the year four hundred; and beside it, sculptured on his tomb, with hands folded on his breast, and legs crossed, is CLOVIS, the great King of France of the fifth century. His bones were in the stone coffin below; but in the time of the revolution, were, with those of the other kings, thrown into a ditch immediately outside the church. They have since been collected, and are deposited now within one of the crypts. One experiences a strange feeling of sorrow, in standing by the ashes of the kings who have lived a thousand years ago; and who once trod within these walls as we now tread them, and who adorned this old and venerable church, which they knew was to be the burial-place for them and their successors.

Here rests

I shall forever retain a vivid recollection of my first visit to St. Dennis. The sun was shining brightly, and the thousand rainbow hues from its stained glass windows came streaming through; painting the rich crimson and purple colours, with the same beauty that six hundred years ago filled the eye of the beholder. the body of Louis XVIII.; to the left, below the heavy architectural window of a former age, composed of the purest white marble, and of a chisseling and delicacy that one would think ivory alone could take, is the tomb of Francis the First. You will admire the history of his battles, in their representations cut around the cornice in the marble, and the beautiful proportion and whiteness of the pillars supporting the arched stone. You will scarcely think that all this is two hundred years old; and lightly and with reverence will you step up, where, on a marble couch, is the naked and wasted figure of the dead warrior. He is represented as on his death bed:

'Ere yet Decay's effacing fingers

Had swept the lines where beauty lingers.'

A repose rests on those features, that in all likelihood they never knew in life. Disease and age have worn down the body; yet, in the stern and finely chiselled forehead, nose, and lips, you can trace the remnants of the subtle and wise warrior; and in the development of the muscles of the arm and chest, the sculptor has well represented the physical strength of him whose lance was more dreaded than that of any kuight of his time. In the features may be discerned a strict resemblance to the original portrait in the Louvre; although the one is represented in full and jovial health, and the other with the pall at hand for the burial; the eyes closed, and the head and lower jaw fallen back, as if the King had at that moment ceased to live. Opposite, on her sculptured couch, lies CATHARINE DE MEDICI. You imagine a breath would disperse the light fleecy drapery thrown over, but not concealing, her form. This veil has been as much admired as any effort of modern sculpture in Europe. You almost press forward, to be fully assured that your eyes have not deceived you, in imagining that stone has been spread out so like the folds of a mantle covering only to betray the figure of her who sleeps beneath. I struck with my cane the stone coffin of CHARLEMAGNE, till it rang, and echoed again and again through the vaulted cloister; and I stood above the marble slab under which are Louis XVI. and MARIA ANTOINETTE. ... The church of St. Geneviève, or St. Etienne

du Mont, as it is often called, was built about the year 1000, though many additions and improvements have since been made. Its architecture is of a kind which almost defies description, and its walls are covered with devices of art as curious and as dissimilar. Nothing can be more picturesque than the square, bold, tower, of the fifteenth century, springing up at one of the turrets, by the main entrance. Its construction is exceedingly aerial and grotesque; and from the want of a similar one on the opposite side, has a most original and not unpleasant effect. I have heard it compared to a grenadier at his post, with his musket springing up lightly into the air by his side; and indeed, the tower bears about the same proportion to the building, as the musket to the soldier. The architecture of the interior of the windows and of the buttresses is of the kind seen so often in many of the French churches, built between the ninth and fifteenth centuries: each improvement in the edifice, which has taken place since its foundation, corresponds with the style of architecture in fashion at that era.

I passed slowly around the altar, and came at last to the spot where sleep in holy peace the remains of Sainte Geneviève. A stone coffin, plain and unadorned, contains the holy relics. They are venerated by the religious of Paris, as the ashes of their guardian saint. Not an hour passes, but many a taper, placed burning on her tomb, by poor and unknown hands, expresses the mysterious devotion of her worshippers. A rough stone slab, inserted in a pillar beside it, tells the visiter, in characters nearly obliterated by time, that she does not cease to watch over and protect her holy city; that twice she has saved it from destruction; and that even now she ceases not to intercede for it with her prayers. She died in the year 512, and was buried in the church which formerly was on the site of the Pantheon. When that was torn down, to make way for its sumptuous successor, the remains were removed to their present situation.

Many lights, placed as bright offerings to the saint, were burning on the spikes from the rude iron railing around the coffin; and the persons standing near, had the solemn air of those who feel they are within hallowed enclosures. The spot was worthy of the remains; for it was dimly lighted in the remote corner in which it was placed; the window, high up, throwing the light rather over than upon it, and giving a becoming shade to objects so revered. I paused for a long time, looking at the persons who ever and anon came up with their pittance for a taper; laying it down in silence on the table, where they were sold; taking up the light, and placing it with reverence on the tomb; and then after a few minutes' pause, retiring backward; crossing themselves the while, and bowing as they went away. This was continued during all the time of my stay. Among the number, I saw but one man place his taper on the tomb; yet I count it an honor to woman, that even in religious zeal she is ever the foremost conscious that all of life is placed on that die, she makes a passion of her very religion, and unwaveringly goes onward to the end.' Leaving the old church, you drop a few sous into the laps of the poor women, old and decrepid, who are seated at the door; and the fervent tone of the Merci, bien Monsieur,' will gratify your heart, as the pittance will theirs.

H,

Will furnish proof, not vain, that Art,
To grace this scene, hath done her part.*
And when the rose and violet bloom,
And breathe their sighs of sweetness here,
And humble grave and marble tomb,
Deck'd with their funeral wreaths, appear;
When cypress tree or willow green,

(Types of the unforgetting soul,)
Throw a soft shadow on the scene,
To tinge and harmonize the whole;
Well may we deem no garden e'er
Beneath the summer sky was spread [here
With charms more rare than those which
Shall grace the Garden of the Dead!

The dead! and who and what are they?
Hearts that throbbed but yesterday;
Hearts who to-day know joy or sorrow,
Perchance will be the dead to-morrow!
October 3, 1840.

To each in turn there comes a breath,
A whisper, from the voice of Death;
It falls on heedless childhood's ear,

And heedless childhood must obey;
It speaks to age, and age must hear,

Mount the pale courser, and away!

Full soon life's pilgrimage is o'er :
Full soon we tread the silent shore,
Which all must tread in turn;
Oh, let us hope that those we leave
Behind us here, awhile may grieve

O'er buried Friendship's urn!
Think of the dead; and when the spring,
With all its birds upon the wing,'

And all its flowers, appears -
In silence to our tombs repair,
And bring their choicest garlands there,
And bathe the turf with tears!

J. K. A.

HOW TO COOK

A BLACK-FISH.

BY JOHN WATERS.

PART FIRST.

COURTEOUS and gentle Reader, before the retina of whose philosophic vision this correctly printed page of our favorite journal now presents itself, didst thou ever partake of a thoroughly well-dressed black fish? I anticipate thine unhesitating, but perhaps incautious, answer: Certainly, most certainly.' Then let me tell thee, that at the moment when thy fork was flourished for the first time over the happy plate, in the centre of which lay that delicious portion, the star of thy destiny was in the ascendant, and that the day itself should henceforth be to thee an alba dies in the history of sublunary enjoyment!

'at

To live with fame

The gods allow to many; but to dine

Upen a well cook'd black fish is a blessing,

Jove, among the choicest of his boons, reserves,
Which but on few his sparing hand bestows!'

My lamented friend, the late Alderman B

once observed to me, that although the market abounded in them, his youth was gone before he knew what that fish was!' I was staying,' said he, on Long-Island, at a farm house, surrounded by a shady orchard, with the barn-yard within a few steps, so that you could always hear from the hen herself the right time to get a fresh egg. We had got down from town in the afternoon, had had a charming ride, the weather warm, but not uncomfortable; the night fine; my room was on the lower floor, with the window a little up, and we all breathing blossoms! Should you not have thought I could have slept soundly? Sir, there was a cock in the barn! - a pretty bird, but a wonderful noisy one. If he had cried fire! I suppose I should have slept on; but making such an unaccountable noise, such as I was no

* Ir is to the taste and skill of Major DOUGLAS, the most accomplished of engineers, that Greenwood owes this beautiful adaptation of road and paths to its undulating grounds.

wise used to in the night, I was forced to get up; and so we got the people up, and I took an uncommon early breakfast. I did not, upon the whole, regret it, when I was seated upon the stoop with my segar, and the morning breaking beautifully all around, with a slight movement upon the surf as if there had been a wind in the offing, and the smoke rising up by the side of some dark rocks upon the curve of the shore in the distance. The farmer said that the fishermen were preparing their breakfast; and as I had finished my segar, and wanted a walk, I thought I would go down and see what sort of fare they were making it of. It was a pretty long pull, so that they had nearly finished before I arrived. They asked me if I had come to breakfast? They were in a nook of the rocks, with nothing but a few coals of fire, a square bit of board, a small tool-box, a paper of salt, a roll of fresh butter, a biscuit or two, a pepper-castor, and a basket of blackfish; but they were so pleasant that I hated to say no, and so I said yes. The head man-they were all three nice, young, handsome fellows, I wish they had all three been my sons, and I could not help telling them so at the time the head man chose a fish out of the basket; it had an eye like a seal, and a skin as black as a wolf's throat; rich pouting lips, and almost as thick down at the lower dorsal fin as he was across the shoulders; it was a pleasure to look at him as he lay quite satisfied like in the hands of a man that knew how to take hold of him; he breathed a breath or two, and each time such gills! If ever you have seen a pomegranate in your life opened in the heart, you know the true color of the gills of a first rate black-fish.

The skipper laid him upon the board as if he had been helping himself to jelly, so balanced and quiet was his one hand, while with the other he took up his knife. There's a natural division in the middle of the upper jaw of a black fish, just broad enough for a sharp knife to enter; he touched him there with the edge, and before you could say Jack Robinson, the fish was cut down the back to the flapper of the tail, the board turned over, and he opened, tacked and toasting, inside outward, before the coals. As soon as he was done, the fisherman took a small piece of the yellow fresh butter and spread it over the fish, threw a cast of black pepper over him, and 'your fish is ready,' said he.

Some salt,' said I.

Yes, but eat your salt always in crystals, and put it on the last thing, otherwise it is salt-water, and not salt that you take into your mouth; remember that all your life.'

'Well, Alderman, did you eat the fish?'

"The fish! I scooped two of them out of their jackets, and I have been growing fat from that day.'

But is this the way to cook a black-fish? Gentle reader, it is not; it is a way, but it is not THE way. Then what is the meaning of all this cock and bull story about a barn and an alderman? It is merely to introduce you to the fish, which I propose to teach you how to cook.

PART SECOND.

I HAVE endeavored to impart to the aspirant after culinary happiness some idea of the more striking and ostensible characteristics of