Upra sed in my hand the keen falchion of Yemen; This last-mentioned diabolical peculiarity, the distorted or cloven foot, re-appears in every Arab or negro tale of the kind, from the earliest to the latest. By what law of analogy or derivation this peculiar feature has been selected to identify the embodied power of evil in the popular myths of almost every, if not of every nation, Turanian, Aryan, Celtic, or "Semitic," is a question to which Mr. Tylor alone can perhaps supply a satisfactory answer. So far, however, as daring and violence carried to an almost preternatural degree are concerned, Ta'abbet-Shurran himself seems to have deserved a place among the worst ghouls of his day. I pass over the long list of plundering excursions that fill page after page of Aboo-l-Faraj, his best chronicler, with lances, swords, and blood; nor need his adventures in the southern "valley of tigers," where, out of sheer bravado, he passed the night unarmed and alone, nor his cattle-drivings in Nejd, nor his vengeance on the chiefs of Bajeelah, who had, treacherously enough, attempted to poison him, be here related in detail. "What on earth do you want with the doings of Ta'abbet-Shurran?" said his own tribesmen of Fahm, some five centuries later, to the inquisitive 'Omar-esh-Sheybanee, an annalist of some note, when he paid them a visit in their remote encampments, on purpose to learn what memories the clan might still retain of their equivocal hero; "Do you, too, want to set up for a highwayman?" An answer not wholly without a moral. Nor need we wonder if, where such was the general feeling, Ta'abbet-Shurran, however distinguished for personal bravery and poetical talent, was yet, in spite of these recommendations, ordinarily so attractive, no favorite with those whose good-will should have been the best reward of his exploits, the fair ones of the land nay, he has himself handed down to us in verse the refusal with which a Nedjee girl of high birth met his proposals of marriage; though he consoles himself with the ungallant reflection, that, after all, he was perhaps too good for her. THE RING OF RINGS. WHERE or when the ring was first adopted as a badge of matrimony, it is utterly impossible to say. We have a shadowy recollection of reading somewhere that Tubal Cain fashioned the first ring, and, not knowing what to do with it when he had made it, consulted Adam on the matter; and, by his advice, gave the ring to his son, that he might espouse a wife with it. It is very doubtful, however, if the ancient Hebrews used marriage-rings, although the words of the Jewish betrothal service, "Behold, thou art betrothed unto me with this ring, according to the rites of Moses and Israel," almost assert that they did. An old writer says the ancient Jews acknowledged the planet Jupiter to be a star having favorable influences; and it was customary among them for a newly-married man to give his bride a ring with the planet's naine engraved upon it, so that she might be delivered of all her children under Jupiter's benign auspices. If the wedding-ring was indeed an Israelitish institution, it is strange that it is never alluded to in Holy Writ or mentioned by the Talmudists. Selden goes so far as to declare the Jews were the very last people to adopt the use of it; nevertheless, the nuns of St. Anne, at Rome, believe themselves blessed in possessing the marriage-ring of their saint, the mother of the Virgin, a rudely-made silver ring; and, according to monkish legends, Joseph and Mary were married with a ring, onyx and amethyst. This ring was found by somebody in 996, and given by a Jerusalem jewel ler to a lapidary living at Elusium, who, from lack of faith, set no value upon the relic, until a miracle opened his eyes to its genuineness. He presented it to a church, where it worked wonderful cures upon ailing believers. In 1473, some sacrilegious rascal robbed the church of its treasure; after which, as such things were wont to do, it increased and multiplied, and was exhibited at divers churches in different parts of Europe. In his "Book on the Common Prayer," Wheatley calls the ring a visible pledge of the man's fidelity; " which, by the First Common Prayer-Book of King Edward VI., was accompanied with other tokens of spousage in gold and silver." This lets us into the meaning and design of the ring, and intimates it to be the remains of an ancient cus tom, whereby it was usual for the man to purchase the woman, laying down for the price of her a certain sum of money; or else performing certain articles or conditions which the father of the damsel would accept as an equivalent. Among the Romans, this was called co-emption or purchasing, and was accounted the firmest kind of marriage which they had. Pliny tells us it was customary to send an iron ring without any stone in it, by way of present, to a woman upon her betrothal; a fashion probably springing out of another Roman custom, the giving of a ring as earnest, upon the conclusion of a bargain. At her actual marriage, the Roman bride usually received a ring bearing the figure of a key upon it, in token that henceforth she would be charged with the keys of her husband's house; and sometimes the keys themselves were handed over to her at the same time. When an Anglo-Saxon bachelor and maiden were betr thed they exchanged presents, or "weds;" and the gentleman gave his lady-love a solemn kiss as he placed a ring upon her right hand, to remain there until he himself transferred it to her left hand when the second and final ceremonial took place. In later times, wedding-rings were hallowed, before being put to their proper use, by sprinkling with holy water, and the offering of a special prayer for the benefit of the wearer. When the bridegroom spoke the words endowing his bride with all his worldly goods, he put the ring upon her thumb, saying, "In the name of the Father;" then upon her forefinger, saying, "In the name of the Son; " next upon her middle finger, "In the name of the Holy Ghost;' finally placing the ring upon the woman's fourth finger as be said, "Amen!" and there he left it. Several reasons have been advanced for the selection of the fourth finger. "An opinion there is," says Sir Thomas Browne," which magnifies the fourth finger of the left hand; presuming therein a cordial relation, that a particular vessel, nerve, vein, or artery, is conferred thereto from the heart, and thereof that especially hath the honor to bear our rings." The fourth finger was said to be the last to succumb to the gout, was known among ancient physicians as the healing finger, and always used by them in stirring their mixtures, in the belief that nothing harmful to health could come in contact with it, without its immediately making a sort of telegraphic communication of the fact to the heart of the stirrer. Those who disbelieve in any physical connection between the fourth finger and the supposed seat of love, may take their choice of the following reasons why that particular digit should be the ring-finger. The thumb and first two fingers being reserved as symbols of the Blessed Trinity, the reservation left the fourth finger the first available for the distinction. The fourth finger is guarded on either side by its fellows, and is the only finger on the hand that cannot be extended without one or the other of them following its movements. It is the least active finger of the least-used hand, upon which the ring may be always in sight and yet subjected to the least wear. Although the most commonplace, the last seems to us to be the best solution of the question; but, if the Roman ladies were the first to don the marriagering, it is not unlikely that they merely imitated their lords and masters, who wore their official rings upon the fourth finger. Although the ring was always placed upon the fourth finger in church, it was not always allowed to remain there. English ladies were wont, at one time, to transfer the golden fetter to their thumbs; a custom perhaps originated by some high-born bride whose finger, like that of Suckling's heroine, "Was so small, the ring Would not stay on which they did bring- At Stanford Court, Worcestershire, may be seen the portraits of five ladies of the Salway family who lived in the days of Queen Bess, all of whom carry their wedding-rings upon their thumbs. Buller bears witness to the practice in his lines: "Others were for abolishing That tool of matrimony, a ring, With which th' unsanctified bridegroom And according to the British Apollo, the brides of George I.'s time used to remove the ring from its proper abidingplace to the thumb, as soon as the ceremony was over. În a translation of a French version of the story of Patient Grisel, dated 1619, that much-enduring, benighted matron, who had not the faintest notion of sexual equality, says to her hard-hearted lord, when departing from his house in the scantiest of costumes: "Your jewels are in the wardrobe, and even the ring with which you married me withal, in the chamber!" Was the leaving the ring in the chamber only an additional sacrifice on the part of the over-patient wife? or may we infer that the married ladies of the time did not always carry the mark of their matronhood about with them? We wonder much that the agitated sisterhood of our time have not yet raised their shrill protest against the sex wearing the wedding-ring at all; or, at least, rebelled at its being worn upon the left hand, seeing that betokens the inferiority and subjection of the wearer; the right hand signifying power, independence, and authority, and the left exactly the contrary. Tertullian, despite of Pliny's testimony, was inclined to believe that the Romans used gold wedding-rings, as more symbolical of the generous, sincere, long-lasting affection that ought to subsist between man and wife; but in this matter we would rather take the pagan's word. Swinburne says it is of no moment of what metal the ring is made, the form being round and without end, importing that the love of those it unites shall circulate and flow continuously. But a thirteenth-century bishop advances excellent reasons why the ring of rings should be of gold. He tells us that one Protheus made a ring of iron, with an adamant enclosed therein, as a pledge of love; because, as iron subdueth all things, so doth love conquer all things, since nothing is more violent than its ardor; and as an adamant cannot be broken, so love cannot be overcome; for love is strong as death. In course of time, golden rings, set with gems, were substituted for the adamantine ones of baser metal, because- - the worthy bishop explains as gold excelleth all other metals, so doth love excel all other blessings; and as gold is set off by gems, so is conjugal love set off by other virtues. With such thorough appreciation of the honor due to love and matrimony, we cannot help wondering how the writer of such warm words ever reconciled himself to a celibate profession. Many people believe that a marriage cannot be legally performed with a ring of any material save gold; and it was customary, not very long ago, in some parts of Ireland, to hire a gold ring for the occasion, and return it when the pair was safely bound. Marriages, however, have been celebrated with nothing better than a brass curtain-ring; and stories are told of the church-key being pressed into service. The editor of Notes and Queries relates a strange tale of a bridegroom's readiness when he discovered he had left the all-important circlet behind him. The young daughter of a certain widow, as young daughters are apt to do, bestowed her affections upon a gentleman whese merits the widow could not appreciate. Knowing, probably from experience, what head-strong creatures love-smitten young folks are, the old lady kept strict watch and ward over the misguided maiden; but, as might have been expected, one old head was no match for two young hearts. One day the widow awoke to the fact that she wanted a new pair of shoes, and set off with her daughter to the shoemaker's. Seizing the opportunity when mamma was sitting with one shoe off and one shoe on, the damsel slipped out of the shop, and hied her to the church, where, by a wonderful coincidence, she found a clergyman, his clerk, and a young gentleman with a license in his pocket. All went well until it was necessary to produce the ring, when, to every one's dismay, it was not forthcoming. The bridegroom, however, was not daunted by such a trifle: he pulled off a glove, whipped out his penknife, cut a ring of leather, placed it upon the lady's finger, and had the supreme felicity of being hailed a married man, just as the indignant widow burst into the church, too breathless to give vent to her anger. A Jewish bridegroom could not have resorted to such an expedient; for, according to Jewish laws, it is necessary that the ring should be of a certain value, certified by the officiating rabbi. It must also be the absolute property of the bridegroom, and not obtained either upon credit or by gift. The action of placing the ring upon the woman's finger is so binding, that if nothing more be done, neither party can contract a marriage without first obtaining a divorce. No Jewish marriage-rings are known to be in existence of an earlier date than the sixteenth century. There are two Jewish wedding-rings in the South Kensington Museum. One is a broad gold band, enriched with bosses in filigree; the other of gold enamel with an inscription running round the broad margin in raised enamel letters, and having fixed upon one side a turret with triangular angles and movable vanes. The late Lord Londesborough possessed a Hebrew ring of richly-enamelled gold, decorated with beautiful filigree-work; and attached by a hinge to the collet, in place of a setting, was a small ridged capsule, like the gabled roof of a house, and inside the ring two Hebrew words were inscribed. Most Jewish rings bear a sentiment more or less appropriate, a favorite one being, "Joy be with you." Posies or mottoes were generally inscribed upon the flat inner side of wedding-rings in the sixteenth century. The ring with which Henry VIII. wedded Ann of Cleves bore the significantly appropriate prayer,"God send me well to keepe." Such inscriptions as, "Amor vincit omnia; Tout mon cœur ; ""Gift and giver, your servants ever;" "No gift can show the love I owe," although met with upon marriagerings, were surely intended rather for betrothal rings. Some sanguinely promise an eternity of connubial bliss: posie wedding-rings have re-appeared; but whether the attempted revival has proved a successful one is more than we know. A more modern form of motto-ring is that wherein the words are formed by the initial letters of the stones arranged around the hoop, and for wedding "keepers" the gems are made to spell out the bridegroom's Christian name. Another and older kind of wedding-ring was the gimmalring, in vogue when the ceremony of marriage was preceded by that of betrothal. The gimmal was a double or triple ring, formed of two or three links turning upon a pivot. At the betrothal, the parties concerned broke the ring asunder, each retaining a link, to serve as a reminder of the engagement until they ratified it at the altar, when the parts were re-united, and served for the marriage-ring. These rings were usually ornamented with a pair of clasped hands enclosing a heart, a device in such favor that it was transferred to the ordinary wedding-ring. The fisher population of the Claddagh still acknowledge no other pattern; and the wedding-ring is with them an heirloom, regularly transferred from the mother to the daughter who first aspires to wifehood. The brides of the Claddagh, in finding their own rings, reverse the rule obtaining everywhere else. It is the privilege and duty of the happy man to provide the binding golden hoop. When Lord Milton took unto himself a wife, the ring with which he wedded her was in its way unique; for he had, with his own hands, fashioned it from a nugget found by him in British Columbia, while staying at the diggings there, after overcoming the dangers of the north-west passage by land. Lost wedding-rings have sometimes been strangely recovered. A matron of East Lulworth lost her ring one day: two years afterwards she was peeling some potatoes, brought from a field half a mile distant from her cottage, and upon dividing a double one, came upon the lost matrimonial circlet. A Mrs. Montjoy of Brechin, when feeding a calf, let it suck her fingers; and, on withdrawing her hand, discovered, to her dismay, that her wedding-ring and keeper had both disappeared. Believing the calf was the innocent thief, she refused to part with it; and after keeping the animal for three years, had it slaughtered; and, sure enough, the longabsent rings were found in its intestines, as clean and bright as when their owner last saw them on her finger. A wealthy German farmer living near Nordanhamn employed himself one day, in 1871, in making flour-balls for his cattle; when he had finished his work, he found his hand minus his wedding-ring, bearing his wife's name; it being the German custom for bride and bridegroom to exchange. rings. Soon afterwards, the farmer sold seven bullocks, which the purchaser shipped to England on board the Adler cattle-steamer on the 26th day of October. Two days afterwards, an English smack, the Mary Ann, of Colchester, picked up at sea the still warm carcass of a bullock, which was opened by the crew to obtain some fat wherewith to grease the rigging. Inside the animal they found a gold ring, inscribed with a woman's name and the date 1869. Capt. Tye reported the circumstance as soon as he arrived in port, and handed the ring over to an official, who sent it up to London. The authorities set to work to trace its ownership, and found that the only ship reporting the loss of a beast, that could have passed the Mary Ann, was the steamer Adler; from which a bullock, supposed to be dead, had been thrown overboard on the 28th of October. Meanwhile, the Shipping Gazette recording the finding of the ring had reached Nordanhamn, and one of its readers there recognized the name inscribed upon it: communications were opened with the farmer; and in due time he and his wife rejoiced over the recovery of the pledge they thought lost forever. That they should have recovered it, under the circumstances, was certainly surprising; but there was nothing so very wonderful in a ring being found in the inside of a bullock, that "comic" writers should treat the story as the pure invention of some penny-a-liner. Any slaughterer of cattle would have told them that such "finds" are by no means uncommon; and we know for a fact that the wife of a London slaughterman displays upon her hand two rings thus found by her husband. MUMMIES. A HORRIBLY grotesque proposal appears to have been made about the remains of Mazzini. Some of his admirers, it seems, consider that it would be a fitting tribute to his memory to convert his body into a mummy, preserved by some new scientific process. The corpse of the great patriot would be handed down to posterity, in ghastly resemblance to his former self, as a monument of the devotion with which he was regarded; or rather, it may be, of the physiological skill of some of his disciples. There is something, it need hardly be said, which grates upon one's feelings in this unique suggestion; and yet we can imagine, without much trouble, that something might be said in favor of it by ingenious advocates. We cherish the lock of hair of a departed friend; we value every insignificant object which has been sanctified to our minds by association with him. Why not preserve the body, which, to say the least, has been much more closely connected with him than any external piece of property? Would there not be something incomparably interesting, when once we had surmounted our present prejudices, in a national Valhalla, where, instead of mere statues, the actual bodies of our heroes should receive our tribute of gratitude? Suppose that in Westminster Abbey, Chatham himself, instead of his graven image, still gazed down upon us in the attitude in which he thundered his great orations; or suppose that the approach to the houses of Parliament was guarded by the actual bodily cases of Fox and Burke and Falkland and Hampden: would not the impression upon an unsophisticated intellect be far keener than at present? What is the philosophy of the disgust which relics excite in us, at least in this wholesale form, whilst the fragmentary relics of ancient saints have long excited the affectionate reverence of vast multitudes of believers? We have no objection to admit that to us personally the proposal appears to be disgusting. Whenever Mr. Ġladstone or Mr. Disraeli may pass from amongst us, there is nothing which we would less desire than to have their bodies petrified or embalmed, or subjected to any other scientific process, and put up in glass cases, like the stuffed animals in the British Museum. Beautiful as they may be in life, we suspect, without meaning any personal imputation, that even Mr. Disraeli would be rather a comic than a tragic spectacle as a mummy. But then it must be admitted that in all such matters custom goes for much, if not for every thing; and that we may really be under the infinence of some degrading prejudice. Perhaps the true theory of the matter is given in the immortal grave-digging scene, which in some respects is the most powerful in Shakspeare, who, by the way, is always great amongst the tombs. It exhibits the contrast between the imaginative and the thoroughly vulgar nature, under the most impressive situation. Hamlet was, unfortunately for himself, a person of ill-regulated mind, and given to questionable jesting when his feelings were deeply moved. Horatio was, no doubt, quite justified in telling him that he considered too curiously, and that he had no business to run off into wild speculations about Alexander because he was looking at so commonplace an object as a human skull. The grave-digger looked at the matter in a much more sensible and cool-headed manner, when he endeavored to form scientific theories as to the time during which a body would last in the earth: he had became thoroughly steeled by custom to the disagreeable experiences connected with his trade. There are few, if any, representatives of Hamlet at present; whereas the grave-digger has, to all appearance, left a numerous body of descendants, inheriting the ancestral peculiarities. That Hamlet possessed the finer intellect is undeniable; but which of the two looked at the matter from the more reasonable point of view? Ought we to regard the relics of humanity with a rising of the gorge, and oscillate between horrified disgust and a certain morbid attraction for the objects which revolt us? or should we contemplate them with the indifference of a scientific observer walking through an anatomical museum, and prepared, when a great man dies, to measure his skull, weigh his brain, and put a neatly-ticketed preparation of him in a case for the benefit of future investigators? Bentham apparently took this last view of the question. He thought that the tenderness which people felt for their bones and tissues, after they had ceased to perform the vital functions, was a piece of unreasoning sentimentalism to be discouraged as much as possible. He accordingly left his body to be dissected, and afterwards made into a mummy; and, if we are not mistaken, he was for a long time kept in the hall of a surviving friend, and is now on view for anybody who has a taste for such exhibitions, in the museum of University College. There is in this proceeding a certain heroic defiance of popular prejudice, and an adherence to logical conclusions, which challenges our respect, though we may not feel inclined to imitate the example. It had, moreover, a certain meaning as a protest against the theories which then obstructed the supply of subjects for the medical schools. But, considered by itself, the practice is certainly not likely to become popular. Botanizing on one's mother's grave is bad enough; but the most rigid of philosophers will shrink from allowing the scientific inquirer to penetrate to the interior. And yet there is something not quite pleasant in the opposite theory, which attaches a special interest to the body. In a quiet village in the Italian valleys of the Alps, one may often come upon a scene which appears to have been arranged for the special edification of mute, inglorious Shakspeares. The remains of the rude forefathers of the hamlet, instead of reposing beneath the turf, are piled in hideous stacks, open to all spectators. Sometimes the gratuitous exhibition goes further, and a couple of complete bodies may be seen watching like ghastly sentinels on each side of the church-door. It is a rough but powerful mode of appealing to coarse natures. The old English epitaph, which tells us, with an unpleasant air of insulting triumph, "As I am now, so you must be," receives additional emphasis when the present condition of the departed is open to actual inspection. Perhaps the ordinary effect upon the population is simply to induce the grave-digger state of mind; but the intention is, of course, to encourage meditations appropriate to a certain phase of religious feeling. The hideous monitors are told off to preach the transitory nature of the world; and it may be that they do it more effectually than a good many pulpit commonplaces. Whether or not the lessons thus impressed are edifying to the people immediately concerned, is a large question; but the effect upon the British tourist is undeniably disagreeable. We are quite conscious enough that we are not going to live forever, without having these offensive symbols of our mortality thrust in our faces. We have become too delicate for these vigorous appeals to the senses; and the sort of curiosity which impels visits to the Morgue at Paris, or to the collection of decaying relics on the St. Bernard, does not precisely harmonize with modern religious sentiment. In fact, Hamlet and the grave-diggers were both in an objectionable frame of mind. The poet may extract some elevating thoughts even from a decaying skull; but he cannot be too intimate with such images without polluting his imagination. When saturated with the associations of decay, it becomes either hardened or morbidly stimulated; and either condition is unhealthy. Our bodies are becoming terribly in our way. They are very awkward appendages at the best, and have a tendency to produce gout, toothache, indigestion, and other abominations which materially interfere with the serenity of our souls. When we have once done with them, we are inclined to think that the sooner we put them fairly out of sight, the better. Probably nobody ever attends an English funeral without forming a resolution, which, like other resolutions, is made only to be broken, that he will not do it again for the sake of his best friend. In spite of the surpassing beauty of the English service, the undertakers have got the better of us. They have taken advantage of our best feelngs, and of the unfortunate difficulty that exists in satisfacorily disposing of our bodies. We cannot resist with decency, and we are obliged to submit to the disgusting formality of mutes and hearses, penetrated to the core with vulgarity and sham solemnity. It must give an instant's pleasure to a man who is in the act of being lost at sea, or ingulfed in a crevasse, that at least his friends will not have to accompany his remains to Kensal Green. Under any conceivable circumstances, the ceremony could not be precisely exhilarating; but the studied and artificial gloom with which it is surrounded jars upon our feelings more harshly than even an absence of natural observances. The worst of it is, that the cemeteries appear to have been laid out by the undertakers themselves. To visit the restingplace of a friend is to expose one's self to a revival of all the dismal associations connected with the funeral. The average taste of the monuments is the same which has determined the whole apparatus of hearses and funeral coaches; and they would appear to have been designed by a dissenting tradesman, in order to keep his mind properly in tune during the spare hours of a puritanical sabbath. In this respect the Americans have the advantage of us. In their towns the cemetery is generally laid out as a cheerful garden, and is probably the most picturesque piece of ground in the neighborhood. The sentiment which would associate flowers and sunshine with the graves of one's friends is surely healthier than that which places them beneath a ghastly collection of New Road statuary and stumpy trees, caked with London soot. The idea in one case is that the body should return as soon as possible to the earth whence it came, and that the inevitable melancholy should at any rate be associated with nothing like a feeling of disgust. In the other, the idea seems to be that the proper tribute to a friend's memory is to assume an appearance of gloomy respectability, and that thinking of him should produce upon us the same effect as a slight attack of indigestion. It is the difference between making the association as ethereal or as material as possible. The logical result of the British method would, no doubt, be attained by preserving the body in the state of mummy. In many cases the difference between life and death would then be exceedingly small. The solid Briton, arrayed in his Sunday suit of rusty black, could not look much more dismal when he was stuffed, than he generally did when his internal organs were discharging their vital functions. Set up in a clock-case, after the fashion of Bentham, he would harmonize with a set of old-fashioned furniture; though he should not be too much exposed, as there would be a danger of visitors mistaking him for a waiter. The general adoption of this plan would evade the difficulty of the burial of Dissenters. Every man would keep his own ancesters ranged around his room, and when they became too numerous, they might be disposed of to anthropological museums. But, well adapted as the plan seems to be to the tastes of a particular class, we do not yet consider it to be suited for general adoption. If any thing, we fancy that, as it is, we make too much of the material associations of death. We could find reason to doubt whether the habit of bringing back the remains of distinguished men from great distances, or even of depositing the actual bodies in Westminster Abbey, is altogether desirable. The monuments serve as well when they do not cover a coffin; and after a very short time nobody asks whether the tombs are occupied or empty. Without, however, discussing that question, we are quite clear that we are content with a national portrait-gallery, without having the originals preserved by the side of their likenesses. Shakspeare, to return to our great authority, showed his sense, as well as an almost prophetic insight, when he had himself quietly buried at Stratford, and put up the curse which will preserve his bones from grave-diggers and antiquaries. But for it, there are, no doubt, some people who would be glad to dig him up, and exhibit him for the admiration of an intelligent public. Prince Henry, as we remember, proposed to embowel Falstaff, probably regarding him, with characteristic coolness, in the light of a natural curiosity; but he did not throw out any hint about treating Hotspur in the same fashion. The precedent may be decisive of the question; and, though we have no objection to making occasional preparations of a giant or a dwarf, we cannot desire to see the admirers of great men eclipse Madame Tussaud's Exhibition by one of a still more startling character. FOREIGN NOTES. GEORGE SAND has just written a new comedy in five acts. NILSSON receives a thousand dollars per night at the Drury-Lane Theatre. It is considered the thing in London, for a lady to wear a smelling-bottle attached to her belt. MATTHEW ARNOLD is said to have an article in the current number of The Cornhill, though his name does not appear in the magazine. LIEUT. SYDNEY S. H. DICKENS, R.N., of H.M.S. "Topaze," fifth son of the late Charles Dickens, died on the 2d of May at sea, when on his way home from Bombay. IT is said that "Erewhon," the allegorical romance which has attracted a good deal of notice in England, is the production of Mr. Butler, who was for some years a settler in New Zealand, and who is tolerably well known in London artistic circles. The idea and manner of the book are quite in Mr. Helps's fashion. He was supposed to be the writer. In a lecture by Father Hyacinthe, delivered in Rome the other day, he surprised those who heard him, by the length to which he went in denouncing several of the distinctive doctrines of the Church of Rome, such as the invocation of saints; and he attacked also the celibacy of the clergy, and spoke of the doctrine of the real Presence as paganism. THE Dean of Chester was recently offered the proceeds of a circus performance in aid of the restoration of the cathedral, but declined the same with thanks! He said that he could not conscientiously accept the donation, when he had refused to countenance a bazaar for the purpose of augmenting the fund. We almost hope the conscientious dean will be some time in getting his cathedral repaired. THE Court Journal records the following remarkable event: "A rather amusing incident occurred at the fancy dress ball in St. George's Hall, Liverpool. Amongst the company was Mr. Saker, lessee of the Alexandra Theatre, who had contrived to present a sort of embodiment of two single gentlemen rolled into one; for while his left side was that of an ordinary every-day Englishman, his right side was that of a British officer in full military uniform. Mr. Saker, while watching the prince dancing, attracted the notice of the latter. When first seen by the prince he presented the civilian side of his character, but immediately afterwards turned round and appeared as an officer. The prince appeared exceedingly amused at the extraordinary appearance presented by Mr. Saker, and pointed him out with evident glee to his partner." It is quite touching to have Royalty so easily amused. THIS is Miss Hawthorne's preface to the English reprint of her father's posthumous romance, "Septimius Felton." "The following story is the last written by my father. It is printed as it was found among his manuscripts. I believe it is a striking specimen of the peculiarities and charm of his style, and that it will have an added interest for brother artists, and for those who care to study the method of his composition, from the mere fact of its not having received his final revision. In any case, I feel sure that the retention of the passages within brackets (e.g., p. 37), which show how my father intended to amplify some of the descriptions, and develop more fully one or two of the character studies, will not be regretted by appre ciative readers. My earnest thanks are due to Mr. Robert Browning for his kind assistance and advice in interpreting the manuscript, otherwise so difficult to me. UNA HAWTHORne. THE reigning Sultan proposes to alter the existing law of Royal succession to one more consonant to the general practice of Western Europe. As matters now stand, on the death of a sovereign he is succeeded by the eldest male of the blood royal at the time of whose birth his father was actually on the throne. It seldom happens that a Sultan is succeeded by his eldest son, and Abdul Aziz, the reigning monarch, succeeded to the exclusion of the sons of his elder brother. Having profited by the rule himself, he is desirous that his eldest son should not be damaged by it, and he therefore proposes that the Crown should devolve according to the ordinary principles of hereditary right. THE Emperor of China has imported a pair of elephants to assist at the ceremony of his marriage. His future consort is undergoing a careful training in the etiquette of Court life. For three years the looms of Nankin, Hongchau, and Canton have been engaged on the silks and satins for her bridal trousseau, and just now they are announced as completed, at a cost of nearly a million and a half of While the bridegroom, who has the sun for his emblem, goes forth in a car drawn by elephants, his bride, who represents the moon, is to be borne to her palace in a palanquin composed entirely of strings of pearls. money. ONE might be disposed to conclude that French women of the present time are any thing but good mothers, if one were to judge from the number of children sent out to wet-nurses as returned in official reports. In Paris alone 21,958 babies are farmed out every year, and the middle and higher classes are responsible for more than one-half of the total. These figures are so much the more striking in that French families, as a rule, are not nearly so numerous as American or English ones seldom exceeding four children, and reckoned at an average of two. Maternal insensibility and fashion are the two causes, the latter perhaps more than the former. It is the fashion, or rather the custom, in all ranks of French society, that mothers should intrust their children to strange hands: the baby is hurried away to the country with its wet-nurse, and does not re-appear at home until it has reached its third year. After this there is nothing astonishing in the fact that the rate of mortality among children from one to three years should be so high as it now unquestionably is in France. THE London Morning Post, in a preliminary notice of Prince Poniatowski's "Gelmina," lets us into the secret of the final effect on which the composer of "Don Desiderio" and Pierre de Medicis" seems much to rely. Gelmina dies, as many operatic heroines have died before her; but, "instead of singing a long phrase, or shrieking wild melodies at the last moment, the inspiration of the author has led him to make Gelmina die to a pianissimo of the orchestra, which stops as she breathes her last." Now, it may be very unnatural for a dying person to "sing a long phrase," or to "shriek wild melodies;" but it is not more unnatural than almost every thing else which takes place in opera and in the |