In several instances, within a few weeks past, the Republican representatives in the various departments of France, have been subjected to gross insults from the police and other agents of the government. M. Sartin, the representative for Allier, has submitted a statement to the Assembly, saying that while dining with a friend at Montlucon, two brigadiers of gendarmerie entered and told the company that, as the company exceeded fifteen, it was a political meeting within the prohibition of the government. M. Sartin produced his medal of representative of the people, and claimed immunity. He was told that no such immunity existed, except during the session of the Assembly. Quite a scuffle ensued, in which one or two persons were wounded. These proceedings soon collected a crowd, and the people declared that no more arrests should be made. Several squadrons of cavalry soon arrived, and as the result, thirteen persons were sent to prison.—In Saucerre also, the magistrates having arrested three persons, one of whom was the former mayor, the inhabitants rose and attempted a rescue. The military in the neighborhood collected and dispersed the crowd, twenty-six of whom were arrested and committed to prison.

SOUTHERN EUROPE.

There is no news of special interest from Southern Europe. We have already noticed the letters of Mr. Gladstone to Lord Aberdeen, exposing the abominations of the Neapolitan government, in its persecution of state prisoners—together with the official reply which the King of Naples has caused to be made to it. Lord Palmerston sent a copy of Mr. Gladstone's letters to the British representatives at each European Court, with instructions to lay them before the Court to which he was accredited. The Neapolitan Minister in London sent to Lord Palmerston a book written in reply to Mr. Gladstone's letters, by an English gentleman named M'Farlane, and requested him to send this also to those British representatives who had been furnished with the other. Lord P. replied to this request in a spirited letter, declaring his object to have been to arouse the public sentiment of Europe against the cruelties and outrageous violations of law and justice of which the government of Naples is constantly guilty, and saying that the King of Naples was very much mistaken, if he believed public opinion could be controlled or changed by such a pitiful diatribe as that of Mr. M'Farlane. The only way of conciliating the sentiment of Europe upon this subject, was by remedying the evils which had excited its indignation. The Courts of Germany, Austria, and Russia, to which Mr. Gladstone's letters were sent, have complained of this act as an unwarrantable interference, on the part of Lord Palmerston, with the internal administration of Naples. In the German Diet, at Frankfort, Count Thun protested against the course pursued by the British Minister, and maintained that to criticise the criminal justice of other countries is a most flagrant breach of the rights of nations. If English statesmen could interfere with the conduct of the King of Naples, for imprisoning men for supporting the Constitution which he had sworn to maintain, they might also interfere with the violations of their oaths, as well as of justice, of which the governments of Austria, Saxony, Baden, and other countries had been guilty; and then, said he, what was to become of kingly freedom and independence? The Diet, on his motion, resolved to express to the British Minister their astonishment at the course the British government had pursued.

In Prussia vigorous preparations are made for anticipated difficulties in France in the spring of 1852, after the Presidential election. The troops of all the German states are to be put on a full war establishment, and to be ready for immediate action early in the spring. The western fortresses have received orders to be in readiness for war.

A general Congress has been held of representatives from the several German states, to make some common arrangement for the management of the electric telegraph. They have agreed that all messages shall be forwarded without interruption, that a common scale of charges shall be adopted, and that the receipts shall go into a common fund, to be distributed among the several states in proportion to the number of miles of telegraphic communication running through them.

The German Diet has resolved that the annexation of the Prussian Polish provinces to the confederation two years ago, was illegal and void. It has also determined to take into consideration the claims of the Ritter party in Hanover, to have the abolition of their nobility privileges revoked. This abolition was effected during the recent revolutions, but it was done in a perfectly legal manner.

The Emperor of Austria, not long since, wrote a letter to Prince Schwartzenberg, stating that the Ministry would henceforth be responsible to him alone, and that he would answer for the government. This declaration, that the government was hereafter to be absolute, excited deep feeling throughout the country, and it was supposed that it might lead to a political crisis. On the 11th of October, however, the Ministers took the oath of obedience to the Emperor, under this new definition of their powers and responsibilities. The Emperor recently visited Lombardy, where he had a very cold reception.

In Spain changes have been made in the administration of the island of Cuba. A Colonial Council has been created, which is to have charge of all affairs relating to the colonial possessions, except such as are specially directed by other Ministers. The Captain-general of each colony is to conduct its affairs under the direction of the Council. It is said that the Spanish Government intends to relax its customs regulations in favor of England.

From India and the East late intelligence has been received. The Indian frontier continued undisturbed: the troops suffered greatly from sickness. There had been an outbreak in Malabar, which caused great loss of life. The rebellion in China still goes on, but details of its progress are lacking.

Editor's Table

Time and Space—what are they? Do they belong to the world without, or to the world within, or to some mysterious and inseparable union of both departments of being? We hope the reader will be under no alarm from such a beginning, or entertain any fear of being treated to a dish of indigestible metaphysics. The terms we have placed at the head of our Editor's Table, as suggestive of appropriate thoughts for the closing month of the year, are, indeed, the deepest in philosophy. In all ages have they been the watchwords of the schools. Aristotle failed in the attempt to measure them. Kant acknowledged his inability to fathom the profundity of their significance. And yet there are none, perhaps, that enter more into the musings of that common philosophy which is for all minds, for all ages, and for all conditions in life. Who has not thought on the enigma of time and space, each baffling every effort the mind may make for its pure and perfect conception without some aid from the notion of its inseparable correlative? Where is the man, or child even, who has not been drawn to some contemplation of that wondrous stream on whose bosom we are sailing, but of which we can conceive neither origin nor outlet; that mysterious river ever sweeping us along as by some irresistible outward force, and yet seeming to be so strangely affected by the internal condition of each soul that is voyaging upon its current—at one time the scenery upon its banks gliding by with a placid swiftness that arrests the attention even of the least reflective—at another, the mind recalled from a reverie which has seemingly carried us onward many a league from the last remembered observation of our mental longitude, but only to discover, with surprise, that the objects on either shore have hardly receded a perceptible distance in the perspective of our spiritual panorama. We have passed the equinoctial line, and are under fair sail for the enchanted kingdom of Candaya, when, like Don Quixotte and Sancho on the smooth-flowing Ebro, we start up to find the rocks and trees, and all the familiar features of the same old "real world" yet full in sight, and that we have scarcely drifted a stone's throw from the point of our departure. It is astonishing to what a distance the mental wanderings may extend in the briefest periods. The idea was never better expressed than by a pious old deacon, who used most feelingly to lament this sin of wandering thoughts in the midst of holy services. Between the first and fourth lines of a hymn, he would say, the soul may rove to the very ends of the earth. The fixed outward measure arresting the attention by its marked commencement and its closing cadence, presented the extent of such subjective excursions in their most startling light. Childhood, too, furnishes vivid illustrations of the same psychological phenomena—childhood, that musing introspective period, which, on some accounts, may be regarded as the most metaphysical portion of human life. Who has not some reminiscences of this kind belonging to his boyish existence? How in health the morning has seemed to burst upon him in apparent simultaneousness with the moment when his head first dropped upon the pillow, and he has wondered to think how mysteriously he had leaped the interval which unerring outward indications had compelled him to assign to the measured continuity of his existence! How has he, on the other hand, in sickness, marked the unvaried ticking of the clock through the long dark night, and fancied that the slow-pacing hours would never flee away. His one sense and thought of pain, had arrested the current of his being, and even the outer world seemed to stand still, as though in sympathy with the suspended movement of his own inner life. In experiences such as these, the mind of the child has been brought directly upon the deepest problem in psychology. He has been on the shore of the great mystery, and Kant, and Fichte, and Coleridge could go no farther, except, it may be, to show how utterly unfathomable for our present faculties, the mystery is. Philosophy comes back ever to the same unexplained position. She can not conceive of mind as existing out of time and space, and she can not well conceive of time and space as wholly separate from the idea of successive thought, or, in other words, a perceiving and measuring mind.

Such phenomena present themselves in our most ordinary existence. Let a man be in the habit of tracing back his roving thoughts, until he connects them with the last remembered link from which the wandering reverie commenced, and he will be amazed to find how long a time may in a few moments have passed through the mind. The minute hand has barely changed its position, and not only images and thoughts, but hopes, and fears, and moral states have been called out, which, under other circumstances, might have occupied an outward period extending it in almost any assignable ratio. Indeed it is impossible to assign any limit here. As far as our moral life is measured by actual spiritual exercise, a man may sin as much in a minute as, at another time, in a day. He may have had, in the same brief interval, a heaven of love and joy, which, in a different inward condition of the spirit, months and years would hardly have sufficed to realize.

Such cases are familiar to all reflective minds. Even as they take place in ordinary health, they may well produce the conviction, that there are mysteries enough for our study in our most common experience, without resorting to mesmerism or spiritual rappings. It is, however, in sickness, that such phenomena assume their most startling aspect, and furnish subjects of the most serious thought. The apparent decay of the mind in connection with that of the body—the apparent injuries the one sustains from the maladies of the other, have furnished arguments for the infidel, and painful doubts for the unwilling skeptic. But there is another aspect to facts of this kind. They sometimes show themselves in a way which must be more startling to the materialist than to the believer. They furnish evidence that the present body, instead of being essential to the spirit's highest exercises, is only its temporary regulator, intended for a period to limit its powers, by keeping them in enchained harmony with that outer world of nature in which the human spirit is to receive its first intellectual and moral training. If it does not originate the law of successive thought, it governs and measures its movement. Through the dark closet to which it confines the soul, images and ideas are made to pass, one by one, in orderly march; and while the body is in health, and does not sleep, and holds steady intercourse with the world around us, it performs this restraining and regulative office with some good degree of uniformity. Viewed merely in reference to its own inner machinery, the clock may have any kind or degree of movement. It may perform the apparent revolutions of days and years, in seconds and fragments of seconds. But attach to it a pendulum of a proper length, and its rates are immediately adjusted to the steady course of external nature. The new regulative power is determined by the mass and gravity of the earth. It is what the diurnal rotation causes it to be. The latter, again, is linked with the annual revolution, and this, again, with some far-off millennial, or millio-millennial, cycle of the sun, and so on, until the little time-piece on our Editor's Table, is in harmony with the magnus annus, the great cosmical year, the one all-embracing time of the universe. The regulative action of the body upon the soul, although far less uniform, presents a fair analogy. In ordinary health, the measured flow of thought and feeling will bear some relation to the circulation of the blood, the course of respiration, and those general cycles of the body, or human micro-cosmos, which have acquired and preserved a steady rate of movement. It is true that there are times, even in health, when the thoughts burst from this regulative control, imparting their own impetus to the nervous fluid, giving a hurried agitation to the quick-panting breath, and sending the blood in maddened velocity through the heart and veins. But it is in sickness that such a breaking away from the ordinary check becomes most striking. The pendulum removed, or the spring broken, how rapidly spin round the whizzing wheels by which objective time is measured. And so of our spiritual state. In that harmony between the inward and the outward, in which health consists, we are insensible to the presence of the regulative power. In the slightest sicknesses we feel the dragging chain, and time moves slow, and sometimes almost stops. It is in this crisis of severe disease that a deeper change takes place. Some link is snapped; and then how inconceivably rapid may be, and sometimes is, the course of thought. Now the long-buried past comes up, and moves before us, not in slow succession, but in that swift array which would seem to place it altogether upon the canvas. At other times, the soul goes out into a self-created future; a dream it may be called, but having, as far as the spirit is concerned, no less of authentic moral and intellectual interest on that account. Suppose even the whole physical world to be all a dream. What then? No article of moral truth would be in the least changed; joy and suffering, right and wrong, would be no less real. Might they not be regarded as even the more tremendously real, from the very fact that they would be, in that case, the only realities in the universe? Nothing here is really gained by any play upon that most indefinable of all terms—reality. If that is real which most deeply affects us, and enters most intimately into our conscious being, then in a most real sense may it be affirmed, that years sometimes pass in the crisis of a fever, and that a life-time—an intellectual and a moral life-time—may be lived in what, to spectators, may have seemed to have been but a moment of syncope, or of returning sensibility to outward things. Such facts should startle us. They give us a glimpse of those fearful energies which even now the spirit possesses, and which may exhibit themselves with a thousand-fold more power, when all the balance-wheels and regulating pendulums shall have been taken off, and the soul left to develop that higher law of its being which now remains, in a great degree, suspended and inert, like the chemist's latent heat and light.

In illustration of such a view, we might refer to recorded facts having every mark of authenticity. They come to as from all ages. There is the strange story which Plutarch gives us of the trance of Thespesius, and of the immense series of wonders he witnessed during the short period of apparent death. Strikingly similar to this is that remarkable account of Rev. William Tennent which must be familiar to most of our readers. Something analogous is reported of that strange inner life to which we lately called attention in the account of Rachel Baker. To the same effect the story, told by Addison, we think, of the Dervise and his Magic Water, possessed of such wondrous properties, that the moment between the plunging and the withdrawing of the head, became, subjectively, a life-time filled with events of most absorbing interest. But that may be called an Oriental romance. Another instance we would relate from our own personal acquaintance with the one who was himself the subject of a similar supercorporeal and supersensual action of the spirit. He was a man bearing a high reputation for piety and integrity. It was at the close of a day devoted to sacred services of an unusually solemn kind that he related to us what, in the familiar language of certain denominations of Christians, might be called his religious experience. It was, indeed, of no ordinary nature, and there was one part, especially, which made no ordinary impression on our memory. We can only, in the most rapid manner, touch upon the main facts, as they bear upon the thoughts we have been presenting. In the crisis of a violent typhus fever, during a period which could not have occupied, at the utmost, more than half an hour, a subjective life was lived, extending not merely to hours and days, but through long years of varied and most thrilling experience. He had traveled to foreign lands, and encountered every species of adventure. He had amassed wealth and lost it. He had formed new social bonds with their natural accompaniments of joy and grief. He had committed crimes and suffered for them. He had been in exile, cast out, and homeless. He had been in battle and in shipwreck. He had been sick and recovered. And, finally, he had died, and gone to judgment, and received the condemnation of the lost. Ages had passed in outer darkness, during all which the exercises of the soul were as active, and as distinct, and as coherently arranged, as at any period of his existence. At length a fairly perceptible beam of light, coming seemingly from an immense distance, steals faintly into his prison-house. Nearer, and nearer still, it comes, although years and years are occupied with its slow, yet steady approach. But it does increase. Fuller, and clearer, and higher, grows the light of hope, until all around him, and above him, is filled with the benign glory of its presence. He dares once more look upward, and as he does so, he beholds beaming upon him the countenance of his watching friend, bending over him with the announcement that the crisis is past, and that coolness is once more returning to his burning frame. Only a prolonged dream, it might perhaps be said. But dreams in general run parallel with the movement of outward time, or if they do go beyond it, it is never by any such enormously magnified excess. But besides the apparent length of such a trance, there was also this striking and essential difference. Dreams may be more or less vivid; but all possess this common character, that in the waking state we immediately recognize them as dreams; and this not merely by way of inference from our changed condition, but because, in themselves, they possess that unmistakably subjective, or dream-like aspect, we can never separate from their outward contemplation. They almost immediately put on the dress of dreams. The air of reality, so fresh on our first awakening, begins straightway to gather a shade about it. As they grow dimmer and dimmer, the very effort at recalling only drives them farther off, and renders them more indistinct, just as certain optical delusions ever melt away from the gaze that is directed most steadily toward them. Thus the phantoms of our sleep dissolve rapidly "into thin air." As we strive to hold fast their features in the memory, they vanish farther and farther from the view, until we can just discern their pale, ghostly forms receding, in the distance, through the "gate of horn" into the land of irrecoverable oblivion. This characteristic of ordinary dreaming has ever furnished the ground of a favorite comparison both in sacred and classical poetry—"Like a vision of the night"—"As a dream when one awaketh"—"Like a morning dream"—

But these visions of the trance, are, in this respect, of a different, as well as deeper, nature. The subject of our narrative most solemnly averred that the scenes and feelings of this strange experience were ever after not only real in appearance, but the most vividly real of any part of his remembered existence. They never passed away into the place and form of dreams. He knew they were subjective, but only from outward testimony, and for some time even this was hardly sufficient to prevent the deep impression exhibiting itself in his speech and intercourse with the world to which he had returned. To his deeper consciousness they ever seemed realities, ever to form a part of his most veritable being. Our common dreams are more closely connected with the outer world, and the nearest sphere of sensation. They are generally suggested by obscurely felt bodily impressions. They belong to a state semi-conscious of the presence of things around us. But the others come from a deeper source. They are not

But belong to the more interior workings of the spirit, when disease has released it, either wholly or partially, from the restrictive outward influence. Still, whatever may be our theory of explanation, the thought we would set forth remains equally impressive. Such facts as these show the amazing power of the soul in respect to time. They teach us that in respect to our spiritual, as well as our material organization, we are indeed "most fearfully and wonderfully made." They startle us with the supposition that, in another state of existence, time may be mainly, if not wholly what the spiritual action causes it to appear. We have heard of well-attested cases, in which the whole past, even to its most minute events, has flashed before the soul, in the dying moments, or during some brief period of imminent danger arousing the spirit to a preternatural energy. If there be truth in such experiences, then no former exercise or emotion of the soul is ever lost. They belong to us still, just as much as our present thought, or our present sensation, and at some period may start up again to sleep no more, causing us actually to realize that conception of Boethius which now appears only a scholastic subtlety—a whole life ever in one, carrying with it a consciousness of its whole abiding presence in every moment of its existence—tota simul et interminabilis vitæ possessio. But we may give the thought a more plain and practical turn. Even now, it may be said, what we have lived forms still a part of our being. However it may stand in respect to outward time, it is never past to us. We are too much in the habit of regarding ourselves only in reference to what may seem our present moral state. We need the corrective power of the idea that we are, not simply what we may now appear to be, but all we ever have been, and that such we must forever be, unless in the psychology and theology of a higher dispensation there is some mode of separating us from our former selves. Now the soul is broken and dispersed. Then will it come together, and as in the poetic imagination of the resurrection of the body, bone meets its fellow-bone, and dust hastens to join once more in living organization with its kindred dust, so in the soul's anastasis will all the lost and scattered thoughts come home again to their spiritual abode, and from the chaos of the past will stand forth forever one fixed and changeless being, the discordant and deformed result of a false and evil life, or a glorious organization in harmony with all that is fair and good in the universe.

Geology has created difficulties in the interpretation of certain parts of the Scriptures; but these are more than balanced by a most important aid, which in another respect, it is rendering to the cause of faith. The former are fast giving way before that sound interpretation of the primeval record which was maintained by some of the most learned and pious in the Church, centuries before the new science was ever dreamed of. The latter is gathering strength from every fresh discovery. We refer to the proof geology is furnishing of the late origin of the human race, and of the absolute necessity of ascribing it to a supernatural cause. While there has been an ascending scale of orders, every new order has commenced with the most mature specimens. The subsequent history has been ever one of degeneracy, until a higher power came to the aid of exhausted nature, and made another step of real progress in the supernatural organization of a superior type. The largest fishes, the most powerful reptiles, were first in the periods of their respective families. And thus it went on until the introduction of the human species. An attenuating series of physical and hyper-physical powers forms the only theory which, on the fair Baconian induction, will account for the phenomena presented. There are scientific as well as theological bigots, and both are equally puzzled to explain the facts on either set of principles to the exclusion of the other. It is chiefly, however, in regard to man that the argument acquires its great importance; as bearing directly on that first article, and fundamental support of all faith—the veritable existence of the supernatural. This is not the same with faith in the Scriptures, and yet is most intimately connected with it. With the utter rejection of the latter, must soon go all available belief in a personal deity or a personal future state; and so, on the contrary, whatever in science shuts up the soul to a clear belief in the supernatural, even in its most remote aspect, is so much gained, ultimately, for the cause of the written oracles. And this is just what geology is now doing. She proves, beyond doubt, the late introduction of man upon the earth, and thus compels us to admit the most supernatural of all known events within a period comparatively very near to our own. The fact that, after a very few thousand years, the light of history is quenched in total darkness, presenting no farther trace of man or human things, goes far to prove his prior non-existence. But it might, perhaps, be maintained, that of former generations, only the merest fragments had, from time to time, survived the wreck of physical convulsions, in which all outward memoranda of their older existence had wholly perished. Such memorials, it is true, might have departed from the surface, but then geology must have found them. She has dug up abundant remains of types and orders, which, from their position in the strata, she is compelled to assign to a period anterior to that of man. There would have been no lack of zeal on the part of some of her votaries. More than once, on the supposed discovery of some old bone in a wrong place (to which it had been carried by some ordinary disturbance of the deposits), have they rejoiced thereat, "like one who findeth great spoil." But the evidence is now beyond all impeachment. Remains of every other type have been discovered. The relative periods of their different deposits have been ascertained. No stone, we may literally say it, has been left unturned; and yet, not a single joint or splinter of a human bone has been found to reward the search. The argument from this is of immense importance. The essence of all skepticism will be found, on analysis, to consist in a secret distrust of the very existence of any thing supernatural—a latent doubt whether, after all, every thing may not be nature, and nature every thing. Unnatural as it may seem, there are those who actually take delight in such a view. It hides from the consciousness a secret, yet real antipathy to the thought of a personal God, and the moral power of such an idea. Whatever disturbs this feeling excites alarm, lest all the foundations of unbelief (if we may use the word of a thing which has no foundations) should be rendered insecure by the bare possibility of such direct interference. Hence the moral power of well attested miracles, although it has been denied, even by religious writers, that there is any such moral power. It is the felt presence of a near personal Deity. It is the startling thought of the Great Life of the universe coming very nigh to us, and revealing the latent skepticism of men's souls. Although greatly transcending, it is like the effect produced by those operations of nature that startle us by their instantaneous exhibition of resistless power, and which no amount of science can prevent our regarding with reverence, or religious awe. With all our knowledge of physical laws, no man, we venture to say it, is wholly an atheist, or even a consistent naturalist, when the earth is heaving, or the lightning bolts are striking thick and fast around him.

Be it, then, near or remote, one unanswerable evidence of supernatural intervention gives a foundation for all faith. And this geology does. Only a few centuries back, on any chronology—a mere yesterday we may say—she brings us face to face with the most stupendous of personal, miraculous interventions. No mediate stages—no transitional developments have been, or can be discovered—no links of half human, half beastly monsters, such as the old Epicureans loved to imagine, and some modern savans would have been glad to find. Nothing of this kind, but all at once, after ages of fishes, and reptiles, and every kind of lower animation, "a new thing upon the earth"—the wondrous human body united to that surpassingly wondrous entity, the human soul, and both new born, in all their maturity, from a previous state of non-existence. So the rocks tell us; and the rocks, we are assured, on good scientific authority, "can not deceive us" like the "poetical myths of man's unreasoning infancy."

Now what difficulties are there for faith after this? What is there in any of the earlier narrations of the Bible that should stumble us—such as the account of the flood, or the burning of Sodom, or the transactions at Sinai? The supernatural once established, and in such an astounding way as this, what more natural than that the new created race should receive their earliest moral nurture directly from the source of their so recent existence? What more credible than such an early intercourse as the Bible reveals—when God walked with men, and spake to them from his supernatural abode, and angels came and went on messages of reproof or mercy. How irrational the skepticism, which, when compelled to admit the one will still stumble at the other, as being in itself, and aside from outward testimony, too marvelous for belief. There are those who are yet disposed to assail with desperation the doctrine of man's late supernatural origin. But the danger from that source is past. Geology and the Scriptures speak the same language here. There is no need of any forced exegesis to bring them into harmony. It is only of yesterday that the Eternal Deity has been upon the earth. His footsteps are more recent than many of those natural changes science has taken such pains to trace. Geology has proved, beyond all doubt, the fact of man's creation; what then is there hard for faith in the revealed facts of his redemption? Is the supernatural origin of a soul an event more easy to be believed than a series of supernatural interventions for its deliverance from moral evil, and its exaltation to a destiny worthy of its heavenly origin?

Editor's Easy Chair.

Next to the winter weather, which is just now beguiling the town ladies to as pretty a show of velvets and of martens, as the importers could desire—talk is centering upon that redoubtable hero, Louis Kossuth. We are an impulsive people, and take off our hats, one moment, with a hearty good-will and devotion; and thrust them over our ears, the next, with the most dogged contempt; and it would not be strange, therefore, if we sometimes made mistakes in our practice of civilities. We fell, naturally enough, into a momentary counter current—started by anonymous and ill-natured letter writers from the other side of the sea—in regard to Kossuth. While he was riding the very topmost wave of popular admiration, a rumor that he had been uncivil and unduly exacting in his intercourse with the officers of the Mississippi frigate, struck his gallant craft and threatened to whelm her under the sea she was so triumphantly riding. The opportune arrival of the Mississippi, and the unanimous testimony of her officers to the respectful and altogether proper demeanor of the Hungarian hero, restored him to favor and even swelled the tide which sweeps him to a higher point of popularity than any other foreigner, La Fayette excepted, has ever reached in our republican country. How he has earned their respect, a biographical sketch in another part of our Magazine will enable each reader to judge for himself.

Linked to Kossuth is the new talk about the new and strange action of that gone-by hero Louis Napoleon. Curiosity-mongers can not but be gratified at such spectacle of a Republic as France just now presents; where a man is not only afraid to express his opinions, but is afraid to entertain them! It must be a gratifying scene for such old hankerers after the lusts of Despotism, and the energy of Emperors, as Metternich, to see the loving fraternity of our sister Republic, called France, running over into such heart-felt action of benevolence and liberality as characterize the diplomacy of Faucher!

Stout Emile de Girardin, working away at his giant Presse, with the same indomitable courage, and the same incongruity of impulse, which belonged to his battle for Louis Napoleon, now raises the war cry of a Working-man for President! And his reasoning is worth quoting; for it offers an honest, though sad picture of the heart of political France. "The choice lies," says he, "between Louis Napoleon and another. Louis Napoleon has the eclat of his name to work upon the ignorant millions of country voters: unless that other shall have similar eclat, there is no hope. No name in France can start a cry, even now, like the name of Napoleon. Therefore," says Girardin, "abandon the name of a man, and take the name of a class. Choose your workingman, no matter who, and let the rally be—'The Laborer, or the Prince!'"

There is not a little good sense in this, viewed as a matter of political strategy; but as a promise of national weal, it is fearfully vain. Heaven help our good estate of the Union, when we must resort to such chicanery, to guard our seat of honor, and to secure the guaranty of our Freedom!

The cool air—nothing else—has quickened our pen-stroke to a side-dash at political action: we will loiter back now, in our old, gossiping way, to the pleasant current of the dinner chat.

The winter-music has its share of regard; and between Biscaccianti—whose American birth does not seem to lend any patriotic fervor to her triumphs—and the new Opera, conversation is again set off with its rounding Italian expletives, and our ladies—very many of them—show proof of their enthusiasm, by their bouquets, and their bravos. It would seem that we are becoming, with all our practical cast, almost as music-loving a people as the finest of foreign dillettanti: we defy a stranger to work his way easily and deftly into the habit of our salon talk, without meeting with such surfeit of musical critique, as he would hardly find at any soirée of the Chausée d'Antin, or of Grosvenor Place. There is bruited just now, with fresh force, the old design of music for the million; and an opera house with five thousand seats, will be—if carried into effect—a wonder to ourselves, and to the world.

As our pen runs just now to music, it may be worth while to sketch—from Parisian chronicle—an interview of the famous composer Rossini, with the great musical purveyor of the old world—Mr. Lumley.

Rossini, it is well known, has lately lived in a quiet and indolent seclusion; and however much he may enjoy his honors, has felt little disposition to renew them. The English Director, anxious to secure some crowning triumph for his winter campaign, and knowing well that a new composition of the great Italian would be a novelty sure of success, determined to try, at the cost of an Italian voyage, a personal interview.

Rossini lives at Bologna—a gloomy old town, under the thrall and shadow of the modern Gallic papacy. He inhabits an obscure house, in a dark and narrow street. Mr. Lumley rings his bell, and is informed by the padrona that the great master has just finished his siesta, and will perhaps see him. He enters his little parlor unannounced. It is comfortably furnished—as comfort is counted in the flea-swarming houses of Italy; the furniture is rich and old; the piano is covered with dust. The old master of sweet sounds is seated in a high-backed chair, with a gray cat upon his knees, and another cat dextrously poising on his lank shoulder, playing with the tassel of his velvet cap.

He rises to meet the stranger with an air of ennui, and a look of annoyance, that seems to say, "Please sir, your face is strange, and your business is unknown."

"My name is Lumley," says the imperturbable Director.

"Lumley—Lumley," says the master, "I do not know the name."

It is a hard thing for the most enterprising musical director of Europe to believe that he is utterly unknown to the first composer of Southern Europe.

"You should be an Englishman," continues the host. "Yet the English are good fellows, though something indiscreet. They are capital sailors, for example; and good fishermen. Pray, do you fish, monsieur? If your visit looks that way, you are welcome."

"Precisely," says the smiling Director; "I bring you a new style of bait, which will be, I am sure, quite to your fancy." And with this he unrolls his "fly-book," and lays upon the table bank-bills to the amount of one hundred thousand francs. He knows the master's reputed avarice, and watches his eye gloating on the treasure as he goes on. "I am, may it please you, Director of the Opera at London and at Paris. I wish a new opera three months from now. I offer you these notes as advance premium for its completion. Will you accept the terms, and gratify Europe?"

The old man's eye dwelt on the notes: he ceased fondling the gray cat. "A hundred thousand francs in bank-notes," said he, speaking to himself.

"You prefer gold, perhaps," said the Englishman.

"Not at all."

"You accept, then?"

The old man's brow grew flushed. A thought of indignity crossed his mind. "There is then a dearth of composers, that you come to trouble an old man's peace?"

"Not at all: the world is full of them—gaining honors every season," and the wily Director talked in a phrase to stir the old master's pride; and again the brow grew flushed, as a thought of the electric notes came over him, that had flashed through Europe and the world, and made his name immortal.

The Director waited hopefully.

But the paroxysm of pride went by; "I can not:" said the old man, plaintively. "My life is done; my brain is dry!"

And the Director left him, with his tasseled cap lying against the high chair back and the gray cat playing upon his knee.

In English papers, the ending of the Great Exhibition has not yet ceased to give point to paragraphs. Observers say that the despoiling of the palace of its wonders, reduces sadly the effect of the building; and it is to be feared that the reaction may lead to its entire demolition. Every country represented is finding some ground for self-gratulation in its peculiar awards; and the opinion is universal, that they have been honestly and fairly made. For ourselves, whatever our later boasts may be, it is quite certain that on the score of taste, we made a bad show in the palace. It was in bad taste to claim more room than we could fill; it was in bad taste, to decorate our comparatively small show, with insignia and lettering so glaring and pretentious; it was in bad taste, not to wear a little more of that modesty, which conscious strength ought certainly to give.

But, on the other hand, now that the occasion is over, we may congratulate ourselves on having made signal triumphs in just those Arts which most distinguish civilized man from the savage; and in having lost honor only in those Arts, which most distinguish a luxurious nation from the hardy energy of practical workers.

It is an odd indication of national characteristic, that a little episode of love rarely finds a narrator in either English or American journalism; whereas, nothing is more common than to find the most habile of French feuilletonists turning their pen to a deft exposition of some little garret story of affection; which, if it be only well told, is sure to have the range of all the journals in France.

Our eye just now falls upon something of the sort, with the taking caption of "Love and Devotion;" and in order to give our seventy odd thousand readers an idea of the graceful way in which such French story is told, we shall render the half-story into English:

In 1848, a young girl of high family, who had been reared in luxury, and who had previously lost her mother, found herself in a single day fatherless and penniless. The friends to whom she would have naturally looked for protection and consolation, were either ruined or away. Nothing remained but personal effort to secure a livelihood.

She rented a small garret-room, and sought to secure such comforts as she required by embroidering. But employers were few and suspicious. Want and care wore upon her feeble frame, and she fell sick. With none to watch over or provide for her, she would soon have passed off (as thousands do in that gay world) to a quick and a lonely death.

But there happened to be living in the same pile of building, and upon the same landing, a young Piedmontese street-porter, who had seen often, with admiring eyes, the frail and beautiful figure of his neighbor. He devised a plan for her support, and for proper attendance. He professed to be the agent of some third party of wealth, who furnished the means regularly for whatever she might require. His earnings were small; but by dint of early and hard working, he succeeded in furnishing all that her necessities required.

After some weeks, Mlle. Sophie (such is the name our paragraphist gives the heroine) recovered; and was, of course, anxious to learn from the poor Piedmontese the name of her benefactor. The poor fellow, however, was true to the trust of his own devotion, and told nothing. Times grew better, and Sophie had a hope of interesting the old friends of her family. She had no acquaintance to employ as mediator but the poor Piedmontese. He accepted readily the task, and, armed with her authority, he plead so modestly, and yet so earnestly for the unfortunate girl, that she recovered again her position, and with it no small portion of her lost estate.

Again she endeavored to find the name of her generous benefactor, but no promises could wrest the secret from the faithful Giacomo. At least, thought the grateful Sophie, the messenger of his bounties shall not go unrewarded; and she inclosed a large sum to her neighbor of the garret.

Poor Giacomo was overcome!—the sight of the money, and of the delicate note of thanks, opened his eyes to the wide difference of estate that lay between him and the adored object of his long devotion. To gain her heart was impossible; to live without it, was even more impossible. He determined—in the Paris way—to put an end to his cankerous hope, and to his life—together.

Upon a ledge of the deserted chamber he found a vial of medicine, which his own hard-earned money had purchased, and with this he determined to slip away from the world, and from his grief.

He penned a letter, in his rude way, full of his love, and of his desolation, and having left it where it would reach Sophie, when all should be over, he swallowed the poison. Happily—(French story is always happy in these interventions)—a friend had need of his services shortly after! and hearing sad groans at his door, he burst it open, and finding the dangerous state of the Piedmontese, ran for a physician. Prompt effort brought Giacomo to life again. But his story had been told; and before this, the gay Sophie had grown sad over the history of his griefs.

We should like well to finish up our tale of devotions, with mention of the graceful recognition of the love of the infatuated Piedmontese, by the blooming Mademoiselle Sophie. But, alas! truth—as represented by the ingenious Journalist—forbids such sequel. And we can only write, in view of the vain devotion of the Sardinian lover—le pauvre Giacomo!

Yet again, these graceful columns of French newsmakers, lend us an episode—of quite another sort of devotion. The other showed that the persuasion of love is often vain; and this will show, that the persuasion of a wife is—vainer still.

—A grave magistrate of France—no matter who—was voyaging through Belgium with his wife. They had spun out a month of summer with that graceful mingling of idlesse and wonder, that a Frenchwoman can so well graft upon the habit of a husband's travel: they had bidden adieu to Brussels, and to Liege, and were fast nearing the border-town, beyond which lay their own sunny realm of France.

The wife suddenly cuts short her smiles, and whispers her husband—"Mon cher, I have been guilty of an imprudence."

"It is not possible."

"Si: a great one. I have my satchel full of laces, they are contraband; pray, take them and hide them until the frontier is past."

The husband was thunderstruck: "But, my dear, I—a magistrate, conceal contraband goods?"

"Pray, consider, mon cher, they are worth fifteen hundred francs; there is not a moment to lose."

"But, my dear!"

"Quick—in your hat—the whistle is sounding—"

There seemed no alternative, and the poor man bestowed the contraband laces in his chapeau.

The officials at the frontier, on recognizing the dignity of the traveler, abstained from any examination of his luggage, and offered him every facility. Thus far his good fortune was unexpected. But some unlucky attendant had communicated to the town authorities the presence of so distinguished a personage. The town authorities were zealous to show respect; and posted at once to the station to make token of their regard. The magistrate was charmed with such attention—so unexpected, and so heart-felt. He could not refrain from the most gracious expression of his reconnaissance; he tenders them his thanks in set terms;—he bids them adieu;—and, in final acknowledgment of their kindness—he lifts his hat, with enthusiastic flourish.

—A shower of Mechlin lace covers the poor man, like a bridal vail!

The French Government winks at the vices, and short-comings of representatives and President; but with a humble magistrate, the matter is different. The poor man, bon-grè—mal-grè, was stopped upon the frontier—was shorn of his bridal covering; and in company with his desponding wife, still (so Guinot says) pays the forfeit of his yielding disposition, in a dusky, and grated chamber of the old border town of ——.

Editor's Drawer.

Well, "Election is over," for one thing, and we breathe again. The freemen of the "Empire State" have walked up to the polls, the "captain's office" of the boat on which we are all embarked, and "settled" the whole matter. The little slips of paper have done the deed, without revolution and without bloodshed. Some are rejoiced, because they have succeeded; others lament that when they were all ready at any moment to die for their country and a fat office, their offers were not accepted by the sovereigns. Some, with not much character to spare of their own, are grieved to find that "tailing-on" upon individual eminence won't always "do" with the people. And, by-the-by, speaking of "tailing-on," there "hangs a tale," which is worth recording. It may be old, but we heard it for the first time the other evening, and it made us "laugh consumedly." This it is:—At the time of the first election of General Washington to the Presidency, there was a party in one of the Southern States, called the "John Jones' Party." The said Jones, after whom the party took its name, was a man of talent; a plotting, shrewd fellow, with a good deal of a kind of "Yankee cunning;" in short, possessing all the requisites of a successful politician, except personal popularity. To overcome this latter deficiency, of which he was well aware, especially in a contest with a popular candidate for Congress, John Jones early avowed himself as the peculiar and devoted friend of General Washington, and on this safe ground, as he thought, he endeavored to place his rival in opposition. In order to carry out this object more effectually, he called a meeting of his county, of "All those friendly to the election of General George Washington!"

On the day appointed, Mr. John Jones appeared, and was, on the cut-and-dried motion of a friendly adherent, made chairman of the meeting. He opened the proceedings by a high and carefully-studied eulogium upon the life and services of Washington, but taking care only to speak of himself as his early patron, and most devoted friend. He concluded his remarks by a proposition to form a party, to be called "The True and Only Sons of the Father of his Country:" and for that object, he submitted to the meeting a resolution something like the following:

"Resolved, That we are the friends of General George Washington, and will sustain him in the coming election against all other competitors."

"Gentlemen," said Mr. Jones, after reading the resolution, "the Chair is now about to put the question. The chairman hopes that every man will declare his sentiments, either for or against the resolution. All those in favor of the resolution will please to say 'Ay.'"

A thundering "Ay!" shook the very walls of the building. The united voices were like the "sound of many waters."

"Now, gentlemen, for the opposition," said John Jones. "All those who are contrary-minded, will please to say 'No!'"

Not a solitary voice was heard. The dead silence seemed to confuse Mr. Jones very much. After some hesitation and fidgeting, he said:

"Gentlemen, do vote. The Chair can not decide a disputed question when nobody votes on the other side. We want a direct vote, so that the country may know who are the real and true friends of General Washington."

Upon this appeal, one of the audience arose, and said:

"I perceive the unpleasant dilemma in which the Chair is placed; and in order to relieve the presiding officer from his quandary, I now propose to amend the resolution, by adding, after the name of General Washington—'and John Jones for Congress.'"

"The amendment is in order—I accept the amendment," said the chairman, speaking very quickly; "and the Chair will now put the question as amended:

"All those who are in favor of General Washington for President, and John Jones for Congress, will please to say, 'Ay.'"

"Ay—ay!" said John Jones and his brother, with loud voices, which they had supposed would be drowned in the unanimous thunder of the affirmative vote.

The "Chair" squirmed and hesitated. "Put the contrary!" said a hundred voices, at the same moment:

"All those op—po—po—sed," said the Chair, "will please to say, 'No!'"

"No—o—o—o!!" thundered every voice but two in the whole assembly, and these were Jones' and his brother's. Then followed a roar of laughter, as Carlyle says, "like the neighing of all Tattersall's."

"Gentlemen," said Mr. Jones, "the Chair perceives that there are people in this meeting who don't belong to our party: they have evidently come here to agitate, and make mischief. I, therefore, do now adjourn this meeting!"

Whereupon, he left the chair; and amid shouts and huzzahs for Washington, and groans for John Jones, he "departed the premises."

We find in the "Drawer" a rich specimen of logic-chopping, at which there was a hearty laugh more years ago than we care to remember. It is an admirable satire upon half the labored criticisms of Shakspeare with which the world has been deluged: