poet in all his misery, of a figure by his side whose aspect was the counterpart of his own: the figure was dressed in black, and its expression was that of mournful regret. It came too late to be a warning: it was too sad to be a consolation; in every disorder of his mind his strained imagination projected this image before him, and the sight of it was accompanied by anguish. He was a child when it first appeared to him. He saw it for the second time at the age of fifteen.

describes the fluctuations of that unhappy passion for the woman who subdued his soul, which ended in despair; the fraternal shape of sorrow glides in at the hours of sharpest affliction. At last the poet questions the vision, and his passionate appeal is answered

"Ami, je suis la Solitude."

This was not a dream conjured up in the hour of poetical composition. The poem is a true record, and it is difficult to conceive any thing more pathetic. These lyrical pieces were written at the early age of twenty-five, and nothing of the poet's at a later day surpassed them, either in passion or in perfection of verse.

Heine, always cruel in his satire, said of De Musset when he was thirty years old, "C'est un jeune homme d'un beau passé." But there was truth in those bitter words. At the age of thirty-seven, De Musset ceased to write; at fortyseven, the burthen of his sorrows and faults was lifted from him, and he died suddenly in the night, of heart disease, on the 1st of May, 1857, at Paris.

It was after his death that the "Nuit d'Octobre " was produced upon the stage of the Théâtre Français at the celebration of his birthday, while his marble bust, crowned with laurel, looked on still and calm, as he never could be at any instant of his troubled life.

The performance of a long dialogue in verse, with no change of scene, and little action, depending wholly on the beauty of poetry and the movement of passion, was felt to be hazardous even by French artists for a French audience, but the success was complete, and the theatre is crowded at every representation of this piece. It was bravely risked during the last season, when dramatic art showed its full perfections at the Opéra Comique, in London; and it warmed the cold blood of English audiences, and established the fame of the French poet with many who had never even heard his name before. His birthday is annually celebrated at the Comédie Française, by a performance of pieces exclusively of his writing. It is an occasion when the theatre is always filled with spectators of literary distinction, and with renowned artists. There is a certain sense of exaltation in these honors duly paid to the dramatist and poet; but it is accompanied by a profound melancholy as the memorial of great gifts misused, of the promise of youth ending in the blight of manhood, and of a fine imagination overthrown.

A FIGHT FOR A LOCOMOTIVE.

I.

I SAT at breakfast one autumn morning, lazily sipping my coffee, and trying to solve a problem that completely eclipsed the pons asinorum. Certainly that proposition never caused me half the perplexity the one I was now cogitating did. The morning paper lay uncut across my knee; the rolls had gone cold; the sunshine came in through the open window, bringing with it the scent of the late roses; and across the roads and adjacent meadows came the shouts of the harvestmen gathering in the last loads of wheat from the distant corn-fields. Yet I was blind to the fair prospect that was visible from the window of my pretty suburban lodging, and opened out in the clear, fresh air of the morning, and stretched for miles on miles; green meadows, yellow stubbles, red farmhouses, and woods already touched with the marvellous colors laid on so lavishly and yet harmoniously by the master-hand of autumn; bounded by the distant line of hills over which hung the rounded outline of the Wrekin, only distinguishable from a cloud by its immovability. Many and oft were the hours I had spent in watching and drinking in all the beauty of earth and tree and sky; and why not on this particular morning? The immediate cause lay in two letters that lay on the table. One had a narrow pink envelop of that elongated form so much affected by the fair sex. The other was an unmistakable business letter,

addressed in a clerkly hand to William Herbert, Esq., Paradise Place, Metaltown.

"MY DEAREST WILLIE,

PLACE AUX DAMES.

.. And I really don't see that we need be in any hurry to be married. We have only been engaged a year. You are only twenty-two, and I am but nineteen; so we are quite young enough to wait some time longer yet. Although grandma is a little queer, yet I can bear with her easily when I think of the great happiness that is in store for us sometime. Certainly, dear, we might manage it, as you are so impatient, if, when your uncle's will is opened, you have the £30 annuity you expect; but if you don't get it, your salary of £120 is rather small to manage with. I think, darling, we had better wait a bit. Am I not a terribly worldly-wise little thing? &c., &c.

This letter was signed "Mary."

Of course I had read her letter first, and had inwardly resolved upon overcoming her fears and getting married off hand. But the second letter put a damper on my hopes. It was from my uncle's solicitor, and ran thus:

"DEAR SIR, -The six months your deceased relative directed his will to be kept sealed were up yesterday, and the will was read by me before several of his relatives. I am desired to make you acquainted with the contents, and enclose you copy of will. You will see that, contrary to our expectations, the will, which your uncle himself made, and kept sealed even from me, does not leave you a penny. I am astonished at this unaccountable conduct, and am grieved at your disappointment. "I am, sir, yours faithfully,

"J. H. PROCTOR."

My bright hopes were banished, and it was with a sorrowful heart that I came to the conclusion that there was nothing to do but to wait as patiently as possible. Suddenly awakening to the fact that I was half an hour late for the office, I hastened townwards, inwardly praying that my principal, a large contractor, had not arrived. soon as I entered, however, the chief clerk said to me, "Mr. Herbert, you are wanted in Mr. Heywood's room." I hurried in, feeling defiantly careless of the expected reprimand.

"Good-morning, Mr. Herbert. You are late."

As

"I have had unwelcome news, sir, and forgot how the time was passing." And I told him as much as I thought proper. After some discursive talk, he said,

"I have been well pleased with your business tact and energy, Mr. Herbert, and have sent for you now to undertake a rather ticklish matter. Oblige me by listening while I put you in possession of the facts."

"You know we have discontinued working the Lleydem brick-fields; and it appears that our late manager has allowed the royalty to Earl to fall into arrear for two years. Last week a distraint was made on the premises, and the engine that used to run on our branch line, and was lying in the shed, has been seized and sold for about a quarter of its value. The purchaser has run it a little up the line off our land, and taken up the rails behind it to prevent its being taken back. Now, I consider that such a distress is illegal, and am determined to seek the remedy known in the law as "recaption." I do not care for the bother of a replevin action. Now, I want you to go to Lleydem and see how the land lies, and then take as many men as you want from the Mynedd lead-mines, together with horses, and pull the engine on to the main line after the night mail has passed, and take her with all haste to Nantygolyn Station in time to meet the up luggage-train at half-past two in the morning. You will then attach the engine to the train and bring her here. Here is the necessary permit to authorize you to stop the train, and a letter to the captain of the mine. If, as is quite possible, you meet with resistance, refrain from using any more force than is necessary. I wish to avoid any fighting. If you conduct this

matter successfully it is quite probable I may raise your salary, for I have been well satisfied with your conduct in the office. Are you sure that you perfectly comprehend my instructions?"

I withdrew to make the necessary preparations and cogitate about my anticipated good fortune, and the strange service I was engaged upon. It had all the charm of adventure, for I was not so sanguine as to hope that such a proceeding could be taken entirely without resistance. I determined to say nothing about it to Mary, lest she should be alarmed. I wrote her a short note, saying that I should be away on important business for the next two or three days, and urging her to keep a good heart, as I might have some good news to tell her when we next met.

II.

I alighted at Nantygolyn Station, and engaged a room at the sole inn the village boasts of. It was still early in the evening, and I started after dinner to walk as far as Lleydem, a distance of about two miles, to reconnoitre. The road ran along the hill-side nearly all the way. A shower had laid the dust, and the wet foliage of the trees that clung to the rock on my right hand, and overhung the path, gleamed brightly in the dying light. Far down on my left ran the brawling river, just colored with the rain, and from all about arose the soft steam from the moistened earth, speaking eloquently in its grave-like odor of the sad end of the year that was coming so quickly. Autumn is pleasant enough amid the gardens of Kent, but very sad is it among the hills. The trees are stunted, and the leaves soon flutter slowly downward from their baring branches; and those who have only heard the musical sighing of the wind through the trees of a lowland landscape, can have no conception of the weird-like feeling that steals over one as we listen to the soughing of the gale among the swaying and creaking boughs of the mountain pines and birches, and its fiercer shriek as it sweeps up the ravines and over the desolate moor. The wind was rising, laden with occasional showers, as I reached the brick-field. The state of affairs was worse than I had imagined. The engine had been left on an exposed part of the line, and where there was a sharp curve, causing the outside rail to be much higher than the other. Inclining at such a sharp angle, it had been exposed to the full fury of a recent gale, which, catching it at so great a disadvantage, had tilted it completely over, and it now lay on its side on the embankment, with the hindermost wheels, however, resting on, or only partly off the rails. It was a small and very light engine, and had been originally intended for the Crimea.

It was a wild and lonely place where the brick-yard was situated. It was just where the moorland commenced, and where there was nothing to interrupt the eye as it roamed over the purple flat, strangely lit up in places by crimsoning gleams and patches of golden brown, as the light of the stormy sunset was reflected from the surface of a pool, or shone on a lighter ground of dead rushes and ling. Beyond all was a long gray line, which could not be mistaken for any thing but what it was- the bonny, open sea. If you listened intently you could even catch, borne on the wind, the faint roar of the surf on the flat sandy shore.

Nothing could be done that night, and on the morrow I mounted a sorry animal which mine host called a saddlehorse, and rode off to the mines to bespeak the services of a dozen men and three horses-all they had to sparefor eight o'clock that night, and then back to the station to put all right with the station-master. To disarm suspicion I took a rod and made my way down to the now swollen stream. Few fish were there in it, for the deadly water from the mines had played sad havoc with the finny tribe. More time was passed in reverie than in fishing, and tender memories of the past mingled strangely with dreams of the future. How happy Mary and I could be in a little cottage ornée I had had my eye upon, and which I knew was to be had at a low rent. How pleasant to hurry home from business, and find a bright face to welcome me with a kiss and a bonny smile, instead of my lonely bachelor rooms.

Ah, me! would it ever come to pass, I wondered. Surely it must some day; and yet, somehow, I could not look hopefully forward. Perhaps it was the lowering weather and the dull, spiritless air that everybody wore that depressed me; and it was absurd, yet I felt as if I were going to be hung, or meet with some serious accident in this midnight abduction I was engaged in. Vainly trying to shake off the feeling, I retraced my steps to the inn.

At eight o'clock it was already quite dark. When I reached the bank over the line I saw that the men, by the light of lanterns, had rigged up a temporary crane, and were tugging away at the ropes, trying to raise the fallen engine, and prying away with levers and screw-jacks, working quietly and well. Most of them were brawny Englishmen, imported by Mr. Heywood; the rest were Welshmen, smaller made, but wiry and strong. Steadily the work went on under my directions, and all the while a soft, unpleasant drizzle gradually soaked us through and through. The wind was fitful, and many and mysterious were the sounds that it brought out of the glens. It moaned dismally through the pine woods, showing that the spirit of the storm was abrod, and ere long would be upon us in all its savageness. Suddenly a form flitted by, then another, and another, and three strange men passed by the engine and vanished in the gloom. Other eyes were as quick as mine, and saw them. We instinctively knew that they were the vanguard of the enemy, and that soon we might expect opposition. As we afterwards learned, one of the men at the mine had not been able to keep the secret from his Delilah.

"Look sharp, lads, and get her on the line before they come," I cried, and lent a hand to the ropes myself. At last, with a thud, she was righted, and then the screw-jacks were again applied to lift her properly on the rails. This was done without interruption. The horses were harnessed to, and she began to move merrily enough, though a rattling noise inside made it evident that some of her machinery was broken. I was beginning to hope we might soon gain the main line, about half a mile away, when over the bink there came some twenty or thirty men and lads. The wheels were scotched before we could prevent it. They harnessed a couple of horses and half a dozen donkeys to the other end of the engine. Two tar-barrels they had brought with them were set alight, and blazed furiously, affording plenty of light. I warned my men not to have recourse to violence, and in this I was seconded by the leader of the opposite side, who was, in fact, the purchaser of the engine.

"It shall be a fair fight," he said. "Let us see which can pull the hardest now, and you take your chance in the law afterwards."

By mutual consent we unscotched the wheels, and the tournament began. First one party gained a few yards, then the other. The animals lugged their very hardest, aided by the men. The Englishmen were the strongest, although the fewest in number, but the incline was in favor of the Welshmen, and at first it seemed as if they would triumph and drag the engine back to where the rails were broken up. No blows passed between us, and the good humor shown by every one surprised me very much. I felt that I was losing patience, and must have some hand in it, so took up a lever, and, inserting it behind a wheel, strove to urge it onward. My friend the commander-inchief of the enemy did the same, but in an opposite direction. What was to be done? Things must rapidly end in a free fight. Nobody's patience could stand it much longer. The sons of Cambria in particular were becoming excited, and one or two stones had already struck the engine, thrown by some outsider in the darkness. The mail

had passed some time ago, and the luggage-train was nearly

due. If the struggle continued much longer the neighborhood would be aroused, and we should stand no chance. At all risks the engine must be carried away before daylight. As soon as one side gained an advantage the wheels were scotched by the other, and a dead-lock seemed inevitable. A bright idea struck me, and, abandoning my lever, I went up to the overseer of the mine, who was working as

hard as any of them, and asked him who was the best runner among the men.

"There will be none as good as you, sir; and they be all tired with this pulley-h tuley work."

"Well, then, I'm off to Nantygolyn-Station; and I'll come back with the engine of the luggage train. Do you see? Look to the points at the junction."

"Capital, sir!" exclaimed he, as I turned and dashel over the bank and into the narrow road. I had scarcely got out of the glare of the fire when I was roughly collare l by somebody. As he was evidently not a friend, and there was no time for explanation, even if I wished to give any, I placed my hand over his shoulder and my arm under his chin, and with a sudden wrench, taught me by a Welsh collier, forced his head back, and left him half insensible on the ground.

That was a run!-along a rutty, stony road, and the night, or rather morning, pitch dark. It was tolerably good running that covered the two miles in a quarter of an hour, and I was thoroughly puffed as I got into the station. The train had been waiting a few minutes, and, although it was exceeding my power, I took the responsibility on myself of detaching the engine and going forward along the line. The junction was soon reached, a lantern held up showed us that all was clear, and we steamed slowly up to the engine. Both parties had drawn off their forces, and were sitting and standing in groups a little apart, while rude chaff was freely interchanged. The firelight cast long and wavering shadows around, and made the outer darkness look blacker and more impenetrable than ever. The rain still came steadily down and hissed on the blazing fires, while the wet ground was trodden ankle deep in mud. Such a yell arose, after the first astonished silence, from our opponents, answered back by a ringing cheer from my The cattle were quickly unloosened and ridden off out of the way by three men. The ropes were quickly transferred to the big engine; and in the midst of a general mêlée the two locomotives moved slowly off, dragging their horses and donkeys backwards. Seeing the uselessness of employing brute force against steam, they cut their ropes, and we moved triumphantly off, followed by a volley of oaths and stones. One of the latter struck me on the cheek, laying it open and knocking me back on the coals in the tender. It was as much as I could do to restrain my men from jumping off and charging them.

men.

Well, that is how I fought for and won the locomotive. I do not know, good reader, if you will want to know any more. In case you do, I may say that my salary was raised considerably. Mary decided to take the risks of a married life on a still small income; and, so far, we have had no reason to repent taking such an important step. She and I, and the baby, wish you adieu.

servation.

CASTILIAN DAYS.*

THERE could be little doubt that the author of the vol ume of poems that contains, amongst others, the Pike Coun ty Ballads, would describe with spirit and originality his impressions of any country or people that fell under his obAnd accordingly we have a most attractive volume, in which Col. Hay writes easily and picturesquely of the cities, streets, and buildings, and of the history, politics, and domestic life and character of the inhabitants of that unique, old-fashioned country, the Peninsula, par excellency, of the European continent. He has been a thoughtful student of its history, and has, we gather, an intimate knowl edge of its language, and he brings these special and great

general powers to bear on the consideration, in the concluding chapters, of its disturbed political life. He argues that the revolution failed to establish a monarchy, but he wrote two years ago, and was a little premature; and it is even yet too soon to say that the promises of the constitution may not yet be fulfilled, clearly as Col. Hay points out the future

Castilian Days By John Hay. Boston: James R. Osgood & Co. London: Tr ber & Co.

He

The

of many of them at the date of his Spanish papers. bears strong testimony, personal as well as from history, to the honesty of the Spaniard as distinguished from his truthfulness, but to the utter absence of this latter quality which he attributes to (so-called) religious training, and of which he gives some startling instances he traces the failure of constitutional government. Till the people can believe their representatives, and the representatives their ministers, the stability and order of good government are impossible. Enlightenment is the first step to independence and truthfulness, and this, Col. Hay argues, will spread more quickly, however perfect the constitution, under a republican, than under a monarchical form of government. historical parts of his book are a résume of the history of united "Crown-and-Gown" power, and its crushing effects on the intellectual and moral life of the people. On the whole, however, we value the book before us more for its descriptions than for its political views, for though the author's conclusions are full of sagacity, he writes wholly from the republican point of view, and the somewhat boastful complacency of the American is often apparent, though tempered by the cosmopolitanism of the traveller and the refinement of the gentleman. Another characteristic which somewhat inars the beauty of the book is the too frequent ridicule of the Roman Catholic. We do not complain, of course, when our author argues seriously that many of the troubles of I rassed Spain are distinctly traceable to the power of the priests and the credulity of the people. What we object to is the holding this credulity up to ridicule, and speaking with a lightness which is unnecessary and unchristi in of beliefs an prejudices held sacred by a whole people. The tone of this ridicule is, too, a trifle vulgar; witness Col. Hay's description of the visit of the Virgin to the Bishop Ildefonso, with which he interrupts his account of the magnificent cathedral at Toledo, and which ends by telling us that to this day the aged verger of the cathedral never passes the chapel where it took place "without sticking in his thumb and pulling out a blessing." And here again, a page or two further and this time also in speaking of the Catholics, “I looked out, and saw a group of brown and ragged women, each with an armful of baby, discussing the news from Madrid. The Protestants, they said, had begun to steal Catholic children." This same tendency to see, and temptation to present, the rather coarsely humorous in the circumstances that come under his notice, not unfrequently destroys the beauty and power of his descriptions, disturbing the train of thought he has suggested by the jarring of an incongruous element. Thus he leaves the descriptions of a field-night in the Cortes to remark on the "polished skulls" of the members; and in another place he spoils a grave passage thus: "Yet the monarchy is no more consolidated than it was when the triumvirs laid their bald heads together at Alcolea." In speaking of "the cradle of Cervantes," he says of the church in which he was baptized, "It is a pretty church, not large or imposing, just the thing to baptize a nice baby in." And in explaining the absence of Judas from the miracle-play, he breaks in upon our sympathy with the warm-hearted and hot-blooded Spaniard who cannot endure even a representative of the betrayer of our Lord, by the offensive quotation from Artemus Ward of what hap pened to his wax Judas.

on,

The book is of such varied interest that it seems unreasonable to wish for more, and perhaps Col. Hay thought that travellers had already worn threadbare the subject of Spanish scenery, or holds that such descriptions are idle and unsatisfactory. But we are disappointed, nevertheless, by their absence, for both his poems and his city interiors betray his delicate touch, and his power not merely of conjur ing up for us the scene present to his own eye, but of rousing the sentiment that it would naturally excite. Here, for instance, are the few last words about Segovia, and we feel both the brightness and the desolation:

"But though enriched by all these legacies of an immemorial past, there seems no hope, no future for Segovia It is as dead as the cities of the Plain. Its spindles have rusted into silence.

Its gay company is gone. Its streets are too large for the population, and yet they swarm with beggars. I had often heard it compared in outline to a ship,-the sunrise astern and the prow pointing westward, and as we drove away that day and I looked back to the receding town, it seemed to me like a grand hulk of some richly-laden galleon, aground on the rock that holds it, alone, abandoned to its fate among the barren billows of the tumbling ridges, its crew tired out with struggling and apathetic in despair, mocked by the finest air and the clearest sunshine that ever shone, and gazing always forward to the new world and new times hidden in the rosy sunset, which they shall

"I went to Alcalá one summer day, when the bare fields were brown and dry in their after-harvest nudity, and the hills that bordered the winding Henares were drab in the light and purple in the shadow. From a distance the town is one of the most imposing in Castile. It lies in the midst of a vast plain by the green water-side, and the land approach is fortified by a most impressive wall, emphasized by sturdy square towers and flanking bastions But as you come nearer you see this wall is a tradition. It is almost in ruins. The crenellated towers are good for nothing but to sketch. A short walk from the station brings you to the gate, which is well defended by a gang of picturesque beggars, who are old enough to have sat for Murillo, and revoltingly pitiable enough to be millionnaires by this time, if Castilians had the cowardly habit of sponging out disagreeable impressions with pennies. At the first charge we rushed in panic into a tobacco-shop and filled our pockets with maravedis, and thereafter faced the ragged battalion with calm. It is a fine, handsome, and terribly lonesome town. Its streets are wide, well built, and silent as av

enues in a graveyard. On every hand there are tall and stately churches, a few palaces, and some two dozen great monasteries turning their long walls, pierced with jealous grated windows, to the grass-grown streets. In many quarters there is no sign of life, no human habitations among these morose and now empty barracks of a monkish army. The town has not changed in the least. It has only shrunk a little. You think sometimes it must be a vacation, and that you will come again when people return. The little you see of the people is very attractive. Passing along the desolate streets, you glance in at an open door and see a most delightful cabinet picture of domestic life. All the doors in the house are open You can see through the entry, the front room, into the cool court beyond, gay with oleanders and vines, where a group of women half dressed are sewing and spinning and cheering their souls with gossip. If you enter under pretence of asking a question, you will be received with great courtesy, your doubts solved, and they will bid you go with God, with the quaint frankness of patriarchal times. They do not seem to have been spoiled by over-much travel. Such impressive and Oriental courtesy could not have survived the trampling feet of the great army of tourists On our pilgrim-way to the cradle of Cervantes we came suddenly upon the superb façade of the University.

Here and there, indeed, is a touch of the guide-book, in pas ages like these: "A flight of veined marble steps leads to the beautiful retable of the high altar. The screen, over ninety feet high, cost the Milanese Trezzo seven years of labor. The pictures illustrative of the life of our Lord are by Tibaldi and Zuccaro. The gilt bronze tabernacle of Trezzo and Herrera, which has been likened with the doors of the Baptistery of Florence as worthy to figure in the architecture of heaven, no longer exists," and so on. But this is sometimes difficult to avoid, and can easily be forgiven, as can also the possibly too minute, though enticing account of the pictures in the museum of Madrid. The history of their collection is curious and interesting, and the details ought to send many a lover of art to Madrid who never thought t go there. Only think of two thousand pictures all worthy of their place! of forty-six Murillos, sixty-five Velazquez, forty-three Titians, ten Raphaels, &c. "There is," says Col. Hay, in this glorious temple enough to fill the least enthusiastic lover of art with delight and adoration for weeks an i months together. If one knew that he was to be blind in year, like the young musician in Auerbach's exquisite romance, I know of no place in the world where he could garner up o precious a store of memories for the days of dark

6.

ness, memories that would haunt the soul with so divine a light of consolation, as in that graceful Palace of the Prado."

In the chapter called "A Field-night in the Cortes" we have very vivid pictures not only of the tout ensemble and of the customs of the House, and behavior and bearing of the members, but of the more prominent celebrities; and especially of Marshal Prim, Admiral Topete, and Don Rivero; and still more especially of the idol of our author, Emilio Castelar, the young radical republican, the leading and marvellous orator of the Spanish Left. But for all these and for all else we must refer our readers to the book. The opening chapters, which treat of the sentiment of home -so marked a characteristic of the Spaniard - and of the influence of tradition, at once forcibly claim our attention; and Col. Hay carries us from Madrid to Segovia, Toledo, and Alcalá de Henares, increasing our interest by admiration for the venerable, silent, almost deserted cities of bright sunshine and deep cool shade, and illustrating all from the stores of his historical research. Finally, he takes us to the cradle and grave of Cervantes, and tells us some things that are new, and nothing that is not interesting, about that greatest of Spaniards, before he turns to the Cortes and launches into politics. His chapter on the miracle-play, though it begins in a spirit of derision, ends in enthusiasm, like the visits to Ammergau of many a sceptic of its power. And that on Spanish proverbs is curious. The only chapter we could well spare-though that too illustrates the credulity of this child-like people—is the one on spirit-rapping. We must conclude with a wish that we could have read this book a year or so before it was commenced, that we might have realized, far better than we do, the story of Spain's difficulties and successes.

LA BELLE TURQUE.

THE STORY OF THE PRINCESS CÉCILE.

Of all the wandering claimants to royalty, scions of kings "retired from business," soi-disant regal pretenders, false or real-whether like Perkin Warbeck, or the six Demetriuses of Russia, some more recent pseudo heirs of the house of Stuart who figured in Austria after the Quarterly drove them out of Scotland, "the Duke of Normandy" in London, and so forth, who have appeared from time to time, none have had so marvellous a story to tell as the Princess Cécile, "La belle Turque," as she was named, who, announcing herself, in two volumes octavo, to be a daughter of the deposed sultan Achmet III., took the heedless world of Paris by surprise, about a hundred years ago, and whose narrative has frequently been classed with romances, though it came forth as a veritable history.

The editor, who guaranteed its truth, was a man of veracity and credit in his day; and he urged upon the public, that however extraordinary and romantic her adventures might appear, they were, nevertheless, strictly fact; and in a letter addressed to the editors of the Journal de Paris, in 1787, he added, that in that year, the lady was still alive in the French capital, "and, notwithstanding her advanced age, in the enjoyment of good health.”

It is singular that her narrative, whether false or true, as given by herself and "M. Buisson, Littéraire, Hôtel de Mesgrigny, Rue des Poitevins," — as it would furnish ample materials for the largest three-volume novel, escaped the eyes of Alexandre Dumas, or Viscount d'Arlincourt, as it is full of adventures of the most stirring kind, and, told briefly, runs thus : —

The introductory part of her story, in which the names of persons of rank are concealed, contains, necessarily, the adventures of her governess, or nurse, by whom she was first abducted from her home, and brought to France.

It would appear that about the year 1700, a Mademoiselle Emilia (sic), daughter of a surgeon in the French seaport town of Génes, was, with her lover, a young Genoese,

named Salmoni, in a pleasure-boat upon the Mediterranean, a little way from the coast, when, notwithstanding "la terreur du nom de Louis XIV.," they were pounced upon by some Turkish corsairs -a common enough event in those days, and one not unfrequent, even after Lord Exmouth demolished Algiers.

This occurred in the dusk; and the voice of Salmoni, who had been singing, is supposed to have first attracted them. Being armed, the Italian defended his love and his life with courage, but fell severely wounded, and was left for dead in the bottom of his boat, which floated away, the sport of the waves, while Emilia was carried off, and, in consequence of her great beauty, was ultimately sold, at Constantinople, under the name of Fatima, for the service and amusement of Achmet III., who, in consequence of her accomplishments, made her a species of governess to his children, instead of retaining her among the odalisques in the seraglio. This must have been subsequent to 1703, when Achmet began his troublesome reign.

She was in this situation of trust, when Salmoni, who had never forgotten her, after a long and unsuccessful search through many seaport towns in the Levant - a veritable pilgrim of love-accidentally discovered, by a casual conversation with a Turkish seaman, where she was, and how occupied; for this man had been one of the corsair's

crew.

Disguised as a Turk, and giving out that "he was the father of Fatima, the trusted slave," Salmoni found means to communicate with her through an itchcoglan, one of the slaves or pages attached to the seraglio, and they were thus enabled to see each other and converse, their hasty meetings being but stolen moments of tenderness and joy.

Emilia was now in attendance upon a little daughter of Achmet III., born in 1710, and then six months old. Her mother was the Sultana Aski, formerly a Georgian slave, and then one of the kadines or wives of the sultan, ladies whose number rarely exceeds seven. Emilia was high in favor with both Achmet and this sultana, as she had been particularly serviceable to the latter at the birth of the child, through some little skill she had acquired from her father, the surgeon; thus the confidence they reposed in her, and the authority she possessed over all the people in and about the seraglio, facilitated the execution of those plans for an escape, suggested and urged by Salmoni.

With a view to this end, she desired the bastonghi, or head-gardener, to make a see-saw, which was in the gardens, so high that she- and her pupils, probably - might see the whole city from the lofty wall that girds this place, where still the trees planted are always green, that the inhabitants of Galata and other places may not see the ladies at their lonely promenades. Aided by this see-saw, she dropped over the wall a billet to Salmoni, desiring him to procure a ladder, "a steel-yard" to fix it to the masonry, to make arrangements with a ship captain, and, when all was prepared, to wait her beneath the wall of that terrible Serai Bournous, which no slave-woman had ever yet left alive.

Salmoni promptly obeyed her instructions; he discovered a ship for the Levant, and, by a note tossed over the wall, informed her of the night, and the very hour of their departure.

She was in the act of reading this note-probably not for the first time-when the Sultan Achmet suddenly entered her apartment; and she had barely time to toss it, unseen, into a porphyry vase; for this billet, if discovered, might have consigned her to the bowstring of the capidgi bashi, or the sack of the black channatoraga, and its concealment forms an important feature in the story of the fugitives.

The hour-almost the moment for flight had arrived, and Salmoni, she knew, awaited her below the garden wall; yet, amid all the terror and anxiety of the time, so strong was Emilia's love for the little baby-girl of whom she had the chief care, that she resolved to convey the child away with her, and hoped eventually to rear it as a Christian. Collecting all her jewels, and those which Achmet had already lavished on the infant, she took with them the