work. As all these slats, wherever they crossed, were fastened together with either wooden or iron bolts, with our unskillful hands an hour nearly was consumed before we could get the rack in pieces. When this was accomplished, we saw nothing before us but a pile of slats; but the fair courier, taking them up one by one, and examining them very minutely, at length selected a piece, exclaiming, 'This is it!' The slat selected resembled the others so completely, that the most rigid observer, unapprised of the fact, could not have detected the slightest difference between them; but, by the aid of a penknife, to separate its parts, this slat was found to be composed of two pieces, hollowed out in the middle, and affording space enough to hold a folded letter. In this space had been conveyed, with a secrecy which enabled it to pass the severe scrutiny of the Austrian sentinels, the communication addressed to the author by Louis Kossuth.

"The mysterious personage, as intrepid as she was fair, who undertook the conveyance of this dispatch, at night, alone and unprotected, in an open peasant's wagon, in a dreadful snow-storm, through the midst of the Austrian army, when detection would have been certain death, was (as M. Pulszky has just informed the author) then a single lady, has since married, and is now the Countess Motesiczky.

"The statement, therefore, of a person assuming the title of Baroness de Beck, and who, in a work upon the Hungarian war, published in England about two years ago, claiming for herself the credit of having been the bearer of the dispatch referred to, is altogether without foundation. This authoress, whose character, as well as untimely and remarkable death, was involved in so much mystery, and excited for a time so much discussion in Europe, was (as M. Pulszky represents) the servant of the Countess Motesiczky, and thus became possessed of a knowledge of the incident above detailed."

Stringer and Townsend have issued the fourth edition of _Frank Forester's Field Sports of the United States_, by HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT, with several additions and new pictorial illustrations. One need not be a practical sportsman in order to enjoy, with keen zest, the racy descriptions of silvan life which flow so charmingly from the practiced pen of this accomplished "Forester." In the woods, he is every where at home. He not only knows how to bag his game, but he studies all their habits as a book, and never leaves them till they have fulfilled their destiny on the table of the epicure. Writing, in a great measure, from personal experience, his style has all the freshness of a mountain breeze. With a quick eye for the picturesque, he paints the scenery of our American sporting grounds, with admirable truthfulness and spirit. He has made free use in these volumes of the works of distinguished naturalists, Audubon, Giraud, Wilson, Godman and others, and has been equally happy in his borrowings and in his own productions. We recommend his manual to all who cherish a taste for rural life. To sportsmen, of course, we need say nothing of its merits.

The _Golden Christmas_, by W. GILMORE SIMMS is the title of a slight story, presenting many vivid sketches of social life on a Southern plantation. In its execution, it is more careless than the usual writings of the author, but its ease and vivacity will make it a favorite with indulgent readers in search merely of amusement. Its prevailing tone is "genial and gentle, tender and tolerant, not strategetical and tragical." (Published by Walker, Richards, and Co. Charleston, S.C.)

_Falkenburgh_ is a recent novel by the author of "Mildred Vernon," which is well worth reading, for its piquant delineations of character, apart from the current interest of the plot, which is one of great power and intensity. The scene is laid in the picturesque regions of the Rhine, and suggests many delightful pictures to the rare descriptive talents of the writer. (Harper and Brothers.)

A new work of fiction by CAROLINE CHESEBRO, entitled _Isa, A Pilgrimage_, is issued by J.S. Redfield, in the style of simple elegance which distinguishes his recent publications. This is a more ambitious effort than the former productions of the authoress, displaying a deeper power of reflection, a greater intensity of passion, and a more complete mastery of terse and pointed expression. On the whole, we regard it as a successful specimen of a quite difficult species of composition. Without the aid of a variety of incident or character, with scarcely a sufficient number of events to give a fluent movement to the plot, and with very inconsiderable reference to external nature, the story turns on the development of an abnormal spiritual experience, showing the perils of entire freedom of thought in a powerful, original mind, during the state of intellectual transition between attachment to tradition and the supremacy of individual conviction. The scene is laid in the interior world--the world of consciousness, of reflection, of passion. In this twilight region, so often peopled with monstrous shapes, and spectral phantasms, the author treads with great firmness of step. With rare subtlety of discrimination, she brings hidden springs of action to light, untwisting the tangled webs of experience, and revealing with painful minuteness, some of the darkest and most fearful depths of the human heart. The characters of Isa and Stuart, the leading personages of the story, certainly display uncommon insight and originality. They stand out from the canvas in gloomy, portentous distinctness, with barely light enough thrown upon them to enable us to recognize their weird, mysterious features. For our own part, we should prefer to meet this writer, whose rare gifts we cordially acknowledge, in a more sunny atmosphere; but we are bound to do justice to the depth and vigor of the present too sombre creation.

_The Howadji in Syria_, by GEORGE W. CURTIS (Harper and Brothers). Another fragrant record of Oriental life by the delightful pen which dropped spices and honey so luxuriantly in the unmatched _Nile Notes of a Howadji_. This volume is written in a more subdued strain--the radiant Oriental splendors gleam less dazzlingly, as the traveler approaches the West--the pictures of gorgeous beauty are softened down to a milder tone--and as the pinnacles of the Holy City appear in view, a "dim religious light" tempers the glowing imaginative sensuosity which revels in the glorious enchantments of the sunny Nile. As a descriptive writer, the Howadji has few equals in modern literature. He is indebted for his success to his exquisite perceptions of external nature, combined with a fancy fertile in charming images, and a vein of subtle reflection, which often gives an unexpected depth to his pictures, in the midst of what may at first seem to be only the flashes of a brilliant rainbow coloring. His notices of facts have the accuracy of a gazetteer. They are sharp, firm, well-defined, and singularly expressive. The most prosaic writer could not give a more faithful daguerreotype copy of Eastern scenery. Read his account of the Camel, in the description of his passage across the Desert from Cairo to Jerusalem. The ugly beast is made as familiar to the eye as the horses in a Broadway omnibus. A few authentic touches give a more vivid impression of this unwieldy "ship of the desert" than the labored details of natural history. But this fidelity to nature is by no means the ultimate aim of the Howadji. It is only the condition of a higher sweep. It serves as the foundation of a series of delicious prose poems, sparkling with beauty, electric with emotion, and seductive to the ear by their liquid melody of expression. The Howadji is no less loyal to feeling than he is faithful to nature. With not the faintest trace of sentimentalism, he is not ashamed of the eye and the soul susceptible to all beautiful influences. He writes out his experience with a cordial frankness that disarms prejudice. This union of imagination and fact in the writings of the Howadji must always give a charm to his personal narratives. No one can listen to the relation of his unique adventures without delight. How far his admirable success in this line of composition would insure his success in a purely imaginative work, we do not venture to predict. We trust he will yet give us an opportunity to decide the experiment.

_A Commentary on the Book of Proverbs_, by MOSES STUART. In a characteristic Preface to this volume, which is the last that came from the press previous to the lamented death of the author, Professor Stuart maintains that the Book of Proverbs was not wholly composed by Solomon, but that it consists of a selection of the proverbial sayings that were current among the wise men of the Hebrew nation. These were digested and arranged by Solomon, and received his sanction by passing through his hands. Most of the maxims are the offspring of sound common sense, of much experience, and of acute discrimination. They present a vivid picture of the internal Hebrew man--of his genius, feelings, morals, industry, social condition, and, indeed, of the whole state of the Hebrews, and their rank among the society of nations. The commentary by Professor Stuart is adapted to beginners in the Hebrew study, giving minute attention to all the philological difficulties, whether in form, idiom, or syntax. It exhibits a profusion of grammatical and exegetical learning, a devoted study of the original text, and considerable analytic acumen. (Published by M.W. Dodd.)

_The Story of a Soul_, by HENRY W. PARKER, is the title of an anniversary Poem, read before a literary society of Hamilton College, devoted to a retrospect of the supposed experience of a soul, and of the progress of society during the nineteenth century. It shows a lively imagination, a familiar acquaintance with human nature, and an uncommon fluency of expression. The alternation in the poem of grave reflections on the spiritual life, and touches of sarcastic humor on the current events of the day, gives a lively air to the composition, and well sustains the interest of the reader. (Sold by Evans and Brittan.)

Lippincott, Grambo, and Co. have commenced the publication of a series of _Cabinet Histories_, embracing a volume for each State in the Union. The work is intrusted to the charge of T.S. ARTHUR, and W.H. CARPENTER, whose names may be taken as a guarantee that their task will be performed with exactness and fidelity, and that no sectarian, sectional, or party feelings will bias their judgment, or lead them to violate the integrity of history. It is intended to present a brief narrative of the domestic policy of each State; and, at the same time, to give a peculiar prominence to the personal history of the people, illustrating the progressive development of the social state from the rude forest life of the earlier day to the present condition of refinement and prosperity. The design of the series is excellent. If ably carried out, as we have no doubt it will be, it must prove an important contribution to the interests of popular education. We have already received the _Histories of Kentucky_ and of _Georgia_, which are executed in a manner that furnishes the highest promise for the future volumes of the series. The style is marked by rare simplicity and clearness. The facts are well arranged, and apparently based on authentic evidence. A fine portrait of the veteran pioneer, Daniel Boone, embellishes the History of Kentucky.

The translation of MOSHEIM'S _Commentaries on the State of Christianity before the Age of Constantine_, by JAMES MURDOCK, D.D., is a valuable contribution to the literature of Ecclesiastical History. This work is well known to the students of theology as one of great learning and research, and has not been superseded by the more elaborate and ambitious productions of a later period. Dr. Murdock's name is a sufficient assurance of the fidelity of the translation. (Published by S. Converse.)

A new edition of Madame PULSZKY'S delightful _Tales and Traditions of Hungary_ has been issued by J.S. Redfield. They are full to overflowing of the genuine Magyar spirit, presenting a series of rich and beautiful portraitures of the old Hungarian life. In the prevailing interest which is now attached to the country of Kossuth, this volume can not fail to find a welcome reception with the American public.

_Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers_, by WILLIAM EDMONDSTONE AYTOUN. The brave martial spirit of these poems of the olden time is finely sustained by the ringing melody of their rhythm. Combining a fervent admiration of the Cavaliers with a devout hatred of the Covenanters, the author has embodied his political feelings in resonant strains. The neat edition of his volume brought out by Redfield will make him better known in this country.

Harper and Brothers have published _Notes on the Book of Revelation_, by Rev. ALBERT BARNES, forming the eleventh volume of Barnes's _Notes on the New Testament_. The character of this popular commentary is too well known to require any critical remarks. In the preface to the present volume, the author makes some interesting statements with regard to the progress of the work from its commencement to its completion. It was begun more than twenty years ago. It was intended only to comprise brief and simple Notes on the Gospels, for the use of Bible classes and Sunday-school teachers. Contrary to the original plan of the author, his Notes have been extended to eleven volumes, and embrace the whole of the New Testament. They have been written entirely in the early hours of the morning, before nine o'clock, the rest of the day having been invariably devoted to other pursuits. In studying the Apocalypse, without any pre-conceived theory as to its plan, Mr. Barnes discovered that the series of events recorded by Gibbon bore a singular correspondence to the series of symbols made use of by the sacred writer. This fact presents a point of literary curiosity which we apprehend has escaped the notice of previous writers. The remarks upon it by Mr. Barnes are quite to the purpose: "The symbols were such as it might be supposed _would be used_, on the supposition that they were intended to refer to these events; and the language of Mr. Gibbon was often such as _he would have used_, on the supposition that he had designed to prepare a commentary on the symbols employed by John. It was such, in fact, that, if it had been found in a Christian writer, professedly writing a commentary on the book of Revelation, it would have been regarded by infidels as a designed attempt to force history to utter a language that should conform to a pre-determined theory in expounding a book full of symbols. So remarkable have these coincidences appeared to me in the course of this exposition, that it has almost seemed as if he had designed to write a commentary on some portions of this book, and I have found it difficult to doubt that that distinguished historian was raised up by an overruling Providence to make a record of those events which would ever afterward be regarded as an impartial and unprejudiced statement of the evidences of the fulfillment of prophecy. The historian of the 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' had no belief in the divine origin of Christianity, but he brought to the performance of his work learning and talent such as few Christian scholars have possessed. He is always patient in his investigations; learned and scholar-like in his references; comprehensive in his groupings, and sufficiently minute in his details; unbiased in his statements of facts, and usually cool and candid in his estimates of the causes of the events which he records; and, excepting his philosophical speculations, and his sneers at every thing, he has probably written the most candid and impartial history of the times that succeeded the introduction of Christianity, that the world possesses, and even after all that has been written since his time, his work contains the best ecclesiastical history that is to be found. Whatever use of it can be made in explaining and confirming the prophecies, will be regarded by the world as impartial and fair, for it is a result which he least of all contemplated, that he would ever be regarded as an expounder of the prophecies in the Bible, or be referred to as vindicating their truth."

_Romanism at Home_, by KIRWAN, is a controversial work against the Roman Catholic Church, in a series of Letters to the Hon. Chief Justice Taney. Bold, vehement, and enthusiastic--of a stringent polemical tone--and abounding in striking local and personal details--it is adapted to make a strong impression, and can not fail to be extensively read. (Harper and Brothers.)

* * * * *

Lord COCKBURN'S _Life of Francis Jeffrey_ is welcomed by the London Press as one of the most charming books of the season. The Correspondence is spoken of as being singularly delightful. "The generous humanity," says the _Athenæum_, "the genial good-will, the ever-recurring play of the noblest affections of the heart endear to us the writer of these letters, and claim the sympathies of all who are alive to what is beautiful in human nature. They exhibit much of the vivacity and freshness of Walpole, combined with the literary grace of Chesterfield and the sweet tenderness of Cowper. In their union of emotional feeling with refined sense and bright conception, their character is almost poetical. They are revelations of Jeffrey's heart as well as of his head, and will make him known and loved by countless readers. His fascination as friend and companion can be easily understood after reading these effusions of a mind whose genial feeling could not be stifled or depressed by forensic or literary toil, or by the snows of age."

* * * * *

The ninth and tenth volumes of Mr. GROTE'S _History of Greece_ are now out. They bring down the history from the period of the culmination of the Spartan supremacy, to the accession of Philip of Macedon. "A very remarkable thing about these two volumes," says the _Leader_, "is the amount of political teaching they contain, adapted to the present hour. The volumes are, we may say, pervaded with a lesson of contrast between the results of a government founded on despotism, and those of a government founded on free speech. Invariably in Greece, where free speech was permitted, and democratic spirit prevailed, the developments of society were better, greater, and more orderly, than where matters were managed by long continuations of military despotism, or occasional _coups d'état_." Three or four volumes more will conclude this great work.

* * * * *

Mr. GLADSTONE has published the third volume of his translation of FARINI'S _History of the Roman State_. This volume carries on the story from the flight of the Pope, to the landing of General Oudinot at Civita Vecchia. "The narrative is interesting," says the _Leader_, "but, like the two previous volumes, narrow and peevish in its spirit. One regrets more than ever, on reading these volumes, that MARGARET FULLER'S _History of the Italian Movement_ has been lost to the world; it would have told the story of the Roman Republic in so different a spirit from that of the crabbed Farini, who, though he writes well enough, is precisely one of those men who would act like vinegar in any cause, souring all, and helping nothing. By-the-by, SAFFI, Mazzini's young and gifted colleague in the Triumvirate (one of the few men of whom even Farini speaks well, and who is precisely the man to win golden opinions from all sorts of people, and what is more, to deserve them), is writing a _History of the Roman Revolution of 1848-49_. We believe part of it is already written, if not published by the Italian press of Switzerland."

* * * * *

MR. MOXON has called in the _Shelley Papers_, in two volumes, published in January last, it having been discovered that the whole work was a collection of ingenious forgeries, deceiving alike publisher, editor, and public. The first suspicion raised of their genuineness was by a correspondent of the Literary Gazette drawing attention to the singular identity of whole paragraphs of some of the letters, with an article in the Quarterly on "Fine Arts in Florence" in 1840, and contemporaneously, Mr. Palgrave discovered the embodiment of a whole article of his father's, contributed to the Edinburgh Review. This led to further examination and strict inquiry, and there appears at the present time, says the London journals, but little reason to doubt that the letters which were purchased at auctions for high prices can be traced to the "George Gordon Byron, Esq.," whose projected publication in England, some years since, of some alleged secret unpublished papers of Lord Byron was prohibited.

We believe it has not yet been stated, with reference to these forgeries, that they were made, not to impose on autograph collectors, for which purpose their value, in relation to the time and pains spent in their fabrication, would offer no inducement; but they were produced to authenticate a new memoir of Lord Byron, but this publication having failed, and the author falling into distress, was compelled to part with his alleged "original MSS."

* * * * *

The _London Critic_ says that the Messrs. "Routledge have presented to the British lovers of poetry the collected works of JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, one of the foremost in local fame of the poets of America, but who is less known in England than some of his brethren of lesser merit. This reprint, at a trifling price, will, we trust, introduce him to the better acquaintance of our readers, who can not but be pleased with the vivid imagination, the fruitful fancy, the exquisite transcripts of nature, and the lofty sentiment that pervades his productions."

* * * * *

We learn from the _Athenæum_ that Margaret Fuller, on the eve of that visit to the Continent which was to prove so eventful and disastrous, left in the hands of a friend in London a sealed packet, containing, it is understood, the journals which she kept during her stay in England. Margaret Fuller contemplated at that time a return to England at no very distant date; and the deposit of these papers was accompanied by an injunction that the packet should then be restored with unbroken seal into her own hands. The papers are likely to be of great interest, and were doubtless intended for publication; but the writer had peremptorily reserved the right of revision to herself, and forbidden the breaking of the seals, on a supposition which fate has now made impossible. The equity of the case under such circumstances demands only a reference to Margaret Fuller's literary executors.

* * * * *

Lord JOHN RUSSELL is engaged in the preparation of a Life of _Charles James Fox_. The materials, collected by Lord Holland and by Mr. Allen, have been long since placed at his lordship's disposal, and the work might have been ready but for the public duties which occupy so much of his attention and time.

* * * * *

At a recent sale of books in London a few rarities were brought to the hammer. "The Bokes of Solomon," printed by W. Copland, 1551, a very rare little volume, sold for 26_l._; a copy of Coverdale's Bible, the edition of 1560, but imperfect, sold for 31_l._; a manuscript book of "Hours," with miniatures very prettily painted, sold for 19_l._ As if to prove that the days of bibliomania are not yet quite gone--a copy of "Barnes's History of Edward III.," which in ordinary condition is worth about 10_s._, sold for the large sum of 9_l._ 10_s._, simply because it happened to be in "choice old blue morocco, the sides and back richly tooled."

* * * * *

The election to the vacant chair of Greek in the University of Edinburgh which took place on the 2d of March, was contested with uncommon zeal. Up to a late period it seemed undecided which of the many able candidates for the office would win--but at last the choice lay between Dr. William Smith, Dr. Schmitz, Prof. Blackie, Prof. Macdowall, and Mr. Price. The election was ultimately decided by the Lord Provost giving a casting vote in favor of Prof. Blackie. In this gentleman the University has secured a man of genius, energy, and kindly feeling--and one well able to maintain its character for classical learning.

* * * * *

Mr. DICKENS'S _Bleak House_ is producing quite a marked sensation in Germany. Half a dozen publishers at least announced the work several weeks since, and on the 30th of March the first number of _Bleak House_ was to appear in half a dozen German translations. It remains to be seen what the German translators will do with the Court of Chancery and its technicalities.

* * * * *

There are now about five or six various translations of Macaulay's 'History of England' published in Germany. The number is likely to be increased by another translation, for which a Brunswick book-seller has engaged the name of HERR BESELER the Schleswig-Holstein politician of the year 1848.

* * * * *

BARANTE has published his third volume of the _Histoire de la Convention Rationale_, which comes down to the epoch of CARRIER, at Nantes.

* * * * *

PIERRE LEROUX, who is now an exile in London, is about to deliver a course of lectures on the _History of Socialism_. Pierre Leroux has not only the necessary erudition for the task, he has also the prestige of having intimately known the modern Socialists.

* * * * *

The works of CHAMFORT are collected into one octavo volume, with a preliminary essay by ARSENE HOUSSAYE. These writings abound in anecdotes, and sharp sentences, picturesque, ear-catching, brief, and suggestive phrases.

* * * * *

GEORGE SAND has made another unsuccessful dramatic experiment, _Pandolphe en vacances_, which distresses the admirers of her genius, who desire to see her renounce a stage to which that genius is clearly not adapted, in spite of _Le Champi_ and _Claudie_.

* * * * *

In the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ is commenced a skillful translation of Mrs. NORTON'S beautiful novel, _Stuart of Dunleath_, by EMILE FORGUES; and an intimation is given of this vein being actively worked.

* * * * *

No small sensation has been caused in Paris by the discovery of the extraordinary forgeries of the Shelley letters. The fact is, that the system of forging letters and manuscripts of distinguished personages is carried on to a large extent in that city: indeed it is as much a regular branch of business as the manufacture of pictures by the great masters is in Italy. In Germany similar frauds are practiced with great success. Only a little while ago a gentleman purchased several letters purporting to be written by Luther, every one of which it now appears is a forgery. In Italy the same system is carried on.

* * * * *

The literary remains of the late ANSELM FEUERBACH, the most learned of the professors of criminal jurisprudence in Germany, are about to be edited by his son, L. Feuerbach, and published by C. Wigand, of Leipzig.

* * * * *

King Max of Bavaria has given a commission to M. Halbig, the sculptor of Munich, to model from the life a bust of Schelling, the well-known German philosophical writer.

* * * * *

The admirers of German literature will be glad to learn that an attempt has been made in Germany to register the enormous number of books and pamphlets which the Germans themselves have published on their two great poets, Goethe and Schiller. A catalogue of the Goethe literature in Germany, from the year 1793 to 1851, has been published by Balde, at Cassel, and in London by Messrs. Williams and Norgate. The Schiller literature, from 1781 to 1851, is likewise announced by the same firm.

* * * * *

The literary remains of the late Count PLATEN-HALLERMUNDE, author of _The Tower with Seven Gates_, _The Romantic Oedipus_, _The Fateful Fork_, and other works, which will always stand pre-eminent in German literature, as well as the poet's correspondence with Count FUGGER, are now in the hands of Dr. MINKVITZ, who is preparing them for publication.

* * * * *

The first volume of _The Lives of the Sovereigns of Russia, from Rurik to Nicholas_, is announced as nearly ready in London. It is to be completed in three volumes, and to be printed uniformly with Miss Strickland's _Queens of England_, with illustrations. The author, who is not unknown to fame, truly remarks, "It is a singular fact that there is no such work at present in the English language, and that we know, perhaps, less of "Russia and the Russians," than we do of some of the distant tribes of India. It does appear, therefore, that there is a blank in our historical library which requires filling up; such a publication, consequently, may be deemed a _desideratum_ in English literature."

Three Leaves from Punch.

PENALTIES.

The Penalty of buying cheap clothes, is the same as that of going to law, the certainty of losing your suit, and having to pay for it.

The Penalty of marrying is a mother-in-law.

The Penalty of remaining single, is having no one who "cares a button" for you, as is abundantly proved by the state of your shirts.

The Penalty of thin shoes, is a cold.

The Penalty of a pretty cook, is an empty larder.

The Penalty of stopping in Paris, is being shot.

The Penalty of tight boots, is corns.

The Penalty of having a haunch of venison sent to you, is inviting a dozen friends to come and eat it.

The Penalty of popularity, is envy.

The Penalty of a baby, is sleepless nights.

The Penalty of interfering between man and wife, is abuse, frequently accompanied with blows, from both.

The Penalty of a Godfather, is a silver knife, fork, and spoon.

The Penalty of kissing a baby, is half-a-crown (five shillings, if you are liberal) to the nurse.

The Penalty of a public dinner, is bad wine.

The Penalty of a legacy, or a fortune, is the sudden discovery of a host of poor relations you never dreamt of, and of a number of debts you had quite forgotten.

The Penalty of lending, is--with a book or an umbrella, the certain loss of it; with your name to a bill, the sure payment of it; and with a horse, the lamest chance of ever seeing it back again sound.

The Penalty of being a witness, is to be abused by the lawyers, snubbed by the judge, and laughed at by the spectators; besides having the general state of your wardrobe described in the papers next morning.

WHAT I HEARD ABOUT MYSELF IN THE EXHIBITION.

I am the original of the "Portrait of a Gentleman," in the Exhibition of last year. I had my likeness taken, because I had a great admiration for the original. I thought my face handsome, and my figure noble, if not elegant--I believed that I had a remarkably grand head. I prided myself on my eyes, not only on account of their color, which I took for a deep gray, but also for a lustre which I fancied them to emit, which I supposed was the fire of genius. I was persuaded that I had a Roman nose and a finely chiseled mouth. Sometimes I thought I resembled Byron, at others Shelley. It is true I could not conceal from myself that my proportions were rather massive than lofty, and that my legs were somewhat curved; but I imagined that these peculiarities imparted a stalwart manliness to my bearing. While sitting to the artist I composed my countenance into the most dignified and intellectual expression of which it was capable. I was represented in full dress, and I thought I presented the appearance of an Apollo--perhaps a little too much developed--got up for an evening party. I was anxious that the public should share my gratification, and had the portrait sent to the Exhibition, where it appeared on the Catalogue as the "Portrait of a Gentleman." As soon as the Exhibition was opened I went there, and stationed myself before my picture; a crowd was gathered around. I thought, at first, that they were admiring it as much as I did. I listened to their criticisms, and was undeceived. "'Portrait of a Gentleman!'" said one, "Portrait of a Snob!" and passed on. I was indignant. "What could possess that fellow; with his unmeaning face, fat paunch, and bandy legs, to have his picture taken?" inquired another. My head swam, I thought I should have fainted. "Vulgarity personified;" "What a silly simper upon the face;" "What a self-satisfied smirk about the mouth," remarked a second, third, and fourth, as they cast their eyes upon the picture. "The head is like a dumpling," said a phrenological-looking visitor. "Why does he show that fat hand so conspicuously?" asked a sixth. I was represented standing with one leg crossed before the other, my hand resting upon a book--which attitude I thought harmonized with my remarkably intellectual countenance. "The figure would pass for Sancho Panza, but the face is too stupid," said a seventh. By this time I was almost stupefied with humiliation; but the worst was yet to come. Among those who were contemplating the portrait was a lady--the loveliest, I think, I ever saw. "Poor fellow!" said she, at last, with a sigh, "how dreadful it must be for him to have those horrid green eyes!" I could bear no more. I rushed from the Exhibition, and slunk to my rooms. What I suffered that night I can not describe. But the next day I recovered my senses; sent for my picture from the Exhibition; and am now reconciled to the fact that I am a very ugly-featured, bandy-legged punchy little fellow, not the least in the world like an Apollo.

Spring Fashions.

May is here with its bursting buds and early flowers, but its fickleness overmatches that of its imitator, Fashion, and foils all her attempts at adaptation of costume for the carriage or the promenade. To-day the sun smiles as in leafy June; to-morrow cold, gray clouds lower upon the brow of the firmament, and chilling winds chase the zephyrs back to the orange groves of the South. To-day a light dress is seasonable; to-morrow a cloak might not be uncomfortable. It is difficult for the modiste to designate the best costume for promenade; and to avoid error, we will confine our report to fashion in the parlor, drawing-room, and saloon.

FIG. 1 represents a pretty DINNER or VISITING TOILET. The head-dress is composed of blonde, ribbon and white satin, velvet ribbon and white feathers, and is worn very backward on the head. The blonde forms a round with scalloped edge, covered with figures. It is gathered in the middle, and the gathers are concealed under a cross bow formed of two loops of velvet and two of white satin, two long ends of white ribbon (about fifteen inches) hang down behind. On each side there are two white feathers. The upper one is laid backward, and the lower one comes forward. From between the two proceed two velvet bows and a loose end. This little Pompadour cap is the same on both sides. The ribbons of the crown are No. 12; those of the sides No. 3. Dress of _moire antique_, ornamented with narrow velvet ribbons, about three-eighths of an inch wide. Body plain, high, opening in front, edged with two narrow velvets, the first three-eighths of an inch wide. The opening is confined by five _moire_ bands, each with a bow of the same. The sleeves, rather short, are bordered with five velvet ribbons. The skirt is trimmed with two series of velvets. The first begins six inches from the bottom, and is composed of twenty rows. The second begins six inches above the other, and contains fifteen. The rest of the skirt is plain. The under-sleeves and habit-shirt are lace.

FIG. 2 is an elegant BALL TOILET. Hair waved and ornamented with a crown of small parti-colored tulips; it inclines to the Mary Stuart form on the head, and increases in size toward the bottom. Dress of taffeta with _tulle_ tunic and bertha. The body is ornamented with a bertha, open in front, round behind; this bertha, of _tulle_ in small puffs, is trimmed with clouded Pompadour white ribbon, No. 9. They are placed in such a manner as to inclose the bertha as if in a ring. The _tulle_ skirt is also tucked up and held by Pompadour ribbons, No. 16, which are set as if they raised it and held it in long loops. At the waist, these ribbons are plaited in with the plaits of the skirt. The _tulle_ skirt is puffed in very small puffs. In the middle of the body are placed bows of Pompadour ribbon, No. 9. On the left side there is a beautiful fall of tulips with foliage; the silk skirt is studded with bows of Pompadour ribbon, No. 12.

FIG. 3 represent a beautiful HOME or VISITING TOILET. Velvet vest and skirt; waistcoat, watered silk. The waistcoat reaches high, and is buttoned from top to bottom. The vest sits close behind and is open in front; it has a lapel turning up from the bottom, and trimmed with a plaid satin ribbon, having a velvet stripe in it. The sleeve is short, and ends in a plaid cuff, open at the sides. The edges of the lapel and the cuff are bound with a narrow black velvet. The skirt is trimmed with three rows of plaid ribbon, No. 22; the lowest is placed two inches from the edge. The second and third are at intervals of four inches from each other. A black velvet, No. 2, is laid about half an inch from each side of the ribbon. The collar is cambric, turning down flat, rounded at bottom. Under the collar a narrow black satin cravat is worn. The cambric under-sleeves are plaited small, and form a puff, confined by a narrow plain wristband, and terminated at the hand by a plain open _manchette_, rounded off at the corners, and held together by two jewel buttons connected with a chain. This sleeve is very much like the sleeves of a gentleman's shirt. A Matilda cap, of blonde. It is set very backward on the head; the crown is very small, and is drawn by a white watered ribbon, which is tied on one side, where it hangs in two ends. A branch of moss roses springs out of the knot. The band of the cap, which is made of indented blonde, is gathered, but short in front, whereas behind it is gathered and long.

FIGURE 4 represents a portion of an elegant BALL DRESS. Coiffure: hair in bandeaux, wreath of roses, small bunches of grapes, and satin ribbons with gold figures. Under-dress, white satin; the outer one with two _tulle_ skirts, embroidered in spots with silk, and trimmed with ribbons. The satin body is rather low in front, and inclining to the V shape; the _tulle_ body is open in front down to the waist; it is confined by four small cords of silk and gold, which are tied in the middle, and terminate in small silk and gold tassels. The lower one goes round the waist, like a sash, and the two tassels fall at unequal distances rather low down the skirt. The _tulle_ body is gathered at the waist, in front, and at the bottom of the back. It is also gathered in the shoulder seam. Two ribbons are sewed on the edge of the body, the second disappears in the gathers. The satin sleeves are even and short; those of _tulle_ are open at the side and held by a knotted cord. The large _tulle_ skirt is trimmed at bottom with five ribbons. The first is gathered at the waist and arranged so as to drape in front and reach down lower at the sides. The bottom of the tunic is trimmed with three ribbons.

CAPS.--Those which are composed of English point-lace, Valenciennes, or Mechlin, are principally decorated with long streamers, or narrow ribbons, about two inches wide, forming a mass of _petit coques_, the ends of which being _frisotés_, droop in a similar way to the _gerbés_. Sometimes these narrow ribbons are colored and intermixed with various shades, which gives them the name of the _touffes à la jardinière_. Pretty ones are formed of Brussels point, and decorated with bunches of narrow gauze ribbon, green, pink, blue, white, brown, yellow, &c, twisted so as to form clusters upon each side of the bands. The little caps of the present day are mostly made in a slight point just over the forehead, where it comes a little forward, and rises upon each side just over the temples. These caps are made rather long at the ears.

HEAD-DRESSES.--Several very charming ones are now worn, formed of black lace, and ornamented upon the side with clusters of black velvet ribbon, richly _broché_ in gold, and having long drooping ends floating over the neck. We have also remarked several very piquant coiffures in velvet, decorated with gold sequins, so much in fashion now; while others of a lighter description are of _tulle_, embroidered with gold, and interlaced with chains of sequins, falling upon each side of the neck, and decidedly making the most aristocratic head-dress of the season. The wreaths of flowers now intended for our young _élégantes_, are also extremely pretty, some being formed of small bell-flowers, which droop in a single row, quite over the top of the forehead, while others have long sprays falling over the back part of the head, having a very novel effect.

Transcriber's Notes:

Words surrounded by _ are italicized.

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

Obvious printer's errors have been repaired, other inconsistent spellings have been kept, including: - use of hyphen (e.g. "beehives" and "bee-hives"); - any other inconsistent spellings (e.g. "Bedoueen" and "Bedouin").

Pg 780, word "not" removed (is [not] mentioned).

Pg 793, word "have" removed (who have [have] dared to think).

Pg 828, sentence "(TO BE CONTINUED.)" added at the end of article.

Pg 813, three occurrences of word "courtesy" changed into "curtsey" (a smile and curtsey).