tout Paris, a collection of impressions from 9,000 seals of PUNCH says that a new Roman Catholic Satirical Paper will, it is rumored, shortly appear. It is to be called Guy Fawkes, and will blow up the Houses of Parliament once a week. are as A LATE number of the Spectator contains an admirable critique on Bayard Taylor's "Story of Kennett," which has been reprinted in London by Sampson Low. The writer says: "Mr. Taylor's outlines both of the scenery and of social life are very free and expressive. Some of his pictures of rural festivals, characterized as they are by the comparative refinement, the easier play of character, the lighter mirth, the more spontaneous labor, of a class that is not dependent on any other class above it, — that combines in itself proprietary characteristics and the characteristics of hard physical toil,charming as sketches of this kind were ever made." GEORGE ELIOT's new book, "Felix Holt, the Radical," will be published in London early in June. M. RENAN's new book on the Apostles has given great offence to the Liberals. In a chapter on "Freedom under the Roman Empire," M. Renan expresses his conviction that a sovereignty is more favorable to freedom of thought than a republic. If, under the Empire, philosophers were meddled with, it was, M. Renan thinks, only because they had the indiscretion to mix themselves up with politics. The drift of the chapter, as interpreted in Paris, seems to show a want of sympathy with popular liberties, which M. Renan treats as of very little consequence so long as philosophers have the leisure and the means of prosecuting their studies. her empire and authority, and bestow on her subjects the blessings which flow from her government. O preserver and gracious helper of mankind. Amen." PHARAOH's Serpents have been succeeded by a new scientific sensation, Zauber Photographien, or Magic Photographs. These are sold in two envelopes, the first contains pieces of white albumenized paper, the other slips of white blotting-paper of a corresponding size. One of the former is moistened with water and a piece of paper from the other envelope, likewise wetted, is laid thereon, when a beautiful photograph is immediately developed on its albumenized surface. Photographs have, of course, been printed in the usual manner on the albumenized slips, and then decolorized with bromic or iodic acid, or some such agent; the other pieces of paper have been soaked in hyposulphite of soda, and the application of this reducing agent to the hidden photograph brings it again to view. "Most of our readers," says the London Review of the 28th ult., "will already have heard of the very sudden death of Mrs. Carlyle, the wife of the great man who was lately called from retirement to the high office of Lord Rector of the University of Edinburgh. Mr. Carlyle was from home at the time of the sad occurrence, away in Dumfriesshire, visiting the friends and scenes of his youth. Owing to ill health, Mrs. Carlyle was not able to accompany him, and on Saturday afternoon she was taking her usual drive in Hyde Park, when her little pet dog, which had been running by the side of the brougham, was suddenly run over by another carriage as both vehicles were turning the corner of the Park. She was greatly alarmed, although the dog was not seriously hurt. After lifting the little animal into the carriage, the man drove on. Soon after this, not receiving his usual directions as to the route he should take, he stopped the carriage, and discovered his mistress, as he conceived, in a fainting fit. Alarmed at such an unusual occurrence, the man drove off at once to St. George's Hospital, but only to learn from the medical atLa France says that the Duke de Choiseul-Pras- tendants there that his mistress had been dead for lin, the hero of a terrible drama in Louis Philippe's some little time. Mrs. Carlyle's maiden name was reign, who was stated to have saved himself from Welch, and she came of a family who were directly the hands of the public executioner by committing descended from the great John Knox, - -the stern suicide in prison, has lately been recognized by one old divine whom Mr. Carlyle eulogized so highly in of his servants in the streets of London. It is now his recent address. After their marriage, in 1827, asserted that the Duke was allowed to escape to they resided for some time at Craigenputtock, a California, and that, after having lived there under small estate Mr. Carlyle had acquired through his an assumed name for twenty years, he has at length wife. It was here that that wide correspondence ventured to return to Europe. At the time of his was entered into with Goethe, Emerson, and other alleged suicide, very great doubts were expressed as distinguished men, in which Mrs. Carlyle took an to its reality, and it is by no means impossible that active part. In some of the collections of Goethe's it was a fable concocted to avoid the scandal of the poems, verses to Madame Carlyle, Scotland,' may death of such a distinguished criminal on the scaf-be found; and one of these, it is said, was originally fold. THE Indian papers note as a sign of progress that Queen Victoria has been prayed for for the first time in a Mahometan place of worship. The event took place at Lahore, in Alamgir's Musjid, which has been made over to the Mahometans for public worship. The following is a translation of the prayer which was offered: "O Lord! help and befriend her who has bestowed on us this splendid musjid, and has given us this noble building, namely, the Empress and excellent lady whose empire extends from east to west, and who has become victorious over the Kings of Arabia and the rest of the world; her whose name is Victoria. God preserve written on a visiting card, which the great German Messengers like this we send PRINCES, like horses, ought to be trained to stand fire. To be shot at is a circumstance so much of course in the lives of sovereigns, that they ought to be prepared to behave in a way befitting the occasion. And there is really very little danger in the matter, much less than in crossing a thronged thoroughfare. How frequent have been the attempts in Now a camel would cry, now a horse would snort, At length there softened and died away All the more that the master there, Europe, and how rare the success. Louis Philippe | The bleat of the sheep came up to his ear, When George III. was shot at in Drury Lane Theatre, a Mr. Beddingfield performed the same sort of service which Joseph Kommissaroff has rendered to his Emperor; but what would have been thought of the reward of a peerage for what any one would have done in the same circumstances? Beddingfield could not even get the modest reward he jocularly asked, which was to be made a Scotchman, a nationality supposed at that time to lead to all good things. And George III. comported himself on the occasion with composure and dignity, instead of running about and making the greatest possible ado about the abortive attempt. It is clear that the Czar sets an immense value on his life. But perhaps, after all, it was never in danger, for a pistol to be used in a crowd is a clumsy weapon, and the chances are many that without the interposition of the hatter's apprentice the shot would not have hit the mark. But be that as it may, the inappropriateness of the reward is the ridiculous part of the affair. It is like the promotion of the lady in the ballad of Billy Taylor, not indeed for saving, but for shooting her false sweetheart. When that the captain came for to know it, He very much applauded what she had done, And immediately he made her first lieutenant Of the gallant Thunderbum. The poor apprentice's fears were not complimentary to his Imperial master. When the police sought him out he was in extreme alarm, and when asked whether he was not next to the assassin, bare justice was as little in his expectations as reward. He felt no safety in his innocence, and would have slunk away, glad to escape consequences. THE VISION OF SHEIK HAMIL. None to Sheik Hamil went near on the days amaze When such dolorous days he had. But cause for his grief that day there was, Fatima, wife of his youth, was dead, - Of slaves he had many, of wives but one, "There is but one God for the soul," he said, "And but one moon for the sun." Now on the terrace he lay and gazed Afar, where the sky and the desert meet; And where they met on the verge of the land, Sheik Hamil went up at the hour of prayer, And there he had wept till the hour of noon, And what with the weeping and fasting there, His senses began to swoon. Then he thought, " On the eye and the head! I 66 will enter my house and there eat bread, Joy of the desert will fill me then, And make mine eyes from their weeping cease; As he had thought, Sheik Hamil did, Them saddle his swiftest horse. As he had thought, lo! it was done, The horse was brought, and mounted; and sped Into the desert, as he had thought, Straight he darted and, in the race, VOL. I.] A Journal of Choice Reading, SELECTED FROM FOREIGN CURRENT LITERATURE. SATURDAY, JUNE 2, 1866. LAZARUS, LOTUS-EATING. NINE o'clock on Saturday evening, the place Cornhill, and the want a policeman. Wonderfully quiet and still is the Exchange yonder, for the bears have left their accustomed pit for the night, and the bulls are lowing over club mangers, or the family cribs at home. Curiously quiet, too, is the vast thoroughfare we are in. Shops and warehouses, banks and offices, are closed; and though here and there a blaze of light tells you how to telegraph to India, or glimmers out of one of the upper windows of the closely-shuttered houses you pass, the great street is wonderfully free from the feverish traffic of the day. Lazarus starts up out of the shadows which fantastically combine together on the pavement under the illuminated clock to the left, and having yielded to his prayer for pence, you and I look out anxiously for a policeman to aid us in tracing him home. Perhaps we carry with us a mysterious talisman which will at once enlist the sympathies and insure the co-operation of the force; perhaps we rely on our powers of personal persuasion; perhaps we have justice on our side, and claim its officers as allies; perhaps we wish to test the truthfulness of the pityful story he has told us; or perhaps we are merely animated by a holy hatred of beggars, and a wish to prosecute Lazarus to the death. Let us look at him again. Shabby canvas trousers, a loose and ragged blue jacket, high cheek-bones, small sunken eyes, a bare shaven face, and an untidy pigtail, — such is Lazarus. He is one of the poor, wretched Chinamen who shiver and cower and whine at our street-corners, and are mean and dirty, squalid and contemptible, even beyond beggars generally. See how he slinks and shambles along; and note the astonishment of the policeman we meet at last, when we tell him we wish to trace the abject wretch home. We have been through Cornhill and Leadenhall Street, past the corner where a waterman is pottering about with a lantern, a modern Diogenes, who, in the absence of the bulls and bears, is looking in vain for an honest man, and are close by Aldgate pump, and in the full glare of the huge clothing establishment at the Minories' corner, before we come upon our policeman. New-court, Palmer's, Folly, Bluegate-fields, that is where the Chinese opiumsmoking house is, and that is where Lazarus is bound for. 66 "I know them Chinamen well,” adds Mr. Policeman, sententiously; "they'll beg, and duff, and dodge about the West-end we won't have 'em and never spend nothin' of what they here [No. 22. makes, till night. They don't care for no drink, and seem to live without eating, so far as I know. It's their opium at night they likes, and you'll find half a dozen on 'em in one bed at Yahee's a-smoking and sleeping away, like so many dormice! No, sir, it would n't be at all safe for you to venture up New-court alone. It ain't the Chinamen, nor yet the Lascars, nor yet the Bengalees as would hurt you; but there is an uncommon rough crew of English hangin' in and about there, and it would be better for you to have a constable with you, much better; and if you go to Leman Street the inspector will put you in the way." This was all the information I needed from the policeman. Lazarus has shambled out of sight during our colloquy, and so, hastily following him down Butcher-row, Whitechapel, and resisting the fascinating blandishments of its butchers, who press upon us "prime and nobby jintes for to-morrer's dinner at nine-a-half, and no bone to speak of," reach Leman Street and its police-station in due course. A poster outside one of the butchers' shops causes me annoyance and regret, for it announces a forthcoming meeting at which the difficulties besetting the trade are to be discussed in solemn conclave at Butchers' Hall, and inspires me with an abortive desire to assist in the deliberations. To hear the rinderpest spoken on by the astute professors who have made money by it, and to learn the causes assigned by salesmen for the present price of meat, would be both instructive and profitable; but, alas! some parochial guardians, with whom I am at issue on the propriety of stifling and otherwise maltreating paupers, meet on the same evening, and for their sake I give up the butchers with a sigh. Pushing through the small crowd outside the station, crossing a long flagged court, and ascending a few steps to the right, we present our credentials to the inspector on duty. A one-eyed gentleman is in the dock, and oscillates up and down on the iron railing around it, like an inane puppet whose wires are broken. He is an Irishman, whose impulsive nature had led him to savagely bite and scratch the landlord of a public-house near, for having dared to pronounce him drunk, and for refusing him a further supply of stimulants. The landlord prefers the charge, and shows a bleeding forefinger, from which the nail has been torn. Irishman protests that he is a poor workin' man, who does n't like to be insulted; tipsy friends of Irishman noisily proffer themselves as witnesses to his general virtue and the extreme meekness of his disposition; and then retire, grumbling, at "ten o'clock on Monday, before the magistrate, will be the time for all that," being the answer given them. Inspector, methodically and with much neatness, enters name and address of both biter and bitten, and a few other details, in the charge-sheet, and the man is removed. The landlord binds up his bleeding hand, and the next business (a shrieking lady, with dishevelled hair) is proceeded with. Bluegate-fields is not in this police district, but the inspector will send a constable with me to a station which is only five minutes' walk from the place I want. Arriving here, the wail of a feeble, fatuous old Booby, who has been in improper company, and is now crying over the loss of his purse, is the first thing I hear. "Yes, sir; a bo'sun is right, sir; and I only left my ship to-night. Seven pound thirteen and a silver medal. O Lord! O Lord! Felt it in my pocket five minutes before I left the house. Has a constable gone? Deary, deary me!-seven pound, too, and me only left my ship this blessed night!" There is a little colony of Orientals in the centre of Bluegate-fields, and in the centre of this colony is the opium divan. We reach it by a narrow passage leading up a narrow court, and easily gain admission on presenting ourselves at its door. Yahee is of great age, is never free from the influence of opium, but sings, tells stories, eats, drinks, cooks, and quarrels, and goes through the routine of his simple life, without ever rousing from the semi-comatose state you see him in now. The curious dry burning odor, which is making your eyelids quiver painfully, which is giving your temples the throbbing which so often predicates a severe headache, and which is tickling your gullet as if with a feather and fine dust, is opium. Its fumes are curling overhead, the air is laden with them, and the bedclothes and the rags hanging on the string above are all steeped through and through with the fascinating drug. The livid, cadaverous, corpse-like visage of Yahee, the wild excited glare of the young Lascar who opens This with a profusion of tears, and much maudlin the door, the stolid sheep-like ruminations of Lazaaffection for the officers of the law. A few minutes' rus and the other Chinamen coiled together on the delay, during which Booby is gruffly and fruitlessly floor, the incoherent anecdotes of the Bengalee recommended to "give up blathering, as that won't squatted on the bed, the fiery gesticulations of the give him his money back," and told what he ought mulatto and the Manilla-man who are in conversato expect goin' along with such cattle as that; then tion by the fire, the semi-idiotic jabber of the nea slight bustle at the door, and a hideous negress is groes huddled up behind Yahee, are all due to the brought in. From the window of the inspector's same fumes. As soon as we are sufficiently acclilittle room we look down upon the dock, see the matized to peer through the smoke, and after the sergeant beyond, who, pen in hand, is entering par- bearded Oriental who makes faces and passes jibes ticulars in his charge-sheet, while the ridiculous old at, and for the company, has lighted a small candle prosecutor on the one hand, and the vile and ob- in our honor, we see a sorry little apartment, which scene bird of prey on the other, mouth and gibber is almost filled by the French bedstead, on which at each other, and bandy compliments of fullest half a dozen colored men are coiled long-wise across flavor. "One of the worst characters about here; its breadth, and in the centre of which is a common used to be always up for robbing sailors and that, japan tray and opium lamp. Turn which way you but has been much better lately, and has n't been will, you see or touch opium-smokers. The cramped here, O not for more than a month." The hideous little chamber is one large opium-pipe, and inhaling creature of whom this is said now adds her "blath-its atmosphere partially brings you under the pipe's er" to that of the old man, and her protestations are the noisier of the two. Wonderful to relate, these protestations are for once well founded; for at a sign from the inspector, the sergeant again cross-examines the fleeced boatswain as to where he felt his purse last, and the possibility of its being on his person still. In the midst of solemnly incoherent asseverations that the negress has it, the sergeant's hand falls carelessly into the boatswain's outside coat pocket, and lo! the missing purse is held up aloft between the sergeant's forefinger and thumb. Its contents are counted and found right, the negress declaring vehemently against "the old wretch," and, with a shrewd eye to future difficultics, declaring, "It's always so with poor me; people is always swearin' agin me, and accusin' of me wrongfully." The old man looks more foolish than ever, and the inspector and I start on our mission, leaving the sergeant and constables in the midst of warnings and admonitions. The time spent at the two stations has not been lost, for it is now only half past ten, and the opium revels are seldom at their height before eleven. There is no limit to the variety of nationalities patronizing the wretched hovel we are about to visit. From every quarter of the globe, and more immediately from every district in London, men come to old Yahee; the sole bond between them being a love of opium and a partiality for Yaheo's brand. Sailors, stewards, shopinen, mountebanks, beggars, outcasts, and thieves meet on perfect equality in New-court, and there smoke themselves into dreamy pleasant stupefaction. influence. Swarthy sombre faces loom out of dark Thus Booboo, who is a well-dressed Asiatic, in a clean shirt, and with a watch-chain of great strength and massiveness. He has been without a ship for five months; has just engaged to go on board one on Monday; shows me the owner's note for four pounds, and complains bitterly that they won't change it at the Home, or give him up his box. "Me owe them very leetle, sar, very small piece; |