And while upon the subject of 'thought,' we may instance the following as an insight far beyond the raptures of the Life Drama, at once truthful, manly, and necessary, seeing that first love is not the only love with common flesh-and-blood humanity in this everyday world of ours: Is this Love An unseen god, whose voice is heard but once Would love not grow In the communion of long-wedded years? Such lines as these also shew that his Muse can walk with firmer feet: With the invariable and dread advance And here is steadier grasp and subtler perception: Mr Smith is admirable in description; his pictures are often full of power and beauty, and equally felicitous, whether done at a stroke or two of broad-handling, or finished with delicate touches. We might fill a page or two with such as these: A wide gray windy sea bespecked with foam. A LANDSCAPE. He lay upon a tower in leafy Kent FIRE. That maniac, Fire, is loose; who was so tame, ARRAN. Change melts in finer change from clear green light To purple thunder-gloom. HIGHLAND SCENERY. O'er rude unthrifty wastes we held our way From which it upward crept and quenched the lights- And in the utter hush the ear was filled EYES LIGHTED WITH GENIUS. That with their brightness held you from his face: The thought stood in them ere 'twas spoken; Wit Laughed on you from the windows ere she danced Out on you from the door. THE FLOWER-POT ON THE WINDOW-SILL. I dwelt within a gloomy court, Yet there my heart was stirred- Now folds the lily all her sweetness up, But we cannot afford to forego this simile of Mr By sweet degrees My slumberous being closed its weary leaves If the author should think we have interpreted his book with sufficient sympathy to permit us to give a word or two of counsel for the future, we should say, let him write nothing until he is absolutely impelled -his mind being of child with glorious great intent'and the subject within him, having been fed with the sunshine of spirit, and watered with the dews of the heart, is ripe for poetry. Then let him shape it as much as possible lyrically. We say this, because the most sustained, effective, and satisfactory things in the City Poems are the lyrics 'Barbara,' 'Glasgow,' and the Night before the Wedding.' These shew the afflatus, and ring with the certainty of true inspiration; they are more congruous, coherent, and concrete than the poems in blank verse. And for these reasons we think-blank verse offers fatal facilities for piecemeal work; it can be wrought like mosaic; but the lyric requires a more mounting and continuous impulse, a more lifted mood of mind, so that thought and feeling must flow in music; beside which, the restraints of rhyme, and varied verse, help to hold the poetic substance as in a crucible, until it is fused down to flowing-point in the opposing heat of the impelling power. Let him be on his guard against a vague generalisation, which sometimes nullifies the special truth previously uttered. For instance, after bewailing his lot in being shut up in a city far away from the mornings of spring in the country and the coloured glory of its summer world, in a sweeping generalisation at the end of the poem, he tells us that in the City's noise alone dwell All raptures of this mortal breath. If so, what becomes of the meaning of the poem, which is a sigh for raptures that do not dwell there? He must also endeavour to check a tendency he has of flying off into space for reference to external nature, at the very moment that we require the culminating human interest. This is shewn in the last stanza of 'Barbara,' where the writer avoids the real difficulty, loses the crowning success, by reeling off into the air when near the top of the hill, and never touching it. He begins talking about the 'dreary hills,' 'fringe of rain,' and 'hurt and wounded sea'-the last being a vile tautological specimen of the 'pathetic fallacy,' where he ought to have given us the pathetic truth. Our author has an evident personal predilection for the dramatic form; but we do not think he proves himself to be in possession of the dramatic faculty. He does not disguise himself behind the dramatic mask, and we easily recognise the exalted stature to be made up of him and the stilts; therefore, we should say, fling aside both mask and stilts, and do not trouble yourself about dramatis personæ, but utter what you have to say straight out in your own personal presence. And, lastly, when you have written your next book, before going to press, send the manuscript to your critic of the Athenæum, if you have any misgivings on the score of originality, and so make use of his detective talent by turning it to better account than he has done himself. KIRKE WEBBE, THE PRIVATEER CAPTAIN. CHAPTER X. NOTHING but the perfect guilelessness and candour of Clémence de Bonneville, associated in my illogical appreciation with the circumstances which appeared to place her claim to be the daughter of Mrs Waller beyond controversy, could have rendered me disregardful of the surprising aptness of discoveries or revelations following each other in such dramatic sequence. The seed-pearl necklace and other of the stolen child's articles of dress, carefully concealed during fourteen years, had been found a few days previous to my arrival at St Malo, in an armoire, of which Fanchette, suddenly overtaken by anxiety to find a brooch that had not been lost, possessed, or easily procured, a key! Fanchette, Mr Webbe's wellfee'd confederate, moreover, relates-attaching, however, in her ingenuous simplicity, no importance to the statement that she had once heard a Dr Poitevin mention the remarkable anatomical fact which, a letter from Mrs Linwood placed in my hands ten minutes afterwards by the privateer captain, apprises me is the infallible test by which the most cunningly concocted attempt at fraudulent personation would be exposed and defeated! Not, by the way, in my hands, and under the actual circumstances, could that test prove so instantly decisive. Dr Poitevin, I ascertained, had been dead some months; and it was out of the question that I should insist upon a young lady having her ribs scientifically counted for my especial satisfaction! I doubted that Clémence herself, being, if anything, the plumpest of us two, could do so with accuracy, for I certainly could not mine; and after many trials, was unable, for the life of me, to determine whether popular belief and Jeremy Taylor were correct or not, in insisting that, since Adam, every man was minus one, taken for the creation of his better-half, 'from nearest his heart that he may love, from under his arm that he may protect her.' Fanchette was, however, fully corroborated by Clémence, before whom, by way of proposing the question in as seemly a manner as possible, I placed Mrs Linwood's letter, with the passage I have quoted strongly underlined. 'Ah, it is very true!' exclaimed the sweet girl with a charming blush and smile, after glancing at the lines. 'Dr Poitevin declared so when I was ill of the fever.' 'Dr Poitevin declared so in your hearing, dear Clémence ?' 'O yes!-or, stay; let me reflect a moment. Certainly,' she presently added, 'it seems to me that he must have done so; but it is a long time since, and having frequently heard Fanchette and maman mention the doctor's remark, I may, you know, have come to erroneously imagine that I heard it from his own lips.' 'Be that as it may, I have not the slightest doubt, believe me, of the fact,' was my reply. Nor had I; and it was that intimate conviction which rendered me contemptuously indifferent to the clumsily cunning artifices employed to confirm a truth, so manifest to my apprehension, that disbelief was impossible. Webbe had persuaded or terrified Louise Féron into restoring Lucy Hamblin to her mother, and he had adopted a deceptive, roundabout method of carrying their mutual purpose into effect, in order to enhance the value and consequent reward of his services-a reward which Féron was of course to share. To be sure, this hypothesis did not account for Webbe's unappeasable anxiety to have us married before leaving France; but he might be really afraid that Clémence-innocent as myself of all that underhand, behind-the-scenes work would refuse to abandon her actual home except under the protection of a husband; in which case, Webbe would be under the disagreeable necessity of confessing that the difficulties and dangers attendant upon our enterprise were, primarily, of his own seeking. Subsequently, indeed, when summoning to the session of calmer thoughts, the mass of confused and contradictory statement with which my ears had been filled by Webbe, the fallacy of such reasoning appeared palpable enough; but at the time, the strong impression upon my mind must have been as stated-a density of apprehension, which the ascertainment beyond doubt that proofs of the abduction by Louise Féron of the child my father was accused of having drowned, were really extant, within reach, if I blundered not, of my eager, trembling hand, may, by monopolising all my perceptive and reasoning faculties, have considerably aggravated. To the same absorbing pre-occupation of mind must also, in fairness, be attributed another manifestation of perceptive obtuseness, the recollection of which, though the frosts of three-and-forty winters have since then chastened my pulse and cooled my blood, causes me even now, as I write, to glow and redden to my fingers' ends; and which, but that its omission would obscure my narrative, should certainly remain untold. It will be readily believed that I deeply sympathised with the gentle-hearted Clémence, not only because of the grievous, irreparable wrong she had sustained by being stolen in her infancy from a loving parent and wealthy home, and subjected during twice seven years to comparative indigence and stern control; but with her deep sorrow at discovering that the woman whom she had loved as a mother was wholly unworthy of an affection, which she could not, as her tears testified whenever the subject was touched upon, subdue at will, or readily transfer to another. Well, I expressed that natural sympathy with a warmth which it never once occurred to me would be almost certainly misconstrued, coming from a young man to a still younger maiden, who, concurrently with that young man's appearance upon the scene, had discarded a former lover. The reader is already aware that I was mightily free with such expressions as Dear Clemence '-that my tears mingled with those of the sobbing girl whose drooping head rested upon my shoulder. Other endearing, innocent familiarities recur to memory as I write; of which the legitimate interpretation and tendency was all unperceived by me during the first intoxication of spirit excited by the achieved success, as I supposed, of the momentous mission with which I was intrusted. The only excuse I could make to myself when Webbe, affecting to look as fierce as a dragon whose golden fruit had been filched whilst he slumbered over his charge, called my attention to the obvious result of my thoughtless conduct, was that I could not, under any circumstances, have imagined the possibility of such a catastrophe. My previous intercourse with the better sex afforded no warning of the peril I incurred of inadvertently awakening the susceptibilities of young and gentle hearts. The damsels of the Wight must have been strangely unimpressionable, seeing that, in the words of the old song, I had kissed and had prattled with fifty fair maids, and the deuce of one of them had, to my knowledge, cared a straw about the matter! There was, indeed, every excuse for my inconsiderate behaviour, for, good Heaven! who that saw me come shining forth in the trim previously described, save that pale blue replaced bright yellow pants, from the Hôtel de l'Empire upon those unfortunate visits, could have believed that such a Guy might, by possibility, agitate, except with laughter, the most sensitive of maiden's hearts! Yet, I could not deny the flattering impeachment. It was only too true that the dear girl's charming | spirits had wholly forsaken her-that her appetite was gone-that at the slightest hint of the peremptory necessity of flight from St Malo before Madame de Bonneville's return, her complexion was one moment celestial rosy red, the next, pale as the lily. Too true that her soft eyes were constantly suffused with tears, and that, when speaking to me, her voice was inexpressibly tender and caressive-her smile so sad, so pitiful, that it would have touched the heart of a tiger! And this moral ruin was my unconscious work! So at least declared Webbe, who had frequent private interviews with her. The conflict between love and maidenly pride was destroying her, and, unless I soothed that wounded pride by feigning to reciprocate her love, I had discovered Mrs Waller's long-lost daughter only to consign her to an untimely grave! This was a delightful dilemma to find one's self suddenly placed in; and how to act I knew not. I essayed what effect a total change of demeanour on my part might have; substituted, during two whole days, moroseness, gloom, fretfulness, for the winning ways which must-it could be nothing else-have led captive her too yielding soul. Bal! The infatuated girl was more tearful, tender, caressive than ever. Meanwhile, time pressed. Madame de Bonneville would soon return; and Captain Webbe, who was getting perfectly ferocious, could not remain with safety to himself forty-eight hours longer in St Malo; whilst to every hint of flight, dear, susceptible Clémence replied by a burst of tears! realised the vast change in social position that awaited her, I could do so without incurring the suspicion of attempting to surprise her into an acceptance of my suit before she had been able to appreciate that change of position, or take counsel of her parents. This I thought very clever, inasmuch as it would leave her at liberty, after reaching London, to take a fancy to somebody else; and it would be odd indeed if she did not there meet with some one she would prefer to me! Hitherto, she had practically the choice only of Jacques Sicard and myself, which could not, of course, be doubtful; but Miss Hamblin, daughter and heiress of the Wallers of Cavendish Square, would have a wide circle of eligible admirers, in the blaze of whose adulation her slightly rooted liking for me would, I earnestly hoped, wither up and disappear. I was myself the bearer of the note; and finding her at home, and disengaged, I placed it in the young lady's hands, with a whispered intimation that I would, with permission, see her again in the evening. She seemed to instinctively comprehend that I had brought her a declaration; and the dear, sensitive girl would, I feared, have fainted with the violence of an emotion that as often arises from sudden joy as grief. She, however, by a strong effort, mastered her feelings, and I took hasty leave. This occurred at about one o'clock in the day; and as the dinner-hour was still three hours distant, and I felt extremely fidgety, ill at ease, dissatisfied with myself, I left the hotel for a stroll on the ramparts. The day was fine and mild, though we were but in the second week of March; and it being some imperial anniversary or other, soldiers were parading, and military bands playing there. Besides, I should be pretty sure to fall in with Webbe, whom I was particularly anxious to have a word with before he again saw Clémence, or, as I should say-Lucy. Whom should I see upon the ramparts but Jacques Sicard, on duty as a lieutenant in the National Guard, and really a smart-looking officer! I should hardly have recognised him in such splendid guise, but for the glance he shot at me of dislike and disdain, fiercely expressive, moreover, of an inclination, restrained only by the bonds of military discipline, to then and there inflict exemplary chastisement upon the presumptuous rustic that had dared to thrust his insignificance between Mademoiselle de Bonneville and Monsieur Sicard, an established bottier, de Paris même ! Poor fellow, thought I, if you knew but all! I found Webbe with his old friend Delisle, and Mr Tyler, his recent acquaintance, to whom I was introduced as 'My nephew, Monsieur Jean Le Gros.' Webbe was in a jocular mood; he had just taken a rise out of the American shipowner, anent some foolish vapouring by that gentleman relative to a Yankee frigate-victory over the Britishers. Few could do that with more causticity than Webbe; and Mr Tyler, one could see at a glance, was dreadfully ryled and wrathy. Nevertheless, he and the privateer captain exchanged an apparently hearty business hand grasp, and Webbe returned with me to the Hôtel de l'Empire. Now, what, in such a case, let me ask the candid reader, could I do? A young fellow may live over twenty years unscathed by the tender passion, and yet not have a heart of adamant. Mine, at all events, though not pierceable by any power of Cupid, as I I told him that I had made Clémence a formal offer, believed having in that regard all my troubles, like a and that I was to see her again in the evening, but young bear, to come-was not insensible to the plead- without entering into particulars. He was hugely ings of generosity and compassion; and after much delighted at the news. 'Henceforth,' he said, 'all will woful cogitation, I made up my mind to capitulate-be plain sailing, and the necessity I am under of leaving upon terms. As thus: St Malo the day after to-morrow, can have no hurtful consequence.' Having in the process spoiled about a quire of paper, I achieved a note, in which, after expressing the esteem and admiration I felt for the young lady, in terms sufficiently general to be literally true, but which Clémence would no doubt read and interpret by the fervid light of her own ardent feelings, I expressed a hope of being permitted to more formally declare how essential her favour was to my future happiness, when she, being restored to her true home, and having 'But zounds, young man,' he exclaimed, 'you are strangely down in the mouth for a valiant hero and successful lover! I suppose, however, that Shakspeare's remark Between the acting of a dreadful thing, And the first motion, all the interim is Like a phantasma, or a hideous dreamapplies as forcibly to marriage as to murder. We can't then, I think, do better than strive to solace the few hours we have yet to pass together, with brandy, cigars, and a fire; if a fire be obtainable at this hour of the day in a French hotel.' Brandy, cigars, and a fire were supplied, and Mr Webbe favoured me with a programme of the arrangements that, in contemplation of my acquiescence before it was too late in the marital preliminary-failing which, nothing could be done-he had concerted with Fanchette. The essential points were, that the marriage was to be privately celebrated by a priest, spoken with or retained for that purpose; that on the evening of the bridal-day, I, the bride, and Fanchette, should set out by diligence for Granville, and on arriving there, lose not a moment in betaking ourselves to the dwelling of Baptiste, who had a lugger-boat in waiting to convey us to Jersey, where we should in all probability meet Captain Webbe himself. orthodoxy and a full purse kept, as is their natural wont, each other company. But all that's bright must fade; and slowly but surely the blockade of continental ports, constantly increasing in rigour and effectiveness, by the British cruisers, frightfully diminished the profits of that respectable line of business. Things, however, were not come by a long way to their present miserable pass ten years ago, or thereabout, when the baptism of fire and flood by which I became a child of France and a sharer in the glory of "Les Victoires et Conquêtes des Français" took place. It was precisely at the time when Bonaparte, whose blazing star now seems so near its final setting, had assembled an immense army in the neighbourhood of Boulogne for the invasion of England. There is an old one-armed capitaine de corvette,' continued Webbe, with outlaughing gaiety of heart, 'living en retraite at Avranches, and who, by the by, was present at that blessed banquet, who has often explained to me how that little affair would, should, must, according to all scientific rules-but for one or two provoking illogical accidents persisted, in accordance with his bounden duty and positive instructions, in coaxing Nelson to continue seeking for him where he could not be found; and if Calder had not fallen in with and crippled a division of the French fleet, that fleet, favoured by a steady favourable breeze, would have safely convoyed the French troops across the unguarded Channel to the shores of Albion, and landed them quietly there, in excellent condition. Those soldiers, as definitively arranged in the imperial programme, would, on the following day, have beaten, pulverised the English army; London would have been sacked, the House of Guelph and the British constitution abolished; England, Scotland, Wales, and the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed parcelled out into departments, and the great emperor and the grand army have got safely back to France, whilst the British fleets were nowhere! A humbling lesson to the sublimity of intellect,' added Mr Webbe, to reflect that one or two wretched accidents should have power to disconcert the most splendid conception of genius that has dazzled mankind since the days of that royal peer whose breeches cost him but a crown, which he held sixpence all too dear, and' Webbe's boisterous glee whilst running over these interesting details grated on my ear, like the exulting scoff of a victor. It was evident he knew that Clémence could not leave St Malo except as my-have come off. Had Villeneuve, he used to explain, wife, and after that clever note of mine, a refusal to marry her would be absurd. These comfortable reflections did anything but raise my spirits, which Webbe perceiving, he proposed to redeem his promise of placing me in possession of the how and why he became Captain Jules Renaudin. That will do,' I said; 'go on.' 'Of course, anything would do that promised to lighten the sadness which lengthens Romeo's hours' Pish! Pray, let me have your story, Mr Webbe, without other frippery or garniture than is inseparably inwoven with the woof and warp of the story itself.' You are a trifle waspish, my young friend. But that, taking into account the afflictive tortures of suspense you are now of course suffering Don't, for Heaven's sake, jump up and jabber in that frantic fashion, Linwood. Really you are the most touchy popgun I ever handled. However, if a plain tale will put you down, be reseated at once, for here you have it, without further preface. 'Once upon a time,' proceeded Webbe, 'I was a strictly orthodox privateer. I slew and pillaged upon the high seas only those whom the London Gazette proclaimed to be natural enemies, and the articles of war, and thanksgiving-for-victory sermons, enjoined all loyal subjects and Christian men to sink, burn, or otherwise destroy to the extent of their ability. Days of innocence and virtue, whither have ye fled! Shall I never again feel the sweet serenity of soul which attended upon the consciousness of knowing that the fellows I blew to kingdom come were natural enemies; that the cargoes I made prize of only ruined rascals that had the impiety to be born out of Godfearing, orthodox England' 'Mr Webbe, I am rather crabbed in temper just now, and mouthy attempts to confound legitimate, loyal war with piracy-your persiflage means that or nothing-will only increase that irritation. Either let me hear your "plain tale," or hold your peace: I am indifferent which, to be quite candid.' Your politeness, I have before observed, Master Linwood, is, for your years, surprising. Nevertheless, as I happen just now to be in quite a heavenly frame of mind, I readily excuse an infirmity which, judging from your very bilious aspect, must be more offensive to its owner than to any one else. Seriously, though, I can't believe you have reason to be so nervously apprehensive that Clémence will have the cruelty to refuse There, there, don't jump out of the window or into the fire, and I'll steer as steadily as a flat broad-bottomed Dutchman. 'Once upon a time, then, as before explained, I was a strictly orthodox privateer; and for several years 'Confound your ceaseless nonsense! It is irritating enough at all times, but especially so when the mind, torn, lacerated by conflicting doubts and fears, is ' 'Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh,' interjected Webbe. 'Just so. I remember that in the days of my youth, my own mind was in a similar condition, arising, in my case, from my being reduced for several weeks to a diet of weevily biscuits and foul cockroachy water, and not an over-supply of thatI've done-I've done. Stay where you are, and I'll run the remainder of the story off the reel without a hitch. 'Once upon a time, I resume-that time, as aforesaid-I was unsuccessfully dodging about in the Wasp, privateer-a craft of about the same tonnage and armament as the Scout-off Ushant, till early one morning, it then blowing half a gale of wind, with every sign of more hands being clapped on to the bellows, when a large schooner hove in sight. We took her to be a French or Spanish merchantman-a mistake, as we too late discovered. The schooner was, in fact, the privateer Passe-partout-a queer name, given her by her somewhat famous captain, Jules Renaudin - an unconscionable individual, who, not content with the exalted glory of being blown up with the Orient, of which he was a petty officer, at the Nile, had got himself appointed commander of the said Passe-partout, not so much with a view to commercial profit, as for the ungrateful purpose of having a shy at the nation that had given him such a hoist in life. 'You may depend upon it,' continued Webbe, 'that if I had known my customer, I should have given the Passe-partout a very wide berth. Gain, not glory, is the object of every privateer captain that understands his business. Fighting is not our vocation, and should always be avoided, unless the prize is not only well worth the powder, but pretty sure to be won, at little cost. That was far from being the case with the Passe-partout, from which nothing but hard knocks was to be looked for. There was, however, no help for it, so at it we went ding-dong, and continued blazing away at each other for perhaps half an hour, when the Passe-partout caught fireby what chance was never known-and ten minutes afterwards, blew up. There was so wild a sea running, that we could only pick up nine of the unfortunate Frenchmen, amongst whom was Captain Renaudin himself, dreadfully scorched and otherwise injured. 'Our own condition was a perilous one. The enemy's shot had told with terrible effect upon both the hull and spars of the Wasp. She made water fast; and during the following night, the gale having meanwhile increased to a hurricane, both the masts, which had been badly wounded, went by the board. We managed to rig up a jury-mast; the men worked bravely at the pumps; and by the middle of the third day after the fight, the Wasp had so far staggered -unguidedly staggered up Channel, that she was off Gris Nez, a point northward of Boulogne. By that time the pumps had become unserviceable; the jurymast and a portion of the bulwarks had been swept away, and the raging sea made a clean breach over the struggling, straining ship, which no one but myself believed would float an hour longer. That was not my opinion, because I had noticed that for some time she had not sunk deeper in the water, whence I concluded that the leak was effectually choked by some substance, one of the sails probably, flung overboard for that purpose, having been sucked into the opening. No argument or persuasion could, however, persuade the men to remain; and as the Wasp's boats had sustained no material injury, the English crew, which, fortunately as it had turned out, were far short of the usual complement, took to them, happily without accident, though the operation was a very ticklish one, and pulled off, after vainly entreating me to accompany them, for the English coast. They were soon lost sight of; and next the French prisoners determined on trying their luck in a small boat, which had belonged to the unlucky Passe-partout. Renaudin was dying, and could not be removed. It was as well so, for the boat had not gone two hundred yards from the brig, when she capsized, and every man in her was swallowed up in the raging waters. The Wasp, though buried in the sea, still floated, and would no doubt continue to do so if she were not flung upon the shore, or bumped against one of the numerous rocks thereabout. During the night, Renaudin died; and when morning dawned, I was consequently the only living man on board. The tempest had meanwhile greatly abated; and as the day grew stronger and clearer, I saw that the brig had. drifted considerably southward, was then off Boulogne, and that numerous telescopes were directed towards her from that place. Renewed hope-I may say renewed assurance of life, once more pulsated vigorously in my veins, and I began casting about as to how I could best turn to account the fortunate deliverance which seemed to be at hand. I soon made up my mind, and the more speedily from seeing that boats were preparing to put off from Boulogne for the dismasted brig. I stripped Renaudin, bundled the body overboard, arrayed myself in his clothes, managed to fasten a tricolor to the mizen-stump, and awaited my deliverance. It was not long delayed. The heroic Renaudin was safely conveyed on shore, and so sedulously ministered to, that on the following day he was able to favour his admiring auditors with the charming story published in Les Victoires et Conquêtes, under the head of "Le Passe-partout et Le Wasp." 'How he, Jules Renaudin, had engaged the British privateer off Ushant, in the Passe-partout, which, taking fire during the engagement, had left him and his gallant sailors no other chance of success other than that of taking to the boats and boarding the enemy. That was done; and victory, faithful to the glorious tricolor, crowned the audacious attempt. Then came the tempest; and Captain Renaudin related how it happened that the French and English crews persisting, spite of his commands and supplications, to quit the ship, had all miserably perished. 'This,' said Webbe, is a meagre outline of the precious plan which I, under stress of utter ruin and a French prison, extemporised, and, helped by my knowledge of poor Renaudin's antecedents, derived from broken conversations with him since he had been on board the Wasp, nicely filled up and rounded off with many interesting details, to the great satisfaction of an applauding auditory. Renaudin was, I knew, personally unknown in Northern France, or I might hardly have risked so audacious a ruse. It succeeded, fortunately, to admiration. I was flattered, fêted, a handsome subscription was raised for me, and the hull and stores of the Wasp, which was cast on shore during the night, were sold for my benefit. Admiral Ducos, the French minister of marine, visited, warmly complimented me, and in frank compliance with a suggestion of some of my new friends, penned a certificate-I will shew it you some day-which sets forth that the bearer, Jules Renaudin, formerly one of the équipage of L'Orient, is a gallant seaman, who has deserved well of France and of all Frenchmen. I went in,' added Webbe, for the cross of the Legion of Honour; but Napoleon happening to be extremely busy just then with his own pet make-believe, mine missed that distinguished recognition, which was a pity. Still, I had done pretty well under the very awkward circumstances; and I have since, off and on, played in the honoured name of Renaudin a fairly successful, but deucedly delicate game, which I am not at all sorry is fast drawing towards a close. And now, my dear Linwood, we will, with your permission, adjourn to the table d'hôte- Ah! you have no appetite! The idea of dinner even disgusts a sensitive organisation, over which the divine passion exercises just now despotic influence.' 'Go to the devil!' 'All in good time. Meanwhile, may I ask the favour of being informed, as soon as you return from the charming, and, I will hope, not inexorably cruel Clémence, how Have a care, my dear fellow, homicide, even if effected with a decanter, is punishable in this country by the galleys! Good-bye. My compliments to dear Clémence.' ELECTRO-METALLURGY. LAST year, we introduced to our readers a simplified method of silvering, by the electric process, all articles of household use, now known as 'substitutes for silver,' and also of replating worn-out Sheffield ware, &c. We are gratified to know that attention has been extensively drawn to this subject in its domestic application; and we think it only due to our pupils to lay before them now some results of our further experience, and to lead them on to new applications of this attractive and really useful art. We shall, in as small a compass as possible, endeavour to render the present paper a manual for those who may be disposed, even now, to make a beginning, as |