carriage at La Perche at ten o'clock to-morrow morning. I accept his offers."

I understood at once what I afterwards learned in detail. The unfortunate girl had been fascinated by the addresses of the son of a wealthy proprietor of the neighbourhood; and pressed, no doubt, by her father to marry, had resolved to close her career of coquetry by giving herself up without conditions. I am not quite satisfied with my subsequent conduct in this affair, although colder heads have told me I could not have done better. At half-past nine next morning I confessed all to Madeleine, and walked off to La Perche, where I arrived in time to give an ironical salute to the astonished Esther, as she started in the viscount's carriage.

Here my part ended; but Madeleine had hastened down to the farm, and informed the astonished father of what was going on. Without hesitating he called for a good horse, and went in pursuit. As good luck would have it, he reached Estampes just as the fugitives were about to take their places by the express train. Without any ceremony, he knocked the viscount into a heap in the corner of the waitingroom, and taking his daughter under his arm, dragged her off to an hotel surrounded by an immense crowd.

In a very short time afterwards Esther was married, with apparent good will to her betrothel, who very easily, being a positive man, forgave what he called a youthful escapade. I have never visited the Bauee since; but Madeleine, now also a wife, writes to me that Madame has very rapidly settled down into a bustling, active, shrewish, but rather sluttish farm-house dame, and that when she happens to be in good humour, which is not often, she relates to her husband and others the history of her flirtations and conquests. For my part, as I have already intimated, although no woman-hater, I have been a little shaken in my faith by this adventure; and Emilie sometimes tells me that she perceives the difference between first and second love.

SACRED POETRY OF SCOTLAND. IT is a frequent remark, that all attempt to turn sacred subjects into rhyme has signally failed, and in most instances, almost entirely deprived the words of the poetry every one must feel belongs to the majestic simplicity of Scripture language; but even in the doggrel of Sternhold and Hopkins, we find an old world quaintness and sweetness about some of the lines infinitely preferable to the dull, dry, disagreeable, but more correct metre of Brady and Tate, and still oftener do we meet with pleasing touches in the set of psalms commonly used in the Kirk of Scotland, which are more in the style of the first than the last, for instance, in the 23rd Psalm :

The Lord's my Shepherd! I'll not want:
He makes me down to lie

In pastures green. He leadeth me
The quiet waters by.

How calming to the mind is the little picture here so simply worded!" The quiet waters by." Whereas Brady and Tate render it much after the manner a gifted young lady might do inditing a sonnet upon

summer:

In tender grass he makes me feed,

And gently there repose,

Then leads me to cool shades, and where
Refreshing water flows.

In the paraphrase commonly sung in the Kirk of Scotland, there is so much unpretending beauty, that we are sure those to whom these sacred songs are not familiar, will thank us for directing their attention towards what is so little known on this side

of the Tweed. We select, from many, the following at random :

How still and peaceful is the grave,
Where life's vain tumults past!

Th' appointed house by Heaven decreed,
Receives us all at last.

The wicked there from troubling cease,
Their passions rage no more ;
And there the weary pilgrim rests
From all the toils he bore.

There rest the pris'ners, now releas'd
From slavery's sad abode;

No more they hear th' oppressor's voice,
Nor dread the tyrant's rod.

There servants, masters, small and great,
Partake the same repose;

And there in peace the ashes mix
Of those who once were foes.

All levelled by the hand of Death,
Lie sleeping in the tomb,

Till God in judgment call them forth

To meet their final doom.

The above, which are from Job, chap iii., have been done into poetry often, but never so prettily, so simply, or so easily,- -a proof that ideas are not quite all in all, or how could the same beautiful impressive words be so differently rendered? Logan, known as the composer of the "Ode to the Cuckoo," found in almost all collections of short pieces, was the writer of the greater part of the paraphrases; but those who assisted him are scarcely inferior. Take the following:

Though trouble springs not from the dust,

Nor sorrow from the ground,

Yet ills on ills by Heav'n's decree

In man's estate are found.

As sparks in close succession rise,
So man, the child of woe,

Is doomed to endless cares and toils
Through all his life below.

Ah! may the grave become to me
The bed of peaceful rest;
Whence I shall gladly rise at length,
And mingle with the blest.

We well remember learning, as a punishment, the following from Ecclesiastes, and thinking it "quite nonsense;" as what woes could grown-up people have comparable to ours, who, on a fine summer's day, were kept in the house learning a hymn, when we longed to be playing in the sunshine with the birds and butterflies. Alas! we have, like all who live, learnt their truth :

In life's gay morn, when hopeful youth
With vital ardour glows,

And shines in all the varied charms
Which beauty can disclose,

Deep on thy soul before its powers
Are yet by vice enslaved,

Be thy Creator's glorious name
And character engraved.

It is somewhat strange that at first there was much opposition, when these selections from Scripture were attempted to be introduced; but now every good Presbyterian points with pride to his paraphrases, and contrasts them with the psalms and hymns generally sung in the service of the Church of England.

It is unnecessary to lengthen this article, by adding more quotations, still less further observations, for the specimens here given will no doubt induce many to read the whole fifty-seven paraphrases, which, if bound up with that comparatively little-known poem, "Grahame's Sabbath,' -one of the most truthful descriptive pieces we are acquainted with-lovers of sacred poetry will possess a small volume containing comfort for "many a long and dreary night and many an anxious day."

MARCH OF CIVILIZATION-BACKWARDS? WE have not yet arrived at the period of the Golden Age; no, not quite. We may ask the wolf to lie down with the lamb, but he won't. The Old Adam is still uppermost. Ask Louis Napoleon, or King Bomba, or Kaizer Francis, or Czar Nicholas, or Constitution-promising Frederick, to convert their dragoons' swords into sickies, and their lancers' spears into pruning-hooks, and they will tell you the time has not come yet,-indeed it never will, if they can prevent its coming.

You remember how Commodore Trunnion picked up a gipsy girl on the highway, and sent her by Pipes to Lieutenant Hatchway, to have her cultivated into a polite, genteel young lady; but how the old inbred nature still survived, until on one occasion, at a first-class card party, it fairly broke out, and the young lady," who fancied that foul play was going on, assailed the astonished fashionables of the party in the roughest possible style as a parcel of thieves and vagabonds! In fact, the gipsy nature was still uppermost.

You have possibly seen a parcel of trained dogs deporting themselves after the guise of a set of rational beings, dressed up as barristers, judge, and jury, playing at cards, and doing many wonderful things, when some mischievous rogue has thrown a beef bone amongst them, and instantly their high drill was forgotten, and they were like to worry each other to death for the possession of the beef! In fact, however you may disguise it, the dog-nature will get uppermost.

So, when the nations of Europe are all engaged in the most beautiful international discourse about the blessings of peace and the bond of human brotherhood, a bone of contention is suddenly thrown in among them; and lo, they are all at the old loggerheads again!

Strange, that the year of the Great Exhibition ends by the nations of Europe setting up their backs at each other; that the Great Peace Congress of nations should be followed by an increase in standing armies; -that the first grand result of it should be the adoption of "Colt's Revolver" by the British government, for the destruction of Caffres engaged in the defence of their native Africa! Thus does the old fighting propensity of man again and again come uppermost,

even in the midst of advancing civilization and extending christianity.

What is the prominent topic of discussion in the public papers of England now? The comparatively non-destructive properties of the British Soldier's musket! Our troops are not properly equipped! 'Lights" are found very heavy, and guns won't kill! The muskets want range, and the rounds of cartridge are too few,-only 30 for a whole year's practice,-and only 40 for going into action! Only 33 out of every 300 shots take effect, and "knock over" their object! There is a stain upon our boasted civilization!

Then, as to those great six-foot heavy dragoons, who are converted into "light" by merely changing their jackets from red to blue, and mounting them on Cape ponies, did you ever hear of anything more unchristian? And yet the getting-up of these fellows costs at least £150 a piece, or as much as any National Schoolmaster! The killing of those Caffres at the Cape is costing us at the rate of £1,350,000 per annum; or nine times more than the government is yearly expending in the work of educating the people!

And yet it is not enough! We must have our missionaries at the Cape clothed in grey coats and armed with Colt's Revolvers, else the Caffres may be able to make good their title to their own country yet! This would be horrible. We must kill 'em! We must have the fire of our soldiers made at least as deadly as that of the Tirailleurs of Vincennes, who so cleverly shot down some hundreds of unresisting people along the Paris Boulevards the other day"Louis Napoleon's Shambles," as they have since been called. Nothing but rifles will do! Sir Charles Shaw recommends the carabine-à-tige, by means of which a man can be "knocked over" at three-quarters of a mile off! Think of that! There's a mark of

civilization for you. Here is Sir Charles Shaw's own account of the deadly weapon :

"There are now in the French army a force of 14,000 men armed with this 1846 model rifle -this unerring and murderous weapon, with its cylindro-conique hollow ball. This ball resembles a large acorn, with its point like the top of a Gothic arch (Ogive). It always enters with the point, and if fired at a distance of 1,500 yards, will penetrate two inches into poplar-wood. Until recently I myself was incredulous, but personal acquaintance with one of the earliest and best instructors in the Ecole de Tir, and I having gone over the practice-ground with him, make me feel quite certain of the truth of what I assert. The ground is marked out for the recruits, beginning at 200 yards from the target, and increasing by 100 yards, finishes at 1,150 yards. It is found by calculation that at 328 yards a man has the appearance of one-third his heighth, at 437 yards one-fourth, at 546 one-fifth. By a very simple instrument of the size of a penknife, called a stadia, distances can be measured accurately to 500 yards, and the sights of the rifle can be adjusted to the space indicated by the stadia. At a distance of 765 yards, this rifle would to a certainty knock down a life-guardsman in spite of his cuirass, and a front of 10 men at 1,100 yards. I cannot pretend to give a scientific description of this carabine-à tige and its ammunition. The barrel is about 2 feet 10 inches long. The breech is smooth, with a small piece of steel of cylindrical form screwed into its centre, and on the proper adjustment of this piece of steel (tige) depends the precision of the firing. When the bayonet is fixed, the length is about 6 feet, and its weight about 10lb. The interior of the barrel has four spiral grooves, deeper at the breech than at the mouth. The ball is of lead, of cylindro-conique shape, but hollow towards the thicker end, into which hollow is put a piece of iron (culot) slightly fixed in the ball,

and resting on the powder. When fired, this piece of circular iron (culot) is forced into the interior of the leaden ball, and consequently presses its parts outwards against the sides of the barrel, and produces a more certain aim than if the ball had been forced down with a heavy ramrod and mallet. This rifle can be loaded with the same quickness as the common musket. This hollow ball appears the great improvement. The efficacy of this arm is daily proved in Algeria, and at the late siege of Rome not an artilleryman could stand at his gun, and Garibaldi's officers in scarlet were regularly shot down without seeing or hearing from what quarter the shot came. On the practice-ground, on a very clear calm day, I could see the smoke at a distance of 1,150 yards, but could scarcely hear the report. At the late election of the President of France, on the Boulevards of Paris, one of these new balls entered the forehead of a Socialist Representative the moment he appeared on the barricade with his red flag; in short, disguise it as one may, 500 men so armed are more than a match for any 3,000 men armed with the present British musket."

There now! that is a proper text for our alarmists to preach about. And they have done so. Colt's arms are accordingly sought after, and a cargo has been sent out to the Cape. The man-killing properties of guns,-that is now the great question of the day. We have long been sending Bibles and Missionaries to the Caffres, but now Colt is in the ascendant, and everything else is to give place to his rifles, not the messengers of Life but of Death. Well! "It's a mad world my masters!"

Where the killing mania may break out next, no one can tell. But Europe looks anything but pacific at the present time. Not less than two millions of armed men are waiting to fall on,-men, whose profession and calling is fighting! Such is modern civilization!

Really, the triumph of the peace principles seems very far off. The Olive-branch is hidden by a flight of war-eagles. But the people may grow wiser byand-by; and then their chiefs will not dare to go to war. Possibly, when weapons have reached their maximum of destructive power, men will begin to look upon themselves as a pack of fools to rush upon certain death.

BEAUTY NATURAL TO WOMAN.

With her is associated a separate idea, that of beauty as proper to her-to the fair sex. The Loves and the Graces are felt to reside naturally in a woman's countenance, but to be quite out of place in a man's; his face is bound to he clean, and may be allowed to be picturesque, but it is a woman's business to be beautiful. Beauty of some kind is so much the attribute of the sex, that a woman can hardly be said to feel herself a woman who has not, at one time of her life at all events, felt herself to be fair. Beauty confers an education of its own, and that always a feminine one. Most celebrated beauties have owed their highest charms to the refining education which their native ones have given them. It was the wisdom as well as the poetry of the age of chivalry, that it supposed all women to be beautiful, and treated them as such. A woman is not fully furnished for her part in life whose heart has not occasionally swelled with the sense of possessing some natural abilities in the great art of pleasing, opening to her knowledge secrets of strength, wonderfully intended to balance her muscular, or, if you will, her general weakness. And herein we see how truly this attribute belongs to woman alone; man does not need such a consciousness, and seldom has it without ren

dering himself most extremely ridiculous, while, to a woman, it is one of the chief weapons in her armoury, deprived of which she is comparatively powerless. And it is not nature which thus deprives her; few, and solitary as sad, are the cases when a woman is stamped by nature as an outcast from her people, and such a one is understood not to enter the lists. But it is rather a perverse system of education which starts with the avowed principle of stifling nature. What can be more false or cruel than the common plan of forcing upon a young girl the withering conviction of her own plainness? If this be only a foolish sham to counteract the supposed demoralizing consciousness of beauty, the world will soon counteract that; but if the victim have really but a scanty supply of charms, it will, in addition to incalculable anguish of mind, only diminish those further still. To such a system alone can we ascribe an unhappy anomalous style of young woman, occasionally met with, who seems to have taken on herself the vows of voluntary ugliness,-who neither eats enough to keep her complexion clear, nor smiles enough to set her pleasing muscles in action,-who prides herself on a skinny parsimony of attire, which she calls neatness,thinks that alone respectable which is most unbecoming, is always thin, and seldom well, and passes through the society of the lovely, the graceful, and the happy with the vanity that apes humility on her poor disappointed countenance, as if to say, "Stand back! I am uncomelier than thou.' Let those who are intrusted with the sweet but very discreet office of educating young girls, be careful how they give ear to that sophistry which associates the nurture of vanity with the instinctive hope, belief, consciousness, call it what they will, of beauty. What other consciousness, it may be asked, would they put in its place? Is a young girl more attractive, or less vain, for depending upon any other secret consciousness of pleasing,-for believing, not that she is fair, but that she is accomplished, learned, wealthy, or fashionable? Is the stale exhortation, that she must study to be thought good rather than goodlooking, possible in practice, or rather the most monstrous paradox that she can be puzzled with? No, we may be sure that nature not only intended this feminine consciousness as a support in that age of ineffable self-mi trust, when a girl cannot with true simplicity or modesty believe herself to have any other powers of pleasing, but has also ordained this to be the only belief in her own attractiveness which can be obtained without vanity; for there is no real instinct of feminine charms without an increase rather than diminution of true feminine modesty, and those who endeavour to quench this instinct will find that they have only fostered a much worse kind of vanity, and extinguished that best part of beauty, which is grace.-Quarterly Review, Dec. 1851.

WHAT A WIFE SHOULD BE.

*

Burns, the poet, in one of his letters, sets forth the following as the true qualifications of a good wife :"The scale of good wifeship I divide into ten parts: Good nature, four; Good sense, two; Wit, one; Personal charms, viz., a sweet face, eloquent eyes, fine limbs, graceful carriage (I would add a fine waist, too, but that is soon spoilt, you know), all these, one; as for the other qualities belonging to, or attending on, a wife, such as fortune, connexions, education (I mean education extraordinary), family blood, &c., divide the two remaining degrees among them as you please, only remember, that all these minor proportions must be expressed by fractions, for there is not any one of them in the aforesaid scale entitled to the dignity of an integer."

THE ORIGIN OF DIMPLES.

A FANCY.

ONE morning in the blossoming May

A child was sporting 'mongst the flowers, Till, wearied out with his restless play, He laid him down to dream away

The long and scorching noon-tide hours. At length an Angel's unseen form

Parted the air with a conscious thrill,
And poised itself, like a presence warm,
Above the boy, who was slumbering still.
Never before had so fair a thing
Stayed the swift speed of his shining wing;
And gazing down, with a wonder rare,
On the beautiful face of the dreamer there,
The Angel stooped to kiss the child,
When lo at the touch the baby smiled,—
And just where the unseen lips had prest,
A dimple lay in its sweet unrest,
Sporting upon his cheek of rose

Like a ripple waked from its light repose

On a streamlet's breast when the soft wind blows.
And the Angel passed from the sleeping one,
For his mission to earth that day was done.

A fair face bent above the boy,—

It must have been the boy's own mother,
For never would such pride and joy
Have lit the face of any other.
And while she gazed, the quiet air
Grew tremulous with a whispered prayer;
Anon it ceased, and the boy awoke,
And a smile of love o'er his features broke.
The mother marked, with a holy joy,
The dimpling cheek of her darling boy,
And caught him up, while a warm surprise
Stole like a star to her midnight eyes!

And she whispered low as she gently smiled,
"I know an angel has kissed my child!"

[The above is from a volume of Poems just published in America, by Caroline A. Briggs, which gives promise of better things.]

DANGEROUS GARDENING.

The most deadly plant ever possessed by Kew, the jatropha urens, is no longer to be found there; it has either been killed off like a mad dog, or starved to death in isolation like a leper. Its possession nearly cost one valuable life, that of Mr. Smith, the present respected curator. Some five and twenty years ago, he was reaching over the jatropha, when its fine bristly stings touched his wrist. The first sensation was a numbness and swelling of the lips; the action of the poison was on the heart, circulation was stopped, and Mr. Smith soon fell unconscious, the last thing he remembered being cries of "Run for the doctor." Either the doctor was skilful, or the dose of poison injected not quite, though nearly, enough; but afterwards, the man in whose house it was got it shoved up in a corner, and would not come within arm's length of it: he watered the diabolical plant with a pot having an indefinitely long spout. If the vase itself contained a quid pro quo he is not to be greatly blamed. Another not much less fearful species of jatropha has appeared at Kew, and disappeared. -Quarterly Review, Dec. 1851.

DIAMOND DUST.

HAVE not to do with any man in a passion, for men are not like iron, to be wrought upon when they are hot.

SHIPS and fishes may make their way when steered by the tail; but when we attempt to guide or impel youngsters by a similar process, we only retard or turn them out of the right line.

A LEGACY is the posthumous despatch Affection sends to Gratitude to inform us we have lost a kind friend.

THE man of middle rank believes that the man above him stands one step higher on the social ladder merely to overlook him. This one, however, has his eye less upon the man beneath than upon the back of the one preceding him; and thus it is, up and down. The middle man receives from the higher no other forgetfulness than he again throws upon the one beneath him.

A POOR spirit is poorer than a poor purse; a very few pounds a year would ease a man of the scandal of avarice.

ENVY is fixed only on merit, and, like a sore eye, is offended with everything that is bright.

INFANCY is lovable, notwithstanding fretfulness and the hooping-cough.

ONE doubt solved by yourself will open your mind more, by exercising its powers, than the solution of many by another.

FOND as man is of sight-seeing, Life is the great show for every man,-the show always wonderful and new to the thoughtful.

WISDOM is the olive which springeth from the heart, bloometh on the tongue, and beareth fruit in the actions.

It is characteristic of youth and life, that we first learn to see through the tactics when the campaign is

over.

FOR children there is no leave-taking, for they acknowledge no past, only the present, that to them is full of the future.

OUR achievements and our productions are our intellectual progeny, and he who is engaged in providing that those immortal children of his mind shall inherit fame, is far more nobly occupied than he who is industrious in order that the perishable children of his body should inherit wealth.

CONQUEST is the child of hearts which trust themselves.

MEN are never placed in such extremes but there is a right to guide them.

THE means of improvement consist not in projects, or in any violent designs, for these cool, and cool very soon, but in a patient practising for whole long days.

It is dangerous to take liberties with great men, unless we know them thoroughly; the keeper will hardly put his head into the lion's mouth upon a short acquaintance.

SIN and punishment, like the shadow and the body, are never apart.

SOCIETY, like shaded silk, must be viewed in all situations, or its colours will deceive us.

Printed by Cox (Brothers) & WYMAN, 74-75, Great Queen Street, London; and published by CHARLES COOK, at the Office of the Journal, 3, Raquet Court, Fleet Street.

STIRRING THE FIRE.

BY ELIZA COOK.

THE simple act of stirring the fire has ever appeared to us to be one of those operations in domestic life which everybody has a peculiar and individual conceit about.

It is curious to observe how testy and obstinate people become if interfered with in the process, how they will cavil and dispute as to whether it is best to "rake out the lower bar," or "break up the coals at top;" whether it shall be effected by a pell-mell, "up guards and at 'em" sort of attack, or by steady and skilful manoeuvring. We confess, for our own part, that we are very unfortunate in the affair generally, but then the fact stands thus: being in the habit of abstracting ourselves from external goingson, and mooning over our desk in a sort of dormant existence, we suddenly turn round and see the grate with a body of something in it about as light and cheerful as the face of a stage bandit. We start up in a great hurry, and make three or four rapid thrusts into the very heart of the dying Etna. We perform a desperate piece of duty, and make a convulsive effort often too late-to escape the charge commonly levelled at us, of "sitting and letting the fire out." Somehow we have acquired such a bad name in this department of household stokerism, that if any who have a private knowledge of our character be by when we meditate an essay in this line, the poker is invariably snatched from our hand by some competent volunteer, who looks at us in much the same way that one would at an infant who flourished an open razor with incipient notions of shaving; so, we seldom attempt it now, but having had our own pride completely mortified on the subject, we frequently amuse ourselves by observing the method and manner people generally adopt when stirring a fire, and are quite convinced that each particular party has a particular way, and will advocate that particular way with considerable active demonstration.

It was only the other day that we took tea with some respected members of society, who still retain the old-fashioned style of having the kettle on the hob; and talk as we may about the "bubbling urn and "steaming column," there is something much more cozy and comfortable in hearing the kettle sing

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its quaint Eolian harp sort of tune, and see the brazen spout puffing away whole clouds hard and fast, reminding one of a small boy with a large Havannah. The old gentleman had just finshed his siesta, and the fire had declined considerably, as the servant came in with the kettle, and commenced literally threshing the sulky embers, when up started the mistress, exclaiming against such stupid violence, as being sure to extinguish the domestic planet. She had grasped the poker, and just contemplated an insinuating "putting together," when a young gentlemana "fast nephew"-averred that he could manage it best, and began knocking, raking, and jamming in desperate fashion, as if he were anxious to prove the greatest possible amount of dust and noise attending the operation. The host was entirely aroused thereby, and jumping from his arm chair, pushed the youth beyond the confines of the rug, saying, in not the most placid tone,-"There, get away if you can't do it better than that; this is the way to poke a fire," and forthwith he systematically ministered to the nearly exhausted carbon with scientific devotion, delivering himself meanwhile of numerous causes and effects as to the "draught being admitted here," and that "coal placed up there," while an old lady relative whispered contemptuously in our ear-" Not one of them know anything about poking a fire, they'll only put it out," and sure enough, despite the grand knowledge of chemistry and mechanics employed by the last stoker, the fire did go out, while we sat demurely "sniggering" at the scene; but we believe it is the same wherever there are fires to stir,-a wilful conceit belongs to many sound-headed people on this point, -and we have known a gentleman fling down Paley in order to attest his being more competent to stir the fire than his amiable better half, and we have seen a doting grandmother put her most tiresome, and consequently most petted grandchild on the floor, while she taught a new domestic how to stir a fire, and we are ready to hold strong odds, that if a dozen people are seated within sight of the fire, when one of the party essays to stir it, that the other eleven will each hold a powerful private opinion that he or she could do it much better; and to such a height does this private opinion sometimes rise, that a word or two of public expression will ooze out in the shape of a practical hint or oblique reproof, whereon the