in his carriage near her street, with a servant on the watch. Soon he heard her gates open, and presently the tragedienne's equipage crossed the boulevards, and took the way to the bridges: the observer continued to follow. But let us shorten this recital, and come at once to the motive of this nocturnal expedition. Rachel, in her thirst for excitement, had gone to take possession of a window which she had hired, to see the assassins of General Bréa guillotined at break of day!

During this time, when her health was failing, some of her letters were touching, from the sad presentiment, now, alas! verified, of her untimely end.

"My health, far from mending, seems to take pleasure in leaving me, and yet I feel a supernatural strength when I undertake a new part and devote myself to its study. I know not why my illness makes me uneasy, the mind plays a great part in it; my imagination seeks to fathom all, and that gives black shadows to my soul, &c. . . . . To-day I rose too late to give you any news of myself. It is half-past one in the morning. Mama and Sarah are gone to the ball at the Opéra Comique. I was too tired yesterday. I am not satisfied about my health; it abandons me; my irritation increases I feel better since I have followed the regimen prescribed by Dr. Rayer. I cough less-this is a great progress. I shall go to the Baths as soon as June appears; the faculty orders me a season at Ems. At first they wished to send me to 'Eaux bonnes'; but I could never recover my health there, where I saw my poor beloved sister Rebecca die. Adieu! In bidding you adieu, I shall perhaps see you.

"RACHEL.

Houssaye tells me that it is he who gave you the little Louis XV. watch, which you have so prettily arranged, in replacing the glass which showed the inside of the animal, by the enamel which represents your humble servant. I think, and so does Sarah, that the lower part of the face is too long. But this cannot now be corrected. I think, however, this is a thing only to be worn after my death. I am so weak that that may not be long first. If Madame de Girardin would write me a historical part of a consumptive patient, if there be such a one, for I like to take a part which bears a name, I think I should play it well, and would cause tears to be shed, for I should weep myself. "Tis in vain to tell me I am nervous; I feel there is something gone wrong. We were speaking about watches; it is as when the key has been turned too much, something goes crack! I feel something which goes crack in me, when I wind myself up to play. The day before yesterday, in 'Horace,' I felt the crack. Yes, my friend, it was so. This is between ourselves on

account of my mother.

"RACHEL."

To make an end, here is the letter from Sardon to Mario, giving the fatal intelligence of Mlle. Rachel's death:

"Cannet, 4th January, 1858.

"I do not know what was the date of my last letter, my dear Mario; but it must have prepared you for the fatal termination: I had foreseen it. Friday, on exchanging our compliments on the new year, poor Rachel embraced me with so extreme an effusion, that I felt in thought she gave us an eternal adieu in reply to our good wishes. Doctor Bergonnier assured me, however, that we might yet hope for some days of life. On Saturday, there was nothing new; Rachel remained as usual in a kind of stupor caused by her weakness, and from which she was roused at intervals by fits of intolerable suffering,

then she fell back dozing. At length, about midnight, she awoke calm, as if from a long sleep. She conversed tranquilly with those who surrounded her bed, and wished to write to her father, but had not strength. She began then dictating the letter wherein her last wishes are contained. She was unable to finish it, and fell back overpowered in that state of prostration and pain which you so well know. From time to time they tried to make her take some nourishment, and only succeeded with infinite trouble; the functions of the stomach were entirely weakened. At eleven o'clock, being a little relieved, Rachel wished to resume the letter to her father: she dictated it to the end, re-read it entirely, and then cried out, Ah! my Rebecca, my dear sister, Í am going to see you again; how happy I am!' She added a few words to the letter, signed it, and appeared to sleep; this state lasted some hours. Up to this moment Sarah had hesitated to call in the aid of religion, but seeing this spring of Rachel towards heaven, she wrote, by telegraph, to the synagogue at Nice, who sent immediately ten persons, male and female. They arrived about eight o'clock, but were requested to wait, in the fear that their presence might cause an emotion fatal to Rachel. At last, at ten o'clock, a crisis similar to that of the morning declared itself, and alarmed the whole house. was the last: the doctors affirmed it. Then they allowed the priests to enter. Two women and an old man approached the dying Rachel's bed, and began singing the prayers in Hebrew. Rachel turned to them calmly, her eyes raised to heaven, her face lighted up with a heavenly ray, pressed her sister Sarah's hand, and died with a smile on her lips. When I arrived some hours later, I found everybody penetrated with the signal of help given by Providence to Rachel. I was not present, my dear friend, but I cannot doubt that Rachel died in the hope of a better life to come!"

... It

In bidding farewell to this great actress and illustrious woman, now returned to dust, we can find no words more appropriate than those of our own immortal Shakespeare—

"Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more!"

XX.-LIGHT AND DARK.

GENTLY the sunset shades are slanting
O'er peaceful English homes;
Softly the breezes hymns are chanting
To the moon, who slowly comes,
And looks athwart the poplar crests

Thro' windows curtained warm and white,
Where hush'd throughout the shining night
Babes sleep on sleeping mothers' breasts!

Oh! wake not, babes, nor mothers wake,
Dream not of your kindred's life-blood shed

In that fatal land where the sunsets take

Red hues from the heaps of the murdered dead!

For where large stars are fiercely gleaming,
And the flaming orient sky, brass-bound,
With a lurid ominous light is beaming,

The wild beasts spurn the reeking ground,
As if their shudd'ring sense was 'ware,

As they seek their silent terrible lairs,
Of nameless horrors, wild despairs;
White-limbed girls forlornly flying,
And a burden of dying, dying, dying,
Is borne along the air.

And thro' the invisible spaces above

God's angels are bearing souls set free
Thro' torture and shame and agony;
(Loved ones who won their death from love);
And golden mosque and minaret

With severed mangled limbs are set;
Fair Saxon hair all dimmed with gore,
And soft pale breasts all rudely torn,
And babes whom English mothers bore,
Are brought out day by day to die;
Sweet stars quench'd 'neath that cruel sky,
Prey to each hungry morn.

Oh! mother hearts! oh, mother eyes!
Shall ye not wake to bleed and weep,

As ye clasp your infants mother-wise,

For the nameless babes who lonely sleep!
Poor babes, their "mothers' pets" and pride,
Who in their rosy beauty died;
Whose tortured shrieks still echo o'er
Thy God-accursed den, Indore!

Oh! mother heart! oh! mother love!
Here peace and joy, there woe and sin;
But the same blue sky bends far above-
So far, so far, perchance within
Tears may not reach, nor sorrow sound!
Nay, in God's hand all Fate is bound.
Though tear-stained eyes are diın and blind,
And misery dulls the listening ear,
Our God hath power to loose and bind,
And praise and prayer alike doth hear!

Death follows Joy, Woe heralds Death,

The gates part wide, yet both lead on

To one vast shrine, where Holy Faith

Sees through all change, the changeless One. Through Light and Dark-in East and WestOne goal to all-one Father's breast.

I. B

XXI.-THE HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING.

In its ancient and more general sense, Engraving may be defined as the representation of objects by means of incision, on plates of metal, blocks of wood, or on precious stones: but in later times this term is commonly applied to impressions of figures executed by incision upon wood or metal, communicated to paper by a printing-press.

Of the art of engraving generally, including, as it would, the history of Egyptian hieroglyphics, Indian numismatics, Chinese printing-blocks, Grecian maps, the jewelled fingers of Roman matrons, Etruscan art, Anglo-Saxon goldsmiths, or that still later development of the art, those sepulchral brass plates of the era of the Norman Conquest, so frequently to be seen in our old churches and cathedrals, we cannot now speak, as we desire to trace the rise, progress, and present condition of that one branch of this subject named at the heading of our article, and which is most deservedly attracting the attention of so many intelligent women of the present day. The Government schools at Kensington Gore have in a great measure produced this most desirable effect; it is with the hope of still further arousing the attention of females to this most exquisite art, of informing them of the fact of the lucrative nature of this employment, and with the intention of warning them against what is proving a great barrier to their success, that we purpose sketching the outlines of what is, comparatively speaking, so modern an invention; the art of wood-engraving being nearly coeval with, or but little in advance of, printing.

In the annals of Provence as early as 1361 mention is made of cards an edict against their use was published by John I., King of Castile, 1387; and they certainly formed an important branch of German and Venetian commerce soon after the year 1400. It should be remembered that this class of art constituted an early field for the display of artistic skill, and it is also most worthy of note that the earliest cardmakers mentioned as living at Nuremberg were females, for in an old rate-book of that city, under the years 1435 and 1438, are the names of Eliz. and Margret, Kartenmacherin,-or the cardmakers. Afterwards such persons were called Karten-maler, i. e. card-painters; and occasionally bore the name of Formschneider, or cutters of moulds, an appellation by which they are still known in Germany. The reason why we have thus so particularly given the date of the invention of these "books of Satan" (as they have not inaptly been called when we consider the amount of misery they have caused), arises from the

almost certain conjecture that the manufacture of cards suggested to the monks the idea of employing the art of wood-engraving for the purpose of circulating the marvellous deeds of the saints; and indeed woodcuts of sacred subjects appear to have been known to the common people of Suabia and the adjoining districts by the name of Helgen, a corruption of Heiligen, i. e. saints. The celebrated block-books of the 15th century were the next improvement; and from this small and apparently insignificant beginning, proceeded at last the grand and important idea of printing and moveable types, from which time (1440) wood-engraving became so connected with the manufacture of books, that we may date its more general diffusion and improvement from that period; and thus the art of printing, which owed its origin to xylography,* became at length its greatest support. Moreover, from that period the productions of the wood-engraver, collected in the form of volumes, became less exposed to loss or injury, and consequently many of them are preserved to our time.

In determining the antiquity of woodcuts, it should always be remembered-first, that the subjects designed by the earliest woodcutters are almost exclusively devotional; secondly, that the earliest prints bear no date and are simply engraved on one side of the paper; thirdly, little stress is to be laid on rudeness of design or simplicity of execution, for, if these were the sole tests of antiquity, upwards of a hundred engravings positively known to have been executed between 1470 and 1500 might be produced as affording certain evidence of having been executed at a period antecedent to the date of Saint Christopher, the earliest print in existence, bearing a date of whose authenticity there has never been the slightest doubt. This cut, which is pasted on the cover of an old book of the fifteenth century, was discovered in the Chartreuse at Baxheim near Menningen (one of the most ancient convents of Germany), by Heineken-the book in which it was pasted having been bequeathed to that convent by Anna, canoness of Buchaw.t

This print represents the saint carrying the infant Jesus across the sea; opposite to him is a hermit holding up a lantern to give him light; behind, in a back view, is a peasant seen carrying a sack, and climbing the ascent of a steep mountain. There is an inscription at the bottom, and the date 1423.

The representation of saints, or other devotional subjects, which the first engravers produced, were rudely engraved, printed in outline, and then daubed over with a few gay colours, the picture of Saint Christopher itself forming no exception to this almost general rule, and which practice continued in Germany and the Low Countries for a long time. At what exact period the wood*From two Greek words, meaning, From wood I inscribe. This print is now in Earl Spencer's library.