the apartment into which we were shown was sufficient to banish all apprehension lest the interior of the dwelling might suffer by a contrast with the charms of the exterior. There was no article of household use or adornment that showed gaudily. It might have been questioned even if the Parisian man of furniture would have given his approbation to all the arrangements; but the impression made upon the observer was that of exquisite good taste, that had grouped together the simple and the beautiful so as to give to comfort the garb of neatness and or

nament.

"I may not be more particular in my description, lest I might seem to transgress the honorable laws which govern propriety. The lady of the house was there, and at her feet Maida, a noble greyhound, well worthy to be designated as was Scott's. At a side-table stood a large tulip-shaped vase of stained glass, whose burden of bright flowers was an ornament, with a world of bijoux.

"There was every where abundant evidence that this was a chosen house for literature: curious and exquisite engravings; volumes of the best poetry of every land, bound, as well as beseemed such rich treasures of thought, in embossed vellum and gold. Treatises of quaint and elaborate philosophy were scattered negligently, but not ungracefully, around:

"How charming is divine philosophy!

Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,
But musical as is Apollo's lute,

And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets,
Where no crude surfeit reigns.'

"In the corner of the room was Willis's bust, of Italian marble, exquisitely chiseled by the hand of Greenough. For nearly three months the poet and the sculptor resided together in the same house in Italy, and then and there the work of modeling was done. I recollect to have formerly seen this bust in the Academy of Design in New York.

"By-the-way, in speaking of Greenough, I am glad, for the sake of an artist I am proud to number among my friends, that his celebrated statue of Washington has been removed from the rotunda of the Capitol. It stood in what is usually called a bad light, with no dark ground for relief, as in the case of the stat ues of Peace and War.

"Much of the harsh criticism which found its way into the public prints had its origin in this circumstance. The beholder, without either knowing or reasoning upon the cause, felt that there was something wanting, and found fault with the work itself instead of the accidental position in which it was placed.

"To us, one of the most interesting of the literary treasures of Glen Mary was the rare collection of autographs which was shown us. Ah! how many hands, now cold in death, had contributed to this treasure. I recollect more especially a translation of a Greek ode in the autograph of Byron, made by him when a boy at Harrow; notes written by LAURENCE STERNE, by CHARLES LAMB, by GARRICK, by the unfortunate but gifted L. E. L., CAPTAINS Ross and PARRY, BASIL HALL, SIR HUDSON Lowe, the family of BONAPARTE, MADAM CATALANI, Pasta, Leigh HUNT, HOGG, the Ettrick Shepherd, ROGERS, CAMPBELL, and, most valuable of all, by the unapproached and unapproachable SCOTT. And here, too, were letters from the wife of Byron, and from

"Ada, sole daughter of my house and heart.'

The hand-writing of the mother and daughter could scarcely be distinguished from each other, so striking was the similarity. Nor was there lacking somewhat of a miscellany, for before us lay the Earl of Eglinton's' card to the tournament, and one which speaks its own fame,

6

"Admit two to the pit.

"NICOL PAGANINI.'

"There was also here a queer letter from Talleyrand to his secretary, enjoining upon him to go to a particular shop in Paris, and be sure to purchase a certain kind of cigars! evidently illustrating to posterity the rare judgment of the Bishop of Autun! Canova's fine Roman hand' was here exhibited; and our friend, Dr. S., of Albany-orthodox though he be-would have welcomed to his great collection the autographs of SHELLEY, GODWIN, and MARY WOOLSTONCRAFT, the attachment of the last of whom to that child of genius, the painter Fuseli, forms so amusing, yet so sorrowful a chapter in the history of the pas sions. But I must reluctantly forbear any further mention of these relics, the examination of which was so delightful.

"Here was a miniature painted by Saunders, miniature

painter to the King of Hanover, the back-ground filled up with a vase of flowers, and a partial view of a landscape-done so exquisitely that I could not restrain my admiration. If properly allowed to speak of the original, it would be to recall how much the pleasure of that yisit was enhanced by her graceful hospitality.

"A fine cabinet painting from a scene in 'Tortesa, or the Usurer,' one of Willis's own plays, did not escape our atten. tion. It represents Angelo, the painter, drawing up the sleeve of Isabella. But let me quote from the play the scene illus trated:

Angelo (examining her cheek). There is a mixture

Of white and red here that defeats my skill.

If you'll forgive me, I'll observe an instant
How the bright blood and the transparent pearl
Melt to each other!

"Isabella (receding from him). You're too free, sir!
"Angelo (with surprise). Madam!

"Isabella (aside). And yet I think not so. We

Must look on it

To paint it well.

"Angelo. Lady, the daylight's precious.

Pray you turn to me; in my study here,

I've tried to fancy how that ivory shoulder

Leads the white light off from your arching neck,
But can not, for the envious sleeve that hides it.
Please you displace it.

"Isabella. Sir, you are too bold!

(Raising his hand to the sleeve.)

Angelo. Pardon me, lady. Nature's master-piece

Should be beyond your hiding or my praise:

Were you less marvelous, I were too bold:

But there's a pure divinity in Beauty,

Which the true eye of Art looks on with reverence,
Though, like angels, it were all undress'd.

You have no right to hide it.'"

When the intelligence of the death of Daniel O'Connell reached this country, many of our most distinguished citizens united to express their sense of the loss which Ireland had sustained in the person of her most distinguished son, who had been so long and so actively connected with her stormy history, and whose name, even upon this side of the Atlantic, had become as familiar in the mouths of men as a household word. Many eloquent eulogies were pronounced, and upon an occasion when one might have anticipated little else than fulsome panegyric, much just discrimination was evinced in drawing

the lines of the strongly-marked character of the great commoner whose death had just eclipsed the "gayety of nations."

The sentiments expressed upon this occasion by Mr. Maclay to some citizens of the State of New Jersey are highly appropriate. It is true, that while in the light of Revelation the death of the monarch upon his throne is an event not more solemn than the dread summons which calls the poor peasant from his life of toil, yet there is a manifest difference in the shock which is felt in the two cases, as also in the outward and visi ble tokens of sorrow appropriate to each. This distinction is happily drawn by Mr. Maclay. He had alluded to the famine in Ireland in connection with what he considered the additional calamity of the death of O'Connell, and said,

"It was becoming, in the one case, in the citizens of our Republic to stretch forth their hands, and out of their abundance to administer to the necessities of those who are ready to perish, and, in the other, it was equally befitting in them to give expression to their sympathy in what may be considered a national calamity.

"We grieve for the loss of the friend of our youth, or for those who were united to us in kindred affection, and the tears, which at the promptings of Nature bedew their graves, or are poured forth in secret, will not be restrained, although Reason tells us they are unavailing to restore the loved and lost, who will gladden our sight no more forever. We give way to the softened emotions of the hour. We indulge the sacred sorrow with which a stranger does not intermeddle, and refuse to be comforted because they are not. Yet how deeply soever the iron may have entered our soul, with these bereavements-confined within a narrow circle, and of frequent occurrence-the great mass of mankind can have but little sympathy or concernment. No general shock has been given to society, nor has any thing occurred of power sufficient to arrest its ordinary and accustomed movement.

"But when an eloquent voice, whose highest and sweetest notes were never reached but in pleading the cause of oppressed humanity, is hushed-when a heart, which beat high for love of country, has ceased to pulsate-when, in a word, as now, one of the world's great luminaries has been extinguished, we feel that there is a manifest propriety in a general ex

pression of sorrow in some good degree accordant with a calamity so general.

"Proper tributes of veneration to the memory of the illus trious dead are among the modes by which the moral sensibilities of a nation are awakened, and purified, and elevated. That the people of Switzerland are not degenerated from the valor of Tell, has been attributed, by some, to the circumscribed limits of their confederacies, and by others to their mountain fortresses, in which freedom has so often sought a refuge. But something is justly referable to the custom of the peasantry, who, for five hundred years after the establishment of their independence, assembled on the fields of Morgartin and Laupen, and spread garlands over the graves of the fallen warriors, and prayed for the souls of those who had died for their country's freedom

"And may we not hope that when the dissensions and difficulties of the present hour shall have passed away-when all that O'Connell accomplished in behalf of civil and religious liberty shall have been remembered, and when all that he desired to accomplish shall have been attained-when his country shall have taken her place among the nations of the earth, thousands will pay the pious pilgrimage to his final resting-place, while a votive offering shall never be wanting to the world-renowned Liberator of Ireland who sleeps beneath? Yes!

"Redeemer of dark centuries of shame,

The forum's champion, and the people's chief.
While the tree

Of Freedom's withered trunk puts forth a leaf
E'en for thy tomb a garland let it be.'"

Mr. Maclay's views upon many questions of public policy are peculiar, and such as would be occasionally denounced as extreme, and exciting wonder in those who can not conceive how a sincere conviction in the most radical opinions can consist with great moderation in the expression of them. In regard to the public' lands, he has always considered that the amount of pecuniary gain, in the way of revenue, to be derived from them, should be a subordinate consideration; that their settlement and cultivation, by an industrious and contented population, was a matter of far higher moment than the sum received from sales, which sometimes is a mere indication of the rage of speculation, by which the lands are taken at once