and money to arrange to her satisfaction. | room carpet was a standing grievance. When The peaches were lovely, but who could tell it was time to dress for dinner, the rector's what they might be next year if a new rector wife was not nearly so sure as before that she came who took no interest in the garden ?- had never liked Carlingford. She began to for Thompson, though he was a very good forget the thoughts she had entertained about servant, required to be looked after, as in- broken idols, and to remember a number of deed most good servants do. Mrs. Morgan inconveniences attending a removal. Who sighed a little when she thought of all her would guarantee the safe transit of the past exertions and the pains, of which she china, not to speak of the old china, which was scarcely yet beginning to reap the fruit. was one of the most valuable decorations of One man labors, and another enters into his the Rectory? This kind of breakage, if not labors. One thing, however, was a little more real, was at least likely to force itself, consolatory, that she could take her ferns more upon the senses than the other kind of with her. But on the whole, after the fracture which this morning's explanation (first outburst of feeling, the idea of change, had happily averted; and altogether it was notwithstanding all its advantages, was in with mingled feeling that Mrs. Morgan enitself, like most human things, a doubtful tered the drawing-room, and found it occupleasure. To be sure, it was only through pied by Mr. Leeson, who always came too its products that her feelings were interested early, and who, on the present occasion, had about the new flue, whereas the drawing- some sufficiently strange news to tell. quired by most constitutions while making a pedestrian tour with only two meals a day. In truth, it is difficult beforehand to set precise limits to your total expenditure. Extra fatigue requires extra restoratives; and a man's appetite for meat and drink is very different amongst the Alps to what it is in a city counting-house. The above prices only apply to towns and lowlands. Up in the hills where provisions have to be fetched by horses or men, prices are necessarily higher, but not more so than might be reasonably expected. On the top of the Niesen (a most delectable climb), reached only by a bridle path which mounts steeply and continuously for ten long miles, I had a good and wholesome dinner for two francs. Fair ordinary white wine was a franc and a half the bottle, Yvorne two francs, and Nuits (Burgundy) three francs only. All this wine is carried up on horses' backs. If a winecarrier were to fall, what a smash and a spill !— London Society. CHEAP TRAVELLING IN SWITZERLAND. — In | I do not dine alone. A more substantial breakSwitzerland the whole art of cheap travelling con- fast than that allowed by M. Desbarolles is resists in settling the prices beforehand. Have no shame or hesitation in doing it; the innkeeper would think you a fool if you had. I do not claim the merit of the discovery. M. Desbarolles, a French artist, has published " A Journey in Switzerland at three and a half francs per day." The author practises painting and palmistry, making, possibly more by the latter than the former. His book is amusing from its intense Anglophobia, for which we may pardon him, considering that it (the book) has done great good. For instance, the charge for bougie " has already disappeared from several moderate-priced inns, being incorporated with the more general and less objectionable item of "service." Of course, he is no favorite with numerous inn-keepers; nevertheless, he has directed considerable custom to those who are willing to meet the demand for fair accommodation at moderate charges. He boldly carried out the ideas which were long ago suggested by Topffer's charming " Voyages en Zigzag." His grand arcanum for the economical traveller is to fix his prices beforehand. His tariff is dinner including such an allowance of wine as he can get for his money, a france and a half; bed, one franc; breakfast of coffee, milk, bread, butter and honey, another franc; service and bougie, nothing. Total three francs and a half. This figure is low. I get my bed for a franc, but pay more for other things, and do not refuse a trifle for service. I get a good dinner, without beer or wine, for a franc and a half, especially if | plored." THE Gentleman's Magazine gives an account of a lecture recently delivered in England, to a numerous and attentive audience composed of clergy and gentry, on Campanology, or the science of bell-ringing, deploring the utter want of knowledge and skill with which church-bells are rung, and demonstrating that "a great field of science and amusement has here been unex From The Athenæum. The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter. From the Private Journals and other Papers of Commander R. Semmes, C. S. N., and other Officers. 2 vols. Saunders, Otley, & Co. THE story of the Sumter and Alabama, like the kindred record of the Maryland spy, is a contribution toward a true history of the American war. Society had been so much dazzled by the genius of Robert Lee, the virtue of Stonewall Jackson, the sagacity of Jefferson Davis, as to have become at one time somewhat blind to the actual merits of the cause in which they fought. It is a wholesome physic to false enthusiasm that we should now and then see the lesser heroes of a great struggle. A wise man does not measure a nation, a system,-by its exceptional men. He takes the world in gross. Thebes cannot be judged by Epaminondas, Paganism by Julian, the Southern Confederacy by Jackson. A prominent figure is not always a type. It is useful to learn what kind of men are the minor personages of a great cause; and we cannot imagine an easier exercise for a student of politics than to read the mystery of a nation which makes a heroine of Mrs. Greenhow and a hero of Capt. Semmes. Every one who takes up this "Cruise of the Alabama" will be struck with its unprofessional air of precipitancy. Capt. Semmes would seem to be quite as ready to make a book as to burn a bark. Three or four days after he lost the Alabama, he advertised a history of her heroic deeds; three or four weeks after that event in his career, two stout volumes of details, illustrated with villanous portraits, appear in print. To make up his weight of paper, he has thrown in the tale of his previous command, the Sumter,—a ship of war which never fired a gun in anger. Of the value of this record, the reader will judge for himself in good time; but even at the outset he will notice the fact of Capt. Semmes being ready with his pen. We doubt whether any countryman of Blake, Nelson, and Dundonald would have been thus prompt to offer seaside idlers a copious history of the ship which he had just lost within hearing of their shores. And what a miserable story it is to tell! In the exploits of a corsair we expect to find some of the semi-heroic qualities, - dash, hardihood, audacity,—a readiness to seek ad venture and to encounter risk,-a sentiment of pride before the strong, a feeling of compassion before the weak. In the seamen of an old type, in the buccaneer of history, in the corsair of romance, you often find a bold fellow doing evil deeds, yet doing them in a spirit which is not without touches of redeeming nobleness. The heroes of the Spanish Main set their lives on the hazard. The English rovers of the Straits played a bad game; but they took without whining and repining the perils of their dreadful trade. Nearly every boat hey met was armed. If Ward was ready to snap up carrack and caravel, he was equally ready to encounter the armed corvette. Paul Jones was not a man to bother consuls and editors with complaints. But in the commander of the Sumter and the Alabama, a person whom some of us have been trying to convert into a miniature Cochrane, we find no trace of either heroic thought or heroic deed. Put his case into any words you like, it is impossible to make a creditable story of his career. Capt. Semmes has commanded two swift and well-armed ships, the Sumter and the Alabama; in the first of these vessels he sailed under false colors about the ocean, plundered and burned about a score of unarmed, unresisting barks belonging to American owners; sought refuge from his equals and enemies in neutral ports; and when he could no longer hope to escape a fight, he sold and abandoned her in an English port. In the second vessel of his command, the Alabama, he also prowled about the seas, burning and plundering unarmed boats; and with the single exception of a brush with the Hatteras, a ship inferior to his own in guns, in men, and in speed, never fired a shot until he closed with the Kearsarge, when his ship went to the bottom in half an hour. Fenimore Cooper could not tell this story so as to make it a romance. In the personal part of this matter we take no side. We differ from those who denounce Capt. Semmes as a pirate and proclaim him a common enemy of mankind. He was cer tainly not a pirate. He bore a commission from his government. His ship was a ship of war. He used false colors and told endless lies, it is true; but then these devices and deceits are parts of that old devilry of war, which unhappily, while war is raging, supersedes all human rights and abrogates all the divine laws. We may not blame him, per haps, for such foul play as boarding his enemy under English colors; though we could heartily approve of such a change in the maritime rule in this respect as would prevent this shameful use of a neutral flag. But allowing Capt. Semmes to have been a regular commander, and his vessel a ship of war, sailing under a recognized order, we have then the right of asking from him the conduct of an officer if not that of a hero. And herein we think he signally fails; fails of the modesty, honesty, and frankness whieh distinguish men who follow the great profession of the sea. Great men, it is often said, are dumb as to their own merits. Capt. Semmes either talks or allows his unknown friend to talk, in a hundred places about his own" indomitable genius," his own "wonderful eloquence," his own "sound, practical views," his own "unrivalled audacity," his own "clever despatches," and the like. These fine qualities had probably been made known by Capt. Semmes, in the early stage of the Civil War, to the Confederate authorities; along with an assurance that he was willing to fight for the South, so soon as his own State-Maryland—should have joined the seceders; for the first official paper printed in Capt. Semmes's book is an order from Mr. C. M. Conrad, chairman of the Committee for Naval Affairs, to repair forthwith to Montgomery. Mr. Semmes obeyed this summons; although Maryland had not yet joined the South. And hereupon would have arisen a question, had the English yacht, the Deerhound, not been present the other day off Cherbourg. Maryland remains with the North, a lawful member of the Union; so that Mr. Semmes is actually in arms against the land of his own birth. Of course, Capt. Semmes would be glad to see Maryland go into rebellion; but she has not done so; and the hard fact remains that he is in opposition to the actual rulers of his country, and stands condemned by the existing laws of his State. The case is quite different with the renowned leaders of the South. General Lee and President Davis are sometimes called rebels by the American press,-a blunder, of course; for a true belligerent cannot be a rebel, and the Washington Cabinet has admitted the belligerent rights of the South by exchange of prisoners, by innumerable cartels, and by other acts; but Mr. Semmes's case is wholly unlike that of General Lee. Lee is a Virginian by birth. His State is in the Confederacy; and the State laws acquit and applaud him for his conduct in the war. Mr. Semmes is a rebel in his own city, a deserter from the service, a traitor to his country. If he should be taken captive in this war, it is scarcely possible to doubt that a Maryland judge and jury will condemn him to a traitor's death. Captain Semmes is apparently a Roman Catholic,-one who affects a certain picturesque piety, tempered by oaths and other idioms which sailors use. When he goes on shore, he likes to be seen at mass, and to be thought a judge of the censers, the intonation, and the preaching. A man of eloquent words himself (as he tells us in this book), he likes to hear a good sermon; and in the Spanish and French ports, he more than once graciously commends the priestly discourse, permitting us to infer that he understands the language in which it is pronounced. Perhaps it is a consequence of such tastes that Captain Semmes has adopted Sunday for his chief day of depredation. Sunday, he says, is his "lucky day," for on that holy day he slipped from his pursuers; on that holy day he caught the Ariel steamship; on that holy day he has burnt and plundered more ships than on any other of the week. Perhaps, like Mr. John Sheppard, who found it easier to rob houses when the people were at church, Captain Semmes has been favored in these exploits by the fact that on Sundays the Yankee is at prayers. Anyhow, the New Yorker seems to be less suspicious and alert on that sacred day than usual; more easily betrayed into danger by the flaunting of a friendly English flag. Once, by way of variety in the log, we have the peaceful entry: “A quiet Sabbath-day, there being nothing in sight." Jonathan Wild has nothing finer than this bit of unconscious humor. Poor Alabama! We can guess at the depths of misery to which a gay cavalier vessel must be reduced, which, for lack of opportunity to rob and burn her neighbors' property, is obliged to pass a dull Sunday at sea. Captain Semmes chronicles the fact much as Don Juan would have recorded his weariness with a Sunday passed in a Scottish town. It is only too well remembered that, when Captain Semmes lay in Cherbourg Harbor, he had a free command of the time for fighting. He chose his "lucky day" for the battle; and steamed out of the neutral port, when the Saxon and the Gaul, between whose shores he was going to his evil business, were at church. Of course there is an ample account of this duel between the Kearsarge and the Alabama. The narrative is confused, and we are left in the dark as to who describes the scene a for us. On one point of interest Captain Semmes's opinion is stated,-that of the pretended armor of his antagonist. We happen to have seen the Kearsarge since the duel, and we can distinctly say that there is no armor. Over part of her side hang a few common chain cables, affording her engines a slight protection; not much more than man would find in action from having hung a dozen watch-chains round his neck. Only one shot struck this covered side, and that glanced off at a broad angle. Any wellaimed thirty-two pounder must have gone through this frail defence; but the chains were not hit; and for any influence which they had upon the action, they might have been lying in the ship's hold. This is what is said on behalf of Captain Semmes: "There were many reports abroad that she was protected on her sides in some peculiar way; but all were various and indistinct, and to a practical judgment untrustworthy. Moreover, a year previous to this meeting, the Kearsarge had lain at anchor close under the critical eye of Captain Semmes. He had on that occasion seen that his enemy was not artificially defended. He believes now that the reports of her plating and armor were so much harbor gossip." In all other respects the two vessels were nearly equals. tory over a more rapid and reckless waste of shot and shell. Had the Alabama been carried by boarding, the excuse of inferior numbers would have been valid. There is a frequent repetition in this story of an assertion made the day after the fight, that Captain Semmes had laid his plans for boarding and trying a man-to-man fight. It is here alleged that "The Alabama entered the lists when she should have been lying in dock. She fought with an exhausted frame. She had the heroism to decide upon the conflict, without the strength to choose the form of it. After some little manoeuvring, this became painfully evident to Captain Semmes. The Kearsarge dred yards; and being well protected, she deselected her distance at a range of five hunliberately took time and fired with sure effect. Captain Semmes had great confidence in the power of his Blakeley rifled gun, and we believe it is a confidence not shaken by its failure to win the day for him. He wished to get within easy range of his enemy, that he might try this weapon effectively; but any attempt on his part to come to closer quarters was construed by the Kearsarge as a design to bring the engagement between the ships to a hand-to-hand conflict between the men. Having the speed, she chose her distance, and made all thought of boarding hopeless. It was part of the plan of Captain Semmes to board, if possible, at some period of decide the battle with artillery. It was evithe day, supposing that he could not quickly dently Captain Winslow's determination to avoid the old-fashioned form of a naval encounter, and to fight altogether in the new style; his superior steam power gave him the option. When the Alabama took her interpret the respectful distance maintained death wound, she was helpless. We must by the Kearsarge up to the very last, and the The battery of the Kearsarge consisted of persistent plying of her guns while the side seven guns; to wit, two 11-inch Dahlgrens, of the sinking ship was visible, as a settled which she carries amidships; four 32-pound-resolution on Captain Winslow's part to trust ers, run out at the sides, and one light rifled 28-pounder, at the fore. She had a crew of 162 officers and men. The armament of the Alabama consisted of one 7-inch Blakeley rified gun, one 8-inch smooth-bore pivot-gun, six 32-pounders, smooth-bore, in broadside. The Alabama's crew numbered, according to Captain Semmes, 120. Thus, in guns, the Alabama was slightly superior to her rival, having one gun more in battery. The numbers of the crews have no relation to the fight; which was an artillery duel from first to last, in which good firing gained the vic to guns alone, and throughout, so that a dan- crew, The same story is told on board the Kearsarge. The officers of that vessel declare that they meant to board the Alabama, and would have done so at any moment, had they been able to get alongside of her. It is pretty clear, however, that steamers will always offer a great obstacle to boarding-parties. So long as a steamer keeps the free use of her engines, it will be hard to get alongside of her against her wish; when she has no longer the free use of her engines, boarding will have become needless, as she must then either surrender at once, or go down with every soul on board. The Kearsarge's superiority of fire was established in the first five minutes. The Alabama was pierced through and through; her screw was broken, her decks were covered with the dying and the dead. In a few minutes, the ship was a perfect wreck. On the other hand, the Kearsarge was unhurt. Not a man had been killed. One shot had lodged in her rudder-plank. Another had torn a hole in the roof of her engine-house. But she was in fighting trim, and only warming to her work when to her great surprise her enemy struck his flag : "Many wild stories are being told of something like a mutiny of the crew at this desecration of the Southern banner; of how they implored the captain to spare them the disgrace of it; and of a certain quartermaster drawing his cutlass, daring any hand on board to haul down the flag, and being dramatically threatened with a loaded pistol by Mr. Kell, the first lieutenant, and so brought to his senses. The fact is, that the flag came down quietly and decorously. All on board perceived that there was no help for it, and that it would be a shocking breach of humanity to imperil the lives of the wounded men." After this easy victory, Captain Winslow, of the Kearsarge, saved all he could of the He gave permission to the owner of the Deerhound to pick up the struggling men, and in this vessel most of the officers were allowed to escape. We say allowed to escape; for this little yacht could not have carried them away by force or speed. Fancy any neutral cockboat trying to snatch away one of Nelson's prisoners! We cannot fancy crew. it. self as a lot of " seems to Seeing that Captain Semmes is a Marylander, the reader of this sad book will seek to find what reason is alleged for not going with his State. He will seek in vain. The motive cannot be patriotism; for his own State goes with the North, and that of her own will, as it would now appear, since two To say that the Alabama was overmatched invasions of Confederate armies have failed by the Kearsarge in any way except in skill, to rouse her into resistance. What is it character, and organization, is mere non- then! Can it be an insane hatred of the nesense. She was beaten by better men. Cap-gro race, as such, and a monstrous desire to tain Winslow is the model of a sailor; very found a new Slave Empire? quiet, resolute and English-like in bearing. In the absence of distinct and direct eviHe is a thorough seaman, and his crew are dence of so black a design, we should hesitate worthy of their leader; being chiefly English to affix it, even as a supposition, against any and Americans, with a sprinkling of Italians, public man. Such a scheme would be crimDanes, and negroes. The Alabama's crew- inal in the last degree, and put the men who all of them raked from the streets of Liver- entertained it beyond the pale of social laws. pool-are described by Captain Semmes him- | But in Capt. Semmes's journals and letters |