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language, and the peculiar manner in which he now and then wiped his upper lip with the back of his hand, as if in search of the moustache which was no longer there, I judged that he had been a soldier. In this opinion I was not mistaken. He had served under Napoleon, and had followed the imperial eagle across the Alps, and the Pyrenees, and the burning sands of Egypt. Like every vieille moustache, he spake with enthusiasm of the Little Corporal, and cursed the English, the Germans, the Spanish, and every other race on earth, except the Great Nation,-his own.

"I like," said he, "after a long day's march, to lie down in this way upon the grass, and enjoy the cool of the evening. It reminds me of the bivouacs of other days, and of old friends who are now up there."

Here he pointed with his finger to the sky. "They have reached the last étape before me, in the long march. But I shall go soon. We shall all meet again at the last roll-call. Sacré nom de! There's a tear!"

He wiped it away with his sleeve. Here our colloquy was interrupted by the approach of a group of vintagers, who were returning homeward from their labour. To this party I joined myself, and invited the old soldier to do the same, but he shook his head.

"I thank you; my pathway lies in a different direction."

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took the cross-road through the vineyard, and in a moment the little village had sunk again, as if by enchantment, into the bosom of the earth.

I breakfasted at the town of Mer; and, leaving the high-road to Blois on the right, passed down to the banks of the Loire, through a long, broad avenue of poplars and sycamores. I crossed the river in a boat, and in the after part of the day, I found myself before the high and massive walls of the château of Chambord. This château is one of the finest specimens of the ancient Gothic castle to be found in Europe. The little river Cosson fills its deep and ample moat, and above it the huge towers and heavy battlements rise in stern and solemn grandeur, moss-grown with age, and blackened by the storms of three centuries. Within all is mournful and deserted. The grass has overgrown the pavement of the court-yard, and the rude sculpture upon the walls is broken and defaced. From the court-yard I entered the central tower, and, ascending the principal staircase, went out upon the battlements. I seemed to have stepped back into the precincts of the feudal ages; and as I passed along through echoing corridors, and vast, deserted halls, stripped of their furniture, and mouldering silently away, the distant past came back upon me; and the times when the clang of arms, and the tramp of mail-clad men, and

'But there is no other village near, and the the sounds of music and revelry and wassail, sun has already set."

"No matter.

echoed along those high-vaulted and solitary

I am used to sleeping on the chambers. ground. Good night."

I left the old man to his meditations, and walked on in company with the vintagers. Following a well-trodden pathway through the vineyards, we soon descended the valley's slope, and I suddenly found myself in the bosom of one of those little hamlets from which the labourer rises to his toil as the skylark to his song. My companions wished me a good night, as each entered his own thatch-roofed cottage, and a little girl led me out to the very inn which an hour or two before I had disdained to enter.

When I awoke in the morning, a brilliant autumnal sun was shining in at my window. The merry song of birds mingled sweetly with the sound of rustling leaves and the gurgle of the brook. The vintagers were going forth to their toil; the winepress was busy in the shade, and the clatter of the mill kept time to the miller's song. I loitered about the village with a feeling of calm delight. I was unwilling to leave the seclusion of this sequestered hamlet; but at length, with reluctant step, I

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The third day's journey brought me to the ancient city of Blois, the chief town of the department of Loire-et-Cher. This city is celebrated for the purity with which even the lower classes of its inhabitants speak their native tongue. It rises precipitously from the northern bank of the Loire; and many of its streets are so steep as to be almost impassable for carriages. On the brow of the hill, overlooking the roofs of the city, and commanding a fine view of the Loire and its noble bridge, and the surrounding country, sprinkled with cottages and châteaux, runs an ample terrace, planted with trees and laid out as a public walk. The view from this terrace is one of the most beautiful in France. But what most strikes the eye of the traveller at Blois is an old, though still unfinished castle. Its huge parapets of hewn stone stand upon either side of the street, but they have walled up the wide gateway, from which the colossal drawbridge was to have sprung high in air, connecting together the main towers of the building, and the two hills upon whose slope its foundations

stand. The aspect of this vast pile is gloomy and desolate. It seems as if the strong hand of the builder had been arrested in the midst of his task by the stronger hand of death; and the unfinished fabric stands a lasting monument both of the power and weakness of man,-of his vast desires, his sanguine hopes, his ambitious purposes, and of the unlooked-for conclusion, where all these desires, and hopes, and purposes are so often arrested. There is also at Blois another ancient château, to which some historic interest is attached, as being the scene of the massacre of the Duke of Guise.

On the following day I left Blois for Amboise; and, after walking several leagues along the dusty highway, crossed the river in a boat to the little village of Moines, which lies amid luxuriant vineyards upon the southern bank of the Loire. From Moines to Amboise the road is truly delightful. The rich lowland scenery, by the margin of the river, is verdant even in October; and occasionally the landscape is diversified with the picturesque cottages of the vintagers, cut in the rock along the roadside, and overhung by the thick foliage of the vines above them.

served. In one part of the building you are shown the bed-chamber of Diane de Poitiers, with its antique chairs covered with faded damask and embroidery, her bed, and a portrait of the royal favourite hanging over the mantlepiece. In another you see the apartment of the infamous Catherine de' Medici; a venerable arm-chair and an autograph letter of Henry the Fourth; and in an old laboratory, among broken crucibles, and neckless retorts, and drums, and trumpets, and skins of wild beasts, and other ancient lumber of various kinds, are to be seen the bed-posts of Francis the First. Doubtless the naked walls of the vast solitary chambers of an old and desolate château inspire a feeling of greater solemnity and awe; but when the antique furniture of the olden time remains,-the faded tapestry on the walls, and the arm-chair by the fireside,

the effect upon the mind is more magical and delightful. The old inhabitants of the place, long gathered to their fathers, though living still in history, seem to have left their halls for the chase or the tournament; and as the heavy door swings upon its reluctant hinge, one almost expects to see the gallant princes and courtly dames enter those halls again, and sweep in stately procession along the silent corridors.

Rapt in such fancies as these, and gazing on the beauties of this noble edifice, and the soft scenery around it, I lingered, unwilling to de

At Amboise I took a cross-road, which led me to the romantic borders of the Cher and the château of Chernanceau. This beautiful château, as well as that of Chambord, was built by the gay and munificent Francis the First. One is a specimen of strong and massive archi-part, till the rays of the setting sun, streaming tecture,- -a dwelling for a warrior; but the other is of a lighter and more graceful construction, and was destined for those soft languishments of passion with which the fascinating Diane de Poitiers had filled the bosom of that voluptuous monarch.

The château of Chernanceau is built upon arches across the river Cher, whose waters are made to supply the deep moat at each extremity. There is a spacious court-yard in front, from which a drawbridge conducts to the outer hall of the castle. There the armour of Francis the First still hangs upon the wall,-his shield, and helm, and lance,—as if the chivalrous but dissolute prince had just exchanged them for the silken robes of the drawing-room. From this hall a door opens into a long gallery, extending the whole length of the building across the Cher. The walls of the gallery are hung with the faded portraits of the long line of the descendants of Hugh Capet; and the windows, looking up and down the stream, command a fine reach of pleasant river-scenery. This is said to be the only château in France in which the ancient furniture of its original age is pre

through the dusty windows, admonished me that the day was drawing rapidly to a close. I sallied forth from the southern gate of the château, and, crossing the broken drawbridge, pursued a pathway along the bank of the river, still gazing back upon those towering walls, now bathed in the rich glow of sunset, till a turn in the road, and a clump of woodland, at length shut them out from my sight.

A short time after candle-lighting I reached the little tavern of the Boule d'Or, a few leagues from Tours, where I passed the night. The following morning was lowering and sad. A veil of mist hung over the landscape, and ever and anon a heavy shower burst from the overburdened clouds that were driving by before a high and piercing wind. This unpropitious state of the weather detained me until noon, when a cabriolet for Tours drove up; and taking a seat within it, I left the hostess of the Boule d'Or in the middle of a long story about a rich countess, who always alighted there when she passed that way. We drove leisurely along through a beautiful country, till at length we came to the brow of a steep hill, which

commands a fine view of the city of Tours and its delightful environs. But the scene was shrouded by the heavy drifting mist, through which I could trace but indistinctly the graceful sweep of the Loire, and the spires and roofs of the city far below me.

The city of Tours and the delicious plain in which it lies have been too often described by other travellers to render a new description, from so listless a pen as mine, either necessary or desirable. After a sojourn of two cloudy and melancholy days I set out on my return to Paris, by the way of Vendôme and Chartres. I stopped a few hours at the former place, to examine the ruins of a château built by Jeanne d'Albret, mother of Henry the Fourth. It stands upon the summit of a high and precipitous hill, and almost overhangs the town beneath. The French revolution has completed the ruin that time had already begun; and nothing now remains but a broken and crumbling bastion, and here and there a solitary tower, dropping slowly to decay. In one of these is the grave of Jeanne d'Albret. A marble entablature in the wall above contains the inscription, which is nearly effaced, though enough still remains to tell the curious traveller that there lies buried the mother of the "Bon Henri." To this is added a prayer that the repose of the dead may be respected.

Here ended my foot excursion. The object of my journey was accomplished; and delighted with this short ramble through the valley of the Loire, I took my seat in the diligence for Paris, and on the following day was again swallowed up in the crowds of the metropolis, like a drop in the bosom of the sea.-Outre Mer.

THE BATTLE OF BLENHEIM.

BY ROBERT SOUTHEY.

It was a summer evening,
Old Kaspar's work was done,
And he before his cottage-door
Was sitting in the sun,
And by him sported on the green
His little grand-child Wilhelmine.

She saw her brother Peterkin

Roll something large and round, Which he beside the rivulet

In playing there had found;

He came to ask what he had found,

That was so large, and smooth, and round.

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Old Kaspar took it from the boy,
Who stood expectant by;

And then the old man shook his head,
And with a natural sigh,

"Tis some poor fellow's skull," said he, Who fell in the great victory.

"I find them in the garden, for

There's many here about; And often when I go to plough,

The ploughshare turns them out! For many thousand men," said he, "Were slain in that great victory."

"Now tell us what 'twas all about,"

Young Peterkin he cries;
And little Wilhelmine looks up
With wonder-waiting eyes;
"Now tell us all about the war,

And what they fought each other for."

"It was the English," Kaspar cried, "Who put the French to rout; But what they fought each other for, I could not well make out; But everybody said," quoth he That 'twas a famous victory.

"My father lived at Blenheim then,
Yon little stream hard by;
They burnt his dwelling to the ground,
And he was forced to fly;

So with his wife and child he fled,
Nor had he where to rest his head.

"With fire and sword the country round Was wasted far and wide,

And many a childing mother then,
And new born baby died;

But things like that, you know, must be
At every famous victory.

"They say it was a shocking sight
After the field was won,

For many thousand bodies here
Lay rotting in the sun;

But things like that, you know, must be
After a famous victory.

"Great praise the Duke of Marlbro' won, And our good Prince Eugene." "Why, 'twas a very wicked thing!" Said little Wilhelmine. "Nay-nay-my little girl," quoth he, "It was a famous victory.

"And everybody prais'd the duke, Who such a fight did win." "But what good came of it at last?" Quoth little Peterkin.

"Why, that I cannot tell," said he, "But 'twas a famous victory."

BULLS AND WIT.

[Rev. Sydney Smith, born at Woodford, Essex, 1771; died in London, 22d February, 1845 Educated at Winchester and Oxford. He resided five years in Edinburgh, as minister of the Charlotte Episcopal Chapel, and formed one of the group of daring youths who founded the Edinburgh Review, the first number of which was prepared under his editorship. After holding various church livings, he became canon residentiary of St. Paul's in 1831. He was even more famous as a conversational wit than as a preacher or reviewer. His works (Longmans & Co.) consist of reviews, sermons and lectures. His Peter Plymley's Letters had a large share in promoting Catholic Emancipation. Macaulay

says: "He is universally admitted to have been a great reasoner, and the greatest master of ridicule that has appeared among us since Swift." Edward Everett says:

-If he had not been known as the wittiest man of his

day, he would have been accounted one of the wisest." The following is from a review of the work on Irish Bulls by Miss Edgeworth and her father.]

Though the question is not a very easy one, we shall venture to say, that a bull is an apparent congruity and real incongruity of ideas suddenly discovered. And if this account of bulls be just, they are (as might have been supposed) the very reverse of wit; for as wit discovers real relations that are not apparent, bulls admit apparent relations that are not real. The pleasure arising from wit proceeds from our surprise at suddenly discovering two things to be similar in which we suspected no similarity. The pleasure arising from bulls proceeds from our discovering two things to be dissimilar in which a resemblance might have been suspected. The same doctrine will apply to wit and to bulls in action. Practical wit discovers connection or relation between actions, in which duller understandings discover none; and practical bulls originate from an apparent relation between two actions, which more correct understandings immediately perceive to have no relation at all.

Louis XIV., being extremely harassed by the repeated solicitations of a veteran officer for promotion, said one day, loud enough to be heard, "That gentleman is the most troublesome officer I have in my service." "That is precisely the charge (said the old man) which your Majesty's enemies bring against me."

"An English gentleman (says Mr. Edgeworth, in a story cited from Joe Millar) was writing a letter in a coffee-house; and perceiving that an Irishman stationed behind him was taking that liberty which Parmenio used with his friend Alexander, instead of putting his seal upon the lips of the curious imperti- |

nent, the English gentleman thought proper to reprove the Hibernian, if not with delicacy, at least with poetical justice. He concluded writing his letter in these words: 'I would say more, but a damned tall Irishman is reading over my shoulder every word I write.'

"You lie, you scoundrel,' said the selfconvicted Hibernian."

The pleasure derived from the first of these stories proceeds from the discovery of the relation that subsists between the object he had in view, and the assent of the officer to an observation so unfriendly to that end. In the first rapid glance which the mind throws upon his words, he appears, by his acquiescence, to be pleading against himself. There seems to be no relation between what he says and what he wishes to effect by speaking.

In the second story, the pleasure is directly the reverse. The lie given was apparently the readiest means of proving his innocence, and really the most effectual way of establishing his guilt. There seems for a moment to be a strong relation between the means and the object; while, in fact, no irrelation can be so complete.

But

What connection is there between pelting stones at monkeys and gathering cocoa-nuts from lofty trees? Apparently none. monkeys sit upon cocoa-nut trees; monkeys are imitative animals; and if you pelt a monkey with a stone, he pelts you with a cocoa-nut in return. This scheme of gathering cocoa-nuts is very witty, and would be more so, if it did not appear useful: for the idea of utility is always inimical to the idea of wit.1 There appears, on the contrary, to be some relation between the revenge of the Irish rebels against a banker, and the means which they took to gratify it, by burning all his notes

1 It must be observed, that all the great passions, and many other feelings, extinguish the relish for wit. Thus lympha pudica Deum vidit et erubuit, would be witty, were it not bordering on the sublime. The resemblance between the sandal tree imparting (while it falls) its aromatic flavour to the edge of the axe, and the benevolent man rewarding evil with good, would be witty, did it not excite virtuous emotions. There are many mechanical contrivances which excite sensations very similar to wit; but the attention is absorbed by their utility. Some of Merlin's machines, which have no utility at all, are quite similar to wit. A small model of a steam engine, or mere squirt, is wit to a child. A man speculates on the causes of the first, or on its consequences, and so loses the feelings of wit: with the latter, he is too familiar to be surprised. In short, the essence of every species of wit is surprise; which, ri termini, must be sudden; and the sensations which wit often as they are mingled with much thought or has a tendency to excite, are impaired or destroyed, as passion.

wherever they found them; whereas, they could not have rendered him a more essential service. In both these cases of bulls, the one verbal, the other practical, there is an apparent 'congruity and real incongruity of ideas. both the cases of wit, there is an apparent incongruity and a real relation.

In

It is clear that a bull cannot depend upon mere incongruity alone; for if a man were to say that he would ride to London upon a cocked hat, or that he would cut his throat with a pound of pickled salmon, this, though completely incongruous, would not be to make bulls, but to talk nonsense. The stronger the apparent connection, and the more complete the real disconnection of the ideas, the greater the surprise and the better the bull. The less apparent, and the more complete the relations established by wit, the higher gratification does it afford. A great deal of the pleasure experienced from bulls proceeds from the sense of superiority in ourselves. Bulls which we invented, or knew to be invented, might please, but in a less degree, for want of this additional zest.

As there must be apparent connection, and real incongruity, it is seldom that a man of sense and education finds any form of words by which he is conscious that he might have been deceived into a bull. To conceive how the person has been deceived, he must suppose a degree of information very different from, and a species of character very heterogeneous to, his own; a process which diminishes surprise, and consequently pleasure. In the abovementioned story of the Irishman overlooking the man writing, no person of ordinary sagacity can suppose himself betrayed into such a mistake; but he can easily represent to himself a kind of character that might have been so betrayed. There are some bulls so extremely fallacious, that any man may imagine himself to have been betrayed into them; but these are rare: and, in general, it is a poor contemptible species of amusement; a delight in which evinces a very bad taste in wit.

LOVE'S GROWTH.

They err who tell us there is need
Of time for Love to grow;
Ah! no, the love that kills indeed,
Despatches at a blow.

And that which but by slow degrees
Is nursed into a flame,

Is friendship, habit,-what you please But Love is not the name.

THE MINSTREL

[James Beattie, D.C.L., born at Laurencekirk, Kincardineshire, 25th October, 1735; died at Aberdeen, 18th August, 1803. Thanks to the self-sacrifice of his widowed mother and of his eldest brother David, he was enabled to attend the Marischal College, Aberdeen, for four years. Having taken his degree of M.A., he was appointed schoolmaster at Fordoun, a village near his native place; thence he removed to the grammarschool of Aberdeen; and in 1760 he was installed professor of moral philosophy and logic in Marischal College. His works are: Poems and Translations; The Judgment of Paris; The Minstrel, or the Progress of Genius 1 (from which we quote); Essay on Truth, which obtained high favour; and the Elements of Moral Science. Government granted him a pension of £200 a year.]

Of chance or change O let not man complain,
Else shall he never, never cease to wail:
For, from the imperial dome, to where the swain
Rears the lone cottage in the silent dale,
All feel th' assault of fortune's fickle gale;
Art, empire, earth itself, to change are doomed;
Earthquakes have raised to heaven the humble vale,
And gulfs the mountain's mighty mass entombed,
And where th' Atlantic rolls wide continents have
bloomed,2

But sure to foreign climes we need not range,
Nor search the ancient records of our race,
To learn the dire effects of time and change,
Which in ourselves, alas! we daily trace,
Yet at the darkened eye, the withered face,
Or hoary hair, I never will repine:

But spare, O Time, whate'er of mental grace,
Of candour, love, or sympathy divine,
Whate'er of fancy's ray, or friendship's flame is mine.

I pro

1 In a letter to Dr. Blacklock, dated Aberdeen, 20th May, 1767, Beattie explains the design of his poem: "The subject was suggested by a dissertation on the old minstrels, which is prefixed to a collection of ballads lately published by Dodsley in three volumes. pose to give an account of the birth, education, and adventures of one of those bards; in which I shall have full scope for description, sentiment, satire, and even a certain species of humour and of pathos, which, in the opinion of my great master, are by no means inconsistent, as is evident from his works. My hero is to be born in the South of Scotland; which you know was the native land of the English minstrels; I mean, of those minstrels who travelled into England, and supported themselves there by singing their ballads to the harp. His father is a shepherd. The son will have a natural taste for music and the beauties of nature; which, however, languishes for want of culture, till in due time he meets with a hermit, who gives him some instruction; but endeavours to check his genius for poetry and adventures, by representing the happiness of obscurity and solitude, and the bad reception which poetry has met with in almost every age. The poor swain acquiesces in this advice, and resolves to follow his father's employment."

2 See Plato's Timæus.

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