Since the days when the last Doges of Venice, be- | with no assigned course in the general system of the firmfore the French conquest of Italy, wooed the Adri- ament; a great spirit incessantly passing and repassing atic in the gilded Bucentaurs, there has been no such from the regions of light to those of clouds, and catching galley afloat; and it contrasts with the monster ribs at every step a glimpse of truth without being arrested by and iron plates of La Normandie, as the effete civili-it; a noble heart, open to all generous sympathies, but zation which went before the whirlwind of 1789 still governed by personal prepossessions." contrasts with the dash and energy of ours.

WE have alluded to the Count de Montalembert: THE reminiscences of Guizot progress-an old he has latterly occupied himself with the Polish galley of a statesman that lies beached while the question; he has taken a summer jaunt into Poland; armor-clad ships are slipping into action. But in he has written eloquently-never writing otherwise retirement and in quiet-with only such arena for in defense of Polish liberties. That the royalist the declaration of his calm, philosophic judgment, and the Romist should argue for revolution in supas the sombre hall of the Academy gives, or his port of a people's liberties, is explained by the fact nervous, trenchant pen, he has yet, more than any that Poland is Papist and Russia schismatic. His cast-away statesman of the recent revolutions, sus- new thirst for freedom is a thirst only for the waters tained his dignity and his self-poise. of Rome. Both Pope and Poland will languish in spite of his rhetoric

CROSSING the English Channel we find the public attention particularly and warmly exercised by two recent railway accidents, the results in each instance of undoubted carelessness, which in proportions and fatality approach nearly the level of American catastrophes. The first was upon the Brighton road, upon which a crowded excursion train, while in a tunnel, was run down and run over by a regular parliamentary train. The second occurred in the immediate vicinity of London, where an excursion train ran into a ballast train which was crossing the track. The killed by both accidents count up nearly two score, and the wounded twice as many more. The legal risks of railway companies in England are not well defined, and the extent and nature of those risks form the subject of many of the London

Thiers has coquetted adroitly with the souvenirs of the first empire: Victor Hugo (if he may be called statesman) has wearied and worried himself by irritating thrusts at a dynasty that forgets him: Louis Blanc, in the fogs of London, has chased the old visions that allure him into a realm of the vague and unreal: Dupin has bartered his former status and his wealth of judicial fame against place and perquisites: Montalembert has now assailed and now bepraised the Imperial action-has given adulation to England and then abuse-constant only in one thing, an insane admiration for the traditional pomp and prerogatives of the Romish Church: Lamartine forfeits over and over the respect we all once bore to him-we all wished to bear. Guizot himself, in the very memoirs which have prompted this mention, tells the sad truth of him. It is one Academician who speaks of another-one fallen statesman who speaks of another that has fallen-one old man tot-leaders. tering to his grave who speaks of another old man whose years are almost full:

"I can not encounter the name of M. de Lamartine in my reminiscences, or himself in our streets, without an

The failing cotton supply, and the falling off of exports to America, are, very naturally, the grand topics of discussion. And the eagerness and insist

ence shown in their discussion evince a fermentation

impression of profound melancholy. No man ever received of public feeling, and a poorly concealed dread of apfrom God more valuable gifts-gifts of person and position, proaching trouble, that has not for many years been of intellectual power and social elevation. Neither have known in England. Your own journals will give favorable circumstances been withheld from him, in addi- surfeit of paragraphs to show the tone of the Brittion to these original advantages; every chance, as well ish press on these questions. With only very few as every means of success, have attended his steps. He and remarkable exceptions, English papers look upon grappled them with ardor; for a moment he played a lofty the civil war in America as decisive of the permapart in a lofty drama; he reached the end of the highest nent disruption of our country. "We perceive," ambition, and enjoyed its most consummate glories. Where say nine British observers out of ten, "that the force, is he now? I speak not of the reverses of his public career, distinction, and excellence of your government lies nor of the trials of his private life. In our days who has in the fact that it is a government of the people; but not fallen? Who has not experienced the blows of fate, we also see that the exigencies and animosities of the anguish of the soul, the inflictions of fortune? Labor, disappointment, sacrifice, and suffering have held in all war are fast making two peoples of the one. We can understand how one may conquer the other, postimes, and will continue to hold, their place and portion in the destiny of man-with the exalted more than with the sess its forts, destroy its offensive power, but we can humble. What surprises and saddens me is that M. de not perceive how it will ever reconquer that loyalty Lamartine should be astonished or irritated at this. It is to the constitution which is essential to good citizennot alone the pain of his position, but the state of his feel-ship, whether South or North. We can not perceive ings such as he has revealed them to us, which I can not contemplate without melancholy. How can a spectator who looks on events from such a height be so intensely moved by the accidents which affect himself? How can such a sagacious appreciator of other men be possessed of so little self-knowledge? How does he abandon himself to so much bitterness after such extensive enjoyment of the favors of Heaven and of the world? In that richly-en

dowed nature there must be great blanks and a want of controlling harmony to cause its fall into such internal trouble and its manifestation with so much vehemence. I

how voluntary assent to any Federal compact (which every election supposes and demands) can be accomplished by the most vigorous and complete reassertion of all the powers of the Federal Constitution. If you say you care not for assent or dissent if only the outraged National authority is made good, you say virtually that you will hold as a dependent province what you can not hold as a sister State."

THE British Association of Science is just now have seen too little of M. de Lamartine to know and un-holding its sittings, and the opening address of Mr. derstand him thoroughly: he seemed to me like a beautiful tree covered with flowers, without fruit that ripens or roots that hold; a brilliant meteor without fixed place, and

Fairbairn, if very long, has been specially interesting. We notice that in his summing up of the recent conquests of steam-power he affirms that the

steam-plow is yet to effect an entire revolution in is so with poetry and all other follies of the sort. agriculture. In support of this view, we remark | Nat Lee was thought to be a crazy poet, and one

that a recent carefully-conducted series of practical experiments by a Scotch farmer demonstrate the large economy of plowing by steam-power on a farm of less than two hundred acres.

Mr. Fairbairn, in allusion to the new uses of iron, expresses the confident belief that the day of old wooden war-ships is utterly gone by, and that the plated vessels of England and France will inevitably 'rule the seas. He praises largely the engineering skill which has brought the waters of Loch Katrine into the streets of Glasgow; and trusts that at an early day the streams of Wales will be brought across the whole breadth of England and poured through the streets of London.

An experimental conduit, upon the atmospheric principle, for the dispatch of papers and parcels, has been established from Battersea to the Victoria Road station. The conducting tubes are of iron, two feet nine inches in height, and of a transverse diameter of two feet six inches. The joints are hermetically sealed with lead. Within are two rails for the miniature wagon which serves as vehicle of transportation. An exhausting pump is in position at either end; the length of tubing being at present one-fourth of a mile. The result shows a speed of about twenty-five feet in a second, and the projectors promise ultimately transmission of dispatches at the rate of a mile a minute.

day Dick Hoffman said to him, "Nat, is it not mighty easy to write like a madman, as you do?" "No," said Lee; "but it must be very easy to write like a fool, as you do."

Who said the good thing first? would be a curious question to pursue with reference to half the standing jests on record. And even Joseph Miller, or Josephus Molitor, would be shorn of half his laurels if the jokes were all traced home to their legitimate parents. The other day a man was telling of the hard times in Philadelphia, and said that they have good workmen there who would get up the inside of a watch for three dollars. "Why, that's nothing," said his friend; "there are plenty of boys who will get up the inside of a chimney for a quarter." And that is as old as the hills.

Now this one, and soon we will have another old story worked up to be as good as new:

It was during the last Presidential campaign that the little incident we are about to relate transpired. Mr. Downy, a merchant of Falstaff proportions in a little country village, espoused warmly the cause of the Republican candidate for Presidential honors, and his store was the rendezvous of a large number of his townsmen of the same faith and order. Downy prided himself no little on saying harder, sharper, wittier things than any one else in the vicinity, and it was very seldom any one could be THE death of Mr. Atkinson, the famous Siberian found daring and fool-hardy enough to break lances traveler, is announced, at the age of sixty-two. He with him. One day, however, as Mr. Downy sat was of very humble origin, and for a time in his early upon the counter picking his teeth, as was his wont life followed the pursuit of an ordinary stone-mason. when not otherwise engaged, surrounded by his adHe discovered soon a taste for architecture, and Man-mirers, and longing for a victim to handle, in comes chester is indebted to him for the initiative in that architectural taste which has come to distinguish the town. He lived to tell the world more of Chinese Tartary and the surrounding regions than had been communicated since the days of the old Venetian travelers. A daughter of the deceased, Miss Emma Atkinson, is not unknown in the literary world.

Editor's Drawer.

Patrick M'Dougal, a ruddy son of Erin, and a most devoted adherent to another political party. The opportunity was too good to be lost, and forthwith the merchant began the attack, winking slyly to his devoted followers to look on and see the fun.

"Pat," said he, "how fares it with the 'Little Giant,' eh?"

"Little' was ye afther sayin'?" quoth Pat, flushing up suspiciously.

Why, yes, little, to be sure. Why, Pat"-and Downy winked knowingly to his friends-"I could

BOSWELL is supposed to have gathered up and pick up your pet candidate and swallow him at a

embalmed all the good things which his hero said, but he has not recorded the fact that one evening Goldsmith told a story which set the company in a roar, and when the truth of it was challenged by some incredulous dog in the party, Goldsmith turned imploringly upon Dr. Johnson, and said,

"Doctor, you can attest the truth of that story." "Oh yes," said the surly old bear; "I know that to be true-I made it myself!”

The truth of many a good story has the same indisputable claim to the belief of mankind, if we could only, as in this case, get back to the original, and find the author who is willing to take the paternity of his own offspring. But if the authors will not own up, somebody ought to help the easy, good-natured public to the names of the men who place them under such obligations. A boy in Birmingham, England, being asked whether some shillings which he was passing were good, answered, with great simplicity, "Ay, that they be, for I seed father make 'em all this morning!" The making of jokes, like the making of shillings, is too common a trade, and the laws should be rigidly enforced against all manufacturers. Jokes are born, not made.

It

mouthful."

Pat stood for a moment eying his obese friend, perfectly aghast; then he replied, with a low chuckle,

"Fath, and mesilf 'll not be fer disputin' the likes of ye; but if ye did, ye'd be afther havin' a dale sight more brains in yer stomach than ye iver had in yer head!"

Downy changed the subject.

A KIND correspondent sends the following to the Drawer, but it has been better told and printed a score of times. Bishop Hughes made the best version of it at the New England Society Dinner:

"There resided in our vicinity some years since a family by the name of Titus, who were not especially favored with powerful intellects, and who were particularly predisposed to imbibing whenever opportunity presented. One of the sons, a great stalwart youth of some twenty summers, was sent one day with an ox-team to one of our iron foundries for a load of pig-iron. On his return having, as usual, become quite oblivious on account of his too frequent potions, he deliberately lay down in the bot

"Some fifteen years ago come Christmas a few Irish boys hired horses from a livery-stable in the town of G and determined to have a good time generally. One of the horses never recovered from the effects of the ride, and the liveryman sued the rider for the value of him. The lawyer for the plaintiff was an ex-judge. He was a good lawyer, but fond of his toddy. He was trying to prove by one of the witnesses that all hands were drunk, and commenced by asking him,

666

Where did you stop first after leaving the livery-stable?"

"We stopped at Michael N-'s.'

"Did you take a horn there?' asked the judge. "'Yes.'

"Where did you stop next?'

"At the

Gardens?'

"Where did you stop next?'

At the Four-Mile House.' "Did you take a horn there?'

"By this time the witness began to smell a rat. 'Horn!' says he; 'I want to know what has a horn got to do with this case. I suppose because you are a drinking kind of a fellow yourself you think that every other body is drunk.'

"You ought to have heard the explosion which shook the court-room. The ex-judge did not ask the witness any more questions."

THE FIRST RECORD OF CORPORAL PUNISHMENT.

But you

MY DEAR EDITOR,-I will with pleasure write out that little play upon words about "the first record of corporal punishment," which, by-the-way, was not original with me. I do not think it is worth printing; few such things are. must judge: it will not take more than five lines. All its point lies in the fact that a couple of Hebrew proper names sound exactly like common English words, though spelled quite differently.

This frequent want of agreement between the spelling and pronunciation of English words must be a great puzzle to foreigners in reading English poetry. I know a poet who insists that no rhyme is allowable that does not, as he says, "rhyme to the eye as well as to the ear." This is hypercriticism. Miss Martineau has written a poem called "Rhymes by a Deaf Person," which are funny just because she makes the most dissimilar syllables rhyme merely because they are spelled alike. Thus through and cough are supposed to rhyme. But this is wandering from the subject of Hebrew names.

thesis, put in half a dozen lines about him. He was, and I trust is-for I have not heard him for some years-a most brilliant lecturer as well as preacher. He was clever before a miscellaneous audience; but was in his glory when lecturing to a class of students. Between him and his audience there was enough of personal acquaintance to put them en rapport with each other. He would then let his mind "break loose." If I have space in this note I will tell you a good thing said by the late Professor Bush about Dr. Cox's mind "breaking loose." But I must first finish what I had in mind about the Doctor.

On the platform he had a most imposing presence. Those who have only seen him in the pulpit, where all but head and bust are cut off by desk and cushion, can form no idea of his grand appearance upon an open stage. He stood more firmly than any man I ever saw. He seemed to have grown upon the platform. In looking upon him I always thought of a sturdy oak. I saw the other day in your Magazine a capital account of a reading by Charles Dickens. I was specially struck by the description of the way in which Mr. Dickens enjoyed his own good things. Dr. Cox is almost the only public speaker in whom I have observed this trait. When he had said a good thing, bis whole face would be aglow with delight-not with vanity, but with the good honest pleasure which he would have felt at hearing it from any one else. Why indeed should it not? Should not a man take pleasure in his own children as well as in those of his neighbors? But I must cut short my own reminiscences of the Doctor, or I shall not have room for Professor Bush's mot, which, short as it is, is worth a dozen pages of mine, as a picture of the man.

But I must mention one feature of the Doctor's mind before I close. He had a wonderful memory, which perhaps had much to do with the discursive character of his discourses. In the midst of a lecture some anecdote or illustration would suggest itself; that would suggest another, and so on, until his hour was up. This discursiveness was not so common in his pulpit as in his platform discourses, but even in the pulpit I have heard him announce at the beginning the heads of his discourse down to "seventhly." But in the midst of “firstly," some fresh thought would strike him, which he would follow up, without ever getting back even as far as the "secondly" of his original skeleton.

But in his lectures to the students he gave himself free scope. We never had the least idea when the subject was announced what he would—or, rather, what he would not speak about. Only, of one thing we were sure. He would be certain to give a blow at "Puseyism" before he closed. Thus, in one of his lectures on History he had spoken of In Xerxes crossing the Bosporus. 'Bosporus, gentlemen, not Bosphorus-bos, an ox, and porus, a ford: water over which an ox can swim-exactly like the English Ox-ford: Oxford, where they teach that—” And then came the onslaught upon tractarian theology. Again, he was speaking of the victory of Charles Martel over the Saracens at Tours, which checked the wave of Moslem conquest in Europe. "Had the Saracens been victorious there, perhaps, as Gibbon says, 'the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet'-and they might as well do that," interjected the lecturer, "as teach, what they now do, that—"

Speaking of Hebrew names, I wish instead of the conundrum (for really it is nothing more) which I am about to write out, that I could call to mind something infinitely better which my old theological teacher, Dr. S. H. Cox, used to tell his classes. Hebrew, you know, all proper names have a significance, as I believe they originally had in all languages; and it would be a curious subject to trace our names through various languages back to their original significance. The Doctor would write down the names of the patriarchs, up to Noah or Abraham, I forget which, in the order of their birth. These make a perfect sentence, which, when literally translated by him, embodied all the cardinal doctrines of Calvinistic theology. I do not know whether this was original with him or not; but it is very curious, and if I can turn it up in some of my old note-books, I will send it to you.

Speaking of Dr. Cox, I must, by way of paren

And then did not Dr. Pusey and his followers | it is "made, not found." I do not believe any body "catch it!" ever got such an advantage over the Doctor.

It was this very discursiveness which made the Doctor one of the most charming talkers to whom I ever listened. No matter what was the matter on the tapis, it always suggested to him some apposite anecdote. No matter how good a story was told, he could always "cap" it with a better one. It was, I suppose, in reference to his brilliant conversation that Professor Bush "got off" the mot to which I referred, and which I will now give you. It was said at a social meeting of clergymen-one of those "Monday meetings" where they relax from the severe professional labors of the week, and recruit for new efforts. Indeed, if any work wears upon the mental powers it must be that of a clergyman who has to prepare his two sermons weekly. I remember hearing Dr. Erskine Mason, who I think was the most massive-minded of all the clergymen I have ever known, say that when he had finished one of his profound and elaborate discourses, it seemed to him as though he could never prepare another sermon. He had told all he knew-had, as it were, "emptied

himself." I think Charlotte Brontë said much the same thing after she had written “Jane Eyre" and "Shirley.' But somehow, in Dr. Mason's case, when next Sunday came, two more profound discourses were ready, and his hearers, at all events, saw no signs of the exhaustion of which he spoke. I imagine that the mental recuperation necessary was in a great measure supplied by these "ministers' meetings." At all events, if any man has found more brilliant talk and ready repartee in any society than at a social meeting of our gravest divines, his experience differs from mine.

In this conversational "fencing" Dr. Cox was the most dextrous of all. He was never at a loss-never to be caught at disadvantage. This makes me doubt the truth of the capital story which has been told about him, and which, I think, has appeared in print. It ran something in this wise: He was once riding homeward to "Rus-Urban" when his carriage came in contact with the vehicle of a carman, who, if the story is true, must have been a wit of the first order.

"My good man" began the Doctor, apologetically.

"G-dd-n!" exclaimed the carman, in apparent horror, "don't say that. Don't swear so. I hate to hear it. There's no great harm done; we'll be loose in a minute. There's no need of swearing."

"Swear! I swear!" exclaimed the Doctor. "There, now, don't do that; what's the use of swearing? Keep your temper. I didn't mean to run against you."

Well, now to come to Professor Bush's mot about Dr. Cox.

But I have actually got to the bottom of my last sheet of paper, and not another scrap in the house. I must send to town for more. When it comes I will write out what Professor Bush said, and add the conundrum for which you asked me. Yours ever,

THE THREE SKATERS.

A PARODY ON KINGSLEY'S "THREE FISHERS."

THREE skaters went up to the Central Park,
To the Central Park when the moon was high;
Each felt as gay as the singing lark,
Each thought of his girl with a heavy sigh:
For gents must skate when the ice is strong,
Though oft they take the maidens along
To the Central Park, so far from the city.
Three maidens sat in a parlor together,
And sung and played when the moon was high;

Anon and anon they looked at the weather,

At the dark clouds drifting across the sky:

For though gents skate the wind oft blows,
As it did that night, and a storm arose
That drove the skaters back to the city.

H.

Three overcoats hang on a rack in the hall,
And each gent is happy as any young spark;
While the maidens are laughing and hugging them all,

The skaters that early came back from the Park:

For gents may skate, and maidens may wait, But that night the girls blessed fortune and fate, And the storm that drove their beaux to the city.

"PLEATH, dear mamma, why does Mrs. Webster call Ruthy alwayth 'honey,' and me sometimes too?" "Because Ruthy is a sweet little girl, and so are you, and 'honey' is sweet."

"Well, mamma, if she calls Ruthy honey, thenthen-then-she ought to call me molasses!"

A VENERABLE clergyman sends us a couple of old New England anecdotes:

"In the early settlement of Northern Vermont Sabbath privileges were rare and precious to the sparsely-settled people, and from far and near they gathered, when from farm to farm the notice sped of preaching at such time and place. Once a good man of the Free-Will-Baptist order sent word to the people of C that on a certain day he would be there and preach. A place was sought for in which to hold the meeting; but none desirable was found save a large barn, which was offered and arranged for the occasion. The day and hour came, and the, for those times, large congregation were assembled By this time a crowd had gathered, and the wag- and quietly seated in the main floor. The services gish carman kept on, never giving the Doctor a commenced, and all went decorously on till, in the chance to say more than three words. "Don't long prayer,' some mischievous boys, who could not swear so don't. It makes me feel bad to hear you. resist the temptation to climb, had reached the 'great I don't profess to be a very good man myself, but I beams' overhead, and were amusing themselves by don't swear that way. I'm only a common man; pelting one another with whatever they could reach, but you-why, such a venerable-looking man I nev- occasionally hitting here and there among the coner saw. You might, from your looks, be a clergy-gregation seated below. Suddenly the minister man, or maybe a Doctor of Divinity; and to hear you a cussin' and swearing hurts my feelings. There, we're loose now, good-by! Don't swear any more about it." And, so goes the story, he drove off amidst the shouts of the crowd, every one of whom by this time recognized the well-known features of the Doctor, and appreciated the point of the carman's joke.

But, as I said, I do not believe this story. I think

opened his eyes and, without any rest or the least change of tone from that of prayer- May the Lord bless the good people!'—he went on, 'Boys, be still, throwing down chips, and sticks, and little pieces of ba-a-rks!'—and then again came the prayer, as though there had been no interruption. It was too much for the risibilities of the people, and their devotions were somewhat disturbed. Several times have I had the pleasure of listening to the discourses