Chapter 4

Several weeks passed away. Edward spared no pains to discover some trace of the lady in question, but all in vain. No one in the neighborhood knew the family; and he had already determined, as soon as the spring began, to ask for leave of absence, and to travel through the country where Ferdinand had formed his unfortunate attachment, when a circumstance occurred which coincided strangely with his wishes. His commanding officer gave him a commission to purchase some horses, which, to his great consolation, led him exactly into that part of the country where Ferdinand had been quartered. It was a market-town of some importance. He was to remain there some time, which suited his plans exactly; and he made use of every leisure hour to cultivate the acquaintance of the officers, to inquire into Ferdinand's connections and acquaintance, to trace the mysterious name if possible, and thus fulfill a sacred duty. For to him it appeared a sacred duty to execute the commission of his departed friend--to get possession of the ring, and to be the means, as he hoped, of giving rest to the troubled spirit of Ferdinand.

Already, on the evening of the second day, he was sitting in the coffee-room with burghers of the place and officers of different regiments. A newly-arrived cornet was inquiring whether the neighborhood were a pleasant one, of an infantry officer, one of Hallberg's corps. "For," said he, "I come from charming quarters."

"There is not much to boast of," replied the captain. "There is no good fellowship, no harmony among the people."

"I will tell you why that is," cried an animated lieutenant; "that is because there is no house as a point of reunion, where one is sure to find and make acquaintances, and to be amused, and where each individual ascertains his own merits by the effect they produce on society at large."

"Yes, we have had nothing of that kind since the Varniers left us," said the captain.

"Varniers!" cried Edward, with an eagerness he could ill conceal. "The name sounds foreign."

"They were not Germans--they were emigrants from the Netherlands, who had left their country on account of political troubles," replied the captain.

"Ah, that was a charming house," cried the lieutenant, "cultivation, refinement, a sufficient competency, the whole style of the establishment free from ostentation, yet most comfortable; and Emily--Emily was the soul of the whole house."

"Emily Varnier!" echoed Edward, while his heart beat fast and loud.

"Yes, yes! that was the name of the prettiest, most graceful, most amiable girl in the world," said the lieutenant.

"You seem bewitched by the fair Emily," observed the cornet.

"I think you would have been too, had you known her;" rejoined the lieutenant; "she was the jewel of the whole society. Since she went away there is no bearing their stupid balls and assemblies."

"But you must not forget," the captain resumed once more, "when you attribute every thing to the charms of the fair girl, that not only she but the whole family has disappeared, and we have lost that house which formed, as you say, so charming a point of reunion in our neighborhood."

"Yes, yes; exactly so," said an old gentleman, a civilian, who had been silent hitherto; "the Varniers' house is a great loss in the country, where such losses are not so easily replaced as in a large town. First, the father died, then came the cousin and carried the daughter away."

"And did this cousin marry the young lady?" inquired Edward, in a tone tremulous with agitation.

"Certainly," answered the old gentleman; "it was a very great match for her; he bought land to the value of half a million about here."

"And he was an agreeable, handsome man, we must all allow," remarked the captain.

"But she would never have married him," exclaimed the lieutenant, "if poor Hallberg had not died."

Edward was breathless, but he did not speak a word.

"She would have been compelled to do so in any case," said the old man; "the father had destined them for each other from infancy, and people say he made his daughter take a vow as he lay on his death-bed."

"That sounds terrible," said Edward; "and does not speak much for the good feeling of the cousin."

"She could not have fulfilled her father's wish," interposed the lieutenant; "her heart was bound up in Hallberg, and Hallberg's in her. Few people, perhaps, knew this, for the lovers were prudent and discreet; I, however, knew it all."

"And why was she not allowed to follow the inclination of her heart?" asked Edward.

"Because her father had promised her," replied the captain: "you used just now the word terrible; it is a fitting expression, according to my version of the matter. It appears that one of the branches of the house of Varnier had committed an act of injustice toward another, and Emily's father considered it a point of conscience to make reparation. Only through the marriage of his daughter with a member of the ill-used branch could that act be obliterated and made up for, and, therefore, he pressed the matter sorely."

"Yes, and the headlong passion which Emily inspired her cousin with abetted his designs."

"Then her cousin loved Emily?" inquired Edward.

"Oh, to desperation," was the reply; "He was a rival to her shadow, who followed her not more closely than he did. He was jealous of the rose that she placed on her bosom."

"Then poor Emily is not likely to have a calm life with such a man," said Edward.

"Come," interposed the old gentleman, with an authoritative tone, "I think you, gentlemen, go a little too far. I know D'Effernay; he is an honest, talented man, very rich, indeed, and generous; he anticipates his wife in every wish. She has the most brilliant house in the neighborhood, and lives like a princess."

"And trembles," insisted the lieutenant, "when she hears her husband's footstep. What good can riches be to her? She would have been happier with Hallberg."

"I do not know," rejoined the captain, "why you always looked upon that attachment as something so decided. It never appeared so to me; and you yourself say that D'Effernay is very jealous, which I believe him to be, for he is a man of strong passions; and this very circumstance causes me to doubt the rest of your story. Jealousy has sharp eyes, and D'Effernay would have discovered a rival in Hallberg, and not proved himself the friend he always was to our poor comrade."

"That does not follow at all," rejoined the lieutenant, "it only proves that the lovers were very cautious. So far, however, I agree with you. I believe that if D'Effernay had suspected any thing of the kind he would have murdered Hallberg."

A shudder passed through Edward's veins.

"Murdered!" he repeated in a hollow voice; "do you not judge too harshly of this man when you hint the possibility of such a thing?"

"That does he, indeed," said the old man; "these gentlemen are all angry with D'Effernay, because he has carried off the prettiest girl in the country. But I am told he does not intend remaining where he now lives. He wishes to sell his estates."

"Really," inquired the captain, "and where is he going?"

"I have no idea," replied the other; "but he is selling every thing off. One manor is already disposed of, and there have been people already in negotiation for the place where he resides."

The conversation now turned on the value of D'Effernay's property, and of land in general, &c.

Edward had gained materials enough for reflection; he rose soon, took leave of the company, and gave himself up, in the solitude of his own room, to the torrent of thought and feeling which that night's conversation had let loose. So, then, it was true; Emily Varnier was no fabulous being! Hallberg had loved her, his love had been returned, but a cruel destiny had separated them. How wonderfully did all he had heard explain the dream at the Castle, and how completely did that supply what had remained doubtful, or had been omitted in the officer's narrative. Emily Varnier, doubtless, possessed that ring, to gain possession of which now seemed his bounden duty. He resolved not to delay its fulfillment a moment, however difficult it might prove, and he only reflected on the best manner in which he should perform the task allotted to him. The sale of the property appeared to him a favorable opening. The fame of his father's wealth made it probable that the son might wish to be a purchaser of a fine estate, like the one in question. He spoke openly of such a project, made inquiries of the old gentleman, and the captain, who seemed to him to know most about the matter; and as his duties permitted a trip for a week or so, he started immediately, and arrived on the second day at the place of his destination. He stopped in the public house in the village to inquire if the estate lay near, and whether visitors were allowed to see the house and grounds. Mine host, who doubtless had had his directions, sent a messenger immediately to the Castle, who returned before long, accompanied by a chasseur, in a splendid livery, who invited the stranger to the Castle in the name of M. D'Effernay.

This was exactly what Edward wished, and expected. Escorted by the chasseur he soon arrived at the Castle, and was shown up a spacious staircase into a modern, almost, one might say, a magnificently-furnished room, where the master of the house received him. It was evening, toward the end of winter, the shades of twilight had already fallen, and Edward found himself suddenly in a room quite illuminated with wax candles. D'Effernay stood in the middle of the saloon, a tall, thin young man. A proud bearing seemed to bespeak a consciousness of his own merit, or at least of his position. His features were finely formed, but the traces of stormy passion, or of internal discontent, had lined them prematurely.

In figure he was very slender, and the deep sunken eye, the gloomy frown which was fixed between his brows, and the thin lips, had no very prepossessing expression, and yet there was something imposing in the whole appearance of the man.

Edward thanked him civilly for his invitation, spoke of his idea of being a purchaser as a motive for his visit, and gave his own, and his father's name. D'Effernay seemed pleased with all he said. He had known Edward's family in the metropolis; he regretted that the late hour would render it impossible for them to visit the property to-day, and concluded by pressing the lieutenant to pass the night at the Castle. On the morrow they would proceed to business, and now he would have the pleasure of presenting his wife to the visitor. Edward's heart beat violently--at length then he would see her! Had he loved her himself he could not have gone to meet her with more agitation. D'Effernay led his guest through many rooms, which were all as well furnished, and as brilliantly lighted, as the first he had entered. At length he opened the door of a small boudoir, where there was no light, save that which the faint, gray twilight imparted through the windows.

The simple arrangement of this little room, with dark green walls, only relieved by some engravings and coats of arms, formed a pleasing contrast to Edward's eyes, after the glaring splendor of the other apartments. From behind a piano-forte, at which she had been seated in a recess, rose a tall, slender female form, in a white dress of extreme simplicity.

"My love," said D'Effernay, "I bring you a welcome guest, Lieutenant Wensleben, who is willing to purchase the estate."

Emily courtesied; the friendly twilight concealed the shudder that passed over her whole frame, as she heard the familiar name which aroused so many recollections.

She bade the stranger welcome, in a low, sweet voice, whose tremulous accents were not unobserved by Edward; and while the husband made some further observation, he had leisure to remark, as well as the fading light would allow, the fair outline of her oval face, the modest grace of her movements, her pretty nymph-like figure--in fact, all those charms which seemed familiar to him through the impassioned descriptions of his friend.

"But what can this fancy be, to sit in the dark?" asked D'Effernay, in no mild tone; "you know that is a thing I can not bear:" and with these words, and without waiting his wife's answer, he rang the bell over her sofa, and ordered lights.

While these were placed on the table, the company sat down by the fire, and conversation commenced. By the full light Edward could perceive all Emily's real beauty--her pale, but lovely face, the sad expression of her large blue eyes, so often concealed by their dark lashes, and then raised, with a look full of feeling, a sad, pensive, intellectual expression; and he admired the simplicity of her dress, and of every object that surrounded her: all appeared to him to bespeak a superior mind.

They had not sat long, before D'Effernay was called away. One of his people had something important, something urgent to communicate to him, which admitted of no delay. A look of fierce anger almost distorted his features; in an instant his thin lips moved rapidly, and Edward thought he muttered some curses between his teeth. He left the room, but in so doing, he cast a glance of mistrust and ill-temper on the handsome stranger with whom he was compelled to leave his wife alone. Edward observed it all. All that he had seen to-day--all that he had heard from his comrades of the man's passionate and suspicious disposition, convinced him that his stay here would not be long, and that, perhaps, a second opportunity of speaking alone with Emily might not offer itself.

He determined, therefore, to profit by the present moment: and no sooner had D'Effernay left the room, than he began to tell Emily she was not so complete a stranger to him as it might seem; that long before he had had the pleasure of seeing her--even before he had heard her name--she was known to him, so to speak, in spirit.

Madame D'Effernay was moved. She was silent for a time, and gazed fixedly on the ground; then she looked up; the mist of unshed tears dimmed her blue eyes, and her bosom heaved with the sigh she could not suppress.

"To me also the name of Wensleben is familiar. There is a link between our souls. Your friend has often spoken of you to me."

But she could say no more; tears checked her speech.

Edward's eyes were glistening also, and the two companions were silent; at length he began once more:

"My dear lady," he said, "my time is short, and I have a solemn message to deliver to you. Will you allow me to do so now?"

"To me?" she asked, in a tone of astonishment.

"From my departed friend," answered Edward, emphatically.

"From Ferdinand? and that now--after--" she shrunk back, as if in terror.

"Now that he is no longer with us, do you mean? I found the message in his papers, which have been intrusted to me only lately, since I have been in the neighborhood. Among them was a token which I was to restore to you." He produced the ring. Emily seized it wildly, and trembled as she looked upon it.

"It is indeed my ring," she said at length, "the same which I gave him when we plighted our troth in secret. You are acquainted with every thing, I perceive; I shall therefore risk nothing if I speak openly." She wept, and pressed the ring to her lips.

"I see that my friend's memory is dear to you," continued Edward. "You will forgive the prayer I am about to make to you; my visit to you concerns his ring."

"How--what is it you wish?" cried Emily, terrified.

"It was _his_ wish," replied Edward. "He evinced an earnest desire to have this pledge of an unfortunate and unfulfilled engagement restored."

"How is that possible? You did not speak with him before his death; and this happened so suddenly after, that, to give you the commission--"

"There was no time for it! that is true," answered Edward, with an inward, shudder, although outwardly he was calm. "Perhaps this wish was awakened immediately before his death. I found it, as I told you, expressed in those papers."

"Incomprehensible!" she exclaimed. "Only a short time before his death, we cherished--deceitful, indeed, they proved, but, oh, what blessed hopes!--we reckoned on casualties, on what might possibly occur to assist us. Neither of us could endure to dwell on the idea of separation; and yet--yet since--Oh, my God!" she cried, overcome by sorrow, and she hid her face between her hands. Edward was lost in confused thought. For a time both again were silent; at length Emily started up--

"Forgive me, M. de Wensleben. What you have related to me, what you have asked of me, has produced so much excitement, so much agitation, that it is necessary that I should be alone for a few moments, to recover my composure."

"I am gone," cried Edward, springing from his chair.

"No! no!" she replied, "you are my guest; remain here. I have a household duty which calls me away." She laid a stress on these words.

She leant forward, and with a sad, sweet smile, she gave her hand to the friend of her lost Ferdinand, pressing his gently, and disappeared through the inner door.

Edward stood stunned, bewildered; then he paced the room with hasty steps, threw himself on the sofa, and took up one of the books that lay on the table, rather to have something in his hand, than to read. It proved to be Young's "Night Thoughts." He looked through it, and was attracted by many passages, which seemed, in his present frame of mind, fraught with peculiar meaning; yet his thoughts wandered constantly from the page to his dead friend. The candles, unheeded both by Emily and him, burned on with long wicks, giving little light in the silent room, over which the red glare from the hearth shed a lurid glow. Hurried footsteps sounded in the ante-room; the door was thrown open. Edward looked up, and saw D'Effernay staring at him, and round the room, in an angry, restless manner.

Edward could not but think there was something almost unearthly in those dark looks and that towering form.

"Where is my wife?" was D'Effernay's first question.

"She is gone to fulfill some household duty," replied the other.

"And leaves you here alone in this miserable darkness? Most extraordinary!--indeed, most unaccountable!" and, as he spoke, he approached the table and snuffed the candles, with a movement of impatience.

"She left me here with old friends," said Edward, with a forced smile. "I have been reading."

"What, in the dark?" inquired D'Effernay, with a look of distrust. "It was so dark when I came in, that you could not possibly have distinguished a letter."

"I read for some time, and then I fell into a train of thought, which is usually the result of reading Young's "Night Thoughts."

"Young! I can not bear that author. He is so gloomy."

"But you are fortunately so happy, that the lamentations of the lonely mourner can find no echo in your breast."

"You think so!" said D'Effernay, in a churlish tone, and he pressed his lips together tightly, as Emily came into the room: he went to meet her.

"You have been a long time away," was his observation, as he looked into her eyes, where the trace of tears might easily be detected. "I found our guest alone."

"M. de Wensleben was good enough to excuse me," she replied, "and then I thought you would be back immediately."

They sat down to the table; coffee was brought, and the past appeared to be forgotten.

The conversation at first was broken by constant pauses. Edward saw that Emily did all she could to play the hostess agreeably, and to pacify her husband's ill humor.

In this attempt the young man assisted her, and at last they were successful. D'Effernay became more cheerful; the conversation more animated; and Edward found that his host could be a very agreeable member of society when he pleased, combining a good deal of information with great natural powers. The evening passed away more pleasantly than it promised at one time; and after an excellent and well-served supper, the young officer was shown into a comfortable room, fitted up with every modern luxury; and weary in mind and body, he soon fell asleep. He dreamed of all that had occupied his waking thoughts--of his friend, and his friend's history.

But in that species of confusion which often characterizes dreams, he fancied that he was Ferdinand, or at least, his own individuality seemed mixed up with that of Hallberg. He felt that he was ill. He lay in an unknown room, and by his bedside stood a small table, covered with glasses and phials, containing medicine, as is usual in a sick room.

The door opened, and D'Effernay came in, in his dressing-gown, as if he had just left his bed: and now in Edward's mind dreams and realities were mingled together, and he thought that D'Effernay came, perhaps, to speak with him on the occurrences of the preceding day. But no! he approached the table on which the medicines stood, looked at the watch, took up one of the phials and a cup, measured the draught, drop by drop, then he turned and looked round him stealthily, and then he drew from his breast a pale blue, coiling serpent, which he threw into the cup, and held it to the patient's lips, who drank, and instantly felt, a numbness creep over his frame which ended in death. Edward fancied that he was dead; he saw the coffin brought, but the terror lest he should be buried alive, made him start up with a sudden effort, and he opened his eyes.

The dream had passed away; he sat in his bed safe and well; but it was long ere he could in any degree recover his composure, or get rid of the impression which the frightful apparition had made on him. They brought his breakfast, with a message from the master of the house to inquire whether he would like to visit the park, farms, &c. He dressed quickly, and descended to the court, where he found his host in a riding-dress, by the side of two fine horses, already saddled. D'Effernay greeted the young man courteously; but Edward felt an inward repugnance as he looked on that gloomy though handsome countenance, now lighted up by the beams of the morning sun, yet recalling vividly the dark visions of the night. D'Effernay was full of attentions to his new friend. They started on their ride, in spite of some threatening clouds, and began the inspection of meadows, shrubberies, farms, &c., &c. After a couple of hours, which were consumed in this manner, it began to rain a few drops, and at last burst out into a heavy shower. It was soon impossible even to ride through the woods for the torrents that were pouring down, and so they returned to the castle.

Edward retired to his room to change his dress, and to write some letters, he said, but more particularly to avoid Emily, in order not to excite her husband's jealousy. As the bell rang for dinner he saw her again, and found to his surprise that the captain, whom he had first seen in the coffee-room, and who had given him so much information, was one of the party. He was much pleased, for they had taken a mutual fancy to each other. The captain was not at quarters the day Edward had left them, but as soon as he heard where his friend had gone, he put horses to his carriage and followed him, for he said he also should like to see these famous estates. D'Effernay seemed in high good humor to-day, Emily far more silent than yesterday, and taking little part in the conversation of the men, which turned on political economy. After coffee she found an opportunity to give Edward (unobserved) a little packet. The look with which she did so, told plainly what it contained, and the young man hurried to his room as soon as he fancied he could do so without remark or comment. The continued rain precluded all idea of leaving the house any more that day. He unfolded the packet; there were a couple of sheets, written closely in a woman's fair hand, and something wrapped carefully in a paper, which he knew to be the ring. It was the fellow to that which he had given the day before to Emily, only Ferdinand's name was engraved inside instead of hers. Such were the contents of the papers:

"Secrecy would be misplaced with the friend of the dead. Therefore will I speak to you of things which I have never uttered to a human being until now. Jules D'Effernay is nearly related to me. We knew each other in the Netherlands, where our estates joined. The boy loved me already with a love that amounted to passion; this love was my father's greatest joy, for there was an old and crying injustice which the ancestors of D'Effernay had suffered from ours, that could alone, he thought, be made up by the marriage of the only children of the two branches. So we were destined for each other almost from our cradles; and I was content it should be so, for Jules's handsome face and decided preference for me were agreeable to me, although I felt no great affection for him. We were separated: Jules traveled in France, England, and America, and made money as a merchant, which profession he had taken up suddenly. My father, who had a place under government, left his country in consequence of political troubles, and came into this part of the world, where some distant relations of my mother's lived. He liked the neighborhood; he bought land; we lived very happily; I was quite contented in Jules's absence; I had no yearning of the heart toward him, yet I thought kindly of him, and troubled myself little about my future. Then--then I learned to know your friend. Oh, then! I felt, when I looked upon him, when I listened to him, when we conversed together, I felt, I acknowledged, that there might be happiness on earth of which I had hitherto never dreamed. Then I loved for the first time, ardently, passionately, and was beloved in return. Acquainted with the family engagements; he did not dare openly to proclaim his love, and I knew I ought not to foster the feeling; but, alas! how seldom does passion listen to the voice of reason and of duty. Your friend and I met in secret; in secret we plighted our troth, and exchanged those rings, and hoped and believed that by showing a bold front to our destiny we should subdue it to our will. The commencement was sinful, it has met with a dire retribution. Jules's letters announced his speedy return. He had sold every thing in his own country, had given up all his mercantile affairs, through which he had greatly increased an already considerable fortune, and now he was about to join us, or rather me, without whom he could not live. This appeared to me like the demand for payment of a heavy debt. This debt I owed to Jules, who loved me with all his heart, who was in possession of my father's promised word and mine also. Yet I could not give up your friend. In a state of distraction I told him all; we meditated flight. Yes, I was so far guilty, and I make the confession in hopes that some portion of my errors may be expiated by repentance. My father, who had long been in a declining state, suddenly grew worse, and this delayed and hindered the fulfillment of our designs. Jules arrived. During the five years he had been away he was much changed in appearance, and that advantageously. I was struck when I first saw him, but it was also easy to detect in those handsome features and manly bearing, a spirit of restlessness and violence which had already shown itself in him as a boy, and which passing years, with their bitter experience and strong passions, had greatly developed. The hope that we had cherished of D'Effernay's possible indifference to me, of the change which time might have wrought in his attachment, now seemed idle and absurd. His love was indeed impassioned. He embraced me in a manner that made me shrink from him, and altogether his deportment toward me was a strange contrast to the gentle, tender, refined affection of our dear friend. I trembled whenever Jules entered the room, and all that I had prepared to say to him, all the plans which I had revolved in my mind respecting him, vanished in an instant before the power of his presence, and the almost imperative manner in which he claimed my hand. My father's illness increased; he was now in a very precarious state, hopeless indeed. Jules rivaled me in filial attentions to him, that I can never cease to thank him for; but this illness made my situation more and more critical, and it accelerated the fulfillment of the contract. I was to renew my promise to him by the death-bed of my father. Alas, alas! I fell senseless to the ground when this announcement was made to me. Jules began to suspect. Already my cold, embarrassed manner toward him since his return had struck him as strange. He began to suspect, I repeat, and the effect that this suspicion had on him, it would be impossible to describe to you. Even now, after so long a time, now that I am accustomed to his ways, and more reconciled to my fate by the side of a noble, though somewhat impetuous man, it makes me tremble to think of those paroxysms, which the idea that I did not love him called forth. They were fearful; he nearly sank under them. During two days his life was in danger. At last the storm passed, my father died; Jules watched over me with the tenderness of a brother, the solicitude of a parent; for that indeed I shall ever be grateful. His suspicion once awakened, he gazed round with penetrating looks to discover the cause of my altered feelings. But your friend never came to our house; we met in an unfrequented spot, and my father's illness had interrupted these interviews. Altogether I can not tell if Jules discovered any thing. A fearful circumstance rendered all our precautions useless, and cut the knot of our secret connection, to loose which voluntarily I felt I had no power. A wedding-feast, at a neighboring castle, assembled all the nobility and gentry, and officers quartered near, together; my deep mourning was an excuse for my absence. Jules, though he usually was happiest by my side, could not resist the invitation, and your friend resolved to go, although he was unwell; he feared to raise suspicion by remaining away, when I was left at home. With great difficulty he contrived the first day to make one at a splendid hunt, the second day he could not leave his bed. A physician, who was in the house, pronounced his complaint to be violent fever, and Jules, whose room joined that of the sick man, offered him every little service and kindness which compassion and good feeling prompted; and I can not but praise him all the more for it, as who can tell, perhaps, his suspicion might have taken the right direction? On the morning of the second day--but let me glance quickly at the terrible time, the memory of which can never pass from my mind--a fit of apoplexy most unexpectedly, but gently, ended the noblest life, and separated us forever! Now you know all. I inclose the ring. I can not write more. Farewell!"

The conclusion of the letter made a deep impression on Edward. His dream rose up before his remembrance, the slight indisposition, the sudden death, the fearful nurse-tender, all arranged themselves in order before his mind, and an awful whole rose out of all these reflections, a terrible suspicion which he tried to throw off. But he could not do so, and when he met the captain and D'Effernay in the evening, and the latter challenged his visitors to a game of billiards, Edward glanced from time to time at his host in a scrutinizing manner, and could not but feel that the restless discontent which was visible in his countenance, and the unsteady glare of his eyes, which shunned the fixed look of others, only fitted too well into the shape of the dark thoughts which were crossing his own mind. Late in the evening, after supper, they played whist in Emily's boudoir. On the morrow, if the weather permitted, they were to conclude their inspection of the surrounding property, and the next day they were to visit the iron foundries, which, although distant from the castle several miles, formed a very important item in the rent-roll of the estates. The company separated for the night. Edward fell asleep; and the same dream, with the same circumstances, recurred, only with the full consciousness that the sick man was Ferdinand. Edward felt overpowered, a species of horror took possession of his mind, as he found himself now in regular Communication with the beings of the invisible world.

The weather favored D'Effernay's projects. The whole day was passed in the open air. Emily only appeared at meals, and in the evening when they played at cards. Both she and Edward avoided, as if by mutual consent, every word, every look that could awaken the slightest suspicion, or jealous feeling in D'Effernay's mind. She thanked him in her heart for this forbearance, but her thoughts were in another world; she took little heed of what passed around her. Her husband was in an excelled temper; he played the part of host to perfection and when the two officers were established comfortably by the fire, in the captain's room, smoking together, they could not but do justice to his courteous manners.

"He appears to be a man of general information," remarked Edward.

"He has traveled a great deal, and read a great deal, as I told you when we first met; he is a remarkable man, but one of uncontrolled passions, and desperately jealous."

"Yet he appears very attentive to his wife."

"Undoubtedly he is wildly in love with her; yet he makes her unhappy, and himself too."

"He certainly does not appear happy, there is so much restlessness."

"He can never bear to remain in one place for any length of time together. He is now going to sell the property he only bought last year. There is an instability about him; every thing palls on him."

"That is the complaint of many who are rich and well to do in the world."

"Yes; only not in the same degree. I assure you it has often struck me that man must have a bad conscience."

"What an idea!" rejoined Edward, with a forced laugh, for the captain's remark struck him forcibly. "He seems a man of honor."

"Oh, one may be a man of honor, as it is called, and yet have something quite bad enough to reproach yourself with. But I know nothing about it, and would not breathe such a thing except to you. His wife, too, looks so pale and so oppressed."

"But, perhaps, that is her natural complexion and expression."

"Oh, no! no! the year before D'Effernay came from Paris, she was as fresh as a rose. Many people declare that your poor friend loved her. The affair was wrapped in mystery, and I never believed the report, for Hallberg was a steady man, and the whole country knew that Emily had been engaged a long time."

"Hallberg never mentioned the name in his letters," answered Edward, with less candor than usual.

"I thought not. Besides D'Effernay was very much attached to him, and mourned his death."

"Indeed!"

"I assure you the morning that Hallberg was found dead in his bed so unexpectedly, D'Effernay was like one beside himself."

"Very extraordinary. But as we are on the subject, tell me, I pray you, all the circumstances of my poor Ferdinand's illness, and awfully sudden death."

"I can tell you all about it, as well as any one, for I was one of the guests at that melancholy wedding. Your friend, and I, and many others were invited. Hallberg had some idea of not going; he was unwell, with violent headache and giddiness. But we persuaded him, and he consented to go with us. The first day he felt tolerably well. We hunted in the open field; we were all on horseback, the day hot. Hallberg felt worse. The second day he had a great deal of fever; he could not stay up. The physician (for fortunately there was one in the company) ordered rest, cooling medicine, neither of which seemed to do him good. The rest of the men dispersed, to amuse themselves in various ways. Only D'Effernay remained at home; he was never very fond of large societies, and we voted that he was discontented and out of humor because his betrothed bride was not with him. His room was next to the sick man's, to whom he gave all possible care and attention, for poor Hallberg, besides being ill, was in despair at giving so much trouble in a strange house. D'Effernay tried to calm him on this point; he nursed him, amused him with conversation, mixed his medicines, and, in fact, showed more kindness and tenderness, than any of us would have given him credit for. Before I went to bed I visited Hallberg, and found him much better, and more cheerful; the doctor had promised that he should leave his bed next day. So I left him and retired with the rest of the world, rather late, and very tired, to rest. The next morning I was awoke by the fatal tidings. I did not wait to dress, I ran to his room, it was full of people."

"And how, how was the death first discovered?" inquired Edward, in breathless eagerness.

"The servant, who came in to attend on him, thought he was asleep, for he lay in his usual position, his head upon his hand. He went away and waited for some time; but hours passed, and he thought he ought to wake his master to give him his medicine. Then the awful discovery was made. He must have died peacefully, for his countenance was so calm, his limbs undisturbed. A fit of apoplexy had terminated his life, but in the most tranquil manner."

"Incomprehensible," said Edward, with a deep sigh. "Did they take no measures to restore animation?"

"Certainly; all that could be done was done, bleeding, fomentation, friction; the physician superintended, but there was no hope, it was all too late. He must have been dead some hours, for he was already cold and stiff. If there had been a spark of life in him he would have been saved. It was all over; I had lost my good lieutenant, and the regiment one of its finest officers."

He was silent, and appeared lost in thought. Edward, for his part, felt overwhelmed by terrible suspicions and sad memories. After a long pause he recovered himself: "and where was D'Effernay?" he inquired.

"D'Effernay," answered the captain, rather surprised at the question; "oh! he was not in the castle when we made the dreadful discovery: he had gone out for an early walk, and when he came back late, not before noon, he learned the truth, and was like one out of his senses. It seemed so awful to him, because he had been so much, the very day before, with poor Hallberg."

"Ay," answered Edward, whose suspicions were being more and more confirmed every moment. "And did he see the corpse? did he go into the chamber of death?"

"No," replied the captain; "he assured us it was out of his power to do so; he could not bear the sight; and I believe it. People with such uncontrolled feelings as this D'Effernay, are incapable of performing those duties which others think it necessary and incumbent on them to fulfill."

"And where was Hallberg buried?"

"Not far from the Castle where the mournful event took place. To-morrow, if we go to the iron foundry, we shall be near the spot."

"I am glad of it," cried Edward, eagerly, while a host of projects rose up in his mind. "But now, captain, I will not trespass any longer on your kindness. It is late, and we must be up betimes to-morrow. How far have we to go?"

"Not less than four leagues, certainly. D'Effernay has arranged that we shall drive there, and see it all at our leisure: then we shall return in the evening. Good night, Wensleben."

They separated: Edward hurried to his room; his heart overflowed. Sorrow on the one hand, horror and even hatred on the other, agitated him by turns. It was long before he could sleep. For the third time the vision haunted him; but now it was clearer than before; now he saw plainly the features of him who lay in bed, and of him who stood beside the bed--they were those of Hallberg and of D'Effernay.

This third apparition, the exact counterpart of the two former (only more vivid), all that he had gathered from conversations on the subject, and the contents of Emily's letter, left scarcely the shadow of a doubt remaining as to how his friend had left the world.

D'Effernay's jealous and passionate nature seemed to allow of the possibility of such a crime, and it could scarcely be wondered at, if Edward regarded him with a feeling akin to hatred. Indeed the desire of visiting Hallberg's grave, in order to place the ring in the coffin, could alone reconcile Wensleben to the idea of remaining any longer beneath the roof of a man whom he now considered the murderer of his friend. His mind was a prey to conflicting doubts: detestation for the culprit, and grief for the victim, pointed out one line of conduct, while the difficulty of proving D'Effernay's guilt, and still more, pity and consideration for Emily, determined him at length to let the matter rest, and to leave the murderer, if such he really were, to the retribution which his own conscience and the justice of God would award him. He would seek his friend's grave, and then he would separate from D'Effernay, and never see him more. In the midst of these reflections the servant came to tell him, that the carriage was ready. A shudder passed over his frame as D'Effernay greeted him; but he commanded himself, and they started on their expedition.

Edward spoke but little, and that only when it was necessary, and the conversation was kept up by his two companions; he had made every inquiry, before he set out, respecting the place of his friend's interment, the exact situation of the tomb, the name of the village, and its distance from the main road. On their way home, he requested that D'Effernay would give orders to the coachman to make a round of a mile or two, as far as the village of ----, with whose rector he was particularly desirous to speak. A momentary cloud gathered on D'Effernay's brow, yet it seemed no more than his usual expression of vexation at any delay or hinderance; and he was so anxious to propitiate his rich visitor, who appeared likely to take the estate off his hands, that he complied with all possible courtesy. The coachman was directed to turn down a by-road, and a very bad one it was. The captain stood up in the carriage and pointed out the village to him, at some distance off; it lay in a deep ravine at the foot of the mountains.

They arrived in the course of time, and inquired for the clergyman's house, which, as well as the church, was situated on rising ground. The three companions alighted from the carriage, which they left at the bottom of the hill, and walked up together in the direction of the rectory. Edward knocked at the door and was admitted, while the two others sat on a bench outside. He had promised to return speedily, but to D'Effernay's restless spirit, one quarter of an hour appeared interminable.

He turned to the captain and said, in a tone of impatience, "M. de Wensleben must have a great deal of business with the rector: we have been here an immense time, and he does not seem inclined to make his appearance."

"Oh, I dare say he will come soon. The matter can not detain him long."

"What on earth can he have to do here?"

"Perhaps you would call it a mere fancy--the enthusiasm of youth."

"It has a name, I suppose?"

"Certainly, but--"

"Is it sufficiently important, think you, to make us run the risk of being benighted on such roads as these?"

"Why, it is quite early in the day."

"But we have more than two leagues to go. Why will you not speak? there can not be any great mystery."

"Well, perhaps not a mystery exactly, but just one of those subjects on which we are usually reserved with others."

"So! so!" rejoined D'Effernay, with a little sneer. "Some love affair; some girl or another who pursues him, that he wants to get rid of."

"Nothing of the kind, I can assure you," replied the captain, drily. "It could scarcely be more innocent. He wishes, in fact, to visit his friend's grave."

The listener's expression was one of scorn and anger. "It is worth the trouble, certainly," he exclaimed, with a mocking laugh. "A charming sentimental pilgrimage, truly; and pray who is this beloved friend, over whose resting-place he must shed a tear, and plant a forget-me-not? He told me he had never been in the neighborhood before."

"No more he had; neither did he know where poor Hallberg was buried until I told him."

"Hallberg!" echoed the other in a tone that startled the captain, and caused him to turn and look fixedly in the speaker's face. It was deadly pale, and the captain observed the effort which D'Effernay made to recover his composure.

"Hallberg!" he repeated again, in a calmer tone, "and was Wensleben a friend of his?"

"His bosom friend from childhood. They were brought up together at the academy. Hallberg left it a year earlier than his friend."

"Indeed!" said D'Effernay, scowling as he spoke, and working himself up into a passion. "And this lieutenant came here on this account, then, and the purchase of the estates was a mere excuse?"

"I beg your pardon," observed the captain, in a decided tone of voice; "I have already told you that it was I who informed him of the place where his friend lies buried."

"That may be, but it was owing to his friendship, to the wish to learn something further of his fate, that we are indebted for the visit of this romantic knight-errant."

"That does not appear likely," replied the captain, who thought it better to avert, if possible, the rising storm of his companion's fury. "Why should he seek for news of Hallberg here, when he comes from the place where he was quartered for a long time, and where all his comrades now are."

"Well, I don't know," cried D'Effernay, whose passion increased every moment. "Perhaps you have heard what was once gossiped about the neighborhood, that Hallberg was an admirer of my wife before she married."

"Oh yes, I have heard that report, but never believed it. Hallberg was a prudent, steady man, and every one knew that Mademoiselle Varnier's hand had been promised for some time."

"Yes! yes! but you do not know to what lengths passion and avarice may lead: for Emily was rich. We must not forget that, when we discuss the matter; an elopement with the rich heiress would have been a fine thing for a poor, beggarly lieutenant."

"Shame! shame! M. D'Effernay. How can you slander the character of that upright young man? If Hallberg were so unhappy as to love Mademoiselle Varnier--"

"That he did! you may believe me so far. I had reason to know it, and I did know it."

"We had better change the conversation altogether, as it has taken so unpleasant a turn. Hallberg is dead; his errors, be they what they may, lie buried with him. His name stands high with all who knew him. Even you, M. D'Effernay--you were his friend."

"I his friend? I hated him; I loathed him!" D'Effernay could not proceed; he foamed at the mouth with rage.

"Compose yourself!" said the captain, rising as he spoke, "you look and speak like a madman."

"A madman! Who says I am mad? Now I see it all--- the connection of the whole--the shameful conspiracy."

"Your conduct is perfectly incomprehensible to me," answered the captain, with perfect coolness. "Did you not attend Hallberg in his last illness, and give him his medicines with your own hand?"

"I!" stammered D'Effernay. "No! no! no!" he cried, while the captain's growing suspicions increased every moment, on account of the perturbation which his companion displayed. "I never gave his medicines; whoever says that is a liar."

"I say it!" exclaimed the officer, in a loud tone, for his patience was exhausted. "I say it, because I know that it was so, and I will maintain that fact against any one at any time. If you choose to contradict the evidence of my senses, it is you who are a liar!"

"Ha! you shall give me satisfaction for this insult. Depend upon it, I am not one to be trifled with, as you shall find. You shall retract your words."

"Never! I am ready to defend every word I have uttered here on this spot, at this moment, if you please. You have your pistols in the carriage, you know."

D'Effernay cast a look of hatred on the speaker, and then dashing down the little hill, to the surprise of the servants, he dragged the pistols from the sword-case, and was by the captain's side in a moment. But the loud voices of the disputants had attracted Edward to the spot, and there he stood on D'Effernay's return; and by his side a venerable old man, who carried a large bunch of keys in his hand.

"In heaven's name, what has happened?" cried Wensleben.

"What are you about to do?" interposed the rector, in a tone of authority, though his countenance was expressive of horror. "Are you going to commit murder on this sacred spot, close to the precincts of the church?"

"Murder! who speaks of murder?" cried D'Effernay. "Who can prove it?" and as he spoke, the captain turned a fierce, penetrating look upon him, beneath which he quailed.

"But, I repeat the question," Edward began once more, "what does all this mean? I left you a short time ago in friendly conversation. I come back and find you both armed--both violently agitated--and M. D'Effernay, at least, speaking incoherently. What do you mean by 'proving it?'--to what do you allude?" At this moment, before any answer could be made, a man came out of the house with a pick-ax and shovel on his shoulder, and advancing toward the rector, said respectfully, "I am quite ready, sir, if you have the key of the church-yard."

It was now the captain's turn to look anxious: "What are you going to do, you surely don't intend--?" but, as he spoke, the rector interrupted him.

"This gentleman is very desirous to see the place where his friend lies buried."

"But these preparations, what do they mean?"

"I will tell you," said Edward, in a voice and tone that betrayed the deepest emotion, "I have a holy duty to perform. I must cause the coffin to be opened."

"How, what?" screamed D'Effernay, once again. "Never--I will never permit such a thing."

"But, sir," the old man spoke, in a tone of calm decision, contrasting wonderfully with the violence of him whom he addressed, "you have no possible right to interfere. If this gentleman wishes it, and I accede to the proposition, no one can prevent us from doing as we would."

"I tell you I will not suffer it," continued D'Effernay, with the same frightful agitation. "Stir at your peril," he cried, turning sharply round upon the grave-digger, and holding a pistol to his head; but the captain pulled his arm away, to the relief of the frightened peasant.

"M. D'Effernay," he said, "your conduct for the last half-hour has been most unaccountable--most unreasonable."

"Come, come," interposed Edward, "let us say no more on the subject; but let us be going," he addressed the rector; "we will not detain these gentlemen much longer."

He made a step toward the church-yard, but D'Effernay clutched his arm, and, with an impious oath, "you shall not stir," he said; "that grave shall not be opened."

Edward shook him off, with a look of silent hatred, for now indeed all his doubts were confirmed.

D'Effernay saw that Wensleben was resolved, and a deadly pallor spread itself over his features, and a shudder passed visibly over his frame.

"You are going!" he cried, with every gesture and appearance of insanity. "Go, then;" ... and he pointed the muzzle of the pistol to his mouth, and before any one could prevent him, he drew the trigger, and fell back a corpse. The spectators were motionless with surprise and horror; the captain was the first to recover himself in some degree. He bent over the body with the faint hope of detecting some sign of life. The old man turned pale and dizzy with a sense of terror, and he looked as if he would have swooned, had not Edward led him gently into his house, while the two others busied themselves with vain attempts to restore life. The spirit of D'Effernay had gone to its last account!

It was, indeed, an awful moment. Death in its worst shape was before them, and a terrible duty still remained to be performed.

Edward's cheek was blanched; his eye had a fixed look, yet he moved and spoke with a species of mechanical action, which had something almost ghastly in it. Causing the body to be removed into the house, he bade the captain summon the servants of the deceased and then motioning with his hand to the awe-struck sexton, he proceeded with him to the church-yard. A few clods of earth alone were removed ere the captain stood by his friend's side.

* * * * *

Here we must pause. Perhaps it were better altogether to emulate the silence that was maintained then and afterward by the two comrades. But the sexton could not be bribed to entire secrecy, and it was a story he loved to tell, with details we gladly omit, of how Wensleben solemnly performed his task--of how no doubt could any longer exist as to the cause of Hallberg's death. Those who love the horrible must draw on their own imaginations to supply what we resolutely withhold.

Edward, we believe, never alluded to D'Effernay's death, and all the awful circumstances attending it, but twice--once, when, with every necessary detail, he and the captain gave their evidence to the legal authorities; and once, with as few details as possible, when he had an interview with the widow of the murderer, the beloved of the victim. The particulars of this interview he never divulged, for he considered Emily's grief too sacred to be exposed to the prying eyes of the curious and the unfeeling. She left the neighborhood immediately, leaving her worldly affairs in Wensleben's hands, who soon disposed of the property for her. She returned to her native country, with the resolution of spending the greater part of her wealth in relieving the distresses of others, wisely seeking, in the exercise of piety and benevolence, the only possible alleviation of her own deep and many-sided griefs. For Edward, he was soon pronounced to have recovered entirely, from the shock of these terrible events. Of a courageous and energetic disposition, he pursued the duties of his profession with a firm step, and hid his mighty sorrow deep in the recesses of his heart. To the superficial observer, tears, groans, and lamentations are the only proofs of sorrow; and when they subside, the sorrow is said to have passed away also. Thus the captive, immured within the walls of his prison-house, is as one dead to the outward world, though the jailer be a daily witness to the vitality of affliction.

WORDSWORTH'S POSTHUMOUS POEM.[J]

This is a voice that speaks to us across a gulf of nearly fifty years. A few months ago Wordsworth was taken from us at the ripe age of fourscore, yet here we have him addressing the public, as for the first time, with all the fervor, the unworn freshness, the hopeful confidence of thirty. We are carried back to the period when Coleridge, Byron, Scott, Rogers, and Moore were in their youthful prime. We live again in the stirring days when the poets who divided public attention and interest with the Fabian struggle in Portugal and Spain, with the wild and terrible events of the Russian campaign, with the uprising of the Teutonic nations, and the overthrow of Napoleon, were in a manner but commencing their cycle of songs. This is to renew, to antedate, the youth of a majority of the living generation. But only those whose memory still carries them so far back, can feel within them any reflex of that eager excitement, with which the news of battles fought and won, or mail-coach copies of some new work of Scott, or Byron, or the _Edinburgh Review_, were looked for and received in those already old days. [J] We need not remind the readers of the _Excursion_, that when Wordsworth was enabled, by the generous enthusiasm of Raisley Calvert, to retire with a slender independence to his native mountains, there to devote himself exclusively to his art, his first step was to review and record in verse, the origin and progress of his own powers, as far as he was acquainted with them. This was at once an exercise in versification, and a test of the kind of poetry for which he was by temperament fitted. The result was a determination to compose a philosophical poem, containing views of man, of nature, and of society. This ambitious conception has been doomed to share the fate of so many other colossal undertakings. Of the three parts of his _Recluse_, thus planned, only the second (the _Excursion_, published in 1814) has been completed. Of the other two there exists only the first book of the first, and the plan of the third. The _Recluse_ will remain in fragmentary greatness, a poetical Cathedral of Cologne.

Matters standing thus, it has not been without a melancholy sense of the uncertainty of human projects, and of the contrast between the sanguine enterprise and its silent evaporation (so often the "history of an individual mind"), that we have perused this _Prelude_ which no completed strain was destined to follow. Yet in the poem itself there is nothing to inspire depression. It is animated throughout with the hopeful confidence in the poet's own powers, so natural to the time of life at which it was composed; it evinces a power and soar of imagination unsurpassed in any of his writings; and its images and incidents have a freshness and distinctness which they not seldom lost, when they came to be elaborated, as many of them were, in his minor poems of a later date.

The _Prelude_, as the title page indicates, is a poetical autobiography, commencing with the earliest reminiscences of the author, and continued to the time at which it was composed. We are told that it was begun in 1799 and completed in 1805. It consists of fourteen books. Two are devoted to the infancy and schooltime of the poet; four to the period of his University life; two to a brief residence in London, immediately subsequent to his leaving Cambridge, and a retrospect of the progress his mind had then made; and three to a residence in France, chiefly in the Loire, but partly in Paris, during the stormy period of Louis the Sixteenth's flight and capture, and the fierce contest between the Girondins and Robespierre. Five books are then occupied with an analysis of the internal struggle occasioned by the contradictory influences of rural and secluded nature in boyhood, and of society when the young man first mingles with the world. The surcease of the strife is recorded in the fourteenth book, entitled "Conclusion."

The poem is addressed to Coleridge; and, apart from its poetical merits, is interesting as at once a counterpart and supplement to that author's philosophical and beautiful criticism of the _Lyrical Ballads_ in his _Biographia Literaria_. It completes the explanation, there given, of the peculiar constitution of Wordsworth's mind, and of his poetical theory. It confirms and justifies our opinion that that theory was essentially partial and erroneous; but at the same time, it establishes the fact that Wordsworth was a true and a great poet in despite of his theory.

The great defect of Wordsworth, in our judgment, was want of sympathy with, and knowledge of men. From his birth till his entry at college, he lived in a region where he met with none whose minds might awaken his sympathies, and where life was altogether uneventful. On the other hand, that region abounded with the inert, striking, and most impressive objects of natural scenery. The elementary grandeur and beauty of external nature came thus to fill up his mind to the exclusion of human interests. To such a result his individual constitution powerfully contributed. The sensuous element was singularly deficient in his nature. He never seems to have passed through that erotic period out of which some poets have never emerged. A soaring, speculative imagination, and an impetuous, resistless self-will, were his distinguishing characteristics. From first to last he concentrated himself within himself; brooding over his own fancies and imaginations to the comparative disregard of the incidents and impressions which suggested them; and was little susceptible of ideas originating in other minds. We behold the result. He lives alone in a world of mountains, streams, and atmospheric phenomena, dealing with moral abstractions, and rarely encountered by even shadowy spectres of beings outwardly resembling himself. There is measureless grandeur and power in his moral speculations. There is intense reality in his pictures of external nature. But though his human characters are presented with great skill of metaphysical analysis, they have rarely life or animation. He is always the prominent, often the exclusive, object of his own song.

Upon a mind so constituted, with its psychological peculiarities so cherished and confirmed, the fortunes and fates of others, and the stirring events of his time, made vivid but very transient impressions. The conversation and writings of contemporaries trained among books, and with the faculty of speech more fully developed than that of thought, seemed colorless and empty to one with whom natural objects and grandeurs were always present in such overpowering force. Excluded by his social position from taking an active part in the public events of the day, and repelled by the emptiness of the then fashionable literature, he turned to private and humble life as possessing at least a reality. But he thus withheld himself from the contemplation of those great mental excitements which only great public struggles can awaken. He contracted a habit of exaggerating the importance of every-day incidents and emotions. He accustomed himself to see in men and in social relations only what he was predetermined to see there, and to impute to them a value and importance derived mainly from his own self-will. Even his natural good taste contributed to confirm him in his error. The two prevailing schools of literature in England, at that time, were the trashy and mouthing writers who adopted the sounding language of Johnson and Darwin, unenlivened by the vigorous thought of either; and the "dead-sea apes" of that inflated, sentimental, revolutionary style which Diderot had unconsciously originated, and Kotzebue carried beyond the verge of caricature. The right feeling and manly thought of Wordsworth were disgusted by these shallow word-mongers, and he flew to the other extreme. Under the influences--repulsive and attractive--we have thus attempted to indicate, he adopted the theory that as much of grandeur and profound emotion was to be found in mere domestic incidents and feelings, as on the more conspicuous stage of public life; and that a bald and naked simplicity of language was the perfection of style. Singularly enough, he was confirmed in these notions by the very writer of the day whose own natural genius, more than any of his contemporaries, impelled, him to riot in great, wild, supernatural conceptions; and to give utterance to them in gorgeous language. Coleridge was perhaps the only contemporary from whom Wordsworth ever took an opinion; and that he did so from him, is mainly attributable to the fact that Coleridge did little more than reproduce to him his own notions, sometimes rectified by a subtler logic, but always rendered more attractive by new and dazzling illustrations.

Fortunately it is out of the power of the most perverse theory to spoil the true poet. The poems of Wordsworth must continue to charm and elevate mankind, in defiance of his crotchets, just as Luther, Henri Quatre, and other living impersonations of poetry do, despite all quaint peculiarities of the attire, the customs, or the opinions of their respective ages, with which they were embued. The spirit of truth and poetry redeems, ennobles, hallows, every external form in which it may be lodged. We may "pshaw" and "pooh" at _Harry Gill_ and the _Idiot Boy_; but the deep and tremulous tenderness of sentiment, the strong-winged flight of fancy, the excelling and unvarying purity, which pervade all the writings of Wordsworth, and the exquisite melody of his lyrical poems, must ever continue to attract and purify the mind. The very excesses into which his one-sided theory betrayed him, acted as a useful counter-agent to the prevailing bad taste of his time.

The _Prelude_ may take a permanent place as one of the most perfect of Wordsworth's compositions. It has much of the fearless felicity of youth; and its imagery has the sharp and vivid outline of ideas fresh from the brain. The subject--the development of his own great powers--raises him above that willful dallying with trivialities which repels us in some of his other works. And there is real vitality in the theme, both from our anxiety to know the course of such a mind, and from the effect of an absorbing interest in himself excluding that languor which sometimes seized him in his efforts to impart or attribute interest to themes possessing little or none in themselves. Its mere narrative, though often very homely, and dealing in too many words, is often characterized also by elevated imagination, and always by eloquence. The bustle of London life, the prosaic uncouthness of its exterior, the earnest heart that beats beneath it, the details even of its commonest amusements, from Bartholomew Fair to Sadler's Wells, are portrayed with simple force and delicate discrimination; and for the most part skillfully contrasted with the rural life of the poet's native home. There are some truthful and powerful sketches of French character and life, in the early revolutionary era. But above all, as might have been anticipated, Wordsworth's heart revels in the elementary beauty and grandeur of his mountain theme; while his own simple history is traced with minute fidelity and is full of unflagging interest.--_London Examiner._

FOOTNOTES:

[J] _The Prelude, or Growth of a Poet's Mind; an Autobiographical Poem_. By William Wordsworth. London. Moxon. New York, Appleton & Co.

[From the North British Review.]

THE LITERARY PROFESSION--AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS.

It is a common complaint that the publishers make large fortunes and leave the authors to starve--that they are, in fact, a kind of moral vampire, sucking the best blood of genius, and destroying others to support themselves. A great deal of very unhealthy, one-sided cant has been written upon this subject. Doubtless, there is much to be said on both sides. That publishers look at a manuscript very much as a corn-dealer looks at sample of wheat, with an eye to its selling qualities, is not to be denied. If books are not written only to be sold, they are printed only to be sold. Publishers must pay their printers and their paper-merchants; and they can not compel the public to purchase their printed paper. When benevolent printers shall be found eager to print gratuitously works of unsalable genius, and benevolent paper-merchants to supply paper for the same, publishers may afford to think less of a manuscript as an article of sale--may reject with less freedom unlikely manuscripts, and haggle less savagely about the price of likely ones. An obvious common-place this, and said a thousand times before, but not yet recognized by the world of writers at large. Publishing is a trade, and, like all other trades, undertaken with the one object of making money by it. The profits are not ordinarily large; they are, indeed, very uncertain--so uncertain that a large proportion of those who embark in the publishing business some time or other find their way into the Gazette. When a publishing firm is ruined by printing unsalable books, authors seldom or never have any sympathy with a member of it. They have, on the other hand, an idea that he is justly punished for his offenses; and so perhaps he is, but not in the sense understood by the majority of those who contemplate his downfall as a retributive dispensation. The fact is, that reckless publishing is more injurious to the literary profession than any thing in the world beside. The cautious publisher is the author's best friend. If a house publish at their own risk a number of works which they can not sell, they must either go into the Gazette at last, or make large sums of money by works which they _can_ sell. When a publisher loses money by a work, an injury is inflicted upon the literary profession. The more money he can make by publishing, the more he can afford to pay for authorship. It is often said that the authors of successful works are inadequately rewarded in proportion to their success; that publishers make their thousands, while authors only make their hundreds. But it is forgotten that the profits of the one successful work are often only a set-off to the losses incurred by the publication of half a dozen unsuccessful ones. If a publisher purchase a manuscript for £500, and the work prove to be a "palpable hit" worth £5000, it may seem hard that the publisher does not share his gains more equitably with the author. With regard to this it is to be said, in the first place, that he very frequently _does_. There is hardly a publisher in London, however "grasping" he may be, who has not, time after time, paid to authors sums of money not "in the bond." But if the fact were not as we have stated it, we can hardly admit that publishers are under any kind of obligation to exceed the strict terms of their contracts. If a publisher gives £500 for a copyright, expecting to sweep the same amount into his own coffers, but instead of making that sum, loses it by the speculation, he does not ask the author to refund--nor does the author offer to do it. The money is in all probability spent long before the result of the venture is ascertained; and the author would be greatly surprised and greatly indignant, if it were hinted to him, even in the most delicate way, that the publisher having lost money by his book, would be obliged to him if he would make good a portion of the deficit by sending a check upon his bankers.

We repeat, then, that a publisher who loses money by one man's books, must make it by another's, or go into the Gazette. There are publishers who trade entirely upon this principle, which, indeed, is a kind of literary gambling. They publish a dozen works, we will suppose, of which six produce an absolute loss; four just cover-their expenses; and the other two realize a profit. The publisher, especially if he be his own printer, may find this answer in the end; it may at least just keep him out of the Bankruptcy Court, and supply his family with bread. But the system can not be a really advantageous one either to publishers or authors. To the latter, indeed, it is destruction. No inconsiderable portion of the books published every year entail a heavy loss on author or publisher, or on both--and the amount of this loss may be set down, in most instances, as so much taken from the gross profits of the literary profession. If Mr. Bungay lose a hundred pounds by the poems of the Hon. Percy Popjoy, he has a hundred pounds less to give to Mr. Arthur Pendennis for his novel. Instead of protesting against the over-caution of publishers, literary men, if they really knew their own interests, would protest against their want of caution. Authors have a direct interest in the prosperity of publishers. The misfortune of authorship is not that publishers make so much money, but that they make so little. If Paternoster Row were wealthier than it is, there would be better cheer in Grub-street.

It is very true that publishers, like other men, make mistakes; and that sometimes a really good and salable work is rejected. Many instances of this might readily be adduced--instances of works, whose value has been subsequently proved by extensive popularity, having been rejected by one or more experienced member of the publishing craft. But their judgment is on the whole remarkably correct. They determine with surprising accuracy the market value of the greater number of works that are offered to them. It is not supposed that in the majority of cases, the publisher himself decides the question upon the strength of his own judgment. He has his minister, or ministers of state, to decide these knotty questions for him. A great deal has been written at different times, about the baneful influence of this middleman, or "reader"--but we can see no more justice in the complaint than if it were raised against the system which places a middleman or minister between the sovereign and his people. To complain of the incapacity of the publisher himself, and to object to his obtaining the critical services of a more competent party, were clearly an inconsistency and an injustice. If the publisher himself be not capable of deciding upon the literary merits or salable properties of the works laid before him, the best thing that he can do is to secure the assistance of some one who _is_. Hence the office of the "reader." It is well known that in some large publishing houses there is a resident "reader" attached to the establishment; others are believed to lay the manuscripts offered to them for publication before some critic of established reputation out-of-doors; while more than one eminent publisher might be named who has trusted solely to his own judgment, and rarely found that judgment at fault. In either of these cases there is no reason to assume the incompetency of the judge. Besides, as we have said, the question to be solved by the publisher or reader, is not a purely literary question. It is mainly indeed a commercial question; and the merits of the work are often freely acknowledged while the venture is politely declined.

Much more might be said of the relations between publishers and authors, but we are compelled to economize our space. The truth, indeed, as regards the latter, is simply this: It is not so much that authors do not know how to make money, as that they do not know how to spend it. The same income that enables a clergyman, a lawyer, a medical practitioner, a government functionary, or any other member of the middle classes earning his livelihood by professional labor, to support himself and his family in comfort and respectability, will seldom keep a literary man out of debt and difficulty--seldom provide him with a comfortable well-ordered home, creditable to himself and his profession. It is ten to one that he lives untidily; that every thing about him is in confusion, that the amenities of domestic life are absent from his establishment; that he is altogether in a state of elaborate and costly disorder, such as we are bound to say is the characteristic of no other kind of professional life. He seldom has a settled home--a fixed position. He appears to be constantly on the move. He seldom lives, for any length of time, in the same place; and is rarely at home when you call upon him. It would be instructive to obtain a return of the number of professional writers who retain pews in church, and are to be found there with their families on Sundays. There is something altogether fitful, irregular, spasmodic in their way of life. And so it is with their expenditure. They do not live like other men, and they do not spend like other men. At one time, you would think, from their lavish style of living, that they were worth three thousand a year; and at another, from the privations that they undergo, and the difficulty they find in meeting small claims upon them, that they were not worth fifty. There is generally, indeed, large expenditure abroad, and painful stinting at home. The "res angusta _domi_" is almost always there; but away from his home, your literary man is often a prince and a millionaire. Or, if he be a man of domestic habits, if he spends little on tavern suppers, little on wine, little on cab hire, the probability is, that he is still impulsive and improvident, still little capable of self-denial; that he will buy a costly picture when his house-rent is unpaid; that he will give his wife a guitar when she wants a gown; and buy his children a rocking-horse when they are without stockings. His house and family are altogether in an inelegant state of elegant disorder; and with really a comfortable income, if properly managed, he is eternally in debt.

Now all this may appear very strange, but it is not wholly unaccountable. In the _first_ place, it may be assumed, as we have already hinted, that no small proportion of those who adopt literature as a profession have enlisted in the army of authors because they have lacked the necessary amount of patience and perseverance--the systematic orderly habits--the industry and the self-denial by which alone it is possible to attain success in other paths of professional life. With talent enough to succeed in any, they have not had sufficient method to succeed in any. They have been trained perhaps for the bar, but wanted assiduity to master the dry details of the law, and patience to sustain them throughout a long round of briefless circuits. They have devoted themselves to the study of physic, and recoiled from or broken down under examination; or wanted the hopeful sanguine temperament which enables a man to content himself with small beginnings, and to make his way by a gradually widening circle to a large round of remunerative practice. They have been intended for the Church, and drawn back in dismay at the thought of its restraints and responsibilities; or have entered the army, and have forsaken with impatience and disgust the slow road to superior command.

In any case, it may be assumed that the original profession has been deserted for that of authorship, mainly because the aspirant has been wanting in those orderly methodical habits, and that patience and submissiveness of temperament which secure success in those departments of professional labor which are only to be overcome by progressive degrees. In a word, it may be often said of the man of letters, that he is not wanting in order because he is an author, but he is an author because he is wanting in order. He is capable of occasional paroxysms of industry; his spasms of energy are often great and triumphant. Where results are to be obtained _per saltum_ he is equal to any thing and is not easily to be frightened back. He has courage enough to carry a fortress by assault, but he has not system enough to make his way by regular approaches. He is weary of the work before he has traced out the first parallel. In this very history of the rise of professional authorship, we may often see the causes of its fall. The calamities of authors are often assignable to the very circumstances that made them authors. Wherefore is it that in many cases authors are disorderly and improvident? simply because it is their nature to be so--because in any other path of life they would be equally disorderly and improvident. The want of system is not to be attributed to their profession. The evil which we deplore arises in the first instance only from an inability to master an inherent defect.

But it must be admitted that there are many predisposing circumstances in the environments of literary life--that many of the causes which aggravate, if they do not originate the malady, are incidental to the profession itself. The absolute requirements of literary labor not unfrequently compel an irregular distribution of time and with it irregular social and moral habits. It would be cruel to impute that as a fault to the literary laborer which is in reality his misfortune. We who lay our work once every quarter before the public, and they who once a year, or less frequently, present themselves with their comely octavo volumes of fiction or biography--history or science--to the reading world, may dine at home every day with their children, ring the bell at ten o'clock for family prayers, rise early and retire early every day, and with but few deviations throughout the year, regularly toil through, with more or less of the afflatus upon them, their apportioned hours of literary labor; but a large proportion of the literary practitioners of the age are connected, in some capacity or other, with the newspaper press; they are the slaves of time, not its masters; and must bend themselves to circumstances, however repugnant to the will. Late hours are unfortunately a condition of press life. The sub-editors, the summary writers, the reporters; the musical and theatrical critics, and many of the leading-article writers are compelled to keep late hours. Their work is not done till past--in many cases till _long_ past--midnight; and it can not be done at home. It is a very unhappy condition of literary life that it so often compels night-work. Night-work of this kind seems to demand a resource to stimulants; and the exigencies of time and place compel a man to betake himself to the most convenient tavern. Much that we read in the morning papers, wondering at the rapidity with which important intelligence or interesting criticism is laid before us, is written, after midnight, at some contiguous tavern, or in the close atmosphere of a reporter's room, which compels a subsequent resort to some house of nocturnal entertainment. If, weary with work and rejoicing in the thought of its accomplishment, the literary laborer, in the society perhaps of two or three of his brethren, betakes himself to a convenient supper house, and there spends on a single meal, what would keep himself and his family in comfort throughout the next day, perhaps it is hardly just to judge him too severely; at all events, it is right that we should regard the suffering, and weigh the temptation. What to us, in many cases, "seems vice may be but woe." It is hard to keep to this night-work and to live an orderly life. If a man from choice, not from necessity, turns night into day, and day into night (we have known literary men who have willfully done so), we have very little pity for him. The shattered nerves--the disorderly home--the neglected business--the accounts unkept and the bills unpaid, which are the necessary results of nights of excitement and days of languor, are then to be regarded as the consequences not of the misfortunes, but the faults of the sufferer. It is a wretched way of life any how.

Literary men are sad spendthrifts, not only of their money, but of themselves. At an age when other men are in the possession of vigorous faculties of mind and strength of body, they are often used-up, enfeebled, and only capable of effort under the influence of strong stimulants. If a man has the distribution of his own time--if his literary avocations are of that nature that they can be followed at home--if they demand only continuous effort, there is no reason why the waste of vital energy should be greater in his case than in that of the follower of any other learned profession. A man soon discovers to what extent he can safely and profitably tax his powers. To do well in the world he must economize himself no less than his money. Rest is often a good investment. A writer at one time is competent to do twice as much and twice as well as at another; and if his leisure be well employed, the few hours of labor will be more productive than the many, at the time; and the faculty of labor will remain with him twice as long. Rest and recreation, fresh air and bodily exercise, are essential to an author, and he will do well never to neglect them. But there are professional writers who can not regulate their hours of labor, and whose condition of life it is to toil at irregular times and in an irregular manner. It is difficult, we know, for them to abstain from using themselves up prematurely. Repeated paroxysms of fever wear down the strongest frames; and many a literary man is compelled to live a life of fever, between excitement and exhaustion of the mind. We would counsel all public writers to think well of the best means of economizing themselves--the best means of spending their time off duty. Rest and recreation, properly applied, will do much to counteract the destroying influences of spasmodic labor at unseasonable hours, and to ward off premature decay. But if they apply excitement of one kind to repair the ravages of excitement of another kind, they must be content to live a life of nervous irritability, and to grow old before their time.

THE BROTHERS CHEERYBLE.

William and Charles Grant were the sons of a farmer in Inverness-shire, whom a sudden flood stript of every thing, even to the very soil which he tilled. The farmer and his son William made their way southward, until they arrived in the neighborhood of Bury, in Lancashire, and there found employment in a print work, in which William served his apprenticeship. It is said that, when they reached the spot near which they ultimately settled, and arrived at the crown of the hill near Walmesley, they were in doubt as to what course was best next to be pursued. The surrounding country lay disclosed before them, the river Irwell making its circuitous way through the valley. What was to be done to induce their decision as to the route they were to take to their future home? A stick was put up, and where it fell, in that direction would they betake themselves. And thus their decision was made, and they betook themselves toward the village of Ramsbotham, not far distant. In this place, these men pitched their tent, and in the course of many long years of industry, enterprise, and benevolence, they accumulated nearly a million sterling of money; earning, meanwhile, the good-will of thousands, the gratitude of many, and the respect of all who knew them. They afterward erected, on the top of the hill overlooking Walmesley, a lofty tower, in commemoration of the fortunate choice they had made, and not improbably as a kind of public thank-offering for the signal prosperity they had reaped. Cotton mills, and print works, were built by them of great extent, employing an immense number of hands; and they erected churches, founded schools, and gave a new life to the district. Their well-directed diligence made the valley teem with industry, activity, health, joy, and opulence; they never forgot the class from which they themselves had sprung, that of working-men, whose hands had mainly contributed to their aggrandizement, and, therefore, they spared no expense in the moral, intellectual, and physical interests of their work-people.

A brief anecdote or two will serve to show what manner of men these Grants were, and that Dickens, in his Brothers Cheeryble, has been guilty of no exaggeration. Many years ago, a warehouseman published an exceedingly scurrilous pamphlet against the firm of Grant Brothers, holding up the elder partner to ridicule as "Billy Button." William was informed by some "kind friend," of the existence and nature of the pamphlet, and his observation was, that the man would live to repent of its publication. "Oh!" said the libeler, when informed of this remark, "he thinks that some time or other I shall be in his debt, but I will take good care of that." It happens, however, that the man in business does not always know who shall be his creditor. It turned out that the libeler shortly became bankrupt, and the brothers held an acceptance of his, which had been indorsed by the drawer who had also become bankrupt. The wantonly libeled men had now an opportunity of revenging themselves upon the libeler, for he could not obtain his certificate without their signature, and without that he could not again commence business. But it seemed to the bankrupt to be a hopeless case to expect that, they would give their signature--they whom he had so wantonly held up to public ridicule. The claims of a wife and children, however, at last forced him to make the application. He presented himself at the counting-house door, and found that "Billy Button" was in. He entered, and William Grant, who was alone, rather sternly bid him, "shut the door, sir!" The libeler trembled before the libeled. He told his tale, and produced his certificate, which was instantly clutched by the injured merchant. "You wrote a pamphlet against us once," exclaimed Mr. Grant. The supplicant expected to see his parchment thrown into the fire; instead of which, Mr. Grant took a pen, and writing something on the document, handed it back to the supplicant, who expected to find "rogue, scoundrel, libeler," instead of which, there was written only the signature of the firm, completing the bankrupt's certificate. "We make it a rule," said Mr. Grant, "never to refuse signing the certificate of an honest tradesman, and we have never heard that you were any thing else." The tears started into the poor man's eyes. "Ah!" continued Mr. Grant, "my saying was true, I said you would live to repent writing that pamphlet, I did not mean it as a threat, I only meant that some day you would know us better, and repent that you had tried to injure us; I see you repent it now." "I do, I do," said the grateful man, "I do, indeed, bitterly repent it." "Well, well, my dear fellow, you know us now. How do you get on? What are you going to do?" The poor man stated that he had friends who could assist him when his certificate was obtained. "But how are you off in the mean time?" and the answer was that, having given up every farthing to his creditors, he had been compelled to stint his family of even the common necessaries of life, that he might be enabled to pay the cost of his certificate. "My dear fellow, this will never do, your wife and family must not suffer; be kind enough to take this ten-pound note to your wife from me--there, there, my dear fellow--nay, don't cry--it will all be well with you yet; keep up your spirits, set to work like a man, and you will raise your head among us yet." The overpowered man endeavored in vain to express his thanks--the swelling in his throat forbade words; he put his hand to his face, and went out of the door crying like a child.

In company with a gentleman who had written and lectured much on the advantages of early religious, moral, and intellectual training, Mr Grant asked--"Well, how do you go on in establishing schools for infants?" The reply was, "Very encouragingly indeed; wherever I have gone, I have succeeded either in inducing good people to establish them, or in procuring better support to those that are already established. But I must give over my labors, for, what with printing bills, coach-fare, and other expenses, every lecture I deliver in any neighboring town, costs me a sovereign, and I can not afford to ride my hobby such a rate." He said, "You must not give over your labors; God has blessed them with success; He has blessed you with talents, and me with wealth, if you give your time, I ought to give my money. You must oblige me by taking this twenty-pound note, and spending it in promoting the education of the poor." The twenty-pound note was taken, and so spent; and probably a thousand children are now enjoying the benefit of the impulse that was thus given to a mode of instruction as delightful as it was useful.

Mr. Grant was waited on by two gentlemen, who were raising a subscription for the widow of a respectable, man, who, some years before his death, had been unfortunate in business. "We lost £200 by him," said Mr. Grant; "and how do you expect I should subscribe, for his widow?" "Because," answered one of them, "what you have lost by the husband does not alter the widow's claim on your benevolence." "Neither it shall," said he, "here are five pounds, and if you can not make up the sum you want for her, come to me, and I'll give you more."

Many other anecdotes, equally characteristic of the kind nature of William Grant, could be added. For fifteen years did he and his brother Charles ride into Manchester on market days, seated side-by-side, looking of all things like a pair of brothers, happy in themselves, and in each other. William died a few years ago, and was followed to the grave by many blessings. The firm still survives, and supports its former character. Long may the merchant princes of England continue to furnish such beautiful specimens of humanity as the now famous Brothers Cheeryble!--_Chambers' Edinburgh Journal_.

[From the North British Review.]

WRITING FOR PERIODICALS.

Lord Lyndhurst once said, at a public dinner, with reference to the numberless marvels of the press, that it might seem a very easy thing to write a leading article, but that he would recommend any one with strong convictions on that point, only to _try_. We confidently appeal to the experience of all the conductors of the leading journals of Great Britain, from the quarterly reviews to the daily journals, convinced that they will all tell the same unvarying tale of the utter incompetency of thousands of very clever people to write articles, review books, &c. They will all have the same experiences to relate of the marvelous failures of men of genius and learning--the crude cumbrous state in which they have sent their so-called articles for publication--the labor it has taken to mould their fine thoughts and valuable erudition into comely shape--the utter impossibility of doing it at all. As Mr. Carlyle has written of the needle-women of England, it is the saddest thing of all, that there should be sempstresses few or none, but "botchers" in such abundance, capable only of "a distracted puckering and botching--not sewing--only a fallacious hope of it--a fond imagination of the mind;" so of literary labor is it the saddest thing of all, that there should be so many botchers in the world, and so few skilled article-writers--so little article-writing, and so much "distracted puckering and botching." There may be nothing in this article-writing, when once we know how to do it, as there is nothing in balancing a ladder on one's chin, or jumping through a hoop, or swallowing a sword. All we say is, if people think it easy, let them try, and abide by the result. The amateur articles of very clever people are generally what an amateur effort at coat-making would be. It may seem a very easy thing to make a coat; but very expert craftsmen--craftsmen that can produce more difficult and elaborate pieces of workmanship, fail utterly when they come to a coat. The only reason why they can not make a coat is, that they are not tailors. Now there are many very able and learned men, who can compass greater efforts of human intellect than the production of a newspaper article, but who can not write a newspaper at all, because they we not newspaper-writers, or criticise a book with decent effect, because they are not critics. Article-writing comes "by art not chance." The efforts of chance writers, if they be men of genius and learning, are things to break one's heart over.

It is not enough to think and to know. It requires the faculty of utterance, and a peculiar kind of utterance. Certain things are to be said in a certain manner; and your amateur article-writer is sure to say them in any manner but the right. Perhaps of all styles of writing there is none in which excellency is so rarely attained as that of newspaper-writing. A readable leading article may not be a work of the loftiest order, or demand for its execution the highest attributes of genius; but, whatever it may be, the power of accomplishing it with success is not shared by "thousands of clever fellows." Thousands of clever fellows, fortified by Mr. Thackeray's opinion, may think that they could write the articles which they read in the morning journals; but let them take pen and paper and _try_.

We think it only fair that professional authors should have the credit of being able to do what other people can not. They do not claim to themselves a monoply of talent. They do not think themselves capable of conducting a case in a court of law, as cleverly as a queen's counsel, or of getting a sick man through the typhus fever as skillfully as a practiced physician. But it is hard that they should not receive credit for being able to write better articles than either the one or the other; or, perhaps it is more to the purpose to say, than the briefless lawyers and patientless medical students who are glad to earn a guinea by their pens. Men are not born article-writers any more than they are born doctors of law, or doctors of physic; as the ludicrous failures, which are every day thrown into the rubbish-baskets of all our newspaper offices, demonstrate past all contradiction. Incompetency is manifested in a variety of ways, but an irrepressible tendency to fine writing is associated with the greater number of them. Give a clever young medical student a book about aural or dental surgery to review, and the chances are ten to one that the criticism will be little else than a high-flown grandiloquent treatise on the wonders of the creation. A regular "literary hack" will do the thing much better.

If there be any set of men--we can not call it a _class_, for it is drawn from all classes--who might be supposed to possess' a certain capacity for periodical writing, it is the fraternity of members of Parliament. They are in the habit of selecting given subjects for consideration--of collecting facts and illustrations--of arranging arguments--and of expressing themselves after a manner. They are for the most part men of education, of a practical turn of mind, well acquainted with passing events, and, in many instances, in possession just of that kind of available talent which is invaluable to periodical writers. But very few of them can write an article, either for a newspaper or a review, without inflicting immense trouble upon the editor. Sometimes the matter it contains will be worth the pains bestowed upon it; but it very often happens that it is _not_. It is one thing to make a speech--another to write an article. But the speech often, no less than the article, requires editorial supervision. The reporter is the speaker's editor, and a very efficient one too. In a large number of cases, the speaker owes more to the reporter than he would willingly acknowledge. The speech as spoken would often be unreadable, but that the reporter finishes the unfinished sentences, and supplies meanings which are rather suggested than expressed. It would be easy to name members who are capable of writing admirable articles; but many of them owe their position in the House to some antecedent connection with the press, or have become, in some manner regularly "connected with the press;" and have acquired, by long practice, the capacity of article-writing. But take any half-dozen members indiscriminately out of the House, and set them down to write articles on any subject which they may have just heard debated, and see how grotesque will be their efforts? They may be very "clever fellows," but that they can write articles as well as men whose profession it is to write them, we take upon ourselves emphatically to deny.

ANECDOTE OF LORD CLIVE.

Although of a gloomy temperament, and from the earliest age evincing those characteristics of pride and shyness which rendered him unsocial, and therefore unpopular in general society, this nobleman, in the private walks of life, was amiable, and peculiarly disinterested. While in India, his correspondence with those of his own family, evinced in a remarkable degree those right and kindly feelings which could hardly have been expected from Clive, considering the frowardness of early life and the inflexible sternness of more advanced age. When the foundation of his fortune was laid. Lord Clive evinced a praiseworthy recollection of the friends of his early days. He bestowed an annuity of £800 on his parents, while to other relations and friends he was proportionately liberal. He was a devotedly attached husband, as his letters to Lady Clive bear testimony. Her maiden name was Maskelyne, sister to the eminent mathematician, so called, who long held the post of astronomer royal. This marriage, which took place in 1752, with the circumstances attending it, are somewhat singular, and worth recording: Clive, who was at that period just twenty-seven, had formed a previous friendship with one of the lady's brothers, like himself a resident at Madras. The brother and sister, it appears, kept up an affectionate and constant correspondence--that is, as constant an interchange of epistolary communication as could be accomplished nearly a century ago, when the distance between Great Britain and the East appeared so much more formidable, and the facilities of postal conveyance so comparatively tardy. The epistles of the lady, through the partiality of her brother, were frequently shown to Clive, and they bespoke her to be what from all accounts she was--a woman of very superior understanding, and of much amiability of character. Clive was charmed with her letters, for in those days, be it remembered, the fair sex were not so familiarized to the pen as at the present period. At that time, to indite a really good epistle as to penmanship and diction, was a formidable task, and what few ladies, comparatively speaking, could attain to. The accomplished sister of Dr. Maskelyne was one of the few exceptions, and so strongly did her epistolary powers attract the interest, and gain for her the affections of Clive, that it ended by his offering to marry the young lady, if she could be induced to visit her brother at Madras. The latter, through whom the suggestion was to be made, hesitated, and seemed inclined to discourage the proposition; but Clive in this instance evinced that determination of purpose which was so strong a feature in his character. He could urge, too, with more confidence a measure on which so much of his happiness depended--for he was now no longer the poor neglected boy, sent out to seek his fortune, but one who had already acquired a fame which promised future greatness. In short, he would take no refusal; and then was the brother of Miss Maskelyne forced to own, that highly as his sister was endowed with every mental qualification, nature had been singularly unfavorable to her--personal attractions she had none. The future hero of Plassy was not, however, to be deterred--but he made this compromise: If the lady could be prevailed upon to visit India, and that neither party, on a personal acquaintance, felt disposed for a nearer connection, the sum of £5000 was to be presented to her. With this understanding all scruples were overcome. Miss Maskelyne went out to India, and immediately after became the wife of Clive, who, already prejudiced in her favor, is said to have expressed himself surprised that she should ever have been represented to him as plain. So much for the influence of mind and manner over mere personal endowments. With the sad end of this distinguished general every reader is familiar. His lady survived the event by many years, and lived to a benevolent and venerable old age.

[From The Ladies' Companion.]

THE IMPRISONED LADY.

We derive the following curious passage of life one hundred years since, from the second Series of Mr. Burke's "Anecdotes of the Aristocracy:"

Lady Cathcart was one of the four daughters of Mr. Malyn, of Southwark and Battersea, in Surrey. She married four times, but never had any issue. Her first husband was James Fleet, Esq., of the City of London, Lord of the Manor of Tewing; her second, Captain Sabine, younger brother of General Joseph Sabine, of Quinohall; her third, Charles, eighth Lord Cathcart, of the kingdom of Scotland, Commander-in-Chief of the Forces in the West Indies; and her fourth,[K] Hugh Macguire, an officer in the Hungarian service, for whom she bought a lieutenant-colonel's commission in the British army, and whom she also survived. She was not encouraged, however, by his treatment, to verify the resolution, which she inscribed as a posy on her wedding-ring:

"If I survive, I will have five."

Her avowed motives for these several engagements were, for the first, obedience to her parents; for the second, money; for the third, title; and for the fourth, submission to the fact that "the devil owed her a grudge, and would punish her for her sins." In the last union she met with her match. The Hibernian fortune-hunter wanted only her money. Soon after their marriage, she discovered her grievous mistake, and became alarmed lest the colonel, who was desperately in love, not with the widow, but with the "widow's jointured land," designed to carry her off, and to get absolute power over all her property; to prepare for the worst, her ladyship plaited some of her jewels in her hair, and quilted others in her petticoat. Meanwhile the mistress of the colonel so far insinuated herself into his wife's confidence that she learned where her will was deposited; and Macguire getting sight of it, insisted on an alteration in his favor, under a threat of instant death. Lady Cathcart's apprehensions of the loss of her personal freedom proved to be not without foundation; one morning, when she and her husband went out from Tewing to take an airing, she proposed, after a time, to return, but he desired to go a little further. The coachman drove on; she remonstrated, "they should not be back by dinner-time." "Be not the least uneasy on that account," rejoined Macguire; "we do not dine to-day at Tewing, but at Chester, whither we are journeying." Vain were all the lady's efforts and expostulations. Her sudden disappearance excited the alarm of her friends, and an attorney was sent in pursuit, with a writ of _habeas corpus_ or _ne exeat regno_. He overtook the travelers at an inn at Chester, and succeeding in obtaining an interview with the husband, demanded a sight of Lady Cathcart. The colonel, skilled in expedients, and aware that his wife's person was unknown, assured the attorney that he should see her ladyship immediately, and he would find that she was going to Ireland with her own free consent. Thereupon Macguire persuaded a woman, whom he had properly tutored, to personate his wife. The attorney asked the supposed captive, if she accompanied Colonel Macguire to Ireland of her own good-will? "Perfectly so," said the woman. Astonished at such an answer, he begged pardon, made a low bow, and set out again for London. Macguire thought that possibly Mr. Attorney might recover his senses, find how he had been deceived, and yet stop his progress; and in order to make all safe, he sent two or three fellows after him, with directions to plunder him of all he had, particularly of his papers. They faithfully executed their commission; and when the colonel had the writ in his possession, he knew that he was safe. He then took my lady over to Ireland, and kept her there, a prisoner, locked up in his own house at Tempo, in Fermanagh, for many years; during which period he was visited by the neighboring gentry, and it was his regular custom at dinner to send his compliments to Lady Cathcart, informing her that the company had the honor to drink her ladyship's health, and begging to know whether there was any thing at table that she would like to eat? The answer was always--"Lady Cathcart's compliments, and she has every thing she wants." An instance of honesty in a poor Irishwoman deserves to be recorded. Lady Cathcart had some remarkably fine diamonds, which she had concealed from her husband, and which she was anxious to get out of the house, lest he should discover them. She had neither servant nor friend to whom she could intrust them, but she had observed a beggar who used to come to the house, she spoke to her from the window of the room in which she was confined; the woman promised to do what she desired, and Lady Cathcart threw a parcel, containing the jewels, to her.

The poor woman carried them to the person to whom they were directed; and several years afterward, when Lady Cathcart recovered her liberty, she received her diamonds safely. At Colonel Macguire's death, which occurred in 1764, her ladyship was released. When she was first informed of the fact, she imagined that the news could not be true, and that it was told only with an intention of deceiving her. At the time of her deliverance she had scarcely clothes sufficient to cover her; she wore a red wig, looked scared, and her understanding seemed stupefied: she said that she scarcely knew one human creature from another: her imprisonment had lasted nearly twenty years. The moment she regained her freedom she hastened to England, to her house at Tewing, but the tenant, a Mr. Joseph Steele, refusing to render up possession, Lady Cathcart had to bring an action of ejectment, attended the assizes in person, and gained the cause. At Tewing she continued to reside for the remainder of her life. The only subsequent notice we find of her is, that, at the age of eighty, she took part in the gayeties of the Welwyn Assembly, and danced with the spirit of a girl. She did not die until 1789, when she was in her ninety-eighth year.

In the mansion-house of Tempo, now the property of Sir John Emerson Tennent, the room is still shown in which Lady Cathcart was imprisoned.

FOOTNOTES:

[K] Lady Cathcart's marriage to Macguire took place 18th May, 1745.

LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.

FROM OUR FOREIGN FILES, AND UNPUBLISHED BOOKS.

Sidney Smith's account of the origin of the _Edinburgh Review_ is well known. The following statement was written by Lord Jeffrey, at the request of Robert Chambers, in November, 1846, and is now first made public: "I can not say exactly where the project of the _Edinburgh Review_ was first talked of among the projectors. But the first serious consultations about it--and which led to our application to a publisher--were held in a small house, where I then lived, in _Buccleugh-place_ (I forget the number). They were attended by S. Smith, F. Horner, Dr. Thomas Brown, Lord Murray, and some of them also by Lord Webb Seymour, Dr. John Thomson, and Thomas Thomson. The first three numbers were given to the publisher--he taking the risk and defraying the charges. There was then no individual editor, but as many of us as could be got to attend used to meet in a dingy room of Willson's printing office, in Craig's Close, where the proofs of our own articles were read over and remarked upon, and attempts made also to sit in judgment on the few manuscripts which were then offered by strangers. But we had seldom patience to go through with this; and it was soon found necessary to have a responsible editor, and the office was pressed upon me. About the same time Constable was told that he must allow ten guineas a sheet to the contributors, to which he at once assented; and not long after, the _minimum_ was raised to sixteen guineas, at which it remained during my reign. Two-thirds of the articles were paid much higher--averaging, I should think, from twenty to twenty-five guineas a sheet on the whole number. I had, I might say, an unlimited discretion in this respect, and must do the publishers the justice to say that they never made the slightest objection. Indeed, as we all knew that they had (for a long time at least) a very great profit, they probably felt that they were at our mercy. Smith was by far the most timid of the confederacy, and believed that, unless our incognito was strictly maintained, we could not go on a day; and this was his object for making us hold our dark divans at Willson's office, to which he insisted on our repairing singly, and by back approaches or different lanes! He also had so strong an impression of Brougham's indiscretion and rashness, that he would not let him be a member of our association, though wished for by all the rest. He was admitted, however, after the third number, and did more work for us than any body. Brown took offense at some alterations Smith had made in a trifling article of his in the second number, and left us thus early; publishing at the same time in a magazine the fact of his secession--a step which we all deeply regretted, and thought scarcely justified by the provocation. Nothing of the kind occurred ever after."

Constable soon remunerated the editor with a liberality corresponding to that with which contributors were treated. From 1803 to 1809 Jeffrey received 200 guineas for editing each number. For the ensuing three years, the account-books are missing; but from 1813 to 1826 he is credited £700 for editing each number.

* * * * *

The "_Economist_" closes an article upon the late Sir ROBERT PEEL with the following just and eloquent summation:

"Sir Robert was a scholar, and a liberal and discerning patron of the arts. Though not social, he was a man of literary interests and of elegant and cultivated taste. Possessed of immense wealth, with every source and avenue of enjoyment at his command, it is no slight merit in him that he preferred to such refined enjoyment the laborious service of his country. He was no holiday or _dillettanti_ statesman. His industry was prodigious, and he seemed actually to love work. His toil in the memorable six months of 1835 was something absolutely prodigious; in 1842 and 1843 scarcely less so. His work was always done in a masterly and business-like style, which testified to the conscientious diligence he had bestowed upon it. His measures rarely had to be altered or modified in their passage through the House. In manners he was always decorous--never over-bearing or insulting, and if ever led by the heat of contest into any harsh or unbecoming expression, was always prompt to apologize or retract. By his unblemished private character, by his unrivaled administrative ability, by his vast public services, his unvarying moderation, he had impressed not only England but the world at large with a respect and confidence such as few attain. After many fluctuations of repute, he had at length reached an eminence on which he stood--independent of office, independent of party--one of the acknowledged potentates of Europe; face to face, in the evening of life, with his work and his reward--his work, to aid the progress of those principles on which, after much toil, many sacrifices, and long groping toward the light, he had at length laid a firm grasp; his guerdon, to watch their triumph. Nobler occupation man could not aspire to; sublimer power no ambition need desire; greater earthly reward, God, out of all the riches of his boundless treasury has not to bestow."

Numerous projects for monuments to the deceased statesman have been broached. In reference to these, and to the poverty of thought, and waste of means, which in the present age builds for all time with materials so perishable as statues, a correspondent of the _Athenæum_ suggests, as a more intelligent memorial, the foundation of a national university for the education of the sons of the middle classes. Ours, he says, are not the days for copying the forms of ancient Rome as interpreters of feelings and inspirations which the Romans never knew. While the statues which they reared are dispersed, and the columns they erected are crumbling to decay, their thoughts, as embodied in their literature, are with us yet, testifying forever of the great spirits which perished from among them, but left, in this sure and abiding form, the legacy of their minds.

* * * * *

The effect upon civilization of the Ownership of the Land being in the hands of a few, or of the many, has been earnestly discussed by writers on political and social economy. Two books have recently been published in England, which have an important bearing upon this subject. One is by SAMUEL LAING, Esq. the well known traveler, and the other by JOSEPH KAY, Esq. of Cambridge. Both these writers testify that in the continental countries which they have examined--more especially in Germany, France, Holland, Belgium and Switzerland--they have found a state of society which does fulfill in a very eminent degree all the conditions of a most advanced civilization. They have found in those countries education, wealth, comfort, and self-respect; and they have found that the whole body of the people in those countries participate in the enjoyment of these great blessings to an extent which very far exceeds the participation in them of the great mass of the population of England. These two travelers perfectly agree in the declaration that during the last-thirty or forty years the inequality of social condition among men--the deterioration toward two great classes of very rich and very poor--has made very little progress in the continental states with which they are familiar. They affirm that a class of absolute paupers in any degree formidable from its numbers has yet to be created in those states. They represent in the most emphatic language the immense superiority in education, manners, conduct, and the supply of the ordinary wants of a civilized being, of the German, Swiss, Dutch, Belgian and French peasantry over the peasantry and poorer classes not only of Ireland, but also of England and Scotland. This is the general and the most decided result with reference to the vital question of the condition and prospects of the peasantry and poorer classes, neither Mr. Laing nor Mr. Kay have any doubt whatever that the advantage rests in the most marked manner with the continental states which they have examined over Great Britain. According to Mr. Laing and Mr. Kay, the cause of this most important difference is--_the distribution of the ownership of land_. On the continent, the people _own_ and _cultivate_ the land. In the British islands the land is held in large masses by a few persons; the class practically employed in agriculture are either _tenants_ or _laborers_, who do not act under the stimulus of a personal interest in the soil they cultivate.

* * * * *

A self-taught artist named Carter has recently died at Coggshall, Essex, where he had for many years resided. He was originally a farm laborer, and by accident lost the power of every part of his body but the head and neck. By the force of perseverance and an active mind, however, he acquired the power of drawing and painting, by holding the pencil between his lips and teeth, when placed there by the kind offices of an affectionate sister. In this manner he had not only whiled away the greater part of fourteen years of almost utter physical helplessness, but has actually produced works which have met with high commendation. His groups and compositions are said to have been "most delicately worked and highly finished." The poor fellow had contemplated the preparation of some grand work for the International Exhibition, but the little of physical life remaining in him was lately extinguished by a new accident.

* * * * *

CONVERSATION OF LITERARY MEN.--Literary men talk less than they did. They seldom "lay out" much for conversation. The conversational, like the epistolary age, is past; and we have come upon the age of periodical literature. People neither put their best thoughts and their available knowledge into their letters, nor keep them for evening conversation. The literary men of 1850 have a keener eye to the value of their stock-in-trade, and keep it well garnered up, for conversion, as opportunity offers, into the current coin of the realm. There is some periodical vehicle, nowadays, for the reception of every possible kind of literary ware. The literary man converses now through the medium of the Press, and turns every thing into copyright at once. He can not afford to drop his ideas by the way-side; he must keep them to himself, until the printing-press has made them inalienably his own. If a happy historical or literary illustration occurs to him, it will do for a review article; if some un-hackneyed view of a great political question presents itself to him, it may be worked into his next leader; if some trifling adventure has occurred to him, or he has picked up a novel anecdote in the course of his travels, it may be reproduced in a page of magazine matter, or a column of a cheap weekly serial. Even puns are not to be distributed gratis. There is a property in a _double-entente_, which its parent will not willingly forego. The smallest jokelet is a marketable commodity. The dinner-table is sacrificed to _Punch_. There is too much competition in these days, too many hungry candidates for the crumbs that fall from the thinker's table, not to make him chary of his offerings. In these days, every scrap of knowledge--every happy thought--every felicitous turn of expression, is of some value to a literary man; the forms of periodical literature are so many and so varied. He can seldom afford to give any thing away; and there is no reason why he should. It is not so easy a thing to turn one's ideas into bread, that a literary man need be at no pains to preserve his property in them. We do not find that artists give away their sketches, or that professional singers perform promiscuously at private parties. Perhaps, in these days of much publishing, professional authors are wise in keeping the best of themselves for their books and articles. We have known professional writers talk criticism; but we have generally found it to be the very reverse of what they have published.

* * * * *

REWARDS OF LITERATURE.--Literature has been treated with much ingratitude, even by those who owe most to it. If we do not quite say with Goldsmith, that it supports many dull fellows in opulence, we may assert, with undeniable truth, that it supports, or ought to support, many clever ones in comfort and respectability. If it does not it is less the fault of the profession than the professors themselves. There are many men now in London, Edinburgh, and other parts of the country, earning from £1000 to £300 per annum by their literary labors, and some, with very little effort, earning considerably more. It is no part of our plan in the present article to mix up modern instances with our wise saws, else might we easily name writers who, for contributions to the periodical press, for serial installments of popular tales, and other literary commodities, demanding no very laborious efforts of intellectual industry, have received from flourishing newspaper proprietors and speculative booksellers, sums of money which it would be difficult to earn with equal facility in any other learned profession. An appointment on the editorial staff of a leading daily paper is in itself a small fortune to a man. The excellence of the articles is, for the most part, in proportion to the sum paid for them; and a successful morning journal will generally find it good policy to pay its contributors in such a manner as to secure the entire produce of their minds, or, at all events, to get the best fruits that they are capable of yielding. If a man can earn a comfortable independence by writing three or four leading articles a week, there is no need that he should have his pen ever in his hand, that he should be continually toiling at other and less profitable work. But if he is to keep himself ever fresh and ever vigorous for one master he must be paid for it. There are instances of public writers who had shown evident signs of exhaustion when employed on one paper--who had appeared, indeed, to have written themselves out so thoroughly, that the proprietors were fain to dispense with their future services--transferring those services to another paper, under more encouraging circumstances of renumeration, and, as though endued with new life, striking out articles fresh, vigorous, and brilliant. They gave themselves to the one paper; they had only given a part of themselves to the other.

* * * * *

SCHAMYL, the Prophet of the Caucasus, through whose inspiriting leadership the Caucasians have maintained a successful struggle against the gigantic power of Russia for many years, is described by a recent writer as a man of middle stature; he has light hair, gray eyes, shaded by bushy and well-arched eyebrows; a nose finely moulded, and a small mouth. His features are distinguished from those of his race by a peculiar fairness of complexion and delicacy of skin: the elegant form of his hands and feet is not less remarkable. The apparent stiffness of his arms, when he walks, is a sign of his stern and impenetrable character His address is thoroughly noble and dignified. Of himself he is completely master; and he exerts a tacit supremacy over all who approach him. An immovable, stony calmness, which never forsakes him, even in moments of the utmost danger, broods over his countenance. He passes a sentence of death with the same composure with which he distributes "the sabre of honor" to his bravest Murids, after a bloody encounter. With traitors or criminals whom he has resolved to destroy he will converse without betraying the least sign of anger or vengeance. He regards himself as a mere instrument in the hands of a higher Being; and holds, according to the Sufi doctrine, that all his thoughts and determinations are immediate inspirations from God. The flow of his speech is as animating and irresistible as his outward appearance is awful and commanding. "He shoots flames from his eyes and scatters flowers from his lips," said Bersek Bey, who sheltered him for some days after the fall of Achulgo, when Schamyl dwelt for some time among the princes of the Djighetes and Ubiches, for the purpose of inciting the tribes on the Black Sea to rise against the Russians. Schamyl is now fifty years old, but still full of vigor and strength; it is however said, that he has for some years past suffered from an obstinate disease of the eyes, which is constantly growing worse. He fills the intervals of leisure which his public charges allow him, in reading the Koran, fasting, and prayer. Of late years he has but seldom, and then only on critical occasions, taken a personal share in warlike encounters. In spite of his almost supernatural activity, Schamyl is excessively severe and temperate in his habits. A few hours of sleep are enough for him; at times he will watch for the whole night, without showing the least trace of fatigue on the following day. He eats little, and water is his only beverage. According to Mohammedan custom, he keeps several wives. In 1844 he had _three_, of which his favorite (Pearl of the Harem, as she was called) was an Armenian, of exquisite beauty.

* * * * *

A Frankfort journal states that the colossal statue of Bavaria, by Schwanthaler, which is to be placed on the hill of Seudling, surpasses in its gigantic proportions all the works of the moderns. It will have to be removed in pieces from the foundry where it is cast to its place of destination, and each piece will require sixteen horses to draw it. The great toes are each half a mètre in length. In the head two persons could dance a polka very conveniently, while the nose might lodge the musician. The thickness of the robe, which forms a rich drapery descending to the ankles, is about six inches, and its circumference at the bottom about two hundred mètres. The Crown of Victory which the figure holds in her hands weighs one hundred quintals (a quintal is a hundred weight).

* * * * *

WORDSWORTH'S prose writings are not numerous; and with the exception of the well-known prefaces to his minor poems, they are little known. A paper or two in Coleridge's _Friend_, and a political tract occasioned by the convention of Cintra, form important and valuable contributions to the prose literature of the country. We would especially call attention to the introductory part of the third volume of the _Friend_, as containing a very beautiful development of Mr. Wordsworth's opinions on the moral worth and intellectual character of the age in which it was his destiny to live. The political tract is very scarce; but we may safely affirm, that it contains some of the finest writing in the English language. Many of its passages can be paralleled only by the majestic periods of Milton's prose, or perhaps by the vehement and impassioned eloquence of Demosthenes. Its tone is one of sustained elevation, and in sententious moral and political wisdom it will bear a comparison with the greatest productions of Burke. We trust that this pamphlet will be republished. A collection and separate publication of all Mr. Wordsworth's prose writings would form a valuable addition to English literature.

Mr. Wordsworth's conversation was eminently rich, various, and instructive. Attached to his mountain home, and loving solitude as the nurse of his genius, he was no recluse, but keenly enjoyed the pleasures of social intercourse. He had seen much of the world, and lived on terms of intimate friendship with some of the most illustrious characters of his day. His reading was extensive, but select; indeed, his mind could assimilate only the greater productions of intellect. To criticism he was habitually indifferent; and when solicited for his opinions, he was generally as reserved in his praise as he was gentle in his censures. For some of his contemporaries he avowed the highest respect; but Coleridge was the object of his deepest affection as a friend, and of his veneration as a philosopher. Of the men who acted important parts in the political drama of the last century, the homage of his highest admiration was given to Burke, who, after Shakspeare and Bacon, he thought the greatest being that Nature had ever created in the human form.

The last few years of Mr. Wordsworth's life were saddened by affliction. They who were admitted to the privilege of occasional intercourse with the illustrious poet in his later days will long dwell with deep and affectionate interest upon his earnest conversation while he wandered through the shaded walks of the grounds which he loved so well, and ever and anon paused to look down upon the gleaming lake as its silver radiance was reflected through the trees which embosomed his mountain home. Long will the accents of that "old man eloquent" linger in their recollection, and their minds retain the impression of that pensive and benevolent countenance. The generation of those who have gazed upon his features will pass away and be forgotten. The marble, like the features which it enshrines, will crumble into dust. _Ut vultus hominum ita simulacra vultus imbecilla ac mortalia sunt, forma mentis æterna_; the attributes of his mighty intellect are stamped for ever upon his works which will be transmitted to future ages as a portion of their most precious inheritance.

* * * * *

No man is more enshrined in the heart of the French people than the poet BERANGER. A few weeks since he went one evening with one of his nephews to the _Clos des Lilas_, a garden in the students' quarter devoted to dancing in the open air, intending to look for a few minutes upon a scene he had not visited since his youth, and then withdraw. But he found it impossible to remain unknown and unobserved. The announcement of his presence ran through the garden in a moment. The dances stopped, the music ceased, and the crowd thronged toward the point where the still genial and lovely old man was standing. At once there rose from all lips the cry of _Vive Beranger!_ which was quickly followed by that of _Vive la Republique_. The poet, whose diffidence is excessive, could not answer a word, but only smiled and blushed his thanks at this enthusiastic reception. The acclamations continuing, an agent of the police invited him to withdraw, lest his presence might occasion disorder. The illustrious song-writer at once obeyed; by a singular coincidence the door through which he went out opened upon the place where Marshal Ney was shot.

* * * * *

THE PARIS ACADEMY OF INSCRIPTIONS AND BELLES LETTRES is constantly sending forth the most valuable contributions, to the history of the middle ages especially. It is now completing the publication of the sixth volume of the Charters, Diplomas, and other documents relating to French history. This volume, which was prepared by M. Pardessus, includes the period from the beginning of 1220 to the end of 1270, and comprehends the reign of St. Louis. The seventh volume, coming down some fifty years later, is also nearly ready for the printer. Its editor is M. Laboulaye. The first volume of the Oriental Historians of the Crusaders, translated into French, is now going through the press, and the second is in course of preparation. The greater part of the first volume of the Greek Historians of the same chivalrous wars is also printed, and the work is going rapidly forward. The Academy is also preparing a collection of Occidental History on the same subject. When these three collections are published, all the documents of any value relating to the Crusades will be easily accessible, whether for the use of the historian or the romancer. The Academy is also now engaged in getting out the twenty-first volume of the History of the Gauls and of France, and the nineteenth of the Literary History of France, which brings the annals of French letters down to the thirteenth century. It is also publishing the sixteenth volume of its own Memoirs, which contains the history of the Academy for the last four years, and the work of Freret on Geography, besides several other works of less interest. From all this some idea may be formed of the labors and usefulness of the institution.

* * * * *

In speaking of the advantage of education to Mechanics, Robert Hall says that it has a tendency to exalt the character, and, in some measure, to correct and subdue the taste for gross sensuality. It enables the possessor to beguile his leisure moments (and every man has such) in an innocent, at least, if not in a useful manner. The poor man who can read, and who possesses a taste for reading, can find entertainment at home, without being tempted to repair to the public-house for that purpose. His mind can find employment where his body is at rest. There is in the mind of such a man an intellectual spring, urging him to the pursuit of mental good; and if the minds of his family are also a little cultivated, conversation becomes the more interesting, and the sphere of domestic enjoyment enlarged. The calm satisfaction which books afford puts him into a disposition to relish more exquisitely the tranquil delight of conjugal and parental affection; and as he will be more respectable in the eyes of his family than he who can teach them nothing, he will be naturally induced to cultivate whatever may preserve, and to shun whatever would impair that respect.

* * * * *

For producing steel pens the best Dennemora--Swedish iron--or hoop iron is selected. It is worked into sheets or slips about three feet long, and four or five inches broad, the thickness varying with the desired stiffness and flexibility of the pen for which it is intended. By a stamping press pieces of the required size are cut out. The point intended for the nib is introduced into a gauged hole, and by a machine pressed into a semi-cylindrical shape. In the same machine it is pierced with the required slit or slits. This being effected, the pens are cleaned by mutual attrition in tin cylinders, and tempered, as in the case of the steel plate, by being brought to the required color by heat. Some idea of the extent of this manufacture will be formed from the statement, that nearly 150 tons of steel are employed annually for this purpose, producing upward of 250,000,000 pens.

* * * * *

Philosophers abroad are working diligently at many interesting branches of physical science: magneto and muscular electricity, dia-magnetism, vegetable and animal physiology: Matteucci in Italy, Bois-Reymond, Weber, Reichenbach, and Dove in Germany. The two maps of isothermal lines for every month in the year, lately published by the last-mentioned _savant_, are remarkable and most valuable proofs of scientific insight and research. If they are to be depended on, there is but one pole of cold, situate in Northern America; that supposed to exist in the Asiatic continent disappears when the monthly means are taken. These maps will be highly useful to the meteorologist, and indeed to students of natural philosophy generally, and will suggest other and more-extended results.

* * * * *

A communication from M. Trémaux, an Abyssinian traveler, has been presented to the French Academy by M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire: it gives an account of the sudden difference which occurs in the races of men and animals near Fa Zoglo, in the vicinity of the Blue Nile. The shores of this stream are inhabited by a race of Caucasian origin, whose sheep have woolly coats; but at a few miles' distance, in the mountains of Zaby and Akaro, negro tribes are found whose sheep are hairy. According to M. Trévaux, 'the differences and changes are due to two causes: the one, that vegetable nature, having changed in aspect and production, attracts and supports certain species, while others no longer appear, or the individuals are fewer. As for the second cause, it is the more surprising, since it produces opposite effects on the same point: where man has no longer silken, but woolly hair, there the sheep ceases to be covered with wool.' M. St. Hilaire remarked on these facts, that the degree of domestication of animals is proportional to the degree of civilization of those who possess them. Among savage people dogs are nearly all alike, and not far removed from the wolf or jackal; while among civilized races there is an almost endless variety--the greater part far removed from the primitive type. Are we to infer from this that negroes will cease to be negroes by dint of civilization--that wool will give place to hair, and _vice versâ_? If so, a wide field is opened for experiment and observation.

MONTHLY RECORD OF CURRENT EVENTS.

The action of Congress during the past month has been of more than usual interest. The Senate has finally disposed of the Compromise Bill, which has absorbed its discussions for nearly the whole of the session, and has taken definite action upon all the subjects which that bill embraced. On the 30th of July, the bill being before the Senate, a resolution offered by Senator BRADBURY, of Maine, was pending, authorizing the appointment of Commissioners by the United States and Texas, for the adjustment of the boundary line between Texas and New Mexico. To this Mr. DAWSON, of Ga., offered an amendment, providing that until the boundary should have been agreed to, no territorial government should go into operation east of the Rio Grande, nor should any state government be established to include that territory. This amendment was adopted, ayes 30, noes 28. Mr. BRADBURY'S resolution, thus amended, was then adopted by the same vote. On the 31st the bill came up for final action. Mr. NORRIS moved to strike out the clause restricting the Legislature of New Mexico from establishing or prohibiting slavery. This was carried, 32 to 20. Mr. PEARCE, of Maryland, then moved to strike out all relating to New Mexico, which was carried by a vote of 33 to 22. He then moved to re-insert it, omitting the amendment of Messrs. Bradbury and Dawson--his object being by this roundabout process (which was the only way in which it could be reached), to reverse the vote adopting that amendment. His motion was very warmly and strongly resisted, and various amendments offered to it were voted down. The motion itself was then put and lost, ayes 25, nays 28. This left nothing in the bill except the provision for admitting California and that establishing a territorial government for Utah. Mr. WALKER, of Wisconsin, then moved to strike out all except that part relating to California. This was lost, ayes 22, nays 33. Mr. ATCHISON, of Missouri, moved to strike out all relating to California. This motion was first lost by a tie vote, but a reconsideration was moved by Mr. WINTHROP and carried, and then the motion prevailed, ayes 34, nays 25. The Bill thus contained nothing but the sections relating to Utah, and in that shape it was passed, ayes 32, nays 18. Thus the Compromise bill, reported early in the session, and earnestly debated from that time forward, was decisively rejected. On the very next day, the 1st of August, the bill for the admission of California was made the special order by a vote of 34 to 23. Mr. FOOTE, of Miss., offered an amendment that California should not exercise her jurisdiction over territory south of 35° 30'. Mr. CLAY in an earnest and eloquent speech, after regretting the fate of the Compromise Bill, said he wished it to be distinctly understood that if any state or states, or any portion of the people, should array themselves in arms against the Union, he was for testing the strength of the government, to ascertain whether it had the ability to maintain itself. He avowed the most unwavering attachment to the Union, and declared his purpose to raise both his voice and his arm in support of the Union and the Constitution. He had been in favor of passing the several measures together: he was now in favor of passing them separately: but whether passed or not, he was in favor of putting down any and all resistance to the federal authority. After some debate, Mr. FOOTE'S amendment was negatived, yeas 23, nays 33. On the 6th of August Mr. TURNEY, of Tennessee, offered an amendment, dividing California into two territories, which may hereafter form state constitutions. This was rejected, ayes 29, nays 32. Mr. YULEE offered an amendment, establishing a provisional government, which he advocated in a speech extending through three days: on the 10th it was rejected by a vote of 12 to 35 An amendment offered by Mr. Foote, erecting the part of California south of 36° 30' into a distinct territory, was rejected by a vote of 13 to 30. On the 12th the bill was ordered to be engrossed, yeas 33, nays 19; and on the 13th, after a brief but warm debate, in the course of which Senators BERRIEN and CLEMENS denounced the bill as fraught with mischief and peril to the Union, and Mr. HOUSTON ridiculed the apprehensions thus expressed, the bill was finally passed, yeas 34, nays 18, as follows:

YEAS--Messrs. Baldwin, Bell, Benton, Bradbury, Bright, Cass, Chase, Cooper, Davis, of Massachusetts, Dickinson, Dodge, of Wisconsin, Dodge, of Iowa, Douglas, Ewing, Felch, Green, Hale, Hamlin, Houston, Jones, Miller, Norris, Phelps, Seward, Shields, Smith, Spruance, Sturgeon, Underwood, Upham, Wales, Walker, Whitcomb, and Winthrop--34.

NAYS.--Messrs. Atchison, Barnwell, Berrien, Butler, Clemens, Davis, of Mississippi, Dawson, Foote, Hunter, King, Mason, Morton, Pratt, Rusk, Sebastian, Soulé, Turney, and Yulee--18.

The next day a Protest against the admission of California, signed by Senators Mason and Hunter, of Virginia, Butler and Barnwell, of South Carolina, Turney, of Tennessee, Soulé, of Louisiana, Davis, of Mississippi, Atchison, of Missouri, and Morton and Yulee, of Florida, was presented, and a request made that it might be entered on the Journal. This, however, the Senate refused. Thus was completed the action of the Senate on the admission of California.

On the 5th of August Mr. PEARCE, of Md., introduced a bill, making proposals to Texas for the settlement of her western and northern boundaries. It proposes that the boundary on the north shall commence at the point where the meridian of 100° west longitude intersects the parallel of 36° 30' north latitude, and shall run due west to the meridian of 103° west longitude: thence it shall run due south to the 32d degree north latitude, thence on the said parallel to the Rio del Norte, and thence with the channel of said river to the Gulf of Mexico. For relinquishing all claims to the United States government for territory beyond the line thus defined, the bill proposes to pay Texas ten millions of dollars. The bill was debated for several successive days, and on the 9th was ordered to be engrossed, yeas 27, nays 24, and received its final passage on the same day, yeas 30, nays 20, as follows:

YEAS.--Messrs. Badger, Bell, Berrien, Bradbury, Bright, Cass, Clarke, Clemens, Cooper, Davis, of Massachusetts, Dawson, Dickinson, Dodge, of Iowa, Douglas, Felch, Foote, Greene, Houston, King, Norris, Pearce, Phelps, Rusk, Shields, Smith, Spruance, Sturgeon, Wales, Whitcomb, and Winthrop--30.

NAYS.--Messrs. Atchison, Baldwin, Barnwell, Benton, Butler, Chase, Davis, of Mississippi, Dodge, of Wisconsin, Ewing, Hale, Hunter, Mason, Morton, Seward, Soulé, Turney, Underwood, Upham, Walker, and Yulee--20.

Thus was completed the action of the Senate on the second of the great questions which have enlisted so much of public attention during the past few months.--On the 14th the bill providing a territorial government for New Mexico was taken up. Mr. CHASE moved to amend it by inserting a clause prohibiting the existence of slavery within its limits, which was rejected, ayes 20, nays 25. The bill was then ordered to be engrossed for a third reading, which it had, and was finally passed.

In the House of Representatives, no business of importance has been transacted. The Civil and Diplomatic Appropriation Bill has been discussed, and efforts have been made to change the existing rules of the House so as to facilitate public business; but nothing important has been done.--On the 6th of August President FILLMORE sent to the House a Message, transmitting a letter he had received from Governor BELL, of Texas, announcing that he had sent a commissioner to extend the laws of Texas over that part of New Mexico which she claims, and that he had been resisted by the inhabitants and the United States military authorities. The President says in his Message that he deems it his duty to execute the laws of the United States, and that Congress has given him full power to put down any resistance that may be organized against them. Texas as a state has no authority or power beyond her own limits; and if she attempts to prevent the execution of any law of the United States, in any state or territory beyond her jurisdiction, the President is bound by his oath to resist such attempts by all the power which the Constitution has placed at his command. The question is then considered whether there is any law in New Mexico, resistance to which would call for the interposition of the Executive authority. The President regards New Mexico as a territory of the United States, with the same boundaries which it had before the war with Mexico, and while in possession of that country. By the treaty of peace the boundary line between the two countries is defined, and perfect security and protection in the free enjoyment of their liberty and property, and in the free exercise of their religion, is guaranteed to those Mexicans who may choose to reside on the American side of that line. This treaty is part of the law of the land, and as such must be maintained until superseded or displaced by other legal provisions; and if it be obstructed, the case is regarded as one which comes within the provisions of law, and which obliges the President to enforce these provisions. "Neither the Constitution or the laws," says Mr. FILLMORE, "nor my duty or my oath of office, leave me any alternative, or any choice, in my mode of action." The Executive has no power or authority to determine the true line of boundary, but it is his duty, in maintaining the laws, to have regard to the actual state of things as it existed at the date of the treaty--all must be now regarded as New Mexico which was possessed and occupied as New Mexico by citizens of Mexico at the date of the treaty, until a definite line of boundary shall be established by competent authority. Having thus indicated the course which he should pursue, the President expresses his earnest desire that the question of boundary should be settled by Congress, with the assent of the government of Texas. He deprecates delay, and objects to the appointment of commissioners. He expresses the opinion that an indemnity may very properly be offered to Texas, and says that no event would be hailed with more satisfaction by the people than the amicable adjustment of questions of difficulty which have now for a long time agitated the country, and occupied, to the exclusion of other subjects, the time and attention of Congress. Accompanying the Message was a letter from Mr. WEBSTER, Secretary of State, in reply to that of Governor BELL. Mr. WEBSTER vindicates the action of the military authorities in New Mexico, saying that they had been instructed to aid and advance any attempt of the inhabitants to form a state government, and that in all they did they acted as agents of the inhabitants rather than officers of the government. An outline is given of the history of the acquisition of New Mexico, and it is clearly shown that every thing thus far has been done in strict accordance with the stipulations of the treaty, and with the position and principles of the late President Polk. The military government existed in New Mexico as a matter of necessity, and must remain until superseded by some other form. The President approves entirely of the measures taken by Colonel Munroe, while he takes no part, and expresses no opinion touching the boundary claimed by Texas. These documents were ordered to be printed and were referred to committees.

Mr. PEARCE of Maryland, and Mr. BATES of Missouri, who were invited by President FILLMORE to become members of his cabinet, both declined. Hon. T. M. T. MCKENNAN of Pennsylvania, has been appointed Secretary of the Interior, and Hon. CHAS. M. CONRAD of Louisiana, Secretary of War, in their places. Both have accepted.--It is stated that Hon. D. D. BARNARD of New-York, has been nominated as Minister to Prussia. Mr. B. is one of the ablest writers and most accomplished scholars in the country.--A regular line of stages has just been established to run monthly between Independence, Missouri, and Santa-Fé, in New Mexico. Each coach is to carry eight persons, and to be made water tight, so as to be used as a boat in crossing streams. This will prove to be an important step toward the settlement of the great western region of our Union.--An active canvass has been going on in Virginia for the election of members of a convention to revise the state constitution. The questions at issue grow mainly out of a contest between the eastern and western sections of the state for supremacy. The west has been gaining upon the east in population very rapidly during the last fifteen or twenty years. The east claims a representation based upon property, by which it hopes to maintain its supremacy, while the west insists that population alone should be made the basis of political representation. The contest is carried on with a great deal of warmth and earnestness.--Elections of considerable interest have taken place during the month in several of the states. In Missouri, where five members of Congress were chosen, three of them, Messrs. PORTER, DARBY, and MILLER, are known to be Whigs. In the other two districts the result has not been ascertained. The change which this result indicates, is attributed to the course taken by Senator BENTON, in refusing to obey the instructions of the state legislature, and in denouncing them as connected with the scheme of disunion, which he charged upon certain southern politicians. This led to a division in his own party, which enabled the Whigs to elect a part, at least, of the Congressional delegation.--In North Carolina an election for governor, has resulted in the choice of Col. REID, Democrat, by 3000 majority. In the state senate the Democrats have four, and in the house they have 10 majority. This enables them to choose a democratic U.S. Senator in place of Mr. MANGUM, the present Whig incumbent.--In Indiana the election has given the Democrats control of the legislature and of the state convention for the revision of the constitution.--The authorities of Buffalo some weeks since, hearing that Lord Elgin, Governor of Canada, was about to visit their city, prepared for him a public reception. Circumstances prevented the fulfillment of the purpose, but the courtesy of the people of Buffalo was communicated by Lord Elgin to his government at home, and acknowledged by Earl Grey in a letter to our Department of State. In further acknowledgement the Legislature of Canada, and the Corporation of Toronto, invited the authorities of Buffalo to pay them a visit, which was done on the 8th of August, when they were welcomed by a very brilliant reception. This interchange of courtesies is peculiarly creditable to both parties, and highly gratifying to both countries.--The Legislature of Wisconsin has enacted a law making it a penal offence for any owner or lessee of land to allow the Canada thistle to go to seed upon it.--The Board of Visitors appointed by the Government to attend the annual examination at West Point, have made their report, giving a detailed account of their observations, and concluding by expressing the opinion, that the Military Academy is one of the most useful and highly creditable in our country; that it has been mainly instrumental in forming the high character which our army now sustains before the civilized world, and that it is entitled to the confidence and fostering care of the Government.--Hon. HENRY CLAY has been spending the August weeks at Newport, R.I. He has received essential benefit from the sea-bathing and the relief from public care which his temporary residence there affords.--Commodore JACOB JONES, of the United States Navy, died at his residence in Philadelphia, on the 3d ult. He was in the 83d year of his age, and stood nearly at the head of the list of post captains, Commodores BARRON and STEWART only preceding him. He was a native of Delaware, and one of the number who, in the war of 1812, contributed to establish the naval renown of our country. For the gallant manner in which, while in command of the brig Wasp, he captured the British brig Frolic, of superior force, he was voted a sword by each of the States of Delaware, Massachusetts, and New-York. He was, until recently, the Governor of the Naval Asylum, near Philadelphia.--The city authorities of Boston, acting under the advice of the Consulting Physicians, have decided to abandon all quarantine regulations, as neither useful nor effectual in preventing the introduction of epidemic diseases.--Professor FORSHEY, in an essay just published, proves by the result of observations kept up through a great number of years, that the channel of the Mississippi river is _deepening_, and consequently the levee system will not necessarily elevate the bed of the river, as has been feared. On the contrary, he thinks confining the river within a narrow channel will give it additional velocity, ant serve to scrape out the bottom; while opening artificial outlets, by diminishing the current, will cause the rapid deposition of sediment, and thus produce evil to be guarded against.--A project has been broached for completing the line of railroads from Boston to Halifax, and then to have the Atlantic steamers run between that port and Galway, the most westerly port of Ireland. In this way it is thought that the passage from Liverpool to New York may be considerably shortened.

In SCIENTIFIC matters some interesting and important experiments have been made by Prof. PAGE of the Smithsonian Institute, on the subject of Electro-Magnetism as a motive power, the results of which have recently been announced by him in public lectures. He states that there can be no further doubt as to the application of this power as a substitute for steam. He exhibited experiments in which a bar of iron weighing one hundred and sixty pounds was made to spring up ten inches through the air, and says that he can as readily move a bar weighing a hundred tons through a space of a hundred feet. He expects to be able to apply it to forge hammers, pile drivers, &c, and to engines with a stroke of six, ten, or twenty feet. He exhibited also an engine of between four and five horse power, worked by a battery contained in a space of three cubic feet. It was a reciprocating engine of two feet stroke, the engine and battery weighing about one ton, and driving a circular saw ten inches in diameter, sawing boards an inch and a quarter thick, making eighty strokes a minute. The professor says that the cost of the power is less than steam under most conditions, though not so low as the cheapest steam engines. The consumption of three pounds of zinc per day produces one horse power. The larger his engines the greater the economy. Some practical difficulties remain to be overcome in the application of the power to practical purposes on a larger scale: but little doubt seems to be entertained that such an application is feasible. The result is one of very great importance to science, as well as to the arts of practical life.--We made a statement in our July number of the pretensions of Mr. Henry M. Paine, of Worcester, Mass., to having discovered a new method of procuring hydrogen from water, and rendering it capable of giving a brilliant light, with great case and at a barely nominal expense, by passing it through cold spirits of turpentine. His claims have been very generally discredited, and were supposed to have been completely exploded by the examinations of several scientific gentlemen of Boston and New York. Mr. GEORGE MATHIOT, an electro-metallurgist attached to the United States Coast Survey, and a gentleman of scientific habits and attainments, has published in the Scientific American, a statement that he has succeeded in a kindred attempt. He produced a very brilliant light, nearly equal to the Drummond, by passing hydrogen through turpentine: and in thus passing the gas from thirty-three ounces of zinc through it, the quantity of turpentine was not perceptibly diminished. "In this case," he says, "the hydrogen could not have been changed into carburetted hydrogen, for coal gas contains from four to five times as much carbon as hydrogen, and pure carburetted hydrogen has six times as much carbon as hydrogen; and, as 33 ounces of zinc, by solution, liberate one ounce, or twelve cubic feet of hydrogen, therefore, from four to six ounces of turpentine should have been used up, supposing it to be all carbon; but turpentine is composed of twenty atoms of carbon to fifteen atoms of hydrogen, and, consequently, only one-seventh of its carbon can be taken up by the hydrogen; or, in other words, forty-two ounces of turpentine will be required to carburet one ounce of hydrogen." He tried the experiment afterward, placing the whole apparatus in a cold bath to prevent evaporation, and again by heating the turpentine to 120 degrees--but in both cases with the same result. He used the same turpentine and had a brilliant light for nearly three hours, and yet the quantity was not perceptibly diminished. Mr. Mathiot claims that his experiments prove conclusively that hydrogen can be used for illumination, but at what comparative rate of expense he does not state.--The American Scientific Association commenced its annual session at New Haven on the 19th of August. This is an association formed for the advancement of science and embraces within its members nearly all the leading scientific men of the United States. Prof. BACHE presides. The proceedings of these conventions, made up of papers on scientific subjects read by distinguished gentlemen, are published in a volume, and form a valuable contribution to American scientific literature.--Intelligence has been received, by way of England, and also, direct, from two of the American vessels sent out in search of Sir John Franklin. The brig _Advance_ arrived at Whalefish Island, on the West Coast of Greenland, on the 24th of June, and the _Rescue_ arrived two days after. Two of the British steamers and two of the ships had also arrived. All on board were well, and in good spirits for prosecuting the expedition. Enormous icebergs were, seen by the American vessels on the voyage, some of them rising 150 or 200 feet above the water. A letter from an officer of the _Rescue_ says they expected to go to a place called Uppermarik, about two hundred miles from Whalefish Island, thence to Melville Bay, and across Lancaster Sound to Cape Walker, and from that point they would try to go to Melville Island and as much farther as possible. They intended to winter at Melville Island, but that would depend upon circumstances.

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The LITERARY INTELLIGENCE of the month presents no feature of special interest. The first volume of a series of Reminiscences of Congress, made up mainly of a biography of DANIEL WEBSTER, has just been issued from the press of Messrs. Baker and Scribner. It is by CHARLES W. MARCH, Esq., a young man of fine talents, and of unusual advantages for the preparation of such a work. His style is eminently graphic and classical, and the book is one which merits attention.--The same publishers will also publish a volume of sketches by IK. MARVEL, the well-known pseudonym of Mr. D. G. MITCHELL, whose "Fresh Gleanings," and "Battle Summer," have already made him very favorably known to the literary community.--Prof. TORREY, of the University of Vermont, has prepared for the press the fourth volume of his translation of NEANDER'S Church History, which will be issued soon. It is understood that, at the time of his death, the great German scholar was engaged upon the fifth volume of his history, which is therefore left unfinished.--The Appletons announce a Life of JOHN RANDOLPH, by Hon. A. H. GARLAND, which can not fail to be an attractive and interesting work. They are also to publish the magnificently-illustrated book on the war between the United States and Mexico, upon which GEO. W. KENDALL has been engaged for a year or two., It is to embrace splendid pictorial drawings of all the principal conflicts, taken on the spot, by Carl Nebel, a German artist of distinction, with a description of each battle by Mr. KENDALL. It will be issued in one volume, folio, beautifully colored.

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The past month has been distinguished by the annual commencements of the academic year in most of the colleges of the country. At these anniversary occasions, the candidates for honors make public exhibition of their ability; the literary societies attached to the colleges hold their celebrations: and addresses and poems are delivered by literary gentlemen previously invited to perform that duty. The number of colleges in the country, and the fact that the most distinguished scholars in the country are generally selected for the office, gives to these occasions a peculiar and decided interest; and the addresses then and thus pronounced, being published, form no inconsiderable or unworthy portion of the literature of the age. The commencement at Yale College was celebrated at New Haven, on the 15th ult. The recurrence of the third semi-centennial anniversary of the foundation of the college, in 1700, led to additional exercises of great interest, under the supervision of the alumni of the college, of whom over 3000 are still living, and about 1000 of whom were present. President WOOLSEY delivered a very interesting historical discourse, sketching the origin, progress, and results of the institution, and claiming for it a steady and successful effort to meet the requirements of the country and the age. The discourse, when published, will form a valuable contribution to the historical literature of the country. The alumni, at their dinner, which followed the address, listened to some eloquent and interesting speeches from ex-President DAY and Prof. SILLIMAN, touching the history of Yale College; from Prof. FELTON, concerning Harvard; from LEONARD BACON, D.D., in reference to the clergy educated at Yale; from EDWARD BATES, of Missouri, concerning the West and the Union; from Prof. BROWN, of Dartmouth; from DANIEL LORD, of New York, upon the Bench and the Bar; and from Dr. STEVENS, upon the Medical Profession, as connected with Yale College; and from other gentlemen of distinction and ability, upon various topics. JOHN W. ANDREWS, Esq., of Columbus, O., delivered the oration before the Phi Beta Kappa Society; his subject was the Progress of the World during the last half century. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, of Cambridge, delivered the poem, which was one of his most admirable productions--a blending of the most exquisite descriptive and sentimental poetry with the finest humor, the keenest wit, and the most effective sarcasm. PIERPONT, the well-known poet, also read an admirable satirical and humorous poem at the dinner: The number of graduates at Yale this year was seventy-eight.--The commencement of the University of Vermont occurred on the 7th. Rev. HENRY WILKES, of Montreal, delivered an address before the Society for Religious Inquiry, upon the Relations of the Age to Theology. H. J. RAYMOND, of New-York, addressed the Associate Alumni on the Duties of American Scholars, with special reference to certain aspects of American Society; and Rev. Mr. WASHBURN, of Newburyport, Mass., delivered an address before the Literary Societies, on the Developments and Influences of the Spiritual Philosophy The number of graduates was fifteen--considerably less than usual.--Union College at Schenectady, N.Y., celebrated its commencement on the 24th of July. Rev. Dr. S. H. Cox, of Brooklyn, delivered the address. The number of graduates was eighty.--At Dartmouth, commencement occurred on the 25th of July. Rev. Dr. SPRAGUE, of Albany, addressed the alumni on the Perpetuity of Literary Influence; DAVID PAUL BROWN, Esq., of Philadelphia, the Literary Societies, on Character, its Force and Results; and Rev. ALBERT BARNES, of the same city, addressed the Theological Society on the Theology of the Unknown. The number of graduates was forty-six.--On the 24th of July, the regular commencement-day, Hon. THEO. FRELINGHUYSEN was inaugurated as President of Rutgers College, N.J. His address was one of great ability and eloquence, enforcing the importance of academic education to the age and the country. The number of graduates was twenty-four.--Amherst College celebrated its commencement on the 8th The number of graduates was twenty-four Rev. Dr. Cox addressed the Society of Inquiry on the importance of having history studied as a science in our colleges. A. B. STREET, Esq., of Albany, delivered a poem, and Mr. E. P. WHIPPLE, of Boston, an admirable and eloquent oration on the characteristics and tendencies of American genius. He repeated the oration at the Wesleyan University, at Middletown, Conn.; where a brilliant oration by Prof. D. D. WHEDON, and a poem by Mr. W. H. C. HOSMER, were delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society. An able and learned address was delivered before the Alumni by Rev. J. CUMMINGS. The number of graduates was nineteen.--Some important changes are to be made in the organization of Brown University, in accordance with the principles and views recently set forth by President WAYLAND, in a published pamphlet. Greater prominence is to be given to the study of the natural sciences as applied to the arts of practical life, and the study of the ancient languages is to be made optional with students. The sum of $108,000 has been raised by subscriptions in aid of the institution. Rev. ASAHEL KENDRICK, of Madison University, has been elected Professor of Greek; WILLIAM A. NORTON, of Delaware College, Professor of Natural Philosophy and Civil Engineering; and JOHN A. PORTER, of the Lawrence Scientific School, Professor of Chemistry applied to the Arts.--Rev. Dr. Tefft, of Cincinnati, has been elected President of the Genesee College just established at Lima, N.Y. The sum of $100,000 has been raised for its support.

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From CALIFORNIA our intelligence is to the 15th of July, received by the Philadelphia steamer, which brought gold to the value of over a million of dollars. The accounts from the gold mines are unusually good. The high water at most of the old mines prevented active operations; but many new deposits had been discovered, especially upon the head waters of Feather river, and between that and Sacramento river. Gold has also been discovered at the upper end of Carson river valley, near and at the eastern base of the Sierra Nevada. A lump of quartz mixed with gold, weighing thirty pounds, and containing twenty-three pounds of pure gold, has been found between the North and Middle Forks of the Yuba river. At Nevada and the Gold Run, where the deposits were supposed to have been exhausted, further explorations have shown it in very great abundance, at a depth, sometimes, of forty feet below the surface. The hills and ravines in the neighborhood are said to be very rich in gold.--A very alarming state of things exists in the southern mines, owing, in a great degree, to the disaffection created by the tax levied upon foreign miners. Murders and other crimes of the most outrageous character are of constant occurrence, and in the immediate vicinity of Sonora, it is stated that more than twenty murders had been committed within a fortnight. Guerrilla parties, composed mainly of Mexican robbers, were in the mountains, creating great alarm, and rendering life and property in their vicinity wholly insecure. Fresh Indian troubles had also broken out on the Tuolumne: three Americans had been shot.--The Odd Fellows have erected a grand edifice at San Francisco for the accommodation of their order.--The Fourth of July was celebrated with great enthusiasm throughout California.--It is stated that a line of steamers is to be run from San Francisco direct to Canton. Whether the enterprise be undertaken at once or not, it cannot, in the natural course of events, be delayed many years. The settlement of California will lead, directly or indirectly, to a constant commercial intercourse with China, and will exert a more decided influence upon the trade and civilization of eastern Asia, than any other event of the present century. California can not long continue dependent upon the Atlantic coast, still less upon the countries of Europe, for the teas, silks, spices, &c, which her population will require. She is ten thousand miles nearer to their native soil than either England, France, or the United States, and will, of course, procure them for herself rather than through their agency.

From OREGON we have intelligence to the first of July. Governor LANE has resigned his post as governor of the territory, and was about starting on a gold-hunting expedition. It is said that one of the richest gold mines on the Pacific coast has been discovered in the Spokan country, some 400 miles above Astoria, on the Columbia river. Parties were on their way to examine it. Extensive discoveries of gold, we may say here, are reported to have been made in Venezuela, on a branch of the river Orinoco. The papers of that country are full of exultation over this discovery, from which they anticipate means to pay the English debt within a single year.

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From MEXICO our dates are to the 16th of July. The ravages of the Indians in the Northern districts still continue. In Chihuahua they have become so extensive that a body of three hundred men was to be sent to suppress them. The State of Durango has also been almost overrun by them. In Sonora several severe conflicts have taken place in which the troops were victorious. The cholera has almost ceased.

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In ENGLAND, no event has excited more interest than the claim of his seat in the House of Commons by Baron ROTHSCHILD. At his request, a meeting of the electors of the city of London was held July 25th, to confer on the course proper to be pursued. The meeting concluded by resolving that Baron R. ought to claim his seat, which he accordingly did on the 26th of July. He asked to be sworn on the Old Testament, against which Sir Robert Inglis protested. The question was debated for several days, and was finally postponed until the next session.--The proceedings of PARLIAMENT, during the month, have not been of special interest. The House of Commons passed the resolutions approving of the foreign policy of the ministry, and especially its conduct in regard to the claims on the government of Greece, by a vote of ayes 310, nays 264, showing a ministerial majority of 46. The selection of a site for the great Industrial Exhibition of next year has elicited a good deal of discussion. Hyde Park has been fixed upon as the site against the very earnest remonstrances of many who live in its vicinity; and the building committee have accepted an offer made by Mr. Paxton, to erect a building chiefly of iron and glass. It is to be of wood-work to the height of eighteen feet, and arrangements have been made to provide complete ventilation, and to secure a moderate temperature. It is to be made in Birmingham, and the entire cost is stated at about a million of dollars. There will be on the ground-floor alone seven miles of tables. There will be 1,200,000 square feet of glass, 24 miles of one description of gutter, and 218 miles of "sash-bar;" and in the construction 4500 tons of iron will be expended. The wooden floor will be arranged with "divisions," so as to allow the dust to fall through.--An attempt was made to secure a vote in the House of Commons in favor of repealing the malt-tax, on the ground that it pressed too heavily upon the agricultural interest; but it failed, 247 voting against it and 123 in its favor.--An effort was made to extend still further the principles of the reform bill, by making the franchise of counties in England and Wales the same as it is in boroughs, giving the right of voting to all occupiers of tenements of the annual value of £10. The motion was warmly advocated by several members, but opposed by Lord John Russel, partly on the ground that it was brought forward at a wrong time, and partly because he thought the changes contemplated inconsistent with the maintenance of the monarchy, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons, which were fundamental parts of the British Constitution. The motion was lost by 159 to 100.--A motion to inquire into the working of the existing regulation concerning Sunday labor in the Post-offices was carried 195 to 112.--A motion made by Lord John Russell to erect a monument in Westminster Abbey, to the memory of Sir Robert Peel was carried by acclamation.--The sum of £12,000 per annum was voted to the present Duke of Cambridge, and £3000 to the Princess Mary of Cambridge--being grandchildren of the late King George III.--not without strenuous opposition from members, who thought the sums unnecessarily large.

A petition was recently presented in the House of Lords, purporting to be signed by 18,000 rate payers, against the bill for the Liverpool Corporation Water-works. In consequence of suspicions that were entertained, the document was referred to a select committee and it was found on investigation that many of the names had been affixed by clerks, and the paper then wet to make it appear that it had been carried round from place to place in the rain. Evidence was taken showing that this had been a very common practice of agents employed by the parties interested to get up signatures to petitions. The Committee in the House of Lords had expressed themselves very strongly as to the necessity of some law for preventing such abuses in future.--The criminal tables for the year 1849 have been laid before Parliament. Of the persons committed for trial during the year, 6786 were acquitted, and 21,001 convicted. Of these convicted one in 318 was sentenced to death, and one in 8 to transportation. There has been no execution since 1841 except for murder: of 19 persons convicted during the past year of this offense 15 were executed, _five_ of whom were females.--The Royal Agricultural Society held its annual meeting July 18th at Exeter. Mr. LAWRENCE the American Minister at London, and Mr. RIVES the Minister at Paris were both present and made eloquent speeches, upon the agricultural state of England.--The boiler of the steamer Red Rover at Bristol exploded July 22d, killing six persons and severely injuring many others.--An explosion took place in the coal-pits belonging to Mr. Sneden, near Airdrie on the 23d, by which _nineteen_ persons were instantly killed. Only one man in the mine escaped; he saved his life by throwing himself upon the ground the moment he heard the explosion. The men were not provided with Davy safety-lamps.--At a meeting of the Royal Humane Society a new invention of Lieutenant Halkett, of the Navy, was introduced. It is a boat-cloak which may be worn, like a common cloak on the shoulders, and may be inflated in three or four minutes by a bellows and will then sustain six or eight persons--forming a kind of boat which it is almost impossible to overturn. A trial was to be made of its efficacy.--Sir Thomas Wilde has been made Lord Chancellor and raised to the peerage by the title of Baron Truro of Bowes, in the County of Middlesex.--Sir Robert Peel, Bart., has been returned to Parliament for the borough of Tamworth made vacant by the death of his father. It is stated that Sir Robert's last injunction was that his children should not receive titles or pensions for any supposed services their father might have rendered. This is in keeping with the severe simplicity of his character and negatives conclusively the representations of those who have charged his advocacy of measures designed to aid the poor, to interested motives of selfish or family ambition. A subscription has been set on foot for a testimonial to his memory to be called "the Working-man's Monument."

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The foreign LITERARY INTELLIGENCE of the month is unusually meagre. The only work of great interest that has been published is WORDSWORTH'S posthumous Poem, _The Prelude_, of which a somewhat extended notice will be found on a preceding page. It has already been republished in this country, where it will find a wide circle of sympathizing readers. The Household Narrative, in summing up the literary news, says that another note-worthy poem of the month, also a posthumous publication though written some years ago, is a dramatic piece attributed to Mr. Beddoes, and partaking largely of his well-known eccentricity and genius, called _Death's Jest-Book or the Fool's Tragedy_. A republication of Mr. Cottle's twenty-four books of _Alfred_, though the old pleasant butt and "jest-book" of his ancient friend Charles Lamb, is said hardly to deserve even so many words of mention. Nor is there much novelty in _A Selection from the Poems and Dramatic Works of Theodore Korner_, though the translation is a new one, and by the clever translator of the _Nibelungen_. To this brief catalogue of works of fancy is added the mention of two somewhat clever tales in one volume, with the title of _Hearts in Mortmain_ and _Cornelia_, intended to illustrate the working of particular phases of mental emotion; and another by Mrs. Trollope, called _Petticoat Government_.----In the department of history there is nothing more important than a somewhat small volume with the very large title of the _Correspondence of the Emperor Charles V. and his Embassadors at the Courts of England and France_; which turns out to be a limited selection from letters existing in the archives at Vienna, but not uninteresting to English readers, from the fact of their incidental illustrations of the history of Henry VIII., and the close of Wolsey's career. Two books of less pretension have contributed new facts to the history of the late civil war in Hungary; the first from the Austrian point of view by an _Eye-witness_, and the second from the Hungarian by _Max Schlesinger_. Mr. Baillie Cochrane has also contributed his mite to the elucidation of recent revolutions in a volume called _Young Italy_, which is chiefly remarkable for its praise of Lord Brougham, its defense of the Pope, its exaggerated scene-painting of the murder of Rossi, its abuse of the Roman Republic, and its devotion of half a line to the mention of Mazzini.

Better worthy of brief record are the few miscellaneous publications, which comprise an excellent new translation of _Rochefoucauld's Maxims_, with a better account of the author, and more intelligent notes, than exist in any previous edition; most curious and interesting _Memorials of the Empire of Japan in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries_, which Mr. Rundell of the East India House has issued under the superintendence of the Hakluyt Society, and which illustrate English relations with those Japanese; an intelligent and striking summary of the _Antiquities of Richborough, Reculver, and Lynne_, written by Mr. Roach Smith and illustrated by Mr. Fairholt, which exhibits the results of recent discoveries of many remarkable Roman antiquities in Kent; and a brief, unassuming narrative of the Hudson's Bay Company's _Expedition to the Shores of the Arctic Sea in 1846 and 1847_, by the commander of the expedition, Mr. John Rae.

Ballooning in France and England seems to have become a temporary mania. The ascent of Messrs. Barral and Bixio, of which a detailed and very interesting account will be found in a preceding page, has encouraged imitators in various styles. One M. Poitevin made an ascent in Paris seated on a horse, which was attached to the balloon in place of the car. The London _Athenæum_ invokes the aid of the police to prevent such needless cruelty to animals, and to exercise proper supervision over the madmen who undertake such fool-hardy feats.----A plaster mask said to have been taken from the face of Shakspeare, and bearing the date 1616 on its back, has been brought to London from Mayence, which is said to have been procured from an ecclesiastical personage of high rank at Cologne. It excites considerable attention among virtuosos.----The English, undeterred by the indignation which has been poured out upon Lord Elgin by BYRON and others for rifling Athens of its antiquities for display at home, are practicing the same desecration in regard to the treasures discovered in Nineveh by Mr. Layard. It is announced that the Great Bull and upwards of 100 tons of sculpture excavated by him, may be expected in England in September for the British Museum. The French Government are also making extensive collections of Assyrian works of art.----Among those who perished by the loss of the British steamer _Orion_ was Dr. JOHN BURNS, Professor of Surgery in the University of Glasgow, and a man of considerable eminence in his profession. He was the author of several works upon various medical subjects and had also written upon literary and theological topics. Dr. GRAY, Professor of Oriental languages in the same university has also deceased within the month.----A new filtering apparatus, intended to render sea-water drinkable, has recently been brought to the notice of the Paris Academy.----A letter in the London _Athenæum_ from the Nile complains bitterly of the constant devastation of the remains of ancient temples, &c., caused by the rapacious economy of the government. The writer states that immense sculptured and painted blocks have been taken from the temple of Karnac, for the construction of a sugar factory; a fine ancient tomb has also entirely disappeared under this process. Very earnest complaints are also made of the Prussian traveler Dr. Lepsius, for carrying away relies of antiquity, and for destroying others. The writer urges that if this process is continued Egypt will lose far more by the cessation of English travel than she can gain in the value of material used.----Rev. W. KIRBY, distinguished as one of the first entomologists of the age, died at his residence in Suffolk, July 4th, at the advanced age of 91. He has left behind him several works of great ability and reputation on his favorite science.----It is stated that the late Sir Robert Peel left his papers to Lord Mahon and Mr. Edward Cardwell M.P.----Among the deaths of the month we find that of an amiable man and accomplished writer, Mr. B. Simmons, whose name will be recollected as that of a frequent contributor of lyrical poems of a high order to _Blackwood's Magazine_, and to several of the Annuals. Mr. Simmons, who held a situation in the Excise office, died July 19th.----GUIZOT, the eminent historian, on the marriage of his two daughters recently to descendants of the illustrious Hollander De WITT, was unable to give them any thing as marriage portions. Notwithstanding the eminent positions he has filled for so much of his life--positions which most men would have made the means of acquiring enormous wealth, GUIZOT is still poor. This fact alone furnishes at once evidence and illustration of his sterling integrity.----A new History of Spain, by ST. HILAIRE, is in course of publication in Paris. He has been engaged upon it for a number of years, and it is said to be a work of great ability and learning.----LEVERRIER, the French astronomer, has published a strong appeal in favor of throwing the electric telegraph open to the public in France, as it has been in the United States. At present it is guarded by the government as a close monopoly. His paper contains a good deal of interesting matter in regard to this greatest of modern inventions.----MEINHOLD, the author of the "Amber Witch," has lately been fined and imprisoned for slandering a brother clergyman. This is the second instance in which he has been convicted of this offense.----M. GUIZOT has addressed a long letter to each of the five classes of the Institute of France, to declare that he can not accept the candidateship offered him for a seat in the Superior Council of Public Instruction.----Sir EDWARD BULWER LYTTON is to be a candidate for the House of Commons, with Colonel Sibthorpe, for Lincoln. He has a new play forthcoming for the Princess's Theater.----Miss STRICKLAND has in preparation a series of volumes on the Queens of Scotland, as a companion to her interesting and successful work on the Queens of England.----Sir FRANCIS KNOWLES has recently taken out a patent for producing iron in an improved form. In blast-furnaces, as at present constructed, the ore, the flux, and combustibles, are mixed together; and the liberated gases of the fuel injure the quality of the iron, and cause great waste, in the shape of slag. By the new process the ore is to be kept separate from the sulphureous fuel in a compartment contrived for the purpose, in the centre of the furnace, where it will be in contact with peat only; and in this way the waste will be avoided, and a quality of metal will be produced fully equal to the best Swedish. The invention is likely to be one of considerable importance.----Professor JOHNSTON, the distinguished English agriculturist, who visited this country last year, and lectured in several of the principal cities, at a late farmers' meeting in Berwickshire, gave a general account of the state of agriculture in America, as it fell under his personal observation. He represented it in the Northern States as about what it was in Scotland eighty or ninety years ago. The land in all New England he said had been exhausted by bad farming, and even in the Western States the tendency of things was to the same result. He thought it would not be long before America would be utterly unable to export wheat to England in any large quantity.

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Affairs in FRANCE are still unsettled. The Government goes steadily forward in the enactment of laws restraining the Press, forbidding free discussion among the people, diminishing popular rights and preparing the way, by all the means in their power, for another revolution. The most explicit provisions of the Constitution have been set aside and the government of the Republic is really more despotic than was that of Louis Philippe at any time during his reign. A warm debate occurred in the Assembly on the bill for restricting the liberty of the press. It commenced on the 8th of July and gave occasion to a violent scene. M. Rouher, the Minister of Justice, spoke of the Revolution of February as a "disastrous catastrophe," which elicited loud demands from the opposition that he should be called to order. The President refused to call him to order and M. Girardin threatened to resign saying, that he would not sit in an assembly where such language was permitted. He did not resign, however, but his friends contented themselves with handing in a protest the next day which the President refused to receive. The debate then proceeded and an amendment was passed, 313 to 281, declaring that all leading articles in journals should be signed by the writers. On the 15th an amendment was adopted that papers publishing a _feuilleton_ should pay an additional tax of one centime beyond the ordinary stamp duty. On the 16th the bill was finally passed by a vote of 390 to 265.

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From PORTUGAL we learn that Mr. CLAY, having failed to secure from the Portuguese government a compliance with the demands he was instructed to make, asked for his passports and withdrew. The difficulty engages the attention of the Portuguese Minister at Washington, and the Department of State, and it is supposed that it will be amicably settled. No details of the negotiations in progress have been made public, but it is understood that no doubt exists as to the result.

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In GERMANY the event of the month which excites most interest in this country, is the death of NEANDER. Our preceding pages contain a notice of his life, writings, and character, which renders any further mention here unnecessary.----At Berlin the Academy of Sciences has been holding a sitting, according to its statutes, in honor of the memory of Leibnitz. In the course of the oration delivered on the occasion it was stated that, the 4th of August next being the 50th anniversary of the admission of Alexander von Humboldt as a member of the Academy, it has been resolved, in celebration of the event, to place a marble bust of the "Nestor of Science" in the lecture-room of the Society.

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From SPAIN there is nothing of importance. The Queen, Isabella, gave birth to an heir, on the 13th of July, but it lived scarcely an hour, so that the Duchess of Montpensier is still heir presumptive to the throne. The Count of Montemolin has married a sister of the king of Naples, and the Spanish minister, taking offense, has left that court.

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From DENMARK there is intelligence of new hostilities. The Schleswig-Holstein difficulty, which was supposed to have been settled, has broken out afresh. The negotiations which had been in progress between the five great powers, were broken off by Prussia, she declaring that neither Austria nor Prussia could ever assent to considering the provinces in question as parts of the Danish monarchy. The failure to agree upon satisfactory terms, led both parties to prepare for renewed hostilities, and a severe engagement took place on the 25th of July, between the Danes and the Holsteiners, in which the latter were defeated. The field of action was Idstedt, a small village on the Flensburg road. The Danish army amounted to about 45,000 men, commanded by General Von Krogh; the army of the Holsteiners to 28,000 only, commanded at the centre by General Willisen, a Prussian volunteer; at the right by Colonel Von der Horst, also a Prussian, and at the left by Colonel Von der Taun, a Bavarian officer, of chivalrous courage and great impetuosity. The battle commenced at three o'clock in the morning with an attack of the Danes on both wings of the enemy. They were very warmly received, and after the battle had lasted two or three hours, they made an assault upon the centre, with infantry, cavalry, and artillery at the same time. They were so strongly repulsed, however, that they were compelled to retreat. An attack of their whole force, concentrated upon the centre and right wing of the Holsteiners was more successful, and by bringing up a reserve, after ten or twelve hours hard fighting, they compelled the Holstein centre to give way, and by two o'clock the army was in full retreat, but in good order. The Danes appear to have been either too fatigued or too indolent to follow up their advantage. The members of the Holstein government, who were in Schleswig, fled immediately to Kiel, on hearing the battle was lost; all the officials also left the town; the post-office was shut, the doors locked, and all business suspended. The battle was more sanguinary than that fought under the walls of Frederica on the 6th of July last year. The loss on both sides has been estimated at about 7000 men in killed, wounded, and missing--of which the Holstein party say the greater share has fallen upon the Danes. Another engagement is said to have taken place on the 1st of August near Mohede, in which the Danes were defeated, with but slight loss on either side. The interference of the great powers is anticipated.

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From INDIA and the EAST there is little news of interest. A terrible accident occurred at Benares on the 1st of May. A fleet of thirty boats, containing ordnance stores, was destroyed by the explosion of 3000 barrels of gunpowder with which they were freighted. Four hundred and twenty persons were killed on the spot, about 800 more were wounded, and a number of houses were leveled with the ground. The cause of the disaster remained unexplained, as not a human being was left alive who could tell the tale.----The city of Canton has been visited with a severe fever which has been very destructive, though it had spared the European factories.----The great Oriental diamond, seized by the British as part of the spoils of the Sikh war, was presented to the Queen on the 3d of July, having arrived from India a few days before. It was discovered in the mines of Golconda three hundred years ago, and first belonged to the Mogul emperor, the father of the great Aurungzebee. Its shape and size are like those of the pointed end of a hen's egg; and its value is estimated at two millions of pounds sterling.----News has been received of an insurrection against the Dutch government in the district of Bantam. The insurgents attacked the town of Anjear, in the Straits of Sunda, but, after burning the houses, were driven back to their fastnesses by the military.

LITERARY NOTICES.

IN MEMORIAM. Boston: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields. 12mo. pp. 216.

The impressive beauty of these touching lyrics proceeds, in a great degree, from the "sad sincerity" which so evidently inspired their composition. In memory of a youthful friend, who was distinguished for his rare early promise, his ripe and manifold accomplishments, and a strange, magnetic affinity with the genius of the author, these exquisite poems are the gushing expression of a heart touched and softened, but not enervated by deep sorrow. The poet takes a pensive delight in gathering up every memorial of the brother of his affections; his fancy teems with all sweet and beautiful images to show the tenderness of his grief; every object in external nature recalls the lost treasure; until, after reveling in the luxury of woe, he regains a serene tranquillity, with the lapse of many years. With the exquisite pathos that pervades this volume, there is no indulgence in weak and morbid sentiment. It is free from the preternatural gloom which so often makes elegiac poetry an abomination to every healthy intellect. The tearful bard does not allow himself to be drowned in sorrow, but draws from its pure and bitter fountains the sources of noble inspiration and earnest resolve. No one can read these natural records of a spirit, wounded but not crushed, without fresh admiration of the rich poetical resources, the firm, masculine intellect, and the unbounded wealth of feeling, which have placed TENNYSON in such a lofty position among the living poets of England.

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Harper and Brothers have recently published _The History of Darius_, by JACOB ABBOTT, _The English Language in its Elements and Forms_, by WILLIAM C. FOWLER, _Julia Howard_, a Romance, by Mrs. MARTIN BELL, _Five Years of a Hunter's Life in the Interior of South Africa_, by R. G. CUMMING, _Health, Disease, and Remedy_, by GEORGE MOORE, and _Latter Day Pamphlets_, No. viii., by THOMAS CARLYLE.

_The History of Darius_ is one of Mr. ABBOTT'S popular historical series, written in the style of easy and graceful idiomatic English (though not always free from inaccuracies), which give a pleasant flavor to all the productions of the author. In a neat preface, with which the volume is introduced, Mr. Abbott explains the reasons for the mildness and reserve with which he speaks of the errors, and often the crimes of the persons whose history he describes. He justifies this course, both on the ground of its intrinsic propriety, and of the authority of Scripture, which, as he justly observes, relates the narratives of crime "in a calm, simple, impartial, and forbearing spirit, which leads us to condemn, the sins, but not to feel a pharisaical resentment and wrath against the sinner." The present volume sets forth the leading facts in the life of Darius the Great with remarkable clearness and condensation, and can scarcely be too highly commended, both for the use of juvenile readers, and of those who wish to become acquainted with the subject, but who have not the leisure to pursue a more extended course of historical study.

Professor FOWLER'S work on the English Language is a profound treatise on the Philosophy of Grammar, the fruit of laborious and patient research for many years, and an addition of unmistakable value to our abundant philological treasures. It treats of the English Language in its elements and forms, giving a copious history of its origin and development, and ascending to the original principles on which its construction is founded. The work is divided into eight parts, each of which presents a different aspect of the subject, yet all of them, in their mutual correlation, and logical dependence, are intended to form a complete and symmetrical system. We are acquainted with no work on this subject which is better adapted for a text-book in collegiate instruction, for which purpose it is especially designed by the author. At the same time it will prove an invaluable aid to more advanced students of the niceties of our language, and may even be of service to the most practiced writers, by showing them the raw material, in its primitive state, out of which they cunningly weave together their most finished and beautiful fabrics.

_Julia Howard_ is the reprint of an Irish story of exciting interest, which, by its powerful delineation of passion, its bright daguerreotypes of character, and the wild intensity of its plot, must become a favorite with the lovers of high-wrought fiction.

We have given a taste of CUMMING'S _Five Years of a Hunter's Life_ in the last number of _The New Monthly Magazine_, from which it will be seen that the writer is a fierce, blood-thirsty Nimrod, whose highest ideal is found in the destruction of wild-beasts, and who relates his adventures with the same eagerness of passion which led him to expatriate himself from the charms of English society in the tangled depths of the African forest. Every page is redolent of gunpowder, and you almost hear the growl of the victim as he falls before the unerring shot of this mighty hunter.

Dr. MOORE'S book on _Health, Disease, and Remedy_ is a plain, practical, common-sense treatise on hygiene, without confinement in the harness of any of the modern _opathies_. His alert and cheerful spirit will prevent the increase of hypochondria by the perusal of his volume, and his directions are so clear and definite, that they can be easily comprehended even by the most nervous invalid. Its purpose can not be more happily described than in the words of the author. "It is neither a popular compendium of physiology, hand-book of physic, an art of healing made easy, a medical guide-book, a domestic medicine, a digest of odd scraps on digestion, nor a dry reduction of a better book, but rather a running comment on a few prominent truths in medical science, viewed according to the writer's own experience. The object has been to assist the unprofessional reader to form a sober estimate of Physic, and enable him to second the physician's efforts to promote health." Dr. Moore's habits of thought and expression are singularly direct, and he never leaves you at a loss for his meaning.

We can not say so much for CARLYLE, whose eighth number of _Latter-Day Tracts_, on _Jesuitism_, brings that flaming and fantastic series to a close, with little detriment, we presume, to the public.

Phillips, Sampson, and Co. have published a critique on Carlyle, by ELIZUR WRIGHT, the pungent editor of the Boston Chronotype, entitled _Perforations of the "Latter-Day Pamphlets, by one of the Eighteen Million Bores,"_ in which he makes some effective hits, reducing the strongest positions of his opponent to impalpable powder.

_The Odd Fellows' Offering for_ 1851, published by Edward Walker, is the ninth volume of this beautiful annual, and is issued with the earliest of its competitors for public favor. As a representative of the literary character of the Order, it is highly creditable to the Institution. Seven of the eleven illustrations are from original paintings by native artists. The frontispiece, representing the Marriage of Washington, appeals forcibly to the national sentiment, and is an appropriate embellishment for a work dedicated to a large and increasing fraternity, whose principles are in admirable harmony with those of our free institutions.

_Haw-Ho-Noo, or, Records of a Tourist_, by CHARLES LANMAN, published by Lippincott, Grambo and Co., under an inappropriate title, presents many lively and agreeable descriptions of adventures in various journeys in different parts of the United States. The author has a keen sense of the beauties of nature, is always at home in the forest or at the side of the mountain stream, and tells all sorts of stories about trout, salmon, beavers, maple-sugar, rattle-snakes, and barbecues, with a heart-felt unction that is quite contagious. As a writer of simple narrative, his imagination sometimes outstrips his discretion, but every one who reads his book will admit that he is not often surpassed for the fresh and racy character of his anecdotes.

_The Autobiography of Leigh Hunt_, published by Harper and Brothers, as our readers may judge from the specimens given in a former number of this Magazine, is one of the most charming works that have lately been issued from the English press. Leigh Hunt so easily falls into the egotistic and ridiculous, that it is a matter of wonder how he has escaped from them to so great a degree in the present volumes. His vanity seems to have been essentially softened by the experience of life, the asperities of his nature greatly worn away, and his mind brought under the influence of a kindly and genial humor. With his rare mental agility, his susceptibility to many-sided impressions, and his catholic sympathy with almost every phase of character and intellect, he could not fail to have treasured up a rich store of reminiscences, and his personal connection with the most-celebrated literary men of his day, gives them a spirit and flavor, which could not have been obtained by the mere records of his individual biography. The work abounds with piquant anecdotes of Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, Byron, Keats, Lamb, Hazlitt, and Moore--gives a detailed exposition of Hunt's connection with the Examiner, and his imprisonment for libel--his residence in Italy--his return to England--and his various literary projects--and describes with the most childlike frankness the present state of his opinions and feelings on the manifold questions which have given a direction to his intellectual activity through life. Whatever impressions it may leave as to the character of the author, there can be but one opinion as to the fascination of his easy, sprightly, gossiping style, and the interest which attaches to the literary circles, whose folding-doors he not ungracefully throws open.

The _United States Railroad Guide and Steam-boat Journal_, by Holbrook and Company, is one of the best manuals for the use of travelers now issued by the monthly press, containing a great variety of valuable information, in a neat and portable form.

_Hints to Young Men on the True Relation of the Sexes_, by JOHN WARE, M.D., is a brief treatise, prepared by a distinguished scientific man of Boston, in which an important subject is treated with delicacy, good sense, and an earnest spirit. It is published by Tappan, Whittimore, and Mason, Boston.

Among the publications of the last month by Lippincott, Grambo, and Company, is the _Iris_, an elegant illuminated souvenir, edited by Professor JOHN S. HART, and comprising literary contributions from distinguished American authors, several of whom, we notice, are from the younger class of writers, who have already won a proud and enviable fame by the admirable productions of their pens. In addition to the well-written preface by the Editor, we observe original articles by STODDARD, BOKER, CAROLINE MAY, ALICE CAREY, PHEBE CAREY, Rev. CHARLES T. BROOKS, MARY SPENSER PEASE, EDITH MAY, ELIZA A. STARR, KATE CAMPBELL, and others, most of which are superior specimens of the lighter form of periodical literature. The volume is embellished with exquisite beauty, containing four brilliantly illuminated pages, and eight line engravings, executed in the highest style of London art. We are pleased to welcome so beautiful a work from the spirited and intelligent house by which it is issued, as a promise that it will sustain the well-earned reputation of the old establishment of Grigg, Elliot, and Co., of which it is the successor. The head of that firm, Mr. JOHN GRIGG, we may take this occasion to remark, presents as striking a history as can be furnished by the records of bookselling in this country. Commencing life without the aid of any external facilities, and obtaining the highest eminence in his profession, by a long career of industry, enterprise, and ability, he has retired from active business with an ample fortune, and the universal esteem of a large circle of friends. We trust that his future years may be as happy, as his busy life has been exemplary and prosperous.

George P. Putnam has published _The Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada_, by WASHINGTON IRVING, forming the fourteenth volume of the beautiful revised edition of Irving's collected works. Since the first publication of this romantic prose-poem, the fictitious dress, in which the inventive fancy of the author had arrayed the story, had been made the subject of somewhat stringent criticism; Fray Antonio Agapida had been found to belong to a Spanish branch of the family of Diedrich Knickerbocker; and doubts were thus cast over the credibility of the whole veracious chronicle. Mr. Irving extricates himself from the dilemma with his usual graceful ingenuity. In a characteristic note to this edition, he explains the circumstances in which the history had its origin, and shows conclusively that whatever dimness may be thrown over the identity of the worthy Fray Antonio, the work itself was constructed from authentic documents, and is faithful in all its essential points to historical fact. While occupied at Madrid in writing the life of Columbus, Mr. Irving was strongly impressed with the rich materials presented by the war of Granada, for a composition which should blend the interest of romance with the fidelity of history. Alive as he always is to picturesque effect, he was struck with the contrast presented by the combatants of Oriental and European creeds, costumes, and manners; with the hairbrained enterprises, chivalric adventures, and wild forays through mountain regions; and with the moss-trooping assaults on cliff-built castles and cragged fortresses, which succeeded each other with dazzling brilliancy and variety. Fortunately in the well-stored libraries of Madrid, he had access to copious and authentic chronicles, often in manuscript, written at the time by eye-witnesses, and in some instances, by persons who had been actually engaged in the scenes described. At a subsequent period, after completing the Life of Columbus, he made an extensive tour in Andalusia, visiting the ruins of the Moorish towns, fortresses, and castles, and the wild mountain passes, which had been the principal theatre of the war, and passing some time in the stately old palace of the Alhambra, the once favorite abode of the Moorish monarchs. With this preparation, he finished the manuscript of which he had already drawn up the general outline, adopting the fiction of a Spanish monk as the chronicler of the history. By this innocent stratagem, Mr. Irving intended to personify in Fray Antonio the monkish zealots who made themselves busy in the campaigns, marring the chivalry of the camp by the bigotry of the cloister, and exulting in every act of intolerance toward the Moors.

This ingenious explanation will give a fresh interest to the present edition. The costume of the garrulous Agapida is still retained, although the narrative is reduced more strictly within historical bounds, and is enriched with new facts that have been recently brought to light by the erudite researches of Alcántara and other diligent explorers of this romantic field. With excellent taste, the publisher has issued this volume in a style of typographical elegance not unworthy the magnificent paragraphs of the golden-mouthed author.

_The Life and Times of General John Lamb_, by ISAAC Q. LEAKE, published at Albany by J. Munsell, is an important contribution to the history of the Revolution, compiled from original documents, many of which possess great interest.

_Progress in the Northwest_ is the title of the Annual Discourse delivered before the Historical Society of Ohio, by the President, WILLIAM D. GALLAGHER, and published by H. W. Derby and Co., Cincinnati. It gives a rapid description of the progress of cultivation and improvement in the Northwestern portion of the United States, showing the giant steps which have been taken, especially, within the last twenty years, on that broad and fertile domain. The conditions of future advancement are also discussed in the spirit of philosophical analysis, and with occasional touches of genuine eloquence.

EDWARD EVERETT'S _Oration at the Celebration of the Battle of Bunker Hill_, published by Redding and Co., Boston, describes some of the leading incidents in that opening scene of the American Revolution, and is distinguished for the rhetorical felicity, the picturesque beauty of expression, and the patriotic enthusiasm which have given a wide celebrity to the anniversary performances of the author. Its flowing melody of style, combined with the impressive tones and graceful manner of the speaker, enables us to imagine the effect which is said to have been produced by its delivery. The ability exhibited in Mr. EVERETT'S expressive and luminous narrative, if devoted to an elaborate historical composition, would leave him with but few rivals in this department of literature.

_Oration before the Phi Beta Kappa Society_ of Harvard University, by TIMOTHY WALKER, published by James Munroe and Co., Boston, is a temperate discussion of the Reform Spirit of the day, abounding in salutary cautions and judicious discriminations. The style of the Oration savors more of the man of affairs than of the practical writer, and its good sense and moderate tone must have commended it to the cultivated audience before which it was delivered.

_The Poem on the American Legend_, by BAYARD TAYLOR, pronounced on the same occasion, and published by John Bartlett, Cambridge, is a graceful portraiture of the elements of romance and poetry in the traditions of our country, and contains passages of uncommon energy of versification, expressing a high order of moral and patriotic sentiment. His allusion to the special legends of different localities are very felicitous in their tone, and the tribute to the character of the lamented President is a fine instance of the condensation and forcible brevity which Mr. Taylor commands with eminent success.

A useful and seasonable work, entitled _Europe, Past and Present_, by FRANCIS H. UNGEWITTER, LL.D., has been issued by G. P. Putnam, which will be found to contain a mass of information, carefully arranged and digested, of great service to the student of European Geography and History. The author, who is a native German, has published several extensive geographical works in his own country, which have given him the reputation of a sound and accurate scholar in that department of research. He appears to have made a faithful and discriminating use of the abundant materials at his command, and has produced a work which can not fail to do him credit in his adopted land.

_The Architecture of Country Houses_, by A. J. DOWNING, published by D. Appleton and Co., is from the pen of a writer whose former productions entitle him to the rank of a standard authority on the attractive subject of the present volume. Mr. Downing has certainly some uncommon qualifications for the successful accomplishment of his task, which requires no less practical experience and knowledge than a sound and cultivated taste. He is familiar with the best publications of previous authors; his pursuits, have led him to a thorough appreciation of the wants and capabilities of country life; he has been trained by the constant influence of rural scenes; and with an eye keenly susceptible to the effect of proportion and form, he brings the refinements of true culture and the suggestions of a vigilant common-sense to the improvement of Rural Architecture, which he wishes to see in harmony with the grand and beautiful scenery of this country. His remarks in the commencement of the volume, with regard to the general significance of architecture are worthy of profound attention. A due observance of the principles, which he eloquently sets forth, would rescue the fine localities for which nature has done so much from the monstrosities in wood and brick with which they are so often deformed. His discussion of the materials and modes of construction are of great practical value. With the abundance of designs which he presents, for every style of rural building, and the careful estimates of the expense, no one who proposes to erect a house in the country can fail to derive great advantage from consulting his well-written and interesting pages.

Tallis, Willoughby, & Co. are publishing as serials the _Adventures of Don Quixote_, translated by JARVIS, and the _Complete Works of Shakspeare_, edited by JAMES ORCHARD HALLIWELL. The Don Quixote is a cheap edition, embellished with wood cuts by Tony Johannot. The Shakspeare is illustrated with steel engravings by Rogers, Heath, Finden, and Walker, from designs by Henry Warren, Edward Corbould, and other English artists who are favorably known to the public. It is intended that this edition shall contain all the writings ascribed to the immortal dramatist, without distinction, including not only the Poems and well-authenticated Plays, but also the Plays of doubtful origin, or of which Shakspeare is supposed to have been only in part the author.

Herrman J. Meyer, a German publisher in this city, is issuing an edition of MEYER'S _Universum_, a splendid pictorial work, which is to appear in monthly parts, each containing four engravings on steel, and twelve of them making an annual volume with forty-eight plates. They consist of the most celebrated views of natural scenery, and of rare works of art, selected from prominent objects of interest in every part of the globe. The first number contains an engraving of Bunker Hill Monument, the _Ecole Nationale_ at Paris, Rousseau's Hermitage at Montmorency, and the Royal Palace at Munich, besides a well-executed vignette on the title-page and cover. The letter-press descriptions by the author are retained in the original language, which, in a professed American edition, is an injudicious arrangement, serving to limit the circulation of the work, in a great degree, to Germans, and to those familiar with the German language.

Mrs. CROWE'S _Night Side of Nature_, published by J. S. Redfield, is another contribution to the literature of Ghosts and Ghost-Seers, which, like the furniture and costume of the middle ages, seems to be coming into fashion with many curious amateurs of novelties. The reviving taste for this kind of speculation is a singular feature of the age, showing the prevalence of a dissatisfied and restless skepticism, rather than an enlightened and robust faith in spiritual realities. Mrs. Crowe is a decided, though gentle advocate of the preternatural character of the marvelous phenomena, of which probably every country and age presents a more or less extended record. She has collected a large mass of incidents, which have been supposed to bear upon the subject, many of which were communicated to her on personal authority, and were first brought to the notice of the public in her volume. She has pursued her researches, with incredible industry, into the traditions of various nations, making free use of the copious erudition of the Germans in this department, and arranging the facts or legends she has obtained with a certain degree of historical criticism, that gives a value to her work as an illustration of national beliefs, without reference to its character as a _hortus siccus_ of weird and marvelous stories. In point of style, her volume is unexceptionable; its spirit is modest and reverent; it can not be justly accused of superstition, though it betrays a womanly instinct for the supernatural: and without being imbued with any love of dogmas, breathes an unmistakable atmosphere of purity and religious trust. The study of this subject can not be recommended to the weak-minded and timorous, but an omnivorous digestion may find a wholesome exercise of its capacity in Mrs. Crowe's tough revelations.

A volume of Discourses, entitled _Christian Thoughts on Life_, by HENRY GILES, has been published by Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, Boston, consisting of a series of elaborate essays, intended to gather into a compact form some fragments of moral experience, and to give a certain record and order to the author's desultory studies of man's interior life. Among the subjects of which it treats are The Worth of Life, the Continuity of Life, the Discipline of Life, Weariness of Life, and Mystery in Religion and in Life. The views presented by Mr. Giles are evidently the fruit of profound personal reflection; they glow with the vitality of experience; and in their tender and pleading eloquence will doubtless commend themselves to many human sympathies. Mr. Giles has been hitherto most favorably known to the public in this country, as a brilliant rhetorician, and an original and piquant literary critic; in the present volume, he displays a rare mastery of ethical analysis and deduction.

W. Phillips & Co., Cincinnati, have issued an octavo volume of nearly seven hundred pages, composed of _Lectures on the American Eclectic System of Surgery_, by BENJAMIN L. HILL, M.D., with over one hundred illustrative engravings. It is based on the principles of the medical system of which the author is a distinguished practitioner.

The _National Temperance Offering_, edited by S. F. Cary, and published by R. Vandien, is got up in an expensive style, and is intended as a gift-book worthy the patronage of the advocates of the Temperance Reform. In addition to a variety of contributions both in prose and poetry from several able writers, it contains biographical sketches of some distinguished Temperance men, accompanied with their portraits, among whom we notice Rev. Dr. Beecher, Horace Greeley, John H. Hawkins, T. P. Hunt, and others.

Fashions for Early Autumn.

FIG 1. A PROMENADE DRESS of a beautiful lavender _taffetas_, the front of the skirt trimmed with folds of the same, confined at regular distances with seven flutes of lavender gauze ribbon, put on the reverse of the folds; a double fluted frilling, rather narrow, encircles the opening of the body, which is made high at the back, and closed in the front with a fluting of ribbon similar to that on the skirt; _demi-long_ sleeves, cut up in a kind of wave at the back, so as to show the under full sleeve of spotted white muslin. Chemisette of fulled muslin, confined with bands of needlework. Scarf of white China _crape_, beautifully embroidered, and finished with a deep, white, silk fringe. Drawn _capote_ of pink _crape_, adorned in the interior with half-wreaths of green myrtle.

FIG. 2. COSTUME FOR A YOUNG LADY.--A dress of white _barège_ trimmed with three deep vandyked flounces put on close to each other; high body, formed of worked inlet, finished with a stand-up row round the throat; the sleeves descend as low as the elbow, where they are finished with two deep frillings, vandyked similar to the flounces. Half-long gloves of straw-colored kid, surmounted with a bracelet of black velvet. Drawn _capote_ of white _crape_, adorned with clusters of the _rose de mott_ both in the interior and exterior. _Pardessus_ of pink _glacé_ silk, trimmed with three frillings of the same, edged with a narrow silk fringe, which also forms a heading to the same; over each hip is a trimming _en tablier_ formed of the fringe; short sleeves, trimmed with one fulling edged with fringe; these sleeves are of the same piece as the cape, not cut separate; the trimming over the top of the arms being similar to that under, and formed also of fringe; this _pardessus_ is perfectly round in its form, and only closes just upon the front of the waist.

MORNING CAPS which are slightly ornamented, vary more in the way in which they are trimmed, than in the positive form; some being trimmed with _chicorées_, wreaths of gauze ribbon, or knobs of ribbon edged with a festooned open-work encircling a simple round of _tulle_, or what is perhaps prettier, a cluster of lace. A pretty form, differing a little from the monotonous round, is composed of a round forming a star, the points being cut off; these points are brought close together, and are encircled with a narrow _bavolet_, the front part being formed so as to descend just below the ears, approaching somewhat to the appearance of the front of a capote. A pretty style of morning cap are those made of India muslin, _à petit papillon_, flat, edged with a choice Mechlin lace, and having three _ricochets_ and a bunch of fancy ribbon placed upon each side, from which depend the _brides_ or strings. Others are extremely pretty, made of the _appliqué_ lace, rich Mechlin, or needlework, and are sometimes ornamented with flowers, giving a lightness to their appearance.

FIG. 4. MORNING COSTUME.--Dress and pardessus of printed cambric muslin, the pattern consisting of wreaths and bouquets of flowers. Jupon of plain, white cambric muslin, edged with a border of rich open needlework. The sleeves of the pardessus are gathered up in front of the arm. The white under-sleeves, which do not descend to the wrists, are finished by two rows of vandyked needlework. A small needlework collar. Lace cap of the round form, placed very backward on the head, and trimmed with full coques of pink and green ribbon at each ear.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE

Minor errors in punctuation have been corrected without note.

The following typographical errors have been corrected:

Page Corrected Text Original had 435 fine view of the Firth of Forth Frith 439 when the curtains of the evening curttains 456 so I couldn't sleep comfortable could'nt 465 splendid creature on which he is mounted spendid 486 ancient hilarity of the English peasant peasaat 496 I shall not readily forget, readi- 497 "They didn't think so at Enghein." did'nt 507 Andrew to be out so late to to 522 I was no sooner in bed was was 524 Were murmuring to the moon! to to 532 heavy frames, hung round the walls roung 549 he is justly punished for his offenses punnished 549 publisher gives £500 gives gives 565 Progress of the World of of 566 be very rich in gold be be 567 published is WORDSWORTH'S posthumous WORDSWORT'S

The following words with questionable spellings have been retained: auspicies, dacent, dacency, Elizabethean, vleys. Variant spellings of dillettanti and dilettanti have been retained. Inconsistent hyphenation is as per the original.

The following errors which can not be corrected were noted:

On page 520, it appears that one or more lines may be missing from the original here:

"sulphur mixed with it--and they said, Indeed it was putting a great affront on the"

On page 560, in the paragraph starting "A communication from M. Trémaux..." the protagonist is later referred to as M. Trévaux.