Chapter 7

Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway, And fools who came to scoff, remained to pray.

Goldsmith.

Accordingly, Mr. St. Leger, his objections having been overruled by Edgar, accepted the place offered him in General Melwyn's family.

In old times it would probably have been called, what it literally was, that of domestic chaplain: and the dignity of the name, the defined office, and the authority in the household which it implies, would not have been without their use--but, in spite of the want of these advantages, Mr. St. Leger managed to perform the duties, which, in his opinion, attached to the office, to the satisfaction of every one.

It had not been without considerable difficulty and hesitation that he had persuaded himself to enter into the plan. He had scruples, as we have seen; and he had, moreover, an almost invincible dislike to any thing approaching to family dependence.

The extremity of his circumstances, however, made him, upon a little consideration, feel that the indulgence of these latter mentioned feelings of pride and delicacy, was not only unreasonable but almost positively wrong. And, as for the scruples connected with his profession, Edgar did not find it difficult to dissipate them.

He set forth, what was in truth the present state of the family at the Hazels, and enlarged upon the very great need there was for the introduction of more religious views than now prevailed. According to a fashion almost universally prevalent when General Melwyn was young, except with those of professed religious habits, and who were universally stigmatized as Methodists, family prayer had been utterly neglected in his family. And, notwithstanding the better discipline maintained since the evil star of Randall had sunk beneath the horizon, not the slightest approach to regularity, in this respect, had been as yet made. Mrs. Melwyn was personally pious, though in a timid and unconfiding way, her religion doing little to support and strengthen her mind; but the general, though he did not live, as many of his generation were doing, in the open profession of skepticism, and that contempt for the Bible, which people brought up when Tom Paine passed for a great genius, used to reckon so clever, yet it was but too probable that he never approached his Creator, in the course of the twenty-four hours, in any way; nor had he done so, since he was a child at his mother's knee.

The young captain and his lady were blest with loving, pious, simple dispositions. They loved one another--they delighted in the dear, happy world in which they lived, and in the sweet little creature, their own darling and most precious possession, and they both loved, and most gratefully served their God, who had given them all these good things, and loved him with the full warmth of their feeling hearts. They showed their reverence for divine things by every means in their power: and though they were not of those who go about hurling the awful vengeance of God, upon all they may think less pious than themselves, they were naturally anxious, and as advancing years brought increase of serious thought, they became more and more anxious that their parents should share the consolations, and their house hold the moral guidance to be derived from a better system.

Then, as I hinted to you before, in anticipation of this change, there had been a very serious neglect, upon the part of this family, of all those duties connected with the poor and ignorant. None of those efforts were here made to assist in softening the evils of destitution, or in forwarding the instruction of the young, which almost every body, nowadays, considers such obvious duties.

Such were among the considerations urged by Edgar, and to such Mr. St. Leger yielded.

The general was profuse in his offers as regarded salary, and gave Edgar a _carte blanche_ upon the matter; but Mr. St. Leger would only accept of one hundred a year, and this, with the stipulation that so soon as the state of his health would enable him, he should be at liberty to undertake the duties belonging to a curate for Mr. Thomas, without diminishing that gentleman's slender stipend by receiving any remuneration from his hands.

This last part of the arrangement was particularly acceptable to Mr. St. Leger, as he thought with the highest satisfaction upon the probability now opening of resuming his clerical duties, and of thus being able to repay the debt of gratitude he felt to be owing to the good old vicar.

* * * * *

And now behold Mr. St. Leger introduced as a member of the family at the Hazels, and shedding, on his part, as Lettice had before him done, upon hers, a new set of benign influences upon this household.

He was installed the first day by the general, with much politeness and some little formality, in Edgar's place, at the bottom of the table; that young gentleman having made it his particular request that he might see his friend sitting there before his departure. With due gravity was all this done; while Edgar, chuckling with delight, came and popped down in his place by the side of his wife.

The young stranger, looking extremely quiet and composed, without fuss, ceremony, or hurry, took the place appointed to him; but, before seating himself, with a serious air, he opened his ministerial functions, by saying grace.

Not as the general was wont to say it--for say it he did, more as if making a grimace than even as going through a form--but so impressively and reverently, though very briefly, that the hearts of those about to sit down, were touched, and they were reminded in spite of themselves, as they ought to be reminded, that there is One above all who is the Giver of these good things.

The scene was striking. The very footmen--the officer's footmen--paused, napkin in hand; astonished--awe-struck by the service. They stood and stared with vacant eyes, but remained stock still.

That over, the dinner went on as usual. People ate and drank with cheerful enjoyment. They all, indeed, felt particularly warm-hearted and comfortable that day. A sort of genial glow seemed to pervade the little party. The footmen rushed about more light-footed and assiduous than ever; and, be it observed to their credit, they were all, without exception, most particularly attentive to the new comer.

In the evening, at ten o'clock, the bell rang for prayers.

Mr. St. Leger, be it understood, had not stipulated for obligatory attendance upon this service--only for the right to have candles in the library, and of reading prayers to such as might chose to come; but Mrs. Melwyn had ordered the servants to attend; and she, and Edgar, and Catherine, were also there, leaving poor Lettice to take charge of the general.

The service was short, but impressive, as the grace had been before. It was necessarily very brief, for the voice of the fair and delicate young man, looking, indeed, as we might imagine one of the angels of the churches, figured in Scripture, was so extremely feeble that more he could not do.

But even if he had possessed the power, I question whether much more he would have done, he looked upon impressive brevity as the very soul of such exercises in a family like the present.

Poor Lettice! how hard she found it that evening to remain playing backgammon with the general, when the rest went out of the room. Going to attend those services to which she had been accustomed in the house of her father; and after which, during her stay here, her heart had so often yearned; but it could not be.

She was, however, consoled by a whisper from Catherine, as she came back, passing her upon her way to take her place by the fire.

"To-morrow you go and I stay. We will take it in turns."

The new plans were of course--as what taking place in a family is not--discussed in full conclave that evening over the kitchen fire.

The servants all came back and assembled round it preparatory to washing up and going to bed; for though it was summer and warm weather, what servant in the world does not enjoy the kitchen fire in the evening, be the weather what it may? And, to tell truth, there are not a few in the parlor, who usually would be glad to share the privilege; but to proceed.

"Well, Thomas, how do _you_ like these new ways of going on?" asked Mary, the serious, stiff, time-dried, and smoke-dyed head-laundress--a personage of unknown antiquity, and who had been in the family ever since it was a family--addressing the fine powdered gentleman in silk stockings, and pink, white, and silver livery, who leaned negligently against the chimney-piece.

"For my part, I'm glad, indeed, to see serious ways taken up in this house; but how will it suit the rest of you? And especially you, my fine young gentleman?"

"Why," answered Thomas, assuming a grave and thoughtful aspect, "I'm going to confess something which will, perhaps, astonish you, Mistress Mary--and thus it is--if I'd been told twelve months ago that such new regulations were to be introduced into this household, I have very great doubts whether I could have made up my mind to have submitted to them; but within these few hours, d'ye see, there's been a change."

"Bravo, Thomas!" said the butler; "a conversion like--I've heard of such things in my time."

"Call it what you will, Mr. Buckminster, I call it a change--for a change there has been."

"What! well! what!" from different voices round. "Do tell us all about it."

"Why, Charles, you were there; and Mr. Buckminster, you were there too. But Charles is young and giddy; and Mr. Buckminster being always rather of the serious order, very probably the effect you see was not produced so strongly upon either of them as upon me."

"What effect? Well--"

"Why of the grace, as was said before they sat down to dinner."

"The grace! Was it the first time you ever heard grace said, you booby?"

"Yes, I'd heard grace said--I should suppose as often as any as may be here--though, perhaps, not so sensible to its importance and value as some present, meaning you, Mistress Mary. The general, for one, never used to omit it; but, save us! in what a scuffling careless manner it was said. I protest to you, I thought no more of it than of Mr. Buckminster taking off the covers and handing them to me. Just as a necessary preliminary, as they say, to the dinner, and nothing on earth more."

"Well, do go on, Thomas. It's very _interesting_," said Mistress Mary, and the rest gathered closer, all attention.

"Well, I was a-going to go scuttling about just as usual, thinking only of not making any noise lest I should see the general--heeding no more of the grace than of what cook was doing at her fire--when that young gentleman, as is come newly among us, bent forward and began to speak it. The effect upon me was wonderful--it was electric--Mr. Buckminster, you know what I mean; I stood as one arrested--I couldn't have moved or _not_ cared if it had been never so--I really couldn't. It seemed to me as if he truly _was_ thanking God for the good things that were set before them. Their plenty, and their comfort, and their abundance; it seemed to me as if things were opened to my mind--what I had never thought of before--who it was--who _did_ give them, and us after them, all sorts of delicacies, and food, and drink, when others might be wanting a morsel of bread; and I seemed to be standing before Him--I felt need to thank Him with the rest.... All this flashed through me like lightning; but he had done in a moment, and they all sat down."

"How beautiful Thomas does talk when he has a mind," whispered the under-housemaid to the under-laundry-maid. "What a fine tall young man he is, and what a gift of the gab."

"Well," said the rest, "go on--is there any more?"

"Yes, there is more. Someway, I could not get it out of my head--I kept thinking of it all dinner. It was as much as I could do to mind what I was about; and once I made such a clatter in putting a knife and fork upon a plate, that if it hadn't been for the greatest good luck in the world, I should have got it. But the general was talking quite complacent like with the two young gentlemen, and by huge good fortune never heeded."

"Well!"

"Well, when I got into the pantry and began washing up, I had more time for quiet reflection. And this is what I thought. What a lot of lubberly, inanimated, ungrateful, stupid slaves we all must be. Here serving an earthly master, to the best of our abilities, for a few beggarly pounds, and for his meat and drink and fine clothing; and very well contented, moreover, when there's roast beef of a Sunday, or plum-pudding, and a glass of wine besides on a wedding-day or a birthday; and thank him, and feel pleased with him, and anxious next day to do better than ordinary, mayhap--And there's the Great Master--the Lord and Giver of all, who made us by his hand, and created us by his power, and feeds us by his bounty, and shelters us by his care; and all for no good of his, but ours--simply ours. For what's he to get of it, but the satisfaction of his merciful and generous spirit, when he sees his poor creatures happy?

"And we are such dolts! such asses! such brute beasts! such stocks! such stones! that here we go on from day to day, enjoying the life he gives us, eating the bread and meat he gives us, drinking his good refreshments, resting upon his warm beds, and so on.... Every day, and every day, and every day--and who among us, I, most especially for one, ever thinks, except may be by scuttling through a few rigmarole words--ever thinks, I say, of thanking _Him_ for it--of lifting up a warm, honest heart, of true real thanking, I mean? Of loving Him the better, and trying to serve and please Him the better--when He, great and powerful as He is--Lord of all the lords, emperors, and kings, that ever wore crowns and coronets in this world--condescends to _let_ us thank Him, to _like_ us to thank Him, and to take pleasure in our humble love and service!"

Ha paused--every eye was fixed upon the speaker.

"And, therefore," continued Thomas, turning to the laundry-maid, who stood there with a tear in her eye; "therefore, Mistress Mary, I _am_ pleased with, and I do _like_ these new ways of going on, as you say; and I bless God, and hope to do it well in my prayers this night, for having at last made of us what I call a regular Christian family."

* * * * *

I have told you, a little in the way of anticipation, that the popularity of Mr. St. Leger's new measures was not confined to the kitchen; but that the general, by slow steps, gradually conformed to the new usages established at the Hazels.

Lettice and Catherine had not long to take it it turns to stay out with him, playing backgammon, at the time of evening prayers.

At first it was a polite--"Oh, pray don't think of staying in the drawing-room upon my account; I can do very well by myself."... Next it was, "Nay, rather than that, I will go into the library too; why should I not?" He began to feel, at first, probably, from a vague sense of propriety only, but before long from better reasons, that it was not very seemly for the master of the house alone to be absent, when the worship of God was going on in his family.

So there he might, as I told you, ere long be seen, regularly at night--in the morning more and more regularly--muttering the responses between his teeth at first; at length, saying them aloud, and with greater emphasis than any of the rest of the little congregation. His once majestic figure, now bent with age, towering above the rest; and his eagle eye of authority, still astonishingly piercing, rolling round from time to time, upon the watch to detect and rebuke, by a glance, the slightest sign of inattention upon the part of any of those assembled.

It was a beautiful picture that evening meeting for prayer, for the library was a very ancient room, it having retained the old fittings put in at the time the Hazels was built, some three half centuries ago. The massive and handsome book-cases of dark oak; the family pictures, grim with age, which hung above them; the urns and heads of old philosophers and poets adorning the cornice; the lofty chimney-piece, with the family arms carved and emblazoned over it; the massive oaken chairs, with their dark-green morocco cushions; the reading-desk; the large library table, covered with portfolios of rare prints; and large books containing fine illustrated editions of the standard authors of England; gave a somewhat serious, almost religious aspect to the apartment.

Mrs. Melwyn, in her soft gray silks and fine laces; her fair, colorless cheek; her tender eyes bent downward; her devout, gentle, meek, humble attitude and expression; Catherine by her side, in all the full bloom of health and happiness; that charming-looking, handsome Edgar; and Lettice, with so much character in her countenance, seated upon one side of the room, formed a charming row of listening faces, with this rugged, magnificent-looking old general at their head.

On the opposite side were--the grave, stern, old housekeeper, so fat, so grave, and so imposing; Mrs. Melwyn's new maid, a pretty young woman, in the lightest possible apology for a cap, trimmed with pink ribbons; the laundry-maid, so serious, and sitting stiff and starched as one of her own clear muslins; the cook and housemaid looking as attentive as they could; and the under-servants staring with vacant eyes--eyes that looked as if they were ready to drop out of their heads; Mr. Buckminster, as the charming Dickens has it, _so_ "respectable;" Thomas, all spirit and enthusiasm; and Charles doing all in his power not to fall asleep.

At the table the young minister, with that interesting and most delicate face of his; his tall, wasted figure bending forward, his fair, emaciated hands resting upon the book, from which, in a voice low and feeble, but most penetrating and sweet, he read.

They would come back to the drawing-room in such a composed, happy, cheerful frame of mind. The general more remarkably so. He felt more self-satisfaction than the others; because the course of proceeding was so new to him that he imagined it to be very particularly meritorious. A bit of a pharisee you will think--but not the least of that, I assure you. Only people, at their first trying of such paths, do often find them most peculiarly paths of pleasantness and ways of peace; and, this sort of peace, this being at ease with the conscience, is, to be sure, very soothing and comfortable.

In short, nothing could proceed better than things did; and every one was quite content but the charming match-maker, Catherine.

She watched, and watched with the greatest interest; but watch as she might, she could detect no symptoms of falling in love upon the part of Mr. St. Leger.

He spent, indeed, the whole of his mornings either in his own room or in the library, absorbed in the books of divinity, of which there happened to be a very valuable collection; a collection which had slept undisturbed upon the shelves for many and many a long year. These afforded to him a source of interest and improvement which he had never enjoyed since he had left the too often neglected library of the small college where he had been educated. He was ready to devour them. Every moment of time he considered his own--and the whole of the morning was chiefly at his disposal--was devoted to them; with the exception, be it mentioned, of a large portion, which, when the weather would allow, was spent in visiting among the poor at that end of the parish.

At dinner Mr. St. Leger for the first time joined the family party. When he did, however, it must be confessed, he made ample amends for his absence, and was excessively agreeable. He had great powers of conversation, and evidently considered it his duty to exert himself to raise the tone of conversation at the general's table, so as to make the time pass pleasantly with the old man. In this Edgar and Catherine seconded him to the best of their power.

Lettice said little. She sat at the bottom of the table, by Mr. St. Leger; but though he often addressed her--taking care that she should not feel left out--as did Catherine also, she was very silent. She had not, indeed, much that she could venture to say. When conversation took this higher tone, she felt afraid of her own ignorance; and then she first knew what it was to lament not having had a better education.

As they grew more intimate--for people who sit side by side at dinner every day can not help growing intimate--Mr. St. Leger would gently remark upon this reserve; and one day he began to speak openly upon the subject. He had attributed her silence, I believe, to a bashful feeling of inferiority in rank; for her face was so intelligent and full of meaning, that he did not divine its real cause, so he said, with a certain gentle abruptness which became him much:

"I have discovered a fault in you, Miss Arnold, at last; though every body here seems to think it impossible you should have one. May I tell you of it?"

"Oh! if you once begin with my faults, I am afraid you will never have done. I know the length of the score that might be summed up against me, though others are so good-natured as to forget it. Yes, indeed, I shall be much obliged to you."

"Don't you think it is the duty of all to exert themselves in a family party, to make conversation circulate in an agreeable manner?"

"To be sure, I do--and" ... how well you perform that duty, she was prompted to say, but she did not. She hesitated a little, and then added--"And, perhaps, you think I do not do that so much as I ought to do."

"Precisely. You will not be angry. No, you can not be angry. You never are. The most trying and provoking things, I observe, can not ruffle you. So I will venture to say, that I think you don't play fair by me. We are both here chiefly to make ourselves agreeable, I believe; and I sometimes wish I had a little more assistance in that duty from one who, I am sure, could perform it admirably, if she so pleased."

Lettice shook her head. Then she said, with her usual simplicity, "I used to talk more before you came."

"Did you? But that's not quite generous, is it, to throw the whole burden upon me now I _am_ come, instead of sharing it? Why will you not talk now?"

"Simply, because I can't. Oh, Mr. St. Leger! the talk is so different since you came here, and I feel my own incapacity so sadly--my own ignorance so forcibly--I should say so painfully; but that, indeed, is not my own fault, and that takes the worst pain, you know, out of things."

"Ignorant!" he said: "of what?"

"Of all these things you talk about. I used to pick up a little from the newspapers, but now I have done reading them I seem literally to know nothing."

"Nothing! Nothing about books, I suppose you mean; for you seem to me to understand men and things better than most people I have met with."

"I have experienced more, perhaps, than most girls of my age have done, through my poverty and misfortunes; but what is that?"

"Ah, Miss Arnold! what is it but the best part of all knowledge; to understand one's self and others; the best of all possessions; to possess one's own spirit. But I beg your pardon, I will only add, that I do not, by what I say, intend at all to undervalue the advantages of reading, or the happiness of having a love of reading. Do you love reading?"

"Why, I don't quite know. I find the books I read aloud to Mrs. Melwyn often very tiresome, I must confess."

"And what sort of books do you read to Mrs. Melwyn?"

"Why, only two sorts--novels and essays."

He laughed a little, in his quiet way, and then said, "I wonder at any young lady disliking novels; I thought it was the very reading they liked best; but as for essays, with very few exceptions, I must own I share in your distaste for them."

"I can't understand them very often. I am ashamed to say it; but the writers use such fine language and such strange new words, and then they go over and over again upon the same thought, and illustrate it twenty different ways, when one happy illustration, I think, would be so much better; I like a writer who marches promptly through a subject; those essayists seem as if they never could have done."

"What you say is just, in many instances, I think. It is a pity you have not tried other reading. History, travels, poetry; you can not think how pleasantly such subjects seem to fill and enlarge the mind. And if you have a little time of your own, you can not easily believe, perhaps, how much may be done. Even with an hour each day, of steady reading, a vast deal."

"Ah! but where shall I begin? Every body reads Hume's History of England first, and I have never even done that; and if I were to begin I should never get to the end of it."

"Oh, yes, but you would, and be surprised to find how soon that end had arrived, and what a pleasant journey you had made. But if you are frightened at Hume, and I own he _looks_ formidable, let me select you something in the library, to commence operations with, which will not be quite so alarming."

"Oh! if you would...."

"With the greatest pleasure in the world. If you will allow me to assist you a little in the choice of your books, I think, with the virtue of perseverance--and I know you have all the virtues--you would get through a good deal in a comparatively short space of time; and when I reflect how much it would add to your happiness, as it does to every one's happiness, I confess I can not feel easy till I have set you going."

This conversation had been carried on in a low voice, while the rest had been talking over some family matters together. The speakers at the head of the table stopped, and the silence aroused the two. Catherine glanced at them suddenly; she saw Lettice color a little, but Mr. St. Leger preserved the most provoking composure.

The evenings Mr. St. Leger devoted exclusively to the good pleasure of the general. He read the newspapers, making them the vehicle of the most intelligent and agreeable comments, he looked out the places mentioned in the maps, and had something perpetually to say that was interesting of this or that. He answered every question the general wanted solved in the cleverest manner; and, in short, he so won upon the old man's heart, that he became quite attached to him. The evenings, once so heavy, and spent in a sort of irritable fretfulness, became quite delightful to him: nor were they less delightful to others. At last, things came to that pass that the wearisome backgammon was given up, and reading aloud took its place. The ladies worked and read in turns, Edgar taking double tides, and Mr. St. Leger doing a little, which he insisted upon, assuring them that it did not hurt his chest at all. He was, indeed, getting stronger and better every day; he was a beautiful reader.

Lettice sat plying her busy needle, but with a countenance so filled with intelligent pleasure, that it is not to be wondered at if Mr. St. Leger, when his reading was over, and he had nothing else to do, and, the books being usually such as he was well acquainted with, not much at the moment to think of, took pleasure in observing her.

He had not forgotten his promise of selecting authors for her own private studies; he seemed to take much benevolent pleasure in endeavoring to compensate to this generous and excellent creature, for the intellectual disadvantages of a life devoted to others as hers had been. He usually, also, found or made an opportunity for talking over with her what she had been reading; and, he believed, in all sincerity, and so did she, that he was actuated in these proceedings merely, as I said, by the disinterested desire of offering compensation for past sacrifices; stimulated by the very high value he himself attached to mental cultivation, regarding it as the best source of independent happiness both for men and women.

But whatever were the motives with which he began this labor of kindness, it is certain as he proceeded therein a vast deal more interest and pleasure were mingled up with this little task than had been the case at first.

Her simple, unaffected purity of heart; her single-mindedness, unstained by selfish thought, pride, or vanity, or folly, in its simplicity and singleness of purpose, were displayed before him. The generous benevolence of purpose; the warm and grateful piety; the peculiar right-mindedness; the unaffected love for all that was excellent, true, good, or beautiful, and the happy facility of detecting all that was good or beneficial wherever it was to be found, and wherever observed; the sweet cheerfulness and repose of the character; that resemblance to a green field, which I have heard a husband of only too sensitive a nature gratefully attribute to his partner; all this worked strongly, though unmarked.

Mr. St. Leger began to experience a sense of a sweetness, solace, and enjoyment, in the presence of Lettice Arnold, that he had not found upon this earth for years, and which he never had hoped to find again.

But all this time he never dreamed of falling in love. His imagination never traveled so far as to think of such a thing as appropriating this rare blessing to himself. To live with her was his destiny at present, and that seemed happiness enough; and, indeed he scarcely had got so far as to acknowledge to his own heart, how much happiness that privilege conferred.

She, on her side, was equally tranquil, undisturbed by the slightest participation in the romance Catherine would so gladly have commenced. She went on contentedly, profiting by his instructions, delighting in his company, and adoring his goodness; but would as soon have thought of appropriating some "bright particular star" to herself as this gifted man.

She deemed him too infinitely her superior.

Well, it is no use keeping the matter in suspense any longer. You all see how it must end.

You do not fret and worry yourselves as Catherine did, and abuse Mr. St. Leger for his indifference. You see plainly enough that two such very nice people, and so excellently suited to each other, must, thrown together as they were every day, end by liking each other, which, but for the previous arrangements of the excellent Catherine, would have been a very perplexing business to all parties.

When at last--just before Edgar and his wife were going to sail for Canada, and he and she were making their farewell visit at the Hazels--when at last Mr. St. Leger, after having looked for two or three days very miserable, and having avoided every one, and particularly poor Lettice--to whom he had not spoken a word all that time, and who was miserable at the idea that she must have offended him--when at last he took Edgar out walking, and then confessed that he thought it no longer right, safe, or honorable, for him to remain at the Hazels, finding, as he did, that one creature was becoming too dear to him; and he trembled every moment, lest by betraying his secret he might disturb her serenity. When at last the confession was made, and Edgar reported it to his wife--then Catherine was ready to jump for joy. In vain Edgar strove to look wise, and tell her to be reasonable. In vain he represented all the objections that must be urged against her out-of-the-way scheme, as he was ill-natured enough to call it. She would hear of none.

No, nothing. She was perfectly unreasonable--her husband told her so--but it was all in vain. Men are more easily discouraged at the idea of any proceeding out of the usual course than women are. They do not, I think, set so much value upon _abstract_ happiness, if I may use the term; they think more of the attending circumstances, and less of that one ingredient--genuine happiness--than women do.

Catherine could and would think of nothing else, but how perfectly these two were suited to each other, and how excessively happy they would be.

Dear, good thing! how she labored in the cause, and what a world of contradiction and trouble she had to go through. First, there was Mr. St. Leger himself, to be persuaded to be happy upon her plan, the only possible plan under the circumstances; then there was Lettice to persuade that Mr. St. Leger's happiness and dignity would not be hazarded; then there was Edgar to reason out of calling her romantic; and last of all there was the general, for Mrs. Melwyn, I consider, as Catherine did, already persuaded.

This last task _did_ appear formidable. She put it off as long as she could; she got every body else in the right frame of mind before she ventured upon it; she had persuaded both Edgar and Mrs. Melwyn to second her, if need were, and at length, with a dreadful feeling of trepidation, she broached the subject to the old veteran. With all the coolness she could muster she began her speech, and laid the whole matter before him. He did not interrupt her while she spoke by one single word, or remark good, bad, or indifferent. It was awful--her poor little heart fluttered, as if it were going to stop; she expected the storm every instant to burst forth in some terrible outbreak. She sat there shuddering at her own rashness. If even Edgar had called her absurd, what would her father do! If St. Leger himself had been so difficult to manage, what would the old general say! He said nothing. She would not be discouraged: she began to speak again, to recapitulate every argument; she warmed with the subject; she was earnest, eloquent, pathetic--tears were in the good creature's eyes; still he was silent. At last, wearied out with useless exertion, she ceased to urge the matter any further; and endeavoring to conquer her feelings of deep disappointment, looked up in his face to see whether the slightest relenting expression was visible in it. No; his eyes were fixed upon the floor; he seemed lost in deep thought.

"Papa," she ventured to say, "have you heard all I have been saying?"

"Yes, child."

Silence again for a few minutes, then--"Catherine, did you ever know me do a good action in your life?"

"Dear papa, what a question."

"Did you ever know me, I say, to do one thoroughly generous, benevolent action, without regard to self in the slightest degree--such as I call--such as alone merits the name of a really _good_ action? If you ever did, I can't easily forgive you."

"Dearest papa! what have I done? Did I ever say? Did I ever hint? Dear papa!" and she looked ready to cry.

"Did you ever?--no--I know you never did."

"Don't say so--don't think so badly of me, papa."

"I'm not thinking badly of you, child--God forbid; for well he knows if I ever did one really generous, benevolent action--one without reference to self.... Heaven bless thee, thou dearest thing, thy life seems only made up of such actions; but I say again, did you ever?--No; I know you never did--and I'll tell you why I know it."

"Ah, papa! What _can_ you mean?"

"Because," he went on without seeming to mind her emotion, "because, I observe, that whenever you want to persuade other people--your mother, or Edgar, or Lettice, for instance--to do something you've set your heart upon, you hussy--you always enlarge upon the happiness it will give to other people; but when you're trying to come round me, you only talk of how comfortable it will make myself."

She could only utter a faint exclamation. The accusation, if accusation it may be called, was not to be denied.

"Now, Catherine, since this young man came into the house, what with his conversation, he's a most gentlemanlike, agreeable converser as ever I met with ... and the prayers, and the chapters, and such like; and, in short, a certain new tone of thought altogether; there has been gradually something new growing up in me. I have at times begun to think back upon my life, and to recollect what a nasty, mean, greedy, calculating, selfish fellow I've been throughout, never troubling myself about other people's comforts, or so on, but going on as if every body was only created to promote mine; and I'd have been glad, Catherine, before I went into my grave, which won't be long too--I own to you I would have been glad, for once in my life to have done a purely good, unselfish thing--made a sacrifice, as you pious folk call it; and, therefore, to own the truth, I have been very sorry, and could not help feeling disappointed, as here you've sat prosing this half hour and more, showing me what a great deal I was to get by this notable arrangement of yours."

"Papa!--dearest--dear papa!"

"Be quiet--I have indeed--I'd have liked to have had something to give up, instead of its being, as I verily believe it is, the most charmingly delightful scheme for your mother and me that ever was hit upon--for that man is the happiness of my life--my body's comfort and my soul's health--and Lettice is more like a dear child than any thing else to that poor mother of yours, whom I have not, perhaps, been so considerate of as I ought; and to have them thus fixed together in this house, is better luck than could be conceived, such as scarcely ever happens in this world to any body; and far better than I--almost better than your poor mother deserves. So you're a darling little courageous creature for planning it, when I'll be bound they all thought you a fool, so have it all your own way, and give your old father a kiss," which she joyfully did. "And now you go to Mr. St. Leger, and tell him from me, that if he consents to this scheme I shall esteem it the greatest favor and satisfaction that was ever conferred upon me in my life. I know what it is to be thus trusted by such a man--I know the confidence on his part which such an arrangement implies--and you may add, that if he will only extend to me his usual indulgence for human folly and frailty, I will do every thing that is in the power of an ill-tempered, good-for-nothing, selfish old fellow, to prevent him repenting his bargain. And tell Lettice she's a darling, excellent creature; and I have thought so long, though I have said little about it, and she has been like an angel of love and peace in our family; and if she will only go on as she has done, she will make us all as happy as the day is long; and tell your mother I wish I did not enjoy the thoughts of this so much myself, that I might have the pleasure of making an offering of my satisfaction to her."

"Dear!--dear beloved papa!"

"Stop a little, child; Edgar and you will have to pay the piper, you know."

"Oh, gladly! thankfully!"

"Because you see, my dear, if these two people marry and live with us, and become as children, I must treat them, in a manner, as children, and make a little codicil to my will; and you and Edgar will be something the worse for it. But, bless you, child, there's enough for all."

"And bless you, my honored, generous father, for thinking so; that there is. Edgar and I only earnestly desired this; thank you, thank you, ten thousand times."

I will only detain you for a few moments longer, to tell you that the scheme was carried into execution, and fully answered the hopes of the generous contriver.

Mr. St. Leger found, in the attachment of Lettice, a compensation for the cruel sufferings of his past life; and, under her tender and assiduous care, he speedily recovered his health and his powers of usefulness. She, while performing a woman's best and happiest part, that of proving the true happiness of an admirable and a superior man, contrived likewise to fulfill all her other duties in the most complete and exemplary manner.

It would be difficult to say, whether the happiness she felt or conferred was the greater.

Exceptional people may venture upon exceptional measures. Those who are a great deal more sweet tempered, and loving, and good, and reasonable than others, may venture to seek happiness in ways that the generality would be mad to attempt.

And sensible, well-principled, right-tempered human beings, one may take into close family intimacy, and discard that reserve, and those arm's-length proceedings, which people's faults, in too many cases, render prudent and necessary.

It was because the subjects of Catherine's schemes were so excellent, that the object of them was so wise.

I have now told you how perfectly they answered upon trial; and I am only sorry that the world contains so very few with whom one could venture to make the same experiment.

For a very large portion of possible happiness is thrown away, because people are not fit to take part in plans of this nature--plans wherein one shall give what he has, to receive back what he wants; and thus the true social communism be established.

[From the Memoirs of Dr. Chalmers, Vol. II., unpublished.]

RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. CHALMERS.

HIS PERSONAL APPEARANCE IN THE PULPIT.

The first sermon which Mr. Chalmers preached in Glasgow was delivered before the Society of the Sons of the Clergy, on Thursday the 30th day of March, 1815, a few months after his appointment, and a few months previous to his admission as minister of the Tron Church. The recent excitement of the canvass, the rumors strange and various, which crossing the breadth of Scotland were circulating in all quarters through the city, the quickened curiosity of opponents, the large but somewhat tremulous expectation of friends, drew together a vast multitude to hear him. Among the crowd which filled the church was a young Oxford student, himself the son of a Scottish minister, who had been surprised by hearing Mr. Chalmers's work on the Evidences of Christianity mentioned with high approval, within the walls of an English University, shortly after the date of its publication. The keen dark eye of the youthful auditor fixed itself in searching scrutiny upon the preacher, and a few years later his graceful and graphic pen drew the following sketch:

"I was a good deal surprised and perplexed with the first glimpse I obtained of his countenance, for the light that streamed faintly upon it for the moment did not reveal any thing like that general outline of feature and visage for which my fancy had by some strange working of presentiment, prepared me. By-and-by, however, the light became stronger, and I was enabled to study the minutiae of his face pretty leisurely, while he leaned forward and read aloud the words of the Psalm, for that is always done in Scotland, not by the clerk, but the clergyman himself. At first sight, no doubt, his face is a coarse one, but a mysterious kind of meaning breathes from every part of it, that such as have eyes to see cannot be long without discovering. It is very pale, and the large, half-closed eyelids have a certain drooping melancholy weight about them, which interested me very much. I understood not why. The lips, too, are singularly pensive in their mode of falling down at the sides, although there is no want of richness and vigor in their central fullness of curve. The upper lip, from the nose downward, is separated by a very deep line, which gives a sort of leonine firmness of expression to all the lower part of the face. The cheeks are square and strong, in texture like pieces of marble, with the cheek-bones very broad and prominent. The eyes themselves are light in color, and have a strange dreamy heaviness, that conveys any idea rather than that of dullness, but which contrasts in a wonderful manner with the dazzling watery glare they exhibit when expanded in their sockets, and illuminated into all their flame and fervor in some moment of high entranced enthusiasm. But the shape of the forehead is, perhaps, the most singular part of the whole visage; and, indeed, it presents a mixture so very singular, of forms commonly exhibited only in the widest separation, that it is no wonder I should have required some little time to comprehend the meaning of it. In the first place, it is without exception the most marked mathematical forehead I ever met with--being far wider across the eyebrows than either Mr. Playfair's or Mr. Leslie's--and having the eyebrows themselves lifted up at their exterior ends quite out of the usual line, a peculiarity which Spurzheim had remarked in the countenances of almost all the great mathematical or calculating geniuses--such, for example, if I rightly remember, as Sir Isaac Newton himself, Kaestener, Euler, and many others. Immediately above the extraordinary breadth of this region, which, in the heads of most mathematical persons, is surmounted by no fine points of organization whatever, immediately above this, in the forehead, there is an arch of imagination, carrying out the summit boldly and roundly, in a style to which the heads of very few poets present any thing comparable, while over this again there is a grand apex of high and solemn veneration and love, such as might have graced the bust of Plato himself, and such as in living men I had never beheld equaled in any but the majestic head of Canova. The whole is edged with a few crisp dark locks, which stand forth boldly, and afford a fine relief to the death-like paleness of those massive temples.... Of all human compositions there is none surely which loses so much as a sermon does when it is made to address itself to the eye of a solitary student in his closet and not to the thrilling ears of a mighty mingled congregation, through the very voice which nature has enriched with notes more expressive than words can ever be of the meanings and feelings of its author. Neither, perhaps, did the world ever possess any orator whose minutest peculiarities of gesture and voice have more power in increasing the effect of what he says--whose delivery, in other words, is the first, and the second, and the third excellence of his oratory--more truly than is that of Dr. Chalmers. And yet were the spirit of the man less gifted than it is, there is no question these, his lesser peculiarities, would never have been numbered among his points of excellence. His voice is neither strong nor melodious, his gestures are neither easy nor graceful; but, on the contrary, extremely rude and awkward; his pronunciation is not only broadly national, but broadly provincial, distorting almost every word he utters into some barbarous novelty, which, had his hearer leisure to think of such things, might be productive of an effect at once ludicrous and offensive in a singular degree. But, of a truth, these are things which no listener can attend to while this great preacher stands before him armed with all the weapons of the most commanding eloquence, and swaying all around him with its imperial rule. At first, indeed, there is nothing to make one suspect what riches are in store. He commences in a low, drawling key, which has not even the merit of being solemn, and advances from sentence to sentence, and from paragraph to paragraph, while you seek in vain to catch a single echo that gives promise of that which is to come. There is, on the contrary, an appearance of constraint about him that affects and distresses you. You are afraid that his breast is weak, and that even the slight exertion he makes may be too much for it. But then, with what tenfold richness does this dim preliminary curtain make the glories of his eloquence to shine forth, when the heated spirit at length shakes from it its chill confining fetters, and bursts out elate and rejoicing in the full splendor of its disimprisoned wings.... I have heard many men deliver sermons far better arranged in regard to argument, and have heard very many deliver sermons far more uniform in elegance both of conception and of style; but most unquestionably, I have never heard, either in England or Scotland, or in any other country, any preacher whose eloquence is capable of producing an effect so strong and irresistible as his."[21]

* * * * *

FIRST DELIVERY OF THE ASTRONOMICAL DISCOURSES.--At the time of Dr. Chalmers's settlement in Glasgow it was the custom that the clergymen of the city should preach in rotation on Thursday in the Tron Church, a duty which, as their number was then but eight, returned to each within an interval of two months. On Thursday, the 23d of November, 1815, this week-day service devolved on Dr. Chalmers. The entire novelty of the discourse delivered upon this occasion, and the promise held out by the preacher that a series of similar discourses was to follow, excited the liveliest interest, not in his own congregation alone, but throughout the whole community. He had presented to his hearers a sketch of the recent discoveries of astronomy--distinct in outline, and drawn with all the ease of one who was himself a master in the science, yet gorgeously magnificent in many of its details, displaying, amid "the brilliant glow of a blazing eloquence,"[22] the sublime poetry of the heavens. In his subsequent discourses Dr. Chalmers proposed to discuss the argument or rather prejudice against the Christian Revelation which grounds itself on the vastness and variety of those unnumbered worlds which lie scattered over the immeasurable fields of space. This discussion occupied all the Thursday services allotted to him during the year 1816. The spectacle which presented itself in the Trongate upon the day of the delivery of each new astronomical discourse, was a most singular one. Long ere the bell began to toll, a stream of people might be seen pouring through the passage which led into the Tron Church. Across the street, and immediately opposite to this passage, was the old reading-room, where all the Glasgow merchants met. So soon, however, as the gathering quickening stream upon the opposite side of the street gave the accustomed warning, out flowed the occupants of the coffee-room; the pages of the Herald or the Courier were for a while forsaken, and during two of the best business hours of the day the old reading-room wore a strange aspect of desolation. The busiest merchants of the city were wont, indeed, upon those memorable days to leave their desks, and kind masters allowed their clerks and apprentices to follow their example. Out of the very heart of the great tumult an hour or two stood redeemed for the highest exercises of the spirit; and the low traffic of earth forgotten, heaven and its high economy and its human sympathies and eternal interests, engrossed the mind at least and the fancy of congregated thousands.

In January, 1817, this series of discourses was announced as ready for publication. It had generally been a matter of so much commercial risk to issue a volume of sermons from the press, that recourse had been often had in such cases to publication by subscription. Dr. Chalmers's publisher, Mr. Smith, had hinted that perhaps this method ought in this instance also to be tried. "It is far more agreeable to my feelings," Dr. Chalmers wrote to him a few days before the day of publication, "that the book should be introduced to the general market, and sell on the public estimation of it, than that the neighborhood here should be plied in all the shops with subscription papers, and as much as possible wrung out of their partialities for the author." Neither author nor publisher had at this time the least idea of the extraordinary success which was awaiting their forthcoming volume. It was published on the 28th of January, 1817. In ten weeks 6000 copies had been disposed of, the demand showing no symptom of decline. Nine editions were called for within a year, and nearly 20,000 copies were in circulation. Never previously, nor ever since, has any volume of sermons met with such immediate and general acceptance. The "Tales of my Landlord" had a month's start in the date of publication, and even with such a competitor it ran an almost equal race. Not a few curious observers were struck with the novel competition, and watched with lively curiosity how the great Scottish preacher and the great Scottish novelist kept for a whole year so nearly abreast of one another. It was, besides, the first volume of Sermons which fairly broke the lines which had separated too long the literary from the religious public. Its secondary merits won audience for it in quarters where evangelical Christianity was nauseated and despised. It disarmed even the keen hostility of Hazlitt, and kept him for a whole forenoon spell-bound beneath its power. "These sermons," he says, "ran like wild-fire through the country, were the darlings of watering-places, were laid in the windows of inns, and were to be met with in all places of public resort.... We remember finding the volume in the orchard of the inn at Burford Bridge, near Boxhill, and passing a whole and very delightful morning in reading it without quitting the shade of an apple tree." The attractive volume stole an hour or two from the occupations of the greatest statesman and orator of the day. "Canning," says Sir James Mackintosh, "told me that he was entirely converted to admiration of Chalmers; so is Bobus, whose conversion is thought the greatest proof of victory. Canning says there are most magnificent passages in his 'Astronomical Sermons."[23] Four years before this time, through the pages of the "Edinburgh Christian Instructor," Dr. Chalmers had said, "Men of tasteful and cultivated literature are repelled from theology at the very outset by the unseemly garb in which she is presented to them. If there be room for the display of eloquence in urgent and pathetic exhortation, in masterly discussion, in elevating greatness of conception, does not theology embrace all these, and will not the language that is clearly and appropriately expressive of them possess many of the constituents and varieties of good writing? If theology, then, can command such an advantage, on what principle should it be kept back from her?... In the subject itself there is a grandeur which it were vain to look for in the ordinary themes of eloquence or poetry. Let writers arise, then, to do it justice. Let them be all things to all men, that they may gain some; and if a single proselyte can be thereby drawn from the ranks of literature, let all the embellishments of genius and fancy be thrown around the subject. One man has already done much. Others are rising around him, and with the advantage of a higher subject, they will in time rival the unchristian moralists of the day, and overmatch them." He was one of the first to answer to his own call, to fulfill his own prediction. No single writer of our age has done so much to present the truths of Christianity in new forms, and to invest them with all the attractions of a fascinating eloquence; nor could a single volume be named which has done more than this very volume of "Astronomical Discourses" to soften and subdue those prejudices which the infidelity of natural science engenders.

* * * * *

EFFECT OF HIS ELOQUENCE.--SERMON ON DISSIPATION IN LARGE CITIES.--Dr. Chalmers returned to Glasgow on Saturday, the 27th December, and on the following day found a prodigious crowd awaiting his appearance in the Tron Church pulpit. His popularity as a preacher was now at its very highest summit, and judging merely by the amount of physical energy displayed by the preacher, and by the palpable and visible effects produced upon his hearers, we conclude that it was about this period, and within the walls of the Tron Church, that by far the most wonderful exhibitions of his power as a pulpit orator were witnessed. "The Tron Church contains, if I mistake not," says the Rev. Dr. Wardlaw, who, as frequently as he could, was a hearer in it, "about 1400 hearers, according to the ordinary allowance of seat-room; when crowded of course proportionally more. And, though I can not attempt any pictorial sketch of the _place_, I may, in a sentence or two, present you with a few touches of the _scene_ which I have, more than once or twice, witnessed within its walls; not that it was at all peculiar, for it resembled every other scene where the doctor in those days, when his eloquence was in the prime of its vehemence and splendor, was called to preach. There was one particular, indeed, which rendered such a scene, in a city like Glasgow, peculiarly striking. I refer to the _time_ of it. To see a place of worship, of the size mentioned, crammed above and below, on a _Thursday forenoon_, during the busiest hours of the day, with fifteen or sixteen hundred hearers, and these of all descriptions of persons, in all descriptions of professional occupation, the busiest as well as those who had most leisure on their hands, those who had least to spare taking care so to arrange their business engagements previously as to _make time_ for the purpose, all pouring in through the wide entrance at the side of the Tron steeple, half an hour before the time of service, to secure a seat, or content if too late for this to occupy, as many did, standing room--this was, indeed, a novel and strange sight. Nor was it once merely, or twice, but month after month the day was calculated when his turn to preach again was to come round, and anticipated, with even impatient longing, by multitudes.

"Suppose the congregation thus assembled--pews filled with sitters, and aisles, to a great extent, with standers. They wait in eager expectation. The preacher appears. The devotional exercises of praise and prayer having been gone through with unaffected simplicity and earnestness, the entire assembly set themselves for the _treat_, with feelings very diverse in kind, but all eager and intent. There is a hush of dead silence. The text is announced, and he begins. Every countenance is up--every eye bent, with fixed intentness, on the speaker. As he kindles the interest grows. Every breath is held--every cough is suppressed--every fidgety movement is settled--every one, riveted himself by the spell of the impassioned and entrancing eloquence, knows how sensitively his neighbor will resent the very slightest disturbance. Then, by-and-by, there is a pause. The speaker stops--to gather breath--to wipe his forehead--to adjust his gown, and purposely too, and wisely, to give the audience, as well as himself, a moment or two of relaxation. The moment is embraced--there is free breathing--suppressed coughs get vent--postures are changed--there is a universal stir, as of persons who could not have endured the constraint much longer--the preacher bends forward--his hand is raised--all is again hushed. The same stillness and strain of unrelaxed attention is repeated, more intent still, it may be, than before, as the interest of the subject and of the speaker advance. And so, for perhaps four or five times in the course of a sermon, there is the _relaxation_ and the '_at it again_' till the final winding up.

"And _then_, the moment the last word was uttered, and followed by the--'_let us pray_,' there was a scene for which no excuse or palliation can be pleaded but the fact of its having been to many a matter of difficulty, in the morning of a week-day, to accomplish the abstraction of even so much of their time from business--the closing prayer completely drowned by the hurried rush of large numbers from the aisles and pews to the door; an unseemly scene, without doubt, as if so many had come to the house of God not to worship, but simply to enjoy the fascination of human eloquence. Even this much it was a great thing for eloquence to accomplish. And how diversified soever the motives which drew so many together, and the emotions awakened and impressions produced by what was heard--though, in the terms of the text of one of his most overpoweringly stirring and faithful appeals, he was to not a few 'as one that had a pleasant voice and could play well on an instrument,' yet there is abundant proof that, in the highest sense, 'his labor was not in vain in the Lord;' that the truths which, with so much fearless fidelity and impassioned earnestness, he delivered, went in many instances farther than the ear, or even the intellect--that they reached the heart, and, by the power of the Spirit, turned it to God."

"On Thursday, the 12th February, 1818," I now quote from a manuscript of the Rev. Mr. Fraser, minister of Kilchrennan, "Dr. Chalmers preached in the Tron Church before the Directors of the Magdalene Asylum. The sermon delivered on this occasion was that 'On the Dissipation of Large Cities.' Long before the service commenced every seat and passage was crowded to excess, with the exception of the front pew of the gallery, which was reserved for the magistrates. A vast number of students deserted their classes at the University and were present. This was very particularly the case in regard to the Moral Philosophy Class, which I attended that session, as appeared on the following day when the list of absentees was given in by the person who had called the catalogue, and at the same time a petition from several of themselves was handed in to the professor, praying for a remission of the fine for non-attendance, on the ground that they had been hearing Dr. Chalmers. The doctor's manner during the whole delivery of that magnificent discourse was strikingly animated, while the enthusiasm and energy which he threw into some of its bursts rendered them quite overpowering. One expression which he used, together with his action, his look, and the very tones of his voice when it came forth, made a most vivid and indelible impression upon my memory: 'We, at the same time,' he said, 'have our eye perfectly open to that great external improvement which has taken place, of late years, in the manners of society. There is not the same grossness of conversation. There is not the same impatience for the withdrawment of him who, asked to grace the outset of an assembled party, is compelled, at a certain step in the process of conviviality, by the obligations of professional decency, to retire from it. There is not so frequent an exaction of this as one of the established proprieties of social or of fashionable life. And if such an exaction was ever laid by the omnipotence of custom on a minister of Christianity, it is such an exaction as ought never, never to be complied with. It is not for him to lend the sanction of his presence to a meeting with which he could not sit to its final termination. It is not for him to stand associated, for a single hour, with an assemblage of men who begin with hypocrisy, and end with downright blackguardism. It is not for him to watch the progress of the coming ribaldry, and to hit the well selected moment when talk and turbulence and boisterous merriment are on the eve of bursting forth upon the company, and carrying them forward to the full acme and uproar of their enjoyment. It is quite in vain to say, that he has only sanctioned one part of such an entertainment. He has as good as given his connivance to the whole of it, and left behind him a discharge in full of all its abominations; and, therefore, be they who they may, whether they rank among the proudest aristocracy of our land, or are charioted in splendor along, as the wealthiest of our citizens, _or flounce in the robes of magistracy_, it is his part to keep as purely and indignantly aloof from such society as this, as he would from the vilest and most debasing associations of profligacy.'

"The words which I have underlined do not appear in the sermon as printed. While uttering them, which he did with peculiar emphasis, accompanying them with a flash from his eye and a stamp of his foot, he threw his right arm with clenched hand right across the book-board, and brandished it full in the face of the Town Council, sitting in array and in state before him. Many eyes were in a moment directed toward the magistrates. The words evidently fell upon them like a thunderbolt, and seemed to startle like an electric shock the whole audience."

Another interesting memorial of this sermon is supplied by Dr. Wardlaw, who was present at its delivery. "The eloquence of that discourse was absolutely overpowering. The subject was one eminently fitted to awaken and summon to their utmost energy all his extraordinary powers; especially when, after having cleared his ground by a luminously scriptural exhibition of that supreme authority by which the evils he was about to portray were interdicted, in contradistinction to the prevailing maxims and practices of a worldly morality, he came forward to the announcement and illustration of his main subject--'_the origin, the progress, and the effects of a life of dissipation_.' His moral portraitures were so graphically and vividly delineated--his warnings and entreaties, especially to youth, so impassioned and earnest--his admonitions so faithful, and his denunciations so fearless and so fearful--and his exhortations to preventive and remedial appliances so pointed and so urgent to all among his auditors who had either the charge of youth, or the supervision of dependents! It was thrilling, overwhelming. His whole soul seemed in every utterance. Although saying to myself all the while, 'Oh! that this were in the hands of every father, and master, and guardian, and young man in the land!' I yet could not spare an eye from the preacher to mark how his appeal was telling upon others. The breathless, the appalling silence told me of that. Any person who reads that discourse, and who had the privilege of listening to Dr. Chalmers during the prime and freshness of his public eloquence, will readily imagine the effect of some passages in it, when delivered with even more than the preacher's characteristic vehemence."

FOOTNOTES:

[21] _Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk_, 2d edit, vol. iii pp 267-273.

[22] Foster.

[23] _Memoirs of the Life of the Right Hon. Sir James Mackintosh_, vol. ii. p. 343. The person known among his particular friends by the name of "Bobus" was Robert Smith, who had held the office of Advocate-General in Bengal, and who is not to be confounded with his namesake, the brother of the Rev. Sydney Smith.

[From the Dublin University Magazine.]

THE OLD MAN'S BEQUEST; A STORY OF GOLD.

Through the ornamental grounds of a handsome country residence, at a little distance from a large town in Ireland, a man of about fifty years of age was walking, with a bent head, and the impress of sorrow on his face.

"Och, yer honor, give me one sixpence, or one penny, for God's sake," cried a voice from the other side of a fancy paling which separated the grounds in that quarter from a thoroughfare. "For heaven's sake, Mr. Lawson, help me as ye helped me before. I know you've the heart and hand to do it."

The person addressed as Mr. Lawson looked up and saw a woman whom he knew to be in most destitute circumstances, burdened with a large and sickly family, whom she had struggled to support until her own health was ruined.

"I have no money--not one farthing," answered John Lawson.

"No money!" reiterated the woman in surprise; "isn't it all yours, then? isn't this garden yours, and that house, and all the grand things that are in it yours? ay, and grand things they are--them pictures, and them bright shinin' things in that drawing-room of yours and sure you deserve them well, and may God preserve them long to you, for riches hasn't hardened your heart, though there's many a one, and heaven knows the gold turns their feelin's to iron."

"It all belongs to my son, Henry Lawson, and Mrs. Lawson, and their children--it is all theirs;" he sighed heavily, and deep emotion was visible in every lineament of his thin and wrinkled face.

The poor woman raised her bloodshot eyes to his face, as if she was puzzled by his words. She saw that he was suffering, and with intuitive delicacy, she desisted from pressing her wants, though her need was great.

"Well, well, yer honor, many's the good penny ye have given me and the childer, and maybe the next time I see you you'll have more change."

She was turning sadly away, when John Lawson requested her to remain, and he made inquiries into the state of her family; the report he heard seemed to touch him even to the forgetfulness of his own sorrows; he bade her stop for a few moments and he would give her some relief.

He walked rapidly toward the house and proceeded to the drawing-room. It was a large and airy apartment, and furnished with evident profusion: the sunlight of the bright summer day, admitted partially through the amply-draperied windows, lighted up a variety of sparkling gilding in picture-frames, and vases, and mirrors, and cornices; but John Lawson looked round on the gay scene with a kind of shudder; he had neither gold, silver, nor even copper in his pocket, or in his possession.

He advanced to a lady who reclined on a rose-colored sofa, with a fashionable novel in her hand, and, after some slight hesitation, he addressed her, and stating the name and wants of the poor woman who had begged for aid, he requested some money.

As he said the words "some money," his lips quivered, and a tremor ran through his whole frame, for his thoughts were vividly picturing a recently departed period, when he was under no necessity of asking money from any individual.

"Bless me, my dear Mr. Lawson!" cried the lady, starting up from her recumbent position, "did I not give you a whole handful of shillings only the day before yesterday; and if you wasted it all on poor people since, what am I to do? Why, indeed, we contribute so much to charitable subscriptions, both Mr. Lawson and I, _you_ might be content to give a little less to common beggars."

Mrs. Lawson spoke with a smile on her lips, and with a soft caressing voice, but a hard and selfish nature shone palpably from her blue eyes. She was a young woman, and had the repute of beauty, which a clear pink-and-white complexion, and tolerable features, with luxuriant light hair, generally gains from a portion of the world. She was dressed for the reception of morning visitors whom she expected, and she was enveloped in expensive satin and blond, and jewelry in large proportions.

John Lawson seemed to feel every word she had uttered in the depths of his soul, but he made a strong effort to restrain the passion which was rising to his lips.

"Augusta, my daughter, you are the wife of my only and most beloved child--I wish to love you--I wish to live in peace with you, and all--give me some money to relieve the wants of the unfortunate woman to whom I have promised relief, and who is waiting without. I ask not for myself, but for the poor and suffering--give me a trifle of money, I say."

"Indeed, Mr. Lawson, a bank would not support your demands for the poor people; that woman for whom you are begging has been relieved twenty times by us. I have no money just now."

She threw herself back on the sofa and resumed her novel; but anger, darting from her eyes, contrasted with the trained smile which still remained on her lips.

A dark shade of passion and scorn came over John Lawson's face, but he strove to suppress it, and his voice was calm when he spoke.

"Some time before my son married you, I gave up all my business to him--I came to live here among trees and flowers--I gave up all the lucrative business I had carried on to my son, partly because my health was failing, and I longed to live with nature, away from the scenes of traffic; but more especially, because I loved my son with no common love, and I trusted to him as to a second self. I was not disappointed--we had one purse and one heart before he married you; he never questioned me concerning what I spent in charity--he never asked to limit in any way my expenditure--he loved you, and I made no conditions concerning what amount of income I was to receive, but still I left him in entire possession of my business when he married you. I trusted to your fair, young face, that you would not controvert my wishes--that you would join me in my schemes of charity."

"And have I not?" interrupted Mrs. Lawson, in a sharp voice, though the habitual smile still graced her lips; "do I not subscribe to, I don't know how many, charitable institutions? Charity, indeed--there's enough spent in charity by myself and my husband. But I wish to stop extravagances--it is only extravagance to spend so much on charity as you would do if you could; therefore you shall not have any money just now."

Mrs. Lawson was one of those women who can cheerfully expend a most lavish sum on a ball, a dress, or any other method by which rank and luxury dissipate their abundance, but who are very economical, and talk much of extravagance when money is demanded for purposes not connected with display and style.

"Augusta Lawson, listen to me," his voice was quivering with passion, "my own wants are very few; in food, in clothes, in all points my expenditure is trifling. I am not extravagant in my demands for the poor, either. All I have expended in charity during the few years since you came here, is but an insignificant amount as contrasted with the income which I freely gave up to my son and you; therefore, some money for the poor woman who is waiting, I shall now have; give me some shillings, for God's sake, and let me go." He advanced closer to her, and held out his hand.

"Nonsense!" cried Mrs. Lawson; "I am mistress here--I am determined to stop extravagance. You give too much to common beggars; I am determined to stop it--do not ask me any further."

A kind of convulsion passed over John Lawson's thin face; but he pressed his hand closely on his breast, and was silent for some moments.

"I was once rich, I believe. Yes--it is not a dream," he said, in a slow, self-communing voice. "Gold and silver, once ye were plenty with me; my hands; my pockets were filled--guineas, crowns, shillings--now I have not one penny to give to that starving, dying woman, whose face of misery might soften the very stones she looks on--not one penny."

"Augusta," he said, turning suddenly toward her, after a second pause of silence, "give me only one shilling, and I shall not think of the bitter words you have just said?"

"No; not one shilling," answered Mrs. Lawson, turning over a leaf of her novel.

"One sixpence, then--one small, poor sixpence. You do not know how even a sixpence can gladden the black heart of poverty, when starvation is come. One sixpence, I say--let me have it quickly."

"Not one farthing I shall give you. I do beg you will trouble me no further."

Mrs. Lawson turned her back partially to him, and fixed all her attention on the novel.

"Woman! I have cringed and begged; I would not so beg for myself, from you--no; I would lie down and die of want before I would, on my own account, request of you--of your hard heart--one bit of bread. All the finery that surrounds you is mine--it was purchased with my money, though now you call it yours; and, usurping the authority of both master and mistress here, you--in what you please to call your economical management--dole out shillings to me when the humor seizes you, or refuse me, as now, when it pleases you. But, woman, listen to me. I shall never request you for one farthing of money again. No necessity of others shall make me do it. You shall never again refuse me, for I shall never give you the opportunity."

He turned hastily from the room, with a face on which the deep emotion of an aroused spirit was depicted strongly.

In the lobby he met his son, Henry Lawson. The young man paused, something struck by the excited appearance of his father.

"Henry," said the father, abruptly, "I want some money; there is a poor woman whom I wish to relieve--will you give me some money for her?"

"Willingly, my dear father; but have you asked Augusta. You know I have given her the management of the money-matters of the establishment, she is so very clever and economical."

"She has neither charity, nor pity, nor kindness; she saves from me; she saves from the starving poor; she saves, that she may waste large sums on parties and dresses. I shall never more ask her for money; give me a few shillings. My God! the father begs of the son for what was his own--for what he toiled all his youth--for what he gave up out of trusting love to that son. Henry, my son, I am sick of asking and begging--ay, sick--sick; but give me some shillings now."

"You asked Augusta, then," said Henry, drawing out his purse, and glancing with some apprehension to the drawing-room door.

"Henry," cried Mrs. Lawson, appearing at that instant with a face inflamed with anger--"Henry, _I_ would not give your father any money to-day, because he is so very extravagant in giving it all away."

Henry was in the act of opening his purse; he glanced apprehensively to Mrs. Lawson; his face had a mild and passive expression, which was a true index of his yielding and easily-governed nature. His features were small, delicate, and almost effeminately handsome; and in every lineament a want of decision and force of character was visible.

"Henry, give me some shillings, I say--I am your father--I have a just right."

"Yes, yes, surely," said Henry, making a movement to open his purse.

"Henry, I do not wish you to give him money to waste in charity, as he calls it."

Mrs. Lawson gave her husband an emphatic, but, at the same time, cunningly caressing and smiling look.

"Henry, I am your father--give me the money I want."

"Augusta, my love, you know it was all his," said Henry, going close to her, and speaking in a kind of whisper.

"My dearest Henry, were it for any other purpose but for throwing away, I would not refuse. I am your father's best friend, and your best friend, in wishing to restrain all extravagance."

"My dear father, she wishes to be economical, you know."

He dangled the purse, undecidedly, in his fingers.

"Will you give me the money at once, and let me go?" cried John Lawson, elevating his voice.

"My dear Augusta, it is better."

"Henry, do not, I beg of you."

"Henry, my son, will you let me have the money?"

"Indeed, Augusta--"

"Henry!"

Mrs. Lawson articulated but the one word; there was enough of energy and determination in it to make her husband close the purse he had almost opened.

"I ask you only this once more--give me the few shillings?"

John Lawson bent forward in an eager manner; a feverish red kindled on his sallow cheeks; his eyes were widely dilated, and his lips compressed. There was a pause of some moments.

"You will not give it me?" he said, in a voice deep-toned and singularly calm, as contrasted with his convulsed face.

Henry dangled the purse again in his hand, and looked uneasily and irresolutely toward his wife.

"No, he will not give it--you will get no money to squander on poor people this day," Mrs. Lawson said, in a very sharp and decided voice.

John Lawson did not say another word; he turned away and slowly descended the stairs, and walked out of the house.

He did not return that evening. He had been seen on the road leading to the house of a relative who was in rather poor circumstances Henry felt rather annoyed at his father's absence; he had no depth in his affection, but he had been accustomed to see him and hear his voice every day, and therefore he missed him, but consoled himself with the thought that they would soon meet again, as it never entered his imagination that his father had quitted the house for a lengthened period. Mrs. Lawson felicitated herself on the event, and hoped that the old man would remain some time with his relative.

The following day a letter was handed to Henry; it was from his father, and was as follows:

"TO MY SON HENRY--I have at last come to the resolution of quitting your house, which I can no longer call mine, in even the least degree. For weeks--for months--ever since you married--ever since your wife took upon herself what she calls the management of your house and purse, I have felt bound down under the weight of an oppressive bondage. I could not go and take a pound or a shilling from our common stock, as I used to do before you married, when you and I lived in one mind, and when I believed that the very spirit of your departed, your angel mother, dwelt in you, as you had, and have still, her very face and form. No, no, we had no common stock when you married. She put me on an allowance--ay, an allowance. You lived, and saw me receiving an allowance; you whom I loved with an idolatry which God has now punished; you to whom I freely gave up my business--my money-making business. I gave it you--I gave all to you--I would have given my very life and soul to you, because I thought that with your mother's own face you had her noble and generous nature. You were kind before you married; but that marriage has proved your weakness and want of natural affection. Yes, you stood at my side yesterday; you looked on my face--I, the father who loved you beyond all bounds of fatherly love--you stood and heard me beg for a few shillings; you heard me supplicate earnestly and humbly, and you would not give, because your wife was not willing. Henry, I could force you to give me a share of the profits of your business; but keep it--keep it all. You would not voluntarily give me some shillings, and I shall not demand what right and justice would give me. Keep all, every farthing.

"It was for charity I asked the few shillings; you know it. You know from whom I imbibed whatever I possess of the blessed spirit of charity. I was as hard and unpitying as even your wife before your mother taught me to feel and relieve the demands of poverty. Yes, and she taught you; you can not forget it. She taught you to give food to the starving, in your earliest days. She strove to impress your infant mind with the very soul of charity; and yesterday she looked down from the heaven of the holy departed, and saw you refusing me, your father, a few shillings to bestow on charity.

"Henry, I can live with you and your wife no more. I should grow avaricious in my old age, were I to remain with you. I should long for money to call my own. Those doled out shillings which I received wakened within me feelings of a dark nature--covetousness, and envy, and discontent--which must have shadowed the happiness of your mother in heaven to look down upon. I must go and seek out an independent living for myself, even yet, though I am fifty-two. Though my energies for struggling with the world died, I thought, when your mother died, and, leaving my active business to you, I retired to live in the country, I must go forth again, as if I were young, to seek for the means of existence, for I feel I was not made to be a beggar--a creature hanging on the bounty of others; no, no, the merciful God will give me strength yet to provide for myself, though I am old, and broken down in mind and body. Farewell; you who were once my beloved son, may God soften and amend your heart."

When Henry perused this letter, he would immediately have gone in search of his father, in order to induce him to return home; but Mrs. Lawson was at his side, and succeeded in persuading him to allow his father to act as he pleased, and remain away as long as he wished.

* * * * *

Ten years rolled over our world, sinking millions beneath the black waves of adverse fortune and fate, and raising the small number who, of the innumerable aspirants for earthly good, usually succeed. Henry Lawson was one of those whom time had lowered in fortune. His business speculations had, for a lengthened period, been rather unsuccessful, while Mrs. Lawson's expensive habits increased every day. At length affairs came to such a crisis, that retrenchment or failure was inevitable. Henry had enough of wisdom and spirit to insist on the first alternative, and Mrs. Lawson was compelled by the pressure of circumstances to yield in a certain degree; the country-house, therefore, was let, Mrs. Lawson assigning as a reason, that she had lost all relish for the country after the death of her dear children, both of whom had died, leaving the parents childless.

It was the morning of a close sultry day in July, and Mrs. Lawson was seated in her drawing-room. She was dressed carefully and expensively as of old, but she had been dunned and threatened at least half-a-dozen times for the price of the satin dress she wore. Her face was thin and pale, and there was a look of much care on her countenance; her eyes were restless and sunken, and discontent spoke in their glances as she looked on the chairs, sofas, and window-draperies, which had once been bright-colored, but were now much faded. She had just come to the resolution of having new covers and hangings, though their mercer's and upholsterer's bills were long unsettled, when a visitor was shown into the room. It was Mrs. Thompson, the wife of a very prosperous and wealthy shopkeeper.

Mrs. Lawson's thin lips wreathed themselves into bright smiles of welcome, while the foul demon of envy took possession of her soul. Mrs. Thompson's dress was of the most costly French satin, while hers was merely British manufacture. They had been old school companions and rivals in their girlish days. During the first years of the married life of each, Mrs. Lawson had outshone Mrs. Thompson in every respect; but now the eclipsed star beamed brightly and scornfully beside the clouds which had rolled over her rival. Mrs. Thompson was, in face and figure, in dress and speech, the very impersonation of vulgar and ostentatious wealth.

"My goodness, it's so hot!" she said, loosening the fastening of her bonnet, the delicate French blond and white satin and plume, of which that fabric was composed, contrasting rather painfully at the same time with her flashed mahogany-colored complexion, and ungracefully-formed features. "Bless me, I'm so glad we'll get off to our country-house to-morrow. It's so very delightful, Mrs. Lawson, to have a country residence to go to. Goodness me what a close room, and such a hot, dusty street. It does just look so queer to me after Fitzherbert-square."

To this Mrs. Lawson made a response as composed as she could; she would have retorted bitterly and violently, but her husband had a connection with the Thompson establishment, and for strong reasons she considered it prudent to refrain from quarreling with Mrs. Thompson. She, therefore, spoke but very little, and Mrs. Thompson was left at liberty to give a lengthened detail of Mr. Thompson's great wealth and her own great profusion. She began first with herself, and furnished an exact detail of all the fine things she had purchased in the last month, down to the latest box of pins. Next, her babies occupied her for half an hour--the quantity of chicken they consumed, and the number of frocks they soiled per diem were minutely chronicled. Then her house came under consideration: she depicted the bright glory of the new _ponceau_ furniture, as contrasted with shocking old faded things--and she glanced significantly toward Mrs. Lawson's sofas and chairs. Next she made a discursive detour to the culinary department, and gave a statement of the number of stones of lump sugar she was getting boiled in preserves, and of the days of the week in which they had puddings, and the days they had pies at dinner.

"But, Mrs. Lawson, dear, have you seen old Mr. Lawson since he came home?" she said, when she was rising to depart; "but I suppose you haven't, for they say he won't have any thing to do with his relations now--he won't come near you, I have heard. They say he has brought such a lot of money with him from South America."

At this intelligence every feature of Mrs. Lawson's face brightened with powerful interest. She inquired where Mr. Lawson stopped, and was informed that he had arrived at the best hotel in the town about three days previously, and that every one talked of the large fortune he had made abroad, as he seemed to make no secret of the fact.

A burning eagerness to obtain possession of that money entered Mrs. Lawson's soul, and she thought every second of time drawn out to the painful duration of a long hour, while Mrs. Thompson slowly moved her ample skirts of satin across the drawing-room, and took her departure. Mrs. Lawson dispatched a messenger immediately for her husband.

Henry Lawson came in, and listened with surprise to the intelligence of his father's return. He was taking up his hat to proceed to the hotel in quest of him, when a carriage drove to the door. Mrs. Lawson's heart palpitated with eagerness--if it should be her husband's father in his own carriage--how delightful! that horrible Mrs. Thompson had not a carriage of her own yet, though she was always talking of it. They, Mrs. Lawson and her husband, had just been about setting up a carriage when business failed with them. She ran briskly down the stairs--for long years she had not flown with such alertness--rapid visions of gold, of splendor, and triumph seemed to bear her along, as if she had not been a being of earth.

She was not disappointed, for there, at the open door, stood John Lawson. He was enveloped in a cloak of fur, the costliness of which told Mrs. Lawson that it was the purchase of wealth; a servant in plain livery supported him, for he seemed a complete invalid.

Mrs. Lawson threw her arms around his neck, and embraced him with a warmth and eagerness which brought a cold and bitter smile over the white, thin lips of John Lawson. He replied briefly to the welcomings he received. He threw aside his cloak, and exhibited the figure of an exceedingly emaciated and feeble old man, who had all the appearance of ninety years, though he was little more than sixty; his face was worn and fleshless to a painful degree; his hair was of the whitest shade of great age, but his eyes had grown much more serene in their expression than in his earlier days, notwithstanding a cast of suffering which his whole countenance exhibited. He was plainly, but most carefully and respectably dressed; a diamond ring of great value was on one of his fingers; the lustre of the diamonds caught Mrs. Lawson's glance on her first inspection of his person, and her heart danced with rapture--Mrs. Thompson had no such ring, with all her boasting of all her finery.

"I have come to see my child before I die," said the old man, gazing on his son with earnest eyes; "you broke the ties of nature between us on your part, when, ten years ago, you refused your father a few shillings from your abundance, but--"

He was interrupted by Mrs. Lawson, who uttered many voluble protestations of her deep grief at her having, even though for the sake of economy, refused the money her dear father had solicited before he left them. She vowed that she had neither ate, nor slept, nor even dressed herself for weeks after his departure; and that, sleeping or waking, she was perpetually wishing she had given him the money, even though she had known that he was going to throw it into the fire, or lose it in any way. Her poor, dear father--oh, she wept so after she heard that he had left the country. To be sure Henry could tell how, for two or three nights, her pillow was soaked with tears.

A cold, bitter smile again flitted across the old man's lips; he made no response to her words, but in the one look which his hollow eyes east on her, he seemed to read the falsehood of her assertions.

"I was going to add," he said, "that though you forgot you were my son, and refused to act as my son, when you withheld the paltry sum for which I begged, yet I could not refrain from coming once more to look on my child's face--to look on the face of my departed wife in yours--for I know that a very brief period must finish my life now. I should not have come here, I feel--I know it is the weakness of my nature--should have died among strangers, for the strangers of other countries, the people of a different hue, and a different language, I have found kind and pitiful, compared with those of my own house.

"Oh, don't say so--don't say so--you are our own beloved father; ah, my heart clings to every feature of your poor, dear, old face; there are the eyes and all that I used to talk to Henry so much about. Don't talk of strangers--I shall nurse you and attend to you night and day."

She made a movement, as if she would throw her arms around his neck again, but the old man drew back.

"Woman! your hypocritical words show me that your pitiless heart is still unchanged--that it is grown even worse. You forced me out to the world in my old age, when I should have had no thoughts except of God and the world to come; you forced me to think of money-making, when my hair was gray and my blood cold with years. Yes, I had to draw my thoughts from the future existence, and to waste them on the miserable toils of traffic, in order to make money; for it was better to do this than to drag out my life a pensioner on your bounty, receiving shillings and pence which you gave me as if it had been your heart's blood, though I only asked my own. Woman! the black slavery of my dependence on you was frightful; but now I can look you thanklessly in the face, for I have the means of living without you. I spent sick and sleepless days and nights, but I gained an independence; the merciful God blessed the efforts of the old man, who strove to gain his livelihood--yes, I am independent of you both. I came to see my son before I die--that is all I want."

Mrs. Lawson attempted a further justification of herself, but the words died on her lips. The stern looks of the old man silenced her.

After remaining for a short time, he rose to take his departure; but, at the earnest solicitations of his son, he consented to remain for a few days, only on condition that he should pay for his board and lodging. To this Mrs. Lawson made a feint of resistance, but agreed in the end, as the terms offered by the old man were very advantageous.

"I shall soon have a lodging for which no mortal is called on to pay--the great mother-earth," said the old man, "and I am glad, glad to escape from this money-governed world. Do not smile so blandly on me, both of you, and attend me with such false tenderness. There, take it away," he said, as Mrs. Lawson was placing her most comfortable footstool under his feet; "there was no attendance, no care, not a civil action or kind look for me when I was poor John Lawson, the silly, most silly old man, who had given up all to his son and his son's wife, for the love of them, and expected, like a fool that he was, to live with them on terms of perfect equality, and to have the family purse open to him for any trifling sums he wished to take. Go, go for God's sake; try and look bitterly on me now, as you did when you forced me out of your house. I detest your obsequious attentions--I was as worthy of them ten years ago, before I dragged down my old age to the debasing efforts of money-making. You know I am rich; you would worship my money in me now. Not a smiling look, not a soft word you bestow on me, but is for my riches, not for me. Ay, you think you have my wealth in your grasp already; you know I can not live long. Thank God that my life is almost ended, and I hope my death will be a benefit to you, in softening your hard hearts."

Mrs. Lawson drew some hope from his last words, and she turned away her head to hide the joy which shone on her face.

In a few days the old man became seriously ill, and was altogether confined to his room. As death evidently approached, his mind became serene and calm, and he received the attentions which Mrs. Lawson and his son lavished on him with a silent composure, which led them to hope that he had completely forgotten their previous conduct to him.

The night on which he died, he turned to his son, and said a few words, a very few words, regarding worldly matters. He exhorted Henry to live in a somewhat less expensive style, and to cultivate a spirit of contentment without riches; then he blessed God that he was entering on a world in which he would hear no more of money, or earthly possession. He remained in a calm sleep during the greater part of the night, they thought, but in the morning they found him dead.

The funeral was over, and the time was come in which the old man's will was to be opened Mrs. Lawson had waited for that moment--she would have forcibly dragged time onward to that moment--she had execrated the long hours of night since the old man's death--she had still more anathematized the slowly passing days, when gazing furtively through a corner of the blinded window, she saw fine equipages and finely-dressed ladies passing, and she planned how she would shine when the old man's wealth would be her own. She drew glorious mental pictures of how she would burst from behind the shadowing cloud of poverty, and dazzle all her acquaintances. Her dress, her carriage, her style of living would be unique in her rank of life for taste and costliness. She would show them she had got money--money at last--more money than them all.

Now at last she sat and saw the will being opened; she felt that it was a mere formality, for the old man had no one but them to whom he could leave his money; she never once doubted but all would be theirs; she had reasoned, and fancied herself into the firm conviction. Her only fear was, that the amount might not be so large as she calculated on.

She saw the packet opened. Her eyes dilated, her lips became parched; her heart and brain burned with a fierce eagerness--money, money! at last uttered the griping spirit within her.

The will, after beginning in the usual formal style, was as follows:

"I bequeath to my son Henry's wife, Augusta Lawson, a high and noble gift" (Mrs. Lawson almost sprung from her seat with eagerness), "the greatest of all legacies, I bequeath to Augusta Lawson--Charity! Augusta Lawson refused me a few shillings which I wished to bestow on a starving woman; but now I leave her joint executrix, with my son Henry, in the distribution of all my money and all my effects, without any reservation, in charity, to be applied to such charitable purposes as in this, my last will and testament, I have directed."

Then followed a statement of his effects and money, down to the most minute particular; the money amounted to a very considerable sum; his personal effects he directed to be sold, with the exception of his valuable diamond ring, which he bequeathed to the orphan daughter of a poor relation in whose house he had taken refuge, and remained for a short time, previous to his going abroad. All the proceeds of his other effects, together with the whole amount of his money, he bequeathed for different charitable purposes, and gave minute directions as to the manner in which various sums were to be expended. The largest amount he directed to be distributed in yearly donations among the most indigent old men and women within a circuit of ten miles of his native place. Those who were residing with their sons, and their sons' wives, were to receive by far the largest relief. He appointed as trustees two of the most respectable merchants of the town, to whom he gave authority to see the provisions of his will carried out, in case his son and Mrs. Lawson should decline the duties of executor-ship which he had bequeathed to them; the trustees were to exercise a surveillance over Mr. and Mrs. Lawson, to see that the will should in every particular be strictly carried into effect. The will was dated, and duly signed in the town in South America where the old man had for some years resided; a codicil, containing the bequest of the ring, with some further particulars regarding the charities, had been added a few days previous to the old man's death.

Mrs. Lawson was carried fainting from the room before the reading of the will was concluded. She was seized with violent fever, and her life was despaired of. She recovered, however, and from the verge of the eternal existence on which she had been, she returned to life with a less worldly and ostentatious nature, and a soul more alive to the impulses of kindness and charity.

[From Cumming's Hunting Adventures in South Africa.]

ELEPHANT SHOOTING.

It was a glorious day, with a cloudy sky, and the wind blew fresh off the Southern Ocean. Having ridden some miles in a northerly direction, we crossed the broad and gravelly bed of a periodical river, in which were abundance of holes excavated by the elephants, containing delicious water. Having passed the river, we entered an extensive grove of picturesque cameel-dorn trees, clad in young foliage of the most delicious green. On gaining a gentle eminence about a mile beyond this grove, I looked forth upon an extensive hollow, where I beheld, for the first time for many days, a fine old cock ostrich, which quickly observed us, and dashed away to our left. I had ceased to devote my attention to the ostrich, and was straining my eyes in an opposite direction, when Kleinboy called out to me, "Dar loup de ould carle;" and turning my eyes to the retreating ostrich, I beheld two first-rate old bull elephants, charging along at their utmost speed within a hundred yards of it. They seemed at first to be in great alarm, but quickly discovering what it was that had caused their confusion, they at once reduced their pace to a slow and stately walk. This was a fine look-out; the country appeared to be favorable for an attack, and I was followed by Wolf and Bonteberg, both tried and serviceable dogs with elephants. Owing to the pace at which I had been riding, both dogs and horses were out of breath, so I resolved not to attack the elephants immediately, but to follow slowly, holding them in view.

The elephants were proceeding right up the wind, and the distance between us was about five hundred yards. I advanced quietly toward them, and had proceeded about half way, when, casting my eyes to my right, I beheld a whole herd of tearing bull elephants standing thick together on a wooded eminence within three hundred yards of me. These elephants were almost to leeward. Now, the correct thing to do was to slay the best in each troop, which I accomplished in the following manner: I gave the large herd my wind, upon which they instantly tossed their trunks aloft, "a moment snuffed the tainted gale," and, wheeling about, charged right down wind, crashing through the jungle in dire alarm. My object now was to endeavor to select the finest bull, and hunt him to a distance from the other troop, before I should commence to play upon his hide. Stirring my steed, I galloped forward. Right in my path stood two rhinoceroses of the white variety, and to these the dogs instantly gave chase. I followed in the wake of the retreating elephants, tracing their course by the red dust which they raised, and left in clouds behind them.

Presently emerging into an open glade, I came full in sight of the mighty game: it was a truly glorious sight; there were nine or ten of them, which were, with one exception, full-grown, first-rate bulls, and all of them carried very long, heavy, and perfect tusks. Their first panic being over, they had reduced their pace to a free, majestic walk, and they followed one leader in a long line, exhibiting an appearance so grand and striking, that any description, however brilliant, must fail to convey to the mind of the reader an adequate idea of the reality. Increasing my pace, I shot alongside, at the same time riding well out from the elephants, the better to obtain an inspection of their tusks. It was a difficult matter to decide which of them I should select, for every elephant seemed better than his neighbor; but, on account of the extraordinary size and beauty of his tusks, I eventually pitched upon a patriarchal bull, which, as is usual with the heaviest, brought up the rear. I presently separated him from his comrades, and endeavored to drive him in a northerly direction. There is a peculiar art in driving an elephant in the particular course which you may fancy, and, simple as it may seem, it nevertheless requires the hunter to have a tolerable idea of what he is about. It is widely different from driving in an eland, which also requires judicious riding: if you approach too near your elephant, or shout to him, a furious charge will certainly ensue, while, on the other hand, if you give him too wide a berth, the chances are that you lose him in the jungle, which, notwithstanding his size, is a very simple matter, and, if once lost sight of, it is more than an even bet that the hunter will never again obtain a glimpse of him. The ground being favorable, Kleinboy called to me to commence firing, remarking, very prudently, that he was probably making for some jungle of wait-a-bits, where we might eventually lose him. I continued, however, to reserve my fire until I had hunted him to what I considered to be a safe distance from the two old fellows which we had at first discovered.

At length closing with him, I dared him to charge, which he instantly did in fine style, and as he pulled up in his career I yelled to him a note of bold defiance, and cantering alongside, again defied him to the combat. It was thus the fight began, and the ground being still favorable, I opened a sharp fire upon him, and in about a quarter of an hour twelve of my bullets were lodged in his fore-quarters. He now evinced strong symptoms of approaching dissolution, and stood catching up the dust with the point of his trunk, and throwing it in clouds above and around him. At such a moment it is extremely dangerous to approach an elephant on foot, for I have remarked that, although nearly dead, he can muster strength to make a charge with great impetuosity. Being anxious to finish him, I dismounted from my steed, and availing myself of the cover of a gigantic nwana-tree, whose diameter was not less than ten feet, I ran up within twenty yards, and gave it him sharp right and left behind the shoulder. These two shots wound up the proceeding; on receiving them, he backed stern foremost into the cover, and then walked slowly away. I had loaded my rifle, and was putting on the caps, when I heard him fall over heavily; but, alas! the sound was accompanied by a sharp crack, which I too well knew denoted the destruction of one of his lovely tusks; and, on running forward, I found him lying dead, with the tusk, which lay under, snapped through the middle.

I did not tarry long for an inspection of the elephant, but mounting my horse, at once set off to follow on the spoor of the two old fellows which the ostrich had alarmed. Fortunately, I fell in with a party of natives, who were on their way to the wagons with the impedimenta, and assisted by these, I had sanguine hopes of shortly overtaking the noble quarry. We had not gone far when two wild boars, with enormous tusks, stood within thirty yards of me: but this was no time to fire: and a little after a pair of white rhinoceroses stood directly in our path. Casting my eyes to the right, I beheld within a quarter of a mile of me a herd of eight or ten cow elephants, with calves, peacefully browsing on a sparely-wooded knoll. The spoor we followed led due south, and the wind was as fair as it could blow. We passed between the twin-looking, abrupt, pyramidal hills, composed of huge disjointed blocks of granite, which lay piled above each other in grand confusion. To the summit of one of these I ascended with a native, but the forest in advance was so impenetrable that we could see nothing of the game we sought. Descending from the hillock, we resumed the spoor, and were enabled to follow at a rapid pace, the native who led the spooring-party being the best tracker in Bamangwato. I had presently very great satisfaction to perceive that the elephants had not been alarmed, their course being strewed with branches which they had chewed as they slowly fed along. The trackers now became extremely excited, and I strained their eyes on every side in the momentary expectation of beholding the elephants. At length we emerged into an open glade, and, clearing a grove of thorny mimosas, we came full in sight of one of them. Cautiously advancing, and looking to my right, I next discovered his comrade, standing in a thicket of low wait-a-bits, within a hundred and fifty yards of me; they were both first-rate old bulls, with enormous tusks of great length. I dismounted, and warily approached the second elephant for a closer inspection of his tusks. As I drew near, he slightly turned his head, and I then perceived that his farther one was damaged toward the point; while at the same instant his comrade, raising his head clear of the bush on which he browsed, displayed to my delighted eyes a pair of the most beautiful and perfect tusks I had ever seen.

Regaining my horse, I advanced toward this elephant, and when within forty yards of him, he walked slowly on before me in an open space, his huge ears gently flapping, and entirely concealing me from his view. Inclining to the left, I slightly increased my pace, and walked past him within sixty yards, upon which he observed me for the first time; but probably mistaking "Sunday" for a hartebeest, he continued his course with his eye upon me, but showed no symptoms of alarm. The natives had requested me to endeavor, if possible, to hunt him toward the water, which lay in a northerly direction, and this I resolved to do. Having advanced a little, I gave him my wind, when he was instantly alarmed, and backed into the bushes, holding his head high and right to me. Thus he stood motionless as a statue, under the impression, probably, that, owing to his Lilliputian dimensions, I had failed to observe him, and fancying that I would pass on without detecting him. I rode slowly on, and described a semicircle to obtain a shot at his shoulder, and halting my horse, fired from the saddle; he got it in the shoulder-blade, and, as slowly and silently I continued my course, he still stood gazing at me in utter astonishment. Bill and Flam were now slipped by the natives, and in another moment they were barking around him. I shouted loudly to encourage the dogs and perplex the elephant, who seemed puzzled to know what to think of us, and, shrilly trumpeting, charged headlong after the dogs. Retreating, he backed into the thicket, then charged once more, and made clean away, holding the course I wanted. When I tried to fire, "Sunday" was very fidgety, and destroyed the correctness of my aim. Approaching the elephant, I presently dismounted, and, running in, gave him two fine shots behind the shoulder; then the dogs, which were both indifferent ones, ran barking at him. The consequence was a terrific charge, the dogs at once making for their master, and bringing the elephant right upon me. I had no time to gain my saddle, but ran for my life. The dogs, fortunately, took after "Sunday," who, alarmed by the trumpeting, dashed frantically away, though in the heat of the affray I could not help laughing to remark horse, dogs, and elephant all charging along in a direct line.

The dogs, having missed their master, held away for Kleinboy, who had long disappeared, I knew not whither. "Sunday" stood still, and commenced to graze, while the elephant, slowly passing within a few yards of him, assumed a position under a tree beside him. Kleinboy presently making his appearance, I called to him to ride in, and bring me my steed; but he refused, and asked me if I wished him to go headlong to destruction. "Sunday" having fed slowly away from the elephant. I went up, and he allowed me to recapture him. I now plainly saw that the elephant was dying, but I continued firing to hasten his demise. Toward the end he took up a position in a dense thorny thicket, where for a long time he remained. Approaching within twelve paces, I fired my two last shots, aiming at his left side, close behind the shoulder. On receiving these, he backed slowly through the thicket, and clearing it, walked gently forward about twenty yards, when he suddenly came down with tremendous violence right on his broadside. To my intense mortification, the heavy fall was accompanied by a loud, sharp crack, and on going up I found one of his matchless tusks broken short off by the lip. This was a glorious day's sport: I had bagged, in one afternoon, probably the two finest bull elephants in Bamangwato, and, had it not been for the destruction of their noble trophies, which were the two finest pair of tusks I had obtained that season, my triumph on the occasion had been great and unalloyed.

[From Dickens's Household Words.]

THE POWER OF MERCY.

Quiet enough, in general, is the quaint old town of Lamborough. Why all this bustle to-day? Along the hedge-bound roads which lead to it, carts, chaises, vehicles of every description are jogging along filled with countrymen; and here and there the scarlet cloak or straw bonnet of some female occupying a chair, placed somewhat unsteadily behind them, contrasts gayly with the dark coats, or gray smock-frocks of the front row; from every cottage of the suburb, some individuals join the stream, which rolls on increasing through the streets till it reaches the castle. The ancient moat teems with idlers, and the hill opposite, usually the quiet domain of a score or two of peaceful sheep, partakes of the surrounding agitation.

The voice of the multitude which surrounds the court-house, sounds like the murmur of the sea, till suddenly it is raised to a sort of shout. John West, the terror of the surrounding country, the sheep-stealer and burglar, had been found guilty.

"What is the sentence?" is asked by a hundred voices.

The answer is "Transportation for Life."

But there was one standing aloof on the hill, whose inquiring eye wandered over the crowd with indescribable anguish, whose pallid cheek grew more and more ghastly at every denunciation of the culprit, and who, when at last the sentence was pronounced, fell insensible upon the green-sward. It was the burglar's son.

When the boy recovered from his swoon, it was late in the afternoon; he was alone; the faint tinkling of the sheep-bell had again replaced the sound of the human chorus of expectation, and dread, and jesting; all was peaceful, he could not understand why he lay there, feeling so weak and sick. He raised himself tremulously and looked around, the turf was cut and spoiled by the trampling of many feet. All his life of the last few months floated before his memory, his residence in his father's hovel with ruffianly comrades, the desperate schemes he heard as he pretended to sleep on his lowly bed, their expeditions at night, masked and armed, their hasty returns, the news of his father's capture, his own removal to the house of some female in the town, the court, the trial, the condemnation.

The father had been a harsh and brutal parent, but he had not positively ill-used his boy. Of the great and merciful Father of the fatherless the child knew nothing. He deemed himself alone in the world. Yet grief was not his pervading feeling, nor the shame of being known as the son of a transport. It was revenge which burned within him. He thought of the crowd which had come to feast upon his father's agony; he longed to tear them to pieces, and he plucked savagely a handful of the grass on which he leant. Oh, that he were a man! that he could punish them all--all--the spectators first, the constables, the judge, the jury, the witnesses--one of them especially, a clergyman named Leyton, who had given his evidence more positively, more clearly, than all the others. Oh, that he could do that man some injury--but for him his father would not have been identified and convicted.

Suddenly a thought occurred to him, his eyes sparkled with fierce delight. "I know where he lives," he said to himself; "he has the farm and parsonage of Millwood. I will go there at once--it is almost dark already. I will do as I have heard father say he once did to the squire. I will set his barns and his house on fire. Yes, yes, he shall burn for it--he shall get no more fathers transported."

To procure a box of matches was an easy task, and that was all the preparation the boy made.

The autumn was far advanced. A cold wind was beginning to moan among the almost leafless trees, and George West's teeth chattered, and his ill-clad limbs grew numb as he walked along the fields leading to Millwood. "Lucky it's a dark night; this fine wind will fan the flame nicely," he repeated to himself.

The clock was striking nine, but all was quiet as midnight; not a soul stirring, not a light in the parsonage windows that he could see. He dared not open the gate, lest the click of the latch should betray him, so he softly climbed over; but scarcely had he dropped on the other side of the wall before the loud barking of a dog startled him. He cowered down behind the hay-rick, scarcely daring to breathe, expecting each instant that the dog would spring upon him. It was some time before the boy dared to stir, and as his courage cooled, his thirst for revenge somewhat subsided also, till he almost determined to return to Lamborough, but he was too tired, too cold, too hungry--besides, the woman would beat him for staying out so late. What could he do? where should he go? and as the sense of his lonely and forlorn position returned, so did also the affectionate remembrance of his father, his hatred of his accusers, his desire to satisfy his vengeance; and once more, courageous through anger, he rose, took the box from his pocket, and boldly drew one of them across the sand-paper. It flamed; he stuck it hastily in the stack against which he rested--it only flickered a little, and went out. In great trepidation, young West once more grasped the whole of the remaining matches in his hand and ignited them, but at the same instant the dog barked. He hears the gate open, a step is close to him, the matches are extinguished, the lad makes a desperate effort to escape, but a strong hand was laid on his shoulder, and a deep, calm voice inquired, "What can have urged you to such a crime?" Then calling loudly, the gentleman, without relinquishing his hold, soon obtained the help of some farming men, who commenced a search with their lanterns all about the farm. Of course they found no accomplices, nothing at all but the handful of half-consumed matches the lad had dropped, and he all that time stood trembling, and occasionally struggling, beneath the firm but not rough grasp of the master who held him.

At last the men were told to return to the house, and thither, by a different path, was George led, till they entered a small, poorly-furnished room. The walls were covered with books, as the bright flame of the fire revealed to the anxious gaze of the little culprit. The clergyman lit a lamp, and surveyed his prisoner attentively. The lad's eyes were fixed on the ground, while Mr. Leyton's wandered from his pale, pinched features to his scanty, ragged attire, through the tatters of which he could discern the thin limbs quivering from cold or fear; and when at last impelled by curiosity at the long silence, George looked up, there was something so sadly compassionate in the stranger's gentle look, that the boy could scarcely believe that he was really the man whose evidence had mainly contributed to transport his father. At the trial he had been unable to see his face, and nothing so kind had ever gazed upon him. His proud bad feelings were already melting.

"You look half-starved," said Mr. Leyton; "draw nearer to the fire, you can sit down on that stool while I question you; and mind you answer me the truth. I am not a magistrate, but of course can easily hand you over to justice if you will not allow me to benefit you in my own way."

George still stood twisting his ragged cap in his trembling fingers, and with so much emotion depicted on his face, that the good clergyman resumed, in still more soothing accents: "I have no wish to do you any thing but good, my poor boy; look up at me, and see if you can not trust me: you need not be thus frightened. I; only desire to hear the tale of misery your appearance indicates, to relieve it, if I can."

Here the young culprit's heart smote him. Was this the man whose house he had tried to burn? On whom he had wished to bring ruin and perhaps death? Was it a snare spread for him to lead to a confession? But when he looked on that grave compassionate countenance, he felt that it was _not_.

"Come, my lad, tell me all."

George had for years heard little but oaths, and curses, and ribald jests, or the thief's jargon of his father's associates, and had been constantly cuffed and punished; but the better part of his nature was not extinguished; and at those words from the mouth of his _enemy_, he dropped on his knees, and clasping his hands, tried to speak; but could only sob. He had not wept before during that day of anguish; and now his tears gushed forth so freely, his grief was so passionate as he half knelt, half rested on the floor, that the good questioner saw that sorrow must have its course ere calm could be restored. The young penitent still wept, when a knock was heard at the door, and a lady entered. It was the clergyman's wife, he kissed her as she asked how he had succeeded with the wicked man in the jail?

"He told me," replied Mr. Leyton, "that he had a son whose fate tormented him more than his punishment. Indeed, his mind was so distracted respecting the youth, that he was scarcely able to understand my exhortations. He entreated me with agonizing energy to save his son from such a life as he had led, and gave me the address of a woman in whose house he lodged. I was, however, unable to find the boy in spite of many earnest inquiries."

"Did you hear his name?" asked the wife.

"George West," was the reply.

At the mention of his name, the boy ceased to sob. Breathlessly he heard the account of his father's last request, of the benevolent clergyman's wish to fulfill it. He started up, ran toward the door, and endeavored to open it; Mr. Leyton calmly restrained him, "You must not escape," he said.

"I can not stop here. I can not bear to look at you. Let me go!" The lad said this wildly, and shook himself away.

"Why, I intend you nothing but kindness."

A new flood of tears gushed forth; and George West said, between his sobs,

"While you were searching for me to help me, I was trying to burn you in your house. I can not bear it." He sunk on his knees, and covered his face with both hands.

There was a long silence, for Mr. and Mrs. Leyton were as much moved as the boy, who was bowed down with shame and penitence, to which hitherto he had been a stranger.

At last the clergyman asked, "What could have induced you to commit such a crime?"

Rising suddenly in the excitement of remorse, gratitude, and many feelings new to him, he hesitated for a moment, and then told his story, he related his trials, his sins, his sorrows, his supposed wrongs, his burning anger at the terrible fate of his only parent, and his rage at the exultation of the crowd: his desolation on recovering from his swoon, his thirst for vengeance, the attempt to satisfy it. He spoke with untaught, child-like simplicity, without attempting to suppress the emotions which successively overcame him.

When he ceased, the lady hastened to the crouching boy, and soothed him with gentle words. The very tones of her voice were new to him. They pierced his heart more acutely than the fiercest of the upbraidings and denunciations of his old companions. He looked on his merciful benefactors with bewildered tenderness. He kissed Mrs. Leyton's hand, then gently laid on his shoulder. He gazed about like one in a dream who dreaded to wake. He became faint and staggered. He was laid gently on a sofa, and Mr. and Mrs. Leyton left him.

Food was shortly administered to him, and after a time, when his senses had become sufficiently collected, Mr. Leyton returned to the study, and explained holy and beautiful things, which were new to the neglected boy: of the great yet loving father; of Him who loved the poor, forlorn wretch, equally with the richest, and noblest, and happiest; of the force and efficacy of the sweet beatitude, "Blessed are the Merciful, for they shall obtain Mercy."

I heard this story from Mr. Leyton, during a visit to him in May. George West was then head ploughman to a neighboring farmer, one of the cleanest, best behaved, and most respected laborers in the parish.

[From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal.]

BORAX LAGOONS OF TUSCANY.

In a mountainous district of Tuscany, lying about twenty miles west of Sienna, are situated the extraordinary lagoons from which borax is obtained. Nothing can be more desolate than the aspect of the whole surrounding country. The mountains, bare and bleak, appear to be perpetually immersed in clouds of sulphurous vapor, which sometimes ascend in wreathed or twisted columns, and at other times are beaten down by the winds, and dispersed in heavy masses through the glens and hollows. Here and there water-springs, in a state of boiling heat, and incessantly emitting smoke and vapor, burst with immense noise from the earth, which burns and shakes beneath your feet. The heat of the atmosphere in the vicinity of the lagoons is almost intolerable, especially when the wind blows about you the fiery vapor, deeply impregnated with sulphur. Far and near the earth is covered with glittering crystallizations of various minerals, while the soil beneath is composed of black marl, streaked with chalk, which, at a distance, imparts to it the appearance of variegated marble. As you proceed, you are stunned by the noise of constant explosions, which remind you that you are traversing the interior of a mighty crater, which in past ages was, perhaps, filled with a flood of liquid fire.

Borax was first brought to Europe, through India, from Thibet, where it is found in a mountainous region, resembling in character the district of Tuscany we have described. If we except some doubtful specimens, said to have been discovered in coal-pits in Saxony, we may assert that the mineral is found nowhere else in Europe, or that the territories of the Grand Duke enjoy a natural monopoly of the article, which, with the growth of the manufacturing system, is coming more and more into use every day, especially in France. In former times, when the value of the lagoons was not understood, the hollows and gorges in the mountains where they are situated were regarded by the superstitious peasantry as the entrance to hell. Experience taught them that it was in many respects a region of death. Whatever living thing fell into the lagoons inevitably perished, for the devouring acid almost in a moment separated the flesh from the bones. Cattle were frequently thus lost, and the peasants themselves or their children sometimes encountered a similar fate. A celebrated chemist, engaged in making experiments on the impregnated water, accidentally fell into a lagoon which he himself had caused to be excavated, and perished immediately, leaving a wife and several children in indigence.

For many ages no use was made of the boracic acid, and the whole district containing it--altogether about thirty miles in length--was dreaded and shunned by the inhabitants. Many inducements were vainly held out to the peasantry to cultivate the lands in the neighborhood, which might generally be obtained for nothing. From time to time a few adventurous families would take up their residence near Monte Cerboli, and bring a few fields into cultivation, leaving, however, more than nine-tenths of the land fallow.

About the middle of the last century, Hoefer, who is described as apothecary to the Grand Duke, first detected the presence of boracic acid in the lagoon Orcherio, near Monte Botardo. Masgagin, a professor of anatomy, found the mineral in a concrete state in several streams issuing from the lagoons, and suggested the propriety of establishing manufactories of borax. As late, however, as 1801, in consequence of the failure of numerous experiments, Professor Gazzeri arrived at the conclusion that the quantity of acid contained in the water of the lagoons was too small to render the working of them profitable. But this opinion was based on the old practice of attempting the extracting the mineral by the use of charcoal furnaces. It was M. Larderel who introduced the improved method of employing the hot vapors of the lagoons themselves in the elaboration of the acid, and may be said to have invented the present method, which will probably go on improving for ages.

The system of the Chevalier Larderel, now Comte de Pomerasce, displays at once great ingenuity and courage. The _soffioni_, or vapors, having been observed to burst forth with more or less vehemence in various parts of the mountains--which, fortunately for industry and commerce, are copiously irrigated with streams of water--the idea was conceived of forming an artificial lagoon on the site of the most elevated vent. A large basin having been excavated, the nearest stream was turned into it. The burning blasts from below forcing up their way through the water, keep it in a state of perpetual ebullition, and by degrees impregnate it with boracic acid. Nothing can be more striking than the appearance of such a lagoon. Surrounded by aridity and barrenness, its surface presents the aspect of a huge caldron, boiling and steaming perpetually, while its margin trembles, and resounds with the furious explosions from below. Sometimes the vapor issues like a thread from the water, and after rising for a considerable height, spreads, and assumes an arborescent form as it is diluted by the atmospheric air. It then goes circling over the surface of the lagoon, till, meeting with other bodies of vapor in a similar condition, the whole commingling, constitute a diminutive cloud, which is wafted by the breeze up the peaks of the mountains, or precipitated into the valleys, according to its comparative density.

To stand on the brink of one of these deadly lakes, stunned by subterranean thunder, shaken by incessant earthquakes, and scorched and half suffocated by the fiery pestilential vapor, is to experience very peculiar sensations, such as one feels within the crater of Vesuvius or Ætna, or in the obscurity of the Grotto del Cave.

Another lagoon is scooped out lower down the mountain, the site being determined by the occurrence of soffioni; and here the same processes are followed, and the same phenomena observable. The water from the lagoon above, after it has received impregnation during twenty-four hours, is let off, and conducted by an artificial channel to the second lagoon; and from thence, with similar precautions, to a third, a fourth, and so on, till it at length reaches a sixth or eighth lagoon, where the process of impregnation is supposed to be completed. By this time the water contains half per cent, of acid, which Professor Gazzeri considered far too little to repay the expense of extracting it. From the last lagoon it is conveyed into reservoirs, whence again, after having remained quiescent a few hours, for what purpose is not stated, it passes into the evaporating pans. "Here the hot vapor concentrates the strength of the acid by passing under shallow leaden vessels from the boiling fountains above, which it quits at a heat of 80 degrees Reaumur, and is discharged at a heat of 60 degrees (101 Fahrenheit)."

The evaporating pans are arranged on the same principles as the lagoons, though in some cases almost four times as numerous, each placed on a lower level than the other. In every successive pan the condensation becomes greater. All the water at length descends into the crystallizing vessels, where the process is completed. From these the borax is conveyed to the drying-rooms, where in the course of a very few hours, it is ready to be packed for exportation. The number of establishments has for many years been on the increase, though about twelve or fourteen years ago they did not exceed nine. Nothing can be more fallacious than the opinions formed by hasty visitors on matters of this kind, which are susceptible of perpetual improvement. When the produce was from 7000 to 8000 Tuscan pounds per day, the manufacturers were supposed to have reached the maximum, because all the water of the mountains was supposed to have been called into requisition. Experience, however, is perpetually teaching us new methods of economy; and though it would _a priori_ be impossible to say by what means this economy is to be effected, we can not permit ourselves to doubt that the manufacture of borax in Tuscany will hereafter be carried to a degree of perfection greatly transcending the expectations of those who formerly wrote on the subject. One of these observes the atmosphere has some influence on the results. In bright and clear weather, whether in winter or summer, the vapors are less dense, but the depositions of boracic acid in the lagoons are greater. Increased vapors indicate unfavorable change of weather, and the lagoons are infallible barometers to the neighborhood, even at a great distance, serving to regulate the proceedings of the peasantry in their agricultural pursuits.

As the quantity of boracic acid originally contained in the water of the lagoons is so very small as we now know it to be, we can no longer wonder at the opinion formerly entertained, that it did not exist at all. After five or six successive impregnations we see it does not exceed half per cent., which, estimating the quantity of borax at 7500 pounds a day, will give 1,500,000 Tuscan pounds, or 500 tons, of water for the same period. By the construction of immense cisterns for the catching of rain water, by the employment of steam-engines for raising it from below, and probably by creating artificial vents for the soffioni, the quantity of borax produced might be almost indefinitely increased, since the range of country through which the vapor ascends is far too great for us to suppose it to be exhausted by the production of 7000 pounds of borax a day. Science in all likelihood will bring about a revolution in this as in so many other manufactures, and our descendants will look back with a smile on our hasty and unphilosophical decision.

We are without information on many points connected with the population of those districts, to throw light on which it would be necessary to institute fresh investigations on the spot. The lagoons are usually excavated by laborers from Lombardy, who wander southward in search of employment in those months of the year during which the Apennines are covered with snow. They do not, however, remain to be employed in the business of manufacture. This is carried on by native Tuscan laborers, who occupy houses, often spacious and well built, in the neighborhood of the evaporating pans. They are in nearly all cases married men, and are enabled to maintain themselves and their families on the comparatively humble wages of a Tuscan lira a day. It would have been satisfactory to know the number of the Lombard navigators from time to time employed in excavating the lagoons, as well as of the native laborers, who carry on operations after their departure; but we may with certainty infer the successive appearance of fresh soffioni on the sides of the mountains from the perpetually-recurring necessity of excavating new lagoons. Again, from the immense increase of borax produced in former times we may safely infer its increase in future. The quantity obtained was quadrupled in four years by superior methods of extraction, by economy of water and vapor, and other improvements suggested by experience. There can, therefore, be no doubt in our minds that similar improvements will produce similar results. In 1832, about 650,000 Tuscan pounds were obtained; in 1836, 2,500,000.

We quote the following suggestion from the observation of a traveler: "It appears to me that the power and riches of these extraordinary districts remain yet to be fully developed. They exhibit an immense number of mighty steam-engines, furnished by nature at no cost, and applicable to the production of an infinite variety of objects. In the progress of time this vast machinery of heat and force will probably become the moving central point of extensive manufacturing establishments. The steam which has been so ingeniously applied to the concentration and evaporation of the boracic acid, will probably hereafter, instead of wasting itself in the air, be employed to move huge engines, which will be directed to the infinite variety of production which engages the attention of the industrious artisans; and thus in course of time there can be little doubt that these lagoons, which were fled from as objects of danger and terror by uninstructed man, will gather round them a large, intelligent population, and become sources of prosperity to innumerable individuals through countless generations."

Whoever has traveled through Tuscany, will every where have observed that the peasants live in better houses than they do any where else in Europe. Some one has said that nearly all their dwellings have been built within the last eighty years, an observation which in itself shows the substantial nature of their tenements, for where else will a peasant's house last so long? In the secluded mountain valleys, where agriculture supplies the only employment of the industrious classes, you sometimes meet with very ancient cottages, built quite in the style of the middle ages, with an abundance of projection and recesses, all calculated to produce picturesqueness of effect. The modern houses, more particularly in the district of the lagoons, are constructed more with reference to comfort than show, the object being to secure as much room and air as possible. In most places a garden is attached to every dwelling; and where trees will grow, a large linden or chestnut stretches its large boughs lovingly about the corner, and sometimes over the roof, of the dwelling. Under this the peasant and his family sit to enjoy themselves on summer evenings. Not to be entirely idle, however, the father is usually engaged in weaving baskets, while the children amuse themselves with cleaning and preparing the twigs; the mother, often with a baby in her lap, applies herself to the reparation of the family wardrobe; and the whole group, especially when lighted up by the slanting rays of the setting sun, presents to the eye a picture not to be equaled by Dutch or Flemish school.

In other respects, the peasant of the lagoons aims at an inferior standard of luxury. His house is by far the finest portion of his possessions. The style of furniture, though comfortable, is inferior; and in the matters of dress and food the most primitive theories evidently prevail. Here, however, as in most other parts of Europe, we behold the extremities, as it were, of two systems--the one which is going out of date, and the one which is coming in. Much bigotry is no doubt often displayed in the attachment of some persons to old habits and customs, not otherwise valuable or respectable than from their mere antiquity; but in several parts of Italy the advocates of novelty are seldom in possession of so much comfort as they who abide by the habits and customs of their forefathers. These, for the most part, are content with the coarse manufactures of the country, which, rough and uncouth in appearance, supply the requisite warmth, and are extremely enduring. On the other hand, the imported goods within the reach of the poor, though gay, and of brilliant colors, are too often of the most flimsy texture, and melt away from about the persons of the wearers almost like vapor. The two classes of peasants view each other with secret contempt; but the old fashion is rapidly dying out because it is old, while the new chiefly triumphs perhaps because it is new.

A native, when questioned on the subject of the recent innovations, observed that the lower classes of the population would have the means of providing for their necessities if they were not so eager after luxuries. The females are given to expensive dress, which deprives them of the means of supplying themselves with more necessary articles. The gluttony of the artisans has become proverbial among us: what is not spent in finery in dress is consumed in pampering the appetite. In consequence of the prosperity of the straw trade, which lasted from 1818 to 1825, luxury spread throughout the country; and it would excite a smile, were it not a subject for regret, to observe the country folks in embroidered stockings and pumps, with large velvet bonnets trimmed with feathers and lace; but in their homes they, as well as the artisans in the towns, are miserably off; and they who are even genteelly dressed when abroad, have rarely more than a miserable palliasse for a bed at home. Deprived of the advantages of the straw trade, the situation of the country people, especially those of the mountainous parts, is very distressing.

But this and similar causes operate much less on the population in the district of the lagoons than elsewhere; and, indeed, it may almost be said that these persons, for the most part, offer a striking contrast with their neighbors. Notwithstanding the nature of the vapors by which the air they breathe is impregnated, they are said, upon the whole, to be healthy and long-lived; and the regularity of employment, the goodness of their wages, and their constant residence on the same spot, with many other causes, combine to render them one of the most thriving sections of the Tuscan population. It must, nevertheless, be admitted that we want several data for correctly appreciating their condition, and these could only be supplied by one who should remain a long time among them. The owners and conductors of the works are too much absorbed by the love of gain to pay much attention to the state of the laborers, who, as in most other parts of Italy, lead a retired life, and are reserved and shy of communicating with strangers. On ordinary topics they will converse with you freely enough, but the moment you allude to their domestic concerns, they shrink into themselves, and decline entering into explanations. This, however, they usually do in the most civil manner, affecting stupidity, and carefully avoiding the least appearance of rudeness. Even in the neighboring towns and villages the laborers of the lagoons are little known; and the produce of their manufacture, though exported to France and England, attracts little notice to the country itself, except among those who are engaged in its production. This will account for the very little that is popularly known of the borax lagoons of Tuscany, or of the race of peasants by whom they are rendered profitable.

[From Colburn's "New Monthly Magazine."]

WALLACE AND FAWDON.

BY LEIGH HUNT.

This ballad was suggested by one of the notes to the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_. Wallace, the great Scottish patriot, had been defeated in a sharp encounter with the English. He was forced to retreat with only sixteen followers, the English pursued him with a bloodhound and his sole chance of escape from that tremendous investigator was either in baffling the scent altogether (which was impossible, unless fugitives could take to the water, and continue there for some distance), or in confusing it by the spilling of blood. For the latter purpose, a captive was sometimes sacrificed; in which case the hound stopped upon the body.

The supernatural part of the story of Fawdon is treated by its first relater, Harry the Minstrel, as a mere legend, and that not a very credible one; but as a mere legend it is very fine, and quite sufficient for poetical purposes; nor should the old poet's philosophy have thought proper to gainsay it. Nevertheless, as the mysteries of the conscience are more awful things than any merely gratuitous terror (besides leaving optical phenomena quite as real as the latter may find them), even the supernatural part of the story becomes probable when we consider the agitations which the noble mind of Wallace may have undergone during such trying physical circumstances, and such extremes of moral responsibility. It seems clear, that however necessary the death of Fawdon may have been to his companions, or to Scotland, his slayer regretted it; I have suggested the kind of reason which he would most likely have had for the regret; and, upon the whole, it is my opinion, that Wallace actually saw the visions, and that the legend originated in the fact. I do not mean to imply that Fawdon became present, embodied or disembodied, whatever may have been the case with his spectre. I only say that what the legend reports Wallace to have seen, was actually in the hero's eyes. The remainder of the question I leave to the psychologist.

PART THE FIRST.

WALLACE with his sixteen men Is on his weary way; They have hasting been all night, And hasting been all day; And now, to lose their only hope, They hear the bloodhound bay.

The bloodhound's bay comes down the wind, Right upon the road; Town and tower are yet to pass, With not a friend's abode.

Wallace neither turn'd nor spake; Closer drew the men; Little had they said that day, But most went cursing then.

Oh! to meet twice sixteen foes Coming from English ground, And leave their bodies on the track, To cheat King Edward's hound

Oh! to overtake one wretch That left them in the fight, And leave him cloven to the ribs, To mock the bloody spite.

Suddenly dark Fawdon stopp'd, As they near'd a town; He stumbled with a desperate oath, And cast him fiercely down.

He said, "The leech took all my strength, My body is unblest; Come dog, come devil, or English rack, Here must Fawdon rest."

Fawdon was an Irishman, Had join'd them in the war; Four orphan children waited him Down by Eden Scawr.

But Wallace hated Fawdon's ways, That were both fierce and shy; And at his words he turn'd, and said, "That's a traitor's lie.

"No thought is thine of lingering here, A captive for the hound; Thine eye is bright; thy lucky flesh Hath not a single wound: The moment we depart, the lane Will see thee from the ground."

Fawdon would not speak nor stir, Speak as any might; Scorn'd or sooth'd, he sat and lour'd As though in angry spite.

Wallace drew a little back, And waved his men apart; And Fawdon half leap'd up, and cried, "Thou wilt not have the heart!"

Wallace with his dreadful sword, Without further speech, Clean cut off dark Fawdon's head, Through its stifled screech:

Through its stifled screech, and through The arm that fenc'd his brow; And Fawdon, as he leap'd, fell dead, And safe is Wallace now.

Safe is Wallace with his men, And silent is the hound; And on their way to Castle Gask They quit the sullen ground.

PART THE SECOND.

WALLACE lies in Castle Gask, Resting with his men; Not a soul has come, three days, Within the warder's ken.

Resting with his men is Wallace, Yet he fareth ill There are tumults in his blood, And pangs upon his will.

It was night, and all were housed, Talking long and late; Who is this that blows the horn At the castle-gate?

Who is this that blows a horn Which none but Wallace hears? Loud and louder grows the blast In his frenzied ears.

He sends by twos, he sends by threes, He sends them all to learn; He stands upon the stairs, and calls But none of them return.

Wallace flung him forth down stairs; And there the moonlight fell Across the yard upon a sight, That makes him seem in hell

Fawdon's headless trunk he sees, With an arm in air, Brandishing his bloody head By the swinging hair.

Wallace with a stifled screech Turn'd and fled amain, Up the stairs, and through the bowers, With a burning brain:

From a window Wallace leap'd Fifteen feet to ground, And never stopp'd till fast within A nunnery's holy bound.

And then he turn'd, in gasping doubt, To see the fiend retire, And saw him not at hand, but saw Castle Gask on fire.

All on fire was Castle Gask; And on its top, endued With the bulk of half a tower, Headless Fawdon stood.

Wide he held a burning beam, And blackly fill'd the light; His body seem'd, by some black art, To look at Wallace, heart to heart, Threatening through the night.

Wallace that day week arose From a feeble bed; And gentle though he was before, Yet now to orphans evermore He gentlier bow'd his head.

[From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal.]

WHAT BECOMES OF ALL THE CLEVER CHILDREN?

During a visit to a friend in the country, I was enjoying a walk in his garden before breakfast on a delightful morning in June, when my attention was suddenly arrested by the pensive attitude of a little boy, the son of my host, whom I observed standing before a rose-bush, which he appeared to contemplate with much dissatisfaction. Children have always been to me a most interesting study; and yielding to a wish to discover what could have clouded the usually bright countenance of my little friend, I inquired what had attracted him to this particular rose-bush, which presented but a forlorn appearance when compared with its more blooming companions. He replied: "This rose-bush is my _own_; papa gave it to me in spring, and promised that no one else should touch it. I have taken great pains with it; and as it was covered with beautiful roses last summer, I hoped to have had many fine bouquets from it; but all my care and watching have been useless: I see I shall not have one full-blown rose after all."

"And yet," said I, "it appears to be as healthy as any other bush in the garden: tell me what you have done for it, as you say it has cost me so much pains?"

"After watching it for some time," he replied, "I discovered a very great number of small buds, but they were almost concealed by the leaves which grew so thickly; I therefore cleared away the greater part of these, and my little buds then looked very well. I now found, as I watched them, that though they grew larger every day, the green outside continued so hard that I thought it impossible for the delicate rose-leaves to force their way out; I therefore picked them open; but the pale, shriveled blossoms which I found within never improved, but died one after another. Yesterday morning I discovered one bud which the leaves had till then hidden from me, and which was actually streaked with the beautiful red of the flower confined in it; I carefully opened and loosened it, in the hope that the warm sun would help it to blow: my first thought this morning was of the pleasure I should have in gathering my _one_ precious bud for mamma--but look at it now!"

The withered, discolored petals to which the child thus directed my eye did indeed present but a melancholy appearance, and I now understood the cause of the looks of disappointment which had at first attracted my attention. I explained to the zealous little gardener the mischief which he had unintentionally done by removing the leaves and calyx with which nature had covered and inclosed the flower until all its beauties should be ready for full development; and having pointed out to him some buds which had escaped his _care_, I left him full of hope that, by waiting patiently for nature to accomplish her own work, he might yet have a bouquet of his own roses to present to his mother.

As I pursued my walk, it occurred to me that this childish incident suggested an answer to the question asked by Dr. Johnson, "What becomes of all the clever children?" Too often, it is to be feared, are the precious human buds sacrificed to the same mistaken zeal that led to the destruction of the roses which had been expected with so much pleasure by their little owner. Perhaps a few hints, suggested--not by fanciful theory, but by practical experience in the mental training of children--may help to rescue some little ones from the blighting influences to which they are too often exposed.

The laws by which the physical development of every infant, during the earliest period of its existence, is regulated, seem to afford a striking lesson by the analogy they bear to these laws on which the subsequent mental development depends; and by the wise arrangement of an ever-kind Providence, this lesson is made immediately to precede the period during which it should be carried into practice. On the babe's first entrance into the world, it must be fed only with food suitable to its delicate organs of digestion; on this depends its healthful growth, and likewise the gradual strengthening of those organs. Its senses must at first be acted upon very gently: too strong a light, or too loud a noise, may impair its sight or hearing for life.

The little limbs of a young infant must not be allowed to support the body before they have acquired firmness sufficient for that task, otherwise they will become deformed, and the whole system weakened; and last, not least, fresh and pure air must be constantly inhaled by the lungs, in order that they may supply vigor to the whole frame. All enlightened parents are acquainted with these laws of nature, and generally act on them; but when, owing to judicious management, their children emerge from babyhood in full enjoyment of all the animal organs, and with muscles and sinews growing firmer every day in consequence of the exercise which their little owners delight in giving them, is the same judicious management extended to the mind, of which the body, which has been so carefully nourished, is only the outer case? In too many cases it is not. Too often the tender mind is loaded with information which it has no power of assimilating, and which, consequently, can not nourish it. The mental faculties, instead of being gradually exercised, are overwhelmed: parents who would check with displeasure the efforts of a nurse who should attempt to make their infant walk at too early a period, are ready eagerly to embrace any system of so-called education which offers to do the same violence to the intellect; forgetting that distortion of mind is at least as much to be dreaded as that of the body, while the motives held out to encourage the little victims are not calculated to produce a moral atmosphere conducive either to good or great mental attainments. Children are sometimes met with--though few and far between--whose minds seem ready to drink in knowledge in whatever form or quantity it may be presented to them; and the testimony of Dr. Combe, as well as of many other judicious writers, proves the real state of the brain in such cases, and also the general fate of the poor little prodigies. Such children, however, are not the subject of these observations, of which the object is to plead for those promising buds which are closely encased in their "hard" but protecting covering; to plead for them especially at that period when the "beautiful red streak" appears; in other words, when, amid the thoughtless sports and simple studies of childhood, the intellect begins to develop itself, and to seek nourishment from all that is presented to it. There exists at the period alluded to a readiness in comparison, and a shrewdness of observation, which might be profitably employed in the great work of education. And here it may be observed, that as to "educate" signifies to _bring out_, the term _education_ can only be applied with propriety to a system which performs this work, and never to one which confines itself to laying on a surface-work of superficial information, unsupported by vigorous mental powers. Information may be acquired at any age, provided that the intellectual machinery has been kept in activity; whereas, if the latter has been allowed to rust and stiffen from disease, the efforts of the man--supposing him to have energy sufficient to make an effort--to redress the wrongs done to the boy, will in most cases be vain. That self-educated men are generally the best educated is a trite remark; so trite, indeed, that it frequently falls on the ear without rousing attention to the apparent paradox which it contains; and yet there must be some reason well worthy of attention for the fact, that so many who, in early life, have enjoyed advantages, have, on reaching manhood, found themselves surpassed by others who have been forced to struggle up unassisted, and in many cases surrounded by apparent obstacles to their rise. It is obvious that the point in which the latter have the advantage, is the necessity which they find for exercising their _own_ intellectual powers at every step; and, moreover, for taking each step firmly before they attempt the next; which necessity, while it may retard the rapid skimming over various subjects which is sometimes effected, gives new vigor continually to the mind, and also leads to the habit of that "industry and patient thought" to which the immortal Newton attributed all he had done; while at the same time a vivid pleasure is taken in the acquirement of knowledge so obtained beyond any that can be conferred by reward or encouragement from others.

From these considerations, it appears that the most judicious system of education is that in which the teacher rather directs the working of his pupil's mind than works for him; and it must be recollected that such a system, compared with some others, will be slow, though sure, in producing the desired result. Every one familiar with children must have observed with what apparently fresh interest they will listen to the same tale repeated again and again Now, if time and repetition are necessary to impress on the young mind facts interesting in themselves, they are surely more necessary when the information to be imparted is in itself dry and uninteresting, as is the ease with much which it is requisite for children to learn. The system here recommended is one which requires _patience_ both on the part of parents and teachers; but patience so exercised would undoubtedly be rewarded by the results, one of which would be, that we should not so frequently see "clever children" wane into very commonplace, if not stupid men.

[From Fraser's Magazine.]

LACK OF POETRY IN AMERICA.

After the Americans had established their political nationality beyond cavil, and taken a positive rank among the powers of the civilized world, they still remained subject to reproach, that in the worlds of Art, Science, and Literature, they had no national existence. Admitting, or, at any rate, feeling, the truth of this taunt, they bestirred themselves resolutely to produce a practical refutation of it. Their first and fullest success was, as might be expected from their notoriously utilitarian character, in practical inventions. In oratory, notwithstanding a tendency to more than Milesian floridness and hyperbole, they have taken no mean stand among the free nations of christendom. In history, despite the disadvantages arising from the scarcity of large libraries, old records, and other appliances of the historiographer, they have produced some books which are acknowledged to be well worthy a place among our standard works, and which have acquired, not merely an English, but a continental reputation. In the fine arts, notwithstanding obviously still greater impediments--the want at home, not only of great galleries and collections, but of the thousand little symbols and associations that help to educate the artist--the consequent necessity of going abroad to seek all that the student requires--they have still made laudable progress. The paintings of Washington Allston are the most noteworthy lions in Boston; the statues of Powers command admiration even in London. In prose fiction, the sweet sketches of Irving have acquired a renown second only to that of the agreeable essayists whom he took for his models, while the Indian and naval romances of Cooper are purchased at liberal prices by the chary bibliopoles of England, and introduced to the Parisian public by the same hand which translated Walter Scott. In poetry alone they are still palpably inferior: no world-renowned minstrel has yet arisen in the New Atlantis, and the number of those versifiers who have attained a decided name and place among the lighter English literature of their day, or whose claims to the title of poet are acknowledged _in all sections_ of their own country, is but small.

If we come to inquire into the causes of this deficiency, we are apt at first to light upon several reasons why it should _not_ exist. In the first place, there is nothing unpoetical about the country itself, but every thing highly the reverse. All its antecedents and traditions, its discovery, its early inhabitants, its first settlement by civilized men, are eminently romantic. It is not wanting in battle-grounds, or in spots hallowed by recollections and associations of patriots and sages. The magnificence of its scenery is well known. The rivers of America are at the same time the most beautiful and the most majestic in the world: the sky of America, though dissimilar in hue, may vie in loveliness with the sky of Italy. No one who has floated down the glorious Hudson (even amid all the un-ideal associations of a gigantic American steamer), who has watched the snowy sails--so different from the tarry, smoky canvas of European craft--that speck that clear water; who has noticed the faultless azure and snow of the heaven above, suggesting the highest idea of purity, the frowning cliffs that palisade the shore, and the rich masses of foliage that overhang them, tinged a thousand dyes by the early autumn frost--no one who has observed all this, can doubt the poetic capabilities of the land.

A seeming solution, indeed, presents itself in the business, utilitarian character of the people; and this solution would probably be immediately accepted by very many of our readers. Brother Jonathan thinks and talks of cotton, and flour, and dollars, and the ups and downs of stocks. Poetry _doesn't pay_: he can not appreciate, and does not care for it. "Let me get something for myself," he says, like the churl in Theocritus. "Let the gods whom he invokes reward the poet. What do we want with more verse? We have Milton and Shakspeare (whether we read them or not). He is the poet for me who asks me for nothing;" and so the poor Muses wither (or as Jonathan himself might say, _wilt_) away, and perish from inanition and lack of sympathy. Very plausible; but now for the paradox. So far from disliking, or underrating, or being indifferent to poetry, the American public is the most eager devourer of it, in any quantity, and of any quality; nor is there any country in which a limited capital of inspiration will go farther. Let us suppose two persons, both equally unknown, putting forth a volume of poems on each side of the Atlantic; decidedly the chances are, that the American candidate for poetic fame will find more readers, and more encouragement in his country, than the British in his. Very copious editions of the standard English poets are sold every year, generally in a form adapted to the purses of the million; to further which end they are frequently bound two or three in a volume (Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats, for instance, is a favorite combination). Even bardlings like Pollok enjoy a large number of readers and editions. Nor is there--notwithstanding the much-complained-of absence of an international copyright law--any deficiency of home supply for the market. Writing English verses, indeed, is as much a part of an American's education, as writing Latin verses is of an Englishman's; recited "poems" always holding a prominent place among their public collegiate exercises; about every third man, and every other woman of the liberally-educated classes, writes occasional rhymes, either for the edification of their private circle, or the poets'-corner of some of the innumerable newspapers that encumber the land; and the number of gentlemen and ladies one meets who have published a volume of Something and Other Poems, is perfectly astounding.

The true secret seems to be, that the Americans, as a people, have not received that education which enables a people to produce poets. For, however true the _poeta nascitur_ adage may be negatively of individuals, it is not true positively of nations. The formation of a national poetic temperament is the work of a long education, and the development of various influences. A peculiar classicality of taste, involving a high critical standard, seems necessary, among the moderns, to high poetic production; and such a taste has not yet been formed in America. True, there are kinds of poetry--the Ballad and the Epic, which, so far as we can trace them, are born, Pallas-like, full-grown; which sound their fullest tone in a nation's infancy, and are but faintly echoed in its maturity. But there are numbers in which lisps the infancy, not of a nation merely, but of a race. And the Americans were an old race though a young nation. They began with too much civilization for the heroic school of poetry: they have not yet attained enough cultivation for the philosophic.

[From the London Christian Times.]

SIR ROBERT PEEL.

All the ordinary incidents of the past week have been thrown into temporary oblivion, by the lamentable occurrence that has deprived the country of one of its most eminent statesmen; the House of Commons, of one of its chiefs; the family of the right honorable baronet of its most amiable and distinguished head; and many of the public institutions, those of the fine arts especially, of an enlightened and generous patron.

The late member for Tamworth was the eldest son of the first Sir R. Peel, formerly of the house of Peel and Yates, which, in 1803, employed about 15,000 persons at Bury, and which paid at that time £40,000 a year duty on their printed cotton fabrics. In 1787, Mr. Peel married his partner's daughter, Miss Yates, who bore the subject of this memoir--5th February, 1788--in a little cottage, near Chamber Hall. The husband of Miss Yates was very successful in his cotton speculations, and in 1798, when the English Government appealed to the country for pecuniary aid to carry on the French war, subscribed himself £10,000. Some notion may be formed of the extent of the wealth of the first Sir R. Peel, from the fact that when, in 1830, his will was proved, the _personal_ property was sworn at £1,200,000. The much-lamented baronet received the rudiments of his education under parental superintendence, near Bury. He was removed to Harrow, when he became a form-fellow of the more brilliant, but less amiable, Lord Byron, who has left several commendatory notices of his youthful friend, and whose eminence he very sagaciously predicted.

From Harrow, Mr. Peel became a Gentleman Commoner of Christ Church, Oxford, where, in 1808, he was the first who took the honors of double first-class. In the following year, having attained his majority, he entered the House of Commons for Cashel, as the nominee of Mr. Richard Pennefather. Mr. Peel continued to represent the twelve electors of Cashel and their lord till 1812, when he represented the close borough of Chippenham, with a constituency of 135. The prodigious wealth of the first baronet of Drayton Manor gave his son great advantages in the House of Commons, where, in 1810, he was selected to second the Address, in reply to the Royal Speech. Shortly after, he became the Under-Secretary of State in the Perceval Cabinet, and, upon the fall of his chief, though only twenty-six years of age, he was made principal Secretary for Ireland--an office, at that time, of the greatest difficulty and importance--and held that post with as much address as his ultra-Toryism, and his extreme unpopularity in Ireland, admitted, under the Viceroyships of the Duke of Richmond, Earl Whitworth, and Earl Talbot. The most permanent and beneficial measure which Ireland owes to its former Secretary, Peel, is its constabulary force, introduced in 1817, which was the wedge to the introduction of the English body of police.

The masterly tactics of the still youthful statesman, in part, but his "thorough and throughout" Toryism, chiefly recommended him to the electors of Oxford University, which he represented twelve years, till 1828; when, upon an obvious change in his opinions on the question of Catholic emancipation, he was rejected.

In 1820, Mr. Peel, then in his thirty-third year, had married Julia, the daughter of General Sir John Floyd, who was only twenty-five, and who survives her illustrious husband. The issue of this marriage is five sons and two daughters. One of his sons has already entered diplomatic employment in Switzerland; a second has recently entered, as our readers will remember, the House of Commons; a third is in the army, and one in the navy. One of Sir Robert's daughters was married to Viscount Villiers in 1840.

In 1819, the monetary affairs of the country had become so alarming, that the House of Commons appointed a secret committee to inquire into the state of the Bank of England, of which committee Mr. Peel was appointed chairman. He had hitherto been one of the most strenuous opponents of Mr. Horner's celebrated propositions of 1811, from which period he had strongly defended the currency policy of Mr. Vansittart. But the evidence produced to the secret committee effected a complete change in Mr. Peel's opinions, and it was chiefly through his agency that the currency was settled on its present metallic basis. In the conflict, a touching incident of antagonism, between the subject of this memoir and his father, occurred in the House of Commons. Mr. Peel was, in 1822, promoted to the head of the Home-office, which he occupied till the overthrow of Lord Liverpool, in 1827, when he retired, in consequence, as it is alleged, of the elevation of Mr. Canning, whose opinions were in favor of the abolition of the Roman Catholic disabilities. Upon the accession of the Duke of Wellington to power, in 1828, Mr. Peel returned to the Home-office, and, in conjunction with his noble friend, repealed the disabilities of the Roman Catholics; which not only cost him Ireland, and brought upon him a hurricane of abuse from his party, but shook the general confidence in either the soundness or the integrity of his opinions.

The skirts of the Gallic storm of 1830, that crushed the Bourbonic throne, destroyed the Wellington Administration, and made the Reform Bill no longer deferable, which the Whigs entered office to carry. Meantime, the deceased had succeeded to an enormous estate and the baronetcy, by the demise of his father, Sir R. Peel. But he was, in opposition, fiercely assailed with the maledictions of Ireland; the censures of the High Tory party--whom he was alleged to have betrayed--the clamors of the advocates of a paper currency; and what, perhaps, was the most difficult to bear, his party imputed to him the real authorship of the Reform Bill and its consequences, by his vacillation in reference to the emancipation of the Catholics. But, nothing dismayed by the angry elements surrounding him, and the new political vista of England and the Continent, Sir R. Peel now displayed all the resources of his statesmanship in concentrating the new Conservative party. He so far succeeded--chiefly through the want of more courage and honesty in the Whigs--that he was again called to office in 1834, during his brief tenancy of which, no one can withhold praise for his command of temper, his Liberal tendencies, and his spirit of general conciliation. In 1841, Sir R. Peel again entered office; and--though he undeniably was enabled to do so by the Protectionist party, by the force of circumstances, the stagnation of commerce, the failure of the crops, and the famine in Ireland--he opened the ports, and repealed the Corn-laws forever, to the consternation of the world, and in opposition to all the opinions of his life; this was in 1845. Since that period Sir R. Peel has been in Opposition, indeed, but not its leader so much as a distinguished debater, an accomplished financier, and the expositor of opinions which neither the Whigs nor Tories heartily espouse.

During forty years servitude in the House of Commons--though not generally in favor of popular sentiments, and, in religious matters, rather liberal than generous--Sir R. Peel has undoubtedly rendered, in addition to his three great measures--the Bullion-law, Catholic Emancipation, and the repeal of the Corn-law--many minor political benefits to the country. Of this class of services, that which reflects on him the most honor, is his amelioration of the Criminal Law. As to the measures to which we have just alluded, there will still continue to be a large diversity of opinion. Thousands of the wealthy classes will regard them all as steps in the declination of the national power; while the more popular mind, that rarely troubles itself with large or profound views, has already registered its approval of them.

It is a singular fact, that he spent eleven years in Parliamentary opposition to the Bullion doctrine that he adopted in 1822; that he waged strenuous war against the repeal of the Roman Catholic disabilities for eighteen years, and at last carried them in spite of his own party; and that for thirty years in the House of Commons, he maintained that the prosperity of Great Britain depended on the retention of her Corn-laws, which he repealed in 1845. It is, therefore, clear that his final measures, in reference to these three great departments of his political life, were rather concessions to the force of events, than the voluntary policy of his own mind. His wisdom lay in the concession. Many of his chief colleagues, in each of these instances, would have blindly rushed upon destruction. His greater sagacity foresaw the gulf and turned away, choosing to win the courage of relinquishing his life's opinions, than that of courting the dangers of resistance. And in these three famous instances of Sir R. Peel's life, we have the true elaboration of his own character. He was by education and preference a Tory; by necessity he became a Progressionist.

While we have felt it our duty to write the last paragraph, we cheerfully record our admiration of Sir Robert Peel's great talents, of his moral integrity, of his very exemplary private life, and, we believe, of his firm attachment to his country and its institutions. He is another memorable instance of what the children of democracy may become in England, with adequate talents and exertions. Sir R. Peel owed much to his wealth, to his associates, and to his early opinions. But far beyond the factitious influences derivable from such sources, he had great elements in himself. When his heart and mind received free permission from his policy to display themselves, they were of the highest order. Such a man is not easily made: of his loss we are only at present very imperfectly able to appreciate the consequences, one of which, we fear will be a mischievous re-formation of the Protectionist party, and, if we read the auspices aright, his death will not improve the Ministerial Whigs.

The motion on Wednesday night, in the House of Commons, not to proceed with public business that evening, in honor of the memory of Sir R. Peel, was as becoming to the House itself as it was to its mover, Mr. Hume. It is a poor recompense to a bereaved family, we are aware; but it is such a tribute as has not always been granted to even greater men, and to some of the blood royal. In due time the public feeling will doubtless imbody itself in more tangible and permanent forms; and when that occurs, it will not be the least of the monumental honors of the deceased, that the gratitude of the widow, the orphan, the neglected genius, and suffering worth, will lead many to shed their tears on the bronze or marble effigies of him whose like England will not easily see again.

[From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal.]

SPONGES.

About three centuries and a half before the Christian era, the question, Are sponges animal or vegetable? was proposed by Aristotle, who, unable himself to solve the difficulty, was contented, in the true spirit of a lover of nature, with carefully recording the results of his accurate observations, and advancing his opinion rather in the form of an inquiry than of an allegation. Upward of two thousand years rolled away ere this question was satisfactorily answered. Nay, we believe that the vegetable theory has, even at the present time, its advocates; while some are still disposed to consider that the sponge is at one period of its existence a vegetable, and at another an animal.

To any one who hesitates to acknowledge that the sponge is endowed with animal life--confessedly in its lowest form, yet with a most exquisite adaptation to its destiny--we would offer the spectacle of a living sponge in a portion of its native element. We would let him gaze on the animated fountain, which is perpetually sucking the water into its substance through its countless pores, and after assimilating such particles of it as are essential to its existence, ceaselessly expelling it, at more distant intervals, through the larger channels which may be observed on its outer surface. We would point out innumerable gemmules of gelatinous matter, which at certain seasons of the year may be seen spouting "from all parts of the living film which invests the horny skeleton;"[24] until, at length, escaping from the nursery in which they grew, they are carried off to the wide sea by means of the force of the currents issuing from the sponge, though not left to perish at the mercy of the waves. For he will find that the young animal or egg is covered with numberless minute hairs or _cilia_, each one of which is endowed with a distinct and innate power of vibration; so that by means of thousands of almost invisible oars, the young sponge "shoots like a microscopic meteor through the sea," until it arrives at some rock or other place properly adapted for its future growth; then it settles calmly and contentedly down, and gradually losing its locomotive power, begins to spread on its base; and builds up, within its living substance, a horny framework, such as we have already seen in its parent.

The above-named currents may be more distinctly seen by powdering the surface of the water with chalk or any similar substance; and Professor Grant mentions, that by placing pieces of cork or dry paper over the apertures, he could see them moving "by the force of the currents at the distance of ten feet from the table on which the specimen rested."

Dr. Peysonell, who paid great attention to the structure of the sponge, brought proofs of its animal vitality before the Royal Society in the years 1752--57. And Mr. Ellis, five years afterward, by his dissections, set the question quite at rest; though he fell into the error of believing that the frame of the sponge was the outer case of worms or polypes. Later examination, however, has shown that the _frame_ or _sponge_, commonly so called, is an _internal_ skeleton, while the vital power is simply composed of a slimy film which coats over every fibre, and which, inert as it appears, possesses the power of secreting the particles essential to its growth.

It has been affirmed, that the sponge is observed to contract or shrink when torn from the rooks; but there is satisfactory evidence to prove that neither this nor any degree of laceration has a sensible effect on this nerveless though vital mass.

All sponges, however, have not a horny framework, but some, which are thereby rendered useless in a commercial point of view, are supported by a skeleton composed of siliceous particles imbedded in a tough, fibrous material. These particles, or _spicula_, as they are termed, are so uniform in the species to which they severally belong, that, in the words of Professor Grant, if the soft portion be destroyed, and a "few of them brought from any pan of the world on the point of a needle, they would enable the zoologist to identify the species to which they originally belonged." Professor R. Jones, however, considers that this opinion should be received with considerable limitations.

The last fact, trivial as it appears, assumes immense importance when we learn that to these spicula we must turn for an explanation of the isolated masses of flint which abound in various chalk formations. "The mere assertion," says Rhymer Jones, "that flints were sponges, would no doubt startle the reader who was unacquainted with the history of these fossil relics of a former ocean;" and yet a little reflection "will satisfy the most skeptical." For long ages the sponge is imbedded in the chalk, through which water is continually percolating. A well-known law of chemistry explains why similar matter should become aggregated; and thus the siliceous matter of the sponge forms a nucleus for the siliceous matter contained in the water, until at length the entire mass is converted into a solid flint. But we are not left, he adds, to mere conjecture or hypothesis on this point, "for nothing is more common in chalky districts than to find flints, which, on _being broken, still contain portions of the original sponge in an almost unaltered state_."

There is every reason to believe that the sponge-fisheries of the Ægean are at present conducted precisely in the same manner as they were in the time of Aristotle. The sponge-divers are mostly inhabitants of the islands which lie off the Carian coast, and of those situated between Rhodes and Calymnos. These men--who form a distinct society, and are governed by peculiar laws, which prohibit their marriage until they shall have attained a prescribed proficiency in their art--go out in little fleets, composed of caiques, each of six or seven tons' burden, and manned by six or eight divers: each man is simply equipped with a netted bag in which to place the sponges, and a hoop by which to suspend it round his neck; and thus furnished, he descends to a depth of from five to twenty, or even occasionally thirty fathoms. The sponges which he collects are first saturated with fresh water, which destroys the vitality, and decomposing the gelatinous matter, turns it black; this matter is stamped out by the feet of the divers, and the sponges are then dried in the sun, and strung in circles, after which they are ready for sale and exportation.

In a good locality an expert diver may bring up fifty okes in a day, and for each oke he obtains about twenty-five drachmas. The weight is calculated, says Forbes, when the sponges are dry, and a very large sponge may weigh two okes. The chief sponge-markets are Smyrna. Rhodes, and Napoli.

Blount, who wrote in 1634, affirms that these sponge-divers "are from infancy bred up on dry biscuites and other extenuatinge dyet, to make them extreme lean; then takinge a spunge wet in oyle, they hold it, part in their mouths, and part without, soe they go under water, where at first they can not stay long, but after practice, the leanest stay an hour and a halfe, even till the oyle of the spunge be corrupted.... Thus they gather spunges from more than an hundred fathom deep," &c. All this is very wonderful, but the narrator stamps the value of his tale by telling us immediately afterward that "Samos is the only place in the world on whose rocks the spunges grow." So that, in the words which he elsewhere makes use of, "we applaude hys belief, but keep our owne." We do not, however, mean to assert that there are not sponges of some species (though not the sponge of commerce) which exist at a depth as great as that which he mentions, for Forbes dredged a living specimen of one small kind from 185 fathoms in the Gulf of Macri.

The sponge of commerce (_Spongia officinalis_) was divided by Aristotle into three kinds--namely, the loose and porous, the thick and close, and the fine and compact. These last, which are rare, were called the sponges of Achilles, and were placed by the ancients in the interior of their helmets and boots, as protections from pressure and abrasion.

The same naturalist states that those sponges are best which are found on coasts where the water becomes suddenly deep, and attributes this superiority to the greater equality of temperature obtained in such waters--observations which have been corroborated by Professor E. Forbes.

Fifty-six species of sponges have been enumerated, ten or eleven of which are found in the British isles. A portion of these inhabit fresh water, among which we may mention the river sponge (_S. fluviatilis_), which abounds in the Thames. Among the British sponges, too, is the stinging or crumb-of-bread sponge (_S. urens_), a widely-diffused species, which, when taken out of the sea is of a bright orange color, and which will, if rubbed on the hand raise blisters. This stinging quality is highly increased by drying the sponge; a process which also gives it the color and appearance of crumbs of bread, whence its popular name.

Sponges, as may be imagined from the mode of their growth, are most sportive in their forms: some a tubular, others mushroom-like, a few almost globular, and still others branched or hand-shaped; in the warmer seas they hang in fantastic and gorgeous fans from the roofs of submarine caverns, or decorate the sides with vases of classic elegance, though of nature's handiwork. Nor are their colors less various: some are of the most brilliant scarlet or the brightest yellow, others green, brown, blackish, or shining white; while Peron mentions one procured by him in the South Sea which was of a beautiful purple, and from which a liquor of the same color was extracted by the slightest pressure; with this liquor he stained several different substances, and found that the color was not affected by the action of the air, and that it would bear several washings.

The value of the sponge in surgery is well known; and it is also used, medicinally, being for this purpose lightly burned to powder, and given in small doses in scrofulous complaints. It has also been regarded as a specific in leprosy and hydrophobia. It is, however, needless to say that in these last it can have no influence whatever.

There are several representations of sponges given in the balneal feasts depicted on various Etruscan vases; and the sponge has been found in a perfect state in a Roman barrow at Bartlow Hills. It was discovered near the sacrificing utensils. Livy says that the covering of the breast of the Samnite gladiators was sponge.

When the animal matter remains in the sponges of various kinds, they have always a very strong fishy smell, which may perhaps be regarded as an additional proof of the fealty which they give to the animal kingdom. Yet we must not omit that there are substances which, though they bear the name of sponges, would rather appear, from their microscopic structure, to belong to the vegetable world; we allude to those known as _gelatinous sponges_, which are perfectly different from the sponges properly so called.

FOOTNOTES:

[24] Professor Rymer Jones.

[From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal.]

THE RAILWAY WORKS AT CREWE.

"What place is this?" said the worthy old gentleman, my traveling companion on the London and North Western railway, as he woke up from a comfortable nap when the train slackened speed, and entered a spacious and expensively-decorated station.

"This is Crewe, sir, I believe."

And scarcely had I answered, when there was a general shout of "Crewe, Crewe!" from an army of porters who came rushing out, and pounced upon the train as if it were their lawful prey.

Presently a head peered in at the door, inquiring,

"All here for the Liverpool line?"

And on my elderly friend saying that he was for Manchester, he was politely but smartly informed that he must change carriages here. So I we both got out; and my friend, after some bother about his luggage, and the use of some hasty language, was at last made "all right" by being put into a carriage bearing an announcement that that was the "Manchester train." On another carriage in front was a similar board announcing the "Liverpool train," and behind was a third to announce that for Chester. Passengers were running up and down the platform: some looking after luggage, some for the right carriage, and others darting into the handsome refreshment-room. But nobody seemed to think of going away from the station; indeed the only mode of exit and entrance was through a close-shut iron gate, beside which sat a policeman looking with enviable coolness on all the bustle around him. There was a ring of a bell; a banging of doors; a puff of the engine; and off went the train to Liverpool. Another locomotive now appeared moving cautiously down the line, and was speedily attached to the Manchester train, which was soon out of sight. A third came; caught hold of the Chester train, and away _it_ rushed. The passengers who had journeyed so amicably together from London were now thoroughly dispersed, and ere the sun set, some would be crossing the Scotch Border at Carlisle, some embarking at Holyhead for Dublin, and others attending to their business on the Mersey or the Dee, or amid the tall chimneys of Manchester. A luggage train came crawling out from its hiding-place, and finding the coast clear, went thundering past: the porters wiped their foreheads, and went to have a little rest; and I, the solitary passenger for Crewe, was left cooling my heels on the platform.

"Where is Crewe?" I said to the guardian of the iron gate.

"Cross the bridge, go straight on, and turn to the right," was the concise reply.

So I crossed the bridge, and found myself in a pleasant country road. The flat rich fields of Cheshire extended on the left and to the right; at the distance of about half a mile appeared the square massive tower of a church, surrounded by long ranges of low buildings like work-shops, and rows of houses evidently quite new. Some neat cottages lined the sides of the road, and there were two or three inns all bearing marks of youth; while some zealous people had caused a few bills, bearing the words "Prepare to meet thy God," printed in conspicuous type, to be affixed to the walls, giving a stranger not & very high idea of the character of the people in the habit of using that road. Turning to the right, I passed a Methodist chapel, bearing the date of its erection, 1848; a new flour-mill driven by water; a new inn with a brave new sign-board; and, crossing the boundary made by the Chester line, I arrived in Crewe.

Not many years ago, there were only two or three houses here, and the land on which the station and the town are built formed part of a good Cheshire farm. The worthy farmer plowed his fields and reaped his harvest, his dame made good Cheshire cheese; and both lived merrily on, quite unconscious of the change that their farm was about to undergo. The eyes of engineers were on it: it was placed, as an Irishman would say, "very convanient" for railway purposes and after a few years had rolled away, it became the great workshop of the Grand Junction Line, and the point where the main line to Birmingham received its tributaries from the north and west. Several thousands of people were brought here; the company laid out streets and built houses; shops were opened; churches and schools erected; a market-place provided; a Mechanics' Institution established; many hotels built, one of which was destined to lodge royalty for a night; and a town was erected with a rapidity unexampled even in America.

The general appearance of Crewe is very pleasing. The streets are wide, and well paved; the houses are very neat and commodious, usually of two stories, built of bricks, but the brick concealed by rough-cast plaster, with porches, lattice-windows, and a little piece of garden-ground before the door. The greater part of these houses belong to the company, and are let to the men at rents from 2s. 9d. per week upward. The accommodation is good, and it would be difficult to find such houses at such low rents even in the suburbs of a large town. Water is plentifully supplied by public pumps, and the town is well lighted with gas. The names of the streets are expressive: some are called after the towns to which their direction points--such as Liverpool, Chester, Sandbach, &c.; others from the works to which they lead--such as Forge-street; and others from well-known but very modern names--such as Prince Albert-street. The placards on the walls, however, seem somewhat out of place in a railway town, as nearly all have relation to sales of cattle, timber, &c, indicating clearly enough that Crewe is but a mechanical settlement in an agricultural district. The market-place is spacious, and roofed over; the church is a handsome edifice of stone; and the Mechanics' Institution a fine building with a large lecture-room (used also as a town-hall), a good library and news-room, and commodious class-rooms. These were all built by the company; and indeed the completeness of every thing connected with the town gives evidence of such an amplitude of means possessed by its founders, as seldom, if ever, fall to the lot of private individuals.

The most interesting objects, however, about Crewe are the railway works. These are placed on a large tongue of land near the station, and so adapted, that wagons, and carriages, and engines can easily be run into them from the main line. In these works every thing connected with "the rolling stock" of the company for the northern section of the line (Walnerton being used for the southern) is made and repaired. The number of hands employed at present is about eight hundred; but formerly, when railways were more prosperous than now, it exceeded a thousand. The workmen seem to belong, in tolerably equal proportions, to the four great divisions of the United Kingdom; and the slow, deliberate speech of the Scot, the rich brogue of the Irishman, and the sharp, quick utterance of the Welshman, have lost very little of their purity and richness amid the air of the county palatine of Chester. The greater portion of the work is carried on in long, largo sheds, for the most part of one story, and called the "fitting," "erecting," and other shops, according to the nature of the work done in them. The artisans may be divided into two great classes--the workers in metal, and those in wood; the former being employed in making locomotives' wheels, axles, springs, &c, and the latter in constructing the carriages. By far the greatest number of hands are employed in the former.

That our hasty inspection may begin at the beginning, let us peep at the foundry. Both brass and iron are east here, but to-day it is iron. The sandy floor is covered with moulds of all descriptions, and swarthy workmen are preparing them to receive the melted iron. Occasionally you are startled by the shout of "Mind your eye!" which must be taken in its literal signification, for it comes from a moulder blowing away with a bellows the superfluous grains of fine sand, which, if once in the eye, will give some trouble. The moulds are ready, the furnace is opened, and a stream of bright white metal rolls out into the pots prepared for its reception, and is speedily poured into the moulds. In an adjoining shed are blacksmiths plying forehammers; but their greatest efforts are entirely eclipsed by the mighty steam-hammer that is seen at work in another part of the shed. This hammer is the invention of Mr. Nasmyth, of the Bridgewater Foundry, near Manchester. It moves up and down in a strong frame, at a speed subject to such nice regulations, that, according to the will of its director, it can gently drive a nail, or crush to splinters a log of wood. When Lord John Russell lately visited Manchester, the delicate touch of this hammer was strikingly displayed before him: an egg was procured, and placed in a wine-glass, and such was the power possessed over this giant, that after a little adjustment, the mighty hammer was brought repeatedly down so as just to chip the egg as gently as by a spoon in the hands of a child, while the glass was not in the slightest degree injured or disturbed. The labor saved by this hammer is immense. One man sits perched up on the frame to direct it, and another stands below to guide the iron on the anvil. The great long bar, white with heat, is pulled out of the furnace, laid on the massive piece of iron under the frame, and, with a dull, heavy sound, down conies the hammer, swiftly or slowly, according to the wishes of the director. From the forge and the foundry the "rough-hewn" iron-work passes to be planed, and its surface to be made "true." The wheel of an engine or a carriage, for example, after being forged by the black-smith, requires to be most carefully cut round the rim, so that the space between the flange--that is, the projecting inner part of the wheel, and the outer part--may be perfectly conical, in order that the least amount of surface may be exposed to the rail, and consequently the least amount of friction produced. Again, when a cylinder comes from the foundry, the interior must be cut and polished to a perfect circle, otherwise it would be useless. In short, there is no part of a locomotive that does not require to be prepared with the most perfect accuracy to fit some other part; and if this accuracy is not gained, the engine will either not work at all, or work very imperfectly. It must be remembered that it is hard metal, like iron and brass, that has thus to be wrought on, not comparatively soft material, like wood and stone.

But the machinery employed at Crewe seems capable of cutting any thing, even though it were a rock of adamant. You pass into a shed full of little machines, standing separate from each other, with all manner of curious wheels and belts, driven by steam, of course, and each with a man stationed by its side, gazing attentively at the little machine, as if he were absorbed in thought; and, indeed, were it not for an occasional quick movement of his hands, and a rapid change of position, you might almost suppose that he was sleeping on his legs. But go close up, and you notice that the machine is slowly moving backward and forward, and still more slowly at the same time in a lateral direction. Some curious piece of mechanism is placed on it, and the movements of the machine cause a sharp steel-cutter to pass over the iron surface, which cuts it as easily and truly as a joiner planes a piece of fir. The side motion brings all the surface gradually under the instrument, but the machine, clever and powerful though it is, requires to be constantly watched and regulated, and hence the fixed attention of the man in charge. At a large machine, you will see those long, curious rods called "eccentrics" undergoing this operation; at another, a cylinder is being planed; and at a third, the rims of wheels are being cut. The filings thus made are preserved, and will be seen in large heaps in a yard, ready to be melted down, and "used up" again. In some cases both iron and brass filings are produced, which, of course, are mixed with each other; but in a quiet corner of one of the sheds you will find a boy with a heap of these filings before him, separating the brass from the iron by means of a magnet. Only imagine a boy of fourteen or fifteen doing nothing all day long except raking a magnet through a heap of black and yellow dust, and brushing into a separate heap the iron filings off his magnet! You will also see a series of three iron rollers working on each other, by means of which plate iron can be twisted into any given form; a mighty "punch" which will make a hole an inch in diameter through iron an inch in thickness as easily as though it were clay; and a sharp-cutting instrument that shears through sheets of iron as easily as a pair of scissors through a sheet of paper.

Go into another shed, and you will see all these various parts getting their last touches from the hand, and being fitted into each other; and here, also you find two or three men engraving, on circular segments of brass, the names the various engines are to be known by. In another shed the engines are being "erected." Here you see from twenty to thirty in all stages of progress. Perhaps the framework only has been laid; or the boiler, with its many rows of long, circular brass tubes, has just been fastened, and is now receiving its outer clothing of long slips of wood; or the whole is complete, merely wanting to be tried on the many lines of rail in and around the sheds. There are two classes of engines here, whose difference is observable at a glance: some have six wheels, two of which are very large, about six feet in diameter, and the other four much smaller. The two first only are driven by the machinery, the others being merely what are called "bearing wheels." With this description of engine more speed than power is obtained, and hence it is used for passenger trains, where a high velocity is required, and where there is usually little weight, comparatively speaking, to draw. The others have only four wheels, not so large as the two just described, but all driven by the machinery. Such engines I are more remarkable for power than speed, and accordingly they are used for luggage trains. In another shed, "The Hospital," will be found a number of engines laboring under various disorders, sent here to be repaired.

But carriages and wagons are also built here. You enter a shed (of two stories this time), and find wood shavings instead of iron filings, and the hissing of a circular saw instead of the quiet, steady scraping of a "cutter." Here all the woodwork of the carriages is executed, and when ready they are hoisted through a large trap-door in the roof to the second story, where they are painted and varnished, and, if first-class, "up-holstered." In a store-room above stairs, are piled heaps of cushions ready for the most expensive carriages; at a table is a boy stuffing with horse-hair the leathern belts that hang by the sides of the windows; and elsewhere an artist is painting the arms of the company on the panels of a door. Here and there are boards placed before a carriage, with the intimation "Wet!" indicating that you must not go too near; and some of the carriages give evidence of having seen service, but are now renewing their youth under the skillful hands of the painter and the upholsterer. When ready to "go on the line," they are let down through the trap-door, fixed on their wheels and axles, and sent to relieve others that require repair.

Six o'clock strikes, and work ceases. In walking back leisurely to the station, I saw many of the workmen digging in their little gardens, "bringing themselves," as Emerson phrases it, "into primitive relations with the soil and nature;" others were reading the papers of the day at the Mechanics' Institution; others strolling among the green fields round the town; and others walking to a class-room, to hear a teetotal lecture; while some were proceeding to recreations of a very different kind. I was admitted through the iron gate by the same policeman; the "down" express train arrived, and it conveyed me in an hour and a half to Liverpool, a distance of about forty-five miles, stopping only once at the well-known town of Warrington.

[From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal.]

STEAM-BRIDGE OF THE ATLANTIC

In the summer of 1838 the Atlantic Ocean was crossed for the first time by vessels exclusively propelled by steam-power. These pioneers were the _Sirius_ and the _Great Western_--the former built for another class of voyages, and afterward lost on the station between Cork and London; the latter built expressly for Atlantic navigation, and which has ever since been more or less employed in traversing that ocean. Other ships followed: the _British Queen_, afterward sold to the Belgian government; the _Great Liverpool_, subsequently altered and placed on the line between Southampton and Alexandria; and the _President_, lost, no man knows how or where, in the year 1841. Then came what is called "Cunard's Line," consisting of a number of majestic steam-ships built in the Clyde, to carry passengers and mails between Liverpool in Europe, and Halifax, Boston, and New York in America; a service they have performed with the most marvelous regularity. The only great misfortune that has befallen this line has been the loss of one of the vessels, the _Columbia_, which, in nautical phrase, "broke her back" on some rocks on the American shore of the Atlantic. Then came the _Great Britain_, the greatest of them all, differing from the others in two respects--first, in being built of iron instead of wood; and second, in being propelled by the Archimedean screw instead of by the old paddle-wheels; and, alas! she has differed from them all in a third respect, inasmuch as neither the same good-luck attended her as in general fell to the lot of the ships of the Cunard Line, nor the same irretrievable bad fortune as was met by the _President_ and the _Columbia_; for, after having made several voyages very successfully, she, to the amazement of all mankind, very quietly went ashore in Dundrum Bay, on the east coast of Ireland, from whence, after spending a most uncomfortable winter, she was brought back to Liverpool, and now lies in the Bramley-Moore Dock there, like a huge mass of iron suffering under premature rust. But all this time these ocean steamers that periodically brought to New York passengers and intelligence from Europe were British built. They had been constructed in the Avon, the Mersey, and the Clyde, the greater number having been launched in the same waters as first received Henry Bell's little _Comet_. Why did America not embark in such enterprise? As regards steam navigation, Fulton was before Bell; New York before Glasgow; the _Fulton's Folly_ before the _Cornet_; and was

"The greatest nation In all creation"

to be outdone in the field of enterprise by the old Britishers? American pride said "No;" American instinct said "No;" and, above all, American capitalists said "No!" Keels were laid down in New York; the shipbuilders' yards became unusually active; and the stately timbers of majestic ships gradually rose before the admiring gaze of the citizens of the great republic.

But the race of William the Doubter is not yet extinct, and many, as usual, shook their wise heads at the enterprise. It was admitted that in inland navigation the Americans had beaten the world; that except an occasional blow-up, their river steamers were really models of enterprise and skill; but it was gravely added, the Mississippi is not the Atlantic; icebergs are not snags; and an Atlantic wave is somewhat different from an Ohio ripple. These truisms were of course undeniable; but to them was quickly added another fact, about which there could be as little mistake--namely, the arrival at Southampton, after a voyage which, considering it was the first, was quite successful, of the American-built steam-ship _Washington_ from New York. There seemed to be a touch of calm irony in thus making the _Washington_ the first of their Atlantic-crossing steamers, as if the Americans had said, "You doubting Britishers! when you wished to play tyrant over us, did we not raise one Washington who chastised you? and now that you want to monopolize Atlantic navigation, we have raised another Washington, just to let you know that we will beat you again!"

The _Washington_, however, was only the precursor of greater vessels. These were to sail between New York and Liverpool, carrying the mails under a contract with the American government. In size, and speed, and splendor of fittings, these new ships were to surpass the old; even their names were, if possible, to be more grand and expressive. The vessels of Cunard's Line had lately appropriated the names of the four great continents of the globe, but the oceans remained, and their names were adopted; the new steamers being called the _Atlantic_, _Pacific_, _Arctic_, _Baltic_, and _Adriatic_. The first of these was dispatched from New York on the 27th of April last, and arrived in the Mersey on the 10th of May, thus making the passage in about thirteen days. The voyage would have been made in a shorter time but for two accidents: the bursting of the condenser, and the discovery, after the vessel was some distance at sea, of the weakness of the floats or boards on the paddle-wheels. About two days were entirely lost in making repairs; and the speed was reduced, in order to prevent the floats from being entirely torn away from the paddle-wheels. These things considered, the passage was very successful. The average time occupied during 1849 by the vessels of the old line between New York and Liverpool was 12; days; but their voyages were longer than those of the _Atlantic_, as they called at Halifax. The shortest passage was that made by the _Canada_ from New York to Liverpool _via_ Halifax in eleven days four hours.[25]

The _Atlantic_ remained for nineteen days at Liverpool; and during all that time she had to lie in a part of the river called the Sloyne, in consequence of none of the dock-entrances being wide enough to allow her to pass in. Her breadth, measuring across the paddle-boxes, is 75 feet; of the vessels of Cunard's Line, about 70 feet; and the widest dock-entrance is barely sufficient to admit the latter. The _Great Britain_, though longer than any other steam-ship that ever entered the Mersey, is not so broad, as, being propelled by the screw, she has no paddle-wheels. A dock at the north shore is now in course of construction expressly for the accommodation of the _Atlantic_ and her consorts.

For several days during her stay at Liverpool the _Atlantic_ was open to visitors on payment of sixpence each, the money thus realized (upward of £70) being paid over to the trustees of the Institution for the Blind, whose church and school are now being removed to give greater space round the station of the London and Northwestern Railway. On the day of my visit crowds of people were waiting at the pier for the steamer that was to convey them to the _Atlantic_. Whitsuntide visitors from the manufacturing districts were hastening on board the numerous vessels waiting to take them on pleasure excursions to the Isle of Man, North Wales, or round the light-ship at the mouth of the river. There was great risk of making mistakes in the hurry; and the remark of an old sailor, that the vessel could "easily be known by the Yankee flag flying at the fore," served only still further to confuse the many, who could not tell one flag from another. However, a small tug-steamer soon appeared with a dirty piece of bunting, just recognizable as the famous "star-spangled banner," flying at the fore; and her deck was in a few minutes so crowded, that orders were issued to take no more on board, and away we steamed, leaving about a hundred people to exercise their patience until the steamer's return. A man at my elbow, who afterward appeared in the capacity of money-taker, whispered, "There's the _captin_" and on looking up the gangway, I saw

"A man of middle age, In aspect manly, grave, and sage,"

looking calmly in the direction of the colossal ship of which he was the commander; his complexion browned by exposure to sun and wind, storm and spray; and his whole demeanor indicating the calm strength acquired by long familiarity with the elements in their roughest moods. As we approached the ship, her appearance was not prepossessing. She is undoubtedly clumsy; the three masts are low, the funnel is short and dumpy, there is no bowsprit, and her sides are painted black, relieved only by one long streak of dark red. Her length between the perpendiculars--that is, the length of her keel--is 276 feet; breadth (exclusive of paddle-boxes), 45; thus keeping up the proportion, as old as Noah's ark, of six feet of length to one of breadth. The stern is rounded, having in the centre the American eagle, clasping the starred and striped shield, but no other device. The figure-head is of colossal dimensions, intended, say some, for Neptune; others say that it is the "old Triton blowing his wreathed horn," so lovingly described by Wordsworth; and some wags assert that it is the proprietor of the ship blowing his own trumpet. The huge bulk of the _Atlantic_ was more perceptible by contrast with the steamer--none of the smallest--that was now alongside; for though the latter was large enough to accommodate about four hundred people on deck, yet its funnel scarcely reached as high as the bulwarks of the _Atlantic_. The diameter of the paddle-wheels is 36 feet; and the floats, many of which, split and broken, were lying about in the water, are nearly 15 feet long. The depth of the hold is 31 feet, and the estimated burden 2860 tons, being about the same as the _Great Britain_, and about 500 tons more than the ships of the old Cunard Line.

Like all the other Atlantic steamers, the run of the deck is almost a straight line. Around the funnel, and between the paddle-boxes, is a long wooden house, and another is placed at the stern. These contain the state-rooms of the captain and officers; and in a cluster are to be found the kitchen, the pastry-room, and the barber's shop. The two former are, like similar establishments, replete with every convenience, having even a French _maître de cuisine_; but the latter is quite unique. It is fitted up with all necessary apparatus--with glass-cases containing perfumery, &c.; and in the centre is "the barber's chair." This is a comfortable, well-stuffed seat, with an inclined back. In front is a stuffed trestle, on which to rest feet and legs; and behind is a little stuffed apparatus like a crutch, on which to rest the head. These are movable, so as to suit people of all sizes; and in this comfortable horizontal position the passenger lies, and his beard is taken off in a twinkling, let the Atlantic waves roll as they may. The house at the stern contains a smoking-room, and a small apartment completely sheltered from the weather for the steersman. The smoking-room communicates with the cabin below, so that, after dinner, those passengers so disposed may, without the least exposure to the weather, or annoyance to their neighbors, enjoy the weed of old Virginia in perfection. This smoking-room is the principal prospect of the man at the helm, who, however, has to steer according to his signals. Before him is a painted intimation that one bell means "port," and two bells mean "starboard;" a like intimation appears on the large bell in the bow of the ship; and according to the striking of the bell, so must he steer.

Proceeding below, we come to the great saloon, 67 feet long, and the dining-saloon, 60 feet long, each being 20 feet broad, and divided from each other by the steward's pantry. This pantry is more like a silversmith's shop, the sides being lined with glass-cases stored with beautifully-burnished plate; crockery of every description, well secured, is seen in great quantities, and the neatness of arrangement shows that the gilded inscription, full in the sight of every visitor--"A place for every thing, and every thing in its place"--has been reduced to practice. Above the tables in the dining-saloon are suspended racks, cut to receive decanters, passes, &c. so that they can be immediately placed on the table without the risk attendant on carrying them from place to place. The two saloons are fitted up in a very superior manner: rose, satin, and olive are the principal woods that have been used, and some of the tables are of beautifully-variegated marble, with metal supporters. The carpets are very rich, and the coverings of the sofas, chairs, &c. are of the same superior quality. The panels round the saloons contain beautifully-finished emblems of each of the states in the Union, and a few other devices that savor very strongly of republicanism. For example, a young and beautiful figure, all radiant with health and energy, wearing a cap of liberty, and waving a drawn sword, is represented trampling on a feudal prince, from whose head a crown has rolled in the dust. The cabin windows are of beautifully-painted glass, embellished with the arms of New York, and other cities in the States. Large circular glass ventilators, reaching from the deck to the lower saloon, are also richly ornamented, while handsome mirrors multiply all this splendor. The general effect is that of chasteness and a certain kind of solidity. There is not much gilding, the colors used are not gaudy, and there is a degree of elegant comfort about the saloons that is sometimes wanting amid splendid fittings. There is a ladies' drawing-room near the chief saloon full of every luxury. The berths are about 150 in number, leading out, as usual, from the saloons. The most novel feature about them is the "wedding-berths," wider and more handsomely furnished than the others, intended for such newly-married couples as wish to spend the first fortnight of the honeymoon on the Atlantic. Such berths are, it seems, always to be found on board the principal river-steamers in America, but are as yet unknown on this side of the water. Each berth has a bell-rope communicating with a patented machine called the "Annunciator." This is a circular plate about the size of the face of an eight-day clock, covered with numbers corresponding with those of the state-rooms. Each number is concealed by a semi-circular plate, which is removed or turned round as soon as the rope is pulled in the state-room with the corresponding number. A bell is at the same time struck to call the attention of the stewards, who then replace the plate in its former position, and attend to the summons.

The machinery which propels the ship consists of two engines, each of 500 horse-power, the engines of the old line being also two in number, but only about 400 horse-power each Such cylinders, and shafts, and pistons, and beams are, I believe unrivaled in the world. There are four boilers, each heated by eight furnaces, in two rows of four each. The consumption of coal is about fifty tons every twenty-four hours; "and that," said one of the engineers, "is walking pretty fast into a coal-mine, I guess!" According to the calculations of the very wise men who predicted the failure of Atlantic steam navigation, such a vessel as the _Atlantic_ ought to carry 3700 tons of coal; but it will be seen that one-fourth of that quantity is more than enough, even making allowance for extra stores to provide against accidents. In the engine-room is a long box with five compartments, each communicating with a wire fastened like a bell-pull to the side of the paddle-box. These handles are marked respectively, "ahead," "slow," "fast," "back," and "hook-on;" and whenever one is pulled, a printed card with the corresponding signal appears in the box opposite the engineer, who has to act accordingly. There is thus no noise of human voices on board this ship: the helmsman steers by his bells, the engineer works by the telegraph, and the steward waits by the annunciator.

Two traces of national habits struck me very much. Even in the finest saloon there are, in places where they would be least expected, handsome "spittoons," the upper part fashioned like a shell, and painted a sea-green or sky-blue color, thus giving ample facility for indulging in that practice of spitting of which Americans are so fond. Again, much amusement was caused by the attempt of one of the officers in charge of the communication between the small steamer and the _Atlantic_ to prevent the gentlemen from leaving the latter until the ladies had seated themselves on the former. The appearance of the deck, crowded with ladies only, and a host of gentlemen kept back, some impatient to get down, but the greater part entering into the humor of the thing, was quite new to English ideas. It is but fair to add that the ladies did not seem to like it; and that, when the steamer again came alongside, it was not repeated.

Upon the whole, this Atlantic steamer is really worthy of the great country from which she has come. If, in shape and general appearance, she is inferior to the old vessels, she is decidedly equal, if not superior, to them in machinery and fittings. Her powers as regards speed have of course yet to be tried. One voyage is no test, nor even a series of voyages during the summer months: she must cross and recross at least for a year before any just comparison can be instituted. The regular postal communication between Liverpool and the United States will speedily be twice every week--the ships of the new line sailing on Wednesday, and the old on Saturday.

But other ports besides Liverpool are now dispatching steamers regularly to America. Glasgow sent out a powerful screw steamer--the _City of Glasgow_, 1087 tons--on 16th April, for New York, where she arrived on 3d May; thus making the passage in about seventeen days, in spite of stormy weather and entanglements among ice; the average time taken by the Liverpool steamers during 1849 being fourteen days. Her return voyage, however, made under more favorable circumstances, was within this average, the distance being steamed between the 18th May and the 1st June. A vessel called the _Viceroy_ is about to sail from Galway to New York, and her voyage is looked forward to with considerable interest. The _Washington_ and _Hermann_ sail regularly between Bremen and Southampton and New York, and the _British Queen_ has been put on the passage between Hamburg and New York. All these enterprises seem to indicate that ere long the Atlantic carrying trade will be conducted in steam-ships, and sailing vessels superseded to as great extent as has been the case in the coasting trade.

FOOTNOTES:

[25] The _Atlantic_ has just made the passage direct in ten days and sixteen hours.

[From Sharpe's Magazine]

THE LITTLE HERO OF HAARLEM.

At an early period in the history of Holland, a boy was born in Haarlem, a town remarkable for its variety of fortune in war, but happily still more so for its manufactures and inventions in peace. His father was a _sluicer_--that is, one whose employment it was to open and shut the sluices, or large oak-gates which, placed at certain regular distances, close the entrance of the canals, and secure Holland from the danger to which it seems exposed, of finding itself under water, rather than above it. When water is wanted, the sluicer raises the sluices more or less, as required, as a cook turns the cock of a fountain, and closes them again carefully at night; otherwise the water would flow into the canals, then overflow them, and inundate the whole country; so that even the little children in Holland are fully aware of the importance of a punctual discharge of the sluicer's duties. The boy was about eight years old when, one day, he asked permission to take some cakes to a poor blind man, who lived at the other side of the dyke. His father gave him leave, but charged him not to stay too late. The child promised, and set off on his little journey. The blind man thankfully partook of his young friend's cakes, and the boy, mindful of his father's orders, did not wait, as usual, to hear one of the old man's stories, but as soon as he had seen him eat one muffin, took leave of him to return home.

As he went along by the canals, then quite full, for it was in October, and the autumn rains had swelled the waters, the boy now stopped to pull the little blue flowers which his mother loved so well, now, in childish gayety, hummed some merry song. The road gradually became more solitary, and soon neither the joyous shout of the villager, returning to his cottage-home, nor the rough voice of the carter, grumbling at his lazy horses, was any longer to be heard The little fellow now perceived that the blue of the flowers in his hand was scarcely distinguishable from the green of the surrounding herbage, and he looked up in some dismay. The night was falling; not, however, a dark winter-night, but one of those beautiful, clear, moonlight nights, in which every object is perceptible, though not as distinctly as by day. The child thought of his father, of his injunction, and was preparing to quit the ravine in which he was almost buried, and to regain the beach, when suddenly a slight noise, like the trickling of water upon pebbles, attracted his attention. He was near one of the large sluices, and he now carefully examines it, and soon discovers a hole in the wood, through which the water was flowing. With the instant perception which every child in Holland would have, the boy saw that the water must soon enlarge the hole through which it was now only dropping, and that utter and general ruin would be the consequence of the inundation of the country that must follow. To see, to throw away the flowers, to climb from stone to stone till he reached the hole, and to put his finger into it, was the work of a moment, and, to his delight, he finds that he has succeeded in stopping the flow of the water.

This was all very well for a little while, and the child thought only of the success of his device. But the night was closing in, and with the night came the cold. The little boy looked around in vain. No one came. He shouted--he called loudly--no one answered. He resolved to stay there all night, but, alas! the cold was becoming every moment more biting, and the poor finger fixed in the hole began to feel benumbed, and the numbness soon extended to the hand, and thence throughout the whole arm. The pain became still greater, still harder to bear, but still the boy moved not. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he thought of his father, of his mother, of his little bed, where he might now be sleeping so soundly; but still the little fellow stirred not, for he knew that did he remove the small slender finger which he had opposed to the escape of the water, not only would he himself be drowned, but his father, his brothers, his neighbors--nay, the whole village. We know not what faltering of purpose, what momentary failures of courage there might have been during that long and terrible night; but certain it is, that at day-break he was found in the same painful position by a clergyman returning from attendance on a death-bed, who, as he advanced, thought he heard groans, and bending over the dyke, discovered a child seated on a stone, writhing from pain, and with pale face and tearful eyes.

"In the name of wonder, boy," he exclaimed, "what are you doing there?"

"I am hindering the water from running out," was the answer, in perfect simplicity, of the child, who, during that whole night had been evincing such heroic fortitude and undaunted courage.

The Muse of History, too often blind to (true) glory, has handed down to posterity many a warrior, the destroyer of thousands of his fellow-men--she has left us in ignorance of the name of this real little hero of Haarlem.

[From Cumming's Hunting Adventures in South Africa.]

ADVENTURE WITH A SNAKE.

As I was examining the spoor of the game by the fountain, I suddenly detected an enormous old rook-snake stealing in beneath a mass of rock beside me. He was truly an enormous snake, and, having never before dealt with this species of game, I did not exactly know how to set about capturing him. Being very anxious to preserve his skin entire, and not wishing to have recourse to my rifle, I cut a stout and tough stick about eight feet long, and having lightened myself of my shooting-belt, I commenced the attack. Seizing him by the tail, I tried to get him out of his place of refuge; but I hauled in vain; he only drew his large folds firmer together: I could not move him. At length I got a rheim round one of his folds, about the middle of his body, and Kleinboy and I commenced hauling away in good earnest.

The snake, finding the ground too hot for him, relaxed his coils, and suddenly bringing round his head to the front, he sprang out at us like an arrow, with his immense and hideous mouth opened to its largest dimensions, and before I could get out of his way he was clean out of his hole, and made a second spring, throwing himself forward about eight or ten feet, and snapping his horrid fangs within a foot of my naked legs. I sprang out of his way, and getting hold of the green bough I had cut, returned to the charge. The snake now glided along at top speed: he knew the ground well, and was making for a mass of broken rocks, where he would have been beyond my reach, but before he could gain this place of refuge, I caught him two or three tremendous whacks on the head. He, however, held on, and gained a pool of muddy water, which he was rapidly crossing, when I again belabored him, and at length reduced his pace to a stand. We then hanged him by the neck to a bough of a tree, and in about fifteen minutes he seemed dead; but he again became very troublesome during the operation of skinning, twisting his body in all manner of ways. This serpent measured fourteen feet.

MONTHLY RECORD OF CURRENT EVENTS

The death of President Taylor is the leading event of interest in our domestic record for the month, as it has been the leading topic of public attention throughout the country. He died at half-past ten o'clock on the evening of Wednesday, July 9th, after an illness of but five days, the last of which alone was deemed dangerous. Exposure to the sun in attendance upon the public celebration of the Fourth, imprudent diet on returning home, and neglect of medical remedies until too late, aggravated rapidly and fatally the disease which he had contracted, which few of our army officers escaped, and from which several have already died, during his Mexican campaign. On the afternoon of Wednesday his alarming condition was announced in the two Houses of Congress, both of which at once adjourned: and they only met the next day to make arrangements for his funeral, which took place on Saturday, and was attended by a large military display, by the officers of government and the representatives of foreign nations, and by an immense concourse of his fellow-citizens. His death was announced on Thursday by the Vice President, MILLARD FILLMORE, upon whom the duties of the Presidential office at once devolved, by virtue of the provisions of the Constitution, in a Message to both Houses of Congress, and suitable words of eulogy were pronounced, in the Senate, by Senators DOWNS, of Louisiana, WEBSTER, of Massachusetts, CASS, of Michigan, KING, of Alabama, PEARCE, of Maryland, and BERRIEN, of Georgia; and in the House by Mr. Speaker COBB, of Georgia, Messrs. CONRAD, of Louisiana, WINTHROP, of Massachusetts, BAKER, of Illinois, BAYLY, of Virginia, HILLIARD, of Alabama, JOHN A. KING, of New York, MCLANE, of Maryland, and MARSHALL, of Kentucky. Mr. FILLMORE, on the same day, took the oath of the Presidential office in presence of both Houses of Congress, and thus quietly, quickly, and peaceably was effected a transfer of all the Executive powers of this great nation--a transfer never effected without difficulty, and often causing commotion, turmoil, and bloodshed in the less free and more conservative nations of the Old World. In the preceding pages of this Magazine will be found a condensed outline of the life of the late President, which obviates the necessity of further reference in this place. His decease was celebrated by public obsequies in all the principal cities of the Union, and has awakened a universal and intense sentiment of regretful grief.

Immediately upon the death of President TAYLOR the members of his Cabinet tendered their resignations to President FILLMORE, but at his request, and for the safety of the public service, they retained their offices for a few days, to give him the desired opportunity for care and inquiry in selecting their successors. That selection was made as soon as practicable, and on the 15th the President made the following nominations, which were at once confirmed by the Senate, which had previously and by a unanimous vote, chosen SENATOR WILLIAM R. KING, of Alabama, to preside over its deliberations:

_Secretary of State_ DANIEL WEBSTER, Mass. _Secretary of the Treasury_ THOMAS CORWIN, Ohio. _Secretary of the Interior_ JAMES A. PEARCE, Md. _Secretary of War_ EDWARD BATES, Missouri. _Secretary of the Navy_ WILLIAM A. GRAHAM, N. C. _Attorney General_ JOHN J. CRITTENDEN, Ky. _Postmaster General_ NATHAN K. HALL, N. York.

It is understood that Mr. PEARCE declines the secretaryship of the Interior, but no official nomination has yet been made to fill his place.

No business of public importance has been transacted in Congress. In the SENATE the Compromise Bill, reported by Mr. CLAY from the Committee of Thirteen, continues under debate. Mr. WEBSTER, on the 17th ult., made a very eloquent speech in its support, declaring himself earnestly in favor of admitting California, of providing a Territorial government for New Mexico, without the anti-slavery proviso, which he deems superfluous, and of settling the question of boundary between Texas and New Mexico. He said he should have preferred to act upon these measures separately, but he was willing to vote for them as conjoined in the bill. Speeches were also made by several Senators against the bill, and some amendments, offered to obviate objections entertained to it in various quarters, were rejected. No decisive action has been had upon it up to the time of putting these pages to press.

The chief action in the HOUSE, of general interest, relates to what is known as the _Galphin Claim,_ the history of which is briefly as follows: Prior to the year 1773 George Galphin, the original claimant, was a licensed trader among the Creek and Cherokee Indians in the then province of Georgia. The Indians became indebted to him in amounts so large that they were unable to pay them; and in 1773, in order to give him security for his claims, they ceded to the King of Great Britain, as trustee, a tract of land containing two and a half millions of acres. The trust was accepted, commissioners were appointed, some of the lands were sold, and the proceeds applied to the payment of the expenses of the commission, but none was then paid to the claimants for whose benefit the trust had been created. The sum found due to George Galphin was £9791, for which amount a certificate was issued to him by the Governor and Council in May, 1775. Meantime the war of the Revolution broke out, and its successful result destroyed the trust, and the lands were no longer subject to the control of the king. After the war was over the state of Georgia granted these lands to those of her soldiers who had been engaged in the war, and who became actual settlers upon them. The descendants of Mr. Galphin applied to the state of Georgia for the payment of their claims, as Georgia had merely succeeded to the trusteeship of the King of England. The claim was prosecuted and pressed for many years without success, it being contended that, as the lands had been used to pay for services in the Revolution, the government of the United States was properly liable for the private injury that might have been sustained. In 1848 the Legislature of the state of Georgia passed resolutions directing their Senators and Representatives in Congress to urge the payment of these claims upon the General Government; and Hon. GEORGE W. CRAWFORD was engaged by the claimants as their agent, and was made interested to the amount of one-third of the claim. Congress, at the session of 1848, passed a bill directing the Secretary of the Treasury to examine and adjust the claims, and to pay out of the public funds whatever might prove to be due. The Hon. R. J. WALKER, then Secretary of the Treasury, examined the question, adjudged the claim valid, paid the principal sum which he found to be due, amounting to $43,518, and left the question of paying interest upon it to the next Cabinet. In that Cabinet Mr. CRAWFORD held a seat, having first transferred his agency for the claimants to Judge BRYAN, but retaining his interest in the claim. The matter was pressed upon the attention of the Secretary of the Treasury, who consulted the Attorney General as to the legality of paying interest on a claim of this kind. Mr. JOHNSON gave a written opinion in favor of its payment. Mr. MEREDITH paid the interest, amounting to $191,352, Mr. CRAWFORD receiving his share. The subject has been before Congress for several weeks, and has excited a very earnest and somewhat acrimonious debate. The House, on the 8th, adopted a resolution affirming that "the claim of the representatives of George Galphin was not a just demand against the United States," by a vote of 142 yeas and 49 nays. The same day they adopted another resolution, declaring that "the act of Congress made it the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury to pay the principal of said claim, and it was therefore paid in conformity with law and precedent," by a vote of 112 yeas and 66 nays. A third resolution, declaring that "the act aforesaid did not authorize the Secretary of the Treasury to pay interest on said claim, and its payment was not in conformity with law or precedent," was also passed, 118 yeas and 71 nays. Soon after the adoption of these resolutions, Mr. CRAWFORD addressed a letter to the House asking that a suit might be commenced against him for the recovery of the interest which he had received, and payment of which the House had condemned, in order to bring the question to the test of the judicial tribunals. No further action has yet been had upon the subject.--The House has also taken action on the application of Mr. HUGH N. SMITH, a delegate from New Mexico, chosen by a convention of her people, to be admitted upon the floor of Congress, not of course to take any other part in the business of that body than to be heard upon questions affecting the rights and interests of his constituents. In the early part of the session the application was referred to the proper committee, the majority of which reported against his admission. On the 19th the whole subject was laid on the table--equivalent to Mr. SMITH'S rejection--by a vote of 105 yeas, 94 nays, and 29 absent. This disposes of the question for the present session, although substantially the same issue will indubitably come up in some new form.--The next day a similar resolution was adopted rejecting the application of Mr. BABBITT to be admitted as a delegate from the Territory of Utah, or Deseret.

The authorities of CUBA have decided to release the American prisoners taken from the island of Contoy, beyond Spanish jurisdiction. This will probably terminate all difficulties between the two governments growing out of this affair.--Considerable currency has been given to a story stated by correspondents of the London press, that the Spanish Gen. NARVAEZ had grossly insulted the U.S. Minister at Madrid, refusing in public to hold any intercourse with the representative of a nation which tolerated and countenanced pirates and assassins. The story is entirely discredited by direct advices.--The State Convention of Ohio called to revise the Constitution has adjourned until the first Monday in September.--A very destructive fire occurred at Philadelphia on the night of the 9th ult. Although not in the chief business part of the city, property to the amount of more than a million of dollars was destroyed, and over _thirty_ lives were lost by the explosion of various materials in the buildings burned The occurrence has elicited from Prof. ROGERS, of the University of Pennsylvania, a letter stating that, in his opinion, saltpetre by itself is not explosive, but that the great quantity of oxygen which it contains greatly increases the combustion of ignited matter with which it may be brought in contact, and that this may evolve gases so rapidly as to cause an explosion.--The cholera is prevailing with a good deal of fatality in some of the western cities. In Cincinnati the number of deaths has averaged 20 to 35, and has been as high as 65: in St. Louis it has been still higher, and in Nashville, Tenn., it has been quite as large in proportion to the population. At the latest advices it seemed to be diminishing. It has not made its appearance in any of the eastern cities.--The case of Prof. WEBSTER, convicted at Boston of the murder of Dr. PARKMAN, has been definitively decided. Soon after the trial he sent in a petition for a full pardon, on the ground of his entire innocence and ignorance of the whole matter, solemnly asserting, and calling God to witness, that he knew nothing whatever of the manner in which Dr. Parkman's remains came to be found in his room. A few days afterward he sent in another petition, praying for a commutation of his sentence. It was presented by the Rev. Dr. PUTNAM, who had acted as his spiritual adviser, and who laid before the Council a detailed confession, which he had received from Prof. Webster, in which he confessed that he killed Dr. Parkman with a single blow from a stick, but claimed that it was done without premeditation, in a moment of great excitement caused by abusive language. He gave at length a statement of the whole transaction. After considering the subject fully and carefully, acting under the advice of the Council, Governor Briggs decided against the application, and appointed Friday, the 30th day of August, for the execution of the sentence of the Court. Upon that day, therefore, Prof. Webster will undoubtedly be hung.--A good deal of public interest has been enlisted in the performances of the new American line of Transatlantic steamers, running between New York and Liverpool. There are to be five steamers in the line, but only two of them have as yet been finished. These two are the _Atlantic_ and the _Pacific_, the former of which has made two trips, and the latter one, each way. On the morning of Sunday, July 21st, the _Atlantic_ arrived at New York at 3 o'clock, having left Liverpool on the 10th, at 11 o'clock A.M.--making the passage in ten days and sixteen hours, the shortest by several hours ever made between the two ports. Her passage out was also very short. These trips have confirmed the opinion which has very generally been entertained, that the Americans would speedily have a line of steamers on the ocean superior in speed, comfort, and elegance to those of the Cunard Company which have hitherto enjoyed so high a reputation.--Mr. E. GEORGE SQUIER, U. S. Charge near the government of Nicaragua, has returned to this country on a brief visit. We learn that he has made a very full record of his observations upon the country in which he has been residing, and that very volumnious papers from him on the subject are in possession of the State Department. It is to be hoped that they may be given to the public.--The initial steps have been taken in Virginia toward an enterprise of decided importance to the southern states if it should be carried out: it is nothing less than the establishment of direct intercourse by a line of steamers between some southern port and Liverpool, for the export of cotton and other articles of southern growth, and for the transmission of southern correspondence, &c. The meeting of delegates was held at Old Point on the 4th of July, and committees were appointed to make proper representations on the subject to Congress and the state Legislature, and to take such other steps as they might deem essential.--A convention was held at Syracuse of persons favorable to maintaining the existing Free School System of the State of New York. The necessity for such action grows out of the fact that the principle is to be submitted to the popular suffrage in November. The Legislature of 1848 passed a law making education in the common schools of the state absolutely free to all the children who might choose to attend, making the law dependent for its validity on its adoption by the people. Accordingly it was submitted to them in November, 1848, and was sanctioned by a majority of over 90,000. It accordingly went into effect. At the last session of the Legislature, however, petitions were sent in, in great numbers, some of them praying for the entire repeal of the law, and others for its essential modification. The opponents of the law resisted the principle that property should be taxed for purposes of education, inasmuch as men of property would thus be compelled to pay for educating children not their own. Others objected mainly to details of the law, and to the injurious effect of the established mode of collecting the rate bills. The two branches of the Legislature not being able to agree upon amendments of the law, and not wishing to discard the principle on which it is founded, agreed to submit it again to the popular suffrage. The Convention in question assembled accordingly, to aid the law. Hon. Christopher Morgan, Secretary of State, presided, and an address and resolutions affirming the principles on which the law is based, and calling on the people to give it their renewed support, were adopted.--Col. FREMONT has received from the Royal Geographical Society of London a medal, in token of their sense of his eminent services in promoting the cause of geographical knowledge. It was presented through the U.S. Minister.--MR. JOHN R. BARTLETT, who was appointed by the President Commissioner to run the boundary line between Mexico and the United States, in accordance with the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, has set out upon his mission. The point of departure is to be upon the Rio Grande, and the Commissioners of the two countries are to meet at El Paso. This will be the most extensive line of surveys ever made in the United States, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and mostly through a country wholly unknown.

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From MEXICO we have advices to the 1st of July. The Presidential election, which was to occur soon, was becoming a topic of general discussion. There are several candidates, among whom Gen. Almonte, Gomez Farias, and Domingo Ibarra are the best known in this country. Congress was to have assembled, but not a quorum of the members could be collected. The cholera was raging with excessive and terrible fatality. From the 17th of May to the 16th of June there had been in the city of Mexico 7,846 cases, and on the last day named there were 230 deaths. Among the victims was Don Mariano Otero, a distinguished statesman and lawyer. In San Luis and other sections it was prevailing with great severity. The financial affairs of the State of Durango were in such a condition that an extra session of the Legislature had been called in order to save them from total ruin.--Advices have been received of the conclusion of a treaty with the Mexican Government by the U.S. Minister, Mr. LETCHER, by which is ceded the right of transit by railroad across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. This step has been taken in accordance with, and probably in consequence of, the position taken upon the subject by President TAYLOR in his first message to Congress. The late President POLK, when he sent out Mr. TRIST to negotiate a treaty of peace with Mexico, authorized him to offer five millions of dollars for the right which has now been secured without the expense of a dollar: and Mexico, moreover, has now stipulated to protect the parties constructing the work, as well as the work itself after it shall have been completed. The benefits resulting from this treaty, if the work shall be completed, will be of the most important character. As an auxiliary measure to the Nicaraguan Canal, it will tend very powerfully to unite the Atlantic and the Pacific states.

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From CALIFORNIA we have intelligence to the 17th of June. San Francisco has been visited by two successive fires which had destroyed property to the amount of several millions of dollars. A large proportion of the goods burned were consigned by New York merchants to their agents in California, so that the loss will fall very heavily upon them. As insurance could not readily be effected the loss will be large. Nearly three millions of dollars in gold dust have reached the United States during the month. The foreigners resident in California had resisted the payment of the tax of twenty-five dollars per month levied by the state laws, and some difficulty was anticipated in enforcing payment, but at the latest accounts this had been obviated, and every thing was quiet. The intelligence from the mines encourages the belief that the quantity of gold dug this season will be greater than ever before. From the valleys of both the Sacramento and the San Joaquin very large amounts were constantly obtained, and new mines have been found as far north as Oregon, and as far south as Los Angelos. From the Mariposa mines many very beautiful specimens of the gold-bearing quartz have been procured. Difficulties had arisen with the Indians in different sections of the country, and several severe battles between them and detachments of U. S. troops had been fought. They grew mainly out of the hostile disposition of the Indians which is often excited and encouraged by the lawless conduct of the whites. Measures were in progress which, it was hoped, would restore quiet and security. It is stated that the property in San Francisco as assessed for taxation amounts to three hundred millions of dollars.

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From NEW MEXICO we have intelligence of some interest. It seems that the people, becoming impatient of the delay of Congress in acting upon the question of framing a government for them, and probably taking the hint from the declared sentiments of President TAYLOR, resolved to form a government for themselves. Public meetings were accordingly held, and resolutions adopted, requesting Governor MUNROE to call a convention of delegates from the several counties to form a State Constitution. Col. MUNROE accordingly issued a proclamation to that effect, and a Convention met at Santa Fé on the 15th of May. The session lasted eight or ten days, and a Constitution was adopted, which was to go into operation in July. The boundaries of the state were defined, and slavery was prohibited. An election was soon to take place for members of the Legislature. Two Senators and one Representative in Congress were to be elected, and application was to be made for the immediate admission of the State into the Union.

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Of LITERARY INTELLIGENCE there is little of general interest. The distinguished English novelist, Mr. G. P. R. JAMES, arrived with his family at New York on the 4th of July, and will spend several months in visiting different sections of the United States. There are very few Englishmen who would be more cordially welcomed to this country than Mr. JAMES. His long and most honorable and productive career as an author has made him universally known, and his works have been very widely read in the United States as well as in England. The officious and impertinent gossip of a portion of our newspaper press led Mr. JAMES to publish a note disclaiming the intention of writing a book upon this country. We regret that he should have found it necessary either to announce such a purpose, or to form it. This country has nothing to lose from the published observations of a man at once so competent and so candid. Mr. JAMES had for fellow-passengers Count DEMBINSKI, who was a major in the Hungarian service and nephew of General DEMBINSKI, whose name is so well known to the whole world in connection with that gallant but ill-fated struggle. Count D. was also aid to KOSSUTH, and fled with him, accompanied with his wife, whom he had married at Temeswar during the war, to Turkey, whence he came to this country. He is a young man of great talent and accomplishments, and will probably make the United States his home.--The anniversary of the Declaration of American Independence was celebrated on the 4th throughout the country with the usual demonstrations. Orations were delivered in nearly all the principal cities of the Union, some of which have since been published. The ablest one that has fallen under our notice was delivered by Mr. E. P. WHIPPLE before the authorities of Boston. He spoke upon Washington and the Principles of the Revolution, holding up the former as a model of greatness, combating the popular notion that he was not a man of genius, and dwelling upon the fact that our revolution was fought, not on abstract principles, or in the assertion of abstract rights, but for the redress of practical evils and the attainment of practical ends. It was a timely, able, and judicious address, and was marked by the peculiar vigor of style and of thought, injured by an occasional straining after effect in expression and phrases, which characterize the writings of Mr. WHIPPLE. Senator FOOTE, of Mississippi, delivered an address before the Washington Monument Association at the National Capital; it was a strong appeal on behalf of united and harmonious councils, and was both timely and effective. Hon. J. W. EDMONDS, of New York city, delivered the address at Washington's Head Quarters at New-burgh, which the Legislature of New York, very properly and creditably, took measures at the last session to preserve as a permanent monument of the revolution. E. A. RAYMOND. Esq. delivered an address at Rochester, which was a skillfully condensed summary of the growth of the country, and especially of its political development.--A new Historical Society of the Episcopal Church has just been formed at Trinity College, Hartford, Conn., of which Bishop BROWNELL has been chosen President.--The inventor of the Ramage printing press, which, until superseded by subsequent improvements, was an important step in the progress of printing, ADAM RAMAGE, died at Philadelphia on the 9th of July. He was a native of Scotland, and was nearly eighty years old at the time of his death.--MARGARET FULLER, well known in this country as a gifted and accomplished lady, and author of several works of marked value and interest, perished on the 19th of July, by the wreck of the ship Elizabeth from Leghorn, in which she had taken passage with her husband, the Marquis d'Ossoli, and her child, in returning to her native land from Italy, where she had been spending several years. Her loss will be deplored by a large circle of personal friends, and by the still larger number of those who knew her only through her writings. She was the eldest daughter of Hon. Timothy Fuller, formerly a lawyer of Boston, but more recently a resident of Cambridge. She was remarkable for her thorough intellectual cultivation, being familiar with both the ancient and most of the modern languages and their literature--for the vigor and natural strength of her mind--for her conversational powers, and for her enthusiastic devotion to letters and art. She was at Rome during the recent revolution, and took the deepest interest in the struggles of that day. She had been for some time engaged upon a work on Italy, which it is feared has perished with her. Her husband and child were lost at the same time. Mr. Henry Sumner, of Boston, also perished.--RALPH WALDO EMERSON is traveling in the region on the Upper Waters of the Mississippi.--No original books of special interest have been published during the month. In our department of Literary Notices mention is made of those which are of most importance.--Mr. PRESCOTT, the historian, is traveling in Europe. He is announced as having been present at a recent meeting of the London Archaeological Society.--Mr. H. N. HUDSON, whose lectures on SHAKSPEARE have made him widely and favorably known as a critic, has been engaged by a Boston publishing house to edit a new edition of the works of the great Dramatist, which will be published during the coming year. Mr. Hudson's ability and familiarity with the subject will enable him to make a very valuable and interesting work.--GARIBALDI, who achieved distinction in the defense of Rome against the French, is coming to New York, where he was to be honored with a public reception from the authorities.--The capture of Stoney Point was celebrated this year at that place, for the first time. HUGH MAXWELL, Esq., of New York, delivered the address. The celebration is hereafter to be annual.--In no department of mechanism is the progress of the age more conspicuous than in printing presses, as is shown by the fact that Messrs. Hoe and Co., of New York, are now constructing a press which will work from 15,000 to 20,000 per hour. It will be thirty-three feet long, with eight printing cylinders, and will cost about $21,000.--A newly invented locomotive engine, intended for use in the streets of cities, has just been put upon the Hudson River Railroad at its termination in New York. It consumes its own smoke, and is entirely inclosed from public view--presenting the appearance of a simple baggage-car. The engine is of ninety horse power.

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News from LIBERIA has been received announcing that the government has at last been able to effect the purchase of the Gallinas territories, including the whole from Cape Mount to Shebar, except a small strip of five miles of coast which will soon fall into their hands. The chief importance of this purchase springs from the fact that Gallinas has been for many years the head quarters of the slave-trade--an enormous number of slaves having been shipped from there every year. The government paid $9500 for the territory, and further agreed to appoint commissioners to settle the wars in the country, and open trade with the interior tribes, as well as to settle among them and instruct them in the arts of civilized life. This may prove to be an important step not only toward the suppression of the horrible traffic in slaves, which the united efforts of England, France, and the United States have hither to been unable to effect, but also toward the civilization of Africa, a result to which no philanthropic mind can be indifferent.

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In ENGLAND by far the most important event of the month is the sudden death of Sir ROBERT PEEL. On the 29th of June he had called at Buckingham Palace to pay his respects to the Queen, and was riding away upon horseback, when his horse swerved slightly and threw him to the ground; he fell sideways, striking upon his left shoulder. He was at once raised up by several gentlemen who rushed to his assistance, and said that he was very much hurt indeed. He was taken to his residence and received all the attention of the highest surgical skill, which, however, was less effective than would have been anticipated on account of the intense pain which he suffered. He lingered until near midnight of the 2d July, when he expired. A partial examination of his body showed that one of his ribs had been broken and was pressing upon his lungs. His family declined a public funeral tendered by the government, and his remains were interred at Tamworth. Both houses of Parliament adjourned, and demonstrations of profound regret and respect for his character were general. An outline of his life and political career will be found in the preceding pages of this Magazine. His death is justly considered an event of great political importance. It was generally anticipated that he would soon be called upon to resume the office of prime minister, and universal confidence was felt in his large experience, his eminent ability, and his intimate acquaintance with the condition and events of the United Kingdom.

The Greek question was still under discussion at our last advices: it has led to events of no small importance in connection with the politics of England and the fundamental principles of the British constitution. On the 17th of June, in the House of Lords, Lord STANLEY moved a resolution censuring the government for having adopted coercive measures to enforce claims against Greece, doubtful in point of justice or exaggerated in amount. He supported his motion at great length, entering into a detailed history of the whole matter, and accusing the government of having, through its foreign minister, insisted on exorbitant demands, oppressed the weak, and endangered the peace of Europe. He was sustained by the Earl of Aberdeen, Lord Brougham and others, and was answered by the Marquis of LANSDOWNE who, with others, defended the government. The resolution was _carried_ by 169 to 132, showing a majority against the government of 37. On the 20th, Mr. ROEBUCK called the attention of the Commons to the vote of the Lords, and desired to know whether the government would adopt any special course of conduct in consequence of it. Lord JOHN RUSSELL replied that they should not alter their course in respect to foreign powers at all, and that they did not feel called upon to resign because the House of Lords had passed a vote of censure. That house did not represent the nation: whenever the House of Commons should adopt such a resolution the ministry would quit office. On the 24th, for the purpose of enabling the Commons to express their opinion upon the subject, Mr. ROEBUCK moved a resolution declaring that the principles on which the foreign policy of the government had been regulated were calculated to maintain the honor and dignity of the country, and in times of unexampled difficulty, to preserve peace between England and foreign nations. The motion was warmly opposed by Sir James Graham and others, and was advocated with equal zeal. Lord PALMERSTON defended the foreign policy of the government in a speech of five hours, marked by great ability and eloquence. After going over the whole ground fully and in detail, he concluded by challenging the verdict of the house, whether the principles which had guided the foreign policy of the government had been proper and fitting, and whether, as a subject of ancient Rome could hold himself free from indignity by saying, "Civis Romanus sum," a British subject in a foreign country should not be protected by the vigilant eye and the strong arm of his government against injustice and wrong. The debate was then adjourned, and had not been resumed at our latest advices. The ministry seems very firmly to have taken the position that England can be governed without the House of Lords, and that its foreign policy is not to be shaped according to their wishes, but according to the popular will, as represented by the Commons. This position indicates the strong tendency which prevails in England even, toward popular and democratic government. Lord John Russell, on the 20th, also remarked, in reply to the intimation that the foreign policy of the government was calculated to foment differences between England and other nations, that he could answer for it that Lord Palmerston, so long as he should continue in office, would act not as a minister of Austria, Russia, France, or any other country, but as the minister of England. The declaration was received with great applause, not only in the house but throughout the country. It is understood that the diplomatic misunderstanding between France and England, growing out of the Greek question, has been settled. No other business of general interest in this country has been before Parliament during the month. Inquiries were made in both Houses as to the Cuban expedition, and the ministers stated that it was fitted out against the most strenuous efforts of the American government, which has, nevertheless, been very strongly censured for its inability to prevent it.--The government has issued orders restricting very considerably the posting and delivery of letters on Sunday, which has elicited very clamorous complaints in every part of the country. Lord BROUGHAM in speaking of the matter in Parliament, doubted the power of the government to issue such orders, and said that it was causing a vast increase of Sunday travel and work throughout the kingdom, as messengers were now dispatched to obtain indispensable intelligence formerly received by mail. Lord Ashley had carried a motion in the House of Lords to suppress Sunday labor in the post-office, by a vote of 93 to 68.--Sir Edward Buxton on the 31st of June, moved a resolution against exposing the free-grown sugar of the British colonies to unrestricted competition with the sugar of slave-trading countries. It failed, however, by 275 to 234.--A bill prohibiting intra-mural interments, has passed the Commons. The remaining transactions of Parliament have no general interest.

The Queen while riding with the Prince in an open carriage, on the 27th of June, was struck across the face by a respectably dressed man, armed with a small cane. Her bonnet was cut through, and a severe wound was inflicted upon her forehead. She attended the opera, however, in the evening, and was received with great enthusiasm. The assailant proved to be a discharged officer, named Robert Pate, subject to attacks of insanity. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to transportation for seven years.--Very shortly, fifteen screw steamers will ply between Liverpool and various ports in the Mediterranean.--Meyerbeer, the composer, has received the degree of Doctor from the University of Jena.--Dr. GUTZLAFF, who is preaching at Berlin and at Potsdam, on behalf of the Chinese mission, expresses a confident hope that the Emperor of Japan will be converted to Christianity.--Mr. CORBOULD, the artist, has received the commands of her Majesty to paint a large picture of the grand coronation scene in the opera of "La Prophete," as represented at the Royal Italian Opera, Covent-garden.--Mr. GIBSON, of Rome, now in England, has received an order for a colossal group, in marble, of figures of her Majesty, Queen Victoria, supported on either side by Justice and Clemency. The figure of the queen will be ten feet in height; the side figures, eight feet. This group will occupy a place in the new Houses of Parliament.--The Duke of CAMBRIDGE died on the 8th of July. He was the seventh and youngest son of George III., and was seventy-six years old at the time of his death.

Many accidents to vessels in the Northern Atlantic have arisen during the season from floating icebergs. The ship Oriental, of Liverpool, was lost, with all her crew and cargo from this cause, on the 27th of April; and on the 29th of March, the English ship Signet, with all on board, also foundered. Eighteen or twenty other vessels are known to have been lost in the same manner, their crews having escaped. New hopes of the safety of Sir John Franklin have been suggested by these reports. It is supposed that these vast fields of ice are portions of the slowly released masses, the growth of many preceding winters, which were first broken two winters ago by the strong southwest and southerly gales over all the North Atlantic and North Pacific; but which, in consequence of their bulk and extent, were again condensed before they could be fairly swept into the Atlantic, and thus offered continued obstruction to the release of Franklin and his ships. Nor would this appear to be impossible, assuming detention in the ice to have been the only danger, and that continued means of subsistence were accessible.--The Steamer _Orion_, plying between Liverpool and Glasgow, was wrecked June 18th, off Port Patrick, in a smooth sea, by striking upon a rock, and over two hundred lives were lost.--The baptism of the infant prince was celebrated June 22d, the Duke of Wellington being one of the sponsors, and the ceremony being performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who named the royal infant, "Arthur William Patrick Albert."

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The English LITERARY INTELLIGENCE of the month is summed up in the Household Narrative, from which mainly we copy. It remarks that the class of books which has received the largest additions, is that of biography. Mr. Edmund Phipps has published extracts from the diaries and literary remains of the author of _Tremaine_, with biographical and critical comment, under the title of "_Memoirs of the Political and Literary Life of Robert Plumer Ward_;" and the book has been made more interesting than the subject would have seemed to promise, by the fact of Mr. Ward's intimate connection, both in private and public life, with the leading tory statesmen of the administrations of Addington, Perceval, and Liverpool. The political and administrative characteristics of the Duke of Wellington have probably never had such vivid illustration.--Mr. Leigh Hunt has published his "_Autobiography, with Reminiscences of Friends and Contemporaries_," of which very copious extracts were given in the July number of this Magazine. It will be issued in a few days from the press of the Harpers. Some of it is the republication of a former work, but the greater part is original, or at least so changed by interpolations, recantations, or additions, as to produce the effect of novelty.--The Reverend Mr. Field, an enthusiast for the separate and silent system of imprisonment, has published a new _Life of Howard_, dedicated to Prince Albert, of which the design appears to be to counteract the evil tendency of a recent memoir of the philanthropist, remarkable for what the reverend enthusiast calls "the advocacy of democratic principles, and the aspersion of a godly prince."--Each in a goodly-sized volume, we have had a sort of general biographical notice of _Celebrated Etonians_, and of _Speakers of the House of Commons_, the first by an able man, quite competent to the subject.--Miss Pardoe has edited the first volume of a series of _Memoirs of the Queens of Spain_, of which the author is a Spanish lady, resident in America. An ingenious northern antiquary has published memorials of one of the old border mansions, called Dilston Hall, which amounts in effect to an interesting _Memoir of the Earl of Derwentwater_, who suffered in the Jacobite rebellion. And, finally, Mr. Andrew Bisset has done good service to both history and biography by a very careful publication of the _Memoirs and Papers of Sir Andrew Mitchell,_ Lord Chatham's embassador at the court of Frederic the Great, and one of the very ablest of English diplomatists.

To the department of philosophy a somewhat remarkable contribution is to be noticed, under the title of _The Progress of the Intellect as exemplified in the religious development of the Greeks and Hebrews_. The writer is Mr. Robert William Mackay. Its design is to explain by a rationalistic process all the religious faiths and beliefs which have exerted the greatest influence over man, and to refer them exclusively to moral and intellectual development. In this design the writer may, or may not, have succeeded; but it is certain, making all draw-backs on the score of what has probably been borrowed from German investigation, that the book has high pretensions to eloquence and research, and reminds us of a time when publication was less frequent than now, and a single book might embody the labor of a life. For its antidote in respect of opinion and purpose there has been published, not inopportunely, after a peaceful slumber of nearly two centuries in the library at Wotton, _A Rational Account of the True Religion_, by John Evelyn. Here the design is, by all possible arguments and authorities, to confirm our faith in Christianity.

We must speak very summarily and briefly of the publications in general literature. Of books of travel and adventure, the most attractive and interesting in point of subject is, _Five Years of a Hunter's Life in the Far Interior of South Africa_, by Mr. Roualeyn Gordon Cumming, a kinsman of the Chief of Argyll, in whom a love of deer-stalking seems to have gradually expanded into dimensions too gigantic to be satisfied with any thing less than the stalking of the lion, the elephant, the hippopotamus, the giraffe, or the rhinoceros. The book is filled with astonishing incidents and anecdotes, and keeps the reader very nearly as breathless with excitement as the elephant and lion-hunter himself must have been. Copious extracts from the work will be found in the preceding pages of this number.--Mr. Aubrey de Vere has published some very graceful _Picturesque Sketches of Greece and Turkey_; and the brave and high-minded old General Pepe has given the world, _A Narrative of Scenes and Events in Italy from 1847 to 1849_. Mr. Johnson, the distinguished geographer of Edinburgh, has issued the most complete _General Gazetteer of the World_ that has yet been comprised in a single volume; and as part of the republication of the treatises of the Encyclopædia Metropolitana, in separate and portable volumes, we have to mention an interesting volume on Greek Literature by Mr. Justice Talfourd, the Bishop of London, and other accomplished scholars.--In poetical translation, a new version of _Æschylus_ by Professor Blackie, of Aberdeen, has been issued; and in poetry, with the title of _In Memoriam_, a noble and affecting series of elegies to the memory of a friend (son of the historian Hallam), from the pen of Mr. Alfred Tennyson.

Considerable interest was excited by the unswathing of an Egyptian mummy at the residence of Lord Londesborough, at which Mr. Birch of the British Museum, describing the embalming process, and following in this the narrative of Herodotus, said the subject had evidently suffered from the use of bitumen and the application of heat, as the bones were charred and the muscles calcined. DR. CORMACK has published a letter in the _Athenæum_ expressing and sustaining the opinion that all mummies were prepared in this way.--A recent number of Galignani contains an interesting item of intelligence. It may be remembered that GOETHE in 1827 delivered over to the keeping of the Government of Weimar a quantity of his papers, contained in a sealed casket, with an injunction not to open it until 1850. The 17th of May being fixed for breaking the seals, the authorities gave formal notice to the family of Goethe that they would on that day deliver up the papers as directed by the deceased poet. The descendants of the poet Schiller also received an intimation that, as the papers were understood to concern their ancestor likewise, they had a right to be present. The casket was opened with all due form, and was found to contain the whole of the correspondence between Goethe and Schiller. It is added, that these letters are immediately to be published, according to directions found in the casket. A new society has recently been formed in London for the investigation of the laws and nature of epidemic diseases, of which Dr. Babington has been chosen President. Another has been instituted for the collection of facts, observations, &c, in Meteorology, of which Mr. Whitbread is to be the first President. ROGERS the poet was severely injured by being knocked down by a cab in the streets of London. Being 87 years old his case was considered precarious, though at the last accounts he seems to have partially recovered.--Several meetings have been held at the house of Mr. Justice COLERIDGE for the purpose of initiating a subscription to do honor, in some form, to the memory of Wordsworth, and have resulted in the formation of a powerful committee, with the Bishop of London at its head. The objects which this committee have in view are--to place a whole length effigy of the deceased poet in Westminster Abbey--and, if possible, to erect some monument to his memory in the neighborhood of Grasmere. The list of subscriptions is headed by the Queen and her Royal Consort, with a sum of £50.--Some singular decisions have recently been made by the Vice Chancellor. It seems that a Mr. Hartley deceased in 1843, left directions in his will that £300 should be set apart as a prize for the best Essay on "Natural Theology," treating it as a substantive science, and as adequate to constitute a true, perfect, and philosophical system of universal religion. It was ruled by the Vice Chancellor that this bequest was void, on account of the evident tendency which the essay so described would have to demoralize society and subvert the church. Another decision, arising out of the same trial, is yet more curious. Mr. Hartley had left £200 for the best essay on Emigration, and appointed the American Minister trustee of the fund. This bequest was also declared void, on the ground that such an essay would encourage persons to emigrate to the United States, and so throw off their allegiance to the Queen! The race of Justice Shallows seems not to be extinct.

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In FRANCE, after the passage of the electoral law, a bill was presented for increasing the President's salary to 3,600,000 francs per annum. Its introduction created considerable feeling. The committee to which it was referred reported in its stead a bill granting 1,600,000 francs to defray expenses incurred at the President's inauguration: and this was afterward modified so as to grant 2,160,000 for the expenses of the President, in which form it was adopted by the Assembly, by a vote of 354 to 308, a majority of 46 for the government. This is regarded as a government triumph, but it was not won until after a sharp struggle, and it has increased very considerably the public disaffection.--New laws for the restriction of the press have also been brought forward. The amount of caution money which newspapers are required to deposit is increased, and the system of postage stamps is introduced. During the discussion of these laws on the 8th of July, a scene of some warmth occurred in the Assembly. M. Rouher, in the course of a speech, spoke of the revolution of February as a great catastrophe, for which he was immediately called to order by Girardin, recently elected a member by the department of the Lower Rhine, as well as by others. The President refused to call him to order, but rebuked those who had interrupted him. The laws in regard to the press have been declared "urgent" by a vote of 370 to 251.--A man named Walker has been arrested on his own confession of a design to assassinate Louis Napoleon, for which purpose he had waited several hours for him to pass out of his gate. He proves to have been insane.--M. Thiers has been on a visit to London, where he was received with distinction. He visited Louis Philippe, whose health is said to be failing.

* * * * *

In GERMANY the settlement of the Constitution makes little progress. The Saxon chambers were suddenly dissolved on the 1st, to evade a discussion in the Second Chamber on an address to the sovereign, expressing dissatisfaction with the conduct of the government on the German question; and the Second Chamber broke up in solemn silence, withholding the usual cheers for the king. The Wurtemburg Diet, for a similar reason, was prorogued on the 4th. The German senate has given its consent for the meeting of the Peace Congress at Frankfort, and its sessions will commence on the 23d of August. It is to be a New World's Convention of the Friends of Peace.

* * * * *

The King of PRUSSIA has recovered from the wound inflicted by the assassin Sefeloge. A royal decree has been published at Berlin, curtailing still further the Freedom of the Press. The system of "caution-money" is re-established, with the government powers of canceling the license to sell newspapers, and of refusing conveyance by post to obnoxious journals; and certain offenses against the press laws are "withdrawn from the competency of a jury." Among the journals affected by the decree is the London _Punch_, which has been proscribed in the city of Konigsberg and its province, and placed on the list of journals that are no longer permitted to pass through the post-office.

* * * * *

From PORTUGAL we have intelligence of difficulties with this country, growing out of claims on that government which have been in existence for many years. The amount claimed is about $300,000. The principal one grows out of the destruction of the American ship, the General Armstrong, during the war of 1812, by a British fleet, while lying in the neutral port of Fayal, and therefore entitled to the protection of the Portuguese government. According to the law of nations, Portugal is responsible for her failure to protect her; and although Great Britain is the party in equity responsible, the United States have to look, in conformity to law, only to Portugal. The claims have been unsuccessfully pressed for a number of years; but the administration of General Taylor demanded an immediate settlement. Our Chargé, Mr. Clay, under instructions, had required an answer to his demands within twenty days, and an American squadron had meantime arrived in the Tagus to enforce them. Some uneasiness was felt as to the issue, but it was believed that the Portuguese government would yield.

LITERARY NOTICES.

LIFE AND LETTERS OF THOMAS CAMPBELL. Edited by William Beattie. In two volumes, 8vo, pp. 1077. New York: Harper and Brothers.

This charming piece of biography is already familiar to the reading public in this country, from the copious and flattering notices it has received from the British journals and reviews. It will be welcomed in its present complete form by every lover of literary history, no less than by the admirers of the favorite poet of "The Pleasures of Hope." The author had _abundance of materials at his command_, and has executed his task with commendable industry and good taste. In any hands, the subject could not be without intense interest, and as it has been treated in the volumes before us, possesses a fascination rarely found in any recent production. Free use is made of the letters of CAMPBELL, many of which are of the highest order of epistolary composition, abounding in those delicate and expressive touches which reveal the heart of the man and the genius of the poet in the purest and most beautiful light.

The American edition is introduced by a letter of WASHINGTON IRVING to the publishers, in which our admirable countryman relates some personal reminiscences of CAMPBELL with so much felicity and exquisite grace, that we can not avoid transferring them to our pages:

"My acquaintance with Campbell commenced in, I think, 1810, through his brother Archibald, a most amiable, modest, and intelligent man, but more of a mathematician than a poet. He resided at that time in New York, and had received from his brother a manuscript copy of "O'Connor's Child; or, the Flower of Love lies bleeding," for which he was desirous of finding a purchaser among the American publishers. I negotiated the matter for him with a publishing house in Philadelphia, which offered a certain sum for the poem, provided I would write a biographical sketch of the author to be prefixed to a volume containing all his poetical works. To secure a good price for the poet, I wrote the sketch, being furnished with facts by his brother; it was done, however, in great haste, when I was 'not in the vein,' and, of course, was very slight and imperfect. It served, however, to put me at once on a friendly footing with Campbell, so that, when I met him for the first time a few years subsequently in England, he received me as an old friend. He was living at that time in his rural retreat at Sydenham. His modest mansion was fitted up in a simple style, but with a tact and taste characteristic of the occupants.

"Campbell's appearance was more in unison with his writings than is generally the case with authors. He was about thirty-seven years of age; of the middle size; lightly and genteelly made: evidently of a delicate, sensitive organization, with a fine intellectual countenance and a beaming poetic eye.

"He had now been about twelve years married. Mrs. Campbell still retained much of that personal beauty for which he praises her in his letters written in the early days of matrimony; and her mental qualities seemed equally to justify his eulogies: a rare circumstance, as none are more prone to dupe themselves in affairs of the heart than men of lively imaginations. She was, in fact, a more suitable wife for a poet than poet's wives are apt to be; and for once a son of song had married a reality and not a poetical fiction.

"I had considered the early productions of Campbell as brilliant indications of a genius yet to be developed, and trusted that, during the long interval which had elapsed, he had been preparing something to fulfill the public expectation; I was greatly disappointed, therefore, to find that, as yet, he had contemplated no great and sustained effort. My disappointment in this respect was shared by others, who took the same interest in his fame, and entertained the same idea of his capacity. 'There he is, cooped up in Sydenham,' said a great Edinburgh critic to me, 'simmering his brains to serve up a little dish of poetry, instead of pouring out a whole caldron.'

"Scott, too, who took a cordial delight in Campbell's poetry, expressed himself to the same effect. 'What a pity is it,' said he to me, 'that Campbell does not give full sweep to his genius. He has wings that would bear him up to the skies, and he does now and then spread them grandly, but folds them up again and resumes his perch, as if afraid to launch away. The fact is, he is a bugbear to himself. The brightness of his early success is a detriment to all his future efforts. _He is afraid of the shadow that his own fame casts before him_.

"Little was Scott aware at the time that he, in truth, was a 'bugbear' to Campbell. This I infer from an observation of Mrs. Campbell's in reply to an expression of regret on my part that her husband did not attempt something on a grand scale. 'It is unfortunate for Campbell,' said she, 'that he lives in the same age with Scott and Byron.' I asked why. 'Oh,' said she, 'they write so much and so rapidly. Now Campbell writes slowly, and it takes him some time to get under way; and just as he has fairly begun, out comes one of their poems, that sets the world agog and quite daunts him, so that he throws by his pen in despair.'

"I pointed out the essential difference in their kinds of poetry, and the qualities which insured perpetuity to that of her husband. 'You can't persuade Campbell of that,' said she. 'He is apt to undervalue his own works, and to consider his own little lights put out whenever they come blazing out with their great torches.'

"I repeated the conversation to Scott some time afterward, and it drew forth a characteristic comment.

"'Pooh!' said he, good humoredly, 'how can Campbell mistake the matter so much. Poetry goes by quality, not by bulk. My poems are mere cairngorms, wrought up, perhaps, with a cunning hand, and may pass well in the market as long as cairngorms are the fashion; but they are mere Scotch pebbles after all; now Tom Campbell's are real diamonds, and diamonds of the first water.'

"I have not time at present to furnish personal anecdotes of my intercourse with Campbell, neither does it afford any of a striking nature. Though extending over a number of years, it was never very intimate. His residence in the country, and my long intervals of absence on the Continent, rendered our meetings few and far between. To tell the truth, I was not much drawn to Campbell, having taken up a wrong notion concerning him from seeing him at times when his mind was ill at ease, and preyed upon by secret griefs. I had thought him disposed to be querulous and captious, and had heard his apparent discontent attributed to jealous repining at the success of his poetical contemporaries. In a word, I knew little of him but what might be learned in the casual intercourse of general society, whereas it required the close communion of confidential friendship to sound the _depths of his character and know the treasures of excellence_ hidden beneath its surface. Besides, he was dogged for years by certain malignant scribblers, who took a pleasure in misrepresenting all his actions, and holding him up in an absurd and disparaging point of view. In what this hostility originated I do not know, but it must have given much annoyance to his sensitive mind, and may have affected his popularity. I know not to what else to attribute a circumstance to which I was a witness during my last visit to England. It was at an annual dinner of the Literary Fund, at which Prince Albert presided, and where was collected much of the prominent talent of the kingdom. In the course of the evening Campbell rose to make a speech. I had not seen him for years, and his appearance showed the effect of age and ill health; it was evident also, that his mind was obfuscated by the wine he had been drinking. He was confused and tedious in his remarks; still, there was nothing but what one would have thought would be received with indulgence, if not deference, from a veteran of his fame and standing, a living classic. On the contrary, to my surprise, I soon observed signs of impatience in the company; the poet was repeatedly interrupted by coughs and discordant sounds, and as often endeavored to proceed; the noise at length became intolerable, and he was absolutely clamored down, sinking into his chair overwhelmed and disconcerted. I could not have thought such treatment possible to such a person at such a meeting.

"Hallam, author of the Literary History of the Middle Ages, who sat by me on this occasion, marked the mortification of the poet, and it excited his generous sympathy. Being shortly afterward on the floor to reply to a toast, he took occasion to advert to the recent remarks of Campbell, and in so doing called up in review all his eminent achievements in the world of letters, and drew such a picture of his claims upon popular gratitude and popular admiration as to convict the assembly of the glaring impropriety they had been guilty of--to soothe the wounded sensibility of the poet, and send him home to, I trust, a quiet pillow.

"I mention these things to illustrate the merit of the piece of biography which you are about to lay before the American world. It is a great act of justice to the memory of a distinguished man, whose character has not been sufficiently known. It gives an insight into his domestic as well as his literary life, and lays open the springs of all his actions and the causes of all his contrariety of conduct. We now see the real difficulties he had to contend with in the earlier part of his literary career; the worldly cares which pulled his spirit to the earth whenever it would wing its way to the skies; the domestic afflictions, tugging at his heart-strings even in his hours of genial intercourse, and converting his very smiles into spasms; the anxious days and sleepless nights preying upon his delicate organization, producing that morbid sensitiveness and nervous irritability which at times overlaid the real sweetness and amenity of his nature, and obscured the unbounded generosity of his heart.

"The biography does more: it reveals the affectionate considerateness of his conduct in all the domestic relations of life. The generosity with which he shared his narrow means with all the members of his family, and tasked his precarious resources to add to their relief; his deep-felt tenderness as a husband and a father, the source of exquisite home-happiness for a time, but ultimately of unmitigated wretchedness; his constant and devoted friendships, which in early life were almost romantic passions, and which remained unwithered by age: his sympathies with the distressed of every nation, class, and condition; his love of children, that infallible sign of a gentle and amiable nature; his sensibility to beauty of every kind; his cordial feeling toward his literary contemporaries, so opposite to the narrow and despicable jealousy imputed to him; above all, the crowning romance of his life, his enthusiasm in the cause of suffering Poland, a devotion carried to the height of his poetic temperament, and, in fact, exhausting all that poetic vein which, properly applied, might have produced epics; these and many more traits set forth in his biography bring forth his character in its true light, dispel those clouds which malice and detraction may at times have cast over it, and leave it in the full effulgence of its poetic glory."

THE LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF ANDREW COMBE, M.D. By George Combe. Philadelphia: A. Hart. 12mo, pp. 424.

The remarkable popularity of the works of ANDREW COMBE on Physiology and Hygiene, in this country, will make the present biography an object of interest with a very large number of readers. It is written with singular impartiality, indeed with too little of the spirit of affectionate admiration, by the celebrated George Combe, whose own writings on the constitution of man and the observance of physical laws, have made him a general favorite in many intelligent circles, which have no peculiar interest in the special department of science with which his name has been identified. Each of the brothers has the merit of presenting important principles in plain language. With utility for their motto, they have written for the mass of the people, and, perhaps, have done more for the diffusion of popular knowledge, than many authors whose intellectual pretensions are far superior to their own. Destitute, to a remarkable degree, of every ray of imagination, with no approach to the creative power, which is the test of genius, their writings are marked with a robust common sense, a patience and clearness of statement, and a fertility of simple, homely illustration, which account for their deep impression on the popular mind.

In early life, the subject of this memoir displayed none of the brilliant qualities which give promise of future eminence. He was shy and reserved in his manners, and with no facility in the use of words, though often showing a certain droll humor in his actions. His progress in learning was slow, though this may be ascribed in part to the injudicious method which was pursued in his education. While engaged in his medical studies, he first made the acquaintance of Dr. Spurzheim, an event which decided the direction of his mind for the remainder of his life. This soon ripened into intimate friendship, which was cherished by frequent personal intercourse with Spurzheim during a visit at Paris. He at once became a zealous convert to the doctrines of Phrenology, making them the basis of his medical practice, and his anthropological system.

From an imprudent exposure to cold, Dr. COMBE'S health early received a severe shock, from the effects of which his system never fully recovered. His subsequent life was that of an habitual invalid. He was forced to maintain a constant battle with disease. While spreading the principles of health in a multitude of households, wherever the English language is spoken, by his lucid writings on the subject, he was scarcely permitted for a single day to enjoy the inestimable treasure. He, consequently, spent no small portion of his time in traveling in different countries, visiting France, Belgium, Germany, and the United States, and his letters and observations during these various tours constitute one of the most interesting features in the present volume. His death took place on the 9th of August, 1847.

He left the character of a man of sterling integrity, excellent judgment, admirable candor and fairness of mind, a single-hearted devotion to truth, and a disposition of rare kindness and disinterested humanity. His biography will be read with satisfaction, by those who feel themselves indebted to his writings. It is simple, honest, unpretending, like its subject. With the singularly prosaic mind of Mr. George Combe, no one can expect to find it animated with any living glow. It records the life of a public benefactor, but with as little freshness or enthusiasm, as if the author were giving a Phrenological lecture on a collection of skulls.

DR. JOHNSON; HIS RELIGIOUS LIFE AND HIS DEATH. New York: Harper and Brothers. 12mo, pp. 405.

The author of this volume is not surpassed by Boswell in reverence for "the Great Old Samuel," but happily is not infected with his puerilities. His book is a favorable specimen of the right kind of "Hero Worship," dealing tenderly with every relic of the departed, and religiously gathering every precious tribute to his memory. It reproduces a variety of characteristic events and scenes in the life of DR. JOHNSON, without having the air of a compilation. No source of information seems to have been overlooked, while the labors of previous writers are so digested and arranged as to give the effect of an original production. The main subject to which the volume is devoted, is the illustration of Dr. Johnson's religious character, but numerous attractive episodes are also introduced, which relieve it from all tendency to monotony. The last incidents in his life are described with peculiar interest. Several chapters are wholly occupied with his Churchmanship, and under different heads, we have a spirited description of his humanity, his treatment of dissenters, his views of monastic life, his sympathy with Roman Catholics, and his superstition, all the statements being fortified with quotations from his own language. Various questions of collateral interest are discussed by the author, as suggested by the topics under review, and are usually treated with equal ability and religious feeling. The work will doubtless be received as a valuable complement to our Johnsonian literature.

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_Lossing's Field Book of the Revolution_, published by Harper and Brothers, has reached its fifth number, and fully sustains the wide reputation which it has acquired, as an elegant, spirited, and instructive work on American history. The union of narrative and description, which forms a leading feature of the series, is managed by Mr. Lossing with remarkable dexterity, and gives a perpetual charm to the composition. In the five numbers already issued, we have a graphic survey of the scenery and historical reminiscences of the portion of the State of New York and of Canada, which is embraced within the routes of our fashionable summer tourists. They describe the principal theatre of the French and Indian Wars, and many of the most interesting localities of the American Revolution, including Glenn's Falls, Lake George, Ticonderoga and Champlain from Whitehall to St. John's, Montreal, Quebec, the St. Lawrence to Kingston, Lake Ontario, Niagara, and a part of the Upper Valley of the Mohawk--all truly classic ground to the lover of American history. Whoever would obtain an accurate and indelible impression of the great battle-grounds of the Revolution, while seeking recreation in a summer jaunt, should not fail to make these beautiful numbers his traveling companions.

Harper and Brothers have reprinted SYDNEY SMITH'S posthumous Lectures entitled _Sketches of Moral Philosophy_, which is introduced with a commendatory letter by Lord Jeffrey, written but a few days before his death, wherein he says that these Lectures "will do their author as much credit as any thing he ever wrote, and produce on the whole a stronger impression by the force and vivacity of his intellect, as well as a truer and more engaging view of his character than what the world has yet seen of his writings. The book seems to me to be full of good sense, acuteness, and right feeling--very clearly and pleasingly written--and with such an admirable mixture of logical intrepidity, with the absence of all dogmatism, as is rarely met with in the conduct of such discussions." The versatile author discusses a great variety of topics, slenderly connected it is true, with Metaphysics or Moral Philosophy, and on this account has left a far more readable volume, than if it had been rigidly devoted to the questions which it professes to treat. His remarks are always lively, pointed, and apposite, betraying a familiar knowledge of the world, and a quick perception of the bearing and character of current events, while their caustic wit is usually attempered with an inexhaustible fountain of good humor.

We have received _The Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil_, volume 2d, from the veteran editor of whose zeal and ability in maintaining the doctrine of "harmony" and mutual dependence between all the great branches of domestic industry, it affords abundant evidence.

Mr. Skinner contends, with every appearance of assured conviction, that as our country spreads over so many latitudes, and embraces climates and resources more various and abundant than any other, our policy, too, should be peculiar; and that instead of importing iron, cloth, and other manufactures, for which we have materials, or capabilities inexhaustible, we should import _men_, as the best of all importations, whose demands, while occupied with other industries, would create a steady and remunerating market for the products of agriculture, which, he insists, would be, of all things, the surest guarantee for improvements in the _art_ of terra-culture. This enterprise is one of the ablest of the kind, to illustrate the importance of placing the consumer by the side of the agriculturist; and whether reference be had to the long services of the editor in the cause of cultivators of the soil, or the earnestness and power with which he and his correspondents enforce their doctrine, there can be no hesitation in saying, that those who unite with them in opinion will do well to give encouragement to _The Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil_. It is but justice to add, that it is well printed on fine paper, giving no less than 64 pages monthly, at the rate of $5 for two subscribers, or $3 for one. Edited and published by that old and tried soldier in the cause--the founder of the first agricultural journal in the United States--J. S. SKINNER, 79, Walnut-street, Philadelphia.

Phillips, Sampson, and Co. have published a new edition of _The Rebels_, one of the earliest and most popular novels of the admirable Mrs. Child. Its character is too well known to authorize criticism at this time, and its reproduction in the present edition will gratify the troops of friends, with whom the author is a distinguished favorite.

One of the most remarkable books of the month is _The Logic and Utility of Mathematics_, by CHARLES DAVIES, LL.D., published by Barnes and Co. It is not intended as a treatise on any special branch of mathematical science, and demands for its full appreciation a general acquaintance with the leading methods and routine of mathematical investigation. To those who have a natural fondness for this pursuit, and enjoy the leisure for a retrospect of their favorite studies, the present volume will possess a charm, not surpassed by the fascinations of a romance. It is an elaborate and lucid exposition of the principles which lie at the foundation of pure mathematics, with a highly ingenious application of their results to the development of the essential idea of Arithmetic, Geometry, Algebra, Analytic Geometry, and the Differential and Integral Calculus. The work is preceded by a general view of the subject of Logic, mainly drawn from the writings of Archbishop Whately and Mr. Mill, and closes with an essay on the utility of mathematics. Some occasional exaggerations, in presenting the claims of the science to which his life has been devoted, must here be pardoned to the professional enthusiasm of the author. In general, the work is written with singular circumspection; the views of the best thinkers on the subject have been thoroughly digested, and are presented in an original form; every thing bears the impress of the intellect of the writer; his style is for the most part chaste, simple, transparent, and in admirable harmony with the dignity of the subject, and his condensed generalizations are often profound and always suggestive.

_The Gallery of Illustrious Americans_, edited by C. EDWARDS LESTER, Esq. has reached its seventh number, which contains a portrait and biographical sketch of the distinguished ornithologist, J. J. AUDUBON. The engraving presents a delightful view of the intellectual and expressive features of the veteran forester, savan, and artist, while the sketch by Mr. Lester gives a rapid and satisfactory summary of the principal incidents in his adventurous life. The daguerreotypes by BRADY, and the lithographs by D'AVIGNON, throughout this series, are highly creditable specimens of their respective arts. The biographical notices are carefully written and beautifully printed. The previous numbers embrace Taylor, Calhoun, Webster, Wright, Clay, and Fremont--and that our readers may form some idea of the striking fidelity of the Portraits, we present, in a previous page, the well-known likeness of our late President, copied on wood by Lossing, from the first number of the work.

A. Hart, Philadelphia, has reprinted from the English edition, _The Phantom World_, from the French of CALMET, with a Preface and Notes by Rev. HENRY CHRISTMAS, giving a general survey of the history and philosophy of spirits, apparitions, ghosts, elves, fairies, spooks, bogles, bugaboos, and hobgoblins. It will probably meet with an extensive circulation in these days when Connecticut divines are haunted by infernal visits, and the Rochester sibyls are on exhibition in New York.

_Dies Boreales, or Christopher Under Canvas_, is republished from Blackwood's Magazine in a neat edition, by A. Hart, Philadelphia, and will meet with a warm reception from the innumerable admirers of the noble, eloquent, impassioned, kaleidoscopic, frisky, and genial old Christopher.

Among the valuable scientific serials now issuing from the New York press, is _The Dictionary of Mechanics, Engine Works, and Engineering_, edited by OLIVER BYRNE, and published by D. Appleton and Co. Of this work we have thirteen numbers, which bring the subjects, in alphabetical order, to the article on "Etching," the last number completing the elaborate description of the "Steam Engine," which in itself forms a treatise on a leading branch of practical science, and may be commended in high terms to the attention both of the general reader and the professional engineer. It is rarely that such a mass of important information is condensed into so lucid and pleasing a form, attractive no less by the clearness of its scientific details, than by the bright picture which it gives of the progress of the useful arts in modern times.

Another work, of similar value, is _A Treatise on Marine and Naval Architecture_, by JOHN W. GRIFFITHS, a serial which has reached its seventh number, and has elicited the warmest encomiums from distinguished constructors and engineers. The style is a fine model of scientific discussion, presenting the first principles of naval architecture with precision, compactness, and simplicity, abounding with graphic descriptive details, and preserving a spirited freedom and boldness in the most intricate and difficult expositions. The superior character of its contents, with the low price at which it is afforded, will insure it a wide circulation among American mechanics, who can not fail to gain both a pecuniary and an intellectual advantage from its perusal.

_Specimens of the Bridges, Viaducts, &c., on the United Slates Railroads_, by GEORGE DUGGIN, deserves an honorable place by the side of the two preceding serials, as an important contribution to the science of civil engineering in this country. The sixth number has already made its appearance, being the commencement of an elaborate treatise on Bridge-building, illustrated with sketches of the most remarkable specimens in this branch of architecture. The multiplicity of works like those we have just alluded to, and the great and instant popularity which they attain, present a cheering proof of the prevalence of scientific curiosity, and of the mental activity which leads to thorough investigation, among the leading artisans of the United States.

_The Second Book in Greek_, by John M'CLINTOCK, published by Harper and Brothers, is the complement to the previous volume, entitled _First Book in Greek_, which, as a practical manual in this branch of philology, has elicited the warmest approbation of judicious teachers. Dr. M'Clintock has brought the resources of a ripe and generous scholarship to the preparation of this work, which, with the other volumes of his Elementary Series in Greek and Latin, is a highly honorable proof of his sound learning and correct taste. The present work gives a full view of the Greek Syntax, with copious illustrations, and extracts from Xenophon's Anabasis, Homer, Anacreon, and sentences from the Greek Dramatists. Its peculiar merit consists in the progressive manner in which the various difficulties of Greek combination are unfolded, the pupil being thus led forward, by a natural sequence, to a mastery of the complicated idioms of the language, and trained imperceptibly to a perception of its rich and wonderful beauties.

Lea and Blanchard, Philadelphia, have republished _Impressions and Experiences of the West Indies and North America in 1849_, by ROBERT BAIRD, an intelligent Scotchman, apparently of the legal profession, but with little of the talent essential to the composition of a popular book of travels. His remarks on the United States are in a more discriminating tone than is often attained by English tourists, but the whole tone of the volume is, for the most part, so prosy and commonplace as to make its perusal an intolerable bore.

Tallis, Willoughby, and Company are publishing a beautifully embellished edition of _The Life of Christ_, by the Rev. JOHN FLEETWOOD, with original illustrations by Warren, who has attained a distinguished reputation, as a delineator of Oriental scenery, characters, and costumes. It is to be completed in twenty-five parts, of which two have been issued, in a style of elegant typography, highly creditable to the taste and enterprise of the publishers. The biography of the Saviour by Dr. Fleetwood is written with decorum and gravity, reproducing the consecutive events of the sacred narrative in symmetrical order, and presenting with becoming reserve, such moral reflections as are naturally suggested by the different topics of the sublime history. The work is happily distinguished from several recent attempts on similar themes, by its freedom from the ambitious and disgusting pretension of dressing up the severe simplicity of the Oriental writers in the tawdry and finical robes of modern rhetoric.

_The Shoulder-Knot_, by the Rev. B. F. TEFFT, published by Harper and Brothers, is a work of more than common originality, intended to convey important views of life, through the medium of fiction, and containing many passages of remarkable vigor and beauty. The story is derived from facts in the history of Louis XIII. of France, who, with his Queen, the admirable Anne of Austria, the Queen Mother, the selfish and passionate Mary, and the consummate master of intrigue, Cardinal Richelieu, is made to act a leading part in the development of the narrative. The author displays less skill in the artistic blending together of the principal incidents of the plot, than in his isolated descriptions and conversations, many of which indicate a high order of talent. The whole story is pervaded with a wholesome and elevated religious tone, showing the power of fictitious creation to illustrate the most vitally important truths.

Stringer and Townsend have published a _Supplement to Frank Forrester's Fish and Fishing in the United States_, by W. H. HERBERT, correcting some errors which had crept into the principal work on that subject, and completing the memoirs of the finny tribes under the democratic institutions of America, with the jaunty airiness of description, and genuine relish of natural scenery (as well as of fried fish), which have given such a wide celebrity to the flowing and unctuous pen of Frank Forrester.

The _Morning Watch_ is an anonymous poem, published by GEORGE P. PUTNAM, breathing an atmosphere of tender, religious sentiment, and showing considerable descriptive power. It has not, however, sufficient vigor of imagination to atone for the intense subjectivity of thought which throws a dim haze over the best-conceived passages.

J. ROSS BROWNE'S _Report of the Debates in the Convention of California_ on the Formation of the State Constitution, is a curious historical document, and will possess still more interest when the antiquities of the modern Eldorado shall become the object of learned research.

_The Mothers of the Wise and Good_, by JABEZ BURNS, D.D., reprinted by Gould, Kendall, and Lincoln, Boston, is a collection of interesting incidents, showing the effects of maternal influence on the formation of character, and tracing the excellence of many eminent men in various walks of life, to the pure and exalted virtues with which they were familiar in early life, within the sacred retirements of the domestic circle.

The seventh number of _Carlyle's Latter-Day Pamphlets_, issued by Harper and Brothers, is a mere seven-fold repetition of the ancient discontent of the author, whose mirth is changed into a permanent wail, and for whom the "brave o'erhanging firmament has become only a foul and pestilential congregation of vapors." The subject of this number is the "Statue of Hudson," the great deposed Railway King. It says much more of statues in general, than of this particular one of Hudson's. Like all the recent productions of Carlyle, it reminds us of the strugglings of a sick giant, whom his friends in mercy should compel to take to his bed and turn his face to the wall.

An elegant edition of _The Illustrated Domestic Bible_, by the Rev. INGRAM COBBIN, is publishing in numbers by Samuel Hueston. It has brief notes and reflections by the editor, and copious pictorial embellishments, illustrative of Oriental scenery and manners. The work is to be completed in twenty-five numbers.

Stanford and Swords have reprinted a neat edition of _Earnestness_, or _Incidents in the Life of an English Bishop_, by CHARLES B. TAYLOR, whose rare talent for applying the resources of fiction to the illustration of religious truth has given him an enviable reputation with a large circle of readers. The present work will be found to possess equal interest with the previous religious stories of the author.

_Amy Harrington_, by the author of _The Curate of Linwood_, another spirited religious novel, directing a battery of red-hot shot against the Tractarian or Puseyite movement in England, is republished by J. C. Riker. It is written in a tone of uncommon earnestness, and contains some passages of genuine pathos and eloquence.

_The Vale of Cedars_, by GRACE AGUILAR, republished by D. Appleton and Co., is a novel of more than ordinary power, indebted for its principal interest to its vivid description of the social condition of Spain during the reign of Isabella. The volume is introduced with an interesting biographical sketch of the able authoress, who died in 1847.

Crosby and Nichols, Boston, have republished _Chronicles and Characters of the Stock Exchange_, by JOHN FRANCIS, a work describing the progress of financial speculation in England, with great liveliness of delineation, and illustrated with a variety of personal incidents and scenes of the richest character. The volume is intended to give a popular narrative of the money power of England, in a manner at once interesting and suggestive, and it accomplishes its purpose with eminent success.

_Wah-to-yah, and the Taos Trail_, by LEWIS W. GARRARD published by H. W. Derby and Co., Cincinnati, is a record of wild adventures among the Indians, by a rollicking Western youth, who never misses the opportunity for a scene, and who tells his story with a gay saucy, good-natured audacity, which makes his book far more companionable than most volumes of graver pretensions. Commend us to young Garrard, whoever he may be, as a free and easy guide to the mysteries of life in the forest.

_Poems_ by H. LADD SPENCER, published by Phillips, Sampson, and Co., Boston, are rather remarkable specimens of juvenile precocity, most of them having been written in the days of the author's earliest boyhood, and some of them during his twelfth year, and at a period little less remote. Their poetical merit must, of course, be inconsiderable, and they are not sufficiently curious to warrant publication.

D. Appleton and Co. have issued a novel entitled _Heloise, or the Unrevealed Secret_, by TALVI, the gifted authoress of _The Sketch of the Slavic Language and Literature_, which is entitled to special commendation among the recent productions of American literature. Without the machinery of a complicated plot, and in language that is almost sculpturesque in its chaste simplicity, it possesses an intense and unflagging interest, by its artistic delineation of character, its profound insight into the mysteries of passion, and the calm, delicate, spiritual beauty of its heroine. Its subtle conception of the nicest variations of feeling, is no less remarkable than its precision in the use of language, the work, for the most part, not only reading like the production of a native, but of one familiar with the most intimate resources of idiomatic English. A very few exceptions to this remark in some portions of the dialogue, whose naïveté atones for their inaccuracy, only present the general purity of the composition in a more striking light. We sincerely trust that the writer, who has been so happily distinguished in the field of literary research, will be induced, by the success of this volume, to continue her labors in the province of fictitious creation. Nothing is wanting to her assurance of an enviable fame in this department of letters.

_The Initials_ is the title of an English novel, reprinted by A. Hart, Philadelphia, illustrative of German life and character, and in all respects of more interest than would be predicted from its ambiguous designation.

_The Lorgnette_, published by Stringer and Townsend, continues to make its appearance once a fortnight, and well sustains the reputation it has acquired, as a brilliant, searching, and good-humored satirical commentary on the many-colored phantasmagoria of the town. The name of the author is still a dead secret, in spite of numerous hints and winks among the knowing ones, and he is shrewd enough to prefer the prestige of concealment to the tickling of his vanity by publicity. The most noticeable feature in his work is its quiet, effective style of composition, which is utterly free from the pyrotechnic arts of so many current pretenders.

SUMMER FASHIONS.

FIG. 1. PROMENADE DRESS.--For walking in public gardens, _barège_ dresses, plain or figured, are generally adopted; but _glacé_, or damask bareges are the most _recherchés_. Dresses of shot silk form also charming toilets. The skirts are less full than those of last year--but, to compensate for it, they are trimmed with graduated flounces up to the waist--as many as five are worn, and they are pinked and stamped at the edges. The bodies are tight, and open in front; a cord connects the two sides of the corsage, and buttons, either of silk, colored stones, or steel, are placed on the centre of this cord. The sleeves are wider at the bottom than at the top, and are trimmed with two small flounces; from beneath them a large lace sleeve falls over the hand, leaving the lower part of the arm uncovered. This form of sleeve is very becoming to the hand.

Mantelets are very slightly altered; they are, however, rather more closely fitted to the figure than last year; they are all made of _taffetas glacé_, and trimmed with pinked _ruches_ of the same material for young persons, and with wide black lace for married ladies.

FIG. 2, is a Pelerine of a pattern quite new; made of embroidered net, trimmed with three rows of _point d'Alençon_, and ornamented with a large knot of _ribbons Bayadère_. Another pattern is of Indian muslin _Canezcu_, embroidered and trimmed with _malines_, open and buttoned up in the back.

FIG. 3 is a neat costume for a little girl.

Dress of glacé silk, shaded in light green and lilac. The skirt trimmed with four rows of fringe of green and lilac silk intermingled. The corsage low and plain, with a pelerine which passes along the back and shoulders, and is brought down to the front of the waist in a point. This pelerine is edged with two rows of fringe. The sleeves of the dress, which are short, are edged simply with one row of fringe. Attached to these short sleeves are long sleeves of white muslin made so as to set nearly close to the upper part of the arms, but finished between the elbow and the wrist with three drawings separated by bands of needlework insertion. Above these drawings there is a frill which falls back on the arm. The neck is covered by a chemisette of muslin, finished at the throat with a trimming of needlework, turned over.

FIG. 4. HOME DRESS.--Morning cap trimmed with Valenciennes and gauze ribbons, cut out in the shape of leaves, muslin _guimpe bouillonné_, with embroidered _entre-deux_; the gown _en gros d'Ecosse_, with facing and trimmings cut out; _pagode_ sleeves, with a white muslin puffing ornamented with a very large _bouillonné_.

In the engraving (FIG. 5) is represented a BALL COSTUME, with a graceful head-dress, composed of a vine garland with grapes; on each side hangs a bunch of grapes (several little hunches are preferred). The novelty of this year is to be observed in the length of the branches, which come down on the shoulders, mixing with long curls. This head-dress is worn also with _bandeaux_, but then the garland must be thicker in the lower part. The leaves are of different colors, from the various shades of green to the autumnal red tint. This kind of garland is made also of ivy, with small red balls. The gowns are of _taffetas d'Italie_--_white, rose_, or _blue_ (their shades are to be _glacés de blanc_): the body is trimmed with a _berthe_, made of two rows of _blonde_; the front ornamented with a puffing of white net laced with satin ribbons the color of the gown.