tunne, one of the most curious phenomenons which ever appeared in Europe, has arrived in London, in the person of a young woman, 21 years of age, whose face, which is of an extraordinary whiteness, is surrounded by a beard as black as jet, about four inches in length. The beard is as thick and bushy as that of any man. The young lady is a native of Geneva, in Switzerland, and has received a most brilliant education. She speaks French fluently, and will answer all the questions that may be addressed to her. Her beard, which reaches from one eye to the other, perfectly encircles the face, forming the most surprising contrast, but without impairing its beauty. Her bust is most finely formed, and leaves not the least doubt as to her sex. She will approach all the persons who may honour her with their presence, and give an account of her origin and birth, and explain the motives which induced her to quit her country. Everybody will also be allowed to touch her beard, so as to be convinced that it is perfectly natural."

The beard was certainly a most glorious specimen, and shamed any man's that we have ever seen.

Of the expression of hair-could we press for the nonce a quill from Esthonia-much might be well and edifyingly said. The Greeks, with their usual subtilty in reading Nature, and interpreting her in their works of art, have distinguished their gods by the variations of this excrescence. Thus the hair of the Phidian Jove in the Vatican, which rises in spouts, as it were, from the forehead, and then falls in wavy curls, is like the mane of the lion, most majestic and imperial in appearance. The crisp curls of Hercules again remind us of the short locks between the horns of the indomitable bull; whilst the hair of Neptune falls down wet and dank like his own sea-weed. The beautiful flowing locks of Apollo, full and free, represent perpetual youth; and the gentle, vagrant, bewitching tresses of Venus denote most clearly her peculiar characteristics and claims as a divinity of Olympus. What gives the loose and wanton air to the portraits in Charles II.'s bedchamber at Hampton Court? Duchess and

Countess sweep along the canvas with all the dignity that Lely could flatter them with; but on the disordered curls and the forehead fringed with love-locks Cyprian is plainly written. Even Nell Gwyn, retired into the deep shade of the alcove, beckons us with her sweet, soft redundance of ringlets. But too well woman knows the power Venus has endowed her with in this silken lasso :

"Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare,
And beauty draws us with a single hair."

In the rougher sex the temper and disposition are more apparent from the set of the hair than in woman, because, as already observed, they allow it to follow more the arrangement of nature. Curly hair bespeaks the sanguine temperament, lank hair the phlegmatic. Poets for the most part, we believe, have had curly hair-though our own age has exhibited some notable exceptions to the rule. Physiology has not yet decided upon what the curl is dependent, but we feel satisfied it arises from a flattening of one side of the hair more than the other.

So well do people understand the character as expressed by the hair and its management, that it is used as a kind of index. Commercial ideas are very exact respecting it. What chance would a gentleman with a moustache have of getting a situation in a bank? Even too much whisker is looked upon with suspicion. A clean shave is usually, as the world goes, expected in persons aspiring to any post of serious trust. We confess that few monstrosities in this line affect us more dismally than the combination of dandy favoris with the, however reduced, peruke of Brother Briefless or Brother Hardup. It is needless to add that anything like hirsute luxuriance about a sacerdotal physiognomy is offensive to every orthodox admirer of the via media.

THE ANCIENT GARDEN.

ABOUT the middle of a summer's day
Once was I wandering in the silent paths
That lay within an ancient garden's gloom;
Stirring the night-moths underneath the leaves
Of the fresh privet hedges, white with bloom,
So on, adown the solemn yew-tree walk,
That cast a shadow like a solid wall,
Until I reached that gloomy garden's heart,
A little space, that, free to sun and air,
Lay damasked with the painted spires of flowers.
Fast in the centre stood an ancient dial,
That seemed the solemn spirit of the place,
Severe in silence, mid the flood of light.

I leaned my elbow on the crumbling stone,
Painted with lichen and green canker stains;
And whilst I rested for a season brief,
My spirit fell into a quiet muse,
And soon I peopled all the space around
Quaintly in fashions of a day gone by-
The footsteps heard of all that trod those paths,
The old, who tottered in the burning sun-
The lovers, hand in hand, who sought the shade,
In the fresh mornings counted with the past.
All these, thought I, within this little space
Stood here awhile, and marked with different mood
How the black shadow of the tooth of Time

Devoured the shining circle of the dial.

First came the old man, trembling on his stick; A moment gazed-then shook his withered handAlas! my time is very short, said he;

And, feeding on the faded picture of his youth,

He passed. Next, came young manhood flushed,
What of the clock it was, at leisure read,

The whilst into the future fast he pushed.
And then a maid with yellow hair blown back
(Like tearful angel in some missal old)
Who read of broken trysts in ages past,
A moment glanced to see how late the day,
And still no footstep down the pathway came.

Where are they gone-the old and withered man, And the first fresh glorious dew of youth?

A passing bell-the fall of bitter tears,
And now upon the hill-side's gentle slope
The sheep are wandering o'er forgotten graves!
And so the people of the garden passed.

Not so the garden. With each gladdening spring,
The old roots stir within its ancient breast.
The hollyhock shoots spirewise through the air,
And hangs her crimson bells out to the bee.
The rose unfoldeth to her inmost leaf,
The vine creeps on. The cedar's tardy growth,
Has jostled out the mossy, crumbling seat,
Where once the lovers idled in the shade-
Perfect the picture-as it was of old,

Save human hearts which have for ever passed.

Thus musing down a shady walk I turned.
This life, said I, slips very fast away;

But who would stop the running of the sand?
"Twere but the folly of a child, who grasps
The waters of some swiftly running stream,
Which mocking through each vacant finger flows
Down to the great inevitable sea.

THE WEDDING BONNET.

A VISION.

I WAS the other day in the company of half-a-dozen young ladies-gentle cousins-all of them as merry as little larks, as busy as lamplighters, and as important as the preparation for that great event in female life-a wedding-could make them. The bride's bonnet had just come home, and I had the satisfaction of seeing a dozen lily-white hands all in one tumultuous group, arranging and shaping it to the face of the fair maid herself. It was pronounced on all hands quite the thing-a love of a bonnet, in fact; and after having deposited it in the centre of the table, and hunted under the sofa and in all quarters of the room to make sure that the cat was not there, they left me with an especial charge not to touch it for the world. I promised accordingly, as I sat dozing before the fire, and they left me alone to pursue their welcome task. Presently a knock, knock, came to the door; it speedily opened, and a strange gentleman in respectable black entered with a magic-lantern under his arm. Somehow or other I was not a bit astonished at his entrance, but took it quite as a matter of course. "So you have a bride's bonnet there," said he, looking at me with his keen gray eyes; "all smiles and happiness, I suppose ?"

66 Yes," said I, as though he had been the oldest friend in the world, "little Anne

"Ah!" said he, interposing, "people must marry, I suppose; but I have a word or two to say to you about this gimcrack." And stepping up to the bonnet, he turned up his cuffs like an expert chemical lecturer, took it in his hands, blew upon it, and as quickly as a child's card-house rattles to the ground, the bonnet lay in pieces before him. Satin, blush-rose, feather, frame-work, and the very cotton with which it was sown, lay grouped under his hands. He then deliberately wiped the illuminated lens of his magic-lantern. "Let us begin," said he,