in three years' time Massey was repaid, and money began to be paid in to his account. He used to get up at seven, breakfast at ten, and at two he ended his work. He would then take a long walk, generally round the lake-a distance of from ten to twelve miles; on his return he dined largely, and spent the evening with a few friends. He was always a great walker, having a tendency to obesity, which he was anxious to keep down. The result of these seven hours' daily work were, "L'Institutrice," "La Famille Jouffroy" (one of the best romances of his exile), "Les Mystères du Peuple," "Gilberte," "La Bonne Aventure," and lastly, "Les Secrets de l'Oreiller," which he left unfinished. He had during his exile a lawsuit with the Constitutionnel, by which he obtained a verdict, to the effect that that journal should pay 40,000 fr. to disembarrass itself of all future connexion with Eugène Sue! These 40,000 fr. went to pay the publisher, who insisted on his 3000 fr. for each volume he did not publish. Thus liberated from the clutches of the Constitutionnel and its publisher, an agreement was entered into with the Presse and the Siècle. He was to write three volumes for each every year. They on their side were to pay eight sous (or 4d.) per line. Eugène Sue's châlet stood at the foot of a mountain, and when he did not walk round the lake, he would ascend the mountain, and, seating himself on a jutting crag (he had that from his nurse the goat), he would look long and thoughtfully in the same direction. Why he looked so pertinaciously in that one direction, the proscribed of all times and of all parties can tell. Thus he lived five years happy enough, till a woman came to trouble him in that humble châlet, and to cause a quarrel between him and his friend Massey. Luckily, the cause of unhappiness was got rid of, but Eugène Sue remained worn out-épuisé de corps, épuisé de cœur ! One morning an old friend, Colonel Charras, arrived at the châlet. This was the occasion of a rare festival. But four or five days after that Eugène Sue was seized with violent neuralgic pains in the right temple -pains which he had experienced occasionally for now some years at intervals. On Monday, the 27th of July, his malady assumed the form of an intermittent fever. Wednesday he was so much better that he tried to work at his "Secrets de l'Oreiller," but ideas failed him. Friday he had so much improved that he proposed his favourite walk up the mountain to Colonel Charras. But they had not got above a third of the way up when his strength failed him, and he was obliged to return to his chalet, supported by his friend's arm. The neuralgic pains returned with great severity at night, and a despatch was sent to Geneva for additional medical assistance. Eugène Sue had been slightly delirious. He complained also of great pain in the right side. At ten o'clock the next evening Dr. Maunoir arrived, had a consultation with M. Lachanal, Eugène Sue's regular medical attendant, and then approached the patient's bed, a lamp being held over his face. "But this is not what you announced to me!" exclaimed the doctor. Alas! Eugène Sue had been struck with palsy: his left side was paralysed, his face cadaverous, his eyes glassy, his mouth awry. Dr. Maunoir shook his head, and said that nothing could be done. From that time, that is to say, Saturday, at ten P.M., till Monday morning at five minutes before seven, when he breathed his last, Eugène Sue never regained his senses. "Providence," says Alexandre Dumas, in conclusion, "who had allotted to him so agitated a life, granted him the last satisfaction of dying calmly, with his hand in one of the firmest and most loyal hands that exists in the world. "Thanks, Charras!" ASTRONOMIC FANCIES. BY W. CHARLES KENT. COMETS. ALL Comets slung through space abroad PLANETS. The lustrous velvet of a ripening plum CONSTELLATIONS. As on revolving discs responsive sand Wreathes into lovely shapes-a mystic dance! SATELLITES. In antique feasts 'mid wine-cups trailed with bloom SUNS. As God, an atom once blind man adored Yon solar symbol of creative Might: Systems and suns struck out, mere showers of light, SYSTEMS. Heaven's golden spheres Earth's purpling grapes recal, When shaken by the fiat of His will The ripened clusters of God's vintage fall. PLANETARY ELLIPSES. Concentric circles whirled together round May not those rings be lengthened by their flight, THE MUSIC OF THE SPHERES. Inaudible to aught save heavenly ears, As round the honeyed hive the bee-swarm burns, This little fanciful hypothesis of mine I would respectfully submit to the consideration of our astronomers. It may be briefly resolved into the queryWhether M. Mädler's discovery of a central sun round which our whole solar system is revolving with scarcely conceivable rapidity may afford an instant explanation of the planetary ellipse? Every one acquainted with the mere alphabet of astronomy is of course perfectly aware that the ever memorable problem propounded by Sir Isaac Newton in relation to the planetary orbits expressed itself literally in these ipsissima verba-"To determine the nature of the curve which a body would describe in its revolution about a fixed centre to which it was attracted by a force proportional to the mass of the attracting body and decreasing with the distance according to the law of gravitation:" Copernicus having previously surmised that the planetary orbits were circular, while Kepler, on the contrary, had suggested that they were elliptical. Every one of us, moreover, delights to recal to mind Newton's almost rapturous amazement when he found that the answer to that problem was the general algebraic expression embracing all the conic sections-the planets revolving in ellipses, the satellites of Jupiter in circles, the comets in orbits both parabolic and hyperbolic. Accepting with the reverence due to it every iota of that sublime demonstration, and bearing in recollection, with all homage for Sir Isaac, everything he has written thereupon about the centrifugal and centripetal forces, may we not now ask ourselves anew-now that we are studying the phenomenon of the planetary ellipse by the light of that newly-discovered grander central sun of suns, opened to view so very recently by the researches of M. Mädler of Dorpat-whether there may not lie near at hand, already within our grasp, a much less recondite and far more easily comprehensible solution? Granting, as astronomical science does grant now-a-days, that the whole solar system, sun, comets, planets, satellites, are moving, whirling through space at the rate, it is computed, of 150,000,000 miles in a year-wheeling onwards in the direction of a particular point in the heavens, viz. the star in Hercules, speeding on in a circuit of such gigantic dimensions about that mighty central orb (Alcyone, the principal star in the Pleiades) that it requires for the completion of its stupendous orbit the lapse of no less astounding a cycle of years than 18,200,000-is it not readily conceivable that in the whirling of those concentric rings, the planetary orbits, along the path of that marvellous circumference, the circles would by the very swiftness of their flight be lengthened-that from being circular they would become elliptical? Precisely as the revolution of the earth upon its axis causes it to be flattened at the poles while it increases its diameter at the equator, rendering its form no longer a perfect sphere, but rather what is geometrically designated an oblate spheroid. If what may be called with the strictest accuracy the eternal law of celestial dynamics manifests itself thus distinctly by its operation upon solid inert matter, how much more comprehensible that it should be as distinctly evidenced through a more elastic medium-not upon an orb, but on an orbit!-W. C. K. Astronomers may pronounce whether for these humble and valueless initials there may be substituted three others, grandly symbolical-Q. E. D. PALMERSTON AND HIS POLICY.* HENRY JOHN TEMPLE, third Viscount Palmerston, of Palmerston, in the county of Dublin, fifty-second descendant of that old Anglo-Saxon family of which the Duchy of Buckingham and Chandos is an offshoot; Baron Temple, of Mount Temple, in county Sligo; most exclusive of all exclusive dandies, Lord Cupid, most perfect gentleman in the three kingdoms; since 1807 the "undefined statesman;" the eternal minister, first at war, then of foreign affairs; the heir to Castlereagh's policy; "heirloom of all ministries that have been, are, and still will be;" zealous Tory; fiery Whig; Lord Firebrand; "moderate Reformer;" the "Pandora's box of all European revolutions;" "Russian emissary;" "not an Austrian but an English minister;" finally, even England's prime minister, London's smoke-consumer, father of a police bill, Bonapartiser, saviour and ruin of England-what manner of man can this be who has played so many parts in his time? And, be it remembered, these are only his principal titles, and far from representing all the functions he has performed, either officially or in the opinion of the people. Charles Dickens was greeted with shouts of applause when he pointed him out as the best performer for "comic old men;" and at the same time stated he knew where to lay his hands on the most practised conjuror and prestidigitateur. How is this Proteus to be held and understood? In himself he is a world of the most incessant and varying activity, occupying the whole of the present century, all the states of the world, and the destinies of the peoples; with 2775 documents about foreign countries, up to March, 1848 (now probably amounting to 5000), with an increase of annual despatches from 8000 to 34,000 during his administration, not to take into account matters privately arranged at cozy dinner-parties and routs, which, according to his own statement before a committee, would amount to an equal number; the orator and participator in the debates of about 18,000 accepted laws, and as many more rejected, without counting the innocent bantlings stifled in the birth; prime minister and regent over 35,000 acts of parliament, which now govern England in the place of the old Anglo-Saxon self-government; the Bosco who produces the strangest metamorphoses and plays the most outré tricks-how can he be held and comprehended? The English have plenty of many-volumed books to describe the life and acts of less influential statesmen whose career is terminated; but although many additions to their literature have been made with reference to Lord Palmerston, none of them are absolutely authoritative. The reason is simple enough: the documents required to depict his Protean character are still kept carefully from public knowledge. A German, then, proposes in these pages to give his countrymen a trustworthy idea of this "greatest of living statesmen," the great undefined minister. How can this be possible? and, if possible, who would 1858. Unsere Zeit: Jahrbuch zum Conversations Lexicon. Leipzig: Brockhaus.. consider it correct? Is not Palmerston an article of belief, especially for the genial friends of progress or of the good cause generally? Who would dare to offer the believer, lover, hoper, facts and reasons? Credo quia absurdum. The undefined, the inexplicable, appears the more sacred in consequence. "Here is a miracle-all you have to do is to believe it." And any one who is not an implicit believer, is at least an honest friend of the "good cause," which must not be examined into too closely; and Palmerston, despite his "numerous errors and weaknesses," is still the refuge and hope of those noble beings who believe in a better future, and have not yet lost confidence. And whence can this future be expected but from England, the last asylum of those who, in their emptiness and humility, have determined that these better times must come from without, and not emanate from themselves? The attempt at Jersey was the harbinger of an alien bill-has Palmerston succeeded in Bonapartising England, or should this better future be sought among the victims of an extradition bill, en route to prison, the gallows, and Cayenne? But Palmerston fought against Russia-and against Russia means for liberty. Any man, then, who does not believe in Palmerston, or tries to lower him in public opinion and the hopes of nations, can only do so for Russian roubles. The conclusion is not exactly logical, but it is so current that we will allow it to pass muster. But, did he fight against Russia? There is a universal affirmation. Suppose we see. And against Russia on behalf of liberty? We will see into that also. We will not attempt to exalt or depreciate Palmerston, but strive to comprehend this great marvel by his own deeds. "Out of thy own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant," says Urquhart, the "insane" foe of the great undefined statesman. We will grant at once the injustice of such a condemnation. A modern diplomatist is forced to say a great deal in order to conceal his thoughts. His statements, therefore, as a general rule, lead away from the right track. It has been the mistake of Europe for the last fifty years, that it has judged Palmerston and the English policy by the extracts from speeches printed in the newspapers. Palmerston has sought to hide his actions from publicity. He always made his most brilliant speeches about things which he wished not to say, generally winding up with a tag that raised inextinguishable laughter in the House. He always had the laughers on his side. And they all laughed. This betrays at once one of the chief secrets of his fifty years' successes. But the deeds! the deeds! Let us examine his historically crystallised deeds and his comments upon them, for they will throw a light on all his Protean tricks. And so, in order to obtain the form of a biographical epos, let us regard Lord Palmerston as antediluvian Adam and Lord Cupid, as man, as minister of war, of foreign affairs, and premier-in his actions. As "Lord Cupid" and "most perfect gentleman of the three kingdoms," he acquired with his twentieth year an absolute dictatorship over the "upper ten thousand." He was a higher form of Brummell, an incarnated Pelham. The cut of his coat or of his hair was law. His necktie was a ukase. The elegants, the dandies, the lions-even the highest strata of the world of fashion, the exclusives, yielded to hin without a blow. His his gestures, appearance, "came, saw, and con |