186 Fleur de Lys, who had been holding her breath, and was leaning against the wall for support, looked towards her cousin, and their eyes met. The man was reloading a second time. He aimed; but M. de Criquetot was saved the trouble of spoiling the shot a second time, for whilst the finger was on the trigger, the rifle slipped out of the man's hand, and he fell forward himself, with a bullet in the head. The shout now seemed to rise from "The officer! - fire everybody at once:at him!" "He seems bewitched: the bullets won't touch him." This is at his head." But the officer advanced, his men following him. Lead whistled around him, above him, but never harmed him. "If somebody does not bring him down, he and his men will be in the castle in another minute," thundered an officer, discharging three barrels of a revolver in quick succession. At this moment, the Duke de Bressac, who had been sitting, to fire the better, sprang up, with his hand to his head, staggered forward, and rolled at his daughter's A revolver escaped from his hands, feet. which Fleur de Lys picked up. "The officer! at the officer!" the cry was now raging like a hurricane from a hundred parched throats at once. Pale, but with her lips set, Fleur de Lys stepped forward. Then she aimed with her weapon. Friedrich Leoneizen was scarcely at thirty yards' distance from her. Her face was flushed, but grave and sad. She pressed the trigger. He reeled in his saddle, looked, saw who had shot him; then fell. Before her cousin could stop her, or guess her intention, Fleur de Lys had turned the revolver on herself. At the very moment when Leoneizen touched the ground she fell too; but no one except her cousin noticed whence the shot came. THE preparations made by the Governments of the present age to have every phase of a total eclipse studied and recorded, contrast favourably with the superstition that prevailed a few centuries ago. For instance, the Scientific American quotes the following from a German paper: -"The Elector of Darmstadt was informed of the approach of a total eclipse in 1699, and published the following edict in con- His Highness, having been insequence:formed that on Wednesday morning next at ten o'clock a very dangerous eclipse will take place, orders that on the day previous, and a few days afterwards, all cattle be kept housed, and to this end ample fodder to be provided; the doors and windows of the stalls to be carefully secured, the drinking wells to be covered up, the cellars and garrets guarded so that the bad air may not obtain lodgment, and thus produce infection, because such eclipses frequently cause whooping cough, epilepsy, paralysis, fever, and other diseases, against which every precaution should be observed.'" ONE of the hotel grievances in this country is that no one on entering the establishment knows what will be the amount of his bill when Should any gentleman take wall lamp or candle light from the public rooms they must pay for it without any dispute its charges. Monthly gentlemen will have to pay my fixed rate made with them at the time, and should they absent day in the month they will not be allowed to deduct anything out of it, be cause I take from them less rate than my usual rate of monthly charges.' ,, Pall Mall Gazette. From The Athenæum. " stood in the pillory, in 1758, an indulgence to the seditions writer that brought TOWARDS the close of his nineteen rebuke and punishment on Under-Sheriff years of splendid wastefulness in London, Beardman. From time immemorial the when bailiffs incessantly watched the doors right to bear a single umbrella has been of the Gore House and a certain dwelling a considerable distinction in Eastern in a modest terrace a little lower down lands. To this day, to be the lord of the road, Alfred, Count D'Orsay, gave ut- many umbrellas is to be a sublime perterance to a memorable sentiment. In sonage. The Mahratta Princes, who reply to a prudent friend, who vainly reigned at Poonah and Sattara, had the tried to dissuade him from ordering a new title of Ch'hatra-pati, i.e., Lord of the Umcarriage that he did not need and could brella, from which superb designation it not pay for, the last of the dandies de- has been suggested that we derive the clared that as long as he lived whatever word "satrap.' The King of Ava was he used should be the best of its kind. proud to call himself "King of the White When he could no longer drive the best Elephant, and Lord of the Twenty-four carriage, he would carry the best umbrel- Umbrellas." Barely sixteen years have la in town. The prudent friend was set passed since the King of Birma styled aside with a smile; and in another year himself, in a letter to the Marquis of Dalthe beau had retired to his native land, housie," His great, glorious, and most exand entered on the last stage of his ca- cellent Majesty, who reigns over the kingreer. True to his word, when he could doms of Thunaparanta, Tampadípa, and not keep a perfect carriage, he made him- all the great umbrella-wearing chiefs of self the owner of a faultless "gingham "; Eastern countries." A member of the and he went to his artistic grave at Cham Pytchley Hunt would not care to turn out bourcy leaning on the daintiest umbrella at the end of a good regiment of umbrelthat could be found in Paris. la-bearers; but, as Mr. Woodcroft reThe parapluie that alternately aided the minds us in his capital essay on the archtottering steps and shaded the wan fea-ology of sun-shades, "we hear of twentytures of the fading Count was the newest specimen of a contrivance whose story is almost co-extensive with that of human civilization. The last and youngest of a noble line, it had a pedigree of venerable antiquity. Though it may have had no lineal connection with the biblical "shade defending from the sun," it could boast a descent from the symbolical sunshades of Nineveh, Egypt, India, and China. Its remote and gorgeous ancestors, typical of death and dominion over life, had conferred splendour on the religious pomps of extinct peoples, and inspired their beholders with awe. Their effigies may be found on sacred sculptures, in the ruins of palaces and temples. Their mysterious powers are commemorated in the adornThough the Greeks used the umbrella ments of antique vases, and the traditions as a mystic symbol in some of their sacred of superstitious faiths. In the fifth incar- festivals, it was known to them chiefly in nation of Vishnu, when the god went later times as an article of luxury for the down into hell, he bore in his hand the same comfort and decoration of aristocratic implement that Jonas Hanway, the found-woman-kind. Aristophanes and Pausaer of Magdalen Hospital used to carry nias both mention the okadetov as though about George the Third's London, to the it were a contrivance commonly used by scorn and rage of hackney-coachmen. In ladies. Adopting two of the ancient uses like manner an old bas-relief represents of the parasol, the Romans gave it to Dionysius descending to the infernal re- their gentlewomen as a piece of apparel gions, holding a specimen of the ingenious contrivance that was extended by a footman over the head of Dr. Shebbeare, to ward off the rain and rotten eggs from the unfortunate man of letters whilst he four umbrellas being carried before the Emperor of China when he was going hunting." In London, where a single dealer in furnished and unfurnished sticks has sold four millions of alpaca umbrellas in the course of the last twenty years, and where umbrellas are so lightly esteemed that fairly honest men take no trouble to return them after borrowing them, it seems very absurd that nations should have exalted the portable canopy to be an ensign of authority and a symbol of religious truth. But there is nothing in the nature of things which makes stars, garters, and buttons more appropriate ensigns of personal worth than wands fitted with folds of silk. suitable to their delicacy, and in later times raised the canopy of state to be a symbol of authority. The cardinal's hat is probably derived from the umbrella suspended in the Basilican churches of Rome before their conversion from judg-1 one of the earliest weather-shades introment-halls into places of divine worship. duced into the country. The picture on "The origin of this custom," says the au- the title-page of Evelyn's "Kalendarium thor of the Introduction" to our little Hortense" (1664), of a black page carryBlue Book, "of hanging au umbrella in ing a closed hand canopy, at least renders the Basilican churches is plain enough. it improbable that any umbrella was at The judge sitting in the basilikon would that period an article whose rarity enhave it as a part of his insignia of office. titled it to a place in a collection of curi On the judgment-hall being turned into a osities. That the invention was commonly church the umbrella remained, and in fact used as a defence against the rain in occupied the place of the canopy over the Queen Anne's London by women of the thrones and the like in our own country. humbler grades as well as by ladies, we Batiano, an Italian herald, says that a know from Gay's mention of the "oily vermilion umbrella in a field-argent sym- shed in the "Trivia" and Swift's lines in bolizes dominion."" the Tattler October 17, 1710The tucked-up sempstress walks with hasty Though a drawing preserved in the Harleian MSS. represents an Anglo-Saxon fop of high degree taking the air under an umbrella, made with ribs and a sloping handle, which is held over his head by his body-servant, the general use of the umbrella in England may be said to have commenced no earlier than the eighteenth century. In James the First's time the majority of our women no less than of our men scorned to screen themselves from sun, rain, and wind with the little "vmbrellaes," made of leather, "something answerable to the form of a little canopy, and hooped in the inside with divers little wooden hoops that extend the vinbrella strides, While streams run down her oiled umbrella's sides. Let Persian dames th' umbrellas rich display, Britain in winter only knows its aid state in a prety large compasse," which To guard from chilly showers the walking maid. Thomas Coryat, in his "Crudities," ridiculed as the absurdest contrivances of the The time was close at hand when the fanciful Italians. Like the table-fork, walking-maid's defence became the shield however, the umbrella found its advocates of both sexes. Like many other social reas well as its enemies in Elizabethan Lon-formers who garner to their own fame the don; and persons, bold enough to urge fruits of earlier labourers, Jonas Hanway that it was not impious for the hungry gained popular credit for inventing the Christian to put pieces of meat into his umbrella, whereas he was at most nothmouth with a pair of steel prongs, ven- ing more than one of the first gentlemen tured to raise their voices in behalf of the of the town to carry an umbrella habitualnew implement for preserving complex-ly. Sixteen years before Hanway's death, ions and finery. The umbrella, used both as a sun-shade and defence against the rain, certainly grew in favour with Londoners of luxury. and fashion under the first two Stuarts. Drayton, in 1620, described it as a thing able "to shield you in all sorts of weathers." Twenty years later Beaumont and Fletcher, in "Rule a Wife and Have a Wife," alluded to it in the lines and when the umbrella-using philanthropist had availed himself of the folding canopy for some fourteen years, John Macdonald, the footman and autobiographer, used to be greeted by the hackney coachmen with derisive shouts of " Frenchman, Frenchman, why don't you call a coach?" whenever he showed himself in the streets with his "fine silk umbrella, newly brought from Spain." Two centuries since, the oiled umbrella, of clumsy cane or whalebone ribs, strung on a ring of wire, and expanded without the aid of the modern top-notch and runner, was no The umbrella exhibited during the less heavy than awkward, although its Commonwealth as a rarity at John Trad- canopy was much less extensive than that escant's Museum at South Lambeth was of the ordinary umbrella of the present either interesting on account of its ex-day. In the seventeenth century an umceptional construction, or because it was brella of the best French workmanship Now you have got a shadow, an umbrella, weighed about 3 lb. 8 1-2 oz., a weight exceeding by 3lb. that of the silk umbrellas manufactured in Paris in 1849. climate, may have an umbrella fixed on a needle-gun cane. Nervous and morbidlymodest ladies, who do not like to be Some notion may be formed of the looked at as they walk about, and delicate amount of ingenuity expended during the persons who would defend themselves last eighty or ninety years on improving against fine mist as well as rain, should the umbrella, from the fact that this col- buy Mr. Samuel Stocker's umbrella, which lection of abridgments of specifications has a circular veil or curtain attached to contains abstracts of 292 patents, the ear- the circumference of the unfolded weatherliest of which was granted in October, shade, so that its tented bearer, looks 1786, and the latest in July, 1861. Some something like an animated post-pillar. few of these patents are for walking- The falling curtain, it should be observed, sticks not furnished with drapery; and is provided with a little window, so that many of them refer only to improvements, the secluded traveller can see where he or proposals for improvement, of one or is going. But the umbrella-holder, who more of the subordinate parts of the wishes to put a bow or other window inmechanism of the weather-shade, such as to his portable tenement should have it ribs, tips, handles, ferules, notches, springs. glazed by Mr. John Henry Johnson's paBut the majority of the specifications are tent "mode or modes of inserting glass or of contrivances affecting the umbrella's other transparent plates in the fabric of general design, or principle materials. umbrellas." The most perfect umbrella, Some of the schemes are very fanciful; attainable in the present state of indusbut the entire collection is an entertain- trial art, would combine the special coning exhibition of human ingenuity acting veniences of several patents. First of all, on a trifling matter of convenience. Who- the person ambitious of possessing the ever wishes for an umbrella so fashioned best possible parapluie should provide that its silk may be shut up within the himself with Henry William Van Kleft's stick, may have his desire by buying Ed-"walking-staff, constructed to contain a ward Thomason's "rhabdoskidopheros," pistol, powder, ball, and screw telescope, or one of the several weather-shades made pen, ink, paper, pencil, knife, and drawwith the same object as Mr. Thomason's ing utensils." For the drawing utensils invention. The warlike citizen is provided, of this apparatus he should substitute a by the invention of Malcolm M'Gregor small pipe and half an ounce of tobacco. and William M'Farland (1808), with an This staff should be enriched with a warmimplement that may be used at will to ing-pan handle, furnished with a sun-dial, ward off rain or kill a foe; for it may "be and fitted with a waterproof canopy, havshut up in its case, to be used as a walk-ing a circular curtain and six handsome ing-stick, and may be used as a defensive windows. The whole should be enclosed weapon by having a spear attached, which | in Thomas Dawson's "Improved case or is prevented from running into the stick cover for umbrellas, which can also be when used by a spring." For the benefit worn as a garment"; with respect to of umbrella-bearers whose blood circulates which envelope, contrived a double debt sluggishly, and whose hands, therefore, to pay, the inventor remarks: "I provide are liable to suffer from cold, Mr. Charles it with a button and a loop, or other suitSmith (1846) invented an umbrella-handle with sockets to hold heating matters. Ladies who like to have the latest and best information about the time of day may have sun-dials fitted in the handles of their sun-shades by the patented process. Three varieties of pipe-stick, to be used as a walking-staff or umbrella, have been devised for the happiness of smokers. The pedestrian who likes to shoot wild birds, and be armed against a capricious able fastening; and when not worn on the shoulders the umbrella is inserted and rolled in it, the loop and button fastened, and the case assumies a neat and sightly appearance." Though it might not be all that he could desire in respect to weight, the umbrella, thus constituted and furnished, would enable its proprietor to walk to and fro between the city and his suburban residence with an agreeable sense of security. From The Athenæum. THE FORTESCUE PAPERS.* on one of the letters, to this effect, "Marq. of Bucks on State affairs . . . useless." IT was a lucky thing for society genMr. Gardiner has done wisely in editing erally that Mr. Upcott, then Librarian at only a selection from these papers. They the London Institution, paid a visit to have little of the general interest which Wotton in 1817, and that he told Lady pervades Pepys, Evelyn, or even Boswell, Evelyn how dearly he loved autographs. and the editor might have eliminated more "If you mean such things as these," said largely. The story of ship-building acthe lady, showing him a letter by Sarah cording to the invention of Robert Dudley of Marlborough," you may be easily grati-is, for instance, fully told in Adlard's fied, for the house is full of them!" It " Amye Robsart and Leicester "; and was exactly what Mr. Upcott did mean, Dudley's own story is as fully told in the and he naturally referred to the honoured Athenaeum (No. 2231). Nevertheless there name of old John Evelyn. "Old Mr. is much in this volume which the student Evelyn!" exclaimed the poco-curante lady; of history will be glad to read and much why, there is a clothes-basket full of his which will amuse those who open it merely letters and papers in one of the garrets! for traits of social manners. The editor I was so tired of seeing them about the has given 161 letters, from 1607, a letter house that I told the maids to light the from James the First to Henri Quatre, to fires with them." Mr. Upcott was soon 1614, a note from Charles the First to bending over this dignified clothes-basket, Prince Rupert. One of the most remarkaand found in it, nearly intact, that famous ble letters is addressed by James to the Diary, which has given nearly as much de- Commissioners for the examination of Sir light to the world as the Diary of ten years Walter Raleigh. Thus writes the King in of the life of Pepys. Even this latter October, 1618:Diary lay for generations, at Oxford, a. "We have perused your letter touching the dead letter. Its shorthand character was proceeding with Sir Walter Raleigh, in both as undecipherable as an inscription from which courses propounded by you we find imNineveh. But keys to both have been perfeccion. As first we like not that there found; and the Rev. J. Smith constructed should be only a narrative sett forth in print the one which opened new scenes of the of his crimes togither with our warrant for his social life of the seventeenth century to a execution. And for the other course of a publik world of readers. Some MSS. go astray calling him before our Counsell wee think it not altogether, and turn up in the least-ex-fitt, because it would make him too popular, as pected places. Boswell's letters to Tem- was found by experience at his arraignement at ple, published in 1857, were discovered just hatred of men into compassion of him. SecondWinchester, where by his witt he turned the as they were about to be used for wrap-ly, it were too great honor to him to have that ping up groceries in Madame Noël's shop at Boulogne. There can be little doubt that researches among the papers in many old and noble houses at home would well repay its trouble. The discovery of these James suggests a more private way of Fortescue papers is a case in point. Sev-trying and condemuing Raleigh, and en years ago, Mr. Fortescue came into posadds: :session of Dropmore, the home of perhaps the noblest trees in the world. The estate, before Lady Grenville enjoyed it, had belonged to her ancestor, Governor Pitt, of Boconnoc. The originals of the papers now published by the Camden Society were found by Mr. Fortescue in an old box in the carpenter's shed. The contents, wholly or in part, had probably been considered as waste paper. There was an endorsement, in a handwriting of the last century, have observed never to have been used but tocourse taken against one of his sort, which we ward persons of great qualitie." tion which hath been thus longe suspended, a "And then, after the sentence for his execudeclaration be presently putt forth in print, a warrant being sent down for us to signe for his execution. Wherein we hold the French Physitian's confession very materiall to be inserted, as allso his own and his consortes confession that, before they were at the Islandes, he told them his ayme was at the fleet, with his son's oration, when they came to the town, and some touch of his hateful speeches of our per "" son. James as clearly murdered Raleigh to gratify Spain, as Henry the Seventh murdered the princely boy the Earl of Warwick in order to win from Spain the hand of Catherine of Arragon for Arthur, his |