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figure, could not be mistaken by any one who had seen a full-length portrait of him; he was remarkably dignified in his manner, and had an air of benignity over his features which his visitant did not expect, being rather prepared for sternness of coun

tenance.

"After an introduction from Mrs. Washington, he requested me to be seated, and, taking a chair himself, entered at once into conversation. His manner was full of affability; talked of the infant institutions of America, remarking that they were yet in embryo, but the time was not far distant when the advantages she would offer by intercourse with other nations would be eagerly sought. His dress was of purple satin. There was a commanding air in his appearance, which excited greater respect, and forbade freedom towards him, independently of that species of awe which is always felt in the moral influence of a great character. In every movement, too, there was a polite gracefulness, equal to any met with in the most polished courts of Europe. His smile was exceedingly attractive. A gentleman present observed to me that there was an expression in Washington's face that no painter had succeeded in taking. It struck me no man could be better formed to command. A stature of six feet, a robust but well-proportioned frame, calculated to sustain fatigue, without that heaviness which generally attends great muscular strength and abates active exertion, displayed bodily power of no mean standard. A light eye and full-the very genius of reflection, rather than the eye of blind passionate impulse. His nose appeared thick, and, though it befitted his other features, was too coarsely and too strongly formed to be the handsomest of its class. His mouth was like no other I ever saw; the lips firm, and the under jaw seemed to gnash the upper with force, as if its muscles were in full action when he sat still.

case.

"Neither with the General or with Mrs. Washington was there the slightest restraint or ceremony. There was less of it than I ever remember to have met with, where perfect good breeding and manners were at the same time observed. To many remarks, Washington assented with a smile or inclination of the head, as if he was by nature sparing in his conversation, and I am inclined to think this was the In alluding to a serious fit of sickness he had recently suffered, I could not help remarking, the country must have looked with anxiety to the termination of his indisposition. He made no reply to my compliment but an inclination of the head. His bow at my taking leave I shall never forget. It was the last movement I ever saw that illustrious character make as my eyes took their leave of him forever, and it hangs a perfect picture upon my recollection.

"The house of Washington was in Broadway near the Battery; the street front was handsome. The drawing-room, in which I sat, was lofty and spacious; but the furniture was not beyond that found in dwellings of opulent Americans in general, and might be called plain for its station. The upper end of the room had glass doors, which opened upon a balcony, commanding an extensive view of the Hudson River, interspersed with islands, and the Jersey shore on the opposite side. A grandson and granddaughter resided constantly in the house with the General; I understood they were his adopted children. Tea and coffee, with refreshments of all kinds, were laid in one part of the room; and before the company retired, each made their second obeisance to the General and his lady, and departed. Nothing could be more simple, purely republican; yet it was enough."

Neither Mrs. Washington nor the President received any visits on Sundays. In the morning they uniformly attended church, and the afternoons were generally spent in reading religious works.

As the second term of General Washington's presidency was drawing to a close, Mrs. Washington prepared for her return to the silent abodes of Mount Vernon. She retired there some months before her husband, and, in a letter to her friend, she expresses herself grateful to Providence for permission once more, and she hopes for the last time, to repose in their quiet home.

Nearly three years passed in tranquillity and happiness, surrounded by her grandchildren and a beloved circle of friends; but Death, envious of her happiness, removed from her side one of the best of men, and she became the widow of him for whom a country mourned.

During the last moments of her beloved husband, she sat on his bed in silent grief, watching his parting breath with true Christian fortitude. She saw the change, and said to the physician, in a firm and collected voice, "Is he gone?" When answered in the affirmative, she replied: "Then all is over; I shall soon follow him; I have no more trials to pass through." Letters and visits of condolence were received by the bereaved widow from all quarters, couched in terms of sympathy and sorrow.

But, within two years after the death of General Washington, she was attacked by a severe fever that proved fatal. When she found her dissolution fast approaching, she summoned her beloved grandchildren to her bedside, and endeavored to impress on their minds duties portraying the happiness of a Christian life, and the sweet influences of religion. She died on the 22d May, 1802, in the seventy-first year of her age, leaving behind her a character worthy the imitation of every American female.

ANECDOTE OF MRS. RADCLIFFE.

TOWARDS the middle of the year 1795, a short time after the deplorable affair of Quiberon, an English lady was taken prisoner just as she was entering France by the Swiss frontier. Her knowledge of French was limited to a few mispronounced words. An interpreter was soon found, and upon his interrogating her as to her motives for attempting so perilous an enterprise without a passport, she replied that she had exposed herself to all these dangers for the purpose of visiting the château where the barbarous Sieur de Fayel had made Gabrielle de Vergy eat the heart of her lover. Such a declaration appeared so ridiculous to those who heard it that they were compelled to doubt either the sanity or the veracity of the strange being who ventured upon it. They chose to do the latter, and forwarded the stranger to Paris, with a strong escort, as an English spy. Upon her arrival there, she was safely deposited in the Conciergerie.

Public feeling just then ran very high against the English. The countrywoman of Pitt was loaded with ill usage; and her terrors, expressed in a singular jargon of English mingled with broken French, served but to augment the coarse amusement of her jailers. After exhausting every species of derision and insult upon their prisoner, they ended by throwing her into the dampest and most inconvenient dungeon they could find. The door of this den was not more than four feet high; and the light, that dimly revealed the dripping walls and earthen floor, came through a horizontal opening four inches in height by fifteen in width. The sole movables of the place consisted of a rope pallet and a screen. The bed served for both couch and chair; the screen was intended as a partial barrier between the inhabitant of the dungeon and the curious gaze of the jailers stationed in the adjoining apartment, who could scrutinize at will, through a narrow opening between the cells, the slightest movements of their prisoner.

The stranger recoiled with disgust, and asked whether they had not a less terrible place in which to confine a woman.

"You are very bad to please, Madame," replied her brutal jailer, mimicking her defective French. "You are in the palace of Madame Capet."

And shutting behind him the massive door, barricaded with plates of iron, and secured by three or four rusty bolts, he left her to repeat his joke to his companions, and enjoy with them the consternation of Madame Rosbif.

Meanwhile the prisoner fell upon her knees, and gazed around her with a species of pious emotion.

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"What right have I," she cried, "to complain of being cast into this dungeon, once inhabited by the Queen of France, the beautiful, the noble Marie Antoinette? I sought food for my imagination; I undertook a journey to France to visit the most celebrated sojourns of the most celebrated individuals. Fortune has come to my aid. Here is what is better than the château of the Sieur de Fayel, and the terrible history of the bleeding heart. Never did a grander inspiration overflow my spirit. I will to work."

She drew from her pocket a small roll of paper, that had escaped the scrutiny of the jailers; and, passing her hand across her forehead, approached the horizontal opening, in order to make the most of the little remainder of daylight; then, taking out a pencil, she rapidly covered ten or twelve pages with microscopic characters in close lines. The increasing darkness at length compelled her to pause, and she was refolding the MS. to replace it in her pocket, when a rude hand snatched it from her grasp.

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"Ah! ah! Madame Rosbif," cried the jailer triumphantly, so you believe yourself at liberty to scribble away here, hatching plots against the Republic, and holding intelligence with the enemies of the nation. Nous verrons cela! These papers shall be remitted this very day to Monsieur Tallien, and we well know all about this new attack upon liberty. Entendez-vous? miserable agent of Pitt and Cobourg?"

The same evening Tallien received the stranger's manuscript. Being unacquainted with the English language, he rang for his secretary; but the latter was nowhere at hand, so the puzzled minister took the papers and proceeded to his wife's apartments.

Madame Tallien was just completing her toilet for a fancy ball. Leaning forward in a graceful attitude, she was in the act of twining round her slender ankle the fastenings of a purple buskin. Her Grecian tunic, simply clasped upon the shoulder with diamonds, and her hair, knotted like that of the Polyhymnia of the Louvre, harmonized admirably with the classical contour of her features. Monsieur Tallien, as he gazed upon her, half forgot his errand.

The lady uttered a little cry of surprise. "Upon what grave errand has Monsieur deigned to favor me with a visit at this unaccustomed hour?" "I have here some papers,” replied the minister, "that have been seized upon the person of a female spy, and are said to contain proofs of a dangerous conspiracy. They are written in English; my se225

cretary is absent; and I must ask you to do me the favor to translate them to me."

Madame Tallien took the MS., and looked it over. "Shall I read aloud?" said she, in an amused tone of voice.

Her husband assented.

"The wind howls mournfully through the foliage, and the descending rain falls in torrents. The terrors of my prison become every instant more fearful. Phantoms arise on every side, and wave their snowy winding-sheets. Misfortune, with her cold and pitiless hand, weighs heavily on my youthful brow.' "Thus spoke the lovely prisoner, as she groped with her trembling hands over the humid walls of the dungeon."

"Here is a singular conspiracy truly," said Madame Tallien, as she finished reading the above. "Let me see the envelope; Chapter xii., The Dungeon of the Château.' And the authoress's name, 'Anne Radcliffe.' Vite, citoyen. Set this woman at liberty, and bring her to me. Your spy is no other than the great English romance writer, the celebrated authoress of the 'Mysteries of Udolpho!""

Tallien now recalled the romantic intention of the stranger's hazardous journey, as confessed by herself; perceived the mistake of his agents, and laughed heartily. Going quickly out, he issued orders for the immediate liberation of the prisoner, and desired the messenger to bring her straight to the presence of Madame Tallien.

Meanwhile, the beautiful Frenchwoman, forgetting her toilet and the ball, paced the apartment with almost childish delight and impatience. She was about to make the acquaintance-in a manner the most piquant and unexpected-of the authoress of those romances which had so often filled her vivid imagination with ideas of apparitions, and prisoners dying of hunger in horrible dungeons. She consulted her watch perpetually, and counted the very seconds. At length there was a sound of carriage-wheels in the court-yard of the hotel. Madame Tallien rushed to the door; it opened, and the two celebrated females stood face to face.

The minister's wife could not avoid recoiling with surprise, and some degree of consternation, before the singular figure that paused in the open doorway; for Mrs. Radcliffe had stopped short, dazzled and bewildered by the lights of the saloon, which wounded eyes accustomed for some hours past to the humid obscurity of a dungeon. The English authoress presented a striking contrast to the radiant being before her. Dry, cold, and angular, her attire necessarily in some degree of disorder from her arrest, forced journey, and imprisonment, her whole aspect had in it something bizarre and fantastic, that added to her age at least ten years.

A little recovered from her first surprise, Madame Tallien advanced towards the stranger, gave her a cordial welcome in English, and told her how happy

she esteemed herself in having been the means of setting at liberty so celebrated an authoress. The Englishwoman made a polite reply to this compliment, and then they seated themselves before the fire, whose clear flame and vivifying heat were very welcome to the liberated prisoner, and quickly restored an activity of mind that appeared to have been benumbed by the coldness of her dungeon. The ensuing conversation was gay, piquant, full of charm and abandon, and was only interrupted by the orders given by Madame Tallien to her femme de chambre to send the carriage away, and deny her to all visitors.

Mrs. Radcliffe had travelled much, and related her adventures with grace and originality. Hours flew by unheeded, and the English woman was in the very midst of some bold enterprise of her journey in Switzerland, when the timepiece struck twelve.

She turned pale, and a visible shuddering seized her. Then pausing in her tale, she looked wildly and fearfully around, as if following the movements of some invisible being. Madame Tallien, struck with a species of vague terror, dared not address a single word to her visitor. The latter at length abruptly rose, opened the door, and with an imperative gesture ordered some one by the name of Henry to leave the room, after which she appeared to experience a sudden relief.

The lovely Frenchwoman, with the tact of real kindness, appeared not to notice this strange inci. dent, and the new-made friends soon after separated, Madame Tallien herself conducting her guest to the apartment provided for her, where she took leave of her with an affectionate "au revoir !”

The following evening Mrs. Radcliffe appeared in her hostess's saloon, as soon as the latter had signified that she was ready to receive her. Calm and composed, habited à la Française, the English romancist appeared ten years younger than she had done the evening before, and was even not without a certain degree of beauty. She said not a word on the scene of the preceding evening; was gay, witty, amiable, and took an animated part in the conversation that followed. But as soon as the minutehand of the timepiece pointed to half-past eleven, her color fled, a shade of pensiveness replaced her former gayety, and a few moments afterwards she took her leave of the company.

The same thing happened the next day, and every ensuing evening. Madame Tallien could not avoid a feeling of curiosity, but she had too much politeness to question the stranger confided to her hospitality. In this way a month elapsed, at the end of which time Mrs. Radcliffe could not avoid expressing, one evening when she found herself alone with her new friend, her disappointment at being detained a prisoner in France, without the power of returning to her own country. Upon this, Madame Tallien rose, took a paper from a desk, and handed it to the Englishwoman. It was a pass

port, dated from the same evening that Mrs. Radcliffe had been liberated from her dungeon.

"Since you wish to leave your French friends," said her lovely hostess, smiling, "go, ingrate!"

"Oh no, not ungrateful!" replied the authoress, taking the beautiful hands of her friend, and carrying them to her lips; "but the year is fast waning, and a solemn duty recalls me to my native land. In the churchyard of a poor village near London are two tombs, which I visit each Christmas day with flowers and prayers. If I return not before then, this will be the first time for five years that they have been neglected. You already know all my other secrets," she continued, lowering her voice; "it is my intention to confide this secret also to your friendly ears." Passing her hand across her brow, the Englishwoman then proceeded to relate a strange and tragic tale. Suffice it to say, that it had left our authoress subject to a distressing and obstinate spectral illusion. In the reality of this appearance she firmly believed, not having sufficient knowledge of science to attribute her visitation to its true origin-a partial disarrangement of the nervous system. This visitation regularly recurred at midnight, and at once accounted for the singular behavior that had so piqued the benevolent Frenchwoman's curiosity.

Mrs. Radcliffe now returned to London, where she shortly afterwards published "The Italian, or the Confessional of the Black Penitents."

We can, in our day, realize to ourselves very little of the effect produced by Anne Radcliffe's romances at the time of their appearance. All the contemporary critics agree in testifying to their immense success, only inferior to that of the Waverley novels in more recent times. Now they appear nothing more than the efflux of a morbid imagination, full of hallucinations and absurdities, and insufferably tedious to our modern tastes, accustomed to the condensed writing of the present day. Their unconnected plots are nevertheless not altogether devoid of a certain sort of interest, and are fraught with picturesque situations and melodramatic surprises. The living characters therein introduced present few natural features. We recognize everywhere the caprices of an unbridled fancy, and a prevailing vitiation of sense and taste.

Anne Radcliffe died near London, on the 7th February, 1823, at the age of 63. The "New Monthly Magazine," for May of that year, announces her decease, and affirms that her death was accompanied by singular visions, which had pursued her ever since a romantic event of her youth.

VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY.

BY HARLAND COULTAS.

THE distribution and development of plants on the earth's surface appear to be in proportion to the amount of heat and light received from the sun. In tropical countries, which may be truly termed the paradise of plants, the utmost variety and luxuriance of growth prevail. In those bright and sunny lands, vegetation positively rushes up from the earth's surface, the trees attain the most gigantic size, and are as numerous in species as herbs and shrubs are with us, whilst, within the compass of a few leagues, thousands of different kinds of wild flowers may be collected. As we pass from tropical into temperate latitudes, and the earth receives less heat and light from the sun, we find a corresponding decrease in the beauty, variety, and fragrance of flowers; whilst in the dark and snowy wildernesses of Spitzbergen, an extensive tract of country lying within the polar circle, the trees are mere dwarf shrubs, and not more than thirty species of plants can be enumerated in an area extending for hundreds of miles. Plants seem, indeed, to be capable of enduring all extremes of heat and cold. In one of the Geysers of Iceland, a spring, the water of which was hot enough to boil an egg in five minutes, a species of Chara has been found growing and reproducing itself; whilst the snow which

covers the mountains and valleys around the North Pole is reddened by the Protococus nivalis, a minute plant that grows on its surface, and which, from its rapid diffusion, was supposed to fall from the sky.

Plants are, in fact, found growing almost everywhere. The lonely isles that rise above the waves of the Pacific Ocean, the snowy summits of the loftiest mountains, the deepest caverns of the earth, and waters of the sea, have all their appropriate vegetable forms. Even the desert has its spots of verdure; whilst the slightest crevice or inequality on rock, or wall, or mouldering ruin, is sufficient to arrest the progress of those invisible germs of vegetable life which are everywhere floating on the breeze.

We are accustomed to admire the magnificent spectacle of the starry heavens; but let us look on the earth, at the splendors of the vegetable creation. From the lowly moss and lichen that cover, with their minute, but exquisitely beautiful foliage, the rugged rocks and the bark of trees, to the tall and stately palms, the noble arborescent ferns waving their crown of leaves in the pure breezes of heaven, far above the hot vapors of the Brazilian forest; from the minute inconspicuous aquatic plant, called

the duckmeat, which covers the surface of pools and stagnant waters with its scum-like vegetation, to the splendid Victoria Regia, the queen of water-lilies, cradled in the floods of the Amazon-what differences in size! Yet nature has every variety of intermediate form. From the six thousand years Baobab on the shores of the Senegal, to the fungus or mushroom, the growth of a single night, what differences in duration! Now the whole of this vast assemblage of organie being, this wealth of vegetable form, is the result of the operation of a few simple laws. We shall endeavor to show with what simple means nature accomplishes these magnificent results; and let adoring thought rise to the Author of nature, whose is the plan and the building up of this beautiful fabric of vegetation, and of whose being and perfections we have the most abundant proof everywhere, whether the object of our contemplation be a moss or a sun.

If a section be taken through any part of a plant vertically or horizontally, and the section be placed under a microscope, between two plates of glass with a drop of water, so as to give the object the necessary degree of transparency, it will present to the eye the appearance of a network of cells, forming a structure not unlike a honeycomb (Fig. 1). Fig. 1.

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ment as a cell, may proceed a countless number of different forms of tissue.

In the fruit of the orange, the cell are of considerable size, and may be readily perceived by the naked eye. This cellular appearance is visible in all plants, when submitted to microscopic inspection. It is therefore evident that a plant is built up with cells, much in the same manner as a wall is built up of bricks. Its whole fabric consists of a countless number of cells, which assume a certain determinate form, according to certain fixed natural laws, and the whole process of vegetable growth consists, in its essential elements, in their continued and rapid multiplication. A knowledge of the processes of nature in the formation, growth, and propagation of cells, is therefore of the utmost importance, to enable us to understand the structure of plants, and clearly forms the foundation of the science of botany.

These cells are, in almost every instance, so small that it is impossible to see them without the microscope; so that this instrument is essential to the student, and without it no progress can be made with security in these researches. The primitive, or normal form of the cells is supposed to be a sphere (Fig. 2), and from this type every variety of form takes its rise, owing to the influence of pressure. It is by the growth of the plant that pressure is produced on its cells and their form altered. If the growth of the plant takes place more rapidly in one part than in another, the cells commonly elongate in that part, and become oblong or tubular when full and prismatic, if laterally compressed, as is the case in young shoots and branches. In the parenchyme, or stratum of green vegetable matter in the leaf, where they do not impress each other, they are globular; so also they assume this form in the loose and pulpy parts of fruits. In the pith, where they are exposed to pressure on all sides by

THE STAR OF EARTH

BY MRS. L. G. ABELL.

NIGHT'S sable curtain was let gently down
Over the spacious window of the sky,
And sullen darkness, with a gloom profound,
Was all that met my weary aching eye!
From the deep stillness came a sudden gleam,
"Twas like the twinkling of some tiny star:
It stole upon me like a brilliant dream

Of some sweet land of beauty from afar!

"Twas a lamp-light: what beauty in its ray!
For there were gathered happy ones at home,
Darkness was light upon the dreary way,
For my own Earth-Star to my thoughts had come.
Oh! cheering, blessed light, the lamp of love,

That shines on every circle gathered round;
Afar, it seems but just dropped from above-
But near, a scene of Paradise is found!

O Star of Earth! what were our life below,
If from thee came no ray to human eye!
If never more love's beacon light should glow,
How starless-moonless, too-would be thy sky!

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