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BY ANDREW PICKEN.

Finding that these old saws and quaint morsels of colloquial didactics, which I have been able to gather from among the musty records of literature, have been considered peculiarly suitable to the necessities of young ladies at this particular juncture, and that the world is, after all its experience, disposed for a moment to go back to old-fashioned things, and to pull a thread out of the web of our forefathers, wisdom; I sit down to spin out a few more of these pithy scraps of proverbial mother-wit, which, though apt to be forgotten, are never entirely out of season, and to which my fair readers will do well to take heed.

Indeed, I consider it a great charity to do something of this sort at this time; for, as I took the liberty of hinting in my last paper, the making of young ladies clever only (after a manner,) and accomplished only (after a system,) being the sole object of modern female up-bringing, old common sense, with all her wise maxims and far-seen experience, has no chance whatever against everlasting fine ladyship; and so she has for a long time past been banished out of all genteel society, and sent a begging for her bread into the remote corners of the kingdom.

But as, amongst all this ‘progress of society,’ there is an universal cry in the land of want of money among the men, and want of husbands among the ladies, and of other necessaries of life among all classes, it is evident that something must be wrong, after all, which wise men (if there be any) would do well to look into. Upon this subject, I confess I have my own opinion, which nobody perhaps would thank me for expressing; but, in the mean time, I shall proceed with a few more of those old proverbs which used to form the floating literature of former days, merely to remind young ladies and others, that once on a time there did exist such a personage as common sense, whose directing assistance, notwithstanding all their fine accomplishments they may yet come sorely to need. Not that I would discourage young ladies from being well accomplished, as it is called, in certain matters, under certain circumstances; for, although I could wish that every one of them were able to dance like Taglioni, or play pianos as brilliantly as Monsieur Jiggfallero (I forget his name,) the Frenchman, or work as many wonders as Monsieur Katterfelto, the conjurer—yet, as the real duties of life neither consist primarily in dancing quadrilles and boleros, nor in playing Italian wonderments on stringed instruments, I am only desirous that the one should not be entirely lost sight of for the other, and that in giving young ladies what is called education, we should not entirely forget that they are rational beings. In all this, it may be seen that I blame more the parents than the children. How can I help this unless I should deny the truth of the proverb, that

“The church stands in the church-yard.”

which it was never a sin to assert, when it is visible before our eyes. But parents, as well as children, are very apt to be carried away with a fashion; and now the fashion is in, to spend all a daughter’s dowry in teaching her to perform a dozen things like a professor, and all in order to decoy a high husband. This is very well known to sensible mothers; and yet the fashion of shaping out every thing in a lady’s rearing for mere expense and show, is become so universal even to the daughters of the meanest tradesmen, that husbands who have not large incomes are banished entirely out of the market, and thus three-fourths of the women are left to be old maids by the gentlemen merely in self-defence.

Without further introduction, we now go on to preach a needful sermon against this superfine gentility and tinsel of a modern female education, by the help of the proverbs of our fathers; being convinced that it is the source of many evils, much false ambition, and a world of folly—according to the saying,

Golden dreams make us wake hungry.

All this, however, shows the necessity of increasing, instead of diminishing, a mercenary spirit on the part of parents in making for their children the bargain of marriage; for, if the young ladies are reared in a way to increase their wants, and extend their capacity for mere enjoyment, the danger is the greater of their marrying where these wants are not likely to be supplied. Thus, all the maxims which the prudence of our ancestors has erected into common proverbs, tending to impress upon the young the necessity of sacrificing the affections of the heart to the considerations of money, for the upholding of fictitious wants become doubly imperative in a state of society, such as we are now in. I therefore begin by quoting the maxim,

Ne’er marry a pennyless maiden who is proud of her pedigree,

unless you wish to take home to your house a regular sinking fund; or, as Dean Swift would say, unless you put on your tenderest part, “a perpetual blister.” In short, in all eases of highly refined society, or, where there are high pretences of any sort, money must ever be the chief and most important desideratum.

In all cases of marriage, indeed, it cannot be too much impressed upon young ladies, to be wary and circumspect in their choice; and rather to incur the risk of losing a chance, than rushing into so new a condition without good consideration; more than any other act in life the rhyming proverb will apply, which says,

Still, in marriage, more than aught else, ladies are apt to deceive themselves; and, saith another proverb,

Honey is sweet, but the bee stings.

Considering, then, the state of manner which makes money more necessary then ever, it is no wonder that parents and guardians are anxious that girls under their care should, at all events, get it by the bargain of marriage, want what they may; for it is quite true that, however worthy or handsome a man may be, according to the proverb,

A gentleman without a living, is like a pudding without suet,

and it is matter of experience, that married people cannot

Live upon love as larks do upon leeks,

for there are great many that may come afterwards; and, as the Scots-woman sung,

at least for the means that many have for doing the poor ‘childer’ justice. In the common anxiety of parents to get their daughters off their own hands, also, I cannot but think there is much want of consideration, if not actual selfishness; for they must know, from the number of unwise marriages that they see on every hand, that very often the only really happy time that poor women enjoy is, during the free and lightsome days of youth; and it is a miserable proof of the frailty of human nature, to see parents so ready to make merchandize of their children. If men were all good, and tempers were all fitting, and money always plenty, to keep peace in the house, then the sooner young women were married the better; but as all these things are not always met with in one person, sensible girls are much better as they are; and so advises George Crabbe, the poet, who died the other day—

and don’t let novel reading and nonsense make you, my dear young madam, work yourself into love and discontentment with your condition as long as you have a loose foot and little to care for. Meditation upon this, and the subjects connected with it, and upon all the sad cases that the world presents, of dear and lovely young women throwing away their whole life’s happiness at the shrine of twenty follies, and passions, and fatal mistakes, of themselves or parents, would make any man serious, if not melancholy; and induce him to write, line upon line, and proverb upon proverb, if, by any means he might prevent any sweet tender unexperienced creature’s tears and sorrows. How prettily and quaintly sings the amiable, and himself unfortunate, author of the Fairy Queene—

But of all the sad ’haps that, in a woman’s life, are to be lamented, is that when, under the influence of some of the powerful but less amiable passions of the moment, as resentment, pride, jealousy, &c., she rashly throws herself away, where she knows she never can love; and thus wilfully weds herself to misery and regret. A woman is the victim of her own feelings; and cannot be too often guarded against any rash step, when under their immediate influence; for saith Crabbe, the poet again

And where all this may end forms a saddening tale, particularly as the finest and noblest spirits are most liable to it; for, saith the proverb,

The finest metals soonest break.

I conclude, by recurring somewhat solemnly to my former advice, to cultivate a spirit of rational and virtuous humility of aim, and soberness of views, as to the future, which will both prevent the heart-burning, so frequently arising from the vain emulations of showy accomplishments. How prettily and wisely old Sir Henry Wotton, the poet, thus moralizes the question of personal humility, and wordly vanity—

Surely it was of women, untortured by ambition or envy, that the proverb was made, which saith,

A blyth heart maketh a blooming visage;

and long may the heart of the virtuous female be blyth, and dance in its own lightness! and long may her lovely visage bloom! reflecting the calm sunshine of quiet thoughts; and long may her eyes sparkle with the lightsome joy of Nature’s contentment, while they look up upon the bright sun, and abroad over the green earth, which rejoices in her joy, and is made almost holy by her presence. And no wonder that I am careful to indite these things concerning her; for truly, as Otway says in the play,

Translation of the foregoing.

Among the higher circles of society in the Island of St. Vincent few perhaps enjoyed more undisturbed happiness than Mr. and Mrs. Colville; the former was the proprietor of an estate sufficiently large to afford all the comforts and conveniences of life, to a mind not enervated by luxury nor seduced by a vitiated taste for the pleasures and follies too often predominant in a tropical climate. The estate was a paternal inheritance which had belonged to the family for many years, and such was Mr. Colville’s respectful reverence for his ancestors, that he had determined to form there the establishment for his future life.

After completing his studies in one of the Universities in England he proposed, previous to his return to the West Indies, to make the tour of Europe, in order that he might be able to form a just estimate of the manners and character of those nations he probably should not have an opportunity of seeing again.

In this expedition he was accompanied by a gentleman of his own age, a fellow student, and a person from whose family he had experienced much attention during the period of his residence at college. At the expiration of two years, the young men returned full of adventure and importance to the rectory from whence they had originally started, for I should have told you that the father of young Colville’s friend was a clergyman; his benefice was small, but, he was a faithful servant of his Great Master, and had the inexpressible happiness of being the honored instrument of “turning many to righteousness”—his family consisted of one son already alluded to, and a daughter who had just entered her eighteenth year in full possession of all the loveliness that beauty and amiability can offer.—Her tuition also gave rich promise, for under her father’s special care she had approached perfection in many mental and useful accomplishments; in a word she was admired and beloved in the circle in which she was known—and strangers could not see Julia Danvers without experiencing most delightful emotion.

It is then, no wonder, that young Colville should at his time of life receive from this estimable girl an indelible impression, which, meeting with a suitable return, fixed his fate. The parents were now on each side consulted, and as no reasonable objection would be offered, an union not gilded with gold, but blended with every prospect of happiness soon took place, and after remaining one year as agreed, at the Rectory, Colville with his bride and infant-son embarked to take possession of his paternal estate in the West Indies. While at home, and on their passage out, Julia and her husband had frequently conversed on the state of slavery; her heart ever sensibly alive to the sufferings of her fellow creatures had imbibed the softest feeling of sympathy for the wrongs, and compassion for the pictured privations of that race, with whom she was in all probability destined to pass the remainder of her life. She had learned to consider them an oppressed people, and that impression was sufficient to awaken in her benevolent mind feelings of deep commiseration, and many were the resolutions she had formed to ameliorate, and add comfort to their condition.

With heartfelt gratification however, she soon discovered that the enthusiasm natural to her character had pourtrayed the picture of an ideal rather than of their real situation. She found them generally a cheerful people, gay in their character; well fed, and, in infancy, sickness and infirmity, nursed with great kindness; the hours of their labour were limited, and this was much less burdensome in its nature also, than that which falls to the lot of many of the class of peasantry in Europe. They had each a separate house containing two rooms built with a kind of wattling, thatched with plantain leaves, many of them possessing the comfort of extreme cleanliness, and neatly furnished—shaded from the scorching sun by the breadfruit, mango, or cabbage tree, which contribute greatly towards the support as well as comfort of the sable inhabitant. Each had also a provision ground, which he cultivated for his individual advantage; disposing of the produce as he pleased at the public market.

Julia and her husband would with delight ride round their grounds on a Saturday evening to witness the hilarity and pleasure which pervaded the various groups as they danced to the sound of the pipe and a sort of African drum generally played by an old man whose particular province it was.—Not a face bore the stamp of depression: no anxiety, no care for the morrow, no dread lest the merciless landlord should deprive them of their little good, interfered with these joyous revels—the parent had not to think of his offspring—nor the child for his aged parent; to the proprietor that obligation attached, and many in advanced life were exempt from labour who in Europe must have worked in penury and bitterness for their daily bread. Together they would visit the hospital or sick house on the estate, and were pleased to see with what order and care it was attended by an experienced nurse, under the direction of an eminent medical professor who regularly visited the sick.—Nor was this confined to Colville estate only, similar solicitude for the welfare and comfort of the slaves was obvious throughout the colony.

A succession of years rolled on without any eventful change in the affairs of the worthy proprietor, except that he annually found an additional claim to his parental care and affections until his children amounted in number to eight, six daughters and two sons; the eldest of the latter was named Arthur after the worthy Rector at whose residence it will be remembered he was born.

As Mr. and Mrs. Colville were emblematic of excellence, so were their children. From the force of example the girls evinced the same kind nature and kindness of disposition so manifest in their mother. Their amiability of character was truly fascinating while they progressively gained from the same natural source every natural and pleasing endowment:—nor had the father less reason to be satisfied with his sons; the youngest was yet a child, but Arthur had reached his eighteenth year and had on several occasions proved a nobleness and generosity of disposition that did honor to the stem from whence he sprang; he had trodden the footsteps of his father at college, sat on the same bench, and studied from the same classic store; in mind therefore as well as in person a confined likeness existed between the father and son.

Arthur had now completed his scholastic studies, and the critical moment of parental anxiety had arrived, when it became necessary to point out the path for his pursuits through life.

The army had long been the youth’s fixed choice, but Mr. Colville urged his inability to purchase a commission, besides he was without interest to forward his advancement and secure promotion.

Arthur listened with respectful attention to his father’s objections, and then stated he was ready to enter into any engagement he might wish.

With the fervour of parental love Mr. Colville pressed the hand of his son, (which during the conference had rested in his) evidently struggling with painful emotion:—at length he said: “Arthur, a failure in England which considerably affects my estates, renders it an imperative duty that I retrench my establishments while it deprives me of the means of affording you a choice of profession; you must, my son, turn your mind to mercantile pursuits in which you have both steadiness and ability to succeed.”

Glowing with enthusiasm, and exalted with imaginary views of future glory!—fancy had already recounted to Arthur’s sanguine mind accumulated honors gained in the field!—laurels descending to his family—the applause of his sovereign and the praises of his country, these were subjects in which his youthful mind had long feasted with enraptured anticipation!—but alas! all was now flown in a moment, the fancied citadel of his greatness was destroyed—the mighty edifice on which his visionary hopes had so long rested was forever demolished! and poor Arthur saw before him nothing beyond the plodding and uncertain path of the merchant.

For an instant the flush of disappointment crimsoned his cheek, and with some difficulty he suppressed the starting tear; yet this was only a momentary emotion to be succeeded by the most honorable and praiseworthy feelings! with Arthur, parental veneration and filial affection surpassed every other consideration; he endeavoured to banish the desire of becoming a soldier, and expressed his entire wish immediately to engage in the pursuit his father had so wisely suggested.

Mr. Colville had a friend residing in a neighbouring colony, a merchant of great respectability, and who upon application readily agreed to receive Arthur as a junior clerk in his house. Here his conduct was uniformly correct, wholly free from dissipation and folly, his habits were so industrious and temperate, that he was, so soon as occasion allowed, appointed to the confidential situation of first clerk in the firm of ——

In this capacity he soon became valuable to his employer whose health had fallen into so precarious a state that, shortly after, the entire management of the concern devolved on our young friend.

From severe losses occasioned by the failure in England before alluded to, Mr. Colville had found it necessary to sell his property in the West Indies and had returned with his family to Europe, under circumstances very different to what might have been anticipated a few years before. So mutable, and pernicious are the affairs of man!—But the worthy destitute had at least the cheering reflection that with an unruffled conscience he could take a retrospective view of his life and find that neither extravagance nor disorder had ever reigned in his family!—his misfortunes had arisen from circumstances beyond his control and which perhaps no common prudence could have foreseen or prevented. Such a situation was to be borne with feelings very different from those resulting from the annihilation of wild schemes of speculation, or from a want of good conduct and integrity; and certainly has every claim to the kindest consideration. Fatal experience has proved, that the country in which Mr. Colville had embarked his hopes, is one of great risk, arising from a variety of causes local and adventitious; yet it is to be feared, that where speedy ruin has ensued, that unlimited dissipation too often may be traced to have usurped the place of domestic economy.

Those who live beyond their circumstances must continually feel embarrassment and disorder in their affairs—Irregularity and profusion alike preclude habits of industry, the payment of just debts, or the sweet exercise of those acts of benevolence and charity so refreshing to our common nature; while punctuality in such circumstances is quite out of the question. But such was not the case with Mr. Colville, his promise like his creed was sacred, and might ever be relied on.

Cheerfulness with economy combined, governed his plentiful yet plain table, to his family, he would frequently relate an anecdote of an old Scotsman, who happened to be present at a voluptuous West Indian dinner, and was invited to eat of the different removes; “Na, na mon,” said honest Donald, “I am much obliged to ye, but I n’er tak twa dinners in ae day!” He would conclude the tale with a general observation to his children “follow the example of the prudent Scotsman, and be just to the world before ye tak twa dinners in ae day.”

Arthur had by every endearing attention marked his affection and duty to his parents; but it was at the moment of their adverse fortune that he proved the nobleness of his soul! It was then that with an unclouded lustre a grand trait of character opened to the world an example of filial piety! Unrepiningly he had followed the wishes of the parent he had never known in his counsel to err:—but nature had implanted in him a love of military life, and in spite of his reason he could not entirely resign the hope, that the day would arrive when with paternal permission he might yet be allowed to enter his darling profession! Youth was still on his side, and he did not despair of acquiring by exertion and good conduct distinguished honors.

Buoyed with the hope of one day purchasing a commission, he unremittingly practised the utmost frugality, for his salary was not large though his trust was important:—meanness was incompatible with his nature, but he had never been known to enter into amusements that would idly dissipate either his means or his time, which looking either to the present or the future, were held by him in equal estimation.

The desired sum was at length obtained and his grateful heart rejoiced that the means were now within his own power, feeling confident that his father’s indulgent disposition would remove any farther difficulty.—His happiness was, he thought, secure, and the pleasing prospect with which he had formerly flattered his imagination again revived.

But at this critical juncture Arthur became acquainted with the increased difficulties in which his parents were involved; his noble soul, overwhelmed with contending feelings, hesitated not now a moment.—By the ensuing packet he transmitted to them the whole of his little accumulated property with the farther assurance that the half of his salary was more than sufficient for his ordinary wants, and the remainder he insisted that he might be allowed to forward to them annually.

Generous noble minded youth! if thy heart panted with joy in the expectation of self gratification, and of anticipated honors, how exalted, how sublime were the feelings of thy soul when by a sacrifice—dear enough to thy cherished hopes, but in itself trifling, thou couldst prove thy affectionate gratitude, and soothe by thy endearing attentions the afflicted authors of thy being.

With unabating vigilance, and in the strict performance of every duty did this amiable young man remain seemingly devoted to the profession he had embarked in—and, in which, though no brilliant honors could be anticipated, he promised to shine a character of integrity and of uprightness of conduct which would secure him alike the esteem of the worthy and the greatest of all human happiness, an approving conscience.

At this period of our narrative Arthur became acquainted with a gentleman whose character did honor to the post of high importance he filled in the colony. The introduction arose from a circumstance that fortunately displayed the exalted mind of the young merchant, and gave indelible proof that nature designed him for no unimportant condition of life.

With true admiration of his integrity and amiable qualities, his noble friend felt a zealous desire to be the means of promoting his views in whatever way they might be desired;—and soon learning his ardent wish to become a soldier, delayed not in exerting every possible interest to procure him a low commission. He fortunately succeeded; and Arthur was appointed to a regiment then stationed in the West Indies. On receiving the confirmation of the success of his application, the commander in chief, (for such was the rank of Arthur’s friend,) sent for the young soldier and presenting him with his commission observed “perhaps this is one of the most happy moments of my life, for I have the double pleasure of knowing, that while I am gratifying the laudable wishes of an amiable young man, I am adding to his Majesty’s Army, an officer whose honor and integrity will never be excelled—go my friend—may your valour equal these distinguished qualities of your private life; and may you reap in the field laurels which your virtues richly merit.”

The same inflexible steadiness of character that had manifested itself in the counting house, was now, the faithful companion of the soldier.—Arthur was no sooner known than he was esteemed by his brother officers, he carefully avoided controversy, and his military as well as his private conduct was irreproachable. Like a truly brave man, he was kind, conciliating, and humane to his soldiers, and by them he was truly beloved, although a strict observer of military discipline. His regiment was shortly ordered to England, and subsequently to the Peninsula, where it was gloriously eminent in the successive campaigns of that eventful period. . . . That vast field of service did not fail to afford Arthur an opportunity of distinguishing himself among the many laureled heroes of those brilliant days. Promotion rapidly rewarded his exertions and, at the close of the great events which form so glorious an era in our history, the young soldier was about to return to the arms of his family who were now in the enjoyment of a happy competency.

Through the influence of a friend at home, his father had procured a post of considerable honor and emolument, which he for many years held with credit to himself, and advantage to his country.

The officer to whom we have alluded, as Arthur’s principle friend, had resigned his important charge in the colony, and had returned to England for the purpose of being present at the nuptials of his eldest daughter whose marriage with a distinguished military character was soon to take place.

From a desire that his young favorite might be present on that happy occasion the ceremony had been for some days delayed. The moment he arrived in his native land, he proceeded to join the anticipating circle with all the rapidity with which grateful affection, and a yet stronger motive could convey him—for he flew on the wings of the wind to divulge a secret on which not only his own happiness, but that of a much dearer object was now pending.

From their first acquaintance a natural attachment had been forming between Arthur and the youngest daughter of his noble friend, though an inviolable secrecy on the subject had existed.—He having declared that he never would presume to solicit the hand of a woman so truly dear to him, until promotion would enable him to support an establishment equal to the rank in which she then moved.—The moment for confession had arrived, and the proposal for a second marriage was heard with enthusiastic pleasure by the families on either side, a short time only was required for preparation, and on the same day the delighted father had the unutterable pleasure of presenting to two young men of irreproachable honor and integrity, as their happy brides, his daughters, celebrated equally for their beauty, accomplishments and amiable manners.

Time has rolled on and Arthur is now the joyful parent of a promising progeny, who will no doubt imitate the brilliant example he has given them in the exercise of such virtues as emanate from our best feelings.

D. B.

BY LEON GOZLAN.

“The present generation must expect to be encumbered with sons of Napoleon, in rivalry with false Dauphins. Each fallen dynasty has bequeathed to us its glorious illegitimates, and its counterfeit descendants. * * * Popular belief is fed from such doubtful sources: and, provided the nose or the mouth bear some faint resemblance to the same features in the ex-sovereign the dress does the rest. * * *

“This preamble shows, by anticipation, the little desire I have to seduce the credulity of the reader, and my indifference whether or not he share in my conviction. I am only anxious, by the simplicity of this narrative, and the authority of the dates, fact, and times, which I adduce, to inspire him with a little confidence.

“During the moments of leisure between the thousand prodigies which have made the Egyptian campaign a poem, or a fairy tale, Napoleon, then called Buonaparte, formed an acquaintance with the dark Egyptian girls, beautiful, submissive, and passing their lives upon the sand, or upon sofas,—their imaginations excited at the sight of a man, who projected his shadow, like a huge pyramid, from Cairo to Upper Egypt.

“I agree with the world, that it is a prodigious thing to have conquered the English, the Mameloucs, the plague, the ophthalmia, thirst, and the Desert; and they will surely agree with me, that there is nothing extraordinary in Napoleon leaving a descendant, I grant the marvellous;—concede to me the possible: Grant me that Napoleon had a son in Egypt, and that this son was a half-caste, short, formed like his father, and copper-coloured like his mother.

“When I left school in 1824, I was acquainted at Marseilles with a young Egyptian, twenty-six years of age, named Napoleon Tard——. A certain identity of political opinions, and the same taste for solitude, soon cemented a strong friendship between us. All the disadvantages of our intimacy lay on his side; for I drank deep of knowledge from his conversation, and he instructed me in the Greek and Arabic languages; rendering his lessons truly delightful by recollections of his travels in Nubia, Ethiopia, and across the Jordan—by vast original information—and by these views which you cannot derive from books, because books are mutes and have not the animation of gesture, nor the flash of the eye, nor the music of the voice, nor the quiver of the muscles. His memory, which he pretended he had lost, was encyclopedical. If you asked him a word he would give you a volume. When he spoke, I more than listened,—I read. But the moment this overflowing of poetry, science, thought and enthusiasm ceased, he would relapse into the deepest and most silent melancholy. Nothing could rouse him from it. A mild and constant smile alone denoted in him the motion of life. It was during this lethargic state that you were struck with the muscular power of his thickest body, and with the fine form of his shoulders, arched and moulded like those of an antique statue. He was short—scarcely five feet four, but in such men, the head is the body. His was of a size prodigiously out of proportion with his bust, although the latter was very large; whilst his thin and nervous legs were like those of all the Orientals, without exception, inhabiting the borders of a desert. His head displayed the largest cerebral development ever seen in a European, together with the finest characteristics of an African. His nose, boldly aquiline, hung over his lips more natural than delicate in their form. His chin turned up a little too much, which gave to the lower part of his face an enervate and somewhat monkish expression. But it was impossible not to pass over this defect, when you perceived that which justified his claim to a resemblance of which he was proud. His eyes, of a transparent and dazzling blue, indicated that mental superiority with which God now and then invests certain men to prove to the levellers of all ages the untruth of equality among mankind. The fascination of his eye dragged you within the vortex of his will, where you were forced to remain and encounter the shock of his emotions and the concussion of his mental excitement. His eyes, which you wished you had never seen, and which it was impossible to forget when once you had come within their influence, flashed fire; and the dark orbs which encircled these two burning mirrors, enabled you to comprehend at what price God sometimes bestows genius, and what constant sufferings he kindles in those hearts which serve as its altars. From this description, which my feeble pen has left so imperfect, the reader will be reminded of the noble countenance of Napoleon, which will be handed down to the latest posterity. It is one of the family portraits of human nature.

“Your idea of Tard—— would be incomplete, if you forget he was a half-caste. Upon his huge, thick, and hard skull was stretched a tanned skin always in perspiration. The straight hair of the Corsican fell over two large, flat, and primitive ears. His was the frame of Napoleon, covered with the skin of Sesostris.

“Let those who comprehend Napoleon’s mission upon earth, who know what energy he derived from the Corsican, Genoese, and Florentine blood mingled in his veins, measure, if they dare, the confusion into which the same man would have thrown the social economy had he been born in Africa, his veins swollen with black blood, galloping naked upon a horse without a saddle, pointing with his sword to the west, and showing to his people, as a tamer of wild beasts would show a quarter of fresh meat to a lion:—moving men not with ideas of independence and glory—which symbols have no meaning but among old nations rubbed smooth with worn-out civilization—but with miracles in deeds,—lengthening the desert wherever he passed—realizing the unity of empires by death, and universal peace by silence,—leaving in each conquered city a flame for ensign, and fire for a garrison.

“The consciousness of his high birth and two-fold origin, now kept Tard—— in a state of sombre pre-occupation. As soon as our intimacy warranted every kind of confidence, he constantly talked to me of his mad projects in the East. ‘The East is mine,’ he would say, ‘as the West belonged to my father Napoleon. I will state my descent, my name, and projects; I will place myself at the head, not of the Turks, but of the Arabs. The former have run their race. With the Arabs I will restore the civilization of the Ptolemies. I speak their language; I belong to their race; I am of their blood;—and they will listen to me. I will call each city, each town, each hamlet, each man, and each child by their several names. All will come to me; and the Nile, and the sands of the desert, and the winds shall roll towards Cairo and Alexandria as did the armies of Cambyses. The cross of the Cophts, and the three colours shall operate new prodigies. I will do for Egypt that which my father had not the generosity to do. He wanted it only as a road to India, instead of making it independent. Egypt shall with me and by me be free; free by my sword, by the cross, and by the three colours. No more beys, nor pachas, nor slaves. Freedom, as in the time of the Caliphs, will I establish,—See you this casquette?’ he continued; ‘I will place it upon the pinnacle of Mecca. Until that time, it shall never quit my possession; then shall civilization revolve round it. Then shall we open our libraries;—then shall we call to us science now enslaved in old Europe. It shall come to us from Germany, and Italy, and Spain. The Arabic of the Caliphs, the Greek of Plato, and the Latin of Tacitus, shall run through the streets of Alexandria. Then shall the light again come from the East, and the prophesies be accomplished!’

“And I have seen him full of those strange ideas, full of projects of conquests, gallop half-naked upon the sand along the sea-shore, calling with his strong and nervous voice upon the nations who dwell upon the banks of the Nile, the borders of the desert, and skirt the mountains of Ethiopia, waving his hand in the wind as if balancing the scimitar, and shouting in Arabic. ‘Ye people and nations! behold the son of Kebir!’

“Then stepping on a sudden, he would resume the mild and constant smile which I have already noticed, whilst the upper part of his face assumed the most perfect immobility. Insensibly the colour which his enthusiasm and violent excitement had raised upon his cheeks would fade and merge into the hue of sadness, which like a cloud descended from his brow. Here again was to be seen the deep thought of Napoleon, so admirably represented in the picture of the battle of Eylau. * * *

“Let us use the privilege of poetry, and suppose for a moment that Napoleon’s legitimate son, the Duke of Reichstadt, had realized some of those sublime hopes dreamt of by those who idolized his father,—by men enthusiastic enough to adore Napoleon as a prodigy, and thoughtless enough to dishonor his renown, by supposing that the same greatness could exist a second time by the mere force of descent: let us suppose, that the political fetters so well and so adroitly fixed around the existence of the Duke of Reichstadt had burst of themselves, and that the son of Napoleon, as a soldier at St. Roch, an artillery officer at Toulon, and a General in Italy, had earned the right of leading armies to the plains of Egypt, whither we had sent them a second time to obtain that which was there sought by his father—namely a sun warm enough to dry the blood stains of another revolution,—(for after civil murder, glory must be won; the alternative must lie between external war, and the public executioner at home);—let us suppose this, and who knows if Providence would not have placed face to face, two principles sprung like Oromasis and Arimanes, from the same origin, and have revived for us incredulous people those mystic beings, who first, under real human forms, lead men in herds to some act of regeneration, whether of blood or of fire, and who, after they disappear, become moral truths like Typhon, Isis, and Osiris? Why should not this young prince, this legitimate son of Napoleon, have promoted that eternal tendency of Europe to obtain possession of Egypt, for the purpose of making an easy road to India, the cradle of human civilization? And why should not the young Egyptian, the illegitimate son of Napoleon, have represented that want, already felt by Africa under its Mameloucs and its Pachas, of shaking off the besotted yoke of the Sultans? It would have been a wonderful spectacle for mankind to see two men sprung from the same father—one pale as Europe, the other bronzed like Africa—meeting under the curve of their sabres in their first march towards each other, asking each other’s name, and each replying ‘Napoleon!’

“Yes! I believe in the existence of an energetic and divine power, produced by the meeting of certain syllables and of certain numbers. Without unfolding the mysteries of the Cabal, I believe that these two names, forming but one, would have aroused from their sleep of stone, Alexandria, and its pharos, and its bazaars, and its arsenals, and its towers, and its nine hundred thousand inhabitants. I believe that the powerful breath of this double apparition would have dispersed the fine sand which now wears away so many noble monuments of granite; that in lieu of this dust, would have sprung up columns and capitals hewed out of the petrified date-tree, and all that population of statues formed from the natural productions of Egypt.

“Egypt only produces statues made from its sands,—and sand which is made solely from its statues. Nothingness and form come and go alternately; to-day there is a pyramid, tomorrow a few heaps of sand. The Great Desert is but a collection of pounded cities.

“But let us quit the field of hypothesis, and return to the reality of my narrative.

“Tard—— added to his powerful energy of character, the most simple pursuits, and much innocence in his amusements. He was passionately fond of flowers. A sunset in the bosom of our Mediterranean, threw him into ecstacy. His oriental life always swam upon the surface of the habits he had acquired in Europe. He used the bath and perfumes to excess, and when the heat of the weather was great, the veil of drowsiness threw over his eyes that languor peculiar to the women of the East, as well as to lions and tigers.

“Before we proceed further, I must state that Tard—— was mad, but his madness was nothing more than a philosophical monomania. It was so whimsical that it would not be worth recording, did it not unravel the denouement of his life. I know not from what course of reading or study he had imbibed his system, but he believed neither in the mortality of the soul, nor in the mortality of the body. Death, so far as he could define it to me, he seemed to consider a mere change of country, a forced journey from one place to another. The man murdered or presumed dead at Paris, would be found at Berlin or London. He positively denied a total disappearance. Thus, he said he had met somewhere walking together, Rousseau and Raynal, Buffon and Linnaeus; and according to him, grave-diggers were sinecurists, and cemeteries a farce. With such a system of belief, aided by the officious resources of logic, murder was in his eyes only a forcible expulsion from one country, and a sentence of death only a passport to another clime. I believe that this fatal extravagance of belief may have proceeded from an accident which readily admits of an explanation but which made a lasting impression upon his mind. During his childhood, and on the occasion perhaps of some insurrection in favour of his claim to the throne of the Pharaohs, he had stabbed a camel-driver at Cairo. Some years after this murder, or rather this duel, he met, or thought he met, the same man at Aleppo. Now, whether the camel-driver was victim of the application of his system, or the first cause of his error, I am not prepared to say; for I never knew. Be that as it may, Tard—— positively denied the mortality of the body.

“He had attained to that age when the contrast of a precarious condition, with gigantic views and hopes in after years, cease to be in equilibrium. The poetry which had kept his mind within bounds, was fast disappearing. * * *

“Tired by the delays caused by the refusal of his two uncles—respectable merchants, one of whom had been several times elected member of the national representation—to advance him money for the intended voyage to Egypt, Tard—— complained of their parsimony. He could not understand their refusing him the money necessary to take possession of the throne of the Caliphs. These worthy merchants, without denying the august descent of their nephew, would have preferred adding him to their establishment as a book-keeper, to seeing him a Pharaoh I., an Aroun, or an Abasside. They therefore declined to supply him with funds for such a purpose.

“One day, as I was walking with him on the port of Marseilles, he began to play with a small knife, about two inches long which he held between his fingers, he then begged me to wait for him a moment. Returning in a short time, he said, shutting his knife, ‘I have just dispatched my two uncles for America—which means, in your language, that I have just killed them.’

“At this instant, two gendarmes increased my astonishment and stupefaction, by arresting with these words, the expedite nephew:—‘In the name of the law! Napoleon Tard——, you are our prisoner:—you have murdered your two uncles!’

“On his trial at the Assize Court of Aix, Napoleon Tard—— swerved not from his character. But his metaphysical monomania on the subject of death did not save him. . . .

“He proceeded to the scaffold without fear and without a murmur, deeply impressed with the idea that he could not die, because his body was immortal as well as his soul. He displayed only that smile, half sinister and half lovely, which I before mentioned.

“He must, moreover, have been well pleased at seeing such an abundance of fruit and flowers as were collected at the place to which he was taken. For the place of execution at Aix is embalmed twice a week, with all the vegetable wonders of Provence—the Delta of Southern France. The Nile is not more lavish of its gifts than the Rhone and the Durance. He thought, no doubt, that these perfumes were for him. Without a cravat, his neck free, and his eyes brilliant and sparkling, he walked through the crowd as if he were taking a stroll in the country. He would have been content had he been allowed a carnation in his button hole, and a switch in his hand.

“He was in the market place of Aix, and on a market day.

“In the glowing beams of a sunshine in Provence, the imperial head of the victim fell by the knife of the guillotine, and the blood of Napoleon stained the pavement.

“One day, when the executioner came to Marseilles, to purchase a better blade, and two stronger planks, a certain young man whom I may be allowed not to name, received a casquette, as the dying bequest of Tard——.

“It was one which was to have crowned the minaret at Mecca, and rallied the civilization of the East.”—Livre des Cent et Un.

IN REPLY TO A MOTHER’S LAMENT OVER HER IDIOT CHILD INSERTED IN OUR LAST.

ORIGINAL.

Cosa bella mortal passa e non dura.—Petrarch.

I.

Oh! it was the prettiest bonnet in the world, the most elegant, the most graceful, the most coquetish.—It was a lilac gauze capote, having braids of straw round the front, and a bouquet, of corn and blue bottles placed among coques of ribands, leaning from the right side of the crown.—

It was also the most fragile attachment that could be conceived! It was the light passion of a lively, trifling woman, a fanciful sentiment, set off with capricious favors and artificial tenderness. . . .

And now for what befel this gauze capote, and this fanciful sentiment.

II.

On the 7th of June 18—, I had dined with Madame de Saint-Clair, who had deigned to honor me with her attention and tête-à-tête for the last three days. This revelation is painful, but it is absolutely necessary for the intelligence of my story.—Besides it will be seen in the end if there is any foppery in my avowals.

Be it as it may, this lady (for I must also mention this) occupies the second story of a house in the rue Vivienne. In the house directly opposite, and on the same story, there happens to be a fashionable milliner’s work-shop, where at working hours the young girls are assembled round a long table. It is there the bonnets are fabricated and as soon as finished brought down into the shop below, which faces the street; where they are exposed behind show glasses, placed on the summit of long mahogany perches, which thus coiffées certainly do not look unlike some of the English women who come over to us in Paris towards the month of October.

That night I was to have gone out with Madame de Saint-Clair. After dinner she retired into her room to dress, leaving me alone in the parlour.

I must do full and entire justice to Madame de Saint-Clair: among other solid good qualities which she possesses, she has particularly the eminent merit of being very expeditious at her toilet. However every toilet demands time. This, which commenced at seven o’clock, could not in conscience be expected to end before eight. What I had to do then, was to kill as ingeniously as possible sixty minutes of time one after another.—You shall see if it proved a difficult task.

III.

I had settled myself in a good arm-chair near the window which exactly faced that of the work-shop opposite. I could easily see all that passed there without being seen, it having sufficed for this purpose, merely to draw the muslin curtain of my window a little to the one side, the milliner’s being entirely open.

This is the general appearance the room offered at the moment, that from my convenient observatory I pointed my glass towards it.

There were eight young girls there, some sitting as though half sleeping, others standing, with animated looks, sparkling eyes, laughing, singing, and chatting in the liveliest manner.

With respect to the stuffs with which the table was covered, no notice was taken of them, they did not even seem to think of them. These young ladies had undoubtedly just dined; for these big children it was the hour of recreation and rest, the same as with small scholars at the nunnery after lunch.

However, among these charming girls, so playful and careless, there was one who was pensive and collected. By the place she occupied at the upper end of the table near the window, better still by a certain air of distinction, she was easily recognised as the first of the young ladies.

IV.

Here a few considerations must find place, which should not be thought out of-the-way, on the contrary they necessarily arise from our subject.

This is an axiom.

There are millinery sellers every where.—There are no milliners (modistes) but in Paris.

A real milliner, do you see, is not a person who establishes corsets, or fabricates embroidery by the day; it is an artist who works only at her own time.—

A Milliner is a poet.

A bonnet, is not like a fichu, like a gown, a work of calculation and of patience: it is a labour of art and imagination; it is poetry.

It is however important to distinguish.

There are bonnets, and bonnets.

There is the ordered bonnet: that which is made for customers. This bonnet undoubtedly requires talent and cleverness. To execute it properly however, a milliner requires to possess only common sense and observation. In fact it suffices to suit it properly to the character and physiognomick habits of the wearer.

This is not the true poetic bonnet.

But there is the improvised bonnet, that which is dictated by fancy, that which should, and can suit a head the artist has never seen, but of which she has dreamed in her waking hours.

Oh! that bonnet is really the bonnet of inspiration, it is the lyric hat.

V.

It was one of those bonnets, that the eldest lady of our milliner’s shop was meditating.

One of her arms which supported her head rested on the table; the other was carelessly flung over the back of her chair. She was with very little difference, in the attitude of Corrinna at cape Mycena.

It was also to be for her an improvisation. But it was certainly not to be a melancholy one.

Far contrary.

On a close examination of the expressive countenance of the beautiful milliner, one might read the precursing symptoms of a poetic creation. And this approaching creation was to be elegant and graceful; for, certes, at this moment, the thoughts of the young woman were most cheerful! the expansion of her features announced joy! Oh Yes! some charming project was promising her much happiness for the close of the evening, and the idea that was agitating in her mind under the influence of such precious inspirations, was about to be produced, sparkling and gilded with their rays!

This meditation lasted for several minutes.

At length, the milliner turned suddenly toward the table, and, seizing with vivacity a large piece of lilac gauze that happened to be lying before her, she measured several ells with her forefinger and thumb to her shoulder; examined it on all sides, turned it, folded it, gathered it several times and in several ways; then, the dimensions all calculated, extending it on her knee, she suddenly took the scissors and cut boldly into the full piece of gauze.

It was decreed. She had said: it shall be a capote;—and it was a capote.

VI.

That the work might be accomplished before night however, it was necessary to hasten. But one hour longer of day-light remained.

In a moment, recalled to order by the first lady, all the young girls returned with the utmost docility to work, each busying herself with the task assigned her.

One was charged with the front piece, another with the crown, that one with the rouleaux, a fifth with the cap, and a sixth with the bordering.

It was pleasant to see these dexterous hands despatch their work with such celerity. I could almost fancy them fencing with their long scissors, and their long needles.—For it is not unnecessary to remark also that the real milliner is here again distinguished from the common work-woman, like the cavalry from infantry by their long swords and lances, so the milliner uses scissors and needles of a prodigious length.

In a quarter of an hour all the coarser parts of the work were completed.

For you must know that in the construction of a woman’s bonnet, as frail, gentlemen, as this light edifice may appear to you, more solid elements enter into its construction than you would imagine.—There is coarse lawn, pasteboard, with the purl and wire which makes the carcase and scaffolding, is not all this really carpentry and smithery?

Whatever it may be, the divers preparations were successively deposed before the superior. It was to her, the architect, to her, the true artist, to her alone, it belonged to unite them, and form one whole of the several parts. She who had conceived this capote could alone give it breath—life—and realize in it her own idea.

On a head of pasteboard which she held on her lap, the ingenuous milliner, by means of pins, adjusted the front and crown together. The long needle by a few stitches finished uniting indissolubly these two principal parts of the head-dress. Then in a few minutes under the light fingers of the artist the gauze bound and enveloped the vivified skeleton of the capote, and was draped on it in graceful folds. Open plaits of straw were added round the forepart and crown; and a pretty back piece was put on behind.

All this was executed with rapidity and incredible enthusiasm.

The young ladies who had each finished their detailed part of the work, followed with curious and interested eyes the interesting employment of putting their portions into action.

The milliner entirely absorbed in her creation, softly smiled as she progressed.

She soon raised it on one hand, and turning it lightly round, examined it under every aspect, leaning her head to the right and to the left, and now and then pressing the edge of the front with the other hand, in several places, rectifying the plaits, and giving harmony to the whole.

VII.

This was not however all yet. The most difficult and most important part remained to do. The point was now to fix on the bouquet. Every one knows that this is the decisive instant and that on the placing of the knots, flowers, or plumes, the whole fate of a bonnet depends, however well it may have succeeded in every other respect. The most profound silence reigned in the work-shop. The liveliest anxiety was depicted in the eyes of the young girls, as they silently watched the fast accomplishing work.

But the inspiration had not abandoned our artist, under her hand the mimic ears of wheat, wild poppies, and blue bottles mixed with the coques of gauze, and were grouped after the most interesting manner, divinely bending from the right side of the crown, over the front of the capote.

The last coque placed, the milliner delicately laid the fragile head-dress on the edge of the table; then crossing her arms, she leaned against the back of her chair.

Inexpressible satisfaction was visible in the features of the young woman; she undoubtedly was saying to herself:—I am contented; here is my thought expressed.

This contemplation did not last long. Having arisen and approached a mirror, she called one of the young girls.

There suddenly advanced, the most lively, roguish looking little girl that had ever been seen at la Grande Chaumière or at Tivoli. The capote was lightly placed on her pretty head, and definitively tried. It was the last proof. Certes, it could not have done better. One general exclamation of enthusiasm resounded through the room. The capote had an entire success. In truth it was most becoming to the charming child. She was so delighted with the beautiful head-dress that she could not bear to part with it, and lightly holding it with the tips of her fingers against her cheeks, she fairly bounded with joy before the glass.

It must however be taken off that dear capote! As soon as the strings were fixed on, it was carried down to the shop, where it was immediately put behind the show-glass on one of the mahogany feet.

Our beautiful milliner had in the mean time busied herself in repairing the disorder her labour had caused in her dress. She had re-curled her hair with care; and then taking her own bonnet and shawl, went out.

I followed her with my eyes as far as Colbert Street where a tall, fine looking young man, wearing spurs and moustaches was standing apparently waiting for some person, she took his arm familiarly and they walked away.

Did I not tell you she expected to be very happy that evening?

Her work performed, let us leave her satisfied with herself, go wherever it seemeth good, with her friend so faithful to the rendez-vous. Assuredly she has well earned her walk and her happiness.

But let us see what is about to become of our capote?

VIII.

Madame de Saint-Clair was a little behind time. Eight o’clock had just struck, and she had not finished dressing.

It was still day-light. The milliners had closed their casement. I opened mine and looked into the street.

I had not gazed around many minutes, before I saw coming from the direction of the Palais Royal, a couple whom I immediately distinguished from the crowd of people going and coming, they instantly attracted all my attention. They were evidently a married couple, and a couple too who had been married about twelve moons before. The husband, apparently a disagreeable and slovenly personage, might probably be a man in office. In that case he had also probably spent the day bent over old manuscripts and registers, and was in haste to arrive at the boulevard, in order to take the air, and breathe freely. He was pushing on then to the best of his ability: but it was not the easiest thing to do, for his wife, a charming creature, well made and well dressed, but certainly the giddiest and most inquisitive person in the world, rendered it a painful and difficult task. Her head turned incessantly to the right and to the left on her pretty neck like a weathercock. If she spied a fancy or jeweller’s shop, she must absolutely approach and make a stop before it. But it was before the milliners shops she remained the longest, every one knows that they are infinitely numerous in the rue Vivienne, and each of them was the station of a calvary where the poor husband painfully bore his cross.

They advanced thus slowly: he, like a good thill-horse drawing with all his strength; she, not allowing herself to be dragged on without resistance, defended the ground valiantly, foot by foot. It was a real joust, and one of the most obstinate.

They at length arrived as far as my window opposite the milliner’s shop in front of it.

IX.

I should declare here, that though I do not in the least pretend to more penetration than has really fallen to my share, yet I had scarcely glanced at the ever varying and capricious countenance of the young woman, with the first sight I had of her I say, I discovered the secret connection and affinity which existed between her and our lilac gauze bonnet, there was in short the same coquetry, the same fancyfulness.—Assuredly I thought, here is the foolish head which appeared to our milliner when she conceived her odd capote! And you madam, you are seeking your own head-dress I continued, Oh! go quickly then, for it is ready and waiting for you.

The event answered my expectations. In spite of her husband’s resistance, the young woman had stopped before the shop window, and instantly distinguished among all the other bonnets, that which was destined for her, that which had been created for her.

It was then and at the very door of the shop, that a struggle ensued between the husband and wife, far more serious than the slight hostilities that had preceded. The young woman confined herself no longer to looks of admiration and longing, she determined to enter the shop to price, and try on this capote.—On his side, seeing the danger imminent, and judging like a sensible man, that once in the shop, the provoking capote would not only be tried on, but bought at the expense perhaps of a whole month’s saving, he held out and defended his purse like a person in despair.

Unfortunately two of the milliners who were in the shop, observing the conflict, easily divined the subject, and without respect for the rights of non-intervention, the malicious creatures came to the succour of the young woman, by opening the door which they saw she held, and was trying to lift the latch. The match was no longer equal, there was no alternative but a noisy quarrel. The husband submitted. As he had so justly feared, in a few minutes the bargain was made, and the capote bought, and paid for with seven bright five franc pieces quite new, which I counted as the unfortunate husband slowly and dolefully counted them into the hand of one of the milliners.

X.

It was almost dark. Not being enabled to continue my exterior observation, I left the window and paced the room.

The clock struck half past eight.

Madame de Saint-Clair forgets us I thought, or else her toilet is rather laborious to-night.

At this moment, Mademoiselle Lise entered with a taper in her hand.

That you may not be ignorant of the fact, I will inform you that mademoiselle Lise is Madame de Saint-Clair’s faithful and intelligent waiting maid. This girl is very disagreeable and crabbed by nature, at this moment she had a certain gracious and amiable air that made me tremble.—I judged immediately that she was the bearer of some unpleasant message to me.—“Madame does not go out to-night, she has just retired to bed with a violent head-ache, and she begs you, monsieur, not to wait any longer for her” said mademoiselle Lise, ill disguising a malicious smile.

I, who am the best man in the world, received very seriously the news brought by mademoiselle Lise—“Here is, I answered a very impertinent head-ache which, without being announced, comes to women when they are dressing! Lise, I beg of you to tell Madame de Saint-Clair how deeply I regret to leave her a prey to this unlucky visitor.”

With this I took up my hat, and left the house, not permitting the charitable girl long to enjoy the pleasure of studying in my countenance the effect her embassy produced.

During my walk through the rue Vivienne, I explained to myself in several ways the cause of Madame de Saint-Clair’s unexpected head-ache. First I supposed that in a paroxysm of legitimate indignation with her mantua-maker, she had torn to pieces, and trampled under foot the new dress she had intended to have worn that evening, a circumstance quite sufficient to account for the invasion of every reasonable megrim. But then again every one knows that Madame de Saint-Clair is an angel of patience and mildness. I must then think of some other reason. I endeavoured, but in vain.

XI.

Thanks to a tolerable fund of philosophy which I possess, and from which in time of need I draw courage to meet the vicissitudes of life, and consolations according to my troubles, Madame de Saint-Clair’s singular indisposition, had not very long, nor beyond measure affected me; indeed I had already banished every thought but that of spending the evening as agreeably as possible without her, when new events turned up to achieve this for me.

I had scarcely reached the end of the rue Vivienne, when nine struck at a neighbouring clock, and the storm which had been threatening the whole evening, burst forth.

As I came to the open space I was received by a blast which then sprung up, raising dense clouds of dust, and causing the reverberators to dance in the air like so many swings. Then came vivid flashes of lightning accompanied by repeated claps of thunder, and large drops of rain began to fall.

I immediately turned back, and endeavoured to run to the Galerie Vivienne. But the violence of the shower did not give me time, and I was constrained to take refuge under the first porch that presented. Chance willed that it should be one that faced Madame de Saint-Clair’s apartments.

Here several passengers, like myself caught in the rain had already sought for shelter, while it continued to fall in torrents, several more came: strange apparitions, half submerged, who waded towards us with their heads wrapped in shawls or handkerchiefs, and gowns and pantaloons tucked up without much regard to decency: every face looking more piteous and disappointed than the other, I would here give a descriptive inventory of them, but that it would retard the course of our story.

XII.

The hurricane however was soon over, and most of the persons who had stopped for shelter, had on the faith of the stars ventured forth on their road home. I was about to depart myself, when there passed before me, two victims of the storm who had been even more cruelly treated by it than any of those whom I had just so leisurely examined and pitied.

It was with some little difficulty that I recognized them at first;—but I could not be mistaken:—It was her! It was him!

Oh! yes, it was him. It was our excellent and miserable husband, wet through and through, to the bones!

As to her capote, alas! I did not know it again—she still had on her head some tatters of gauze, some dripping flowers, and streaming ribands; but all that was without form or name! it was not a capote, it was nothing. * * *

XIII.

But a disgrace that was entirely applicable to myself, suddenly came to put my generous and disinterested pity to flight, and claimed all my sympathy and sensibility.

The young woman re-entered the milliner’s shop to take her plain straw bonnet, she had left there, very happy that this remained to protect her head to her home!

A fiacre which spattered me from head to foot, stopped before the shop. And, as I was mentally addressing the usual benediction in such cases, to those who were the cause of this aspersion, I saw lightly descending from the carriage and enter the shop, guess who—The beautiful milliner, who was returning from, Heaven knows where!

But I had not time to reflect long on the subject, or on the sad spectacle of which she was about to be a witness, on entering, or of the painful emotions that must penetrate her maternal heart as a milliner, when she would see the piteous effects of the storm on the capote, doubtless the most graceful of the daughters her imagination had ever brought forth.

The driver of the fiacre, apparently paid in advance, had ascended into his seat, and was preparing to depart, when he was called from one of Madame de Saint-Clair’s windows by a sharp shrill voice, which I knew was that of Mademoiselle Lise.

This appeared singular.

The coachman turned his carriage, and stopped before the door of Madame de Saint-Clair’s house.

I crossed the street too, and placed myself against the wall a short distance behind the coach.

Imagine what must have been my surprise, when after several minutes waiting, I saw the door open and coming out, lighted by madamoiselle Lise, and attended by a fine looking Polish officer, Madame de Saint-Clair, beautiful as an angel, and adorned by the graces. She wore a rose coloured crape dress, with ribands and flowers in the hair.

Madame de Saint-Clair, resting on the hand of her gallant cavalier, ascended the fiacre with that perfect grace, she knows how to give her slightest actions and simplest movements. The Polish officer followed and placed himself beside her.

—To the Opera, he said to the coachman when closing the door.

And the fiacre drove off, spattering me a second time.

XIV.

I could no longer doubt, I was sacrificed.

Madame de Saint-Clair had loved me three days. The capote had lasted three hours.

I returned slowly home, very sad and very wet, reflecting deeply and seriously on the fragility of woman’s attachments and bonnets. . . . —Extracted from the Book of the Hundred and One.

A. FONTANAY.

A RELATION OF FACTS.

“What, in the name of fortune, induced you to shake the reef out of your mainsail,” enquired the worthy commander of the stately India-man whose deck I had just ascended, “with such a sea running? There are few seamen who would have cracked on in that cockle shell of a boat, unless the flying dutchman, or old nick himself was in pursuit.” Nor would I, my good fellow, if—but I have commenced at the wrong end of my story, and as the circumstance I am about to relate did actually occur within these last ten years, in the presence of many hundred Chinese and Europeans, you may, my good reader, probably wish to have a short description of the Island and bay on which so perilous a scene was enacted, and also a sketch of the characters of the long tailed gentry who performed in the drama, which may enable you to form some idea of what we might have suffered, had we not shaken the last reef out of our own mainsail.

Macào (or Gaou-Meen) is a Portuguese settlement, situated on the southern extremity of an extensive Island in China, for the Lat. and Lon. of which I must refer you to the Four and Twenty gentlemen in Leaden Hall Street, who as directors or rather kings of a large portion of the Eastern world must naturally have the geography of it on their fingers’ ends, the produce we know they have—at this settlement however their agents are but unwelcome guests.

In 1640 it was granted to the Portuguese by some hard named Emperor, as a reward for the capture of a noted Pirate who infested the seas and Islands adjoining that portion of the Celestial Empire—In their traffic with Cochin, Japan, Tonquin, Siam and all the South-West of China, they so enriched themselves, that on this little territory of hardly eight miles in circuit, they erected many magnificent buildings both public and private and carried on most extensive commerce. Here it was that Camoens wrote his Lusiad, and a cave in the town in which it is said to have been written still retains his name. But luxury followed wealth, and enervated by a tropical sun they are degenerated to a proud and indolent race. The town overlooks a beautiful bay, the beach of which forms a half circle, on either end are erected small batteries, the fort or citadel forms a grand feature; situated on a high hill, it completely commands the town and harbour, with a strong wall composed of oyster shells projecting into the water at each end, in the centre of which is a gate and guard-house for the Chinese. In this small place there are thirteen or fourteen churches or chapels, with three monasteries for men, and a convent for about forty nuns. The troops consisted of a few hundred of as miserable a set of beings as can be well imagined, half-clothed, half-fed, a regiment that would realize the description of honest Jack Falstaff’s company. The senate is built of granite, in which are several columns of the same material, with Chinese characters inscribed on them, signifying a solemn cession of the place from the emperor; but so cavalierly do their Chinese neighbours use them, that they now possess little more than a nominal government; thus are treated the descendants of the brace and adventurous bands, who first traversed these distant regions, and so will Britain’s sons be trampled upon, if the insults she has received, are not speedily and effectually resented.

As foreign females are not allowed to land on any other part of the Chinese territory excepting the Island of Macào, we quitted the ship off this port, and on my landing at the custom house, I was called upon to pay 50 dollars as a sort of import duty on the ladies of our party, and, strange as it may appear, I found on enquiry that this was the established custom of the Island, ladies being valued as a bale of goods and paying duty accordingly; I of course did not hesitate a moment in complying with this very singular demand; a residence of a few weeks however gave me a tolerable insight into the crafty and imposing community by which we were surrounded, and the scenes of cruelty and cowardice, I subsequently witnessed, so disgusted me with these demi-savages that I have more than once been on the point of giving way to feelings which would have entailed on me the whole catalogue of their very numerous and ingenious tortures. I will instance one. Two unfortunate and guilty wretches were caught stealing some trifling article of dress; the proof being positive, they were bound back to back to the flagstaff opposite the custom house, their tuft of long hair then tied so high on the staff that they were obliged to stand tiptoe; after remaining some time in this posture they were struck on the feet with small rattans, in shrinking from which their whole weight of course was supported by their hair; in the course of an hour or two, they were taken down, their hands bound, and a police officer placed between them, holding them by their hair. They were then paraded on the beach, with the stolen article before them and, stopping every ten or twelve yards, their heads were violently knocked together and their crime publicly proclaimed: all this occupied about four hours, and was looked on with perfect indifference by the natives.

Boating being almost the only amusement at Macào, I came in contact almost daily with the Custom House Officers, as insolent a set as I ever met, and who would have given a great deal to have had an opportunity of wreaking their spite on me; once I was afraid an accident had placed me in their power—Shun-ta-zhin had once held the office of chief magistrate at Tog-choo-foo, but an excessive stretch of power, in punishing a criminal with extra tortures to gratify a private pique, was visited with dismissal and banishment to Macào: being a shrewd insinuating character, he contrived to ingratiate himself into the good graces of Chaung-fee the Happo^[1] of Canton’s representative at Macào, and by his acts and villainy induced Chaung-fee to aim at the viceroyship, betrayed him, and was shortly after made Chief Mandarin and Collector of Customs on the Island.

Shun-ta-zhin was by birth a Tartar, tall, well formed and muscular, he wore the dress of an inferior Mandarin. He was standing one morning with his head uncovered on the edge of the jetty immediately in front of the Custom House giving some directions to a party proceeding to board a strange sail in the offing, where I passed him rather close, and sprung from the jetty to the beach the height of about two feet; unfortunately whilst in the act of springing, one of the hooks of my military jacket caught in the plait of his long queue: in an instant with a reel he measured his length upon the sand; the movement was so sudden that I started on one side, thus unconsciously inflicting an additional pang to the head of this great man, not till then did I perceive the cause of his sudden prostration. It was with some difficulty I abstained from joining the laugh it created amongst the by-standers, but politeness as well as prudence forbade it. I had learnt that receiving any kind of duty for the persons of Europeans on landing or leaving the Island was in direct violation of an edict published by the late Emperor, so I was determined at all hazards to resist the unlawful demand which I knew would be made on our departure from Macào. Many of the residents to whom I mentioned my intentions told me it would be a perilous adventure, for might constituted right in China, but I could not bear the idea of an Englishman giving way to such a villain, particularly when justice was in my power. Fortunately for me a few days previous to our quitting the Island, a small ship anchored in the offing whose commander I knew; I no sooner made him acquainted with my determination, than in the true spirit of a British sailor, he offered me every assistance, accordingly it was agreed that a boat with six men and himself should be in readiness for our party on the morning of our departure at the farthest point from the Custom House. The morning came, with some feelings of anxiety, our baggage I had sent off the evening before to my friend’s ship. At about 10 o’clock the homeward bound India-men were seen in full sail towards the offing where they were to lay to for passengers. The time for action arrived, the boat was hauled up on the beach, stern foremost, for the accommodation of the females, Mrs. A—, her sister and an indian maid. The splendid sight of so many large ships under sail and the departure of so many visitors from the Island had attracted hundreds to the Esplanade; foremost amongst whom were Shun-ta-zhin and a host of his myrmidons; we had succeeded in getting the ladies seated and I was in the act of jumping in myself when I was seized by two police officers; knocking them both down, springing into the boat and shoving off, was the work almost of an instant, a volley of abuse and shouts followed us, and I soon perceived that they intended arming and pursuing in their snake-boat which pulled fifty oars. A few yards from where we embarked laid a schooner belonging to one of the English merchants, who had kindly offered her to take us to the ship, and seeing that things wore rather a serious aspect, I determined to avail myself of it; we were soon on board, anchor hove and sails loosed and before Shun-ta-zhin had finished fitting out his cruizer; but when under weigh she gained on us dreadfully; being in the Bay between two high lands we felt scarcely any thing of the breeze which was blowing beyond us, the snake was over-hauling us fast, and we could see the exasperated Chinese preparing themselves for a bloody attack. On examining our weapons of defence, we found on board the schooner two rusty cutlasses, two boarding pikes and a boat-hook which would serve on a pinch; I had besides my own trusty blade of damascus steel; we were three Europeans and seven lascars or native seamen, all well aware that if taken, the most exquisite tortures would have; awaited us not one I am sure, would have allowed himself to be captured alive.

(To be continued.)

BY THE O’HARA FAMILY.

Extract.

The scene of ‘The Ghost Hunter’ is laid in Ireland, and from internal evidence we conclude, in the ancient city of Kilkenny. In it, Mr. Banim has put forth all the vigour that belonged to the old ‘O’Hara Tales,’ and avoided the weakness that sullied his subsequent efforts. He has gone back to Nature, and she has welcomed the return of her favourite child, with more than a mother’s fondness. That our praise is not extravagant will appear from the following scene in a prison, between a father and a son, whose imprudence had involved the whole family in a groundless accusation of having joined in a felony:—

“The door of the dungeon suddenly opened; men appeared at it, with light; and Morris Brady, heavily bolted and handcuffed, was thrust in.

“There they are!” cried the jailor indignantly to the young man, as he pointed towards Randal and his wife; ‘your aged, and your good father and mother,—look at them!’

“The lad stared at them almost stupidly. Without moving a step, he suddenly dropt on his knees, and extended his manacled hands. Supplication—miserable supplication for pardon was in his look, and on his haggard and bewildered features; but though his white lips moved, no word escaped him.

“ ‘They let him come to crave your last benediction, Randal,’ said the old woman, feebly and wildly, yet solemnly, ‘an’ ’tis very good of them: and, Randal, a-vourneen, you won’t let him depart out o’ this life unblessed; he is a sinner—a poor sinner; but he is our son—your son, as well as my son: so, lay the father’s hand on his head, and pray to God to bless him, for the last time.’

“ ‘Come here to me, Morris,’ said the old man; ‘stand up, and come here to me.’

“Suddenly, Morris found words—low, hoarse, heart-changed words.

“ ‘No, sir, no; I will not stand up—but I will obey you, and come to you;’ and, clasping his hands, he moved on his knees towards his father, and remained still, a short distance before him. ‘Father, father!’ he continued, ‘do not lay your curse upon me! Hear one word from my mouth! Until this night fell—until Hesther M’Farlane opened the door of the place where she had hid me—I did not know that the world called me a robber, that my father was in jail thro’ the fault of his son!’

“ ‘It was Hesther that set him for the bailiffs,’ said the jailor.

“ ‘When she gave me leave to quit the dark hole where she had locked me in, then, father, she told me what I had brought on you; an’ she said too, that, thro’ my doings, my sister Rose must hide her head from the world. Oh! may a curse from heaven fall—’

“ ‘Silence!’ cried Randal Brady, loudly and sternly; ‘silence, wicked boy! Do you dare, to your father’s face, and on your knees, to pray a curse from heaven upon a single human creature?’

“The old man paused a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was gentle, and a little broken.

“ ‘Morris my son, they tell me that I am to see you condemned, before the world, for stealing your neighbour’s property; and I have the great fear on me that I am the father of a disgraced daughter. I have little hope that your mother will live many days; it may come to pass that, during the remainder of my life, I shall be a woe-stricken old man—companionless, childless or worse than childless; but I must not let all that make me forget my duty as a Christian: and so, Morris,’—putting his hand on the young man’s lowly-bent head—‘I lift up my voice, and I lift up my soul to heaven, and I say, may God vouchsafe to bless you still. If you are innocent, may He guide and help us to clear you, before the eyes of men; if you are guilty, may He give you the grace of a true repentance, and pardon you, and show mercy in another world; and I say, too, for myself, no matter what happens, the Will of God be done;—blessed be His name, for ever, and ever!’

“Randal’s fellow-prisoners were grouped around him. Many of them were evil men, who had not prayed for years, nor uttered the Most Holy Name, save to profane it, yet all listened in deep silence; none scoffed at his pious, his unaffectedly pious resignation, under a heavy load of calamity; and when he had ended, more than one voice cried ‘Amen’ to his prayer, and to his ejaculation, and more than one eye yielded him a tear.”

The part of the book most likely to be regarded as extravagant is founded on a story very current in the south of Ireland. It is said that an old woman entrusted with an important secret, in her impatience to detail it, told it to her cat, and was overheard by the person from whom there was most reason that it should be concealed. Mr. Banim makes the most of this curious and characteristic story:—

“Ailleen smoothed down her pet’s back, and thus addressed it.

“ ‘Musha, then, pusheen-cat, my darlint, did id over come to your knowledge what happened to myself this blessed day, of all days, in the year, a-lanna?’

“ ‘Pusheen-cat’ mewed softly in reply, and looked up into her benefactor’s face.

“ ‘It’s “no, in troth, Ailleen my cuishla,” you’re sayin’ to myself,’ continued Ailleen.

“ ‘Well, then, a-lanna ma-chree, listen to me, an’ I’ll spake it over to you.’

“The cat now gave a very soft mew, stretched out its paw, widely extended its claws, and first glancing upward, by way of agreement to Ailleen’s proposition, (so, at least, Ailleen was pleased to interpret its language,) set up a continuous contented purr, or, as its mistress styled the sound, a ‘cooramack croonaun,’ and then half-closing its eyes, seemed pleasedly attentive to the tale it was about to hear.

“Ailleen went on.

“ ‘Pusheen, my darlint cat, I b’lieve that cats an’ dogs an’ all other sorts o’ people, as well as themselfs, ’ill have no dispute that them boys is given to roguery in all kinds an’ sizes. Bad sorrow may came over me, if I’m not thinkin’ o’ doin’ penance on myself, by not goin’ near one o’ them, from this night out! But, of all the boys that ever came in my sight, Jim Brown, you bear the bell. Aye, in troth; even puttin’ young Fennelly himself to the fore. You know, my darlint pusheen, that I never can put my feet over the thrashold, that he doesn’t make me pay turnpike as he calls it; an’ I’ll tell you what’s more, he takes turnpike on every road; no matther what sthreet I turn my face into, up he comes axin’ turnpike, turnpike—aye, an’ takin’ id too, whether a body is willin or not to pay; an’ more betoken, over again, my jewel, he thinks no more of id, in the face o’ the noon day, than if it was pitch dark night.

“ ‘Well pusheen-cat my lanna, Jimmy Brown bates young Fennelly out an’ out, not in that way, but in regard o’ bein’ a curiosity of a boy; an’ by this tail o’ yours, that I hould in my hand, pusheen-cat, I’m given to thinkin’ that it warn’t a boy o’ the name o’ Jerry Donelly I seen at the patthern last Sundy tree weeks, but Jimmy Brown’s own four bones.

“ ‘Well, again; what would you have of it, my duck-o’-dimonds? as sure as you’re here, at your aise in my lap, I seen that ould weazle of a woman, Hesther Bonnetty, whisperin’ and culloguin wid my bouchaleen, Masther Jim; an’,’ says I houlding discourse wid myself, “I’ll come to the bottom o’ that cuggerin match, or I have no sense or reason; an’ upon that, pusheen my lanna, I went peepin’ an’ sarchin, an’ sure enough, I found out the letther, an’ laid a good hould of id; an’ my darlint’—” ’

“At this period of her narrative, while her tongue was full gleeishly discharging the humour that had caused it to swell at the roots, and while her listener seemed to enjoy her long story with the utmost relish, a key suddenly and sharply turned in the lock of the kitchen-door; the door as suddenly opened, and James Brown stood before the astonished Ailleen.”

The tale is, perhaps, a little hurried towards the conclusion but it is, taken as a whole, the best that has appeared this season:—no great praise, to be sure; for so proverbial is the dulness of 1832 likely to become, that the publishers for the last two months have post-dated their volumes, and transferred to 1833 some of the sins of its dying brother. The Library of Romance.

ORIGINAL.

M. N.

Montreal 1833.

The first is to be good yourself. To avoid all thoughts of managing a husband.

Never try to deceive or impose on his understanding, nor give him uneasiness; but treat him with affection, sincerity and respect.

Remember that husbands, at best, are only men, subject like yourselves to error and frailty.

Be not too sanguine, then, before marriage, or promise yourselves happiness without alloy.

Should you discover any thing in your husband’s behavior not altogether what you expected or wish, pass it over, smooth your temper, and try to mend his, by attention, cheerfulness, and good nature.

Never reproach your husband with his misfortunes, which are the accidents and infirmities of life, a burden which each has engaged to assist the other in supporting, and to which both parties are equally exposed; but instead of murmuring and reflections, divide the sorrows between you; make the best of it, and it will be easier to both. It is the innate office of the softer sex to soothe the troubles of the other.

Resolve every morning to be cheerful all day; and should any thing occur to break your resolution, suffer it not to put you out of temper with your husband.

Dispute not with your husband, be the occasion what it may; but much sooner deny yourself the trifle of having your own will, or gaining the better of an argument, than risk a quarrel, or create a heart-burning which it is impossible to see the end of. Implicit submission in a man to his wife, is ever disgraceful to both; but implicit submission in the wife, is what she promised at the altar, what the good will revere her for, and what is in fact, the greatest honor she can receive.

Be assured a woman’s power, as well as her happiness, has no other foundation than her husband’s esteem and love, which it is her interest by all possible means, to preserve and increase. Study, therefore his temper, and command your own. Enjoy him with satisfaction, share & soothe his cares, and with the utmost assiduity conceal his infirmities.

It was night and the rain fell in torrents, when Lord B—— and his nephew alighted at the door of a miserable Scotch tavern. The bad weather had injured the roads to such a degree, that the postilion declared it was impossible to proceed farther without great danger. The interior of the house, its isolated situation, and the ferocious countenance of the host would have alarmed any other man but Lord B——. He entered however, fully determined to profit by the shelter that Providence offered him. He found himself in a low room filled with smoke, and remarked, around a table covered with pots of porter, a dozen of individuals wrapped in large cloaks, and who fixed their scrutinizing eyes on the two new comers. Lord B—— without being disconcerted, asked for a room in which to pass the night, he was told that there was but one to be disposed of that contained three beds, one of which was already occupied. He requested to be shewn to it, and the hostess accompanied them to take sheets &c. She then left the room strongly recommending them not to approach the third bed. Faithful to their promises, they went to bed and were soon in a sound sleep. The next morning Lord B—— arose the first and went down stairs to hasten the preparations for their departure. His nephew, now alone, softly approached the mysterious bed, and hearing no sound, unclosed the curtains and saw . . . a corpse. Lord B—— soon returned and his nephew went down in his turn without speaking; the same curiosity seizing the uncle; he looked, and beheld the same spectacle. The carriage being ready our two travellers departed: the half of the day had already elapsed when Lord B—— said to his nephew. Did you see what was in the bed, John?—“Yes I saw!” replied the other. There ended their conversation, and the subject was not again mentioned during their journey.—(Dunkirk Journal.)

Translated from “Le Voleur”.

Before proceeding to consider the aqueous phenomena of the atmosphere, we will just observe, in explanation of the seeming digressions from the proscribed routine of scientific illustrations which the subjects of these essays present,—as, for instance, our now treating of the vapour in the air under one of the most general laws of heat,—of such a mode is two-fold: first, to prove the extensive application of a general law in teaching us the nature of what exists around us; and, secondly, to turn scientific knowledge to its best account, by inducing a habit of looking abroad, and tracing remote connexions in natural operations rather than being confined to a certain number of experimental illustrations, copied from book to book, and, by many believed to be the great volume of scientific truth; and that, when learned, the mind may repose in the happy idea of its being a philosopher.

In this way “Euclid’s Elements” are called the science of geometry; and it was from taking a similar view of knowledge, that a pedantic schoolmaster once observed to us, that a favourite pupil of his was just within a fortnight of finishing his education—of knowing all that he could learn, for, in that time, he would have gone through the highest book which was taught. The happiness which this observation gave to the youth’s fond parents is in fine contrast with the pathetic exclamation of the venerable Newton, near the close of a life spent in walking sublimely reasoning among the stars, at once the highest order of poetry and profoundest of truths. “I feel,” says he “but as a child playing with shells on the shore, whilst the great ocean of truth lies undiscovered before me.” Let us direct our attention to this boundless expanse, and, perhaps, we may fall in with a sail which will give us tidings of distant lands; or, if new light breaks forth, we may, with our own eyes, descry the features of a new coast.

The presence of moisture which the atmosphere contains, in a greater or less degree, is usually estimated by means of the hygrometer; a term signifying a measurer of water. A great many hygrometers have been invented; but they may all be referred to three principles. The construction of the first kind of hygrometer is founded on the property possessed by some substances of contracting or of expanding in a humid atmosphere. Hemp shrinks when wet; and almost every one knows that if a hempen line be tightly stretched when in a wet state it will become lengthened and hang loosely when dry. If, on the contrary, the line be perfectly dry when stretched, it will if stout enough, contract on being wetted, with such force as, either to break, or pull out the hooks by which it is fastened. Hence a piece of common packthread becomes a hygrometer; and if a weight be suspended to it and a graduated scale annexed, the contraction or expansion of the packthread will indicate the greater degree of humidity in the air.

The toy called the weather-house, which was formerly much in use, depends upon the same principle, and consists of a piece of catgut, which possesses the property of untwisting when it is moistened and twisting when it dries, the motion of the catgut being communicated to a circular piece of wood, on which the two little figures of a man and a woman are placed.

Other substances, as human hair, freely elongates by imbibing moisture, but recover their original length on drying. Though almost all bodies have the power of absorbing moisture from the atmosphere, in a greater or less degree, those only are dilated whose particles are moderately soft and yielding. This hygrometric property, therefore, belongs chiefly to organic substances; such as wood, the bread of corn, whalebone, hair, and animal membranes. What is vulgarly termed the “washerwoman’s finger,” or a corrugation of the skin when the hands are employed in warm water, is nothing more than an enlargement of the skin by the moisture, which, being heated, penetrates, and throws it into folds.

Several philosophers have contrived hygrometers on this principle; of which that of De Luc was, for a long time, considered the most perfect. It consisted of a piece of whalebone, cut across the grain which expanded considerably by wet and contracted equally by drying; and, being stretched in a brass frame caused an index to move over a graduated scale. Nothing is more simple and efficacious than a mere strip of deal, prepared like De Luc’s whalebone, by cutting it across the grain.

Saussure’s hygrometer is a delicate contrivance to show the state of the atmospheric moisture by means of a hair as before mentioned.

Paper alters considerably in bulk by the absorption of water, and has accordingly been employed as an hygrometer. In pasting large surfaces of paper on any other substance it is necessary to allow the moisture to fully elongate the paper before applying it, otherwise it extends afterwards, and forms into wrinkles. This is worth the attention of those who have engravings to stretch on calico, &c., and the paper hangers are aware of this fact, and act accordingly.

(To be continued)

BY MRS. CHARLES GORE.

“Let us call no man fortunate,” said the ancient philosopher, “till we have witnessed his end!” and very sincerely from my tank at the King’s Head in the poultry, do I, a predestined fish, reiterate the sentiment. Neither man nor turtle knows to what consummation he is born; and when bursting from my egg-shell on the scorching sands of the island of Cuba, I little dreamed that my own dissolution was connected with that of the Imperial Parliament of Great Britain; that my fins were sympathetic with the finances of the country; that my green fat was to cement the Union between the three great estates of its ancient constitution!

It is a mighty hard thing that the inhabitants of the civilized earth can no longer make merry, except at the expense of myself and my brethren. Time was, while yet the head of the gallant Raleigh nodded on his shoulders, that we turtles waddled along our native sands secure from the culinary scalpel, and unheeding of the stew-pan. The simplicity of Oriental tribes and Occidental islanders took no note of our edibility; nor was it till the rage after maritime discovery set those “uninhabitive” rascals, Columbus, Vesputius, and Cabot, a-gadding, that the cruel distinctions of calipash and calipee first brought water into the mouths of the civic magistrates of the British metropolis. But for Vasco de Gama and his roving tribe, I had never sweltered here, in a tank in the Poultry! Well did the simple Caribs know that infant flesh surpasseth the meat of turtles; and the Ascension islanders rejoiced in their soup of the hind-quarter of a captured rival chief, that required not lime-punch nor sangaree to aid its digestion. But civilized Europe poured its gastrophilites over the globe! They came,—they saw,—they cooked! Curse on the memory of the first turtle that lent its unctuous integuments to their broths! Had it been lean as the Earl of ——, tough as a Dowager Countess, still might I, an amphibious heir of the creation, air myself along the shelly shores of the Atlantic, careless of cook or kaiser; propagating my crustaceous species, without the fear of the white night-cap before my eyes! But lo! no sooner did the oleaginous fume of the first turtle steam from the cauldron, than flesh became fishified to the desires of men. Thenceforward their fat beeves and their flocks were slaughtered in vain; and TURTLE!—TURTLE!—TURTLE! was the cry of the eating world.

Ah! little did I imagine when, three months ago,—three little months,—I opened my eyes one sweet May morning to behold for the last time the pellucid ocean sending its white foam beside my lair, and warning me and my innocent family of the advancing tide; little did I dread as I beheld my four comely brethren—my venerable sire—my six goodly sons—disperse from beside the jutting rock under which we had been sheltering, that captivity had come upon us like a thief in the night, or rather that the strong arm of authority had sentenced us, like thieves, to transportation—death—anatomization! Instead of the cry of the sea-bird wailing over our heads, to warn us that the sun was bright in the heavens, “Avast there Jack!”—“Bear a hand, Bill, or these ’ere toddlers’ll be off arter their t’other helement!”—sounded in our slumbering ears like the creaking of the blazon gates of Pandemonium. A monster, having from his head three long, straight, pending black tails did straightway lay violent hands upon me and mine. Vain were my puny efforts!—I gasped,—I floundered,—I opened my horny beak,—I rolled my threatening eyes; but lo! in the twinkling of one of them, I found myself ignominiously laid upon my back in some strange concavity floating on the water’s surge—(that rolled by, hissing as if in derision of my moan,) and tossed hither and thither on the gurgling waves! I grew sick of them and life together. Filthy nausea! vile result of the progress of civilization! Oh! that a free agent should eschew dry land, and incite his own vitals to rebellion against him.

But what was heart-sickness—what was even sea-sickness compared with the agony in store for my innocent frame? Suddenly a heavier swell seemed to rise upon the ocean. We approached a dark and mighty object; and amid a roar as of a thousand hurricanes, emitted at three several intervals, I and my captive tribe were swung into buckets lowered from the wall; hoisted aloft and dashed despiteously upon the ground. The ground?—alas!—a floor of foul, and seamed, and fœtid planks, now replaced the silver sand where we had wont to course each other in slow and majestic turtle race. We were now passengers on board the good ship the Lively Betsy, bound for the port of London.

Gods! how abhorrent in my eyes has that one word lively since become! Captain—mate—purser—steward—crew!—all, while they exulted over my prostrate humiliation, soon united in declaring that I—even I—was the most “lively” of the squad;—that I was “fattest—heaviest—most lively—!”—a morsel for a lord mayor;—a fish for a Birch! at every fresh flounder made by myself and company, when

Pleas’d we remembered our august abodes,

trusting that our own efforts might still restore us to the ocean murmuring so near, a fresh shout arose from the tyrants. “Fine lively turtle, Jack;” cried one with whiter nether garments and a redder visage than the rest. “Fetch the hammer and nails, my hearty! and fix ’em.”

“Fix ’em!!”—Will it be believed of the sons of a land of liberty—of the fellow-country men of Howard, Jonas Hanway, and Richard Martin—of men to whom Cowper has sung, and Sadler specified—will it be believed that the operation of “fixing” consisted in driving four rough and spit-like nails through our fins, leaving our bodies extended on the deck after the fashion of a kite against a barn-door, or the effigy of a spread eagle on an Austrian banner or English stage coach!—What was Bajazet’s durance in his iron cage compared with ours!—What, Montezuma’s torture grilling on his coals, to mine, broiled alive, and inch by inch, and noon by noon, under a vertical sun!

But wherefore pursue the parody! My soul sickens at the reminiscence! My brethren, like those of Bonnevard, pined away and perished; and, as the end of each approached, I saw the miserable victim uptorn from his excruciation, and consigned to the hands of the executioner. No! They were not even suffered to breathe their last in peace! From my bed of martyrdom I scented the savoury fume in which their murdered remains were seething, and beheld, on the following day, their several shells suspended like armorial trophies in the sunshine. I was now alone in the world—a hopeless, helpless, solitary fish. There hung the remains of all that was dear to me; I shrank from the spectacle!—Again and again I floundered to release myself from my miserable thraldom; and again and again my persecutors surrounded me to triumph again in the announcement, that I was still “deadly lively,” and should arrive in the docks in the nick of time for the Reform dinner at Guildhall.

At length came the fatal moment for “unfixing!” My mangled flesh now adhered to the rusty nails, which had become, as it were, a part of my own substance; yet scarcely had I lifted up my languid eyes and beheld

The towers of Julius, London’s lasting shame

peering over my head, when a barbarous stranger wrenched me from my imprisonment, and excess of anguish wrought its own remedy. I was conveyed, in a state of insensibility, from St. Katharine’s docks to the execution-dock of this renowned hostel.

The very name of “The King’s Head” was ominous in my ears, when I woke to a sense of my own situation! It is a well known fact that, in England, they cut off the tails of their horses, and the heads of their kings and turtles;—and when, with a presentiment of decapitation strong upon my mind I beheld a tall gaunt man approaching, at the string of whose white apron hung a murderous steel!—I felt that my last hour was at hand!—There blazed the fire—there yawned the cauldron—there stood the chopping block—there the cook!—Every moment I expected the fatal fiat of—

Off with his head!—so much for Buckingham,

when a solemn-looking gentleman (I took him for the Ordinary of Newgate) stalked into the kitchen; and, as I lay gasping on the floor, gravely addressed my executioner. The names of “Lord John Russell—Lord Althorp,” now reached my ears, followed by allusions to “approaching elections—public dinners—reform—town-hall—and, though last not least to turtle soup!”—“Lord John Russel and turtle soup!”—“Reform and lime punch!”—Oh! filthy anti-climax, dishonouring to the legislature of a civilized nation!—Oh! fatal antithesis, appalling to my amphibious race!—to you am I indebted for the cruel reprieve that consigns me to this melancholy tank!

It appeared, that the renowned proprietor of the King’s Head (like some new Magazine) was just then in want of “a lively article;”—that my tenacity of life had established my reputation. The cook, regarded me with the crafty eye of a life-insurance broker, that I should take a wonderful deal of killing—that I should bear a week’s—a fortnight’s—nay, month’s fattening!—that I was, in short, a “fine lively turtle, and would keep very well till the dissolution of parliament.”

Such being my sentence, I was plunged into this vile receptacle, in company with seven other turtles worse than myself; seven strangers to my name and race—diseased, infirm, incurable fishes, whose foul contact embitters those last moments, which we would fain devote to studying, like Cæsar, to fall with decency. Every day the feeblest and most unwholesome of my companions is drawn forth from captivity, and transferred from cold to boiling water—from the tank to the turtle-kettle: while I—in honour of my liveliness—am destined to a protraction of misery!

But I shall not expire unavenged!—Dread as is the destiny of the turtle kind, a glorious retribution is fated to appease our manes. Vainly do our enemies court repose on the downy couches of the Mansion House, or the purlieus of Aldermanbury. Nightmare—dyspepsia—liver complaint—APOPLEXY—rising like a covey of phœnixes from our martyred ashes, strike consternation into the elders of the city, and flap their wings over the heads of the Common Council. Let my Lord John Russell look to himself!—So surely as he shall taste of the turtle-pots of Egypt, so surely will I

haunt him in the heat of debate, and “sit heavy on his soul” amid the tremors of a division. Let him swallow but so much as a spoonful of me, and (by the shades of my murdered kindred!) “we will meet again at Philippi.”

NEWEST LONDON FASHIONS FOR FEBRUARY, 1833.

While the march of intellect advances, that of fashion retrogrades. Our Sovereign Lady, by one of those amiable caprices so beneficial to trade, has enjoined her fair votaries to appear in robes and coiffures very similar to those worn by the belles of Louis the Fourteenth’s time. Some of these toilettes prove that those ladies understood the science of dress as well as the beauties of our own day; but it must also be owned, for the credit of these last, that in reviving old fashions, they have considerably improved them.

Hats and Bonnets—The former are most in favor in half dress; they are for the most trimmed in a very light style, with gauze ribbons to correspond, and a single ostrich feather, both of the colour of the hat; it is placed almost on the front of the brim in a manner equally new and original. When flowers are employed, they are divided into two tufts, which are separated by leaves formed of ribbons: there is something singularly pretty in this last style of trimming. Bengal roses and elder blossoms are the flowers most in favour for hats.

Out-door Costume—Mantles continue to be universally adopted, but the only novelties are those for soirées they are of two kinds; cloaks with large sleeves which are fastened over those of the dress by two or three gold buttons placed down the centre of the arm. This is an elegant style of Opera cloak, particularly when it is made of a new material, with a rich satin ground, and velvet flowers very highly raised. The effect is equally novel and beautiful. The other mantle is of a similar form, but the sleeves are of the Mameluke kind, of enormous width, but not very long. The most elegant of those last are of orange cashmere, embroidered in black silk, and lined with velvet. The mantle is trimmed round the bottom with a broad border of sable fur, set on below the embroidery. The sleeves are also bordered with sable, and the collar is composed of it. This is really a superb envelope.

Morning Dress—The pelisse form is most in favour in dishabille. A good many are of black satin, they are worn with triple collars of tulle embroidered in a lace pattern, and a cravat of Norway crape. Sometimes a peleriline-canezou of clear cambric, bordered with narrow Valenciennes lace, is adopted, instead of the collar. When this is the case, Cambric manchettes, flat and rather deep, are worn; they are also bordered with Valenciennes lace. Caps are indispensible in morning dress: the prettiest are the bonnets des enfans; they are of tulle, with a caul like a child’s cap, and the front trimmed with a double ruche, one part next the face, the other the caul. These caps are always trimmed with gauze ribbons, which are coloured to mark that the black satin robe is not mourning.

Make and Materials—A late splendid party has furnished us with some ensembles of dresses worn by ladies, alike distinguished for their rank and taste, which we shall lay before our fair readers. One distinguished by its elegant simplicity, was a robe of satin des Indes, the colour of Indian corn, a low corsage, draped in the Tyrolean style, and plain long sleeves. A black velvet hat larger on the right side than the left; it was turned up on the former and trimmed with a bouquet of seven ostrich feathers to correspond; they were of different sizes rising one above another, and of the colour of the dress. A knot of gauze ribbon to correspond was placed under the other side of the brim.

We take the liberty of pointing out to our readers the increase of original articles contained in this number. The friends of the country and of the Museum will undoubtedly see this with pleasure, as it argues so well in favor of a growing taste for literature here, and the success of the work. We thank our contributors, and earnestly request a continuance of such marks of attention from them.

We trust the fair authoress of “Sketches of an idle moment” has not laid by her pen; one who writes with such purity and feeling, should exercise her rare talents.

It may not be superfluous perhaps to mention, that the “Book of the Hundred and One,” from which we have given some extracts, is a curious work, published last year in Paris under the following circumstances.—After the failure of the great Publisher, Ladvocat, a number of distinguished writers offered to him their gratuitous services, in any manner that might be thought likely to bring relief to his broken fortunes; a plan was suggested, consisting of Paris, and Parisian society; one hundred and one persons immediately commenced preparing articles for the work, which were accordingly printed under the title of Livre des Cent-et-un, in allusion to the origin of the work.

In the hope of giving pleasure to our subscribers we offer them the accompanying piece of music, entitled CAROLINE. The words composed in honour of the Duchess de Berri. It is still very new, even in Paris, and we are also assured, very fashionable there. It was published here a few days since by Messrs. Leclerc & Jones, to whom we are also indebted for it.—

We have received the second and third numbers of the Canadian Magazine. Of the last we cannot pretend to form any judgment, as it did not come to hand until to-day; if our opinion of the second will afford any gratification it shall not be withheld.

We compliment the Editor on the quantity of original matter contained in his publication, of good solid matter, from which a fund of instruction may be drawn. Many of the articles are apparently written by the same person, who is most probably the Editor, in which case, his industry and application merit the highest praise and success. If we might express our opinion to the public, we should say, that the Canadian Magazine, and the Ladies Museum would form admirable accompaniments to each other: for while Mr. ——’s “grey goose quill” furnish a substantial literary meal, the selections &c. of our more delicate crowfeather, present the lighter articles requisite for a desert to be taken on a sofa or in the shady grove, when the season permits.

To use a hackneyed expression, a singular fatality seems to attach to many numbers of the Museum that are sent to distant places. Since the Editor of the Garland first politely forwarded his work to us, we have regularly sent ours in return; the second number containing a sheet that was deficient in the first; we fear however it has not been received; in like manner many subscribers have been disappointed, and ourselves subjected to the imputation of neglect. As letters so seldom miscarry, this appears a matter of surprise; perhaps some of the persons through whose hands they must pass, detain them for perusal; if so, we have only to say we would gladly add their names to our subscription list.

Punctuation and spelling have been changed silently to achieve consistency.

The two abbreviated names, originally given as Tard*** or Tard...., and Lord B****, are here represented as Tard—— and Lord B—— respectively.

[The end of The Montreal Museum Volume 1 Number 4 edited by Mary Graddon Gosselin]