will take a page as a specimen. It is apropos of the fragrant rocket or dames-violet, which, in French, has the prettier name of julienne.

"Here is the white julienne with its long sprays of flowers: you must stoop to enjoy its perfume; at night only does it exhale its fragrance afar. This was one of the favourite flowers of the unfortunate Queen Marie Antoinette. She was shut up in the worst room of the Conciergerie, a damp room that smelt badly. There, in the same chamber, a gendarme, separated from her only by a screen, quitted her neither by day nor by night. The queen's sole garments were an old black gown, and a pair of stockings which she mended herself-remaining with bare feet the while. I know not whether I should have loved Marie Antoinette, but who could help adoring so much misery and misfortune! A womanher name is less known than it deserves to be-devised a joy and a luxury for her whom it was forbidden to name otherwise than as widow Capet. Madame Richard, portress of the prison, daily brought her nosegays of the flowers she loved: pinks, juliennes, tuberoses, thus changing into perfume the putrid miasms of the prison-house. Thus the poor queen had something to gaze at, other than the damp walls of her dungeon. Madame Richard was denounced, arrested and put in prison; but they dared not persecute her further for her pious transgression,-and they set her at liberty.

เ

"Subsequently, Danton, in his dungeon, exclaimed, Ah! if I could but see a tree !'

"The julienne remains Marie Antoinette's flower; to the two others still older souvenirs were already attached; the great Condé, a prisoner at Vincennes, cultivated pinks. The scent of the tuberose was formerly believed to be mortal to women in childbed. Mademoiselle de la Vallière, still a maid of honour, found herself in that predicament; upon the morrow the queen, who had her suspicions, would pass through her apartment, where she had pretended an indisposition in order to remain. She had her bed-chamber filled with tuberoses."

We laugh at some of his letters,

at others we could almost cry, and a third class we are apt to treat contemptuously, as trivial and nonsensical, until it occurs to us to ask ourselves if we have not sometimes read much greater nonsense under a far duller form. Read letter xxiii. on board a Swiss steamboat, and say if it does not, although no imitation, smack of the quaint tenderness and graceful fancy of Lawrence Sterne. See, two chapters later, how many interesting things are suggested to the author by an old wall, and how well he says them; and read-without a smile, if you can—the quiet satire of letter xxxiv. It is very shortonly a few pithy lines-and we will translate it.

"There is something haunts me of late. I have spoken to you of the house,covered with moss-grown thatch, and crowned with flowering iris, that one discovers from a particular part of my garden. For several days it remained constantly closed. I asked my servant if the woodcutter no longer dwelt there.

"No, sir, he has left these two months. He has grown rich; he has inherited six hundred francs a-year; he is gone to live in the town.'

"He has grown rich!

"That is to say, that with his six hundred francs a-year he has gone to live in a little room without air and without sun, whence he can see neither sky, nor trees, nor grass; where he breathes a nauseous atmosphere, and where his best and only prospect is a dirty yellow paper, embellished with chocolate-coloured arabesques.

"He has grown rich! That is to say, he has been obliged to get rid of his dog, which he had had so long, because it annoyed the other lodgers in the house.

"He lives in a sort of square box; he has people on his right and on his left, above and below him.

"He has left his pretty cottage, and his beautiful trees, and his rich carpets of green herbage, and the song of the birds, and the scent of the oaks.

"He has grown rich! Poor man!

To us, who have almost as great a foible for flowers as M. Karr himself, the pages of his Journey round my Garden offer most attractive pas

he to himself, has just received money which would make me very happy; he is going to take his wife and children their supper. And I and Genevieve!'-A sort of shudder came over him at a thought which just then presented itself confusedly to his mind, and which he dared not attempt to fix before his eyes;-he walked on with hasty steps,--then he stopped short. Again he continued on his road, then turned back again; he could not quit the Champs Elysées. Once more he stood still and said to himself:'Have I not done enough cowardly things for one day? What am I more than that man? Is not he, on the contrary, more than I am; he who, for his family, conquers his pride and plays in the street? What do I fear?-to be despised?-Is it more contemptible to beg than to let one's sister suffer? And what do I do each day of my life? Do I not play upon the violin for money?Shame?-it is pride I ought to feel in playing to get money for my sister. In my whole life I shall never have done anything so great and so noble; -so much the worse for him who despises me; he will be a man without feeling, and what matters to me the scorn of such a man?' Again he strode along in great agitation.-Oh! my God!' he exclaimed, 'I thank thee for the talent thou hast bestowed on me! Oh! my sister, forgive me for having hesitated!'

"What a pity!' &c.

"A pretty woman, first of all, stooped down and placed-without throwing it a five-franc piece in Leon's hat. She rose again, blush. ing, and beautiful with a divine beauty. Ah! dear lady,-if the man of your heart beheld you at that moment, you will be recompensed ;all his life long he will repay your charity with love and adoration, as God repays it you in grace and in touching beauty.

"Several persons followed the example shown them. One man pressed through the crowd, and fumbled in his pocket; but he looked at the musician, and exclaimed, 'Leon!'

"Anselmo!' cried Leon. they fell into each other's arms.

And

The crowd pressed curiously around them. Anselmo picked up Leon's hat. Give me this money,' he cried, 'good and noble young man; give it me, that I may hoard it as a precious relic! Fain would I treasure it in my heart!'

"Anselmo called a hackney coach, and got into it with Leon. As they drove along, Leon told Anselmo all his misfortunes. Before going home they purchased what was wanted for Genevieve.

"I am very late, my poor Genevieve,' said Leon.

"I did not notice it,' said Genevieve, who had passed four hours weeping. I have been asleep; my eyes are still quite heavy.'"

Anselmo has just returned from one of his long journeys. After seeking his cousin Albert in vain, Leon asks Anselmo to second him in his duel with Rodolph. His friend

nesses, on the bank of a river, into which the survivor was to throw his antagonist's corpse. It was not an ordinary duel.'

"At what hour the meeting?' "Ah! that is the question,' said Rodolph. I am compelled by a most important affair to call this morning upon the envoy of a German court. It is already late, I should like to put off the affair till to-morrow.'

"I have no instructions to object to such delay.'

"To-morrow, then, at seven in the morning."

Anselmo's reference to his duel confirms suspicions previously excited, that the benevolent old German is the father of Leon and Genevieve. The reader is not equally prepared to discover what is soon afterwards revealed; namely, that Anselmo Lauter, the widowed husband of the erring and unhappy Rosalie, is identical with Baron Arnberg, the wealthy minister and confidential friend of a German sovereign. At the baron's house in the Champs Elysées, that same day, all the chief personages of the tale are assembled-Leon to wait upon a new pupil, Genevieve to seek some needlework which the poor suffering girl had begged M. Anselmo to procure for her, M. Chaumier and Rose to hand over the title-deeds of the house and garden at Fontainebleau, sold to a stranger, who has tempted M. Chaumier by a high price. Thanks to his own and his son's extravagance, Rose's father is a poorer man than before he won his famous lawsuit. Albert too appears at the house in the Champs Elysées-the same concerning whose decoration Genevieve and Leon were consultedin custody of bailiffs who have arrested him on the suit of Baron Arnberg for non-payment of a bill of exchange. And Rodolph de Redeuil comes, his ordinary assurance greatly abated, humbly to crave a favour of the noble and influential ambassador. We have not room for further details. The dénouement is good, and the probabilities are throughout well sustained. In the termination of the book, the cheerful and the sad are happily blended. The interest felt

for the generous, unselfish, and courageous Leon, is all along in no way less strong than that inspired by the mild, patient, self-denying Genevieve. And Leon's happiness consoles the reader in some degree for the untimely fate of his sweet sister. Rose and Leon are of course married, but Genevieve-poor Genevieve, heart-stricken in her bloom, droops and falls like a frosted flower. The air of the world was too chilly for her tender soul. To the last she was unaware of her approaching death, and sweet smiles decked her wasted features as she fondly anticipated the joy of embracing her brother's child, as yet unborn Before the infant saw the light, the flowers grew fresh and fair upon Genevieve's grave.

The reperusal of M. Karr's works, some of which we had not opened since their first appearance, many years ago, has confirmed our previous conviction, that few French writers of the present day, even of the more refined and less wilfully-mischievous class, can be unreservedly recommended to English readers. Few even of the best of them can always avoid the introduction of offensive sentiments and descriptions. With the majority the propensity to occasional levity and irreverence, and sometimes to profanity and indecency, is quite irresistible. We are disposed to acquit M. Karr of any deliberate and intentional evil tendency. He writes according to his perceptions, and for a French public, and there is nothing in his books likely to shock his countrymen, most of whom would doubtless laugh heartily at the Britannic prudery, that could take exception to the highly coloured and revolting narratives of the dissolute Stephen, and of the feeble and unprincipled Maurice. On the other hand, with some of his tales and sketches, only the ultra fastidious will find fault, and some will be deemed harmless even by the most rigid. If we have weighed upon his defects, it has been to neutralise the too favourable impression that might be conveyed by our extracts, which are all specimens of his happier manner. Examples of his worst style would not suit our pages.

If we apply to literary commodities the general mercantile rule, that demand creates supply, we are bound to believe that the British public is in a fever of curiosity concerning Nepaul and the Nepaulese. Such is the inference naturally to be drawn from the almost simultaneous appearance of four works relating to that country and people, at least two of which are manifestly mere speculations on the popular avidity, real or supposed, for further information concerning the history, circumstances, and peculiarities of one of the most remarkable neighbours of our Anglo-Indian empire. It is now just two years since the meteor-like apparition of the brilliant Nepaulese ambassador and his showy suite flashed for a few weeks through the tepid atmosphere of a London season, causing a pleasurable excitement amongst used-up fashionables and languid belles. The tawny, jewel-bedecked strangers from the distant East, with their strange habits and profuse expenditure, their rumoured crimes and exploits, produced so great a sensation here, and were so evidently suggestive of scribbling to any one possessing a slight personal knowledge of Nepaul, and sufficient literary skill to fabricate a book concerning it, that we cannot but wonder that, with the exception of Captain Cavenagh's meagre and unsatisfactory volume, no books upon the subject have appeared until two years after the period of the Nepaulese mission to this country. Now, however, they come in crowds. With

in one month we have three authors in the field. Captain Cavenagh, whose work preceded those of these three gentlemen but by a few months, is a Bengal officer, writing from Dum Dum, and publishing in Calcutta. His successors are persons of very various professions and social position. A highborn naval commander, whose life has been divided between Belgravia and the quarterdeck, claims precedence by rank, although the latest to appear. Just before him came Mr Oliphant, a young lawyer from Colombo, who in his turn had been anticipated by Captain Thomas Smith.

We learn from the titlepage of this last-named writer that, from the year 1841 to 1845, he was assistant political agent at Nepaul. From him, therefore, we had a right to expect infinitely the best account of that country, seeing that he passed in it almost as many years as each of the three other writers passed days. How far he profited by his opportunities, and will bear comparison with his cotemporaries, we shall presently attempt to show.

At foot of this page we have placed the names of two old but excellent works upon Nepaul-those of Colonel Kirkpatrick and Dr Hamilton. This may at first seem superfluous, seeing that the two respectable quartos were published as long back as 1811 and 1819; but upon examination we have found that some of the four modern works we have taken in hand are so very largely indebted to the colonel and the doctor, that we are

1811. 4to.

1851.