CHAPTER XV.

The next morning Helen was very ill--so ill that, shortly after rising, she was forced to creep back to bed. Her frame shivered--her eyes were heavy--her hand burned like fire. Fever had set in. Perhaps she might have caught cold on the bridge--perhaps her emotions had proved too much for her frame. Leonard, in great alarm, called on the nearest apothecary. The apothecary looked grave, and said there was danger. And danger soon declared itself.--Helen became delirious. For several days she lay in this state, between life and death. Leonard then felt that all the sorrows of earth are light, compared with the fear of losing what we love. How valueless the envied laurel seemed beside the dying rose.

Thanks, perhaps, more to his heed and tending than to medical skill, she recovered sense at last--immediate peril was over But she was very weak and reduced--her ultimate recovery doubtful--convalescence, at best, likely to be very slow.

But when she learned how long she had been thus ill, she looked anxiously at Leonard's face as he bent over her, and faltered forth, "Give me my work! I am strong enough for that now--it would amuse me."

Leonard burst into tears.

Alas! he had no work himself; all their joint money had melted away; the apothecary was not like good Dr. Morgan; the medicines were to be paid for, and the rent. Two days before, Leonard had pawned Riccabocca's watch; and when the last shilling thus raised was gone, how should he support Helen? Nevertheless he conquered his tears, and assured her that he had employment; and that so earnestly that she believed him, and sank into soft sleep. He listened to her breathing, kissed her forehead, and left the room. He turned into his own neighboring garret, and, leaning his face on his hands, collected all his thoughts.

He must be a beggar at last. He must write to Mr. Dale for money--Mr. Dale, too, who knew the secret of his birth. He would rather have begged of a stranger--it served to add a new dishonor to his mother's memory for the child to beg of one who was acquainted with her shame. Had he himself been the only one to want and to starve, he would have sunk inch by inch into the grave of famine, before he would have so subdued his pride. But Helen, there on that bed--Helen needing, for weeks perhaps, all support, and illness making luxuries themselves like necessaries! Beg he must. And when he so resolved, had you but seen the proud, bitter soul he conquered, you would have said--"This which he thinks is degradation--this is heroism. Oh strange human heart!--no epic ever written achieves the Sublime and the Beautiful which are graven, unread by human eye, in thy secret leaves." Of whom else should he beg? His mother had nothing, Riccabocca was poor, and the stately Violante, who had exclaimed, "Would that I were a man!" he could not endure the thought that she should pity him, and despise. The Avenels! No--thrice No. He drew toward him hastily ink and paper, and wrote rapid lines that were wrung from him as from the bleeding strings of life.

But the hour for the post had passed--the letter must wait till the next day; and three days at least must elapse before he could receive an answer. He left the letter on the table, and, stifling as for air, went forth. He crossed the bridge--he passed on mechanically--and was borne along by a crowd pressing toward the doors of Parliament. A debate that excited popular interest was fixed for that evening, and many bystanders collected in the street to see the members pass to and fro, or hear what speakers had yet risen to take part in the debate, or try to get orders for the gallery.

He halted amidst these loiterers, with no interest, indeed, in common with them, but looking over their heads abstractedly toward the tall Funeral Abbey--Imperial Golgotha of Poets, and Chiefs, and Kings.

Suddenly his attention was diverted to those around by the sound of a name--displeasingly known to him, "How are you, Randal Leslie? coming to hear the debate?" said a member who was passing through the street.

"Yes; Mr. Egerton promised to get me under the gallery. He is to speak himself to-night, and I have never heard him. As you are going into the House, will you remind him?"

"I can't now, for he is speaking already--and well too. I hurried from the Athenæum, where I was dining, on purpose to be in time, as I heard that his speech was making a great effect."

"This is very unlucky," said Randal. "I had no idea he would speak so early."

"M---- brought him up by a direct personal attack. But follow me; perhaps I can get you into the House; and a man like you, Leslie, of whom we expect great things some day, I can tell you, should not miss any such opportunity of knowing what this House of ours is on a field night. Come on!"

The member hurried toward the door; and as Randal followed him, a bystander cried--"That is the young man who wrote the famous pamphlet--Egerton's relation."

"Oh, indeed!" said another. "Clever man, Egerton--I am waiting for him."

"So am I."

"Why, you are not a constituent, as I am?"

"No; but he has been very kind to my nephew, and I must thank him. You are a constituent--he is an honor to your town."

"So he is; enlightened man!"

"And so generous."

"Brings forward really good measures," quoth the politician.

"And clever young men," said the uncle.

Therewith one or two others joined in the praise of Audley Egerton, and many anecdotes of his liberality were told.

Leonard listened at first listlessly, at last with thoughtful attention. He had heard Burley, too, speak highly of this generous statesman, who, without pretending to genius himself, appreciated it in others. He suddenly remembered, too, that Egerton was half-brother to the Squire. Vague notions of some appeal to this eminent person, not for charity, but employ to his mind, gleamed across him--inexperienced boy that he yet was! And while thus meditating, the door of the House opened, and out came Audley Egerton himself. A partial cheering, followed by a general murmur, apprised Leonard of the presence of the popular statesman. Egerton was caught hold of by some five or six persons in succession; a shake of the hand, a nod, a brief whispered word or two, sufficed the practiced member for graceful escape; and soon, free from the crowd, his tall erect figure passed on, and turned toward the bridge. He paused at the angle and took out his watch, looking at it by the lamp-light.

"Harley will be here soon," he muttered "he is always punctual; and now that I have spoken, I can give him an hour or so. That is well."

As he replaced his watch in his pocket, and re-buttoned his coat over his firm, broad chest, he lifted his eyes, and saw a young man standing before him.

"Do you want me?" asked the statesmen, with the direct brevity of his practical character.

"Mr. Egerton," said the young man, with a voice that slightly trembled, and yet was manly amidst emotion, "you have a great name, and great power--I stand here in these streets of London without a friend, and without employ. I believe that I have it in me to do some nobler work than that of bodily labor, had I but one friend--one opening for my thoughts. And now I have said this, I scarcely know how or why, but from despair, and the sudden impulse which that despair took from the praise that follows your success. I have nothing more to add."

Audley Egerton was silent for a moment, struck by the tone and address of the stranger; but the consummate and wary man of the world, accustomed to all manner of strange applications, and all varieties of imposture, quickly recovered from a passing effect.

"Are you a native of ----?" (naming the town he represented as member.)

"No, sir."

"Well, young man, I am very sorry for you; but the good sense you must possess (for I judge of that by the education you have evidently received) must tell you that a public man, whatever be his patronage, has it too fully absorbed by claimants who have a right to demand it, to be able to listen to strangers."

He paused a moment, and, as Leonard stood silent, added, with more kindness than most public men so accosted would have showed--

"You say you are friendless--poor fellow, in early life that happens to many of us, who find friends enough before the close. Be honest, and well-conducted; lean on yourself, not on strangers; work with the body if you can't with the mind; and, believe me, that advice is all I can give you, unless this trifle," and the minister held out a crown piece.

Leonard bowed, shook his head sadly, and walked away. Egerton looked after him with a slight pang.

"Pooh!" said he to himself, "there must be thousands in the same state in the streets of London. I can not redress these necessities of civilization. Well educated! It is not from ignorance henceforth that society will suffer--it is from over-educating the hungry thousands who, thus unfitted for manual toil, and with no career for mental, will some day or other stand like that boy in our streets, and puzzle wiser ministers than I am."

As Egerton thus mused, and passed on to the bridge, a bugle-horn rang merrily from the box of a gay four-in-hand. A drag-coach with superb blood-horses, rattled over the causeway, and in the driver Egerton recognized his nephew--Frank Hazeldean.

The young Guardsman was returning, with a lively party of men, from dining at Greenwich; and the careless laughter of these children of pleasure floated far over the still river.

It vexed the ear of the careworn statesman--sad, perhaps, with all his greatness, lonely amidst all his crowd of friends. It reminded him, perhaps, of his own youth, when such parties and companionships were familiar to him, though through them all he bore an ambitious, aspiring soul--"_Le jeu, vaut-il la chandelle?_" said he, shrugging his shoulders.

The coach rolled rapidly past Leonard, as he stood leaning against the corner of the bridge, and the mire of the kennel splashed over him from the hoofs of the fiery horses. The laughter smote on his ear more discordantly than on the minister's, but it begot no envy.

"Life is a dark riddle," said he, smiting his breast.

And he walked slowly on, gained the recess where he had stood several nights before with Helen; and dizzy with want of food, and worn out for want of sleep, he sank down into the dark corner; while the river that rolled under the arch of stone muttered dirge-like in his ear; as under the social key-stone wails and rolls on forever the mystery of Human Discontent. Take comfort, O Thinker, by the stream! 'Tis the river that founded and gave pomp to the city; and without the discontent, where were progress--what were Man? Take comfort, O THINKER! wherever the stream over which thou bendest, or beside which thou sinkest, weary and desolate, frets the arch that supports thee--never dream that, by destroying the bridge, thou canst silence the moan of the wave.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

THE FORTUNES OF THE REVEREND CALEB ELLISON.

CHAPTER THE FIRST.

The Reverend Caleb Ellison had an odd way of doing every thing; but he was so good a man, and so adored a clergyman, that his being in love was an interesting circumstance to a large proportion of the inhabitants of the country town in which he lived. When he looked up at the chimney-pots as he walked the streets, or went slowly skipping along the foot-pavement to the Reading-room in the market-place, the elders of his congregation might wish that he would walk more like other men, and the children giggled at the sight; but the ladies, young and old, regarded these things as a part of the "originality" which they admired in him; and Joanna Carey would scarcely admit to herself that such freaks required forbearance.

On Friday evening Mr. Carey returned before the rest of his party from a strawberry feast, to tell his wife that their dear girl had shown him by a look, that she must now decide on her lot for life. Ellison had certainly spoken. Joanna must decide for herself. If she was satisfied to have the greatest blessings that a woman could have--high moral and spiritual excellence in a man who loved her--and could, for these, make light of the daily drawbacks of his oddities, it was not for any one else to object. Mr. Carey could not say that his own temper would bear with so eccentric a companion; but perhaps he was narrow: perhaps his wife's nice household ways for twenty-five years had spoiled him. Joanna knew what she was undertaking. She knew that it was as much as the clerk and the deacons could do, to get the pastor into the pulpit in proper time every Sunday, and that this would be her business now. She knew that he seldom remembered to shave, and how he had burned his marble chimney-piece black; and--Well; perhaps these were trifles. Perhaps it was a fault not to regard them as such. If a father was fortunate enough to have a man of eminent single-mindedness for his son-in-law, and genius to boot, he ought not, perhaps, to require common sense also; but it had always been Mr. Carey's belief that good sense was the greatest part of genius.

By Sunday evening Mr. Carey was little disposed to desire any thing more in his intended son-in-law than had appeared that day. Joanna had engaged herself to him on Saturday evening. On Sunday morning there was something in the tone of his pathetic voice so unusual, in the very first verses of the Psalm, that many hearers looked up; and then they saw something very unusual in his countenance. He so preached, that a stranger inquired earnestly who this Mr. Ellison was, and whence he came; and his admirers in the congregation said he was inspired.

"Joanna behaved very well, did not she?" whispered Mrs. Carey to her husband, as they were returning from chapel.

"Very well, indeed. And it was extremely fine, his preaching to-day. Extremely fine!"

And this particular day, the father feared as little for Joanna as Joanna for herself.

There was no reason for delay about the marriage. Mr. Ellison had three hundred pounds a year from his office, and was never likely to have any more. The interest of Joanna's portion--one thousand pounds--was hers whenever she married. She was four-and-twenty, and Mr. Ellison was five years older. They were no children; there was no reason for delay; so every body knew of the engagement immediately, and the preparations went on diligently.

A pastor's marriage is always a season of great interest and amusement. In this case it was unusually diverting from the singular innocence of the gentleman about all household affairs. He showed all the solicitude of which he was capable to have every thing right and comfortable for Joanna; but his ideas were so extraordinary, that his friends suspected that he had been quizzed by certain youths of his congregation, who had indeed made solemn suggestions to him about dredging-boxes and rolling-pins, and spigots, and ball-irons, and other conveniences, the names of which were strange to him. He had promised to leave the whole concern of furnishing in the hands of a discreet lady and her daughters, with a power of appeal to Mrs. Carey in doubtful cases; but when these mysterious names had been lying on his mind for some days, he could not help making inquiries and suggestions, which brought nothing but laughter upon him. Mr. and Mrs. Carey thought the quizzing went rather too far; but Joanna did not seem to mind it.

"His head should not be stuffed with nonsense," observed Mr. Carey to his wife, "when business that he really ought to be attending to is left undone."

"You mean the Life Insurance," replied she. "Why do you not remind him of it?"

"I believe I must. But it is not a pleasant thing to do. No man in his circumstances ought to need to be spoken to more than once. However, I have to suggest to him to insure all this pretty furniture that his friends are giving him; and while I am speaking about the Fire Insurance, I can easily mention the more important one."

"I should feel no difficulty," observed Mrs. Carey. "He will be purely thankful to you for telling him what he ought to do."

An opportunity soon occurred. The presents came in fast: the Careys were consulted about how to stow them all. One evening at supper, the conversation naturally turned--as it probably does in every house--on what should be saved first in case of fire. Mr. Carey asked Mr. Ellison whether his landlord had not insured the cottage, and whether he himself was not thinking of insuring the furniture from fire.

Instant opposition arose from Mr. Carey's second daughter, Charlotte, who declared that she could not bear to think of such a thing. She begged that nobody would speak of such a thing. Indeed, she wondered that any body could. When induced to explain the emotions with which her mind was laboring, she declared her horror that any one belonging to her could feel that any money could compensate for the loss of the precious things, such as old letters, and fond memorials, which perish in a fire.

"How old are you, my dear?" inquired her father.

"Sixteen, papa."

"Indeed! I should have taken you to be six years younger. I should wonder at a child of ten talking so sillily as you are doing."

Mr. Ellison stared; for his sympathy with Charlotte's sentiment was so strong, that he was looking at her with beaming eyes, and softly ejaculating, "Dear Charlotte! dear child!"

It took some time to convince both (for young ladies of sixteen sometimes see things less clearly than six years before and ten years after that age) that, if precious papers and gifts are unhappily lost in a fire, that is no reason why tables and chairs, and fish-kettles and dredging-boxes, and carpets and house linen should not be paid for by an Insurance Office; but at last both young lady and pastor saw this. Still, Charlotte did not look satisfied; and her father invited her to utter what was in her mind. After some fencing about whether her thoughts were silly, and whether it would be silly to speak them, out came the scruple. Was there not something worldly in thinking so much about money and the future?

"Dear Charlotte! dear child!" again soliloquized Mr. Ellison.

Mr. Carey did not think the apprehension silly; but, in his opinion, the danger of worldliness lay the other way. He thought the worldliness lay in a man's spending all his income, leaving wife and children to be maintained by their neighbors, in case of accidents which may happen any day to any body, and which do happen to a certain proportion of people, within an assigned time, as regularly as death happens to all. Charlotte had nothing to say against life insurance, because every man knows that he shall die; and there is no speculation in the case. But she was extremely surprised to hear that there is an equal certainty, though of a narrower extent, about fire, and other accidents; that it is a fact that, out of so many householders, such and such a number will have their houses burned down.

"Is it indeed so?" asked Joanna.

"It is indeed so. Moreover, out of so much property, such and such an amount will perish by fire. Every householder being bound in with this state of things for his share of the risk, he owes it equally to others and to himself to secure the compensation, in case of accident. Does he not?"

"How to others?"

"Because he should contribute his share to the subscription, if you like to call it so, by which the sufferer from fire, whoever he be, is to be compensated. Thus, you see, Charlotte, that which seems to you an act of worldliness is a neighborly act, as well as a prudent one."

When reminded, Charlotte admitted that she had herself said so about the Cow Club at B----. She had told many people how the cottagers at B----, were now saved from all danger of ruin by the loss of a cow--a loss fatal to so many cottagers elsewhere. The farmers at B----, who could ill afford to lose from nine pounds to fifteen pounds at a stroke by the death of a cow, had joined with the cottagers in setting up a Cow Life-insurance. The club employed a skillful cow-doctor. The members paid in a small portion of the weekly profits of their milk-selling; and had the comfort of knowing that, whenever their cow died, they would be supplied with another, or with a part of the value of one, according to the length of time, or the yearly amount they had paid. Charlotte admitted that she had been delighted with the scheme, but now asserted that she was much more pleased about the Quakers and their ship.

"Ha! Quakers?" said Mr. Ellison.

Yes; those Quakers, now, were the sort of people whom Charlotte admired. So unworldly! so trusting! There was a rich India ship, belonging to some Quakers, lately wrecked in the Channel, very near her port. The whole cargo was lost. It had been a total loss to the owners, because their principles would not allow them to insure--to put themselves out of the hands of Providence, and speculate in "the stormy winds fulfilling his word." That had been their statement; and was there not something very beautiful in it? Charlotte looked at her father for an answer.

"Tell me, first, my dear," he replied, "whether you admire Tasker, the shoemaker, for refusing to have his children vaccinated, saying that it was taking them out of the hands of the Lord?"

Charlotte could not think of poor little Mary Tasker, disfigured and half blind, and not wish that she had been vaccinated; and yet Tasker had acted in a resigned spirit.

"Well: exactly as much as you admire Tasker, I admire your Quakers. I honor their motive, but I am sorry for their mistake--sorry that they refuse one safeguard against worldliness."

"Worldliness, papa!"

Mr. Carey explained how the moral dangers of commercial pursuits are in proportion to their gambling character. Large gains and great hazards must be more engrossing to the mind, and more stimulating to the passions than small and secure profits. The great drawback upon commerce with very remote countries is, or was, its gambling character, from the variety and seriousness of the risks, and the largeness of the profits laid on to cover them. By means of insurance against sea risks and other dangers, the losses are spread over so large a number that they cease to be losses, and become a mere tax, such as men may willingly pay for security. When a man has so introduced moderation into his gains and his losses, as to detach himself from "the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches," he may listen with a quiet pulse (as far as his own affairs are concerned) to the wind roaring over the sea, and need not be "afraid of evil tidings." It was quite a new view to Charlotte that her Quakers had been gambling, in fact, when they should have been trading safely; but she could not deny that it was so. Nobody wished her to give them up, in regard to their spirit of faith and trust; but nobody could stand up for their prudence.

The most striking view to Charlotte was that there is nothing accidental in storms and tempests; and that it is only our ignorance which makes us call them so. The realm of Meteorology is, no doubt, governed by laws as invariable as that of Astronomy. We know this fact, though we, as yet, know little of these laws. Something more we know: and that is, the average of shipwrecks and conflagrations, in a certain condition of society; in the same way that we know the average of men that will die, out of a certain number, in a certain time: and it is this knowledge of the averages which justifies the resource of insurance in all the three cases. When Mr. Ellison at length comprehended that there were thousands of prudent men now paying their mite to compensate him for the loss of his new furniture, in case of its being burned, on the simple condition of his paying his mite also, he was so struck by their neighborly conduct, that he could scarcely express his sense of it. The ladies considered it impossible that he should feel so strongly, and be heedless about the condition on his own part. Mr. Carey shook his head.

Mr. Carey was right. The wedding-day came, and the insurance was not effected.--Joanna did not like to tease her betrothed about worldly affairs. If the subject was mentioned, and the train of thought revived, he went into an enthusiasm about the benevolent class of insurers: but he did not become one himself.

CHAPTER THE SECOND.

The wedding-day came and went. The young people were married and gone. Mr. Ellison's flock were assembled, almost entire, in the parish church, for the first and last time. In those days, dissenters could not marry in their own chapels, or any where but in church; and the present was an occasion when the clergyman of the parish appeared to great advantage, with his kind courtesy toward his dissenting neighbors. The whole affair was talked over from day to day, during the wedding-trip of the Ellisons, in the intervals of Charlotte's business in preparing their house for their return. Then began her sisterly relation toward the pastor beloved by so many. Her reverence for him, and her pride on Joanna's account, made her consider his dignity (in spite of himself) on all occasions; from the receiving him at his own door, on the evening of arrival, to the defending him in every trifle in which he vexed her orderly father. When Mr. Carey complained of his being found at breakfast unshaven, and wondered how he would like to see Joanna come down with her hair in papers, Charlotte contended that these things mattered less in a gentleman than a lady; and that it was from a meditative turn that he forgot to shave, even as Newton forgot to dine. If he fell over all his new furniture in turn, she declared it was because the affection of his friends had over-crowded his cottage with memorials of their love. If he was met half-way to the town without his hat, she looked with reverence in his face for a foretaste of his next Sunday's sermon. When it came out that Joanna had paid all the post boys and bills on the journey; that Joanna had to go with him to the tailor's, when he was to be measured for a new coat; that Joanna had to carve, because he did not know the wing of a fowl from the leg--But we will not dwell further on the foibles of a good man whose virtues were as uncommon in their degree, as his weaknesses, it may be hoped, in kind.

Full as the cottage was of pretty things, it was destined to be yet fuller in another year. Never was there a prettier little wardrobe of tiny caps and robes, and the like, than room must be found for, the next autumn, in preparation for that prettiest of all things--a baby. Half the ladies in the congregation brought their offerings of delicate work, in cambric and the softest of flannel, and most fantastical of pincushions and baskets. It was a delightful season to the whole family; and Joanna was so well and bright! And when the great day was over, there were such rallyings of Mr. and Mrs. Carey, on their being so early a grand-papa and grand-mamma; and it was so droll to see Mr. Ellison, who seemed never to have seen a baby, but in baptizing the little creatures, whom he had always hitherto regarded as young Christians, and never as little infants! Mr. Carey was rather ashamed of the extent of his ignorance, shown on the first sight of his child in its sleep, by its mother's side.

"Ha!" he exclaimed, "a baby!" in as much surprise as if it had been the last thing he expected to see.

"Yes; there is your baby. How do you like her?"

He gazed in silence, and at length said--"But can she walk?"

"My dear Ellison! at a day old!"

"But can she talk?"

"All in good time. You will have enough of that by-and by."

"Dear, dear! Ha!" said he, again and again, till he was sent off to dinner, at a friend's house.

He dined at some friend's house every day. On the fourth day it was at a distance of three miles. Mrs. Carey had gone home, in the twilight of a November day. As soon as she was gone, the nurse stepped out, very improperly, for something that she wanted, the child being asleep beside Joanna. She desired the servant girl to carry up her mistress's gruel in a quarter-of-an-hour, if she was not back. The girl did so; and approached the bed, with the basin in one hand and a candle in the other. She poked the candle directly against the dimity curtains, and set the bed on fire. It was a large bed, in a small crowded room, close to two walls and near the window-curtain. The flame caught the tester instantly, and then the corner of the pillow, and the edge of the sheet. Before that, the girl had thrown down the basin of hot gruel on the baby, rushed to the window, thrown up the sash, and screamed; and she next rushed out at the door, leaving it wide open, and then at the house-door, leaving that wide open too. The air streamed up the staircase, and the bed was on fire all round.

Poor Joanna crept off the bed, and took the child in one arm, while with the other she tried to pull off a blanket. She was found weakly tugging at it. He who so found her was a sailor, who had seen the light from the road, and run up the stairs.

"I see how it is, madam," said he, in a cheerful voice. "Don't be alarmed; you are very safe. Come in here." And he carried her into the next room--the little drawing-room--and laid her, with her baby on her arm, on the sofa. He summoned a comrade, who was in the road. They pulled up the drugget from the floor, doubled it again, laid it over her, and tucked it nicely in, as if there was no hurry.

"Now, madam," said he, "where shall we carry you?" She was carried through damp and dusk to her father's house. Her mother was not there. Such news spreads, nobody knows how. Her mother was then in the streets without her bonnet, imploring every body she met to save her child. She presently encountered one of the sailors, returning to the fire. He assured her the lady and child were safe, and sent her home. Mr. Carey was almost as much beside himself. His first idea was, that it was Mr. Ellison who had, by some awkwardness, set his house on fire; and he said so, very publicly; and very sorry he was for it afterward.

Mr. Ellison was called from the dinner-table, and told he was wanted at home. He strode along, in a bewildered state, till he saw the flames from a distance. As he stood before the cottage, which was now one blaze, nobody could tell him where his wife was. He was trying to break from many hands, and enter the house, when some one at last came up with the news of the safety of his wife and babe. As for the servant, it was some days before she was heard of; and there were serious apprehensions about her, when her aunt came in from the country, to say that the poor creature had fled to her, and would never come near the town, or see any of the family again. Nobody wondered that she said she should never be happy again.

Joanna seemed to be really no worse for the adventure; and for some days it was confidently believed that the infant would do well, though it was severely scalded. Every thing was lost--every article of clothing of all three, all the pretty gifts, all the furniture, two precious portraits, all Mr. Ellison's books and manuscripts. But he was so happy and thankful that his chief treasures were saved, that he never preached more nobly than on the next Sunday, without a scrap of notes;--he who took such pains with his sermons, and never preached extempore! It was from the abundance of his heart that he spoke.

"I have to beg your pardon, Ellison," said Mr. Carey, "for what I said in the first moments of misery."

"It was natural--it was not doing me wrong; for my mother used to say that I did awkward things sometimes; that I was not expert; and it appears to me that I really have erred." And the good man went on to blame himself for having no furniture and clothes to give Joanna, no piano, no books! His landlord was no loser by the fire, while he was destitute. In short, Mr. Ellison was full of remorse for not having insured. All the ladies of his acquaintance were stitching away in his and his wife's behalf; but this was rather an aggravation than a comfort; and he fully intended to effect an insurance, both against fire (when he should again be settled) and on his life. Still, Mr. Carey told his wife, with a shake of the head, that his impression was that it would never be done.

All such thoughts were presently banished. The baby did not get through. After pining for ten days, she died. Then it was that the pastor's fine qualities manifested themselves. He surrendered so patiently a happiness and hope which had really become very dear to his heart; he supported Joanna so tenderly; he considered the whole family so much more than himself, that Mr. Carey vowed he would never more be vexed or ashamed at the peculiarities of such a man.

CHAPTER THE THIRD.

Nobody would hear of the pastor going into furnished lodgings. The pastor and his wife would not hear of Mr. Carey's furnishing another house for them. Joanna was allowed to draw half her little fortune to buy furniture and clothes, and a few indispensable books for her husband. Thus, their income was reduced by twenty-five pounds, and the half of the principal was gone. If that twenty-five pounds of lost income had been devoted to a life insurance, it would, at Mr. Ellison's present age, have secured one thousand pounds at his death. Thus he had, by neglect, in fact, thrown away one thousand five hundred pounds of future provision for his family. The present was not the easiest moment for contracting new obligations; but the duty was clear, even to the unpractical mind of the pastor. He went to London to effect his insurances, and his wife went with him partly for change of scene and thoughts, and partly because she knew that her husband could never get through the business by himself.

It was not got through, after all. One pious friend had affected them with fears, that they would find it an ensnaring bondage to worldly things to have to think of the payment of the annual premium; another thought it was speculating in God's will; another assured them that they could not spare the money, and should provide for their own household, and hospitality to neighbors, to-day, instead of taking thought for the morrow. They returned without having been near an insurance-office at all. The Careys thought this a sad mistake, and pointed out to them the peace of mind they would lose by the precariousness of their fortunes, and the ease with which the business might be managed, by the trustees of the chapel being authorized to deduct the necessary sum from the pastor's salary, and the pastor's way of living being proportioned to an income of three hundred pounds a year. It was certain that Mr. Ellison would never lay by money in any other way than this; for he could never see a beggar without giving him whatever he had in his pocket.

It may be observed, that insurance was a more onerous matter in those days than in ours. Science has introduced much ease and many varieties into the process of insurance. The rates of premium in Mr. Ellison's younger days were higher; the methods were restricted; middle-class men drank more, and taxed their brother insurers for their accelerated mortality, though precautions were taken against obviously fatal intemperance. The "bondage," that friends talked of, was greater, and the advantages were less, than at present. If Mr. Ellison was wrong in his delays and hesitation, much more are family men wrong who delay and hesitate now.

Time went on, and Joanna was made happy by the birth of a son. During the whole period of her confinement, her husband refused to leave the house, except on Sundays; and he went about, many times in the day, from the attics to the cellars, with his nose in the air, trying to smell fire. There was none, however, to reward his anxious search. No accident happened. The mother and child throve without drawback; and a finer little fellow really was never seen.

For two years--two precious years--all went well. Then came one of those seasons of unhealthiness which occur at intervals, as if to warn men of their ignorance of the laws on which their life depends, and to rebuke their carelessness about observing such conditions of health as they do understand. No town was less prepared to encounter an onset of autumnal fever than that in which the Ellisons lived. It had no right to expect health at any time: the history of the place told of plague in old times, and every epidemic which visited England became a pestilence amid its ill-drained streets, its tidal expanse of mud, and its crowded alleys. These were the times when the beloved pastor's fidelity shone out. For weeks he was, night and day, in close attendance on the poor of his flock; and any other poor who were needing help. He could not aid them in the way that a more practical man would have done; but Joanna supplied that kind of ability, while the voice of her husband carried peace and support into many a household, prostrated in grief and dread. He ran far greater risks all the while than he needed, if he could have been taught common prudence. He forgot to eat, and went into unwholesome chambers with an empty stomach and an exhausted frame. In spite of his wife's watchfulness, he omitted to give himself the easy advantages of freshened air, change of clothes, and a sufficiency of wholesome food; and, for one week, he hardly came home to sleep. It was no wonder that, at last, both were down in the fever. The best care failed to save Joanna. She died without having bidden farewell to husband and child. Her husband was in bed delirious, and her boy was in the country, whither he had been taken for safety when the fever entered the house.

Mr. Ellison recovered slowly, as might be expected, from the weight upon his mind. There was something strange, it appeared to his physician, in his anxiety to obtain strength to go to London. He was extremely pertinacious about this. The Careys, glad to see that he could occupy himself with any project, humored this, without understanding it. They spoke as if he was going to London when he should be strong enough. They did not dream of his not waiting for this. But, in the dark, damp evening of the day when he dismissed his physician, after Mrs. Carey had gone home, leaving him on the sofa, and promising that her husband should call after tea, he was seen at the coach-office, in the market-place; and he made a night-journey to London.

There were no railways in those days; and this journey of one hundred miles required twelve hours by the "Expedition," the "Highflyer," the "Express," or whatever the fastest coach might be called. As soon as he arrived, Mr. Ellison swallowed a cup of coffee in the bar of the inn, had a coach called, and proceeded to an insurance-office to insure his life. As he presented himself, emaciated and feeble, unwashed, unshaven, with a crimson handkerchief tied over his white lips, which quivered when he uncovered them; as he told his errand, in a weak and husky voice, the clerks of the office stared at him in pitying wonder; and the directors dismissed him from their parlor, under the gentlest pretexts they could devise.

He returned home immediately, and told his adventure to Mr. Carey.

"I could not rest till I had made the effort," he said. "When dear Joanna was gone, and I believed that I should follow her, it occurred to me that our child would be left destitute. I saw that I had neglected my duty; and I resolved that, if I recovered, it should be so no longer. I have made the effort; it has failed; and God's will be done!"

Mr. Carey would not allow that the matter must be given up. In fact, there was no difficulty in effecting the insurance, in the next spring, when Mr. Ellison was restored to his ordinary state of health, and Mr. Carey was his guide and helper in the business. The interest of Joanna's little portion was appropriated for the purpose, with a small addition, rendered necessary by the lapse of three years. It is well known that the most unworldly and unapt persons are the most proud of any act of prudence or skill that they may have been able to achieve. So it was in this case. When the pastor sat gazing at his child, it appeared to him a marvelous thing that he, even he, should have endowed any human being with a fortune. He was heard to say to himself, on such occasions, in a tone of happy astonishment,

"A thousand pounds! Ha! a thousand pounds!"

We can not here follow out the curious process of that boy's rearing. We have not space to tell how tenderly he was watched by grand-mamma, and by Charlotte, till her marriage gave her cares of her own:--nor what a stroke it was when Mr. Ellison moved to a distant city, being invited to a higher post in the ministry of his sect; nor how curiously he and his child lived in a lodging, where, notwithstanding all his efforts to fill the place of both parents, his boy was too often seen in rags; nor how the child played leap-frog and other games with little beggars and ruffians in the streets, so cleverly, that his father might be seen gazing at him from the foot-pavement, in a rapture of admiration; nor how, on the great occasion of the little lad's first going to chapel, he told every body within reach, that it was "Pa" in the pulpit; nor how, when he was tired of the sermon, he was wont to scrape the sand from the floor, and powder with it the wigs of the old men who sat in the long pew before him; nor how, at length, the importunity of friends prevailed to get him sent to school; nor how comfortably his father was boarded in a private family when the lodging plan became too bad to be borne even by him. All this we must leave undescribed; and also his satisfaction when, in a later time--when his son was grown up, and prosperous, and well married--the good pastor found himself at liberty to do, if he should wish it, what he had always thought ministers had better do, leave the pulpit before they were worn out--before any body had begun to look for their wearing out. The "dear child," as he still calls the father of his grand-children, early persuaded his father to take advantage of that modern improvement by which his life insurance can be commuted into an annuity at sixty years of age, if he should attain it, or receivable in full, if that method should be preferred. A small independence being thus secured, if he lives to leave the pulpit at sixty, and a legacy to his son, if he dies before that time, Mr. Ellison feels more free from worldly cares than is often the case with dissenting ministers who begin the world without fortune, and with thoughts far above the lucre of gain.

No one wonders that he never seemed to think of marrying again. Before his removal, the name of his "dear Joanna" was often on his lips. After his removal, it was never again heard, except on the rare occasions of his meeting old friends. He did not speak of her to those who had never known her; but not the less was her image understood to be ever in his thoughts.

LAMARTINE ON THE RESTORATION.[8]

[8] "History of the Restoration of Monarchy in France," by Alphonse De Lamartine. 12mo. Harper and Brothers.

An able critic in a recent English journal, remarks as follows, on the last brilliant work of Lamartine on "The History of the Restoration:" Whatever may be said of the author of this volume as a politician, and however much his capabilities for legislation may be despised, he ranks as a first class historian, and as the most brilliant foreign writer of the present day, both of his country's annals, romance, and poetry. If M. Lamartine's "History of the Girondists" excited immense interest, his "History of the Restoration of the Monarchy" is calculated to produce a much greater enthusiasm. The manner in which he details the thrilling events which succeeded the conclusion of the Reign of Terror in the former work, and the opening of the Consulate, has been spoken of by critics of all shades of politics as unique, as perfect in style and comprehensive in detail; but we doubt very much whether it will not be universally acknowledged that in all these points the new effort surpasses the older. The praise of such a work is best accorded by extracts from its own pages. Such extracts speak for themselves, and award far more valuable encomiums than any which those whose office it is to sit in judgment upon their characteristics can do. We present the following account of the arrest and murder of the young Duke d'Enghien, a crime which Europe has very justly never forgiven, and by which the character of Napoleon has been forever blasted. We had thought that a more vivid picture of this act of treachery could not by any possibility have been written than that which appears in the tale of Maurice Tierney, the Soldier of Fortune; but every thing which has been there said, or has been elsewhere written concerning that event, gives place to this vivid picture drawn by Lamartine, while his opinion respecting the dark deed itself, and the villainy by which it was accomplished, will ever stamp him as a man of the most honorable mind, and as a truly noble-hearted Frenchman.

ARREST AND MURDER OF THE DUKE D'ENGHIEN.

"Ordener set out on the same night, that of the 10th and 11th of March, and arrived on the 12th at Strassburg. He held a council on his arrival with General Leval, Charlot, the colonel of gendarmes, and the commissary of police, and they resolved to precede and facilitate the nocturnal expedition by a minute reconnoitring of the scene of action. An agent of police named Stahl, and a non-commissioned officer of the gendarmerie, named Pfersdoff, were dispatched on the instant, and marching all night, arrived at eight o'clock in the morning at Ettenheim. They strolled with an affectation of indifference about the house of the Prince, in order to make themselves well acquainted with the approaches to it. The Prince's valet-de-chambre, concealed behind a window, observed these two strangers walking round the walls, and intently noting the objects of their mission. He called another of the servants, named Cannone, and communicated his anxieties to him. Cannone was an old soldier and companion of the Prince from his earliest infancy. He had fought with him in all his campaigns, and had saved his life in Poland, by covering him with his sabre and his person. He fancied that he remembered having somewhere seen the face of Pfersdoff, and thought he recognized in him a gendarme in disguise. He hastened to inform the Prince, who, with the thoughtlessness of his age, disdained to pay any attention to these symptoms of espionage. Nevertheless, an officer of his army, named Schmidt, went out and accosted Stahl and Pfersdoff, and questioned them with an appearance of unconcern, pretending that he was going their way, and accompanied them for more than a league; but at last seeing them take a road which led into the interior of Germany, instead of returning toward the Rhine, he felt re-assured, and returned to tranquilize the servants and retainers at Ettenheim. But the anxieties of love are not so easily set at rest as those of friendship. The Princess Charlotte de Rohan was filled with a presentiment of danger, and begged the Prince would absent himself for a few days from a residence where he was so evidently watched, and possibly with a criminal intention. Out of affection for her, rather than from uneasiness on his own account, the duke consented to absent himself for two or three days, and it was settled that he should set out the third morning after, on a long hunting excursion in the forests of the Grand Duke of Baden, during which the suspicions of his betrothed would be either dissipated or verified; but it was fated that, the third morning should not dawn on him in Germany.... On the evening of the 14th, General Ordener, accompanied by General Fririon, chief of General Leval's staff, and by Charlot, colonel of gendarmes, set out in the dark toward the ferry of Rheinau on the Rhine, and found there, at the appointed hour, the 300 dragoons of the 26th, 15 ferrymen, the five large boats, and, lastly, the 30 mounted gendarmes destined to be employed in the violation of dwellings and seizure of persons, in an expedition more worthy of lictors than of soldiers. The Rhine was crossed in silence at midnight, and the column, unperceived during the sleep of the German peasants on the right bank, and guided by different roads, arrived, as the day was breaking, at Ettenheim. The spies, whom Ordener and Charlot had brought with them, pointed out to the gendarmes the houses which were to be invested.... The Duke d'Enghien, who had spent the evening before at the house of the Prince Rohan-Rochefort, with the Princess Charlotte, had promised her to absent himself for a few days, to allow time for the plots against his safety, of which she was apprehensive, either to evaporate or be unraveled. He was accordingly about to start at sunrise, with Colonel Grunstein, one of his friends, on his hunting excursion for several days. He had already left his bed, and was dressing himself, and preparing his arms. Grunstein, contrary to his usual custom, had slept under the same roof with the Prince, that he might be the sooner ready to escort him. This companion of his own, on the battle-field and in the chase, was also half-dressed, when the tramp of horses and the sight of dragoons and gendarmes made the rest of the household start from their sleep. Feron, the most familiar servant of the Prince, flew to the chamber of his young master, and announced to him that the court-yard and garden were surrounded at every outlet by French soldiers, and that the officer commanding them was loudly calling on the servants to open the doors, declaring that in case of refusal, he would have them broken open with hatchets. 'Well, then, we must defend ourselves,' exclaimed the undaunted young man, and saying these words, he seized his double-barreled fowling-piece, ready loaded with ball for the chase, while Cannone, his other servant, animated with the same determination as his master, possessed himself of another fowling-piece, and Grunstein entering the chamber at that moment, armed in a like manner, the whole then darted to the windows to fire. The Prince leveled at Colonel Chariot, who threatened the door, and was about to stretch him dead on the threshold, when Grunstein, perceiving on all sides a host of helmets and sabres, and seeing another detachment of gendarmes already masters of one of the wings of the chateau, seized the barrel of the Prince's fowling-piece, and throwing the gun upward, showed the Duke d'Enghien, by signs, the uselessness of resistance against such overwhelming numbers, and prevented his firing. 'My lord,' he said, 'have you in any way committed yourself?'--'No,' replied the duke. 'Well, then, that being the case, do not attempt a hopeless struggle. We are hemmed in by a complete wall of troops. See how their bayonets glisten on every side.' The Prince was turning round to reply to these words when he beheld Pfersdoff, whom he recognized as the spy of the day before, accompanied by gendarmes with presented carbines, rush into his room. He was followed by Col. Charlot, who, with his soldiers, seized and disarmed the Prince, together with Grunstein, Feron, and Cannone. The Duke, as we have seen, was ready to set out, and was thus lost by the delay of only a few moments. He was dressed in the costume of a Tyrolean hunter, wearing a handsome gold-laced cap, with long gaiters of chamois skin buckled at the knees; and the manly beauty and dauntless expression of his features, heightened by the excitement of the surprise, and determination to resist, struck the soldiers with astonishment. In the midst of such a scene, and the tramp of feet and clatter of arms in the house, the sound of a disturbance without for a moment inspired the Prince and his followers with a hope of deliverance. Loud cries of fire issued from the village, and these cries were re-echoed from house to house, like a tocsin of human voices. Windows were thrown open, and doorways filled with the inhabitants aroused by the invasion of the French. Half naked mechanics were seen running to the steeple to ring the bells, and summon the peasants to vengeance. Colonel Charlot, however, had them seized, and also arrested the master of the hounds of the Duke of Baden, who, on hearing of the disturbance, was hastening to the house of the Prince, and who was told by Charlot that what was taking place had been mutually agreed upon by the First Consul and his sovereign. On hearing this falsehood, the excitement of the inhabitants subsided, and they submitted, with looks of sorrow and expressions of grief, to the misfortune of a young man who had rendered himself an object of the deepest regard.... The Prince was dragged away from his residence, without being permitted to take a last farewell of her whom he left swooning and in tears."

Bonaparte had determined on the duke's death, and his ministers and judges received their instructions to that effect. The midnight trial, the despicable meanness of the tribunal, the heroic attitude of the young Condé, are vividly depicted in this volume: but we pass on to the _dénouement_ of the plot.

"As soon as the judgment was pronounced, and even before it was drawn up, Hullin sent to inform Savary and the Judge Advocate of the sentence of death, in order that they might take their measures for its execution. It seemed as if the time was equally pressing to the tribunal as to those who awaited their decision, and as if an invisible genius was hurrying along the acts, formalities, and hours, in order that the morning's sun might not witness the deeds of the night. Hullin and his colleagues remained in the hall of council, and drew up at random the judgment they had just given; and this short and unskillfully prepared document (summing up a whole examination in two questions and two answers) terminated with the order to execute the sentence forthwith. Savary had not waited for this order to be written before he prepared for its execution, and had already marked out the spot. The court and the esplanade being encumbered with troops, by the presence of the brigade of infantry, and the legion of gendarmes d'élite, no safe place could be found there in which the fire of a platoon did not run the risk of striking a soldier or a spectator. No doubt it was also feared that too great publicity would thus be given to the murder in the midst of an army; that the scene of the execution was too distant from the place of sepulture; and that feelings of pity and horror would pervade the ranks at the sight of this young man's mangled corpse. The moat of the chateau, however, offered the means of avoiding all these dangers, as it would conceal the murder as well as the victim. This place was accordingly chosen. Harel received orders to give up the keys of the steps and iron gateways, which descended from the towers and opened on the foundation of the chateau to point out the different outlets and sites, and to procure a gravedigger to commence digging a grave while the man for whom it was intended still breathed. A poor working gardener of the chateau, named Bontemps, was awakened, and his work pointed out to him. He was furnished with a lantern to guide him through the labyrinth of the moat, and light him while he dug it up. Bontemps descended with his shovel and pickax to the bottom of the moat, and finding the ground all about dry and hard, he recollected that they had begun to dig a trench the evening before, at the foot of the Queen's Pavilion, in the angle formed by the tower and a little wall breast-high, for the purpose, it was said, of depositing rubbish in it. He accordingly went to the foot of the tower, marked out in paces the measure of a man's body extended at length, and dug in the earth that had been already moved a grave for the corpse they were preparing for it. The Duke d'Enghien could have heard from his window, over the humming noise of the troops below, the dull and regular sound of the pickax which was digging his last couch. Savary, at the same time, marched down and arranged slowly in the moat the detachments of troops who were to witness this military death, and ordered the firing party to load their muskets. The Prince was far from suspecting either so much rigor or so much haste on the part of his judges. He did not doubt that even a sentence of death, if awarded by the commission, would give occasion for an exhibition of magnanimity on the part of the First Consul. He had granted an amnesty to emigrants taken with arms in their hands; how could it be doubted, then, that he who pardoned obscure and culpable exiles, would not honor himself by an act of justice or clemency toward an illustrious prince, beloved by all Europe, and innocent of all crime? He had been taken back, after his interrogatories and his appearance before the military commission, into the room where he had slept. He entered it without exhibiting any of that fright which prisoners experience in the anxiety and uncertainty of their sentence. With a serene countenance and unoccupied mind, he conversed with his gendarmes, and played with his dog. Lieutenant Noirot who was on guard over him, had formerly served in a regiment of cavalry commanded by a colonel who was a friend of the Prince of Condé. He had also seen the Duke d'Enghien, when a child, sometimes accompany his father to reviews and field days of the regiment; and he reminded the Prince of that period and these circumstances of his youth. The duke smiled at these reminiscences, and renewed them himself by other recollections of his infancy, which mingled with those of Noirot. He inquired, with a curiosity full of interest, about the career of this officer since that epoch; of the campaigns he had made; of the battles in which he had been engaged; of the promotion he had received; of his present rank, his expectations, and his partiality for the service. He seemed to find a lively pleasure in this conversation on the past with a brave officer, who spoke to him with the accent and the heart of a man who would gladly indulge in pity, were it not for the severity of duty. A noise of footsteps, advancing slowly toward the chamber, interrupted this agreeable and last indulgence of captivity. It was the commandant of Vincennes, Harel, accompanied by the brigadier of the gendarmerie of the village, Aufort. This friend of Harel's had been permitted to remain in one of the commandant's rooms, after having ordered the Prince's supper, and from thence he had heard or seen all the events of the night. Harel, agitated and trembling at the mission he had to fulfill, had permitted Aufort to follow and assist him in his message to the prisoner. They saluted the Prince respectfully; but neither of them had the firmness to acquaint him with the truth. The dejected attitude and trembling voice of Harel alone revealed to the eye and to the heart of the Prince a fatal presentiment of the rigor of his judges. He thought they now came for him only to hear his sentence read. Harel desired him, on the part of the tribunal, to follow him, and he went before with a lantern in his hand, through the corridors, the passages, and the courts it was necessary to cross, to arrive at the building called the 'Devil's Tower.' The interior of this tower contained the only staircase and the only door descending to, and opening into, the lowest moat. The Prince appeared to hesitate two or three times on going into this suspicious tower, like a victim which smells the blood, and which resists and turns back its head on crossing the threshold of a slaughter-house. Harel and Aufort preceded the duke in silence down the steps of the narrow winding staircase, which descended to a postern through the massy walls of this tower. The Prince, with an instinctive horror of the place, and of the depth beneath the soil to which the steps were leading him, began to think they were not conducting him before the judges, but into the hands of murderers, or to the gloom of a prison. He trembled in all his limbs, and convulsively drew back his foot as he addressed his guides in front: 'Where are you conducting me?' he demanded, with a stifled voice. 'If it is to bury me alive in a dungeon, I would rather die this instant.' 'Sir,' replied Harel, turning round, 'follow me, and summon up all your courage.' The Prince partly comprehended him, and followed. They at length issued from the winding staircase, through a low postern which opened on the bottom of the moat, and continued walking for some time in the dark, along the foot of the lofty walls of the fortress, as far as the basement of the Queen's Pavilion. When they had turned the angle of this pavilion, which concealed another part of the moat behind its walls, the Prince suddenly found himself in front of the detachment of the troops drawn up to witness his death. The firing party selected for the execution was separated from the rest; and the barrels of their muskets, reflecting the dull light of some lanterns carried by a few of the attendants, threw a sinister glare on the moat, the massy walls, and the newly-dug grave. The Prince stopped at a sign from his guides, within a few paces of the firing party. He saw his fate at a glance, but he neither trembled nor turned pale. A slight and chilling rain was falling from a gloomy sky, and a melancholy silence reigned throughout the moat. Nothing disturbed the horror of the scene but the whispering and shuffling feet of a few groups of officers and soldiers who had collected upon the parapets above, and on the drawbridge which led into the forest of Vincennes. Adjutant Pelle, who commanded the detachment, advanced, with his eyes lowered, toward the Prince. He held in his hand the sentence of the military commission, which he read in a low, dull voice, but perfectly intelligible. The Prince, listened without making an observation or losing his firmness. He seemed to have collected in an instant all his courage, and all the military heroism of his race, to show his enemies that he knew how to die. Two feelings alone seemed to occupy him during the moment of intense silence which followed the reading of his sentence; one was to invoke the aid of religion to soothe his last struggle, and the other to communicate his dying thoughts to her he was going to leave desolate on the earth. He accordingly asked if he could have the assistance of a priest, but there was none in the castle; and though a few minutes would suffice to call the curé of Vincennes, they were too much pressed for time, and too anxious to avail themselves of the night which was to cover every thing. The officers nearest to him made a sign that he must renounce this consolation; and one brutal fellow from the midst of a group called out in a tone of irony, 'Do you wish, then, to die like a Capuchin?' The Prince raised his head with an air of indignation, and turning toward the group of officers and gendarmes who had accompanied him to the ground, he asked, in a loud voice, if there was any one among them willing to do him one last service. Lieutenant Noirot advanced from the group, and approached him, thus sufficiently evincing his intention. The Prince said a few words to him in a low voice, and Noirot, turning toward the side occupied by the troops, said, 'Gendarmes, have any of you got a pair of scissors about you?' The gendarmes searched their cartridge-boxes, and a pair of scissors was passed from hand to hand to the Prince. He took off his cap, cut off one of the locks of his hair, drew a letter from his pocket, and a ring from his finger, then folding the hair, the letter, and the ring in a sheet of paper, he gave the little packet, his sole inheritance, to Lieutenant Noirot, charging him, in the name of pity for his situation and his death, to send them to the young Princess Charlotte de Rohan, at Ettenheim. This love message being thus confided, he collected himself for a moment, with his hands joined, to offer up a last prayer, and in a low voice commended his soul to God. He then made five or six paces to place himself in front of the firing party, whose loaded muskets he saw glimmering at a short distance. The light of a large lantern containing several candles, placed upon the little wall that stood over the open grave, gleamed full upon him, and lighted the aim of the soldiers. The firing party retired a few paces to a proper distance, the adjutant gave the word to fire, and the young Prince, as if struck by a thunderbolt, fell upon the earth, without a cry and without a struggle. At that moment the clock of the castle struck the hour of three. Hullin and his colleagues were waiting in the vestibule of Harel's quarters for their carriage to convey them back to Paris, and were talking with some bitterness of Savary's refusal to transmit their letter to his master, when an unexpected explosion, resounding from the moat of the forest gate, made them start and tremble, and taught them that judges should never reckon upon any thing but justice and their own conscience. This still small voice pursued them through their lives. The Duke d'Enghien was no more. His dog, which had followed him into the moat, yelled when he saw him fall, and threw himself on the body of his master. It was with difficulty the poor animal could be torn away from the spot, and given to one of the Prince's servants, who took him to the Princess Charlotte--the only messenger from that tomb where slept the hapless victim whom she never ceased to deplore."

THE CAPTAIN'S SELF-DEVOTION.[9]

[9] Translated from a new volume of Tales by Fanny Lewald.

Some twenty years ago my father had a new ship launched from the stocks. A large company had assembled at our house to witness the ceremony of christening the vessel, and afterward to celebrate the marriage of the captain who was to take command of her. He had been for a long time in my father's service, had been uniformly successful in his voyages, and was just the man to take charge of a new enterprise on the western coast of Africa.

Captain Jan Evers, from the time when he first went to sea as cabin-boy, had lived but little at home, with the exception of the time which he subsequently passed with his parents, while he was attending his course at the Navigation School of Hamburg, in order to prepare for his examination as pilot. His parents owned a bit of ground in the village of Neumühlen, the long rows of houses of which stretch along the mouth of the Elbe, beyond Altona. After the death of the old people, the house stood for a long while uninhabited; until, in the year of which I now speak, the captain, who had returned from a voyage, concluded, at the desire of my father, not to go to sea again, until his new ship should be ready. This induced him to have the long-closed shutters of his house opened, in order to take up his own residence there; for he had never rented it.

You must be aware of the extraordinary cleanliness of the northern sea-ports, and must have seen how the sailors love to have their houses as neat as their ships; and how in Neumühlen, where many captains and pilots have their little estates, the houses seem to shine with the incessant care bestowed upon them, in order to comprehend how vexed Jan Evers was when he found his long-deserted house to have suffered sadly from neglect. The little garden-plot before the door, which is never wanting, was full of weeds; the boughs of the fine linden had run wild all about, and shaded the chambers, which had thereby grown mouldy, so that the green paint on the walls had contracted ugly yellow stains. The whole aspect of the house made a melancholy impression, and even the Chinese mandarin which was still standing upon the walnut buffet, where Jan used to see it when a child, seemed to nod its head gloomily when Jan once more took possession of his paternal abode.

The captain, who was a fresh jolly fellow of some forty years old, was no longer the same man after he had passed a couple of weeks there. He grew moody, peevish, and barely civil; and my father often lamented the impatience with which he awaited the completion of the ship, in order to be off again.

One day Evers came to our house at an unusual hour, and desired to see my father, who at that time of day was not usually in his counting-room, but with his family. The captain was shown in, and after we children had been sent away, at his desire, he said:

"I have something to say to you which it is best your good lady should hear, too. I have just come from the dock-yard, where I have been looking at the ship. It will be two months before she will be off the stocks. Then it will be too late to go to sea, even if you should have her rigged upon the stocks. I can't get off till spring; and I can't hold out so long as that. If I only had my fellows of the Fortune here"--(this was the name of the vessel he had last commanded)--"if I only had them with me in Neumühlen, it would be all right: but I grow down in the mouth there, it is so quiet. I'd rather be on a sand-island, alone with the seals and the sea-mews, under the open heavens, than among all those nicknacks of my little house, which must be used, and which I can't use. And so, I thought I'd ask you--"

"If you couldn't be off!" interrupted my father. "Surely, Evers, you are not thinking of that in earnest, are you?"

"No, I am not thinking of that. I have agreed to take command of the new ship; and I am in the habit of keeping my word. But I thought I would ask--" here he stopped, twirled his hat about in his hand, turned to my mother, and continued--"what you think about it--whether I hadn't better get married?"

It seemed as though a great load was taken from his mind, when he had got out these words. He had his house, a pretty little property, and was a good-looking, noble fellow, and bid fair to make an excellent husband; and so my mother advised him earnestly to carry his design into execution; asking him whether he had yet found a girl whom he could wish to marry.

"Will you give me Marie?" asked he.

Marie was the daughter of a woman who had attended me and my sisters, and who had long been dead. My parents had brought Marie up, and she served my mother as chambermaid; but was looked upon as one of the family, and was very dear to us all. She was about four-and-twenty years old, and might be considered a very pretty girl. My mother said, that she thought a marriage between Marie and the captain would be altogether proper, notwithstanding he was considerably the older; and Evers begged her to be his spokeswoman with Marie.

"Tell her," said he, "that I have liked her for many years; that always when I have returned from a voyage, I have been glad to look upon her again; that when I have been in foreign ports, and have seen other captains buying presents for their wives and children, I have often thought: Could you but do so, and make others happy--but for whom? I have grieved that I was unmarried; and at sea in stormy weather, I have fallen asleep imagining myself, some time or other, reposing with my wife and children. But as soon as I came into port, I have always been obliged to set sail again forthwith, and have forgotten all about getting married, as I had to be off so soon again, and must see to getting the cargo on board. But now I have time to think about it, and I like Marie very much? I will try to make her happy. You can assure her of that."

Marie was asked, and very gladly said Yes. The captain had his house set in order; the rooms were newly painted, the garden attended to, the linden pruned; while Marie arranged the stores of linen and plate left by her deceased parents-in-law, with the pleasurable feeling of ownership. And so came the day when the ship was to be launched, and the pair were to be united.

We all went to the dock; my parents conveyed the young pair in a carriage, and the guests followed. We went on board the ship, the young couple preceding, then my parents, and the guests. The vessel was christened by the name of "Young Couple." We all burst out into loud huzzas, swung our glasses and our hats, and hurried from the stern, where the ceremony took place, to the bows, to remain there during the launch. The steps were removed; the ways in which the keel was to run were slushed with soap and tallow; the sound of the ax was heard, knocking away the last blocks; the line was cast off; one blow of an ax, and amid the huzzas of the carpenters, sailors, and spectators, the noble vessel shot into the water. Suddenly a shriek was heard; the bow-line had parted, and the ship, freed from its check, shot across the river, with such momentum that it struck against the opposite shore, and stuck fast.

In itself this was no great matter; for it cost little trouble or expense to tow the vessel back again. But the merriment of the occasion was interrupted by the shriek, and disturbed by the superstitious belief that any accident happening at a launch is a bad sign for the vessel. A silence fell upon the guests; Marie wept, and the captain looked anxious, for all sailors are more or less superstitious. However, after the wedding, we grew cheerful again; the young pair went on to Neumühlen, and the autumn and winter passed away quickly and happily. Sorrowfully they watched the approach of spring, for the ship was afloat, her cargo ready, and the anchor was to be weighed as soon as the Elbe was free from ice.

This took place toward the end of March. For the first time in his life, the captain left Hamburg with tears in his eyes, after having heartily commended to my mother the care of his wife, who was expecting her first child to be born during the course of the summer. If all went well, tidings of his arrival on the coast of Africa might be looked for about the time of her confinement; and he had promised to write as soon as possible, as not only his wife, but our establishment were anxious to receive letters from him.

But long after Marie had given birth to a boy, no tidings had come from her husband. Autumn came and was gone; winter came and went, and yet no intelligence reached us of the ship.

No other vessel had spoken her; she had put in at no other port; not a trace of her could be discovered; and after a year and a day we were forced to conclude that she had gone down with all on board. The grief of the young wife was very deep, though the hope still remained that the crew might have been saved, and that her husband would return. Thus passed years, until finally when all imaginable inquiries had been made in vain, Marie began to grow accustomed to the idea of his loss, and to look upon herself as a widow.

About this time she became acquainted with man who carried on a small business in Neumühlen, and who wished to make her his wife. As Evers had been absent eight years, my parents advised her to consent, especially as they perceived that such was her own inclination. But before a new marriage could be contracted, Evers must be judicially pronounced to be dead. In the present case, after the usual preliminaries, there was no difficulty; and in the year 1828, Marie was married a second time; her son by the first marriage being then in his ninth year.

This marriage also proved to be a very happy one; and she had two children born in the first two years; both of whom survived.

One evening in the autumn of 1830, Marie was holding her youngest child in her arms, while her husband sat by her upon the sofa, enjoying his pipe. The elder boy, the son of Evers, was busy at another table, near which his little sister was playing. A fierce storm was howling without; the rain and hail rattled against the windows; the night was unusually dark; and as some draught was felt, even in the well-secured apartment, Marie told her eldest son to close the shutters. The lad went to the window, but quickly returned, saying that a man was standing there.

"Let him stand," replied the father, and the boy went back to the window to close the shutters, when he found that the man had gone. All was quiet in the room. The boy went back to his occupation; the mother laid her infant in the cradle, put the girl to bed, and had taken up her work-basket, when an old woman burst into the room half out of her wits with excitement, crying, "Madame! Madame! Jan Evers was out there!"

Marie, her husband, and the boy sprang up, and ran to the door. No one was to be seen. Marie trembled in every limb; the boy stood near her in utter bewilderment; the husband at last so far recovered himself as to be able to inquire into the facts of the case.

The old woman who had lived for some years in Neumühlen, and was well acquainted with all the inhabitants, was almost as much excited and confounded as her neighbors. Gazing hastily about her all the time, as though she expected every moment to see the apparition again, she said that she "was going by for to buy some stuff, and then she saw a man in a blue jacket, with a nor'wester on his head, a-staring in at your window, and then it came into my head to come and look in too; and when the stranger saw me he asked, 'Who lives in this house?' and then I told him Christian Veltlin did. Then the man went up to the window again and looked in again, and then he turned about and went away. And then I knew him by his size, and ran after him, and called out as loud as ever I could, 'Jan Evers! Jan Evers!' But he wouldn't turn his head round, but ran on as fast as he could, but I caught him at last at the stairs that lead from Neumühlen up to the _chaussée_. And then I took hold of him by the sleeve, and asked him, 'Jan Evers, Jan Evers, where have you come from?' And then he pushed me away, and growled, 'I don't know nothin' about your Jan Everses. I'm the bo's'n of the Greenlander over there!' and then he ran off and left me standing there. But 'twas him, and I ran over here to tell you all about it."

You may imagine the terror, the agony, and the despair in that little house. Veltlin, however, in order to soothe his wife, argued with her how improbable was the return of Evers, and how easily the old woman might have been deceived. Yet he was himself greatly troubled, and on the following morning, as early as possible, he and his wife came to my father to lay the matter before him, and to ask his advice.

My father advised them, first and foremost, to keep silent about the whole affair; but it was too late for that, for the old woman had told all Neumühlen what had happened. New inquiries were at once set on foot after the reputedly dead Jan Evers. But they were just as fruitless as the former ones had been; and after a while Marie and Veltlin began to grow composed, convinced that the old woman must have been deceived by some strange resemblance. Peace and joy returned to the little household, and the marriage was never disturbed up to the time of Marie's death, which took place last summer.

After that event a document was transmitted to me by the magistracy of the capital, where, it seems, Jan had passed his last years, under an assumed name. By this document, executed upon his death-bed, he constituted all the children of Marie Veltlin heirs to his little property; but with the express provision that the will should not be made public till after the death of Marie. Then it was known, for the first time, that the old woman was right. Jan Evers had most magnanimously sacrificed himself for his wife, and had lived and died alone and among strangers, although he was fully aware that a son had been born to him, who had lived to grow up.

THE EAGLE AND THE SWAN.

(_From the German._)

THE SWAN.

My tranquil life is passed the waves among, Light ripples tracing as I glide along, And the scarce ruffled tide, as in a glass, Reflects my form unaltered as I pass!

THE EAGLE.

In the clefts of the rocks my wild dwelling I form, I sail through the air on the wings of the storm, 'Mid dangers and combats I dart on my prey, And trust the bold pinion that bears me away!

THE SWAN.

Won by the charm of Ph[oe]bus, in the wave Of heavenly harmony I dare to lave, Couched at his feet, I listen to the lays, In Tempè's vale, that echo to his praise!

THE EAGLE.

I perch at the right hand of Jove on his throne, And the thunderbolt launch when his signal is shown, And my heavy wings droop, when in slumber I lie, O'er the sceptre that sways the wide earth from on high!

THE SWAN.

_Me_ charms the heaven's blue arch, serene and bland, And odorous flowers attract me to the land While basking in the sun's departing beams, I stretch my white wings o'er the purpled streams!

THE EAGLE.

I exult in the tempest, triumphant and bold, When the oaks of the forest it rends from their hold, I demand of the thunder--the spheres when it shakes-- If, like me, a wild joy in destruction it takes!

THE SWAN.

Oft in the glassy tide the stars I view, And that blue heav'n the waves give back anew. And dim regret recalls me to the home In higher spheres, reluctant whence I roam!

THE EAGLE.

With joy, from the hour that my young life begun, I have soared to the skies--I have gazed on the sun. I can not stoop down to the dust of the earth-- Allied to the gods, I exult in my birth!

THE SWAN.

When a calm death succeeds to tranquil life, Its links detaching without pain or strife, And to my voice restores its primal power, Its dying tones shall hail the solemn hour!

THE EAGLE.

The soul, like the phoenix, springs forth from the pyre, All free and unvailed, to the skies to aspire, To hail the bright vision that bursts on its view, And its youth at the dark torch of death to renew!

Monthly Record of Current Events.

UNITED STATES.

A new invasion of Cuba, somewhat more formidable, but less successful even, than the former, has absorbed public attention during the past month. Immediately after the return of Lopez from his first expedition, rumors were rife that he was making preparations for another attempt. These reports, however, attracted comparatively little attention, and no effective measures were taken to put a stop to proceedings which were so palpably in violation of our treaty engagements with Spain. The reported rising of the inhabitants of Cuba at Puerto Principe, which was noticed in our last Number, and which was grossly exaggerated in public prints throughout the country, had evidently been regarded by the Cubans in the United States as eminently favorable to the prosecution of their purposes. A party of about 480 men, led by Lopez himself, and commanded by subordinate officers, accordingly embarked on board the steamer Pampero, at New Orleans, and set out for Cuba. They intended to land in the central department of the island upon the southern coast, where the disaffection had been represented as most rife, and where they were, therefore, most sure of a favorable reception. But on touching at Key West for supplies, they were informed that a revolt had taken place in the Vuelta de Abajo, and Lopez accordingly resolved to land in that district. By some mistake, the nature of which has not been clearly explained, they missed their point of destination, and landed on the northern coast of the western department of the Island on the night of the 11th of August. The shore was deserted and they met no opposition.

General Lopez left Colonel Crittenden at this point with about 100 men in charge of the stores and unnecessary arms, and advanced with the remainder of his command to the town of Las Pozas: the inhabitants, however, fled as he approached, neither joining his standard nor furnishing him with provisions or encouragement of any sort. The day after landing, Col. Crittenden was attacked by the Spanish troops--two bodies of infantry and one company of horse. This force was too strong for them. After struggling as long as possible, they withdrew from the field, and finding that neither Lopez himself, who was only three miles off, nor any of the inhabitants came to their aid, they resolved to return to the United States. They procured small boats, and had just got to sea when they were followed and captured on the 15th by the Spanish steamer Habanero. They were taken to Havana, and, on the 17th, were shot. It was at first reported that they had no trial, but were shot immediately, and that their bodies were horribly mutilated and every possible insult offered to their remains by the Cuban populace. These statements were, however, afterward contradicted. It was stated that they were properly tried, and condemned, and that after their execution they were decently interred. Several of them, and Colonel Crittenden among the number, wrote letters to their friends at home, all of which agreed that they had been grossly deceived as to the state of public feeling in Cuba, and that, so far as could be perceived, not the slightest disposition prevailed among the inhabitants of the Island to overthrow the Spanish government.

General Lopez was attacked on the 13th by a large body of Spanish troops at Las Pozas; the action was severe, and the Spaniards were repulsed. The loss of Lopez was considerable, and among those who fell was Colonel Pragay, an officer who had served with distinction in Hungary. He lost in all about fifty men, but retained possession of the place. He soon perceived that all his hopes of aid from the inhabitants were groundless, and that it would be impossible to maintain himself against the Spanish troops; and determined to conceal himself in the mountains. On their march thither they met several Spanish detachments with whom they had successive engagements, suffering severely in each, and inflicting losses more or less serious upon their opponents. Among the Spaniards who fell was General Enna, a distinguished officer, who was buried at Havana on the 21st, with military pomp. At Martitorena on the 24th, while the remaining body of the invaders were breakfasting, they were surprised by an overwhelming Spanish force, and completely scattered; and from that time forward they seem to have been zealously hunted by the inhabitants of all classes, and by every means. The official reports of the Spanish officers state that the peasants pursued them with dogs, that the negroes aided in their capture, and that every part of the population evinced the most active and devoted loyalty to the Spanish government. On the 28th, Lopez with only six followers, was endeavoring to conceal himself and escape to the sea coast, and on the 29th, he was captured in the Pinos de Rangel, by a guide named Jose Antonio Castañeda, with fifteen peasants. He was at once handed over to a military force under Colonel Ramon de Sago, who had him conveyed by a night march to Havana, where orders were immediately issued for his execution, which took place at 7 o'clock on the morning of September 1st. He perished by the _garrote vil_, an instrument in common use among the Spaniards. It consists of an iron chair, with a back, upon which, at a point even with the head of the person sitting in it, is the instrument of death. This consists of iron clasps made to fit the sides of the head, and a clasp to pass round the throat. From behind is a long iron bar attached to a screw, which put in motion by the executioner giving it a single turn, draws the throat and side pieces tight and at the same time sends an iron rod into the spinal marrow at the neck from behind, causing instantaneous death. This machine was placed upon a scaffold about ten feet high, in the middle of a large square, surrounded by troops. An eyewitness has given an account of the execution. He states that Lopez behaved like a brave man throughout--and walked, surrounded by a guard, to the steps of the scaffold, as coolly as if he were at the head of his troops. He was dressed in a long white gown, and a white cap; his wrists were tied in front and above his elbows behind, with the cords held by soldiers. He ascended the steps with two civilians, friends, but without a priest. He faced round and looked upon the soldiers, and the immense throng of people outside of the square, and then turned round and knelt in prayer for about one minute. He then rose and turned toward the front, and in a clear, manly voice, and in tones loud enough to be heard by the thousands present (for it was still as night), spoke as follows:--"Countrymen, I most solemnly, in this last awful moment of my life, ask your pardon for any injury I have caused you. It was not my wish to injure any one, my object was your freedom and happiness;" here he was interrupted by the commanding officer in front. He concluded, by saying, "My intention was good, and my hope is in God." He then bowed, and turned round and took his seat, apparently with as much coolness as if he were taking a chair in a room with friends. He placed his head back, between the iron grasps, the negro hangman then adjusted the iron throat clasp and tied his feet to bolts on each side of the seat. During this preparation, Lopez was in conversation with his friends. The executioner, then took his place at the iron bar behind. Lopez kissed the cross handed to him by his friend; the negro then gave one turn of the wrench, and Lopez died instantly without the least struggle. The military at once returned to the city, the band playing a quick step; the thousands dispersed with little or no noise; and thus ended the second invasion of Cuba.

The intelligence of these proceedings, as it reached the United States, caused an intense excitement throughout the country. In the Southern States, and especially in New Orleans, where the expedition had been planned and prepared, the popular agitation was overwhelming. When the news of the execution of the fifty men under Colonel Crittenden reached New Orleans, with the report of the indignities shown to their dead bodies, a mob destroyed the office of a Spanish newspaper in that city, menaced and injured the shops of sundry Spanish inhabitants, and even sacked the house of the Spanish consul. Large meetings were held in all the principal cities of the United States, at which the conduct of the Spanish authorities was denounced, and active preparations were made for sending fresh reinforcements to the invaders. Subsequent accounts, however, and the interference of the Government, prevented the execution of these designs. The failure of Lopez cooled the ardor of that class of our population whose opinions of the morality and legality of any action, depend upon its success or failure; while the slightest reflection was sufficient to show the great mass of our people, that without a declaration of war against Spain by our Government, we had no right to invade her colonies. If a revolution had existed there, our people, as in the case of Texas, could have emigrated thither, and after becoming Cubans and abandoning all claims to American citizenship, have taken such part as they might see fit in the affairs of the island. But no such revolution existed. Lopez and those who acted with him were undoubtedly deceived as to the state of public sentiment in Cuba. No one can fail to regret the loss of so many noble spirits; but they put their lives upon the hazard of the die, and expected, in case of failure, the fate which they met. About 150 prisoners still remain in the hands of the colonial government; it is understood that their punishment will be commuted to imprisonment and transportation.

Political conventions have been held in several States during the past month, to nominate officers for the coming elections. In Massachusetts the Whigs assembled at Springfield on the 10th of September, above one thousand delegates being in attendance. Hon. Robert C. Winthrop was nominated for Governor, receiving 811 out of 1033 votes, and George Grinnell, of Greenfield County, was nominated for Lieutenant-Governor. Edward Everett, George Ashmun, and Seth Sprague were chosen delegates from the State at large to the National Convention. A series of resolutions was adopted, declaring substantially, that the Constitution of the United States and the laws made in pursuance thereof, are the supreme law of the land, any thing in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding, and that no citizen or State has any right to resist their execution, except in such extreme cases as justify violent resistance to the laws, on the principle of the natural and indefeasible prerogative of self-defense against intolerable oppression;--that the preservation of the Union transcends in importance any and all other political questions;--that the Whigs of Massachusetts will faithfully perform every duty imposed upon them by the Constitution of the United States, and they call upon their brethren in every section of the State to respect and observe all its provisions;--that they "cordially support the national administration in all its just and patriotic measures; in its generous sympathy with oppressed nations struggling for liberty in every part of the world; in its able and vigorous management of our foreign affairs; in its unwavering purpose to maintain inviolate our public faith with all nations; and in its sworn resolve to vindicate the integrity of the Union against all assaults from whatever quarter;"--that they have undiminished confidence in the comprehensive statesmanship of Daniel Webster;--that they cordially approve the agreement entered into by the Whigs of New York;--that they disapprove very decidedly of the present administration of State affairs in Massachusetts, and that they will use every exertion to secure the election of the Whig candidates put in nomination. The Democratic party held their Convention on the 20th of August. A series of resolutions was adopted declaring that "the Democratic party is preëminently national, anti-sectional, and for the Union as a whole Union--that it has always sustained, and can only regain its supremacy in the Union, by adhering to its own men and measures; reposing on its fundamental principle of excluding all tests marked by sectional lines, South or North, East or West; and by leaving to the sound sense of the people of each State and Territory their domestic policy and institutions;"--that they recommend a National Democratic Convention to be held at Baltimore in May, 1852;--that they "deprecate as disunion in its worst form the attempts of any party or class of men to stigmatize and denounce one portion of the Union for its domestic institutions with which the Constitution does not interfere, and of the propriety of which each State is its own independent judge;"--that they approve the resolutions adopted in the National Democratic Convention of 1848;--and that they "go for a faithful execution of and acquiescence in all the Compromise measures settled by the last Congress." Charles G. Greene, Henry H. Childs, and Isaac Davis were appointed delegates to the National Convention. George S. Boutwell was nominated for Governor, and Henry W. Cushman for Lieutenant-Governor.

In New York the Whig Convention met on the 11th at Syracuse. Only part of the State officers are to be chosen at the election this fall. George W. Patterson was nominated for Controller, James M. Cook for Treasurer, Samuel A. Foote for Judge of the Court of Appeals, James C. Forsyth for Secretary of State, Daniel Ullman Jr. for Attorney-General, Henry Fitzhugh for Canal Commissioner, and A. H. Wells for State Prison Inspector. Four very brief resolutions were adopted, declaring that the action of the two Whig State Committees at Albany, which was sketched in our last, was "the result of honorable and patriotic devotion to the Constitution, and for the best interests of the whole people, and that it is adopted and approved by this Convention;"--that to the entire completion of the Erie Canal and kindred public works the Whig party is fully pledged;--that those who supported the canal bill rendered a service to the State of such eminent value, that it has obtained for them the gratitude of every friend of the true prosperity of the State; and that the candidates nominated for State offices deserve and will receive the united support of the whole Whig party.--The Democratic Convention met at the same place on the 10th. Two days were spent in effecting an organization. A series of resolutions was adopted reaffirming the views and principles set forth in the resolutions adopted by the State Convention at Syracuse last year. The following gentlemen were nominated as the Democratic candidates for the several state offices:--John C. Wright for Controller; Henry S. Randall for Secretary of State; Levi S. Chatfield for Attorney-General; Benjamin Welch Jr. for Treasurer; Horace Wheaton for Canal Commissioner; W. J. M'Alpine for State Engineer; Gen. Storms for Inspector of State Prisons; and A. S. Johnson for Judge of the Court of Appeals.--In Maryland P. F. Thomas was nominated for Controller, James Murray for Commissioner of the Land Office, and T. R. Stewart for Lottery Commissioner, by the Democratic State Convention held on the 12th of September.

A very severe storm swept over the whole southern coast of the United States and the West India Islands on the 18th of August. The damage to vessels and other property was very great. In the island of Porto Rico a great number of plantations and an immense number of cattle were destroyed, and many persons lost their lives. In the middle of West Florida, Georgia, and Alabama the gale was terribly destructive. The tobacco crop is said to have suffered severely.

Advices from Texas give encouraging accounts of the cotton crop in that State. In both quality and quantity it will exceed that of ordinary years. A new military post has been established in the Clear Fork of the Brazos; and in the immediate vicinity, it is said, very large deposits of iron ore and of coal have been discovered. A very large trade in cattle has sprung up of late between Texas and New Orleans; the net proceeds of the trade this year are estimated at $120,000. The Boundary Commission is progressing slowly. When last heard from it was at the copper mines. The survey had been temporarily suspended, owing to an error in running the Boundary, making it 60 miles above El Paso, instead of 16, as required by the treaty. About 130 persons are attached to the American Commission, while the Mexican Commission has only seven. From El Paso we learn that a conflict occurred early in June between a considerable body of Apache Indians and a party of twelve Americans, on their way to California. The affray took place near the copper mines. The Americans were defeated, with a loss of two men killed and two wounded. Writers in the Texas papers, who have passed over the route to California from San Antonio and El Paso, state that it is far preferable to the usual route by way of Independence, Missouri. It is said to be shorter, cheaper, and less dangerous.

Two more cases of the surrender of fugitive slaves have occurred in the State of New York during the month. A colored person, living at Poughkeepsie, and named John M. Boulding, was arrested there and brought to New York. Evidence was submitted to Mr. Nelson, a Commissioner under the law of 1850, which showed him to be the slave of Mr. Anderson, of South Carolina, whither he was immediately sent. The other case occurred at Buffalo, where a negro called Daniel was brought before Commissioner H. K. Smith. He was claimed under the tenth section of the act of 1850, a certified copy of the records of a court of Kentucky being produced, as required by that section, to prove him the property of a Mr. Rust. The Commissioner decided that the evidence was sufficient, but a _habeas corpus_ was granted by Judge Conklin of the U. S. District Court, and the case was argued before him. He decided that the tenth section of the law of 1850, could not apply to slaves who had escaped previous to the passage of the law; and as Daniel was alleged to have fled before that time, the evidence provided for by that section was insufficient. He was therefore discharged. This decision is one of a good deal of importance, as it essentially modifies the operation of the law.

An election was held in Mississippi, on the 1st and 2d of September, for delegates to a State Convention, to consider what action Mississippi ought to take in regard to the action of the last Congress on the question of slavery. The majority of _Union_ delegates returned was very large; so decisive, indeed, was the result regarded as to the feeling of the State upon the subject, that Gen. Quitman, who was running against Senator Foote, as the secession candidate, immediately withdrew from the canvass.

The American Association for the Advancement of Education held, the last of August, a very interesting meeting at Cleveland, Ohio. Many of the most distinguished teachers and friends of Education from widely distant parts of the country were in attendance, and the discussions were of decided interest. The new system of collegiate education recently introduced in Brown University, and adopted in the new University at Cleveland (allowing students to select such studies as they may deem most important to prepare them for their several pursuits in life, and giving them certificates of their actual attainments, instead of the usual diplomas), was thoroughly canvassed, both by its friends and its opponents. The chief defenders of the new system were President Mahan of Cleveland, and Prof. Greene of Brown University. Many other important subjects were also discussed, and the proceedings of the Association generally were such as are adapted to exert a wide and beneficent influence upon the cause of education.

J. E. Caldwell, executor of the will of Elihu Creswell, of New Orleans, has addressed a letter to Gov. Hunt, of New York, asking him for suggestions as to the most desirable locality for fifty-one slaves, emancipated by Mr. Creswell, with directions that they should be removed to a free State. Gov. Hunt has published the letter of Mr. Caldwell, with an extract from the will, in order to elicit the desired information.

The United States Commissioner to the Western Indians, with his suite, recently arrived in Galena, Ill., from Mendota and St. Paul. The treaty with the Lower Sioux bands was signed on the 5th of August. These bands are to receive, when they have reached their destination, some $225,000, to pay their debts and expenses of removal, and an annuity in money of about $30,000, for fifty years. The lands treated for with the lower bands amount to some sixteen millions of acres. They lie along and west of the Mississippi, from the Iowa State line north to the Falls of St. Anthony, and above. The amount to be paid for this immense territory, when the treaties will have been fully carried out, will amount to the sum of nearly three millions.

From _California_ we have news to the first of August. There is little intelligence of special interest. The excitement in regard to Lynch law executions had subsided, and it was believed that the courts of law would hereafter be left to the exercise of their functions. The reports from the mining districts continue to be encouraging and the shipments of gold for August and September were likely to exceed those of any previous month. Numerous canals are to be constructed for the purpose of diverting the water of streams known to be rich in gold, and abundant preparations had been made for mining the quartz rock with heavy machinery. The belief is general that this is hereafter to be the main source of profitable mining. Agriculture is attracting increased attention. Indian hostilities have ceased on the southern and eastern borders, and broken out on the northern frontier. A military expedition, under command of Gen. J. M. Estell, is to accompany the Indian Commissioners, in their tour of negotiation, to Clear Lake, thence to the sources of the Sacramento. After which they will proceed to Klamath River. The hostile Indians on Rogue's River have been dispersed but not subdued. Navigation on the upper rivers is suspended on account of the low state of water. The two political parties were holding conventions in the various counties to nominate for the Legislature and for county offices. The four candidates for Congress have been busily engaged in canvassing. The project of dividing the State is still urged in some of the southern counties, which were once the seat of nearly all the Spanish establishments in this State, but which have lost all their political importance under the new _regime_.

Rev. Stephen Olin, D.D., President of the Wesleyan University, died at his residence in Middletown, Conn., on the 16th of August. His health had not been strong for many years, and an attack of epidemic dysentery proved too much for his enfeebled frame. Born in Vermont, on the 2d of March, 1797, he received his academical education at Middlebury College, where he graduated with the highest honor. In 1824, he entered upon the ministry of the Gospel, in South Carolina, and soon became eminent as a pulpit orator. In 1830, he was called to a professorship in Franklin College, Ga., and in 1832 to the Presidency of Randolph Macon College, Va. The years from 1837 to 1841, he passed in an extended career of travel through Europe and the East: and the fruit of his observations in the latter region, have appeared in his two excellent volumes of "Travels in Egypt, Arabia Petræa, and the Holy Land" (Harper and Brothers). In 1842, he was chosen President of the Wesleyan University, and filled that office to the time of his death.

Dr. Olin's reputation as an author must depend upon his Travels, and upon his published Discourses, which, it is to be hoped, will be gathered together in permanent form. The Travels are marked by quick and sagacious observation, considerable power of graphic description, and sound judgment. Dr. Olin's account of Egypt is the best, on the whole, in the language. The Discourses are massive, full of thought, and yet glowing with fervor. In breadth and comprehensiveness they are perhaps equal to any thing that the American pulpit has produced. It was, indeed, as a pulpit orator that Dr. Olin shone pre-eminently. His power consisted, not in any single quality--in force of reasoning--or fire of imagination--or heat of declamation--but in all combined. His course of argument was always clear and strong, yet interfused throughout with passion--the two inseparably united in a torrent that overwhelmed all who listened to him. Dr. Olin's personal qualities were those of the highest style of man. His nature was imaginative--so full of genial kindness as to win all hearts. None could be in his company even for a few moments without feeling this fascination, and at the same time without imbibing a deep reverence for the intellectual majesty of the man. He had, in a very remarkable degree, what Coleridge calls one of the highest characteristics of genius: "the power to carry forward the fresh feelings of childhood on through youth, and manhood, and age:" there was no decay of feeling, no sign of senility in failing of human interest or sympathy. With these qualities, it is not strange that he was sought for to fill high places in literary institutions, and that as President of a University, he was eminently useful and successful. He would have been equally distinguished, we are sure, in the world of letters, had not his work been hindered by lifelong disease. As it was, it is wonderful indeed that he accomplished so much.

The Hon. Levi Woodbury, of New Hampshire, died at Portsmouth, N. H., on the 4th of September, where he had suffered for a long while, under a painful disease. Mr. Woodbury was born at Francestown, New Hampshire, about the year 1790, was graduated with a high reputation for scholarship at Dartmouth College in 1809, and was admitted to the bar in 1812. He practiced his profession with distinguished success, and rapidly rose to a high rank in it. When the Democratic party acquired the ascendency in the State, in 1816, he was appointed Secretary of State; and at the commencement of the next year, a Judge of the Superior Court. In 1819 he removed to Portsmouth, the commercial capital of New Hampshire, where he resided the remainder of his life, with the exception of the intervals when his official duties called him to Washington. Mr. Woodbury was elected Governor of New Hampshire in 1822, and in 1825 a Senator of the United States. General Jackson appointed him Secretary of the Navy in 1831, and subsequently, on the rejection of Mr. Taney by the Senate, Secretary of the Treasury. He continued in the office till the close of Mr. Van Buren's presidency, when he resumed his seat in the Senate. During the administration of Mr. Polk, he was appointed one of the Judges of the Supreme Court, and had withdrawn from the more active scenes of political life.

James Fenimore Cooper, the distinguished American novelist, died at his residence at Cooperstown, N. Y., on the 14th of September. He was born at Burlington, New Jersey, on the 15th of September, 1789. His father, a judge of some distinction, was a large landholder in Otsego County, and gave his name to one of its townships. Mr. Cooper received the rudiments of his education under a private tutor in Burlington, and entered Yale College in 1802. In 1805 he entered the navy of the United States as a midshipman, and remained in that service six years. No reader of his sea novels can fail to trace upon them the influence of this portion of his experience. In 1810 he left the navy, married, and settled in Westchester County, New York, whence he soon removed to Cooperstown and wrote his first novel, entitled Precaution. Although this work gave small promise of the brilliant literary career upon which he entered, he continued to write, and soon published that series of tales of early American life which have won for him such enviable distinction. In 1826 he sailed for Europe, and remained there several years, where he wrote several of his best sea novels. Since his return he has written several tales, using them chiefly as a medium of political opinions, and of course sacrificing much of the success and distinction which his previous works had acquired. Some of his strictures upon the faults of American character and social life, subjected him for some years to a very warm and bitter hostility. His health had been seriously impaired for the last few months. Intelligence of his death will be received with profound regret throughout the world.

Rev. Thomas H. Gallaudet, LL.D., well known as the pioneer of deaf-mute instruction in this country, died at Hartford, Conn., on the 10th of September, at the age of 64. Dr. G. first became interested in the cause to which his after life was devoted in 1807, having succeeded in conveying instruction to a deaf and dumb daughter of Dr. Cogswell in Hartford; and through the efforts of that gentleman he was commissioned to visit Europe for the purpose of qualifying himself to become a teacher of the Deaf and Dumb in this country. Seven gentlemen of Hartford subscribed a sufficient amount of funds to defray his expenses, and on the 25th of May, 1815, Mr. Gallaudet sailed for Europe. Meanwhile, the friends of the project employed the interval of time in procuring an act of incorporation from the Legislature of Connecticut, which was accomplished in May, 1816. In May, 1819, the name of "the American Asylum at Hartford for the Education and Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb," was bestowed by the Legislature on the first Institution for the deaf-mutes established in the United States. After spending several months in the assiduous prosecution of his studies, under the Abbé Sicard and others, Mr. Gallaudet returned to this country in August, 1816. He was accompanied by Mr. Laurent Clerc, a deaf and dumb Professor in the Institution of Paris, and well-known in Europe as a most intelligent pupil of the Abbé. Mr. Clerc is now living in a vigorous old age, and is still a teacher in the American Asylum at Hartford. The Asylum was opened on the 15th of April, 1817, and during the first week of its existence numbered seven pupils; it now averages 220 annually. Mr. Gallaudet became the Principal of the Institution at its commencement, and held the office until April, 1830, when he resigned, and has since officiated as Chaplain of the Retreat for the Insane at Hartford. His interest in the cause of deaf-mute education has always continued unabated, and his memory will be warmly cherished by that unfortunate class of our fellow beings as well as by a large circle of devoted friends.

Rev. Sylvester Graham, the founder and untiring advocate of the Vegetarian System of dietetics, died at Northampton, Mass., on Thursday, Sept. 11. Dr. Graham was chiefly known for his strict adherence to the system which, for some time, bore his name. His writings on the subject were numerous and popular, and his labors, as a lecturer, were incessant. The most important of his works are, _Lectures on the Science of Human Life_, first published in Boston in 1839; and _Lectures to Young Men on Chastity_. The "Science of Human Life," is a work in two large volumes, containing a systematic and in some degree, a scientific exposition of the author's peculiar views, and has had a rapid sale. It passed through several editions in this country, and has lately been reprinted in England, where its sale is quite extensive. Dr. Graham was a native of Suffield, Ct., and at the time of his death was aged about 55. His character evinced energy and decision, and his influence on the public mind was rather beneficial than deleterious. Of his theories, each will form his own judgment; the projector, at least, was undoubtedly honest and sincere in sustaining them.

Prof. Beverly Tucker, of William and Mary College, Virginia, died at Winchester on the 26th ult. Mr. Tucker was one of the Federal Judges of the Territory of Missouri before its admission as a State; and was subsequently State Judge in Virginia for a number of years, when he resigned, and accepted the chair of Professor of Law at William and Mary College. He was a member of the last Nashville Convention, and is known as the author of a work published fifteen years ago, entitled _The Partisan Leader_. Mr. Tucker's age was about 67.

CANADA.

The Canadian Parliament was prorogued by the Governor-General on the 30th of August. The Royal Speech represents the revenue as in a satisfactory state, and refers to the grants for improving the navigation of the St. Lawrence, and to the reduction of the emigrant tax. Six bills were reserved for the approval of the Queen, three of which relate to churches and rectories, two to the reduction of salaries, and one to the incorporation of the Fort Erie and Buffalo Suspension Bridge Company. The reciprocity question was left unsettled. The reductions in the civil list authorized by the Imperial Government have been carried out by the Legislature. The salaries of the Chief Justices and that of the Chancellor are to be reduced from $4,800 to $3,600 a year, upon the departure of the present incumbents from office. The question of seignorial tenure was discussed at this session, and although no final action was taken upon it, a bill was introduced which will probably come up again. The subject is one of great interest to the people of Canada, and will not be allowed to drop. The law of promogeniture in the succession of real estate has been abolished in Upper Canada. This is the most democratic measure that has been passed during the present Parliament, and it can not fail to exert a highly beneficial influence on the future condition of the Province. A set of resolutions has been passed granting 50 acres of land each to certain companies of enrolled military pensioners from England, whom it is intended to station in different parts of the province. It is intended that they shall be ready to act as a local police, and also be employed on the public works.

SOUTH AMERICA.

The arrival of the steamer Georgia, on the 7th of September, put us in possession of later news from the Pacific coast of South America. In _Guayaquil_ a military outbreak, excited, so far as appears, solely by personal resentments, has resulted in a complete change of the administration. The President, Gen. Neuva, left Querto on the 17th of July for the purpose of visiting his family at Guayaquil. On approaching that city he was met by a military cavalcade, ostensibly for the purpose of escorting him in: but he was immediately seized by them, and hurried off to sea in a vessel lying in the river; the destination of the vessel, and the fate of the captive were unknown. Gen. Urbina immediately entered upon the administration of affairs. In _Chili_, Don Manual Montt has been elected President by an overwhelming majority. He was understood to be in favor of internal improvements and of a more effectual promotion of education. The Copiapo Railroad was to be opened in September. Congress was in session the last of July, but no important business engaged its attention. In 1850 the public revenue amounted to $4,334,314, and the expenditures to $3,610,837, including over three hundred thousand dollars remitted to England to pay interest on the loan contracted there. The whole English debt is now about seven millions of dollars. A very severe storm swept the harbor of Valparaiso in the early part of July. The damage to shipping, both Chilian and American, was very considerable. In _Bolivia_, the decree allowing foreign goods to be entered at a lower duty from vessels that had not touched at other ports, has been revoked. In _Peru_, Congress was still in session. The legislative and executive branches of the government are represented as being on the best of terms with each other, so that affairs are conducted with a good degree of promptness and efficiency. A bill has been urged in Congress for the greater extension of the freedom of trade, and another to prohibit the circulation in that Republic of Bolivian money. Several bills of decided local importance engaged the attention of Congress. There has been during the past year a very large export from Chili, chiefly of wheat and flour, amounting to two hundred thousand dollars more than during the previous year. In _New Grenada_, it is said there are new disturbances. The government levied a forced loan, and further decreed that the friends of the government should be exempted from its payment. In several provinces the decree had the effect of converting nearly the whole population into a government party; but in Bogota and Carthagena it had the opposite effect. Arrangements were in progress for an extensive revolt, and it was said that it had commenced at Bogota, but with what result is not clear.

From _Mexico_ later advices have been received,--to August 22d from the capital and the 29th from Vera Cruz. The hostility of the government to the fulfillment of its treaty stipulations concerning the Tehuantepec Canal continues unabated; and it is stated that two vessels sent from New Orleans to commence the work were seized by the Mexican authorities. The financial condition of the country continues to engross attention, but no one of the numerous projects offered for its relief seems likely to be adopted. The ministerial plan calling a convention of the Governors of the several Provinces, meets with very little favor. The appropriation of the Church property to the necessities of the Government has been warmly recommended by some of the public journals. The estates of the clergy and of various religious incorporations amount to $50,000,000. This sum, which has been accumulating in unproductive hands for the last three centuries, it was maintained, would save the country from bankruptcy and ruin.

The Mexican Senate has passed an act recommending a general Confederation among the Spanish American republics. A plan for accomplishing this object is detailed, of which the most marked features are a general Congress, a uniform political system, a general act of navigation and commerce, an alliance offensive and defensive, and a tribunal for the settlement of differences. The project is a good one, but there seems to be little chance of its being carried out. In Durango, a popular commotion occurred on the 17th of August, in consequence of the high price of corn, but it was quelled without bloodshed, by an order from the government compelling the holders of the article to reduce its price. In Vera Cruz, on the 21st, a very large number of the inhabitants, including some of the National Guard, assembled to ask of the local government relief from recent and very oppressive taxes. Some of the soldiers were ordered out to oppose them, when the people retired to their houses and prepared for defense. A brisk action ensued in which several were killed, but quiet was restored by the announcement that the local government had yielded to the popular demands. President Arista's birthday was celebrated on the 25th of July. He has dissolved a club formed for the purpose of regulating the annual celebration of Mexican Independence, as some of its regulations did not meet his approbation. An abortive attempt at a pronunciamiento in favor of Santa Anna has been made at Guanajuato. The plot, which probably had plunder for its chief object, was discovered before it had come to maturity, and the leaders were taken into custody. A revolution has broken out in Chiapas, aiming at the abolition of the internal Custom Houses. Col. Munoz, commanding the battalion of Guerrero in Tehuantepec, was ordered to proceed to Chiapas and aid the government party in the suppression of the rebellion. His men began to desert soon after the commencement of the march, and before he had advanced fifty miles from Tehuantepec he had not more then seventy men. The revolt is headed by Meldono, one of the wealthiest and most influential men in the State.

A good deal of excitement has been produced in Mexico by the publication of the letters of Payno, to the President of the Committee of Mexican bond-holders in London. It seems that the assertion of Payno that he was Chargé d'Affaires of the Mexican Legation in London, and was commissioned to adjust certain matters pending in Europe, was entirely destitute of foundation. On the publication of the letter containing these statements, and others equally untrue, a resolution was introduced into the Chamber of Deputies, inquiring by what authority Payno had received the appointment of chargé, and how much money was appropriated to his mission. The Minister replied that Payno had never received the commission from the Government, but that $20,000 had been applied to defraying the expense of the voyage. In consequence of this information, a complaint was lodged against the former Minister of Finance, and of Foreign Relations. The affair was also taken up by the Senate, which has recommended Lacunza as Minister to England.

From _Montevideo_ we have intelligence to the first of July. The aspect of affairs in Brazil and Buenos Ayres was by no means pacific. The Brazilian force under Admiral Grenfell, the Commander-in-chief, had penetrated the waters of the Uraguay, and were stationed at commanding points along the north bank of the river. The disaffection of the province of Entre Rios had been followed by that of Corrientes, warlike preparations were in train; and every thing threatened a general outbreak. The mediation of Great Britain had been accepted by Gen. Rosas. The slave-trade on the coast of Brazil was at a low ebb, a deep laid scheme for its revival having been defeated by the British squadron. Only 1000 slaves were landed during the first six months of 1851, while no less than 20,000 were landed in the same period of 1848.

From the island of _Hayti_ our advices are to the middle of August. Every thing was then quiet. The Emperor had returned to Cape Haytien from his tour, having crossed the Dominican frontier without being molested, and it was reported that the difficulties between the Dominican and Haytian governments have been amicably settled.

An eruption of the long dormant volcanoes of the Pellée Mountain, in Martinique, took place on the night of August 5. It was accompanied with a noise similar to the approach of thunder, and with a strong vibration that was felt to a considerable distance. The town of St. Pierre, as well as all the surrounding country, was covered over with gray ashes. The population of Prêcheur were obliged to flee from their homes, and to take refuge in St. Pierre. There was no shock of an earthquake.

GREAT BRITAIN.

Parliament was prorogued on the 9th of August by the Queen in person, until the 4th of September. The speech of her Majesty contained nothing of special interest or importance.

No event in England has created more excitement, or engaged more attention, during the past month than the visit and performances of the yacht _America_, built in New York, and owned by John C. Stevens, Esq., who commands her. She arrived at Cowes early in July, and her commander immediately offered to sail her against any vessel of a similar construction in the world, for any wager up to $50,000. Public attention was instantly attracted to her by the reports of pilots and others who had seen her, and she was visited by thousands and thousands of people from every part of England, but her challenge was not accepted. On the 18th there was a race of seventeen yachts, owned by gentlemen from every part of the kingdom, contending for the prize of the gold cup, which the Queen gives every year to the best yacht in the kingdom. The _America_ was entered for the race, and won it so easily, as to excite the unbounded admiration and applause of the unsuccessful competitors. On the 25th there was another race, by the squadron; but the _America_ was not entered. The wind was light, and the last vessel of the squadron had been under weigh sixty-five minutes when the _America_ hoisted sail and followed. The race was round the Isle of Wight, and she came in only ten minutes behind the winner. Mr. Stephenson, the distinguished engineer, offered to sail his yacht, the _Titania_, for a small wager against the _America_. The offer was accepted, and the race came off on the 28th of Aug. The wind was fresh, and the course was forty miles out, and forty back. Earl Wilton was umpire. The _America_ won the race by a long distance. The Queen, with Prince Albert and the royal family, visited the yacht on the 20th. The spirit of England is thoroughly roused by this unlooked-for defeat; but they are unbounded in their expressions of admiration for the vessel which has conquered them. Several new cutters are to be built immediately for the express purpose of contending with the _America_.

The Royal Commissioners of the Great Exhibition have resolved to close it on the 11th of October. A meeting of the Commissioners will be held on the 15th, for the purpose of taking leave of the exhibitors, and immediately after they will have permission to remove their goods. The number of visitors has fallen off considerably.

A great meeting was held in Dublin on the 19th of August, of Roman Catholics from all parts of the kingdom, to protest against the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill just enacted. Immediately after the call was issued, a Protestant clergyman, named Tresham Gregg, issued a notice that he would be there to confront the Catholics, and summoned all true Protestants to his aid. This notice, and the general excitement which prevailed, led to anticipations of violence. An immense concourse of people was present. Admittance was refused to Mr. Gregg and his party, and the collision was thus avoided. A large number of Roman Catholic prelates were in attendance. The most Rev. Dr. Cullen, Archbishop of Armagh, and Primate of all Ireland, presided, and read a long address, urging Catholics every where to take measures to preserve their religion. Several speeches were made by distinguished Catholics, generally urging a political union of all Catholics, without reference to other political questions. An ostentatious disregard of the late law was shown in the constant use of the ecclesiastical titles prohibited by it.

The condition of laboring men in parts of England finds striking exemplification in an incident which occurred at a colliery in Bedminster. Several persons had been killed by the breaking of the rope upon which the miners daily descended 240 feet to their work. It appeared upon the trial that the workmen knew that the rope was unsafe, but they had not dared to complain, lest they should lose their places--"poor men are tied down so tight now." One of the witnesses, a collier, after giving his testimony, said, "for the evidence I have given this day, I shall be out of work."

The Exhibition, and the official visit to Paris, have aroused writers in England to a sense of their own clumsiness and artistic inferiority to the French. In all departments of art, and especially in the graces and elegancies of life, the English feel themselves to be far behind their neighbors. The _Times_ suggests, as one step toward remedying the evil, that Cleopatra's Needle should be brought to London, as the Luxor was to Paris, and erected as a monument to Sir Ralph Abercromby. It can be procured, and the cost of removal is estimated at £2500.

The English Government has granted new pensions of £200 a year to Mr. J. Silk Buckingham, who is well known in this country, and the same amount to Col. Torrens, the author of several works on political economy. Mrs. Jamieson, whose admirable books upon Shakspeare's female characters are universally known, has received a pension of £100.

Alderman Salomons, the Jewish representative of Greenwich, whose forcible exclusion from the House of Commons was noticed in our last, has been honored with a public dinner by his constituents. He declared his belief that public opinion would demand the rescinding of the obnoxious oath, but declared his purpose to commence a systematic canvass of the country for the purpose of hastening that event. He assures his constituents that, with their support, he "will not be got rid of" by the government.

The management of English railways is generally supposed to be so nearly perfect that accidents never occur. Though their police is, as a general thing, superior to that of the American railways, recent accounts chronicle a very large number of serious mishaps. On the Great Western road, a train, having broken down in a tunnel, was run into by another which was not warned of the danger. On the Lancashire Railway, near Liverpool, part of a bridge had been taken down for the purpose of being repaired. A luggage-train was suffered to come up in the night without any notification, and of course ran into the gap. Several minor accidents in various parts of the kingdom are chronicled, showing very culpable negligence on the part of the railway police.

The leading authors of England have petitioned the Master of the Rolls for leave to examine the records of the realm gratuitously. Their request has been granted. At a time when the historical records of the past enter so largely into the literary productions of the day, this is a boon of decided importance.

Mr. Jerdan, who was for many years the editor of the London Literary Gazette, is said to be engaged in preparing his Reminiscences of Literary Men, and his Correspondence with them, for the press. His long connection with the literary circles of England must have given him unusual facilities for making such a work valuable and interesting. Among the London announcements of new books in press we observe a novel, entitled "Marian Withers," by Geraldine E. Jewsbury, the author of _Zoe;_ one of the most powerful novels of the day.

The London _Examiner_ states that Haynau, the notorious Austrian General, has taken up his residence upon a large estate which he has just purchased in Hungary. It is said that he omits no opportunity of making himself popular with the Magyars; that he pays assiduous court to the nobility, many of whom were sentenced by his courts-martial; that he joins the Hungarians in denouncing the Austrian attempt to monopolize the sale of tobacco, and says that throughout the Hungarian war, he was only the tool of the Austrian government. He declares that there is no country in Europe he likes so well as England, and speaks of the beating he received there with perfect complacency. It is difficult to believe all these statements, though the _Examiner_ vouches for their accuracy.

FRANCE.

The French National Assembly met on the 9th for the last time of the session, and then adjourned until the 4th of November. A manifesto was at once issued by the Republican members, complaining that the sovereign power was in the hands of men opposed to all reforms, but predicting a certain victory as the fruit of union, perseverance, and devotedness on the part of the people. The document declares that the Constitution is the supreme law, and must be maintained inviolate; and that any attempt to re-elect Bonaparte, or to prolong existing powers, will not be a crisis, but a revolution; that resistance to all such attempts will be "legitimate as right, holy as justice, sacred as liberty;" and that the Republican members, under the flag of the Constitution, will not fail in any of the duties which the salvation of the Republic may impose upon them.

Preparations for the coming Presidential election are in active progress. The Orleanists seem to be settling down upon the Prince de Joinville as their candidate, and several of the most distinguished among them, recently paid a visit to the Duke of Nemours to ascertain the feelings of the family in regard to it. The conversation seems not to have been very satisfactory: the most that the Duke would say was, that they would not be responsible for the action of their friends. The Republicans have not yet fixed upon a candidate.

Public attention in France has been drawn to the trial at Lyons of a number of persons charged with conspiracy. It seems that in November last a club was discovered there, of which a person named Gent was a leading member. His plan is said to have been to give the southern provinces a thorough secret organization, so as to enable them to rise on a given signal, to secure the frontiers of Switzerland and Savoy as a means of assistance or retreat, and to take steps to inflame the whole country, and thus bring about a general republican movement. The trial had not been concluded at our last advices.

A singular accident occurred at the funeral ceremonies of Marshal Sebastiani, at the Invalides in Paris, on the 13th. The flame of a wax candle was brought in contact with the hangings of the catafalque, and the whole splendid drapery of the church was speedily in a blaze. Before the fire could be extinguished, nearly one half of the magnificent collection of trophies taken by the French armies were destroyed.

The grand fête given by the authorities of Paris to the Lord Mayor of London and the Commissioners of the great Exhibition, had a brilliant and successful termination. The mutual compliments of the visit were closed by a correspondence between M. Charles Dupin, the President of the French Commission, and Prince Albert. M. Dupin wrote to acknowledge the courtesies received by the Committee during their visit to the Exhibition, and to thank the Prince for the conspicuous part he had taken in it. The constant attendance of the Queen, and her success "in conquering suffrages and good wishes among the representatives of all nations, in favor of a work which she still cherished as that of the father of her children," are gracefully noticed. M. Dupin, after remarking that "Art, like Nature, loves to scatter her gifts among the children of great national families, and that they could thus honor, on different grounds, genius, taste, imagination, reason, in nations whose brilliant variety constitutes the riches and splendor of the human race," designates the real service which the Great Exhibition will render the world, by saying, that "each nation, without affecting its character, may add to its well-being, its riches, its power, by judiciously borrowing from the discoveries and improvements of other nations. Here," he says, "each people sees its products side by side with those of all others, and often sees them surpassed. Pride, which grows while favored by isolation, is here abased, and reason profits by the opportunity. Each nation, instead of dreaming of self-sufficiency and inborn superiority, vows to improve in the future. Thus we shall see new efforts attempted in every country, to ameliorate the productions of the human race." Prince Albert, in his reply, tendered his thanks to the President for his kind expressions, and to the Commissioners for their attention and care.

GERMANY AND SOUTHERN EUROPE.

The intelligence from Germany is neither interesting nor important. The Sovereigns of Austria and Prussia seem to be acting together for the entire suppression of every thing like constitutional rights and liberty in the German states. A proposition is about to be laid before the Diet by these two powers, declaring that "the so-called fundamental rights of the German people," proclaimed in the Constitutions of 1848 and 1849, are neither valid as a law of the Empire, nor binding on the several states, and they be therefore repealed, with all laws based upon them.--In the Italian dominions of Austria, the state of things is gloomy and ominous. Arrests of compromised persons are continually made in Milan and Verona. In the latter city, one of the new prisoners was a lady of rank, accused of forwarding a correspondence to Mazzini. A system of espionage has been adopted in the Venetian provinces of Austria, unparalleled for its inquisitorial and oppressive character, in the history of the most despotic states. Many persons belonging to the higher classes have been arrested in Verona, and nearly every night domiciliary visits are made by the police. The public mind throughout Austrian Italy is described as in a state of the most violent excitement, and insurrection is apprehended by government. Marshal Radetzky published a proclamation to the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom on the 9th of July, and from his head-quarters at Monga. The Lombardo-Venetian kingdom is declared to be in a state of siege; the communes are made responsible for all assassinations similar to that of Vandoni at Milan; and the inhabitants will be severely dealt with if they do not immediately surrender all such offenders to the military.

Two musical artists have been made victims to the paltry prosecution of the Austrian government. Mdlle. Anna Zerr, for having visited two of the Hungarian exiles resident in London, and for having consented to sing at a concert for the relief of the Hungarian refugees, has, on her return to Vienna, been deprived of her place of Imperial Chamber-singer, prohibited from appearing on the stage of the Imperial Theatre, where she was one of the most distinguished performers, and placed under the surveillance of the police. And Leopold Iansa, an eminent violinist, who has been for many years in the Imperial Chapel, was dismissed for a similar offense.

The Austrian authorities recently opened packages addressed to the United States consulate at Venice. Mr. Flagg, the American consul, remonstrated, and was told in reply, that the government claimed the right to examine all publications introduced into the Venetian States, no matter from what quarter or to what address. Several communications have passed upon the subject.

In _Switzerland_ there have been heavy inundations which in the canton of Berne alone have caused losses to the amount of about £100,000. Active preparations are making for the coming election, in which it is supposed the radical party will resort to extreme measures, if necessary, for the accomplishment of their purposes.

Dr. Paulus, a distinguished German scholar, died at Heidelberg, on the 10th of August, at the advanced age of 94 years. In 1784 he was appointed Professor of Oriental Languages at Jena, and in 1793 succeeded to the chair of theology. His profound learning, penetrating judgment, marked courage, and unwearied assiduity, obtained for his numerous writings a very wide circulation. He was exceedingly amiable in private life and was always employed in endeavors to promote the interest of piety, virtue, and humanity.

A terrible catastrophe took place at Moscow, on the 20th July. As the monks of the convent of Wladimir were setting out in procession to visit an image of the Virgin at a neighboring village, a wooden bridge thrown over the moat of the convent (formerly a fortress) gave way, and out of 200 of the monks, 158 were drowned; the water being 45 feet deep, and the sides of the moat perpendicular.

The Austrian authorities in Hungary are resorting to the most unheard-of cruelties in order to crush the spirit of the people. At a peasant's wedding lately, near Groswardein, the _gendarmes_ approached the bride and ordered her to take off the red, white, and green ribbons which she wore in her hair, as these colors were revolutionary. The reply was that it should be done after the ceremony. While the bride was kneeling at the altar the _gendarme_ rushed forward and cut her tresses from her head. The peasants resented the indignity, and an affray ensued, in which three of the _gendarmes_ and four of the peasantry, including the bridegroom, were killed.

We mentioned last month the release of Mr. Brace, the American traveler in Hungary, who had been arrested and thrown into prison by the Austrian authorities upon the most frivolous grounds. His release was procured by Mr. McCurdy, who threatened to demand his own passports, if it was not conceded. It seems that further proceedings of interest may be expected. Mr. M. promised that Mr. Brace should present himself for trial. The London _Spectator_ remarks that "this trial will be watched with interest, it will take place in the sight of Europe and America, and also in the sight of Hungary. The oppressed subjects of Austria will see the right of personal freedom vindicated, in the person of a gentleman whose own government will do no more than insist on the strict fulfillment of the law, but will not be content with less. Austria will be obliged to submit to the law, and will be forced to that hateful submission at the dictation of a distant State. It will be brought to that submission, that dictation, before the eyes of Europe, even before its own subjects. It will be a very instructive trial."

It is stated upon what is believed to be good authority, that the Turkish Government has definitively determined that Kossuth shall be set at liberty on the 1st of September. The Austrian Government has warmly and steadily protested against his release, but without effect. The government of the United States has sent a national vessel to receive him upon his liberation, and his arrival in the United States may be expected by the 1st of November. No man living would receive a warmer welcome.

THE EAST.

The English government has directed the seizure of another large _Indian_ territory, part of the Nizam's dominions, to enforce the payment of a large sum of money with interest. It is thought that the Nizam can and will pay at the last moment; but if not, it is not probable that his sway over his own dominions will hereafter be more than nominal. At Gobindpore on the 14th of June, seventy prisoners were chained together in a hut for safe keeping. During the night, the hut took fire and all but five perished.

The news from _China_ represents the insurrection in the southern provinces as one of magnitude and great political importance. It is said that one of the leaders has assumed to himself the title of sovereign, and that the insurgents, numbering a hundred thousand, menace the city of Canton. The Chinese journals take very different views of the character of this disturbance, some considering it as merely the work of a few desperadoes, seeking only pillage, and others attributing to it the highest political consequence. The emperor is said to be considerably alarmed, and has sent against them his choicest troops.

The London _Spectator_ thinks it highly probable that the malcontents are masters of all the provinces south of the Yellow River, and have seized upon the great entrepot of Canton. This, it adds, would be a revolution; for Pekin, which derives its supplies of provisions by the great canal from those southern provinces, would be starved into submission; and the principal seat of foreign commerce would fall into the hands of a party more bigotedly hostile to intercourse with foreigners than even the Celestial Government. Nor is such a revolution either impossible or improbable. Our knowledge of Chinese history is dim and obscure; yet enough appears to show that the Mantchoo authority has never been so firmly established to the south as to the north of the Yellow River--that the purely Chinese element of society has always preponderated in the southern provinces. In _Siam_, too, changes of policy appear to be impending. The king who refused to treat with Sir James Brooke is dead; and a contested succession has been temporarily avoided by the simultaneous nomination of a king and a vice-king. The new king has always been remarkable for his disposition to cultivate the acquaintance and friendship of foreigners, and he is said to understand and even to write English. The institutions of the Chinese and Hindu-Chinese nations are thus shaken and sapped at the very time when the traders of Europe and America are making more vigorous and continuous efforts than at any former period to obtain a footing in them.

Twenty-three British seamen belonging to the ship Larpent, were wrecked over a year ago upon the coast of the Chinese island of Formosa. They were immediately set upon by the savage inhabitants, and all but three butchered in cold blood. These three were taken into servitude, and after about eight months' captivity made their escape in a boat to an American brig which happened to be passing.

Editor's Table.

In the extreme western portion of the North American continent, and of the North American National Confederacy, there are now to be found, growing side by side, two of the most singular phenomena of the age. We allude to the new social and political organization, constituting the State of California, and the new theocracy, as it is assumed to be, of the Mormon Commonwealth or Church--the one the most decidedly secular of all known modern enterprises, the other the only example of the rise of a new religion, and of a distinctly new religious people in the 19th century. Mormonism, it is true, has some decidedly secular elements. In this respect it easily assimilates itself to the gross spirit of worldly enterprise by which it is surrounded, and even finds itself at home in the midst of the most turbulent scenes. But this is far from accounting for its wonderful success. It is also true, on the other hand, that the present age has been marked by the division and subdivision of religious denominations. Yet still, none of these come up to that idea or pretension of Mormonism, which seems now to have presented itself in the world for the first time since the days of Mohammed. Although, therefore, acknowledging Christianity and the Old Scriptures, just as Mohammed did, it is distinctly a new religion. It claims a new revelation, and a new prophet. It has a new law, a new spiritual polity, and a new mission. Instead of being merely a new interpretation of an old theology, it professes to have renewed the long-suspended intercourse with Heaven and the supernatural. Instead of presenting a new dispensation growing out of an old ecclesiastical history, to which it assumes to impart a new life, it has actually created a past history of its own, which, though severed from the main current of our common traditional Christianity, connects it back, through passages never before suspected or explored, with the early Jewish revelation--or that original fountain from which the Gospel and Mohammedanism may be said to have derived, the one its reality and its purity, the other the materials for its fanatical perversions.

Whatever may be the truth in respect to the real origin and authorship of the book of Mormon, there can be no doubt of its wonderful adaptedness to the purposes to which it has been applied. We can not agree with those who would deny to the work either genius or talent. The Koran bears with it that prestige of antiquity which always insures some degree of respect. It is written in a dead, and what is now regarded a learned language. It has its Oriental imagery, together with frequent allusions to what most interests us in Oriental romance. Above all, it has had its centuries of scholiasts and commentators, extracting the aroma as well as the dust of its assumed divinity. In short, there is about it a show of learning and "venerable antiquity," and yet, we do not hesitate to say it, Joe Smith, or whoever was its author, has made a book superior to that of the Arabian prophet; deeper in its philosophy, purer in its morality, and far more original. There are, doubtless, many faults both of style and language; but centuries hence may convert these into precious archaisms, and give to the bad Anglo-Saxon of the Mormon book all the interest which ages of scholiasts have imparted to what was once the irregular Arabic of the rude tribes of the desert.

It may startle some to be told, that Mormonism has actually pressed itself more upon the attention of the world than Christianity had done at the same age. We carry back into the early days of the Gospel's progress the clear light and outline of its later history. We can hardly realize that even for a century, or more, after its first promulgation, it was an object of little interest to the world, and that when it first began to demand a passing paragraph from the historian, it was only as an "_execrabilis superstitio_," creating a disturbance barely visible on the surface of society. Of course there is no intention, by any such remark, to make any comparison between the intrinsic merits of the two systems. A true believer in Jesus, and of "the truth as it is in Jesus," will never suffer himself to be disturbed by any parallel, real or seeming, between Christ and Socrates, or Christ and Mohammed, or Confucius, or the founder of any new religion, or of any pretended social reform, either in ancient or modern times. He can have no nervous fear of confounding the immeasurable difference between any such pretension and "that name which is above every other name." The strength and success of the counterfeit only adds lustre and assurance to the original. Neither does the great idea of a revelation suffer any detraction by being associated in thought with such attempts. The Koran only confirms the Gospel. It never would have been what it is without it. The false prophet never would have arisen had it not been for the true. All religious imposture and fanaticism may thus be regarded as involuntary witnesses to an absolute truth, of which they are but the frenzied caricatures. The grossest delusions only show, by their very extravagance, the indestructibleness of the religious principle in the human soul, and how it clings and ever must cling to the idea of some Divine revelation, some lifting of the vail, as the etymology of the word imports, which hangs so densely over man and nature.

There is a more inexplicable phenomenon than Mormonism or any false religion. It is the disposition manifested in some parts of the philosophical, and even professedly religious world, to depreciate, if not directly to deny the supernatural--to put as far away as possible, or to receive as the last allowable explanation of any difficulty, the thought of any direct communication from Heaven to earth. It is on this principle some would even interpret, not only present phenomena, but also all that during countless ages have left their mark upon our globe. On this principle another class would unspiritualize as far as they could, even the acknowledged Scriptures. But why should it be so? Why this strange delight in believing in the omnipotence and unchangeableness of a blind and unrelenting nature? What comfort has it for the soul, or what enlargement even for the intellect? What happiness in the thought of being bound in such an adamantine chain, even if we are compelled to admit its stern reality! It may be, peradventure, that philosophy here is in the right, but, if we may employ the paradox, her reverence for nature must certainly seem most unnatural. Nature, even our nature, longs for some Divine or supernatural communications. For this "the whole creation groaneth and travaileth together until now." The wonder, then, is not that there have been in the world so many mythical accounts of Divine intercourse, but that there has been so little of the reality. Why does not God speak to us here? Why has "_He made darkness his pavilion round about him?_" Why "cometh He not out" more frequently "from the _hiding-place of his power?_" Why has He ever been called--by Homer, and Hesiod, and Orpheus, as well as in the Bible--"_The Dweller in the cloud?_" Why does not our Father's voice oftener break the fearful stillness of nature, and give us that evidence of His existence, His government, and His providence, without which nature is but a gloomy prison-house, while life is but a smothered effort to escape from its terrible immutability, and breathe the freedom of a spiritual and supernatural atmosphere? Is it said that He is always speaking--that the Great Cause of causes is always exhibiting itself in its effects? But what comfort in this? It speaketh not to us--it manifests no knowledge of our present thought, of our present individual wants. The voice that is alike _in_ all things, and comes alike _to_ all things, we can not distinguish from nature herself. The true ground for marvel, then, is not that men are led astray by false prophets, but that such vast multitudes should be so utterly immersed in nature and worldliness, "caring for none of these things," and finding in such phenomena as Millerism and Mormonism, only occasion for insane merriment, instead of deep religious and philosophical inquiry.

The indestructibleness of the religious principle in the human soul! This is the great lesson read to us by such events. Even this nineteenth century with all its secularity, has not wholly drowned it. It breaks out in the midst of every form of worldliness. When untaught in respect to the true path, it follows the wildest imposture; and, as though in awful derision of the inability of the mere secular spirit ever to satisfy the deepest human wants, a Kingdom of the Saints settles itself in nearest contiguity to what would seem to be the exclusive territory of Mammon.

We can only call attention to this strange phenomenon without going into any discussion of the causes of its remarkable success. As we have said, it is the only case of a distinctly new religion since the days of Mohammed. Yet still it may be compared with other anomalous religious movements that have characterized the present century. Most of these have already had their growth and decline. Some that started with more enthusiasm than has ever been claimed for the Mormons, have, for years, been dying out, or only manifesting an outward and formal existence. On the other hand, too, a similar fate has attended most of the schemes of Socialists, and of those reformers who have relied solely on some doctrine of political economy, while ignoring, as far as they could, any recognition of a supernatural religionism. In distinction from both these, Mormonism has flourished because it has possessed the element of vitality which was respectively wanting to each. The religious sects to which we have alluded (and we mean of course such as may be justly characterized as unscriptural delusions) have been too unworldly for success. They have lacked the secular element. Schemes of mere social reform, on the other hand, have been dead from the beginning. They have been wanting in that vitality which alone can come from a real or pretended connection with a future life, and a supernatural world. Mormonism professes to wield both powers. Whatever may be thought of the first founders of the sect, the multitudes who from all parts of the United States, and from England, and even from the Continent, are now crowding to the Salt Lake and the modern Canaan, give evidence of a power of tremendous reality, however much it may be above the comprehension of the shallow witling, or the mere secular political economist. The cause must have a universality in some way corresponding to the wide effect it is producing. But be it what it may, the lesson taught is most timely as well as important. It is, we repeat--and it will bear to be repeated--_the indestructibleness of the religious principle in the human soul_. If this have not the true nourishment, it will feed on falsehood; but nourishment and life of some kind it must have. The most secular age, instead of destroying, only causes it to burst out in some new and monstrous form. And even in this idea there is light and consolation for true faith. It derives new evidence from every spurious manifestation. The religious principle can not be wholly annihilated--

Merses profundo pulchrior evenit.

Let all worldly causes combine to drive it seemingly from the earth--let the edifice of supernatural belief be leveled with the ground, it would only be the signal for reconstruction. Take away the true, or quench it in the worldly spirit, and some form of false belief will start up in its place. _There will be faith in the earth_--there will be a sacred book--there will be a ritual, or system of worship, ever maintaining itself as a symbol of the inextinguishable trust in the reality of "things unseen and eternal." The naturalizing philosophy may endure, and even be strong as the antagonist of a revealed supernaturalism. But take away the latter, and the former falls with it. Its success is suicidal. Its triumph is its own utter defeat. All true interest in nature and science must expire, when every where the soul ceases to acknowledge any thing higher than either. Without a return to a true faith, spiritual delusions, on the one hand, or the grossest secularity and sensualism, on the other, will be the only alternative. And, if we must come to this, can any thinking mind have difficulty in deciding where we should look for the truest exhibition of human dignity--in Utah or California--in the Land of the Saints, or in the Land of Gold?

* * * * *

And there was evening--_and there was morning--one day._ (Gen. i. 5.) Why has the inspired historian placed the night first? It must doubtless be because it actually came first in the order of our present creation. What was this first night but the long chaos of darkness that covered the face of the deep, and over which the Spirit brooded when the command came forth for the first morning to appear--when God said, _Let there be light_ on that dark world, and immediately _light was there?_ But still, night was first, and hence in all the traditions that have sprung from this account it has ever been an object of religious reverence. In the old mythologies Night is the mother of day; and hence the epithets that poetry has ever conferred upon her--Sacred Night, Divine Night, Holy Night, Most Venerable and Religious Night. But not only has she been regarded as the mythological _mother_ of creation, but as ever the _nurse_ of the purest emotion and the truest thoughts. On this account the Greek poets gave her that beautiful name _Euphrone_--indicating the season of good feeling--the hour of hope, of calm yet joyous contemplation. It is true, the inspired description of the heavenly state says, _There shall be no night there_. But in our present imperfect being, the idea of the highest earthly bliss would be marred by its absence from the picture. As yet we can not dispense with the shade. The

Sacred, high, eternal noon

is for beings of another order, and another life; and however much we may admire the pure sublimity of this fine line of Doddridge, we feel that we must be endowed with new emotions before we could truly enjoy the never to be remitted splendor of such a state as it describes.

Although affected by particular circumstances, and expressed with great variety of imagery, there has been a wonderful harmony in the spiritual conceptions which the contemplation of night has ever called forth. We have, therefore, thought that it might interest our readers to present a few of the most striking night scenes from ancient and modern poets. The first from our port-folio, of course, is Homer's. The selection is from the close of the eighth book of the Iliad. Its introduction partakes of the warlike character of the poem, but softened into that holy calmness which the scene ever assumes, whatever may be the circumstances in which it is presented. We give Pope's splendid translation, although some might prefer the more accurate version of Cowper.

As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night, O'er heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light, When not a breath disturbs the deep serene, And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene; Around her throne the vivid planets roll, And stars unnumbered gild the glowing pole, O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed, And tip with silver every mountain's head; Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise, A flood of glory bursts from all the skies.

But neither Pope nor Cowper can be said to have caught the spirit of the original as well as the old ballad version of Chapman.

As when about the silver moon, when air is free from winde, And stars shine cleare to whose sweet beams high prospects and the brows Of all steep hills and pinnacles thrust up themselves for shows; And even the lowly vallies joy to glitter in their sight-- When the unmeasured firmament bursts to disclose her light, And all the signs in heaven are seen that glad the shepherd heart.

Apollonius Rhodius, in the _Argonautica_, presents a greater diversity of imagery. He has not in view, like Homer, the unity of a single scene, but calls up similar emotions by a dispersed variety of the most impressive pictures. We present a translation, which, if it have no other merit, may at least be said to be almost word for word--

Now Night had thrown her shadow o'er the earth. Far out at sea the sailors stood and gazed, On wheeling Arctos and Orion's stars. The traveler longed to hear the warder's voice Invite to rest; and even the mother's eyes That drowsy hour pressed downward, as she watched By her dead child--the watch-dog's voice was mute; The city's thronging noise had died away, And stillness reigned o'er all the shaded realm; Save in Medea's restless soul--

Virgil closely imitates the Greek poet in the designed contrast, if not in his scenery. As we have not troubled them with the Greek, our fair readers, and others, we hope, will pardon us for putting on our page the Latin. Even those may appreciate its exceedingly liquid flow, who are compelled to resort to the translation for its meaning.

Nox erat, et placidum carpebat fessa soporem Corpora per terras, sylvæque et sæva quiêrant Æquora: cum medio volvuntur sidera lapsu: Cum tacet omnis ager, pecudes, pictæque volucres, Quæque lacus late liquidos, quæque aspera dumis Rura tenent, somno positæ sub node silenti, Lenibant curas, et corda oblita laborum At non infelix Dido-- _Æneid, Lib._ iv.

'Twas dead of night when wearied bodies close Their eyes in balmy sleep, and soft repose. The winds no longer whisper through the woods, Nor murmuring tides disturb the gentle floods. The stars in silent order moved around, And peace with downy wings was brooding on the ground. The flocks, and herds, and particolored fowl, Which haunt the woods, or swim the seedy pool, Stretched on the quiet earth securely lay, Forgetting the past labors of the day. All but unhappy Dido--

Dryden is very far from doing justice to Virgil in the translation of this passage, and yet, we must say, that the original, much as it has been praised, falls greatly short of the exquisite description by Apollonius. How much does that most impressive image in the sixth line of the Grecian poet exceed any effect produced by Virgil's _pictæ volucres_, or "particolored fowl," however ornate the language, and liquid the melody of his highly wrought lines.

But Byron--shall we risk the criticism--Byron, in our judgment, surpasses every example we have quoted, and even had we added, as we might have done, Shakspeare and Milton to the list.

'Twas midnight--On the mountains brown The cold round moon shone deeply down Blue rolled the waters, blue the sky Spread like an ocean hung on high; Bespangled with those isles of light, So widely, spiritually bright. Who ever gazed upon them shining, And turned to earth without repining! The sea on either shore lay there, Calm, clear, and azure as the air; And scarce the foam the pebbles shook, That murmured meekly as the brook. The winds were pillowed on the waves; The banners drooped along their staves; And that deep silence was unbroke, Save where the watch his signal spoke; Save where the steed neighed oft and shrill, And echo answered from the hill. _Siege of Corinth._

Our concluding example is from the Scriptures. We challenge not for it a superiority simply on the ground of its inspiration. Every reader may judge for himself how immeasurably it excels any thing of the kind to be found in ancient or modern poetry. How full of _natural_ sublimity, and, at the same time, how profoundly impressive the _moral_ lesson of this night scene from Job!

In thoughts from visions of the night, When deep sleep falleth upon men, Fear came upon me, and trembling, And made all my bones to shake. Then a spirit passed before my face; The hair of my flesh rose up. It stood. An image was before mine eyes, And yet I could not discern the form thereof. There was silence-- And yet I heard a voice--saying-- Shall a mortal be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his Maker?

* * * * *

We hear often of popular fallacies. Books have been written on them. But there are also learned fallacies, and among these we know of no one more common than that which prevails respecting the word _education_. It is quite usual with lecturers and essayists to derive a profound philosophical meaning from the bare etymology of the term. It is from _educo_, they tell us, to _lead or draw out_. It means the _drawing_ out or developing the faculties. It is the bringing out the unwrought man, like the polished statue from the rough block of marble. All sorts of changes are rung upon the word. With some it is the _educing_ of the individuality, with others, of the humanity. Others again talk much of _drawing out the ideas_, and that, too, without any previous exact _in_struction, or the furnishing of what might be styled the prepared material of thought--about as wise a course as to attempt to develop, or draw _out_ the faculties of a nail-making machine, without ever thinking of putting any well-wrought iron _into_ it. Now, all this is pedantic nonsense. The old Roman Roundheads, from whom the term is derived, never dreamed of any such transcendental conception. The word, in its primary sense, simply means _nursing_, _fostering_, _rearing_. Hence is it afterward applied to knowledge and discipline. It is educed from the simple conception of holding the child by the hand, and leading him forth when he first begins to walk. From the same primitive thought comes the word _pedagogue_, which simply means, _one who leads a boy_, and was first applied to the slave, or servant, who conducted the Athenian child to and from school. It would, however, be hardly worth our while to show the fallacy of this very common etymological deduction, were it not sometimes made the ground of very false ideas. The old view, although it have no great philosophy, will be found to be the true one. It is to hold a child up, and lead him forth by the hand, before you set him to walk alone by himself, under pretense of developing his _faculties_, either of thinking or of locomotion.

* * * * *

Every man has two parents, four grand-parents, eight great-grand-parents, sixteen great-great-grand-parents, &c., &c., &c. If we reckon 30 years to a generation, and carry on the above series to the time of the Norman conquest, it will be found that each one of us must have had at that period, no less than 32,000,000 of ancestors. Now, making all allowance for the crossing of genealogical lines, and consequently for the same person being in many of the intersections, still there will remain a number sufficient, at that period, to cover the whole Norman and Anglo-Saxon race. Whatever, therefore, was then noble, or pious, or princely, or even kingly, stands somewhere in the line of ancestry of the most ignoble and plebeian among us. Each man of the present day may be almost certain of having had, not only earls (and it may be bishops), but even crowned heads among his progenitors. And so also may we be almost assured that the highest families of that period have now lineal representatives in persons so low in the social scale, that all the sounding lines of heraldry would fail to fathom the depth of their obscurity. In less than a thousand years, the blood of Victoria inevitably mingles with that of some of the most ignoble of the earth. Carry the calculation further back, and we soon pass beyond any population that ever existed on our globe. A thousand years from the present time brings the number up to 1,024,000,000. Two or three centuries more carries it beyond a thousand billions, and long before we arrive at the period of our world's creation, it would have reached a number surpassing all powers of easy enumeration. It is a consequence, too, of the same view, that a thousand years hence, each man who has now an ordinary family of children, will probably have a representative some way of his blood in each one of 30,000,000 of persons; and that these will be of all conditions, high and low, rich and poor, unless, as may be the case, some system of social philosophy may long before that have swept all distinctions from our world.

Editor's Drawer.

The "monitory season" of Nature has come. The faded garniture of the fields; the many-colored, gorgeous woods; the fitful winds, sighing for the flowers "whose fragrance late they bore:" the peculiar yellow-green of the sky at the horizon, in the twilight gloaming; all these proclaim that "summer is ended" and autumn is here. Brainard, a poet of true tenderness and feeling, once asked, "What is there saddening in the autumn leaf?" Perhaps it would be difficult to tell _what_ it is, but that it _is_ saddening, in the midst of its dying beauty, most persons have felt. One of our own poets, too early called away,[10] wrote many years since, on the first day of October, the following sad and tender lines:

"Solemn, yet beautiful to view, Month of my heart! thou dawnest here, With sad and faded leaves to strew The Summer's melancholy bier; The moaning of thy winds I hear, As the red sunset dies afar, And bars of purple clouds appear, Obscuring every western star.

"Thou solemn month! I hear thy voice, It tells my soul of other days, When but to live was to rejoice, When earth was lovely to my gaze Oh, visions bright--oh, blessed hours, Where are their living raptures now? I ask my spirit's wearied powers, I ask my pale and fevered brow.

"I look to Nature, and behold My life's dim emblems rustling round, In hues of crimson and of gold-- The year's dead honors on the ground. And sighing with the winds, I feel, While their low pinions murmur by, How much their sweeping tones reveal Of life and human destiny.

"When Spring's delightsome moments shone, They came in zephyrs from the West: They bore the wood-lark's melting tone, They stirred the blue lake's glassy breast Through Summer, fainting in the heat, They lingered in the forest shade; But changed and strengthened now, they beat In storm, o'er mountain, glen, and glade.

"How like those transports of the heart, When life is fresh and joy is new; Soft as the halcyon's downy nest, And transient all as they are true! They stir the leaves in that bright wreath Which HOPE about her forehead twines, Till Grief's hot sighs around it breathe, Then Pleasure's lip its smile resigns.

"Alas, for Time, and Death, and Care, What gloom about our way they fling Like clouds in Autumn's gusty air, The burial-pageant of the Spring The dreams that each successive year Seemed bathed in hues of brighter pride, At last like withered leaves appear, And sleep in darkness, side by side!"

[10] Willis Gaylord Clark, for many years Editor of the Philadelphia Daily Gazette, and author of the "_Ollapodiana_" papers in the Knickerbocker Magazine.

* * * * *

Carlyle, in his "Sartor Resartus," gives a condensed, but exceedingly forcible picture of the "net purport and upshot of war," by taking thirty able-bodied men from a French and English village, and making them face each other on a pleasant morning, when they blow each other's souls out, and straightway become "shells of men." We were speaking of this the other evening with a friend, who was with our army in Mexico, and in the course of much chat, touching war and its accompaniments, he mentioned an anecdote of as brave a fellow as there was in his command, but who had an unfortunate and irresistible habit of occasional intoxication, whenever, by hook or by crook, he could procure a "horn" of brandy or whiskey. One evening, the day after an engagement, in which his coolness and determined bravery had won the admiration and warm commendation of his superior officers, he was brought before his commanding officer, who was on parade, in a state of beastly intoxication. Remembering his services of the day before, the officer was reluctant to punish him, at least without first trying to make him ashamed of his offense by exhortation and remonstrance. "Are you not ashamed of yourself?" he asked, "to be brought before me in this condition?--you that _can_ be so good a soldier? There was not a braver man in the regiment yesterday than you; and now you go and spoil all the honor you acquired, by disobeying orders, and coming before me drunk. Take him away!--I'm ashamed of him!" "Here--hello--hold on!" said the soldier--"hold on a minute: you've rep-rep-ri-_manded_ me some, and praised me a good deal: now look o' here, cap'n, do you expect to buy all the human virtues for seven dollars a month? It's too _cheap_, cap'n--too cheap!" He probably thought with Lowell's Yankee, writing from Saltillo after his first engagement:

"I wish that I was furder! Ninepence a day for killin' folks Comes kind o' low, for murder; I worked out to slaughterin' some For Deacon Cephas Billin's, And in the hardest times there was, I allers fetch'd ten shillins!"

* * * * *

As we sat looking at a conjurer or necromancer performing his tricks the other evening, at which were some hundreds of other lookers-on, we fell to meditate upon the influence which any thing that is at all mysterious has upon the human mind. "To him," says Dr. Chatfield, "who has been sated, and perhaps disappointed by the actual and the intelligible, there is an indefinable charm in the unattainable and inscrutable." And it is so. Infants stretch out their hands for the moon; children delight in puzzles and riddles, even when they can not discover their solution; and "children of a larger growth" desire, oftentimes, no better employment than to follow their example. Look at the fanaticism engendered by Rev. Edward Irving's "Unknown Tongues; at which," says the authority we have quoted, "we need not wonder, when we remember the confession of the pious Baxter, that in order to awaken an interest in his congregation, he made it a rule, in every sermon, to say something above their capacity." There are not wanting ministers nowadays who follow the Baxterian practice, with the difference only, that what they sometimes preach is as much above their _own_ comprehension as that of their audience.

* * * * *

Is it not a "little curious" that Harriet Martineau, an old maid, a "benign cerulean of the second sex," as Lord Byron calls her class, who "never loved," or if she did, yet who, if published accounts are true, shrunk from the nuptial bonds, and left her affianced lord in the lurch at the last moment--is it not a little curious, we say, that such a woman, should have written so exquisite a picture of true love as that which ensues? We once heard a distinguished American author remark, sitting by his "Dutchman's Fireside," that he kept for days out of the literary lady-traveler's way when she was trying to meet him. "There she was," said he, "going about with that long India-rubber ear-trumpet of hers, taking in every thing that was offered to it, just like an elephant going round with his trunk, drawing in here an apple, there a piece of cake, now a handful of nuts, and next, perhaps, a chew of tobacco. _I_ wasn't going to contribute to _her_ trunk, nor to the lining any others, when she had got home and printed her notes!" If the authoress, however, _had_ met this unwilling host, and had told this "tale of love," doubtless he would have listened in "mute admiration." But we are forgetting the passage: "There is no other such crisis in human life as the crisis of LOVE. The philosopher may experience uncontrollable agitation in verifying his principle of balancing systems of worlds, feeling perhaps as if he actually saw the creative hand in the act of sending the planets forth on their everlasting way; but he knows at such a moment no emotions so divine as those of the spirit becoming conscious that it is beloved; be it the peasant-girl in the meadow, or the daughter of the sage, or the artisan beside his loom, or the man of letters musing by his fire-side. The warrior about to strike the decisive blow for the liberties of a nation is not in a state of such lofty resolution as those who, by joining hearts, are laying their joint hands on the whole wide realm of futurity for their own. The statesman, in the moment of success, is not conscious of so holy and so intimate a thankfulness as they who are aware that their redemption has come in the presence of a new and sovereign affection. And these are many: they are in all corners of every land. The statesman is the leader of a nation; the warrior is the grace of an age; the philosopher is the birth of a thousand years; but the LOVER--where is he _not?_ Wherever parents look round upon their children, there he _has_ been: wherever children are at play together there he soon _will_ be; wherever there are roofs under which men dwell, wherever there is an atmosphere vibrating with human voices, there is the lover, and there is his lofty worship going on--unspeakable, perchance, but revealed in the brightness of the eye, the majesty of the presence, and the high temper of the discourse. Men have been ungrateful and perverse; they have done what they could to counteract it, to debate this most heavenly influence of their life; but the laws of their MAKER are too strong, the benignity of their FATHER is too patient and fervent, for their opposition to withstand; and true love continues, and _will_ continue, to send up its homage amidst the meditations of every eventide, and the busy hum of noon, and the song of the morning stars."

* * * * *

Some lively French writer, whose name has quite escaped us, once wrote a vivid sketch, entitled, "_L'Homme Rouge_," or "The Red Man." There was an under-plot of sentiment in the story, we well remember, but the great feature of the romance was, that whenever there was a fire to happen in any part of Paris, whether by accident or design, there suddenly appeared "_L'Homme Rouge;_" sometimes in the midst of a party of revelers at a masked-ball; sometimes surprising nuns at their devotions, and not unfrequently where crime was hatching, or unnatural orgies making night hideous. But he was a good, benevolent deity, and always came to warn against or to suppress conflagration. Such, it would appear, and without fable, hereafter, will be the man who can command the great "Fire-Annihilator," which is making such a sensation, and proving so unerringly effective in England. A man, bearing one of these easily-carried machines, enters his blazing domicil, all a-glow with a bright flame, which is curling its forked tongues around every thing which resists its progress, and touching a spring, a cloud of smoke-like vapor issues forth, before which the flame flickers, grows pale, and at once fades entirely out, and the conflagration is stopped. It has been tested in so many instances, that its success is now considered wholly infallible. A company for the sale of the "Annihilator" has been formed in this country, the "central bureau" of which is in New York, the president being Hon. Elisha Whittlesey, of the American Congress. The age of rail-roads, magnetic telegraphs, and fire-exterminators, will signalize this era as one of the most remarkable in the world's history.

* * * * *

Seneca complains that the ancients had compelled him to borrow from them what they would have taken from him, had he been lucky enough to have preceded them! "Every one of my writings," says Goethe, in the same candid spirit, "has been furnished to me by a thousand different persons, a thousand different things: the learned and the ignorant, the wise and the foolish, infancy and old age have come in turn, generally without having the least suspicion of it, to bring me the offering of their thoughts, their faculties, their experience. Often have they sowed the harvest I have reaped. My works are an aggregation of human beings, taken from the whole of nature." It is in the power of any writer, says a commentator upon this passage, to be original, by deserting nature, and seeking the quaint and the fantastical. "When I was a young man," says Goldsmith, "being anxious to distinguish myself, I was perpetually starting new propositions; but I soon gave this over, for I found that generally what was new was false."

* * * * *

Dean Swift's remark at the close of a charity-sermon, from the text "He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the LORD," is well known--("If you like the security, down with your dust!") But the two following eccentricities of speech, which are attributed to him, we never saw before: "My brethren," said he, on one occasion, "there are three sorts of pride--pride of birth, of riches, and of talents. I shall not now speak of the latter, none of you being addicted or liable to that abominable vice!" "I fear," said he, on another occasion, to his flock, "I fear, when I explained to you, in my last charity-sermon, that philanthropy was the love of our species, you must have misunderstood me to say _specie_, which may account for the smallness of the collection. You will prove, I hope, by your present contributions, that you are no longer laboring under the same mistake!" A surer way of securing a good collection was recently adopted by a benevolent lecture-giver in a sister city. The audience were admitted _free;_ but when the lecture was closed, no one was permitted to pass out until he or she had disbursed twenty-five cents!

* * * * *

Some fourteen years ago there appeared in one of the English magazines an amusing article, showing up the aristocratic stupidity of the large and costly English annuals, which were indebted almost exclusively to the nobility for their contents. Until then, we had not been made aware that the Duke of Wellington was a poet. But it seems that we were mistaken; the "noble Duke" is a master of the military sonnet, a specimen of which is subjoined. Its "terse composition," the "boldness of its character," its "laconic simplicity," and martial "determination," were very highly commended by the editor:

Halt! Shoulder arms! Recover! As you were! Right wheel! Eyes left! Attention! Stand at ease! O Britain! oh, my country! words like these Have made thy name a terror and a fear To all the nations. Witness Ebro's bank Assays, Toulouse, Nivelle, and Waterloo, Where the grim despot muttered, "_Sauve qui peut!_" And Ney fled darkling. Silence in the ranks! Inspired by these, amidst the iron crash Of armies in the centre of his troop, The soldier stands--immovable, not rash Until the forces of the foemen droop; Then knock the Frenchmen to eternal smash, Pounding them into mummy. Shoulder, hoop!

Thus the "Conquerer of Napoleon" conquers the stubborn rhyme!

* * * * *

"I suppose," writes a contemplative and elegant modern English author, now unnamed, but who can not long remain _stat nominis umbra_, "that it has happened to most men who observe their thoughts at all, to notice how some expression returns again and again in the course of their meditations, or, indeed, of their business, forming, as it were, a refrain to all they think or do, for any given hour. Sometimes, too, this refrain has no particular concern with the thought or business of the day, but seems as if it belonged to some under-current of thought and feeling. This at least is what I experienced to-day myself, being haunted by a bit of old Spanish poetry, which obtruded itself, sometimes inopportunely, sometimes not so, in the midst of all my work or play. The words were these:

'How quickly passes pleasure away How, after being granted. It gives pain: How, in our opinion, Any past time Was better,'

(than that we passed in pleasure). It was not that I agreed with the sentiment, except as applied to vicious pleasure; being rather of Sydney Smith's mind, that the remembrance of past pleasure is present pleasure; but I suppose the words chimed in with reflections on the past which formed the under-current of my thoughts, as I went through the wood of beeches which bounded my walk to day.... In a moment I went back, not to the pleasures, but to the ambitious hopes and projects of youth. And when a man does reflect upon the ambitions which are as characteristic of that period of life as reckless courage or elastic step, and finds that at each stage of his journey since, some hope has dropped off as too burdensome or too romantic, till at last it is enough for him to carry only himself at all upright in this troublesome world--what thoughts come back upon him! How he meditates upon his own errors and short-comings, and sees that he has had not only the hardness, oiliness, and imperturbability of the world to contend with; but that he himself has generally been his worst antagonist. In this mood I might have thrown myself upon the mound under a great beech-tree that was near, the king of the woods, and uttered many lamentations; but instead of doing any thing of the kind, I walked sedately by it; for, as we go on in life, we find we can not afford excitement, and we learn to be parsimonious in our emotions."

* * * * *

One of the Boston newspapers, in allusion to the great Railroad Festival which is about taking place, as the last sheets of our Magazine are passing through the press, observes: "The Canadian Judiciary Courts have adjourned for the whole of the next week, in order to give an opportunity to our Canadian friends to be present at the great Railroad Jubilee, to be celebrated in our city. They are expected to arrive in great numbers on Tuesday of next week. That day will be devoted to an examination of our city. On Wednesday there will be a formal reception; and the City Government will accompany their English guests to the Bunker Hill Monument and _other_ places of _interest_." Now we can not dissociate that word 'interest,' from the same word which forms the nucleus of an anecdote, which we will venture to relate, in illustration of the _kind_ of 'interest' which a loyal English subject might be supposed to feel in paying a visit to Bunker Hill. At Bladensburgh battle-field, there is a very non-committal guide who shows visitors over the ground, enlightening those who are ignorant as to the character of the ground, where the different forces lay, how they advanced, and the like. The guide, however, is a 'prudent man,' for his situation depends upon being 'all things to all men' who may chance to be obliged to avail themselves of his services. If he is showing an English party over the ground, he fancies that he knows it, and therefore 'governs himself accordingly;' if an American party, he throws his 'balance of power' in the other scale. But he was sadly puzzled _once_. He could get no 'cue' from the gentleman and his friend, who had secured his services, as to whether they were English or Americans--the conversation was so vague and so limited. "Why was it," said one of these visitors, "that the Americans _fled_ on this occasion?" "Fled!" he exclaimed, as if with impromptu dignity--"_fled!_" "Yes," said his interrogator, "why did the Americans retreat on that occasion?--why did they run away!" "Retreat!--run away!--guess _not!_ Yes: well--perhaps they did. Yes; I b'lieve they did. The reason was, that somehow or 'nother they _didn't seem to take no interest!_"

* * * * *

Most readers have heard the story of the connoisseur in the fine arts who said one day to a friend, "I wish you would come down and see a picture I bought last week. I'd like to have you give me your _candid_ opinion of it. A friend of mine had the impudence to say this morning that it was not an original! I should like to hear _another_ man say that it was not an original! But you come and see it, and tell me honestly what you think of its authenticity." It strikes us that a man would not be apt to give a _very_ "candid" opinion under those circumstances. This freedom of opinion is not unlike the liberty of action said to have been granted by Col. M'Lane to the troops under his command, before going into winter-quarters at Valley Forge. They were suffering for provisions and clothing, and Congress had been repeatedly petitioned for that relief which it was not in their power to bestow. Under this state of things, Colonel M'Lane paraded his band of suffering soldiers, and thus addressed them: "Fellow-soldiers, you have served your country faithfully and truly. We've fought hard fights together against our common enemy. You are in a bad way for comfortable clothes, it is true, and it grieves my very heart to see you tracking your feet in blood on the frozen ground. But Congress can not help it, nor can General Washington or I. But if any of you wish to return home, you can go. Let such of you as would like to go home step out four paces in front--_but_ the first man that steps out, if I don't shoot him my name is not M'Lane." It is perhaps needless to add, that not a solitary "volunteer" homeward was to be found.

Editor's Easy Chair.

After our more severe Editorial work is done--the scissors laid in our drawer, and the Monthly Record made as full as our pages will bear, of history, we have a way of throwing ourselves back into an old red-backed EASY CHAIR, that has long been an ornament of our dingy office, and indulging in an easy, and careless overlook of the gossiping papers of the day, and in such chit-chat with chance visitors, as keeps us informed of the drift of the town-talk, while it relieves greatly the monotony of our office hours.

We have before now sailed over seas with some rollicking, red-faced captain, who, after a good day's run with his yards well braced to the wind, would, as evening began to fall, and the breezes to lull, rig out his studding-sail booms, and set new bits of canvas to catch every puff of the dying zephyrs. In like manner, we, having made our course good, out of mere whim, add to our sail, and mean to catch up in these few additional pages, those lighter whiffs from the great world of opinion, which come floating to us, as we sit here in our EASY CHAIR.

Nor are we altogether bent on choosing mere gossip; but, rather, we shall be on the watch for such topics or incidents as give a handle to the conversation of the town; and instead of treating them in any such philosophic fashion, as most writing men think it necessary to do, we shall try and set them down with all that gloss, and that happy lack of sequence, which makes every-day talk so much better than every-day writing.

There are hundreds of monthly occurrences which go into the journals as mere skeletons of facts; and yet, if a body had but the art of embalming by language, that fleshy covering which the every-day talk is sure to wrap about them, they would prove (these facts, we mean) the cheerfullest companions in the world.

And this is just the thing that we shall try to do. If the Cubans, down in Havanna, shoot some fifty men, we shall not be content with entering it upon our record: we shall not take up what we consider (as the Daily Journals consider they do) some impregnable position, and thunder away at some one else who has an equally impregnable position of precisely the opposite character; but we shall try and get hold of the actual situation of this new provision for the town maw, in that great feeding-place of the town, viz.--Public Talk. We shall say who are the most voracious feeders, and may possibly comment, in an amiable humor, upon the different modes of consumption.

* * * * *

The French have a most happy way of commuting the dull coinage of every-day facts into the most mailable matter in the world: and as we sit in our EASY CHAIR, and catch up, as we sometimes do, a leaf of a Parisian journal, we find ourselves unconsciously creeping into the heart of some street-story, which, in any English journal, would have been the merest item of Police!

Take, for instance, a single one--entered on all the commercial sheets after this fashion: "We understand that a suicide was committed under deplorable circumstances, not long since, in the Rue St. George. It appears that a French gentleman, owing to pecuniary embarrassments, had long been melancholy, and last evening killed himself with the fumes of charcoal. It is reported that he had been twice married, and (_horribile dictu_) that he exhumed his first wife, previous to committing the fatal deed. He leaves a very respectable property."

Now look at our EASY CHAIR survey of such an unfortunate matter:

"Monsieur B----, a widower of great respectability, was married to his second wife several years previous to the Revolution of 1848. The embarrassments which this event occasioned to several of the most considerable of his debtors, involved him in pecuniary difficulties of a serious character.

"Being of a sensitive nature, and unable to meet at that period his more immediate engagements, he became the victim of an intense mortification, which no efforts of his friends could relieve, and which gradually settled into entire mental alienation.

"He had still ample fortune, and lived in the enjoyment of his usual luxuries. His attentions to his new wife (who is represented as exceedingly beautiful) were, of course, less decided and punctilious than before, but there were observed no indications of any special hostility.

"Things wore on in this way for a year or more, when it was observed that Monsieur B---- absented himself at a certain time of the day for many hours, from home, without allowing his wife to suspect his whereabouts. His man[oe]uvres to prevent pursuit, and avoid observation, were most adroit, and utterly forbade detection.

"Meantime the guardians of the cemetery of _Père le Chaise_ had observed at a certain hour of the day a well-dressed individual make his appearance at the gates, and disappear upon the heights, within the inclosure of a little Gothic tomb, erected to the memory of Madame B----.

"The guardians having ascertained that the visitor was the husband of the deceased lady, with true Parisian politeness, avoided any special observation.

"It was ascertained afterward, however, that he employed these stolen hours in laboring upon the tomb--a pocket-knife, his only implement, and a single crazy hope--(which will appear in the sequel)--his only aim. Having, after four or five months of daily toil, finished his work, he waited only the absence of his wife to carry into execution his plan. For this he had not long to wait; she had promised a visit to the country; and upon the very day following her departure, Monsieur B---- hurried to his old rendezvous at _Père le Chaise_, and with the same knife with which he had worked his way into the stone sarcophagus in which the body of his first wife reposed, he severed the head from the trunk, transported it under cover of his cloak to his home; placed it before him upon the table; kindled a brazier of charcoal; wrote a last word to his living partner, and then, with his pipe in his mouth, and in face of the ghastly head from the tomb--he died upon his chair!"

There is in this story, insufferable as it may seem to delicate-minded readers, strong illustration of the French love of the horrible--of French passion--and of that French spirit of Dramatism, which would turn even the vulgarity of suicide into the heroism of a Tragedy.

* * * * *

Reading on, as we do, in our EASY CHAIR way, our eye falls upon another bit of French romance of a different style: it will probably never come to the eyes of half of our readers in its Paris shape, so we employ a lazy interval of our weightier duties to render it into old-fashioned English:

Every body knows that the rage for gaming in Paris, specially in private circles, has been for the last eight or ten years--excessive. And if any weak-minded American has "dined out" there, within that time, he has very likely been mulcted in a very pretty sum (after coffee was removed) at _écarte_.

But, this is not to our story, which, in translating, we shall take the liberty of vamping into the easiest possible shape--for ourselves.

Monsieur X---- was some descendant (grandson, for aught we know) of a certain Marshal of the Empire of France, and inherited from him (if report spake true) a handsome fortune of some five hundred thousand francs; or, in American coinage, one hundred thousand dollars. This is quite enough to live on pleasantly in Paris, or, for that matter, any where else.

Of course, Monsieur X---- was a mark for such mammas as had marriageable daughters; and as the French mothers always manage these affairs themselves, and are, beside, very thoroughly schooled in the ways of the world, Monsieur X---- stood a very poor chance of escape. In fact, he did not escape, but was married one fine morning to a very pretty mademoiselle, who had the credit of possessing rare virtues, and whom our hero (Monsieur X----), for a wonder, did really and truly love.

We mention this as even a greater rarity on the other side of the water, than on this; and every body of ordinary observation knows that it is rare enough with us.

They lived happily through the honey-moon, and much to the surprise of his friends, for a year or two afterward. But at length it was observed that he wore very long faces, and dined frequently by himself at the Café de Paris, and did not even smile at the broadest of Grassot's comic acting. As he was known to be a young man of very correct habits, the inference was (not always a just one, by the way) that the wife was in fault.

The truth was, that with a disposition naturally amiable and yielding, she had been seduced by those married friends who knew of her husband's resources, into an intense love of cards. As a natural consequence she became ever eager for play, morose in her habit, and petulant of manner.

The husband bore this all very quietly for a while, revolving in his own mind what could be done, and paying his wife's drafts upon him without a murmur. Days and weeks passed by, and the change wore grievously upon his spirits.

At length, he chose his course, and pursued it--after this manner.

He entered with apparent gayety into his wife's amusements, and introduced her, through the interposition of a friend, into one of the most famous gambling salons of Paris. As usual, she took her seat at the table where the stakes were largest. Her antagonist at the play was a stout old gentleman who wore a careless manner, but who after the first round or two played with remarkable success. When madame's losses had amounted to a considerable sum, he proposed "double or quits." Madame accepted and--lost.

The gentleman proposed the same game: madame accepted and lost!

The gentleman proposed the same trial a third and fourth time; and madame, supposing him to be an eccentric old gentleman, who was willing to furnish her with this opportunity of winning again the money, accepted each time his proposal, and uniformly--lost.

Still the play went on, until madame's losses had amounted to the extraordinary sum of four hundred thousand francs, when the old gentleman pleaded an engagement, and retired.

Madame X----, in an agony of trepidation gained her home, and throwing herself at her husband's feet, confessed and regretted the folly which had ruined them.

The husband was naturally astounded: "But," said he, controlling his emotion, "the losses must be met. There will remain some seventy thousand francs of my estate, and with that we can live comfortably in the country. For myself, I do not at all regret this: but, my dear (for his old affection lingered), I fear that you may sink under the privations you must encounter."

His goodness overcame her; she avowed not only her willingness but her great joy in becoming the companion of his exile.

It was in an old town of Brittany (we believe, for the paper is not at hand) that they lived quietly and cosily together, in a mossy old chateau. Their table was frugally served, and their servants were of the neighboring peasantry: in place of the old joyous rides in the Bois de Boulogne, they now took strolls together under the wood that shaded the chateau. Thus, for ten years they lived, growing into each other's affections, and rejoicing in the loss which had won them to a real enjoyment of life, and of each other's love.

"It was indeed a happy loss," said she.

"It was none at all," said the husband, and with a caress he handed her the certificates for some five hundred thousand francs, in the most available of French funds!

"Your antagonist," said he, "was a sure winner, but his services were purchased by your husband, and now that he has won you to his love, and to a sense of your own dignity, he makes over to you this recovered fortune."

And the French chronicler goes on to paint a pretty scene as a hint for those dramatists who choose to put the affair on the stage. And he further says that the story is well authenticated, as he might prove by giving the parties' names; but upon consideration, he favors us only with an X.

If the story is a lie, all we can say is, that Eugene Guinot must take the blame of it: and judging from his experience, we think the blame will sit lightly on him.

* * * * *

We have wandered so far from the town, that we had half forgotten that there was any town at all. But, after all, there lies but a step nowadays between Paris and New York--a step over sea, and a step over a very narrow bridge of morals. True, we have not yet imported the salon gambling, except in a quiet club-way, where surely vagrant bachelors, it would seem, have as good right to stultify themselves, as they have in most other situations in life. It is to be doubted, however, if gaming does not presently come into the round of amusements. Old methods do not last long in our growing society: and as evidence, we may note the abandonment, the present year, of the fancy balls, which, for four or five seasons back, have made the very Elysium of a summer's festivities.

What matter has been made of it under the new dispensation of undisguised ball costume, the papers have not much informed us: indeed it is richly observable, that when the fashions of the day withdraw from _outré_ action, and shed those enormities of feature which excite the stare of the vulgar--just so soon the public press respects their modesty, and gives them the award of silence. As a consequence (for the _sequitur_ may not appear, in the illogical order of our after-dinner arrangement) little has been said this year of the "dress balls" of Saratoga and Newport: and the catalogues of watering-place Deities have been transferred from the flash-papers, to the roll-books of the marriageable men. A few sharp days of early September (not far from the date of our writing) will have driven our city people away from those shores, where the eastern fogs come sailing in laden with agues, and dropped them down here and there, along those sheltered hill-sides of inland repute, which bask in a summer morning, and which, by and by, will smoke with the kindling glory of an Indian summer.

As yet few have found their way to the town itself: and those few find the streets full of bustle, of strangers, of dust, and of Cuba. It strikes a man oddly, who has been taking his siesta the summer through, under the shadow of country-grown trees, and in the hearing of birds, until he has grown into a sort of assimilation with country habit and country talk, to rebound upon a sudden, from the hard, frosted hill-sides into the very centre of this great furnace of business--and to find it all sweltering and panting with its labor, just as it did six months gone by, and just as it will do in six months to come! Your country idler, with the conceit of the city on him, somehow conceives the idea, that without him there will be less noise, and less commotion: and yet he may go and come, and take his thousands, and bring his thousands, and shout at his loudest, and the great city, quite careless of it all, still sends up from her pebbled veins, and her sweeping quays, the same unceasing roar.

* * * * *

We have forewarned our reader, or should have done it, that we shall shift our topic in these our after-dinner musings, as easy as the turning of a leaf. Our eyes have just now fallen upon a passage in Mr. Greeley's last letter from Europe, in which he speaks of the appearance of the English women, and commends, with a little more than his usual ardor of expression, their perfection of figure. He attributes this, and very justly, to the English lady's habit of out-of-door exercise. We had thought that this fact was known: that it was known years ago, and that our fair country-women would catch a hint from it, that would throw color into their cheeks and fullness into their forms. And yet, sadly enough, our ladies still coop themselves in their heated rooms, until their faces are like lilies, and their figures--like lily stems!

We have alluded to the matter now, not for the sake of pointing a satire surely, but for the sake of asking those one or two hundred thousand ladies, who every month light our pages with their looks, if they do indeed prize a little unnatural pearliness of hue, and delicacy of complexion, beyond that ruddy flush of health (the very tempter of a kiss!) and that full development of figure, which all the poets, from Homer down, have made one of the chiefest beauties of a woman?

If not, let them make of themselves horsewomen: or, bating that, let them make acquaintance with the sunrise: let them pick flowers with the dew upon them: let them study music of nature's own orchestra. Vulgarity is not essential to health: and a lithe, elastic figure does not grow in hot-houses.

For ourselves, we incline heartily to the belief, that if American women have a wish to add to the respect, the admiration, the love, and (if need be) the fear of the men, they will find an easier road toward that gain, in a little vigorous out-of-door exercise and a uniform attention to the great essentials of health, than in any new-fangled costumes, or loudly applauded "Rights."

We have grown unconsciously heated with the topic, and this added to the 90° by Fahrenheit, which is steaming at our elbow, must cut short the first installment of gossip from our red-backed easy-chair.

New York, _September, 1851_.

Literary Notices.

The Oration before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard University, on _The American Mind_, by Rev. William B. Sprague, is superior to the average run of anniversary discourses. Chaste, vigorous, and eloquent in expression, eminently genial and catholic in spirit, pervaded equally with a genuine love of learning, and a glowing patriotism, it abounds in wise and generous counsels, adapted to the present times, and displays frequent touches of pathos and wit. The tribute to the memory of Buckminster, at the close of the oration, is an admirable specimen of classical eulogy.

_The Farmer's Every-Day Book_, by Rev. John L. Blake (published by Derby, Miller, and Co., Auburn), is a unique collection of varieties by a veteran manufacturer of books, whose educational works have had an extensive influence on the youth of our country, and whose ripened experience is devoted to productions of practical utility for the adult mind. A mass of information is accumulated in this volume, which must be welcome to the cultivator of the soil, in his choice intervals of leisure, on a winter's evening or a rainy day. It is arranged under appropriate heads, expressed in lucid and attractive language, and combined with excellent moral suggestions. The author has derived his materials from every available source. He has shown a sound judgment in their selection. Nothing is admitted which has not a real claim on the attention of the reader, while there are few topics of interest to the farmer which are not discussed with more or less detail. The articles from Mr. Blake's own pen are distinguished for their liveliness and good sense. His book is equally adapted to the modest farm-houses of New England, and the log-cabins of the Western Prairie.

Harper and Brothers have published a sumptuous edition of _The Nile Boat; or, Glimpses of the Land of Egypt_, by W. H. Bartlett--another agreeable volume on the manners and customs of the Orientals, with numerous sketches of their scenery. Mr. Bartlett's course was similar to that of which we have such a charming memorial in the "Nile Notes," by a Howadji; and it is interesting to compare the descriptions of two travelers, who look at the same objects from such entirely different points of view. Mr. Bartlett's first point is Alexandria, from which he departs for Cairo, whence he passes up the Nile, visits Thebes, Esneh, and Edfou, ascends the cataracts, and explores the weird ruins of Philae. The style of this volume is quiet and unpretending. It is illustrated with a profusion of engravings, from drawings made on the spot by the author, many of them with the camera lucida. They exhibit the principal monuments of the Pharonic period, as at Thebes, the later Ptolemaic style, as at Edfou and Philae, with some of the most beautiful specimens of the Arabian, at Cairo, besides many others of an interesting and instructive character. The volume is an admirable specimen of typography, and deserves a place in every library.

Of the swarm of _Annuals_ for 1852, we have received _The Iris_, edited by John S. Hart, LL.D., and _The Dew-Drop_, a smaller volume, both published by Lippincott, Grambo, and Co. _The Iris_ is issued, with its usual splendor of embellishment and typography, with one especial feature for the present year, which can not fail to enhance its interest and value. This is a collection of drawings of some of the most remarkable objects connected with the Indian traditions on this continent, made by Capt. Eastman, of the United State's Topographical Corps, who was stationed for nine years on our northwestern frontier, among the Indian tribes in the vicinity of Fort Snelling. The traditions themselves have been wrought up into poems and tales by the wife of Capt. Eastman, depicting the vicissitudes of Indian life, and the passions of Indian character. A great part of the letter-press of the volume consists of these sketches, which, for the most part, are executed with a firm and graceful hand. Besides these there are several pieces which are gems of literary excellence. "The Cenotaph," by E. W. Ellsworth, in memory of Capt. Nathan Hale, who died nobly in the service of the Revolution, is a quaint ballad, displaying a strange union of pathos and Yankee humor. Edith May, Mrs. Mary E. Hewitt, and Alice Carey each contribute characteristic poetical pieces.

_The Dew-Drop_ is exquisitely embellished, and contains selections from the writings of several of the best American authors. Among them we find the names of Longfellow, Boker, Tuckerman, Stoddard, Edith May, Miss Lynch, Miss Sedgwick, Mrs. Child, and other popular celebrities.

_Uncle Frank's Willow-Lane Stories_ is a budget of pleasant narratives for children, from the pen of Francis C. Woodworth, whose contributions to juvenile literature are always distinguished for their cordial and lifesome sympathy with the young heart. These stories are taken from country life, and are full of juvenile adventure and incident. The volume is illustrated with neat wood-cuts. (Published by Charles Scribner).

_Drayton_ (published by Harper and Brothers), is a new American novel, presenting several fine examples of character-painting, with a plot of more than common interest. The hero, who passes from the shoemaker's bench to a high place in the legal profession, is not a bad specimen of American go-ahead-itiveness, softened down by numerous redeeming traits. We think the anonymous author has displayed a degree of ability in this volume which promises a future career of decided brilliancy.

_The Epoch of Creation_, by Eleazar Lord (published by Charles Scribner). An elaborate volume, devoted to the defense of Divine Revelation against the encroachments of modern science, with especial reference to the alleged results of geological research. The leading idea of the work is expressed in the following paragraph of the Introduction, of which, though by another hand, the whole treatise is an expansion and illustration. "The work of creation was necessarily a supernatural work; and hence all reasoning from the general laws of nature, which in their operation were subsequent to the work of creation, is as irrelevant in explanation of the Mosaic account, as the argument drawn from universal experience in disparagement of the miracles recorded in Holy Writ." Mr. Lord, accordingly, in explaining the teachings of Scripture on the work of creation, defends the literal sense of the Mosaic history. He maintains that the six days of the creation are to be understood in their most obvious acceptation, and that the attempt to reconcile them with the theory of a more ancient date of the material universe, is absurd in point of philosophy, and fatal to the interests of revealed truth. In the course of his argument, the author takes occasion to present several searching criticisms of Hitchcock, Miller, Pye Smith, and other eminent geologists, who have regarded the question in a different point of view. His work will be read with interest, at the present day, when so much attention has been drawn to the religious and scientific issues in controversy. Mr. Lord presents an earnest and able defense of the theological view, in opposition to what may be considered as the prevailing opinion of the scientific world. He writes with clearness and force. He is master of considerable logical skill. Without the vivacity of style, or the brilliancy of rhetoric which distinguishes the productions of many of his opponents, he aims mainly at the lucid expression of the arguments in the case, which he sustains with shrewdness and ability. No one can mistake his evident zeal for the interests of revelation; or accuse him of the slightest taste for scientific novelties.

_The Theory of Human Progression_ (published by B. B. Mussey and Co., Boston). The purpose of this book, which we should suppose was written by a Scotch Presbyterian, is to show the natural probability of a reign of justice on the earth. It is written in a hard, dry, ultra-logical style, tinctured with the spirit of Scotch and German metaphysics, and deducing the most stringent conclusions in regard to social justice from the language of the Bible. The author is an original thinker. He has little respect to custom or precedent. With great acuteness and discrimination, he points out the unavoidable inferences from the premises, which he assumes, and which, in most cases, he derives from the doctrines of Scripture. We rarely find such radical views of society, combined with such orthodox principles of theology. If the volume had been written with greater simplicity and liveliness of style, its effect would have been immeasurably enhanced.

_Forest Life and Forest Trees_, by John S. Springer (published by Harper and Brothers). This is a genuine American work, redolent of the pine forests of Maine, and filled with fresh and glowing descriptions of the life of a New-England backwoodsman. The writer was reared in the midst of the scenes which he portrays with such distinct outlines and such natural coloring, and has spent several of what he regards as the most pleasant years of his life in the toils and adventures of a "down east" lumberman. Hence he moves among the "strange, eventful" incidents of his story, like one who is perfectly at home, jotting down his exciting narrations without the slightest effort or pretension, and introducing his readers by the simplest transitions to the very heart of the remote wilderness. His work is divided into three parts, namely, The Trees of America, The Pine Tree, or Forest Life, and River Life. The first part is a valuable compilation selected from the most authentic materials on the dendrology of New-England, accompanied with judicious original comments. In the remaining portions of the book, we have a variety of reminiscences of a residence among the wild mountains, forests, lakes, and rivers of Maine, adventures of lumbermen in the pursuit of their perilous calling, fresh pictures of the sublime scenery with which they are surrounded, and a fund of amusing anecdotes. Several instructive details are given in regard to the lumber trade. The volume is illustrated with numerous wood engravings, which will give a distinct idea of many of the localities and scenes described by the author. Although making no claims to literary excellence, in the technical sense of the term, we are sure this book will become a universal favorite with the "reading millions" of America, from Canada to California.

_Service Afloat and Ashore, during the Mexican War_, by Lieut. Raphael Semmes (published by Wm. H. Moore and Co., Cincinnati), has already asserted a successful claim on the public favor, a large edition having been exhausted, and a second being on the eve of appearance. It is a work of standard merit, and does honor to the growing literature of the West. More substantial in its character than one would anticipate from its finical, book-making title, it presents a well-digested summary of the political history of Mexico, of her relations with the United States, and the various complications that led to the war of 1846. The author was personally engaged in the siege of Vera Cruz, of which terrible operation he gives a vivid description, drawn up both with military precision, and with appropriate poetical coloring. He afterward joined the army of Gen. Scott at Jalapa, was present at the battle of Churubusco as aid to Gen. Worth, and accompanied the victorious troops to the Mexican Capital. With an excellent opportunity for observation, and no small experience of military affairs, he has subjected the movements of the American army to a critical scrutiny, and presents his conclusions with soldier-like frankness and decision, though evidently aiming at impartiality. His remarks on the course of Gen. Scott are often severe, though he pays a warm tribute to the many admirable qualities of that eminent commander; but his deepest enthusiasm is called forth by the chivalrous and romantic character of Gen. Worth. Whatever opinion may be formed of the correctness of his comments on delicate military questions, it must be admitted that they are put forth in fairness and good faith, and if not to be regarded as conclusive, they afford a valuable aid in deciding the judgment of the impartial reader. The style of Lieut. Semmes is usually chaste and vigorous. In the mere narrative of historical events it sometimes flags, calling for the application of the whip and spur; but in the description of scenes of stirring interest, of battles, and marches, and shipwrecks, it kindles up with the occasion, and becomes glowing and vehement, often presenting passages of wild and startling beauty. We congratulate the noble-spirited author on the signal success of his work, and hope that we shall again hear of his name in the field of literature, as well as in the service of his country.

_The Lady and the Priest_, is the title of a striking English novel, reprinted by Harper and Brothers, founded on the romantic history of the Fair Rosamond, Henry the Second, and Queen Eleanor. The wily priest, Thomas a Becket plays an important part in the plot, presenting an expressive contrast by his ambition and cunning to the innocent, confiding, and deeply injured Rosamond. As a specimen of the English historical novel, this work will compare favorably with the best recent productions of the London press. The development of the story is skillfully managed, and grows more and more interesting with each step of its progress.

_Vagamundo; or, The Attaché in Spain_, by John Esaias Warren. (Published by Charles Scribner.) The title of this work is descriptive of its character. It is a good-humored record of a touch-and-go, genteel-vagabondish residence of several months in "old romantic Spain," where the position of the author gave him access to much "good society," and his tastes led him into a variety of odd, rollicking adventures, which he relates with an easy audacity that becomes quite fascinating before you arrive at the close of the volume. The strength of the author lies in his cordial, careless, jovial freedom. He shows such a quintessence of frankness, such a gay, contagious good-fellowship, as to disarm our habitual sternness as critics. His book contains little wisdom, and less wit, but for a dashing, effervescing, sparkling effusion of anecdote and adventure, commend us to its hilarious pages. There are trifles here and there, indeed, at which the over-fastidious may take offense, as in duty bound; but readers who are not frightened with a little exuberance of youthful frolic will find it a tempting volume.

A neat reprint of Hugh Miller's _Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland_, has been issued by Wm. H. Moore and Co., Cincinnati. It consists of a collection of interesting Scotch traditions, historical episodes, and personal anecdotes, presented in the garrulous, descriptive style, which has made the author popular among numerous classes of readers. Miller is a staunch, thorough-going Scotchman; in his opinion, there is no country like Scotland (and we too love Scotland); and no man in Scotland like himself (to which we demur); and this perennial self-complacency diffuses a kindly warmth over his writings, even when we find little to attract us in the dryness of his subjects.

A. Hart, Philadelphia, has published an edition of Miss Benger's _Memoirs of Mary Queen of Scots_, which portrays the history of the ill-fated queen in true and vivid colors. The work contains a variety of interesting anecdotes of the court of Henry II.

Ticknor, Reed, and Fields have published an additional volume of William Motherwell's _Poems_, from the Glasgow edition. They include songs, fragments of verse, and other pieces not contained in the former volumes. They are distinguished for the characteristic simplicity, unction, and pathos of their gifted author.

A new edition of the _Memoirs of the Buckminsters_, father and son, by Eliza Buckminster Lee, is issued by the same house--a volume of rare interest and beauty. Its pictures of rural life in New England are drawn with exquisite grace, as well as perfect fidelity, forming an appropriate embellishment to the affecting history of the subjects of the memoir.

_Plymouth and the Pilgrims_, by Joseph Banvard (published by Gould and Lincoln, Boston), is a popular compend of the events in the colonial history of Plymouth, illustrated with numerous engravings. It is intended to form the first of a series, devoted to the history of the United States, and consisting of at least twelve volumes. The narrative in this volume is derived from authentic sources, but exhibits no remarkable skill in its construction.

A new treatise on the _Elements of Geology_, by Samuel St. John, has been issued by George P. Putnam, adapted to the use of students in the higher seminaries of learning. It has evidently been prepared with great care and excellent judgment. Omitting the controverted and more abstruse points of theoretical geology, it aims at presenting a clear statement of the facts, which may be regarded as established in the present state of the science, and this is accomplished, we think, with the best success.

_Sketches of European Capitals_, by William Ware. (Published by Phillips, Sampson, and Co., Boston). Rome, Florence, Naples, and London, are the capitals to which this admirable volume is devoted. Although passing over beaten ground, Mr. Ware has treated his subjects with freshness and originality. He copies no one; consults his own excellent taste in preference to any authorities; gives his impressions as they are made from his own point of view; and describes them with equal simplicity and boldness. His language is usually felicitous and choice. He is a keen dissecter of character, and has presented us with some highly-finished specimens of his skill in this kind. His remarks on the present condition of Italian society are discriminating and forcible. Coming from a genuine lover of freedom, they are entitled to great weight. The obstacles to the establishment of Italian independence, arising from internal jealousies, and the want of national unity are exhibited in a strong light. Mr. Ware was not favorably affected by the manifestations of English character, which he witnessed on English soil. On this point he expresses himself without the least reserve, in a vein of acute and biting criticism. Various other topics are handled in this volume, and all of them with freedom and manliness. Differing from the author in many of his artistic judgments, we like the prevailing tone of his work--its honesty, its unaffectedness, its vigor, its humane spirit--to say nothing of its language, which, as we have already hinted, is a model of classical and elegant English.

Harper and Brothers have republished the first volume of Lamartine's _History of the Restoration_, from which we have given several extracts among our selections. It is decidedly the most important work of its prolific author since the "History of the Girondists." Bold in conception, abounding in lofty speculations, colored with a rich glow of moral emotion, it displays in the highest degree of perfection, the singular power of brilliant word-painting, and the felicitous artifices of rhetoric of which Lamartine is such a consummate master.

_Rule and Misrule of the English in America_, by the author of "Sam Slick the Clock Maker" (published by Harper and Brothers). In the present work, Judge Haliburton leaves the field of humor and satire for grave political discussion. It is written in the interests of monarchical government, taking the United States as a warning against the evils of democracy. With this view, the writer traces the introduction of the popular principle into this continent, the means of its early establishment, and the provisions for its support and continuance. He endeavors to show that the success of republicanism in the United States has been owing no less to a wonderful combination of accidental causes, than to the ability, energy, and practical skill of the American people. Hence he argues that this form of government is not applicable to England or France, and still less to other European countries. Some of his speculations have the merit of ingenuity; they will awaken interest, as showing the effect of our institutions on an outside observer; but they can not be regarded as models of political acuteness or sagacity.

Phillips, Sampson, and Co. have published the first number of a new _Life of Napoleon_, by Ben. Perley Poore, in which the author controverts the opinions of Scott and other tory writers on the subject. It shows a good deal of research, and is written in an animated style.

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Tuckerman's _Characteristics of Literature_ is briefly noticed in the _London Athenæum_, as a "series of suggestive papers," whose "criticisms are for the most part sound and moderate, but exhibiting no great extent of reading, nor any profound and subtle appreciation of literary beauty. Sometimes they remind us of Channing--of whose style Mr. Tuckerman is evidently an admirer; but they lack his clearness of thought and brilliancy of color, his intensity of conviction, and continual reference to fixed canons and principles." The _Athenæum_ is systematically cold to American writers; nor does it do justice to Mr. Tuckerman in its criticism; yet it is right in tracing the influence of Channing both in his style and turn of thought. No one who was conversant with that "old man eloquent" in the latter years of his life could escape all tincture of the love of moral beauty which was the master principle of his nature. His contagious influence is seen in the harmonic proportions, the clearness of expression, the equilibrium of thought, and, we may add, the sensitive timidity of opinion which mark the writings of his unconscious disciple almost as decidedly as they did his own.--Dr. Ungewitter's _Europe, Past, and Present_, is spoken of in the same journal in terms of lukewarm approval.

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The Copyright Question, so far as the English courts of law is concerned, stands thus.--The Court of Exchequer is at variance with the Court of Queen's Bench:--and the case on which the next decision will be made, is that of Murray _v._ Bohn with respect to the copyright of certain works of Washington Irving. Mr. Routledge, against whom Mr. Murray had brought the law to bear, has surrendered, and admitted that he has injured the plaintiff to the extent of two thousand pounds. Mr. Bohn, however, stands out; and the point which he has now to prove in an English court of law is, priority of publication of Mr. Irving's works in America. Plaintiff and defendant have each, we are informed, sent a special commissioner over to America on the subject.

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The death of Mr. Gibbon, one of the most munificent patrons of modern British art, is announced. In the _genre_ school he has the credit of having called into existence some of the best efforts of many young artists of celebrity, by whom his liberality and protection will be gratefully remembered. To that and landscape pictures he principally confined himself as a collector, having little sympathy, so far as collection is a test, with the historical school of painting.

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At Clifton, on Friday the 1st of August, died the patriarch of English authoresses--we might add of English authors--Miss Harriet Lee, at the age of ninety-five. To most of the generation now busied with fiction, drama, and poetry, this announcement will be a surprise: so long protracted was Miss Lee's life, and so many years have elapsed since her last appearance in the world of imaginative creation took place. To readers of our time, Miss Lee is best known as having in her "German's Tale" of the "Canterbury Tales" (a miscellany of little romances by herself and her sister), furnished Lord Byron with the plot of his play of "Werner." More old-fashioned novel readers, who are given to weary at the philanthropy, philosophy, and preaching which threaten to turn our thousand and one tales into something more like "Evening Services" than "Arabian Nights," will find in her vigor and clearness of invention a merit which of itself deserves to keep the name of the novelist alive. Miss Lee's further title to mortuary honors is a play, or plays, acted with small success--and which has, or have, gone the way of Hannah More's triumphant "Percy," and Madame d'Arblay's withdrawn tragedy. Harriet Lee survived her sister Sophia twenty-seven years: Sophia having died at Clifton, in 1824.----In London on the 4th died Lady Louisa Stuart--aged nearly ninety-four--the youngest daughter of the Minister, Earl of Bute, and the grand-daughter of Lady Mary Wortley Montague--the lady to whom we owe the charming "Introductory Anecdotes," prefixed to the late Lord Wharncliffe's edition of Lady Mary's Works. Lady Louisa remembered to have seen her grandmother, Lady Mary--when at old Wortley's death that celebrated woman returned to London after her long and still unexplained exile from England. Lady Louisa herself was a charming letter-writer; and her correspondence with Sir Walter Scott will, it is said, fully sustain the Wortley reputation for wit, and beauty of style, while it will exhibit a poet in a very different character from that in which another poet figures in his celebrated correspondence with her grandmother, Lady Mary. Some of Scott's letters to Lady Louisa are included in Mr. Lockhart's Life of Sir Walter.

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A pert English traveler, of a class which has shared too largely in the hospitalities of facile Americans, gives an amusing caricature of a New York Literary Soiree, to which he had by some chance gained admittance:--"I went to stay at a Mr. S.'s country house, about six miles out town, and was there introduced to his father, who has one of the best collections of pictures in New York. They were kind enough to take me to a literary réunion given by one Miss ----, an American authoress of some note, who always opens her house on that evening, and to point out to me many of the notabilities in the New York world of letters. Many of them were real 'lions,' and not a few only wore the skin. The latter classes made themselves undesignedly very amusing, and were mostly little men, who had published and circulated a novel or two largely among their friends, which in their own opinions entitled them to turn down their shirt collars, allow their hair and beards to grow at random, and to assume the appearance of men in whom mind had become so predominant over body, as to render the latter quite a minor consideration. They did not open their lips all the evening, but were to be seen in pensive attitudes with their arms leaning on chimney pieces, and looking pleasantly at vacancy, or seated on solitary ottomans, contemplating the company with a sort of cynical stare. They wished, in fact, to be considered as living in an atmosphere of dreams, and nobody offered to disturb them. Mr. N. P. Willis, to whom I was introduced, afforded a very pleasant contrast to these little lions, and laughed and talked on many subjects like an ordinary being. Miss ----, too, has nothing of the pedant, and very little of the professed 'blue' about her, and wound up the amusements of the evening by gracefully leading off in a polka. During the evening a 'hush' was circulated all round the room, and on inquiry I found that a Herr something, very like Puddlewitz, 'was going to play his thoughts,' and forthwith a foreign gentleman with as much hair as one face could conveniently carry, sat down at the piano. From the nature of the music, I should say that Puddlewitz's thoughts were of a remarkably mild and sentimental nature, and not at all in keeping with his ferocious aspect. After the polka the little lions began to rouse themselves and dispel the mental web which their thoughts had been working round them for the last two or three hours, and we all gradually dispersed."

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A curious instance of LITERARY STRATEGY is presented in the London edition of _Vagamundo, or The Attaché in Spain_, the sprightly work of our countryman, Mr. Warren, which we have noticed above. It seems that he had made an arrangement with a London publisher to bring out an edition at the same time with its appearance in this country. Every thing from the manuscript that could betray its American origin is eliminated, and it is thus issued apparently as a native born English production, "dyed in the wool." A start is obtained on the American publisher, and the work is put into the market two or three months before its publication in New York. Our first impressions of it as a lively gossiping book were received from the English copy some time since, which surprised us as a remarkable specimen of the free and easy style, for English growth.

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Of Andrews' Latin Lexicon, the _London Athenæum_ speaks as follows: "It can not now be said that there is any lack of good Latin and Greek Lexicons among us. Whatever our classical deficiencies may be, they must not hereafter be attributed to the want of such a _sine qua non_. Within the last twenty--even ten--years most valuable additions have been made to our lexicographical stores. Entick, Ainsworth, Schrevelius, and a host of other worthies who long reigned over us, have at length been banished to make room for their betters. Even Donnegan--after a brief but successful career--has met with an inglorious fall.

"Besides our own dictionaries, we have those of our transatlantic brethren. Some few years ago they sent us over a large Latin Dictionary by Leverett; and now another of still higher pretensions (Freund's Latin-English Lexicon--edited by Dr. Andrews) has found its way here.... Whatever time, attention, and care can do toward making the work complete and correct, seems to have been done, and we all know how much the excellence of a dictionary depends upon these points,--especially when they are accompanied by competent scholarship, as we have every reason to believe they are in the present case. The result is, what might be expected, a rich repository of philological information, clearly expressed and well arranged....

"In conclusion, we are glad to have an opportunity of introducing so excellent a work to the notice of our classical and philological readers. It has all that true German _Grundlichkeit_ about it which is so highly appreciated by English scholars. Rarely, if ever, has so vast an amount of philological information been comprised in a single volume of the size. The knowledge it conveys of the early and later Latin is not to be gathered from ordinary Latin Dictionaries. With regard to the manner in which it is got up, we can speak most favorably. Never have we seen a better specimen of American typography. Every page bears the impress of industry and care. The type is clear, neat, and judiciously varied. A pretty close inspection has not enabled us to discover any errors worth mentioning."

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A contributor to the _London Times_ has collected a mass of curious statistics in regard to the rise and progress of RAIL-ROAD LITERATURE in England. His essay in that journal has recently been issued in a separate pamphlet. Among other interesting statements, we find the following facts, which are singularly illustrative of English habits:

"The gradual rise of the Railway book-trade is a singular feature of our marvellous Railway era. In the first instance, when the scope and capabilities of the Rail had yet to be ascertained, the privilege of selling books, newspapers, &c., at the several stations, was freely granted to any who might think proper to claim it. Vendors came and went when and how they chose, their trade was of the humblest, and their profits were as varying as their punctuality. When it became evident that the vendors of books and papers were deriving large sums of money from their business, the directors of the several companies resolved to make a charge for permission to carry it on; and tenders were duly advertised for, regard being had to the amount offered, and by no means to the mode in which it was proposed to prosecute the work. In some cases £200, and in others as much as £600 per annum have been deemed a fair rental for the book-stall at a London terminus. At one of the most important stations in the metropolis, a bookseller, who at one time professed himself unable to contribute £60 by way of rent to a benefit society established for the servants of the company, offered two years afterward £600 when the privilege was put up to public auction. The extent to which literary trash has been sold at these railway book-shops, may be conceived, when it is stated that a large profit has still remained for the bookseller after paying the very large rent-charge to the company.

"A movement has, however, been made on the North-Western Railway to put an end to this unwholesome condition of things. The stalls have been taken by a spirited bookseller and news-agent, determined to supply none but works of sterling literature; and the leading publishers have responded to this movement by the reproduction of some of their most valuable copyrights in shilling and half-crown volumes. The little reprint of Lord Mahon's 'Narrative of the Insurrection of 1845,' appears to have been the first step to improvement. It caught our eye, as it had already fortunately arrested the attention at more than one railway station of Mr. Macaulay, the historian. The sight of it suggested to that brilliant writer the idea and title of a 'Traveller's Library,' and at his instigation--for which we here tender him our thanks--Messrs. Longman commenced the cheap and popular series known by this name, and adorned by Mr. Macaulay's own charming productions.

"As we progressed north, a wholesome change, we rejoice to say, became visible in railway book-stalls. We had trudged in vain after the schoolmaster elsewhere, but we caught him by the button at Euston-square; and it is with the object of inducing him to be less partial in his walks that we now venture thus publicly to appeal to him. At the North-Western terminus we diligently searched for that which required but little looking after in other places, but we poked in vain for the trash. If it had ever been there, the broom had been before us and swept it clean away. We asked for something 'highly colored.' The bookseller politely presented us with Kugler's 'Handbook of Painting.' We shook our head and demanded a volume more intimately concerned with life and the world. We were offered 'Kosmos.' 'Something less universal,' said we, 'benefits the London traveler.' We were answered by 'Prescott's Mexico,' 'Modern Travel,' and 'Murray's Handbook of France.' We could not get rubbish, whatever price we might offer to pay for it. There was no 'Eugene Sues' for love or money--no cheap translations of any kind--no bribes to ignorance or unholy temptations to folly. 'You'll soon be in the _Gazette_' we said commiseratingly to the bookseller. The bookseller smiled. 'You never sell those things,' we added mildly. 'Constantly; we can sell nothing else.' 'What! have you nothing for the million?' 'Certainly; here is 'Logic for the Million,' price 6s.; will you buy it? 'Thank you, but surely books of a more chatty character----.' 'Chatty--oh, yes!' 'Coleridge's Table Talk' is a standard dish here, and never wants purchasers.

"Every new work of interest as it appeared was furnished to the stalls, from Macaulay's 'England' down to Murray's 'Colonial Library,' and purchasers were not slow to come for all. Upon many good books, as well of recent as of more remote publication, there has been an actual run. 'Macaulay' sold rapidly, 'Layard' not less so. 'Stokers and Pokers,' a sketch of the London and North-Western Railway, published in Murray's 'Colonial Library,' sold to the extent of upwards of 2000 copies. Borrow's 'Bible' and 'Gypsies in Spain,' are always in demand, and St. John's 'Highland Sports' keep pace with them. Graver books have equally steady sale. Coleridge's works are popular on the rail. 'Friends in Council,' 'Companions of my Solitude,' and similar small books grasping great subjects, and written with high philosophical aim, are continually purchased. Poetry is no drug at the prosaic terminus if the price of the article be moderate. Moore's 'Songs and Ballads,' published at 5_s._ each; Tennyson's works, and especially 'In Memoriam,' have gone off eagerly; the same remark applies to the Lays of Macaulay and to the Scotch Ballads of Aytoun.

"The style of books sold depends more upon the salesman than on the locality; but there are exceptions to the rule. At Bangor, all books in the Welsh language must have a strong Dissenting and Radical savor. English books at the same station must be High Church and Conservative. School-boys always insist upon having Ainsworth's novels and any thing terrible. Children's books are disdained, and left for their sisters. 'Jack Sheppard' is tabooed at the North-Western, and great is the wrath of the boys accordingly. Stations have their idiosyncracies. Yorkshire is not partial to poetry. It is very difficult to sell a valuable book at any of the stands between Derby, Leeds, and Manchester. Religious books hardly find a purchaser in Liverpool, while at Manchester, at the other end of the line, they are in high demand."

* * * * *

A writer in one of the London literary journals presents a severe criticism of the "Bateman children," who are now performing at St. James' Theatre, under the auspices of our widely-known compatriot, Mr. Barnum. A part of his strictures is as follows, of which there is much more of the same kind:

"Mr. Barnum, the American monster-monger, has opened this theatre with an exhibition which it is disagreeable to witness and impossible to treat as a matter of art. Two American children, Ellen and Kate Bateman, stated to be six and eight years of age, are here produced in the respective characters of _Richard the Third_ and _Richmond_ in the fifth act of Colley Cibber's tragedy. Ellen, who performs the crooked-backed tyrant, carefully made up to look like Edmund Kean, has evidently been drilled by some one well acquainted with the style of that great actor, and elaborately wrought into a miniature resemblance of him. Not only the manner, but the voice has been tutored--tone and emphasis have been imparted, as well as gesture and deportment. To us, who recollect every phase of the style of the departed tragedian, this exact copy was something painful and revolting. Similar pains had been taken with the elder girl Kate--who, armed _cap-à-pie_, strutted and fretted as Richmond. The delivery of the children has been enormously exaggerated in their determination to produce effect. They are strained far beyond their natural powers--and the result is, an impression of caricature and burlesque."

* * * * *

The Dublin literary circles have recently lost the Rev. Dr. Samuel O'Sullivan--a political writer of much force and activity, and one of the leading contributors to the _Dublin University Magazine_. "His style was close and consecutive--and of late years was marked by a vein of reflectiveness not often found among Irish writers. He was abler in attack than in defense--like most polemic authors. The most valuable of his writings are, a series of elaborate biographical essays on modern Irish statesmen; which apart from their literary talent have the merit of originality of matter. For his papers on Lord Chancellor Clare and Mr. Saurin he was furnished with special facts; and his Chaplaincy to the Ph[oe]nix Park Military School gave him access to several persons high in office, whose acquaintance he preserved. He was an entertaining and instructive companion--fertile in curious original anecdote. His pen exercised much influence on the Irish Conservative press for several years: but with the merits or demerits of political controversialists we meddle not. We hear that it was Dr. O'Sullivan's intention to reprint, with additional matter, his excellent essays on Flood and Grattan: the best pictures left us of these Irish statesmen."

* * * * *

The Hakluyt Society have added to their very interesting publications, Richard Hakluyt's translation of the account of De Soto's _Discovery and Conquest of Florida_, with an additional account curiously corroborative of all its substantial details discovered and translated by the editor, Mr. Rye, of the British Museum. The expedition was not without valuable results of an accidental kind, though in its main objects it failed so lamentably; and the narrative now given is extremely vivid and striking.

* * * * *

Another volume curiously illustrative of the past, has been published with the uninviting title of _Consuetudines Kanciæ._ This is, in other words, a history of the Gavelkind, and other remarkable customs of the County of Kent. The author is a skilled antiquary, and gives many sound reasons for his belief that in not a few of those peculiar customs may be directly traced the famous and venerable laws of Edward the Confessor.

* * * * *

Doctor Latham has added to those researches and speculations as to races which have lately been found to explain so much of the peculiarities of national habits, customs, and laws, a sketch of the _Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies_.

* * * * *

Dr. Lingard's valuable library has been bequeathed by the late learned historian to St. Cuthbert's College, Ushaw.

* * * * *

The _Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung_ has been seized and confiscated by the police at Leipzig, for having published, under the head of Great Britain, a notice, with translated extracts, of the two letters written by Mr. Gladstone to the Earl of Aberdeen on the treatment of the Neapolitan state prisoners.

* * * * *

The death of the famous naturalist, Dr. Lorenz Oken, whose theory of the Cranial Homologies effected a revolution in philosophical anatomy, and led the way to the admirable researches of Owen, has recently been announced. The name of Oken is most commonly associated by English readers with his "Physio-philosophy," a translation of which work, by Mr. Tulk, was published by the Ray Society. It abounds in admirable generalizations, unfortunately immersed in much that is false and fantastic, and clothed in the cloudiest phraseology of German transcendental metaphysics. Oken's researches and speculations (for he was as practical as he was dreamy) extended over all departments of natural history. Of the value he set upon facts, and the industry with which he collected them, a lasting monument exists in the volumes of the "Isis," a vast library of abstracts of the science of his time, founded and conducted by him as a periodical. Few men have had greater influence on European science than Oken. Until forced to quit Germany on account of his political opinions, he held a Professorship at Jena. Latterly he was Professor of Natural History at the University of Zurich, in which city he died about the last of August, at the advanced age of seventy-three years.

* * * * *

From Halle, we hear of the death, a short time since, of a voluminous German writer, John Godfrey Gruber, founder and principal editor of the "Universal Encyclopædia of Sciences and Arts"--a work which was at first carried on by him conjointly with Herr Ersch. Herr Gruber was also a large contributor to the _Litteratur Zeitung_ and the _Conversations-Lexicon_. His separate works include: "The Destiny of Man," "The Dictionary of Esthetics and Archæology," "Researches into the Greek and Roman Mythology," "The Life of Wieland," and "The Dictionary of German Synonymes." These are but a few of his many writings.

* * * * *

M. Dupaty, one of the forty French academicians, died a few days ago. He was one of the most obscure of that learned corps. His literary reputation, such as it was, was based almost exclusively on vaudevilles and on the libretti of comic operas. He was held in esteem in the days of Napoleon; but then literary distinction was very easily earned. The most notable event in the last twenty years of his life was being chosen (to his own great astonishment) an academician in preference to Victor Hugo, then at the height of his fame.

* * * * *

The 16th, 17th, and 18th volumes of the complete works of Frederick the Great have just been published at Berlin. They are entirely occupied with his correspondence. There are 4000 letters written by him--two-thirds are in French, the other third, chiefly on military operations, are in German, and were addressed to his generals. The whole letters belong to the state archives. The edition of the great Frederick's works, now in course of publication, was undertaken by order of the present King of Prussia, and at his expense.

* * * * *

The indefatigable Eugene Sue, notwithstanding his daily labors as one of the 750 law-givers of the Republic are, or ought to be, rather heavy, has found time to write another romance, of which the publication has been recently commenced in one of the daily Paris journals. It is called "Fernand Duplesis; or, the Memoirs of a Husband;" and is, it appears, to be an exposure of what in France it is the fashion to call the miseries and iniquities of married life. Written in great haste, it will (judging from the opening chapters) be slovenly in style and negligent in language; but, _en revanche_, it will (as it seems) be of great dramatic interest, and will throw new light on Parisian society--that strange and striking assemblage of intrigue and passion, of vanity and folly, of elegance and refinement, of chivalry and corruption, of much that is good, and of more that is bad.

* * * * *

Don Hannibal de Gasparis, the Neapolitan astronomer, who has, in the course of the last few years, discovered no less than five new planets, has, by a royal decree of the 4th, been named Professor of Astronomy at the University of Naples.

* * * * *

In Hans Andersen's charming _Memoirs_ we find a graphic sketch of an interview with Reboul, the baker poet of Nismes, celebrated in "Lamartine's Journey to the East."--I found him at the house, stepped into the bakehouse, and addressed myself to a man in shirt sleeves who was putting bread into the oven; it was Reboul himself! A noble countenance which expressed a manly character greeted me. When I mentioned my name, he was courteous enough to say he was acquainted with it through the 'Revue de Paris,' and begged me to visit him in the afternoon, when he should be able to entertain me better. When I came again I found him in a little room which might be called almost elegant, adorned with pictures, casts, and books, not alone French literature, but translations of the Greek classics. A picture on the wall represented his most celebrated poem, 'The Dying Child,' from Marmier's _Chansons du Nord_. He knew I had treated the same subject, and I told him this was written in my school days. If in the morning I had found him the industrious baker, he was now the poet completely; he spoke with animation of the literature of his country, and expressed a wish to see the North, the scenery and intellectual life of which seemed to interest him. With great respect I took leave of a man whom the muses have not meanly endowed, and who yet has good sense enough, spite of all the homage paid him, to remain steadfast to his honest business, and prefer being the most remarkable baker in Nismes to losing himself in Paris, after a short triumph, among hundreds of other poets.

* * * * *

The Writings of Shakspeare would appear, from the following fact, to be read with as much avidity and delight in Sweden as in England and this country. A translation of his plays by Hagberg, Professor of Greek in the University of Lund, is now in course of publication. Of this, 12 volumes have appeared; and although the first edition consisted of no less than 2000 copies, the whole have been sold off, and a second edition is in preparation. Professor Hagberg's translation is most favorably spoken of by those who are qualified to judge of its merits.

* * * * *

A new theological work by Jonathan Edwards, printed from his own manuscript, is announced as soon to be issued. The fame of our illustrious American theologian attaches great interest, in the religious world, to this new production from his pen.

* * * * *

The Poem entitled "The Ship of Death," which floated into our Editor's Drawer from an unknown source, was written by Thomas H. Chivers, M.D., author of a volume entitled "Eonchs of Rubies," and other poetical works.

* * * * *

Miss Catherine Hayes the celebrated Irish vocalist arrived in this country a few days since. Her first concert will be given while the sheets of our present Number are passing through the press. She is pronounced in her own sphere to be as unequaled as Jenny Lind in hers; brilliancy is the peculiar characteristic of the latter, pathos of the former. Those who have heard her abroad, predict for her a success not inferior to that achieved by her Swedish compeer. The fact of Ireland being her native land will of itself insure her a favorable hearing in America.

* * * * *

We are reminded that the English work entitled "How to make Home Unhealthy," which was ascribed to Harriet Martineau, in a former Number of this Magazine, was written by Henry Morley, Esq.

A Leaf from Punch.

* * * * *

MUCH TOO CONSIDERATE.

Fashions for October.

October, the beautiful month, standing like a mediator between summer and winter, is the season for exercise in the open air; especially for that healthful recreation, riding on horseback. It is the season, too, of the Indian Summer, when the pleasures of carriage riding and promenading are greater than at any other time of the year. For the ladies it should be an _out-of-door_ month; and for them we herald the decrees of fashion, touching their appearance in the open air.

Walking Dress.--The figure on the left represents a very pretty costume for promenade. Bonnet, drawn _tulle_ with low crown. The poke is made on a skeleton of wire covered with yellow silk, and having four pieces across. Under the wires are fastened small bows of gauze ribbon so as to form three well-rounded rows. A similar row of bows trims the edge of the poke inside, and the ribbons composing it are continued along flat. A gathered ribbon is laid all round and fastens with bows. The crown is of _tulle_, slightly puffed, and ornamented with five ribbon _ruches_, supported by five wires covered with silk, which slope toward each other, and meet near the curtain. The curtain is _tulle_, trimmed with a plaited ribbon, from which proceed bows astride on the edge. The shawl is of silk or other light fabric. On the body there are five cross-bands of silk, goffered and cut at the edges. The top one reaches from one shoulder-seam to the other and is 2-1/2 inches wide, the other four gradually diminish down to the waist, where the last one is but little more than an inch. The trimmings goffered in small flutes are fixed under a narrow galloon; another galloon is placed a little higher, leaving an interval of about half an inch between them. A similar trimming runs round the waist and forms the lappets. The skirt has seven rows of goffered trimmings gathered like those on the body. The top one is an inch and a quarter deep, and all increase gradually down to the lowest, which is 3-1/4 inches. The sleeves are open under the arm from the elbow downward, and are held together by two goffered cross bands. The under-sleeves are lace, and form a large puff, which is fastened in a worked wristband.

Riding Dress.--The figure on the right represents a riding dress. Felt hat with a terry velvet ribbon as binding for the edges, bows of the same, and a frosted feather. Body of white quilting, high and tight. The skirts hold to the body without seam at the waist. They are very round and full, owing to the cut of the side and the gores. They should come well over the hips, but not sit too tight. The middle of the body is open and leaves visible a rich lace shirt-frill very deep and full, and falling back on itself, owing to its fullness. The lace collar forms a ruff with two rows. The top and bottom of the body are hooked inside, but seem to be held by three gold double buttons; these twin buttons are attached together by a small gold chain. Those at bottom have a longer chain than the others. The sleeves are straight with a cuff turned up and standing out from the sleeve. Shirt of plain poplin, trimmed in front with velvet ribbons nearly half an inch wide, and continued all round the bottom.

Carriage Costume.--Dress of _glacé_ silk; body half high, and open in front; waist long and slightly pointed; the body a tight fit and trimmed with a rich fancy trimming. The short skirt is very full, rounded at the corners _a la robes_, and trimmed to correspond with the corsage. The gathers at the waist are confined by narrow rows of _guimpe_. The skirt is long and very full, with a row of silk trimming laid on the hem at the bottom. Bonnet of _paille de riz;_ brim very open. Feathers are placed low at the right side. Lined with fulled _tulle_, ornamented with pink satin A shawl of white cachmere, with very deep fringe.

Caps.--The cap is almost universally worn as a part of morning costume. Nos. 1 and 2 represent two of the latest styles, adapted for the cool mornings of autumn. Those of a _negligé_ form are generally composed of muslin, embroidered _au plumetis_, or cambric, entirely covered with the richest kind of English embroidery, which sometimes resembles a splendid _guipure_. When the lappets are not formed of the same material, we see them of pink taffetas, attached to the cap, with a bunch of _coques_, composed of the same colored ribbon very full, and put on so as to replace the full bands of hair.

Undersleeves, so elegant with open dress sleeves, are worn by all. The style as well as material has many varieties. No. 3 is a very neat style, made either of embroidered muslin, or lace.

Pelisses are becoming very fashionable, made of plain Italian silk, and trimmed with a fancy ribbon three fingers in width, and bordered on either side with two narrow ones, appearing as if woven in the dress. We may cite, as a most elegant costume in this style, a redingote of pearl-gray, encircled with a ribbon of a pearl-gray ground, over which is quadrillé dark-blue velvet, having the narrow rows on either side. The front of the pelisse is closed with eight or ten rows of the same kind of ribbon, each end being turned back so as to form a point, from which depends a small blue and gray mixed tassel. The corsage is formed with broad facings, encircled to match the lower part of the sleeves.

Jewelry.--The _châtelaine_ is now replaced, in a measure, by waistcoat chains, attached at both ends, the middle forming a festoon. _Brooches_ are very rich; the finest are cameos set round with brilliants. _Ear-rings_ are composed of large stones mounted in plain rings, without pendants. _Bracelets_ are of enamel, sparkling stones, and gold. The waistcoat button is now a very elegant piece of jewelry.

* * * * *

Transcriber's Notes:

PUNCTUATION

Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). The oe ligature in the words manoeuvre, Phoenix, etc., has been replaced with the separate letters in this text version. Superscripted letters are indicated by a caret character, e.g. y^e. Small capital text has sometimes been replaced with all capitals, but not where it occurs in names of individuals, footnotes, or illustrations. Obvious punctuation errors have been repaired. This text contains several examples of inconsistent hyphenation, e.g. two thirds/two-thirds, and word spacing, e.g. mean time/meantime, which have been retained in this version, except for "Good by" which has been normalised to "Good-by".

Pg 582, question mark replaced with exclamation mark (Honor to Letitia, the mother of Napoleon!) Pg 680, question mark replaced with exclamation mark (Extremely fine!)

WORDS AND SPELLING

pg 579: "women" changed to "woman" (the best woman in France) pg 588: "hunddred" changed to "hundred" (a population of but about five hundred thousand) pg 602: "Limana" normalised to "Limeña" (Limeña at home) pg 606: "that" changed to "than" (much less depressed than that) pg 616: "insted" changed to "instead" (twenty guineas, instead of sixty) pg 629: "grostesquely" changed to "grotesquely" (His life was grotesquely checkered) pg 631: "reched" changed to "reached" (he reached that last degrading status in society) pg 647: "guarrantee" changed to "guarantee" (a guarantee for what he would have done) pg 654: "massses" changed to "masses" (rude, unshapen masses) pg 669: "tast" changed to "taste" (the taste of a man) pg 675: "scluded" changed to "secluded" (having carefully secluded her from marriage) pg 695: duplicated word "been" removed (have been busily engaged) pg 696: duplicated word "that" removed (It is intended that they shall) pg 700: "it" changed to "its" (derives its supplies of provisions) pg 715: "controversalists" changed to "controversialists" (merits or demerits of political controversialists) pg 720: "paile" changed to "paille" (paille de riz)