The International Magazine, Vol. IV. New-York, December 1, 1851. No. V.

Over my pebbly bed I flow:

Till foaming-now splashing,

Soon leaping-then dashing

Into the chasm's bowl below,

Where my pearl drops glittering,

Rival the driven snow.

The chains of Winter I spurn!

All Summer and Spring

Through the grove I sing,

Gladdening lily and fern,

And the tired bird who kisses my cheek

With a dainty touch of his thirsty beak.

And when from the mountain side

The sunshines of May

Charm the snows away-

The torrent's impulsive tide

Mingles its turbid strength with mine,

Marking the thicket with surging line.

Then as the grove I enter,

The tree-tops shake,

The granite beds quake,

Into their very centre;

Whilst the birds around on the soaking ground

Hush their song at my thunder sound!

Man never with puny arm

My power shall curb,

My flow disturb!

Ha! ha! for nature's charm:

Powerful in the rock

That human strength doth mock!

Long as stern Father Time

Shall harvest future years-

Garnering joys and tears-

In every land and clime:

So long shall I from the moss-clad steep,

Bubble or vaunt in the foaming leap!

The dawn of a fine October morning, in 1817, was just breaking when the Paris diligence of Messrs. Lafitte and Co. took the opportunity of breaking also. That of the former, however, was as glorious as that of the latter was disastrous.

I had been rambling during the summer months through that most interesting country; the volcanic district of Auvergne had laved both my inward and my outward man in most of the celebrated waters which abound in that neighborhood, and was on my return to Paris, where I expected to find the friends with whom I had travelled from England, and hoped to travel back again. It was then with a light heart that I had, on the preceding evening, jumped into the coupée of the luckless vehicle at the little town of Gannat, congratulating myself, firstly, on my good luck in finding a vacant place at all, and secondly, on that place being in the coupée, and lastly, and most especially, on there being only one other passenger therein, whereby, as all travellers by diligence are aware, I was spared the uncomfortable task of performing bodkin all the way to Paris, and could take mine ease in mine own corner. When all prudential arrangements for the night, such as air cushion disposed at back, and cloak drawn over knees, were duly made, I began to take a survey of my fellow-traveller, who had greeted me on my entrance with much civility, but the light did not enable me to do more than perceive that he was a venerable-looking old gentleman, whose white locks escaped from under his travelling cap, and descended on his shoulders in great profusion. His manners, however, were so courteous and dignified, that I, at once, recognized in him a specimen of that now well-nigh obsolete race the ancienne noblesse. After sundry inquiries and observations on the country through which we were travelling, and divers speculations as to the period at which our journey might possibly end, my fellow-traveller turned to the topic of the battle of Waterloo, then a recent event. "Now," thought I, "for a quarrel." But no; though he felt for the tarnished glory of the French arms, he felt yet more for the old family, and bore me no ill-will for being one of that nation by whose efforts they had been restored, and the Corsican usurper expelled. From these he reverted to the "good old days" of Louis XV., to whose body of Gardes du Corps he had formerly, it seemed, had the honor of belonging, he related many anecdotes of that period, and was especially prosy about the ceremonies observed at the court of that dissolute and bien-aimé monarch. It was during a long story of this sort that I fell into a sound sleep, from which I was awakened by a loud crash, a pretty considerable thump on the head, and a heavy weight pressing on my chest, for all which phenomena, though startling at first, I was quickly able satisfactorily to account. The crash was caused by the ponderous diligence coming into sudden and violent collision with the ground; the thump by the same sort of rude contact between my head and the roof thereof; whilst the weight which I felt so oppressive was the body of my fellow-traveller, lying upon me in a state of complete insensibility, and bleeding profusely. Freeing myself as gently as I could from the apparently lifeless mass, I managed to get the window down, and creep through the somewhat-narrow aperture, when the cause and full extent of the accident was intelligible enough. The iron arm of the axle of the near hind wheel had broken off short, and such was the weight of luggage and packages of all kinds and descriptions stowed away on the roof, that, going, as I understand we were, at, for a French diligence in those days, a rapid pace, the shock had been sufficient to completely capsize us. Sudden and severe, however, as the shock had been, the lives and limbs of the passengers had escaped without loss or material damage; those in the interior being too closely packed for any very violent collision with each other, and the three individuals in the cabriolet, of whom the conducteur was one, being pitched clean, I do not mean any reference to their persons, but to their mode of projection, into a ploughed field by the roadside, where they lay sprawling, and sacréing and mondieuing, in the most piteous and guttural tones imaginable, though none appeared to have sufficient excuse for the unearthly noises he made from any actual hurt he had sustained. I was, however, too anxious to afford help to my companion in the coupée, to ascertain very minutely their condition, even had I been able to obtain an answer to my inquiries, where all insisted on talking at once and at the top of their voices, and in a tone and with a vehemence which, in any other country, would have seemed a prelude to nothing short of a battle royal. Seeing, however, a peasant, en blouse, standing hard by, leaning on his spade, and looking quietly on, I concluded he was not one of the passengers, and might consequently be of some use. Accordingly I hailed him, and after some irresolute gestures, he came up to me, when I explained, rather by dragging him to the door of the carriage than by any verbal communications, which would probably have failed, for what purpose I wanted his assistance. Having opened the door of the carriage, I looked in. There lay my unfortunate companion, "his silver skin laced with his golden blood," still insensible and somewhat cramped, it is true, but not in so uncomfortable a position as might, under the circumstances, have been expected, seeing that I had propped him up as well as I could, before I made my own exit, with my air cushion, and that of the seat he had occupied. Being a tall and heavy man, to get him righted and out was a work of no small difficulty; however, our united efforts were at last successful, and the poor sufferer was laid on the turf by the roadside, on a couch formed of cushions, great-coats, &c., &c.

My assistant, who, I must say, now exhibited all the alacrity I could wish, and more handiness than I had expected from him, ran for water, whilst I proceeded to examine my unlucky friend's wounds. He exhibited an ugly gash on the head, from which had flowed the stream of blood which had so disfigured his venerable locks. His left shoulder, too, I found was dislocated. By the plentiful application of cold water to his head and temples, and of some hartshorn, which I happened to have about me, to his nostrils, I at length succeeded in restoring him to consciousness, of which the first symptoms he gave was to glare upon me with an expression of terror and alarm, and exclaiming, in accents of deep despair, "Hah! blood!-more blood!" He uttered a piercing shriek, and again relapsed into syncope. Thus assured, however, that he still lived, the present moment seemed so favorable for the reduction of the dislocated limb, that I set to work forthwith, and, with the assistance of my friendly paysan, quickly divested him of his coat, and having placed him in a proper position, instantly slipped the joint into the socket, and bound it with my neckcloth. The snap recalled him to sense, and by the help of a little brandy from my travelling flask, he was completely restored. Still he surveyed me with a terrified look, for which I could not well account, until I discovered that my face and dress were stained with the blood which had flowed from his wound whilst he lay upon me in the carriage. I hastened to remove what I conceived to be the cause of his anxious looks, by assuring him I had received no injury whatever except a slight contusion not worth mentioning, and that the blood, which I washed off in his presence, was his own. The next consideration was-what was to be done? To stay where we were was out of the question; no sort of public conveyance would pass that way en route to Paris until the second morning at the same hour. My companion's wound required dressing, and I wanted my breakfast, for the sharp air of the morning had so quickened my appetite, that the thoughts of my disaster were fast fading away before the vision of café au lait and a biftek. The realization of this pleasing prospect became the more probable when I learnt that we were not more than a short league from the town of Moulins, whither I instantly dispatched my trusty paysan, whose faculties and movements were much quickened by the promise of a five-franc piece when he returned with some sort of vehicle to convey us into the town. During his absence, which lasted two mortal hours, I had abundant time to consider and contemplate the person and demeanor of the individuals whom chance had thus thrown in my way, and, as it were, upon my charity. The former still exhibited sufficient traces of manly beauty to show that, in his youth, he had been strikingly handsome, whilst the latter spoke the accomplished and high-bred gentleman in the truest and least hackneyed acceptation of the word. Being now perfectly himself again, he listened with much interest to such account of our accident as I was able to give, and, ascertaining from his bandaged head and shoulder the nature and extent of my services to him, his gratitude was expressed in the warmest terms.

"I am the last of an ancient house," said he, "and but for you should have died on the road like a dog. I am the Marquis de Marigny, pray tell me to whom I am under so much obligation."

"Why, sir," said I, "my name is D--, by profession a physician, and, at a pinch, a tolerable surgeon, and I never so congratulated myself on my slender knowledge of this branch of the healing art as on the present occasion."

Further conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the paysan with a sort of rickety cabriolet, drawn by so small a horse, decorated with so large a collar, and covered with such a profusion of trappings, that, until he drew up beside us, and I could clearly distinguish the animal's four legs, I was not quite sure that the vehicle did not progress by some locomotive power of its own.

Having roused the conducteur, whom we found fast asleep amidst a pile of disorganized packages, we selected our respective baggage, and, having secured it as well as we could on and about the cabriolet, I took an affectionate leave of the good paysan, and, mounting by the side of my venerable companion, handled the ribbons and started. Our diminutive steed however required no great skill in coachmanship, nor any persuasion to get home again as quickly as the weight behind him would permit, so that we soon arrived at the town where, our arrival being expected, we found mine host of the H?tel d'Allier and his domestiques on the alert; and, by the time I had made a hasty toilette, a good breakfast, to which I did ample justice, was on the table. Our meal being ended, and my companion complaining of a good deal of pain, I set forth in search of an apothecary's shop, where I procured the necessary materials; and his hurts having been properly dressed and bandaged, I advised him to go to bed and seek the repose he so much needed till dinner time. In the mean time I amused myself by writing some letters and in strolling through and about the environs of this neat and lively town, which the pen of Sterne has rendered classic ground. The evening was spent in my friend's bedroom, as he was not well enough to join the party in the salon. Nevertheless he was in good spirits, and very communicative; informed me that he was the younger son of a noble family in Dauphiny, but that by the death of his elder brother, many years since, he had succeeded to the title and family estate, to which he had been paying a farewell visit when I joined him at Gannat. These family histories and sundry interesting anecdotes of the days of Louis XV. and XVI. so animated the old man, that I, fearing the excitement in his present condition, thought it prudent to plead fatigue and retire to rest.

Before we parted, however, for the night, he made me promise that I would not desert him on the morrow if he should not be able to travel, but that I would accompany him to Paris, and take up my quarters with him during my stay in that capital. The next morning I found him, though much better, yet still unfit for a continuous journey of any length. With the assistance, therefore, of our host, we engaged a voiturier who, for a certain sum, agreed to take us to Paris by such easy stages as we might direct and find agreeable. To describe the road from Moulins to Paris would be to write a guide-book; suffice it to say, that the weather was delightful, and my companion, who not only bore the journey well, but seemed to derive both health and spirits from this easy mode of travelling, was altogether the must amusing companion I had ever happened to meet with; insomuch, that I almost regretted, when we pulled up at the Barrière d'Italie on entering the gay capital of France, that our journey was at an end. We arrived about four o'clock P. M., and drove straight to the Place Beauveau, where, without his order to the driver to stop, I should not have failed to pitch upon his residence, so perfectly was it in keeping with the appearance and character of its venerable owner. There prevailed throughout the same air of antiquity; we were admitted by an ancient porter and received by another elderly domestic, well-nigh as venerable and aristocratic in his appearance as the master, who expressed in affectionate, yet respectful terms, the lively satisfaction he felt on again beholding his cher marquis, whose arrival he had been expecting for some days, and manifested the most touching anxiety when he saw the traces, and heard a brief account of the accident which had befallen him. My friend, having most courteously and cordially welcomed me to his house, consigned me to the care of Antoine, as this ancient serving man was called, and by whom I was conducted to a suite of apartments, au seconde it is true, but most comfortably and tastefully furnished in the Louis-Quatorze style of decoration. The walls were hung with tapestry, relieved at intervals by splendid mirrors and tables of rare marbles, whilst a bed, with green silk hangings, worthy of, and apparently coeval with, Anne of Austria herself, promised me a night of luxurious repose.

Having, with Antoine's assistance, unpacked and arranged my wardrobe, I proceeded to dress for dinner, and my operations were scarcely concluded ere he knocked at my door and announced that it was served. I immediately followed him down stairs to a spacious and well-lighted salon, where my friend awaited me. The repast to which we sat down gave me a very exalted opinion of the savoir faire of my friend's chef. There was no rosbif, no plomboudin, no clumsy attempt at imitation of the English cuisine, out of compliment to me; all was French, and all was perfect-the soup pure and restoring-the c?tellettes magnifiques, and the vol au vent superbe. The Champagne was frappé to the minute, the Chambertin shed its bouquet, and the Bordeaux of rare quality. Mine host ate and drank sparingly, but he did the honors of his table in a manner so courteous, yet so jovial withal, that our dinner was a protracted one, and it was late ere we retired to coffee in his library, an oblong room of noble dimensions, and so furnished that it would have been called comfortable even in England, and elegant every where. The sides were covered with bookcases, whose shelves contained the best German, French, and Italian authors, and a much larger assortment of English works than is usually found in a foreigner's collection. The ends were hung with some choice specimens of the old masters, and one or two of the modern French school, whilst here and there on marble tables, or pedestals, stood some exquisite pieces of sculpture, which showed to the greatest advantage under the soft light of three lamps of the purest alabaster, which hung suspended from the ceiling; in short, the aspect of the whole apartment proclaimed the owner to be a man of wealth, taste and literature.

Amongst the pictures, I observed that a large one, which hung alone over the mantlepiece, was covered by a black crape veil or curtain. This, of course, excited my curiosity; but as my friend, in describing the others, never in any way alluded to it, I felt that inquiry was impossible. In fact, he always contrived, or appeared to contrive, to divert my attention when he perceived me looking in that direction.

"You see, sir," said he, "that I do in some measure cultivate English literature. I have read the works of most of your best writers, and flatter myself that I can almost taste and appreciate the beauties of your great poet Shakspeare. I have seen, too, your Siddons give vitality and form to the sublime conceptions of his genius. Her Queen Katharine was noble, her Constance touching, and her Lady Macbeth terrible. I shall never," continued he, in a low tone, and as if talking to himself, "never forget it; it recalled too vividly," and here, methought, his eye glanced at the veiled picture, when, suddenly starting up, he fetched from one of the shelves the volume containing that play, and read aloud some passages with a power and effect that quite surprised me. I was about to compliment him on the correctness of his conception and the force of his elocution, but he waived his hand, as if pained by the images produced on his mind by the scene he had just read, hastily restored the book to its shelf, and turned the conversation to some topic of the day, which, with other trivial matter, occupied us till I proposed to retire. Shaking my hand warmly, my friend jocularly expressed his hope that, "as I had less on my conscience than Lady Macbeth, so I should rest better," and we parted for the night.

Sleep, however, I could not, though my body was weary and my couch soft. My mind had been strongly and strangely excited, as well by my host's impassioned recital of Macbeth, as by the crape-clad picture, and I could not help fancying that there was some mysterious connection between it and the play. Thus I lay watching the flickering light emitted by the embers of my wood-fire, which was now fast dying away on the hearth, until the pendule on the chimney-piece announced in silver tones that it was three o'clock.

"I can endure this no longer," exclaimed I, "see that picture I must and will. Every soul in the house is now buried in sleep; why should I not steal down to the library and gratify my indomitable curiosity? If it be a breach of hospitality, it is surely a venial one? What can the old gentleman expect, if he will thus tantalize his guests?"

Whilst I thus reasoned with myself, I was busily employed in wrapping my robe de chambre about my person and in lighting my candle, and in one minute, I stood before the object of my waking dreams, and in another the light was raised to its proper level and the crape thrown back; when, instead of some scene of blood, which my heated imagination had conjured up, there stood revealed before my wondering eyes the portrait of one of the loveliest women I ever beheld. The head, set gracefully on exquisitely turned shoulders, exhibited a countenance in which sweetness and intelligence were intimately blended. The features, though not what is termed regular, were most harmonious, and gave me a clearer idea of Lord Byron's "the mind, the music breathing from her face," than I had ever had before. Her dark chestnut hair, parted Madonnawise on her pale and thoughtful brow, fell in rich clusters down an ivory neck, and finally rested on a bosom "firm as a maiden's, as a matron's full." But it was the eyes that chiefly riveted my gaze. Deep and clear as one of Ruysdael's lakes, they seemed to reflect in their limpid mirror every surrounding object. At the first glance their expression was that of softness; but on fixing mine upon them as I did, in all the intensity of admiration, they seemed gradually to assume so stern an aspect, as if reproving my impertinent curiosity, that I fairly quailed beneath their glance. Whilst I thus stood, rooted as it were to the spot, and lost in mingled feelings of admiration and wonder, not unmixed with a certain sensation of awe, a hand laid gently on my shoulder caused me to start round, and I beheld my friend standing beside me. I was about to mutter some apology, but he stopped me, saying, "It was my fault, I do not blame you. I ought to have known that that veiled picture would excite your curiosity, and I ought not to have brought you here unless I was prepared to gratify it. But return to bed, and to-morrow you shall know my history and that of the picture now before you. I never yet imparted it to mortal ear, but as it will interest, and may possibly be useful to you in afterlife, you shall have it, as some return for the services you have rendered me. Good night." So saying he waived his hand in a friendly but somewhat authoritative manner, and I betook myself to my apartment, a good deal abashed and ashamed of my adventure.

It was late the next morning when Antoine, presenting himself at my bedside, broke my slumbers, and with them the current of a dream of which the picture and the occurrences of the past night formed the basis. He informed me he had just dressed his master, and tendered me the like service, which, however, I declined, and proceeded, unaided and alone, to dress with all expedition. My friend received me in the salon, where we had dined the preceding day, with his usual benignant smile; but it was easy to perceive that his night had not been passed in sleep. He looked languid and out of spirits, and our breakfast was a somewhat silent one. When it was over, he sat awhile lost in deep thought, but at length, as if by sudden effort, he arose and took me by the arm, saying, "Allons, M.D., let us adjourn to the library, where I will unburden my mind, and perform the promise of last night."

The picture was still uncovered, and we were no sooner seated than, as if fearing his resolution might give way, he immediately began thus:

In the year 1770 I had, as I have already informed you, the honor of belonging to that distinguished body the Gardes du Corps, and though my duty required my almost constant presence at Versailles, I, nevertheless, had a lodging in this house, which is now mine. I had at that time but little prospect of ever possessing a house of my own, and could not always pay my rent for the room I then occupied therein. My family, of which I was the youngest, was rich, but I was poor, and have often gone without a dinner, because I had not wherewithal to pay for one. I fell into debt, which my brother promised, some day or other, to pay; or I might, perhaps, get a rich wife, for we men of fashion, whilst youth and good looks lasted, thought ourselves fairly entitled to use the folly of wealthy old dowagers as an instrument placed in our hands by Providence to enable us to revenge ourselves on Fortune for her cruelty in making us younger sons. "Remember," my father used to say to me, "that there is nothing on which our good or ill-fate in life so much depends as on women; we are in their hands; they manage us as they please; and it is the gentlest and the meekest who rule us the most effectually." I, however, led a gay and thoughtless life, and never troubled myself to inquire what influence, good or evil, women might have on my future life. I had three occupations which took up all my time-the ordinary routine of duty at Versailles; to pay assiduous court to the Prince de Beauveau, who honored me with his patronage, and for which reason I chose my lodgings as near as I could to his hotel; and last, though not least, there was Mademoiselle Zephirine, première dansuese at the Theatre Audinet. You smile, Mr. D., but recollect that I am now speaking of more than forty years ago. Ah! it was then no slight affair to keep a mistress, I assure you; for, though not allowed to hear one's name, she was to be openly acknowledged and as openly fought for when there was occasion. I had, for instance, to call out an officer in the Swiss Guards, for presuming to say that Zephirine had failed in one of her favorite and most admired pas. The Princess de Beauveau knew of the connection, and did not disapprove; so I practiced all the fashionable dances of the day, that I might qualify myself to appear as the partner of Zephirine at the public balls in Paris and at the fêtes champêtres at Versailles, where we danced on the verdant carpet of the mossy turf. Zephirine had all the accomplishments and tastes that take the fancy of a sprig of fashion of that period; she fenced and rode beautifully; loved champagne suppers, and doted on all the costly fineries of Madame Bertia's splendid show-room. In short, I ruined myself with so little thought and so much pleasure that I believed myself to be in love, and was quite sure that Mademoiselle was as warmly attached to me; when, one evening, she came into my room here,-this very room, my dear Mr. D., where we are now sitting, still attired in her theatrical costume, and with the stage paint not yet rubbed off her pretty face.

"Chevalier," said she, "take care of yourself, your creditors are about to pounce upon you-yes, to arrest you. I learnt the fact not five minutes ago from an attorney's clerk, who makes love to my maid, and I came in to-"

"How can I sufficiently thank you, dearest," said I; "and so for me you brave even a prison, and-"

"Why, not exactly," replied she. "You see, Chevalier, you have no longer either cash or credit, and I should be a burden to you."

"Well?"

"Well, at first I had thoughts of sharing your fallen fortunes, but a Monsieur Edmond, the son of an East India Director, has advised me to abandon my intention and accompany him to England; 'twill be a saving to you, and we are going to start immediately; our travelling-carriage waits. Goodby, my dear chevalier,-au revoir!"

With that she made a pirouette, and in three bounds was out of the room. I ran, I flew, but Zephirine was too nimble for me, and I reached the street just in time to see her jump lightly into the carriage of the rich Englishman, and drive off at a gallop. To follow them-to overtake the ravisher and force him to resign his prey, was my first impulse; but, alas! I had no money, nor the means of borrowing any, and stood, moreover, in need of the kind intervention of the Prince de Beauveau between me and my importunate creditors. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to digest the affront as well as I could. When my mind became somewhat calmer, and I had pretty well got over the jeers of my acquaintance, I began to ask myself if I had really loved Zephirine, and if there had not been more vanity than passion in all the follies she had led me to commit? The response was, that I had not been in love with her, nor she with me. We both loved a jolly, rackety life-that was all; she was too flighty for affection, and I too dissipated for serious attachment. Besides, a man rarely allows his whole mind and thoughts to be entirely engrossed by any woman; he courts distraction in the variety of other occupations and tastes; all pursuits, all channels of employment, are open to him; and if he be a soldier, he is exposed to so many vicissitudes and dangers, and meets with so many adventures, that all the passions are brought into play, and each in its turn so blunts and weakens the influence of the other that none makes any durable impression. He abandons without scruple, a beloved mistress for a wealthy wife, and speaks of it openly without shame or reserve, whilst a woman would blush at the bare idea of such an act. Woman's love lives on self-denial, grows by sacrifices, and expands under the pressure of misfortune. I do not say that such is the love of all women, but it is of that chosen few with whose feelings it is dangerous to trifle, and who are not to be cast off with impunity. I have dwelt the more at length on my connection with Zephirine, because her name will re-appear in the course of the history of my first real love. I was, however (continued M. de Marigny), more cut up by my misfortune than I cared to confess, and had thoughts of quitting my lodgings in the Place Beauveau, and of having no other residence than the barracks of the Gardes du Corps at Versailles, when one evening, at about eleven o'clock, as I was returning home, pondering upon the urgent importunities of my creditors, and my brother's slackness in carrying into effect his promises and good intention towards me, I heard piercing shrieks proceeding from the very place whither I was going, and from the spot where it is crossed by a narrow street which leads into the Champs Elysées, then, neither paved, nor, as now, ornamented by good houses on each side. I need hardly add that this street was as dark as pitch, whilst even the place itself was only dimly lighted by the flickering gleam of the one poor lamp which hung before the hotel of M. le Prince de Beauveau. I drew my sword, and ran towards the spot whence the cries proceeded, but had scarcely gone twenty yards before I stumbled over a lifeless body. I stretched out my hands, and caught by the arm a fainting female, who at the same moment, seemed to come to herself only to redouble her cries and lamentations.

"Help! help!" cried she, in a voice choked by tears.

"Here is help, madame," said I; "what is the matter-tell me?"

"Help! they have slain this unhappy gentleman by my side."

My lodging being close by I ran and shook the great gate by repeated knocking, until I roused the porter and my own servant, cried murder, and, as at that hour of the night many of the inmates were not yet gone to bed, a light was soon procured, and all hastened to the scene of the murder. There we found, stretched in a pool of blood, a young and handsome female, her face whiter than the kerchief which encircled her blood-stained neck, her ears torn, her hands wounded, and close beside her the dead body of a man, somewhat older than herself, and which the neighbors speedily recognized as that of M. de Fosseux, a gentleman of some distinction at the bar, and who lived in the Place Beauveau, right opposite to my house. A general cry of horror burst from us all. The victim had been stabbed to the heart by a strong and steady hand, and the dagger-the instrument with which the crime had been perpetrated-had dropt from the wound, and was bathed in blood.

"There were two of them," cried the young lady, sobbing; "one seized my hands, tore the ear-rings from my ears, and snatched my necklace from my neck, whilst the other stabbed M. de Fosseux, who fell without a groan. Ah! if they had but been content only to rob us!"

Then were the lamentations of the unhappy lady renewed, and she fell into repeated swoons, from which she was recalled only to weep more and more bitterly. We raised her up and carried her to her own house, or rather to that of M. de Fosseux, whither we also carried him, and sent for a surgeon; but his help was useless; M. de Fosseux had long ceased to breathe. On receiving information of the occurrence, a lieutenant of police came instantly, and very speedily and satisfactorily decided on a very evident fact, namely, that the sole object of the assassins had been plunder, for M. de Fosseux had been robbed of his watch, his purse, a valuable ring, the mark of which was still visible on one of his fingers, and a pair of diamond buckles. Having satisfied himself on this point, the officer next proceeded to the apartment of the young lady, whom he interrogated most strictly as to all the details and circumstances attending the commission of the deed. She replied to all his questions with much self-possession, and the most exact precision-"stated her name to be Eugenie d'Ermay, by birth a gentlewoman, and a native of Poitou; twenty-five years of age, and an orphan, without any private fortune; and," added she, casting her eyes on the ground, "I have lived for seven years with M. de Fosseux, without the sanction of the marriage tie." He, her sole protector, and the only friend to whom she could look on leaving the convent where she had been educated, had also been her seducer; but he introduced her to society and to the families of his friends, and that very evening they had been supping with Madame la Comtesse de T--, and were returning on foot, when, close to their own door, the above tragical event took place. As to the deed itself, all had been effected with the utmost rapidity. Two men whom they had for some time observed to be following them, suddenly rushed upon them-one of the two had seized her and held her fast, whilst he stripped her of her trinkets; the other laid hold of M. de Fosseux, had struck him a too sure and fatal blow, and robbed him with a dispatch and address which showed an experienced hand; all this had been but the work of an instant, and the two assassins had fled towards the Champs Elysées with such speed that they were already far beyond pursuit before the unhappy lady suspected that he whom she loved was at all hurt, much less that he was killed.

"Did you observe," asked the police officer, "if one of the men was tall and strongly made and had red hair, and the other short and high-shouldered?"

Mademoiselle d'Ermay could not answer these questions; she felt certain, however, that the man, who had killed M. de Fosseux was tall, and her impression was confirmed by the fact of the blow having evidently been struck from above downwards. There were at that time in Paris two highwaymen, one of whom was called Pierre le Mauvais, and the other Guillaume le Bossu. These worthies were the theme of market-places and wine-shops, and as every robbery and murder committed in the capital was attributed to them, this was of course laid at their door.

Whilst listening attentively to this examination, and marking the profound grief of Eugenie-her deathlike paleness and her silent despair-I could not but pity M. de Fosseux, whom cruel fate had thus severed at the early age of thirty-two, not only from life, but from so young and lovely a companion. As Mademoiselle d'Ermay had mentioned the name of the Comtesse de T--, the officer of police called upon this lady in order to ascertain the truth of the statement as to her supper party, and found it to be perfectly correct. The comtesse, as soon as she heard of the sad event, hastened to assure Mademoiselle d'Ermay of her sympathy by every demonstration of kindness and affection, and, determined not to leave her in a house now become one of mourning, with the corpse of M. de Fosseux for her sole companion, insisted on taking her instantly to her own. Mademoiselle d'Ermay consented on one condition, namely, that she should be permitted once more to look on him who had been the only object she had loved on earth. I was present at this last scene of this sad drama. Mademoiselle d'Ermay said nothing, but throwing herself on her knees by the side of the bed on which they had laid M. de Fosseux, her hands convulsively clasped together and her head sunk on her breast, she was absorbed for some minutes in fervent prayer, when, suddenly rising and turning to Madame de T--, she said, "I am ready, madame." She then immediately quitted the house in that silence which is the surest sign of profound affliction, and having seen her safely conveyed to Madame de T-- 's, I took my leave.

On reaching my own abode, I fell into a reverie in which I could not help contrasting the attachment of such a woman as Mademoiselle d'Ermay with the light and heartless nature of my connection with Zephirine. Yet all my feelings revolted at the odious comparison. What? could I for a moment, even in thought, place a young lady of good family, well educated, and whom the arts of a seducer, under the guise of a friend, had betrayed into her first and only error-could I for an instant allow myself to place her in the same class with an opera-dancer? I hated myself for the very thought, which could never have suggested itself but to one who had never known any other sort of tie than such as had bound me to Zephirine-who had never been loved, nor ever felt the genuine passion. I slept not that night, nor did I wish to sleep; my mind was too fully occupied in recalling every movement, every gesture, every word that fell from the lips of Mademoiselle d'Ermay; her gentle countenance, her angelic look, and that brow so fair and so open, whose polished surface even terror the most appalling had not been able to ruffle. Still I was not in love with her; I merely tried to recall her features, which the darkness of the night and the uncertain glimmer of candles had not enabled me to see and examine so perfectly as I could have wished. However, I promised myself better success the next day, when I resolved to observe her with the closest attention, although I felt that in so doing I was rashly exposing myself to that undefinable and seducing something which hung around her like a charm.

It was, perhaps, the consciousness of the wish formed overnight that determined me to see Mademoiselle d'Ermay. Neither had I any desire to resist its power, but rather to feel it and succumb, for I was well assured, that if such a one could be won, she was worth winning. I shuddered when I reflected how few hours had elapsed since she had been exposed to the dagger of an assassin, and could not conceive how it had happened that till that time I had never seen Mademoiselle d'Ermay, though she was living close by me.

In the mean time the family of M. de Fosseux caused seals to be placed on all the property of the deceased, and with some difficulty allowed the unfortunate lady to take away her clothes and some few trinkets, and a small sum of money, which beyond dispute was her own, it being found in a desk on which her name was engraved, and of which she had the key. That the family of M. de Fosseux should look upon her with no friendly eye was, perhaps, natural enough. However, in a few days, the heir-at-law of the deceased waited upon her, and said,

"Mademoiselle, M. de Fosseux having been cut off thus suddenly, has left no will; had he been able to foresee his death, there can be no doubt that he would not have forgotten to make due provision for you; it therefore devolves on me, as a duty, to supply that defect, and to fulfil his intentions."

"No, sir," replied Mademoiselle d'Ermay, "I never asked anything from M. de Fosseux, nor ever expected anything; our connection was free from all pecuniary considerations, present or future; excuse me from accepting any thing."

In this refusal Mademoiselle d'Ermay was immovable. But to return to myself. The next day I ventured to call on Mademoiselle d'Ermay, was admitted, and became thoroughly aware how necessary was this second interview, and better light to a due conception of her beauty. I have said beauty, but she was, in fact, what might be called lovely rather than beautiful, sweetness being the leading characteristic of her countenance, across which, calm and innocent as it was, an expression of archness would occasionally flit and vanish again into one of softness and repose. An acute physiognomist, perhaps, might have been led to suspect, from the form of the mouth and the compression of the lips, that the repose of Mademoiselle d'Ermay's features was the result of a strong will and a haughty spirit rather than a natural quality. Be that as it may, to eyes untutored in that science this slight symptom was not visible, and had no existence; whilst the simplicity and modesty of her demeanor, and the perfect propriety of all her actions, won every heart. Her grief was sincere, and her tears unaffected, yet she did not wear mourning for M. de Fosseux; and whilst none doubted that she deeply regretted him, all applauded the good taste which restrained her from rendering her situation yet more remarked by assuming the outward trappings of woe.

Some few days after the events of which I have just been speaking, Mademoiselle d'Ermay hired a small room on the sixth floor in this very house. When I heard (continued M. de Marigny) that the woman who for the last ten days had never been absent from my thoughts was living under the same roof with myself, I experienced a sensation of pleasure, which was only alloyed by the necessity I was under of setting out that very night for Versailles, whither my duty called me, and would detain me for some time. I was even on the point of resigning my commission; and but for the Prince de Beauveau, I really believe I should have added this to the already pretty long list of my follies. Mere chance, however, enabled me to make my stay at Versailles serviceable to my passion, for, I must confess it, I loved Mademoiselle d'Ermay. I happened one day to meet, in one of the ante-rooms of the palace, the Comtesse de T--, who having an intimate friend amongst the queen's ladies of honor, often came to Versailles. I seized the opportunity to ask her a multitude of questions about Mademoiselle d'Ermay, and ascertained the following facts:

Mademoiselle d'Ermay, though originally of Poitou, was born at Noyou; her father, a man of rank, having spent his fortune at court, emigrated to America, leaving a young wife and his daughter Eugenie, then only six years old, with very slender means of support. Death, ere long, bereft the daughter of her mother's care, when an old aunt brought her desolate condition under the notice of the Archbishop of Paris, by whose recommendation and influence she was placed in a convent in this capital, and received the usual education of a nun, which, though it failed to stifle generous feelings in her bosom, it taught her to conceal them. Trained to keep the secrets of others she became impenetrable as to her own, and hid a proud and resolved spirit under the meekest possible exterior. Mistress of herself, her calmness and presence of mind never for an instant forsook her.

"You have seen," continued Madame de T--, "how far Mademoiselle d'Ermay carries disinterestedness, and may thence infer how faithful and devoted a friend she is capable of being; but," added she, "I have a notion she could be a most implacable foe.

"The superior of the convent where she was educated was a relation of M. de Fosseux, who often visited her, and thus had opportunities of seeing her youthful charge, and of ascertaining how much she was neglected and even ill-treated. Touched with compassion for her forlorn condition, and smitten by her beauty, he found means of communicating with her, avowed his sentiments, and won her heart. Nothing was easier than to elope from the convent, as M. de Fosseux proposed; but the young lady at once rejected so romantic a mode of proceeding, and went to the superior and simply demanded her liberty. It might have been expected that she would be asked what she was about to do, and whether she was going; but as the old aunt had ceased to pay for her board, and Eugenie was therefore a burden on the establishment, they allowed her to depart unquestioned. She immediately repaired to the house of M. de Fosseux, and their connection was one of unmixed happiness until the late fatal accident dissolved it. I have now told you all I know."

"Then, madame," said I, "your friend is, in fact, penniless?"

"I cannot say," answered the comtesse; "it is a point on which Eugenie is obstinately silent; she has refused to stay with me, and I think she has had too much experience of convent life ever to go there again; but I believe she has some secret but honorable resource which affords her a decent maintenance. I have already told you that her father went to America, where he died, and his daughter probably got whatever he left behind him."

As soon as I was off duty at Versailles I hastened back to Paris; and the first thing I did on reaching my old lodging was to mount to the sixth floor, and present myself to Mademoiselle d'Ermay. I found her occupying three small rooms, one of which served her for kitchen, and the one in which she received me was simply, and would have appeared poorly, furnished, but for the exquisite cleanliness and neatness, which gave it an air of elegance. After due inquiries concerning her health, I proceeded to congratulate myself on my good fortune in having the happiness to be under the same roof; begged she would command my services in any way in which they could be useful, and then hastened to change the subject, for I saw refusal trembling on her lips.

"I am sorry," said I, "to see you in such apartments as these."

"They are quite consistent, sir," said she, "with my slender means and the state of my mind."

I cast my eyes towards the window; she understood me, and, bursting into tears, withdrew into the adjoining room to hide her emotion. In fact, from this window not only the Place de Beauveau and the house of M. de Fosseux, but even the windows of his apartments, were visible. In a few minutes she reappeared, perfectly calm, with a serene and even smiling countenance. Never have I known a woman who had so much command over herself, or whose composure lent her such a charm. To see her and resist her sway was beyond the powers of mortal man, and I quitted her presence deeply in love, and resolved to leave no means untried to gain her affections. At the same time I was quite aware that I could not hope for success under a considerable length of time, even if she had not really loved M. de Fosseux. To make a woman forget a faithless lover is an easy task; to render her fickle, under ordinary circumstances, is an enterprise in which many succeed; but to efface the recollection of so bloody a catastrophe, whilst pressing my suit in perhaps the self-same well-remembered words and expressions of its lamented victim, seemed so all but hopeless an undertaking, that it required the stimulus of the most ardent passion not to shrink from it in despair. I had, however, some chances in my favor; I was young, though some years older than Mademoiselle d'Ermay; and as time has now shorn me of personal attractions, I may perhaps be allowed to boast that I was considered a good-looking fellow; finally, in the eyes of such a woman as I then loved, I had one special recommendation-I was poor. Now Mademoiselle d'Ermay, though caring little for the conventional rules of society, was scrupulous to the last degree in all that related to sentiment, generosity and disinterestedness, insomuch that the only circumstance which annoyed her in her connexion with M. de Fosseux was, that he was rich. All she required was the like absolute devotion as that which she herself rendered. It was to such a woman as this that, three months after the death of, M. de Fosseux, I hazarded a declaration of my passion. That I really felt what I so warmly and so earnestly avowed, it required not a woman's sagacity to perceive. I had given up all my favorite amusements-no more riding and driving, no more evenings at the theatre, no more supper parties. I had become pale and thin, and felt assured that Mademoiselle d'Ermay was at no loss to what cause to attribute such a change in my person and pursuits; neither did she affect to doubt the reality of a passion of which the proofs were so evident, nor did she attempt to deny that the human heart was not made for eternal sorrow, or that time could not heal its deepest wounds, but she pleaded the very peculiar position in which her lot had placed her.

"Chevalier," said she, "do not, I pray you, press me to return your passion. Love can no more find entrance into my bosom, and you know its dire consequences if it could: it is fatal-it is mortal."

"Banish," said I, in return, "such sad recollections. Why regard yourself as the cause of an unhappy event to which you yourself had so nearly fallen a victim? I can understand your repugnance hereafter to wear, or to see worn by your friends, diamonds, or such valuables as tempt the plunderer, but to renounce love at your age, and with your beauty, that were indeed too much, especially when you have inspired such a passion as mine; and oh! consider the difficulties, the trials, the dangers inseparable from your present position, and tell me if, instead of rejecting, you ought not, on the contrary, to seek some one to whom you may look for assistance, and on whom you may rely for support?"

Mademoiselle d'Ermay acknowledged all this to be true; nevertheless she hesitated. At length, however, by dint of love and perseverance, I succeeded in weakening her objections, and in satisfying her scruples, and she consented to receive my addresses. She even confessed that I was not indifferent to her; but when with expressions of love I mingled promises and oaths of eternal fidelity.

"Have a care," said she. "I ask nothing; I require nothing; but promises are, in my eyes, sacred matters. You are lavish of oaths-if I accept them, I shall look on them as binding. Is there not some ancient poet who says that "Jove laughs at lovers' perjuries?" I am more severe than Jove. I give you fair warning, M. le Chevalier."

"Where is the lover," added M. de Marigny, "who, under like circumstances, does not redouble all the oaths his mistress seems to doubt? Where is he who would hesitate to swear that he is the most truthful and constant of men? Who would not vow eternal love to such a woman?"

My old friend here raised his hands and his eyes to the picture before us, and remained for some moments in an attitude of deep and silent admiration. At length he slowly withdrew both, and with a deep sigh resumed his narration.

Mademoiselle d'Ermay consented, but reluctantly, and with the ill grace of a woman who yields in spite of herself; however she did yield, and quitted her apartments on the sixth floor for mine on the first. From that moment, my friend, I knew the bliss of being loved, and loved too without jealousy or quarrels, but with a sweet, constant, and equable flow of affection which I had not hitherto believed to be possible. No thought of the past, no anxiety for the future, seemed to have any place in Eugenie's mind; but happy in the conviction of my love, she manifested towards me as much attachment and even passion as she had exhibited hesitation and reserve on consenting to my wishes. Never, by any chance, did she allude to past events, nor did the name of M. de Fosseux ever escape her lips. I was proud of my conquest; prouder of the passion I had inspired-a passion which she did not feign, but feel. There was no pouting, no jealous freaks, none of those ebullitions of temper which so disturb the peace and harmony of even the most attached couples: she was always in the same mood; her countenance always serene, her words always sweet and soothing; nay, more, my circumstances were, as I have told you, embarrassed; and I was so deeply in debt, that I owed even the freedom of my person to the interposition of the Prince de Beauveau, when Mademoiselle d'Ermay undertook the management of my affairs, called on my creditors in person, examined their claims, obtained time for payment, struck out usurious demands; and, when my brother at length thought proper to come to my aid, paid the stipulated sums to each with such business-like accuracy, that my creditors gave me no further trouble, and in a very short space of time I was completely free from all claims and incumbrances. She held that a gentleman's word should be his bond, and that no other security ought to be necessary or required. When I reflected on the change which had taken place in the course of my life, and on the growing ascendancy which Eugenie exercised over me, and when I saw my foolish fancies and ill-formed plans give way, as they continually did, before the influence of her firm and well-regulated mind, I blushed to think how poor a figure I made, and what a mere puppet I was in the hands of a clever but imperious woman. Far from seeing love in all the care she bestowed upon me, I saw only a spirit of domination which hurt my pride. Even Zephirine, the opera-dancer, deceiving and abandoning me as she did at the very moment when I was harassed by debts contracted for and by her, had less deeply wounded my self-love than did Mademoiselle d'Ermay in thus devoting herself to my interests. Such is man! vain and ungrateful! Such, however, were her powers of fascination, that I could not help loving her, and whilst I thus yielded to her sway, I had, as you see, this one secret feeling in my bosom which I could not impart to her. How soon was I to be guilty of other wrongs towards her! My elder brother died, and I became the head of the family. I became rich, too, and might also lawfully claim the title of marquis instead of that of chevalier. Will you believe that I said nothing of all this to Mademoiselle d'Ermay? I sighed for liberty; I wanted to enjoy my accession of fortune without her privity, and to spend my money unrestrained by her good sense and unchecked by her prudence. I went secretly to my agent and gave him instruction as to my affairs, and all without saying one word to the woman who, till that moment, had known my most secret thoughts, and was accustomed to read my very looks. I thought of the figure my fortune would enable me to make at the gaming table, which Mademoiselle d'Ermay had prevailed on me to give up, and in all those pleasures which a Garde du Corps of fortune can enjoy with his comrades. For these purposes it was necessary that I should resume my duty, from which I had been absent on leave for nearly a whole year, and I announced my intention accordingly.

"You choose your time ill," said Eugenie, in a quiet tone; "if you resume service you must be less with me, and it is not prudent to quit the citadel at the very time it is attacked."

When I asked an explanation of these last words, this was (continued M. de Marigny), the substance of what she told me; and, that you may understand their import, I must tell you, that before the year 1789, the higher classes of our clergy were composed of the younger sons of noble families, who were in the receipt of large incomes from the Church; and the bishops and canons of those days, endowed as they were with fat livings and rich abbeys, did not think themselves at all called upon to reside on their several preferments, but lived in Paris and about the court, where their course of life was not always strictly evangelical. One of them, whose name I shall not mention, as it is not material to my story, had remarked Mademoiselle d'Ermay. What had particularly taken his fancy, as he said in a letter which Eugenie put into my hands, was her youthful and ingenuous countenance, her retiring manners, her love of seclusion, and her modest yet animated style of conversation. He made her splendid offers, to which he attached this one condition only, namely, that their intercourse should be a profound secret; and, he added, that in leaving me she would, moreover, silence the scandalous reports which had so long been circulated to her disadvantage.

"It was Tartuffe," said M. de Marigny, with a bitter laugh; "trying to wean Elmire from the gallants of the court, by offering her love without scandal, and pleasure without danger."

"You know," said Eugenie, when she showed me this letter, "that even if I were free to accept an offer, and this right reverend gentleman pleased me, I could never stoop to such a mere bargaining as this; but I love you, my friend, and you alone, and I show you this letter only because we have no secrets from each other."

Thus, at the very moment when she was sacrificing for my sake an ample and secure provision, I, on my part, was concealing from her my new and altered position in life; yet at the same time I knew she had nothing, for her father was not dead, as Madame de T. supposed, and had never sent her a single sou. I was on the point of confessing all; but false shame restrained me, and I set off for Versailles. I was like a man who vainly endeavors to break his bonds.

When I quitted Eugenie and galloped through the Champs Elysées and up to the quarters of my troop I breathed freely. I felt I was at liberty; but twenty-four hours had hardly elapsed ere I grew weary of this same liberty and longed to see Eugenie again, and to resume that yoke of which I was ashamed I knew not why, for it was easy, and had become necessary to me. What would have become of me if Eugenie had accepted the offers of that libertine priest and left me! So in the middle of the night I mounted my horse and went back to Paris. I found her, as usual, thinking of me, and hoping, if not expecting, my speedy return. I then took to play, but its chances failed to excite me. I suffered myself to be dragged out to those supper parties which I had once found so pleasant, but it was only to cast my eyes round the circle in search of her, and when they found her not, nor ever rested on a face so beaming as hers, weariness soon crept over me, and I found the dishes tasteless, the wine vapid, and the conversation dull.

In the mean while, I had reached that period of life at which ambition becomes a ruling passion, and mine was to be rich. Without rendering me avaricious, Mademoiselle d'Ermay had taught me to know the value of money. I had known poverty and endured most of its attendant privations, and I was now in the possession of a large and unexpected fortune, but I wanted more. Just at this time I received a letter from my mother.

M. de Marigny here paused for a moment and appeared lost in thought; he was like a man who hesitates to finish the story he has begun, and who, having disclosed one half of his secret, has some misgiving as to telling the other half, when, suddenly seizing my hand and looking me full in the face.

"Sir!" said he, in a tone of voice so solemn that it sent the blood back to my heart, and caused my not very weak nerves to tremble; "I was considering whether I ought not to require you to swear that you will never reveal to any mortal ear what I am about to relate (the perspiration stood in large drops on his venerable forehead); but 'tis no matter-I have begun and I will finish-my story may be useful as a lesson and a warning to others."

He went on.

My mother suggested, that as the period of mourning for my brother was over (alas! wishing to conceal that event from Eugenie I had not worn any), it was time to look into the affairs of a family of which I was now become the head. She advised me to resign my commission in the Gardes du Corps as an idle sort of life without any chance of promotion, and, as if she had read my thoughts, added, that I had nothing to do but to enjoy my wealth and at the same time increase it, for which there was a ready mode and present opportunity. It was this. She had selected for my brother the best match in the county-the marriage was fixed, the settlements agreed upon, and the contract drawn, when his death deranged all; why should not I carry into effect so well-formed and advantageous a plan? The young lady in question had known but little of my brother; she had no attachment to him, and merely married him because her family wished it. She was, moreover, young, pretty, and very rich. My mother urged me to quit Paris without delay, and come and secure a match which would double my fortune. Being thirty years of age, and completely my own master, I did not consider obedience, especially in such a matter, a duty I owed to the commands even of a mother; but I saw in the proposal an opportunity which might never again offer of breaking bonds which every day became tighter, and more and more wounded my pride. Besides, the money, the money tempted me. "Why," said I to myself, "should I not be able to love this pretty girl whom they propose I should marry? She is, perhaps, even handsomer than Mademoiselle d'Ermay; and who knows but she may love as well, and without subjecting me to that sort of sway I feel so onerous?" I reflected, too, on the false position in which I was placed. I lived with a mistress, of whom I was not the first lover, but only the second. Nevertheless, I knew Mademoiselle d'Ermay's character so well, was so fully assured of her inviolate fidelity, and still felt so much attached to her, that I could not make up my mind one way or the other, and was in a most lamentable state of indecision. I had without much difficulty thus far concealed from her the death of my brother; but if I absented myself and went into Dauphiné, though only just to look at the lady proposed for my wife, she would guess all, and, on my return, my contemplated abandonment would be repaid by her taking leave of me for ever. Some plausible pretext for leaving her was therefore necessary-a mission, or something of the sort, from government, on business in the north of France, whilst I hastened to the south, and tried to find in the love beaming from other eyes a release from that which had hitherto chained me to Paris. The absolute necessity of concealing this new secret made me a totally different man to what I was wont to be. I became moody and abstracted; and, whilst brooding in silence over my own thoughts, and fondly fancying that I never betrayed myself by even a gesture or hasty word, Mademoiselle d'Ermay had divined the whole, and was tracking with unerring sagacity, and into the inmost recesses of my soul, all my wavering resolves. She saw my timid spirit halting between herself and a rich wife, whilst harboring, perchance, some vague fancy for change. For so it is; we are never content with that which we have, but we want more, or we want something else, and are always wanting to be happy in some other way than that in which we are so. Eugenie, herself impenetrable, read my heart as if a book; yet she lavished upon me the same tokens of affection, and always received me with the same sweet and calm demeanor. At length, one day, when I was in my study, debating with myself how and where I should answer my mother's letter, Mademoiselle d'Ermay entered, every feature of her sweet round face elongated and sharpened and fixed in frightful rigidity; her soft eyes glared, her rosy lips were bloodless. I thought she was suddenly seized by illness, or that some cruel accident had affected her reason. She appeared to stagger, and I was rising from my seat to support her, when her hand, laid on my shoulder, pressed me back again into my chair. The skirt of her dress was turned up as high as her waist, and within its folds her clenched hands held something which, at each movement she made, sounded like the small stones in a child's rattle.

"Is it you, Eugenie?" said I.

"Yes, it is I. Do not you know me? I am not changed; I am still the same."

So she said; but it was no longer the same woman. Her very voice was altered, a Gorgon, a Meg?ra stood before me.

"Eugenie! Eugenie!" cried I.

She looked at me steadfastly, and as though the innermost thoughts of my mind were written on my forehead; and the first words she uttered fully apprised me that she knew one of my secrets.

"M. le Marquis," said she: she knew my brother was dead. "M. le Marquis," she continued, in hoarse accents; "listen to me. I have never mentioned M. de Fosseux to you, and you do not know his story. I must tell it you. I was the inmate of a convent, young and fair, unhappy it is true, but pure of heart and discreet in conduct. I might, like my companions, have taken the veil and passed my life in a cloister, without either pain or pleasure. M. de Fosseux saw me, and fell in love with me. You can never know what pains he took, what arts he practised to seduce me, for I was then a virtuous girl, and my reputation, was without spot; and though I do not reproach myself for what I have done-yet I well know that in the world I have judges more severe than my own conscience."

I made a second attempt to rise; not that I at all foresaw what was coming, but merely for the purpose of saying a few words to calm her, but she promptly shut my mouth by fiercely commanding me to listen.

"So pressing were his instances, so solemn his oaths, that they convinced me of the violence and sincerity of his passion. I listened and believed, and he prevailed. Yes, M. le Marquis, I believed his oaths of fidelity. I loved him; not so well as I love you; still I loved him. Alas, marquis! I ask you, for you know well, be it pride or be it self-devotion, what have I ever required in return for my love? Nothing but a steadfast observance of the faith pledged to me, and you have not now to learn how I have kept that which I myself plighted. I ask no contract; I demand no guarantee. I live upon the present without one thought of the past, or one anxiety for the future, confiding in the honor of the man I love with a feeling of security, which is at once my joy and my pride; faithful, I never asked but for faith; and, poor as I am, have I not rejected offers to be rich? Thus much then have I done for you and for M. de Fosseux; but M. de Fosseux deceived me; he ceased to love me, he was in treaty for a wealthy bride, and, cowardly as perfidious, heaped upon me the outward signs and tokens of a love he no longer felt; and why? Because he wished not to abandon me till the last moment-because he wished to deceive me until he could no longer wear a mask. This, marquis, was what M. de Fosseux intended to do, and this was what he would have done had he lived one week longer. I knew the name of his betrothed; and I knew the amount of the dowry to which the cupidity of my lover was about to sacrifice me. Now, marquis, what did such perfidy deserve? What was a woman to do who had asked nothing, exacted nothing, and to whom so much had been promised? Her prospects blasted and her honor lost-a cherished inmate of your home, whilst the fancy lasts; but appetite once satiated, turned out without one--. This the return for all her constancy and devotion: disgrace, base desertion, and, as if injury were not enough, you add mockery and insult, by smiling in her face whilst you are preparing to pierce her to the heart."

Whilst thus speaking (continued M. de Marigny), the looks of Mademoiselle d'Ermay assumed a yet more fierce expression, her voice became hoarser, her gestures more violent, and, with her increased agitation, whatever she had folded up in her dress returned a yet more alarming sound.

As for me, frightened, appalled, my hands trembling, and my forehead bathed in a cold sweat, I attempted to mutter something, I knew not what. No, never did Clairon, nor Dusmenil, nor your Siddons, whom I had seen some years before in England, so freeze my blood in the deepest tragedy. Struck by the resemblance between my own conduct and that of M. de Fosseux, I at length exclaimed,

"Eugenie! Eugenie! of whom are you speaking? What do you mean?"

"Of whom am I speaking? Of M. de Fosseux to be sure. What other man could be capable of a similar crime-of such base perfidy? Do you imagine it to be possible that there can be in the world two men so heartless-so utterly devoid of honor?"

"No, Eugenie," exclaimed I again; "No! I will never abandon you-never--"

"And who is talking of you, marquis?" retorted she sharply; "I am speaking of M. de Fosseux."

I could not believe my eyes; my ears, too, nay all my senses seemed in combination to deceive me. I would have given all I was worth for some of the servants to enter and dissolve the spell.

"I am speaking to you of M. de Fosseux," repeated she. "Do you remember, marquis, the day-or rather the night-on which we met for the first time? That man dead at my feet-myself stretched in the gory mire of the Place Beauveau-the dagger yet in the dead man's breast-the blood with which I was covered-my cries, my tears, my bruised neck, my torn ears, my story of two robbers, my swoons, my sobs.... Do you remember all this, marquis? Well, then, 'TWAS I-'TWAS I, I tell you!"

At these last words I uttered a loud cry, and was about to rush out of the room, but she held me fast.

"'Twas I, I tell you; alone I struck the traitor, and here are my proofs."

"Saying this, she opened her hands, and shook her dress, when brilliant buckles, a necklace of rubies, diamond rings, and a gold watch, rolled glittering on the floor, and seemed to hem me in on all sides with their sparkling points, whilst in the midst of these bloody relics lay a letter, which I instantly recognized as my mother's!

"Mr. D--," said the old man to me-who was motionless, and scarcely dared to draw my breath-"I have been an old soldier, and, thank God! was never looked upon as a coward; many is the time I have boldly faced danger, and have, too, exposed my life through mere fool-hardiness; but a man may have courage, yet not all kinds of courage; I was frightened, Mr. D--; the blood rushed to my head, my hair stood on end, my temples throbbed audibly, and I fell senseless on the floor."

When I came to myself (continued M. de Marigny) I found myself in bed; a copious bleeding had removed all immediate danger, and I seemed as though awaking out of a troubled sleep, in which I had been haunted by some fearful dream. Mademoiselle d'Ermay was at my side, with her sweet countenance, her words of love, and her tender and affectionate looks, and held both my hands in hers. Tears were stealing down her fair cheeks, and as soon as I opened my eyes she threw herself into my arms.

"Oh! chevalier," said she, "what an alarm you have caused me! Cruel man! to go into your own room without saying you were ill, and remain there alone and without help! Oh, my friend! however troublesome you may think me, I will never leave you again-I will follow you even into your study; but, my dear chevalier, I hope you will believe me in future."

Believe you! (exclaimed I) starting up. She laid me down again, and replaced my head on the pillow. Ah! said she to herself, there is still some delirium here; and then, addressing me.

"Yes, my chevalier, believe me. What has been my advice to you for these several days past? Has it not been to lose a little blood this spring time?-yet you would not be prevailed on to follow it. Your physician himself says that one bleeding would have saved you your illness, and me my fright. I do hope, chevalier, you will be more docile next spring."

I shut my eyes, and essayed to retrace in thought all the circumstances of the scene under which I had so recently sunk. Though my head was confused, and my body weak, I recalled every thing present and past. My memory carried me back to the Place Beauveau-again I saw the features of M. de Fosseux pale in death, and Mademoiselle d'Ermay's look of despair. Moreover, as a principal witness in the unhappy business, having been the first person who arrived at the spot where the murder was committed, I was examined by the magistrate, and had read over Mademoiselle d'Ermay's deposition, in which she had described the several articles of the stolen jewelry with the greatest accuracy. I then mentally compared this careful and exact description, as given in the said deposition, with the articles which Eugenie had thrown down before me, and I seemed to see and recognize them all: a gold enamelled watch, a necklace of rubies, diamond ear-rings, rings set in brilliants, and ... my mother's letter! I had hidden that letter in a secret drawer in my desk, which the maker of it had shown me alone how to open, and he was dead before I knew Eugenie; yet that letter had fallen at my feet! I saw the black seal, and thought I read the address in my mother's handwriting. It was impossible I could have dreamt all this! Another idea dwelt painfully on my mind: I have already told you the murder of M. de Fosseux was generally attributed to two men of desperate character, Pierre le Mauvais and Guillaume le Bossu. The police had diligently followed this scent, and, after tracing them to various haunts, at last succeeded in capturing both; but they proved, most clearly and incontestably, that they were both at Ronen on the night of the murder, and all the other researches of the police had been in vain. Knowing all these circumstances as I did, they now recurred to my mind in such force as to bring on a fresh attack and another fit, which had obliged them again to call in my surgeon. What he found it necessary to do I know not; I only know that the result was long doubtful, and that nothing could equal the sorrow and assiduous care of Mademoiselle d'Ermay so long as that doubt lasted. At length I came to myself.... She was at the foot of my bed, and in that sort of half-sleep which will sometimes overtake even the most wakeful and indefatigable nurses. I but partly opened my eyes, and carefully avoided making the slightest noise or movement. Her head rested on one of her hands, leaving somewhat more than the side-face and her fair cheek, now blanched by anxiety and watching, and the beautiful hair that hung in clustering curls over her white forehead, open to my view. Sleep often betrays our most secret thoughts, and the stuff of which dreams are made is sometimes revealed by involuntary movements. I narrowly watched her countenance; but no, there was nothing-she slept as calmly as a child. "She! she!" said I to myself-"she commit a murder! Could that white and delicate hand grasp a poniard, and strike the man she loved a deadly blow, and that too in the middle of the night, and in the open street? Why, the most practised villain, the commonest stabber, is not so sure of his aim as to be certain that his victim will fall without uttering one cry, and expire without knowing the hand that slays him; and that Eugenie should dare to feel more confidence in herself than such men do! and that she should never exhibit any symptoms of remorse! That I, who was so constantly with her, should never by any chance have detected any signs of a guilty conscience! never have found her low-spirited or absorbed in thought!" ... But I had seen her in my study-I had heard her terrible confession-the rattling of the jewelry as it fell from her dress on the floor, still sounded in my ears! Perhaps, however, I had dreamt all this-perhaps this cruel vision, this horrible phantasmagoria, instead of being the cause, had been the first symptom of my disorder? If so, from what source had my imagination drawn these bloody horrors? How had my heart and mind been able to engender such frightful calumnies against the best of women? True, I was thinking of emancipating myself from Eugenie's yoke, and of leaving her, in order to marry advantageously; but even whilst I was planning our separation I did justice to the angelic sweetness of her nature; and so far was I from supposing her capable of committing a crime, that I thought with regret of how many good and noble qualities I was about to deprive myself the contemplation and example in leaving her.

Some days before the occurrence I have just narrated (added M. de Marigny), one of my servants cut himself in moving a piece of furniture, and Eugenie, who happened to be present, nearly fainted at the sight of the blood; and when I joked her about her weakness, the wound not being at all serious, "Chevalier," said she, "do not laugh at me; you know I cannot bear to see even a chicken killed." I had, indeed, remarked that, though in housekeeping affairs she was always active and vigilant, she never went into the kitchen. I was in a dreadful state of uncertainty, for, in spite of all my reasonings on the subject, there was still the fact-I had seen her-I had heard her; it was herself beyond all doubt. Twice had her hand, pressing on my shoulder, pushed me back into my chair. The more I tried to banish these recollections, the more they crowded upon me; and whilst thus tortured by these anxious speculations, I made a hasty movement as she awoke.

"You then, of course," said I, interrupting his narrative for a moment, "demanded an explanation of her terrible confession?"

"Impossible, my good friend," replied he; "I was by no means sure of my own sanity, and Mademoiselle d'Ermay would have treated such a demand as the ravings of delirium."

"You are very ill, my dearest chevalier," said she; "your mind has often wandered since yesterday, and as the dreams of a sick man commonly take their color from his waking thoughts, I have discovered, whilst listening to the indistinct mutterings which fell from you in sleep, that there is one sore place in your heart. You love me, chevalier, truly and sincerely. I know you do,-but you are jealous!"

"Jealous!" cried I, in a feeble voice.

"Yes-but of the past; you have no doubt of my feelings towards you now,-you do me that justice; but you are afraid that I loved M. de Fosseux yet better."

"M. de Fosseux! M. de Fosseux! for God's sake, Eugenie, do not pronounce that name."

"Why? Since yesterday it has been continually in your mouth, and you have scarcely ever ceased to utter it and speak of him with bitterness. Ah! my friend, let the dead rest in peace: you must have observed that from the first moment of our connection, I never mentioned or alluded to M. de Fosseux,-you must have made me forget him. Oh! believe me, my chevalier, I swear-and you know how sacred I hold an oath-I never loved M. de Fosseux as I love you. Do not then allow such painful fancies to harass you; think how happy we are-as happy as it is possible to be in this world,-so happy that every body envies us."

In saying this, her lovely face lighted up with a heavenly smile, expressive of love and contentment; and if a small but almost imperceptible cloud did rest for an instant on her calm brow, it was easily accounted for by her anxiety for me. At length one morning I awoke, and, not without a certain degree of satisfaction, perceived that I was alone. She was not there. I rang the bell, and a servant came.

"Your mistress?"

"Mademoiselle?"

"Yes, mademoiselle; where is she?"

"Mademoiselle is at church; it is Sunday," answered the servant.

She was attending divine service at the church of St. Roch, as she never failed to do both on Sundays and saints' days.

I dismissed the servant, rose hastily, threw on my dressing-gown, and, with unsteady step, hurried to the desk in which I had locked up my mother's letter. The desk was untouched. At the very part of it where the drawer was so skilfully contrived, and of which I alone possessed the secret, there were some grains of dust, clearly proving that the mysterious spring had not been touched for a long time. I opened it, and there lay my mother's letter, exactly as I had, with my own hands, placed it! Astonished and confounded, I went to Mademoiselle d'Ermay's room. Her keys were on her dressing-table; she had neither suspicions nor secrets! I searched every where, turned every thing topsy-turvy. Not a hole nor corner did I omit to rummage; and I shuddered the while, for I was every moment expecting to find the watch, the rubies, and the diamonds which I had seen, or fancied that I saw, scattered before me on the floor of my study. But no, there was nothing of the sort. Was it, then, a dream-a frightful illusion, and the mere forerunner of my illness? By some strange contradiction, or some magnetic power which a strong will exercises over a feeble one, I felt that I loved Eugenie a hundred times better than ever, and crawled back again to my bed, convinced that I had been mistaken, and the victim of a fearful dream. I then considered the case in another point of view, and asked myself whether, even supposing Mademoiselle d'Ermay to be guilty, she had not some excuse for her crime? What could be more base and dishonorable than to abandon so fond and devoted a woman? Had not M. de Fosseux deserved his fate? And I, who had entertained the same design, and had been on the point of committing the very same act of treachery, and for the very same vile motive of adding to an already large fortune, what was I, then? Had she meant to give me an awful warning of the fate which awaited me if I proved as faithless as M. de Fosseux? I was lost in conjectures. There was, perhaps, one way of extricating myself from this labyrinth, or, at least, of throwing some light on the darkness by which I was surrounded. I might ascertain from the family of M. de Fosseux if at the time of his death he was engaged to be married. I, however, rejected this idea; for, whether it proceeded from love or from infirmity of purpose, I preferred darkness to light, and blindness to perfect vision. "Yes," said I to myself, "I have dreamt it all; my imagination has mixed up M. de Fosseux with the wrong I was myself about to inflict, and, whilst meditating a crime, I have also imagined its cruel punishment. Truly, I have had a shocking dream!"

My reflections had led me thus far, when Mademoiselle d'Ermay returned from church. She came and took her accustomed place at my bedside.

"Eugenie," said I, "I have much to tell you."

"Do not talk, chevalier; you are still too weak for conversation."

"No, Eugenie, I am better. My head is clear, and my delirium past; so listen. In the first place, my brother is dead."

"Accept my condolences, and allow me to congratulate you on your accession to wealth and a higher title."

"My dear friend," said I again, "my mother has written to me. She requires me to do two things; one is to go for a time to my estate in Dauphiné, and the other to get married. Surely, then, this is the auspicious moment to obtain the sanction of the Church to our union?"

"You are right, marquis," she answered, quietly, "for the king and queen" (Louis XV. was dead), "and especially the Princess Elizabeth, his majesty's sister, are very strait in their notions, and might otherwise possibly look coldly upon you when you are presented."

Within a week we were married.

"She became your wife?" exclaimed I.

"Yes, and I am still in mourning for her, and shall continue to wear it to the end of my life."

There was no change in our domestic arrangements; all went on as usual, except that my friends and acquaintance, and my people, instead of calling Eugenie Mademoiselle, addressed her as Madame la Marquise. In the world my marriage was not blamed; on the contrary, it was approved. It was an event which every body seemed to have expected, and, taking place, as it did as soon as I became rich, was voted to be alike honorable to Mademoiselle d'Ermay and myself. I must tell you a trait which will enable you to judge how my wife-for so I must now call her-interested herself in the events of my former life. A few days after our marriage she said to me,

"My dear marquis, I used formerly to go sometimes to the theatre of Audinet-did you?"

"Yes, marquise, often."

"There was at that time a young danseuse on those boards who attracted my attention: she was called, I believe, Zephirine; do you remember her?"

"I had forgotten her, marquise, and but for your recalling her to my mind I should never have thought of her again."

"She was a giddy girl, I understand," continued she, "and from mere love of change left Paris and France some years ago with a wealthy Englishman, through whose indulgence and her own indolence she neglected her dancing-a talent soon lost without constant practice-and she has grown fat and lost her agility. The Englishman has become tired of her and turned her off, and she cannot get an engagement even in London; would you now be so kind as to make her some small allowance?"

I did so, and my wife would never listen to the confession I begged her to hear. I then took my wife into Dauphiné, and presented her to my mother, who at first received her very coldly, as I expected-for this marriage had marred all her plans-but she was soon so won by the unvarying sweetness of her temper, and the irresistible fascination of her manners, that she conceived the warmest affection for her, and no mother-in-law ever loved a daughter better. My good fortune excited some jealousy, and the beauty of my wife much admiration. A gentleman in the neighborhood fell in love with her, and was bold enough to declare his passion; she instantly, and without the smallest hesitation, informed me of the insult she had received, and I, as promptly, decided on calling him out; a resolution which Eugenie at first opposed, but on my insisting that as I had in former days fought for a mistress I could not do less for a wife, she said, "Go, then, and avenge me; if you fall, I will not survive you."

My antagonist was severely wounded; and this proof of spirit obtained me the more credit in my neighborhood, as my cause was so just. The revolution broke out whilst we were in Dauphiné, and I wished to return without delay to Paris; but my wife dissuaded me. "You are no longer in the army," said she; "you left it when you married me, and you therefore owe no personal service to the king; stay here, where you may perhaps be useful to others, and certainly so to yourself."

I followed counsels which had long since become the only guide of my will, and it was well I did so, for we passed in peace and retirement that period which was so fatal to our aristocracy; and when the storm was over, "Now," said she, "let us go to Paris."

Here we lived in the enjoyment of happiness which nothing ever alloyed, and of a mutual affection which age neither cooled nor impaired. Thus, you see, my friend (continued M. de Marigny), I have been led through life by my wife; but she strewed the path with flowers, whilst the circumstance which, as it were, compelled me to marry her saved me from the commission of a base and unworthy act, for which I should never have ceased to reproach myself, and which would have rendered my life miserable. Yes, all has been for the best.

"You mean by that," said I, "that you have had sufficient strength of mind to control your imagination and to become thoroughly convinced that preceding events were the mere dream of a delirious man?"

Wait awhile (quietly pursued M. de Marigny). Two years ago, my wife was seized by sudden and severe illness; she had up to that moment enjoyed invariable good health, and though she was upwards of fifty, her smile retained all its sweetness, and her countenance was as serene as ever. When she found herself unable to leave her bed, she gave herself up for lost.

"I feel that I shall die, my dear friend," said she to me one day, "and I have some few requests to make of you; you will not marry again-will you?"

At these words I burst into tears, and poured forth again all my former oaths, and which, considering our long attachment and my advanced age, it was no longer difficult to keep.

"I know," said she, "you will never give your name to another woman; I feel sure of that. What I wish is, that you should retire to your estate in Dauphiné, and there, in peace and tranquillity, end your days where your father and mother died and are buried; and, that you may have no inducement to remain in Paris or ever return to it, sell your house; and then, having no interest in the capital, you will find it the more easy to perform what I have now requested, and what I feel assured you will promise me to do."

I promised all she required; and in so doing it appeared to me that I was adopting the wisest and most prudent course. There was, moreover, in the idea of going to die amidst the tombs of my ancestors and of mingling my ashes with theirs, a feeling of piety which melted me to tears. Eugenie, once feeling assured that her last wishes would be obeyed, asked for the attendance of a priest, and died with the same courage and composure as had marked her whole life.

"Sir," said her confessor to me, "God is just and merciful. He pardons the repentant sinner-your wife is a saint in heaven."

I will not attempt to describe my grief, my despair, and the state of utter loneliness into which this sad bereavement plunged me: I have other matters to talk of. When Eugenie was no more I had no longer any will but my own to consult; and though deeply regretting the absence of that sway I had been so long accustomed to, I nevertheless followed inclinations which were no longer controlled. It was a feeling of piety which had first made me promise to retire into Dauphiné, and it was now a similar feeling which determined me to remain where I was. Why should I go and die amidst ancestral tombs? Why make it a point of duty to mix my ashes with theirs? I lost my father when I was a mere child; I scarcely remembered him; and I had lived very little with my mother, whereas, my whole life had been spent with Eugenie. It was therefore near her that I ought to end my days, and in her grave that I ought to find my final resting place; nor could I understand how it was that she had not expressed a wish to that effect, and I persuaded myself that if she could now see me she would approve of the change in my resolution. When I had once made up my mind to remain in Paris, it was no longer requisite or convenient to sell my house; and to tell you the truth, I was very desirous to keep it. I had inhabited it from my youth; I had improved and embellished it, and it recalled to my remembrance the only woman that I had ever sincerely loved. My whole life had been spent in it; in it had been acted the whole drama of my existence, and there was not a corner nor a piece of furniture in it which did not awaken some thought or recollection. I resolved then to live and die in Paris. But, my friend, though our dwellings of brick and mortar are more durable than those of our own mortal clay, they, nevertheless, from time to time require repair, or they would fall into a state of utter dilapidation. Several months ago, my people told me that some tiling was wanted to the roof, and that the flooring of the rooms on the sixth story was sadly out of condition. These were the rooms of which Mademoiselle d'Ermay had been the last occupier; in fact, my wife had always taken to herself these three rooms which she had occupied in her poverty, and the keys of them remained in the hands of my people till after that my grief had somewhat subsided. I wished to revisit the scene of my wooing, and the hallowed spot where Eugenie had responded to my passion. My first visit was made alone, and I gave way without restraint to the feelings which the scene was calculated to excite. On this occasion, however, I went up with the workmen. Time, and the dampness of a room always kept closed, had almost entirely destroyed the flooring. They set to work in my presence, and scarcely had they raised up the mouldy boards and decayed joists, than I saw diamonds glitter, and rubies, and gold-those dreadful jewels which had caused me so much terror and such a severe illness-there they were, the very same....

"Great God!" cried I; "then she had killed M. de Fosseux!!!"

The old man NODDED.

From Household Words.

THE SPENDTHRIFT'S DAUGHTER. IN SIX CHAPTERS.

CHAPTER THE FIRST.

"Frugality is a virtue which will contribute continually and most essentially to your comfort. Without it, it is impossible that you should do well; and we know not how much, or how soon, it may be needed."

So writes Southey to his son, Cuthbert, just then starting at Oxford.

The proposition might have been expanded from the particular to the universal. Southey might have said, that in no condition of life, from that of her who sitteth upon the throne, to that of the handmaiden who grindeth behind the mill, can frugality-in other words, system and self-denial as regards the expenditure of money-be dispensed with. Self-denial and diligent attention in the management of this great talent are necessary in all.

No one of the gifts of Providence appears to the casual observer to be bestowed with less regard to individual merit than wealth. It would almost seem, as an old divine has written, as if God would mark his contempt of mere material riches by the hands into which he suffers them to fall. Although, fall where they will, and on whom they will, one thing is certain;-that they will prove but a delusive snare to those who know not how to order them;-when to husband, and when to spare; when to spend, or when to bestow.

These reflections arose from a story with which, not long ago, I became acquainted. A common tale enough-one among a thousand illustrations of what Butler affirms to be the indispensable condition upon which it has pleased our Creator that we should hold our being:-that of controlling our own actions; either by prudence to pass our days in ease and quiet; or, by rashness, ungoverned passion, wilfulness, or negligence, to make ourselves miserable.

He is sitting on the bottom stone of a magnificent flight of steps, which lead up to a handsome door, situated in the centre of a large many-windowed house, which, fronted with handsome iron rails round the area, is built of fine brick, and ornamented with abundance of stone-work, in cornices and architraves. This house stands in one of the best streets in the neighborhood of Grosvenor Square.

He is clothed in garments that once were fashionable; but now are discolored with much wear and long exposure to wind and weather; so much so, that, in several places, they are falling into tatters. His face-the features of which are very finely cut, and still bear the traces of a once very remarkable beauty-is wan, attenuated, and begrimed with dust, dirt, and neglect. His eyes are haggard; his hair dusty and dishevelled-his beard ragged and untrimmed.

He is the picture of physical decay, and of the lowest depths of moral degradation. He sits there upon the stone, sometimes watching the street-sweeper-a little tattered boy cheerily whistling over his work-now and then casting up his eyes at the closed windows of the handsome house, upon which the beams of the rising sun are beginning to shine; but to shine in vain at present; for it is only about six o'clock in the morning, and life has not yet begun to stir within the mansion.

His cheek rests upon his thin, withered, and unwashed hand, as he casts his eyes first upwards, then downwards, then slowly, and with a sort of gloomy indifference, around.

He looks upward. Is it towards the sky; where the great lord of earthly light-type of that more Glorious Sun which should arise "with healing on its wings"-is diffusing the cheering effulgence of the dawn, calling forth the fresh and wholesome airs of the morning, and literally chasing away the noisome spirits of the night? Is he looking there?

No; he is no seeker of the light; he feels not its blessed influence; he heeds not the sweet fresh rising of the morning as it breathes over the polluted city, and pours, for a few short moments, its fresh, crisp, cheering airs into the closest and most noisome of her quarters. He cares not for that delicious brightness which gives to the vast town a pure and peculiar clearness for a few half hours, whilst all the world are asleep, and the streets are yet guiltless of sin and sea-coal.

What has light; the pure breath of the morning; the white rays of the early sun; and the soft, quiet, and refreshing stillness of the hour, to do with him? He only lifts up his eyes to examine a house: he only casts them around to observe what goes on in the streets; he is of the earth, earthy,-the sacred odor exists not for him.

Yet, in the deep melancholy, the expression of harrowing regret with which he did look up at that house-even in the very depths of his moral degradation and suffering-the seeds of better things might be germinating. Who shall say? He has sounded the very base-string of misery: he touches ground at last-that may be something.

The sparrows chirped in the rays of the sun, and the little sweeper whistled away. Different figures began sparingly to appear, and one by one crept out; objects of strange aspect who seem to come, one knows not whence;-the old clothes-man, with his low and sullen croak; country carts; milk-men, rattling their cans against area rails; butcher-boys swinging their trays. Presently were heard, immediately below where the man was sitting, the sounds of awakening life;-unlocking of doors, opening of windows, the pert voices of the women servants, and the surly responses of the men; shutters above began to be unfolded, and the eyes of the large house gradually to open. The man watched them-his head resting still upon his hand, and his face turned upwards-until, at length, the hall-door opened, displaying a handsome vestibule, and a staircase gay with painting and guilding. A housemaid issued forth to shake the door-mat.

Then he arose and slowly moved away; every now and then casting a wistful glance backwards at the house, until he turned the corner, and it was lost to his sight.

Thus he left a place which once had been his own.

With his head bent downwards, he walked slowly on; not properly pursuing his way-for he had no way nor object to pursue-but continuing his way, as if he had, like a ball once set in motion, no motive to stand still. He looked neither to the right nor to the left; yet seemed mechanically to direct his footsteps towards the north. At length, he slowly entered one of the larger streets in the neighborhood of Portland Place. His attention was excited by a bustle at the door of one of the houses, and he looked up. There was a funeral at a house which stood in this street a little detached from the others. The plumes were white. It was the funeral of an unmarried person. Why did his heart quiver? Why did he make a sudden pause? Had he never seen a funeral with white plumes before in his life?

Was it by some mysterious sympathy of nature that this reckless, careless, fallen man-who had looked at the effigies of death, and at death itself, hundreds and hundreds of times, with negligent unconcern-shuddered and turned pale, as if smitten to the heart by some unanticipated horror?

I cannot tell. All I know is, that, struck with a sudden invincible terror, impelled by a strange but dreadful curiosity, he staggered, rather than walked forward; supporting himself as he went against the iron rails, and thus reached the steps of the house just as the coffin was being carried down.

Among the many many gifts once possessed, and all misused, was one of the longest, clearest, and quickest sights that I ever remember to have heard of. His forlorn eye glanced upon the coffin; it read:

"Ella Winstanley,

Died June 29, 18..

Aged Twenty-three."

And he staggered. The rails could no longer support him. He sank down upon the flagstones.

The men engaged about the funeral lifted the poor ragged creature up. A mere common beggar, they thought; and they were about to call a policeman, and bid him take charge of him; when a lady, who was standing at the dining-room window of the house, opened it, and asked what was the matter?

"I don't know, Ma'am," said the undertaker's man; "but this here gent has fallen down, as I take it, in a fit, or something of the sort. Policeman, hadn't you best get a stretcher, and carry him to the workhouse or to the hospital?"

"No," said the lady, "better bring him in here. Mr. Pearson is in the house, and can bleed him, or do what is necessary."

Upon which the insensible man was carefully lifted and carried by two or three of the men up the steps. At the door of the hall they were met by the lady who had appeared at the window. She was evidently a gentlewoman by her dress and manners. She was arrayed very simply. Her gray hair was folded smoothly under her bonnet-cap; her black silk cloak still hung upon her shoulders; her bonnet rested upon a pole screen in the dining-room. It seemed by this that she was not a regular inhabitant of the house in which she exercised authority. Nothing could be more gentle and kind than the expression of her calm, but firm countenance; but upon it the lines of sorrow, or of years, were deeply traced. She was, evidently, one who had not passed through the world without her own portion of suffering; but she seemed to have suffered herself, only the more intimately to commiserate the suffering of others.

They laid the stranger upon the sofa in the dining-room; and, at the lady's desire, sent for Mr. Pearson, who was the house apothecary. Whilst waiting for him, she stood with her eyes fixed upon the face of the stranger; and, as she did so, curiosity, wonder, doubt, conviction, and astonishment were painted in succession upon her face.

Very soon Mr. Pearson appeared, and advised the usual remedy of bleeding. The lady walked to the window, and stood there, watching the proceedings of those without, until the arrangements of a very simple funeral were terminated, and the little procession, which attended the young Ella Winstanley to her untimely grave, gradually moved on, and disappeared at the turning of the street.

The countenance of the lady, as she returned to the sofa, showed that she had been very much moved by the sight.

Having been bled, the stranger opened his eyes; which now, as he lay there, extended upon the sofa, displayed a gloomy but remarkable beauty-a beauty, however, arising rather from their form and color, than from their expression, which was more painful than interesting. Again the lady fixed her eyes upon his face, and again she shuddered, and half turned away. Pity, disgust, and regret, were mingled in her gesture.

The stranger's eyes followed her, with a dreamy and unsettled look. He seemed to be as mazed with wonder as she was.

She turned again, as if to satisfy her doubts. His eyes met hers; and, as they did so, recollection seemed to be restored.

"Where am I, and what is it?" he muttered.

"You are where you will be taken good care of until you are able to be removed," said the lady. "Is there any one you would wish to have sent for?"

The man did not speak.

"Any one you would wish to be sent for?" she repeated.

"No," he answered.

"Any thing more you would wish to have done?"

"Nothing."

He lay silent for some time, with his eyes still fixed upon her.

At last he said, "Tell me where I am?"

"Where you are welcome to be until you can gather strength enough to proceed to the place to which you were going when this attack seized you. And that was-?"

"Nowhere. But what house is this?"

"A house only destined for the reception of ladies," she answered.

"Ladies! what ladies?"

"The sick who have no other home."

"A house of charity, then?"

"Partly."

"And that one-that one-that young creature, whose funeral-Do you know her? any thing about her-?"

"Yes," answered the lady, with gravity, approaching to severity, "I do know much about her."

"Why-why did she come here?"

"Because she was friendless and deserted; poor, sick, and miserable. She had given up what little money she had to supply the wants-perhaps-who knows?-the vices of another. Happily there were found those who would befriend her."

"And she accepted the charity; she received the alms?"

"She had learned to submit herself to the will of God."

He shut his teeth together with a something between bitterness and contempt at these last words, and turned his head away.

"You are her father?" said the lady.

"I am-"

"Then you are a very wretched man," she added.

"Yes," he replied, "I am most miserable."

"You are one who have reaped from seeds, which might have produced a rich harvest of happiness, nothing but black and blighted misery."

She spoke with unusual severity, for her soul recoiled at his aspect: she saw nothing in it to soften her feelings of indignation.

"I have lived," he answered.

"How?"

"How! as others of my temper have lived. It was not my fault that I was born with an invincible passion for enjoyment. I did not make myself. If pleasure be but the forerunner of satiety-if life be but a cheat-if delight be but the precursor of misery-a delusion of flattering lies,-I did not arrange the system. Why was virtue made so hard, and self-indulgence so enticing? I did not contrive the scheme."

"Such excuses," the lady replied, "the honest consciousness within us rejects; such as your own inner conscience at the very moment you utter them disclaims. She who is gone-a broken-hearted victim of another's errors-hoped better things when she exhausted almost her last breath in prayers for you."

"Prayers!" in a tone that spoke volumes.

"Yes, prayers."

"What is become of my other daughter?-I want to go to her."

"She died, I believe, about twelve months ago."

"Then I am alone in the world?"

"You have no children now."

"Are you going to turn me out into the street?" he suddenly asked, after a short silence.

"The rules of this house-which is dedicated to the assistance of sick and helpless women-will not admit of your remaining."

"I am going. You will hear of me next as one past recovery; picked up out of some kennel by the police. You would have done better not to have restored me. I should have died quietly."

"But without repentance."

"Repentance!" he said fiercely. "Repent while my whole soul is writhing with agony? Ella! Ella! if I could only have kept my Ella, she would have tended me-she would have soothed me-she would have worked for me."

"Yes," said the lady, "she would have done this, and much more-but God has taken her; has rescued her from your heartless selfishness." To herself she added-for her heart was glowing with indignation-"Even in this supreme moment, he thinks of nothing but of himself."

"She would have been more gentle with me than you are," he said, with a half-reproachful sigh.

"Yes, yes-she would have felt only for you-I happen to feel for her."

"Which I never did."

"Never-"

"You say true," said he, musing.

CHAPTER THE SECOND.

"Julian Winstanley--"

"He who won the steeple-chase yesterday? Who, in the name of goodness, is Julian Winstanley? A name of some pretension; yet nobody seems to know where he came from."

"Oh dear, that is quite a mistake. I beg your pardon-everybody knows where he came from. This bird of gay plumage was hatched in a dusky hole and corner of the city; where his grandfather made a fabulous fortune by gambling in the funds."

"He is as handsome a young fellow as ever was hatched from a muckworm."

"He is a careless, dashing prodigal, whatever else; and I never look at him without thinking of Hogarth's picture of the 'Miser's Heir.' What say you to him, Blake, with your considering face? Come, out with your wisdom! You can make a sermon out of a stone, you know."

"May be so. A stone might furnish matter for discourse, as well as other things; but I am not in the humor for preaching to-day. I can't help being sorry for the scapegrace."

"So like you, Contradiction! Sorry for him! And, pray, what for?-because he is the handsomest, most aristocratical-looking person one almost ever met with-because he is really clever, and can do whatever he pleases in no time (might have taken a double-first at Oxford easily, Penrose says, if he would)-or because he has got countless heaps of gold at his banker's; and nobody to ask him a why or a wherefore; may do, in all things, just what he likes-or because he can drink like a fish, dance like Vestris, ride like Chiffney; be up all night and about all day, and never tire, be never out of spirits, never dull? Harry Blake! Who'll come and hear Harry Blake? He is going to give his reasons, why a man who has every good thing of the world is most especially to be pitied."

"I am going to do no such thing. The reasons are too obvious. I deal not in truisms."

"Well, all I know is, that he won the steeple-chase yesterday, and to-day he beat Pincent, the champion, at billiards. To-morrow he goes to the ball at Bicester; and see if he does not beat us all at dancing there, and bear away the belle, whoever the belle may be-though the blood of a stockbroker does run in his veins."

"His blood may be as good as another's, for aught I know," said the philosopher; "but I doubt whether the rearing be."

"It is the blood, depend upon it. Blake, you are quite right," said a pale, affected young man, who stood by, and was grandson to an earl; "the blood-these upstarts are vulgar, irremediably, do what they will."

"That not quite," said Harry Blake. "I have seen as great cubs as ever walked behind a plough-tail who would call cousins with the Conqueror, Warndale. But a something there is of difference after all; and, in my opinion, it lies in the tradition. Wealth and distinction are like old wine, the better for keeping. Time adds a value, mellows, gives a certain body-an inappreciable something. Newly-acquired wealth and distinction is like new wine-trashy. I rather pity the man who possesses them, therefore."

"And I do not"-"And I do not,"-and "A fig for your philosophy!" resounded from all sides of the table.

The philosopher looked on with his quiet smile, and added:

"I do not mean to say that I should pity any of those here present in such a case, for we all know, by experience, that new wine, in any quantity, has no effect upon them; never renders their heads unsteady-was never known to do so. But you must allow me to pity Julian Winstanley; for I think his wits are somewhat straying, and I fear that he has already mounted upon that high horse which gallops down the road to ruin."

And so away they all went to the ball at Bicester that night. Most of them were somewhat more elaborately dressed than the occasion required. Julian Winstanley was, undoubtedly. It had been his mother's injunction, never to spare expense in any thing that regarded his toilette; and dutifully he obeyed it.

I am not going to give you a description of his dress. Fancy every thing most expensive; fancy, as far as a natural good taste would allow, every habiliment chosen with reference to its costliness; and behold him waltzing with a very pretty girl, who is, upon her side, exquisitely dressed also. She wears the fairest of white tulles, and the richest of white satins, and has a bouquet of the flowers from the choicest of French artists in her bosom, and another negligently thrown across her robe. Hair of remarkable beauty, arranged in a way to display its profusion, and the very expensive ornaments with which it is adorned.

Although the young lady-who is the daughter of a very fashionable and extravagant man, celebrated in the hunting and racing world-is well known to be portionless, yet she is the object of general attraction;-a thing to be noted as not what usually happens to young ladies without sixpences, in these expensive times. But it is the caprice of fashion, and fashion is all-powerful. So Julian, who is only starting in the career of extravagance, and in its golden age of restless profusion, and far removed, as yet, from that iron age which usually succeeds it-namely, that of selfish covetousness-is quite prepared to cast himself at her feet-which with a little good management of her and her mother's, he soon actually did. Having, as yet, more money in his pocket than he knew how to get through, he was exceedingly pleased with what he had done, and not a little proud in due time to incarcerate this fair creature in solitary grandeur within his carriage, whilst he and his boon companions rejoiced outside.

The connections formed by his marriage occasioned additional incentives to expense. Introduced into a more elevated circle than he had as yet moved in, and impelled by the evil ambition of outshining every one with whom he associated, Winstanley soon found innumerable new opportunities for spending money. He became a prey to imaginary necessities. His carriages, his horses, his villas and their furniture, his dinners, his wines, his yachts;-her fêtes in the morning and her balls in the evening, her gardens (which were for ever changing), her delicate health, which required the constant excitement of continental travel, and yachting excursions;-the dress of both; the wild extravagance of every thing,-I leave you to picture to yourselves.

CHAPTER THE THIRD.

What is five thousand a year, when a man spends six? Make it ten, and he will spend twelve. There is an old story I have heard my mother tell:-

A man had a legacy left him, so large, that upon the strength of it he was enabled to change his plan of life. He sat down and calculated the style in which it would henceforward become him to live. His arrangement of income and expenditure would have been perfect, only that the income fell short a certain, not very large, sum. This was a sad business. A few hundreds more, and he would have been quite at ease-he had them not-he began to feel rather poor. A letter arrives from his man of business. There has been a mistake; the legacy is of twice the amount it had been at first stated at. How will it become him to live now? That is easily settled-he has only to double all his expenses. Alas! And he remains twice as poor as he was before.

There is no limit to extravagance-it is a bottomless chasm which is not to be filled.

The income does not exactly suffice-and no man ought to exceed his income. True, but there are unexpected expenses-things that perhaps may never recur. The prudent man economizes something else; the imprudent man goes to his capital. He unlocks that sacred door of which he holds the enchanted key in his hand-and ruin rushes out upon him as a flood.

Julian soon began to touch upon his capital. It was but in small sums at first, and yet it is astonishing how rich and easy (for the time) it made him feel. A thousand or two thus added to a man's income makes all mighty smooth, and the consequent diminution of his future revenue is a trifle, not felt, and not worth thinking of. Desires increase with the means to gratify them. He who takes a thousand or two from his capital, soon finds it necessary to take more. Income diminishes as desires gain strength; the habit of indulgence grows as the means to gratify it decline.

What with borrowing, and giving bills, and drawing larger bills to pay the former bills when they became due, Julian and his wife had, by the nineteenth year of their marriage, eaten out the whole core and marrow of their fortunes. The edifice now stood, to all appearance, as splendid as ever-but it had become a house of cards over a bottomless pit.

And yet they had children; they had not wanted those best incentives to a better course. Their possessions in this way were not very numerous; people of this description have seldom overflowing nurseries; the mother is usually too fine a lady to look after her children herself. She is contented with hiring some head nurse, taking her on trust from some other young woman as heedless and negligent of her duties as herself; and to her tender mercies she leaves her babies.

Such a nurse had lorded it in Mrs. Winstanley's family; an ill-governed family in every respect, where each servant, from the highest to the lowest, measured his or her consequence by the money which was spent or wasted. Under this nurse's care two lovely boys had died in their infancy. One little girl had tumbled somewhere or in some way-or had been made to stand too long in the corner when she was naughty, or to walk too far when she was tired, or what. I know not. All I know, is, there was some internal injury, the cause of which no medical man who was consulted could detect. The other, and only remaining child, was a fine, handsome, spirited girl, of whom Mrs. Nurse thought proper to be excessively proud and fond. And how were these little children educated? Educated is an inappropriate word. There was no capacity for education on the part of Nurse; but Mr. and Mrs. Winstanley, though their dinners were just as numerous and profuse as ever, saw not the slightest necessity, whilst the little girls were young, for the additional expense of any better governess; and Mrs. Nurse was left to give all the elementary instruction that was thought needful-a task which she undertook with alacrity; having become somewhat apprehensive, now the two little boys were dead and the two young ladies getting bigger, that she might be superseded.

Her teaching consisted, first in shaking and scolding Miss Clementina, and keeping her, with her poor aching hip, prisoner in her chair till she had learned, a lesson-which, for want of comprehending the absurdly long words of which it seemed purposely composed, it was almost impossible she should learn; and secondly, in laughing at Miss Ella's odd blunders as she read, and telling her every word as it occurred, before she had time to pronounce it.

As for religion, morality, or knowledge of right and wrong, Mrs. Nurse thought too little about such things herself to impart them to others. I suppose she taught the children to say their prayers; but I am sure I know no more than the mother did, whether it was so or no. Sometimes the children were taken to stare about them in church; but not often, for Mrs. Winstanley was in the habit of fulfilling the commandment very literally, and making Sunday a day of rest. Commonly she spent the forenoon in bed; only getting up in time to dress for a dinner party which Mr. Winstanley made an especial point of having on that day. He, as yet, paid this trifling respect to it; he abstained from going on Sunday evening to a certain club which he frequented, to play cards, or roulette, for unknown sums.

The elder of these children grew up, suffering, and spiritless; the younger was proud, insolent, overbearing, and tyrannical-as much so as such a little creature could be. They were fast growing up into all this, and would have been confirmed in it, had not an accident arrested the fearful progress.

Spoiled, flattered, allowed to indulge every evil temper with impunity, Ella's faults were numberless; more especially to her helpless sister, whose languid health and feeble spirits excited little sympathy, and whose complaints seemed to irritate her.

"I declare you are the most tiresome, tormenting thing, sitting there looking as miserable as ever you can, and with that whining voice of yours, enough to drive one mad. Why can't you brighten up a little, and come and play? You really shall come and play, I want to play! Nurse! O! she's not there! Do make Clementina come and play."

"Don't, Ella! don't tease me so; pray don't! My hip hurts me; I can't. Do let me alone, pray."

"Nonsense. You make such a fuss about your hip! I don't believe any thing's the matter with it; only you're so ill-natured, you never will do any thing I ask. Nurse, I say," as the door opened, "do make her.-O, it's only Matty! Matty, where's Nurse?"

"She's just stepped out, Miss, and told me to come, and stay in the day-room with you till she was back."

And Matty, the new maid, hired but a day or two before, came in with her sewing in her hand, and sat down quietly to her work at the window.

"Matty!" cried Ella, imperiously, "don't sit there, looking so stupid; but come and make this tiresome girl play with me. There she sits, mooning over the fire. If Nurse were here, she'd soon have her up."

"Don't, pray, Matty," as Matty was rising from her chair. "Pray, don't. I'll go and play; but indeed, indeed, it hurts me very much to move to-day."

"Nonsense! Make her get up, Matty, You must mind me, Matty; you came here to mind me; so do as you are bid, you ugly thing."

Matty indeed merited the title of ugly. She was rather tall, but of a most ungainly figure, with long bony limbs, ill put together. It was difficult to say what the features of her face might have been: they were so crumpled, and scarred, and seamed. Not a feature had been left uninjured, except her eyes: and they were remarkable both for intelligence and softness.

She put down her work and went up to Clementina, saying, "What ails you, Miss? I hope it isn't true that you feign sickness not to play with your sister?"

The poor girl looked up, and her eyes were filled with tears. "Feign! I wish I did!"

"Then your hip does hurt you?"

"To be sure it does. So badly! At night, sometimes, when I'm in bed-so, so badly."

"And do you know that, Miss Ella?"

"Know it! Why, who does not know it? She's always talking of it; but, for my part, I don't believe it's half so bad as she pretends."

"I don't pretend, Ella; you are always saying that. How cruel you are to set Nurse against me, by always saying I pretend."

Thus it went on for a minute or two, whilst Matty stood silently by, her eyes wandering from one sister to the other.

At last she sighed, and said, "If it had pleased God to spare me my sister, I wouldn't have served her so."

Ella turned at this, and lifting up her eyes, measured Matty from head to foot with indignant contempt. It would seem as if she thought it almost too great a presumption in one so humble to have more care for a sister than she had.

"Who cares how such as you serve their sisters?"

"There is One who cares!" said Matty.

Clementina looked at Matty with puzzled wonder as she spoke. Ella haughtily turned away, saying, "I should like, for my part, to hear who this important one is, that you mention with such a strange emphasis. Some mighty fine personage, no doubt."

"Miss Clementina! Miss Clementina! only hear how shocking your sister talks. Do stop her!"

"Stop me! I should like to see her, or any one, attempting to stop me. And why, pray-and what, pray, am I saying so mighty bad, Mrs. Matty? You? A charity girl? I heard Nurse say, but yesterday, that she wondered her mistress would put up with such rubbish, and that she loathed the very look of you, for you put her in mind of the Blue Coat."

"I thank God," returned Matty, mildly, "that he raised up that great charity for me, and many perishing like me, and saved us from wickedness, and taught us to know His holy name. For He looks alike on rich and poor, and will judge both you and me, young lady."

Both girls were a little awe-stricken at this speech.

But Ella soon recovered herself, and said, "she hated to hear people talk like Methodists."

"What are you talking about, Matty?" asked Clementina, gently; "I don't quite understand."

"Not understand!-why, sure-heart alive!-it can't be as you are ignorant of who made and keeps you and all of us! Sure! Sure!" Matty kept repeating in a tone of much distress, "I can't believe my own ears."

"I suppose we know about all that," said Ella, haughtily.

She to teach her!-the child of charity to presume to insinuate a want in her! The idea was intolerable.

She went and sat down at a table at some little distance, and pretended to be busy playing with her bird, whose golden cage stood upon it; but, as she did so, she listened in spite of herself to the following conversation, passing between Clementina and Matty.

"I am so uncomfortable," the young girl was saying, rather fretfully; "I don't know what to do with myself. I try this thing and try that thing, and nothing gives me any ease or amusement; and I think it very hard-I can't help thinking it hard-that I should have to suffer every thing, and Ella, there, nothing; and then, Nurse makes such a favorite of her, and nobody in the wide world cares for me. Oh, I am so miserable, sometimes!"

"I used to be like you, once, Miss," said Matty.

At which Ella gave a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders.

But Matty did not regard it; and she went on and said, "Look at my face, Miss Clementina; it's very horrid and ugly, I know, and I don't wonder as Nurse calls me rubbish, and hates to see me in her nice nursery. Many can't help feeling like that. Do you know how this was done?"

"No. I suppose small-pox; but it's not like that, for your face is all cut to pieces. I don't know how it was done."

"It was done by the dreadful agony of fire. When I was but a little creature, living, O Miss! in such a place-five families of there were in one low, dark, nasty room, and, O Miss! it was like the bad place, indeed it was-such swearing and blasphemy when the men come home drunk, and worse, worse, when the women did so too! Such quarrelling, and fighting, and cursing, and abusing-and the poor children, knocked about at such times anyhow. But my mother never got drunk. She was a poor feeble creature, and mostly sat at home all day crooning, as they call it, by the fire-for they kept a good big fire in winter in the room. And then, when father come home he was generally very bad in liquor, and seeking a quarrel with anything-for something he must have to quarrel with. Well! One evening-O! I shall never forget it-a cold, sleety, winter day it was, and the wind rushing up our court, and the snow falling thick, and the blackened drops, and great lumps of snow coming splashing down, and the foul water oozing in under the doorsill, and all such a mess; and the poor, tired, or half-drunk creatures coming in splashed and dripping, and quarrelling for the nighest places to the fire, and swearing all the time to make one's hair stand on end; and father coming in, all wet and bedabbled, and his hat stuck at the top of his head, and his cheeks red, and his eyes staring, though he was chattering with the cold. Mother was at her place by the fire, and he comes up in a rage, like, to turn her out; and she sitting sulky and wouldn't move; and then there was a quarrel; and he begun to beat her, and she begun to shriek out and cry, and the women to scream and screech. O Miss! in the scuffle-I was but a little thing-somebody knocks me right into the fire, and my frock was all in a blaze. It was but a moment, but it seemed to me such a time!-all in a blaze of fire! And I remember nothing more of it, hardly, but a great noise, and pouring water over me, and running this way and that. When I come to myself, where was I?"

Ella turned from her bird, and her attention seemed riveted upon the story. She forgot her pride and her insolence in the pleasure of listening. Clementina seemed hardly to breathe.

"It was very bad being burned," she said, at last.

"Horrible, Miss!"

"Go on," cried Ella, impatiently; "what became of you?"

"When I got out of my daze-for I believe it was some time before I came to myself-I was lying on father's knee, and he had made a cradle for me, like, of his great strong arms: and his head was bent down, and he was a looking at me, and great big hot scalding tears were dropping fast upon my poor face.

"'My poor-poor little woman,' I heard him say."

"Then-for my eyes had escaped-I was aware that there was a beautiful young lady-at least, I thought her more beautiful than the angels of heaven-standing on the other side of me, right opposite my father, and doing something to my poor arms."

"The lady was very young-seemed scarcely more than a child herself, though she was a young married lady. She was beautiful dressed, all in snow-white muslin, with white satin sash, and bows to her sleeves, and a white rose in her hair. She had thrown a large bonnet over it-but now it was tossed off, and lay with her shawl upon the floor. Bad as I was-O! in such horrid pain-the sight of that beautiful dear angel was like a charm to me; it seemed to chase away the pain. And then she touched me so delicately, and spoke so soft and kind! It was music; heaven's own music was her voice."

"Who was she? who could she be?" cried Ella.

"Why, Miss, who should she be, but Mr. Stringer, the apothecary's young bride, as he had just brought home, and all ready dressed to go out to her first dinner."

Ella turned away contemptuously, with a gesture that expressed "was that all?"

Clementina said,-

"How nice of her to come to a poor little burnt child like you! and into such a dreadful place too! But I wonder she came in her best gown!"

"As I heard afterwards, it happened that Mr. Stringer had been sent for out, and was not come back; and when they ran screeching and screaming to the shop, crying a child was burnt in the court hard by, and Mr. Stringer was wanted, as there was no one to go but a little mite of a shop-boy-for Mr. Stringer had but just begun business-what does she do, but catches up a bottle of stuff for burns, claps her bonnet over her pretty white rose, throws her shawl on, and, dressed in her beautiful new wedding-gown, comes to this horrid den of dirt and wickedness. She did me up as best she could, and then seeing my poor father crying too, and all the people standing round, and yet not a word to comfort him, she said, very gently and kindly, to him,-

"'Pray don't grieve so: she will be better by-and-by, poor dear. Don't groan so badly, poor child! You are very sorry for her, poor man-but don't take on so.'

"But the more she spoke in this kind way, all the more he cried, till at last he seemed as if he could contain himself no longer, and he groaned, and almost roared out.

"'Are you the father?' said the young lady. 'Where is the mother?'

"'Oh! here-here-here-my precious child, my sweet baby!' cried my poor mother-and then went on, 'It was all of you-you big brute-you-you pushed your own baby into the red-hot flames, as you were atrying to get at me!-yes, my baby-my poor-'

"'Don't speak so loud, good woman,' said the young lady, gently. 'Lay the child upon the bed,' turning round-'Bless me!-why, there is not a bed!'

"'We are very poor people, ma'am,' a woman began; 'not a penny to bless ourselves with. If you'd please to-'

"I remember my father's voice to this day-

"'Silence!' he called out, in such a passion, 'would you beg money from the lady to spend in more gin? Give 'em nothing, ma'am-give none of us nothing-only tell me what's to be done to save the poor little thing's life.'

"She hesitated, turned, and looked round the miserable apartment. Too true, there was not an apology for a bed; there was not even clean straw.

"'Take her up in your arms,' said she to my father, 'and follow me.' And she stooped and picked up her bonnet, and gathered her great shawl around her, and stepped out into the rainy, sleety, windy night; and my father-for some poor creature had lent an old shawl to throw over me-took me and carried me after her: and a turn of the alley which led into the court, brought us out into the street, where the apothecary's shop stood. I was carried through, and up two pair of stairs, and into a little mite of a room-but all so clean and nice-and laid, oh! in such a delicious bed-and oh! it felt so comfortable-it soothed me, like-and I fell fast asleep."

The two girls were silent for some time. Ella spoke first.

"What a good woman!" was the remark she made; "but was she only an apothecary's wife," she went on; "and was her name Stringer? What a horrid ugly name! Are you sure it was Stringer?"

"Yes, Miss-Stringer and Bullem-that was the name over the shop-door."

"What! did they keep a shop?"

"To be sure they did."

"How long did you stay there?"

"I never went away no more, Miss. When I got better, the lady began to talk to me. I was a little mite of a thing, but I was quick enough. She found what bad ways I was bringing up in; that I had never once heard of Our Saviour-not even of my Maker-far from ever hearing of the Bible-or having it read, or being taught to pray, or-"

The two young girls looked at each other, but said nothing. Matty, in broken and interrupted sentences, went on:

"So she kept me; for she could not bear to send me back to that pit of iniquity in which she had found me. And as I lay in my bed, one day, and they thought I was asleep, I heard her arguing the point with her young husband-

"'Why, child, you cannot pretend to adopt all the poor neglected children in this bad town?' he said.

"'Oh no! I know one can do little-little enough: it is but one drop of water in the vast ocean-only one little, little drop; but the oyster took it into its shell, and it became a pearl. Let me keep this poor little one. I don't mean to be foolish-indeed I don't-I will only clothe her, and feed her, and send her to the charity school: indeed, they will half clothe her there. Do-do, dear John-she is such a miserable object! What is she to do? Let her be taught her duty-let her not be a poor ruined wretch, body and soul at once.'"

"The young lady would have moved a stone with her talking. Her husband was not very persuadable; he was not like her. He was rather a cold-hearted, selfish young man, but he couldn't refuse her; and so, when I got better, I was sent to one of the great charity schools in the city, where I learned a deal; but my sweet Mrs. Stringer took a pleasure in teaching me herself, and so I learned a deal more."

Enough of Matty's tale.

Mrs. Stringer, when she devoted such means as she could command to the rescue of one poor child from the misery in which she was living, and raised her from deplorable ignorance, as regarded all higher things, to a knowledge of the supreme and only real good, little thought how extensive her good deed would prove; and that in providing for the religious and moral education of this wretched child, she was preparing the means of a religious education-imperfect, yet still in some sort a sound religious education-for two children of wealth and luxury, as to such things, most entirely destitute. But so it proved-and this was the only religious education they either of them could be said ever to receive; so utterly, so entirely, were all relations of this nature forgotten and neglected in this house of profusion, where not one single thing, but the one thing needful could be said to be wanting.

The story first beguiled the attention, and then awakened the deep interest of the two girls. From this day, a sort of acquaintance arose with Matty, which ripened into true affection; for Matty was, in fact, a woman of no common order.

She gradually awakened their sympathies with regard to subjects to her the most deeply interesting. She led them, not unwilling, in those paths which are indeed paths of pleasantness and peace. She read the Bible with them, and to them, and she taught them the vital principle of effectual religion-the need and the faith to pray.

I want space to follow the course of these influences upon the soul. Imperfect they were. Such a teacher could not lead them very far; but she brought them on Our Saviour's way. And though much remained of wrong, inexperienced and unconverted-the change was as from darkness to light.

CHAPTER THE FOURTH.

And now several years have elapsed, and these two girls are grown up to be two beautiful young women. They had been taken out of the nursery when it was time to be thinking seriously of accomplishments; and the reign of Mrs. Nurse had closed. She was superseded by a regular governess-a foreigner. A French lady was chosen to undertake the task of forming two English girls to become English wives and mothers. The French lady did well all that she was required to do; for neither Mr. nor Mrs. Winstanley desired that their beautiful daughters should receive any thing approaching to what is usually called a solid education.

Mrs. Winstanley had not ten ideas beyond the arrangement of a party, and the keeping of good society. As for Julian Winstanley himself, he detested reflection, abhorred every thing approaching to seriousness, only desired to get through life as brilliantly and as thoughtlessly as he could.

He was not much at home; but when at home he required to be constantly amused, or he found home intolerable. It was not long before his daughters discovered this.

Till they were what is called introduced, these fair girls passed their time secluded in the school-room, and saw very little of their parents; but when they were once brought out, and when Mademoiselle was dismissed and they lived in the drawing-room, they were soon initiated.

The plan of life was one not unusual among married people of a certain class. A large and splendidly furnished house, in a fashionable square in London, was home-at which about six months of every year were passed; the remaining six being spent either in travelling, or at watering-places, or at some hired house in the country. They lived as a privileged order, severed, as by a gulf impassable, from the lowest orders around them, and in little communication with the highest. The last condition was not of much importance, but the other was fatal.

What can grow out of such a life, that is really wholesome and good? Many, many residents in London, escape this mischief. They have broken down the wall of separation which used to hide the very existence of want and misery and sin from the happier and the better; and the obscure dwellings of the London poor have their visiting angels, as well as those in the country. But a great many families still neglect this weighty duty, and live without thought of such things.

Mrs. Winstanley had led the regular party-going London life for the last sixteen or seventeen years. She was beginning to get rather tired of it, when the new excitement arose of having to "bring out" her daughters.

This bringing out of her daughters became an excuse for all kinds of amusing changes and improvements. Her receiving-rooms had to be newly furnished, a new open carriage to be bought, the Queen's drawing-rooms to be attended with more assiduity than ever.

The girls were two lovely creatures; they seemed to excuse, if any thing could, the expenses thus incurred on their behalf. So said the mother, and so thought the father. The love he felt for his daughters was perhaps the only tender feeling he had ever experienced in his life; for, in general, he might be said to love nothing, not even himself.

It might have been the dawn of a better life, this well-spring of pure affections, could he have worthily indulged them. But neither his own nor his wife's habits admitted of that.

Mrs. Winstanley would have thought it a disgrace if she had been one single evening disengaged whilst they were in London. Even in the dead winter she managed to keep up the ball; what with little parties and concerts, the opera, the French plays, and so forth, she contrived to escape the horror of a domestic evening. As for Mr. Winstanley, he seldom or never dined at home; except when there was a dinner-party. He spent his evenings at his clubs, engaged-he too well knew how.

The two girls presented a striking contrast to each other. Clementina was fair and delicate, with soft hair, and those tender blue eyes, which to me are the most charming of all eyes. Ella was a noble creature; a figure and form the most perfect that I ever beheld-features of matchless symmetry-eyes dark, large, and lustrous-hair in floods of rich brown waves-a hand that was a model, from which statuaries contested to be allowed to copy-and a spirit, energy, and feeling in her gestures and countenance, that won your heart before you were aware.

It was upon her that Julian Winstanley doted. The other girl he thought, and called, a sweet girl, but his Ella was his darling. Nothing was too good for Ella; nothing was to be spared that could please or adorn Ella. To ride with her in the Park; to visit the box where she sat at the opera; sometimes in a party to hear her sing; seemed to give him a new pleasure.

Yet there was nothing in all this, unhappily, to rouse him to a better life; to break the chain of evil habits in which he was involved. Ella was a child of this world; an impetuous, proud, haughty beauty; a contemptuous disregarder of the weak, the wanting, and, above all, the low, or the ugly;-living for the day, as her father lived for the day-she for the day of vanity and pleasure; he for the day of vanity and sin. There was that difference, indeed, and it was a vast one; but he did not feel it.

There was no pure and holy influence of a higher and nobler life, diffused from the beautiful being. She was no angel of light. She was merely, to all appearance, a very fine, fashionable girl.

And Clementina, in her gentleness and softness, was little more. The good seed which Matty had sown, had fructified at first, but the briars and thorns were gathering fast around it. The pleasures of life were choking it up. It was in danger of being altogether lost.

Matty had long been gone. She had married a respectable tradesman, and was in a flourishing, though small, way of business. She would have been altogether forgotten long ago, only that she would not suffer this. She found herself still welcomed when she did come; for both the girls loved her, and she perfectly adored them. So she came, bringing her little offerings, from time to time-little matters such as she dealt in, in her shop-humble, but, for her sake, welcome. These two girls had both hearts. Where they got them I don't know.

CHAPTER THE FIFTH.

"Oh, Ella! Ella!-what's the use of your turning your head from me?-Why, I can see you are coloring crimson-as if I had no eyes! Oh! he is charming, is not he?"

"How tiresome you can be, Clementina! I am sure I don't care. No, not.... Besides, he's your flirt, not mine."

"Is he? I wish he were! But I know better. He loves you, Ella; and what's more, you love him. And if you don't know it-which perhaps you don't-I do, and he does."

"He does!-I like that!-he does!-Upon my word! I like him, and he knows it! I do no such thing."

"Take care what you say. Walls have ears."

"Pooh!-nonsense! And if they have, I tell you I don't care."

"You don't?-you are sure you don't? Oh, very well! If that be really so, then I had better keep my message to myself."

"Message!-what message?"

"You know a man does not like to be refused; and so, if you really do not care for him, why, I had better hold my peace. He is young, and he is volatile enough.... And, indeed, I have wondered, Ella, sometimes, how you ever came to take a fancy to him; but I am forgetting. It was my mistake. You never have taken a fancy to him."

"How you do run on!" she said, taking the last rose out of her hair; for she was standing before the glass, undoing her braids; the sisters, having dismissed their attendant, that they might have a comfortable chat together. And then the hair came all tumbling over her shoulders, and upon her white muslin dressing-gown, and she looked most beautiful-half pleasant, half angry-as she turned round; and, trying to frown with her eyes, whilst her lips smiled, said-

"Cle., you are the most intolerable girl in the world."

Cle. smiled, looked down, and said nothing.

"You may as well tell me, though."

"No, I won't, unless you will be a true girl-own what you ought to own-say what you ought to say-that you do not quite hate him. You really may say that-and then we will see about it."

"Hate him! Did I say I hated him?"

"Or, pretended you did. Or, that he was indifferent to you."

"Well, well; I don't hate him, then."

"Then come here, and sit down by me, and I will tell you that Lionel loves you, and adores you-and all that. Very easily said. But far more than that-and with great difficulty said-he wishes to make you his wife!"

"Ah me!"-and again the color flashed into her face, and such an expression was visible in her eyes!

Suddenly she threw her arms around her sister, and embraced her tenderly.

"You dear, dear girl," she whispered-"Oh, I am so-so happy! But tell me-tell me-all, from the beginning. Lionel!-is it possible?"

"You thought we were very busy talking together to-night, at Mrs. White's ball, didn't you?-You were a little jealous, were you not, you silly thing? Ah, my Ella! My proud-proud Ella! To have made such a tumble into love!"

"Nonsense!-how you talk! But tell me all he said. Every single word of it!"

"He said he loved you more than his life, and all that sort of thing; and that I must tell you so to-night; and, if you would give him the least atom of encouragement, I was to take no notice, and he would speak to papa and mamma immediately; but, if you hated him as much as I said I was sure you did...."

"How could you say such a stupid thing?"

"I thought that was what I ought to say."

"How foolish you are, Cle.! Well?"

"Well, in that case, I was to write. Shall I write?"

She did not write.

And from this time the existence of Ella was changed.

She loved, with all the fervor and energy of her nature; and life took at once a new color. True love is of the infinite. None can have deeply loved-when or how in other respects it may have been-but they have entered into the unseen world; have breathed a new breath of life; have tasted of the true existence.

What is often called love, may do nothing of all this-but I am speaking of true love.

Lionel seemed at that time scarcely worthy of the passion he had inspired. Yet he had many excellent qualities. He was warm-hearted, generous to excess, had good parts, a brilliant way of talking, and was a favorite with all the world.

He had not the splendid gifts which nature had bestowed upon Julian Winstanley. By the side of her father, even in the eyes of Ella, the bright halo which surrounded her lover would seem somewhat to pale. The young man even appeared to feel this, in some degree, himself. He always, yet with a certain grace, took the second place, when in her father's presence. Ella loved her father, and seemed to like that it should be so.

"Oh, my sister! oh, my friend! what-what shall we do? Oh, misery! misery! what is to become of us all?"

Clementina's eyes were swimming with tears; but she would not give way. In passive endurance she excelled her sister.

She held her arms clapped closely round her; whilst Ella poured a torrent of tears upon her bosom.

"My father! my beautiful, clever, indulgent father, that I was so proud of-that I loved so-who spared nothing upon either of us-alas! alas! how little, little did I guess whence the money came!"

Clementina trembled and shivered as her sister poured forth these passionate lamentations; but she neither wept nor spoke for some time. At last she said:

"Ella, I have been uneasy about things for some time. We are young, and we have not much experience in the ways of the world; but since our poor mother died, and I have had in some degree to manage the house, I have been every day becoming more uncomfortable."

"You have?" said Ella, lifting up her head: "and you never told me!"

"Why should I have told you? why should I have disturbed your dream of happiness, my dear Ella? Besides, I hoped that it concerned me alone-that things might hold on a little while longer-at least, till you were provided for, and safe."

"Safe! and what was to become of you?"

"I did not much think of that. I had a firm friend, I knew, in you, Ella; and then, lately, since mamma's death; since you have been engaged to dear Lionel, and I have been much alone, I have thought of old things-old things that good Matty used to talk about. I have been endeavoring to look beyond myself, and this world; and it has strengthened me."

"You are an excellent creature, Cle.!"

She shook her head.

"But, my father! what is to be done? Can any thing be done?"

"No, my love. I fear nothing can be done."

"He loves me!" said Ella, raising up her head again, her eyes beaming with a new hope. "I will try-I will venture. It is perhaps great presumption in a child; but my father loves me, and I love him...."

Again Clementina shook her head.

"You are so faint-hearted-you are so discouraging. You give up every thing without an attempt to save yourself or others. That is your way!" cried Ella, with her own impetuosity, and some of her old injustice. Then, seeing sorrow and pain working upon her sister's face as she spoke thus, she stopped herself, and cried-"Oh! I am a brute-worse than a brute-to say this. Dear Cle., forgive me; but don't, pray don't discourage me, when I want all my courage. I will go-I will go this moment, and speak to my father...."

Clementina pressed her sister's hand as she started up to go. She feared the effort would be vain,-vain as those she had herself made; yet there was no knowing. Ella was so beautiful, so correct, so eloquent, so prevailing!

She followed her with her eyes, to the door, with feelings of mingled hope and apprehension.

Down the splendid stairs, with their gilded balustrades, and carpets of the richest hue and texture, rushed the impetuous Ella. Through the hall-all marbles and guilding-and her hand was upon the lock of the library door. She was about to turn it, without reflection: but a sudden fear of intruding came over her-she paused and knocked.

"Who is there?" exclaimed an irritated voice from within; "go away-I can see no one just now."

"It is I, papa-Ella; pray let me come in."

And she opened the door.

He was standing in the middle of the lofty and magnificent apartment, which was adorned on every side with pictures in gorgeous frames; with busts, vases, and highly ornamented bookcases fitted with splendidly bound books-seldom, if ever, opened. His pale, wan, haggard face and degraded figure, formed a fearful contrast to the splendid scene around him, showing like a mockery of his misery. A small table, richly inlaid, stood beside him; in one hand he held a delicate cup of fine china; in the other, a small chemist's phial.

He started as she entered, and turned to her an angry and confused countenance, now rapidly suffused with a deep crimson flush; but, as if electrified by a sudden and horrid suspicion, she rushed forward, and impetuously seized his shaking arm.

The cup fell to the floor, and was broken to atoms; but he clenched the phial still faster in his trembling hand, as he angrily uttered the words:

"How dare you come in here?"

"Oh! papa-papa!"-she had lost all other terror before that of horrible suspicion which had seized her-"what are you about? what is that?" stretching out her arms passionately, and endeavouring to wrench the phial from his fingers.

"What are you about? what do you mean?" he cried, endeavouring to extricate his hand. "Let me alone-leave me alone! what are you about? Be quiet, I say, or by...." And with the disengaged hand he tore her fingers from his, and thrust her violently away.

She staggered, and fell, but caught herself upon her knees, and flinging her arms round his, lifted up her earnest imploring face, crying, "Father-father! papa-papa! for my sake-for your sake-for all our sakes; oh, give it me! give it to me!"

"Give you what? what do you mean? what are you thinking about?" endeavouring to escape from her clasping arms. "Have done, and let me alone. Will you have done? will you let me alone?" fiercely, angrily endeavoring again to push her away.

"No! never-never-never! till you give me-"

"What?"

"That!"

"That!" he cried. Then as if recollecting himself, he endeavored, as it seemed, to master his agitation, and said more calmly, "Let me be, Ella! and if it will be any satisfaction to you, I will thrust the bottle into the fire. But, you foolish girl, what do you gain by closing one exit, when there are open ten thousand as good?"

Disengaging himself from her relaxing arms, he walked up to the fire-place, and thrust the phial between the bars. It broke as he did so, and there was a strong smell of bitter almonds. She had risen from her knees. She followed him, and again laid that hand upon his arm-that soft, fair hand, of whose beauty he was wont to be so proud. It trembled violently now; but as if impelled with unwonted courage, and an energy inspired by the occasion, she ventured upon that which it was long since anyone ever had presumed to offer to Julian Winstanley-upon a plain-spoken remonstrance.

"Papa," she said, "promise me that you will never-never-never again--"

"Do what?"

"Make an attempt upon your life-if I must speak out," she said, with a spirit that astonished him.

"Attempt my life? What should I attempt my life for?" said he, and he glanced round the scene of luxury which surrounded him. He was continuing, in a tone of irony-but it would not do. He sank upon a sofa, and covering his face with his hands, groaned-"Yes-yes, Ella! all you say is true. I am a wretch who is unworthy to-and more-who will not live." He burst forth at last with a loud voice; and his hands falling from his face, displayed a countenance dark with a sort of resolute despair. "No-no-no!-death, death!-annihilation-and forgetfulness! Why did you come in to interrupt me, girl?" he added, roughly seizing her by the arm.

"Because-I know not-something-Oh! it was the good God, surely, who impelled me," she cried, bursting into tears. "Oh, papa! papa! Do not! do not! Think of us all-your girls-Cle. and I. You used to love us, papa--"

"Do you know what has happened?"

"Yes-no. I believe you have lost a great deal of money at cards."

"Cards-was it? Let it be. It may as well be cards. Yes, child, I have lost a large sum of money at cards-and more," he added, setting his teeth, and speaking in a sort of hissing whisper-"more than I can exactly pay."

"Oh, papa! don't say so. Consider-only look round you. Surely you have the means to pay! We can sell-we can make any sacrifice-any sacrifice on earth to pay. Only think, there are all these things. There is all the plate-my mother's diamonds-there is--"

He let her run on a little while; then, in a cool, almost mocking tone, he said-

"I have given a bill of sale for all that, long ago."

"A bill of sale! What is a bill of sale?"

"Well! It's a thing which passes one man's property into the hands of another man, to make what he can of it. And the poor dupe who took my bill of sale, took it for twice as much as the things would really bring; but the rascal thought he had no alternative. I was a fool to give it to him, for the dice were loaded. If it were the last word I had to speak, I would say it-the dice were loaded--"

"But-but--"

"What! you want to hear all about it, do you? Well it's a bad business. I thought I had a right to a run of luck-after all my ill fortune. I calculated the chances; they were overwhelmingly in my favor. I staked my zero against another man's thousands-never mind how many-and I lost, and have only my zero to offer in payment. That is to say, my note of hand; and how much do you think that is worth, my girl? I would rather-I would rather," he added, passionately, changing his tone of levity for one of the bitterest despair-"I would rather be dead-dead, dead-than--"

"Oh, papa! papa! say it not! say it not! It is real. Such things are not mere words. They are real, father, father!-Die! You must not die."

"I have little cause to wish to die," he said, relapsing again into a sort of gloomy carelessness; "so that I could see any other way out of it. To be sure, one might run-one might play the part of a cowardly, dishonorable rascal, and run for it, Ella, if you like that better. Between suicide and the escapade of a defaulter, there is not much to choose; but I will do as you like."

"I would not willingly choose your dishonor," said she, shuddering; "but between the dishonor of the one course or the other, there seems little to choose. Only-only-if you lived, in time you might be able to pay. Men have lived, and labored, until they have paid all."

"Live and labor-very like me! Live, and labor, until I have paid all-extremely like me! Lower a mountain by spadefuls."

"Even spadefuls," she said; her understanding and her heart seemed both suddenly ripened in this fearful extremity-"even spadefuls at a time have done something-have lowered mountains, where there was determination and perseverance.

"But suppose there was neither. Suppose there was neither courage, nor goodness, nor determination, nor perseverance. Suppose the man had lived a life of indolent self-indulgence, until, squeeze him as you would, there was not one drop of virtue left in him. Crush him, as fate is crushing me at this moment; and I tell you, you will get nothing out of him. Nothing-nothing. He is more worthless than the most degraded beast. Better to die as a beast, and go where the beasts go."

She turned ghastly pale at this terrible speech-but, "No," she faltered out-"no-no!"

"You will not have me die, then?" he said, pursuing the same heartless tone; but it was forced, if that were any excuse for him. "Then you prefer the other scheme? I thought, he went on, "to have supped with Pluto to-night; but you prefer that it should be on board an American steamer."

"I do," she gasped, rather than uttered.

"You do-you are sure you do?" said he, suddenly assuming a tone of greater seriousness. "You wish, Ella, to preserve this worthless life? Have you considered at what expense?"

"Expense! How! Who could think of that?" she answered.

"Oh! not the expense of money, child-at the expense of the little thing called 'honor.' Listen to me, Ella,"-and again he took her arm, and turned her poor distracted face, to his. "You see I am ready to die-at least, was ready to die-but I have no wish to die. Worthless as this wretched life of mine it, it has its excitements, and its enjoyments, to me. When I made up my mind to end it, I assure you, child, I did the one only generous thing I ever was guilty of in my life; for I did it for you girls' sakes, as much or more than for my own. Suicide, some think a wicked thing-I don't. How I got my life, I don't know; the power of getting rid of it is mine, and I hold myself at liberty to make use of it or not, at my own good pleasure. As for my ever living to pay my debt, it's folly to talk of it. I have not, and never shall acquire, the means. I have neither the virtue nor the industry. I tell you, I am utterly good for nothing. I am a rascal-a scoundrel, and a despicable knave. I played for a large sum-meaning to take it if I won it-and not being able to pay, I lost it-and that, I have still sense of honor enough left to call a rascally proceeding. Now there is one way, and one way only, of cancelling all this in the eye of the world. When a man destroys himself, the world is sorry for him-half inclined to forgive him-to say the least of it, absolves his family. But-if he turn tail-and sneak away to America, and has so little sense"-he went on, passionately and earnestly-"of all that is noble, and faithful, and honorable, that he can bear to drag on a disgraced, contemptible existence, like a mean, pitiful, cowardly, selfish wretch, as he is-why, then-then-he is utterly blasted, and blackened over with infamy! Nobody feels for him, nobody pities him-the world speaks out, and curses the rascal as heartily as he deserves-and all his family perish with him. Now, Ella, choose which you will."

"I choose America," she said with firmness.

"And how am I to got to America? and how am I to live there when I am there? To be sure, there are your mother's diamonds," he added.

"Those are included in the bill of sale. Did you not say so?" she asked.

"Well, perhaps I did. But if a man is to live, he must have something to live upon. If he is to take flight, he must have wings to fly with."

"I will provide both."

"You will?"

"I am of age. What I have-which was not your gift-is at least my own. Lionel has been generous; I have the means to pay your passage."

"Aye, aye-Lionel! But afterwards, how am I to live? He will not like-no man would like-to have to maintain a wife's father, and that man a defaulter too. You should think of that, Ella."

"I do! I will never ask him."

"Then who is to maintain me? I tell you, I shall never manage to do it myself."

"I will."

"My poor child!" he cried-one short touch of nature had reached him at last-"what are you talking of?"

"I hope, and believe, that I shall be able to do it."

"I stood with my household gods shattered around me," is the energetic expression of that erring man, who had brought the fell catastrophe upon himself.

And so stood Ella now-in the centre of her own sitting-room, like some noble figure of ruin and despair; yet with a light, the light divine, kindling in an eye cast upward.

Yes! all her household gods-all the idols she had too dearly loved and cherished, were shattered around her, and she felt that she stood alone, to confront the dreadful fate which had involved all she loved.

What a spectacle presented itself to her imagination, as drearily she looked round! On one side, defaced and disfigured, soiled, degraded, was the once beautiful and animated figure of her father,-the man so brilliant, and to her so splendid a specimen of what human nature, in the full affluence of nature's finest gifts, might be. Upon another side her lover!-her husband! who was to have been her heart's best treasure! who never was to be hers now. No! upon that her high spirit had at once resolved; never. Impoverished and degraded, as she felt herself to be, never would she be Lionel's wife. The name which would, in a few hours' time, be blackened by irremediable dishonor, should never be linked to his. One swell of tender feeling, and it was over! All that is wrong, and all that is right, in woman's pride, had risen in arms at once against this.

The last figure that presented itself, was that of her delicate and gentle sister. But here there was comfort. Clementina was of a most frail and susceptible temperament, and eminently formed to suffer severely from adverse external circumstances; but she had a true and faithful heart; and if to Ella she would be obliged to cling for support, she would give consolation in return.

Ella looked upward-she looked up to God!

That holy name was not a stranger to her lips. It had been once, until the child of charity had taught the rich man's daughter some little knowledge of it. But such ideas had never been thoroughly realized by her mind; and now, when in the extremity of her destitution, she looked up-when, "out of the depths she cried unto Him,"-alas! He seemed so far, far off, and her distresses were so terribly near!

Yet even then, imperfect as all was, a beginning was made. The thick darkness of her soul seemed a little broken,-communion with the better and higher world was at least begun. There was a light-dim and shadowy-but still a light. There was a strength, vacillating and uncertain, but still a strength, coming over her soul.

CHAPTER THE SIXTH.

And now that wretched man, broken with disease and misery, sat there, with the lady, who, patient and pitying even to the worst of her fellow-creatures, had been moved by the sincerity of his distress. The extremity of his misery had raised so much compassion in her heart, as to overcome the resentment and indignation which she had at first felt, on recognizing him.

He had entreated her to tell him every thing she knew of the fate of one whom he had that morning followed to the grave. For wretched as was his attire, defiled with dirt, and worn with travel, he had left the house, and had followed, a tearless, but heartbroken mourner, the simple procession which attended the once lovely and glorious creature whom he had called daughter to her resting-place.

He had stood by, at her funeral, whilst ill-taught children stared and scoffed, until the busy mercenaries had pushed and elbowed him aside. He had seen his best and loveliest one consigned, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; he had waited quietly until all had dispersed, and every one was gone home. He had no home-and he yet stood by, and watched the sexton completing his work and cheerfully whistling as he proceeded with it.

For it was now a gleaming bright day, and the sun had burst forth, and beamed upon the lofty tower of the church-steeple. It gilded the church-vane and weathercock; it sparkled from the windows of the houses around the graveyard; it glistened on the lowly graves.

Cheerfulness was around him, for the bright sun of heaven cheers and ennobles every thing upon which his beams fall. And there was a soft wind, too, which stirred among the leaves of a few poplars, that stood hard by, whispering sweet secrets of nature, even in that dismal spot.

He stood there, motionless and tearless, until the sexton had finished his task, had shouldered his spade, and, still whistling, had walked away. Then he sat down upon the little mound, and hid his face in his hands. He sat there for some time-for a long, long time-and then slowly arose, and with feeble and uncertain steps retraced the way he had come, and found himself at the door of the handsome house, whence he had followed the funeral in the morning.

He made his way to the lady, who happened to be still there, and who now (as I have said), indignation having yielded to compassion, was prepared to satisfy the yearning anxiety he had expressed to hear all she could tell him of his once proud and beautiful child.

"You know where you are, and what I am, and what I and the other ladies whom you have seen with me employ ourselves upon when we come here."

"No," he said, looking round. "It never struck me to inquire, or even to reflect upon what I saw."

"This house is a kind of hospital."

He started-and a faint flush passed over his face.

"Yes," he said, "it was natural-as things had gone on-a consequence inevitable. Then she died at last in the hospital?"

"Not exactly that-as you would interpret the word. This house is, indeed, a species of hospital; it is intended as a refuge for the sick and dying, who have nowhere else to go; but it does not exactly resemble an ordinary hospital. In the first place, the services performed are not altogether gratuitous; in the second, every patient has a room to herself. We are only women, except the medical attendants: and we admit none but women-and those women of a higher class, of gentle breeding, and refined habits, who have fallen into poverty, and yet who have not been hardened in their sensations by habits, so as that the edge of privation is blunted; or what, perhaps, is still more difficult to bear, that painful sense of publicity unfelt, which renders shelter in an ordinary hospital a source of suffering to them-which-God be thanked!-it does not necessarily prove to those for whom such places of refuge were intended. This house would have been more justly called an asylum than a hospital, for it is intended as a shelter for the sick and destitute; but yet those who are received into it are expected to contribute to their own support."

He made no answer to this explanation. After all, it, interested him little now to know that his Ella had not been a mere object of the charity which is extended to paupers. His pride had died within him, for his nature had been much changed; but, only as such natures change. His faults had withered away, but no good qualities seemed as yet to burst forth to flourish in their stead. The soul had been so utterly ruined and devastated, the portion of living waters had been so completely dried up, that he seemed merely to have lost the inclination to do wrong-that was all.

"We are a small party of friends," the lady went on; "some of us in the heyday of prosperity, but who, amid all the triumphs of youth, wealth, and beauty, have not quite forgotten the poor, the sick, and the miserable: others, who, like myself, are fallen into the yellow leaf of life-whose years cannot of necessity be many-may be very few-and who would fain do something in the great vineyard before they are called away. It is our practice for some of us to visit this place every day, to see our patients, attend to their wants and comforts, and, where it is desired, administer by our conversation such helps and solace as we can. I come here pretty often, for I am not one who is very much occupied upon this earth; and, as I love to sit with the sufferers, and am more aged than the majority of them, they seem to lean upon me a good deal. They love to have me with them; and many of the younger ones have treated me with a confidence, which has excited, I can scarcely say whether more satisfaction or pain."

He still spoke not, but listened with deep attention.

"A few months ago," she continued, "the matron of the establishment came to me one morning, and said that a young lady had been received here some days ago, whom she wished me very much to visit. I had but the day before returned from an excursion into the country, and had been absent from my post about a fortnight. I asked, at whose recommendation the patient had been received. She said-that of Lady R., but that Lady R. knew nothing about her. It was at the earnest solicitation of the wife of the baker who supplied her family with bread, that Lady R. had given the order; the woman, who was a very plain sort of person, but highly respectable in her way, having assured her that it was a case of the most urgent necessity: that the young lady was utterly penniless and destitute, and in an almost hopeless state of health. She had brought on a decline by over-exertion to maintain a sick sister, and pay some debts of that sister's, which she thought herself bound in honor to discharge-'and other expenses,' she added, somewhat mysteriously,-promising that she would advance the required guinea a week; for, as for the young lady, she did not believe that she had five shillings left in the world."

He struck his hand flat at the top of his head, and held it there, leaning his elbow upon the table, so that his arm covered in part his face, which was painfully contracted; but he neither spoke, nor groaned, nor even sighed.

"I went up to the young lady's room immediately. Our rooms are each provided with a single bed, a sofa, an easy chair, a table, and such other requisites as make a chamber at once a bedroom and a sitting-room.

"The matron knocked gently at the door; but no one answered it; she therefore gently turned the handle of the lock, and we went in.

"The window was open. Hers looked upon those green trees you see at the back of the house, and the fresh air came pleasantly in: but it seemed unheeded by the sufferer. She was clothed in a long white sleeping-gown. One arm was thrown above her head; her hair had gotten from her comb, and fell in waves and curls of the utmost beauty and luxuriance almost to her feet. She lay with her face upward, resting upon the back of her head, almost as motionless as a corpse: her features were fixed; her eyes rested upon the top of the bed. She seemed lost in thought. Never in my life have I seen any thing so supremely beautiful."

"Ella-Ella!" he just muttered.

"When we approached the side of the bed, she first perceived us, gave a little start, glanced at the matron, and then, with a look of rather displeased surprise at me-

"'I beg your pardon if I intrude upon you,' I said. 'Mrs. Penrose asked me to pay you a visit. I am but just returned from the country. I spend a good deal of my time when in town with the sick ladies here, and they seem to like to have me; but if you do not I will go away directly.'

"She made an impatient and half-contemptuous motion of the head as I used the words 'sick ladies;' but she fixed her large, lustrous eyes upon me as I went on speaking-saying nothing, however, when I concluded, but keeping those large dark eyes fixed upon my face.

"'Shall I go?' I said, after a little time thus spent.

"She made a gesture as if to stop me-but without moving those large mournful eyes, in which I could see that tears were slowly gathering.

"Mrs. Penrose had already left the room. I said no more; but took a chair, sat down by the bedside, and laid mine upon her thin, fevered, but most exquisitely-formed hand.

"I gave a gentle, gentle pressure; it was faintly, very faintly returned; and then the tears, which had so slowly gathered into her eyes, fell in a few large drops over her faded cheeks.

"'This is lonely, desolate work, do what we will,' I said, as a sort of answer to these few large tears, falling so quietly and still, and without convulsion of features-the tears of a strong but softened mind. 'To be sick, and without familiar faces-to be sick and among strangers-is a sorrowful, sorrowful thing-but we do our best.'

"'O, you are good-very good,' she said.

"'There is nothing I feel so much myself as this destitution of the heart; solitude in sickness is to me almost more than I can bear; and, therefore, it is, perhaps, that I am almost troublesome in offering my society to those here who have not many friends and visitors-especially to the young. I can bear solitude myself better now, badly as I do bear it, than when I was young. Society seems, to the young, like the vital air upon which they exist.'

"'Yes, perhaps so,' she said, after musing a little-'yes. So long as there was one near me whom I loved, I could get on-better or worse-but I could get on. But she is gone. Others whom I have loved are far-far away. The solitude of the heart! yes, that kills one at last.'

"'Then will you try to make a friend of me? A new friend can never be like an old friend. Yet, when the old wine is drawn down to the dregs, we accept the new, although we still say the old is better.'

"'How very kindly you speak to me! You have none of the pride of compassion,' she said, fixing her lovely eyes, filled with an earnest, intelligent expression, full upon mine. 'You will not humble me, whilst you serve me.'

"'Humble you! My dear young lady! That, I hope, indeed, would be far from me-from every one of us.'

"'I dare say so-as you say it. I have seen none of the ladies, only the matron, Mrs. Penrose, and a friend of mine, to whom I owe much; but they are both so inferior to myself in habits and education, that I don't think they could humble me if they tried. The insolence of my inferiors, I can defy-the condescensions of my superiors, are what I dread.'

"I saw in this little speech something that opened to me, as I thought, one side of her character. All the notice of it, however, which I took, was to say, 'We must not exact too much from each other. A person may have a very single-hearted and sincere desire to serve us, and yet be somewhat awkward in conferring benefits. We must not be unreasonable. Where people do their best to be kind, we must accept the will for the deed, and besides....'

"'You mean to say that benefits may be accepted ungraciously,'-and she laid her hand upon mine, and pressed it with some fervor. Yes, that is true. We may, in the pride of our unsubdued and unregulated hearts, be captious, exacting and unjust. We may be very, very ungrateful.'

"Do I tire you with relating these things?" said the lady, breaking off, and addressing the fallen man. "Shall I pass on to others? Yet there are few events to relate. The history of this life of a few months is comprised in conversations. I thought you would probably like to hear them.

"I do like to hear them. I adjure you, solemnly, to omit nothing that you can remember of them. She was a noble creature." And he burst forth with a bitter cry.

"She was a noble creature!

"I sat with her some time that day, and learned some little of her history; but she was very reserved as to details and explanations. She told me that she had once lived in great affluence; but that a sudden reverse of fortune had ruined her father, who had been obliged to quit the country; and that she and her sister had found it necessary immediately to set about getting their own livelihood. Only one course was open to either of them-that of becoming governesses in private families, or teachers at schools. They had wished to adopt the latter course, which would have enabled them to keep together, but had not been able to provide themselves with situations; so they had been compelled to separate.

"'My sister,' she said, 'took a situation in London; I was obliged to accept one that offered in a distant county, so that we were entirely parted; but in such cases one cannot choose. My dear Clementina's accomplishments were such as the family in London wanted; mine suited those who offered me the place in the country, or I would have exchanged with her. But it was not to be. Things in this miserable world are strangely ordered.'

"'For the best,' I said, 'when the issues are known.'

"'Who shall assure us of that? and when are their issues known?' she asked, with some bitterness. 'It would need great faith when one receives a heavy injury, to believe it was fraught with good, and well intended.'

"'It would, indeed! Yet, we must have that faith. We ought to have that faith in Him, the All-wise, Merciful, and Good. We should have it,-should we not?-whatever appearances might be, in an earthly friend of this description.'

"'Ah! but we see and know such a friend.'

"'We ought to know, though we cannot see, that other friend.'

"'Ah! well-it is so, I dare say. But, oh, there are moments in life when the cruel blow is so real, and the consolation so illusory!'

"'Seems so real-seems so illusory! Ah! my dear young lady, have you drank so deep of the cup of sorrow? And have you not found the great, the only true reality, at the bottom?'

"She had loosed her hold of my hand, and turned her head coldly away, as I uttered the last speech.

"I asked her why she did so.

"'Because you talk like all the rest. At ease yourselves, religious faith is an easy matter to you. It is easy to give these every-day religious consolations, when we have nothing else to give. But they are things of a peculiar character. If the soul does not put them within itself, none upon earth can bestow them. They are only given of God; and it has not pleased Him to give them to me. No,' she went on, with much emotion. 'If there be light in darkness, it shines not for me. If out of the depths they call, and He listens, He has not listened to me. My prayers have been vain, and I have wearied myself with offering them. There was no help in them.'

"I was grieved and shocked to hear her speak thus. I, however, ventured to urge my point a little further.

"'But you did find help, somewhere?'

"'Not such as I wanted; not health and strength to my poor darkened spirit.'

"'And why? Because they sought it not in faith ...'

"'Ah! faith! but who can command this faith?'

"'Everybody.'

"'Everybody! If it has pleased God to darken our understandings so that we do not know him at all, it may be as you say. But if we know him-not to trust in him-that worst of faith must be our own fault.'

"She was silent, and seemed to sink into a reverie, which I would not disturb. At last she shook it off, and turning suddenly to me, said, 'Clementina had got nearer this truth than I had, or have. Yes, that it was-that it must have been-which supported her in circumstances far worse than mine. She was patient, composed, resigned, and, in spite of her natural feebleness, showed a strength which I ever wanted. She endured better than I do, when she lay low as I do now, and suffered worse, far worse. How was it?'

"'My strength is made perfect in weakness'-'Is not that said?'

"Again she fixed her eyes with a searching, earnest expression upon mine.

"'But, tell me,' I continued, 'how it fared with you? I fear badly.'

"'Perhaps you are not aware, Madam, how much strength, both of body and spirit, it requires to make a governess.'

"'I think I am aware of it, in good measure.'

"'There seems nothing very onerous in the task of teaching children during a certain number of hours every day, and living with them during the rest. But those who have tried it alone know how irksome, how exhausting is the wearisome routine of ungrateful labor. My situation was tiresome enough. They were a family of high-spirited children, as wild as the hills in which they had been bred, and whose greatest pleasure was to torment their young governess; though I was rather excited than depressed by our frequent struggles for mastery. Then the mother, when she did interfere, was sensible and just; and she supported me when she thought me right, through every thing. If she disapproved, too, I could be hot and unreasonable in my turn, and she gently told me of my fault in private, so as to never impair my authority. She was a wise and excellent woman. A good mother, and a true friend, even to her governess. But it was different with Clementina. Shut up in London, with a family of cold-hearted, proud children, already spoiled by the world, and never finding it possible to satisfy an exacting mother, do what she would, the task was soon too hard for her. The more languid her health and spirits became, the feebler her voice, the paler her cheek, the greater was the dissatisfaction of the lady whom she served. When the family doctor was at last called in, he pronounced her to be in so critical a state of health, that rest and change of air were indispensable. So she left, with fifteen pounds-a half-year's salary.

"'Consumption had set in when I saw her. What was to become of her? We knew of no such place as this, then.

"'The lady whom I served was kind and considerate. When I came to her in tears, she bade me fly to my sister, and not return until I had settled her somewhere in comfort. But where was that to be? We had not a friend in the world except one. She had been our under nursery-maid. She was now a baker's wife; but she had always loved us. She had such a heart! And she did not fail us now.

"'She took my sister home, and insisted upon keeping her. We could not allow this to be done without offering what compensation we could. My sister's little purse was reserved for extraordinary expenses; and I contrived out of my own salary to pay a little weekly stipend to our good Matty. She would not have taken it; but she had a husband, and upon this point we were resolved.'

"Here she paused, and raising her head from her pillow, rested it upon her hand, and looked round the room with an expression of satisfaction which it gave me great pleasure to see. The little apartment was plainly furnished enough; but the walls were of a cheerful color, and the whole furniture was scrupulously clean. The windows stood open, looking upon a space in which a few green trees were growing. The scene was more open, airy, and quiet than one can usually obtain in London. The air came in fresh and pleasant; the green trees waved and bowed their heads lovingly and soothingly.

"'It is not until we are sick that we know the value, that we feel the necessity, of these things,' she began again. 'This I may venture to say for us both. We had been cradled in luxury and elegancies, surrounded by every thing that the most lavish expenditure could bestow. We gave them all up without a sigh. So much unhappiness had attended this unblest profusion, that it seemed almost a relief-something like an emancipation-to have done with it, and be restored at once to simplicity and nature. Whilst our health and spirits lasted, we both of us took a pleasure in defying superfluity, in being easy and content upon a pallet bed, and with a crust of bread and a glass of water; but, oh! when sickness comes-deadly sickness! The fever, and the languor, and, above all, the frightful susceptibility to external influences. When upon the hard bed you cannot sleep, though sleep is life to the exhausted frame. When the coarse food you cannot touch-though your body is sinking for want of nourishment-when the aching limbs get sore with the rugged unyieldingness of that on which they lie-when you languish and sicken for fresh air, and are shut up in a little close room in some back street-when you want medicine and care, and can command no services at all-or of the lowest and most inefficient description-then-O then! we feel what it is to want-then we feel what it is to have such an asylum prepared for us as this. Poor thing! she was not so fortunate as I have been.'"

Here, the broken man who had until now sat listening in what might almost be called a sullen attention, suddenly lifted up his head, looked round the room where he sat, and through the large cheerful window upon the branches of the trees and the blue unclouded sky; and, suddenly, even his heart seemed reached.

He rose from his chair, he sat down again, he looked conscious, uneasy, abashed. It was so long since he had felt or expressed any grateful or amiable sentiment, that he was almost ashamed of what he now experienced, as if it had been a weakness.

"Pray have the kindness to go on," he said at last.

"It was some days before I learned much more of the history of my poor young invalid, but one day when I came to see her, I found a very respectable looking woman, though evidently not belonging to the higher class, sitting with her. She was a person whose appearance would have been almost repulsive from the deep injuries her face had received-burned when a child, I believe-if it had not been for the sense and goodness that pervaded her expression. Her eyes were singularly intelligent, sweet, and kind.

"I found she was the wife of the baker-she, who had once been nursery-maid in your family. The only friend the poor young creature seemed to have left in the world, and the only person from whom she could bear, as it afterwards appeared, to receive an obligation. This excellent person it was, who advanced the guinea a-week, which the laws of the institution required should be contributed by a patient.

"When she took her leave I followed her, to inquire further particulars about my patient. She then told me, that the sister had died about three years before, leaving a heavy debt to be discharged by the one remaining; consisting of her funeral expenses, which were considerable, though every thing was conducted with all the simplicity compatible with decency; and of the charges of the medical man who had attended her: a low unprincipled person, who had sent in an enormous bill, which there were no means of checking, and which, nevertheless, the high-spirited sister resolved to pay. But the first thing she did, was to insure her own life for a certain sum, so as to guard against the burden under which she herself labored, being in its turn imposed upon others.

"'So, madam,' said the good Mrs. Lacy, with simplicity, 'you must not think that the guinea a-week is any thing more than an advance on our part-there will be money enough to repay us-or my dear Miss Ella would never, never have taken it. She would die in the street first, she has such a noble spirit of her own. She told me to provide for her sister's debts,-she had made an arrangement with a publisher to be a regular contributor to a certain periodical,-she had likewise produced a few rather popular novels. To effect this she had indeed labored night and day,-the day with her pupils, half the night with her pen. She was strong, but human nature could not support this long; and yet labor as she did, she proceeded slowly in clearing away the debt. I cannot quite account for that,' said Mrs. Lacy, 'she dressed plainly, she allowed herself no expense, she made no savings, she paid the debt very slowly by small instalments, yet she worked herself into a decline. There seemed to be some hidden, insatiable call for money....'"

If the lady who was recounting all this, had looked at her listener at that moment, she would have been moved, little as she liked him. A wild horror took possession of his countenance-his lips became livid-his cheek ghastly-he muttered a few inarticulate words between his teeth. But she was occupied with her own reflections, and noticed him not.

"This could not go on for ever," said the lady, presently. "She was obliged to throw up her situation; soon afterwards the possibility of writing left her; and she was brought here, where I found her."

"And that it was-that it was, then!" cried the wretched man. 'O Ella, my child!-my child! I was living, in indolence and indifference, upon her hard-earned labors! I was eating into her life! And when the supply ceased, I-I never knew what it was to have a heart!-I thought she was tired of ministering to her father's wants, and I came to England to upbraid her!"

"It was too late. She was gone where the wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary are at rest," said the lady.

"You need not-you need not-my heart is hard, but the dagger has pierced it at last. You need not drive in the steel: it has done its work," he rather gasped than said.

The lady felt that she had been too severe. His apparent insensibility had, it is true, irritated her almost beyond bearing, after all he had done, and after all that had been suffered for his sake.

"I am sorry if I give you pain. I ought to be sorry for you, not angry."

"Did she never mention me?" he asked, in a tone of agony. "And there was another, on whom her young heart doted, only too fondly. Did she never speak of either of us?"

"She spoke of both."

"Tell me what she said."

The lady hesitated.

"I pray tell me-I can bear it."

"I am afraid I have given you too much pain already. It is over now. Let it be over. Go home; and may God give you grace at the eleventh hour, and bring you and yours together again at last!" she said fervently, and the tears starting in her eyes.

"I have no home but one; and to that I shall shortly go. But let me not depart tormented with a yearning desire to hear all. Tell me; I ask it of you as a favor. What was her state of mind as regarded her mother-her father-and her lover?"

"God gave her grace to find him at last. The darkness and the doubts that had distressed her, gradually disappeared. That grace took possession of her heart which the world can neither give nor understand; and all was hope and tranquillity at the last hour.

"As she grew worse, her spirit became more and more composed. She told me so one day. Then she asked me whether I thought she could recover.

"I was silent.

"She turned pale. Her lips moved as she said, 'Do I understand your silence rightly?'

"'I am afraid you do.'

"She was silent herself for a short time; then she said,

"'And so young!'

"'It is not for us to know the times and seasons which the Father hath kept in his own power,' said I.

"'But must I-must I die? I am not ashamed to own it,-I did so wish to live. Did you never hear that I had a father living?' she asked in so low a voice, that it was almost a whisper.

"'Yes,' I answered.

"'Then, you have heard his most unhappy history?'

"'Most of it, I believe, I have.'

"'He seems to you, I fear, a very-very erring man.'

"I was silent.

"'There is good in him still,' she cried; 'believe it or not who may, there is good in him still.'

"And now her tears began to flow fast, as she went on,

"'The will of God be done! The will of God be done! But if it had been His pleasure, I hoped to have lived! to have had that father home; to have joined our two desolate hearts together; to have brought him to the knowledge of One whose yoke is easy, and whose burden is light. O, was that wish wrong, that it was not granted! O, my father! who shall seek you out now!'

"'Remember,' I said, gently, 'we are in the hands of One, wiser and more merciful than ourselves. He would spare, surely, where we would spare, if it were good it should be so. If means would avail, He would provide the means. His work will not stand still because the instruments (as we regard things) seem taken away. Your death, dear girl, may do more for your father's soul than your life could ever have done.'"

And now, he bowed his head-humbly-and he covered his face with his hands, and the tears ran through his fingers.

"Thus," the lady went on, "I comforted her, as I could; and she died: with her last breath commending her father to the mercy of God.

"Her lover was dear-but not dearer than her father. She told me that history one day. How she had loved; how devotedly, how passionately. But that when her name was disgraced, she had resolved never to unite it with his. She had withdrawn herself; she had done it in a way such as she believed would displease him. 'I thought he would feel it less if he were angry,' she said. 'I often wished in my desolation I could feel angry.' She told me his name; and I promised to make inquiries. I had fortunately the opportunity. I had the pleasure to tell her, that he had made the greatest efforts to find her out, but in vain; that he had remained unmarried and constant to her memory: that what had happened had given a new turn to his character. Habits of dissipation, which had been gradually acquiring power over him, had been entirely broken through. He had accepted an office in a distant colony, where he was leading a most useful and meritorious life. Never shall I forget the glow of joy that illuminated her face when I told her so. She looked already as if she had entered into the higher and more glorious existence!

"'I shall not see him again,' said she; 'but you will write to him and tell him all. You will say that I died true and blest, because he was what he was; and that I bade him a fond adieu, until we should meet again in a better world. For, O! we shall meet again; I have a testimony within, which shall not deceive me!'

"She then reverted to her father.

"'He will come back,' she said; 'you will see that he will come back, and he will inquire what is become of me-why his child has forgotten him and is silent. It will be the silence and forgetfulness of the grave. Perhaps he will come back as he went; his heart yet unchanged: defying and despairing. Tell him not-be patient, with him, good kind friend, for my sake. There is good in him:-good he knows not of, himself; that nobody knows of, but his loving child, and the God who made him-weak and erring as he is. Tell him, he must no more be weak and erring; tell him there is forgiveness for all who will return at last, but that forgiveness supposes newness of life. Tell him-"

The sentence was unfinished by the lady, for he who listened fell prostrate on his face upon the floor.

They raised him up; but his heart seemed broken. He neither moved nor spoke. Life, however, was not extinct; for in this condition he remained many days.

They could not keep him where he was, for this benevolent institution was strictly devoted to women of the more refined orders. He was carried to a Hospital. There was nowhere else to carry him.

Seven days he lay without speaking; but not absolutely senseless. The spirit within him was at work. In his worst days he had never wanted energy. His heart was ever strong for good or for bad. What passed within him, in those seven days, was between his soul and the Highest. He came out of his death-trance an altered creature.

The once handsome, dashing, profane, luxurious Julian Winstanley, looked now a very old, old man. Quite gray, very thin, and stooping much. From that time, he continued to earn his bread honestly, as an attendant in the very hospital where he had been recovered. He had a little room to himself, and it was filled with certain simple treasures, hallowed by his recollections.

His patient and tender attendance upon the sick, his assiduous discharge of all his duties, was beyond praise.

One day, a man who had risen to a very high post in one of our colonies, came to visit him. The two were long together. When, they parted, it was evident that both had wept much.

The old man, after that, faded rapidly. One morning they found him dead in bed. His hands were clasped together, as if he had departed in the act of prayer. He lies buried in a neighboring churchyard, under a simple mound of earth, such as covers the humblest and the poorest.

He had left behind him a scrap of paper, earnestly imploring that so it might be. So it was. May God forgive us all!

* * *

MY NOVEL: OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.[7]

BY SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON.

BOOK VIII.-INITIAL CHAPTER.-THE ABUSE OF INTELLECT.

There is at present so vehement a flourish of trumpets, and so prodigious a roll of the drum, whenever we are called upon to throw up our hats, and cry "Huzza" to the "March of Enlightenment," that, out of that very spirit of contradiction natural to all rational animals, one is tempted to stop one's ears, and say, "Gently, gently; light is noiseless; how comes 'Enlightenment' to make such a clatter? Meanwhile if it be not impertinent, pray, where is enlightenment marching to?" Ask that question of any six of the loudest bawlers in the procession, and I'll wager ten-pence to California that you get six very unsatisfactory answers. One respectable gentleman, who, to our great astonishment, insists upon calling himself a "slave," but has a remarkably free way of expressing his opinions, will reply-"Enlightenment is marching towards the nine points of the Charter." Another with his hair à la jeune France, who has taken a fancy to his friend's wife, and is rather embarrassed with his own, asserts that Enlightenment is proceeding towards the Rights of Women, the reign of Social Love, and the annihilation of Tyrannical Prejudice. A third, who has the air of a man well to do in the middle class, more modest in his hopes, because he neither wishes to have his head broken by his errand-boy, nor his wife carried off to an Agapemone by his apprentice, does not take Enlightenment a step farther than a siege on Debrett, and a cannonade on the Budget. Illiberal man! the march that he swells will soon trample him under foot. No one fares so ill in a crowd, as the man who is wedged in the middle. A fourth, looking wild and dreamy, as if he had come out of the cave of Trophonius, and who is a mesmerizer and a mystic, thinks Enlightenment is in full career towards the good old days of alchemists and necromancers. A fifth, whom one might take for a Quaker, asserts that the march of Enlightenment is a crusade for universal philanthropy, vegetable diet, and the perpetuation of peace, by means of speeches, which certainly do produce a very contrary effect from the Philippics of Demosthenes! The sixth-(good fellow, without a rag on his back)-does not care a straw where the march goes. He can't be worse off than he is; and it is quite immaterial to him whether he goes to the dog-star above, or the bottomless pit below. I say nothing, however, against the march, while we take it altogether. Whatever happens, one is in good company; and though I am somewhat indolent by nature, and would rather stay at home with Locke and Burke, (dull dogs though they were,) than have my thoughts set off helter-skelter with those cursed trumpets and drums, blown and dub-a-dubbed by fellows that I vow to heaven I would not trust with a five-pound note-still, if I must march, I must; and so deuce take the hindmost. But when it comes to individual marchers upon their own account-privateers and condottieri of Enlightenment-who have filled their pockets with lucifer-matches, and have a sublime contempt for their neighbours' barns and hay-ricks, I don't see why I should throw myself into the seventh heaven of admiration and ecstasy.

[7] Continued from page 550.

If those who are eternally rhapsodizing on the celestial blessings that are to follow Enlightenment, Universal Knowledge, and so forth, would just take their eyes out of their pockets, and look about them, I would respectfully inquire if they have never met any very knowing and enlightened gentleman, whose acquaintance is by no means desirable. If not, they are monstrous lucky. Every man must judge by his own experience; and the worst rogues I have ever encountered were amazingly well-informed, clever fellows! From dunderheads and dunces we can protect ourselves; but from your sharp-witted gentleman, all enlightenment and no prejudice, we have but to cry, "Heaven defend us!" It is true, that the rogue (let him be ever so enlightened) usually comes to no good himself, (though not before he has done harm enough to his neighbors.) But that only shows that the world wants something else in those it rewards, besides intelligence per se and in the abstract; and is much too old a world to allow any Jack Horner to pick out its plums for his own personal gratification. Hence a man of very moderate intelligence, who believes in God, suffers his heart to beat with human sympathies, and keeps his eyes off your strong-box, will perhaps gain a vast deal more power than knowledge ever gives to a rogue.

Wherefore, though I anticipate an outcry against me on the part of the blockheads, who, strange to say, are the most credulous idolaters of enlightenment, and, if knowledge were power, would rot on a dunghill; yet, nevertheless, I think all really enlightened men will agree with me, that when one falls in with detached sharpshooters from the general march of enlightenment, it is no reason to make ourselves a target, because enlightenment has furnished them with a gun. It has, doubtless, been already remarked by the judicious reader, that of the numerous characters introduced into this work, the larger portion belong to that species which we call Intellectual-that through them are analyzed and developed human intellect, in various forms and directions. So that this History, rightly considered, is a kind of humble, familiar Epic, or, if you prefer it, a long Serio-Comedy, upon the varieties of English Life in this our Century, set in movement by the intelligences most prevalent. And where more ordinary and less refined types of the species round and complete the survey of our passing generation, they will often suggest, by contrast, the deficiencies which mere intellectual culture leaves in the human being. Certainly I have no spite against intellect and enlightenment. Heaven forbid I should be such a Goth. I am only the advocate for common sense and fair play. I don't think an able man necessarily an angel; but I think if his heart match his head, and both proceed in the Great March under the divine Oriflamme, he goes as near to the angel as humanity will permit; if not, if he has but a penn'orth of heart to a pound of brains, I say, "Bon jour, mon ange? I see not the starry upward wings, but the grovelling cloven-hoof." I'd rather be obfuscated by the Squire of Hazeldean, than enlightened by Randal Leslie. Every man to his taste. But intellect itself (not in the philosophical, but the ordinary sense of the term) is rarely, if ever, one completed harmonious agency; it is not one faculty, but a compound of many, some of which are often at war with each other, and mar the concord of the whole. Few of us but have some predominant faculty, in itself a strength; but which (usurping unseasonably dominion over the rest) shares the lot of all tyranny, however brilliant, and leaves the empire weak against disaffection within, and invasion from without. Hence intellect maybe perverted in a man of evil disposition, and sometimes merely wasted in a man of excellent impulses, for want of the necessary discipline, or of a strong ruling motive. I doubt if there be one person in the world, who has attained a high reputation for talent, who has not met somebody much cleverer than himself, which said somebody has never obtained any reputation at all! Men, like Audley Egerton, are constantly seen in the great positions of life; while men, like Harley l'Estrange, who could have beaten them hollow in any thing equally striven for by both, float away down the stream, and, unless some sudden stimulant arouse the dreamy energies, vanish out of sight into silent graves. If Hamlet and Polonius were living now, Polonius would have a much better chance of being Chancellor of the Exchequer, though Hamlet would unquestionably be a much more intellectual character. What would become of Hamlet? Heaven knows! Dr. Arnold said, from his experience of a school, that the difference between one man and another was not mere ability-it was energy. There is a great deal of truth in that saying.

Submitting these hints to the judgment and penetration of the sagacious, I enter on the fresh division of this work, and see already Randal Leslie gnawing his lip on the back ground. The German poet observes, that the Cow of Isis is to some the divine symbol of knowledge, to others but the milch cow, only regarded for the pounds of butter she will yield. O tendency of our age, to look on Isis as the milch cow! O prostitution of the grandest desires to the basest uses! Gaze on the goddess, Randal Leslie, and get ready thy churn and thy scales. Let us see what the butter will fetch in the market.

CHAPTER II.

A new reign has commenced. There has been a general election; the unpopularity of the Administration has been apparent at the hustings. Audley Egerton, hitherto returned by vast majorities, has barely escaped defeat-thanks to a majority of five. The expenses of his election are said to have been prodigious. "But who can stand against such wealth as Egerton's-no doubt backed, too, by the Treasury purse?" said the defeated candidate. It is towards the close of October; London is already full; Parliament will meet in less than a fortnight.

In one of the principal apartments of that hotel in which foreigners may discover what is meant by English comfort, and the price which foreigners must pay for it, there sat two persons, side by side, engaged in close conversation. The one was a female, in whose pale clear complexion and raven hair-in whose eyes, vivid with a power of expression rarely bestowed on the beauties of the north, we recognize Beatrice, Marchesa di Negra. Undeniably handsome as was the Italian lady, her companion, though a man, and far advanced into middle age, was yet more remarkable for personal advantages. There was a strong family likeness between the two; but there was also a striking contrast in air, manner, and all that stamps on the physiognomy the idiosyncrasies of character. There was something of gravity, of earnestness and passion, in Beatrice's countenance when carefully examined; her smile at times might be false, but it was rarely ironical, never cynical. Her gestures, though graceful, were unrestrained and frequent. You could see she was a daughter of the south. Her companion, on the contrary, preserved on the fair smooth face, to which years had given scarcely a line or wrinkle, something that might have passed, at first glance for the levity and thoughtlessness of a gay and youthful nature; but the smile, though exquisitely polished, took at times the derision of a sneer. In his manners he was as composed and as free from gesture as an Englishman. His hair was of that red brown with which the Italian painters produce such marvellous effects of color; and if here and there a silver thread gleamed through the locks it was lost at once amidst their luxuriance. His eyes were light, and his complexion though without much color, was singularly transparent. His beauty, indeed, would have been rather womanly than masculine, but for the height and sinewy spareness of a frame in which muscular strength was rather adorned than concealed by an admirable elegance of proportion. You would never have guessed this man to be an Italian; more likely you would have supposed him a Parisian. He conversed in French, his dress was of French fashion, his mode of thought seemed French. Not that he was like the Frenchmen of the present day-an animal, either rude or reserved; but your ideal of the Marquis of the old régime-the roué of the Regency.

Italian, however, he was, and of a race renowned in Italian history. But as if ashamed of his country and his birth, he affected to be a citizen of the world. Heaven help the world if it hold only such citizens!

"But, Giulio," said Beatrice di Negra, speaking in Italian, "even granting that you discover this girl, can you suppose that her father will ever consent to your alliance? Surely you know too well the nature of your kinsman?"

"Tu te trompes, ma s?ur," replied Giulio Franzini, Count di Peschiera, in French as usual-"tu te trompes; I knew it before he had gone through exile and penury. How can I know it now? But comfort yourself, my too anxious Beatrice, I shall not care for his consent till I have made sure of his daughter's."

"But how win that in despite of the father?"

"Eh, mordieu?" interrupted the Count, with true French gayety; "what would become of all the comedies ever written, if marriages were not made in despite of the father? Look you," he resumed, with a very slight compression of his lip, and a still slighter movement in his chair; "look you, this is no question of ifs and buts-it is a question of must and shall-a question of existence to you and to me. When Danton was condemned to the guillotine, he said, flinging a pellet of bread at the nose of his respectable judge-'Mon individu sera bient?t dans le néant'-My patrimony is there already! I am loaded with debts. I see before me, on the one side, ruin or suicide; on the other side, wedlock and wealth."

"But from those vast possessions which you have been permitted to enjoy so long, have you really saved nothing against the time when they might be reclaimed at your hands?"

"My sister," replied the Count, "do I look like a man who saved? Besides, when the Austrian Emperor, unwilling to raise from his Lombard domains a name and a house so illustrious as our kinsman's, and desirous, while punishing that kinsman's rebellion, to reward my adherence, forbore the peremptory confiscation of those vast possessions at which my mouth waters while we speak, but, annexing them to the Crown during pleasure, allowed me, as the next of male kin, to retain the revenues of one-half for the same very indefinite period-had I not every reason to suppose, that, before long, I could so influence his Majesty or his minister, as to obtain a decree that might transfer the whole, unconditionally and absolutely, to myself? And methinks I should have done so, but for this accursed, intermeddling English Milord, who has never ceased to besiege the court or the minister with alleged extenuations of our cousin's rebellion, and proofless assertions that I shared it in order to entangle my kinsman, and betrayed it in order to profit by his spoils. So that, at last, in return for all my services, and in answer to all my claims, I received from the minister himself this cold reply: 'Count of Peschiera, your aid was important, and your reward has been large. That reward, it would not be for your honor to extend, and justify the ill opinion of your Italian countrymen by formally appropriating to yourself all that was forfeited by the treason you denounced. A name so noble as yours should be dearer to you than fortune itself.'"

"Ah, Giulio," cried Beatrice, her face lighting up, changed in its whole character; "those were words that might make the demon that tempts to avarice fly from your breast in shame."

The Count opened his eyes in great amaze; then he glanced round the room and said, quietly:

"Nobody else hears you, my dear Beatrice, talk common sense. Heroics sound well in mixed society; but there is nothing less suited to the tone of a family conversation."

Madame di Negra bent down her head abashed, and that sudden change in the expression of her countenance, which had seemed to betray susceptibility to generous emotion, faded as suddenly away.

"But still," she said coldly, "you enjoy one-half of those ample revenues-why talk, then, of suicide and ruin?"

"I enjoy them at the pleasure of the crown; and what if it be the pleasure of the crown to recall our cousin, and reinstate him in his possessions?"

"There is a probability, then, of that pardon? When you first employed me in your researches, you only thought there was a possibility."

"There is a great probability of it, and therefore I am here. I learned some little time since that the question of such recall had been suggested by the Emperor, and discussed in Council. The danger to the State, which might arise from our cousin's wealth, his alleged abilities-(abilities! bah!)-and his popular name, deferred any decision on the point; and, indeed, the difficulty of dealing with myself must have embarrassed the ministry. But it is a mere question of time. He cannot long remain excluded from the general amnesty, already extended to the other refugees. The person who gave me this information is high in power, and friendly to myself; and he added a piece of advice, on which I acted. 'It was intimated,' said he, 'by one of the partisans of your kinsman, that the exile could give a hostage for his loyalty in the person of his daughter and heiress; that she had arrived at marriageable age; that if she were to wed, with the Emperor's consent, some one whose attachment to the Austrian crown was unquestionable, there would be a guarantee both for the faith of the father, and for the transmission of so important a heritage to safe and loyal hands. Why not' (continued my friend) 'apply to the Emperor for his consent to that alliance for yourself?-you, on whom he can depend;-you who, if the daughter should die, would be the legal heir to those lands?' On that hint I spoke."

"You saw the Emperor?"

"And after combating the unjust prepossessions against me, I stated, that so far from my cousin having any fair cause of resentment against me, when all was duly explained to him, I did not doubt that he would willingly give me the hand of his child."

"You did?" cried the Marchesa, amazed.

"And," continued the Count imperturbably, as he smoothed, with careless hand, the snowy plaits of his shirt front-"and that I should thus have the happiness of becoming myself the guarantee of my kinsman's loyalty-the agent for the restoration of his honors, while, in the eyes of the envious and malignant, I should clear up my own name from all suspicion that I had wronged him."

"And the Emperor consented?"

"Pardieu, my dear sister. What else could his majesty do? My proposition smoothed every obstacle, and reconciled policy with mercy. It remains, therefore, only to find out, what has hitherto baffled all our researches, the retreat of our dear kinsfolk, and to make myself a welcome lover to the demoiselle. There is some disparity of years, I own; but-unless your sex and my glass flatter me overmuch-I am still a match for many a gallant of five-and-twenty."

The Count said this with so charming a smile, and looked so pre-eminently handsome, that he carried off the coxcombry of the words as gracefully as if they had been spoken by some dazzling hero of the grand old comedy of Parisian life.

Then interlacing his fingers, and lightly leaning his hands, thus clasped, upon his sister's shoulder, he looked into her face, and said slowly-"And now, my sister, for some gentle but deserved reproach. Have you not sadly failed me in the task I imposed on your regard for my interests? Is it not some years since you first came to England on the mission of discovering these worthy relatives of ours? Did I not entreat you to seduce into your toils the man whom I knew to be my enemy, and was indubitably acquainted with our cousin's retreat-a secret he has hitherto locked within his bosom? Did you not tell me, that though he was then in England, you could find no occasion even to meet him, but that you had obtained the friendship of the statesman to whom I directed your attention, as his most intimate associate? And yet you, whose charms are usually so irresistible, learn nothing from the statesman, as you see nothing of Milord. Nay, baffled and misled, you actually supposed that the quarry has taken refuge in France. You go thither-you pretend to search the capital-the provinces, Switzerland, que sais-je?-all in vain,-though-foi de gentilhomme-your police cost me dearly,-you return to England-the same chase, and the same result. Palsambleu, ma s?ur, I do too much credit to your talents not to question your zeal. In a word have you been in earnest-or have you not had some womanly pleasure in amusing yourself and abusing my trust?"

"Giulio," answered Beatrice sadly, "you know the influence you have exercised over my character and my fate. Your reproaches are not just. I made such inquiries as were in my power, and I have now cause to believe that I know one who is possessed of this secret, and can guide us to it."

"Ah, you do!" exclaimed the Count. Beatrice did not heed the exclamation, but hurried on.

"But grant that my heart shrunk from the task you imposed on me, would it not have been natural? When I first came to England, you informed me that your object in discovering the exiles was one which I could honestly aid. You naturally desired first to know if the daughter lived; if not, you were the heir. If she did, you assured me you desired to effect, through my mediation, some liberal compromise with Alphonso, by which you would have sought to obtain his restoration, provided he would leave you for life in possession of the grant you hold from the crown. While these were your objects, I did my best, ineffectual as it was, to obtain the information required."

"And what made me lose so important though so ineffectual an ally?" asked the Count, still smiling; but a gleam that belied the smile shot from his eye.

"What! when you bade me receive and co-operate with the miserable spies-the false Italians-whom you sent over, and seek to entangle this poor exile, when found in some rash correspondence, to be revealed to the court; when you sought to seduce the daughter of the Count of Peschiera, the descendant of those who had ruled in Italy, into the informer, the corrupter, and the traitress! No, Giulio-then I recoiled; and then, fearful of your own sway over me, I retreated into France. I have answered you frankly."

The Count removed his hands from the shoulders on which they had reclined so cordially.

"And this," said he, "is your wisdom, and this your gratitude. You, whose fortunes are bound up in mine-you, who subsist on my bounty-you, who-"

"Hold," cried the Marchesa, rising, and with a burst of emotion, as if stung to the utmost, and breaking into revolt from the tyranny of years-"Hold-gratitude! bounty! Brother, brother-what, indeed, do I owe to you? The shame and the misery of a life. While yet a child, you condemned me to marry against my will-against my heart-against my prayers-and laughed at my tears when I knelt to you for mercy. I was pure then, Giulio-pure and innocent as the flowers in my virgin crown. And now-now-"

Beatrice stopped abruptly, and clasped her hands before her face.

"Now you upbraid me," said the Count, unruffled by her sudden passion, "because I gave you in marriage to a man young and noble?"

"Old in vices and mean of soul! The marriage I forgave you. You had the right, according to the customs of our country, to dispose of my hand. But I forgave you not the consolations that you whispered in the ear of a wretched and insulted wife."

"Pardon me the remark," replied the Count, with a courtly bend of his head, "but those consolations were also conformable to the customs of our country, and I was not aware till now that you had wholly disdained them. And," continued the Count, "you were not so long a wife that the gall of the chain should smart still. You were soon left a widow-free, childless, young, beautiful."

"And penniless."

"True, Di Negra was a gambler, and very unlucky; no fault of mine. I could neither keep the cards from his hands, nor advise him how to play them."

"And my own portion? Oh, Giulio, I knew but at his death why you had condemned me to that renegade Genoese. He owed you money, and, against honor, and I believe against law, you had accepted my fortune in discharge of the debt."

"He had no other way to discharge it-a debt of honor must be paid-old stories these. "What matters? Since then my purse has been open to you."

"Yes, not as your sister, but your instrument-your spy! Yes, your purse has been open-with a niggard hand."

"Un peu de conscience, ma chère, you are so extravagant. But come, be plain. What would you?"

"I would be free from you."

"That is, you would form some second marriage with one of these rich island lords. Ma foi, I respect your ambition."

"It is not so high. I aim but to escape from slavery-to be placed beyond dishonorable temptation. I desire," cried Beatrice with increased emotion, "I desire to re-enter the life of woman."

"Eno'!" said the Count with a visible impatience, "is there anything in the attainment of your object that should render you indifferent to mine? You desire to marry, if I comprehend you right. And to marry, as becomes you, you should bring to your husband not debts, but a dowry. Be it so. I will restore the portion that I saved from the spendthrift clutch of the Genoese-the moment that it is mine to bestow-- the moment that I am husband to my kinsman's heiress. And now, Beatrice, you imply that my former notions revolted your conscience; my present plan should content it; for by this marriage shall our kinsman regain his country, and repossess, at least, half his lands. And if I am not an excellent husband to the demoiselle, it will be her own fault. I have sown my wild oats. Je suis bon prince, when I have things a little my own way. It is my hope and my intention, and certainly it will be my interest, to become digne époux et irréproachable pire de famille. I speak lightly-'tis my way. I mean seriously. The little girl will be very happy with me, and I shall succeed in soothing all resentment her father may retain. Will you aid me then-yes or no? Aid me, and you shall indeed be free. The magician will release the fair spirit he has bound to his will. Aid me not, ma chère, and mark, I do not threaten-I do but warn-aid me not; grant that I become a beggar, and ask yourself what is to become of you-still young, still beautiful, and still penniless? Nay, worse than penniless; you have done me the honor (and here the Count, looking on the table, drew a letter from a portfolio, emblazoned with his arms and coronet), you have done me the honor to consult me as to your debts."

"You will restore my fortune?" said the Marchesa, irresolutely-and averting her head from an odious schedule of figures.

"When my own, with your aid, is secured."

"But do you not overrate the value of my aid?"

"Possibly," said the Count, with a caressing suavity-and he kissed his sister's forehead. "Possibly; but by my honor, I wish to repair to you any wrong, real or supposed, I may have done you in past times. I wish to find again my own dear sister. I may overvalue your aid, but not the affection from which it comes. Let us be friends, cara Beatrice Mia," added the Count, for the first time employing Italian words.

The Marchesa laid her head on his shoulder, and her tears flowed softly. Evidently this man had great influence over her-and evidently, whatever her cause for complaint, her affection for him was still sisterly and strong. A nature with fine flashes of generosity, spirit, honor, and passion, was hers-but uncultured, unguided-spoilt by the worst social examples-easily led into wrong-not always aware where the wrong was-letting affections good or bad whisper away her conscience or blind her reason. Such women are often far more dangerous when induced to wrong, than those who are thoroughly abandoned-such women are the accomplices men like the Count of Peschiera most desire to obtain.

"Ah, Giulio," said Beatrice, after a pause, and looking up at him through her tears, "when you speak to me thus, you know you can do with me what you will. Fatherless and motherless, whom had my childhood to love and obey but you?"

"Dear Beatrice," murmured the Count tenderly-and he again kissed her forehead. "So," he continued more carelessly-"so the reconciliation is effected, and our interests and our hearts re-allied. Now, alas! to descend to business. You say that you know some one whom you believe to be acquainted with the lurking-place of my father-in-law-that is to be!"

"I think so. You remind me that I have an appointment with him this day: it is near the hour-I must leave you."

"To learn the secret?-Quick-quick. I have no fear of your success, if it is by his heart that you lead him."

"You mistake; on his heart I have no hold. But he has a friend who loves me, and honorably, and whose cause he pleads. I think here that I have some means to control or persuade him. If not-ah, he is of a character that perplexes me in all but his worldly ambition; and how can we foreigners influence him through that?"

"Is he poor, or is he extravagant?"

"Not extravagant, and not positively poor, but dependent."

"Then we have him," said the Count composedly. "If his assistance he worth buying, we can bid high for it. Sur mon ame, I never yet knew money fail with any man who was both worldly and dependent. I put him and myself in your hands."

Thus saying, the Count opened the door, and conducted his sister with formal politeness to her carriage. He then returned, reseated himself, and mused in silence. As he did so, the muscles of his countenance relaxed. The levity of the Frenchman fled from his visage, and in his eye, as it gazed abstractedly into space, there was that steady depth so remarkable in the old portraits of Florentine diplomatist or Venetian oligarch. Thus seen, there was in that face, despite all its beauty, something that would have awed back even the fond gaze of love; something hard, collected, inscrutable, remorseless; but this change of countenance did not last long. Evidently thought, though intense for the moment, was not habitual to the man. Evidently he had lived the life which takes all things lightly-so he rose with a look of fatigue, shook and stretched himself, as if to cast off, or grow out of, an unwelcome and irksome mood. An hour afterwards, the Count of Peschiera was charming all eyes, and pleasing all ears, in the saloon of a high-born beauty, whose acquaintance he had made at Vienna, and whose charms, according to that old and never-truth-speaking oracle, Polite Scandal, were now said to have attracted to London the brilliant foreigner.

CHAPTER III.

The Marchesa regained her house, which was in Curzon street, and withdrew to her own room, to readjust her dress, and remove from her countenance all traces of the tears she had shed.

Half-an-hour afterwards she was seated in her drawing-room, composed and calm; nor, seeing her then, could you have guessed that she was capable of so much emotion and so much weakness. In that stately exterior, in that quiet attitude, in that elaborate and finished elegance which comes alike from the arts of the toilet and the conventional repose of rank, you could see but the woman of the world and the great lady.

A knock at the door was heard, and in a few moments there entered a visitor, with the easy familiarity of intimate acquaintance-a young man, but with none of the bloom of youth. His hair, fine as a woman's, was thin and scanty, but it fell low over the forehead, and concealed that noblest of our human features. "A gentleman," says Apuleius, "ought, if he can, to wear his whole mind on his forehead."[8] The young visitor would never have committed so frank an imprudence. His cheek was pale, and in his step and in his movements there was a languor that spoke of fatigued nerves or delicate health. But the light of the eye and the tone of the voice were those of a mental temperament controlling the bodily-vigorous and energetic. For the rest, his general appearance was distinguished by a refinement alike intellectual and social. Once seen, you would not easily forget him. And the reader no doubt already recognizes Randal Leslie. His salutation, as I before said, was that of intimate familiarity; yet it was given and replied to with that unreserved openness which denotes the absence of a more tender sentiment.

[8] I must be pardoned for annexing the original, since it loses much by translation:-"Hominem liberum et magnificum debere, si queat, in primori fronte, animum gestare."

Seating himself by the Marchesa's side, Randal began first to converse on the fashionable topics and gossip of the day; but it was observable, that, while he extracted from her the current anecdote and scandal of the great world, neither anecdote nor scandal did he communicate in return. Randal Leslie had already learned the art not to commit himself, nor to have quoted against him one ill-natured remark upon the eminent. Nothing more injures the man who would rise beyond the fame of the salons, than to be considered backbiter and gossip; "yet it is always useful," thought Randal Leslie, "to know the foibles-the small social and private springs by which the great are moved. Critical occasions may arise in which such knowledge may be power." And hence, perhaps, (besides a more private motive, soon to be perceived,) Randal did not consider his time thrown away in cultivating Madame di Negra's friendship. For despite much that was whispered against her, she had succeeded in dispelling the coldness with which she had at first been received in the London circles. Her beauty, her grace, and her high birth, had raised her into fashion, and the homage of men of the first station, while it perhaps injured her reputation as a woman, added to her celebrity as fine lady. So much do we cold English, prudes though we be, forgive to the foreigner what we avenge on the native.

Sliding at last from these general topics into very well-bred and elegant personal compliment, and reciting various eulogies, which Lord this and the Duke of that had passed on the Marchesa's charms, Randal laid his hand on hers, with the license of admitted friendship, and said-

"But since you have deigned to confide in me, since when (happily for me, and with a generosity which no coquette could have been capable) you, in good time, repressed into friendship feelings that might else have ripened into those you are formed to inspire and disdain to return, you told me with your charming smile, 'Let no one speak to me of love who does not offer me his hand, and with it the means to supply tastes that I fear are terribly extravagant;'-since thus you allowed me to divine your natural objects, and upon that understanding our intimacy has been founded, you will pardon me for saying that the admiration you excite amongst the grands seigneurs I have named, only serves to defeat your own purpose, and scare away admirers less brilliant, but more in earnest. Most of these gentlemen are unfortunately married; and they who are not belong to those members of our aristocracy who, in marriage, seek more than beauty and wit-namely, connections to strengthen their political station, or wealth to redeem a mortgage and sustain a title."

"My dear Mr. Leslie," replied the Marchesa-and a certain sadness might be detected in the tone of the voice and the droop of the eye-"I have lived long enough in the real world to appreciate the baseness and the falsehood of most of those sentiments which take the noblest names. I see through the hearts of the admirers you parade before me, and know that not one of them would shelter with his ermine the woman to whom he talks of his heart. Ah," continued Beatrice, with a softness of which she was unconscious, but which might have been extremely dangerous to youth less steeled and self-guarded than was Randal Leslie's-"ah, I am less ambitious than you suppose. I have dreamed of a friend, a companion, a protector, with feelings still fresh, undebased by the low round of vulgar dissipation and mean pleasures-of a heart so new, that it might restore my own to what it was in its happy spring. I have seen in your country some marriages, the mere contemplation of which has filled my eyes with delicious tears. I have learned in England to know the value of home. And with such a heart as I describe, and such a home, I could forget that I ever knew a less pure ambition."

"This language does not surprise me," said Randal; "yet it does not harmonize with your former answer to me."

"To you," repeated Beatrice smiling, and regaining her lighter manner; "to you-true. But I never had the vanity to think that your affection for me could bear the sacrifices it would cost you in marriage; that you, with your ambition, could bound your dreams of happiness to home. And then, too," said she, raising her head, and with a certain grave pride in her air-"and then, I could not have consented to share my fate with one whom my poverty would cripple. I could not listen to my heart, if it had beat for a lover without fortune, for to him I could then have brought but a burden, and betrayed him into a union with poverty and debt. Now it may be different. Now I may have the dowry that befits my birth. And now I may be free to choose according to my heart as woman, not according to my necessities, as one poor, harassed, and despairing."

"Ah," said Randal, interested and drawing still closer towards his fair companion-"ah, I congratulate you sincerely; you have cause, then, to think that you shall be-rich?"

The Marchesa paused before she answered, and during that pause Randal relaxed the web of the scheme which he had been secretly weaving, and rapidly considered whether, if Beatrice di Negra would indeed be rich, she might answer to himself as a wife; and in what way, if so, he had best change his tone from that of friendship into that of love. While thus reflecting, Beatrice answered-

"Not rich for an Englishwoman; for an Italian, yes. My fortune should be half a million-"

"Half a million!" cried Randal, and with difficulty he restrained himself from falling at her feet in adoration.

"Of francs!" continued the Marchesa.

"Francs! Ah," said Randal, with a long-drawn breath, and recovering from his sudden enthusiasm, "about twenty thousand pounds!-eight hundred a-year at four per cent. A very handsome portion, certainly-(Genteel poverty! he murmured to himself. What an escape I have had! but I see-I see. This will smooth all difficulties in the way of my better and earlier project. I see)-a very handsome portion," he repeated aloud-"not for a grand seigneur, indeed, but still for a gentleman of birth and expectations worthy of your choice, if ambition be not your first object. Ah, while you spoke with such endearing eloquence of feelings that were fresh, of a heart that was new, of the happy English home, you might guess that my thoughts ran to my friend who loves you so devotedly, and who so realizes your ideal. Providentially, with us, happy marriages and happy homes are found not in the gay circles of London fashion, but at the hearths of our rural nobility-our untitled country gentlemen. And who, amongst all your adorers, can offer you a lot so really enviable as the one whom, I see by your blush, you already guess that I refer to?"

"Did I blush?" said the Marchesa, with a silvery laugh. "Nay, I think that your zeal for your friend misled you. But I will own frankly, I have been touched by his honest ingenuous love-so evident, yet rather looked than spoken. I have contrasted the love that honors me with the suitors that seek to degrade; more I cannot say. For though I grant that your friend is handsome, high-spirited, and generous, still he is not what-"

"You mistake, believe me," interrupted Randal. "You shall not finish your sentence. He is all that you do not yet suppose him; for his shyness, and his very love, his very respect for your superiority, do not allow his mind and his nature to appear to advantage. You, it is true, have a taste for letters and poetry rare among your countrywomen. He has not at present-few men have. But what Cimon would not be refined by so fair an Iphigenia? Such frivolities as he now shows belong but to youth and inexperience of life. Happy the brother who could see his sister the wife of Frank Hazeldean."

The Marchesa leant her cheek on her hand in silence. To her, marriage was more than it usually seems to dreaming maiden or to disconsolate widow. So had the strong desire to escape from the control of her unprincipled and remorseless brother grown a part of her very soul-so had whatever was best and highest in her very mixed and complex character been galled and outraged by her friendless and exposed position, the equivocal worship rendered to her beauty, the various debasements to which pecuniary embarrassments had subjected her-(not without design on the part of the count, who, though grasping, was not miserly, and who by precarious and seemingly capricious gifts at one time, and refusals of all aid at another, had involved her in debt in order to retain his hold on her)-so utterly painful and humiliating to a woman of her pride and her birth was the station that she held in the world-that in marriage she saw liberty, life, honor, self-redemption; and these thoughts, while they compelled her to co-operate with the schemes, by which the count, on securing to himself a bride, was to bestow on herself a dower, also disposed her now to receive with favour Randal Leslie's pleadings on behalf of his friend.

The advocate saw that he had made an impression, and with the marvellous skill which his knowledge of those natures that engaged his study bestowed on his intelligence, he continued to improve his cause by such representations as were likely to be most effective. With what admirable tact he avoided panegyric of Frank as the mere individual, and drew him rather as the type, the ideal of what a woman in Beatrice's position might desire, in the safety, peace, and honor of a home, in the trust, and constancy, and honest confiding love of its partner! He did not paint an Elysium; he described a haven; he did not glowingly delineate a hero of romance-he soberly portrayed that Representative of the Respectable and the Real which a woman turns to when romance begins to seem to her but delusion. Verily, if you could have looked into the heart of the person he addressed, and heard him speak, you would have cried admiringly, "Knowledge is power; and this man, if as able on a larger field of action, should play no mean part in the history of his time."

Slowly Beatrice roused herself from the reveries which crept over her as he spoke-slowly, and with a deep sigh, and said-

"Well, well, grant all you say; at least before I can listen to so honorable a love, I must be relieved from the base and sordid pressure that weighs on me. I cannot say to the man who woos me, 'Will you pay the debts of the daughter of Franzini, and the widow of di Negra?'"

"Nay, your debts, surely, make so slight a portion of your dowry."

"But the dowry has to be secured;" and here, turning the tables upon her companion, as the apt proverb expresses it, Madame di Negra extended her hand to Randal, and said in her most winning accents, "You are, then, truly and sincerely my friend?"

"Can you doubt it?"

"I prove that I do not, for I ask your assistance."

"Mine? How?"

"Listen; my brother has arrived in London-"

"I see that arrival announced in the papers."

"And he comes, empowered by the consent of the Emperor, to ask the hand of a relation and countrywoman of his; an alliance that will heal long family dissensions, and add to his own fortunes those of an heiress. My brother, like myself, has been extravagant. The dowry which by law he still owes me it would distress him to pay till this marriage be assured."

"I understand," said Randal. "But how can I aid this marriage?"

"By assisting us to discover the bride. She, with her father, sought refuge and concealment in England."

"The father had, then, taken part in some political disaffections, and was proscribed?"

"Exactly so; and so well has he concealed himself that he has baffled all our efforts to discover his retreat. My brother can obtain him his pardon in cementing this alliance-"

"Proceed."

"Ah Randal, Randal, is this the frankness of friendship? You know that I have before sought to obtain the secret of our relation's retreat-sought in vain to obtain it from Mr. Egerton, who assuredly knows it-"

"But who communicates no secrets to living man," said Randal, almost bitterly; "who, close and compact as iron, is as little malleable to me as to you."

"Pardon me. I know you so well that I believe you could attain to any secret you sought earnestly to acquire. Nay, more, I believe that you know already that secret which I ask you to share with me."

"What on earth makes you think so?"

"When, some weeks ago you asked me to describe the personal appearance and manners of the exile, which I did partly from the recollections of my childhood, partly from the description given to me by others, I could not but notice your countenance, and remark its change; in spite," said the Marchesa, smiling, and watching Randal while she spoke-"in spite of your habitual self-command. And when I pressed you to own that you had actually seen some one who tallied with that description, your denial did not deceive me. Still more, when returning recently, of your own accord, to the subject, you questioned me so shrewdly as to my motives in seeking the clue to our refugees, and I did not then answer you satisfactorily, I could detect-"

"Ha, ha," interrupted Randal, with the low soft laugh by which occasionally he infringed upon Lord Chesterfield's recommendations to shun a merriment so natural as to be ill-bred,-"ha, ha, you have the fault of all observers too minute and refined. But even granting that I may have seen some Italian exiles, (which is likely enough,) what could be more simple than my seeking to compare your description with their appearance; and granting that I might suspect some one amongst them to be the man you search for, what more simple, also, than that I should desire to know if you meant him harm or good in discovering his 'whereabout?' For ill," added Randal, with an air of prudery, "ill would it become me to betray, even to friendship, the retreat of one who would hide from persecution; and even if I did so-for honor itself is a weak safeguard against your fascinations-such indiscretion might be fatal to my future career."

"How?"

"Do you not say that Egerton knows the secret, yet will not communicate?-and is he a man who would ever forgive in me an imprudence that committed himself? My dear friend, I will tell you more. When Audley Egerton first noticed my growing intimacy with you, he said, with his usual dryness of counsel, 'Randal, I do not ask you to discontinue acquaintance with Madame di Negra-for an acquaintance with women like her forms the manners and refines the intellect; but charming women are dangerous, and Madame di Negra is-a charming woman."

The Marchesa's face flushed. Randal resumed: "'Your fair acquaintance' (I am still quoting Egerton) 'seeks to discover the home of a countryman of hers. She suspects that I know it. She may try to learn it through you. Accident may possibly give you the information she requires. Beware how you betray it. By one such weakness I should judge of your general character. He from whom a woman can extract a secret will never be fit for public life.' Therefore, my dear Marchesa, even supposing that I possess this secret, you would be no true friend of mine to ask me to reveal what would imperil all my prospects. For as yet," added Randal, with a gloomy shade on his brow,-"as yet I do not stand alone and erect-I lean;-I am dependent."

"There may be a way," replied Madame di Negra, persisting, "to communicate this intelligence, without the possibility of Mr. Egerton's tracing our discovery to yourself; and, though I will not press you further, I add this-you urge me to accept your friend's hand; you seem interested in the success of his suit, and you plead it with a warmth that shows how much you regard what you suppose is his happiness; I will never accept his hand till I can do so without blush for my penury-till my dowry is secured, and that can only be by my brother's union with the exile's daughter. For your friend's sake, therefore, think well how you can aid me in the first step to that alliance. The young lady once discovered, and my brother has no fear for the success of his suit."

"And you would marry Frank if the dower was secured?"

"Your arguments in his favor seem irresistible," replied Beatrice, looking down.

A flash went from Randal's eyes, and he mused a few moments.

Then slowly rising, and drawing on his gloves, he said-

"Well, at least you so far reconcile my honor towards aiding your research, that you now inform me that you mean no ill to the exile."

"Ill!-the restoration to fortune, honors, his native land."

"And you so far enlist my heart on your side, that you inspire me with the hope to contribute to the happiness of two friends whom I dearly love. I will therefore diligently seek to ascertain if, among the refugees I have met with, lurk those whom you seek; and if so I will thoughtfully consider how to give you the clue. Meanwhile, not one incautious word to Egerton."

"Trust me-I am a woman of the world."

Randal now had gained the door. He paused, and renewed carelessly-

"This young lady must be heiress to great wealth, to induce a young man of your brother's rank to take so much pains to discover her."

"Her wealth will be vast," replied the Marchesa; "and if any thing from wealth or influence in a foreign state could be permitted to prove my brother's gratitude-"

"Ah, fie," interrupted Randal, and approaching Madame di Negra, he lifted her hand to his lips, and said gallantly.

"This is reward enough to your preux chevalier."

With those words he took his leave.

* * *

It is always safe to call an assailer of morality licentious, though many of its defenders be not virtuous.

* * *

Authors and Books.

A pendant to Professor Creasy's Decisive Battles has been issued at Stuttgart, under the title of Grundzüge einer Einleitung zum Studium der Kriegsgeschichte (Outlines of an Introduction to the History of War). The author divides his work into two parts: the first extending from 550 B.C. to A.D. 1350; the second, from 1350 to 1850; and each of these parts he arranges in three periods. In the first period (550 to 250 B.C.), he finds that the controlling part in war must be attributed to distinguished and leading individualities; in the second (250 to 50 B.C.), that the dominant element was the political and national, especially the peculiar constitution and nationality of the Romans; the third (50 B.C. to 1350 A.D.), is remarkable for the number and variety of warlike events, and the gradual decline of the system used in prosecuting wars; in the fourth (A.D. 1350 to 1650), the art of war was greatly advanced, especially in respect to technical science, fortifications, &c.; in the fifth (1650 to 1790), this progress continued, and tactics were greatly improved as well as strategy; the sixth period (1790 to 1850), is remarkable for the rapid development of every branch of warlike art and science, both theoretical and practical. These conclusions are arrived at after a spirited historical review of the different periods. This introduction the author promises to follow up with a complete work.

* * *

An interesting correspondence of the period of the thirty years' war has been discovered by M. Welchoff, Councillor of State, in an old travelling trunk in the archives of the Aulic chamber of Celle, in Hanover, that did not appear to have been opened since the papers were deposited. It comes down to the date of the battle of Breitenfeld, and includes letters from Pappenheim, Gustavus Adolphus, and other leaders of the time, with the rough draughts of the letters of Duke George of Brunswick, Luneberg, to whom the whole collection probably belonged. A similar discovery was lately made by M. Dudik, commissioned by the government of Austria to search the libraries of Sweden for material of this kind, in Stockholm and Upsal. The history of the thirty years' war has therefore to be rewritten.

* * *

Albion and Erin, is the title of a little volume, containing the choicest songs of Moore, Byron, Burns, Shelley, Campbell, and Thompson, with selections from Percy's Reliques, each piece being accompanied by a faithful and elegant translation into German, printed on the opposite page. For American students of German, or German students of English, nothing better could be desired. (Sold by Rudolph Garrigue, Astor House.)

* * *

The thirteenth meeting of the Association of German Philologists, Teachers and Orientalists, was opened at Erlangen on the 1st of October, and continued four days, about one hundred and eighty members being present. B?ckh of Berlin, Thiersch, Halm and Spengel of Munich, Gerlach of Basle, Grotefend of Hanover, Krüger of Brunswick, were among the most distinguished gelehrten. There was even one member from Russia in the person of Prof. Vater of Kasan. Austria and Electoral Hesse were not represented. Professor D?derlein was president, and Professor Nagelsbach vice-president. The president opened the general session with a discourse upon the position and value of modern philology. In the meeting of October 2d, Wocher of Ehrinegn read an essay on phonology, or the essential significance of sounds; and Beyer of Erlangen, another on an antique statue in the Munich collection which had been supposed to represent Leukothea, but which he demonstrated to be Charitas. In the exercises of the third and fourth day were included an essay by B?ckh on a Greek inscription, one by D?derlein on an ode of Horace, one by Nagelsbach on a passage of the Iliad, and one by Gerlach on a subject from Roman antiquities. The whole, however interesting to advanced scholars, had little to attract or satisfy the mass of intelligent persons.

* * *

The third volume of G. Weil's Geschichte der Chalifen (History of the Califs), has appeared in Germany, where the second was published three years since. This volume brings the history down into the period of the crusades, and gives us the exact life of men of such proportions as Haroun Alrashid, and Saladin. In ordinary cases when history enters the field where romance has achieved its most brilliant successes, it must be written with the utmost power not to seem pale and lifeless by contrast, but here the simplest narrative would have all the charm of fancy. For the rest Mr. Weil is fully equal to his subject; and throws a flood of light upon its more recondite features. His work is an invaluable addition to our means of knowing the history and natives of the Orient.

* * *

Die Deutschen in B?hmen (The Germans in Bohemia), is pleasant reading for those who like to study the manners and peculiarities of foreign countries in some detail. It also has its value for the political student who would make himself acquainted with the intermixtures and relations of the different races in Central Europe. It treats the subject in its geographical, statistical, economical and historical bearings, as well as in respect to manners, customs, and modes of life. (Prague, 1851.)

We are indebted to the Messrs. Westermann, of this city, for the ninth and tenth parts of Dr. Andree's admirable work, entitled, Amerika, of which we have before spoken at length. These parts conclude the first volume, of 810 octavo pages, printed with an elegance which, among us, is not generally attributed to German books. This volume is devoted to North America, and these two parts, are divided into chapters upon:-the New England States; the Middle States; the Southern Atlantic States; the South on the Gulf of Mexico; the Western Slave States; the Non-slaveholding, West and North; the Far West, and the Pacific Coast. Each state and territory is treated with extreme clearness and comprehensiveness, and with a correctness that seems astonishing, when we consider that the book was written in Germany. This volume is dedicated to Dr. Hermann E. Ludewig, of this city, in three or four pages, giving an account of the motives which induced Dr. Andree to write the work; we translate the dedicatory paragraph: "This book, honored sir, I dedicate to you. The literature of North American history is greatly indebted to your valuable labors; for these ten years no small part of your time has been devotedly spent in disinterestedly aiding, by advice and assistance, our emigrating countrymen on their arrival in New-York. In your new country, which you understand so keenly and so profoundly, you are still a cultivator of German science, holding your old fatherland in appropriate honor. You are in America a worthy and most estimable representative of German culture and German integrity. Receive friendly this inscription, and the cordial greetings I send you beyond the sea!" We trust the other volumes of this work may speedily appear: the second will be upon Mexico and Central America, and the third upon South America.

* * *

Spinoza's Tractatus Politicus is the subject of a work recently published at Dessau, by J. E. Horn. The author defends Spinoza's political ideas as of a practical nature, and not at all connected with the analogous theories of modern German metaphysicians. The work is the result of much thought, and of all the industry which seems to belong to every scholar of Germany.

Another work on Spinoza, is by Professor Zimmermann of Olmütz, and is entitled, Uber einige logische Fehler der spinozistischen Ethik. It attempts to prove at length that the syllogistic method of the great Jew can only be correct on the supposition that in substance the idea and the reality are coincident, which supposition Spinoza himself expressly affirms. The radical fault of this method, according to the Professor, is the application of mathematical demonstration to things not susceptible thereof. On the whole this publication adds little to the treasures of philosophy.

Another, and a valuable contribution, to the almost infinite G?thean literature, has appeared in Germany, in the second volume of J. W. Schafer's life of the great poet. It begins with the year 1786, and comes down to the death of the modern Shakespeare. Its materials are drawn from the writings of Goethe himself, and from the published letters and memoirs upon separate portions of his life. The Italian Journey is the subject of a special disquisition. Goethe's political opinions are also discussed in connection with his behavior during the war of independence. Finally, we have the man in his old age, when his leading feature of character is said to be universality of mental activity. The style of the book is clear and condensed, and its fairness and impartiality a subject of laudation.

A third volume of Goethe's Correspondence with Madame von Stein has been published in Germany. It is no less interesting than the preceding, whether as a collection of letters, or as a revelation of the character and private history of the greatest man in German literature. The assertion that Goethe was really a man of cold and heartless nature, and that the warmth of feeling and freshness of sentiment displayed in his poems was merely fictitious, is entirely refuted by this correspondence.

A collection of poems, by Wolfgang von Goethe, the son of the great poet, was published by Cotta, of Stuttgart, in October last. We have not seen the book, but the publisher's advertisement is quite apologetic, and indicates that the name of the father has not insured the inheritance of his genius.

* * *

A new work entitled Das Brittische Reich in Europe (The British Empire in Europe), has just appeared at Leipzig, in which the progress and power of England are compared with those of the United States. The author, Herr Meidinger, is an admirer of the present policy of England, and exhibits at length the statistics of the advance made by the country under that policy. A statistical survey of the religious and moral condition of Ireland, which forms a part of the work, has also been printed as a separate book.

* * *

Students of middle-age antiquities may find a bone to gnaw in Dat Spil fan der Upstandinge (The Play of the Resurrection), just published with annotations by Herr Ettmuller at Quedlinburg. This is said to be greatly superior to the mass of the religious dramas of the time; it has a genuine unity and is not disfigured by the admixture of buffoonery with the awful realities of New Testament history. It is in the Low German dialect, and dates from the fifteenth century.

* * *

A good history of French literature has been published in German by Professor Kreysig of Elbing. It is designed for a schoolbook, and evinces both learning and fairness.

A valuable contribution to German history has been brought out at Berlin, by Kurd von Sch?zer, under the title of Die Hansa und der Deutsche Ritterorden in den Ostseel?nden (The Hanseatic League and the German Knighthood in the Baltic provinces). The author has not merely exhausted the old chronicles of his subject in the archives and libraries of Germany, but has wrought up his materials into a living narrative, full of romantic interest as well as historical instruction.

* * *

A Catholic writer, Count Eichendorff, has published, at Leipzig, Der Deutsche Roman des 18ten Jahrhunderts (German Romance in the 18th century), in which the subject of romance literature is treated in its relation to Christianity, but not in a thorough or profound manner, and with too much dogmatism, and apparent prejudice. His idea is, that there is no Christianity outside of the Catholic Church, and that all novels which are not Catholic are unchristian.

* * *

Madame Blaze de Bury has just published at Bremen, in Germany, a novel, entitled, Falkenburg, which was issued at the same time in English by Colburn, in London. The German copy is the work of the authoress herself. She resides, at Paris, as the wife of the well-known littérateur, Henri Blaze. This novel is certainly a cosmopolitan production-written as it is, in German, by an Englishwoman, married to a Frenchman, and residing at Paris.

* * *

The history of religious organizations is enriched by Professor Richter's Geschichte der Evangelischen Kirchenverfassung in Deutschland (History of the Constitution of the Evangelical Church in Germany), which has just appeared at Leipzig. The work is highly, and, we doubt not, very justly commended.

* * *

An elaborate Life of Sir Robert Peel, with a collection of his speeches, has been published in German, by Herr Kunzel. It is a warm tribute of admiration for the English statesman, and for that process of very gradual reform by which England is distinguished. (Brunswick, 2 vols.)

* * *

Dr. Zimmermann, whose excellent history of the Peasants' War deserves to be better known to English readers, has just published, at Darmstadt, a history of the English Revolution, which he dedicates to all parties of the German people, and which we doubt not all parties may profitably study.

* * *

A history of Norway has been published at Leipzig, in a neat little volume. It brings the narrative of that country down to the present time, dividing it into seven periods, and giving a succinct account of each. The history of Andreas Faye serves as the basis of this work.

We gave in these pages, a few months since, an account of the labors and sufferings of the Hungarian traveller and ethnographer Reguly, who spent ten painful years among the Finnish tribes of Northern Europe and Asia, with a view to ascertain the ancient of the Magyars. Reguly is now hard at work at Pesth arranging for publication the immense mass of materials gathered on this long expedition, and meanwhile another savan, John Jerney, has just published in two heavy quartos the result of a journey he made for the same purpose during 1844 and '45, in Southern Russia. His work is interesting rather from its information on collateral subjects than because he has cleared up the main problem which his explorations had in view. His conclusion is that the Magyars are of Parthian origin.

* * *

In the present attention to recent Magyar history, a useful aid may be found in Ungarn's Politische Charaktere (The Political Notabilities of Hungary), just published at Mayence. It contains the biography of forty-eight different persons. Its author is a warm admirer of Kossuth and his policy.

* * *

A collection of the speeches, proclamations, &c., of that sentimental tyrant, Frederick William IV. of Prussia, has just been published at Berlin. It includes all the productions of his Majesty from March 6, 1848, to May 31, 1851, and will be useful to trunk-makers and future historians.

* * *

In the present interest attaching to Arctic voyages, Schundt's Bilder aus dem Norden (Pictures from the North), collected in a journey toward the North Pole, in the year 1850, is worth looking into. (Jena, 1851.)

* * *

Prof. J. E. Kopp has published, at Vienna, a volume of documents on the history of the Swiss Confederation.

* * *

The success in Europe of General Bem's plan of teaching history and an exact chronology, attracted the attention of intelligent friends of education in Massachusetts, at whose suggestion Miss E. P. Peabody has prepared a system of the same sort for American schools. The plan was not one superseding the necessity of study, but guiding it, and rendering it effective. It requires a very careful attention, which may be slighted either by scholar or teacher. It saves time, indeed, by rewarding labor, and by making the everlasting review of the ground unnecessary, fostering by means of the senses what is attained. Miss Peabody, in the appendix to the tables of chronology which form the manual of this system, has aimed to give some general hints to teachers, opening out before them a more generous method of studying history than has been usual in our schools and colleges.

The French democrats and socialists bring out this year the usual variety of Almanacs for the propagation of their doctrines among the people. The Almanach du Travail contains articles by Agricole Perdiguier, cabinet-maker and representative in the National Assembly; M. Perdiguier is understood to be the original hero of George Sand's Compagnons du Tour de France; several other well-known literary and political characters also contribute; the publication of the work is the enterprise of an association of printers and engravers. The Almanach du Village is published by the Propagande Démocratique Européene; its editor is M. Joigneaux, a representative, and Pierre Dupont, the democratic poet, is among the contributors. The Almanach Populaire de la France is a more elaborate publication, and boasts a larger circle of writers; Pascal Duprat, Alphonse Esquiros, André Cochut, Fr. Arago, and Victor Schoelcher, are among them. The Almanach des Opprimés, by Hippolyte Magen, is a Voltairian production, devoted to ridiculing the Catholic clergy and the saints of the calender in a style of utter irreverence for their sacred character, and even for their integrity and respectability as individuals. The Répubilique du Peuple is simply a democratic almanac, but its ability is remarkable. Arago, the astronomer Carnot, who possibly will be the candidate of the democratic party for President, Colonel Charras, Michel (de Bourges), Alphonse Karr, and others of the old moderate republican party are contributors. It is adorned with neat engravings; among them is a portrait of Dupont, the poet.

* * *

A well-known publicist, M. Croce-Spinelli, has just issued at Paris an essay on popular government, under the title of L'Arche Populaire. It treats principally of the French constitution, whose faults are said to be-1st, that it confides too much in aristocracy and too little in democracy; 2d, that the legislature may render itself independent of the people by whom it is elected, and betray their interests: 3d, that the authority of the President is too great, and is even dangerous to the development of democratic ideas and forces. The author concludes his work with the plan of a constitution which he thinks will be free from these defects.

* * *

The Asiatic Society of Paris announces the publication of a collection of Oriental works, with French translations, without commentaries, but with very copious indexes. The majority will be Arabic, and, with few exceptions, hitherto unknown to Occidental students generally. The prices will be made very low, it is hoped not higher than those of ordinary French books. This will be accomplished by introducing them as text-books into the schools in Algiers, Egypt, and Constantinople, where French is taught, and thus securing a large sale.

A publication worthy of the utmost praise is the Revue de l'Architecture et des Travaux Publiques, published at Paris, under the editorial care of M. Cesar Daly, one of the most learned and accomplished architects in Europe. This review, which is now in its ninth year, is issued monthly, with the utmost elegance both of typography and engravings. The number for October contains articles on the following subjects:-the preservation and restoration of the Cathedrals of France, the Church of St. Paul at Nismes, Stereochromy, the Museum at St. Petersburg, Chinese Monuments discovered in Ireland, the Public Garden and Swimming School at Bordeaux, &c., &c.; it has four large engravings. The work treats every branch, historic and practical, of architecture and engineering, and should be in the hands of every architect and engineer, and in the library of every man of taste whose leisure and meditations lead him to the study of the beautiful and useful arts. It may be procured in Paris at the low rate of 40 francs a-year.

* * *

A book well suited to the times is Dr. Figuier's Exposition et Histoire des principales Découvertes Modernes, which has just appeared at Paris in two small volumes. It treats of photography, the serial and magnetic telegraphs, etherization, galvanoplasty and chemical gilding, a?rostatics, lighting by gas, Leverrier's planet, gunpowder, and gun-cotton. With respect to the glory of discovering photography, Dr. Figuier restores it to M. Niepce, of Chalon-sur-Saone, proving that he originated the conception, and that Daguerre did nothing more than perfect the process. Singularly enough, M. Figuier omits the steamboat and railroad from the discoveries whose history he so carefully and conscientiously records, but even with these omissions his work is valuable and interesting both to the savan and the ordinary reader.

* * *

The editors of the Revue des Deux Mondes, at Paris, have made up a very useful manual of the history of the year 1850, under the title of Annuaire des Deux Mondes, which is sold by Balliére, in Broadway. It contains an account of the political events, the international relations and diplomacy, the administration, commerce, and finances, and the periodical press and literature of every country which possesses those products of civilization. The constitutions and affairs of Italy, Denmark, Germany, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, England, Norway, Sweden, Russia, Turkey, Greece, United States, Mexico, the South American Republics, and even of the African and Asiatic races, are discussed with moderation and an effort for impartiality, which is laudable, if not always successful. The most recent statistics are given with reference to every country; and, as a book of reference, it will be found very useful.

The Calvin Translation Society, which for the last ten years has been issuing, at irregular intervals, a complete and very handsome edition of Calvin's works, in English-to make about fifty octavo volumes-will have to add to them a new collection of his Letters. It appears that the government of Louis Philippe committed the preparation of the Unpublished Letters of the great Reformer to Professor Bonnett, who had been dismissed from the College of Nismes for speaking too highly of Luther. He travelled in France and Switzerland, at the expense of the Government, in order to collect the letters. After the revolution, the influence of the Catholic clergy was such that the new minister of Public Instruction found a thousand difficulties in the way of accepting the labor of M. Bonnett, and the subject was finally referred to a committee, who reported in favor of the publication; yet, to split the difference with the clergy, they, on pretence of a saving of expenses, ordered that some of the less important letters should be omitted, and that the Latin and French letters should be published together in the same volume. The number of Calvin's unpublished letters in the collection is 497; of these 190 are in French, and 307 in Latin.

* * *

The aged Lacretelle, who of late years has lived in retirement near Macon, reposing upon his fame as an historian, appeared recently at the Academy in that city, on the day when the prizes of the Agricultural Society were distributed, and delivered an oration, marked by the energy and force of youth, but not by its hopefulness. He is now eighty-five years old; and on this occasion, was particularly severe against the communists and socialists, who, he thought, were bent on destroying every thing good, and upsetting the world. This was uttered with a point and bitterness that did no discredit to the censor of the press under both the Empire and the Restoration.

* * *

M. Romain Corunt has commenced, in La Presse, a series of Critical Studies on Socialism, which M. Girardin introduces with a special editorial, and which promises to be valuable. It was not originally designed for publication, but to satisfy its author's curiosity as to the ideas and aims of the revolution of 1848. He has accordingly gone analytically through the writings of all the socialist schools. He commences his exposition with Auguste Comte.

* * *

A French publisher advertises the memoirs of the celebrated actress Mademoiselle Mars, who died at a great age some half dozen years ago. Like those of Pompadour, Crequi, Dubarri, Fouche, Robespierre, and many others, they will undoubtedly turn out to be a fabrication by some ingenious literary trickster, yet it is probable that they will be amusing.

* * *

The five academies of the Institute of France held their annual meeting on the 25th of October. M. de Tocqueville presiding. In opening the meeting, the chairman delivered a discourse, which is praised as possessing "a great conciseness and an exquisite sense." Its topic was the aim of this annual reunion of the five divisions of the Institute. The Volney prize, which had been competed for by ten different works, was awarded to Dr. Steinthal, for a manuscript treatise, written in German, called A Comparative Exposition of a Family of Negro Languages, in its Phonetic and Psychological Aspects. This family of languages is that spoken by the Yoloffs and Bambaras. This prize is simply 1200 francs; it was established by the famous Volney, with a view to aid in the formation of a universal language. An equal prize was also awarded by the Institute to Dr. M. S. Munk, for his work on Sundry Hebrew Grammarians of the Tenth Century; and an honorable mention to Dr. Lorenz Dieffenbach, for his Comparative Dictionary of the Gothic Language. These three gentlemen are Germans, and it is not surprising that they should thus carry off the honors where the field of competition is philology. After the prizes had been announced, a memoir on the Physical Constitution of the Sun and the Stars, by M. Arago, of the Academy of Sciences, was read; then a biographical notice of Denon, by M. de Pastoret, of the Academy of Fine Arts. M. Wallon next read a fragment on the right of asylum awarded to runaway slaves in antiquity, and attempted to prove that a similar disposition to help such fugitives exists in the United States at the present day. Finally, a poem, sent by M. Ampere, was read, and received with a great deal of applause.

* * *

An interesting work on the war in the Vendée, in 1793, is now published at Paris, by M. Fran?ois Grille, himself a native of the region, and an eye-witness of some of the most terrible scenes of that sanguinary struggle. He is a republican, and naturally takes a somewhat different view from that of Madame de la Rochejaquelin's Memoirs. Indeed, he corrects explicitly several geographical and historical errors into which she has fallen. He writes with vivacity and clearness, and has made a conscientious study of a great variety of materials hitherto unused. The first volume of the book has alone appeared: the others will follow with all possible expedition.

* * *

M. Francis Lacombe is the author of a newly-published Histoire de la Bourgeoisie de Paris, from its origin to the present day. The subject is one of great interest, and M. Lacombe has well employed the most extensive materials in treating it. His work extends to three pretty large octavo volumes. (Paris, 1851.)

* * *

During the autumn of 1849, the French government formed from among the members of the Institute, a commission whose duty was to select from the reports and communications made to the government by scientific travellers, what should appear of value to the world at large, for publication at the public expense, in monthly parts, under the title of Archives des Missions Scientifiques et Littéraires. The work was at once commenced and the volume for 1850 is completed; of the volume for 1851, not more than three or four parts have yet appeared. In this volume are reports by Emil Burnouf on the Propylae, the Pnyx and the Copaic Lake; by M. Bendit of a Journey among the Grecian Islands; by Lottin de Leval of an expedition to the Peninsula of Sinai to take impressions of the inscriptions in the valleys of Sinai and Serval; by M.H. Revier of an excursion in Algeria to collect Roman inscriptions; M. Battier de Bourville has an interesting account of the result of an expedition from Benghazi on the coast of Tripoli, to Cyrene, where he made some excavations and dug up several fine statues and remarkable inscriptions; M. Ducouret repeats at length the story of tailed men in the interior of Africa, but his veracity is uncommonly doubtful, and his previous travels in countries more familiar have been utterly fruitless; Mariette's report of his journey to Egypt, in which he discovered the Serapeum of Memphis, is particularly interesting. He is a man of uncommon energy and persistence, and almost lost his life in the affair. He was sick four weeks with fevers and ophthalmia, in the desert, where the Egyptian officials refused him water and provisions, so that the wonder is he did not die. The Assembly has voted 30,000 francs to dig out the Serapeum, which was covered with sand in Pliny's time, and will now be found exactly in its antique condition. Mariette is now there, and at the last advices had excavated five hundred different objects in bronze besides twelve sphinxes in granite. Very many travellers have been sent out to collect documents bearing upon the history of France, and a full account of their labors is contained in this volume. M. de Maslatire has been twice to Cyprus to obtain materials for the history of French rule in that island, and the result will presently appear in two quarto volumes at the cost of the treasury. Several travellers have been sent to England for documents on French history, where it seems they are almost inexhaustibly abundant, especially those that relate to the middle ages. The reports of M. Descloiseaux, who was sent to Iceland to study its geological formation; of M. Visquenel who went to Asiatic Turkey to examine the soil and products; of MM. Milne, Edwards and Quatrefages, who went to Sicily to examine the molluscs and annelids of the neighboring seas; and of Dr. Grange, who was sent throughout Europe to study cretinism and goitre, are very valuable scientifically. Dr. Grange finds the cause of those diseases in water containing magnesia, but no iodine.

These travels are undertaken by means of a fund provided for that purpose by the government. The plan of each expedition is first submitted to the Institute and approved. In case of very expensive undertakings, like the excavation of the Serapeum, or the expedition lately sent to Babylon, a special appropriation is obtained from the Assembly. The Archives are published neatly, with the necessary engravings, at twelve francs a year.

* * *

The mystery hanging over the interior of Africa is rapidly dissipating before the zeal of the many explorers whose efforts are now devoted to traversing the centre of that continent, and, before many years have passed, there is reason to suppose, this sole remaining geographical and ethnographic problem will be fully solved. The English expeditions from the Cape of Good Hope, the German missionaries on the eastern coast, with their journeys into the highlands in the south of Abyssinia, the explorations of the English on the gold coast and up the Niger, those of the French starting from Senegal and Algiers, the travels of Knoblecher and others on the upper Nile, with the journeys of Richardson, Barth, and Overweg, must soon make us acquainted with the principal facts that have so long been the object of general curiosity, if not of exaggerated expectation. Something is also to be anticipated from the aid of Mohammedan travellers, of whom there are a great number scattered over the interior of the continent in search of adventures or with a view to make fortunes. One of these has published, in Arabic, two works containing his experiences and observations in Darfur and Waday, both of which have been translated into French by M. Perron. The second has just appeared at Paris under the title of Voyage au Ouaday par Cheykh Mohammed Ibn Omar al Tunisi, and is especially valuable, as Waday is a country about which we have before had little, if any, positive information. It lies south of the great desert between Timbuctoo and Darfur, and is an extensive country. It is so far advanced out of the merely savage state, as to have a sort of administration, an army, and a kind of general regulations for commerce, which it owes to the influence of Islamism, and to a great man called Sabun, who lived quite recently, or yet lives, as the chief ruler of the land. The principal trade is in slaves, who are stolen in forays among the neighboring tribes on the south, and sold to caravans going north to Fezzan, or east to Darfur; the other articles of commerce are ivory, skins, and ostrich feathers. The introduction of Islamism has put an end to human sacrifices, and rendered the tyranny of the rulers less bloody, but in other respects it has produced little social improvement.

The Roman Catholic writers are generally, in Continental Europe, demanding the suppression of the liberty of discussion, and a re-establishment of the Inquisition. Mr. Blanc St. Bonnet, one of the most conspicuous writers of his party, demands that every species of free thought be discountenanced, and M. Barbey d'Aurevilly, in Les Prophètes du Passé, declares that the evil corrupting society is the pest Liberty; that the church made a fatal error in not burning Luther in lieu of burning his books; and he concludes that the Inquisition is a "logical necessity" in every well-constituted state.

* * *

The Journal des Débats publishes a long review from the pen of M. Gardin de Tassy, of the Translation of two unpublished Arabic Documents, issued last year by our countryman Edward E. Salisbury, of Boston. M. de Tassy says: "We must not suppose that in the United States every body is so absorbed in commerce that nothing else can possibly be attended to. Science and letters are cultivated with success, and there are learned men there who rival those of Europe." The Translation and its author are warmly praised.

* * *

M. de Saulcy is about to publish at Paris his travels in Palestine, with thirty large engravings of the ancient monuments about Jerusalem, and thirty of those about the Dead Sea. The so-called Graves of the Kings will be the subject of thorough discussion. It is also said that one of them will be reconstructed in the Louvre upon his plan, and a sarcophagus cover, which he brought with him, used for the purpose. He has also a Moabitic bas-relief in black basalt: he bought it of the Arabs on the Dead Sea. If it be indeed what he supposes, it is the only relic of the sort existing in Europe.

* * *

Abbadie, one of the Ethiopian travellers of that name, who has lately been so much assailed by other savants as a narrator of his adventures, is superintending the cutting of a complete font of Ethiopic letters, at Paris, to be used in printing some two hundred and fifty Ethiopian manuscripts. They will form four printed volumes, and are said to be among the most beautiful specimens of chirography ever seen. The other brother has gone back to Abyssinia again, to resume his geographical and scientific researches.

* * *

There are a great number of French missionaries in Asia and Africa, but their contributions to literature are trifling, compared with those of the English, American, and German. Bishop Pallegoix, in Siam, has lately published a Siamese grammar, in Latin, and promises a Lexicon of the same language. This, and the Cochin-Chinese Lexicon of Bishop Tabert, are the only works of the kind, by French missionaries, which we can recall for several years.

* * *

The Westminster Review, as we have before intimated, has passed into the hands of the infidel party of England, and it becomes necessary to warn the public who subscribe for it in the series of republications by Mr Scott, of its character, and to urge Mr. Scott to select some other periodical in its place, if it is necessary for the completion of his contracts to reprint a certain number of such works. There are a considerable number of charlatans in England and in this country who, without the natural capacities or the learning necessary to distinction in any legitimate intellectual pursuits, clothe themselves in the cast-off and forgotten draperies of French scepticism, and challenge admiration for the bravery displayed in mocking God, and ridiculing the most profoundly reasoned and firmly settled convictions of mankind. It is becoming fashionable among our young and imperfectly educated magazine and newspaper writers to "pity the weakness" which receives the Christian religion as it was held by our fathers. The drivel of which the veriest fools were made ashamed half a century ago, is revived as if it were a new and immortal flowering of philosophy. By the wise and thoughtful this sort of stuff is regarded with just contempt, and with confidence that though it may exist for a while as scum upon the surface, it will before long sink with kindred filth to the bottom of the stream. The Westminster Review, failing of an adequate support, was about to be discontinued, when John Chapman, the infidel publisher, bought it, and John Stuart Mill was engaged to be its editor. We hope the respectable portion of the American journals will make haste to disclose its present character; that Christian parents will no longer receive it into their houses; and that the characteristic dishonesty of attempting to smuggle writings of philosophical quacks and mountebanks under a once reputable name, will have its appropriate reward.

* * *

Of Robert Burns, a grandson of the great poet, who has recently had some difficulties with the Rajah Sir James Brooke, the London Examiner says, that he is an adventurous traveller; that he has mastered two of the languages of Borneo; that he has penetrated farther into that great and little-known island than any other European; that he has written by far the best and most authentic account of it in the Journal of the Archipelago, that has ever been given to the public.

* * *

The several volumes of essays, entitled, Companions of my Solitude, Friends in Council, Essays Written during the Intervals of Business, &c., are now announced to be by a Mr. Helps. Most of them have been republished in this country, and much read here. They are agreeable and sensible, but without any very original or striking qualities to give them a permanent place in literature.

Among the English announcements made in the last month are, Personal Recollections of Mary Russell Mitford and Anecdotes of Her Literary Acquaintances; Memoirs of the Marquis of Rockingham, from original letters and documents, by the Earl of Albemarle; several new books on the war in Affghanistan; The Convent and the Harem, by the Countess Pisani; Pictures of Life in Mexico, by R. H. Mason; Women of Early Christianity, by Miss Kavanagh; Hippolytus and his Age, or, Doctrine and Practice of the Church of Rome under Commodus and Alexander Severus, by the Chevalier Bunsen; China during the War and since the Peace, including Translations of Secret State Papers, by Sir J. F. Davis; Sketches of English Literature, by Mrs. C. L. Balfour; Symbols and Emblems of Early and Midi?val Christian Art, by Louisa Twining; a new work by Dr. Layard, entitled Fresh Discoveries at Nineveh, and Researches at Babylon; a new work by Sir Francis Head, with the facetious title, All my Eye; Some Account of the Danes and Northmen, in England, Scotland, and Ireland, by J. J. A. Worsaae, of Copenhagen; An Illustrated Classical Mythology and Biography, by Dr. William Smith; Buenos Ayres and the Provinces of the Rio de la Plata, by Sir Woodbine Parish; and two new volumes of Grote's History of Greece.

* * *

The English Dissenters have recently established a new college. It is the result of a union of three existing similar institutions, at present belonging to the Independents-namely, Coward, Homerton, and Cheshunt Colleges; and it is anticipated, from such a concentration of Nonconformist resources and energies, that the standard of learning among them will be raised still higher than it is at present, though it is not now below that in the established church, which, controlling the great universities, is pleased not to admit that a man may understand Greek or Mathematics unless he subscribes to the thirty-nine articles.

* * *

Sir Charles Lyell, lately, in an Address to the Geological Society, demolished again the paltry affair which for some time has constituted the main artillery of the atheists, The Vestiges of Creation; and The Leader thereupon declares that, "In proportion as any branch of inquiry rises out of mere details into the higher generalizations which alone constitute science, we find our scientific men, with rare exceptions, pitiably incompetent."

* * *

"Christopher North" (Professor Wilson), has been compelled by ill health to make arrangements for dispensing with the delivery of his lectures on moral philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, at the ensuing session. The great poet, philosopher, critic, sportsman, and humorist, is in the sixty-third year of his age.

* * *

The Evening Book, by Mrs. Kirkland (Charles Scribner), is a very tasteful volume, consisting of some of the cleverest compositions of one of our very cleverest literary women, well known as Mrs. Mary Clavers, the prose poetess, and pen-painter of Western life. From our first acquaintance with Mary Clavers, in the world of print, we have admired, almost equally, her frank independence of word and thought, her free and fearless love of truth, her facility in vivid and life-like portraiture, and her natural strain of good-natured humor. But most of all we have admired her, for that she is "an 'author,' yet a woman too!" a consummation indeed devoutly to be wished; inasmuch as it seems to us, that we are fast falling upon days which will induce the grave spectator, looking upon the ladies and gentlemen of Young New-York, the former in the rostrum, the latter in the ball-room, to exclaim with the Persian King at Salamis, "All our men have become women, and our women men." This, however, can never be predicated of our friend of "the New Home;" and yet, shall we confess it, we like her better far in the broad west than on the Broad pavé; better in the solitude of the great woods than on the society of great cities; better in the log school-house, than in the tumultuous streets-in a word, better as the chronicler of the doings of the west, than as the critic of the goings-on in the east! So long as she adheres to the former, she is ever entertaining, ever instructive, ever humorous, ever lively, ever true; but when she comes to deal with the problems of society, when she dives into the mysteries of caste, and tempts the difficulties which lie in the way of those who would reconcile political equality with social intercourse, we fear that she will not only be found herself going astray, but-what is far worse-becoming a blind guide to others. We are led to these remarks especially by a certain article on "Streets and Servants, at home and abroad," the tendency of which we fully believe-though we are sure it was honestly written, and beneficently intended-to be positively dangerous and injurious to the very class for whose advantage it is intended.

Herein we find our fair friend discoursing thus of the female servants of America:

"Perhaps, if we could make up our minds to treat our servants as fellow-citizens now, the time when they would be disposed to shake off our service might be deferred."

And again-

"Would it be dangerous to recognize the soul of a chambermaid? Would it not be apt to make her a better one, and longer content with the broom and duster, if we consulted her feelings, expressed an interest in her welfare, and saved her pride as much as possible? At present, it seems to be supposed that in the agreement as to wages, a certain amount of contumely is bargained for," &c., &c.

Now this is quite unworthy of Mrs. Kirkland's good sense; it is very objectionable and injurious at this moment-when tens of thousands of American girls are daily all but starving on the wretched pittance which they can earn at the literally starving prices of the shops; daily falling into vice and infamy in order to avoid actual starvation; who might be comfortably lodged, comfortably clad, comfortably fed, and well paid, in as many kindly and Christian families, if they could but condescend from their ruinous false pride, and brook to become servants. Worst of all, it is not true. In no country on earth are servants so well looked to, not only as to wants but as to comforts, as in this. In no other are their labors so light, their liberties so large, their remuneration so liberal, their feelings so freely consulted-nay, in many cases, their whims so foolishly indulged. To no contumely, that we can perceive, are they subjected; but we suppose that Mrs. Kirkland regards their non-admission to our tables, our conversational reunions, or our ballrooms, as the crowning contumely-quite forgetful that the restraint of what to refined, educated, and highly-bred persons are habits, would be to the servant-girl bonds and fetters of intolerable restraint-that her inability to mix in our conversation, to see with our eyes, taste with our tastes, and understand with our cultivated intellects, would render our society far more insufferable and annoying to her than her presence could be to us; in a word, that, but for the false pride of being one of the company, our drawing-room would be far more a place of punishment to her, than her kitchen to us.

For the rest, in these United States, all this talk about independence and servitude is absurd. No man on earth is, or ever will be, independent of some other man. Every man is, in some sort or other, the servant of some other man. The rich man is dependent on his colored barber, or his colored boots, for his comfort, as the barber or the boots is on him for his wages; and perhaps the rich man would be worse put to it by the absence of the boots, than the boots by the absence of the rich man. Generally, we believe, the higher we are in position, the more masters we have to serve, and the less considerate; and we have little doubt that even our brilliant and gentle authoress herself has more and less amiable behests to obey, than ever fell to the lot of the independent help, who "thought she heard her yell."

We have dwelt longer on this point than its weight or merit, as regards the volume, of which it occupies but a page, would seem to justify; and we have done so not ill-naturedly, to pick out the one tare from the load of wheat, but merely to controvert what we consider a dangerous social fallacy, which is growing and gaining virulence and vigor under false treatment, and producing serious detriment to a large class of our population. The volume itself is, as we have observed, an entertaining, an instructive, emphatically a good one; and its getting up and embellishment reflect as much credit on the publishers, as its contents on the author. It is one of the most beautiful, and deserves to be one of the most popular, gift-books of the season.

* * *

Among the most agreeable republications of the season we may cite Mrs. Lee's Luther and his Times, the Life and Times of Cranmer, and the Historical Sketches of the Old Painters, recently issued in the Family Library of Willis Hazard, of Philadelphia. Luther and his Times appears at an appropriate period, considering the great number of works relating to the Reformer which have been written in England and on the continent: scarce any of which, however, are superior to this, either in accuracy or general interest. As an appropriate companion to it we have Cranmer-a plain, straightforward, and withal extremely attractive account of the Reformation in England. With regard to the relative excellence of these, we incline to the Luther. The simplicity and singleness of style which characterize Mrs. Lee's biography of Cranmer, would render it peculiarly the property of the young, were it not that the great amount of valuable historical information which it contains, as well as the fact that so little is generally known relative to the early history of the English Reformation, commend it equally to the perusal of older and graver students. But in the Luther, we have, in the best sense, a literary work, one in which ease of style, an almost romantic interest and accurate research, combine to invest it with that variety of excellence which the public taste at the present day requires of the historian and biographer. The works are neatly got up, with fair illustrations. In the same series we also find an illustrated edition of The Vicar of Wakefield. A curious proof of the exquisite simplicity and beauty of style which characterize this work, may be found in the fact, that throughout Germany, Scandinavia, and Italy, no English work is so well known or so extensively used in the study of our language.

Few American works have conferred on their writers a more respectable reputation than Mrs. Lee's Historical Sketches of the Old Painters. When we reflect on the important r?le which a knowledge of Art plays in a modern education, and that the time is evidently not distant when the ?sthetics will form as essential a portion of school courses as French or Algebra, we cannot be too grateful to one who has prepared such an eminently practical yet agreeable introduction to such studies. To the general reader who lacks the time or patience to work his way through the interminable works of Vasari, Kugler, or Lanzi, and who can be satisfied with an account of the most eminent painters, narrated in a concise yet highly interesting manner, this work must be invaluable.

We have looked over an edition of Young's Night Thoughts, edited by James Robert Boyd, and published by Mr. Scribner. It reminds us of that edition of Milton, by some eastern gentleman (there is a copy in the Harvard College library), in which "the versification is somewhat improved, and for better effect a few new figures are put in here and there." Except that memorable specimen of editorial silliness and sacrilege, we must confess-nay, we gladly confess-that we have never seen or heard of any thing worse than this very handsomely printed edition of Young's Night Thoughts. As the respectable publisher of it must have supposed Mr. Boyd possessed of some qualifications for the task undertaken by him, we will be a little more particular than is our wont, and convince him, and convince that part of the public which reads this magazine, that Mr. Boyd's edition of Young is an unendurable imposition. Dr. Young was a writer of singular naturalness of feeling and simplicity of style. As has frequently been observed of his works, lacking the romantic passion and fiery impulse which would commend them most to the tastes of middle life, they are the chosen companions of youth and age. There has scarcely ever been a poet who so little needed annotation; his "great argument," indeed, sometimes might be more easily apprehended if a little simplified by a clear-headed schoolman, but his verbal transparency is such that he needs, in this respect, no tinkering whatever. Yet Mr. Boyd makes nearly half his book of notes, and of notes, too, in which the great purpose of the poem is never touched-notes composed of mere platitudes, as useless, meaningless, and ridiculous, as would be the repetition of Swift's "nonsense verses" in the margin of every page. We copy at random a few examples:

I wake: how happy they who wake no more!

Note. "I wake." This expression suggested to the poet the expressive contrast, "How happy they who wake no more."

A mind that fain would wander from its woe.

Note. Fain: gladly.

Teach my best reason, reason; my best will

Teach rectitude.

Note. Teach, &c. Teach my best reason what is reasonable: cause the best actings of my intellectual powers to be more strictly conformed to what is reasonable, true, and fit.

We take no note of Time

But from its loss: to give it then a tongue.

Note. To give it then a tongue. To cause time to speak to us!

Here teems with revolutions every hour.

Note. Here, &c. On this earth every hour teems with revolutions!

I would not damp, but to secure, thy joys.

Note. But to secure, &c. But with a view to secure thy joys!

No moment, but in purchase of its worth.

Note. Of its worth: Of something equally valuable!

Nature, in zeal for human amity.

Note. In zeal for human amity: In the exercise of zeal for encouraging human friendship!

And so on through all the book-scarcely any thing but these miserable puerilities. There cannot be a child in the world to whom the poet's meaning would not be as plain from the text, as from such notes. In other cases, where the author is perfectly plain to nearly the meanest apprehensions, Mr. Boyd himself cannot understand him; for instance:

While o'er my limbs sleep's soft dominion spread,

What though my soul fantastic measures trod

O'er fairy fields, or mourned along the gloom

Of pathless woods, or, down the craggy steep

Hurl'd headlong, swam with pain the mantled flood.

The obvious idea in these last lines is, that, hurled down into a pool, battlemented, or mantled about, he swam with pain, seeing no egress up the craggy or precipitous rocks: a use of the word "mantled," which is justified by instances in many of the best ancient and modern writers. But Mr. Boyd reduces the lines to the poorest stuff by the following

Note. Mantled: Expanded, spread out, as a mantle.

An instance of his prosaic feebleness occurs on page 86.

Thought, busy thought, too busy for my peace.

Through the dark postern of long time elapsed,

Led softly, by the stillness of the night....

In quest of wretchedness perversely strays,

And finds all desert now, and meets the ghosts

Of my departed joys, a numerous train.

Note. Ghosts of my departed days: The bare recollection of them!

This is a new exhibition of the "art of sinking." The whole commentary suggests the idea of making a noble poem contemptible, by covering it over with diminutive conceits and bungling impertinences.

* * *

"Injustice to the South," is everywhere a fruitful subject of discussion. In politics, in religion, in letters, our friends beyond Washington will not believe us in the North capable of treating them with fairness. In literature we have constantly heard it alleged that success should never be dreamed of by an author who had the misfortune to be born the wrong side of Mason and Dixon's line. The superstition is not without its uses. It affords abundant consolation to a vast number of young gentleman whose books produce no profits. Yet we are inclined to believe it is altogether without any foundation in reason; that The Scarlet Letter would have been as popular from Charleston as from Concord. We have an amusing illustration of the feeling on this point, in the last Southern Literary Messenger. The amiable and eminently accomplished editor of that work counts among his personal friends as many northern gentlemen as have had ever opportunity to know him, yet he honestly believes us incapable of appreciating the genius of a poet from one of the tobacco, sugar, or cotton states. Introducing some pretty verses entitled The Marriage of the Sun and Moon, "by the late H. S. Ellenwood, of North Carolina," into his last number, he says:

"Had the gifted author been a native of Massachusetts, his name would be familiar as household words; as it is, we doubt whether one in ten of our readers has ever heard of it."

He was a native of Massachusetts. His original name was Small, and he was born in Salem, in the year of grace 1790; at sixteen apprenticed to J. T. Buckingham, of Boston; at twenty-one had his name changed to H. S. Ellenwood; in 1820 emigrated to North Carolina; and on the 2d of April, 1843, he died, in Wilmington, in that state, having just established there the Daily Advertiser. We suspect that, in literature at least, all charges of "injustice to the South," are as ill founded as this.

The American Gift Books for the present season surpass any hitherto published, both as regards literature and art. The Home Book of the Picturesque, published by Mr. Putnam, is the finest combination of all needful qualities for such a work, that has ever appeared in the English language. The late Fenimore Cooper (of whose admirable article we publish a large portion in preceding pages), Miss Susan Fenimore Cooper, Washington Irving, W. C. Bryant, N. P. Willis, Alfred B. Street, Bayard Taylor, and Dr. Bethune, are among the contributors, and Durand, Huntington, Cole, Cropsey, &c., furnish pictures, from the most striking, beautiful, and least-known scenery in America. The publishers of the world do not this year furnish a volume more admirable. The Book of Home Beauty, containing exquisitely engraved portraits of some of the most distinguished women in American society, by Charles Martin, with letter-press by Mrs. Kirkland, is another fine quarto; and The Memorial, an octavo, written by Nathanael Hawthorne, N. P. Willis, G. P. R. James, R. B. Kimball, Dr. Mayo, W. G. Simms, Mrs. Hewitt, Mrs. Oakes Smith, and others, is very much above any "Keepsake" or "Souvenir" ever before printed in England or in America.

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We have new volumes of Poems, by Messrs. Longfellow, Bayard Taylor, and R. H. Stoddard, from the press of Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, of which appropriate notices are deferred until the next month.

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Messrs. Appleton have a series of works, equally remarkable for typographical and pictorial magnificence and literary interest. Christmas with the Poets is admitted to be, on the whole, the most admirably executed production of the printing press; The Women of Early Christianity, written by eminent authors, and edited by the Rev. Mr. Spencer, presents attractively the domestic romance of religious history, with seventeen very excellent engravings, making an imperial octavo, in the style of that remarkably popular series, the Women of the Bible, the Women of the Old and New Testament, and Our Saviour with Prophets and Apostles, all of which are now published in styles to suit the cabinet of art, the drawing-room table, or the library. Another very interesting and richly illustrated work from this house is The Land of Bondage, by Dr. Wainwright, corresponding with the same author's splendid volume, The Pathways and Abiding Places of Our Lord. The Appletons also publish for the coming holidays Mrs. Jameson's most successful work, the Beauties of the Court of Charles the Second, with twenty-one finely engraved portraits, and The Queens of England, by Agnes Strickland, with eighteen portraits-a work of which the fame is as extensive as a love of art or an admiration of woman; and Lyrics of the Heart, a very finely illustrated collection of the poems of Alaric A. Watts. The other illustrated works from this house are enumerated in the advertising pages at the end of this magazine, to which we ask attention.

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The Fine Arts.

A series of four compositions representing the Seasons, by Calame, a Swiss artist, is highly praised in the Grenzboten, as something altogether original and superior to the technical traditions of the schools. They were painted for a Russian gentleman, and were exhibited for a short time in Berlin. Spring is an Italian or Grecian landscape of the antique world, and the time is morning; Summer is a German scene and the time noon; Autumn is from the lake country of Switzerland and the time late afternoon; Winter is a late evening scene with moonlight.

* * *

Mr. Harding's noble full-length of Daniel Webster-the best work of its class ever engraved in this country-may now be purchased at two dollars and a half per copy, of Sherman & Adriance, Astor House.

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The celebrated Portrait of Bishop White, painted by Henry Inman, and engraved in London, by Wagstaff, is now published from the original plate, by Andrews and Meeser, of Philadelphia, at three dollars per copy. The impressions are quite as good as those first taken, which were sold for four times as large a price.

* * *

Norwegian Peasant Life, is the subject of ten pictures by Adolph Tiedemann, which a year since excited very general admiration at Düsseldorf. They have now been lithographed and published in that place, with explanatory text in German and Norwegian.

* * *

Leutze's Washington Crossing the Delaware, is universally conceded to be the best painting in the world, illustrating American history. Its production marks an era in American art. The exhibition of it, at the Stuyvesant Institute, is, of course, successful.

* * *

Kaulbach's frescoes in the New Museum at Berlin are to be engraved. The Prussian bookseller Duncker has undertaken the speculation, and intends that the engravings shall exceed everything yet done in Germany; not merely the pictures, but all the ornamental designs will be included.

* * *

The German papers announce that a colossal statue of Washington is casting at Munich. It is to be twenty feet higher than the famous Bavaria, and is destined for this country. Several other historical sculptures are in preparation for the United States.

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Historical Review of the Month.

On the 4th of November the state election in New York resulted in the choice of all but two of the democratic candidates, and the defeat of the whigs on the great question respecting the canals. The closeness of the vote may be inferred from the majorities: For Controller, Wright over Patterson 527; Secretary of State, Randall over Forsyth 1420; Treasurer, Cook (whig) over Welch, 64; Attorney General, Chatfield over Ullmann, 294; Canal Commissioner, Fitzhugh (whig) over Wheaton, 745; State Engineer, McAlpine over Seymour, 2390. In New Jersey, on the same day, a large majority of the legislature was elected by the democrats. In Delaware, on the same day, it was determined to hold a convention for revising the constitution of the state, by 2,129 majority. In Louisiana, on the 3d, the whigs carried the legislature, and gained one member of Congress (Moore over Morse). In Wisconsin the whigs have elected Farwell, their candidate for Governor, and a majority of the legislature. Maryland, on the 5th, the entire democratic ticket, for comptroller, register, &c., was elected, with a majority of the legislature. In Michigan, the same day, the democrats, as usual, carried nearly every thing. In Massachusetts, on the 10th, there was a failure to elect a governor, but numerous vacancies to be filled in the legislature, it is supposed at this time (20th), will enable the whigs to succeed in that body. The vote was the largest ever thrown in the State. In Mississippi, Mr. Foote's majority is about 1500. In Tennessee, ex-Governor James C. Jones (whig), was elected to the United States Senate on the 14th. In Georgia, the new legislature assembled on the 3d, Governor Cobb was inaugurated on the 5th, and Mr. Toombs, now representative in Congress, was chosen United States Senator on the 10th. He is a Southern Rights Whig Unionist, and succeeds Mr. Burrien.

A correspondence has taken place between the Spanish minister at Washington and the Secretary of State, which, it is understood, assures a settlement of the difficulties arising from the invasion of Cuba; but additional discontent has been occasioned by the arrest, imprisonment, trial, and sentence (on the 12th of November), at Havana, of an American citizen, John G. Thrasher, for "disloyalty," to eight years hard labor in a Spanish fortress. Mr. Thrasher is a native of Maine, and had been for several years editor of the Faro Industrial, at Havana.

Judge Kane, in the Circuit Court of Pennsylvania, has given his decision in the Telegraph Case, sustaining Morse's pretensions throughout, and against Bain. The decision is in favor of Morse on all points, and establishes that he is solely entitled to the art of instantaneously recording messages at a distance. The case will now go to the Supreme Court, with probably the same result.

The great Methodist Episcopal Church case was decided on the 11th of November, in the United States District Court, in favor of the Southern claimants. The sum in dispute was $750,000-being the amount at which the Book Concern of the Society is estimated-and the decision gives to the Methodist Church South its proportion of this property.

In the United States District Court, at Philadelphia, on the 7th November, the Grand Jury presented seventy-eight indictments against thirty-nine of the participants in the riot at Christiana. Each of the accused is charged with high treason.

Efforts for the separation of California into new states are vigorously prosecuted. The latest intelligence from the mines is favorable. Oregon will probably come into the Union as two states.

There have been a great number of fatal accidents in the last few weeks, of which we can give but the results in loss of lives:

Lives.

Propeller Henry Clay, lost on Lake Erie, October 23, 30

Steamer Buckeye run into a sloop, Lake Erie, same day, 3

Steamer William Penn, off Cape Cod, struck sloop, same day, 4

Ship Oregon, sunk at sea lat. 36?, long. 69?, October 27, 3

Schooner Christiana, capsized, Lake Ontario, about the same time, 9

Schooner William Penn, lost about the same time, Entire crew.

Embankment fell in at Spencerport, N. Y., November 11, 3

Accident at the Pyrotechnic establishment, Flatbush, November 3, 2

Cotton Factory, Philadelphia, burned November 12, 6

Small boat run down by a schooner, Boston Harbor, November 5, 3

Railroad engine-boiler, burst at Aiken, S.C., November 14, 3

Collision on the New-York and New Haven Railroad, October 25, 2

Alarm of fire, in Public School, No. 26, in New-York, causing a rush of children toward the great stairway, of which the railing gave way, November 20, 46

On the 21st October, a serious difficulty broke out at Chagres, between the American and native boatmen, and a battle ensued, which resulted in the death of two Americans, and as many natives. After two days' disturbance, the affair was adjusted, and order restored.

In Mexico, for the present, the insurrection of Caravajal has failed, and the siege of Matamoras has been abandoned. In New Grenada the Jesuit revolt under Borrero has been put down and Borrero captured. From Buenos Ayres we learn that General Oribe has been overthrown, and that Rosas is in the utmost danger, but the results of recent important events there are not yet well understood.

Little has occurred in Great Britain, of much importance, except the demonstrations occasioned by the arrival of Kossuth, at Southampton, on the 23d of October. The Hungarian chief has been received with unparalleled enthusiasm in Southampton, London, Manchester, and elsewhere, and in many long and powerful speeches has vindicated his great reputation for wisdom and for honest devotion to the liberties of his country. He was to leave England in the steamer Washington, for New-York, on the 14th November, and will probably have arrived here before this paragraph is published. In the United States a triumph even more enthusiastic than that in England awaits him. The Caffre war in South Africa is still extending, and the British forces have obtained, in no case, decided or important advantages.

The attention of Europe is more than ever concentrated on France. Louis Napoleon, who had deprived the nation of the right of suffrage, in despair of re?lection by any other means finally determined on the abrogation of the restricting law of the 31st of May; his ministers resigned; after a considerable period a new ministry, with little weight of personal character, was formed; and on the 4th of November the new session of the French Legislative Assembly was opened in Paris, to receive the President's Message, and at once to vote down its cardinal recommendations. The world watching with deep interest that conflict of the factions in France which must be brought to a close with the present term of her unscrupulous ruler.

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Recent Deaths.

Archibald Alexander, D.D., LL. D., late Professor of Theology in the Seminary of the Presbyterian Church at Princeton, in New Jersey, was born on the 17th of April, 1772, on the banks of a small tributary of the James River, called South River, and near the western foot of the Blue Ridge, in that part of Augusta County, Virginia, which has since, from the great natural curiosity it contains, been named Rockbridge. He was descended by both parents from Presbyterians of Scotland, who emigrated first to Ireland, and thence to America. He was educated at Liberty Hall Academy, which has since become Washington College, under the instructions of the founder of that institution, Rev. William Graham, an able and eminent preacher and professor. Besides Mr. Graham, his classical teachers were James Priestly, afterward President of Cumberland College, Tennessee, and Archibald Roane, afterward Governor of Tennessee. In the summer of 1789, he joined in the full communion of the church, and commenced the study of theology under Mr. Graham, who had a class of six or eight students. He was licensed to preach by this Presbytery of Lexington, October 1, 1791, and was ordained on the 5th of May, 1795. Part of the intervening years he spent in itinerant labors in Virginia, and in that region which is now Ohio. In the spring of 1797 he became President of Hampden Sydney College, in the County of Prince Edward, at the same time being pastor of the churches of Briery and Cumberland. He was now but twenty-five years old, and it may safely be alleged that there was never won in this country, at so early an age, a more brilliant or a purer reputation. His arduous and responsible duties were discharged with industry and energy, equal to his abilities, until health gave way, and, in the spring of 1801, he resigned these charges, in well-grounded apprehension of a settled pulmonary consumption. The summer of 1802 was spent by Mr. Alexander in travelling on horseback through New England, and by this means he so far recovered his health as to resume the Presidency of the College and the charge of his parishes. About the same time he was married to Janette Waddell, second daughter of Rev. Jonas Waddell, D.D., that remarkable preacher whose blindness and eloquence have been celebrated by Mr. Wirt in The British Spy. In the Autumn of 1806 he received a call from the Third Presbyterian Church, at the corner of Pine and Fourth-sts., in Philadelphia. Though he had declined an invitation to the same church ten years before, he accepted this, and thus became a second time the successor of the Rev. John Blair Smith, D.D. He continued at this post until, in the spring of 1812, he was summoned by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church to be the first Professor in the Theological Seminary then just founded at Princeton. This chair, we believe, he occupied until his death-until within a few weeks, at least, discharging all its honorable duties. It is a pleasing fact that the first two Professors in this Institution were associated in its service nearly forty years. During this period a large number of clergymen have proceeded from the seminary, and it has now not far from one hundred and fifty students. It is important to observe that it has no connection with the College of New Jersey, at the same place. The eminent usefulness of Dr. Alexander is not to be measured by the long and wise discharge of his duties as a professor. He was a voluminous, very able and popular writer. In addition to occasional sermons and discourses, and numerous smaller treatises, he wrote constantly for The Princeton Review, a quarterly miscellany of literature, and theological and general learning, of the highest character, which is now in the twenty-seventh year of its publication. His work on The Evidences of the Christian Religion has passed through numerous editions in Great Britain as well as in America, and this, as well as his Treatise on the Canon of Scripture, which has also been republished abroad, we believe, has appeared in two or three other languages. The substance of the latter has, however, been incorporated with more recent editions of the former, under the title of Evidences of the Authenticity, Inspiration and Canonical Authority of the Holy Scriptures, of which a fifth edition-the last we have seen-was published in Philadelphia in 1847. Among his other works are Thoughts on Religion; a Compend of Bible Truth; and a History of Colonization on the Western Coast of Africa-the last an octavo volume of more than six hundred pages, published in Philadelphia in 1846. His principal writings, however, have been on practical religion and on the History and Biography of the Church, and these for the most part have been published anonymously. Dr. Alexander was the father of six sons, of whom three are clergymen. The eldest, James W. Alexander, D.D., for several years Professor in the College of New Jersey, and sometime Pastor of the Duane-street Church in this city, is a fine scholar and an able preacher, and has enrolled himself among the benefactors of the people by many writings of the highest practical value designed to elevate the condition of the laboring classes to the true dignity of citizenship and a Christian life. Another is Rev. Joseph Addison Alexander, D.D., Professor of Oriental Literature in the Theological Seminary at Princeton, and author of the well-known works on the Earlier and the Later Prophecies of Isaiah. He is generally regarded as one of the most profound and sagacious scholars of the present age. The late venerable Professor was undoubtedly one of those who, by the union of a most Christian spirit and a faultless life to great abilities, have been deserving of the praise of doing most for the advancement of true religion.

* * *

Dr. J. Kearney Rogers, for a long time one of the most able and respected physicians and surgeons of New-York, died on the 9th of November. He was born in New-York in 1793, graduated at Princeton in 1811, studied medicine in Edinburgh, London, and Paris, and returning to New York was the friend and associate of Dr. Post, Dr. Hossack, Dr. Francis, Dr. Delafield, and other eminent members of his profession, in establishing medical and surgical institutions, &c. He has left no writings in print or MS. for the public.

* * *

The Rev. William Croswell, D.D., Rector of the Church of the Advent, in Boston, died in that city very suddenly, on the evening of Sunday, November 9, having preached and administered the sacrament of baptism during the day. Dr. Croswell was born in New-Haven, Connecticut, on the 7th of November, 1804, was the son of the Rev. Dr. Croswell of that city, and was educated at Yale College, where he was graduated in the summer of 1824. He was subsequently, for two years, associated with Dr. Doane, now Bishop of New Jersey, in the editorship of the Episcopal Watchman at Hartford, after which he removed to Boston, and was for several years minister of Christ's Church, in that city. He then became rector of St. Peter's, in Auburn, New York, and at length returned to Boston, where his numerous warm friends gladly welcomed his settlement as minister of the Church of the Advent. Dr. Croswell was a scholar, and possessed a fine taste in literature, with very unusual powers as a writer. Among his poems, are many of remarkable grace and sweetness, and a few evincing a happy vein of satire. His poems are nearly all religious, and Bishop Doane, in a note to his edition of Keble's "Christian Year," remarks that "he has more unwritten poetry in him" than any man he knows. We hope Bishop Doane will commemorate his friendship, and the genius and virtues of Dr. Croswell, in a memoir, and collection of his works.

* * *

Dr. Granville Sharpe Pattison, an eminent teacher of anatomy, died in New York, after a short illness, on the 12th of November, in the sixty-first year of his age. He was born near Glasgow, in Scotland, where his father was a cotton spinner, and was educated in that city, studying surgery under the late eminent Professor John Burns. On obtaining his degree, he commenced the practice of his profession in Glasgow, with prospects of eminent success, and soon became one of the surgeons of the Andersonian Institution, and a lecturer on anatomy. An unfortunate domestic affair, of which the details may be learned from the report of a trial which resulted in the divorce of Prof. Andrew Ure from his wife, in 1819, caused Dr. Pattison to come to the United States. He settled in Baltimore, where he resumed his profession as a lecturer on anatomy; and, going afterwards to England, he became a professor in the medical school connected with the London University. He continued but a short time in England, and on returning to this country he accepted the place of Professor of Anatomy in the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, which he filled successfully until 1840, when he was made Professor of Anatomy in the Medical School connected with the New-York University-an office which he held until his death, having delivered his last lecture but a week before that event. Dr. Pattison was a man of fine social qualities, and was one of the best lecturers in this country. His published writings display the best capacities for his vocation-are shrewd, judicious, and happily delivered-but for the most part fragmentary. His editions of Cruveilhier's Anatomy of the Human Body, Mase's Anatomical Atlas, and other works, are well known, and he wrote many important papers in the American Medical Recorder, besides several pamphlets of a personal character.

* * *

Mr. Stephens, the author of "Martinuzzi," and the "Manuscripts of Erdely," died on the 8th of October, in Camden-town. He was in his fifty-first year, and, in early life, had produced several tragic dramas that commanded the attention of critics, both foreign and native. Schlegel abroad, and "minor Beddoes" at home, praised his tragedies of "Montezuma" and the "Vampire;" and, at a later period, his "Gertrude and Beatrice" excited, among the few who take an interest in dramatic poetry, great admiration. His last work consisted of "Dramas for the Stage," in two volumes, but it was only privately circulated. Mr. Stephens' dramatic poetry was distinguished by intense passion and fervor; but at the early part of his career, he lacked the constructive power. Finding that the stage monopoly, so long existing, was an effectual bar to the higher original drama being produced, he joined, about the year 1841, a guild of zealous literary young men, who were bent on doing something towards theatrical reform. Mrs. Warner and Mr. Phelps united themselves to these dramatic aspirants; and the result was, that the Lyceum Theatre was taken for a month, for the performance of a new five-act tragedy, notwithstanding the existing law to the contrary. The tragedy was licensed as an opera in three acts, and was at length acted with some of the songs retained. This retention of musical irrelevancies, in obedience to the law, while it made the law itself absurd, could not fail of injuring the drama in which they were introduced; and, had its merits not been extraordinary, "Martinuzzi," under such circumstances, could not have lived a single night. As it was, it struggled through the month, making partisans to the experiment, though at the sacrifice of the author's means and feelings. Mr. Stephens accepted the martyrdom freely, and went through it nobly, for the sake of the cause which to his death he held sacred. Moreover, he would have continued the contest, but that he was strongly advised to the contrary by Mr. Sheridan Knowles, and Mr. John A. Heraud, the latter of whom had been actively engaged in getting up "Martinuzzi," but thought that sufficient demonstration had been made. In this he was right, as it subsequently proved; for, shortly after, in conjunction with Mr. Edward Mayhew and some other gentlemen, he was a party to the drawing up, in committee, of a bill for the liberation of the stage, the draft of which was forwarded to Sir Robert Peel, who placed it in the hands of Lord Mahon, by whom it was carried through Parliament; and thus every theatre was enabled legally to perform the Shakspearian and five-act drama. Mr. George Stephens himself, sick of dramatic disappointment, turned his ardent mind into a new channel, and became involved in railway speculations, and in them lost his fortune. His latter days were accordingly passed in narrow circumstances, accompanied with physical prostration quite deplorable. They who had benefited by his exertions, neglected him. His love for the drama and power of composition remained uninjured, but encouragement attached itself to younger candidates. His high principle, determined courage, personal pride and fortitude, however, continued with him to the last; and as he was a pious and religious man, he bore suffering and neglect not only with patience, but with confidence that the good cause in which he had labored would ultimately prosper.

* * *

The celebrated missionary Charles Gutzlaff, of whom we gave an interesting account in the International last year (vol. i. 317), died at Canton on the 9th of August, in the forty-eighth year of his age. He was born on the 8th of July, 1803, at Pyritz, in the Prussian province of Pomerania, of parents whose very moderate circumstances prevented them from affording him the education requisite for a Christian missionary, to become which was his most anxious desire. After attending for some time the schools of his native town, he was sent to Stettin as an apprentice to a belt-maker. There he composed a short poem, in which he expressed his strong religious feelings, with his hitherto unavailing wishes respecting his career in life, and which he presented to the king of Prussia, on occasion of a visit paid by the latter to Stettin, in 1821. The effect of this step was to procure his admission as a pupil into the missionary institution at Berlin. Such was the progress which he made in his studies, that only two years afterwards, in the spring of the year 1823, he was judged to be sufficiently qualified for the object he had in view. He was sent to the Dutch Missionary Society at Rotterdam, which appointed him to be one of their missionaries to the East. But becoming more than ever sensible of the arduousness of the functions he had undertaken to perform, he did not venture to embark for his destination until the month of August, 1826, having devoted himself, in the mean time, to a further diligent preparation for future usefulness. The first missionary ground assigned him was in the island of Java. He took up his residence at Batavia, where he married an English woman who was possessed of considerable property, and where, by mingling with the Chinese inhabitants, in the course of two years he acquired so skilful a use of their language, and became so intimately acquainted with their modes of life and intercourse with each other, as to be adopted by them into one of their families, and to have a Chinese name assigned to him. The circumstances just mentioned produced an important change in his plans. In the possession, as he now was, of a pecuniary independence, he resolved to break off his connection with the Dutch missionary society, and to proceed to China, to preach the gospel to the Chinese in their own country, to the extent that he might be allowed to do so. In the first place, however, he accompanied an English missionary, named Tomlin, to Siam, in the summer of 1828. This journey occupied Gutzlaff for a period of upwards of three years. Besides laboring diligently in his vocation as a Christian minister, he composed, while residing at Bankok, a Siamese grammar, and, in conjunction with Tomlin, translated the New Testament into the Siamese language. He next proceeded to China, where, associating himself with Morrison, Medhurst, and other European missionaries, he selected Macao for his principal station. He established schools, distributed religious tracts among the people, assisted in a new translation of the Bible into Chinese, co-operated with Morrison in founding a society for the diffusion of useful knowledge in China, published a Chinese Monthly Magazine, and yet did not neglect, at Macao, and in various excursions made from that place, the preaching of Christianity to the inhabitants. All this went on without any hindrance, until Gutzlaff excited the suspicion of the Chinese authorities of his labors being in some way connected with the interested views of the English traders; and, in consequence, an attempt made by him in May, 1835, to penetrate into the province of Fokien, proved altogether unsuccessful. The printing of Chinese books of a Christian character was now forbidden; the distribution of such books was obliged to be suspended; and it became necessary to remove the printing presses from Macao to Singapore. Thus restricted in his missionary sphere, Gutzlaff felt himself the more at liberty to accompany the British expedition against China, and to be exceedingly serviceable to it by his intimate acquaintance with the language and customs of the Chinese. He was also an active agent in bringing about the treaty of peace, concluded between the contending parties in 1842.

His literary labors have had an almost incredible extent and variety. He himself gives the following enumeration of his writings: "In Dutch I have written: a History of our Mission and of Distinguished Missionaries, and an appeal for support of the Missionary Work; in German: Sketches of the Minor Prophets; in Latin: the Life of our Savior; in English: Sketches of Chinese History; China Opened; Life of Kanghe, together with a great number of articles on the Religion, History, Philosophy, Literature and Laws of the Chinese; in Siamese: a Translation of the New Testament, with the Psalms, and an English-Siamese Dictionary, English Cambodian Dictionary and English-Laos Dictionary. These works I left to my successors to finish, but with the exception of the Siamese Dictionary they have added nothing to them. In Cochin-Chinese: a Complete Dictionary of Cochin-Chinese-English and English-Cochin-Chinese; this work is not yet printed. In Chinese: Forty Tracts, along with three editions of the Life of our Savior; a Translation of the New Testament, the third edition of which I have carried through the press. Of the Translations of the Old Testament, the Prophets and the two first books of Moses are completed. In this language I have also written The Chinese Scientific Monthly Review, a History of England, a History of the Jews, a Universal History and Geography, on Commerce, a Short Account of the British Empire and its Inhabitants, as well as a number of smaller articles. In Japanese: a Translation of the New Testament, and of the first book of Moses, two tracts, and several scientific pamphlets. The only paper to which I now send communications is the Hong-Kong Gazette, the whole Chinese department of which I have undertaken. Till 1842 I wrote for the Chinese Archives."

The last year Mr. Gutzlaff spent in Europe, and he had recently completed some important works, to be added to the above list, respecting Chinese affairs and civilization, one of which is a life of the late Chinese Emperor, with whom the missionary appears to have had a more intimate personal acquaintance than was ever yielded to any other European. The family of Mr. Gutzlaff lately travelled some time in the United States, where they were well received in religious circles, and Mr. Gutzlaff himself felt some disappointment that unlooked-for duties in Germany prevented him from extending his tour to the Churches and Universities of this country. A careful investigation will show that his long and faithful labors have had a powerful influence in favor of Christianity in China.

* * *

The once powerful and celebrated Don Manuel Godoy, Prince of the Peace, Duke of Alcudia, &c., died in Paris on the 4th of October. He was born at Badejoz, of a noble family, in 1767, at seventeen years of age he entered the Royal Guards, and being soon after taken into high favor by the queen Maria Louisa, of Parma, he became at the end of the last and beginning of the present century, a prominent actor in the most important political events of Spain, of which country, for a time, he was Minister and absolute ruler. His conduct was the proximate cause of the Spanish war with Napoleon. Prince Ferdinand (afterwards Ferdinand VII.), tired of the thraldom in which he was kept by his mother and her Minister, applied for protection to Napoleon; and Godoy, discovering that he had done so, accused him of a conspiracy to dethrone his father. This led to the most scandalous scenes. A revolt broke out at Aranjuez, and Godoy nearly lost his life. Charles IV. abdicated, and Ferdinand assumed the sceptre, but the Imperial ruler of France would not permit him to hold it. Napoleon took the crown of Spain for his own family, and the terrible Peninsular war was the result. The consequence, meanwhile, to Godoy, was the loss of his wealth and honors, and his residence in foreign lands for nearly the remainder of his life. In 1847 the Spanish Minister published a decree, authorizing Godoy, by his inferior title of Duke of Alcudia, to return to Spain; and ordering that a certain portion of his once vast property should be restored. The latter part of the decree was acted upon, however, in the same manner as such restitution's are generally made in Spain. The only income of Godoy continued to be an allowance by one of his children. Whatever may have been the conduct of this singular politician half a century ago, those who knew him in his old age could not but admire in him a fine specimen of the Castilian gentleman. To the very last he was remarkable for the elegance of his manners, and high-bred courtesy. In conversation he was most agreeable. The world, too, should be charitable to his memory. Years of embarrassment, exile, poverty, and obscurity, have done much to atone for the faults committed in a time of sudden and intoxicating exaltation, and of unbounded power by him who was then a Prince, Prime Minister, and despot of Spain, but who has died, with the weight of eighty-seven years upon him, a quiet, inoffensive, and forgotten man, in a retired lodging at Paris.

* * *

George Baker, the historian of Northamptonshire, was born and brought up at Northampton. To him and his gifted sister, Miss Baker, his native country is deeply indebted. Mr. Baker produced his learned and comprehensive History of Northamptonshire, at great expense of money and time, and at great loss to himself. The book ranks in the very first grade of topographical literature, and is remarkable for the perfection of its genealogical details. Unfortunately, the work is left unfinished, owing to the ill health of its author and his want of funds. This amiable and excellent author and man died at Northampton, on the 12th of October, in his seventy-first year.

* * *

M. de Savigny, member of the Academy of Sciences, and known for his works on zoology, died in October, at Versailles, at an advanced age.

* * *

Dr. Thomas Wingard, Archbishop of Upsal and Primate of Sweden, died at Upsal, on the 24th September, aged seventy. He had for nine years occupied the chair of Sacred Philology at Lund, when in 1819 he succeeded his father in the see of G?theborg. In 1839, he was promoted to the archbishopric of Upsal. In 1835, he assisted in the establishment of the Swedish Missionary Society, on which occasion he fraternized with the Methodists at Stockholm. He also addressed a letter to the Evangelical Alliance, at its last meeting, regretting his inability to attend. He has left to the University of Upsal his library, consisting of upwards of 34,000 volumes, and his rich collection of coins and medals, and of Scandinavian antiquities. This is the fourth library bequeathed to the University of Upsal within the space of a year, adding to its book-shelves no fewer than 115,000 volumes. The entire number of volumes possessed by the University is now said to be 288,000, 11,000 of these being in manuscript.

* * *

The theatrical architect, dramatic writer, and novelist, Samuel Beaseley, died suddenly, on the 23d of October, at his residence, Tonbridge Castle, Kent, in his sixty-sixth year, of apoplexy. He was born in London, and early attached himself to art, letters, and the stage. The private and public buildings which he was the architect of are numerous. Among his productions as an author may be mentioned his novels The Roué and The Oxonians, and his farces of Old Customs, Bachelors' Wives, Jealous on all Sides, and Is he Jealous? Mr. Beaseley's merits as an architect were generally acknowledged; and, although he lived with great generosity, his talents and industry enabled him to realize a considerable fortune.

* * *

Mr. H. P. Borrell, a numismatist of great practical experience and profound judgment, enjoyed for the last quarter of a century, deserved celebrity as a distinguished collector of medals and cultivator of the knowledge of them. He was the author of many of the most important contributions on unedited autonomous and imperial Greek coins which have appeared during his time in the transactions of most of the antiquarian societies in Europe, and especially in Great Britain. Many of Mr. Borrell's important coins have passed, at different times, into the collections of our British Museum, and of eminent private individuals. Mr. Borrell's work on the coins of the Kings of Cyprus affords an example of his laborious numismatical researches. Mr. Borrell died at Smyrna, on the 2d of October.

* * *

Rev. James Endell Tyler, B. D., of London, was a native of Monmouth, and became a distinguished student and a fellow of of Oriel College, Oxford. On a particular occasion, he happened to attract the attention of Lord Liverpool, then Premier, who, after inquiring, presented him with the living of St. Giles-in-the-fields. This cure he filled actively and ably. To the stall in St. Paul's he was, without his asking, presented by the late Sir Robert Peel, "to mark," as the Minister said, "his sense of Mr. Tyler's exertions in the cause of education at Oxford, and of his exemplary discharge of his onerous duties at St. Giles's." As an author, Mr. Tyler gained some celebrity. His Life of King Henry V. attracted much attention.

* * *

Emma Martin, a woman well known as a writer, and as an exemplar of Socialism, died on the 8th of October, at Finchley Common, near London, in the 39th year of her age. The London Leader, the organ of the British Socialists, says, that, "allied to a husband (found in the religious circle in which she was reared in Bristol) whose company it was a humiliation to endure, she ultimately, even when she was the mother of three children, refused to continue to submit to it. This, though afterwards made a reproach to her, was so justifiable, that even her religious friends found no fault with it. After much struggling to support her children unaided, she was united to another husband (Mr. Joshua Hopkins), her former one yet living. Though no marriage ceremony was performed, or could be performed (such is the moral state of our law, which denies divorce to all who are wronged, if they happen to be also indigent), yet no affection was ever purer, no union ever more honorable to both parties, and the whole range of priest-made marriages never included one to which happiness belonged more surely, and upon which respect could dwell more truly. Our first knowledge of Mrs. Martin," continues the Leader, "was as an opponent of Socialism, against which she delivered public lectures. But as soon as she saw intellectual truth in it, she paused in her opposition to it. Long and serious was the conflict the change in her convictions caused her; but her native love of truth prevailed, and she came over to the advocacy of that she had so resolutely and ably assailed. And none who ever offered us alliance, rendered us greater service, or did it at greater cost. Beautiful in expression, quick in wit, strong in will, eloquent in speech, coherent in conviction, and of stainless character, she was incomparable among public women. She was one of the few among the early advocates of English Socialism who saw that the conflict against religion could not be confined to an attack on forms of faith-to a mere comparison of creeds; and she attached only secondary importance to the abuses of Christianity, where she saw that the whole was an abuse of history, of reason, and of morality. Thus she was cut off from all hope or sympathy from her former connections, and she met with but limited friendships among her new allies. She saw further than any around her what the new communism would end in. She saw that it would establish the healthy despotism of the affections, in lieu of the factitious tyrannies of custom and Parliament. The nature of her opinions, which arose in conviction and not in antagonism, will best be seen in two passages from her writings, at two remarkable periods of her life. In 1835, she wrote in the Bristol Literary Magazine, which she edited:-

"'Infidelity is the effusion of weak minds, and the resource of guilty ones. Like the desolating Simoom of the desert, it withers every thing within its reach; and as soon as it has prostrated the morality of the individual, it invades the civil rights of society.'

"In 1844, in the seventh of her Weekly Addresses to the Inhabitants of London, of which it was the thirty-sixth thousand issued, she said:-

"'When Christianity arose, it gathered to its standard the polished Greek, the restless Roman, the barbarous Saxon; but it was suited only to the age in which it grew. It had anathemas for the bitter-hearted to hurl at those they chose to designate God's enemies. It had promises for the hopeful, cautions for the prudent, charity for the good. It was all things to all men. It became the grand leader of the ascetic to the convent-of the chivalrous to the crusade-of the cruel to the Star Chamber-of the scholar to the secret midnight cell, there to feed on knowledge, but not to impart it. But at length its contentional doctrines bade men look elsewhere for peace-for some less equivocal morality, some clearer doctrines, some surer truth.'

"In this belief she lived, worked, taught, and in this belief she died. And in passing to the kingdom of the inscrutable future, whose credentials could she better take than those she had won by her courage and truthfulness? Could she take Pagan, Buddhist, Mahommedan, Christian, or some morose sectarian shade; credentials soiled with age, torn in strifes, stained with blood?... Will any who calumniate the last hours of Freethinkers utter the pious fraud over this narrow bed, and the memory of Emma Martin be distorted, as have been those of Voltaire and our own Paine? Does the apparition of these outrages glare upon this grave-outrages too ignoble to notice, too painful to recognize? Heed them not-believe them not. Let not the Christian insult her whom only the grave has vanquished. Let him not utter the word of triumph over the dead, before whom living his coward tongue would falter. Let his manliness teach him truth if his creed has failed to teach him courtesy. As a worker for human improvement, Mrs. Martin was as indefatigable as efficient. From the time when she published her Exiles of Piedmont, to the issue of her essay on God's Gifts and Man's Duties, and later still, she wrote with ardor, always manifesting force of personal thought, and what is more unusual in the writings of women-strength and brevity of expression. Her lectures were always distinguished by the instruction they conveyed, and the earnestness with which they were delivered. In courage of advocacy and thoroughness of view, no woman except Frances Wright is to be compared with her; and only one, whose name is an affectionate household word in our land (greater, indeed, in order of power), resembles Mrs. Martin in largeness and sameness of speculation, and the capacity to treat womanly and social questions. Mrs. Martin had a strength of will which rules in all spheres, but ever chastened by womanly feeling. Her affectionate nature as much astonished those who knew her in private, as her resolution often astonished those who knew her in public. Indeed, she was the most womanly woman of all the advocates of "Woman's Rights." Her assertion of her claim to interfere in public affairs was but a means of winning security from outrage for the domestic affections. She would send the mother into the world-not in the desertion of motherly duties, but to learn there what motherly duties are-not to submit in ignorance to suckle slaves, but to learn how to rear free men and intelligent and pure women."

We have copied thus much of the Leader's obituary of Mrs. Martin, because a certain unpremeditated boldness in it admits the reader to instructive facts in the theory and practice of the party to which she belonged.

* * *

Yar Mohammed, the celebrated Vizier of Herat, is reported to have died on the 4th June last. He was one of the most intriguing princes in Asia. Everybody must remember him during the few years which preceded the occupation of Affghanistan by the English. He always managed to keep on the friendliest terms with them and more than one mission was sent to his court from India.

* * *

The well-known composer of ballads, &c., Alexander Lee, died near London, suddenly on the 8th of October. He was a son of the once notorious boxer, Henry Lee, and was married to the late popular singer, Mrs. Waylett. He at one period was lessee of Drury Lane Theatre, in partnership with Captain Polhill. He had been Musical Director of the Olympic and Strand Theatres, of Vauxhall Gardens, &c. He wrote the music for the Invincibles, which had such a run, with Madame Vestris in the chief part, at Covent Garden, and afterwards at the American Theatres. To name his ballads would occupy a large space, for a more prolific song-writer never existed. We may mention, however, amongst his works, The Soldier's Tear; Away, away to the mountain's brow; Come where the aspens quiver; I'll be no submissive wife; Rise, gentle moon; Kate Kearney; Come dwell with me; Pretty star of night; I've plucked the fairest flower; Bird of love; Meet me in the willow glen; I'm o'er young to marry yet; Wha wad na fight for Charlie; When the dew is on the grass; Down where the blue bells, &c. Many of these compositions will perpetuate the name of Alexander Lee as a composer of the English school of simple and unaffected melody. We are inclined to believe, more of his songs than those of any other composer are known in the United States.

* * *

Prince Frederick William Charles, of Prussia, died at Berlin on the 28th September. He was a brother of the late Frederick William the Third, uncle of the present King, and the youngest legitimate son of Frederick William the Second. He was born at Potsdam on the 3d of July, 1783. He served actively in the army during the war with France, which terminated so disastrously at the battle of Jena. He was also present at the battles of Katzbach and Leipsic, and subsequently at Waterloo commanded the reserve cavalry of the fourth corps of the Prussians.

* * *

Gentlemen's and Ladies' Fashions for December.

In the fashionable world of this country we have at length the long-expected "hat of the future," from the ingenious artist Genin, who appears to be the only American who brings to the manufacture of hats an inventive faculty. It is likely that these hats will gradually take the place of the funnel and stove-pipe styles which have been so long in vogue. They are made of fine material, are light, pliable, durable, and have the more important merit of elegant and picturesque appearance. They are indifferently styled the Union Hat, and the Grandison Hat-the last name referring to the ideal of Queen Anne's days.

It is much doubted whether any of the changes made in gentlemen's costume in the last half century are improvements, and there are very few persons of taste who will approve the hat of the last few years more than that worn in the good old times of General Washington, when the three-cornered chapeau began to give place to such hats its are represented in our illustration.

The next is somewhat more in vogue, at least for younger men, and for the opera and the theatre. It sets off a fine-looking face advantageously.

The last is better suited for travelling or hunting.

In Ladies' Fashions, there are some novelties, though comparatively few of a kind to attract a large degree of attention. We select for illustration in the first place-

Close Under-sleeve.-This sleeve will be found to be of a very desirable form by ladies who object to the open sleeves, as it combines the elegant effect of the latter with the comfort of the close sleeve. It may be made either in muslin or net, and is cut as a bishop's sleeve, the fulness being confined on a band at the wrist. Two broad frills of lace or needlework are attached to the lower part of the sleeve. These frills are open in front of the arm.

Under-sleeve of Lace.-This sleeve is intended to be worn for evening dress. The double row of vandyked lace forming the trimming should drop below the sleeve of the dress, under which the lace sleeve is to be worn.

Among the most striking and beautiful articles in the way of Mantillas, is the Talma, represented in the following engraving. The capuche is formed on the model of those worn by the celebrated monks of St. Francis, and the tout ensemble is very graceful and beautiful. The entire design is very well exhibited in the illustration. The Talmas are made of velvet, silk, satin, and fine cloth. They have been introduced in New-York by Mr. Bulpin, of Broadway.

The jacket and waistcoat described in our last have a certain currency, but are not likely to be universally adopted. The above costumes, from the latest modes received from Paris, are in the main conservative, and the engraving is so distinctive that the figures scarcely need description.

Black now becomes indispensable in the toilettes of ladies of fashion; formerly it was exclusively reserved for days of mourning, A black dress does not interfere with the robes of varied colors, and the materials are rich and in good taste. Jet, in fringes or lace, is worn with all materials. Upon moire or satin, deep flounces of chantilly or ruches of lace, placed en tablier, are much worn; taffetas flounces are cut and stamped in patterns, or covered with narrow velvets imitating embroidery. For mantelets, and every species of outside garments, black will more generally perhaps than ever before prevail; and rich furs will have their old prominence for trimming, particularly for garments of velvet. Fine and heavy plushes are also being rather largely manufactured for such purposes.

There is scarcely any change perceptible in the shape of bonnets, most of the new ones being of the form which has been generally worn for some time; yet there is a slight modification of that shape in bonnets made expressly for the winter. The front is somewhat less wide and open, and the bavolet, being rather narrower, droops less at the back of the head. Of the various materials likely to be employed for bonnets during the coming winter, none will be more fashionable than velvet. Among the velvet bonnets we notice one of violet-colored velvet trimmed with bows of the same, intermingled with black lace and jet beads. The inside trimming consists of velvet pansies, of the natural color of the flowers, having yellow centres. With the flowers are combined a few loops of velvet ribbon of a rich yellow tint, matching the centre of the flowers. Another bonnet, composed of dark blue therry velvet, is trimmed with ribbon, striped with blue and orange. This bonnet is ornamented in the inside with white flowers.

A Russian winter riding habit is described as very simple but costly, having a bonnet or hat of sables or other furs, setting on the head very much like a chancellor's full wig, and secured by a richly gemmed bracelet under the chin. The close coat, and light and flowing mantle nearly concealing it, are of black or other dark-colored velvet. This will be in vogue probably only in the intensest severity of the cold season. Black cloth, embroidered, is used for the same purpose.

Transcriber's Notes:

Simple spelling, grammar, and typographical errors were corrected.

On p. 683 the author's name is given as Pisistratus Caxton. However, the contents list the author as Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton. The table of contents was correct so changed the reference on p. 683.

P. 636 corrected typo in Greek text.