along the dreary street amid the cold and pelting rain, was all the experience she had carried to the grave of the world she had longed so ardently to see, and when the seminariste thought on the story of her life, and compared it with his own, he felt that he no longer had a right to complain. He had spent his childhood at least amid fresh air and free exercise wholesome to the body, and also amid the rude kindness and overwhelming affection wholesome to the mind; while the poor child whose dying grasp he almost fancied that he could still feel, had never been allowed to roam beyond the gloomy precincts of her prison-house. With her innocence and loveliness she had been suffered to grow like some rank weed which springs amid the crevice of the pavement stone of the foul goal yard, and which struggles but in vain to catch a gleam of sunshine or a breath of air until, wearied with the effort, it sinks back dead into the crevice from which it sprang.

This event made a great impression upon M. de Talleyrand, and sobered him for some time after its occurrence. He took to studying more diligently than hitherto, and shone among his competitors as brilliantly as he had already done at Louis le Grand. His speeches at the conferences which were held every month at Saint Sulpice, were judged to be masterpieces of reasoning and logic, and were thought worthy of being preserved among the records of the seminaire-an immense honour for so young a man. He was now seventeen: it was judged advisable that he should go to finish his theological studies 'en Sorbonne,' and it was during the short interval which elapsed between leaving the seminaire and entering the Sorbonne, that he first lodged at home. Note this when ye talk of the good old times:'-the Prince de Talleyrand was seventeen years of age before he had slept one single night beneath his father's roof! Well might Jean Jacques thunder forth his maledictions upon the fine ladies, the 'marâtres sans entrailles' of his day!"

My friend here paused to my great sorrow, with all the self-complacency of a professed lion exhibitor, to descant upon the beauty of the landscape as seen from the point to which we had attained. Of course there were the well known wonders familiar to all natural-beauty-hunters ever since the world began-the seeing into so many departments-the commanding a view of so many parishes, but which always worry me to death.

"What is that ruin ?" said I, pointing to a pile of rubbish which lay close at hand.

"Ah, that is no ruin," replied C., laughing, "it is just the contrary, for it is an unfinished building. The history of that 'ruin' would amuse you, more than all the history of the person whose work it was. The prince calls it the 'Folie Princesse,' and you shall have the story as we go home."

(To be continued.)

July.-VOL. LXXI. NO. CCLXXXIII.

2 B

THE LIBELLED BENEFACTOR.

BY HORACE SMITH.

THEY warn'd me by all that affection could urge,
To repel his advances and fly from his sight;
They call'd him a fiend, a destroyer, a scourge,
And whisper'd his name with a shudder of fright.

They said that disease went as herald before,
While sorrow and severance follow'd his track,
They besought me if ever I came to his door,
Not a moment to pause, but turn instantly back.

"His breath," they exclaim'd-" is a pestilence foul,
His aspect more hateful than language can tell,
His touch is pollution—no Gorgon or Ghoul,

In appearance and deeds is more loathsome and fell.”

Such stern prohibitions, descriptions so dire,

By which the most dauntless might well be dismay'd, In me only waken'd a deeper desire

To gaze on the monster so darkly portray'd.

I sought him-I saw him-he stood by a marsh,
Where henbane and hemlock with poppies entwined;
He was pale, he was grave, but no feature was harsh,
His eye was serene, his expression was kind.

"This stigmatised being," I cried in surprise,

"We

Wears a face most benignant; but looks are not facts;

Physiognomy often abuses our eyes,

I'll follow his footsteps and judge by his acts."

There came from a cottage a cry of alarm,

An infant was writhing in agonies sore,

His hand rock'd the cradle, its touch was a charm,
The babe fell asleep, all its anguish was o'er.

He reach'd a proud mansion where, worn by the woe
Of consumption, a beauty lay wither'd in bed,
Her pulse he compress'd with his fingers, and lo!

The complaint of long years in a moment had fled!

He paused where he heard the disconsolate moan

Of a widow with manifold miseries crush'd ;Where a pauper was left in his sickness to groan,

Both were heal'd at his sight and their sorrows were hush'd.

He sped where a king, sorely smitten with age,

In vain sought relief from the pangs he endured.
"I come," said the stranger, "your woes to assuage:"
He spoke, and the monarch was instantly cured.

Astounded by deeds which appeared to bespeak
In the fiend a benevolent friend of mankind,
From himself I resolved a solution to seek

Of the strange contradiction that puzzled my mind. "Chase, mystical being!" I cried, "this suspense; How comes it thou'rt blacken'd by every tongue, When in truth thou'rt the champion, the hope, the defence, Of the king and the beggar, the old and the young?" "Thou hast witness'd," he answered (his voice and his face Were all that is musical, bland, and benign,)

"Not a tithe of the blessings I shed on the race,
Who my form and my attributes daily malign.

"All distinctions of fortune, of birth, of degree,
Disappear where my levelling banner I wave;
From his desolate dungeon the captive I free,
His fetters I strike from the suffering slave.

"And when from their stormy probation on earth,
The just and the righteous in peace I dismiss,
I give them a new and more glorious birth

In regions of pure and perennial bliss."

"Let me bless thee," I cried, " for thy missions of love;

Oh ! say to what name shall I fashion "THE ANGEL OF LIFE, is my title above,

my

breath ?"

But short-sighted mortals have christen'd me DEATH!"

A PUBLIC school introduces us to many strange acquaintances, and boys form school-friendships from very queer motives. Perhaps no one ever got up an amicitia with another boy from a queerer motive than I did with one Brutus Grumps. He was an odd-looking, disagreeable boy; all legs and arms, like a sucking calf, and had a strange aversion to the use of his bandana, which gave him a snuffling sort of habit in speaking, and procured him several severe hockey-stickings. He was very good-natured, had plenty of pocket money, and spent it freely when he could find any one willing to share his cherries, plums, and peaches, which, with other delicacies, we were allowed to purchase of a man who attended the school daily. He found no lack of boys willing to eat at his expense, but the moment the taste of his purchases were out of their mouths, they, one and all without exception, turned upon their entertainer, called him a snob, and cut him until the tartman came again. The fact was, that Brutus Grumps was only a day-boy, and all dayboys with us Rotherwickians were looked upon as snobs, and accounted unworthy to be associated with, except when we wanted their services to introduce contraband articles for our private consumption. We made use of them, and then treated them with sovereign contempt. Is not this plan adopted in after life? Answer my question, ye men of interest in borough and county elections.

Well; what made me take up the cause of Brutus Grumps-B. G. as he would call himself when speaking of himself-was, that I saw him treat a big bully of a boy, whom I hated, for he was a sneak, a bully, and a coward, to two pounds of most excellent cherries of the species called bigaroons, and when they were devoured (bully of course taking the lion's share), I saw the poor day-boy unmercifully kicked, cuffed, and maltreated by the lad who had been feeding at his expense.

I was very much disgusted, and as I had long entertained the hope of finding some safe ground for fixing a quarrel on the bully, I walked up to him, and demanded his reasons for treating the boy, who had treated him, so cruelly. He merely replied that I might go-to a place I will not mention. In less than five minutes Master Bully's face was so disfigured by my fists, that his fond parents would have had a difficulty in recognising their son had they called to see him.

Brutus Grumps was delighted at my success, and perhaps I was a little too much elated by having so speedily subdued the best fighter in Rotherwick; for I, to carry out my principle as I thought, embraced Brutus Grumps, and publicly proclaimed him to be under my protection, threatening, in our classical phraseology, to lick any boy who should at

tempt to treat him cruelly. I was loudly cheered for my speech by all the juniors; but some of the seniors smiled, winked, and shrugged their shoulders.

My success with the bully had its effects, and my protégé was relieved from many unpleasantries. He was anxious to show his gratitude to me, and as he was the only son of a wealthy professional man, and, as I have said before, had plenty of money at his command, he took me into a deep recess in one of our cloister-windows, and after blushing and stammering, popped a piece of silver paper into my hand, and begged I would use it, and return the amount whenever it was convenient. I opened it, and found it was a bank-note for ten pounds. As I was flush at the time, I returned it with many thanks for his liberality, and took the opportunity of reading him a lecture on being too free with his money-a habit that might increase with his increasing years, and involve him in serious difficulties. He seemed vexed at my rejection of his offer, and smiled at my lecture, shaking his head in a manner that implied "he knew what he was about."

I stood his friend until I left for college, and certainly saved him much uneasiness-to use a mild term. I lost sight of him for some years, but heard, through the medium of some brother collegians, that he had come into a considerable property by the death of his father, and was living as an idle "man about town.' I thought the paternal property was in very unsafe hands, but had no means of telling the owner of it my thoughts thereanent, until, by a strange chance, I met him in Cowes, whither I had gone to see the regatta. He was the owner of a smart yacht, but not one of the yacht squadron or club. He was merely there like myself, as a spectator. His joy at seeing me I shall never forget. He positively "fell on my neck" opposite the club-house, and as soon as he had recovered himself a little, insisted on my sending all my traps on board "the Favourite of Fulham," and spending a week or two with him. I could not refuse his invitation, it was so cordially given, although I had other engagements which might have formed, and ought to have formed, valid excuses for refusing him.

As soon as the regatta was over, we left Cowes, and sailed for the quiet little bay and town of Swanage or Swanwich, on the coast of Dorset.

In transitu—that is, ladies, as we sailed along, I elicited part of my friend's history; and although the whole of it would amuse my readers, I have selected such a portion of it as struck me, at the time, to be most elucidatory of poor Brutus Grumps's peculiar softness-especially in money matters.

The friend to whom he alludes, under the name of Toofast Harduppe, was the very bully whose face I had so effectually disfigured for his gross imposition upon him at school. He had, it appeared, immediately after my quitting Rotherwick, made such overtures of peace and goodwill, as poor Brutus could not resist, and had really received no little kudos—I beg pardon, ladies-praise is its meaning, from the rest of the school, for having forgiven a boy, and him a day-boy, who had been the cause of his receiving the severest punishment which a school-bully can receive -a thrashing from another hitherto deemed inferior to himself in pugilistics.