"And you are bullied out of your life by a rascal and a prig. The rascal is Easy, and the prig the Archdeacon." "I will not say a word against either of them," said Mr. Mordaunt.

"No, but I know it. It is in our favor that the Archdeacon is not only a prig, but a flunkey; it is in our favor that the fellow Easy is not only a rogue, but a flunkey: by one bold stroke I can mend matters for you. I have not got a living to give you, and I can't get one for you at present; but I have no domestic chaplain. My father's domestic chaplain and I never agreed; he has a good living, and his chaplaincy lapsed with my father's death. I wish to appoint you my domestic chaplain at the same salary, £250 a year. At the same time, there is no librarian at Crowshoe, and the books are in a devil of a state: you must really undertake them at a salary of £150 a year. I can't give more, and, if you think that insufficient, I'll tell you what we will do to end the thing in a friendly manner, and without a squabble. Let us both write to Piazzi at the British Museum, and see if he considers it enough. If he decides against me, of course I must pay extra."

"My lord, God is very good to me.'

"He is good to all who seek him," said Lord Barnstaple sententiously. "But don't you see, my dear soul, that the keys of Crowshoe are in your hands, and that by this manœuvre we have entirely bowled out the adversary. I'd have given you a living fifty times over if I had one, but I want to keep you here; and I don't see any other way of doing it."

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Why should you be so generous to me, my lord, whom you have never seen, and of whom you know nothing?" "Know what?" said Lord Barnstaple, sharply. "Nothing."

"Don't I?" said his lordship. "Now I'll go saddle my horse. I suppose your daughter Alice will not appear. Well, it is all equal to me, as the French say. She will have to see me some day. Talk about this matter, of your being appointed domestic chaplain and librarian; it will save you trouble. Tell the Bishop about it, he is a capital gossip; and tell him that if I am a prig, I am not the only one in the world."

And so he saddled the horse, and rode away, leaving Mr. Mordaunt dazed; but almost directly afterwards he rode back again, jumped off his horse, and laid his hand on Mr. Mordaunt's shoulder. "I forgot one thing," he said. "You are not ashamed of being poor. I brought_fifty pounds in notes for you in advance of your salary. Here it is, God bless you! good-by! " and so he was off at

last.

So Mr. Mordaunt stood there a rich man - rich beyond his utmost expectations; and all by the sudden act of a young nobleman, who was a prig. He had no hesitation in accepting the whole matter any more than he would have rebelled to God about a thunderstorm which had knocked his chimneys about his ears. One ecclesiastical instinct was always in his mind, and he acted on it. He wrote to his bishop: the Archdeacon said once, "that, if his cat had died, he would have walked over and told the bishop."

His mind being eased in that way, he went to look for Alice; but Alice was nowhere to be found. She must be at some of the neighbors' houses: she had been frightened by Lord Barnstaple, and was keeping out of the way. At ten o'clock he went to bed; at eleven he was awakened by a candle in his eyes, and the figure of Alice before him, who sat down on the bed.

"Father, what money have you?"

"A great deal. Fifty pounds."

"Has Lord Barnstaple given you money

?

"I am to have four hundred a year from him."

She sat thinking for a little, and then she said, "I want

forty pounds."

"For what?"

"Do not ask, unless you want me to fall dead at your feet. Save me! that is all I ask. Give me the money." A wild, dark suspicion formed itself in Mr. Mordaunt's head.

"This is Lord Barnstaple's money," he said, coldly. "Bless his money, and bless him for what he has done for you! He is a good man. But you must save me, father. I must go to Charles. I am innocent! but I must go to Charles. O God!-father, do not hesitate!"

"Can you tell me no more, sweetheart?" said Mr. Mordaunt.

"Not a word!—not a word!" she said. "I will tell you all when I am in Canada — but I cannot now." "Now, look here, Alice, let us be in some way reasonable. You cannot go to Canada to-night, but you can go to bed. Wait till to-morrow, and we will talk it all over. If you are in trouble, which you will not tell about, what is easier than to do this: to sell out our twelve hundred pounds, and for you and Mary and I all to go to Canada together? I can pay Lord Barnstaple back his fifty pounds, and we can all part friends, and join Charles."

Then she began to cry, and then she told the whole truth.

She had been to an aunt's house at Exeter a few months before, and she had been often out walking by herself, as very poor girls have to walk. Wombwell's menagerie was there, and the tiger got out and crawled down towards the river. She saw the thing going along, and pointed it out to a gentleman, who raised the alarm and made her acquaintance. He was a very nice and handsome gentleman, and begged to be allowed to call on her to see if she had recovered her fright. Her aunt having inspected the gentleman on his first visit, and having seen that there was no harm in him- had allowed Mr. Mortimer's visits with great complacency, more particularly since she had seen him in eager conversation with Lord Fortescue. The old lady knew that Lord Fortescue would allow no man to speak to him who was not an honest man; and Lord Fortescue was the only nobleman she knew by sight; and so Mr. Mortimer was allowed to see as much of Alice as he chose; and he made love to Alice, and Alice was very deeply attached to him. But Mr. Mortimer never made any distinct proposal; and so, when Alice came home, she set her mind on forgetting Mr. Mortimer, but found that she could not in any way do so.

When Lord Barnstaple rode into the garden, she was looking out of the window, and she saw at once that Mr. Mortimer and Lord Barnstaple were the same men. Lord Barnstaple had deceived her, and he was a false and untruthful man; he had as good as wooed her under a false name, and that she would never forgive. Yet she loved him, admired him, and, after all, respected him. All this she poured into her father's ear, as she lay on the bed beside him.

"Yet you would have taken his money to fly from him." "Yes," she said, "I would have taken it, because I know him to be honest, noble, and good. We could pay it back. Father! he wants to marry me — - I have known that some time, though he never said so. As Mortimer, I would have married him, because—in spite of his deceit — I love him; but, as Lord Barnstaple, I will not see him again. See if I am not right. Look at Charles's marriage, and ask me if I am to drag down a man whom I really love to that level? And look again, father; after what you have told me to-night, how should we stand if I were to marry him? You have taken money from him. Would not all your friends even the Bishop- say that you had sold me? How would your name stand then? Your name is all that you have had these many years- would you lose that? "What loose

66

cash have we?"

We had better fly," said Mr. Mordaunt.

"Because we are going to Canada, to Charles," said Alice; and as Mary put her arm round Alice's neck, they felt they were sisters.

Free at last. No more trouble with the Archdeacon, Mr. Easy, the farmers, nay, even with the Bishop, his dear friend. A new life was before him, and he knew it. Haste and speed were necessary, and there must be but few farewells; all the people must learn their loss after he was gone.

It was early in the bright morning when he set out to see the Bishop,-hours before Mr. Easy would leave his bed. The hinds were going to their labor, and one after another greeted him as he walked swiftly along. One very old man stopped him, and asked him to sit on a heap of stones at the road side, which Mr. Mordaunt immediately did.

64

Parson," said the old man, "I want you to tell me something. I want you to tell me about the New Jerusalem, on which you preached last Sunday. Is it in this world or in the next?

99

"In both," said Mr. Mordaunt, at once; "for me it is in this world, for you in the next. I am going to it, I believe, before dissolution, you must wait until you are dead. See, Georgie," continued Mr. Mordaunt, "I am going to be very rich, just now, and you shall never go into the house."

The old man nodded, but said nothing; a humbug would have loaded Mr. Mordaunt with blessings, old George only nodded; yet I do not think that Mr. Mordaunt was any the worse for the silent blessings which followed him along the lonely road.

He burst in upon the Bishop, pushing past the footman before his name could be announced. "I am off, old fellow," was the salutation which the serious young footman heard before he shut the door.

"Yes," said the Bishop, " and whither?” "Canada-Ontario, after my boy."

"Then the visit of Lord Barnstaple was not satisfactory?" said the Bishop.

"In a pecuniary way, yes; in other ways, no. Ask him, he will tell you the truth. I don't see my way to certain arrangements, and so I shall go to Canada and take my boy's bride with me."

And your daughter?" "She goes also."

"I don't quite understand," said the Bishop, "but you know best. Every thing you do must be for the best. About the parish, are you going to leave it in Easy's hands?"

"Yes: it must be so. Even Paul sowed the seed, and left it to grow among the churches. Yes."

"When do you go?" asked the Bishop.

"Now, instantly. Give me your blessing, and send me;" and he knelt down at once.

Let us pray for a little more light Mordaunt," said the Bishop; and they did so, but none came; then Mr. Mordaunt knelt and received the benediction, and passing swiftly through the Bishop's domestics, was through the town, and was making the dust fly on the king's highway before the Bishop had made up his mind whether he should

detain him or not.

Mr. Mordaunt met the Archdeacon on his cob, and he stopped him. "Mr. Archdeacon," he said, "we have not been friends, and yet I have a favor to ask you."

The Archdeacon, who was a gentleman, at once dismounted. "Dear Mordaunt," he said, "was it all my fault?"

"No! no! All mine," said Mr. Mordaunt. "I am away to Canada, and shall never see you again. But use your influence with the farmers in my old parish, and see to my poor when I am away.”

And so he was gone, and the Archdeacon was left standing in the road beside his cob, in sight of his wondering groom, as Mr. Mordaunt sped away amid the dust. And the Archdeacon saw there and then that they had lost the best man in the whole diocese, and, like an honest fellow as he was, took the lesson to heart, and acted on it. There is no stouter champion of the agricultural poor in the land now than our Archdeacon.

Mr. Mordaunt met Mr. and Mrs. Easy in a pony-carriage, and he stopped them. "I am going away," he said; "going away forever. Let us part friends, and see to my people when I am gone."

Mrs. Easy (who always drove) whipped the pony and went on, and so Mordaunt went on to his own, and they drove to their place. At this Christmas time let us say, "God forgive us all."

Christmas time in the western part of Ontario is a very pleasant time indeed. The snow is set hard, and you can drive the most beautiful horses in sleighs from one house to another all the night through. Even in that paradise, however, there are drawbacks. You get no newspapers for a long time together in winter, while you get more wolves than you want.

In the extreme West, almost on the Old Buffalo tracks, was a Christmas party: Mr. Mordaunt, his son Charles, his son's wife, Mary, a baby of one year old, Alice Mordaunt, and some servants, Irish all, who were in a state of wonder and delight at the astounding wealth all around them. There was simply more than you could eat if you put your mind to it. Mr. Mordaunt had been away in the sleigh, late in the day, preaching, and had just come home.

Denis was bedding up the horses, and Biddy was waiting for the word to put on the dinner. Some one was wanting it was Father Moriarty.

"Divvle a sowl of the blessed cratur will be here this night!" said Biddy. "And by the name of the everblessed Saint Patrick, hark to the wolves. The Mother of God shield the holy man!"

"He'll come, said Mr. Mordaunt. I left him close by; don't be a fool, Biddy."

"Sorra a one of me would be a fool, and me living in a heretic's house," replied Biddy; "but I'd like to be shrived this blessed night, to pray the better in the morning for him that needs all our prayers."

"What?" said Mr. Mordaunt.

Just nothing," said Biddy; "hark to the wolves, then. Whist, all of you, there's one blowing under the door now; give me the broom, Miss Mordaunt." And Biddy, with infinite nimbleness and dexterity dashed to the door, and as nearly as possible hit the wolf over the head.

"Bad cess to the divvle!" she said; "I nearly had him. And the blessed father out among them;" but before she had time to blow off the steam, the "blessed father" opened the door again and walked in, saying,—

"Peace upon this house and all in it, Mordaunt; this is the most splendid thing of modern times."

"What is the most splendid thing in modern times, you Irish lunatic?" said Mr. Mordaunt.

"It is an English lunatic this time, my boy, and more power to his elbow. The devil helps heretics. Here is one of your young English lords, with his doctor, has started from the Pacific side, and won his way across the Rocky Mountains. Only him and his doctor and an Indian. We shall make something of you English yet if you attend to

us."

"It is impossible," said Charles Mordaunt. "I cannot believe it. No man could have done it."

"It's true, nevertheless," said the good Father, rather seriously. "Some said he was a prig, and perhaps he is; some said he was a fool, and maybe he might. But to disprove their words he set a task before him such as no man ever undertook. He did not care for life, for they say that a young lady had cast away his love: of that I know nothing. He has won, however, and has done a thing which will never be forgotten."

"Is he safe, Father?" cried Alice.

"Oh, yes! he is safe enough- and the doctor - a broth of a boy of divilment and the Indian, the grinning brownfaced nagur. They are all safe enough."

"Where are they? " cried Alice.

"They were at the door just now, in the cold, among the wolves," said Father Moriarty. "But, maybe if they are kept there much longer they will go on to another farm."

Alice threw the door open, and fell fairly into Lord Barnstaple's arms. Father Moriarty kissed every one all round, beginning with Mr. Mordaunt, and ending with the baby and the Indian. I have little more to tell; I fancy that the story has told itself by this time. But as a personal matter, I should very much have liked the Archdeacon and Mr. Letmedown Easy to have seen that Christmas party; it would have done the Archdeacon good. Easy is a hopeless person.

Mr.

They kept it up, I beg of you: the Indian, under the laws of the State, was not allowed liquor, but the others (with the exception of the baby) had a moderate quantity of hot wine and water; and I believe that the deleterious herb tobacco was used to some extent. Lord Barnstaple and Alice sat side by side, and Lord Barnstaple sang a song (he could no more sing than your grandmother, but did his duty). Father Moriarty sang the "Last Rose of Summer very beautifully and well- - and, then, who should sing but Mr. Mordaunt: he sang "The Graves of a Household," and very well, too. In short, in the whole of our good Queen's dominions there was not a pleasanter Christmas party than there was in that farm-house in western Ontario that Christmas night, though the cold was an illimitable number of degrees below zero, and the wolves came and blew under the door as soon as Fath r Moriarty began singing.

Lord Barnstaple was married at Montreal by his fatherin-law, Mr. Mordaunt; he returned to England and holds his present position, about which we need say nothing. Mr. Mordaunt never returned; he says that, with all its faults, Ontario is dearer to him than any land in the world. He lives with his son Charles, who, if he had been here, might have been a third-rate clerk. I asked an old friend the other day what Mr. Mordaunt was like now? He said, "A man swift and eager in doing good."

Father Moriarty is in great trouble about the infallibility pronunciation. He will have nothing to do with it at all. But I think that Father Moriarty is a man who can take very good care of himself in a free country. He knows as well as we do, that the first real freedom dates from Christianity, and that whatever churches may have done with our Charter since then, our Charter remains indefeasible. Christianity means freedom; and so we may wish both Father Moriarty and Mr. Mordaunt many happy Christmases, even though the snow is piled high over the rooftree, and the wolves are smelling and blowing round the

door.

CRIME WITHOUT SIGNS.

IF crime did not usually involve a very great disturbance of the character, a general effervescence which acts as a sort of buoy to mark its moral site and warn us all of our dangers, it is exceedingly difficult to conceive what it might not achieve before there would be any real fear of detection. Crime always springs either from vindictive passions which usually make a stir of themselves, and are pretty sure to call attention to the subjects of them, or selfish passions likely to be signalized by extreme vanity or conspicuous covetousness, or some other principle of human nature too active to avoid general observation and scrutiny. To take an instance, a man was lately charged before Sir R. W. Carden, at Guildhall, with not only robbing little children of their clothes and parcels, but with beating them for crying at their loss; and Sir R. W. Carden certainly thought the charges so far proved, that he would have committed the man for trial at once, had not the police wished for a remand to see

whether graver charges could not be brought against him. Now, here we have a remarkable case of the sort of action which we have called a buoy that serves to mark the posi tion of secret criminality. The irritation which, if the charge be true, the robber felt at the children's grief and its manifestation was so great that he could not help incur ring a considerably increased danger of publicity by indulging his temper,temper of this kind, in a criminal, being, of course, like the rattle of the rattlesnake, one of the greatest safeguards to the public against violent crime. But in the recent case of the man who was condemned by Mr. Justice Grove for five proved cases of arson, committed solely for the purpose of getting the half-crown offered for early information of a fire, and who was supposed to have committed the same crime thirty-six times for a like motive; and in the case of the French peasant, Joseph Lemettre, of Andresselles, near Boulogne, who is being tried in the Assize Court of the Pas de Calais for twenty-seven crimes, comprehending arsons, robberies, and several murders, said to have been extended over a series of seven year* (1864-71), between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, some of which, including complicity in a murder, he has confessed, there is no trace of this kind of safeguard, of any outburst of noisy or ostentatious passion, of any rattle of the snake, to put mankind on their guard. Joseph Le mettre was, indeed, so quiet and well-conducted in outward demeanor, that, even at the very time at which, as is now believed, he set fire to and destroyed his employer's crops, that employer was so convinced of his integrity and good conduct that he declined to dismiss him, and kept him near him till his death. Nor does it seem certain that even now, in 1871, this singularly well-behaved criminal would have been detected in his crimes, but for the circumstance that in the war of last year Lemettre was absent with the army as a conscript, when it was immediately noticed that the series of crimes with which for years this village and its neighbors had been terrified, suddenly ceased; a circumstance which suggested to the inhabitants, on one of the most simple of the principles of the inductive philosophy, that the effect having ceased, the cause must, in all probability, have ceased too, that is, must have been conscripted for the Army: whereupon Lemettre began to be suspected; and on his return, the crimes beginning again, he was closely watched, and detected in an attempt to rob the house of the priest. Now, the crimes with which he is charged include three murders and two attempts to murder which all but succeeded, as well as a great number of robberies of all sorts. A man who could live for seven years, and those the seven years between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, — with so much guilty and bloody thought and contrivance in his brain, and so little appearance of violence in his outward demeanor, that it was his absence, by the relief it afforded, and not his presence, by the dangers it caused, that drew suspicion down upon him, is worse than an unbuoyed torpedo in the risk he causes to the society to which he belongs, The evidence as to the prepossessing simplicity and frankness of his demeanor, even now, after a seven-years' course of deadly crime, is indeed perfectly startling. And there is something of the same ground for wonder and alarm in the case of William Anthony, who went about setting places on fire that he might earn half a crown for every building of whose danger he could give early information. That seems to have been a strictly business-like proceeding, hardly involving any thing that could be called passion, though it certainly involved also so singularly complete an indifference to the severe troubles if his neighbors, that one would not be in the least surprised at the same persons committing murder for five shillings a head, if there were an equally good chance of keeping the matter quiet. course the man may have been scrupulous in selecting insured houses, and have argued with himself that the insurance companies were legitimate objects of plunder; but on this point we have no evidence. At any rate, his guilt, whatever it was, was of that exceedingly still kind which, in spite of a tremendous destructiveness, gives no signal of its existence; and in France we find a man, and a very young man, who can maintain a demeanor entirely prepos

Of

sessing and unruffled for seven years, during a course of singularly base and cruel crimes, for in four out of the five cases of murder, or attempts to murder, it seems that the criminal's first course was to render his victim insensible, by those heavy and agonizing kicks delivered between the legs, which always maim and utterly disable, and usually cause fainting-fits. And in this man's case, be it remembered, the mere love of gain and love of self will not account for the earlier crimes, though it will for the cruelty of the process by which he disabled his victims before murdering them. The first two or three crimes committed against the property of the master who so thoroughly trusted him, must have been crimes of a revenge so secret that he never even gave his master reason to think that he had incurred his servant's resentment. He got nothing by the destruction of the property of his master and his master's neighbors, except the pleasure of seeing them suffer, and perhaps the secret delight of feeling that he wielded a great power against them, although they were unconscious of it; and one, at least, of the murders was prompted apparently by the same motive, and not by avarice. Now, vindictive passions can rarely indeed manage to run completely beneath the surface; they are especially liable to betray themselves; and when they are found strong in the character of a man who gives no one any suspicion of their existence, and that during the hottest period of youth, they certainly contribute to make a true infernal machine of mischief, a machine buried quite out of sight, and doubly charged with destructive forces, with the insatiable impulse of an omnivorous avarice and the savage rage of a deadly revenge.

There is something very alarming in the spectacle of chronic destructive forces of so fearful a kind as these being kept so completely out of sight, giving even no danger-signals intelligible to the majority of those amidst whom the lives of these formidable persons have been passed from their youth upwards. And it cannot but suggest to one the question, what the interior of these lives, which contain so much that no one for a moment suspected, may be. Can it be that William Anthony pursued his trade of firing buildings and giving early alarms of the fruit of his own work, without any protest in his own mind against the hideous treachery of which he was guilty in obtaining a reward for the infliction on those who paid it of an enormous injury? Is it barely conceivable that he can have gone about his business without any feeling of shame lively enough to risk his betraying himself to his companions, or to the people whom he was plundering of thousands of pounds for the sake of his miserable halfcrown? And what are we to think of the interior of Joseph Lemettre's mind during his seven years of successful incendiarism, plunder, and murder? He is affirmed expressly to have been a lad of extremely regular external habits during the first two years of this career, and indeed, he must have been so, to prepossess his first employer so strongly in his favor as to make him disregard entirely some very suspicious circumstances. He must have shown patience, diligence, and great simplicity, while he was hatching in his heart revenges, robberies, and murders. If there had been any fierce st uggle, such as one would suppose inevitable, between the two natures, it would have rendered itself visible in some form, in moodiness, sullenness of outward demeanor, an avoidance of the society which brought home to him most keenly his own treachery. If there were no such struggle, and the whole heart was rotten to the core, how did the superficial varnish of external frankness and simplicity manage to keep itself so completely predominant in his face and manners, as for some years to disarm suspicion in the presence of an unparalleled series of frightful and alarming crimes? One could just conceive that there might be so perfect a unity of villanous intention in a very bad man's mind as to exclude all conflict, all division of the mind against itself. But how such unity of villanous purpose could help impressing itself in some way on his manners and features, - how an ignorant peasant lad could be so accomplished a hypocrite as to impress his neighbors favorably while his whole heart was

absorbed in plunder, revenge, and blood, is as puzzling as it is alarming. He was repeatedly one of those liable, from the circumstances of the case, to suspicion, but was never suspected.

In all his deeds of violence and cruelty he seems to have preserved that extraordinary cheerfulness and composure which are the principal and very rare conditions of success. It would seem as if he remained undiscovered chiefly because he was never agitated, never boastful, never gave any involuntary signs of dread or guilt. Can it be, then, that such a one should be without either fear or vainglory, with the secret knowledge in him that his hand was against every man, and that he was in some sense triumphant in his iniquitous crusade? Nothing seems to us more perplexing or alarming than this, - that without even the aid of careful culture and art, men should not only be able to silence their own consciences, but to do so without giving any sign to those around them, either in their countenances or otherwise, of their war against all morality and all society, should have come to think the most trivial gain to themselves far more than an equivalent for the ruin, and even death of others, without even an air-bubble rising to the surface to betray them to the world. The classes called " dangerous" are risk enough to any society, but they are no danger at all in comparison with a class, if it could be conceived, only one-tenth of theirs in number, who, with habits of action fatal to all society, could mingle amongst other classes as William Anthony and Joseph Lemettre appear to have done, unsuspected, and unbetrayed by themselves. No doubt the government of God would never permit the existence of such a class at all; and such rare individuals as these can only be allowed in order to make the more conspicuous to our minds the strange beneficence, and all but universal cogency of the law which compels dangerous men to put out involuntary danger-signals, warning the better and often also weaker part of society to stand on their guard against them.

FOREIGN NOTES.

THE London Court Journal informs us that "the Alexis cut of hair" (the shoe-brush style), is at present all the rage in America.

AT Weimar, Shakspeare's "Measure for Measure,” which had not previously been brought out on the German stage, has been performed in a German version by G. Von Vincke.

THE French journals announce the death, at the age of fifty-six, of M. Brisebarre, the well-known dramatic author. The number of pieces he brought forward, chiefly in conjunction with others, is estimated at about one hundred.

Le Monde, one of the leading French journals in the religious interest, has just announced its deliberate decision to respect the sabbath-day's rest, and not to appear on Monday. This conscientious and thoroughly logical attitude has procured it several congratulatory letters from the French bishops.

M. OFFENBACH has achieved another success at the Bouffes-Parisiens, in Paris, with his three-act opéra-bouffe, called "Boule de Neige," the libretto by MM. Naitter and Tréfeu. The book in extravagance surpasses any previous burlesque, turning on the reign of a crowned Polar bear, who is nominated Hospodar of a state by the Grand-Khan.

A RECENT number of the Paris Charivari has a caricature representing M. Thiers displaying a statue marked "République" to the members of the French Assembly. He says, "Gentlemen, I have roughly designed this during your absence; you will finish it now as you think best." The statue, it should be added, represents M. Thiers him

self.

THE following Irish way of saying the streets are dirty has been forwarded to a Dublin paper, by way of an advertisement: "Lost, in the neighborhood of Appian way,

a crossing composed of granite stones. When last seen it extended across Leeson Street. Should this meet the eye of some geologist who is possessed of a pickaxe, he is requested to dig about the locality, as it cannot be very deep down, having been seen about a month ago by some workmen belonging to the Pembroke Township."

UNDER the title of "Goethe und Felix MendelssohnBartholdy," Dr. Karl Mendelssohn has just published a narrative of the intercourse, extending over nine years, between his father and the aged poet. The well-known letters, already printed, contain Mendelssohn's own account of his visit to Weimar in 1830, on his way to Italy. But this was the fourth time he had been there, and the descriptions here given of the other three visits, especially the first, with Zelter, in 1821, when Felix was but twelve years old, are full of new and amusing details, which will be eagerly read by the admirers of both poet and musician. The narrative is principally compiled from letters and journals not before made public, and contains, amongst other novelties, two short poems by Goethe. The 1830 visit is illustrated by many new facts and documents. Not the least interesting portion of the book is a lengthened account of the visit which Mendelssohn and his father made to Paris in 1825, for the purpose of consulting Cherubini as to his future career. The strictures of the young musician on the salons and orchestras and the general life of Paris are characteristic, and there are some capital stories of Cherubini, Baillot, Kalkbrenner, &c. An English translation of the work is in press.

PEOPLE who are irreverent enough to doubt the sincerity of a bishop when he says "Nolo Episcopari" should read a story told by the Tablet which shows that in the Roman Catholic Church at least appointment to a bishopric is not always considered a matter for rejoicing. Not long ago an official letter came from Rome to a monastery near Florence, informing a certain monk that he had been nominated to a bishopric. The good Father was so terrified that he instantly began a novena to the Blessed Virgin to save him from the intended honor, and sent a written reply to the Pope, humbly but firmly declining the appointment. The reply was an order immediately to repair to the Vatican. The monk besought the intervention of the Archbishop, but in vain; he went to Rome, and throwing himself at the feet of the Holy Father implored to be excused from a burden beyond his strength. The Pope told himthat he was the best judge of his strength. The monk then pleaded that he labored under a defective memory. "Well," replied the Pontiff, "I do not want to make you a professor of mnemonics. The worst that can happen is, that when you die they cannot speak of you officially as of happy memory,' felicis memoriæ,' or 'recordationis.' This" added his Holiness, "you will find but a slight inconvenience."

If there is one praiseworthy quality distinguishing Prince Bismarck from other "great men," it is, says the Pall Mall Gazette, that he strongly discountenances the worship of himself as a "great man." To whatever height he may rise in his official capacity, in his social character he likes to step down from his elevated pedestal and to speak and act among others like an ordinary man. He is not chary of autographs, when they are to be given in the way of letters; but when they are demanded as autographs, he knows how to refuse so small a gift as flatly as he did more valuable concessions to M. Thiers and M. Favre. The new German ambassador at Mexico, Count Enzenberg, is an avowed autograph hunter; and it seems he trusted on the strength of his official position to elicit a contribution to his collection from the Minister whom the Germans consider "the greatest man of this century." "On presenting his bulky album, he was disappointed to meet with a refusal; for the Prince, after looking carelessly over some of the handwritings, returned the volume without a word, to the great confusion of Count Enzenberg. The Chancellor's secretary, M. Bucher, however, engaged to obtain the valued prize in a private interview. Prince Bismarck in

scribed his name on the page graced already by the autographs of MM. Guizot and Thiers. M. Guizot had written, "Dans ma longue vie j'ai appris deux sagesses; l'une c'est de beaucoup pardonner, et l'autre de ne jamais oublier." M. Thiers had added, "Un peu d'oubli ne nuit pas à la sincérité du pardon." Prince Bismarck improved the sentiment by writing, "J'ai appris dans ma vie à moi de beaucoup oublier et de me faire beaucoup pardonner."

THE last number of the Spectator contains an admirable critique on Mr. Higginson's "Atlantic Essays." Two of the many pleasant things which the Spectator finds to say touching the volume are worth quoting: "If the fragment of a historical novel called 'A Charge with Prince Rupert' is a fair specimen of Mr. Higginson's own style as a writer of romance, he must rank very high among the followers of that branch of literature. There is a splendid swing in this which seems to carry one away, as one reads, with the gay Cavaliers as they ride from Oxford to Chinnor and sweep their way back through the Puritan dragoons, -a vividness of description and a power of hitting off a portrait in a few happy touches which are rare gifts. 'On an Old Latin Text-Book,' the last of the Atlantic Essays,' is one of the best. There is a playful pathos in the opening reminiscences of school days which calls to mind some of the Roundabout Papers of Mr. Thackeray, whose works Mr. Higginson has evidently studied, and on them in some degree, but with no servility of imitation, modelled his own style. This essay is an excellent plea for the retaining of classics as a study in the schools of America. It is remarked, as it seems to us, with great justice, that the classic writings are best calculated first to amuse a boy's imagination, and make him look upon his lessons as things worth learning for their own sake. The boy is poetic, but it is, according to Milton's definition, “simple, sensuous, passionate; " the boy's poetry is classic, it is the youth only who is romantic.' And so Mr. Higginson upholds the study of classics as necessary to the fulfilment of his most cherished conviction that this Anglo-American race is developing a finer organization than the State from which it sprang, -is destined to be more sensitive to art, as well as more abundant in nervous energy. Grant that it is the worthy mission of the current British literature to render style clear, simple, and convincing, it may yet be the mission of Americans to take that style and make it beautiful.' This shows a great deal of confidence in the literary future of America; but if the author's enthusiasm has the effect of making others of his countrymen write as well as he has done, we shall not quarrel with it."

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