INTERNATIONAL WEEKLY

MISCELLANY
Of Literature, Art, and Science.
Vol. I. NEW YORK, AUGUST 19, 1850. No. 8.
[pg 225]

THE THEATER IN RUSSIA AND POLAND.

The following interesting sketch of the Drama in the empire of the Czar is translated
for the International from the Leipzig Grenzboten. The facts it states are not only new
to most readers, but throw incidentally a good deal of light on the condition of that
vast empire, and the state of its population in respect of literature and art in general:

The dramatic taste of a people, the strength of its productive faculty, the gradual
development of its most popular sphere of art, the theater, contain the key to phases of
its character which cannot always be recognized with the same exactness from other
parts of its history. The tendencies and disposition of the mass come out very plainly
in their relations to dramatic art, and from the audience of an evening at a theater
some inference may be drawn as to the whole political scope of the nation. In truth,
however, this requires penetration as well as cautious judgment.

In the middle of the last century there were in the kingdom of Poland, beside the royal
art institutions at Warsaw, four strong dramatic companies, of genuine Polish stamp,
which gave performances in the most fashionable cities. Two of them were so
excellent that they often had the honor to play before the court. The peculiarity of
these companies was that they never performed foreign works, but literally only their
own. The managers were either themselves poets, or had poets associated with them
in business. Each was guided by his poet, as Wallenstein by his astrologer. The
establishment depended on its dramatic ability, while its performances were limited
almost exclusively to the productions of its poet. The better companies, however,
were in the habit of making contracts with each other, by which they exchanged the
plays of their dramatists. This limitation to native productions perhaps grew partly out
of the want of familiarity with foreign literature, partly from national feeling, and
partly from the fact that the Polish taste was as yet little affected by that of the
Germans, French, or English. In these circumstances there sprung up a poetic creative
faculty, which gave promise of a good and really national drama. And even now, after
wars, revolutions, and the schemes of foreign rulers have alternately destroyed and
degraded the stage, and after the Poles have become poetically as well as politically
mere satellites of French ideas and culture, there still exist, as respectable remains of
the good old time, a few companies of players, which, like their ancient predecessors,
have their own poets, and perform only his pieces, or at least others of Polish origin
that he has arranged and adapted. Such a company, whose principal personage is
called Richlawski, is now in Little Poland, in the cities Radom, Kielce, Opatow,
Sandomir, &c. A second, which generally remains in the Government of Kalisch, is
under the direction of a certain Felinski, and through his excellent dramatic
compositions has gained a reputation equal to that of the band of Strauss in music. Yet
these companies are only relics. The Polish drama in general has now a character and
destiny which was not to be expected a hundred years since.

The origin of the Russian theater is altogether more recent. It is true that Peter the
Great meddled a good deal with the theater as well as with other things, but it was not
till the Empress Catharine that dramatic literature was really emancipated by the
court. Under Alexander and Nicholas the most magnificent arrangements have been
made in every one of the cities that from time to time is honored by the residence of
the Emperor, so that Russia boasts of possessing five theaters, two of which excel
everything in Europe in respect to size and splendor, but yet possesses no sort of taste
for dramatic art. The stage, in the empire of the Muscovites, is like a rose-bush grafted
on a wild forest tree. It has not grown up naturally from a poetic want in the people,
and finds in the country little or nothing in the way of a poetic basis. Accordingly, the
theater in Russia is in every respect a foreign institution. Not national in its origin, it
has not struck its roots into the heart of the people. Only here and there a feeble germ
of theatrical literature has made its way through the obstinate barbarism of the
Russian nature. [pg 226]The mass have no feeling for dramatic poetry, while the
cultivated classes exhibit a most striking want of taste.

But in Russia everything is inverted. What in other nations is the final result of a long
life, is there the beginning. A natural development of the people appears to its rulers
too circuitous, and in fact would in many things require centuries of preparation.
Accordingly, they seek to raise their subjects to the level of other races by forcing
them outwardly to imitate their usages. Peter the Great says in his testament: "Let
there be no intermission in teaching the Russian people European forms and customs."
The theater in Russia is one of these forms, and from this it is easy to understand the
condition it is in.

It is true there are in the country a few independent companies of players, but they are
not Russian, or at least were formed as a speculation by some foreigner. For example,
Odessa has often two such, and sometimes three. The Italian company is said to be
good. The Russian, which has now become permanent, has hitherto been under the
management of a German, and has been very poor. The company in Kiew consists
mostly of Poles, from the old Polish provinces incorporated with Russia, and has a
high reputation. In Poland it would be possible in every little nest of a city to get
together a tolerable company for dramatic performance. In Russia it would be much
easier to raise an army. The ultimate reason of this striking contrast is the immense
dissimilarity in the character of the two nations. The Pole is remarkably sanguine,
fiery, enthusiastic, full of ideality and inspiration; the Russian is through and through
material, a lover of coarse physical pleasures, full of ability to fight and cut capers, but
not endowed with a capacity quickly to receive impressions and mentally elaborate
them.

In this respect, the mass and the aristocracy, the serfs and their masters, are as alike as
twins. The noble is quite as coarse as the peasant. In Poland this is quite otherwise.
The peasant may be called a rough creature, but the noble is almost always a man of
refinement, lacking indeed almost always in scientific information, but never in the
culture of a man of the world. The reason of this is, that his active, impetuous soul
finds constant occasion for maintaining familiarity with the world around him, and
really needs to keep up a good understanding with it. The Russians know no such
want.

Even in St. Petersburg the German was long much more successful than the native
theater, though the number of Russians there is seventeen times larger than that of the
Germans. The Russians who there visit the theater are the richest and most prominent
members of the aristocracy. They however consider the drama as simply a thing of
fashion. Hence results the curious fact that it is thought a matter of good taste to be
present at the beginning but not to wait for the end of a piece. It has happened that
long before the performance was over the house was perfectly empty, everyone
following the fashion, in order not to seem deficient in public manners. If there is ever
a great attraction at the theater, it is not the play, but some splendid show. The
Russian lady, in studying the coiffure or the trailing-robe of an actress, forgets entirely
her part in this piece, if indeed she has ever had an adequate conception of it. For this
reason, at St. Petersburg and Moscow the ballet is esteemed infinitely higher than the
best drama; and if the management should have the command of the Emperor to
engage rope-dancers and athletes, circus-riders and men-apes, the majority of
Russians would be of opinion that the theater had gained the last point of perfection.
This was the case in Warsaw several years ago, when the circus company of
Tourniare was there. The theaters gave their best and most popular pieces, in order to
guard against too great a diminution of their receipts. The Poles patriotically gave the
preference for the drama, but the Russians were steady adorers of Madame Tourniare
and her horse. In truth, the lady enjoyed the favor of Prince Paskiewich. General O
—— boasted that during the eleven months that the circus staid he was not absent
from a single performance. The Polish Count Ledochowski, on the other hand, said
that he had been there but once when he went with his children, and saw nothing of
the performance, because he read Schiller's William Tell every moment. This was
Polish opposition to Russian favoritism, but it also affords an indication of the
national peculiarities of the two races.

From deficiency in taste for dramatic art arises the circumstance that talent for acting
is incomparably scarce among the Russians. Great as have been the efforts of the last
emperors of Russia to add a new splendor to their capitals by means of the theater,
they have not succeeded in forming from their vast nation artists above mediocrity,
except in low comedy. At last it was determined to establish dramatic schools in
connection with the theaters and educate players; but it appears that though talent can
be developed, it cannot be created at the word of command. The Emperor Nicholas, or
rather his wife, was, as is said, formerly so vexed at the incapacity of the Russians for
dramatic art, that it was thought best to procure children in Germany for the schools.
The Imperial will met with hindrance, and he contented himself with taking children
of the German race from his own dominions. The pride of the Russians did not suffer
in consequence.

While poetry naturally precedes dramatic art, the drama, on the other hand, cannot
attain any degree of excellence where the theater is in such a miserable state. It is now
scarcely half a century since the effort was begun to remove the total want of
scientific [pg 227]culture in the Russian nation, but what are fifty years for such a
purpose, in so enormous a country? The number of those who have received the
scientific stimulus and been carried to a degree of intellectual refinement is very
small, and the happy accident by which a man of genius appears among the small
number must be very rare. And in this connection it is noteworthy, that the Russian
who feels himself called to artistic production almost always shows a tendency to epic
composition.

The difficulties of form appear terrible to the Russian. In romance-writing the form
embarrasses him less, and accordingly they almost all throw themselves into the
making of novels.
As is generally the case in the beginning of every nation's literature, any writer in
Russia is taken for a miracle, and regarded with stupor. The dramatist Kukolnik is an
example of this. He has written a great deal for the theater, but nothing in him is to be
praised so much as his zeal in imitation. It must be admitted that in this he possesses a
remarkable degree of dexterity. He soon turned to the favorite sphere of romance
writing, but in this also he manifests the national weakness. In every one of his
countless works the most striking feature is the lack of organization. They were begun
and completed without their author's ever thinking out a plot, or its mode of treatment.

Kukolnik's "Alf and Adona," in which at least one hundred and fifty characters are
brought upon the stage, has not one whose appearance is designed to concentrate the
interest of the audience. Each comes in to show himself, and goes out not to be in the
way any longer. Everything is described and explained with equal minuteness, from
the pile of cabbages by the wayside, to the murder of a prince; and instead of a
historical action there is nothing but unconnected details. The same is the case with
his "Eveline and Baillerole," in which Cardinal Richelieu is represented as a destroyer
of the aristocracy, and which also is made up of countless unconnected scenes, that in
part are certainly done with some neatness. These remarks apply to the works of Iwan
Wanenko and I. Boriczewski, to I. Zchewen's "Sunshine", five volumes strong; to the
compositions of Wolkow, Czerujawski, Ulitinins, Th. Van Dim, (a pseudonym,) in
fact to everything that has yet appeared.

On the part of the Imperial family, as we have already said, everything has been done
for the Russian stage that could possibly be done, and is done no where else. The
extremest liberality favors the artists, schools are provided in order to raise them from
the domain of gross buffoonery to that of true art, the most magnificent premiums are
given to the best, actors are made equal in rank to officers of state, they are held only
to twenty-five years' service, reckoning from their debut,—and finally, they receive
for the rest of their lives a pension equal to their full salaries. High rewards are given
to Russian star-actors, in order if possible to draw talent of every sort forth from the
dry steppes of native art. The Russian actors are compelled on pain of punishment to
go regularly to the German theater, with a view to their improvement, and in order to
make this as effective as may be, enormous compensations attract the best German
stars to St. Petersburg. And yet all this is useless, and the Russian theater is not raised
above the dignity of a workshop. Only the comic side of the national character, a
burlesque and droll simplicity, is admirably represented by actors whose skill and the
scope of whose talents may he reckoned equal to the Germans in the same line. But in
the higher walks of the drama they are worthless. The people have neither cultivation
nor sentiment for serious works, while the poets to produce them, and the actors to
represent them, are alike wanting.
Immediately after the submission of Poland in 1831, the theaters, permanent and
itinerant, were closed. The plan was conceived of not allowing them to be reöpened
until they could be occupied by Russian performers. But as the Government recovered
from its first rage, this was found to be impracticable. The officers of the garrisons in
Poland, however numerous, could never support Russian theaters, and besides, where
were the performers to come from? In Warsaw, however, it was determined to force a
theater into existence, and a Russian newspaper was already established there. The
power of the Muscovites has done great things, built vast fortresses and destroyed
vaster, but it could not accomplish a Russian theater at Warsaw. Even the paper died
before it had attained a regular life, although it cost a great deal of money.

Finally came the permission to reöpen the Polish theater, and indeed the caprice which
was before violent against it, was now exceedingly favorable, but of course not
without collateral purposes. The scanty theater on the Krasinski place, which was
alone in Warsaw, except the remote circus and the little theater of King Stanislaus
Augustus, was given up, and the sum of four millions of florins ($1,600,000) devoted
to the erection of two large and magnificent theaters. The superintendence of the work
of building and the management of the performances was, according to the Russian
system, intrusted to one General Rautenstrauch, a man seventy years old, and worn
out both in mind and body. The two theaters were erected under one roof, and
arranged on the grandest and most splendid scale. The edifice is opposite the City
Hall, occupies a whole side of the main public place, and is above 750 feet in length.
The pit in each is supported by a series of immense, stupid, square pilasters, such as
architecture has seldom witnessed out of Russia. Over these pilasters stands the [pg
228]first row of boxes supported by beautifully wrought Corinthian columns, and above
these rise three additional rows. The edifice is about 160 feet high and is the most
colossal building in Warsaw. As it was designed to treat the actors in military fashion
and according to Russian style, the building was laid out like barracks and about
seven hundred persons live in it, most of them employed about the theater. The two
stages were built by a German architect under the inspection of the General whose
peremptory suggestions were frequent and injurious. Both the great theater as it is
called, which has four rows of boxes, and can contain six thousand auditors, and the
Varieté theater which is very much smaller, are fitted out with all sorts of apparatus
that ever belonged to a stage. In fact, new machinery has in many cases been invented
for them and proved totally useless. The Russian often hits upon queer notions when
he tries to show his gifts.

On one side a very large and strong bridge has been erected leading from the street to
the stage, to be used whenever the piece requires large bodies of cavalry to make their
appearance, and there are machines that can convey persons with the swiftness of
lightning down from the sky above the stage, a distance of 56 feet. A machine for
which a ballet has been composed surpasses everything I ever saw in its size; it serves
to transport eighty persons together on a seeming cloud from the roof to the foot-
lights. I was astonished by it when I first beheld it although I had seen the machines of
the grand opera at Paris: the second time I reflected that it alone cost 40,000 florins
[$16,000].

Under the management of two Russian Generals, who have hitherto been at the head
of the establishment, a vast deal has in this way been accomplished for mere external
show.

The great Russian theatre of St. Petersburg has served for a model, and accordingly
nothing has really been improved except that part of the performance which is farthest
removed from genuine art, namely the ballet. That fact is that out of Paris the ballet is
nowhere so splendid as in the great theater at Warsaw, not even at St. Petersburg, for
the reason that the Russian is inferior to the Pole in physical beauty and grace.
Heretofore the corps of the St. Petersburg ballet has twice been composed of Poles,
but this arrangement has been abandoned as derogatory to the national honor. The
sensual attractions of the ballet render it the most important thing in the theater. A
great school for dancers has been established, where pupils may be found from three
to eighteen years old. It is painful to see the little creatures, hardly weaned from their
mothers' breasts—twisted and tortured for the purposes of so doubtful an occupation
as dancing. The school contains about two hundred pupils, all of whom occasionally
appear together on the boards, in the ballet of Charis and Flora, for instance, when
they receive a trifling compensation. For the rest the whole ballet corps are bound to
daily practice.

The taste of the Russians has made prominent in the ballet exactly those peculiarities
which are least to its credit. It must be pronounced exaggerated and lascivious. Aside
from these faults, which may be overlooked as the custom of the country, we must
admit that the dancing is uncommonly good.

The greater the care of the management for the ballet, the more injurious is its
treatment of the drama. This is melancholy for the artists and especially those who
have come to the imperial theater from the provinces, who are truly respectable and
are equally good in comedy and tragedy. The former has been less shackled than the
latter for the reason that it turns upon domestic life. But tragedy is most frightfully
treated by the political censorship, so that a Polish poet can hardly expect to see his
pieces performed on the stage of his native country. Hundreds of words and phrases
such as freedom, avenging sword, slave, oppression, father-land, cannot be permitted
and are stricken out. Accordingly nothing but the trumpery of mere penny-a-liners is
brought forward, though this sometimes assumes an appearance of originality. These
abortions remain on the stage only through the talent of the artists, the habit of the
public to expect nothing beyond dullness and stupidity in the drama, and finally, the
severe regulation which forbids any mark of disapprobation under pain of
imprisonment. The best plays are translated from the French, but they are never the
best of their kind. To please the Russians only those founded on civic life are chosen,
and historical subjects are excluded. Princely personages are not allowed to be
introduced on the stage, nor even high officers of state, such as ministers and generals.
In former times the Emperor of China was once allowed to pass, but more recently the
Bey of Tunis was struck out and converted into an African nobleman. A tragedy is
inadmissible in any case, and should one be found with nothing objectionable but its
name, it is called drama.

In such circumstances we would suppose that the actors would lose all interest in their
profession. But this is not the case. At least the cultivated portion of the public at
Warsaw never go to the theater to see a poetic work of art, but only to see and enjoy
the skill of the performers. Of course there is no such thing as theatrical criticism at
Warsaw; but everybody rejoices when the actors succeed in causing the wretchedness
of the piece to be forgotten. The universal regret for the wretched little theater on the
Krasinski place, where Suczkowska, afterward Mad. Halpert, founded her reputation
in the character of the Maid of Orleans, is the best criticism on the present state of the
drama.

The Russians take great delight in the most trivial pieces. Even Prince Paskiewich [pg
229]sometimes stays till the close of the last act. To judge by the direction of his opera-
glass, which is never out of his hand, he has the fortune to discover poetry elsewhere
than on the stage. In truth the Warsaw boxes are adorned by beautiful faces. Even the
young princess Jablonowska is not the most lovely.

The arrangements of the Warsaw theaters are exactly like those of the Russian theater
at St. Petersburg, but almost without exception, the pupils of the dramatic school, of
whom seventeen have come upon the boards, have proved mere journeymen, and have
been crowded aside by performers from the provincial cities. None of the eminent
artists of late years have enjoyed the advantages of the school. The position of the
actors at Warsaw is just the same as at St. Petersburg. The day after their first
appearance they are regularly taken into duty as imperial officials, take an oath never
to meddle with political affairs, nor join in any secret society, nor ever to pronounce
on the stage anything more or anything else than what is in the stamped parts given
them by the imperial management.

Actors' salaries at Warsaw are small in comparison with those of other countries.
Forty or fifty silver rubles a month ($26 to $33) pass for a very respectable
compensation, and even the very best performers rarely get beyond a thousand rubles
a year ($650). Madame Halpert long had to put up with that salary till once Taglioni
said to Prince Paskiewich that it was a shame for so magnificent an artist to be no
better paid than a writer. Her salary was thereupon raised one-half, and subsequently
by means of a similar mediation she succeeded in getting an addition of a thousand
rubles yearly under the head of wardrobe expenses. This was a thing so extraordinary
that the managing General declared that so enormous a compensation would never
again be heard of in any imperial theatre. The pupils of the dramatic school receive
eighteen rubles monthly, and, according to their performances, obtain permission
every two years to ask an increase of salary. The period of service extends to twenty-
five years, with the certainty of a yearly pension equal to the salary received at the
close of the period.

For the artist this is a very important arrangement, which enables him to endure a
thousand inconveniences.

There is no prospect of a better state of the Polish drama. Count Fedro may, in his
comedies, employ the finest satire with a view to its restoration, but he will
accomplish nothing so long as the Generals ride the theater as they would a war horse.
On the other hand, no Russian drama has been established, because the conditions are
wanting among the people. That is a vast empire, but poor in beauty; mighty in many
things, but weak in artistic talents; powerful and prompt in destruction, but incapable
spontaneously and of itself to create anything.

"DEATH'S JEST BOOK, OR THE FOOL'S TRAGEDY."

The Examiner, for July 20, contains an elaborate review, with numerous extracts, of a
play just published under this title in London. "It is radiant," says the critic, "in almost
every page with passion, fancy, or thought, set in the most apposite and exquisite
language. We have but to discard, in reading it, the hope of any steady interest of
story, or consistent development of character: and we shall find a most surprising
succession of beautiful passages, unrivaled in sentiment and pathos, as well as in
terseness, dignity, and picturesque vigor of language; in subtlety and power of
passion, as well as in delicacy and strength of imagination; and as perfect and various,
in modulation of verse, as the airy flights of Fletcher or Marlowe's mighty line.

"The whole range of the Elizabethan drama has not finer expression, nor does any
single work of the period, out of Shakspeare, exhibit so many rich and precious bars
of golden verse, side by side with such poverty and misery of character and plot.
Nothing can be meaner than the design, nothing grander than the execution."
 In conclusion, the Examiner observes—"We are not acquainted with any living author
who could have written the Fool's Tragedy; and, though the publication is
unaccompanied by any hint of authorship, we believe that we are correct in stating it
to be a posthumous production of the author of the Bride's Tragedy; Mr. Thomas
Lovell Beddoes. Speaking of the latter production, now more than a quarter of a
century ago, (Mr. Beddoes was then, we believe, a student at Pembroke College,
Oxford, and a minor,) the Edinburgh Review ventured upon a prediction of future
fame and achievement for the writer, which an ill-chosen and ill-directed subsequent
career unhappily intercepted and baffled. But in proof of the noble natural gifts which
suggested such anticipation, the production before us remains: and we may judge to
what extent a more steady course and regular cultivation would have fertilized a soil,
which, neglected and uncared for, has thrown out such a glorious growth of foliage
and fruit as this Fool's Tragedy."

The following exquisite lyric is among the passages with which these judgments are
sustained:

"If thou wilt ease thine heart

Of love and all its smart,
Then sleep, dear, sleep;
And not a sorrow
Hang any tear on your eyelashes;
Lie still and deep
Sad soul, until like sea-wave washes
The rim o' the sun to-morrow,
In eastern sky.
But wilt thou cure thine heart
Of love and all its smart,
Then die, dear, die;
'Tis deeper, sweeter,
Than on a rose bank to lie dreaming
With folded eye;
And then alone, amid the beaming
Of love's stars, thou'lt meet her
In eastern sky."

[pg 230]

WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED.

 Praed, it has always seemed to us, was the cleverest writer in his way that has ever
contributed to the English periodicals. His fugitive lyrics and arabesque romances,
half sardonic and half sentimental, published with Hookham Frere's "Whistlecraft"
and Macaulay's Roundhead Ballads, in Knight's Quarterly Magazine, and after the
suspension of that work, for the most part in the annual souvenirs, are altogether
unequaled in the class of compositions described as vers de societie.—Who that has
read "School and School Fellows", "Palinodia", "The Vicar", "Josephine", and a score
of other pieces in the same vein, does not desire to possess all the author has left us, in
a suitable edition? It has been frequently stated in the English journals that such a
collection was to be published, under the direction of Praed's widow, but we have yet
only the volume prepared by a lover of the poet some years ago for the Langleys, in
this city. In the "Memoirs of Eminent Etonians," just printed by Mr. Edward Creasy,
we have several waifs of Praed's that we believe will be new to all our readers. Here is
a characteristic political rhyme:

VERSES

ON SEEING THE SPEAKER ASLEEP IN HIS CHAIR IN ONE OF THE

DEBATES OF THE FIRST REFORMED PARLIAMENT.

Sleep, Mr. Speaker, 'tis surely fair

If you mayn't in your bed, that you should in your chair.
Louder and longer now they grow,
Tory and Radical, Aye and Noe;
Talking by night and talking by day.
Sleep, Mr. Speaker, sleep while you may!
Sleep, Mr. Speaker; slumber lies
Light and brief on a Speaker's eyes,
Fielden or Finn in a minute or two
Some disorderly thing will do;
Riot will chase repose away
Sleep, Mr. Speaker, sleep while you may!
Sleep, Mr. Speaker. Sweet to men
Is the sleep that cometh but now and then,
Sweet to the weary, sweet to the ill,
Sweet to the children that work in the mill.
You have more need of repose than they—
Sleep, Mr. Speaker, sleep while you may!
Sleep, Mr. Speaker, Harvey will soon
Move to abolish the sun and the moon;
Hume will no doubt be taking the sense
Of the House on a question of sixteen pence.
Statesmen will howl, and patriots bray—
Sleep, Mr. Speaker, sleep while you may!
Sleep, Mr. Speaker, and dream of the time,
When loyalty was not quite a crime,
When Grant was a pupil in Canning's school,
And Palmerston fancied Wood a fool.
Lord, how principles pass away—
Sleep, Mr. Speaker, sleep while you may.

The following is a spirited version of a dramatic scene in the second book of the
Annals of Tacitus:

ARMINIUS.

Back, Back;—he fears not foaming flood

Who fears not steel-clad line:—
No warrior thou of German blood,
No brother thou of mine.
Go earn Rome's chain to load thy neck,
Her gems to deck thy hilt;
And blazon honor's hapless wreck
With all the gauds of guilt.
But wouldst thou have me share the prey?
By all that I have done,
The Varian bones that day by day
Lie whitening in the sun;
The legion's trampled panoply
The eagle's shattered wing.
I would not be for earth or sky
So scorned and mean a thing,
Ho, call me here the wizard, boy,
Of dark and subtle skill,
To agonize but not destroy,
To torture, not to kill.
When swords are out, and shriek and shout
Leave little room for prayer,
No fetter on man's arm or heart
Hangs half so heavy there.
I curse him by the gifts the land
Hath won from him and Rome.
The riving axe, the wasting brand,
Rent forest, blazing home.
I curse him by our country's gods,
The terrible, the dark,
The breakers of the Roman rods,
The smiters of the bark.
Oh, misery that such a ban
On such a brow should be!
Why comes he not in battle's van
His country's chief to be?
To stand a comrade by my side,
The sharer of my fame,
And worthy of a brother's pride,
And of a brother's name?
But it is past!—where heroes press
And cowards bend the knee,
Arminius is not brotherless,
His brethren are the free.
They come around:—one hour, and light
Will fade from turf and tide,
Then onward, onward to the fight,
With darkness for our guide.
To-night, to-night, when we shall meet
In combat face to face,
Then only would Arminius greet
The renegade's embrace.
The canker of Rome's guilt shall be
Upon his dying name;
And as he lived in slavery,
So shall he fall in shame.

CAMPBELL AND WASHINGTON IRVING.

The Editor of The Albion, in noticing the republication by the Harpers of the very
interesting Life and Letters of Thomas Campbell, by Dr. Beattie, has the following
observations upon Mr. Irving's introductory letter:
"WASHINGTON IRVING, at the request of the publishers, contributed a very
interesting letter to themselves, directing public notice to the value of this edition. He
pays also a hearty and deserved tribute, not only to the genius of Campbell, but to his
many excellencies and kindly specialities of character. The author of "Hohenlinden,"
and the "Battle of the Baltic" stands in need of no man's praise as a lyric poet—but
this sort of testimony to his private worth is grateful and well-timed. Here is an
interesting passage from Mr. Irving's introductory communication. He is alluding to
Campbell's fame and position, when he himself first made Campbell's acquaintance in
England.

"'I had considered the early productions of Campbell as brilliant indications of a

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

"'Scott, too, who took a cordial delight in Campbell's poetry, expressed himself to the
same effect. 'What a pity is it,' said he to me 'that [pg 231]Campbell does not give full
sweep to his genius. He has wings that would bear him up to the skies, and he does
now and then spread them grandly, but folds them up again and resumes his perch, as
if afraid to launch away. The fact is, he is a bugbear to himself. The brightness of his
early success is a detriment to all his future efforts. He is afraid of the shadow that his
own fame casts before him.'

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

"'I pointed out the essential difference in their kinds of poetry, and the qualities which
insured perpetuity to that of her husband. 'You can't persuade Campbell of that,' said
she. 'He is apt to undervalue his own works, and to consider his own lights put out,
whenever they come blazing out with their great torches.'
"'I repeated the conversation to Scott sometime afterward, and it drew forth a
characteristic comment. 'Pooh!' said he, good-humoredly, 'how can Campbell mistake
the matter so much. Poetry goes by quality, not by bulk. My poems are mere
cairngorms, wrought up, perhaps, with a cunning hand, and may pass well in the
market as long as cairngorms are the fashion; but they are mere Scotch pebbles after
all; now Tom Campbell's are real diamonds, and diamonds of the first water.'"

"The foregoing is new to us, and full of a double interest. It is followed, however, by a
statement, that needs a word of explanation. Mr. Irving says:

"'I have not time at present to furnish personal anecdotes of my intercourse with
Campbell, neither does it afford any of a striking nature. Though extending over a
number of years, it was never very intimate. His residence in the country, and my own
long intervals of absence on the continent, rendered our meetings few and far
between. To tell the truth, I was not much drawn to Campbell, having taken up a
wrong notion concerning him, from seeing him at times when his mind was ill at ease,
and preyed upon by secret griefs. I thought him disposed to be querulous and captious,
and had heard his apparent discontent attributed to jealous repining at the success of
his poetical contemporaries. In a word, I knew little of him but what might be learned
in the casual intercourse of general society; whereas it required the close communion
of confidential friendship, to sound the depth of his character and know the treasures
of excellence hidden beneath its surface. Beside, he was dogged for years by certain
malignant scribblers, who took a pleasure in misrepresenting all his actions, and
holding him up in an absurd and disparaging point of view. In what hostility
originated I do not know, but it must have given much annoyance to his sensitive
mind, and may have affected his popularity. I know not to what else to attribute a
circumstance to which I was a witness during my last visit to England. It was at an
annual dinner of the Literary Fund, at which Prince Albert presided, and where was
collected much of the prominent talent of the kingdom. In the course of the evening
Campbell rose to make a speech. I had not seen him for years, and his appearance
showed the effect of age and ill-health; it was evident, also, that his mind was
obfuscated by the wine he had been drinking. He was confused and tedious in his
remarks; still, there was nothing but what one would have thought would have been
received with indulgence, if not deference, from a veteran of his fame and standing; a
living classic. On the contrary, to my surprise, I soon observed signs of impatience in
the company; the poet was repeatedly interrupted by coughs and discordant sounds,
and as often endeavored to proceed; the noise at length became intolerable, and he
was absolutely clamored down, sinking into his chair overwhelmed and disconcerted.
I could not have thought such treatment possible to such a person at such a meeting.
Hallam, author of the Literary History of the Middle Ages, who sat by me on this
occasion, marked the mortification of the poet, and it excited his generous sympathy.
Being shortly afterward on the floor to reply to a toast, he took occasion to advert to
the recent remarks of Campbell, and in so doing called up in review all his eminent
achievements in the world of letters, and drew such a picture of his claims upon
popular gratitude and popular admiration, as to convict the assembly of the glaring
impropriety they had been guilty of—to soothe the wounded sensibility of the poet,
and send him home to, I trust, a quiet pillow.'

"Now, the very same facts are seen by different observers in a different point of view.
It so happened that we ourselves were present at this dinner, which took place in
1842; and the painful circumstance alluded to by Mr. Irving did not produce the effect
on us, that it appears to have produced on him. Without making a long story about a
trifle, we can call to mind no appearance of hostility or ill-will manifested on that
occasion; and on the contrary, recollect, in our immediate neighborhood, a mournful
sense of distress at the scene exhibited, and sufficiently hinted in the few unpleasant
words we have italicized. A muster of Englishmen preferred coughing down their
favorite bard, to allowing him to mouth out maudlin twaddle, before the Prince, then
first formally introduced to the public, and before a meeting whereat "was collected
much of the prominent talent of the kingdom." Mr. Irving, himself most deservedly a
man of mark, looked on with much, surprise. Looking on ourselves then, and writing
now, as one of the public, and as one of the many to whom Campbell's name and fame
are inexpressibly dear, we honestly think that of two evils the lesser was chosen. We
think Mr. Hallam's lecture must have been inaudible to the greater part of the
company."

The Archbishop of Lemburgh has prohibited his clergy from wearing long hair like
the peasants, and from smoking in public, "like demagogues and sons of Baal."

The Persians have a saying, that "Ten measures of talk were sent down upon the earth,
and the women took nine."

[pg 232]

Authors and Books

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

AUDUBON AND WASHINGTON IRVING—THE PLAGUE OF RAILROADS.—

The voyager up the Hudson will involuntarily anathematize the invention of the rail,
when he sees how much of the most romantic beauty has been defaced or destroyed
by that tyranny which, disregarding all private desire and justice, has filled up bays,
and cut off promontories, and leveled heights, to make way for the intrusive and noisy
car. But the effects of these so-called "improvements," upon the romantic in nature
will be forgotten if he considers the injury and wrong they cause to persons, and
particularly to those whose genius has contributed more to human happiness than all
the inventions in oeconomical art.

The Nestor of our naturalists, and in his field, the greatest as well as the oldest of our
artists, AUDUBON, with the comparatively slight gains of a long life of devotion to
science, and of triumphs which had made him world-renowned, purchased on the
banks of the river, not far from the city, a little estate which it was the joy as well as
the care of his closing years to adorn with everything that a taste so peculiarly and
variously schooled could suggest. He had made it a pleasing gate-way to the unknown
world, with beautiful walks leading down to the river whose depth and calmness and
solemn grandeur symboled the waves through which he should pass to the reward of a
life of such toil and enviable glory. He had promise of an evening worthy of his
meridian—when the surveyors and engineers, with their charter-privileges, invaded
his retreat, built a road through his garden, destroyed forever his repose, and—the
melancholy truth is known—made of his mind a ruin.

WASHINGTON IRVING—now sixty-seven years of age—had found a resting-place

at Wolfert's Roost, close by the scenes which lie in the immortal beauty that radiates
from his pages, and when he thought that in this Tusculum he was safe from all
annoying, free to enjoy the quietness and ease he had earned from the world, the same
vandals laid the track through his grounds, not only destroying all their beauty and
attraction, but leaving fens from which these summer heats distilled contagion. He has
therefore been ill for some weeks, and as he had never a strong constitution, and has
preserved his equable but not vigorous health only by the most constant carefulness,
his physicians and friends begin to be alarmed for the result. Heaven avert the end
they so fearfully anticipate. He cannot go alone: The honest Knickerbocker, the gentle
Crayon, and the faithful brother Agapida, with Washington Irving will forever leave
the world, which cannot yet resign itself to the loss of either.

Mr. SEBA SMITH, so well known as the author of the "Letters of Major Jack
Downing," and to a different sort of readers for his more serious contributions to our
literature, has just completed the printing of an original and very remarkable work,
upon which he has been engaged about two years, entitled "New Elements of
Geometry," and it will soon be published in this city by Putnam, and in London by
Bentley. It will probably produce a sensation in the world of science. Its design is the
reconstruction of the entire methods of Geometry. All geometers, from the dawn of
the science, have built their systems upon these definitions: A line is length without
breadth, and A surface is length and breadth, without thickness. Mr. Smith asserts that
these definitions are false, and sustains his position by numerous demonstrations in
the pure Euclidean style. He declares that every mathematical line has a
definite breadth, which is as measurable as its length, and that every mathematical
surface has a thickness, as measurable as the contents of any solid. His
demonstrations, on diagrams, seem to be eminently clear, simple, and conclusive. The
effects of this discovery and these demonstrations are, to simplify very much the
whole subject of Geometry and mathematics, and to clear it of many obscurities and
difficulties. All geometers heretofore have claimed that there are three kinds of
quantity in Geometry, different in their natures, and requiring units of different
natures to measure them. Mr. Smith shows that there is but one kind of quantity in
Geometry, and but one kind of unit; and that lines, surfaces, and solids are always
measured by the same identical unit.

Besides the leading features of the work [pg 233]which we have thus briefly described, it
contains many new and beautiful demonstrations of general principles in Geometry, to
which the author was lead by his new methods of investigation. Among these we may
mention one, viz., "The square of the hypothenuse of a right-angled triangle equals
four times the area of the triangle, plus the square of the difference of the other two
sides." This principle has been known to mathematicians by means of arithmetic and
algebra, but has never before, we believe, been reduced to a geometrical
demonstration. The demonstration of this principle by Mr. Smith is one of the clearest,
simplest, and most beautiful in Geometry. The work is divided into three parts, I. The
Philosophy of Geometry, II. Demonstrations in Geometry, and III. Harmonies of
Geometry. The demonstrative character of it is occasionally enlivened by
philosophical and historical observations, which will add much to its interest with the
general reader. We have too little skill in studies of this sort to be altogether confident
in our opinion, but certainly it strikes us from an examination of the larger and more
important portion of Mr. Smith's essay, that it is an admirable specimen of statement
and demonstration, and that it must secure to its author immediately a very high rank
in mathematical science. We shall await with much interest the judgments of the
professors. It makes a handsome octavo of some 200 pages.

M. FLANDIN, an eminent dilettante and designer attached to the French embassy in

Persia, has published in the last number of the Revue des Deux Mondes an interesting
memoir of the ruins of Persepolis, under the title of "An Archaiological Journey in
Persia." On his route to the ruins he witnessed melancholy evidence, in the condition
of the surface and population, of the improvidence and noxiousness of Oriental
despotism. He tells us that the remains of the magnificent palace of Darius are
dispersed over an immense plateau, which looks down on the plain of Merdacht.
"Assuredly, they are not much, compared with what they must have been in the time
of the last Prince who sheltered himself under the royal roof. Nevertheless, what is
now found of them still excites astonishment, and inspires a sentiment of religious
admiration for a civilization that could create monuments so stupendous; impress on
them a character of so much grandeur; and give them a solidity which has prereserved
the most important parts until our days, through twenty-two centuries, and all the
revolutions by which Persia has been devastated. The pillars are covered with
European names deeply cut in the stone. English are far the most numerous. Very few,
however, are of celebrated travelers. We observed, with satisfaction, those of Sir John
Malcolm and Mr. Morier, both of whom have so successfully treated Persian
subjects."

EMILE GIRARDIN states in his journal that he paid for the eleven volumes of
Chateaubriand's Posthumous Memoirs as they appeared, piecemeal, in his feuilleton,
the sum of ninety-seven thousand one hundred and eight francs. They occupied a
hundred and ninety-two feuilletons, and cost him thus more than a franc a line. Alfred
de Broglie has made these memoirs the test of a paper entitled "Memoirs de
Chateaubriand, a Moral and Political Study," in the Revue des Deux Mondes. It is a
severe analysis of the book and the man. He concludes that Chateaubriand was one of
the most vainglorious, selfish and malignant of his tribe. He, indeed, betrayed himself
broadly, but surviving writers, who knew intimately his private life—such as St.
Beuve—have disclosed more of his habitual libertinism. The Radical journals, and
some of the Legitimists, turn to account the portraits left in these memoirs of Louis
Philippe, Thiers, Guizot, and other statesmen of the Orleans monarchy. They are
effusions of personal and political spite. Chateaubriand hated the whole Orleans
dynasty, and has not spared the elder Bourbons.

GUIZOT has been for thirty years in political life, many of them a minister, and was
long at the head of the government of Louis Philippe, but is now a poor man.
Recently, on the marriage of his two daughters with two brothers De Witt, the
descendants of the great Hollander, he was unable to give them a cent in the way of
marriage portions. This fact proves the personal integrity of the man more than a score
of arguments. Not only has the native honesty of his character forbidden him to take
advantage of his eminent position to gain a fortune, but the indomitable pride which is
his leading characteristic, has never stooped to the attractions of public plunder or the
fruits of official speculation. Guizot is not up to the times, and hence his downfall, but
future historians will do justice alike to his great talents and the uprightness of his
intentions.

One of the best works yet produced on the History of Art, is by Schnaase, of
Düsseldorf. The first three volumes have been published and translated into French
and English, and have met with great success in both those languages. The fourth
volume is just announced in Germany. Artists and other competent persons at
Düsseldorf who have seen the proof-sheets, speak in the highest terms not only of its
historical merits, but of the excellence of its criticisms.

The fifth volume of the History of Spain, by Rousseau St. Hilaire, includes the period
from 1336 to 1649. The professor has been employed ten years on his enterprise; he is
lauded by all the critics for his research, method, and style. We have recently spoken
of this work at some length in The International. [pg 234]The PARIS ACADEMY OF
INSCRIPTIONS and Belles Lettres is constantly sending forth the most valuable
contributions; to the history of the middle ages especially. It is now completing the
publication of the sixth volume of the Charters, Diplomas, and other documents
relating to French History. This volume, which was prepared by M. Pardessus,
includes the period from the beginning of 1220 to the end of 1270, and comprehends
the reign of St. Louis. The seventh volume, coming down some fifty years later, is
also nearly ready for the printer. Its editor is M. Laboulaye. The first volume of the
Oriental Historians of the Crusaders, translated into French, is now going through the
press, and the second is in course of preparation. The greater part of the first volume
of the Greek Historians of the same chivalrous wars is also printed, and the work is
going rapidly forward. The Academy is also preparing a collection of Occidental
History on the same subject. When these three collections are published, all the
documents of any value relating to the Crusades will be easily accessible, whether for
the use of the historian or the romancer. The Academy is also now engaged in getting
out the twenty-first volume of the History of the Gauls and of France, and the
nineteenth of the Literary History of France, which brings the annals of French letters
down to the thirteenth century. It is also publishing the sixteenth volume of its own
memoirs, which contains the history of the Academy for the last four years, and the
work of Freret on Geography, besides several other works of less interest. From all
this some idea may be formed of the labors and usefulness of the institution.

M. LEVERRIER, the astronomer, has published a long and able argument in support
of the free and universal use of the electric telegraph. He has supplied a most
instructive and interesting exposition of the employment and utility of the invention,
in all the countries in which it has been established. The American and the several
European tariffs of charge are appended. He explains the different systems, scientific
and practical, in detail, and gives the process and proceeds. He observes that the
practicability of laying the wires under ground along all the great roads of France,
which will protect them from accidents and mischief, will yield immense advantage to
the Government and to individuals. He appears to prefer Bain's Telegraph, for
communication, to any other, and minutely traces and develops its mechanism. A bill
before the French chambers, which he advocates, opens to the public the use of the
telegraph, but with various restrictions calculated to prevent revolutionary or seditious
abuses; to prevent illicit speculations in the public funds, and other bad purposes to
which a free conveyance might be applied. The director of the telegraph is to be
empowered to refuse to transmit what he shall deem repugnant to public order and
good morals, and the government to suspend at will all private correspondence, on
one or many lines.

THE WORKS OF REV. LEONARD WOODS, D.D., lately Professor of Theology in

the Congregational Seminary of Andover, are in course of publication, and the third
and fourth volumes have just appeared, completing the theological lectures of the
venerable Professor, making in all one hundred and twenty-eight. In these, the student
is furnished with a complete body of divinity as generally received by the orthodox
denominations in New England, and has presented in a clear, condensed manner, the
matured results of a long life of thought and study devoted to these subjects.

The fourth volume is occupied with theological letters. The first 121 pages contain
those to Unitarians; next follows the Reply to Dr. Ware's Letters to Unitarians and
Calvinists, and Remarks on Dr. Ware's Answer, a series remarkable for courtesy and
kindness toward opponents, and clearness and faithfulness in the expression of what
was regarded as truth. Following these, are eight letters to Dr. Taylor of New Haven;
An Examination of the Doctrine of Perfection, as held by Mr. Mahan and others, and a
letter to Mr. Mahan; A Dissertation on Miracles, and the Course of Theological Study
as pursued at the Seminary at Andover. One more volume will complete the works of
this long active and eminent divine.

THE REV. ORVILLE DEWEY, D.D., we learn from the correspondence of

the Christian Inquirer, is living upon the farm where he was born, in Sheffield,
Massachusetts, having, in the successive improvements of many years, converted the
original house into an irregular but most comfortable and pleasant dwelling. The view
from the back piazza is as fine as can be commanded anywhere in Berkshire, and
should the shifting channel of the Housatonic only be accommodating enough to wind
a little nearer the house, or even suffer some not impossible stoppage which would
convert the marshy meadow in front into a lake, nothing can be conceived of which
could then improve the situation. In this lovely retirement, Dr. Dewey endeavors to
unite labor and study; working with his own hands, with hoe and rake, in a way to
surprise those who only know how he can handle a pen. He is preparing, in a leisurely
way, for a course of Lectures for the Lowell Institute, upon a theme admirably suited
to his previous studies, and in which it is evident his whole mind and heart are bound
up. We are glad to know that it is not until winter after next that this work must be
taken from the anvil.

DR. HOOKER, we learn, has again proceeded to a new and unexplored region in
India, in the prosecution of his important botanical labors. [pg 235]THE AUTHOR OF
THE AMBER WITCH, the Pomeranian pastor, Meinhold, has been condemned to
three months' imprisonment, and a fine of one hundred thalers, besides costs, for
slander against another clergyman named Stosch, in a communication published in
the New Prussian Zeitung. The sentence was rendered more severe than usual in such
cases by the fact that Meinhold, who appears to possess more talent than temper, had
previously been condemned for the same offense against another party. The Amber
Witch is one of the "curiosities of literature", for in the last German edition the author
is obliged to prove that it is entirely a work of imagination, and not, as almost all the
German critics believed it to be when it appeared, the reprint of an old chronicle. It
was, in fact, written as a trap for the disciples of Strauss and his school, who had
pronounced the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be a collection, of
legends, from historical research, assisted by "internal evidence". Meinhold did not
spare them when they fell into the snare, and made merry with the historical
knowledge and critical acumen that could not detect the contemporary romancer
under the mask of the chronicler of two centuries ago, while they decided so
positively as to the authority of the most ancient writings in the world. He has been in
prison before.

"THE NIGHT SIDE OF NATURE1", by Catharine Crowe, so well known as one of

the cleverest of the younger set of literary women in England, we have already
mentioned as in the press of Mr. Redfield; it is now published, and we commend it as
one of the most entertaining and curious works that has ever appeared on the
"wonders of the invisible world". We quote from the judicious critic of
the Tribune the following paragraphs in regard to it:

"The author of this work is an accomplished German scholar. Without being a slave to
the superstitious love of marvels and prodigies, her mind evidently leans toward the
twilight sphere, which lies beyond the acknowledged boundaries of either faith or
knowledge. She seems to be entirely free from the sectarian spirit; she can look at
facts impartially, without reference to their bearing on favorite dogmas; nor does she
claim such a full, precise and completely-rounded acquaintance with the mysteries of
the spiritual world, whether from intuition or revelation, as not to believe that there
may be more "things in heaven and earth than is dreamt of in our philosophy." In this
respect, it must be owned that she has not the advantage of certain religious journals
in this city, like the Christian Inquirer and The Independent, for instance—which
have been so fully initiated into the secrets of universal truth as to regard all inquiry
into such subjects either as too vulgar for a Christian gentleman, comme il faut, or as
giving a "sanction to the atheistic delusion that there may be a spiritual or supernatural
agency" in manifestations which are not accounted for by the New-England Primer.
Mrs. Crowe, on the contrary, supposes that there may be something worthy of
philosophical investigation in those singular phenomena, which, surpassing the limits
of usual experience, have not yet found any adequate explanation.

"The phrase 'Night Side of Nature' is borrowed from the Germans, who derive it from
the language of astronomers, designating the side of a planet that is turned from the
sun, as its night side. The Germans draw a parallel between our vague and misty
perceptions, when deprived of the light of the sun, and the obscure and uncertain
glimpses we obtain of the vailed department of nature, of which, though comprising
the solution of the most important questions, we are in a state of almost total
ignorance. In writing a book on these subjects, the author disclaims the intention of
enforcing any didactic opinions. She wishes only to suggest inquiry and stimulate
observation, in order to gain all possible light on our spiritual nature, both as it now
exists in the flesh and is to exist hereafter out of it.

"It is but justice to say, that the present volume is a successful realization of the
purpose thus announced. It presents as full a collection of facts on the subject as is
probably to be found in any work in the English language, furnishing materials for the
formation of theoretic views, and illustrating an obscure but most interesting chapter
in the marvelous history of human nature. It is written with perfect modesty, and
freedom from pretense, doing credit to the ability of the author as a narrator, as well as
to her fairness and integrity as a reasoner."

MR. MILNE EDWARDS presented at a recent meeting of the Academy of Sciences,

in the name of the Prince of Canino, (C. Bonaparte), the first part of the Prince's large
work, Conspectus Generum Avium.

M. GUIZOT has addressed a long letter to each of the five classes of the Institute of
France, to declare that he cannot accept the candidateship offered him for a seat in the
Superior Council of Public Instruction.

SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON is to be a candidate for the House of Commons,

with Col. Sibthorp, for Lincoln. He has a new play forthcoming for the Princess's
Theatre.

MISS STRICKLAND has in preparation a series of volumes on the Queens of

Scotland, as a companion to her, interesting and successful work on the Queens of
England.

THE MARQUIS DE FOUDRAS has published Un Caprice de Grande Dame—

clever, but as corrupt as her other works.
[pg 236]

MR. HERBERT'S NEW BOOKS.—The Southern Quarterly Review for July has the

following notice of "Frank Forester's Fish and Fishing in the United States and British
Provinces," recently published by Stringer & Townsend:

"There are few of our writers so variously endowed and accomplished as Mr. Herbert;
of a mind easily warmed and singularly enthusiastic, the natural bent of his talent
inclines him to romance. He has accordingly given us several stories abounding in
stately scenes, and most impressive portraiture. Well skilled in the use of the mother
tongue, as in the broad fields of classical literature, he has written essays of marked
eloquence, and criticisms of excellent discrimination and a keen and thorough insight.
His contributions to our periodicals have been even more happy than his fictions.
With a fine imagination, he inherits a penchant and a capacity for poetry, which has
enabled him to throw off, without an effort, some of the most graceful fugitive
effusions which have been written in America. His accomplishments are as various as
his talents. He can paint a landscape as sweetly as he can describe it in words. He is a
sportsman of eager impulse, and relishes equally well the employments of the
fisherman and hunter. He is a naturalist, as well as a sportsman, and brings, to aid his
practice and experience, a large knowledge, from study, of the habits of birds, beasts
and fishes. He roves land and sea in this pursuit, forest and river, and turns, with equal
ease and readiness, from a close examination of Greek and Roman literature, to an
emulous exercise of all the arts which have afforded renown to the aboriginal hunter.
The volume before us—one of many which he has given to this subject—is one of
singular interest to the lover of the rod and angle. It exhibits, on every page, a large
personal knowledge of the finny tribes in all the northern portions of our country, and
well deserves the examination of those who enjoy such pursuits and pastimes. The
author's pencil has happily illustrated the labors of his pen. His portraits of the several
fishes of the United States are exquisitely well done and truthful. It is our hope, in
future pages, to furnish an ample review of this, and other interesting volumes, of
similar character, from the hand of our author. We have drawn to them the attention of
some rarely endowed persons of our own region, who, like our author, unite the
qualities of the writer and the sportsman; from whom we look to learn in what
respects the habits and characters of northern fish differ from our own, and thus
supply the deficiency of the work before us. The title of this work is rather too
general. The author's knowledge of the fish, and of fishing, in the United States, is
almost wholly confined to the regions north of the Chesapeake, and he falls into the
error, quite too common to the North, of supposing this region to be the whole
country. Another each volume as that before us will be necessary to do justice to the
Southern States, whose possessions, in the finny tribes of sea and river, are of a sort to
shame into comparative insignificance all the boasted treasures of the North. It would
need but few pages in our review, from the proper hands, to render this very apparent
to the reader. Meanwhile, we exhort him to seek the book of Mr. Herbert, as a work of
much interest and authority, so far as it goes."

MR. PUTNAM is preparing some elegantly embellished works for the holiday season.
Among others, an edition, in octavo, of Miss Fenimore Cooper's charming Rural
Hours, embellished by twenty finely-colored drawings of birds and flowers; The
Picturesque Souvenir, or Letters of a Traveler in Europe and America, by Bryant,
embellished by a series of finely-executed engravings; and The Alhambra, by
Washington Irving, with designs by Darley, uniform with the splendid series of Mr.
Irving's Illustrated Works, some time in course of publication. We have also seen a
specimen copy of a superbly illustrated edition of The Pilgrim's Progress, printed on
cream-colored paper, as smooth as ivory; and the exquisite designs by Harvey, nearly
three hundred in number, are among the most effective ever attempted for the
elucidation of this first of all allegories. Professor Sweetser's new work, Menial
Hygiene, or an Examination of the Intellect and Passions, designed to illustrate their
Influence on Health and the Duration of Life, will be published in the course of the
present month. Professor Church's Treatise on Integral and Differential Calculus, a
revised edition; The Companion, or After Dinner Table Talk, by Chelwood Evelyn,
with a fine portrait of Sydney Smith; The History of Propellers, and Steam
Navigation, illustrated by engravings: a manual, said to combine much valuable
information on the subjects, derived from the most authentic sources, by Mr. Robert
MacFarlane, editor of the Scientific American; and Mr. Ridner's Artist's Chromatic
Hand-Book, or Manual of Colors, will also be speedily issued by the same publisher.
Mr. Putnam's own production, The World's Progress, or Dictionary of Dates,
containing a comprehensive manual of reference in facts, or epitome of historical and
general statistical knowledge, with a corrected chronology, &c., is expected to appear
in a few weeks. Mr. Theodore Irving's Conquest of Florida is also in progress.

It is said that Meyerbeer has already completed a grand opera with the title
of L'Africaine, and is now engaged on a comic opera. This is probably nothing more
than one of the trumpets which this composer knows so well how to blow beforehand.
Meyerbeer is not greater in music than in the art of tickling public expectation and
keeping the public aware of his existence.

The Lorgnette has just appeared in a volume.

[pg 237]

Recent Deaths.

AUGUSTUS WILLIAM NEANDER.

OF this most eminent Christian scholar of the nineteenth century, The

Tribune furnishes the following brief sketch. "The name of JOHANN AUGUST
WILHELM NEANDER is familiar to a large number of our countrymen, both on
account of his important contributions to the science of theology, and his personal
intimacy with many of our eminent scholars, who have enjoyed the benefit of his
instructions, or who have made his acquaintance while pursuing their travels in
Germany. Although he had attained a greater age than might have been anticipated
from his habits as a confirmed invalid, being in his sixty-second year, his decease
cannot be announced without causing an emotion of surprise and regret to a numerous
circle who recognized in him one of the most faithful and conscientious Christian
teachers of the present day.

"NEANDER, as it is well known, was descended from Jewish parents, by whom he

was instructed in the rudiments of religion, and at a subsequent period of life became
a convert to the Christian faith, by personal inquiry and experience. He was born at
Göttingen, in 1789, but passed a considerable portion of his youth at Hamburg, where
he was initiated into the rudiments of a classical education. After he had made a
profession of Christianity, he continued his studies for a short time at the Universities
of Halle and Göttingen, returned to Hamburg, and finally completed his University
career at Heidelberg. The following year he was called to the University of Berlin, as
Professor of Theology, where he soon gave promise of the brilliant eminence which
he has since attained. His first publications were on special topics of ecclesiastical
history, including treatises on 'The Emperor Julian and his Age,' 'St. Bernard and his
Age,' 'The Development of the Principal Systems of the Gnostics,' 'St. Chrysostom
and the Church in his Age,' and 'The Spirit of Tertullian,' with an 'Introduction to his
Writings.' These treatises are remarkable monuments of diligence, accuracy,
profoundness of research and breadth of comprehension, showing the same
intellectual qualities which were afterward signally exhibited in the composition of his
masterly volumes on the history of the Christian Religion. His earliest production in
this department had for its object to present the most important facts in Church
history, in a form adapted to the great mass of readers, without aiming at scientific
precision or completeness. This attempt was eminently successful. The first volume of
his great work entitled 'General History of the Church and the Christian Religion,' was
published in 1825, and it was not till twenty years afterward that the work was
brought to a close. The appearance of this work formed a new epoch in ecclesiastical
history. It at once betrayed the power of a bold and original mind. Instead of
consisting of a meager and arid collection of facts, without scientific order, without
any vital coherence or symmetry, and without reference to the cardinal elements of
Christian experience, the whole work, though singularly chaste and subdued in its
tone, throbs with the emotions of genuine life, depicting the influence of Christianity
as a school for the soul, and showing its radiant signatures of Divinity in its moral
triumphs through centuries.

"His smaller work on the first development of Christianity in the Apostolic Age is
marked by the same spirited characteristics, while his 'Life of Jesus' is an able defense
of the historical verity of the sacred narrative against the ingenious and subtle
suggestions of Strauss.

"The writings and theological position of NEANDER have been fully brought before
the American public by Profs. ROBINSON, TORREY, McCLINTOCK, SEARS, and
other celebrated scholars who have done much to diffuse a knowledge of the learned
labors of Germany among intelligent thinkers in our own country. NEANDER was
free from the reproach which attaches to so many of his fellow laborers, of covertly
undermining the foundation of Christianity, under the pretense of placing it on a
philosophical basis. His opinions are considered strictly evangelical, though doubtless
embodied in a modified form. In regard to the extent and soundness of his learning,
the clearness of his perceptions, and the purity and nobleness of his character, there
can be but one feeling among those who are qualified to pronounce a judgment on the
subject.

"NEANDER was never married. He was the victim of almost constant ill health. In
many of his personal habits he was peculiar and eccentric. With the wisdom of a sage,
he combined the simplicity of a child. Many amusing anecdotes are related of his
oddities in the lecture-room, which will serve to enliven the biography that will
doubtless be prepared at an early date. We have received no particulars concerning his
death, which is said to have been announced by private letters to friends in Boston."

JACOB JONES, U.S.N.

COMMODORE JACOB JONES, of the United States Navy, died in Philadelphia on

the 6th inst. He was born in Smyrna, Kent county, Delaware, in the year 1770, and
was therefore, eighty years of age. He was of an eminently respectable family, and
commenced life as a physician, having studied the profession at the University of
Pennsylvania. He afterward became clerk of the Supreme Court of Delaware for his
native county. When about twenty-nine years old he entered the navy, and made his
first cruises under Commodore Barry. He was a midshipman on board the frigate
United States, when she bore to France Chief Justice Ellsworth and [pg 238]General
Davie, as envoys extraordinary to the French Republic. He was next appointed to the
Ganges as midshipman. On the breaking out of the war with Tripoli, he was stationed
on the frigate Philadelphia, under Commodore Bainbridge. The disaster which befell
that ship and her crew before Tripoli, forms a solemn page in our naval history;
atoned, however, by the brilliant achievements to which it gave rise. Twenty months
of severe captivity among a barbarous people, and in a noxious climate, neither broke
the spirit nor impaired the constitution of Jones. Blest by nature with vigorous health
and an invincible resolution, when relieved from bondage by the bravery of his
countrymen, he returned home full of life and ardor. He was soon after promoted to a
lieutenancy. He was now for some time employed on the Orleans station, where he
conducted himself with his usual judgment and propriety, and was a favorite in the
polite circles of the Orleans and Mississippi territories. He was shortly after appointed
to the command of the brig Argus, stationed for the protection of our commerce on the
southern maritime frontier. In this situation he acted with vigilance and fidelity, and
though there were at one time insidious suggestions to the contrary, it has appeared
that he conformed to his instructions, promoted the public interest, and gave entire
satisfaction to the government. In 1811, he was transferred to the command of the
sloop-of-war Wasp, mounting eighteen twenty-four pound carronades, and
dispatched, in the spring of 1812, with communications to the courts of St. Cloud and
St. James. Before he returned, war had been declared against Great Britain. He refitted
his ship with all possible dispatch, and repaired to sea, but met with no other good
fortune than the capture of an inconsiderable prize. He next sailed from Philadelphia
on the 13th of October, and on the 18th of the same month encountered a heavy gale,
during which the Wasp lost her jibboom and two seamen. On the following night, the
watch discovered five strange sail steering eastward. The Wasp hauled to the
windward and closely watched their movements until daylight next morning, when it
was found that they were six large merchant vessels under convoy of a sloop of war.
The former were well manned, two of them mounting sixteen guns each.
Notwithstanding the apparent disparity of force. Captain Jones determined to hazard
an attack; and as the weather was boisterous, and the swell of the sea unusually high,
he ordered down top-gallant yards, closely reefed the top-sails, and prepared for
action. We cannot give a detail of this brilliant engagement, which resulted in the
capture of the Frolic. It was one of the most daring and determined actions in our
naval history. The force of the Frolic consisted of sixteen thirty-two pound
carronades, four twelve-pounders on the maindeck, and two twelve-pound carronades.
Both vessels had more men than was essential to their efficiency; but while there was
an equality of strength in the crews, there was an inequality in the number of guns and
weight of metal—the Frolic having four twelve-pounders more than the Wasp. The
exact number of killed and wounded on board the Frolic could not be ascertained with
any degree of precision; but, from the admissions of the British officers, it was
supposed that their loss in killed was about thirty, including two officers, and in
wounded, between forty and fifty. The captain and every other officer on board were
more or less severely wounded. The Wasp sustained a loss of only five men killed,
and five wounded.

While erecting jurymasts on board the Frolic, soon after, a suspicious sail was seen to
windward, upon which Captain Jones directed Lieutenant Biddle to shape her course
for Charleston, or any other port of the United States, while the Wasp should continue
upon her cruise. The sail coming down rapidly, both vessels prepared for action, but it
was soon discovered, to the mortification of the victors in this well-fought action, that
the new enemy was a seventy-four, which proved to be the Poictiers, commanded by
Admiral Beresford. Firing a shot over the Frolic, she passed her, and soon overhauled
the Wasp, which, in her crippled state, was unable to escape. Both vessels were thus
captured, and carried into Bermuda. After a few weeks, a cartel was proposed by
which the officers and crew of the Wasp were conveyed to New York. On the return
of Captain Jones to the United States, he was everywhere received with
demonstrations of respect for the skill and gallantry displayed in his combat with the
enemy. The legislature of Delaware gave him a vote of thanks, and a piece of plate.
On the motion of James A. Bayard, of Delaware, Congress appropriated twenty-five
thousand dollars, as a compensation to the commander, his officers, and crew, for the
loss they had sustained by the recapture of the Frolic. They also voted a gold medal to
the Captain, and a silver medal to each of his commissioned officers. As a farther
evidence of the confidence of government, Captain Jones was ordered to the
command of the frigate Macedonian, recently captured from the British by Decatur.
She was rapidly fitted out under his direction, in the harbor of New York, and
proposed for one of Decatur's squadron, which was about to sail on another
expedition. In May 1811, the squadron attempted to put to sea, but, in sailing up Long
Island Sound, encountered a large British force, which compelled the United States
vessels to retreat into New London. In this situation the enemy continued an
uninterrupted blockade during the war. Finding it impossible to avoid the vigilance of
Sir Thomas Hardy, who commanded the blockading fleet, the government ordered
Captain Jones to proceed with his officers and crew to Sackett's Harbor, and report to
Commodore [pg 239]Chauncey, as commander of the frigate Mohawk, on lake Ontario.
There the Americans maintained an ascendency, and continued to cruise until
October, when the British squadron, under Sir James Yeo, left Kingston, with a
greatly superior force, which caused the United States squadron to return to Sackett's
Harbor. It seemed, indeed, that the contest now depended on the exertions of the ship
carpenters. Two line of battle ships were placed on the stocks, and were advancing
rapidly to completion, when, in February 1815, the news of peace arrived, with orders
to suspend further operations on these vessels. A few weeks after the peace was
announced, Captain Jones with his officers and crew was ordered to repair to the
seaboard, and again to take command of the Macedonian, to form part of the force
against the Algerines, then depredating on our commerce in the Mediterranean. As
soon as the Algerian Regency was informed that war existed between the United
States and Great Britain, the Dey dispatched his cruisers to capture all American
merchant vessels. To punish these freebooters, nine or ten vessels were fitted out and
placed under Decatur. This armament sailed from New York in May, 1815, and when
off Cadiz was informed that the Algerines were along the southern coast of Spain.
Two days after reaching the Mediterranean, the United States squadron fell in with
and captured the Algerine frigate Messuado, mounting forty-six guns, and the next
day captured a large brig of war, both of which were carried into the port of
Carthagena, in Spain. The American squadron then proceeded to the bay of Algiers,
where its sudden and unexpected appearance excited no slight surprise and alarm in
the Regency. The Dey reluctantly yielded to every demand to him; he restored the
value of the property belonging to American merchants which he had seized, released
all the prisoners he had captured, and relinquished forever all claims on the annual
tribute which he had received. After having thus terminated the war with Algiers, and
formed an advantageous treaty, the squadron proceeded to other Barbary capitals, and
adjusted some minor difficulties, which, however, were of importance to our
merchants. After touching at several of the islands in the Mediterranean, at Naples,
and at Malaga, the entire force came back to the United States early in December.
From this period till his death, no event of much importance distinguished the career
of Commodore Jones. He was, however, almost constantly employed in various
responsible positions, his appointment to which evinced the confidence government
placed in his talents and discretion. In 1821, he took the command of a squadron, for
the protection of our trade in the Mediterranean, in which he continued for three years.
On his return he was offered a seat in the Board of Navy Commissioners, but, finding
bureau duties irksome, he accepted, in 1826, the command of our navy in the Pacific,
where he also continued three years, Afterward he was placed in command of the
Baltimore station, where he remained, with the exception of a short interval, until
transferred to the harbor of New York. Since 1847, he had held the place of Governor
of the United States Naval Asylum, on the Schuylkill, near Philadelphia.

JULIA BETTERTON GLOVER.

An actress who has been admired and respected by three generations of play-goers has
quitted the stage of life in the person of Mrs. Glover. The final exit was somewhat
sudden, as it seemed to the general public; but it was anticipated by her friends. A
friendly biographer in the Morning Chronicle explains the circumstances; first
referring to the extraordinary manifestations of public feeling which attended Mrs.
Glover's last farewell, at Drury-Lane Theater, on Friday, the 12th of July.

"In our capacity of spectators we did not then see occasion to mention what had
otherwise come to our knowledge—that the evidences of extreme suffering
manifested by Mrs. Glover on that evening—her inability to go through her part,
except as a mere shadow of her former self, and the substitution of an apologetic
speech from Mr. Leigh Murray for the address which had been written for her by a
well-known and talented amateur of the drama—arose not merely from the emotion
natural on a farewell night, after more than half a century of active public service, but
also from extreme physical debility, the result of an attack of illness of a wasting
character, which had already confined that venerable lady to her bed for many days. In
fact, it was only the determination of Mrs. Glover herself not to disappoint the
audience, who had been invited and attracted for many weeks before, that overruled
the remonstrances of her friends and family against her appearing at all. She was then
utterly unfit to appear on the stage in her professional character, and the most serious
alarm was felt lest there should be some sudden and fatal catastrophe. The result of
the struggle of feeling she then underwent, superadded as it was to the physical causes
which had undermined her strength, was, that Mrs. Glover sunk under the disease
which had been consuming her, and quitted this life on Monday night."

Mrs. Glover, born Julia Betterton, was daughter of an actor named Betterton, who
held a good position on the London stage toward the close of the last century. She is
said to have been a lineal descendant of the great actor of the same name. Her
birthday was the 8th January, 1781. Brought up, as most of our great actors and
actresses have been, "at the wings," she was even in infancy sent on the stage in
children's parts. She became attached to the company of Tate Wilkinson, for whom
she played, at York, the part of the Page in The Orphan; and she [pg 240]also exercised
her juvenile talents in the part of Tom Thumb, for the benefit of George Frederick
Cooke, who on the occasion doffed his tragic garb and appeared in the character
of Glumdalcar. Another character which she played successfully with Cooke was that
of the little Duke of York in Richard the Third; into which, it is recorded, she threw a
degree of spirit and childish roguishness that acted as a spur on the great tragedian
himself, who never performed better than when seconded by his childish associate. In
1796 she had attained such a position in the preparatory school of the provincial
circuits, chiefly at Bath, that she was engaged at Covent Garden; in the first instance
at £10 a week, and ultimately for five years at £15 a week, rising to £20; terms then
thought "somewhat extraordinary and even exorbitant". Miss Betterton first appeared
in London in October 1797, fifty-three years ago, as Elvira, in Hannah More's tragedy
of Percy. Her success was great; and in a short time she had taken such a hold of
popular favor, that when Mrs. Abington returned for a brief period to the stage, Miss
Betterton held her ground against the rival attraction, and even secured the admiration
of Mrs. Abington herself. Her subsequent engagements were at Drury-Lane and
Covent-Garden alternately, till she made that long engagement at the Haymarket,
during which she has become best known to the present generation of playgoers. Her
more recent brief engagement with Mr. Anderson, at Drury-Lane, and her last one
with Mr. W. Farren, at the Strand Theater, whither she contributed so much to attract
choice audiences, are fresh in the memory of metropolitans. Looking back to Mrs.
Glover's "long and brilliant career upon the stage, we may pronounce her one of the
most extraordinary women and accomplished actresses that have ever graced the
profession of the drama." Mrs. Glover had a daughter, Phillis, a very clever young
actress, at the Haymarket Theater, who has been dead several years. Her two sons are
distinguished, the one as a popular musical composer, and the other as a clever
tragedian—the latter with considerable talent, also, as an amateur painter.

A London correspondent of the Spirit of the Times gives an interesting account of the

Glover benefit, and the "last scenes."

MADAME GAVAUDAN is dead. To many it will be necessary to explain that

Madame Gavaudan was, in her time, one of the most favorite singing-actresses and
acting songstresses belonging to the Opéra Comique of Paris; and that, after many
years of popularity, she retired from the stage in 1823.

GENERAL BERTHAND, Baron de Sivray, died early in July at Luc, in France, in the
eighty-fourth year of his age. He was an officer before the first revolution, and served
through all the wars of the Republic and the Empire.

ROBERT R. BAIRD, a son of the Rev. Dr. Baird, and a young man of amiable
character and considerable literary abilities, which had been illustrated for the most
part, we believe, in translation, was drowned in the North River at Yonkers on
Tuesday evening, the 6th instant, about seven o'clock. The deceased had gone into the
water to bathe in company with several others, and was carried by the rising tide into
deep water, where, as he could swim but little, he sunk to rise no more, before help
could reach him. This premature and sudden death has overwhelmed his parents and
friends in the deepest distress. He was twenty-five years old.
THE DEATH OF MR. S. JOSEPH, the sculptor, known by his statue of Wilberforce
in Westminster Abbey and his statue of Wilkie in the National Gallery, is mentioned
in the English papers. His busts exhibit a fine perception of character, and many a
delicate grace in the modeling. Mr. Joseph was long a resident in Edinburgh. He
modeled a bust of Sir Walter Scott about the same time that Chantrey modeled his—
that bust which best preserves to us the features and character of the great novelist.

JAMES WRIGHT, author of the Philosophy of Elocution and other works chiefly of a

religious character, died at Brighton, England, on the 9th of July, aged 68.

SIR THOMAS WILDE, who has just been promoted to the Woolsack, as Baron
Truro, we learn from the Illustrated News, was born in 1782. After practicing as an
attorney, he was called to the bar by the Honorable Society of the Inner Temple, the
7th February, 1817. He joined the Western Circuit, and soon rose into considerable
practice. His knowledge of the law, combined with his great eloquence, made him one
of the most successful advocates of his time. He was for many years the confidential
and legal adviser of the late Alderman Sir Matthew Wood, and his connection with
that gentleman caused him to be engaged as one of the senior counsel for the Queen
on the celebrated trial of Queen Caroline. Though surrounded by rivals of the highest
eminence and the brightest fame, Wilde always stood among the foremost, and
obtained briefs in some of the greatest causes ever tried. For instance, he was engaged
on the winning side in the famous action of Small v. Atwood, in which his fees are
said to have amounted to something enormous. In 1824 he became a sergeant-at-law;
and he was appointed King's Sergeant in 1827, and Solicitor-General in 1839, when
he received the honor of knighthood. In 1841 he first became Attorney-General; and
after a second time holding that office, he succeeded the late Sir Nicholas Conyngham
Tindal, as Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. His recent appointment as Lord
Chancellor places him at the very summit of his profession.

[pg 241]

[From the London Ladies' Companion.]

THE MORNING SONG.

BY BARRY CORNWALL.
 A new "English Song," by Barry Cornwall, is now—more's the pity—a too rare event
in the musical year. We are at once doing our readers a pleasure, and owning a
welcome kindness, in publishing, by the author's permission, these words, set by M.
Benedict, and sung by Madame Sontag.

The world is waking into light;

The dark and sullen night hath flown:
Life lives and re-assumes its might,
And nature smiles upon her throne.
And the Lark,
Hark!
She gives welcome to the day,
In a merry, merry, lay,
Tra la!—lira, lira, lira, la!
Soft sounds are sailing through the air;
Sweet sounds are springing from the stream;
And fairest things, where all is fair,
Join gently in the grateful theme.
And the Lark, &c., &c.
The morn, the morn is in the skies;
The reaper singeth from the corn;
The shepherd on the hills replies;
And all things now salute the morn,
Even the Lark, &c., &c.

[From Eliza Cook's Journal.]

A LESSON.
If society ever be wholly corrupted, it will be by the idea that it is already so. Some
cynics believe in virtue, sincerity, and happiness, only as traditions of the past, and by
ridicule seek to propagate the notion. This vain and pedantic philosophy would turn
all hearts to stone, and arm every man with suspicion against all others, declaiming
against the romance of life, as empty sentimentalism; against the belief in goodness,
as youth's sanguine folly; and the hope of pure happiness, as a fanciful dream, created
by a young imagination, to be dissipated by the teaching of a few years' struggle with
the world.
If this be wisdom, I am no philosopher, and I never wish to be one; for sooner would I
float upon the giddy current of fancy, to fall among quicksands at last, than travel
through a dull and dreary world, without confidence in my companions. That we may
be happy, that we may find sincere friends, that we may meet the good, and enjoy the
beautiful on earth, is a creed that will find believers in all hearts unsoured by their
own asceticism. Virtue will sanctify every fireside where we invite her to dwell, and if
the clouds of misfortune darken and deform the whole period of our existence, it is a
darkness that emanates from ourselves, and a deformity created by us to our own
unhappiness.

Yet this is not relating the little story which is the object of my observations. The
axiom which I wish to lay down, to maintain, and to prove correct, is, that married life
may be with most people, should be with all, and is with many, a state of happiness.
The reader may smile at my boldness, but the history of the personages I shall
introduce to walk their hour on this my little stage, will justify my adopting the
maxim.

M. Pierre Lavalles, owner of a vineyard, near a certain village in the south of France,
wooed and wedded Mdlle. Julie Gouchard. Exactly where they dwelt, and all the
precise circumstances of their position, I do not mean to indicate, and if I might offer
a hint to my contemporaries, it would be a gentle suggestion that they occupy too
much time, paper, and language in geographical and genealogical details, very
wearisome, because very unnecessary. Monsieur Pierre Lavalles then lived in a pretty
house, near a certain village in a vine-growing district of the south of France, and
when he took his young wife home, he showed her great stores of excellent things,
calculated well for the comfortable subsistence of a youthful and worthy couple.
Flowers and blossoming trees shed odor near the lattice windows, verdure soft and
green was spread over the garden, and the mantling vine "laid forth the purple grape,"
over a rich and sunny plantation near at hand. The house was small, but neat, and well
furnished in the style of the province, and Monsieur and Madame Pierre Lavalles
lived very happily in plenty and content.

Here I leave them, and introduce the reader to Monsieur Antoine Perron, notary in the
neighboring village.

Let me linger over a notice of this individual. He was a good man, and what is more
curious an honest lawyer. Indeed, in spite of my happy theory, I may say that such a
good man, and such a good lawyer you could seldom meet. All the village knew him;
he mixed up in every one's quarrels; not, as is usually the case, to make confusion
worse confounded by a double-tongued hypocrisy, but to produce conciliation; he
mingled in every one's affairs, not to pick up profit for himself, but to prevent the
villagers from running into losses and imprudent speculations; he talked much, yet, it
was not slander, but advice; he thought more, yet it was not over mischief, but on
schemes of good; he was known to everybody, yet none that knew him respected him
the less on that account. He was a little, spare, merry-looking man, that sought to
appear grave when he was most inclined to merriment, and if he considered himself a
perfect genius in his plans for effecting good, his vanity may be pardoned, because of
the food it fed on.

M. Antoine Perron considered himself very ingenious, and if he had a fault, it was his
love of originality. He never liked to perform any action in a common way, and never
chuckled so gaily to himself, as when he had achieved some charitable end by some
extraordinary means.

It was seven months after the marriage of M. Pierre Lavalles, M. Antoine Perron sat in
his little parlor, and gazed with a glad eye upon the cheerful fire, for the short winter
was just terminating. Leaning forward in his chair, he shaded his face with his hands,
and steadily perused the figures among the coals with a most pleasant countenance.
The room was small, neat, and comfortable, for the notary [pg 242]prospered, in his
humble way and seeking only comfort found it, and was content.

Suddenly a violent knocking at the door aroused him from his reverie, and he heard
his old servant rushing to open it. In a moment, two persons were ushered into the
room, and the notary leaped to his feet in astonishment at the extraordinary scene
before him. Had a thunderbolt cloven the roof, and passed through his hearth to its
grave in the center of the globe, or had the trees that nodded their naked branches
without the window commenced a dance upon the snowy ground, he had not been
more surprised.

Monsieur Pierre Lavalles, and Madame Pierre Lavalles stood just inside the doorway.
Never had Monsieur Perron seen them before, as he saw them now. Like turtle-doves,
with smiling eyes, and affectionate caress, they had lived in happy harmony during
the seven months of their married life, and motherly dames, when they gave their
daughters away, bade them prosper and be pleasant in their union, as they had been
joyous in their love, pleasant and joyous, as neighbor Lavalles and his wife.

Now, Pierre stood red and angry, with his right arm extended, gesticulating toward his
wife. Julie stood red and angry, with her left arm extended, gesticulating toward her
husband. Eyes, that had only radiated smiles, flashed with fierce passion, as the turtle
doves remained near the door, each endeavoring to anticipate the other in some
address to the worthy notary. He, aghast and perplexed, waited for the denouement.

"Madame," said Monsieur Pierre Lavalles, "allow me to speak."

"Monsieur," said Madame Pierre Lavalles. "I insist—"

"But, Madame, it is my—"

"But, Monsieur, I say I will."

"And yet I will."

"But no—"

"Madame, I shall."

"Then be careful what you do; M. Perron, M. Lavalles is mad."

Then the lady, having thus emphatically declared herself, resigned the right of speech
to her husband, who began to jerk out in disconnected phrases a statement of his case.
Seven days ago he had annoyed his wife by some incautious word; she had annoyed
him by an incautious answer; he had made matters worse by an aggravating retort; and
she had widened the breach by a bitter reply. This little squall was succeeded by a
cool calm, and that by a sullen silence, until some sudden friction kindled a new
flame, and finally, after successive storms and lulls, there burst forth a furious
conflagration, and in the violent collision of their anger, the seven-months' married
pair vowed to separate, and with that resolve had visited M. Perron. Reconciliation
they declared was beyond possibility, and they requested the notary at once to draw
up the documents that should consign them to different homes, to subsist on a divided
patrimony, in loveless and unhappy marriage. Each told a tale in turn, and the manner
of relation added fuel to the anger of the other. The man and the woman seemed to
have leaped out of their nature in the accession of their passion. Pity that a quarrel
should ever dilate thus, from a cloud the size of a man's hand to a thunder-storm that
covers heaven with its black and dismal canopy.

Neither would listen to reason. The duty of the notary was to prepare the process by
which they were to be separated.

"Monsieur," he said, "I will arrange the affair for you; but you are acquainted with the
laws of France in this respect!"

"I know nothing of the law," replied M. Pierre Lavalles.

"Madame," said the notary, "your wish shall be complied with. But you know what
the law says on this head?"
"I never read a law book," sharply ejaculated Madame Pierre Lavalles.

"Then," resumed the notary, "the case is this. You must return to your house, and I
will proceed to settle the proceedings with the Judicatory Court at Paris. They are very
strict. You must furnish me with all the documents relative to property."

"I have them here," put in the husband, by way of parenthesis.

"And the whole affair including correspondence, preparations of instruments, &c.,

will be settled in less than three months."

"Three months?"

"Three months. Yes, in less than three months."

"Then I will live with a friend at the village, until it is finished," said Madame
Lavalles, in a decided, peremptory tone, usual with ladies when they are a little
ashamed of themselves, or any one else.

"Oh, very well, Madame,—oh, very well."

"Not at all well, Madame; not at all well, Monsieur," said the notary, with a solid,
immovable voice. "You must live as usual. If you doubt my knowledge of the law,
you will, by reading through these seven books, find that this fact is specified."

But the irritated couple were not disposed to undertake the somniferous task, and
shortly left the house, as they had come, walking the same way, but at a distance of a
yard or so one from another.

Two months and twenty-seven days had passed, when the notary issued from his
house, and proceeded toward the house where Monsieur and Madame Lavalles dwelt.
Since the fatal night I have described, he had not encountered them, and he now, with
a bland face and confident head, approached the dwelling.

It was a pretty place. Passing through the sunny vineyards where the spring was just
calling out the leaves, and the young shoots in their tints of tender green were
sprouting in the warmth of a pleasant day; the notary entered a garden. Here the
flowers, in infant bloom, had prepared the [pg 243]earth for the coming season, for
summer in her gay attire was tripping from the south, and as she passed, nature wove
garlands to adorn her head, and wreathe about her arms. Early blossoms lent
sweetness to the breath of the idle winds that loitered in this delightful spot, and the
fair young primrose was sown over the parterres, with other flowers of spring, the
most delicate and softly fragrant, that come out to live their hour in modesty and
safety, while the earth affords them room, and before the bright and gaudy bloom of a
riper season eclipses their beauty, bidding them, blushing, close their petals.

Early roses twined on either side the porch, and as the notary entered, nothing struck
him more than the neat and cheerful appearance of the place. A demoiselle ushered
him into a little parlor, where Monsieur Pierre Lavalles, and Madame Julie Lavalles,
had just sat down to partake breakfast.

A small table was drawn up close to the open window, and vernal breezes found
welcome in the chamber. A snowy cloth hung down to the well-polished floor, and
tall white cups were placed upon it to rival it in purity and grace. Cakes of bread, such
bread as is only had in France, with delicious butter, and rich brown foaming coffee
frothed with cream, were spread before them, and a basket of fresh spring flowers,
sparkling with dew and beautifully odorous, scented the whole chamber with a
delicate perfume.

The husband and wife sat side by side, with pleasant looks, and so engaged in light
and amiable conversation, that they hardly noticed the entrance of the notary. The
storm had vanished and left no trace. Flushes of anger, flashes of spite, quick
breathings, and disordered looks—all these had passed, and now smiles, and eyes lit
only with kindness, and bosoms beating with calm content, and looks all full of love,
were alone to be observed.

When M. Antoine Perron entered, they started; at length, and then recollecting his
mission, blushed crimson, looked one at another, and then at the ground, awaiting his
address.

"Monsieur, and Madame," said the notary, "according to your desires I come with all
the documents necessary for your separation, and the division of your property. They
only want your signature, and we will call in your servant to be witness."

"Stay," exclaimed Madame Julie, laughing at her husband, "Pierre, explain to M.

Perron."

"Ah, Monsieur Perron," said Monsieur Antoine Lavalles, "we had forgotten that, and
hoped you had also. Say not a word of it to any one."

"No, not a word," said Madame Julie. "We never quarreled but once since we married,
and we never mean to quarrel again."
"Not unless you provoke it," said Monsieur Lavalles, audaciously. "But M. Perron,
you will take breakfast with us?"

"You're a wicked wretch," said Madame Julie, tapping him on the cheek. "After
breakfast, M. Perron, we will sign the papers."

"After breakfast," said M. Pierre Lavalles, "we will burn them."

"We shall see," said the notary. "Sign them or burn them. Madame Julie Lavalles,
your coffee is charming."

After seven months' harmony, do not let seven days' quarrel destroy the happiness of
home. Do not follow the directions of a person in a passion. Allow him to cool and
consider his purpose.

[From Dickens's Household Words.]

DUST;
OR UGLINESS REDEEMED.

On a murky morning in November, wind north-east, a poor old woman with a wooden
leg was seen struggling against the fitful gusts of the bitter breeze, along a stony
zigzag road, full of deep and irregular cart-ruts. Her ragged petticoat was blue, and so
was her wretched nose. A stick was in her left hand, which assisted her to dig and
hobble her way along; and in her other hand, supported also beneath her withered arm,
was a large rusty iron sieve. Dust and fine ashes filled up all the wrinkles in her face;
and of these there were a prodigious number, for she was eighty-three years old. Her
name was Peg Dotting.

About a quarter of a mile distant, having a long ditch and a broken-down fence as a
foreground, there rose against the muddled-gray sky, a huge Dust-heap of a dirty
black color, being, in fact, one of those immense mounds of cinders, ashes, and other
emptyings from dust-holes and bins, which have conferred celebrity on certain
suburban neighborhoods of a great city. Toward this dusky mountain old Peg Dotting
was now making her way.
Advancing toward the Dust-heap by an opposite path, very narrow, and just reclaimed
from the mud by a thick layer of freshly-broken flints, there came at the same time
Gaffer Doubleyear, with his bone-bag slung over his shoulder. The rags of his coat
fluttered in the east-wind, which also whistled keenly round his almost rimless hat,
and troubled his one eye. The other eye, having met with an accident last week, he
had covered neatly with an oyster-shell, which was kept in its place by a string at each
side, fastened through a hole. He used no staff to help him along, though his body was
nearly bent double, so that his face was constantly turned to the earth, like that of a
four-footed creature. He was ninety-seven years of age. As these two patriarchal
laborers approached the great Dust-heap, a discordant voice hallooed to them from the
top of a broken wall. It was meant as a greeting of the morning, and proceeded from
little Jem Clinker, a poor deformed lad, whose back had been broken when a child.
His nose and [pg 244]chin were much too large for the rest of his face, and he had lost
nearly all his teeth from premature decay. But he had an eye gleaming with
intelligence and life, and an expression at once patient and hopeful. He had balanced
his misshapen frame on the top of the old wall, over which one shriveled leg dangled,
as if by the weight of a hob-nailed boot that covered a foot large enough for a
plowman.

In addition to his first morning's salutation of his two aged friends, he now shouted
out in a tone of triumph and self-gratulation, in which he felt assured of their
sympathy—

"Two white skins, and a tor'shell-un!"

It may be requisite to state that little Jem Clinker belonged to the dead-cat department
of the Dust-heap, and now announced that a prize of three skins, in superior condition.
had rewarded him for being first in the field.

He was enjoying a seat on the wall, in order to recover himself from the excitement of
his good fortune.

At the base of the great Dust-heap the two old people now met their young friend—a
sort of great-grandson by mutual adoption—and they at once joined the party who had
by this time assembled as usual, and were already busy at their several occupations.

But besides all these, another individual, belonging to a very different class, formed a
part of the scene, though appearing only on its outskirts. A canal ran along at the rear
of the Dust-heap, and on the banks of its opposite side slowly wandered by—with
hands clasped and hanging down in front of him, and eyes bent vacantly upon his
hands—the forlorn figure of a man, in a very shabby great-coat, which had evidently
once belonged to one in the position of a gentleman. And to a gentleman it still
belonged—but in what a position! A scholar, a man of wit, of high sentiment, of
refinement, and a good fortune withal—now by a sudden turn of law bereft of the last
only, and finding that none of the rest, for which (having his fortune) he had been so
much admired, enabled him to gain a livelihood. His title-deeds had been lost or
stolen, and so he was bereft of everything he possessed. He had talents, and such as
would have been profitably available had he known how to use them for his new
purpose; but he did not; he was misdirected; he made fruitless efforts in his want of
experience; and he was now starving. As he passed the great Dust-heap, he gave one
vague, melancholy gaze that way, and then looked wistfully into the canal. And he
continued to look into the canal as he slowly moved along, till he was out of sight.

A Dust-heap of this kind is often worth thousands of pounds. The present one was
very large and very valuable. It was in fact a large hill, and being in the vicinity of
small suburb cottages, it rose above them like a great black mountain. Thistles,
groundsel, and rank grass grew in knots on small parts which had remained for a long
time undisturbed; crows often alighted on its top, and seemed to put on their
spectacles and become very busy and serious; flocks of sparrows often made
predatory descents upon it; an old goose and gander might sometimes he seen
following each other up its side, nearly midway; pigs rooted around its base,—and
now and then, one bolder than the rest would venture some way up, attracted by the
mixed odors of some hidden marrow-bone enveloped in a decayed cabbage-leaf—a
rare event, both of these articles being unusual oversights of the Searchers below.

The principal ingredient of all these Dust-heaps is fine cinders and ashes; but as they
are accumulated from the contents of all the dust-holes and bins of the vicinity, and as
many more as possible, the fresh arrivals in their original state present very
heterogeneous materials. We cannot better describe them than by presenting a brief
sketch of the different departments of the Searchers and Sorters, who are assembled
below to busy themselves upon the mass of original matters which are shot out from
the carts of the dustmen.

The bits of coal, the pretty numerous results of accident and servants' carelessness, are
picked out, to be sold forthwith; the largest and best of the cinders are also selected,
by another party, who sell them to laundresses, or to braziers (for whose purposes
coke would do as well;) and the next sort of cinders, called the breeze, because it is
left after the wind has blown the finer cinders through an upright sieve, is sold to the
brick-makers.

Two other departments, called the "soft-ware" and the "hard-ware," are very
important. The former includes all vegetable and animal matters—everything that will
decompose. These are selected and bagged at once, and carried off as soon as
possible, to be sold as manure for plowed land, wheat, barley, &c. Under this head,
also, the dead cats are comprised. They are generally the perquisites of the women
searchers. Dealers come to the wharf, or dust-field, every evening; they give sixpence
for a white cat, fourpence for a colored cat, and for a black one according to her
quality. The "hard-ware" includes all broken pottery pans, crockery, earthenware,
oyster-shells, &c., which are sold to make new roads.

The bones are selected with care, and sold to the soap-boiler. He boils out the fat and
marrow first, for special use, and the bones are then crushed and sold for manure.

Of rags, the woollen rags are bagged and sent off for hop-manure; the white linen rags
are washed, and sold to make paper, &c.

The "tin things" are collected and put into an oven with a grating at the bottom, so that
the solder which unites the parts melts, and runs through into a receiver. This is
sold [pg 245]separately; the detached pieces of tin are then sold to be melted up with old
iron, &c.

Bits of old brass, lead, &c., are sold to be molted up separately, or in the mixture of
ores.

All broken glass vessels, as cruets, mustard-pots, tumblers, wine-glasses, bottles, &c.,
are sold to the old-glass shops.

As for any articles of jewelry, silver spoons, forks, thimbles, or other plate and
valuables, they are pocketed off-hand by the first finder. Coins of gold and silver are
often found, and many "coppers."

Meantime, everybody is hard at work near the base of the great Dust-heap. A certain
number of cart-loads having been raked and searched for all the different things just
described, the whole of it now undergoes the process of sifting. The men throw up the
stuff, and the women sift it.

"When I was a young girl," said Peg Dotting—

"That's a long while ago, Peggy," interrupted one of the sifters: but Peg did not hear
her.

"When I was quite a young thing," continued she, addressing old John Doubleyear,
who threw up the dust into her sieve, "it was the fashion to wear pink roses in the
shoes, as bright as that morsel of ribbon Sally has just picked out of the dust; yes, and
sometimes in the hair, too, on one side of the head, to set off the white powder and
salve-stuff. I never wore one of these head-dresses myself—don't throw up the dust so
high, John—but I lived only a few doors lower down from those as did. Don't throw
up the dust so high, I tell 'ee—the wind takes it into my face."

"Ah! There! What's that?" suddenly exclaimed little Jem, running as fast as his poor
withered legs would allow him toward a fresh heap, which had just been shot down on
the wharf from a dustman's cart. He made a dive and a search—then another—then
one deeper still. "I'm sure I saw it!" cried he, and again made a dash with both hands
into a fresh place, and began to distribute the ashes and dust and rubbish on every
side, to the great merriment of all the rest.

"What did you see, Jemmy?" asked old Doubleyear, in a compassionate tone.

"Oh, I don't know," said the boy, "only it was like a bit of something made of real
gold!"

A fresh burst of laughter from the company assembled followed this somewhat vague
declaration, to which the dustmen added one or two elegant epithets, expressive of
their contempt of the notion that they could have overlooked a bit of anything
valuable in the process of emptying sundry dust-holes, and carting them away.

"Ah," said one of the sifters, "poor Jem's always a-fancying something or other good
but it never comes."

"Didn't I find three cats this morning?" cried Jem, "two on 'em white 'uns! How you
go on!"

"I meant something quite different from the like o' that," said the other; "I was a-
thinking of the rare sights all you three there have had, one time and another."

The wind having changed, and the day become bright, the party at work all seemed
disposed to be more merry than usual. The foregoing remark excited the curiosity of
several of the sifters, who had recently joined the "company": the parties alluded to
were requested to favor them with the recital; and though the request was made with
only a half-concealed irony, still it was all in good-natured pleasantry, and was
immediately complied with. Old Doubleyear spoke first:

"I had a bad night of it with the rats some years ago—they runn'd all over the floor,
and over the bed, and one on 'em come'd and guv a squeak close into my ear—so I
couldn't sleep comfortable. I wouldn't ha' minded a trifle of it, but this was too much
of a good thing. So I got up before sunrise, and went out for a walk; and thinking I
might as well be near our work-place, I slowly come'd down this way! I worked in a
brick-field at that time, near the canal yonder. The sun was just a rising up behind the
Dust-heap as I got in sight of it, and soon it rose above, and was very bright; and
though I had two eyes then, I was obligated to shut them both. When I opened them
again, the sun was higher up; but in his haste to get over the Dust-heap, he had
dropped something. You may laugh—I say he dropped something. Well I can't say
what it was, in course—a bit of his-self, I suppose. It was just like him—a bit on him,
I mean—quite as bright—just the same—only not so big. And not up in the sky, but a-
lying and sparkling all on fire upon the Dust-heap. Thinks I—I was a younger man
then by some years than I am now—I'll go and have a nearer look. Though you be a
bit o' the sun, maybe you won't hurt a poor man. So I walked toward the Dust-heap,
and up I went, keeping the piece of sparkling fire in sight all the while. But before I
got up to it, the sun went behind a cloud—and as he went out—like, so the young 'un
he had dropped, went out arter him. And I had to climb up the heap for nothing,
though I had marked the place vere it lay very percizely. But there was no signs at all
on him, and no morsel left of the light as had been there. I searched all about; but
found nothing 'cept a bit 'o broken glass as had got stuck in the heel of an old shoe.
And that's my story. But if ever a man saw anything at all, I saw a bit o' the sun; and I
thank God for it. It was a blessed sight for a poor ragged old man of threescore and
ten, which was my age at that time."

"Now, Peggy!" cried several voices, "tell us what you saw. Peg saw a bit o' the
moon."

"No," said Mrs. Dotting, rather indignantly; "I'm no moon-raker. Not a sign of the
moon was there, nor a spark of a star the time I speak on."
[pg 246]

"Well—go on, Peggy—go on."

"I don't know as I will," said Peggy.

But being pacified by a few good-tempered, though somewhat humorous,

compliments, she thus favored them with her little adventure:

"There was no moon, or stars, or comet, in the 'versal heavens, nor lamp nor lantern
along the road, when I walked home one winter's night from the cottage of Widow
Pin, where I had been to tea with her and Mrs. Dry, as lived in the almshouses. They
wanted Davy, the son of Bill Davy the milkman, to see me home with the lantern, but
I wouldn't let him, 'cause of his sore throat. Throat!—no it wasn't his throat as was
rare sore—it was—no, it wasn't—yes, it was—it was his toe as was sore. His big toe.
A nail out of his boot had got into it. I told him he'd be sure to have a bad toe, if he
didn't go to church more regular, but he wouldn't listen; and so my words come'd true.
But, as I was a-saying, I wouldn't let him by reason of his sore throat—toe, I mean—
and as I went along, the night seemed to grow darker and darker. A straight road,
though, and I was so used to it by day-time, it didn't matter for the darkness.
Hows'ever, when I come'd near the bottom of the Dust-heap as I had to pass, the great
dark heap was so 'zackly the same as the night, you couldn't tell one from t'other. So,
thinks I to myself—what was I thinking of at this moment?—for the life o' me I can't
call it to mind; but that's neither here nor there, only for this—it was a something that
led me to remember the story of how the devil goes about like a roaring lion. And
while I was a-hoping he might not he out a-roaring that night, what should I see rise
out of one side of the Dust-heap, but a beautiful shining star, of a violet color. I stood
as still, as stock-still as any I don't-know-what! There it lay, as beautiful as a new-
born babe, all a-shining in the dust! By degrees I got courage to go a little nearer—
and then a little nearer still—for, says I to myself, I'm a sinful woman, I know, but I
have repented, and do repent constantly of all the sins of my youth and the
backslidings of my age—which have been numerous; and once I had a very heavy
backsliding—but that's neither here nor there. So, as I was a-saying, having collected
all my sinfulness of life, and humbleness before Heaven, into a goodish bit of
courage, forward I steps—a little furder—and a leetle furder more—un-til I come'd
just up to the beautiful shining star lying upon the dust. Well, it was a long time I
stood a-looking down at it, before I ventured to do what I arterwards did. But at last I
did stoop down with both hands slowly—in case it might burn, or bite—and gathering
up a good scoop of ashes as my hands went along. I took it up, and began a-carrying it
home, all shining before me, and with a soft blue mist rising up round about it.
Heaven forgive me! I was punished for meddling with what Providence had sent for
some better purpose than to be carried borne by an old woman like me, whom it had
pleased Heaven to afflict with the loss of one leg, and the pain, ixpinse, and
inconvenience of a wooden one. Well, I was punished; covetousness had its reward;
for, presently, the violet light got very pale, and then went out; and when I reached
home, still holding in both hands all I had gathered up, and when I took it to the
candle, it had burned into the red shell of a lobsky's head, and its two black eyes
poked up at me with a long stare—and I may say, a strong smell, too—enough to
knock a poor body known."

Great applause, and no little laughter, followed the conclusion of old Peggy's story,
but she did not join in the merriment. She said it was all very well for young folks to
laugh, but at her age she had enough to do to pray; and she had never said so many
prayers, nor with so much fervency, as she had done since she received the blessed
sight of the blue star on the Dust-heap, and the chastising rod of the lobster's head at
home.
Little Jem's turn now came: the poor lad was, however, so excited by the recollection
of what his companions called "Jem's Ghost," that he was unable to describe it in any
coherent language. To his imagination it had been a lovely vision,—the one "bright
consummate flower" of his life, which he treasured up as the most sacred image in his
heart. He endeavored, in wild and hasty words, to set forth, how that he had been bred
a chimney-sweep; that one Sunday afternoon he had left a set of companions, most on
'em sweeps, who were all playing at marbles in the church-yard, and he had wandered
to the Dust-heap, where he had fallen asleep; that he was awoke by a sweet voice in
the air, which said something about some one having lost her way!—that he, being
now wide awake, looked up, and saw with his own eyes a young Angel, with fair hair
and rosy cheeks, and large white wings at her shoulders, floating about like bright
clouds, rise out of the dust! She had on a garment of shining crimson, which changed
as he looked upon her to shining gold. She then exclaimed, with a joyful smile, "I see
the right way!" and the next moment the Angel was gone!

As the sun was just now very bright and warm for the time of year, and shining full
upon the Dust-heap in its setting, one of the men endeavored to raise a laugh at the
deformed lad, by asking him if he didn't expect to see just such another angel at this
minute, who had lost her way in the field on the other side of the heap; but his jest
failed. The earnestness and devout emotion of the boy to the vision of reality which
his imagination, aided by the hues of sunset, had thus exalted, were too much for the
gross spirit of banter, and the speaker shrunk back into his dust-shovel, and affected to
be very assiduous in his work.
[pg 247]

Before the day's work was ended, however, little Jem again had a glimpse of the prize
which had escaped him on the previous occasion. He instantly darted, hands and head
foremost, into the mass of cinders and rubbish, and brought up a black mass of half-
burnt parchment, entwined with vegetable refuse, from which he speedily disengaged
an oval frame of gold, containing a miniature, still protected by its glass, but half
covered with mildew from the damp. He was in ecstacies at the prize. Even the white
catskins paled before it. In all probability some of the men would have taken it from
him, "to try and find the owner," but for the presence and interference of his friends
Peg Dotting and old Doubleyear, whose great age, even among the present company,
gave them a certain position of respect and consideration. So all the rest now went
their way, leaving the three to examine and speculate on the prize.

These Dust-heaps are a wonderful compound of things. A banker's cheque for a

considerable sum was found in one of them. It was on Merries & Farquhar, in 1847.
But bankers' cheques, or gold and silver articles, are the least valuable of their
ingredients. Among other things, a variety of useful chemicals are extracted. Their
chief value, however, is for the making of bricks. The fine cinder-dust and ashes are
used in the clay of the bricks, both for the red and gray stacks. Ashes are also used as
fuel between the layers of the clump of bricks, which could not be burned in that
position without them. The ashes burn away, and keep the bricks open. Enormous
quantities are used. In the brickfields at Uxbridge, near the Drayton Station, one of the
brickmakers alone will frequently contract for fifteen or sixteen thousand chaldrons of
this cinder-dust, in one order. Fine coke, or coke-dust, affects the market at times as a
rival; but fine coal, or coal-dust, never, because it would spoil the bricks.

As one of the heroes of our tale had been originally—before his promotion—a
chimney-sweeper, it may be only appropriate to offer a passing word on the genial
subject of soot. Without speculating on its origin and parentage, whether derived from
the cooking of a Christmas-dinner, or the production of the beautiful colors and odors
of exotic plants in a conservatory, it can briefly be shown to possess many qualities
both useful and ornamental.

When soot is first collected, it is called "rough soot", which, being sifted, is then
called "fine soot", and is sold to farmers for manuring and preserving wheat and
turnips. This is more especially used in Herefordshire, Bedfordshire, Essex, &c. It is
rather a costly article, being fivepence per bushel. One contractor sells annually as
much as three thousand bushels; and he gives it as his opinion, that there must be at
least one hundred and fifty times this quantity (four hundred and fifty thousand
bushels per annum) sold in London. Farmer Smutwise, of Bradford, distinctly asserts
that the price of the soot he uses on his land is returned to him in the straw, with
improvement also to the grain. And we believe him. Lime is used to dilute soot when
employed as a manure. Using it pure will keep off snails, slugs, and caterpillars from
peas and various other vegetables, as also from dahlias just shooting up, and other
flowers; but we regret to add that we have sometimes known it kill or burn up the
things it was intended to preserve from unlawful eating. In short, it is by no means so
safe to use for any purpose of garden manure, as fine cinders and wood-ashes, which
are good for almost any kind of produce, whether turnips or roses. Indeed, we should
like to have one fourth or fifth part of our garden-beds composed of excellent stuff of
this kind. From all that has been said, it will have become very intelligible why these
Dust-heaps are so valuable. Their worth, however, varies not only with their
magnitude, (the quality of all of them is much the same,) but with the demand. About
the year 1820, the Marylebone Dust-heap produced between four thousand and five
thousand pounds. In 1832, St. George's paid Mr. Stapleton five hundred pounds a
year, not to leave the Heap standing, but to carry it away. Of course he was only too
glad to be paid highly for selling his Dust.
But to return. The three friends having settled to their satisfaction the amount of
money they should probably obtain by the sale of the golden miniature-frame, and
finished the castles which they had built with it in the air, the frame was again
infolded in the sound part of the parchment, the rags and rottenness of the law were
cast away, and up they rose to bend their steps homeward to the little hovel where
Peggy lived, she having invited the others to tea, that they might talk yet more fully
over the wonderful good luck that had befallen them.

"Why, if there isn't a man's head in the canal!" suddenly cried little Jem. "Looky
there!—isn't that a man's head?—Yes; it's a drownded man!"

"A drownded man, as I live!" ejaculated old Doubleyear.

"Let's get him out, and see!" cried Peggy. "Perhaps the poor soul's not quite gone."

Little Jem scuttled off to the edge of the canal, followed by the two old people. As
soon as the body had floated nearer, Jem got down into the water, and stood breast-
high, vainly measuring his distance, with one arm out, to see if he could reach some
part of the body as it was passing. As the attempt was evidently without a chance, old
Doubleyear Managed to get down into the water behind aim, and holding him by one
hand, the boy was thus enabled to make a plunge forward as the body was floating by.
He succeeded in reaching it, but the jerk was too much for [pg 248]his aged companion,
who was pulled forward into the canal. A loud cry burst from both of them, which was
yet more loudly echoed by Peggy on the bank. Doubleyear and the boy were now
struggling almost in the middle of the canal, with the body of the man twirling about
between them. They would inevitably have been drowned, had not old Peggy caught
up a long dust-rake that was close at hand—scrambled down up to her knees in the
canal—clawed hold of the struggling group with the teeth of the rake, and fairly
brought the whole to land. Jem was first up the bank, and helped up his two heroic
companions; after which, with no small difficulty, they contrived to haul the body of
the stranger out of the water. Jem at once recognized in him the forlorn figure of the
man who had passed by in the morning, looking so sadly into the canal as he walked
along.

It is a fact well known to those who work in the vicinity of these great Dust-heaps,
that when the ashes have been warmed by the sun, cats and kittens that have been
taken out of the canal and buried a few inches beneath the surface, have usually
revived; and the same has often occurred in the case of men. Accordingly, the three,
without a moment's hesitation, dragged the body along to the Dust-heap, where they
made a deep trench, in which they placed it, covering it all over up to the neck.
"There now," ejaculated Peggy, sitting down with a long puff to recover her breath,
"he'll lie very comfortable, whether or no."

"Couldn't lie better," said old Doubleyear, "even if he knew it."

The three now seated themselves close by, to await the result.

"I thought I'd a lost him," said Jem, "and myself too; and when I pulled Daddy in arter
me, I guv us all three up for this world."

"Yes," said Doubleyear, "it must have gone queer with us if Peggy had not come in
with the rake. How d'yee feel, old girl? for you've had a narrow escape too. I wonder
we were not too heavy for you, and so pulled you in to go with us."

"The Lord be praised!" fervently ejaculated Peggy, pointing toward the pallid face that
lay surrounded with ashes. A convulsive twitching passed over the features, the lips
trembled, the ashes over the breast heaved, and a low moaning sound, which might
have come from the bottom of the canal, was heard. Again the moaning sound, and
then the eyes opened, but closed almost immediately.

"Poor dear soul," whispered Peggy, "how he suffers in surviving. Lift him up a little.
Softly. Don't be afeard. We're only your good angels, like—only poor cinder-sifters—
don'tee be afeard."

By various kindly attentions and maneuvers such as these poor people had been
accustomed to practice on those who were taken out of the canal, the unfortunate
gentleman was gradually brought to his senses. He gazed about him, as well he might
—now looking in the anxious, though begrimed, faces of the three strange objects, all
in their "weeds" and dust—and then up at the huge Dust-heap, over which the moon
was now slowly rising.

"Land of quiet Death!" murmured he, faintly, "or land of Life, as dark and still—I
have passed from one into the other; but which of ye I am now in, seems doubtful to
my senses."

"Here we are, poor gentleman," cried Peggy, "here we are, all friends about you. How
did'ee tumble into the canal?"

"The Earth, then, once more!" said the stranger, with a deep sigh. "I know where I am,
now. I remember this great dark hill of ashes—like Death's kingdom, full of all sorts
of strange things, and put to many uses."
"Where do you live?" asked old Doubleyear. "Shall we try and take you home, sir?"

The stranger shook his head mournfully. All this time, little Jem had been assiduously
employed in rubbing his feet and then big hands; in doing which, the piece of dirty
parchment, with the miniature-frame, dropped out of his breast-pocket. A good
thought instantly struck Peggy.

"Run, Jemmy dear—run with that golden thing to Mr. Spikechin, the pawnbroker's—
get something upon it directly, and buy some nice brandy—and some Godfrey's
cordial—and a blanket, Jemmy—and call a coach, and get up outside on it, and make
the coachee drive back here as fast as you can."

But before Jemmy could attend to this, Mr. Waterhouse, the stranger whose life they
had preserved, raised himself on one elbow, and extended his hand to the miniature-
frame. Directly he looked at it he raised himself higher up—turned it about once or
twice—then caught up the piece of parchment, and uttering an ejaculation which no
one could have distinguished either as of joy or of pain, sank back fainting.

In brief, this parchment was a portion of the title-deeds he had lost; and though it did
not prove sufficient to enable him to recover his fortune, it brought his opponent to a
composition, which gave him an annuity for life. Small as this was, he determined that
these poor people, who had so generously saved his life at the risk of their own,
should be sharers in it. Finding that what they most desired was to have a cottage in
the neighborhood of the Dust-heap, built large enough for all three to live together,
and keep a cow, Mr. Waterhouse paid a visit to Manchester Square, where the owner
of the property resided. He told his story, as far as was needful, and proposed to
purchase the field in question.

The great Dust-Contractor was much amused, and his daughter—a very accomplished
young lady—was extremely interested. [pg 249]So the matter was speedily arranged to
the satisfaction and pleasure of all parties. The acquaintance, however, did not end
here. Mr. Waterhouse renewed his visits very frequently, and finally made proposals
for the young lady's hand, she having already expressed her hopes of a propitious
answer from her father.

"Well, Sir," said the latter, "you wish to marry my daughter, and she wishes to marry
you. You are a gentleman and a scholar, but you have no money. My daughter is what
you see, and she has no money. But I have; and therefore, as she likes you and I like
you, I'll make you both an offer. I will give my daughter twenty thousand pounds,—or
you shall have the Dust-heap. Choose!"
Mr. Waterhouse was puzzled and amused, and referred the matter entirely to the
young lady. But she was for having the money, and no trouble. She said the Dust-heap
might be worth much, but they did not understand the business.

"Very well," said her father, laughing, "then, there's the money."

This was the identical Dust-heap, as we know from authentic information, which was
subsequently sold for forty thousand pounds, and was exported to Russia to rebuild
Moscow.

[From Household Words.]

AN EXCELLENT OPPORTUNITY.
In one of the dirtiest and most gloomy streets leading to the Rue St. Denis, in Paris,
there stands a tall and ancient house, the lower portion of which is a large mercer's
shop. This establishment is held to be one of the very best in the neighborhood, and
has for many years belonged to an individual on whom we will bestow the name of
Ramin.

About ten years ago, Monsieur Ramin was a jovial red-faced man of forty, who joked
his customers into purchasing his goods, flattered the pretty grisettes outrageously,
and now and then gave them a Sunday treat at the barrier, as the cheapest way of
securing their custom. Some people thought him a careless, good-natured fellow, and
wondered how, with his off-hand ways, he contrived to make money so fast, but those
who knew him well saw that he was one of those who "never lost an opportunity."
Others declared that Monsieur Ramin's own definition of his character was, that he
was a "bon enfant," and that "it was all luck." He shrugged his shoulders and laughed
when people hinted at his deep scheming in making, and his skill in taking advantage
of Excellent Opportunities.

He was sitting in his gloomy parlor one fine morning in spring, breakfasting from a
dark liquid honored with the name of onion soup, glancing at the newspaper, and
keeping a vigilant look on the shop through the open door, when his old servant
Catharine suddenly observed:

"I suppose you know Monsieur Bonelle has come to live in the vacant apartment on
the fourth floor?"

"What!" exclaimed Monsieur Ramin, in a loud key.

Catharine repeated her statement, to which her master listened in total silence.

"Well!" he said at length, in his most careless tones, "what about the old fellow?" and
he once more resumed his triple occupation of reading, eating, and watching.

"Why," continued Catharine, "they say he is nearly dying, and that his housekeeper,
Marguerite, vowed he could never get up stairs alive. It took two men to carry him up;
and when he was at length quiet in bed, Marguerite went down to the porter's lodge,
and sobbed there a whole hour, saying her poor master had the gout, the rheumatics,
and a bad asthma; that though he had been got up stairs, he would never come down
again alive; that if she could only get him to confess his sins and make his will, she
would not mind it so much; but that when she spoke of the lawyer or the priest, he
blasphemed at her like a heathen, and declared that he would live to bury her and
everybody else."

Monsieur Ramin heard Catharine with great attention, forgot to finish his soup, and
remained for five minutes in profound rumination, without so much as perceiving two
customers who had entered the shop and were waiting to be served. When aroused, he
was heard to exclaim:

"What an excellent opportunity!"

Monsieur Bonelle had been Ramin's predecessor. The succession of the latter to the
shop was a mystery. No one ever knew how it was that this young and poor assistant
managed to replace his patron. Some said that he had detected Monsieur Bonelle in
frauds which he threatened to expose unless the business were given up to him as the
price of his silence; others averred, that having drawn a prize in the lottery, he had
resolved to set up a fierce opposition over the way, and that Monsieur Bonelle, having
obtained a hint of his intentions, had thought it most prudent to accept the trifling sum
his clerk offered, and avoid a ruinous competition. Some charitable souls—moved no
doubt by Monsieur Bonelle's misfortune—endeavored to console and pump him; but
all they could get from him was the bitter exclamation, "To think I should have been
duped by him!" For Ramin had the art, though then a mere youth, to pass himself off
on his master as an innocent provincial lad. Those who sought an explanation from
the new mercer were still more unsuccessful. "My good old master," he said in his
jovial way, "felt in need of repose, and so I obligingly relieved him of all business and
botheration."

Years passed away; Ramin prospered, and neither thought nor heard of his "good old
master." The house, of which he tenanted [pg 250]the lower portion, was offered for sale.
He had long coveted it, and had almost concluded an agreement with the actual
owner, when Monsieur Bonelle unexpectedly stepped in at the eleventh hour, and by
offering a trifle more secured the bargain. The rage and mortification of Monsieur
Ramin were extreme. He could not understand how Bonelle, whom he had thought
ruined, had scraped up so large a sum; his lease was out, and he now felt himself at
the mercy of the man he had so much injured. But either Monsieur Bonelle was free
from vindictive feelings, or those feelings did not blind him to the expediency of
keeping a good tenant: for though he raised the rent until Monsieur Ramin groaned
inwardly, he did not refuse to renew the lease. They had met at that period, but never
since.

"Well, Catharine," observed Monsieur Ramin to his old servant on the following
morning, "How is that good Monsieur Bonelle getting on?"

"I dare say you feel very uneasy about him," she replied with a sneer.

Monsieur Ramin looked up and frowned.

"Catharine," said he, dryly, "you will have the goodness, in the first place, not to make
impertinent remarks: in the second place, you will oblige me by going up stairs to
inquire after the health of Monsieur Bonelle, and say that I sent you."

Catharine grumbled, and obeyed. Her master was in the shop, when she returned in a
few minutes, and delivered with evident satisfaction the following gracious message:

"Monsieur Bonelle desires his compliments to you, and declines to state how he is; he
will also thank you to attend to your own shop, and not to trouble yourself about his
health."

"How does he look?" asked Monsieur Ramin, with perfect composure.

"I caught a glimpse of him, and he appears to me to be rapidly preparing for the good
offices of the undertaker."

Monsieur Ramin smiled, rubbed his hands, and joked merrily with a dark-
eyed grisette, who was cheapening some ribbon for her cap. That girl made an
excellent bargain that day.

Toward dusk the mercer left the shop to the care of his attendant, and softly stole up to
the fourth story. In answer to his gentle ring, a little old woman opened the door, and
giving him a rapid look, said briefly:

"Monsieur is inexorable: he won't see any doctor whatever."

She was going to shut the door in his face, when Ramin quickly interposed, under his
breath, with "I am not a doctor."

She looked at him from head to foot.

"Are you a lawyer?"

"Nothing of the sort, my good lady."

"Well then, are you a priest?"

"I may almost say, quite the reverse."

"Indeed, you must go away, Master sees no one."

Once more she would have shut the door, but Ramin prevented her.

"My good lady," said he in his most insinuating tones, "it is true I am neither a lawyer,
a doctor, nor a priest. I am an old friend, a very old friend of your excellent master; I
have come to see good Monsieur Bonelle in his present affliction."

Marguerite did not answer, but allowed him to enter, and closed the door behind him.
He was going to pass from the narrow and gloomy ante-chamber into an inner room—
whence now proceeded a sound of loud coughing—when the old woman laid her hand
on his arm, and raising herself on tip-toe, to reach his ear, whispered:

"For Heaven's sake, sir, since you are his friend, do talk to him: do tell him to make
his will, and hint something about a soul to be saved, and all that sort of thing: do,
sir!"

Monsieur Ramin nodded and winked in a way that said "I will." He proved however
his prudence by not speaking aloud; for a voice from within sharply exclaimed,

"Marguerite, you are talking to some one! Marguerite! I will see neither doctor nor
lawyer; and if any meddling priest dare—"

"It is only an old friend, sir;" interrupted Marguerite, opening the inner door.

Her master, on looking up, perceived the red face of Monsieur Ramin peeping over
the old woman's shoulder, and irefully cried out:

"How dare you bring that fellow here? And you, sir, how dare you come?"
"My good old friend, there are feelings," said Ramin, spreading his fingers over the
left pocket of his waistcoat—"there are feelings," he repeated, "that cannot be
subdued. One such feeling brought me here. The fact is, I am a good-natured easy
fellow, and I never bear malice. I never forget an old friend, but love to forget old
differences when I find one party in affliction."

He drew a chair forward as he spoke, and composedly seated himself opposite to his
late master.

Monsieur Bonelle was a thin old man, with a pale sharp face and keen features. At
first he eyed his visitor from the depths of his vast arm-chair; but, as if not, satisfied
with this distant view, he bent forward, and laying both hands on his thin knees, he
looked up into Ramin's face with a fixed and piercing gaze. He had not, however, the
power of disconcerting his guest.

"What did you come here for?" he at length asked.

"Merely to have the extreme satisfaction of seeing how you are, my good old friend.
Nothing more."

"Well, look at me—and then go."

Nothing could be so discouraging: but this was an Excellent Opportunity, and when
Monsieur Ramin had an excellent opportunity in view, his pertinacity was invincible.
Being now resolved to stay, it was not in Monsieur [pg 251]Bonelle's power to banish
him. At the same time he had tact enough to render his presence agreeable. He knew
that his coarse and boisterous wit had often delighted Monsieur Bonelle of old, and he
now exerted himself so successfully as to betray the old man two or three times into
hearty laughter. "Ramin," said he at length, laying his thin hand on the arm of his
guest, and peering with his keen glance into the mercer's purple face, "you are a funny
fellow, but I know you; you cannot make me believe you have called just to see how I
am, and to amuse me. Come, be candid for once; what do you want?"

Ramin threw himself back in his chair, and laughed blandly, as much as to say, "Can
you suspect me?"

"I have no shop now out of which you can wheedle me," continued the old man; "and
surely you are not such a fool as to come to me for money."

"Money!" repeated the draper, as if his host had mentioned something he never
dreamt of. "Oh, no!"
Ramin saw it would not do to broach the subject he had really come about, too
abruptly, now that suspicion seemed so wide awake—the opportunity had not arrived.

"There is something up, Ramin, I know; I see it in the twinkle of your eye; but you
can't deceive me again."

"Deceive you?" said the jolly schemer, shaking his head reverentially. "Deceive a man
of your penetration and depth? Impossible! The bare supposition is flattery. My dear
friend," he continued, soothingly, "I did not dream of such a thing. The fact is,
Bonelle, though they call me a jovial, careless, rattling dog, I have a conscience; and,
somehow, I have never felt quite easy about the way in which I became your
successor down-stairs. It was rather sharp practice, I admit."

Bonelle seemed to relent.

"Now for it," said the Opportunity-hunter to himself—"By-the-bye," (speaking aloud,)

"this house must be a great trouble to you in your present weak state? Two of your
lodgers have lately gone away without paying—a great nuisance, especially to an
invalid."

"I tell you I'm as sound as a colt."

"At all events, the whole concern must be a great bother to you. If I were you, I would
sell the house."

"And if I were you," returned the landlord, dryly, "I would buy it—"

"Precisely," interrupted the tenant, eagerly.

"That is, if you could get it. Pooh! I knew you were after something. Will you give
eighty thousand francs for it?" abruptly asked Monsieur Bonelle.

"Eighty thousand francs!" echoed Ramin. "Do you take me for Louis Philippe or the
Bank of France!"

"Then we'll say no more about it—are you not afraid of leaving your shop so long?"

Ramin returned to the charge, heedless of the hint to depart. "The fact is, my good old
friend, ready money is not my strong point just now. But if you wish very much to be
relieved of the concern, what say you to a life annuity? I could manage that."
Monsieur Bonelle gave a short, dry, church-yard cough, and looked as if his life were
not worth an hour's purchase. "You think yourself immensely clever, I dare say," he
said. "They have persuaded you that I am dying. Stuff! I shall bury you yet."

The mercer glanced at the thin fragile frame, and exclaimed to himself, "Deluded old
gentleman!" "My dear Bonelle," he continued, aloud, "I know well the strength of
your admirable constitution: but allow me to observe that you neglect yourself too
much. Now, suppose a good sensible doctor—"

"Will you pay him?" interrogated Bonelle, sharply.

"Most willingly," replied Ramin, with an eagerness that made the old man smile. "As
to the annuity, since the subject annoys you, we will talk of it some other time."

"After you have heard the doctor's report," sneered Bonelle.

The mercer gave him a stealthy glance, which the old man's keen look immediately
detected. Neither could repress a smile: these good souls understood one another
perfectly, and Ramin saw that this was not the Excellent Opportunity he desired, and
departed.

The next day Ramin sent a neighboring medical man, and heard it was his opinion that
if Bonelle held on for three months longer, it would be a miracle. Delightful news!

Several days elapsed, and although very anxious, Ramin assumed a careless air, and
did not call upon his landlord, or take any notice of him. At the end of the week old
Marguerite entered the shop to make a trifling purchase.

"And how are we getting on up-stairs?" negligently asked Monsieur Ramin.

"Worse and worse, my good sir," she sighed. "We have rheumatic pains which often
make us use expressions the reverse of Christian-like, and yet nothing can induce us
to see either the lawyer or the priest; the gout is getting nearer to our stomach every
day, and still we go on talking about the strength of our constitution. Oh, sir, if you
have any influence with us, do, pray do, tell us how wicked it is to die without making
one's will or confessing one's sins."

"I shall go up this very evening," ambiguously replied Monsieur Ramin.

He kept his promise, and found Monsieur Bonelle in bed, groaning with pain, and in
the worst of tempers.
"What poisoning doctor did you send?" he asked, with an ireful glance; "I want no
doctor, I am not ill; I will not follow his prescription; he forbade me to eat; I will eat."

"He is a very clever man," said the visitor. "He told me that never in the whole course
of his experience has he met with what he [pg 252]called so much 'resisting power' as
exists in your frame. He asked me if you were not of a long-lived race."

"That is as people may judge," replied Monsieur Bonelle. "All I can say is, that my
grandfather died at ninety, and my father at eighty-six."

"The doctor owned that you had a wonderfully strong constitution."

"Who said I hadn't?" exclaimed the invalid feebly.

"You may rely on it, you would preserve your health better if you had not the trouble
of these vexatious lodgers. Have you thought about the life annuity?" said Ramin as
carelessly as he could, considering how near the matter was to his hopes and wishes.

"Why, I have scruples," returned Bonelle, coughing. "I do not wish to take you in. My
longevity would be the ruin of you."

"To meet that difficulty," quickly replied the mercer, "we can reduce the interest."

"But I must have high interest," placidly returned Monsieur Bonelle.

Ramin, on hearing this, burst into a loud fit of laughter, called Monsieur Bonelle a sly
old fox, gave him a poke in the ribs, which made the old man cough for five minutes,
and then proposed that they should talk it over some other day. The mercer left
Monsieur Bonelle in the act of protesting that he felt as strong as a man of forty.

Monsieur Ramin felt in no hurry to conclude the proposed agreement. "The later one
begins to pay, the better," he said, as he descended the stairs.

Days passed on, and the negotiation made no way. It struck the observant tradesman
that all was not right. Old Marguerite several times refused to admit him, declaring
her master was asleep: there was something mysterious and forbidding in her manner
that seemed to Monsieur Ramin very ominous. At length a sudden thought occurred to
him: the housekeeper—wishing to become her master's heir—had heard his scheme
and opposed it. On the very day that he arrived at this conclusion, he met a lawyer,
with whom he had formerly had some transactions, coming down the staircase. The
sight sent a chill through the mercer's commercial heart, and a presentiment—one of
those presentiments that seldom deceive—told him it was too late. He had, however,
the fortitude to abstain from visiting Monsieur Bonelle until evening came; when he
went up, resolved to see him in spite of all Marguerite might urge. The door was half-
open, and the old housekeeper stood talking on the landing to a middle-aged man in a
dark cassock.

"It is all over! The old witch has got the priests at him," thought Ramin, inwardly
groaning at his own folly in allowing himself to be forestalled.

"You cannot see Monsieur to-night," sharply said Marguerite, as he attempted to pass.

"Alas! is my excellent friend so very ill?" asked Ramin, in a mournful tone.

"Sir," eagerly said the clergyman, catching him by the button of his coat, "if you are
indeed the friend of that unhappy man, do seek to bring him into a more suitable
frame of mind. I have seen many dying men, but never so much obstinacy, never such
infatuated belief in the duration of life."

"Then you think he really is dying," asked Ramin; and, in spite of the melancholy
accent he endeavored to assume, there was something so peculiar in his tone, that the
priest looked at him very fixedly as he slowly replied,

"Yes, air, I think he is."

"Ah!" was all Monsieur Ramin said; and as the clergyman had now relaxed his hold of
the button, Ramin passed in spite of the remonstrances of Marguerite, who rushed
after the priest. He found Monsieur Bonelle in bed and in a towering rage.

"Oh! Ramin, my friend," he groaned, "never take a housekeeper, and never let her
know you have any property. They are harpies, Ramin,—harpies! such a day as I have
had; first, the lawyer, who comes to write down 'my last testamentary dispositions,' as
he calls them; then the priest, who gently hints that I am a dying man. Oh, what a
day!"

"And did you make your will, my excellent friend?" softly asked Monsieur Ramin,
with a keen look.

"Make my will?" indignantly exclaimed the old man; "make my will? what do you
mean, sir? do you mean to say I am dying?"

"Heaven forbid!" piously ejaculated Ramin.

"Then why do you ask me if I had been making my will?" angrily resumed the old
man. He then began to be extremely abusive.

When money was in the way, Monsieur Ramin, though otherwise of a violent temper,
had the meekness of a lamb. He bore the treatment of his host with the meekest
patience, and having first locked the door so as to make sure that Marguerite would
not interrupt them, he watched Monsieur Bonelle attentively, and satisfied himself
that the Excellent Opportunity he had been ardently longing for had arrived: "He is
going fast," he thought; "and unless I settle the agreement to-night, and get it drawn
up and signed to-morrow, it will be too late."

"My dear friend," he at length said aloud, on perceiving that the old gentleman had
fairly exhausted himself and was lying panting on his back, "you are indeed a
lamentable instance of the lengths to which the greedy lust of lucre will carry our poor
human nature. It is really distressing to see Marguerite, a faithful, attached servant,
suddenly converted into a tormenting harpy by the prospect of a legacy! Lawyers and
priests flock around you like birds of prey, drawn hither by the scent of gold! Oh, the
miseries of having delicate health combined with a sound constitution and large
property!"

"Ramin," groaned the old man, looking inquiringly into his visitor's face, "you are [pg
253]again going to talk to me about that annuity—I know you are!"

"My excellent friend, it is merely to deliver you from a painful position."

"I am sure, Ramin, you think in your soul I am dying," whimpered Monsieur Bonelle.

"Absurd, my dear sir. Dying? I will prove to you that you have never been in better
health. In the first place you feel no pain."

"Excepting from rheumatism," groaned Monsieur Bonelle.

"Rheumatism! who ever died of rheumatism? and if that be all—"

"No, it is not all," interrupted the old man with great irritability; "what would you say
to the gout getting higher and higher up every day?"

"The gout is rather disagreeable, but if there is nothing else—"

"Yes, there is something else," sharply said Monsieur Bonelle. "There is an asthma
that will scarcely let me breathe, and a racking pain in my head that does not allow me
a moment's ease. But if you think I am dying, Ramin, you are quite mistaken."
"No doubt, my dear friend, no doubt; but in the meanwhile suppose we talk of this
annuity. Shall we say one thousand francs a year."

"What!" asked Bonelle, looking at him very fixedly.

"My dear friend, I mistook; I meant two thousand francs per annum," hurriedly
rejoined Ramin.

Monsieur Bonelle closed his eyes, and appeared to fall into a gentle slumber. The
mercer coughed; the sick man never moved.

"Monsieur Bonelle."

No reply.

"My excellent friend."

Utter silence.

"Are you asleep?"

A long pause.

"Well, then, what do you say to three thousand?"

Monsieur Bonelle opened his eyes.

"Ramin," said he, sententiously, "you are a fool; the house brings me in four thousand
as it is."

This was quite false, and the mercer knew it; but he had his own reasons for wishing
to seem to believe it true.

"Good Heavens!" said he, with an air of great innocence, "who could have thought it,
and the lodgers constantly running away. Four thousand? Well, then, you shall have
four thousand."

Monsieur Bonelle shut his eyes once more, and murmured "The mere rental—
nonsense!" He then folded his hands on his breast, and appeared to compose himself
to sleep.
"Oh, what a sharp man of business he is!" Ramin said, admiringly: but for once
omnipotent flattery failed in its effect: "So acute!" continued he, with a stealthy glance
at the old man, who remained perfectly unmoved.

"I see you will insist upon making it the other five hundred francs."

Monsieur Ramin said this as if five thousand five hundred francs had already been
mentioned, and was the very summit of Monsieur Bonelle's ambition. But the ruse
failed in its effect; the sick man never so much as stirred.

"But, my dear friend," urged Monsieur Ramin in a tone of feeling remonstrance,

"there is such a thing as being too sharp, too acute. How can you expect that I shall
give you more when your constitution is so good, and you are to be such a long
liver?"

"Yes, but I may be carried off one of these days," quietly observed the old man,
evidently wishing to turn the chance of his own death to account.

"Indeed, and I hope so," muttered the mercer, who was getting very ill-tempered.

"You see," soothingly continued Bonelle, "you are so good a man of business, Ramin,
that you will double the actual value of the house in no time. I am a quiet, easy
person, indifferent to money; otherwise this house would now bring me in eight
thousand at the very least."

"Eight thousand!" indignantly exclaimed the mercer. "Monsieur Bonelle, you have no
conscience. Come now, my dear friend, do be reasonable. Six thousand francs a year
(I don't mind saying six) is really a very handsome income for a man of your quiet
habits. Come, be reasonable." But Monsieur Bonelle turned a deaf ear to reason, and
closed his eyes once more. What between opening and shutting them for the next
quarter of an hour, he at length induced Monsieur Ramin to offer him seven thousand
francs.

"Very well, Ramin, agreed," he quietly said; "you have made an unconscionable
bargain." To this succeeded a violent fit of coughing.

As Ramin unlocked the door to leave, he found old Marguerite, who had been
listening all the time, ready to assail him with a torrent of whispered abuse for duping
her "poor dear innocent old master into such a bargain." The mercer bore it all very
patiently: he could make all allowances for her excited feelings, and only rubbed his
hands and bade her a jovial good evening.
The agreement was signed on the following day, to the indignation of old Marguerite,
and the mutual satisfaction of the parties concerned.

Every one admired the luck and shrewdness of Ramin, for the old man every day was
reported worse; and it was clear to all that the first quarter of the annuity would never
be paid. Marguerite, in her wrath, told the story as a grievance to every one; people
listened, shook their heads, and pronounced Monsieur Ramin to be a deuced clever
fellow.

A month elapsed. As Ramin was coming down one morning from the attics, where
he [pg 254]had been giving notice to a poor widow who had failed in paying her rent, he
heard a light step on the stairs. Presently a sprightly gentleman, in buoyant health and
spirits, wearing the form of Monsieur Bonelle, appeared. Ramin stood aghast.

"Well, Ramin," gaily said the old man, "how are you getting on? Have you been
tormenting the poor widow up stairs? Why, man, we must live and let live!"

"Monsieur Bonelle," said the mercer, in a hollow tone; "may I ask where are your
rheumatics?"

"Gone, my dear friend,—gone."

"And the gout that was creeping higher and higher every day," exclaimed Monsieur
Ramin, in a voice of anguish.

"It went lower and lower, till it disappeared altogether," composedly replied Bonelle.

"And your asthma—"

"The asthma remains, but asthmatic people are proverbially long-lived. It is, I have
been told, the only complaint that Methusalah was troubled with." With this Bonelle
opened his door, shut it, and disappeared.

Ramin was transfixed on the stairs; petrified with intense disappointment, and a
powerful sense of having been duped. When he was discovered, he stared vacantly,
and raved about an Excellent Opportunity of taking his revenge.

The wonderful cure was the talk of the neighborhood, whenever Monsieur Bonelle
appeared in the streets, jauntily flourishing his cane. In the first frenzy of his despair,
Ramin refused to pay; he accused every one of having been in a plot to deceive him;
he turned off Catharine and expelled his porter: he publicly accused the lawyer and
priest of conspiracy; brought an action against the doctor and lost it. He had another
brought against him for violently assaulting Marguerite, in which he was cast in heavy
damages. Monsieur Bonelle did not trouble himself with useless remonstrances, but
when his annuity was refused, employed such good legal arguments, as the
exasperated mercer could not possibly resist.

Ten years have elapsed, and MM. Ramin and Bonelle still live on. For a house which
would have been dear at fifty thousand francs, the draper has already handed over
seventy thousand.

The once red-faced, jovial Ramin is now a pale haggard man, of sour temper and
aspect. To add to his anguish he sees the old man thrive on that money which it breaks
his heart to give. Old Marguerite takes a malicious pleasure in giving him an exact
account of their good cheer, and in asking him if he does not think Monsieur looks
better and better every day. Of one part of this torment Ramin might get rid, by giving
his old master notice to quit, and no longer having him in his house. But this he
cannot do; he has a secret fear that Bonelle would take some Excellent Opportunity of
dying without his knowledge, and giving some other person an Excellent Opportunity
of persecuting him, and receiving the money in his stead.

The last accounts of the victim of Excellent Opportunities represent him as being
gradually worn down with disappointment. There seems every probability of his being
the first to leave the world; for Bonelle is heartier than ever.

[From Household Words.]

THE OLD CHURCHWARD TREE.

A PROSE POEM.

There is an old yew tree which stands by the wall in a dark quiet corner of the
churchyard.

And a child was at play beneath its wide-spreading branches, one fine day in the early
spring. He had his lap full of flowers, which the fields and lanes had supplied him
with, and he was humming a tune to himself as he wove them into garlands.

And a little girl at play among the tombstones crept near to listen; but the boy was so
intent upon his garland, that he did not hear the gentle footsteps, as they trod softly
over the fresh green grass. When his work was finished, and all the flowers that were
in his lap were woven together in one long wreath, he started up to measure its length
upon the ground, and then he saw the little girl, as she stood with her eyes fixed upon
him. He did not move or speak, but thought to himself that she looked very beautiful
as she stood there with her flaxen ringlets hanging down upon her neck. The little girl
was so startled by his sudden movement, that she let fall all the flowers she had
collected in her apron, and ran away as fast as she could. But the boy was older and
taller than she, and soon caught her, and coaxed her to come back and play with him,
and help him to make more garlands; and from that time they saw each other nearly
every day, and became great friends.

Twenty years passed away. Again, he was seated beneath the old yew tree in the
churchyard.

It was summer now; bright, beautiful summer, with the birds singing, and the flowers
covering the ground, and scenting the air with their perfume.

But he was not alone now, nor did the little girl steal near on tiptoe, fearful of being
heard. She was seated by his side, and his arm was round her, and she looked up into
his face, and smiled as she whispered: "The first evening of our lives we were ever
together was passed here; we will spend the first evening of our wedded life in the
same quiet, happy place." And he drew her closer to him as she spoke.

The summer is gone; and the autumn; and twenty more summers and autumns have
passed away since that evening, in the old churchyard.

A young man, on a bright moonlight night, comes reeling through the little white
gate, [pg 255]and stumbling over the graves. He shouts and he sings, and is presently
followed by others like unto himself, or worse. So, they all laugh at the dark solemn
head of the yew tree, and throw stones up at the place where the moon had silvered
the boughs.

Those same boughs are again silvered by the moon, and they droop over his mother's
grave. There is a little stone which bears this inscription:—

"HER HEART BRAKE IN SILENCE."

But the silence of the churchyard is now broken by a voice—not of the youth—nor a
voice of laughter and ribaldry.

"My son!—dost thou see this grave? and dost thou read the record in anguish, whereof
may come repentance?"
"Of what should I repent?" answers the son; "and why should my young ambition for
fame relax in its strength because my mother was old and weak?"

"Is this indeed our son?" says the father, bending in agony over the grave of his
beloved.

"I can well believe I am not;" exclaimeth the youth. "It is well that you have brought
me here to say so. Our natures are unlike; our courses must be opposite. Your way
lieth here—mine yonder!"

So the son left the father kneeling by the grave.

Again a few years are passed. It is winter, with a roaring wind and a thick gray fog.
The graves in the Church-yard are covered with snow, and there are great icicles in
the Church-yard. The wind now carries a swathe of snow along the tops of the graves
as though the "sheeted dead" were at some melancholy play; and hark! the icicles fall
with a crash and jingle, like a solemn mockery of the echo of the unseemly mirth of
one who is now coming to his final rest.

There are two graves near the old yew tree; and the grass has overgrown them. A third
is close by; and the dark earth at each side has just been thrown up. The bearers come;
with a heavy pace they move along; the coffin heaveth up and down, as they step over
the intervening graves.

Grief and old age had seized upon the father, and worn out his life; and premature
decay soon seized upon the son, and gnawed away his vain ambition, and his useless
strength, till he prayed to be borne, not the way yonder that was most opposite to his
father and his mother, but even the same way they had gone—the way which leads to
the Old Churchyard Tree.

In dreamy hours the dormant imagination looks out and sees vague significances in
things which it feels can at an after time be vividly conceived and expressed; the most
familiar objects have a strange double meaning in their aspects; the very chair seems
to be patiently awaiting there the expounder of its silent, symbolical language.—
Boston Morning Post.

[From Bentley's Miscellany.]

 GREECE AND TURKEY.2
Whatever Mr. AUBREY DE VERE sees, he picturesquely describes; and so far as
words can do so, he makes pictures of all the subjects he writes upon; and had he
painted as he has written, or used his pencil equally well with his pen, two more
delightful volumes, to any lover of Greece, it would be difficult to name. With an
evidently refined taste, and a perfect acquaintance with the ancient history of the
country he traveled through, and the ever famous characters that made its history what
it is, his descriptions combine most pleasingly together, the past with the present. He
peoples the scenery with the men whose deeds give to that scenery all its interest; and
whether on the plain of Marathon, or the site of Delphi or the Acropolis, he has a store
of things to say of their past glories, and links together, with great artistic skill, that
which is gone with that which remains.

By the scholar and the man of taste the volumes will be read with no little delight, as
they abound much more with reflections and sensible observations, than with the
commonplace incidents of travel. Indeed, the author has left but small space for his
accidents at sea and his hardships on shore, since all the chapters but four are devoted
to Athens, Delphi, and Constantinople. The classical reader will prefer the chapters on
the two first-named places; the general reader will find perhaps more interesting his
sketches of the city of the Sultan, and an anecdote which he gives of the present
Sultan, and which declares him to possess more of decision, and firmness of character,
and good sense, than the world gives him credit for. His description of the Bosphorus
will create in many a desire to see what he has seen, and to look upon some, at least,
of the fifty-seven palaces which the sultans have raised upon its banks; and upon the
hundreds of others, which, while the Commander of the Faithful permits it, are the
property of his subjects.

It argued far more of a wild spirit of adventure than of a sober understanding in

Aubrey de Vere, to go with that clever Frenchman to the Turk's house, and to play off
all those tricks in the presence of its master and his ten unvailed wives. Rarely indeed,
if ever before, has an Englishman passed an hour so comfortably with the whole of a
rich man's harem, and seen them as de Vere saw them in all their artlessness and
beauty. We live, indeed, in strange times, when the once scorned and loathed Giaours
contrive to possess themselves of such extraordinary privileges, and to escape
unharmed from such hitherto unheard-of enjoyments.

Where one thought was given to Constantinople a hundred years since from the west
of the Dalmatian coast, ten thousand eyes are now constantly directed to it, and
with [pg 256]continually increasing anxiety. The importance of that city is now
understood by all the European powers, and its future fate has become a subject of
deep interest to all the western states, in consequence of the determined set made upon
it by its powerful northern neighbor. With the Cossacks at Istamboul instead of Turks,
we should be very ill satisfied, and the whole charm of this city on its seven hills
would have departed: already is it on the wane. Sultan Mahmoud's hostility to beards
and to flowing robes, to the turban and the jherid, has deprived his capital city of
much of its picturesqueness and peculiarity; but still enough remains of eastern
manners and costumes to make it one of the most interesting cities in the world to visit
and roam over. Such as, like ourselves, may not hope to sport a caique on the
Bosphorus, will do well to acquaint themselves with the information Aubrey de Vere
can give them, and to suffer their imagination to transport them to scenes among the
fairest and the loveliest on the earth's surface, and which are presented to them in
these volumes as graphically as words can paint them.

By the possessor of Wordsworth's Greece, where every spot almost, of the slightest
historical interest, is given in a picture on its pages, these "Picturesque Sketches" will
be read with the highest gratification that scenes and descriptions together can supply.
There is so much of mind in them; so much of sound philosophy in the observations;
such beautiful thoughts; so well, so elegantly expressed; so many allusions to the past,
that are continually placing before us Pericles, Themistocles, or Demosthenes, that we
are improved while amused, and feel at every page that we are reading a work far
above the general works on such subjects; a work of lasting interest, that may be read
and re-read, and still with delight and advantage.

DEATH AND SLEEP.

FROM THE GERMAN OF KRUMMACHER.

In brotherly embrace walked the Angel of Sleep and the Angel of Death upon the
earth.

It was evening. They laid themselves down upon a hill not far from the dwelling of
men. A melancholy silence prevailed around, and the chimes of the evening-bell in
the distant hamlet ceased.

Still and silent, as was their custom, sat these two beneficent Genii of the human race,
their arms entwined with cordial familiarity, and soon the shades of night gathered
around them.

Then arose the Angel of Sleep from his moss-grown couch, and strewed with a gentle
hand the invisible grains of slumber. The evening breeze wafted them to the quiet
dwelling of the tired husbandman, infolding in sweet sleep the inmates of the rural
cottage—from the old man upon the staff, down to the infant in the cradle. The sick
forgot their pain: the mourners their grief; the poor their care. All eyes closed.

His task accomplished, the benevolent Angel of Sleep laid himself again by the side
of his grave brother. "When Aurora awakes," exclaimed he, with innocent joy, "men
praise me as their friend and benefactor. Oh! what happiness, unseen and secretly to
confer such benefits! How blessed are we to be the invisible messengers of the Good
Spirit! How beautiful is our silent calling!"

So spake the friendly Angel of Slumber.

The Angel of Death sat with still deeper melancholy on his brow, and a tear, such as
mortals shed, appeared in his large dark eyes. "Alas!" said he, "I may not, like thee,
rejoice in the cheerful thanks of mankind; they call me upon the earth their enemy,
and joy-killer."

"Oh! my brother," replied the gentle Angel of Slumber, "and will not the good man, at
his awakening, recognize in thee his friend and benefactor, and gratefully bless thee in
his joy? Are we not brothers, and ministers of one Father?"

As he spake, the eyes of the Death-Angel beamed with pleasure, and again did the two
friendly Genii cordially embrace each other.

THE MODERN SCHOOLS OF ATHENS.—I visited, with equal surprise and

satisfaction, an Athenian school, which contained seven hundred pupils, taken from
every class of society. The poorer classes were gratuitously instructed in reading,
writing, and arithmetic, and the girls in needlework likewise. The progress which the
children had made was very remarkable; but what particularly pleased me was that air
of bright alertness and good-humored energy which belonged to them, and which
made every task appear a pleasure, not a toil. The greatest punishment which can be
inflicted on an Athenian child is exclusion from school, though but for a day. About
seventy of the children belonged to the higher classes, and were instructed in music,
drawing, the modern languages, the ancient Greek, and geography. Most of them were
at the moment reading Herodotus and Homer. I have never seen children approaching
them in beauty; and was much struck by their Oriental cast of countenance, their dark
complexions, their flashing eyes, and that expression, at once apprehensive and
meditative, which is so much more remarkable in children than in those of a more
mature age.—De Vere.
At Berlin, the Academy of Sciences has been holding a sitting, according to its
statutes, in honor of the memory of Leibnitz. In the course of the oration delivered on
the occasion, it was stated that the 4th of August being the fiftieth anniversary of the
admission of Alexander Von Humboldt as a member of the Academy, it had been
resolved, in celebration of the event, to place a marble bust of the "Nestor of Science"
in the lecture room of the society.

Footnote 1: (return)

The Night side of Nature; or, Ghosts and Ghost Seers. By Catherine Crowe. New York. J.S. Redfield.

Footnote 2: (return)

Picturesque Sketches of Greece and Turkey. By Aubrey De Vere, 2 vols. [Philadelphia: A. Hart.]