tra amounts which may justly be termed fancy prices. My son found that even as a captain he could not get on without the allowance of two hundred a year which I had made him since he entered the army. He was not so expensive in his habits as many of his brother-officers. But what with the expenses of going on foreign service when his regiment was ordered abroad, the enormous amount of money absorbed by his being moved about from station to station when he was in England, and the occasional loss or destruction of baggage, to which soldiers are liable all over the world, he found his two hundred pounds per annum insufficient for his actual wants. Had he exchanged into a regiment in, or going to, India, he would have received from the officer exchanging with him a sum of money varying from two to five hundred pounds, and his pay in that country would have been quite sufficient for all his purposes. But although ready to proceed to the East, if ordered there, he did not wish to volunteer for so long an exile from home as every corps sent there has to endure, nor did I wish to make him abandon the regiment to which he was greatly attached, and oblige him to serve in a climate which must prove always more or less injurious, with a new corps, for which he could not be expected to care as much as for that in which he had begun soldiering. Not that much home service fell to the lot of himself or his comrades. The regiment was ordered out to Malta, between which garrison, the different Ionian Isles, and Gibraltar they passed nearly four years. From the latter place they were sent to Bermuda, and after a sojourn of two years in that island, went on to Canada, where they remained four years; making, in all, ten years' foreign service, during which time the corps had to change its quarters fourteen times. The regiment was then ordered home, at the time when the mania for dosing our troops with a plentiful supply of Aldershot had come into fashion. To Aldershot the corps was sent on its return from Canada, and there it was kept hard at work drilling for a whole year. When its twelvemonth was over, the 110th was sent to the north of England, and there broken up into four or five parties at different stations. A few months later, it was again united, and ordered to Dublin, whence, after being in garrison for six months, it was once more scattered through various towns in the south of Ireland; and although it changed quarters five times during the next two years, it was not brought together until ordered to prepare for embarkation to the Cape. At the Cape the regiment remained three years, and thence it was ordered to the Mauritius, where it was stationed for another three years. By that time my son had been nearly twenty years in the service, had been promoted from captain to major, at a cost altogether of four thousand five hundred pounds, and was looking out for his next step of lieutenant-colonel; for the commanding officer had given out that if a certain sum of money could be made up by those able to purchase, he was willing to send in his papers, and sell out. My son was not the senior major of the regiment, but the officer of that rank who stood before him on the list could not pay beyond the regulation sum for the step. He therefore withdrew his name from the purchase list altogether, and allowed my son, who was ten years his junior in the army, and fifteen years younger than he in years, to pass over his head, and become his commanding officer. This last promotion was a very serious expense to me. My son's lieutenant-colonelcy cost six thousand two hundred pounds from first to last; and yet, in order to let him live properly and pay his way as he went along, I had still to allow him two hundred a year besides his pay. The regiment by this time had been sent to Australia, where it was to finish its tour of foreign service before returning home again. In due time their turn came, but not before my son, owing to severe indisposition, wished either to retire on half-pay or sell out. Here he met with the difficulty mentioned. Having paid six thousand two hundred pounds for his various steps, he asked the same amount from the major who would obtain promotion if he retired. This, however, he could not obtain. The major who was now first for purchase, together with the captain who was to succeed to the vacant majority, the lieutenant who would get the vacant company, and the ensign who would get the lieutenancy, could not make up, among them all, more than five thou sand five hundred pounds. My son gave them some little time to decide, but, finding that the money was not forthcoming, he negotiated an exchange into another regiment, in which he knew he could get the required sum whenever he wanted to retire from the service. His commission was his own, he had paid highly for it, and why should he not make the most of his property? Although my son recovered his health, and did not immediately sell out of the army, he like the great majority of commanding officers - could not afford to wait for his rank of major-general. Had he done so, all the money he had paid for his commissions would have been forfeited, and the loss of more than six thousand pounds was much more than my fortune would allow me to sustain. Knowing this, my son sent in his papers, and retired at the very time when, by his knowledge of the service, and his experience in charge of a regiment, he was eminently fitted for a higher command. For, just as the best rectors are those clergymen who have had long experience as curates, and just as the best bishops are those who have done much duty as par ish priests, so no military man can be an efficient major-general who has not had experience as commanding officer of a regiment. And yet, with our present system, these are the very men who are excluded from the promotion, unless they are wealthy enough not to care for the sinking of five or six thousand pounds! My son had entered the army at seventeen years of age, and he retired from it after a service of twenty-five years. He was forty-two years of age when obliged, so to speak, to adopt a life of idleness, being too old to take to any other calling. Had he remained a few years longer in the army, he would have been so near his promotion to the rank of major-general, that the officers to be promoted by his selling out would not have given him as much as he asked, and would have insisted on making their own terms with him. Retiring as he did, some years before his turn for promotion could come round, his step was all the more valuable to his successors; and therefore he got from them the price he had given for his rank, which was all that he asked. I often think how different the career of my two sons: the one in the army, the other who has lately entered the navy. The former, although a good officer, always ready for his work, and very fond of his profession, could not get on without money. At Every Saturday, a young man. FOREIGN NOTES. every turn, money was required for this step, that promotion, or the other rank. Money, bargaining, and marketing formed the only means by which he got to the top of the regimental tree, and yet it was because he had not money enough at command that he was obliged to sell out while yet comparatively On the other hand, if my son in the navy behave well, if he become proficient in what he is certain to get on. Nay, is required of him, more: the better he behaves, and the more he distinguishes himself, the more certain he is to advance in the service. Why should the army and the navy of the same country be conducted on such totally opposite principles? Why should the one system be a national honor to us, while-let us pretend to put it aside as we may-the other is a national disgrace? FOREIGN NOTES. WE gather from Ueber Land und Meer, an illustrated weekly published at Stuttgart, some interesting items of literary and other significance. RECENT explorations at Pompeii have brought to light, near the temple of Juno, a house replete with ivory, bronze, and marble works of art. The benches of the triclinium are particularly beautiful, their seats presenting remarkable specimens of mosaic, a peacock with expanded tail being prominent among the many birds delineated. The walls of this apartment are ornamented with frescoes of fruits, flowers, fishes, and various kinds of edibles. The table is of wood inlaid with gold, marble, agate, and lapis-lazuli; and on it still stood some jars and cups of onyx. A COMMITTEE of Marbach, the birthplace of Schiller, have issued a call to the German people for help in completing suitable memorials of the poet. A RECENT Life and Correspondence of the royal historiographer Von Herder, published at Vienna, shows the proverbial German industry of the man. Twelve thousand of his letters are preserved; they cover the interval from 1805 to 1865, and contain many reminiscences of Johannes v. Müller (the historian), Montalembert, Prince Metternich, Gregory XVI. and Pius IX., Schlosser, Overbeck, and others. FREILIGRATH'S anthology, "The Rose, Thistle, and Shamrock, a Selection of English Poetry, chiefly Modern," one of the best introductions that the Germans possess to British poetry, still continues as popular with them as when first issued some years ago. It has just passed to a third edition. SOME figures as regards the circulation of the Paris journals are given thus: The Petit-Journal has 260,000 subscribers; the lesser Moniteur, 130,000; L'Evénement, scarcely four months old as yet, has already 50,000; the Journal pour Tous has more than a hundred thousand readers; Le Monde Illustre as many; and many of the other ventures, like Voleur, Passe-Temps, Ruche Parisienne, have all the way from 20,000 to 60,000. OWING to the success of the "Goethe Gallery," the publisher, Bruckmann, is about to begin a Schiller Gallery," in which, beside Kaulbach, several of the younger artists are to share,such as Karl Jäger of Nuremberg, Theodore Pixis and A. Müller of Munich. Kaulbach's cartoons, illustrating Schiller's "Tell," ordered by the King of Ba varia, are now reported finished, and receiving great THE famous publishing house of Cotta of Stutt- till 1868. A TABLE of German publications for the year 1865 shows this result. In theology, 1,411 books; belleslettres, 935; jurisprudence, 870; education, 696; history, 651; natural history, 517; medicine, 491; classics, 402; art, 385; mechanics, 359, &c. THERE has been lately begun in Italy a novelty for that country, in the shape of a first-class illustrated paper, issued at Milan, under the title of Tesoro delle Famiglie. six large KAULBACH'S paintings on the walls of the new museum at Berlin are now completed, pictures, with many accompanying ornaments, arabesques, &c. They represent the progress of human culture, and a German paper speaks of the multitudes standing wonderstruck before these works of a master. THE literary remains of the late Friedrich Rückert, which have fallen by will to his son Heinrich, Professor of the German Language in the University at Leipzig, will be edited by that gentleman. It is understood that there is little of poetry among them; but the manuscript of chief value is one pertaining to a history of language, which Rückert had in his last year been diligently at work upon. The people of Neuses (near Coburg), where Rückert died, are arranging to erect a monument to his memory, which is to stand near his last dwelling, and not far from the monument, now existing, to Moritz August von Thummel. THE German translators have, first and last, taken in hand almost every book of any moment in EngSwift's "Letters to Stella," which now have found lish; but among the few neglected ones has been a translator in Fräulein von Glümer of Dresden. PARIS is said to contain 11,314 cafés and similar places of refreshment; and it is reckoned there are not less than 27,711 billiard-tables within its bounds, not including those in clubs and private houses, to bring its owner on a daily average about 10 francs, numbering some 3,127. Each public table is thought a daily outlay throughout the city of 277,110 francs. A WONDERFUL cashmere shawl, now in Calcutta, will be among the sights of the Great Exhibition at Paris next year. It is worked in arabesques of unIt was originally heard-of fineness on a red ground, and was ten years in the workman's frame. ordered for the Queen of Audh, not long before the Sepoy revolt. Le Monde Illustré finds the relative popularity of the new opera by comparing it with its predecessors, way. as regards the time required by each to reach its with King William; and they came about in this one hundredth representation in the French capital. | It is stated in L'Evénement that only 28 operas have reached a hundredth performance since 1797. Meyerbeer's have obtained that goal in the following order : 5 Les Huguenots 3 The seven-hundredth performance of the Domino noir was recently given at the Opéra Comique, which shows a pretty constant success for twentynine years, this favorite piece having been that time before the public. THE Frithiof's Saga of Bishop Tégner (whom Longfellow has made familiar to English readers) grew out of a poem of Oehlenschläger's, that has long remained sealed up to most scholars in the Danish tongue. It has taken one step towards acquaintance with the world at large in being recently translated by Gottfried von Leinburg, who has rendered the "Helge" into his vernacular. Tégner's poem already existed in fifteen different versions in the German; but this other was never be fore so honored. Ir appears from Albert Cohn's "Shakespeare in Germany in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries," that probably as early as 1603 a German Hamlet," in Shakespeare's first copy, was on their stage, and it was rendered quite certain that "The Merchant of Venice" was played at Halle in 1611. It is now asserted, that not only "Hamlet," but also "Romeo and Juliet," "Julius Cæsar," and "Lear" were played at Dresden in 1626, and a little later, "The Taming of the Shrew," as appears from a list of Dramatic Exhibitions, preserved in the State Archives of Saxony. Not only from this list, but from other sources, it is ascertained that translations of the old English plays almost monopolized the attention of the play-goers at the German theatres during the first thirty years or more of that century. THE masterpieces in the gallery of the Hermitage at St. Petersburg, which have heretofore been little known, are now likely to become widely recognized, as the royal permission has been granted to a German photographer to take negatives of them. A WRITER in Once a Week relates the following anecdote : "Well," said my father, wagging his leg, as was his wont, his left arm over the back of his chair, a glass of old Port in his dexter hand, and looking steadfastly with a smile into the glowing Christmas fire, as though he conjured up in it the scene of the bygone occurrence, “yes, I had two interviews "It was the early part of the summer of 183-, and I was riding down Piccadilly on my favorite mare, Jenny, Nescio quid meditans nugarum, et totus in illis," (my father was great in Horace, and always quoted him upon occasions), "so that I did not observe, until too late, another gentleman, well-mounted, riding on the wrong side of the road, meeting me. Before we could either of us stop our horses we came together with a rather sharp crash, our knees suffering smartly from the concussion. "Of course we both immediately reined up; and courteous smile, 'It was entirely my fault, sir. I the stranger, raising his hat, said, with a frank and was on the wrong side of the road. I beg your pardon; I hope you are not hurt.' I returned his courtesy immediately; and, with mutual bows, after a few more pleasant words on either side, we separated, and passed on our several ways. As I rode on, however, I began to puzzle myself about my new acquaintance. During our short colloquy I had had time to observe his features, and was struck by the fact that they were not unfamiliar to me. I was sure I had seen that face before, but I could not for the moment call to mind whose it was, or where I had seen it. It was a most pleasant, open countenance of a man perhaps about sixty years of age, somewhat rubicund, as if with exposure to the weather; with white hair, and a most genial and Who was he? expressive smile. seen him before? I could not remember. Where had I "Just then, however, a groom rode up, evidently in attendance upon the gentleman from whom I had just parted. As he passed me, the man raised his hat respectfully. Like master, like man,' I thought to myself. The groom follows his master's example of courtesy. A sudden idea, however, just at that moment passed through my mind. I turned, and observed the livery of the groom. It was the royal blue and scarlet, with a cockade in the hat. Strange that I had not recognized the stranger before. It was the King! Billy the Fourth, as we used to call him at sea. I could only hope his most gracious Majesty's leg did not smart as much as mine did after that rather rough meeting." My father filled and drank off another glass of the '24; and went on wagging his leg, and tracing the picture in the fire as before. "Curious," said I; "and did you ever hear anything more of the matter?" 66 66 Not exactly," said my father. Help yourself, and pass the decanter. But I did meet his Majesty again, as I said before; and, curiously enough, not under altogether very dissimilar circumstances. I was riding Jenny again a few days afterwards in Hyde Park. Near Grosvenor Gate she began to get very restive, and obstinately refused to keep her side of the drive. While endeavoring to quiet her temper, and induce her to go steadily on, two of the royal out-riders came up with me; and, looking round, I observed the royal carriage itself арproaching. The King, with Queen Adelaide, was in the carriage, which was a close one; but, as it passed me, his Majesty looked out of the window, and, instantly recognizing me, waved his hand with his old pleasant smile, saying, Aha! my friend: what, in difficulties again? Good day, good day!' Help yourself, my boy, and pass the decanter," added my father. 3 Journal of Choice Reading, SELECTED FROM FOREIGN CURRENT LITERATURE. SATURDAY, APRIL 28, 1866. PRÉVOST PARADOL. [Translated for EVERY SATURDAY, from Le Soleil.] As the daily and weekly newspapers have recently been full of accounts of the reception of this gentleman as a member of the French Academy, we have thought his biography would at this time be particularly interesting. The mother of Mons. Prévost Paradol was Mme. Paradol, one of the most beautiful tragic actresses of the French Comedy. Old frequenters of the theatre still remember her, and instance with commendations her acting in the higher parts of the drama. His father was a major in the imperial army, who was put on half-pay in 1815, he then being thirty years old. He had no income but his paltry half-pay. Mme. Paradol had her own opinions upon the subject of education. She insisted the first thing her son should learn should be a modern foreign language. She managed, not without great effort, to secure his admission to a boarding-school where only English children were received. Of a truth, mothers have happy inspirations! Who can measure the influence which this early knowledge of the English language has exerted on the tastes, ideas, and the fortunes of Prévost Paradol ? When he reached the age to begin the study of He has related, under the veil of a transparent "Repelled from the classes' routine of labor by the aridity of the subjects, by the wretched methods, and by the necessity of mechanical application which no attraction made easy, I was at the same time diverted from the commerce and games of my companions by an increasing misanthropy, and, above [No. 17. all, by the unjust severity of my judgments. An exaggerated idea of liberty and law, inspired by my very isolation, led me to consider the empire of some scholars over others as a crime, and the slightest violation of equality as the inevitable and natural privilege of cunning. "Aided by a friend, who was in a position not unlike mine, I surrounded myself with a sort of rampart, and assured myself a solitary independence. I refused to see around me anything but tyrants, flatterers, and subjects. The stubbornness of my resistance and the harshness of my criticisms daily increased. A book, in which our masters made us read nothing but words, inflamed me with its ideas, agreed wonderfully with my rising passions, ennobled them in my eyes, and gave to them the dignity of virtue. I have often read since that day the inoffensive collection entitled Selecta e Profanis Scriptoribus Historia, without being able to comprehend it should have had on my childish mind an action whose duration and strength I cannot forget. 46 The heroical examples of resistance to oppression, of contempt for injustice, of a proud independence of the soul amid the wretchedness of the body, seemed to me to challenge imitation. They gave to my conduct a new character of perseverance and pride. The pomp of my stoicism, the disproportion which existed between my misanthropy and its causes, between my invectives and their object, could not escape ridicule, which has retained within college walls that mortal power it seems to have lost in society. Nevertheless I bore this ridicule, I was vain of the merited nicknames which were applied to me, and my isolation increased with my pride. peace "As the studies forced on me continued irksome, I kept on the defensive in this direction likewise, and saw, in my commerce with my masters, nothing but a portion of my trials. Therefore I performed my daily tasks as an unjust tribute levied on my and quiet, and I diminished their weight as much as I could. Punishment was in my sight nothing but a temporary increase of this periodical burden, and in my leisure moments I would write in advance some pensums for my days of misfortune. But education and my masters occupied little place in my life: I gave myself up entirely to my thoughts and passions." Re-read carefully this interesting chapter of autobiography. You may discover, even so early, in this impassioned and haughty child, frenzied for equality, and capable of vehement anger towards the oppressor, all the leading traits which afterwards characterized the man and the writer. English again withdrew him from this savage-like isolation. The teaching of foreign languages had just then been organized on the broadest bases in the colleges. Young Prévost Paradol naturally joined the English class, and he was easily the first scholar in it. The English professor was an excellent and acute man, who discovered particular talents in his pupil, and became attached to him. He is well known in university circles by his school-books; among them is an English and French Dictionary. I mean Mr. Fleming. We all of us find, when we glance backwards over our school life, some professor's name which raises agreeable souvenirs in our breast. 'Twas he who first cleared our mind, opened the road of life to us, and gave us confidence in ourselves. We date from him our accession to intellectual and moral life. Mr. Fleming was Prévost Paradol's Providence. task to reply to them. It must, 'tis true, be confessed this method was attended with terrible inconveniences: young men learned to think for themselves; and all the world knows that is a most dangerous thing in a well-governed state. The question proposed to the pupils for the subject of their philosophical dissertation was to prove God's existence. Prévost Paradol collected, in a very well-written dissertation, all the testimony given by the schools. It was nothing but a college composition, written in a rhetorical style; but the reader felt in it a sort of secret taste of independence and malice. This scholar had already the art, which he was subsequently to carry to so high a pitch of perfection, of hinting everything he was unable to say; of making opposition, less by the express terms he used, than by a general tone of He lent Prévost Paradol books which the college style, so that it was impossible not to perceive it, inspector dared not seize. The young pupil de- while at the same time it could not be laid hold of. voured Swift's works, and was in course of time so This composition struck the judges very much; familiar with them as to know them almost by heart. Mons. Vacherot especially received a deep impresAt the same time more liberty was allowed him; he sion from it. He was then the Director of Studies was teased less. He took up the works of our great at the High Normal School. The judges instantly writers and read them with that furious avidity hunted in the heap of copies for Prévost Paradol's which belongs to youth. He read Jean Jacques Latin composition. It was from the first to the last Rousseau with delight, and in this way, against col-page full of the grossest blunders. This increased lege laws, and despite professors, gave himself a course of instruction which was to prove very useful to him later in life. He transferred to the regular tasks of college something of that activity which he expended on unlawful studies. As he rose into higher classes he obtained better places. When he reached the second class he was sent, for the first time, to the general examination of all the colleges of Paris. The subject was Latin composition. He obtained the eighth prize. When he reached the Rhetoric class he found Hippolyte Taine, the author of " English Literature," and other well-known works. Taine was going through this class a second time (adopting the excellent habit which was then commonly practised by the best pupils); Prévost Paradol and Taine formed an intimate friendship. Taine, whose philosophical vocation was already quite evident, had a sort of adoration for Spinoza. Prévost Paradol began to worship the same philosopher. He at the same time read History with great relish. He read Tacitus; and the frightful pictures which the Roman historian drew of despotism threw him into those transports of indignation which youth alone feels. He began to work seriously and with passion. His rank in classes which required especial knowledge was always bad; but he was from the outset at the head of the class of French composition, and he retained it to the last. At the general examination of all the colleges of Paris he obtained the first prize in this class and in the class of history. their astonishment. Pupils of high standing commonly wrote Latin a great deal better than they wrote French. They wrote like Cicero, because they wrote nothing but Cicero. Mons. Vacherot made inquiries about the author of the dissertation. He was then hunting recruits for philosophical chairs. He made up his mind that this young man who was so poor a Latin scholar, and yet evinced so much talent, who avowed such free opinions in philosophy, and took such liberties with Latin would grammar, prove a Descartes or a Malebranche. Mons. Vacherot determined to open the High Normal School to him. Prévost Paradol himself was extremely uncertain when he quit college what course to adopt. Had he followed his own inclinations, he would have studied law. He felt some talents for speaking. He had a sort of vague presentiment that he would engage in politics one of these days, and he knew perfectly well it was impossible to discuss a single political, economical, or social question without having studied law and its history. But legal studies are long and costly; it was necessary to live, in the mean time; and Prévost Paradol's father was not rich. There was then a sort of current which bore to the High Normal School all the prizemen of the general examination. Prévost Paradol allowed himself to be borne on with the others, and presented himself with all his comrades. He was first in French composition and history; twentieth in Latin composition; and a long ways behind in everything else." He had in philosophy the extra prize, which is the prize of French dissertation. He had argued all He would have been refused as of right but for the year with his professor, Mons. Barni, the emi-Mons. Vacherot's intervention, because the High nent translator of Kant. He urged Spinoza's views. Normal School was established to give France good Professors in those days were not as restricted as professors, and not brilliant newspaper writers. they are now in teaching speculative philosophy. The professors took delight in the wakening of young minds, and, far from constraining them under harsh discipline, they favored their boldness with indulgent complaisance. The professors did not limit their labors to teaching a catechism, to commenting a Credo. They were inquisitive to discover the objections their lectures raised, even when they found it no easy Mons. Vacherot had secret designs upon the young man. He insisted the latter should be placed on the list of eligible candidates, although at the foot of the list. The day of oral examination he explained his designs to all the professors, and they asked Prévost Paradol easy questions. Mons. Deschanel, among others, made him translate the first eight lines of the Iliad, and the candidate got through as well as he could. He was, by an especial favor, |