Persephone was enchanted by a daffodil, and as daffodils belong to April, while the cyanus never appears until August, we think the latter derivation a failure.

GREEN. From blue to green is a natural transition; and I am rejoiced to tell my younger readers that the dark sage-green, which has become so fashionable during the last twelvemonth (1871), although often in the London climate looking so gloomy as to be scarcely distinguishable from black, is an exceedingly becoming color, and has a fine effect in combination with other colors. It is becoming in itself, because it annuls any tinge of green which may be latent in the complexion, and which, in dark persons, is often more obtrusive than the owners are aware of. The most sallow woman would be indignant at a hint of this, and generally contrives to defy herself by wearing the very colors which increase the defect. Fair persons are also frequently improved by this dingy green, when a pale green would make them look corpse-like.

Sage-green mixes beautifully with salmon-color: both are most perfect colors to set off a pallid dark complexion. Sagegreen also goes well with deep lake, with primrose, and with dull or greenish blues. In the decoration of rooms, it may be largely used, on account of its being so good a background. It is a less sharp contrast with surrounding colors than black, and in a pattern will go well with almost every thing. It is appropriate for doors and shutters, especially when relieved with gold. For ceilings it is generally too dark.

There are some bright greens which are becoming to the face, but only a few shades. I say bright in contradistinction to sage. A dull grass-green with a slight yellow tinge in it is a picturesque color, and often proves a success in a woollen day-dress, some material, that is to say, without gloss. In silks or satins it is nearly as coarse and unpleasant as a pure bright green, innocent of any hint of blue or yellow; and when worn, as hundreds of women persist in wearing it, with a mass of scarlet, is so horrible as to give positive pain to a sensitive eye. In any concert-room or large assemblage a scarlet opera-cloak usually covers a green dress, and is capped by a green bow in the hair. One may count these mistakes by the dozen; and they arise from the generallydiffused milliners' creed, that scarlet and emerald must go hand in hand, because green and red are complementaries. The vulgarity and disagreeableness of this mixture ought to be apparent to anybody with the very rudiments of artistic feeling.

Green is often mentioned in medieval poems as a favorite color for dress for both men and women. Chaucer's beautiful "Rosial" (in the Courts of Love) is robed in a green gown, "light and summer wise, shapen full well," with rubies around her neck; but, as we have often explained, antique colors were very much less brilliant than modern ones, and rubies are very far from being scarlet. A dull yellow green and dark crimson are a fine mixture.

Pale green, so trying to the majority of faces, is, in some cases, a pretty ornament, and may be mixed craftily with pale blue in a most charming manner. The dress offered to Enid, "where like a shoaling sea the lovely blue played into green," is one of Tennyson's happiest thoughts. It requires, however, taste to do this well; and alone pale green is better shunned by the inexperienced, unless they be blest with complexions so beautiful that they will survive any ill-treatment.

RED. The reds admissible in close proximity to the face must be arranged with caution. The red in the face is usually easy to extinguish; while persons who have very red faces must be even more careful what reds they use than the pale people.

Pink I need not say much about. It is suitable to most young faces, especially the fair, except when the hair inclines to red.

Among reds the chief are "light red" (which has yellow in it), Indian red (a dark red with blue in it), both dull, and both beautiful colors for dress or any decorative purpose. They are, however, not often made pure in stuffs, as more brilliant hues find a readier sale. Carmine and vermilion are the most vivid scarlets, the one having a hint of blue, the other of yellow. Crimson lake is a deep-blue

red, far more suitable for dress than either of the former, which are almost intolerable in large masses. Rose is a very beautiful hue, having nearly the brilliancy of scarlet, but softened by a blue bloom: this, however, can only be worn by young and pretty persons, and even then in any quantity is trying, but mingled with black, white, or gray, has a most delicate effect. Little Red Riding-hood was a child, and had the clear skin of childhood; besides, we are not told exactly what red she wore, in any authentic record; but grown persons are seldom improved by any bright red close around the face.

The Spanish women have made a deep-red rose in the hair, just under the ear, an undying fashion; but then their peculiar complexion and ebony hair are set off by what injures ordinary English faces; and, moreover, it is usually softened by the graceful mantilla. On our hideous little wire frames, which we call bonnets, a great red rose generally looks absurd, even when the wearer does not suffer from the color.

Deep, heavy reds are much used in the draperies of the old Italian masters, especially of Titian; but they are always aided and contrasted, as no woman can contrive to be, when moving from place to place. It is generally unsafe to copy a portion of a whole. But some women look picturesque and pleasing in deep red, even that called Turkey red; and maroon, which is a shade of red, is a very becoming color to many. Magenta should be carefully eschewed, as it ruins the complexion, and will not amalgamate with surrounding colors.

YELLOW. Yellow has been for many years greatly and most unjustly despised. It is one of the finest of colors, with many exquisitely beautiful shades, and only when too pure is it unmanageable.

The cold, pale primrose, that shines like a light in the hedgerows, may be massed about a young face with impunity. The dandelion must be used only in single vivid spots of flame. An older face must be more gently dealt with, by a brownish yellow. The brunette may wear a green yellow, and be all the better for it. Only pure chrome or mustardcolor is intolerable by day; and even that by gas or candle light is so much softened and paled, that it becomes perfectly permissible in a dress. Orange, however, in large masses should be generally avoided, except in soft, dull materials.

Yellow of some shades are the most suitable of all colors to place near the face, so good is the effect on the complexion: they make the skin look fairer than it really is, and, of course, enhance the blues and pinks. What is called buff, a somewhat dull, tawny, or warm yellow, is one of these. We all know how beautiful is the effect of yellow' hair when it occurs, which is not often, certainly; and how finely a bit of this color lightens and vivifies a picture. I have in my mind at this moment two instances of this, — the flowing hair of the Magdalen at the foot of the cross, in one of Rubens's paintings in the Antwerp Gallery; and that of a figure in a picture by John Bellini, a wondrous work at Venice. The girl's hair is golden, with a ripple in it, and her eyes are large, haunting, pellucid brown. Yellow was a favorite color with most of the old masters. Many early painters reproduce again and again pet draperies of shot yellow and green, yellow and red, &c. Veronese has a penchant for a certain yellow shot with pink, which is extremely beautiful. Rubens often puts in a mass of deep yellow in a curtain or garment in his pictures with singularly good effect; and many other instances might be given. Vandyke is fond of a rich shade, almost the color of ale, which seems to go well with every thing.

Paul

Yellow also goes pleasantly with a number of colors. A pale dull blue is one; but pure blue and pure yellow are very harsh together. Plumn, salmon, maroon, sage, also mix well with yellow. Primrose tint may be carefully mingled with pale rose; but the more vivid a color is, the more care is needed in mixing it with others without a jar. One out of two colors shou'd always be dull and not too pure: this is not generally known, or it is forgotten; and the result is the coarse and vulgar contrasts that we see around us. Ambers of all shades are exceedingly good and becoming.

In conclusion, let me assure my readers that I am only desirous that the few hints I have here been able to give, with regard to the colors and forms admitted near the face, should lead them to perceive the real importance of this matter, if dress is to be considered at all as a decorative and not merely a decent covering.

I have before written of the importance of carefully decorating our rooms as a background to our figures; but I must also emphatically add, that it is useless to make one's walls beautiful, if the objects placed against them are out of keeping. A good background cannot correct ungainly lines about your own person, and discordant colors brought in contact with them. If you wish to look as you were meant to look, as every wild thing looks in its natural state and place, always harmonious, always in drawing, always appropriate, and, in fact, exactly right, you must eschew some of the hateful disguises that imprison half the body and deform the rest. You must fling the opinions of the dressmaker, the barber, and the haberdasher to the four winds, and bring the same care and intelligence to bear upon your dress and your surroundings as are lavished upon higher matters, whose purposes may be grander, but which are not more influential or more civilizing than the arts, proprieties, and fascinations of personal adornment.

FRENCH STATESMEN.

II. ERNEST PICARD.

IF M. Thiers may be said to personify in its finest sides the France of the nineteenth century, M. Picard has certainly every right to lay claim to the dignity of special representative of the city of Paris. It was, indeed, as an enfant de Paris that, an early age and quite unknown to the world at large, he entered the legislative body in 1857. Never, perhaps, did any man more completely embody the political ideal of a constituency than this young lawyer, who, hardly known on the eve of his appearance, yet speedily attained so great a notoriety. Huge centres of intellectual and political life are said to be unproductive; and it may be that the feverish excitement which exhausts the parents' strength, and in which the youth of the offspring is spent, leaves but little vigor and creative power in the genuine cockney. At any rate, there are few men great either in politics, science, or art, who have sprung from the exhausted soil of a metropolis. But if the children of large towns are wont to be deficient in creative power, they are not equally wanting in a considerable negative virtue; and certainly no one is quicker in detecting the ridiculous in individuals as well as in situations, to point out the weak point of an argument, the inconsistency of an action, the deficiency of a measure, the gaps in a man's knowledge, than that incarnation of criticism, the true Parisian. La Fronde - both the word and the thing-is of Parisian origin, and, after two centuries and more, found its most eloquent expression in M. Picard. He possesses every quality which characterizes the Parisian Opposition; nor was there ever, perhaps, sounder common-sense - negative common-sense, mind - united to a readier wit, a livelier humor, and greater facility and good-nature. M. Picard is a well-fed gamin de Paris, who, never having felt what it is to be hungry, has neither bitterness nor malice in his nature, barring that species of malice which is ever ready to turn the best friend's best action into ridicule, rather than that a bon-mot should be lost. How greatly he felt himself at his ease on finding himself in the position, and almost under the obligation, of railing at his enemies, if M. Picard may be said to have ever had such a thing as an enemy; for even his hatred of the emperor and the empire was not more than skin deep.

No sooner had he taken his seat than the whole physiognomy of the Chamber changed. Even when the Palais Bourbon trembled under the shock of M. Jules Favre's eloquent hurricanes, or the atmosphere within it became charged with electricity under M. Ollivier's Marseillaise

sirocco, the effects were far less injurious to the health of the empire than that cold and biting draughty little stream of air which proceeded from M. Picard's ever-ready lips. When he rose in his chair for at that time that theatrical machine, a tribune, on which every orator feels instinc tively prompted to drape himself in a Ciceronian toga, had not yet been re-established you might have heard a pin fall, so eager was every one to catch the racy words by which he was certain to open his speech. It is true that scarcely had it left his lips, when the whole Right writhed with pain, and roared out lustily under the lash. Then, with his hands in his pockets, he would look smilingly upon the storm he had raised, shaking his light-colored mane; and, turning his immense head in his enormous shoulders, he would glance round him with mischievous satisfaction, like a billiard-player who has made a good stroke, and quietly enjoys his neighbor's vain attempts to do the same. Each day saw him acquire, if not increased authority and influence, at any rate increased popularity on one side, while the terror on the other side increased too. He seldom won the causes he defended, either at the bar or in the House: yet he never failed in amusing judges and juries, and putting the adverse party in a rage.

With all that, his mind is by no means superficial and only capable of irony. His sharp intelligence is as quick to detect a fallacious figure in a financial statement as if he had been a financier all his life; and he points out in a masterly manner what he has found out so cleverly. When an obliging jurist would try to give the law some interpretation which best suited an arbitrary administration, who so able to demonstrate the inconsistency of his reasoning as M. Picard? A minister might present as many blue or yellow books as he pleased: M. Picard was the first to discover and denounce the one important document which was wanting. It was this boldness which caused him to be especially feared by his adversaries; and it was his wit and raillery which rendered his real value suspicious; for most people are apt to believe that real merit must of necessity be serious and tiresome. Those who were personally acquainted with him, and were not biassed by prejudice, saw in him the man among the Five who possessed most practical sense; and not only among the Five, but even among the whole Left after 1863. He never was duped by mere words. For his sceptical turn of mind the revolution never became an article of faith. He was neither narrow-minded, like many other honest folks belonging to his party, nor fanatical like many others of more doubtful honesty: he was neither a naïve rhetorician nor a pliable intrigant like certain other celebrities of that side of the House. wealth he had inherited, and the family he belonged to, placed him beyond the reach of suspicion on the score of a low ambition: his quality as a Parisian prevented him from falling ever into the error of a candid belief in the omniscience of his party. He was not the man to persuade himself that his friends, the Republicans, were all messengers from heaven, while Imperialists were of necessity emissaries from the lower regions. He always viewed things in their true light only he had an especially keen sense of the ridiculous; and his eyes were struck with the weak points in a cause before all.

The

Was this somewhat corpulent Mephistopheles, this "ever-denying spirit," destined to confirm those expectations everybody had conceived of him in 1869, at the time when he was looked upon as the future chief of a future republic,-ay! maybe, future prime minister of a liberal emperor? Facts have proved the contrary. Be it that constructive faculties were wanting in this destructive mind, that the sharp critic was but a mediocre artist; or that, through the unpopularity of some of his colleagues, the intrigues of others, and the unfortunate circumstances under which he had held office, he was prevented from showing the creative, governing, or administrative power he possessed, the fact is, that, after six months' government in besieged Paris, when he entered M. Thiers' cabinet in February, 1871, he was completely used up. He had taken his place in a government which promised to make good the faults of the empire; and, having been unsuccessful in

the attempt, he shared the unpopularity of his colleagues in the eyes of all parties, and even in those of impartial France, too low, alas! to be impartial then. He had become suspicious to the Conservatives on account of his associates, as well as of his protracted opposition to the empire; and he was not the man, like many others, to make concessions, and humiliate himself, in order to continue in office. He was equally suspicious to the Radicals; for they instinctively felt, that, at the bottom of his heart, he must look down upon M. Gambetta's folly and ravings: that he would put but small faith in the invincibility of revolutionary armies, the incorruptibility of revolutionary chiefs, and the infallibility of revolutionary ministers. Sceptical common-sense being excluded, for the time being, on the one side by terror, on the other by rage, there was no room for him: so, as he knew nothing about diplomacy and foreign policy, he was sent into a half-voluntary exile at Brussels, just as Lanfrey, too honest to associate with Republican virtue, too Republican to enlist in the ranks of the honest enemies of the Republic who sat on the right side of the Assembly, had gone to Berne. But if ever there was a man who experienced the feelings of a fish out of water, that man must be M. Picard at a distance from Paris.

DOG-CONSCIOUSNESS.

THE Germans are ahead of us in the scientific treatment of "consciousness" generally; but their learned men who understand "consciousness are not usually out-of-doors men, - men who keep dogs and cultivate their friendship. Hence we do not think that any of their great reviews have yet taken up the subject of the "Consciousness of Dogs" with the thoroughness of one of our own great conservative reviews, the Quarterly. At least, we have as yet come upon no article in any great German review devoted to the study of "das hundische Bewusstseyn,” as is an elaborate article in the new number of the Quarterly. No doubt the editor feels the close connection between the English sympathy with the animal world and English conservatism. The Quarterly Review justly remarks that dogs are the most conservative of creatures, clinging to fixed habits with the most ardent attachment; and no doubt those who love dogs must borrow a little of conservative feeling from their humble friends. But whatever the cause, the result is, that the Quarterly reviewer has really anticipated the German metaphysicians in the attempt to get within the consciousness of the dog. And it is not only a very bold and careful, but, on the whole, a successful attempt; though on one point on which we are now to speak we cannot pretend to acquiesce in the Quarterly reviewer's inferences. The reviewer shows that the dog shares almost all the passions and emotions of man, anger, hatred, jealousy, envy, gluttony, love, fear, pride, vanity, magnanimity, chivalry, covetousness, avarice, shame, humor, gratitude, regret, grief, maternal love, courage, fortitude, hope, and faith," not, by the way, a very scientific classification, as many of them overlap each other: further, he lays it down that the dog is destitute of the passion for stimulants and intoxicating drugs, is incapable of the kind of shame of which "modesty" is the highest form, and is, further, excluded from the lofty range of emotions which have “abstract ideas" for their objects (not a very good mode of describing art and the higher literature, which mostly have concrete objects). And then the reviewer passes judgment that the dog, having no moral freedom, has no morality beyond such a shadow of it as his love and reverence for his master may impose on him, but that his intellectual faculties are very like ours, so far as memory, reflection, combination, forethought, association of ideas, and even a power of drawing simple inferences, go. But, oddly enough, the reviewer goes on to say, that the dog's inability for articulate speech must be considered as practically putting the question whether the dog can have any command of abstract ideas beyond argument, - all real use of ab

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stract ideas needing the aid of language to make it of any effect. Whence the writer concludes that the dog has no self-consciousness, no distinct consciousness of the subject, as distinguished from that of the object, of his thoughts. He does not realize the distinction between the Self and the Not-self.

Now, when the reviewer speaks in this way, he seems to us to use both "abstract ideas" and "self-consciousness in some very new and peculiar sense, and that his use of these terms in that sense is exceedingly likely to do injustice to the creature whom he so carefully and affectionately studies. All that we can fairly mean by an abstract idea is a notion which applies indifferently to any member of a class, which has had all that individualizes it, all that attaches it to a single individual, discharged out of it. For instance, if I say to my dog, "Will you go a little walk?" and he immediately begins to bark with excitement, does our reviewer mean to say, that the word "walk" must suggest to him purely individual objects; that he thinks solely of individual roads, hedges, furze-bushes, hills; that he has not a rush of vague conceptions which will cover equally any sort of walk? Surely abstraction is a process quite as familiar to the dog as to the little child. When a child has heard the word "horse" once or twice applied to an actual horse, he probably infers that the name is applied without reference to its color or its size; and the danger might be that he would think a calf or a donkey a horse. But his idea of a horse is already "abstract," too abstract, as it would include creatures resembling it only in having four legs and a tail. A dog's idea might probably be less abstract. Certainly the dog distinguishes with the greatest acuteness between different species, as well as between different individuals: he has unquestionably an abstract idea of a horse, as of " a walk," a vague idea that applies equally to all individual horses. Nor can we conceive how a sheep-dog which did not know the species as well as the individuals could get on in his professional life at all. He would be in danger of mistaking every new or strange sheep for an enemy, if he recognized the sheep only by individual marks. But probably the reviewer would deny that he meant to question the dog's aptitude for taking in abstract ideas in this sense. So long as the ideas are not too abstract to be illustrated by external objects, he would perhaps say the dog is master of them. He knows what a stick or a whip means without any reference to the individual articles of that kind with which he has made acquaintance. He has vague conceptions of concrete things, but not conceptions of which you could produce no actual specimen at all, such as of "truth," "justice," "beauty," &c. Even in this more limited sense, we think the reviewer, necessarily and by his own admissions, wrong. Would a dog drown himself in his misery without a distinct notion of" death," of which he has never had, or could have had, any thing but an abstract notion? Yet the stories given by the Quarterly reviewer of canine suicides are very convincing and authentic. Nay, it is perfectly obvious that the dog has a complete mastery of that very abstract idea, padding,” — i.e., of something to hide a real deficiency, — as this amusing story shows:

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"The dog was a poodle puppy, called Baldi. One night, after we had all gone to the play, supper having been laid ready for our return, we found the pigeon-pic in this condition: one pigeon having been abstracted, and the hole cleverly filled up with a bit of damp, inky sponge, which my father (the late Mr. North) always kept in a glass on his writing-table to wipe his pens on. Baldi looked terribly guilty; and there was no doubt where the pigeon was gone: but why he should have thought of concealing his guilt by filling up the hole, I have not an idea."

Now, Baldi evidently felt uneasy at the emptiness of the pigeon-pie after he had eaten one pigeon; and, having apparently but an indifferent estimate of his master's taste, thought that possibly the substitution of a bit of damp, inky sponge might conceal the deficiency. Therein he certainly showed a very imperfect knowledge of human tastes; but it is perfectly clear that something like the following process must have gone on in his head. After consuming the

pigeon, he must have had the conception of his master's displeasure: we won't insist on that as an abstract idea, as the reviewer might say he would only have had the concrete picture of an angry master; but further, the notion of his master's displeasure must have suggested the possibility of filling up the deplorable hiatus in the pigeon-pie so as to deceive his master; and how could he have had this inspiration without a clear notion both of relative magnitude and of the nature of a trick? He must have sought about for something of like color, and decided that the inky sponge was the best approach to imitative art he could on the spur of the moment insert, and have inserted it, in the hope that by so doing he could prevent his master from perceiving the loss of the pigeon. How is all that conceivable without the distinct abstract notion of imposing upon his master? You can't even suggest the mental process in a concrete form beyond its first stage. You can imagine the dog dismayed at the thought of an angry face gazing first at the pigeon-pie and then at the vision of his master. But beyond that, how is the intellectual process to be continued without the use of an abstract idea? The inky sponge might have suggested itself from some vague perception of resemblance; but the notion of substituting it in the place of the pigeon could not have suggested itself without the notion of the possibility of producing a false impression in his master's mind. And what is such a false impression, except in the strictest sense an abstract idea? How could a dog hope to deceive his master as to what had happened without distinguishing in his own mind between the event and what he wanted the event to appear; and how could he so distinguish without apprehending more or less the relation between evidence and belief? It is not like the case of a dog's hiding a bone, the possession of which he associates with a beating: it is quite conceivable that he might do that from the mere force of unpleasant memories, aroused jointly by the sound of his master's step and the association with previous acts of plunder. But the dog could not have substituted any thing else in the place of the pigeon he had robbed through the force of such associations; for that involved a clear intellectual apprehension that suspicion would be aroused by the emptiness of the pie, and that if the pie could be filled by something of somewhat similar size and color, that suspicion might be averted. Now, preparing a train of circumstances to avert suspicion must imply a distinct abstract conception of what suspicion

is.

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Nor is this the only well-authenticated dog-story demanding such an inference. There is a story of a dog (told by Mr. Williams in his amusing book on Dogs and Their Ways") who accumulated a store of bones by saving up half his dinner daily, till he had capital enough to pay a troop of dogs of the neighborhood to revenge him on a dog of great size and strength which had worried him. Here was a genuine economist, with a clear knowledge of the nature of capital and wages, as well as a clear intellectual conception of the sweetness of revenge. You cannot possibly explain so elaborate a plan as this without supposing that the dog distinguished between means and ends, understood the principle of mercenary troops, and coceived the possibility of organizing them at the cost of some small self-denials. He must have had in some form the notion "I won't eat the bone, for I want it to buy ail for the punishment of my rival." Put that conception into the most concrete form you can, and it will yet be found to involve more than one abstract idea, and, moreover, the knowledge of the influence which abstract ideas may have upon future actions. Again, it is difficult to imagine that the Quarterly reviewer's story of the poodle which kept a gold coin, dropped by its master in a hotel, in its mouth the whole day, till his return, refusing to eat for fear of putting the piece down, had not a pretty clear idea of the exchangeable value of gold.

Hence we do not believe that the difference between dogs and men as regards the mastery of abstract ideas is at all more than one of degree. And we say the same of the dog's self-consciousness. No doubt he does not think in our artificial way of the difference between the "self" and the "not-self." But to argue, as the reviewer does, from the

simplicity of his demeanor that he has no distinct self-consciousness, seems to us pure exaggeration. The reviewer, like any one who knows dogs, concedes to the dog both vanity and jealousy, pride in its own beauty, and an eager grudge against those who are preferred to it. How can this be without some measure of conscious comparison between his own claims the love feit for him- and the claims of another? But if you want a more clearly intellectual test of canine self-consciousness, observe a dog. as the present writer has the opportunity of doing every day suffering under the imitative skill of a parrot that mocks all his tones of delight, complaint, entreaty, impatience, with perfect skill. It drives the dog nearly mad, not of course from the noise, but from the same sort of horror which a man is said to feel at seeing his "fetch," or the exact image of himself. It puzzles the dog's sense of personality, confounds his discrimination between the self and the not-self, and altogether makes “the burden of the mystery of all this unintelligible world" too much for the dog. We will not assert free-will- in any at least but the faintest germs - for the dog. But we will assert, that, in spite of his inability to use abstract language of any kind, he has plenty of abstract ideas of a kind of which you could find no physical illustration or expression at all, and has especially, whether you call it abstract or concrete, should be disposed to call it the latter, a very clear idea of himself as distinguished from all that is outside the sphere of his canine personality.

FOREIGN NOTES.

we

MR. HOLMAN HUNT has nearly finished the large piture he painted on his recent visit to Jerusale:n.

THE Athenæum promises its readers a very interesting letter concerning "Unpublished Notes on Milton, by John

Keats."

THE second volume of the work of Gen. Todleben on the defence of Sebastopol has been published, and completes this production, which has so much importance and interest for military men.

"How have you been able to escape all the catastrophes of the Commune?" said the Russian ambassador to Baron Rothschild. "Because we Israelites have the privilege of crossing the Red Sea with dry feet."

M. ERNEST RENAN has arrived at Rome. The Voce della Verità, the organ of the Jesuits, assures him that in Pleas former times he would have been expelled at once. ant reflection!

WHILE alarm is felt in England, France, and Germany. lest there should be a failure of fuel through the exhaustion of the coal-beds of Europe, a similar fear begins to prevail in Russia, which depends almost wholly upon wood. The rapidity with which the forests are being cleared in some of the provinces threatens a severe and not very distant scarcity of the indispensable material.

AT the closing performance of M. Laurenti, at the Gymnase of Marseilles, just as the artist concluded the air from the third act of Barbe Bleue, a bouquet of vegetables and hay was thrown on to the stage. The singer stopped short, greatly excited; and the whole audience protested against the insult, first by loud cries, and then by cheers addressed to the performer. Some persons brought up all the flowers near at hand and strewed the stage with them. The person who had committed the act was taken into custody, and, when questioned at the police-station, declared that he had been paid for acting as he had done.

SPEAKING of Mrs. Whitney's new volume of poems, — "Pansies," the last number of the Spectator says, "This is a graceful little volume of verses by one of the most ac

complished of American poetesses. We are inclined to regret the somewhat artificial division into three parts, which are respectively entitled, Of Occasion,' 'Of Suggestion,'' Of Interpretation and Hope:' the poems themselves are perfectly natural and fresh, and not the less pleasing from the genuinely womanly character of all that we read. The Army of the Knitters, 1861,' is especially good; but our chief favorite in the volume, which deserves in all respects a kindly recepti ›n from English readers, is 'Released,' for which, as a specimen which annot fail to please, we m ist find room."

THE aeronaut Eugene Pasqual, from Paris, recently went up from Hamburg with a colossal balloon, measuring a hundred and eighteen feet in circumference, and sixtyfive in vertical diameter, and containing thirty-five thousand cubic feet of hydrogen gas. At the height of five hundred feet the aeronaut was seen descending by a trap in the basket, and hanging by one foot on a trapèze, and performing several feats worthy of a Java bat. Both travellers landed safely on the other bank of the Elbe, after an hour and a half's navigation. Such exhibitions ought to be encouraged in a country which considers its population too

numerous.

A DEATH has taken place in Paris which will be greatly deplored by the crowned heads of Europe. Count Schlieck, for whose heirs the Danish Legation seeks in vain, enjoyed, especially in the Northern courts, the reputation of a modern Benvenuto Cellini. He designed very many costly and sumptuous works for the czar, the emperors of Germany and Austria, the late kings of Denmark and Sweden, and the king of Bavaria. For nine years before he resided in Paris he lived in Pompeii, directing excavations, making casts from bronzes found there, and exquisite copies in tempera from antique frescos. He was arranging his large collection in the hope of selling it en masse, when death surprised him. This collection, if no heirs come forward, will fall to the state of Denmark, of which Count Schlieck was a subject.

AN enterprising member of the French clergy, impelled, no doubt, by the success which has attended the sale of Benedictine, Trappistine, Chartreuse, and other monasterial liquors, has availed himself of the publicity which recent proceedings have given to the grotto at Lourdes to advertise a new spirit, which, taken internally, will be as beneficial to the patient as the waters of the grotto when applied externally. In a prospectus headed "A Notre Dame de Lourdes," this liquor, which he has baptized "L'Immortelle," is announced to be made from the water of the miraculous fountain at Lourdes, with an admixture of plants and fruits from the splendid valleys of Luchon, EauxBonnes, Cauterets, &c. "It in addition to an expossesses, quisite perfume, qualities which render it a very valuable hygienic. Taken before a meal, it gives an appetite, but, instead of having a brutalizing and lethal effect, like absinthe, it opens up the channels of the soul. Taken after food, it perfumes the mouth, accelerates the digestion, and creates a feeling of comfort greater than can be obtained from the best cognac or the most delicious Chartreuse. The most stubborn palate, the most ruined of stomachs, cannot but derive immediate benefit from this incomparable liquor."

IT was recently announced that the well-known library of Mr. Thomas Adolphus Trollope, of Florence, was about to be sold by auction in that city. "We now learn," says the Court Journal of October the 19th, "that the sale, which is to commence on the sixth of November, and will continue every day till the fifth of the following month, will comprise, not only the library, but the famous collection of objects of art and antiquity got together by Mr. Trollope during a thirty years' residence in Italy, and most of which were purchased at a time when such prizes were far more plentiful, and were to be had at a far more reasonable figure than will ever again be the case. The library has long

been well known in Florence, and indeed in the whole of Italy, as being especially rich in the histories, several of them being exceedingly rare, of the various municipalities. In this department many works figure in Mr. Trollope's catalogue which are absolutely not to be had elsewhere. The library consists of some ten thousand volumes. The collection of artistic furniture is very extensive, and such as in many respects no expenditure would again succeed in getting together. There will be many remarkable marbles and terre cote for sale, both antique and mediæval. In fact, the dispersion of this rare collection will afford amateurs an opportunity such as seldom arises. The sale will take place at the Villa Trollope, rather more than a mile outside the old walls of Florence."

AN ingenious plan for preventing explosions in mines. that are caused by the carelessness of tobacco-smokers has been devised by a philanthropist. Miners, he says, will smoke, like railway travellers, whatever regulations may be framed to hinder them from so doing. It is therefore proposed to enable them to enjoy their pipes without danger. To effect this object, earthenware jars of tobacco are to be deposited on the surface of the ground near the pit's mouth, the smoke from which can be inhaled through india-rubber tubes running inside the mine. Tobacco-smoke is, in fact, to be laid on to the mine as gas and water are laid on to houses. The jars being lighted from above, the tobacco may be smoked in perfect safety; and the miners will no longer be tempted to carry lucifer-matches in their pockets. The objection to this scheme is, that the tubes might become choked with oil; but this, it is stated, may be obviated by causing the smoke to pass through water, as in the case of a hookah. There is also the objection that the smoke might possibly refuse to pass through the tubes at all; but miners have strong lungs, and by "a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull altogether," would doubtless succeed in obtaining a supply of the noxious but fascinating fumes, for the sake of which they of en sacrifice not only their own lives, but also those of their companions.

A SHORT essay just published by Prof. Neumann, of Vienna, on "Production, General Commerce (Welthandel),

and Means of Communication," contains some very elaborate details as to the proportion in which articles of general consumption are used in different countries. The following is his estimate of the consump ion of coffee in different countries, in round numbers: Belgium, nearly nine pounds per head; Holland, seven; Switzerland, seven; United States; five; Germany, five; France, three; Austria, one and a half, Great Britain, less than one. Of tea, Great Britain consumes more than three pounds per head; the United States, one; Holland, one; Russia, about a quarter of a pound; other countries, quite insignificant quantities. England appears, therefore, to be by far the greatest tea-drinker and smallest coffee-drinker of considerable country. Belgium and Holland stand much ahead in the list of coffeedrinking communities. But allowing for the different ratio of consumption of tea and of coffee, we may set down the Americans as the greatest consumers of both together. The use of tea in Russia, considering the reputation which its people enjoy in that particular, would appear small; but it must be remembered that this vast empire contains many millions of inhabitants altogether beyond the reach of foreign luxuries. It would be a curious problem for medical philosophers to trace the different effects on the stamina of the respective populations produced by their several tastes for these gentle stimulants.

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Ir would be difficult to say which of the two use the most powerful and picturesque language, the champions or the antagonists of Rome, - M. Veuillot, for instance, or Garibaldi. After Mentana, when Garibaldi was found to be alive, and not dead, as had been at first reported, M. Veuillot, on receiving the unwelcome news, wrote as follows: We have always said that God would not allow this man to die on the field of battle. He will expire in a