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theories confuted by experience and common | lished; and until metaphysics are studied with sense. The fact is, that experience and common sense are precisely the grounds upon which they rest. What is opposed to them is a loose popular prejudice, founded, not on the experience of many examples, but on the idle contemplation of a few taken at random. The conclusions to which they point are some of the most important that can possibly be estab

that belief in their importance and that exquisite clearness of thought which distinguished Berkeley, there will always be great danger that our scientific discoveries will land us in a slavish credulity and a superstitious reverence for mere material results for which the possession of all the machines in the world would ill repay mankind.

DR. WARREN AND LOUIS NAPOLEON.-In the year 1837, the late Dr. John C. Warren made a voyage to Europe, and among his fellowpassengers in the ship, he mentions Louis Napoleon, the present Emperor of the French. In his biographical notes, Dr. Warren thus describes him:

"With Napoleon I conversed in French, though he spoke English very well.

"This was after his first attempt to excite a

revolution in France, from which he had come to America and was thence returning to his mother, who was quite ill at Geneva. He conversed very pleasantly on any subject proposed. He was well versed in classical literature, and fond of it; quite a proficient in mathematics, and showed me a thick octavo volume he had composed on the science of artillery and engineering. He was versed in the small accomplishments which makes a part of French educa

tion,-comic acting, tricks at cards, etc., some o which were very remarkable. All these things he did with imperturbable gravity; never laughing as if he enjoyed them, but did them for the amusement of others. He never talked politics. We always used the title of prince and gave him a place next the captain. He made himself very agreeable to the ladies, and gave them small presents occasionally. He landed at Liverpool with us, made his way to Geneva, and reached his mother two or three days before she expired."-Vol. i, p. 282.

Thirteen years after, during a subsequent visit to Europe, Dr. Warren saw Louis Napoleon under other circumstances. He says:

"I went to the President's fête at St. Cloud; was introduced to the President by our minister, and had some conversation with him about our voyage to Europe in 1837, which he readily recollected. There were present about two thousand persons, of all nations; very beautiful ladies-a vast number of officers in brilliant uniforms. The day was very fine, and about a hundred fountains playing. The President was dressed in a plain black suit, with white waistcoat and brown colored scraf. He did not appear to feel at ease."-Vol. ii, pp. 66-67.

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LETTERS FROM ITALY.-Italy just now is overrun with correspondents to the English press. There is hardly a respectable London newspaper but has at least one writer in this country, and there are well toward ten in Florence alone. With characteristic intelligence, enterprise and sagacity, England watches sharply when there is any thing interesting going on in any part of Europe. Every fact or incident connected with movements which may in the her political influence, is carefully made note of. slightest degree affect her trading interests, or A certain fairness is shown at the present time by the leading journals, by employing Italian writers to make up the record of passing events. By the pens of its own writers the country is writes to the Times; Count Arrivabene to the allowed to tell its own story. Antonio Galenga Daily News, and Professor Guidice has been the Trollope, who writes to the Athenæum, has lived regular correspondent of the Morning Post. so many years in this country as to have quite as many Italian as English sympathies, and does not inherit any of the faculty for hating foreign countries which the parent exhibited with such uncommon malignity when discoursing some years since upon American affairs.Florence Correspondence Providence Journal.

RIVER BANKS.-M. Babinet, of the Paris Observatory, has advanced before the Academy of Sciences the singular proposition that in all right bank that is washed by floods-that is to rivers left to themselves, it is invariably the say, it is the right bank which suffers the most friction and the most destruction. He explains this by the direction and force of the earth's rotation. His contradictors at the Academy admit that this may be true of rivers running north and south, but they deny the principle for those which run east and west, in the direction of the earth's rotation. M. Babinet contends that even here the friction of the right bank is slightly greater than of the left. Will some American professor take the trouble to reply to the French astronomer's proposition? For it is especially in America that it can be proved or disproved by actual observation.

From The Spectator.

bary the termination of her voyage. Her

MRS. MURRAY'S MOROCCO, SPAIN, AND first impressions of that romantic land were

THE CANARIES.*

unpleasantly prosaic. Tangier, as she beheld it from the sea, "looked like a city of the dead, a vast cemetery, a Kensal Green, laid bare on the slope of a hill." Her mode of landing was more curious than pleasant. Two vagabond Jews fought for the privilege of carrying her ashore, cursing each other's great-grandfathers the while with exceeding fervor and force, and the victorious competitor for the job finished it by suddenly plumping her down on her hands and face on the sand. The incident was ominous. It was in the same involuntary posture that Cæsar first saluted the land of Egypt, making his fall a happy prognostic. In the young artist's case the omen was succeeded by a prophecy. The Jews in Tangier, she says, possess a remarkable insight into the future, and often give utterance to prophecies which seldom fail to be realized. When she occasionally expressed to some of them who had travelled in Europe her surprise that they should choose to settle in such a little dirty town as Tangier, their answer was: "Ah! you dislike Tangier; well, we can tell you that it will be your own future home for years to come." The prophecy was fulfilled, for in less than a year the subject of it was married to the British Consul.

A FIRST venture in literature, is doubly hazardous for one who has already achieved a considerable reputation in another art. The new performance will be measured by the standard of its predecessors-a standard unfairly applied to it, for success in one art by no means implies an equal command over another, nor does it pledge the artist to attempt in this as much as he accomplished in that. Est quodam prodere tenus, si non datur ultra. Granted that Cicero's poetry was greatly inferior to his oratory, we are far from believing that the unhappy line preserved by the satirist is a fair specimen of his versification. But the world has always been loth to believe in versatility of talent, and prompt to punish those who lay claim to it, or if that may not be, then to wrong them as much by fulsome adulation. Mrs. Murray has braved this hazard with characteristic boldness and may congratulate herself on the result. We cannot say that she writes as well as she paints, but her book is full of animation, brightly colored and picturesque, and more interesting than many of higher pretensions. People who would look into it for what pedants call "useful information," statistics, "ologies," and so forth, would be disappointed, as they deserve to be; but not Mrs. Murray may say what she pleases in so those who desire to see the aspect of men depreciation of Moorish beauty, but the painand things in sunny climes, and among prim- ful conviction will force itself upon us, that itive and semi-barbarous races, reflected from the ladies of Morocco greatly surpass those the mind of an accomplished artist. The of England in perfection of form, according first three sentences in her book are worth to the present standard of taste in Europe. more than all the contents of many a threevolume novel: "A vagabond from a baby, I left England at eighteen. I was perfectly independent, having neither master nor money. My pencil was both to me, being at the same time my strength, my comfort, and my intense delight." Among the passengers on board the Royal Tar, in which she sailed for Gibraltar, there was a stately Moor, who sat to her for his portrait in the Bay of Biscay. He was a very animated sitter, and the wonderful tales he related of his race and country so excited the curiosity of the artist, that before the sketch was finished she had resolved to make the shores of Western Bar

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The latter must have recourse to art for the means of imitating the graces which the former owe to nature and cultivation; the fine proportions of the one are real and substantial, those of the other are hollow and delusive; in fact, the Moorish lady wears her crinoline inside her skin; the English lady wears hers a long way outside of it. It is hardly matter for wonder if what may be the natural structure of a Frankish woman is still a moot point in the female colleges of Morocco.

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I remember one monstrous creature-a Moorish beauty-the wife of an official, who, on receiving me, felt my clothes, and counted my fingers to see if a Nazarene woman was in all points made like herself. My gloves next attracted her attention, and she proceeded to examine them, although, from some

cause, she shrank from them at first with fear. tract two passages descriptive of popular outThe first is a favorite She was, as is usual here, very beautiful down door amusements. to the chin, and her complexion was as fair dance of Teneriffe. as that of an English matron. Her black, languishing eyes, like those of the Jewesses, were stained with alcohol; and besides the extreme whiteness of her skin, she possessed that peculiarly marble-like quality which is only obtained by the frequent use of the bath. Her hair was flowing down in rich luxuriance over her shoulders, and the head and face altogether presented an appearance of remarkable beauty. But the extraordinary size of her body, which was quite overwhelming, I found rather difficult to recognize as any recommendation in the way of beauty. according to my European standard, which I do not find myself quite prepared to dispense with.

"In Morocco, the Moorish maiden, on her betrothal, undergoes a regular course of fattening, which is continuously carried on till her marriage, and which is conducted on the same principle as that on which our farmers fatten fowls. While undergoing the process, she sits all day in a dimly lighted room, and is stuffed incessantly with enscupoo, a preparation of flour, which is the national dish of Morocco, in addition to which she drinks copiously of water. While undergoing this regimen she is dressed lightly, and in order to prevent any exertion or exercise on her part, she wears a gigantic pair of silver anklets, of great weight, the presence of which renders rest more desirable than the slightest locomotion. This process continues for some time, and the indolence of the mind being added to that of the body, she is sure, ere long, to arrive at the orthodox amplitude."

"Before one of the principal houses I observed a cuadrillo, a party of eight or ten young men, all habited in the showy old costume of the island, with a number of gay, parti-colored ribbons flaunting from their hats. One of them sustained a long pole, about twelve feet high, to the summit of which several silk ribbons were attached, their number being exactly equal to that of the dancers who were to join in that exhilarating and everwelcome exercise around it. Each ribbon also was about twelve or eighteen feet long, the lower half, next the dancer, being rolled up into a ball, one of which was appropriated to each of the votaries of the gay and sprightly art. All the dancers first forming a circle at a short distance round the pole and its bearer, the musicians who accompany them having commenced to play rather slowly, each one facing two parties alternately, they then all began to move in opposite directions, keeping time to the cadence of the music, and, when they met, turning round each other, thereby entwining the upper part of the ribbon they carry in their hands. They do the same with each succeeding partner they face in their progress, repeating these movements in six successive rounds, constantly widening the circles as they allow the ribbon to slip off the ball in their hands, the music gradually increasing in vivacity until they get to the end of their tether, by which time the ribbons have been wrought up a regular open network of various colors. momentary pause ensues at this point. On again commencing, each dancer reverses his The least interesting part of Mrs. Murray's position, and, with the same precision as before, moves in the direction exactly opposite volumes is that relating to Spain; fortunately, to his former one, undoing, at each encounter it is also the shortest. The most notable with his partners, the confused mesh he had thing we find in it is the remark which one previously woven, and gathering, as he proSpanish lady made of another that she was ceeds, the slack ribbon in his hand, until, ar“una muger mas mala que hay en el mundo; riving at the place from which the start was en fin una Aña Bolena"-the worst woman first made, each dancer again occupies his in the world; in fact an Anna Boleyn. The original place. The pole, with its pendent streamers, is then lowered, the dance conCatholic compatriots of Queen Catherine to cludes, and the party proceed to repeat it bethis day regard her heretic rival as the high-fore the inmates of some other favored dwellest type of human depravity; and to this day ing. When this dance is well performed, and the British Admiral Drake is the Old Bogy, correct time is kept, as it generally is, it has whose name the matrons of the Canary Isl- a very lively effect. Sometimes women minands invoke to quiet naughty children. "Aquigle in the dance; and, when this is the case, rien el Draque," they cry: Here comes Drake! The author's description of the Canary islands, their magnificent scenery, and the manners and customs of their lighthearted people, are very engaging. We ex

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the figure is more complicated, and the steps more difficult and elaborate. Long and careful drilling is required before it can be performed with the degree of excellence expected and required. It is generally, however, well and skilfully executed, as none but those who

are familiar with its movements ever think of the several streets. Accidents sometimes attempting it." will happen on these occasions, notwithstandThe companion picture is an extraordinary ing all the care that is taken to guard against

feast of lanterns.

them, the articles which are used being so liable to take fire. If the illuminating materials within should not be securely fixed, or steadily carried, or if they should be acciden

an unexpected flare-up will in all probability be the consequence. One of the bodies of the solar system, slowly pursuing its measured path, may thus be transformed into a blazing comet, either to be attracted into another sphere or to be extinguished altogether. But the illuminated materials are of so slight a nature that when such an unfortunate contretemps does happen, the rising conflagration is in general very speedily extinguished, the only inconvenience arising from it being the exhibition of the extraordinary anatomical configuration of what is meant to pass for a horse, or the revelation of the internal constitution of the sun and moon, or the chemistry of the stars.

the towns have rapid declivities and ascents, in passing along which the ever-moving lights of the Pandorga have a very striking appearance, much more so than they would have if constantly seen only from the same level. It is one great advantage of this spectacle that the quiet and orderly demeanor of the crowd allows the sight to be enjoyed without alarm for the security of one's person or pockets."

"The people of the island have no national music, nor have they any predilection for a particular instrument of any kind. A tam-tally displaced in some rude shock of arms, bourine, rude pipes made of cane, and a guitar, form their principal resource on the occasion of festivals, or other joyous occasions. There are, however, many amusements peculiar to the island, of which the Pandorga is one of the most novel. It consists of an illuminated procession, by night, through the principal streets of the town in which it takes place. When it is well done, as it sometimes is, by two hundred or more persons, and the occasion is favored by a bright and moonless sky, it forms a very brilliant and animated sight. The procession is composed of as many individuals as are inclined to take part in it, all uniformly dressed in white trousers and shirts, the latter, contrary to their usual position, hanging outside the other habili- "On some occasions this peculiar procession ments. The greater number carry white pa- presents a very remarkable and romantic apper lanterns, with lighted candles, on their pearance. As the general surface of the heads, and attaching themselves at equal dis-country is precipitous, the streets of many of tances to long ropes, form two lines, which marching, one on each side of the street, preserve the space in the centre free from the intrusion of the spectators. The middle space, in the mean time, is occupied by those who, in similar white dresses, bear immense figures, made of white paper over a framework of cane, representing grim giants as high as the housetops. Besides these, there are figures, equally large, of all other imaginable kinds of objects in nature,-sun, moon, and stars, camels, donkeys, geese, and ducks, in short, a whole Noah's ark turned out, all lighted from the interior, and all marching at a wonderful quick rate down the street, each one carried by the number of persons proportioned to the magnitude and weight of the burden. A hole in the back of the figure admits the entrance of the bearer, and in the case of the figures representing animals, a white stuffed leg, hanging down on each side from the waist, allows him to use his own in performing the sundry caprioles and curvettings he may think most suitable to the nature of his charger, when it is once lighted up, so that the crowd may be witnesses of his agility. He also carries a lantern helmet, or cap, on his head, and in his hand a long wand, that serves him for a lance, whenever a grand joust between the equestrian or asinine party takes place, at some spot where the procession halt for the purpose, or for the performance of a cottillon, for a band of music always accompanies it in its progress through

If English tourists, shut out from Italy, are tempted by Mrs. Murray's alluring sketches to fly off in a body to the Canaries, she does not leave them without warning of the sanguinary tormentors they will have to encounter. If, as the Syrians allege, the king of the fleas keeps his court in Tabaryeh, the most bloodthirsty republic of that race is established in Laguna.

"The fleas there are said to be so famous
for their size, strength, and activity, that they
are regarded with universal interest, and inci-
dents relating to them are introduced even
into the love-songs of the country, accom-
panied, in lieu of castanets, with expressive
snappings of the fingers. Such a verse, for
instance, as the following, is popular among
the lower classes, and is intended to give a
zest to the monotony of love-making.
"Last night I passed your window,

And I saw you catching fleas,
Surely, you might have said to me,

"Come and catch some if you please.'

THE TWIN MUTES: TAUGHT AND UN

TAUGHT.

WHERE the thorn grows by a ruined abbey,
In a valley of our gray
Northland,
Sits a lonely woman 'mid the gravestones,
Rocking to and fro with clasped hand.
Two rough stones, uncarven and unlettered,
Stand to guard that double-mounded grave,
Darkly brown in the untrodden churchyard,
Where the starflowers and the harebells wave.
"Ah, my grief is not extreme, O stranger!
Many a mother mourns a buried child;
Many a hearth that's silent in the autumn
Was not voiceless when the summer smiled.
"But our sorrows are of different texture,
Thro' the black there runs a silver thread;
Griefs there are susceptible of comfort,

Tears not salt above the happy dead. "Tender joy amid her wildest anguish

Hath the mother,-waiting in the calm Of the death-hush by her angel's cradle,

When she thinketh of the crown and palm. "And the ear that ached with the long tension, When the eye gave weary sorrow scope, Hears at night the voices of the dying

Breathe again their last low words of hope. "In mine ear there are no voices ringing, One pale smile is all that memory holds, Smile that flickers like a streak at sunset, That a night of gloomy cloud enfolds. "On that mountain, stranger; where the heather Casts a tint of purple and dull red, And a darker streak along the meadow

Shows from far the torrent's rocky bed;— "Where that broken line of larch and alder To one roof a scanty shelter yield, And the furze hedge, like a golden girdle, Clasps one narrow, cultivated field"Lies mine homestead: in that whitewashed dwelling,

Joys and pains and sorrows, have I known. Looked on the dear faces of my children, Seen their smiles, and heard their dying

moan.

"Five times had I heard the birth-cry feeble

In those walls, like music in mine ear; Five times, and no son's voice on my bosom Cried the cry that mothers love to hear. "But the sixth time,-more of pain and wailing,

More of pleasure after long alarms; For a boy was in the double blessing,

Son and daughter slept within mine arms. "Ah, what rapture was it all the summer, Sitting underneath the alder tree, While the breeze came freely up the mountain, And my twin babes smiled upon my knee! "Piped the thrush on many a cloudy evening, Poising on the larch-top overhead; Cried the brown-bird from the heather near us, And the torrent warbled in its bed.

"But the twain upon my bosom lying Were as dead to voice of bird or man, As the stone that under those blue waters Heard no rippling music as they ran. "Silence, silence, in the hearts that bounded With each passionate pulse of love or hate; No articulate language or expression,

When the soul rush'd to its prison gate.

"Only sometimes through their bars of azure, The wild eyes with glances keen and fond, Told some secret of that unsearched nature, Of the unfathom'd depth that lay beyond. "Came the lady to our lonely mountain, Pleaded gently with her lips of rose, Pleaded with her eyes as blue as heaven,

Spake of endless joys and endless woes. "Told me art had bridged that gulph of silence, That the delicate finger-language drew From the deaf-mute's heart its secret strivings, Gave him back the truths that others knew.

"And she prayed me by all Christian duty,

And she urged me when I wept and strove ! For the place was far,-my son was precious, And I loved him with a cruel love.

"Love! ah, no, sweet love is true and tender, Self-forgetting, flinging at the feet

Of the loved one, all her own emotions:

For my thought such name were all unmeet

"So I gave the girl, and to my bosom

Gave the life of an immortal spirit
Hugged the boy in his long, soundless night,

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For the bareness of a short delight.

Years came, years went, he grew up on this mountain,

A strange creature, passionate, wild, and

strong;

Untaught savage, wanting like the savage, Natural vent for rapture, or for wrong. "He was smitten;-when the furze in April To the wind that cometh from the east, Shakes like gold bells all its hardy blossoms, The death-arrow struck into his breast. "And she, too-like that strange wire that vibrates

Thousand miles along, to the same strainHis twin-sister, through her similar nature,

In her far home, felt the same sharp pain. "And she came to die beside the hearthstone, Where we watched him withering day by day,

On her wan cheek the same burning hectic, In her eye the same ethercal ray. "But she came back gentle, patient, tutored, Climbing noble heights of self-control, On her brow the conscious calm of knowledge, And the Christian's comfort in her soul. "Ah, mine heart! how throbb'd it with reproaches,

When the weak, wan fingers met to pray, When the eyes look'd sweetly up to heaven, While my poor boy laugh'd, and turn'd away.

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