CHAPTER VIII.

Twilight was dark in the room to which Beatrice had conducted Violante. A great change had come over Beatrice. Humble and weeping, she knelt beside Violante, hiding her face, and imploring pardon. And Violante, striving to resist the terror for which she now saw such cause as no woman-heart can defy, still sought to soothe, and still sweetly assured forgiveness.

Beatrice had learned--after quick and fierce questions, that at last compelled the answers that cleared away every doubt--that her jealousy had been groundless--that she had no rival in Violante. From that moment, the passions that had made her the tool of guilt abruptly vanished, and her conscience startled her with the magnitude of her treachery. Perhaps had Violante's heart been wholly free, or she had been of that mere commonplace, girlish character which women like Beatrice are apt to despise, the Marchesa's affection for Peschiera, and her dread of him, might have made her try to persuade her young kinswoman at least to receive the Count's visit--at least to suffer him to make his own excuses, and plead his own cause. But there had been a loftiness of spirit in which Violante had first defied the Marchesa's questions, followed by such generous, exquisite sweetness, when the girl perceived how that wild heart was stung and maddened, and such purity of mournful candor when she had overcome her own virgin bashfulness sufficiently to undeceive the error she detected, and confess where her own affections were placed, that Beatrice bowed before her as mariner of old to some fair saint that had allayed the storm.

"I have deceived you!" she cried through her sobs; "but I will now save you at any cost. Had you been as I deemed--the rival who had despoiled all the hopes of my future life--I would, without remorse, have been the accomplice I am pledged to be. But _now_, you!--oh, you--so good and so noble--you can never be the bride of Peschiera. Nay, start not: he shall renounce his designs forever, or I will go myself to our Emperor, and expose the dark secrets of his life. Return with me quick to the home from which I ensnared you."

Beatrice's hand was on the door while she spoke. Suddenly her face fell--her lips grew white; the door was locked from without. She called--no one answered; the bell-pull in the room gave no sound; the windows were high and barred--they did not look on the river, nor the street, but on a close, gloomy, silent yard--high blank walls all around it--no one to hear the cry of distress, rang it ever so loud and sharp.

Beatrice divined that she herself had been no less ensnared than her companion; that Peschiera, distrustful of her firmness in evil, had precluded her from the power of reparation. She was in a house only tenanted by his hirelings. Not a hope to save Violante, from a fate that now appalled her, seemed to remain. Thus, in incoherent self-reproaches and frenzied tears, Beatrice knelt beside her victim, communicating more and more the terrors that she felt, as the hours rolled on, and the room darkened, till it was only by the dull lamp which gleamed through the grimy windows from the yard without, that each saw the face of the other.

Night came on; they heard a clock from some distant church strike the hours. The dim fire had long since burnt out, and the air became intensely cold. No one broke upon their solitude--not a voice was heard in the house. They felt neither cold nor hunger--they felt but the solitude and the silence, and the dread of something that was to come.

At length, about midnight, a bell rang at the street door; then there was the quick sound of steps--of sullen bolts withdrawn--of low, murmured voices. Light streamed through the chinks of the door to the apartment--the door itself opened. Two Italians bearing tapers entered, and the Count di Peschiera followed.

Beatrice sprang up, and rushed toward her brother. He placed his hand gently on her lips, and motioned to the Italians to withdraw. They placed the lights on the table, and vanished without a word.

Peschiera then, putting aside his sister, approached Violante.

"Fair kinswoman," said he, with an air of easy but resolute assurance, "there are things which no man can excuse and no woman can pardon, unless that love, which is beyond all laws, suggests excuse for the one, and obtains pardon for the other. In a word, I have sworn to win you, and I have had no opportunities to woo. Fear not; the worst that can befall you is to be my bride. Stand aside, my sister, stand aside."

"Giulio, no! Giulio Franzini, I stand between you and her: you shall strike me to the earth before you can touch even the hem of her robe."

"What, my sister!--you turn against me?"

"And unless you instantly retire and leave her free, I will unmask you to the Emperor."

"Too late, _mon enfant_! You will sail with us. The effects you may need for the voyage are already on board. You will be witness to our marriage, and by a holy son of the Church. Then tell the Emperor what you will."

With a light and sudden exertion of his strength, the Count put away Beatrice, and fell on his knee before Violante, who, drawn to her full height, death-like pale, but untrembling, regarded him with unutterable disdain.

"You scorn me now," said he, throwing into his features an expression of humility and admiration, "and I can not wonder at it. But, believe me, that until the scorn yield to a kinder sentiment, I will take no advantage of the power I have gained over your fate."

"Power!" said Violante, haughtily. "You have ensnared me into this house--you have gained the power of a day; but the power over my fate--no!"

"You mean that your friends have discovered your disappearance, and are on your track. Fair one, I provide against your friends, and I defy all the laws and police of England. The vessel that will bear you from these shores waits in the river hard by. Beatrice, I warn you--be still--unhand me. In that vessel will be a priest who shall join our hands, but not before you will recognize the truth, that she who flies with Giulio Peschiera must become his wife, or quit him as the disgrace of her house, and the scorn of her sex."

"Oh, villain! villain!" cried Beatrice.

"_Peste_, my sister, gentler words. You, too, would marry. I tell no tales of you. Signorina, I grieve to threaten force. Give me your hand; we must be gone."

Violante eluded the clasp that would have profaned her, and darting across the room, opened the door, and closed it hastily behind her. Beatrice clung firmly to the Count to detain him from pursuit. But just without the door, close, as if listening to what passed within, stood a man wrapped from head to foot in a large boat cloak. The ray of the lamp that beamed on the man, gleamed on the barrel of a pistol which he held in his right hand.

"Hist!" whispered the man in English; and passing his arm round her--"in this house you are in that ruffian's power; out of it, safe. Ah! I am by your side--I, Violante!"

The voice thrilled to Violante's heart. She started--looked up, but nothing was seen of the man's face, what with the hat and cloak, save a mass of raven curls and a beard of the same hue.

The Count now threw open the door, dragging after him his sister, who still clung round him.

"Ha--that is well!" he cried to the man in Italian. "Bear the lady after me, gently; but if she attempt to cry out--why, force enough to silence her, not more. As for you, Beatrice, traitress that you are, I could strike you to the earth--but--no, this suffices." He caught his sister in his arms as he spoke, and, regardless of her cries and struggles, sprang down the stairs.

The hall was crowded with fierce swarthy men. The Count turned to one of them, and whispered; in an instant the Marchesa was seized and gagged. The Count cast a look over his shoulder; Violante was close behind, supported by the man to whom Peschiera had consigned her, and who was pointing to Beatrice, and appeared warning Violante against resistance. Violante was silent, and seemed resigned. Peschiera smiled cynically, and, preceded by some of his hirelings, who held torches, descended a few steps that led to an abrupt landing-place between the hall and the basement story. There, a small door stood open, and the river flowed close by. A boat was moored on the bank, round which grouped four men, who had the air of foreign sailors. At the appearance of Peschiera, three of these men sprang into the boat and got ready their oars. The fourth carefully readjusted a plank thrown from the boat to the wharf, and offered his arm obsequiously to Peschiera. The Count was the first to enter, and, humming a gay opera air, took his place by the helm. The two females were next lifted in, and Violante felt her hand pressed almost convulsively by the man who stood by the plank. The rest followed, and in another minute the boat bounded swiftly over the waves toward a vessel that lay several furlongs adown the river, and apart from all the meaner craft that crowded the stream. The stars struggled pale through the foggy atmosphere; not a word was heard within the boat--no sound save the regular splash of the oars. The Count paused from his lively tune, and gathering round him the ample folds of his fur pelisse, seemed absorbed in thought. Even by the imperfect light of the stars, Peschiera's face wore an air of sovereign triumph. The result had justified that careless and insolent confidence in himself and in fortune, which was the most prominent feature in the character of the man who, both bravo and gamester, had played against the world, with his rapier in one hand, and cogged dice in the other. Violante, once in a vessel filled by his own men, was irretrievably in his power. Even her father must feel grateful to learn that the captive of Peschiera had saved name and repute in becoming Peschiera's wife. Even the pride of sex in Violante herself must induce her to confirm what Peschiera, of course, intended to state, viz., that she was a willing partner in a bridegroom's schemes of flight toward the altar, rather than the poor victim of a betrayer, and receiving his hand but from his mercy. He saw his fortune secured, his success envied, his very character rehabilitated by his splendid nuptials. Ambition began to mingle with his dreams of pleasure and pomp. What post in the Court or the State too high for the aspirations of one who had evinced the most incontestable talent for active life--the talent to succeed in all that the will had undertaken? Thus mused the Count, half forgetful of the present, and absorbed in the golden future, till he was aroused by a loud hail from the vessel, and the bustle on board the boat, as the sailors caught at the rope flung forth to them. He then rose and moved toward Violante. But the man who was still in charge of her passed the Count lightly, half leading, half carrying, his passive prisoner. "Pardon, Excellency," said the man in Italian, "but the boat is crowded, and rocks so much that your aid would but disturb our footing." Before Peschiera could reply, Violante was already on the steps of the vessel, and the Count paused till, with elated smile, he saw her safely standing on the deck. Beatrice followed, and then Peschiera himself; but when the Italians in his train also thronged toward the sides of the boat, two of the sailors got before them, and let go the rope, while the other two plied their oars vigorously, and pulled back toward shore. The Italians burst into an amazed and indignant volley of execrations. "Silence," said the sailor who had stood by the plank, "we obey orders. If you are not quiet, we shall upset the boat. _We_ can swim; Heaven and Monsignore San Giacomo pity you if you can not."

Meanwhile, as Peschiera leapt upon deck, a flood of light poured upon him from lifted torches. That light streamed full on the face and form of a man of commanding stature, whose arm was around Violante, and whose dark eyes flashed upon the Count more luminously than the torches. On one side this man stood the Austrian Prince; on the other side (a cloak, and a profusion of false dark locks, at his feet) stood Lord L'Estrange, his arms folded, and his lips curved by a smile in which the ironical humor native to the man was tempered with a calm and supreme disdain. The Count strove to speak, but his voice faltered. All around him looked ominous and hostile. He saw many Italian faces, but they scowled at him with vindictive hate; in the rear were English mariners, peering curiously over the shoulders of the foreigners, and with a broad grin on their open countenances. Suddenly, as the Count thus stood perplexed, cowering, stupefied, there burst from all the Italians present a hoot of unutterable scorn--"_Il traditore! il traditore!_"--(the traitor! the traitor!)

The Count was brave, and at the cry he lifted his head with a certain majesty.

At that moment Harley, raising his hand as if to silence the hoot, came forth from the group by which he had been hitherto standing, and toward him the Count advanced with a bold stride.

"What trick is this?" he said in French, fiercely. "I divine that it is you whom I can single out for explanation and atonement."

"_Pardieu, Monsieur le Comte_," answered Harley in the same language, which lends itself so well to polished sarcasm and high bred enmity--"let us distinguish. Explanation should come from me, I allow; but atonement I have the honor to resign to yourself. This vessel--"

"Is mine!" cried the Count. "Those men, who insult me, should be in my pay."

"The men in your pay, _Monsieur le Comte_, are on shore drinking success to your voyage. But, anxious still to procure you the gratification of being among your own countrymen, those whom I have taken into my pay are still better Italians than the pirates whose place they supply; perhaps not such good sailors; but then I have taken the liberty to add to the equipment of a vessel, which has cost me too much to risk lightly, some stout English seamen, who are mariners more practiced than even your pirates. Your grand mistake, _Monsieur le Comte_, is in thinking that the 'Flying Dutchman' is yours. With many apologies for interfering with your intention to purchase it, I beg to inform you that Lord Spendquick has kindly sold it to me. Nevertheless, _Monsieur le Comte_, for the next few weeks I place it--men and all--at your service."

Peschiera smiled scornfully

"I thank your lordship; but since I presume that I shall no longer have the traveling companion who alone could make the voyage attractive, I shall return to shore, and will simply request you to inform me at what hour you can receive the friend whom I shall depute to discuss that part of the question yet untouched, and to arrange that the atonement, whether it be due from me or yourself, may be rendered as satisfactory as you have condescended to make the explanation."

"Let not that vex you, _Monsieur le Comte_--the atonement is, in much, made already; so anxious have I been to forestall all that your nice sense of honor would induce so complete a gentleman to desire. You have ensnared a young heiress, it is true; but you see that it was only to restore her to the arms of her father. You have juggled an illustrious kinsman out of his heritage; but you have voluntarily come on board this vessel, first, to enable his highness, the Prince ----, of whose rank at the Austrian Court you are fully aware, to state to your Emperor that he himself has been witness of the manner in which you interpreted his Imperial Majesty's assent to your nuptials with a child of one of the first subjects in his Italian realm; and next, to commence, by a penitential excursion to the seas of the Baltic, the sentence of banishment which I have no doubt will accompany the same act that restores to the chief of your house his lands and his honors."

The Count started.

"That restoration," said the Austrian Prince, who had advanced to Harley's side, "I already guarantee. Disgrace that you are, Giulio Franzini, to the nobles of the Empire, I will not leave my royal master till his hand strike your name from the roll. I have here your own letters, to prove that your kinsman was duped by yourself into the revolt which you would have headed as a Catiline, if it had not better suited your nature to betray it as a Judas. In ten days from this time, these letters will be laid before the Emperor and his Council."

"Are you satisfied _Monsieur le Comte_," said Harley, "with your atonement so far? if not, I have procured you the occasion to render it yet more complete. Before you stands the kinsman you have wronged. He knows now, that though for a while, you ruined his fortunes, you failed to sully his hearth. His heart can grant you pardon, and hereafter his hand may give you alms. Kneel then, Giulio Franzini--kneel, baffled bravo--kneel, ruined gamester--kneel, miserable out-cast--at the feet of Alphonso, Prince of Monteleone and Duke of Serrano."

The above dialogue had been in French, which only a few of the Italians present understood, and that imperfectly; but at the name with which Harley concluded his address to the Count a simultaneous cry from those Italians broke forth.

"Alphonso the Good!--Alphonso the Good! _Viva--viva_--the good Duke of Serrano!"

And, forgetful even of the Count, they crowded round the tall form of Riccabocca, striving who should first kiss his hand--the very hem of his garments.

Riccabocca's eyes overflowed. The gaunt exile seemed transfigured into another and more kingly man. An inexpressible dignity invested him. He stretched forth his arms, as if to bless his countrymen. Even that rude cry, from humble men, exiles like himself, consoled him for years of banishment and penury.

"Thanks, thanks," he continued; "thanks. Some day or other, you will all perhaps return with me to the beloved Land!"

The Austrian Prince bowed his head, as if in assent to the prayer.

"Giulio Franzini," said the Duke of Serrano--for so we may now call the threadbare recluse of the Casino--"had this last villainous design of yours been allowed by Providence, think you that there is one spot on earth on which the ravisher could have been saved from a father's arm? But now, Heaven has been more kind. In this hour let me imitate its mercy," and with relaxing brow the Duke mildly drew near to his guilty kinsman.

From the moment the Austrian Prince had addressed him, the Count had preserved a profound silence, showing neither repentance nor shame. Gathering himself up, he had stood firm, glaring round him like one at bay. But as the Duke now approached, he waved his hand, and exclaimed, "Back, pedant, back; you have not triumphed yet. And you, prating German, tell your tales to our Emperor. I shall be by his throne to answer--if, indeed, you escape from the meeting to which I will force you by the way." He spoke, and made a rush toward the side of the vessel. But Harley's quick wit had foreseen the Count's intention, and Harley's quick eye had given the signal by which it was frustrated. Seized in the gripe of his own watchful and indignant countrymen, just as he was about to plunge into the stream, Peschiera was dragged back--pinioned down. Then the expression of his whole countenance changed; the desperate violence of the inborn gladiator broke forth. His great strength enabled him to break loose more than once, to dash more than one man to the floor of the deck; but at length, overpowered by numbers, though still struggling--all dignity, all attempt at presence of mind gone, uttering curses the most plebeian, gnashing his teeth, and foaming at the mouth, nothing seemed left of the brilliant Lothario but the coarse fury of the fierce natural man.

Then, still preserving that air and tone of exquisite imperturbable irony which might have graced the marquis of the old French regime, and which the highest comedian might have sighed to imitate in vain, Harley bowed low to the storming Count.

"_Adieu, Monsieur le Comte--adieu!_ I am rejoiced to see that you are so well provided with furs. You will need them for your voyage; it is a very cold one at this time of the year. The vessel which you have honored me by entering is bound to Norway. The Italians who accompany you were sent by yourself into exile, and, in return, they now kindly promise to enliven you with their society, whenever you feel somewhat tired of your own. Conduct the Count to his cabin. Gently there, gently. _Adieu, Monsieur le Comte, adieu! et bon voyage._"

Harley turned lightly on his heel, as Peschiera, in spite of his struggles, was now fairly carried down to the cabin.

"A trick for the trickster," said L'Estrange to the Austrian Prince. "The revenge of a farce on the would-be tragedian."

"More than that--he is ruined."

"And ridiculous," quoth Harley. "I should like to see his look when they land him in Norway." Harley then passed toward the centre of the vessel, by which, hitherto partially concealed by the sailors, who were now busily occupied, stood Beatrice; Frank Hazeldean, who had first received her on entering the vessel, standing by her side; and Leonard, a little apart from the two, in quiet observation of all that had passed around him. Beatrice appeared but little to heed Frank; her dark eyes were lifted to the dim starry skies, and her lips were moving as if in prayer; yet her young lover was speaking to her in great emotion, low and rapidly.

"No, no--do not think for a moment that we suspect you, Beatrice. I will answer for your honor with my life. Oh, why will you turn from me--why will you not speak?"

"A moment later," said Beatrice softly. "Give me one moment yet." She passed slowly and faltering toward Leonard--placed her hand that trembled, on his arm--and led him aside to the verge of the vessel. Frank, startled by her movement, made a step as if to follow, and then stopped short, and looked on, but with a clouded and doubtful countenance. Harley's smile had gone, and his eye was also watchful.

It was but a few words that Beatrice spoke--it was but by a sentence or so that Leonard answered; and then Beatrice extended her hand, which the young poet bent over, and kissed in silence. She lingered an instant; and even by the star-light, Harley noted the blush that overspread her face. The blush faded as Beatrice returned to Frank. Lord L'Estrange would have retired--she signed to him to stay.

"My lord," she said very firmly, "I can not accuse you of harshness to my sinful and unhappy brother. His offense might perhaps deserve a heavier punishment than that which you inflict with such playful scorn. But whatever his penance, contempt now, or poverty later, I feel that his sister should be by his side to share it. I am not innocent, if he be guilty; and, wreck though he be, nothing else on this dark sea of life is now left to me to cling to. Hush, my lord! I shall not leave this vessel. All that I entreat of you is, to order your men to respect my brother, since a woman will be by his side."

"But, Marchesa, this can not be; and--"

"Beatrice, Beatrice--and me!--our betrothal? Do you forgot me?"' cried Frank in reproachful agony.

"No, young and too noble lover; I shall remember you ever in my prayers. But listen. I have been deceived--hurried on, I might say--by others, but also, and far more, by my own mad and blinded heart--deceived, hurried on, to wrong you and to belie myself. My shame burns into me when I think that I could have inflicted on you the just anger of your family--linked you to my own ruined fortunes, my own tarnished name--my own--"

"Your own generous, loving heart!--that is all I asked!" cried Frank. "Cease, cease--that heart is mine still!"

Tears gushed from the Italian's eyes.

"Englishman, I never loved you; this heart was dead to you, and it will be dead to all else forever. Farewell! You will forget me sooner than you think for--sooner than I shall forget you--as a friend, as a brother--if brothers had natures as tender and as kind as yours! Now, my lord, will you give me your arm? I would join the Count."

"Stay--one word, madam," said Frank, very pale, and through his set teeth, but calmly, and with a pride on his brow which had never before dignified its careless, open expression--"one word. I may not be worthy of you in any thing else--but an honest love, that never doubted, never suspected--that would have clung to you though all the world were against; such a love makes the meanest man of worth. One word, frank and open. By all that you hold most sacred in your creed, did you speak the truth when you said that you never loved me?"

Beatrice bent down her head; she was abashed before this manly nature that she had so deceived, and perhaps till then undervalued.

"Pardon, pardon," she said, in reluctant accents, half-choked by the rising of a sob.

At her hesitation Frank's face lighted as if with sudden hope. She raised her eyes, and saw the change in him, then glanced where Leonard stood, mournful and motionless. She shivered, and added, firmly--

"Yes--pardon; for I spoke the truth; and I had no heart to give. It might have been as wax to another--it was of granite to you." She paused, and muttered inly--"Granite, and--broken!"

Frank said not a word more. He stood rooted to the spot, not even gazing after Beatrice as she passed away leaning on the arm of Lord L'Estrange. He then walked resolutely away, and watched the boat that the men were now lowering from the side of the vessel. Beatrice stopped when she came near the place where Violante stood, answering in agitated whispers her father's anxious questions. As she stopped, she leaned more heavily upon Harley. "It is your arm that trembles now, Lord L'Estrange," said she, with a mournful smile, and, quitting him before he could answer, she bowed down her head meekly before Violante. "You have pardoned me already," she said, in a tone that reached only the girl's ear, "and my last words shall not be of the past. I see your future spread bright before me under those steadfast stars. Love still; hope and trust. These are the last words of her who will soon die to the world. Fair maid, they are prophetic!"

Violante shrank back to her father's breast, and there hid her glowing face, resigning her hand to Beatrice, who pressed it to her bosom. The Marchesa then came back to Harley, and disappeared with him in the interior of the vessel.

When Harley reappeared on deck, he seemed, much flurried and disturbed. He kept aloof from the Duke and Violante, and was the last to enter the boat, that was now lowered into the water.

As he and his companions reached the land, they saw the vessel in movement, and gliding slowly down the river.

"Courage, Leonard, courage!" murmured Harley. "You grieve, and nobly. But you have shunned the worst and most vulgar deceit in civilized life; you have not simulated love. Better that yon poor lady should be, awhile, the sufferer from a harsh truth, than the eternal martyr of a flattering lie! Alas, my Leonard, with the love of the poet's dream are linked only the Graces; with the love of the human heart come the awful Fates!"

"My lord, poets do not dream when they love. You will learn how the feelings are deep in proportion as the fancies are vivid, when you read that confession of genius and woe which I have left in your hands."

Leonard turned away. Harley's gaze followed him with inquiring interest, and suddenly encountered the soft, dark grateful eyes of Violante. "The Fates, the Fates!" murmured Harley.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

A SHORT CHAPTER ON RATS.

The rat is one of the most despised and tormented of created animals; he has many enemies and very few friends; wherever he appears his life is in danger from men, dogs, cats, owls, &c., who will have no mercy on him. These perpetual persecutions oblige him to be wary in his movements, and call for a large amount of cunning and sagacity on his part, which give his little sharp face a peculiarly knowing and wide-awake appearance, which the most superficial observer must have noticed. Though, poor creature, he is hated and killed by man, his sworn foe, yet he is to that same ungrateful race a most useful servant, in the humble capacity of scavenger; for wherever man settles his habitation, even in the most remote parts of the earth, there, as if by magic, appear our friends the rats. He quietly takes possession of the out-houses, drains, &c., and occupies himself by devouring the refuse and filth thrown away from the dwelling of his master (under whose floor, as well as roof, he lives); this refuse, if left to decay, would engender fever, malaria, and all kinds of horrors, to the destruction of the children of the family, were it not for the unremitting exertions of the rats to get rid of it, in a way no doubt agreeable to themselves, namely, by eating it.

The rat is admirably armed and equipped for the peculiar mode of life which he is ordained to lead. He has formidable weapons in the shape of four small, long, and very sharp teeth, two of which are fixed in the upper and two in the under jaw. These are formed in the shape of a wedge, and by the following wonderful provision of Nature, have always a fine, sharp, cutting edge. On examining them carefully, we find that the inner part is of a soft, ivory-like composition, which may be easily worn away, whereas the outside is composed of a glass-like enamel, which is excessively hard. The upper teeth work exactly into the under, so that the centres of the opposed teeth meet exactly in the act of gnawing; the soft part is thus being perpetually worn away, while the hard part keeps a sharp, chisel-like edge; at the same time the teeth grow up from the bottom, so that as they wear away a fresh supply is ready. The consequence of this arrangement is, that, if one of the teeth be removed, either by accident or on purpose, the opposed tooth will continue to grow upward; and, as there is nothing to grind it away, will project from the mouth and be turned upon itself; or, if it be an under-tooth, it will even run into the skull above.

There is a curious, but little known fact, which well illustrates the ravages which the rats can inflict on a hard substance with these little sharp teeth. Many of the elephant's tusks imported into London for the use of the ivory ornament makers, are observed to have their surfaces grooved into small furrows of unequal depths, as though cut out by a very sharp-edged instrument. Surely no man would have taken the trouble to do this, for what would be the profit of his labor? The rats, however, are at the bottom of the secret, or else, clever fellows as they are, they would not have used their chisel-like teeth with such effect. They have found out the tusks which contain the most gelatine or animal glue, a sweet and delicious morsel for the rat's dainty palate; and having gnawed away as much as suited their purpose, have left the rest for the ivory-cutter--he, for his part, is neither unable nor unwilling to profit by the fact marked out by the rat's teeth. The ivory that contains a large amount of gelatine is softer and more elastic than that which does not; and as elasticity is the thing most needful for billiard balls, he chooses this rat-marked ivory, and turns it into the beautiful elastic billiard balls we see on the slate tables in St. James's-street. The elasticity of some of these is so great, that if struck down forcibly on a hard pavement, they will rebound into the hand to the height of three or four feet.

Rats have a remarkable instinct for finding out where there is any thing good for food; and it has been often a subject of wonder, how they manage to get on board ships laden with sugar and other attractive cargoes. This mystery has, however, been cleared up, for they have been seen to come off shore to the ship by means of the rope by which she is moored to the quay, although at some distance from the shore. By the same means they will leave the ship when she comes into port, if they find their quarters filling, or filled with water; hence the saying, that "rats always leave a sinking ship" is perfectly true. If, however, the ship be water-tight, they will continue breeding to an enormous extent. M. de St. Pierre informs us, that on the return of the "Valiant" man-of-war from the Havana, in the year 1766, its rats had increased to such a degree, that they destroyed a hundred weight of biscuit daily. The ship was at length smoked between decks in order to suffocate them; and six hampers were for some time filled every day with the rats that had thus been killed.

There is a curious instance of rats losing their lives in quest of food, which has been kindly communicated to me by a friend. When the atmospheric pump was in use at the terminus of the Croydon railway, hundreds of rats lost their lives daily. The unscientific creatures used in the night to get into the large iron tube, by exhausting the air from which the railway carriages were put in motion, their object being to lick off the grease from the leather valve, which the engineers of the line were so anxious to keep airtight. As soon as the air-pump was put to work for the first morning-train, there was no resisting, and out they were sucked all dead corpses!

The rat, though naturally a savage creature, is, by dint of kindness, capable of being tamed and being made obedient to the will of man. Some of the Japanese tame rats, and teach them to perform many entertaining tricks, and thus instructed they are exhibited as a show for the diversion of the populace.

A gentleman traveling through Mecklenburg, about forty years ago, was witness to a very singular circumstance in the post-house at New Hargard. After dinner, the landlord placed on the floor a large dish of soup, and gave a loud whistle. Immediately there came into the room a mastiff, a fine Angora cat, an old raven, and a remarkably large rat, with a bell about its neck. They all four went to the dish, and, without disturbing each other, fed together, after which the dog, cat, and rat lay before the fire, while the raven hopped about the room. The landlord, after accounting for the familiarity which existed among these animals, informed his guest that the rat was the most useful of the four, for the noise he made had completely freed the house from the other rats and mice with which it had previously been infested.

But capacity for becoming tame and accustomed to the presence of man is not confined to the "foreigneer" rats, for, from the following story, it appears that the rats of England are equally susceptible of kindness. A worthy whip-maker, who worked hard at his trade to support a large family, had prepared a number of strips of leather, by well oiling and greasing them. He carefully laid them by in a box, but, strange to say, they disappeared one by one; nobody knew any thing about them, nobody had touched them.

However, one day, as he was sitting at work in his shop, a large black rat, of the original British species, slyly poked his head up out of a hole in the corner of the room, and deliberately took a survey of the whole place. Seeing all quiet, out he came, and ran straight to the box wherein were kept the favorite leather strips. In he dived, and quickly reappeared, carrying in his mouth the most dainty morsel he could find. Off he ran to his hole, and quickly vanished. Having thus found out the thief, the saddler determined to catch him; he accordingly propped up a sieve by a stick, and put a bait underneath; in a few minutes out came the rat again, smelling the inviting toasted cheese, and forthwith attacked it. The moment he began nibbling at the bait, down came the sieve, and he became a prisoner. Now, thought he, "my life depends upon my behavior when this horrid sieve is lifted up by that two-legged wretch with the apron on, who so kindly cuts the greasy thongs for me every day: he has a good-natured looking face, and I don't think he wants to kill me. I know what I will do."

The saddler' at length lifted up the sieve, being armed with a stick ready to kill Mr. Rat when he rushed out. What was his astonishment to see that the rat remained perfectly quiet, and, after a few moments, to walk quietly up on his arm, and look up in his face, as much as to say, "I am a poor innocent rat, and if your wife will lock up all the good things in the cupboard, why I must eat your nicely prepared thongs; rats must live as well as saddlers." The man then said, "Tom, I was going to kill you, but now I won't; let us be friends. I'll put you some bread and butter every day if you won't take my thongs and wax, and leave the shopman's breakfast alone; but I am afraid you will come out once too often; there are lots of dogs and cats about who won't be so kind to you as I am; you may go now."

He then put him down, and Mr. Rat leisurely retreated to his hole. For a long time afterward he found his breakfast regularly placed for him at the mouth of his hole, in return for which he, as in duty bound, became quite tame, running about the shop, and inquisitively turning over every thing on the bench at which his protector was at work. He would even accompany him into the stables when he went to feed the pony, and pick up the corn as it fell from the manger, keeping, however, a respectful distance from the pony's legs. His chief delight was to bask in the warm window sill, stretching his full length to the mid-day sun. This unfortunate, though agreeable habit, proved his destruction, for one very hot day, as he lay at his ease taking his _siesta_, the dog belonging to the bird-shop opposite espied him afar off, and instantly dashed at him through the window. The poor rat, who was asleep at the time, awoke, alas! too late to save his life. The cruel dog caught him, and took him into the road, where a few sharp squeezes and shakings soon finished him. The fatal deed being done, the murderous dog left his bleeding victim in the dusty road, and with ears and tail erect, walked away as though proud of his performance. The dog's master, knowing the history of the rat, had him stuffed, and his impaled skin, with a silver chain round the neck, forms to this day a handsome addition to the shop-front of the bird-shop in Brompton.

There is a curious fact connected with the habits of the rat, which warrants a closer observation on the part of those who have the opportunity, it is the emigration of rats. It appears that rats, like many birds, fish, &c., are influenced to change their abode by want of food; by necessity of change of temperature; by want of a place for incubation, where they may obtain food for their young; and, lastly, by their fear of man.

A Spanish merchant had forestalled the market of Barcelona filberts on speculation some years ago. He filled his warehouse with sacks of them, and refused to sell them to the retail-dealers, but at such a price as they could not afford to give. Thinking, however, that they would be obliged to submit to his demand, rather than not procure them for sale, he persisted in exacting his original price, and thus lost nearly all his treasure; for he was informed by an early rising friend, that he had seen, just before sunrise, an army of rats quitting the warehouse. He immediately went to examine his sacks, and found them gnawed in various places, and emptied of above half their contents, and empty shells of filberts strewed over the floor.

Pennant relates a story of a burglarious grand-larceny troop of rats, which nearly frightened a young lady out of her wits, by mistaking her chimney for one leading to a cheese-room. She was suddenly wakened by a tremendous clatter in her bed-chamber, and on looking up saw a terrific troop of rats running about in wild disorder. She had presence of mind enough to throw her candlestick at them (_timor arma ministral_) and to her great joy she found that they speedily departed by the way which they had entered her apartment, leaving only a cloud of soot over the room.

Forty years ago, the house of a surgeon in Swansea was greatly infested with rats, and he completely got rid of them by burning off all the hair from one of them which he had caught alive, and then allowing it to return to its hole. It was said that he never afterward saw a rat on his premises, except the burnt sufferer, which on the following day returned, and was caught in the same trap from which he had been but just set at liberty. I suppose that in their "Advertiser," the description of a ghost, and a notice of haunted premises was given, which caused the whole colony so unanimously to decamp.

A DARK CHAPTER FROM THE DIARY OF A LAW CLERK.

One Ephraim Bridgman, who died in 1783, had for many years farmed a large quantity of land in the neighborhood of Lavenham or Lanham (the name is spelt both ways), a small market-town about twelve miles south of Bury St. Edmunds. He was also land agent as well as tenant to a noble lord possessing much property thereabouts, and appears to have been a very fast man for those times, as, although he kept up appearances to the last, his only child and heir, Mark Bridgman, found on looking closely into his deceased father's affairs, that were every body paid, he himself would be left little better than a pauper. Still, if the noble landlord could be induced to give a _very_ long day for the heavy balance due to him--not only for arrears of rent, but moneys received on his lordship's account--Mark, who was a prudent energetic young man, nothing doubted of pulling through without much difficulty--the farm being low rented and the agency lucrative. This desirable object, however, proved exceedingly difficult of attainment, and after a protracted and fruitless negotiation, by letter, with Messrs. Winstanley, of Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, London, his lordship's solicitors, the young farmer determined, as a last resource, on a journey to town, in the vague hope that on a personal interview he should find those gentlemen not quite such square, hard, rigid persons as their written communications indicated them to be. Delusive hope! They were precisely as stiff, formal, accurate, and unvarying as their letters. "The exact balance due to his lordship," said Winstanley, senior, "is, as previously stated, £2103 14s. 6d., which sum, secured by warrant of attorney, _must_ be paid as follows: one half in eight, and the remaining moiety in sixteen months from the present time." Mark Bridgman was in despair: taking into account other liabilities that would be falling due, compliance with such terms was, he felt, merely deferring the evil day, and he was silently and moodily revolving in his mind whether it might not be better to give up the game at once rather than engage in a prolonged, and almost inevitably disastrous struggle, when another person entered the office and entered into conversation with the solicitor. At first the young man did not appear to heed--perhaps did not hear what was said--but after a while one of the clerks noticed that his attention was suddenly and keenly aroused, and that he eagerly devoured every word that passed between the new comer and Mr. Winstanley. At length the lawyer, as if to terminate the interview, said, as he replaced a newspaper--_The Public Advertiser_--an underlined notice in which had formed the subject of his colloquy with the stranger, upon a side table, by which sat Mark Bridgman. "You desire us then, Mr. Evans, to continue this advertisement for some time longer?" Mr. Evans replied, "Certainly, six months longer, if necessary." He then bade the lawyers "good-day," and left the office.

"Well, what do you say, Mr. Bridgman!" asked Mr. Winstanley, as soon as the door had closed. "Are you ready to accept his lordship's very lenient proposal?"

"Yes," was the quick reply. "Let the document be prepared at once, and I will execute it before I leave." This was done, and Mark Bridgman hurried off, evidently, it was afterward remembered, in a high state of flurry and excitement. He had also, they found, taken the newspaper with him--by inadvertence, the solicitor supposed, of course.

Within a week of this time, the good folk of Lavenham--especially its womankind--were thrown into a ferment of wonder, indignation, and bewilderment! Rachel Merton, the orphan dressmaking girl, who had been engaged to, and about to marry Richard Green, the farrier and blacksmith--and that a match far beyond what she had any right to expect, for all her pretty face and pert airs, was positively being courted by Bridgman, young, handsome, rich, Mark Bridgman of Red Lodge (the embarrassed state of the gentleman-farmer's affairs was entirely unsuspected in Lavenham); ay, and by way of marriage, too--openly--respectfully, deferentially--as if _he_, not Rachel Merton, were the favored and honored party! What on earth, every body asked, was the world coming to?--a question most difficult of solution; but all doubt with respect to the _bonâ fide_ nature of Mark Bridgman's intentions toward the fortunate dressmaker was soon at an end; he and Rachel being duly pronounced man and wife at the parish church within little more than a fortnight of the commencement of his strange and hasty wooing! All Lavenham agreed that Rachel Merton had shamefully jilted poor Green, and yet it may be doubted if there were many of them that, similarly tempted, would not have done the same. A pretty orphan girl, hitherto barely earning a subsistence by her needle, and about to throw herself away upon a coarse, repulsive person, but one degree higher than herself in the social scale--entreated by the handsomest young man about Lavenham to be his wife, and the mistress of Red Lodge, with nobody knows how many servants, dependents, laborers!--the offer was irresistible! It was also quite natural that the jilted blacksmith should fiercely resent--as he did--his sweetheart's faithless conduct; and the assault which his angry excitement induced him to commit upon his successful rival a few days previous to the wedding, was far too severely punished, every body admitted, by the chastisement inflicted by Mark Bridgman upon his comparatively weak and powerless assailant.

The morning after the return of the newly-married couple to Red Lodge from a brief wedding trip, a newspaper which the bridegroom had recently ordered to be regularly supplied was placed upon the table. He himself was busy with breakfast, and his wife, after a while, opened it, and ran her eye carelessly over its columns. Suddenly an exclamation of extreme surprise escaped her, followed by--"Goodness gracious, my dear Mark, do look here!" Mark did look, and read an advertisement aloud, to the effect that "If Rachel Edwards, formerly of Bath, who, in 1762, married John Merton, bandmaster of the 29th Regiment of Infantry, and afterward kept a school in Manchester, or any lineal descendant of hers, would apply to Messrs. Winstanley, solicitors, Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, they would hear of something greatly to their advantage." "Why, dear Mark," said the pretty bride, as her husband ceased reading, "my mother's maiden name was Rachel Edwards, and I am, as you know, her only surviving child!" "God bless me, to be sure! I remember now hearing your father speak of it. What can this great advantage be, I wonder? I tell you what we'll do, love," the husband added, "you would like to see London, I know. We'll start by coach to-night, and I'll call upon these lawyers, and find out what it all means." This proposition was, of course, gladly acceded to. They were gone about a fortnight, and on their return it became known that Mark Bridgman had come into possession of £12,000 in right of his wife, who was entitled to that sum by the will of her mother's maiden sister, Mary Edwards, of Bath. The bride appears not to have had the slightest suspicion that her husband had been influenced by any other motive than her personal charms in marrying her--a pleasant illusion which, to do him justice, his unvarying tenderness toward her through life, confirmed and strengthened; but others, unblinded by vanity, naturally surmised the truth. Richard Green, especially, as fully believed that he had been deliberately, and with _malice prepense_, tricked out of £12,000, as of the girl herself; and this conviction, there can be no doubt, greatly increased and inflamed his rage against Mark Bridgman--so much so that it became at last the sole thought and purpose of his life, as to how he might safely and effectually avenge himself of the man who was flaunting it so bravely in the world, while he--poor duped and despised castaway--was falling lower and lower in the world every day he lived. This was the natural consequence of his increasingly dissolute and idle habits. It was not long before an execution for rent swept away his scanty stock in trade, and he thenceforth became a ragged, vagabond hanger-on about the place--seldom at work, and as often as possible drunk; during which fits of intemperance his constant theme was the bitter hatred he nourished toward Bridgman, and his determination, even if he swung for it, of being one day signally avenged. Mark Bridgman was often warned to be on his guard against the venomous malignity of Green; but this counsel he seems to have spurned, or treated with contempt.

While the vengeful blacksmith was thus falling into utter vagabondism, all was sunshine at Red Lodge. Mark Bridgman really loved his pretty and gentle, if vain-minded wife--a love deepened by gratitude, that through her means he had been saved from insolvency and ruin; and barely a twelvemonth of wedded life had passed, when the birth of a son completed their happiness. This child (for nearly three years it did not appear likely there would be any other) soon came to be the idol of its parents--of its father, even more than of its mother. It was very singularly marked, with two strawberries, exceedingly distinct, on its left arm, and one, less vivid, on its right. There are two fairs held annually at Lavenham, and one of these--when little Mark was between three and four years old--Mr. Bridgman came in from Red Lodge to attend, accompanied by his wife, son, and a woman-servant of the name of Sarah Hollins. Toward evening, Mrs. Bridgman went out shopping, escorted by her husband, leave having been previously given Hollins to take the child through the pleasure--that is the booth and show part of the fair; but with strict orders not to be absent more than an hour from the inn where her master and mistress were putting up. In little more than the specified time the woman returned, but without the child; she had suddenly missed him, about half an hour before, while looking on at some street-tumbling, and had vainly sought him through the town since. The woman's tidings excited great alarm; Mr. Bridgman himself instantly hurried off, and hired messengers were, one after another, dispatched by the mother in quest of the missing child. As hour after hour flew by without result, extravagant rewards, which set hundreds of persons in motion, were offered by the distracted parents; but all to no purpose. Day dawned, and as yet not a gleam of intelligence had been obtained of the lost one. At length some one suggested that inquiry should be made after Richard Green. This was promptly carried into effect, and it was ascertained that he had not been home during the night. Further investigation left no room for doubt that he had suddenly quitted Lavenham; and thus a new and fearful light was thrown upon the boy's disappearance. It was conjectured that the blacksmith must have gone to London; and Mr. Bridgman immediately set off thither, and placed himself in communication with the authorities of Bow Street. Every possible exertion was used during several weeks to discover the child, or Green, without success, and the bereaved father returned to his home a harassed, spirit-broken man. During his absence his wife had been prematurely confined of another son, and this new gift of God seemed, after a while, to partially fill the aching void in the mother's heart; but the sadness and gloom which had settled upon the mind of her husband was not perceptibly lightened thereby. "If I knew Mark was dead," he once remarked to the rector of Lavenham, by whom he was often visited, "I should resign myself to his loss, and soon shake off this heavy grief. But that, my dear sir, which weighs me down--is in fact slowly but surely killing me--is a terrible conviction and presentiment that Green, in order fully to work out his devilish vengeance, will studiously pervert the nature of the child--lead him into evil, abandoned courses--and that I shall one day see him--but I will not tell you my dreams," he added, after stopping abruptly, and painfully shuddering, as if some frightful spectre passed before his eyes. "They are, I trust, mere fancies; and yet--but let us change the subject."

This morbidly-dejected state of mind was aggravated by the morose, grasping disposition--so entirely different from what Mr. Bridgman had fondly prophesied of Mark--manifested in greater strength with every succeeding year by his son Andrew, a strangely unlovable and gloomy-tempered boy, as if the anxiety and trouble of the time during which he had been hurried into the world had been impressed upon his temperament and character. It may be, too, that he felt irritated at, and jealous of his father's ceaseless repinings for the loss of his eldest son, who, if recovered, would certainly monopolize the lion's share of the now large family property--but not one whit _too_ large in his--Andrew Bridgman's--opinion for himself alone.

The young man had not very long to wait for it. He had just passed his twentieth year when his father died at the early age of forty-seven The last wandering thoughts of the dying parent reverted to the lost child. "Hither Mark," he faintly murmured, as the hushed mourners round his bed watched with mute awe the last flutterings of departing life; "hither: hold me tightly by the hand, or you may lose yourself in this dark, dark wood." These were his last words. On the will being opened, it was found that the whole of his estate, real and personal, had been bequeathed to his son Andrew, charged only with an annuity of £500 to his mother, during life. _But_, should Mark be found, the property was to be _his_, similarly charged with respect to Mrs. Bridgman, and £100 yearly to his brother Andrew, also for life, in addition.

On the evening of the tenth day after his father's funeral, young Mr. Bridgman sat up till a late hour examining various papers and accounts connected with his inheritance, and after retiring to bed, the exciting nature of his recent occupation hindered him from sleeping. While thus lying awake, his quick ear caught a sound as of some one breaking into the house through one of the lower casements. He rose cautiously, went out on the landing, and soon satisfied himself that his suspicion was a correct one. The object of the burglars was, he surmised, the plate in the house of which there was an unusually large quantity, both his father and grandfather having expended much money in that article of luxury. Andrew Bridgman was any thing but a timid person--indeed, considering that six men altogether slept in the house, there was but little cause for fear--and he softly returned to his bedroom, unlocked a mahogany case, took out, loaded and primed, two pistols, and next roused the gardener and groom, whom he bade noiselessly follow him. The burglars--three in number, as it proved--had already reached and opened the plate-closet. One of them was standing within it, and the others just without. "Hallo! rascals," shouted Andrew Bridgman, from the top of a flight of stairs, "what are you doing there?"

The startled and terrified thieves glanced hurriedly round, and the two outermost fled instantly along the passage pursued by the two servants, one of whom had armed himself with a sharp-pointed kitchen knife. The other was not so fortunate. He had not regained the threshold of the closet when Andrew Bridgman fired. The bullet crashed through the wretched man's brain, and he fell forward, stone-dead, upon his face. The two others escaped--one of them after a severe struggle with the knife-armed groom.

It was sometime before the uproar in the now thoroughly-alarmed household had subsided; but at length the screaming females were pacified, and those who had got up, persuaded to go to bed again. The corpse of the slain burglar was removed to an out-house, and Andrew Bridgman returned to his bedroom. Presently there was a tap at the door. It was Sarah Hollins. "I am come to tell you something," said the now aged woman, with a significant look. "The person you have shot is the Richard Green you have so often heard of."

The young man, Hollins afterward said, seemed much startled by this news, and his countenance flushed and paled in quick succession. "Are you quite sure this is true?" he at last said.

"Quite; though he's so altered that, except, Missus, I don't know any body else in the house that is likely to recognize him. Shall I tell her?"

"No, no, not on any account. It would only recall unpleasant events, and that quite uselessly. Be sure not to mention your suspicion--your belief, to a soul."

"Suspicion! belief!" echoed the woman. "It is a certainty. But, of course, as you wish it, I shall hold my tongue."

So audacious an attempt created a considerable stir in the locality, and four days after its occurrence a message was sent to Red Lodge from Bury St. Edmunds, that two men, supposed to be the escaped burglars, were there in custody, and requesting Mr. Bridgman's and the servants' attendance on the morrow, with a view to their identification. Andrew Bridgman, the gardener, and groom, of course, obeyed the summons, and the prisoners were brought into the justice-room before them. One was a fellow of about forty, a brutal-visaged, low-browed, sinister-looking rascal, with the additional ornament of a but partially closed hare-lip. He was unhesitatingly sworn to by both men. The other, upon whom, from the instant he entered, Andrew Bridgman had gazed with eager, almost, it seemed, trembling curiosity, was a well-grown young man of, it might be, three or four and twenty, with a quick, mild, almost timid, unquiet, troubled look, and features originally comely and pleasing, there could be no doubt, but now smirched and blotted into ill favor by excess, and other evil habits. He gave the name of "Robert Williams."

Andrew Bridgman, recalled to himself by the magistrate's voice, hastily said "that he did not recognize this prisoner as one of the burglars. Indeed," he added, with a swift but meaning look at the two servants, "I am pretty sure he was not one of them." The groom and gardener, influenced no doubt by their master's manner, also appeared doubtful as to whether Robert Williams was one of the housebreakers. "But if he be," hesitated the groom, hardly knowing whether he did right or wrong, "there must be some smartish wounds on his arms, for I hit him there sharply with the knife several times."

The downcast head of the youthful burglar was suddenly raised at these words, and he said, quickly, while a red flush passed over his pallid features, "Not me, not me--look, my arm-sleeves have no holes--no--"

"You may have obtained another jacket," interrupted the magistrate. "We must see your arms."

An expression of hopeless despair settled upon the prisoner's face; he again hung down his head in shame, and allowed the constables to quietly strip off his jacket. Andrew Bridgman, who had gone to some distance, returned while this was going on, and watched for what might next disclose itself with tenfold curiosity and eagerness. "There are stabs enough here, sure enough," exclaimed a constable, as he turned up the shirt-sleeve on the prisoner's left arm. There were, indeed; and in addition to them, _natural marks of two strawberries_ were distinctly visible. The countenance of Andrew Bridgman grew ashy pale, as his straining eyes glared upon the prisoner's naked arm. The next moment he wrenched himself away, as with an effort, from the sight, and staggered to an open window--sick, dizzy, fainting, it was at the time believed, from the closeness of the atmosphere in the crowded room. Was it not rather that he had recognized his long-lost brother--_the true heir to the bulk of his deceased father's wealth_, against whom, he might have thought, an indictment would scarcely lie for feloniously entering his own house! He said nothing, however, and the two prisoners were fully committed for trial.

Mr. Prince went down "special" to Bury, at the next assize, to defend a gentleman accused of a grave offense, but the grand jury having ignored the bill, he would probably have returned at once, had not an attorney brought him a brief, very heavily marked, in defense of "Robert Williams." "Strangely enough, too," remarked the attorney, as he was about to go away, "the funds for the defense have been supplied by Mr. Andrew Bridgman, whose house the prisoner is accused of having burglariously entered. But this is confidential, as he is very solicitous that his oddly-generous action should not be known." There was, however, no valid defense. The ill-favored accomplice, why, I know not, had been admitted king's evidence by the counsel for the crown, and there was no resisting the accumulated evidence. The prisoner was found guilty, and sentenced to be hanged. "I never intended," he said, after the verdict was returned; and there was a tone of dejected patience in his voice that affected one strangely, "I never intended to commit violence against any one in the house, and but that my uncle--he that was shot--said repeatedly that he knew a secret concerning Mr. Bridgman (he didn't know, I am sure, that he was dead) which would prevent us from being prosecuted if we were caught, I should not have been persuaded to go with him. It was my first offense--in--in housebreaking, I mean."

I had, and indeed have, some relatives in Mildenhall, in the same county, whom, at the termination of the Bury assize, I got leave to visit for a few days. While there, it came to my knowledge that Mr. Andrew Bridgman, whom I had seen in court, was moving heaven and earth to procure a commutation of the convict's sentence to transportation for life. His zealous efforts were unsuccessful; and the Saturday County Journal announced that Robert Williams, the burglar, would suffer, with four others, on the following Tuesday morning. I reached Bury on the Monday evening, with the intention of proceeding by the London night coach, but there was no place vacant. The next morning I could only have ridden outside, and as, besides being intensely cold, it was snowing furiously, I determined on postponing my departure till the evening, and secured an inside place for that purpose. I greatly abhor spectacles of the kind, and yet, from mere idleness and curiosity, I suffered myself to be drawn into the human stream flowing toward "Hang Fair," and once jammed in with the crowd in front of the place of execution, egress was, I found, impossible. After waiting a considerable time, the death-bell suddenly tolled, and the terrible procession appeared--five human beings about to be suffocated by human hands, for offenses against property!--the dreadful and deliberate sacrifice preluded and accompanied by sonorous sentences from the Gospel of mercy and compassion! Hardly daring to look up, I saw little of what passed on the scaffold, yet one furtive, quickly-withdrawn glance, showed me the sufferer in whom I took most interest. He was white as if already coffined, and the unquiet glare of his eyes was, I noticed, terribly anxious! I did not again look up--I could not; and the surging murmur of the crowd, as it swayed to and fro, the near whisperings of ribald tongues, and the measured, mocking tones of the minister, promising eternal life through the mercy of the most high God, to wretches whom the _justice_ of man denied a few more days or years of mortal existence--were becoming momently more and more oppressive, when a dull, heavy sound _boomed_ through the air; the crowd swayed violently from side to side, and the simultaneous expiration of many pent-up breaths testified that all was over, and to the relief experienced by the coarsest natures at the consummation of a deed too frightful for humanity to contemplate. It was some time before the mass of spectators began to thoroughly separate, and they were still standing in large clusters, spite of the bitter, falling weather, when a carriage, furiously driven, with the body of a female, who was screaming vehemently and waving a white handkerchief, projected half out of one of the windows, was seen approaching by the London Road. The thought appeared to strike every one that a respite or reprieve had come for one or more of the prisoners, and hundreds of eyes were instantly turned toward the scaffold, only to see that if so it had arrived too late. The carriage stopped at the gate of the building. A lady dressed in deep mourning, was hastily assisted out by a young man with her, similarly attired, and they both disappeared within the jail. After some parleying, I ascertained that I had sufficient influence to obtain admission, and a few moments afterward I found myself in the press-room. The young man--Mr. Andrew Bridgman--was there, and the lady, who had fallen fainting upon one of the benches, was his mother. The attendants were administering restoratives to her, without effect, till an inner door opened, and the under-sheriff, by whom she was personally known, entered; when she started up and interrogated, with the mute agony of her wet, yet gleaming eyes, the dismayed and distressed official. "Let me entreat you, my dear madam," he faltered, "to retire. This is a most painful--fright--"

"No--no, the truth!--the truth!" shrieked the unfortunate lady, wildly clasping her hands, "I shall bear that best!"

"Then I grieve to say," replied the under-sheriff, "that the marks you describe--two on the left, and one on the right arm, are distinctly visible."

A piercing scream, broken by the words, "My son!--oh God!--my son!" burst from the wretched mother's lips, and she fell heavily, and without sense or motion, upon the stone floor. While the under-sheriff and others raised and ministered to her, I glanced at Mr. Andrew Bridgman. He was as white as the lime-washed wall against which he stood, and the fire that burned in his dark eyes was kindled--it was plain to me--by remorse and horror, not by grief alone.

The cause of the sudden appearance of the mother and son at the closing scene of this sad drama was afterward thus explained:--Andrew Bridgman, from the moment that all hope of procuring a commutation of the sentence on the so-called Robert Williams had ceased, became exceedingly nervous and agitated, and his discomposure seemed to but augment as the time yet to elapse before the execution of the sentence passed away. At length, unable longer to endure the goadings of a tortured conscience, he suddenly burst into the room where his mother sat at breakfast, on the very morning his brother was to die, with an open letter in his hand, by which he pretended to have just heard that Robert Williams was the long-lost Mark Bridgman! The sequel has been already told.

The conviction rapidly spread that Andrew Bridgman had been from the first aware that the youthful burglar was his own brother; and he found it necessary to leave the country. He turned his inheritance into money, and embarked for Charleston, America, in the bark Cleopatra, from Liverpool. When off the Scilly Islands, the Cleopatra was chased by a French privateer. She escaped; but one of the few shots fired at her from the privateer was fatal to the life of Andrew Bridgman. He was almost literally cut in two, and expired instantaneously. Some friends to whom I have related this story deem his death an accident; others, a judgment: I incline, I must confess, to the last opinion. The wealth with which he embarked was restored to Mrs. Bridgman, who soon afterward removed to London, where she lived many years--sad ones, no doubt, but mitigated and rendered endurable by the soothing balm of a clear conscience. At her decease, not very many years ago, the whole of her property was found to be bequeathed to various charitable institutions of the metropolis.

Monthly Record of Current Events

THE UNITED STATES.

Congress adjourned, _sine die_, on the 31st of August. During the last month of its session several important public laws were passed, and various subjects of public interest were discussed at length. Substantial amendments to the Postage Law have been adopted, by which the rates of postage upon printed matter sent by mail, have been greatly reduced. The new law takes effect on the 30th of September. After that date each newspaper, periodical, or other printed sheet not exceeding three ounces in weight, will be sent to any part of the United States for _one cent_--one cent additional being charged for each additional ounce or fraction but when the postage is paid yearly or quarterly, in advance, at the office where the paper is mailed or delivered, _one half_ of these rates only will be charged. Newspapers and periodicals weighing not over an ounce and a half, when circulated within the State where they are published, will pay only half these rates. Small newspapers and periodicals published once a month or oftener, and pamphlets of not more than sixteen pages each, when sent in single packages weighing at least eight ounces, to one address, and prepaid by affixing postage-stamps thereto, are to be charged only _half a cent_ for each ounce. The postage on all transient matter must be prepaid by stamps or otherwise, or double the rates first mentioned will be charged. Books weighing not over four pounds may be sent by mail at _one cent_ an ounce for all distances under 3000 miles, and at _two_ cents an ounce for all distances over 3000 miles, to which fifty per cent. will be added if not prepaid. Publishers of periodicals and newspapers are to receive their exchanges free of postage; and weekly newspapers may also be sent to subscribers free within the county where they are published. These are the essential provisions of the new law: others are appended requiring the printed papers to be sent open, without any other communications upon them than the address, and without any other inclosures.----A bill was also passed, making large appropriations for the improvement of rivers and harbors in various sections of the country: the vote upon it in the Senate was 35 yeas and 23 nays: in the House of Representatives it was passed by the casting vote of the Speaker, there being 69 votes for and 69 votes against it. Bills were also passed providing measures of greater security for steamboat navigation, by requiring various precautions on the part of owners: granting to the State of Michigan land to aid the construction of a ship canal around the Sault St. Marie, and granting lands to the States of Arkansas and Missouri, to aid in the construction of railroads within those States: establishing a trimonthly mail between New Orleans and Vera Cruz: and making appropriations for the various branches of the public service. The whole number of public acts passed during the session was 64; of private acts 52: of joint resolutions 17. The French Spoliation bill, the bill granting public lands to the several States, and several other measures of importance, upon which extended debate had been had, were postponed until the next session.

On the 10th of August, the President transmitted a message to Congress, communicating to that body all the documents relating to the dispute concerning the Fisheries on the British Colonial coast. In the Senate, on the 12th, Mr. Soule of Louisiana, spoke in very warm censure of the proceedings of the English government, and criticising the measures of the Administration as deficient in energy and determination. He deprecated any negotiations with Great Britain on the subject, so long as any part of her fleet should be in those waters, and predicted the speedy separation of the Colonies from the British empire. Mr. Butler of South Carolina, as well as several other Senators, expressed their earnest hopes that the difficulty would be satisfactorily adjusted, and at their suggestion the debate was postponed until the 14th, when Mr. Seward made an extended and elaborate speech, setting forth the whole history of our negotiations with England upon the Fisheries, showing that England has presented no new claims, and that she has not indicated any purpose to use force or menaces in support of pretensions she has hitherto urged, and vindicating the President and Secretary of State from the attacks made upon them.----On the 16th, while the bill appropriating lands for the construction of a ship canal around the Falls of St. Mary was under discussion, Mr. Cass supported it on the ground of its being essential to the defenses of the country in time of war, and took occasion to say he would have no objection to the annexation of Canada and the acquisition of Cuba, if these objects could be accomplished without a war. Mr. Douglas spoke also in favor of the grant for the work, not as a necessary means of defense, but for the purpose of augmenting the value of the public lands lying further to the west: he said that he would not vote a donation of money for such a purpose, but would support a bill granting public lands. A motion to substitute $400,000, instead of land, was rejected by a vote of 21 to 32: and the bill was passed in its original form.----On the 17th, a message was received from the President, in reply to a resolution offered a day or two previously by Senator Seward, inquiring whether any proposition had been made to the United States by the King of the Sandwich Islands, to transfer the sovereignty of those islands to the United States. The President declines to communicate any information on the subject, since to do so would be incompatible with the public interest. Mr. Seward then offered a resolution providing for the appointment of a Commissioner, to inquire into the expediency of opening negotiations upon that subject. The resolution and the message was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations.----On the 23d, while the River and Harbor Bill was under debate, Senator Douglas offered a resolution giving the States power to levy tonnage duties upon their commerce, for the purpose of carrying on works of internal improvement. He supported this proposition at length. Mr. Cass opposed it on the ground that the duties thus levied would in fact be paid by the agricultural consumers. Mr. Smith of Connecticut opposed it, because it would throw the whole burden of these duties upon the farmers of the West. The amendment was rejected by 17 to 25.

On the 28th, in reply to a resolution, a Message was received from the President, transmitting sundry documents relating to the right of foreign nations to take guano from the Lobos islands, off the coast of Peru. On the 2d of June, Captain Jewett wrote to Mr. Webster, inquiring whether these islands were the possession of any single power, or whether they were open to the commerce of the world. Mr. Webster replied that the islands were uninhabited, that they had never been enumerated among the possessions or dependencies of any of the South American states, and that citizens of the United States would be protected in removing the valuable deposits upon them. At the same time the Secretary of the Navy ordered a vessel of war to be dispatched for the protection of American vessels engaged in this traffic. Under these assurances Captain Jewett and his associates fitted out some twenty vessels which were immediately dispatched to the islands in question. Mr. Webster's letter to Captain Jewett, meantime, having accidentally been made public, the Peruvian Minister, Senor Osma, in three successive notes, represented to the Government that the Lobos islands were dependencies of Peru, and that the United States could have no rightful claim to remove their valuable deposits. Mr. Webster replied to this claim on the 21st of August, by an elaborate argument showing that Peru had hitherto, by repeated acts, sustained the position that the islands do not belong to any of the South American states. They lie about thirty miles from the shore, and are uninhabited and uninhabitable. Citizens of the United States have visited them in pursuit of seals for half a century; and no complaint was made of this until 1833, when Peru issued a decree forbidding foreigners from visiting them for any such purpose. The United States Chargé at Lima immediately remonstrated against this decree, and requested its modification, so far as to permit citizens of the United States to continue pursuits in which they had been engaged for so many years. No reply was made to this remonstrance, and the citizens of the United States continued their avocations without any further interruption. Mr. Webster insists, therefore, that while these islands lie in the open ocean, so far from the coast of Peru as not to belong to that country by the law of proximity or adjacent position, the Government of Peru has not exercised any such acts of absolute sovereignty and ownership over them as to give to her a right to their exclusive possession as against the United States and their citizens by the law of indisputable possession. The Government of the United States is, however, disposed to give due consideration to all the facts of the case, and the President will therefore give such orders to the naval forces on that coast as will prevent collision until the case can be examined.

An important report was made in the Senate, on the 30th of August, by Mr. Mason, of Virginia, from the Committee on Foreign Relations, upon the subject of the right of way across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, granted to Don Jose de Garay, in March, 1842, by Santa Anna, then vested with supreme power as President of Mexico. The report, after mentioning this grant, and the stipulation contained in it that he, as well as any private individual or company succeeding him, native or foreign, should be protected in undisturbed enjoyment of all the concessions granted, states that on the 9th of February, 1843, a decree was issued by General Bravo, who had succeeded to the Presidency, recognizing and affirming this grant, and directing the departments of Oaxaca and Vera Cruz to put Garay in possession of the lands ceded to him by its provisions. On the 6th of October, 1843, Santa Anna, being restored to power, issued a further decree, directing the departments to furnish 300 convicts to be employed on the work; and by another decree of December 28, 1843, the time for commencing it was extended a year--until July 1, 1845. In November, 1846, General Salas, having, by the course of revolution, become invested with supreme power as Dictator, promulgated a decree, extending the time still further, namely, until November 5, 1848; and the work was actually commenced prior to that date. This is the history of the grant so long as it remained in the hands of Garay. During the year 1846 various contracts were entered into by which he transferred the grant, with all its rights and privileges, to Messrs. Manning and Mackintosh, subjects of Great Britain: and on the 28th of September, 1848, these contracts were formally recognized and consummated at the city of Mexico. On the 5th of February, 1848, this grant was assigned to Peter A. Hargous, a citizen of the United States, who subsequently entered into a contract to assign the same to certain citizens of New Orleans, on terms intended to secure the capital necessary to execute the work. In December, 1850, a party of engineers was sent out by the American assignees, to complete the necessary surveys--who continued so employed until the month of June following, when they were ordered by the Mexican government to discontinue the work and leave the country--a law having been passed by the Mexican Congress, and approved by the President, May 22, 1851, declaring the Garay grant to be null and void. Upon this statement of facts concerning the origin and history of the grant, the Report proceeds to show that its validity had been repeatedly recognized by the Mexican government. In 1846, President Herrera issued orders to prevent cutting mahogany from these lands. In 1847, while the treaty of peace was under discussion, Mr. Trist, by direction of our Government, offered a large sum for the right of way across the Isthmus; and was answered that "Mexico could not treat of this subject because she had, several years before, made a grant to one of her own citizens, who had transferred his right, by authorization of the Mexican government, to English subjects, of whose right Mexico could not dispose." After the assignment of the grant to American citizens, moreover, the Mexican government issued orders to the Governors of the Departments, directing them to afford all needed aid to the engineers, who were accordingly sent, the ports thrown open for their supplies, and over a hundred thousand dollars was expended upon the work. Negotiations for a treaty of protection to the workmen were also opened, and the draft of a Convention was concluded at Mexico, in June, 1850, and sent to the United States. Certain modifications being suggested at Washington, this draft was returned to our Minister in Mexico and a new Convention was signed January 28, 1851, with the approval of President Herrera. This convention was ratified by the Senate of the United States, and returned to Mexico, and finally rejected by the Mexican Congress, in April, 1852.--It is not pretended that this rejection of the Convention affects in the slightest degree the validity of the grant. The sole ground upon which its annulment is claimed, is, that the decree of Salas of November, 1846, extending the time for commencing the work, was null and void, inasmuch as he held the supreme power by usurpation, or that he transcended his powers. "Respect for the Mexican Government alone," says the Report, "restrains the Committee from treating of this position in the terms it deserves." The government of Salas was acknowledged and submitted to by the people of Mexico:--his decrees, this one included, were submitted to the Congress--and not one of them was ever approved by Congress, nor was his authority ever questioned at any other time, or in reference to any other decree. "The doctrine that the Government _de facto_ is the Government responsible, has been fully recognized by Mexico herself, in the case of the Dictatorship of Salas, as of those who preceded him. It is a principle of universal law governing the intercourse of nations, with each other and with individuals, and this Government can not, nor ought not, treat with indifference a departure from it by Mexico in the present instance." The report concludes by referring to the unfriendly feeling which the proceedings of Mexico indicate toward the United States, and by recommending the adoption of the following resolutions:

"_Resolved_, As the judgment of the Senate, that in the present posture of the question on the grant of a right of way through the territory of Mexico at the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, conceded by that Republic to one of its citizens, and now the property of citizens of the United States, as the same is presented by the correspondence and documents accompanying the Message of the President, it is not compatible with the dignity of this Government to prosecute the subject further by negotiation.

"_Second_, Should the Government of Mexico propose a renewal of such negotiations, it should be acceded to only upon distinct propositions from Mexico, not inconsistent with the demands made by this Government in reference to said grant.

"_Third_, That the Government of the United States stands committed to all its citizens to protect them in their rights abroad, as well as at home, within the sphere of its jurisdiction; and should Mexico, within a reasonable time, fail to reconsider her position concerning this grant, it will then become the duty of this Government to review all existing relations with that Republic, and to adopt such measures as will revive the honor of the country and the rights of its citizens."

In Louisiana a new Constitution has been prepared by a State Convention, which introduces several new features of importance into the fundamental law of that state. The right of suffrage and of eligibility to office has been considerably enlarged. Every free, white male citizen of the United States, over twenty-one years of age, who has resided in the State a year, and in the parish six months previous to the election, is a qualified voter; and every qualified voter is eligible to either branch of the Legislature. The Legislature is to hold annual sessions--elections being held biennially.--The Judges of the Supreme Court and of all the inferior courts are made elective;--the Supreme Court is to consist of a Chief Justice and four associates--their term of office to be ten years. The credit of the State may be pledged for corporations formed for the purpose of making internal improvements within the State, by subscriptions of Stock, or by loans to the extent of one-fifth of the capital. All Corporations with banking or discounting privileges are prohibited, as are all special laws for creating Corporations. Banking and discounting associations may be created either by general or special laws--but ample security must be required for the redemption of their notes in specie. The Constitution may be amended by the concurrence of two-thirds of the members elected to both Houses, and a ratification of the people at the next election, by a vote on every proposed amendment taken separately. The new Constitution is to be submitted to the vote of the people on the first Tuesday of November.

A dreadful steamboat catastrophe occurred on Lake Erie on the 19th of August. The steam-propeller Ogdensburgh ran into the steamer Atlantic, striking her just forward of the wheel-house, and injuring her so seriously that, after going a mile or two toward the shore, she sunk. The propeller, not understanding the full damage of the collision, and anxious for her own safety, did not go to the rescue of her passengers until half an hour after the accident. More than a hundred persons lost their lives, the greater portion of them being Norwegian emigrants huddled together on the forward deck, and unable, through their ignorance of English, to avail themselves of the means of safety suggested. Very conflicting statements in regard to the cause of the collision have been published;--the night was not very dark, both vessels had signal lights and a watch on deck. The matter is undergoing judicial investigation.----On the Hudson River still another accident occurred on the 4th of September. As the steamer _Reindeer_ lay at the wharf at Bristol landing, about forty miles below Albany, one of her connection pipes burst, and _twenty-seven_ persons, mainly those in the after-cabin, were killed--fifty more being considerably injured.----A National Convention of the Free-Soil party was held at Pittsburgh on the 11th of August, at which John P. Hale, of New Hampshire, was nominated for President, and George W. Julian, of Indiana, for Vice-President, as the candidates of that party.----A meeting of delegates is to be held at Macon, Georgia, on the 20th of October, for the purpose of calling an Agricultural Congress of the Slaveholding States--the chief objects of which are declared to be to develope the resources, combine the energies, and promote the prosperity of the Southern States, and to cultivate the aptitudes of the negro race for civilization; so that when slavery shall have fulfilled its mission, a system may be authorized which shall relieve the race from its servitude, without sinking it to the condition of the free negroes at the North and in the West Indies.

From CALIFORNIA we have intelligence to the 1st of August. The intelligence is without any feature of special novelty. The mining prospects continue to be good, and very large amounts of gold continue to be procured. The whole amount shipped from California during the past year was over sixty-six millions of dollars. The miners in every section of the gold districts continue to receive abundant returns for their labor.----Every mail brings a deplorable list of casualties and crimes in various parts of the State, the details of which it is unnecessary here to repeat. Nearly all of the outrages occur in the more distant and thinly-settled sections of the country; and in most cases the perpetration of crime is followed by the speedy, and often the lawless infliction of chastisement.----The celebration of the Fourth of July at San Francisco was marked by the attendance in procession of a large body of Chinese, who bore richly-decorated banners, got up in the style of their own country. The Chinese continued to arrive in the country in great numbers, nearly four thousand having reached San Francisco within a fortnight. The hostility of the miners toward them was abating. The arrival of emigrants from all quarters continued to be very great, 22,000 having landed between June 1st and July 9th. Difficulties have arisen in the San Joaquin district between the American miners and a party of French and Spaniards, who were thought to have trespassed upon private rights: serious collisions were apprehended at one time, but a better state of feeling has been induced. It was currently reported that fresh movements were on foot for the conquest and annexation of Southern California.

In OREGON, it is stated, valuable coal-mines have been discovered near St. Helens, on the Columbia river. The vein has been opened, and promises to be very extensive;--it is about two and a half feet thick, and has been traced for half a mile. The coal is remarkably pure. Other mines have been discovered in the vicinity, but they have not yet been explored.----The agricultural prospects of the territory were very good. The population is stated at 20,000, and is said to be rapidly increasing. A special session of the Legislature had been called by Governor Gaines for July 29th. The gold mines in the Southern part of the territory continued to yield fair returns. Complaints are made by recently arrived emigrants of ill-treatment received at the hands of the Mormons during their passage through the Salt Lake country.

From the extreme NORTH WEST--the British possessions near Lake Winnipeg--accounts of very disastrous floods have been received. The settlement established by the Earl of Selkirk in 1812, which had grown into considerable importance as a point from which supplies were furnished to the Fur Companies of that region, and which contained about ten thousand inhabitants, had been nearly destroyed by freshets in the Red River of the North, which began on the 5th of May, and reached their height about the 20th. Dwellings, crops, and nearly all the products of twenty-five years' labor have been swept away: the damage is estimated at about a million of dollars.

SOUTH AMERICA.

From the _Argentine Republic_ we have intelligence of fresh political disturbances, indicating at least the temporary failure of the new and moderate system introduced by Urquiza after the defeat and expulsion of Rosas. The Convention from the several provinces summoned by Urquiza, met at San Nicholas--ten of the thirteen provinces being represented by their governors, and adopted a Constitution for the federation. It provided for abolishing the transit duties, and for the assembling of a Congress at Santa Fé, which was to consist of two delegates from each province, to be selected by the popular vote, to be untrammeled by instructions, and the minority to conform to the decision of the majority, without dissent or protest. In order to defray the national expenses, the provinces agreed to contribute in proportion to the product of their foreign Custom-houses, and that the permanent establishment of the duties shall be fixed by Congress. To secure the internal order and peace of the republic, the provinces engage to combine their efforts in preventing open hostilities or putting down armed insurrections, and the better to promote these objects, General Urquiza was recognized as General-in-chief of the armies of the Confederation, with the title of Provisional Director of the Argentine Confederation. In the Chambers of Buenos Ayres, very warm opposition was manifested to this Convention: bitter and violent debates took place, and the popular clamor became so high that the Governor Lopez resigned his office; whereupon General Urquiza dissolved the Chambers, and took the supreme power into his own hands. In a communication sent by his order to the British Chargé, he states that the anarchy into which the province was thrown, compelled him to take this step, and declares that he shall not extend the authority with which he is vested beyond the time and the measures necessary for the re-establishment of order in the province. He also issued a brief address to the Governors of the provinces of the Confederation, declaring that he should use the power they had conferred upon him in rendering effective the sovereign will of the nation, in repelling foreign aggressions, and in restraining the machinations of those who might seek to awaken the passions which had so often brought disaster upon them. He promised that, with their assistance, the Argentine people should be presented before the world constituted, organized, and happy. "My political programme," he adds, "which is founded on the principles of order, fraternity, and oblivion of all the past--and all the acts of my public life, are the guarantee that I give you of the promise which I have just made, and, with it you may rest assured, that when the National Congress has sanctioned the Constitution of the State, and the confederated communities have entered into the constitutional path, I will deliver up to it the deposit you have confided to me, with a tranquil conscience, and without fearing the verdict of public opinion, or the judgment of posterity." After the dissolution of the Chambers there were some symptoms of rebellion, but this proclamation restored order, and was well received. He ordered all the printing offices to be closed for a few days, and banished five of the leading opposition representatives from the country. The provisional government had been temporarily reinstalled: and in this position affairs were awaiting the meeting of Congress, which was to take place in August.----In _Brazil_, important steps have been taken toward commencing works of internal improvement. A company has been empowered to construct railways from Rio Janeiro to several towns in the interior, and an agreement is in progress between the Imperial Government and a private company for the regular navigation, by steamboats, of the Amazon. The public revenue of Brazil continued to increase. A project for granting government credit to aid in purchasing steamers to cruise against African slave-traders, was under discussion in the Chambers, with a fair prospect of its passage.----From _Ecuador_, we learn that the expedition planned and led by General Flores against Guyaquil, has been defeated and dispersed. The troops comprising it, consisting of Chilians and Americans, and numbering about nine hundred, deserted Flores, and went over to General Urbina, the President of Ecuador, to whom the six vessels of the expedition were also given up. General Flores himself escaped to Tumbez. From the partial narrative of an officer engaged in the expedition, which is the only account of it yet published, the army of Flores seems to have been singularly deficient in energy, discretion, and valor. One of the vessels was blown up on the 3d of July, by the discharge of a pistol by one of the men, who were drunk in the cabin: about thirty lives were lost by this casualty.----In _Chili_, Congress was in session at our latest date, July 1st. Bills were under discussion to levy a direct tax on all property in cities and towns for municipal purposes: subjecting all schools to the control of the parish priests; and providing for the maintenance of the clergy. The telegraph from Valparaiso to Lima was in operation, and another line was projected to Copiapo--which is at the head of the province whose silver deposits have yielded so abundantly of late: it is said that the export from that province for the year will amount to six millions of dollars. Coal, said to be very little inferior to the best English coal, is found at Talcahuana. Labor and the necessaries of life were very high at Valparaiso.----From _Montevideo_, accounts to the 5th of June, state that the ratification of the Brazilian treaties puts an end to all fear of another foreign war. The principal clauses of the Convention agreed upon are the abandonment of the line of frontier which the treaties of October, 1851, conceded to Brazil, and the cession of the right of free navigation on Lake Merim to the Oriental flag.

MEXICO.

The Mexican Republic is again agitated by threatening insurrections in various quarters, which the central government finds itself powerless to quell. In Mazatlan and Guadalajara strong bodies of insurgents, supported by the National Guard, have maintained themselves against the government, which opposes them by decrees and commercial regulations instead of troops. Upon the frontier the ravages of the Indians continue to be most destructive. The government has invited proposals for the construction of a road across the isthmus of Tehuantepec, and seems determined to resist the demands of the United States for the recognition of the Garay grant. The Mexican papers contain copious accounts of local disturbances and insurrections, the details of which it is needless here to repeat. The condition of the country is difficult and precarious in the extreme. Rumors have been circulated of endeavors to secure the intervention of England and France, in order to give greater strength and stability to the government, and enable it to resist encroachments constantly apprehended from the United States: but there is no reason to believe they have as yet proved successful.

CUBA.

The colonial government of Cuba has discovered new and formidable conspiracies against the Spanish authority in that island, and has made numerous arrests of suspected parties. During the months of June and July several numbers were clandestinely published and widely circulated, of a paper called _The Voice of the People_, the object of which was to arouse the Cubans to resistance of the Spanish rule. For some time the efforts of the authorities to detect its editors, or the place of its publication, were ineffectual: but both were finally betrayed by parties who had become acquainted with them. The principal editor, however, had previously escaped to the United States. Nearly all engaged upon it, so far as known, were either native Cubans or Spaniards. The cholera was very prevalent and destructive at Havana, at our latest dates.

GREAT BRITAIN.

Parliament has been still farther prorogued until the 18th of October, when, it is announced, it will positively meet for the dispatch of business. With the close of the elections, political discussion seems to have been for the time suspended. There is great difficulty in deciding upon the party complexion of the new House of Commons, owing to the mixed character of the contest. The most disinterested authorities, however, seem to warrant the belief that of the whole number of seats (658), 314 are filled by Ministerialists, 25 by Free Trade Conservatives, 186 by Whigs proper, 53 by Radical reformers, 57 Irish members, and 13 Independents, while there are 10 vacancies. Upon the question of Protection, the Ministry seems to be in a hopeless minority; while upon other subjects, their majority is not large enough to be very reliable.----The Queen left London on the 9th of August, for Belgium: she returned on the 17th.----The dispute with the United States concerning the Fisheries, has engrossed a good deal of public discussion in England--the greatest variety of views, of course, prevailing. The general current of opinion seemed to be, that, although a strict construction of treaties would sustain the course pursued by the English government, yet the fact that the rights claimed had lain in abeyance for many years, required a more considerate course of proceeding, and some longer notice of an intended change to the American parties interested. The latest advices represent that a mutual understanding had been had, which would obviate all present difficulty, and lead to the peaceful adjustment of the dispute. As to its basis or general tenor we have no intelligence sufficiently authentic to warrant publication here.----Kossuth had reached London, where he was living in privacy. The English government is reported to have given Austria satisfactory assurances that all due measures of precaution would be taken to prevent his presence in England from disturbing the friendly relations of the two countries.----News of fresh defeats continues to arrive from the Cape of Good Hope. The natives not only keep the military at bay, but have in several instances acted with success on the offensive.----Emigration to Australia is still on the increase. No fewer than 117 ships and vessels were entered outwards in Great Britain at one time, of which 73 were loading at London alone.----Active measures were in progress for enrolments under the new Militia Act.----The first column of the new Crystal Palace was erected at Sydenham on the 5th of August, with becoming ceremonies. A large company was present, and speeches were made by several distinguished persons.

THE CONTINENT.

Since the adjournment of the Legislative Assembly, events in FRANCE have had less than usual interest. The President left Paris on the 17th of July, to celebrate the opening of the railway between Paris and Strasbourg, which is now completed. He was received with eclat, reviewed the troops, and went to Baden-Baden, his main object being, according to rumor, to arrange for a matrimonial alliance with a daughter of Prince Gustave de Vasa. He returned to Paris on the 24th, where he had a military reception, generally described as lacking enthusiasm.----A change has been made in the Ministry by the appointment of M. Achille Fould, Minister of State, in place of M. Casabianca. M. de Cormenin, the well known pamphleteer, M. Giraud, and M. Persil have also become Members of the Council of State, in place of Maillard, Cornudet, and Reverchon, resigned.----M. Odillon Barrot, declines to be a candidate for the Assembly, asking, in his letter, what he can have to do with public affairs, "now that on the ruins of the constitutional and Parliamentary Government of his country, the most absolute power that exists in the world is establishing itself, not as a transient or a casual dictatorship but as a permanent Government, when the mendacious forms of universal suffrage and popular election serve only to secure the return of candidates designated by the Administration, and have only been preserved to give a false air of liberty to the sad and humiliating reality of despotism."----A decree has been issued authorizing to return immediately to France the ex-representatives Creton, Duvergier, Thiers, Chambolle, Remusat, Lasteyrie, Laidet, and Thouret. Another decree removes the interdiction of January 10, to reside in France, against Renaud, Signard, Joly, Theodore Bac, Belin, Besse, Milloste, ex-representatives of the Mountain.----The municipal elections that have recently been held are marked by the failure of voters to attend the polls. Upon an average not one-fourth of the legal ballots have been cast; and this proves to be the case in those departments where a second election was ordered expressly to supply the defect in the first. This very general absence from the polls is noted as a significant indication of the little interest felt in the new government by the mass of the people.----The London Chronicle has published the text of a treaty alleged to have been signed on the 20th of May, by the sovereigns of Austria, Russia, and Prussia, in regard to the present and prospective condition of the French government. The contracting parties declared that, although they would respect the rule of Louis Napoleon as a temporary government, they would not recognize any French dynasty except the House of Bourbon, and that they would reserve to themselves, in case of opportunity, the right to aid the restoration of the representative of the elder branch of that family. The authenticity of the document has been generally discredited, and, indeed, denied by Austrian official journals.----Addresses have been freely circulated throughout France urging the President to restore the Empire. They are issued under the special direction of the authorities of the departments, who are appointed by the President; and yet it is represented that they are by no means numerously signed, and that but a small proportion of them are decidedly and frankly Imperialist.----The 15th of August, Napoleon's birthday, was signalized by _fêtes_ of extraordinary magnitude and splendor. The most elaborate and protracted preparations had been made for it; thousands and tens of thousands came in from all sections of the country to witness the display; and the occasion was one of unwonted brilliancy and splendor. Grand exhibitions of the military, fireworks, scenes and shows skillfully calculated to recall the memory and the glory of Napoleon, and a great ball at St. Cloud signalized the occasion. The people of Paris had been invited by official proclamation to illuminate their houses; but the noticeably sparse compliance with the request is remarked as more truly indicative of the sentiments of the people, than the elaborate exhibitions arranged by the government.----The anniversary of the taking of the Bastile on the 14th of July, an occasion often commemorated by assembled thousands, and with great eclat, was celebrated this year by the deposit of a single crown on the railings of the column, performed by a lady; the symbol was instantly removed, and the lady and her husband were arrested.----Marshal Excelmans, a soldier of the Empire, specially attached to Murat, and a witness of the disaster of Waterloo, was killed in Paris by a fall from his horse, on the 21st of July. His funeral was numerously attended. Count D'Orsay, noted in the circles of fashion, and distinguished also for literary and artistic abilities, died on the 4th of August.

From ITALY there is little intelligence beyond that of a system of wholesale arrests of suspected persons. At Venice, Mantua, and other cities, great numbers of influential persons have been thrown into prison, mainly in the hope, as is believed, that they may be induced or forced to reveal suspected conspiracies. Warm disputes have occurred at Rome between the French and Roman soldiers. The mother of Mazzini died of apoplexy, at Genoa, on the 9th of August; her funeral was attended by a very large concourse of people.----In Piedmont the Government has resolved to resist and punish the abuse of the right of petition against the marriage bill, which, it is alleged, is made the pretext for agitating the country. Several instances of severity toward the press have occurred.----In Naples, Mr. Hamilton, an English Protestant, relying on an article in the treaty of 1845, set up a school in 1848, for the education of Swiss and English children. By degrees, Government influence was used to drive away his pupils. The Police have now forcibly closed the school. Sir William Temple was informed of the act, but it is not known what course the British Government will pursue.

In AUSTRIA the most marked event of the month was the Emperor's return to Vienna, after his tour through Hungary, where he is represented to have been received with the general enthusiasm of the people. The liberal papers allege that much of the cordiality with which he was greeted in the Hungarian portion of his dominions, was prearranged, and that the real sentiments of the people were in no wise indicated by it. He reached Vienna on the 14th of August, and had a magnificent reception. He was to leave on the 16th for Ischl.----The budget for the year shows a deficit of over fifty-five millions of florins.

In SWITZERLAND nothing of special interest has occurred. The National Council, after three days' debate, has rejected a petition presented by conservatives of the Canton of Fribourg, praying for an alteration of the Cantonal Constitution, by a vote of 79 to 18. It was regarded as an attempt to renew the troubles of the Sonderbund, under the guise of reforming the Constitution. At the same sitting, on the 5th of August, the Council decided upon remitting to the Cantons the remainder of the debt created by the troubles of 1847. The money is to be applied to the completion of certain scholastic institutions, or to the extinction of pauperism, or to the construction of railways, common roads and canals, subject to the approbation of the Federal Executive. It is stated that the Prussian Minister at the Helvetic confederation, has formally demanded the re-establishment of the ancient political relations with Prussia in the Canton of Neufchatel. The Grand Council of that Canton, on the 30th of July, decreed the suppression of a society of the partisans of Prussia by 69 votes to 11.

From BELGIUM intelligence has been received that a convention has been concluded between the Belgian and Dutch governments for the amalgamation of the railways of the two countries. The great trunk line beginning at Antwerp will be continued to Rotterdam, and so be put into communication with the whole of the Netherlands. It is stated, upon good authority, that the Bavarian government has engaged to pay 1,400,000 florins to the administration of the Palatinate Railway, on condition that the latter shall undertake to execute the works on the line from Ludwigshafen to Wissemburg speedily. This is the point to which the Strasburg Railway is to be continued beyond the French frontier.----A change has occurred in the Belgian Ministry. The commercial regulations between France and Belgium are placed under the _régime_ of the common law, the treaty of 1845 not having been renewed.

From TURKEY we learn that Mr. MARSH, the American Minister, left Constantinople on the 30th of July for Athens, whither he goes to investigate the circumstances attending the arrest and imprisonment of the American missionary, Dr. KING. Previous to leaving he had an audience with the Sultan.----Numerous and very destructive fires have recently occurred in Constantinople--two or three thousand houses having been burned.----Fresh and interesting discoveries are said to have been made at Nineveh by M. Place, the French Consul at Mosul; he is said to have found a series of paintings upon marble in vermillion and marine blue.----Steam navigation has lately increased greatly at Constantinople. More than twenty steamers now ply daily in the Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmora. It is said that a Russian company is about to be formed, which will have twenty vessels to run in opposition to these now established.

Editor's Table.

The Sabbath presents the most purely religious, and, at the same time, the least sectarian of all moral questions. It has, however, been generally regarded under two aspects, and defended on two distinct if not opposing grounds. One of these may be called the Scriptural or theological, the other the physical or secular. One class of advocates would lay the greatest stress on its divine appointment, the other upon its worldly advantages. One would magnify its ecclesiastical, the other its political and social importance. Without entering at length upon either of these arguments, in our present editorial musings, it is enough for us to state that those who would defend it as a permanent divine institution, rely mainly on the remarkable passage in Genesis announcing the divine rest from creation, and the sanctification of the seventh period of time, the Fourth Commandment as confirmatory of the same, and the early and continued example of the primitive Christian church, as evidence of a divinely-authorized change from the seventh day of the Jewish calendar to that on which Christ rose from the dead.

The other argument, which may be denominated the physical or secular, is a great favorite with writers and speakers of a certain class, who would be thought to be friends of the observance of the Sabbath, and all moral institutions connected with it, and yet would prefer to advocate them on grounds less strictly religious. These dwell much on the physical advantages of a day of rest. They enter into calculations respecting the maximum time of human and animal exertion, and the minimum period of relaxation required to counterbalance its effects upon the physical system. It is with them mainly a problem of political economy,--a question of production,--of prices,--of the increase or diminution of individual or national wealth. In these respects the value of the Sabbath is carefully measured by statistical tables. Figures "which can not lie" prove it to be a very useful institution, and the divine wisdom is greatly lauded in the contrivance of such an admirable means for preserving a healthful equilibrium in the industrial and business world.

We would, however, by no means speak slightingly of such supposed ends, or of such an argument in support of them. "Does God take care for oxen?" The language of the Apostle is not an ironical negative, as some might suppose, but an _a fortiori_ argument to show his higher care for man, and above all, for man's spiritual well-being. We may rationally suppose that higher purposes are harmoniously conjoined with lower in the divine mind. It is not unworthy of the author of the universe to have established such a harmony between the physical and the spiritual worlds. The Bible plainly speaks of things which "have the promise both of this life and of that which is to come," and among these the right observance of the Sabbath would doubtless hold a distinguished place. It is the great connecting bond between the political and the religious, between social virtue and the individual devoutness, between the kingdom of nature and the kingdom of grace,--in short, between all secular and all spiritual moralities. We can not well conceive of either squalid poverty or debasing vice in a community distinguished for its intelligent reverence of the Sabbath. Such reverence, however, could not well exist or long be maintained, where the secular utilities, true and valuable as they may be, are the only or even the chief motives appealed to. The temporal loses not only its moral excellence, but its power even for temporal good, when wholly severed from the spiritual.

Neither is there sufficient support for sabbatical institutions in the merely merciful idea of bodily relaxation. We are still in the region of secular benevolence, and without some influence from a higher world of motive and feeling, the sacred idea of _rest_ will inevitably degenerate, and give place to its demoralizing counterfeits--idleness--dissipation--and vice. Thus could it be shown, that even for the best secular ends, a Sabbath divested of the religious element would be far worse that unintermitted labor.

But we would hasten to another and a third view, which may be characterized as being more catholic, or rather less sectarian, than the first, and, at the same time, more spiritual, or less secular, than the second. To firm believers in the positive divine institution of the Sabbath (among whom we have no hesitation in avowing ourselves) the merely worldly argument would appear, sometimes, to betray, rather than support, the very cause it professes to advocate. On the other hand, there are, doubtless, many inquiring minds to whom the Scriptural argument seems more or less defective, but who would, nevertheless, accept a more elevated and more religious view than the one we have denominated the physical or the secular. There are good men, very good men, and honest believers, too, in the written revelation, who have a prejudice against any thing positively outward and ritual in religion, on the ground of its savoring too much of what they deem the obsolete Jewish economy. There are others who do not so accept the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures, that they would regard as conclusive any merely exegetical or traditionary argument. There are those, again, who wholly reject the authority of the commonly-received revelation. There are men who go farther than this--pantheists,--scientific theists, who recognize only an impersonal Power and Wisdom--men on the very verge of atheism, and some beyond all limits that the most tender charity can regard as separating us from that doleful region. And yet among them all--may we not say it without giving just offense to the strictest believer--among them all there may be sober men, thinking men, deeply serious men, for whom it is possible, and, if possible, most desirable, to frame an argument for a Sabbath that may steer clear of the apparent difficulties in the one view, and the really lowering and unspiritualizing tendency of the other.

Let those, then, who feel strong in that position, ground their reverence for the Sabbath in a positively revealed divine appointment. Among them would we class ourselves, even while endeavoring so to widen the platform as to embrace as many others as possible. Let those, again, who can take no higher view than that derived from its physical benefits, hold fast to such a faith. Frail as the plank may seem, it may deliver them from the shipwreck of total unbelief. The view indeed is a low one, and yet, if honestly held, may conduct the mind to a higher estimate. It is something,--it is much,--to believe truly that in the physical arrangements of the world, God has shown this kind care for our material well-being. If the soul is not utterly buried in earthliness, the thought of such a concern for the body must _tend_, at least, to the higher idea of a still higher concern for the blessedness of our spiritual nature.

Now it is in this thought we find that third view of the Sabbath which must have an interest, we would charitably hope, for all the classes that have been mentioned. Many believe that we need a day for special religious _worship_; others hold to the necessity of a day of _bodily rest_. But do we not all--whatever may be our creed, our belief or our unbelief--need a day, an oft-recurring day, of _serious thought_? Whatever may be our faith, or want of faith, every man who has not wholly sunk down into the mere animal nature, needs periods, oft-recurring and stated periods, in which he shall yield his whole soul to the questions--- _What_ am I? _Where_ am I? _Whence_ came I? _Why_ am I here? _What_ have I to do? _How_ am I doing it? _Whither_ am I going? The tremendous interest of these questions is not to be measured by the excess or deficiency of our creeds, unless it be that the very lack of belief invests them with a more immeasurable importance, or that each presents a more serious problem for serious minds, until we come down to that "horror of great darkness," the death of all faith in a supernatural or truly spiritual world.

Take the man who calls himself the liberal or free-thinking Christian. We have no objection to the title, or want of charity toward him who assumes it. He needs a Sabbath for intense thought, not so much on the argumentative evidence of particular dogmas, as on the great yet simple questions, whether the liberality of his opinions, and the few difficulties they present to his own mind, may not be evidence of their having no foundation in any wide system of eternal truth,--whether a religious creed that has no profound awe for the soul, no fearful apprehensions, no deep moral anxieties, no absorbing interest in a life to come, does not, from the very fact of such deficiency, prove itself a contradiction and a lie. So too the man who is but beginning to doubt the full inspiration of the Scriptures needs a period of most earnest meditation on the risk he may be running of giving up an only guide, whose place can never be made good by any thing in nature, philosophy, or science. The professed infidel needs a Sabbath, an oft-recurring Sabbath, of serious thought on that question of questions--Has God indeed ever spoken to man, or spoken at all, except through physical laws?--Has the awful stillness of nature been ever broken by a true voice from a true supernatural world?--And the atheist, too,--has he no need of a Sabbath, a frequent day of thought and thoughtfulness, in which he may call up and spread before his mind, in all their fearful importance, the sombre articles of his own dark creed? For creed indeed he has, unsurpassed in solemnity by that of any religionist. It has been quite common to deny the possibility of atheism, but the history of the world and of the church is showing that it is the only legitimate antagonism to a true belief in positive revelation. The shallow sciolist may not perceive it, and yet this is the dark conclusion in which some of his favorite speculations must inevitably terminate. There is no man, therefore, who has a stronger demand upon our most tender charity than the atheist. No belief presents greater difficulties, and yet there is no one to which the thinking mind is more strongly impelled, when it has once learned to distrust the lamp of revelation, and to see only shadows and spectres in that "_light shining in a dark place_, and to which we do well to take heed, until the day dawn and the eternal day star arise in our souls."

No man, then, we repeat it, stands more in want of a Sabbath than the atheist. No man has greater need of some such seasons in which he may perhaps find a cure for his dreadful spiritual blindness by giving himself up to all the terrific consequences of his gloomy creed. Let him devote one day in seven to the sober contemplation of a universe without a God, without a providence, without prayer, without a moral government,--religion, reverence, and worship forever dead and gone,--buried with them in their graves all that was most touching in poetry, beautiful in art, elevating in science, or sublime in philosophy,--all moral distinctions perished, of course, except those base counterfeits which resolve themselves into the pursuit of physical pleasure, or the avoidance of physical pain. Let him think of worlds on worlds teeming with life, yet all surrendered to the wheels of a blind and inexorable nature crushing on eternally with her mindless laws,--revolving in her slow but endlessly-recurring cycles,--making every seeming advance but the forerunner of the direst catastrophes of ruin,--or else in an apparent endless progression ever sacrificing individual parts and individual personalities to soulless wholes, yet furnishing to our philosophy no satisfactory ground on which to decide the question, whether the eternal drama in its most universal estimate is any more likely to be one of happiness than of intense and hopeless misery. Let the atheist, and the unbeliever who is on the road to atheism, fix his mind on thoughts like these until he begins to have some conception of what it is to be "without God and without hope in the world." Let him dwell on this sad orphanage, until in the intolerable loneliness of his spirit he is driven for shelter to the idea of a personal law-making, law-executing Deity, and is forced to admit that no doctrine of moral retribution, however stern, no creed, even of the most gloomy and fanatical religionist, ever presented so many difficulties as a rejection of those ideas on which all religion is founded.

Again, we need seasons of thought and thoughtfulness, not only on the ground that they are rational and demanded by the dignity of our rational nature, but because, moreover, they constitute the _true rest_ of the soul. It is a gross and pernicious error that would make the idea of rest, especially spiritual rest, the same with that of indolence and passivity. It is as false as it would be in physics to confound rest with inertia. The former is the opposite of motion simply, the latter the negation of strength and force. Rest is equilibrium, a duality of forces;--indolence the loss of the soul's balance, and the consequent prostration of its power. Rest is refreshing; renewing, strengthening, recuperative;--indolence the generator of a greater and still greater lassitude. Rest is a positive,--indolence a negative state. Rest is resistance (_re-sto_), recovery, internal energy,--indolence a base and effeminate yielding, ever followed by a loss of spiritual vitality.

It is in the light of such a contrast we see how very different a thing is this true rest of the soul from that dissipation, or vacancy of all thought, with which some would confound it. Else it would not be held out to us, in the Scriptures, as the peculiar bliss, or blessedness, of the heavenly world. The idea this sweet and holy word presents to the contemplative mind is, indeed, the opposite of a busy, bustling, _restless_ progress, the highest conception of which is an ever lasting movement of the intellect adding fact to fact, each as unsatisfactory as the preceding, and never bringing the soul nearer to any perfect quietude; but then, on the other hand, it is not the vacant passivity of which the transcendental Buddhist dreams, any more than the indolent lassitude of the Epicurean paradise. It is a contemplative energy, finding repose in itself, and deriving sustaining strength from its calm upward gaze upon the highest and most invigorating truth. In such an _upward_ rather than _onward_ movement is found the proper end and highest value of the Christian Sabbath.

Suave tempus consecratum Spiritus ad requiem.

It is the nature of this elevated communion to strengthen instead of wearying the soul, and hence to impart to it a new energy for the performance of the duties of life.

We would confidently test the truth of these positions by an appeal to practical experience. There is exhibited now and then, a vast deal of sentimental philanthropy in decrying what are called the religious abuses of the Sabbath. It proceeds generally from those who would confine themselves to the physical or purely secular view. Great stress is laid on mere bodily relaxation. Utter vacancy, too, of mind, or what is worse, mere pleasure-seeking is held forth as the source of refreshment from past labors, and of recovered strength for those to come. The toil-worn mechanic is invited to the place of popular amusement, or to convey himself and his family to some scene of rural enchantment and festivity. We are pointed for appropriate examples to the parks of London, and the boulevards of Paris. The Sabbath, they say, is a noble institution; but then there should be great care to guard against the perversions of Pharisaic or Puritanical bigotry. It may be well to give a part of the day to the services of religion; but then, the purest religion consists in admiring God's works in the natural world; and the poor laborer who can take his wife and children on a ride to Bloomingdale, or indulges them with a walk in the Elysian Fields, is performing a more acceptable service than he who makes the Sabbath a weariness by confining himself to his own dwelling, or spending any considerable part of it within the still more gloomy walls of some religious conventicle.

We would not impeach the motives or the philanthropy of those who talk in this style. Doubtless they are sincere; for there is certainly an extreme plausibility in such a view of the matter, especially as respects that class who have no other day of relaxation. There are parts of the picture, too, to which the sternest Sabbatarian would take no objection, if in any way they could be practically separated from the rest. Pure air is certainly favorable, not only to the physical, but to the moral health. The observation of nature, to say the least, is not opposed to devotion, although it requires some previous devotion to make that observation what it ought to be, or to prevent its being consistent with the most profane and godless state of the mind and heart. Where these can be enjoyed without danger of perverted example, or other evils, which, in respect to our crowded city population are almost inseparable from such indulgence, he must be a bigot indeed who would deny them to the poor, or regard them as a desecration of the Sabbath.

But there is another side to this picture, and other truths having a bearing upon the argument, in support of which we might let go all a priori reasoning, and appeal directly to facts of observation. We will not take an extreme case, or rather, what is well known to be a common case with the Sabbath haunters of Hoboken and other rural purlieus. We will not take the intemperate, the gambling, or the debauched. Let two sober and industrious families be selected from the ranks of the laboring poor. One man devotes the day to pleasant rural excursions with his wife and children. We would not pass upon him a sanctimonious censure, although we might doubt the philosophy as well as the piety of his course. He has abstained from intoxicating drinks, from the lower sensual indulgences, from profane and vicious company. But he has sought simply relaxation for the body, and the negative pleasure of vacancy or of passive musing for the mind. The other pater-familias would, indeed, desire pure air for himself and little ones, purer air than can be obtained in the confined and populous street, and under other circumstances he would, doubtless, freely indulge in such a luxury; but then he knows there is a higher atmosphere still--a spiritual atmosphere--and that this, above all others, is the day in which he is to breathe its purity, and inhale a new inspiration from its invigorating life. He kneels with his children around the morning household altar--he goes with them to the Sabbath-school and to church--the remainder of the day is spent in devotion or meditation--and the evening, perhaps, is given to the social prayer-meeting. Oh, the gloomy drudgery! some would be ready to exclaim. We would not deny that there might be excess even here; but can we hesitate in deciding which of these two families will proceed to their weekly toil on Monday morning with more invigoration of spirit--ay, and of body, too, derived from the soul's refreshment? To which has the day been the truest _Sabbath_, the most real _test_? In deciding this question, we need only advert to our former analysis. There has been, in the one case, an utter mistaking of the true idea of rest. Experience has shown, and ever will show, that all mere pleasure-seeking, for its own sake, all vacancy or passivity of soul, ever exhausts, ever dissipates, and, in the end, renders both mind and body less fitted for the rugged duties of life than continued labor itself. In the train of these evils come also satiety, disappointment, a sense of personal degradation that no philosophy can wholly separate from idle enjoyment; and all these combined produce that aversion to regular labor, which is so often to be observed as the result of an ill-spent Sabbath. The body, it is true, belonging as it does wholly to the world of material nature, needs the repose of passivity; but the spirit can never indulge itself long in conscious indolence without risking the loss of spiritual power as well as moral dignity. Its true rest--we can not too often repeat it--is not the rest of _inertia_, but that which comes from an intercommuning with a higher world of thought and a higher sphere of spiritual life. This it finds in those great truths Christianity has brought down to us, and by the weekly exhibition of which, more than any thing else, our modern world is distinguished from the ancient.

The picture we have presented of the Sabbath-keeping laborer is no rare or fancy sketch. The socialist, indeed, ignores his existence. Such writers as Fourier, and Prudhom, and Louis Blanc, and Victor Hugo, and Martineau, know nothing about him. They see, and are determined to see, in the condition of the poor only a physical degradation, from which their own earthy and earthly-minded philosophy can alone relieve him. Nothing is more wholly inconceivable to a philanthropist of this class than what Chalmers styles "the charm of intercourse" with the lowly pious, or the moral sublime of that character--_the Christian poor man_. And yet it is neither rare nor strange. We make bold to affirm that it may be realized in almost every church in our city.

In this thought, too, do we find the surest test of all true social reforms. A dislike of the Sabbath, and especially of its religious observance, is an indication of their character that can not be mistaken. It is the Ithuriel's spear to detect every species of spurious philanthropy. We would not impeach the benevolent sincerity of these warm advocates of socialism. We would commend their zeal to the imitation of our Christian churches. But still it is for us a sufficient objection to the phalanx and the social commune that _they know no Sabbath_. Periods of festivity and relaxation they acknowledge, but no fixed days of holy spiritual rest, of serious thought, of soul-expanding and soul-invigorating meditation on the great things of another life. Radical as they boast to be, they present no recognition of that most radical truth, the ground of all real reforms, and so full of encouragement to the real reformer, that physical depression can not possibly continue for any length of time where there has been a true spiritual elevation--or, in other words, that this world can only be lifted from its sunken, miry social degradation by keeping strong and firmly fastened every chain that binds it to the world above.

To these ends it is not enough that each one should determine for himself the portion and proportion of his own Sabbatical times. "Six days shalt thou labor; but the seventh is the Sabbath of the Lord." We urge it not as Scriptural proof--which would be contrary to the leading design and method of our argument--but as illustrative of the importance of one recurring period for all, and of the benefits to be derived from a community of act and feeling in its observance. We need all the strength that can come from a common prejudice, if any should choose so to call it, in favor of certain stated and well-known times. In distinction from the profanity that would utterly deny a Sabbath, there is a false hyper-spiritualism that would make all seasons, all places, and all acts, alike _holy_--or, in its sentimental cant, every day a Sabbath, every work a worship, and every feeling a prayer. Now, besides destroying the radical sense of the word _holy_, this is in opposition alike to Scripture and to human experience. Both teach us that there must be (at least in our present state) alternations of the holy and the common, the spiritual and the worldly, and that each interest is periled, as well by their false fusion, as by that destruction of the true analogy which would cause the one to be out of all proportion to the other. A stated period, too, is required to give intensity to thought and warmth to devotion. The greatest pleasure of a truly devout mind, is in the idea of contemporary communion with others, and nothing is more repugnant to it than a proud reliance upon its own individual spirituality.

To give the day, then, all its rightful power over the soul, there is needed that hallowed character which can only come from what may be called a sacred conventionality. Every one who has been brought up in a religious community must feel the force of this, even if he does not understand its philosophy. In consequence of it, the Sabbath seems to differ, physically, as well as morally, from all other days. In its deep religiousness every thing puts on a changed appearance. Nature reposes in the embrace of a heavenly quietude. There seems to be a different air, a different sky; the clouds are more serene; the sun shines with a more placid glory. There is a holiness in the trees, in the waters, in the everlasting hills, such as the mind associates with no other period. Thousands have felt it, but never was it better described than in the lines of Leyden:

With silent awe I hail the sacred morn, That scarcely wakes while all the fields are still; A soothing calm on every breeze is borne, A graver murmur echoes from the hill, And softer sings the linnet from the thorn, The sky-lark warbles in a tone less shrill-- Hail light serene! hail sacred Sabbath morn!

Or in those verses of Graham, which, if an imitation, are certainly an improvement--especially in the moral conception which forms the close of his entrancing picture:

Calmness seems throned on yon unmoving cloud, The black-bird's note comes mellower from the dale; And sweeter from the sky the gladsome lark Warbles his heaven-tuned song; the lulling brook Murmurs more gently down the deep-sunk glen; While from yon lowly roof whose curling smoke O'ermounts the mist, is heard at intervals The voice of psalms, the simple song of praise.

Editor's Easy Chair.

AN OLD GENTLEMAN'S LETTER.

THE STORY OF "THE BRIDE OF LANDECK."

The small town of Landeck, in the Vorarlberg, is surrounded by mountains, which take exceedingly picturesque forms from their peculiar geological structure. I can not stop in my tale to enter into any details regarding the geology of the country; but I remember once talking to Buckland about it, when I met him with Professor Sedgwick at the English Cambridge, some two or three-and-twenty years ago. Poor Buckland has, I hear, since fallen into indifferent health; but at the period I speak of he was full of life and energy, and one of the most entertaining men I ever met. Our acquaintance was of no long duration; for I was hurrying through that part of the world with great rapidity, and had hardly time to accomplish all that I proposed. I saw a great deal of him, however, and heard a great deal of him then, and once afterward; and there was a certain sort of enthusiastic simplicity about him, not uncommon in men of science, which made him the subject of many good stories, whether true or false I will not pretend to say. His fondness for every thing connected with the subject of Natural history amounted to a complete passion; and he was not at all scrupulous, they said, as to whom it was exercised upon. I heard a laughable anecdote illustrative of this propensity. There had been, shortly before, a great meeting at Oxford of scientific men, and of those fashionable hangers-on upon the skirts of science, who feeling themselves but so many units in the mass of the _beau monde_, seek to gain a little extrinsic brilliancy from stars and comets, strata, atoms, and machinery. Buckland asked a good number of the most distinguished of all classes to dine with him on one of the days of this scientific fair. During the morning he delivered a lecture in his lecture-room before all his friends upon Comparative Anatomy--showed the relation between existing and extinct species of animals--exhibited several very perfect specimens of fossil saurians--dissected a very fine alligator sent to him from the Mississippi--washed his hands--walked his friends about Oxford, and went home to dinner. His house and all his establishment were in good style and taste. His guests congregated; the dinner table looked splendid, with glass, china, and plate, and the meal commenced with excellent soup.

"How do you like that soup?" asked the Doctor, after having finished his own plate, addressing a famous _gourmand_ of the day.

"Very good, indeed," answered the other; "Turtle, is it not? I only ask because I did not find any green fat."

The Doctor shook his head.

"I think it has somewhat of a musky taste," said another; "not unpleasant, but peculiar."

"All alligators have," replied Buckland. "The Cayman peculiarly so. The fellow whom I dissected this morning, and whom you have just been eating--"

There was a general rout of the whole guests. Every one turned pale. Half-a-dozen started up from table. Two or three ran out of the room and vomited; and only those who had stout stomachs remained to the close of an excellent entertainment.

"See what imagination is," said Buckland. "If I had told them it was turtle, or terrapin, or birds'-nest soup--salt water amphibia or fresh, or the gluten of a fish from the maw of a sea bird, they would have pronounced it excellent, and their digestion been none the worse. Such is prejudice."

"But was it really an alligator?" asked a lady.

"As good a calf's head as ever wore a coronet," answered Buckland.

The worthy Doctor, however, was sometimes the object, as well as the practicer of jokes and hoaxes. I remember hearing him make a long descriptive speech regarding some curious ancient remains which had been displayed to him by Mr. B----, who was neither more nor less than a notorious _charlatan_. They consisted in conical excavations, at the bottom of which were found various nondescript implements, which passed with the worthy Doctor as curious relics of an almost primæval age. One third of the room at least was in a laugh during the whole time; for the tricks of the impostor who had deceived the professor--very similar to those of Doctor Dousterswivel--had been completely exposed about a year before at Lewis, in Sussex; and witty Barham, the well-known Tom Ingoldsby, handed about the room some satirical verses struck off upon the occasion. Indeed, though eminent as a geologist and palæontologist, Buckland went out of his depth when he dabbled in antiquarian science. But with a weakness common to many Englishmen of letters, he aimed greatly at universality; and in the same day I have heard him deliver a long disquisition upon the piercing of stone walls by a peculiar sort of snail, and a regular oration upon the spontaneous combustion of pigeons' dung.

The celebrated Whewell, whom I met at the same time, was another who aimed at universal knowledge, but with better success. There was no subject could be started which he was not prepared to discuss on the instant, and I heard of an attempt made to puzzle him, which recoiled with a severe rap upon the perpetrators thereof. Four young but somewhat distinguished men determined to put Whewell's readiness at all points to the test the first time they should meet him together, by starting some subject agreed upon between them, the most unlikely for a clergyman and a mathematician to have studied. The subject selected, after much deliberation, was Chinese musical instruments. The last edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica was obtained, and studied diligently; and then Whewell was invited to dinner. Music, musical instruments, Chinese musical instruments, were soon under discussion. Whewell was perfectly prepared, entered into all the most minute details, and gave the most finished description of every instrument, from a Mandarin gong to a one-stringed lute. At length, however, the young men thought they had caught him at fault. He differed from the Encyclopædia, and the statements of that great work were immediately thrown in his teeth.

"I know that it is so put down," answered Whewell, quietly; "but it will be altered in the next edition. When I wrote that article, I was not sufficiently informed upon the instrument in question."

English Universities are often very severely handled by would-be reformers. But one thing is perfectly certain, whatever may be the faults in their constitution, they have produced, and do still produce, men of deeper, more extensive, and more varied information than any similar institutions in the world. Too much license, indeed, is sometimes allowed to the young men, and sometimes, especially in former ages, this has produced very sad and fatal results. At a small supper party, to which I was invited at St. John's College, during my visit to Cambridge, a little story of College life in former times was related, which made a deep impression upon me.

Two young men, the narrator said, matriculated in the same year at one of the colleges--I think it was at St. John's itself; but am not quite sure. The one was a somewhat fiery, passionate youth, of the name of Elliot: the other grave, and somewhat stern; but frank, and no way sullen. His name was Bailey. As so frequently happens with men of very dissimilar character, a great intimacy sprang up between them. They were sworn friends and companions; and during the long vacation of the second year, Bailey spent a great portion of his time at the house of Elliot's mother. In those days, before liberal notions began to prevail, this was considered as an honor; for Bailey was a man of aristocratic birth, and Elliot a plebeian. There was a great attraction in the house, however; for besides his mother, a sickly and infirm woman, Elliot's family comprised a sister, "the cynosure of neighboring eyes."

After their return to College, in one of their drinking bouts, then but too common, a quarrel took place among a number of the College youths: the officers of the University interfered, and one of them received a dangerous blow from Bailey, which put his life in jeopardy. It was judged necessary for him to fly immediately, and at the entreaty of his friend he sought an asylum in the house of Elliot's mother. After the lapse of several days, the wounded officer of the College was pronounced out of danger, and Elliot set out to inform his friend of the good tidings. Precaution, however, was still necessary, as the college officers were still in pursuit; and he went alone, and on horseback, by night, with pistols at his saddle bow, as was then customary. The distance he had to ride was some two-and-thirty miles and he arrived about midnight.

Like all young men of his temperament, Elliot was fond of dreaming dreams. He had remarked the admiration of his friend for his sister, to whom he was devotedly attached, and her evident love for him, and he had built up a little castle in the air in regard to their union, and her elevation to station and fortune. As he approached the house, no windows showed a light but those of his sister's room, and putting the horse in the stable himself, he took the pistols from the holsters, approached the house, and quietly opened the door. A great oak staircase, leading from the hall to the rooms above, was immediately within sight with the top landing, on the right of which lay his mother's chamber, and on the left that of his sister. The young man's first and natural impulse was to look up; but what was his surprise, indignation, and horror, when he beheld the door of his sister's room quietly open, and the figure of Bailey glide out upon the landing. For a moment there was a terrible struggle within him; but he restrained himself, and in as calm a tone as he could assume, said, "Come down--I want to speak with you."

Without the slightest hesitation or embarrassment, Bailey came down, and followed him out into an avenue of trees which led up to the house. The only question he asked was--"Is the man dead?"

"Come on, and I will tell you," answered the other; and when they had got some hundred yards from the house, he suddenly turned, and struck Bailey a violent blow on the face, exclaiming, "Villain and scoundrel! give me instant satisfaction for what you have done this night. There's a pistol.--No words; for by ---- either you or I do not quit this ground alive!"

Bailey attempted to speak; but the other would not hear him, and struck him again with the butt end of the pistol. The young man's blood was roused. He snatched the weapon from his hand, and retired a few paces into the full moonlight. Elliot gave the words, "One, two, three," and the two pistols were fired almost at the same moment.

The next morning, at an early hour, Mrs. Elliot, now very ill, said to her daughter, who had been watching by her bedside all night, "I wish, my dear child, you would send some one to Mr. Bailey, to say I desire to speak with him. After what passed between us three the day before yesterday, I am sure he will willingly relieve a mother's anxiety, and let me see you united to him before I die. It must be very speedy, Emma; for my hours are drawing to a close, and I fear can not even be protracted till your dear brother can be sent for."

Emma Elliot gazed at her mother for a moment with tearful eyes, and then answered, as calmly as she could, "I can call him myself, mamma. He sleeps in my old room now, since the wind blew down the chimney of that he had formerly."

"No, send one of the servants," said her mother; and in a few minutes after, Mr. Bailey was in the room. He was a man of a kind heart, and generous feelings, and but the slightest shade of hesitation in the world was visible in the consent he gave to an immediate union with Emma Elliot; but both she and her mother remarked that he was deadly pale.

The laws of England were not so strict in those times as they are now in regard to marriage. The clergyman's house was not more than a stone's throw from the dwelling, and the priest was instantly summoned and came.

"It is strange," he said. "Mr. Bailey," just before the ceremony. "As I walked up the avenue, I saw a great pool of blood."

"Nothing else?" asked Mr. Bailey, with a strange and bewildered look.

"There were poachers out last night," said the old housekeeper, who had been brought into the room as one of the witnesses; "for I heard two shots very close to the house."

Never was a joyful ceremony more melancholy--in the presence of the dying--with the memory of the dead. After it was over, one little circumstance after another occurred to arouse fears and suspicions. A strange, hired horse was found in the stable. Then came the news from Cambridge that young Elliot had set out the night before, no one knew whither. Then two pistols were found in the grass by the side of the avenue. Then drops of blood, and staggering steps were traced across the grass court to a small shrubbery which led to the back of the house, and there the dead body of the son and brother was found, lying on its face, as if he had fallen forward in attempting to reach a door in the rear of the building.

Mrs. Elliot died that night, without having heard of her son's fate. Investigations followed: every inquiry was made; and a coroner's jury was summoned. They returned what is called an open verdict, and the matter passed away from the minds of the general public.

But there was one who remembered it. There was one upon whose mind it wore and fretted like rust upon a keen sword blade. His home was bright and cheerful; his wife was fond, faithful, and lovely; beautiful children grew up around his path like flowers; riches were his, and worldly honors fell thick upon him; but day by day he grew sterner and more sad; day by day the cloud and the shadow encompassed him more densely. Of his children he was passionately fond; and his wife--oh, how terribly he loved her! Happy for him, she was not like many women--like too many--whom affection spoils, whom tenderness hardens, who learn to exact in proportion to that which is given, and who, when the utmost is done, still, "like the horse-leeches' daughter, cry 'more, more!'" He adored, he idolized her. Her lightest wish, her idlest fancy--her caprices, if she had any--were all gratified as soon as they were formed. Opposition to her will seemed to him an offense, and disobedience to her lightest command by any of her household, was immediately checked or punished. Was he making retribution?--Was he trying to atone?--Was he seeking to compensate for a great injury? God only knows. But happy, happy for him that Emma Bailey was not like other women; that spoiling could not spoil her: that indulgence had no debasing effect.

Still he grew more sad. It might be that every time he held her to his heart, he remembered that he had slain her brother. It might be, that when she gazed into his eyes, with looks of undiminished love and confidence, he felt that there was a dark secret hidden beneath the vail through which he fancied she saw him, which, could she have beheld it, would have turned all that passionate affection to bitterness and hate. It might be that he knew he was deceiving--the saddest, darkest, most despairing consciousness that can overload the heart of man.

At length, a time came, when confidence--if ever confidence was to be given upon this earth--was necessary upon his part. He was struck with fever. He had over-exerted himself in some works of humanity among his poorer neighbors. It was a sickly season. God had given one of those general warnings, which he sometimes addresses to nations and to worlds--warnings, trumpet-tongued; but against which men close their ears. He fell sick--very sick. The strength of the strong man was gone: the stout heart beat feebly though quick: the energies of the powerful brain were at an end; and wild fancies, and chaotic memories reveled in delirious pranks, where reason had once reigned supreme. He spoke strange words in his wanderings; but Emma sat by his bedside night and day, gazing upon his wan, pale face and glazed eye, smoothing his hot pillow, holding his clammy hand, moistening his parched lip. Sometimes overpowered with weariness, a moment's slumber blessed her away from care; and then, when the critical sleep came, how she watched, and wept, and prayed!

He woke at length. A nurse and physician were in the room; and the first said he looked much better; the second said he hoped the crisis was past. But the husband beckoned the wife to him, and she kneeled beside him, and threw her arms over him, and leaned her head with its balmy tresses upon his aching bosom.

"I have something to tell you," he said, in a faint voice. "It will be forth. It has torn and rent me for many a year. Now, that the presence of God is near to me, it must be spoken. Bring your ear nearer to me, my Emma."

She obeyed; and he whispered to her earnestly for a few moments. None saw what passed upon her countenance; for it was partly hidden on the clothes of the bed, partly concealed by her beautiful arm. None heard the words he uttered in that low, murmuring tone. But suddenly, his wife started up with a look of horror indescribable. She had wedded the slayer of her brother. She had clasped the hand which had shed her kindred blood. She had loved, and caressed, and clasped with eager passion the man who had destroyed the cradle-fellow of her youth--she had borne him children!

One look of horror, and one long, piercing shriek, and she fell senseless upon the floor at the bedside. They took her up: they sprinkled water in her face; they bathed her temple with essences; and gradually light came back into her eyes. Then they turned toward the bed. What was it they saw there? He had seen the look. He had heard the shriek. He had beheld the last ray of hope depart. The knell of earthly happiness had rung. The gates of another world stood open, near at hand; and he had passed through to that place where all tears are wiped from all eyes. There was nothing but clay left behind.

Such was one of the tales told across the College table; and yet it was not a very sad or solemn place; and many a lighter and a gayer anecdote served to cheer up the heart after such sad pictures. There was a great deal of originality, too, at the table, which amused, if it did not interest. There was Doctor W---- there, who afterward became headmaster of a celebrated public school, and who was in reality a very eccentric man always affecting a most commonplace exterior. The most extraordinary, however, was Mr. R----, celebrated for occupying many hours every morning in shaving himself, an operation, all the accidents of which we generally, in this country, avoid by the precaution of trusting it to others. The process, however, of Mr. R---- who never confided in a barber, was this. He lathered and shaved one side of his face: then read a passage of Thucydides. Then he lathered and shaved the other side, read another passage, and then began again; and so on ad infinitum, or until somebody came in and dragged him out. His notions, however, were more extraordinary even than his habits. He used to contend, and did that night, that man having been created immortal, and having only lost his immortality by the knowledge of good and evil, it was in reality only the fear engendered by that knowledge which caused him to decay, or die. In vain gray hairs, a shriveled skin, defaulting teeth, warned him of the fragility of himself and his hypothesis: he still maintained dogmatically, that unless man were fool enough to be afraid, there would be no occasion for him to die at all. He actually carried his doctrine to the grave with him; for during another visit to Cambridge, many years after, I heard the close of his strange history. Feeling himself somewhat feeble, he went, several years after I saw him, to reside at Richmond, near London, where "the air is delicate." There a chronic disease under which he had been long laboring, assumed a serious form; and his friends and relations persuaded him to send for a physician. The physician giving no heed to his notions regarding corporeal immortality, prescribed for him sagely, but without effect. The disease went on undiminished, and it became necessary to inform him that his life was drawing to an end.

"Fiddlestick's ends," said Mr. R----. "Life has no end, but in consequence of fear. I am not the least afraid in the world; and hang me if I die, in spite of you all. Give me my coat and hat, John. I will go out and take a walk."

"By no means," cried the doctor. "You will only hasten the catastrophe, my dear sir, before any of your affairs are settled."

"Why, sir, you have hardly been able to walk across the room for this fortnight. You will never get half way up the hill;" said his faithful servant.

"Sir, you are at this moment in a dying state," said the provoked doctor.

"I will soon show you," cried Mr. R----; and walking to the door in his dressing gown, without his hat, down the stairs he went, and out into the busy streets of Richmond. For a hundred yards he tottered on; but then he fell upon the pavement, and was carried into a pastry-cook's store, where he expired without uttering one word, even in defense of his favorite theory.

The small town of Landeck, in the Vorarlberg, is surrounded by mountains, which--

I am afraid they are too high for me to get over in the short space which remains of this sheet, though I have written as small as possible, in order to leave myself room to conclude the tale of the Bride of Landeck. I must therefore put it off until I can find time to write you another epistle, in which I trust to be able to conclude all I have to say upon the subject; and in the mean time, with many thanks for your polite attention in printing these gossiping letters, I must beg you to believe me,

Your faithful servant,

P.

Editor's Drawer.

Perhaps no two of the "Mysteries of Science," as they are sometimes called, excite more interest among all classes of curiosity-mongers, than the _Balloon_ and the _Diving-bell_. They are the very antipodes of each other, and yet the interest felt in each partakes of a very kindred character. To descend to the bottom of the sea, "where never plummet sounded;" to sink quietly and solemnly down into the chambers of the Great Deep; to see the "sea-fan" wave its delicate wings, and the coral groves, inhabited by the beautiful mer-men and maidens, who take their pastime therein; to gloat over rich argosies, the treasures of gold and silver, that brighten the caverns of the deep; to watch the deep, deep green waves of softened light that come shimmering and trembling down the dense watery walls--these make up much of the _Poetry of the Diving-bell_, of which all imaginative people are enamored, and which is not without a certain influence upon all sorts and conditions of men.

On the other hand, to rise suddenly above the earth; to look down upon the gradually lessening crowds and vanishing cities beneath; to glance over the tops of mountains upon the vast inland plains, sprinkled with villages and towns; to sail on and on, exhausting horizon after horizon; to look down upon even the clouds of heaven, and thunder-storms and rainbows rolling and flashing beneath your feet, and upon glimpses of the heaving bosom of the "Great and wide Sea"--_these_, again, are the elements of the aeronaut, that may well be termed the "_Poetry of Ballooning_."

But leaving the "Poetry of the Diving-bell" for another "Drawer," let us narrate an incident which we find in one of its compartments, or, rather, the synopsis of an incident, reduced from a more voluminous account, given at the time by a London writer of rare and varied accomplishments. It may, indeed, be termed, from the scanty materials preserved from the original record, a "_Memory_ of Ballooning."

Mr. Green, the great London aeronaut, who has ascended some hundred and fifty times from Vauxhall Gardens, London; who has taken his air-journeys at all times of the day and night; who has sailed over a continent with passengers in his frail bark, when it was so dark, that, according to the testimony of one of his fellow-voyagers, it seemed as though the balloon was making its noiseless way through a mass of impenetrable black marble--this same Mr. Green--to come back from our long sentence--once gave out, by hand-bills and the public prints, that on a certain afternoon in July, he would ascend from Vauxhall Gardens, London, at four o'clock in the afternoon, with a distinguished lady and gentleman, who had volunteered to accompany him on that occasion.

The day and the hour at length arrived. The spacious inclosures of the Garden were crowded with an excited multitude, awaiting with the utmost impatience for the tossing, rolling globe to mount up and be lost in the blue creation that spread out far above the giant city, pavilioned by its clouds of smoke. But the hour passed by, and the "distinguished lady and gentleman" came not.

"It's an 'oax!" exclaimed hundreds, simultaneously among the crowd: "There isn't no sich persons."

Mr. Green assured them of his good faith; read the letter that he had received from "the parties," and his answer: but still the "madness of the people" increased, and still the "distinguished lady and gentleman" came not. Matters were growing more and more serious, and a "row" seemed inevitable.

At this crisis of affairs, a solemn-visaged man, dressed in black, with a white neckcloth, stepped forth from the dense crowd, to the edge of the boundary which inclosed the balloon, and beckoning to Mr. Green, said, in a very modest manner, and in a low tone:

"_I_ will go with you, sir, with pleasure; I should be _glad_ to go. I wish to escape, for a while, at least, from this infernal noisy town."

The aeronaut was only too glad to accept the proposition, as some sort of salvo to his disappointed auditory, whose denunciatory vociferations were increasing every moment.

Mr. Green, standing up in the car of his tossing and impatient vessel, now announced, that "a gentleman present, in the kindest manner, had volunteered to make the ascent with him," and that the "monster-balloon" would at once depart for the vague regions of the upper air.

This announcement was hailed with acclamations by the assembled multitudes; and giving some necessary orders to his assistants, who had become fatigued with holding the groaning ropes that had until now confined the "monster" to the earth, the balloon was liberated, and rose slowly and majestically over the vast crowd of spectators and the wilderness of brick and mortar, and towers and steeples, and spacious parks, that lay spread out below, and gradually melted into the celestial blue.

What followed is best represented by the partially remembered words of the aeronaut himself, as shadowed forth in the memorandum already referred to.

"As we rose above the metropolis, and its mighty mass began to melt into indistinctness, my companion, whose bearing and manner had hitherto most favorably impressed me, began to manifest symptoms of great uneasiness. As we were passing over Hanwell, dimly seen among the extended suburbs of the great city, his anxiety seemed to increase in an extraordinary degree. Pointing, with trembling finger, in that immediate direction, he said:

"'Can they _see us_ from THERE? can they _reach_ us in any way? can they telegraph us?--CAN they, I say?'

"Surprised at the excitement, and at the abrupt alarm of one who had been so remarkably cool and self-possessed at starting, I replied:

"'Certainly not, my dear sir; we are half a mile from the earth, at least.'

"'Ah, ha! then I am safe! they can't catch me _now_! I escaped from them only this morning!'

"With a vague sense of some impending evil, I asked:

"'Escaped!--how!--from where?'

"'From the lunatic asylum! They thought I was crazed, and sent me there to be confined. Crazed! Why, there's not a man in London so sane as I am, and they knew it. It was a trick, sir--a trick! A trick to get my estate! But I'll be even with 'em! _I'll_ show 'em! _I'll_ thwart em!'

"Good Heavens! I was now a mile from the earth, with a madman for my companion!--in a frail vessel, where the utmost caution and coolness were necessary, and where the least irregularity or carelessness would send us, through the intervening space with the speed of thought, to lie, crushed and bleeding masses of unrecognizable humanity, upon the earth.

"But I had not long to think of even this apparently inevitable fate; for my companion had seized upon the sand-bags, and, one after another, was throwing them over the side of the car.

"'Hold! rash man!' I exclaimed: 'what would you do? You are endangering both our lives!'

"All this time the balloon was ascending with such rapidity, that the rush of the air through the net-work was like the wild whistling of the wind in the cordage of a ship under bare poles, in a gale at sea.

"'What do I _do_?' repeated the madman; 'I am getting away! I am going to the moon!--I am going to the moon!--ha! ha! They can't catch us in the moon!'

"He had exhausted nearly all the ballast except what was under or near me, and we were rising at such an astounding speed that I expected every moment that the balloon would burst from the increasing expansion, when I observed him loosening his garments and taking off his coat.

"'It's two hundred thousand miles _now_ to the moon!' said he, 'and we must throw over some more ballast or we shan't be home till morning.'

"So saying he tore off his coat and threw it over--next his waistcoat--and was fumbling at his pantaloons, evidently for a similar purpose. But a new thought seemed to strike him:

"'_Two_ are too _many_ for this little balloon,' he said; 'she's going too slow! We shall not reach the moon before morning at _this_ rate. _Get out of this!_'

"I was wholly unnerved. I could have calmed the fears, or reasoned down the apprehensions of a reasonable companion; but my present _compagnon du voyage_ 'lacked discourse of reason' as much as the brute that perisheth, and remonstrance was of no avail.

"'GET OUT OF THIS!' he repeated, in tones strangely piercing, in the hush of the upper air; and thereupon I felt myself seized by a grasp, so often superhumanly powerful in madmen, and found myself suddenly poised over the side of the tilting car, and heard the _hum_ of the tortured gas in its silken prison above us:

"'Good-night!' said the infuriated wretch; 'you'll hear from me by telegraph from the moon! They can't catch me now! Ha! ha!--not now! _not now!_'"

It was but a dream of an aeronaut, reader, after all, on the night before his ascension; and this sketch is but a dream _of_ that dream; for it is from memory, and not "from the record."

* * * * *

As the fall rains may be expected, as the almanacs predict, "about these days" of autumn, we put on early record, for the next month, the fact, that umbrellas are not protected by the laws of the United States. They are not property, save that of the man of whom you buy them. They constitute an article which, by the morality of society, you may steal from friend or foe, and which, for the same reason, you should not lend to either. The coolest thing--the most doubly-iced impudence--we ever heard of, was in the case of a man who borrowed a new silk umbrella of a town-neighbor, which, as a matter of course, he forgot to return. One morning, in a heavy rain, he called on his neighbor for it. He found him on the steps, going out with the borrowed umbrella. He met him with that peculiar smile that one man gives another who suddenly claims his umbrella on a wet day, and said:

"Where are you going, Mr. B----?"

"I came for my umbrella," was the brief reply.

"But don't you see I am going out with it at this moment? It's a very nasty morning."

"Going _out_ with my umbrella! What am _I_ to do, I should like to know?"

"_Do?_--do as _I_ did--_borrow_ one!" said the borrower, as he walked away, leaving the lender well-nigh paralyzed at the great height of his neighbor's impudence.

A church is the place, of a rainy Sunday, where many indifferent and valuable "exchanges" are made, in the article of umbrellas. Perhaps many of our readers will remember the remark made at the close of morning service, on a drizzly Sabbath, by a pious brother:

"My friends, there was taken from this place of worship this morning a large black silk-umbrella, nearly new; and in place of it was left a small blue cotton umbrella, much tattered and worn, and of a coarse texture. The black silk umbrella was undoubtedly taken by mistake, but such mistakes are getting a leetle too common!"[6]

[6] "Ollapodiana;" Knickerbocker Magazine.

* * * * *

As we shall very soon have a new President coming into office for a new four-year's lease of care and "glory," we venture to insinuate what he may expect from the throngs of office-seekers by whom he will be surrounded; and we shall take but a single instance out of many hundreds that might be offered. A man writing from Washington at the coming in of our last National Chief Magistrate, gave this graphic sketch of a "Sucker" office-seeker:

Dickens might draw some laughable sketches, or caricatures, from the live specimens of office-seekers now on hand here. The new President has just advised them all to go home and leave their papers behind them; and such a scattering you never saw! One fellow came here from Illinois, and was introduced to a wag who, he was told, had "great influence at court," and who, although destitute of any such pretensions, kept up the delusion for the sake of the joke. The "Sucker" addressed the man of influence something in this wise:

"Now, stranger, look at them papers. Them names is the first in our whole town. There's Deacon Styles--there ain't no piouser man in all the county; and then there's Rogers, our shoemaker--he made them boots I got on, and a better pair never tramped over these diggins. You wouldn't think them soles had walked over more than three hundred miles of Hoosier mud, but they _hev_ though, and are sound yet. Every body in our town knows John Rogers. Just you go to Illinois, and ax about _me_. You'll find how I stand. Then you ask Jim Turner, our constable--_he_ knows me; ask _him_ what I did for the party. He'll tell you I was a screamer at the polls--nothing else. Now, I've come all the way from Illinois, and a-foot too, most of the way, to see if I can have justice. They even told me to take a town-office to--hum! but I must have something that pays aforehand--such as them '_char-gees_,' as they call 'em. I hain't got only seven dollars left, and I can't wait. Jist git me one o' them '_char-gees_,' will ye? Them'll do. Tell the old man how it is; _he'll_ do it. Fact is, he _must_! I've airnt the office, and no mistake!"

Doubtless he _had_ "airnt" it; few persons who go to Washington and _wait_ for an office, but _earn_ their office, whether they obtain it or not.

* * * * *

It is HORACE WALPOLE, in his egotistical but very amusing correspondence, who narrates the following amusing anecdote:

"I must add a curious story, which I believe will surprise your Italian surgeons as much as it has amazed the faculty here. A sailor who had broken his leg was advised to communicate his case to the Royal Society. The account he gave was, that having fallen from the top of the mast and fractured his leg, he had dressed it with nothing but tar and oakum, and yet in three days was able to walk as well as before the accident. The story at first appeared quite incredible, as no such efficacious qualities were known in tar, and still less in oakum; nor was a poor sailor to be credited on his own bare assertion of so wonderful a cure. The society very reasonably demanded a fuller relation, and, I suppose, the corroboration of evidence. Many doubted whether the leg had been really broken. That part of the story had been amply verified. Still it was difficult to believe that the man had made use of no other applications than tar and oakum; and how _they_ should cure a broken leg in three days, even if they could cure it at all, was a matter of the utmost wonder. Several letters passed between the society and the patient, who persevered in the most solemn asseverations of having used no other remedies, and it does appear beyond a doubt that the man speaks truth. It is a little uncharitable, but I fear there are surgeons who might not like this abbreviation of attendance and expense; but, on the other hand, you will be charmed with the plain, honest simplicity of the sailor. In a postscript to his last letter, he added these words:

"I forgot to tell your honors that the leg was a wooden one!"

* * * * *

There was great delicacy in the manner in which a foreigner, having a friend hung in this country, broke the intelligence to his relations on the other side of the water. He wrote as follows:

"Your brother had been addressing a large meeting of citizens, who had manifested the deepest interest in him, when the platform upon which he stood, being, as was subsequently ascertained, very insecure, gave way, owing to which, he fell and broke his neck!"

* * * * *

If you will take a bank-note, and while you are folding it up according to direction, peruse the following lines, you will arrive at their meaning, with no little admiration for the writer's cleverness:

"I will tell you a plan for gaining wealth, Better than banking, trading or leases; Take a bank-note and fold it up, And then you will find your wealth in-creases.

"This wonderful plan, without danger or loss, Keeps your cash in your hands, and with nothing to trouble it, And every time that you fold it across, 'Tis plain as the light of the day that you double it."

* * * * *

If your "Editor's Drawer," writes a correspondent, is not already full, you may think the inclosed, although an old story, worthy of being squeezed in.

"Soon after the close of the American Revolution, a deputation of Indian chiefs having some business to transact with the Governor, were invited to dine with some of the officials in Philadelphia. During the repast, the eyes of a young chief were attracted to a castor of _mustard_, having in it a spoon ready for use. Tempted by its bright color, he gently drew it toward him, and soon had a brimming spoonful in his mouth. Instantly detecting his mistake, he nevertheless had the fortitude to swallow it, although it forced the tears from his eyes.

"A chief opposite, at the table, who had observed the consequence, but not the cause, asked him 'What he was crying for?' He replied that he was 'thinking of his father, who was killed in battle.' Soon after, the questioner himself, prompted by curiosity, made the same experiment, with the same result, and in turn was asked by the younger Sachem 'What _he_ was crying for?' '_Because you were not killed when your father was_,' was the prompt reply."

* * * * *

Old Matthews, the most comic of all modern comic _raconteurs_, when in this country used to relate the following illustration of the manner in which the cool assumption of a "flunkey" was rebuked by an eccentric English original, one Lord EARDLEY, whose especial antipathy was, to have his servants of the class called "fine gentlemen:"

"During breakfast one day, Lord Eardley was informed that a person had applied for a footman's place, then vacant. He was ordered into the room, and a double refined specimen of the _genus_ so detested by his lordship made his appearance. The manner of the man was extremely affected and consequential, and it was evident that my lord understood him at a glance; moreover, it was as evident he determined to lower him a little.

"'Well, my good fellow,' said he, 'you want a lackey's place, do you?'

"'I came about an upper footman's situation, my lord,' said the gentleman, bridling up his head.

"'Oh, do ye, do ye?' replied Lord Eardley; 'I keep no upper servants; all alike, all alike here.'

"'Indeed, my lord!' exclaimed this upper footman, with an air of shocked dignity. 'What _department_ then am I to consider myself expected to fill?'

"'Department! department!' quoth my lord, in a tone like inquiry.

"'In what _capacity_, my lord?'

"My lord repeated the word capacity, as if not understanding its application to the present subject.

"'I mean, my lord,' explained the man, 'what shall I be expected to do, if I take the _situation_?'

"'Oh, you mean if you take the place. I understand you now,' rejoined my lord; 'why, you're to do every thing but sweep the chimneys and clean the pig-sties, and _those I do myself_.'

"The _gentleman_ stared, scarcely knowing what to make of this, and seemed to wish himself out of the room; he, however, grinned a ghastly smile, and, after a short pause, inquired what _salary_ his lordship gave!

"'Salary, salary?' reiterated his incorrigible lord ship, 'don't know the word, don't know the word, my good man.'

"Again the gentleman explained; 'I mean what wages?'

"'Oh, wages,' echoed my lord; 'what d'ye ask? what d'ye ask?'

"Trip regained his self-possession at this question, which looked like business, and considering for a few moments, answered--first stipulating to be found in hair-powder, and (on state occasions) silk stockings, and gloves, bags and bouquets--that he should expect thirty pounds a year.

"'How much, how much?' demanded my lord rapidly.

"'Thirty pounds, my lord.'

"'Thirty pounds!' exclaimed Lord Eardley, in affected amazement; 'make it guineas, and _I'll live with_ YOU;' then ringing the bell, said to the servant who answered it, 'Let out this _gentleman_, he's too good for me;' and then turning to Matthews, who was much amused, said, as the man made his exit, 'Conceited, impudent, scoundrel! Soon sent him off, soon sent him off, Master Matthews.'"

* * * * *

As specimens of the _retort courteous_ and the _retort uncourteous_, observe the two which ensue:

"Two of the guests at a public dinner having got into an altercation, one of them, a blustering vulgarian, vociferated: 'Sir, you're no gentleman!' 'Sir,' said his opponent, in a calm voice, 'you are no judge!'"

* * * * *

TALLEYRAND, being questioned on one occasion by a man who squinted awfully, with several importunate questions, concerning his leg, recently broken, replied:

"It is quite _crooked_--as you _see_!"

* * * * *

If you have ever been a pic-nicking, reader, you will appreciate the annoyances set forth in these lively lines by a modern poet. We went on one of these excursions in August, not many years ago, and while addressing some words that we intended should be very agreeable, to a charming young lady in black, seated by our side, on the bank of a pleasant lake, in the upper region of the Ramapo mountains, a huge garter-snake crept forth at our feet, hissing at our intrusion upon his domain! How the young lady did scamper!--and how we did the same thing, for that matter! But we must not forget the lines we were speaking of:

Half-starved with hunger, parched with thirst, All haste to spread the dishes, When lo! we find the soda burst, Amid the loaves and fishes; Over the pie, a sudden sop, The grasshoppers are skipping, Each roll's a sponge, each loaf a mop, And all the meat is dripping.

Bristling with broken glass you find Some cakes among the bottles, Which those may eat, who do not mind Excoriated throttles: The biscuits now are wiped and dried, When shrilly voices utter: "Look! look! a toad has got astride Our only plate of butter!"

Your solids in a liquid state, Your cooling liquids heated, And every promised joy by Fate Most fatally defeated: All, save the serving-men, are soured, _They_ smirk, the cunning sinners! Having, before they came, devoured Most comfortable dinners.

Still you assume, in very spite, A grim and gloomy gladness; Pretend to laugh--affect delight-- And scorn all show of sadness While thus you smile, but storm within, A storm without comes faster, And down descends in deafening din A deluge of disaster!

So, friend, if you are sick of _Home_, Wanting a new sensation, And sigh for the unwonted ease Of un-accommodation; If you would taste, as amateur, And vagabond beginner, The painful pleasures of the poor, _Get up a Pic-Nic Dinner_!

* * * * *

There is a good deal of talk, in these latter days, about the article of guano: the right of discovery of the islands where it is obtained, and the like. We remember to have heard something about the discovery and occupation of the first of these islands, that of Ichaboe, which made us "laugh consumedly;" and we have been thinking that a thorough exploration of the Lobos islands might result in a similar discomfiture to the "grasping Britishers."

It seems that a party of Englishmen, claiming to have discovered the island of Ichaboe, landed from a British vessel upon that "rich" coast, and appreciating the great agricultural value of its minerals, walked up toward the top of the heap, to crow on their own dung-hill, and take possession of it in the name of Her Majesty the Queen, with the usual form of breaking a bottle of Madeira, and other the like observances. While they were thus taking possession, however, one of the party, more adventurous than the rest, made his way to the farther slope of a higher eminence, and saw, to his utter discomfiture and consternation, a Bangor schooner rocking in a little cove of the island, a parcel of Yankees digging into its sides, and loading the vessel, and a weazen-faced man administering the temperance-pledge to a group of the natives on a side-hill near by!

He went back to his party, reported what he had seen, and the ceremony of taking possession, in the name of Her Majesty, of an uninhabited island, was very suddenly interrupted and altogether done away with.

* * * * *

The readers of "The Drawer," who may have noticed the numerous signs of _Ladies' Schools_ which may be seen in the suburban streets and thoroughfares of our Atlantic cities, will find the following experience of a Frenchman in London not a little amusing:

"Sare, I shall tell you my impressions when I am come first from Paris to London. De English ladies, I say to myself, must be de most best educate women in de whole world. Dere is schools for dem every wheres--in a hole and in a corner. Let me take some walks in de Fauxbourgs, and what do I see all around myself? When I look dis way I see on a white house's front a large bord, with some gilded letters, which say, 'Seminary for Young Ladies.' When I look dat way at a big red house, I see anoder bord which say, 'Establishment for Young Ladies,' by Miss Someones. And when I look up at a little house, at a little window, over a barber-shop, I read on a paper, 'Ladies' School.' Den I see 'Prospect House,' and 'Grove House,' and de 'Manor House,' so many I can not call dem names, and also all schools for de young females. Day-schools besides. Yes; and in my walks always I meet some schools of Young Ladies, eight, nine, ten times in one day, making dere promenades, two and two and two. Den I come home to my lodging's door, and below de knocker I see one letter. I open it, and I find 'Prospectus of a Lady School.' By-and-by I say to my landlady, 'Where is your oldest of daughters, which used to bring to me my breakfast?' and she tell me, 'She is gone out a governess!' Next she notice me I must quit my apartement. 'What for?' I say: 'what have I dones? Do I not pay you all right, like a weekly man of honor?' 'O certainly, Mounseer,' she say, 'you are a gentleman, quite polite, and no mistakes, but I wants my whole of my house to myselfs for to set him up for a Lady School!' Noting but Ladies' Schools--and de widow of de butcher have one more over de street. 'Bless my soul and my body!' I say to myself, 'dere must be nobody borned in London except leetil girls!'"

* * * * *

Here is a very beautiful thought of that strange compound of Scotch shrewdness, strong common sense, and German mysticism, or _un_-common sense--Thomas Carlyle:

"When I gaze into the stars, they look down upon me with pity from their serene and silent spaces, like eyes glistening with tears over the little lot of man. Thousands of generations, all as noisy as our own, have been swallowed up of Time, and there remains no record of them any more: yet Arcturus and Orion, Sirius and the Pleiades are still shining in their courses, clear and young, as when the shepherd first noted them in the plain of Shinar! 'What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue!'"

* * * * *

There is probably not another word in the English language that can be worse "twisted" than that which composes the burden of the ensuing lines:

WRITE we know is written right, When we see it written write: But when we see it written wright, We know 'tis not then written right; For write, to have it written right, Must not be written right nor wright, Nor yet should it be written rite, But WRITE--for so 'tis written right.

* * * * *

We commend the following to the scores of dashing "spirited" belles who have just returned disappointed from "the Springs," Newport, and other fashionable resorts. The writer is describing a dashing female character, whose "mission" she considered it to be, to take the world and admiration "by storm:"

"With all her blaze of notoriety, did any body _esteem_ her particularly? Was there any one man upon earth who on his pillow could say, 'What a lovely angel is Fanny Wilding!' Had she ever refused an offer of marriage? No; for nobody ever had made her one. She was like a fine fire-work, entertaining to look at, but dangerous to come near to: her bouncing and cracking in the open air gave a lustre to surrounding objects, but there was not a human being who could be tempted to take the dangerous exhibition into his own house! _That_ was a thing not to be thought of for a moment."

* * * * *

"In your Magazine for July," writes a city correspondent, "I notice in the '_Editor's Drawer_,' an allusion to and quotation from '_The Execution of Montrose_,' the author of which you state is unknown or not named. You seem not to be aware that this is one of Aytoun's Ballads, which, with others, was published in London, under the title of 'Lays of the Cavaliers.' But why did you not give the most beautiful verse:

'He is coming! He is coming! Like a bridegroom from his room, Came the hero from his prison, To the scaffold and the doom. There was glory on his forehead, There was lustre in his eye, And he never went to battle More proudly than to die!'

"I quote only from memory, but the original has 'walked to battle'--is not 'went' a better word? The book is full of gems: let me give you one more, which would make a fine subject for an artist. It is from 'Edinburgh after Flodden;' when Randolph Murray returns from the battle, to announce to the old burghers their sad defeat:

'They knew so sad a messenger, Some ghastly news must bring; And all of them were fathers, And their sons were with the King.'"

* * * * *

"How do you spell Feladelfy?" asked a small city grocer of his partner one day, as he was sprinkling sand upon a letter which he was about to dispatch to the "City of Brotherly Love."

"Why, _Fel-a_, Fela, _del_, Feladel, _fy_--Feladelfy."

"Then I've got it right," said the partner (in ignorance as well as in business), "I thought I might have made a mistake!"

* * * * *

DICKENS, in a passage of his Travels in Italy, describes an embarrassing position, and a pursuit of knowledge under difficulties that would have discouraged most learners: "There was a traveling party on board our steamer, of whom one member was very ill in the cabin next to mine, and being ill was cross, and therefore declined to give up the dictionary, which he kept under his pillow; thereby obliging his companions to come down to him constantly, to ask what was the Italian for a lump of sugar, a glass of brandy-and-water, 'what's o'clock?' and so forth; which he always insisted on looking out himself, with his own sea-sick eyes, declining to trust the book to any man alive. Ignorance was scarcely 'bliss' in this case, however much folly there might have been in being 'wise.'"

CONTRIBUTIONS TO OUR DRAWER.

On the 25th December, 1840, when the excitement in diplomatic circles upon the subject of the so-called Eastern question was at its height, an English friend dined with Sir Hamilton Seymour and Lady Seymour, in Brussels. Seymour's note of invitation ran "Will you and your wife come and eat a turkey with us." The dinner was a very good one, but there was no turkey; and on the following day our friend sent him the lines below:

"On the notorious breach of political faith committed by Sir G. Hamilton Seymour, G.C.H., &c., &c., &c. Her Britannic Majesty's Minister Plenipotentiary at the Court of Belgium, on the 25th December, 1840.

"Most perfidious, most base of all living ministers, You deserve to fall back to the rank of plain Misters, Your star taken off, and your chain only serving To fetter your ankles _selon_ your deserving. Don't think that my charge is some trumpery matter Of court etiquette. It is greater, and fatter; Fit cause throughout Europe to spread conflagration, Set King against Kaiser, and nation 'gainst nation. 'Tis a fraud diplomatic--a protocol broken-- The breach of a treaty both written and spoken-- A matter too bad for e'en Thiers' digestion-- The loss of an empire, the great Eastern question! In vain would you move my ambition or pity-- In vain do you offer the province or city-- Neither Bordeaux nor Xeres, nor eke all Champagne, Can make me forgetful of promises vain. Such pitiful make-weights I send to perdition; 'Twas _Turkey_ you promised--at least a partition. 'Twas _Turkey_ you promised--you've broken your word. 'Twas _Turkey_ you promised: and where is the bird?"

Seymour's answer the same day:

"Of eastern affairs most infernally sick, No wonder I failed to my promise to stick. With the subject of _Turkey_ officially cramm'd, If Turkey I dined on, I swore I'd be d--d. But at least, my good friend, and the thought should bring peace, If I gave you no _Turkey_, I gave you no Greece (grease)."

* * * * *

It is related of ex-President Tyler, that from the time of his election to the Vice-Presidency until the death of General Harrison, he kept no carriage on account of the insufficiency of his salary. When, however, he found himself accidentally elevated to the chief Magistracy, the former difficulty being removed, he at once determined to set up an equipage. He accordingly bought a pair of horses, and engaged a coachman, and then began to look about for a vehicle. Hearing of one for sale which belonged to a gentleman residing in Washington, and which had only been driven a few times, the President went to look at it. Upon examination he was perfectly satisfied with it himself, but still he thought it more prudent, before purchasing it, to take the opinion of his Hibernian coachman upon it. Pat reported that it was "jist the thing for his honor."

"But," said Mr. Tyler, "do you think it would be altogether proper for the President of the United States to drive a second-hand carriage?"

"And why not?" answered the Jehu; "_sure and ye're only a second-hand president!_"

* * * * *

We have seen many lazy men (and women, too, for that matter) in our day and generation, but we _do_ think that a little the laziest individual we ever did meet, is a certain bald-headed, oldish gentleman, who lives somewhere in Fourteenth-street near the Fifth Avenue. Standing the other day with a friend, at the southeast corner of Broadway and Union-square, waiting for a Fourth Avenue omnibus, upward bound, we noticed the subject of this paragraph crossing the street, with his arm in a sling. Turning to our companion, who was well acquainted with him, we asked,

"Why, what in the world has happened to Mr. ----'s arm?"

"Oh, nothing at all," was the reply, "he only wears it in a sling, because he is _too lazy to swing it_!"

* * * * *

The following commencement to a legal document, to which our attention was once called in a business-matter is curious enough. The parties mentioned were English people, the names not being uncommon on the other side of the water:

"James Elder, the younger, in right of Elizabeth Husband, his wife, &c., &c."

* * * * *

HENRY ERSKINE is reputed to have been quite as clever a man as his more famous brother. His wit was ready, pungent, and at times somewhat bitter. Another brother, Lord Buchan, as is well known, was pompous, conceited, and ineffably stupid. Upon one occasion, having purchased a new estate in a very picturesque section of the country, he took his brother Henry down to see it. When they arrived at the park gate, Lord Buchan, climbing upon the gate-post, commenced a vehement and florid discourse upon the beauty of the surrounding scenery. After a while his language became so hyperbolical and his gesticulations so violent that Henry, being tired of so extravagant a performance, called out to him, "I say, Buchan, if your gate was as high as your _style_ (_stile_), and you were to happen to fall, you would most certainly break your neck!"

* * * * *

One evening Henry Erskine accompanied the notorious Duchess of Gordon, and her daughter, a sweet girl, who afterward became the Marchioness of Abercorn, to the Opera. At the close of the performance, the duchess's carriage was sought for in vain--the coachman had failed to return for them. No other carriage was to be found, and there was no alternative for the ladies but to walk home in their laced and be-spangled evening dresses. A few minutes after they had started, the duchess, turning to Erskine, said,

"Harry, my dear, what must any one take us for, who should meet us walking the streets at this hour of the night in Opera costume?"

"Your grace would undoubtedly be taken _for what you are_, and your daughter for _what she is not_," was the caustic reply.

* * * * *

A lady, who had a propensity for Newport last summer, but who found it very difficult to induce her husband to take her there, called upon the eminent Doctor Francis, of Bond-street, for the purpose of procuring his certificate of the importance of sea-bathing for the preservation of her health.

"Are you ill, madam?" asked the doctor.

"Not at all, doctor," the lady answered, "but I am afraid that I shall become so, in this extremely hot weather, unless I have the opportunity to bathe in the sea, and thus preserve my health."

"Very well, madam," replied the doctor, "if you are sure that you _can not keep without pickling_, the sooner you start for Newport the better, and I shall have much pleasure in giving you my certificate to that effect."

* * * * *

The following inscription upon a tombstone is to be found in Mechlem church-yard, in England. The poet evidently was of the opinion that so long as he made use of the proper verb, what part of it he employed was of very little consequence:

Long time she strove with sorrow and with care, Died like a man, and like a Christian bear!

* * * * *

There once lived in Scotland a man named John Ford, who abused and maltreated his wife in every possible way. Poor Mrs. Ford, in consequence of injuries to which she was subjected, finally died. Soon after his wife's decease, John came to the sexton of the kirk and expressed a desire to have an epitaph written for the "puir body." "Ye're the mon to do it, Maister Sexton, and an ye'll write one, I'll gie ye a guinea," said the bereaved widower. The sexton was somewhat surprised at the request, and so stated to the petitioner. He said that it was well known that Mrs. Ford's matrimonial life had been any thing but a happy one, and if he wrote any thing, his conscience would only permit him to write the truth. John told him to write exactly what he pleased--that decency required some inscription over the "gudewife's" grave, and that he'd "gie the guinea" for whatever the sexton saw fit to compose. Upon these conditions, the man of the spade finally consented to invoke his muse, and it was agreed that Johnny should call the next evening to receive the epitaph. Accordingly at the appointed time, the following composition was placed in his hands and met with his unbounded approval:

Here lies the body of Mary Ford, We hope her soul is with the Lord, But if for Tophet she's changed this life, Better be there than John Ford's wife.

* * * * *

The only known house-settlement of Gipsies in the world is in Scotland, not very far from Edinburgh. When Sir Walter Scott was a young man he was sent down from the capital to the "Egyptian village" for the purpose of collecting the rents. He was directed upon his arrival to report himself to a certain person whose address was given him and then to follow in all respects this person's instructions. He accordingly upon reaching his destination, at once sent his letter of introduction to the place indicated, and was soon afterward waited upon by the individual to whom he was recommended. The advice which he then received was, to let his presence in the village be known, but to remain at home and by no means attempt to collect any of the rents by calling at the houses. This advice he followed for three days, during which time only two of the gipsies called and paid. After this he was advised to return to Edinburgh, leaving word at the settlement that he had gone back to town where he would be happy to see any of the tenants. In less than a week nearly all made their appearance and paid what they owed. They were unwilling to do under the slightest semblance of coercion what they cheerfully did voluntarily.

The first public recognition of the gipsies as a people in England, is in a proclamation of Queen Elizabeth, in which she directs all sheriffs and magistrates to "aid, counsel, and assist our loving cousin John, Prince of Thebes and of Upper Egypt, in apprehending and punishing certain of his subjects guilty of divers crimes and misdemeanors."

* * * * *

HOGG, the Ettrick shepherd, was an eccentric genius. He was once dining at a table where he was seated next to a daughter of Sir William Drysdale. His companion was a charming young lady--unaffected, affable, and yet withal gifted with considerable shrewdness and cleverness. To some remark which he made, she replied, "You're a funny man, Mr. Hogg," to which he instantly rejoined, "And ye, a nice lassie, Miss Drysdale. Nearly all girls are like a bundle of pens, cut by the same machine--ye're not of the bundle."

We have a friend who knew Hogg well. Our friend once arranged a party for an excursion to Lake St. Mary's, and it was proposed to stop at Hogg's house on the way, and take him up. Before they reached it, however, they saw a man fishing in the "Yarrow," not very far from the high-road. The fisherman the moment that he noticed a carriage full of people whose attention was apparently attracted to himself, gathered up his rod and line and began to run in an opposite direction as fast as his legs could carry him. Our friend descended from the carriage, and shouted after him at the top of his voice. But it was of no use--the fugitive never stopped until he reached an elevated spot of ground, when he turned round to watch the movements of the intruders. Recognizing our friend, he laughingly returned his greeting, and, approaching him, said--we translate his Scotch dialect into the vernacular--"Why, S----, my boy, how are you? Do you know, I took you for some of those rascally tourists, who come down upon me in swarms, like the locusts of Egypt, and eat me out of house and home." His fears removed, he accompanied the party to the lake, and they had a merry day of it.

Hogg's egotism and conceit were very amusing. Witness the following extract from his "Familiar anecdotes of Sir Walter Scott."

"One of Sir Walter's representatives has taken it upon him to assert, that Sir Walter held me in the lowest contempt! He never was further wrong in his life, but Sir Walter would have been still further wrong, if he had done so. Of that, posterity will judge."

* * * * *

There are many engraved portraits of Lord Byron afloat, but it is said that none of them resemble him. A friend of ours, who knew him intimately, assures us that the face of the Macedonian monarch in Paul Veronese's celebrated picture of "Alexander in the tent of Darius" at Venice, is the exact image of his lordship. Standing before it one day with a lady, he mentioned the extraordinary likeness to her in English, when the _cicerone_ who accompanied them, said, "Ah, sir, I see that you knew my old master well. Many a time since his death have I stood and gazed upon that face which recalled his own so strongly to my recollection."

By-the-by, the history of this picture is rather curious.

The artist, whose real name was Paul Caliari, was invited by a hospitable family to spend some time with them at their villa, on the banks of the Brenta. While in the house his habits were exceedingly peculiar. He remained in his room the greater part of the time, and refused to allow any one to enter it on any pretext. The maid was not even permitted to make his bed--and every morning she found the sweepings of the room at the door, whence she was at liberty to remove them. One day the painter suddenly disappeared. The door of the room was found open. The sheets were gone from the bed. The frightened servant reported to the master that they had been stolen. A search was instituted. In one corner of the room was found a large roll of canvas. Upon opening it, it proved to be a magnificent picture--the famous "Alexander in the tent of Darius." Upon close inspection, it was discovered that it was painted upon the sheets of the bed! The artist had left it as a present to the family, and had taken this curious method of evincing his gratitude.

* * * * *

Most travelers in Italy make a pilgrimage to the tomb of Juliet, at Verona. Verona and Shakspeare are, of course, inseparable; but when you are on the spot, little can be found to identify the creations of the poet. We have no more traces of Valentine and Proteus at Verona, than we possess of Launce and his dog at Milan. The _Montecchi_ belonged to the Ghibellines; and as they _joined_ with the _Capelletti_ in expelling Azo di Ferrara (shortly previous to 1207), it is probable that both were of the same party. The laconic mention of their families, which Dante places in the mouth of Sordello, proves their celebrity

"O Alberto tedesco, ch' abbandoni Costei ch' è fatta indomita e selveggia, E dovresti inforcar li suoi arcioni; Giusto guidicio dalle stelle coggia Sovra 'l tuo sangue, e sia nuovo e asserto, Tal che 'l tuo successor temenza n' aggia: Ch' avete, tu e 'l tuo padre, sofferto Per cupidigia di costá distretti, Che 'l giardin dell' 'mperio sia diserto. Vieni a veder Montecchi e Capuletti, Monaldi e Filippeschi, nom senza cura, Color giá tristi, e costor con sospetti."

Purgatorio VI. 97, 109

"O Austrian Albert! who desertest her, (Ungovernable now and savage grown), When most she needed pressing with the spur-- May on thy race Heaven's righteous judgment fall; And be it signally and plainly shown, With terror thy successor to appal! Since by thy lust yon distant lands to gain, Thou and thy sire have suffered wild to run What was the garden of thy fair domain. Come see the Capulets and Montagues-- Monaldi--Filippeschi, reckless one! These now in fear--already wretched those."

Wright's _Dante_.

But the tragic history of Romeo and Juliet can not be traced higher in writing than the age of Lungi di Porto; and as this novelist of the 16th century has borrowed the principal incident of the plot from a Greek romance, it is probable that the whole is an amplification of some legendary story. The _Casa de Capelletti_, now an inn for vetturini, may possibly have been the dwelling of the family; but since that circumstance, if established, would only prove that the _house_ had a _house_, it does not carry us much further in the argument. With respect to the tomb of Juliet, it certainly was shown in the last century, before "the barbarian _Sacchespir_" became known to the Italians. The popularity of the novel would sufficiently account for the localization of the tradition, as has already been the case with many objects described by Sir Walter Scott. That tomb, however, has long since been destroyed; but the present one, recently erected in the garden of the _Orfanotrofio_, does just as well. It is of a reddish marble, and, before it was promoted to its present honor, was used as a watering trough. Maria Louisa got a bit of it, which she caused to be divided into the _gems_ of a very elegant necklace and bracelets, and many other sentimental young and elderly ladies have followed her example.

* * * * *

At the extremity of the Piazzetta in Venice are the _two granite columns_, the one surmounted by the lion of St. Mark, the other by St. Theodore. The lion is somewhat remarkable, as having been the first victim, as far as objects of art are concerned, of the French revolution. From the book which he holds, the words of the Gospel were effaced, and "_Droits de l'homme et du citoyen_" ("rights of man and of the citizen") substituted in their stead. Upon this change a gondolier remarked that St. Mark, like all the rest of the world, had been compelled to turn over a new leaf. The lion was afterward removed to the _Invalides_ at Paris, but was restored after the fall of the capital.

The capitals of the columns speak their Byzantine origin. Three were brought from Constantinople. One sunk into the ooze as they were landing it; the other two were safely landed on the shore; but, as the story goes, there they lay; no one could raise them. Sebastiano Ziani, 1172-1180, having offered as a reward that he who should succeed should not lack any "_grazia onesta_," a certain Lombard, yclept Nicolo Barattiero, or Nick the Blackleg, offered his services; and, by the device or contrivance of wetting the ropes, which contracted as they dried, he placed the columns on their pedestals. Nicolo was now entitled to claim his guerdon: and what did he ask? That games of chance, prohibited elsewhere by the wisdom of the law, might be played with full impunity between the columns. The concession once made could not be revoked; but what did the wise legislature? They enacted that the public executions, which had hitherto taken place at the _San Giovanni Bragola_, should be inflicted in the privileged gambling spot, by which means the space "between the columns" became so ill-omened, that even crossing it was thought to be a sure prognostication, foretelling how the unlucky wight who had ventured upon the fated pavement, would, in due time be suspended at a competent height above the forbidden ground.

Literary Notices.

_Parisian Sights and French Principles, seen through American Spectacles_, Illustrated (published by Harper and Brothers), is the title of one of the most graphic descriptions of life in the French metropolis which have yet been given by any English or American traveler. The author blends reflection and narrative in a very effective manner, depicting the prominent features of French society with a vivid pencil, and deducing the inferences suggested by his varied experience. Short of a personal visit to the great focus of European fashion, there is no way in which one can obtain such a mass of information on the subject, and in so agreeable a manner, as by dipping into this lively volume.

_The Blithedale Romance_, by NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE (published by Ticknor, Reed and Fields), in point of artistic construction is not equal to the "Scarlet Letter," nor the "House of Seven Gables." As a whole, it leaves an unsatisfied and painful impression, as if the author had failed to embody his own ideal in the development of the story. It contains many isolated passages of great vigor, and occasionally some of remarkable sweetness. In his pictures of natural scenery, Mr. Hawthorne often draws from the life, and always reproduces the landscape with startling fidelity. The characters in the story are intended to be repulsive; they illustrate the dark side of human nature; and no reader can recall their memory without a feeling of sepulchral gloom.

_The Discarded Daughter_, by Mrs. EMMA D. E. N. SOUTHWORTH. (Published by A. Hart.) The author of this novel possesses a singularly vivid imagination, and a rare command of picturesque expression. She evinces originality, depth and fervor of feeling, vigor of thought, and dramatic skill; but so blended with glaring faults, that the severest critic would be her best friend. In the construction of her plots, she has no regard for probability: nature is violated at every step; impossible people are brought into impossible situations; every thing is colored so highly that the eye is dazzled; there is no repose, no perspective, none of the healthy freshness of life; we are removed from the pure sunshine and the forest shade into an intolerable glare of gas-light; truth is sacrificed to melo-dramatic effect; and the denouement is produced by ghastly contrivances that vie in extravagance with Mrs. Radcliffe's most superfine horrors. With the constant effort to surprise, the language becomes inflated, and at the same time is often careless to a degree, which occasions the most ludicrous sense of incongruity. It is a pity to see so much power as this lady evidently is endowed with, so egregiously wasted. Let her curb her fiery Pegasus with unrelenting hand--let her consult the truthfulness of nature, rather than yield to a rage for effect--let her tame the genial impetuosity of her pen by a due reverence for classical taste and common sense--and she will yet attain a rank worthy of her fine faculties, from which she has hitherto been precluded by her outrages on the proprieties of fictitious composition.

_The Mormons, or Latter-day Saints_, by Lieut. J. W. GUNNISON. (Published by Lippincott, Grambo, and Co.) The author of this little work has succeeded in the difficult task of doing justice to a new religious sect. Residing for several months in the Great Salt Lake Valley, as a member of the United States Exploring Expedition, and looking upon the singular condition of society that came under his notice with an eye of philosophical curiosity, he had a rare opportunity for studying the history, opinions, and customs of the remarkable people, whose rapid progress is among the note-worthy events of the age. His book contains a lucid description of the country inhabited by the Mormons, a statement of their religious faith and social principles, and a succinct narrative of the origin and development of the sect. Without aiming to excite prejudice against the Mormons, he keeps nothing back, which is essential to a correct view of their position, as respects either belief or practice. His disclosures in regard to the prevalence of polygamy among the "Latter-Day Saints," so called, are of the most explicit character, showing that a plurality of wives is adopted, as a part of their social economy, from a sense of religious duty. The view presented of their theology furnishes the materials for an interesting chapter on the history of mental delusions. We have no doubt that this book will be widely read, and, in the hands of the intelligent and reflecting thinker, will prove fruitful in valuable suggestions.

Harper and Brothers have published a new edition of _Cicero's Tusculan Disputations_, with English Notes by CHARLES ANTHON, LL.D. In preparing this edition, use has been made of the text and notes of Tischer, with occasional reference to the commentaries of Wolf, Moser, and Kühner. Both in the text and notes, however, the erudite Editor has relied on his own judgment, not slavishly adhering to any authority, but freely consulting the suggestions of the most eminent philologists from the time of Bentley to our own days. The work is a model for a college text-book. In the careful supervision which it has received at the hands of Dr. Anthon, he has added to the many valuable services that identify his name with the progress of classical learning in this country.

Derby and Miller have issued a new edition of SARGENT'S _Life of Henry Clay_, revised and brought down to the death of the illustrious statesman, by HORACE GREELY. The leading incidents in Mr. Clay's life are here described in a lively and flowing narrative; his public career is fully exhibited; copious extracts are given from his speeches and letters; and the whole biography is executed with manifest ability, and as great a degree of impartiality as could be demanded, with the decided personal predilections of both author and editor. The proceedings in Congress on the announcement of Mr. Clay's decease, which are given at length, form a very interesting portion of the volume.

_Stray Meditations, or Voices of the Heart_, by JOSEPH P. THOMPSON. (Published by A. S. Barnes and Co.) A collection of fugitive pieces, some of which have already appeared in the columns of various religious journals. They are of a grave, meditative character, deeply tinged with personal feeling--of an elevated devotional spirit--giving a highly favorable impression of the author as a man of great earnestness of purpose, and usually expressed in choice and vigorous language. Mr. Thompson has happily avoided the dangers incident to this style of composition. His volume breathes an air of soft and pious sentiment, but betrays no weak effeminacy; it unvails the most private emotions of the heart, but can not be charged with egotism; and appeals to the most awful sanctions of religion, without indulging in dogmatic severity. As a companion in hours of retirement and thoughtfulness, it can not fail to be welcome to the religious reader.

_Anna Hammer_, translated from the German of TEMME, by ALFRED H. GUERNSEY, is a good specimen of the contemporary popular fiction of German literature. Its author, Temme, is a man of ability; he writes, however, more from the heart than the head; drawing the materials of romance from the sufferings of his country. He took an active part in the late German revolutionary movements, and his political feelings tincture his writings. The present work gives a vivid picture of the interior of German life, and is filled with passages of exciting interest. The translation, by an accomplished scholar of this city, every where shows conscientious fidelity, and is in pure and idiomatic English.

_An Olio of Domestic Verses_, by EMILY JUDSON. This volume composes a collection of the earlier poetry of Mrs. Judson, with several pieces of a more recent date. It shows a rich poetical temperament, a graceful fancy, and a natural ease of versification, which, with more familiar practice and a higher degree of artistic culture, would have given the authoress an eminent rank among the native poets of this country. The admirers of her sweet and brilliant productions, in another line, will find much to justify the enthusiasm with which they greeted the writings of Fanny Forester. Many of these little poems have already been the rounds of the newspapers, where they have won lively applause. (Published by Lewis Colby.)

The Third Volume of CHAMBERS' edition of _The Life and Works of Robert Burns_ (republished by Harper and Brothers), is replete with various interest. No admirer of the immortal peasant-bard should be without this excellent tribute to his genius.

_The Master-Builder_, by DAY KELLOGG LEE. (Published by Redfield.) A story of purely American origin, drawn from the experience of actual life, and containing several happy delineations of character. It describes the fortunes of one who by industry and enterprise, guided by strong native intelligence, rose to honor and prosperity, in the exercise of a useful mechanical vocation. The author frequently shows uncommon powers of description; he is a watchful observer of life and manners; is not without insight into the mysteries of human passion; and, if he could check his tendency to indulge in affectations of language, expressing himself with straight-forward simplicity, he might gain an enviable distinction as a writer.

A. S. Barnes and Co., have issued a new volume of Professor BARTLETT'S _Elements of Natural Philosophy_, containing treatises on Acoustics and Optics. The principles of these sciences are explained with clearness and elegance, the views of the best recent writers being embodied in the work, and accompanied with a variety of apposite illustrations. The portion relating to sound, based on the admirable monograph of Sir John Herschel, will be found to possess much popular interest, in spite of its scientific rigidity of expression, explaining, as it does, the mutual relations of mathematics and music.

UPJOHN'S _Rural Architecture_ (published by G. P. Putnam), forms a useful book of reference for parish-committees, or whoever is intrusted with the charge of erecting new churches, parsonages, or school-houses, more particularly in the country. It gives a number of estimates and specifications, with ample directions for practical use.

_The Dodd Family Abroad_, by CHARLES LEVER. One of the most piquant productions of this side-splitting author is now publishing in numbers by Harper and Brothers. Whoever wishes to be forced into a laugh, in defiance of all sorts of lugubrious fancies, should not fail to read this rich outpouring of genuine Irish humor.

_The Old Engagement_, by JULIA DAY, is a brilliant story of English society, reprinted from the London edition by James Munroe and Co.

_Single Blessedness_, is the title of an appeal in favor of unmarried ladies and gentlemen. An incoherent rhapsody, aiming at every thing and hitting nothing. (C. S. Francis and Co.)

_Lydia; a Woman's Book_, by Mrs. NEWTON CROPLAND, is the title of a popular English work, remarkable for its natural character-drawing, reprinted by Ticknor, Reed, and Fields.

* * * * *

J. D. B. De Bow, Professor of Political Economy in the University of Louisiana, New Orleans, has in press, and will issue in a few days, a work of which we have been permitted to see the sheets, in three large octavo volumes, small and neat print, entitled, _Industrial Resources, Statistics, etc., of the Southern and Western States, with Statistics of the Home and Foreign Trade of the Union, and the Results of the Census of 1850_. The work will be a valuable addition to the library of the merchant, manufacturer, planter, and statesman, and the public have every guarantee of its ability in the active and intelligent services rendered by Professor De Bow to the Industrial Interests of the country, for many years past, in the pages of his invaluable and widely circulated Review.

* * * * *

The following pensions have recently been granted by the British Government in consideration of services in literature or science. To Mrs. Jameson, £100 for her literary merits; to Mr. James Silk Buckingham, £200 for literary merits and useful travels in various countries; Mr. Robert Torrens, F.R.S., £200 for his valuable contributions to the science of political philosophy; to Professor John Wilson, of the University of Edinburgh (Christopher North of "Blackwood"), £300 for his eminent literary merits; to Mrs. Reid, the widow of Dr. James Reid, Professor of Ecclesiastical and Civil History in the University of Glasgow, £50, and £50 to his family, in consideration of Dr. Reid's valuable contributions to literature; to Mrs. Macarthur, widow of Dr. Alexander Macarthur, Superintendent of Model Schools, and Inspector of Irish National Schools, £50; to Mr. John Britton, £75; to Mr. Hinds, the astronomer, £200; to Dr. Mantell, the geologist, £100; and to Mr. Ronalds, of the Kew Observatory, £75.

* * * * *

A bibliographical work on theology and kindred subjects, _Cyclopædia Bibliographica_, is being published in London, which will be a useful index to general theological literature. In the first volume the arrangement of authors and works is alphabetical; in the second, a _catalogue raisonnée_ of all departments of theology under commonplaces in scientific order will be presented. Of special value to theological students, this "Cyclopædia" will also prove an important contribution to general literature.

* * * * *

Mr. STILES'S _Austria in 1848_ has been republished in London. The _Athenæum_ says, "it may be recommended as a plain, continuous, and conscientious narrative to all those who would like to have the events to which it refers brought before them in the compass of one book, so as to be saved the trouble of turning over many."

* * * * *

During the recent discussion among the London booksellers regarding the discount on new books, Mr. William Longman stated that the publishing firm of which he is a partner had long been anxious to publish a new edition of Johnson's _English Dictionary_, that they were willing to pay almost any sum for the literary labor, but that they had not succeeded in procuring a man fully qualified as editor. "The want, however, has been supplied, and the boon has been conferred," says a London journal, "not by an English, but by an American lexicographer, who has produced a Dictionary suitable to the present state of our common language. This is Dr. Goodrich's octavo edition of WEBSTER'S DICTIONARY, which is published at a price which places it within the reach of all the classes to whom it is indispensable; and whether in the school or the counting-house, the library or the parlor, we are confident that this work will be found of the highest value."

* * * * *

M. GUIZOT is about to bring out a _History of the Republic in England, and of the Times of Cromwell_; and he has allowed some of the Paris journals to give a foretaste of it by the publication of a long extract under the title, "Cromwell sera-t-il roi?"

* * * * *

The _Glasgow Citizen_ mentions that an interesting relic of ROBERT BURNS, the poet, is at present for sale at a booksellers in that city. It is a manuscript of the poet, a fasciculus of ten leaves, written on both sides, containing _The Vision_, as originally composed, _The Lass of Ballochmyle_, _My Nannie O_, and others of his most popular songs. The manuscript was sent by Burns to Mrs. General Stewart, of Stair, when he expected to have to go to the West Indies.

* * * * *

General GÖRGEY'S _Memoir of the Hungarian Campaign_ is translated, and will be shortly published. So stringent is the prohibition against this book in Austria, that Prince Windischgrätz, who asked for special permission to purchase a copy, has received a positive refusal.

* * * * *

Dr. HANNA, the editor of the _Biography of Dr. Chalmers_, is engaged in the preparation of a Selection from the Correspondence for early publication.

* * * * *

"It will be pleasant news to our readers," says the _London Leader_, "to hear that MACAULAY has finished two more volumes of his _History_, which may be expected early next season. A more restricted circle will also be glad to hear that GERVINUS is busy with a new work, the _History of the South American Republics_."

* * * * *

LAMARTINE'S sixth volume, of the _Histoire de la Restauration_, seems by far the most excellent in composition. It embraces the period from the execution of Labédoyère to the death of Napoleon at St. Helena. The narrative is full, yet rapid; and the volume contains, among other things, a most curious and interesting paper hitherto unpublished, written by Louis XVIII., giving a private history of the agitations of a change of Ministry.

* * * * *

A list has been published in the French papers of the Professors of the University of Paris who have either been deposed, or have resigned since the 2d of December. Some of the names best known in literature and science to foreign countries are in the list. At the Collége de France, MM. Michelet, Professor of History and Ethics; Quinet, Professor of Germanic Literature; Mikiewicz, of Sclavonic Literature; M. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire, Professor of Greek and Roman Philosophy. At the Sorbonne, M. Jules Simon, Interior Professor of the History of Ancient Philosophy, has been superseded; and M. Cousin, Titular Professor of that chair, has retired. M. Villemain, Professor of French Eloquence; M. Pouillet, Professor of Physics; Cauchy, of Mathematical Astronomy, have refused the oath of allegiance to the President. At the School of Medicine, M. Chomel, Professor of Clinical Medicine, has resigned. At the Ecole Normale, MM. Jules Simon, and Vacherot, Professors of Philosophy, and M. Magy, Superintendent, have refused the oath. Lists are also given of the _démissionnaires_ in the various colleges of Paris. These announcements may have historical as well as biographical interest in after days of French revolutions.

* * * * *

French literature and literary men are beginning to adjust themselves to the new condition of things, and if the Legislative tongue and the Journalistic pen are obliged to submit to restraints, the historian, the novelist, the political economist, and the political philosopher are allowed pretty full swing. A great noise has been made about VICTOR HUGO'S exile, but it seems that he has permission to return, of which he refuses to avail himself, and is settling down in cheap and healthful Jersey. His expulsion, or exile, or voluntary removal, may be a loss to Parisian society, but will probably be a gain to French literature. PROUDHON, just released from prison, is taking pen in hand, a sadder and a wiser man; for his approaching book is to demonstrate, in his own peculiar fashion, the theorem which events have been reciting to France, namely, that its government is not to be conclusively a republic of any set kind, but to belong to him or them whom Providence may have endowed with force and cunning enough to grasp and retain it. HEINRICH HEINE himself, not paralyzed by his frightful illness, works an hour or two daily at a book which will be one of his most interesting--pictures of Parisian men and things, to which he is to prefix a sketch of Parisian society since the Revolution of 1848. MICHELET, in rural solitude, is employed upon his History of the Revolution, while LOUIS BLANC, in London, has just published a new volume of his. BARANTE has brought forth another portion of his pictorially unpicturesque History of the National Convention; LAMARTINE another of his History of the Restoration. The astute GUIZOT fights shy of the history of his own country, and is contributing to some of the chief Paris periodicals fragments on the men and times of the "Great Rebellion" in England. One that is forthcoming is to be entitled, "Cromwell--shall he be King?" which, being translated, means: Louis Napoleon--shall he be Emperor? His old rival, THIERS, is adding another literary association to the many that connect themselves with the Lake of Geneva, and is delighting the good people of that region by his lavish expenditure of Napoleons and general affability.

* * * * *

A translation into French of the works of SAINT THERESA is about to be published; it has been made by a Jesuit. The saint's writings are much admired by her own church; but from the little we know of them, we should think them too rhapsodical and mystical for the public.

* * * * *

Madame GEORGE SAND has addressed a furious letter to a Belgian newspaper, indignantly denying that, as asserted by it, she is in receipt of a pension, or has accepted any money whatever from the present government. Even, she says, if her political opinions permitted her to receive the bounty of Louis Bonaparte, she should think it dishonorable to take it when there are so many of her literary brethren who have greater need of it.

* * * * *

BUFFON'S mansion and grounds at Montbard, in Burgundy, are advertised for sale. In the grounds is an ancient tower of great height, commanding a view for miles around of a beautiful and mountainous country. It was in a room, in the highest part of this tower, that the great naturalist wrote the history which has immortalized his name. It is known that he was accustomed to write in full dress, but, by a striking contradiction, nothing could be more simple than his lofty study; it was a vast apartment with an arched roof, painted entirely green, and the only furniture it contained consisted of a plain wood table and an old arm-chair. The labor which that room witnessed was immense--as Buffon wrote his works over and over again, until he got them to his taste. The "Epoques de la Nature," for example, were written not fewer than eighteen times. He always began his day's work in the tower between five and six o'clock in the morning, and when he required to reflect on any matter he used to walk about his garden.

* * * * *

The French journals report the death of the distinguished artist, TONY JOHANNOT, and also of Count D'ORSAY, who in the later period of his life displayed considerable artistic talent and taste both as a painter and sculptor. But he is more generally known, and will be longer remembered, as a man of fashion, and of public notoriety from his alliance with the Blessington family, the circumstances of which are so well known, and have been recalled at present by the public journals at such length, as to render it needless for us to enlarge upon the subject. Having shown kindness and hospitality to Louis Napoleon when an exile in London, the Prince President was not ungrateful to his former friend, and he has latterly enjoyed the office of Directeur des Beaux Arts, with a handsome salary, and maintained a prominent position in the Court of the Elysée.

General GOURGAUD, the aid-de-camp of Napoleon, and one of his companions at St. Helena, who has recently died at an advanced age, was an author as well as a soldier, having written what he called a refutation of Count Ségur's "History of the Russian Campaign," and having got into a pamphlet dispute with Sir Walter Scott, respecting some of the latter's statements in his "History of Napoleon." With Ségur he fought a duel to support his allegations, and with Sir Walter was very near fighting another. Scott, it may be remembered, showed him up most unmercifully, and made known that, notwithstanding all his professed zeal for Napoleon, there were documents in the English War-Office, written by him at St. Helena, which proved him to have been not one of the most faithful of servants.

* * * * *

The third centenary commemoration of the treaty of Passau was celebrated on the 2d of August in Darmstadt, and in connection with it Dr. Zimmerman, a divine of some celebrity, intends to revise and complete an entire edition of the works of Martin Luther, to be ready for publication on the 26th of September, 1855, the three hundredth anniversary of the "religious peace" established by Charles V.

* * * * *

In German literature of late, there have been very few publications worth announcing. Two works recently published, however, deserve a passing mention. The first is a volume attributed by vague rumor to SCHELLING, upon what authority we can not say, and bearing this comprehensive title, _Ueber den Geist und sein Verhältniss in der Natur_--running rapidly through the whole circle of the sciences physical and social; the second is a history of German Philosophy since KANT, by FORTLAGE of Jena--_Genetische Geschichie der Philosophie seit Kant_. He is a popular expositor, and as his work embraces KANT, JACOBI, FICHTE, SCHELLING, OKEN, STEFFENS, CARUS, SCHLEIERMACHER, HEGEL, WEISSE, FRIES, HERBART, BENEKE, REINHOLD, TRENDELENBURG, &C., it will be interesting to students of that vast logomachy named German Philosophy.

In science we have to note one or two decidedly interesting publications. A massive, cheap, and popular exposition of the Animal Kingdom, by VOGT, under the title of _Zoologische Briefe_--the numerous woodcuts to which, though very rude, are well drawn and useful as diagrams: VORTISCH _Die Jüngste Katastrophe des Erdballs_, and LOTZE _Medicinische Psychologie oder Physiologie der Seele_ will attract two very different classes of students. While the lovers of German Belles Lettres will learn with tepid satisfaction that a new work is about to appear from the converted Countess HAHN-HAHN, under the mystical title of _Die Liebhaber des Kreuzes_, and a novel also by L. MUHLBACH (wife of THEODORE MUNDT) upon Frederick the Great, called _Berlin und Sans Souci_, which CARLYLE is _not_ very likely to consult for his delineation of the Military Poetaster.

* * * * *

Norway has been deprived of one of her most learned historians, Dr. NIELS WULFSBERG, formerly Chief Keeper of the Archives of the Kingdom. The doctor was in the sixty-seventh year of his age. Dr. Wulfsberg was the founder of the two earliest daily papers ever published: the _Mergenbladet_ ("Morning Journal") and the _Fider_ ("Times"); both of which still exist--one under its original title, and the other under that of the _Rigstidenden_ ("Journal of the Kingdom").

Comicalities, Original and Selected.

THE DOG AND HIS ENEMIES, BIPED AND WINGED.

Autumn Fashions.

Our report for October varies but little from that of September, style and texture being similar. In the above engraving we give representations of very elegant modes of toilet for the promenade and the parlor. The figure with the bonnet shows a promenade toilet. Bonnet of lisse crape and tulle puffed. It is covered with white lace, reaching beyond the edge of the brim, falling in front, after what is called the Mary Stuart style. The brim inside is trimmed on the one hand with a tuft of roses mixed up with narrow white blondes; and on the other it has a feather of graduated shades, which is placed outside and then turns over the edge and comes inside near the cheek; strings of white gauze ribbon.

Barege dress, trimmed with taffeta ribbons and fringes bordering the trimmings. Body lapping over, the right on the left, having a flat lapel parallel to the edge. The body is gathered at the waist, on the shoulders, and at the bottom of the back. A No. 22 ribbon forms a waistband, and ties on the left side at the bottom of the lapels. This ribbon matches that used for the trimming of the dress. The sleeve is composed of four frills one over the other. The skirt, which is very full, has seven graduated flounces. All are bordered with a narrow fringe. The lapel of the body, the frills of the sleeves, and flounces of the skirts are ornamented with ribbons; those on the body are No. 9, those on the skirt No. 12. On the lapels and sleeves the No. 9 ribbons are placed at intervals of three inches. On the flounces the No. 12 ribbons, 2-3/4 inches wide, are placed further apart. The white lace which replaces the habit-shirt follows the outline of the body. The under-sleeve is composed of a large _bouillonné_ of thin muslin, tight at the wrist, but falling full over it in the shape of a bell. Two rows of lace fall on the hand.

The other figure represents a HOME TOILET. Taffeta redingote with _moire_ bands; the _moire_ trimmings are edged on each side with a taffeta biais, rather under half an inch wide, and which stands in relief. The joining of the _biais_ and the _moire_ is concealed by a braid about the width of a lace. A _moire_ band with its edges trimmed with _biais_ follows the outline of the body. Three inches wide at top, it narrows to half the width at the waist, and is then continued about 2-1/2 inches wide on the lappet. The skirt is trimmed with five _moire_ bands with _biais_ at their edges. These bands are of graduated width; the top one is 8 inches from the waist, and two inches wide. The interval between each one and the next is 4 inches; the lowest band, which is 4 inches wide, is placed 2 inches from the bottom of the skirt. On the body there are two rows of _moire_ and three on each band of the skirt. These gradually diverge toward the bottom. These last form a width of apron of 32 inches. (The posture of this figure masks the right side of the skirt, and consequently only the middle row and that on the left side are to be seen.) The sleeves, half wide, are terminated by a cuff turned up with _moire_ and a _biais_ on the edge. A row of white lace follows the outline of the body. We see the chemisette composed of a row of lace, an insertion, and round plaits from top to bottom of thin muslin. A muslin _bouillon_ plaits. All the fullness is thrown behind, beginning at the side trimming. The sleeve is open behind, ornamented with buttons, and then edged with _guipure_. A cardinal collar of Venice _guipure_ falls on the neck. The under sleeves are composed of two rows of white _guipure_ following the outline of the sleeve.

FIG. 3 represents a pretty toilet for a girl from nine to eleven years of age. Hair parted down the middle and rolled in plaits at the sides. Frock of white muslin. Short sleeves, body low. Six small-pointed flounces on the skirt. A wide pink silk ribbon passed under the sleeve, is tied at the top in a large bow, so that the sleeve is drawn together in it, and leaves the shoulder visible. A plain band runs along the top of the body, which is plaited lengthwise, in very small plaits.

FIG. 4 represents a graceful cap for the parlor. It is made of _guipure_, ornamented with apple blossoms, and having wide pale-green silk ribbon bows and streamers.

This is a pleasant season for traveling, after the equinoctial storms have passed by. Appropriate dresses are very desirable. None is more so than the foulard dress of a dark color, with branches of foliage and large bouquets of flowers. The same may be said of valencia and poplin de laine, either with Albanese stripes on a plain ground, or a large plaid pattern. A traveling dress should be made like a morning gown, but not exactly; for strings are put in underneath, both before and behind, for the purpose of drawing it, so as to form a pretty plaited body when they are pulled tight. Over the gathers either a ribbon or a band with a buckle must be added. The body may be either low or high, with a small collar having two rows of cambric plaited very fine, or with a jaconet collar having open plaits, or again with a Charles V. collar, made of frieze well starched and lustred. The under sleeves should be always in harmony with the collar.

The bonnet is made half of straw, half of taffeta. The brim is straw veined with black or mixed with aloes, and the crown has a soft top of ruffled taffeta, with a bow of ribbon. On this capote, it is indispensable to put a Cambrai lace vail, that lace being at once substantial, light, and rich in pattern.

As to the feet they are provided with boots of bronze leather, and having low heels and button-holes in vandykes.

The gloves are Swedish leather, dark color, as for instance Russia leather, iron-gray, maroon, or olive.

The traveling corset, called the _nonchalante_, is an article every way worthy of the name. From its extreme elasticity and clever combination it yields to every motion of the body, and supports it without the least compression or inconvenience. This corset is therefore extremely agreeable for travels.

As a general rule, round waists are daily gaining ground; but you must not confound round waists with short waists: for the former, the dressmaker ought, on the contrary, to endeavor to make the sides as long as possible, and merely suppress the point in front.

Vests are still worn, but only to accompany linen and lace waistcoats. The under-sleeves are always wide and floating; the wrists are ornamented with ribbon bracelets matching the colors of the dress.

Boots and shoes are both in very good wear. The shoe is more suitable for the carriage than for walking. Boots of bronze leather, and of a soft light color, are much sought after by the more elegant ladies. These boots have low heels, and are fastened with enamel buttons of the same color as the material of the boots.

Transcriber's Notes:

Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.

Simple typographical and spelling errors were corrected.

Italics markup is denoted by _underscores_.