"You must take the corpse out of her arms. She will not awake. That

draught will make her sleep for many hours. I will call before noon

again. It is now daylight. Good-by."

Susan shut him out; and then gently extricating the dead child from its

mother's arms, she could not resist making her own quiet moan over her

darling. She tried to learn off its little placid face, dumb and pale

before her.

"Not all the scalding tears of care

Shall wash away that vision fair

Not all the thousand thoughts that rise,

Not all the sights that dim her eyes.

Shall e'er usurp the place

Of that little angel-face."

And then she remembered what remained to be done. She saw that all was

right in the house; her father was still dead asleep on the settle, in

spite of all the noise of the night. She went out through the quiet

streets, deserted still, although it was broad daylight, and to where

the Leighs lived. Mrs. Leigh, who kept her country hours, was opening

her window-shutters. Susan took her by the arm, and, without speaking,

went into the house-place. There she knelt down before the astonished

Mrs. Leigh, and cried as she had never done before; but the miserable

night had overpowered her, and she who had gone through so much calmly,

now that the pressure seemed removed, could not find the power to speak.

"My poor dear! What has made thy heart so sore as to come and cry

a-this-ons? Speak and tell me. Nay, cry on, poor wench, if thou canst

not speak yet. It will ease the heart, and then thou canst tell me."

"Nanny is dead!" said Susan. "I left her to go to father, and she fell

down stairs, and never breathed again. Oh, that's my sorrow but I've

more to tell. Her mother is come--is in our house. Come and see if it's

your Lizzie." Mrs. Leigh could not speak, but, trembling, put on her

things, and went with Susan in dizzy haste back to Crown-street.

CHAPTER IV.

As they entered the house in Crown-street, they perceived that the door

would not open freely on its hinges, and Susan instinctively looked

behind to see the cause of the obstruction. She immediately recognized

the appearance of a little parcel, wrapped in a scrap of newspaper, and

evidently containing money. She stooped and picked it up. "Look!" said

she, sorrowfully, "the mother was bringing this for her child last

night."

But Mrs. Leigh did not answer. So near to the ascertaining if it were

her lost child or no, she could not be arrested, but pressed onward with

trembling steps and a beating, fluttering heart. She entered the

bedroom, dark and still. She took no heed of the little corpse, over

which Susan paused, but she went straight to the bed, and withdrawing

the curtain, saw Lizzie--but not the former Lizzie, bright, gay,

buoyant, and undimmed. This Lizzie was old before her time; her beauty

was gone; deep lines of care, and alas! of want (or thus the mother

imagined) were printed on the cheek, so round, and fair, and smooth,

when last she gladdened her mother's eyes. Even in her sleep she bore

the look of woe and despair which was the prevalent expression of her

face by day; even in her sleep she had forgotten how to smile. But all

these marks of the sin and sorrow she had passed through only made her

mother love her the more. She stood looking at her with greedy eyes,

which seemed as though no gazing could satisfy their longing; and at

last she stooped down and kissed the pale, worn hand that lay outside

the bed-clothes. No touch disturbed the sleeper; the mother need not

have laid the hand so gently down upon the counterpane. There was no

sign of life, save only now and then a deep, sob-like sigh. Mrs. Leigh

sat down beside the bed, and, still holding back the curtain, looked on

and on, as if she could never be satisfied.

Susan would fain have staid by her darling one; but she had many calls

upon her time and thoughts, and her will had now, as ever, to be given

up to that of others. All seemed to devolve the burden of their cares on

her. Her father, ill-humored from his last night's intemperance, did not

scruple to reproach her with being the cause of little Nanny's death;

and when, after bearing his upbraiding meekly for some time, she could

no longer restrain herself, but began to cry, he wounded her even more

by his injudicious attempts at comfort: for he said it was as well the

child was dead; it was none of theirs, and why should they be troubled

with it? Susan wrung her hands at this, and came and stood before her

father, and implored him to forbear. Then she had to take all requisite

steps for the coroner's inquest; she had to arrange for the dismissal of

her school; she had to summon a little neighbor, and send his willing

feet on a message to William Leigh, who, she felt, ought to be informed

of his mother's whereabouts, and of the whole state of affairs. She

asked her messenger to tell him to come and speak to her--that his

mother was at her house. She was thankful that her father sauntered out

to have a gossip at the nearest coach-stand, and to relate as many of

the night's adventures as he knew; for as yet he was in ignorance of the

watcher and the watched, who silently passed away the hours up-stairs.

At dinner-time Will came. He looked red, glad, impatient, excited. Susan

stood calm and white before him, her soft, loving eyes gazing straight

into his.

"Will," said she, in a low, quiet voice, "your sister is up-stairs."

"My sister!" said he, as if affrighted at the idea, and losing his glad

look in one of gloom. Susan saw it, and her heart sank a little, but she

went on as calm to all appearance as ever.

"She was little Nanny's mother, as perhaps you know. Poor little Nanny

was killed last night by a fall down stairs." All the calmness was gone;

all the suppressed feeling was displayed in spite of every effort. She

sat down, and hid her face from him, and cried bitterly. He forgot every

thing but the wish, the longing to comfort her. He put his arm round her

waist, and bent over her. But all he could say was, "Oh, Susan, how can

I comfort you? Don't take on so--pray, don't!" He never changed the

words, but the tone varied every time he spoke. At last she seemed to

regain her power over herself, and she wiped her eyes, and once more

looked upon him with her own quiet, earnest, unfearing gaze.

"Your sister was near the house. She came in on hearing my words to the

doctor. She is asleep now, and your mother is watching her. I wanted to

tell you all myself. Would you like to see your mother?"

"No!" said he. "I would rather see none but thee. Mother told me thou

knew'st all." His eyes were downcast in their shame.

But the holy and pure did not lower or vail her eyes.

She said, "Yes, I know all--all but her sufferings. Think what they must

have been!"

He made answer low and stern, "She deserved them all--every jot."

"In the eye of God, perhaps she does. He is the judge: we are not."

"Oh," she said, with a sudden burst, "Will Leigh, I have thought so well

of you; don't go and make me think you cruel and hard. Goodness is not

goodness unless there is mercy and tenderness with it. There is your

mother who has been nearly heart-broken, now full of rejoicing over her

child--think of your mother."

"I do think of her," said he. "I remember the promise I gave her last

night. Thou should'st give me time. I would do right in time. I never

think it o'er in quiet. But I will do what is right and fitting, never

fear. Thou hast spoken out very plain to me, and misdoubted me, Susan; I

love thee so, that thy words cut me. If I did hang back a bit from

making sudden promises, it was because, not even for love of thee, would

I say what I was not feeling; and at first I could not feel all at once

as thou would'st have me. But I'm not cruel and hard; for if I had

been, I should na' have grieved as I have done."

He made as if he were going away; and indeed he did feel he would rather

think it over in quiet. But Susan, grieved at her incautious words,

which had all the appearance of harshness, went a step or two

nearer--paused--and then, all over blushes, said in a low, soft whisper,

"Oh, Will! I beg your pardon. I am very sorry--won't you forgive me?"

She who had always drawn back, and been so reserved, said this in the

very softest manner; with eyes now uplifted beseechingly, now dropped to

the ground. Her sweet confusion told more than words could do; and Will

turned back, all joyous in his certainty of being beloved, and took her

in his arms and kissed her.

"My own Susan!" he said.

Meanwhile the mother watched her child in the room above.

It was late in the afternoon before she awoke, for the sleeping draught

had been very powerful. The instant she awoke, her eyes were fixed on

her mother's face with a gaze as unflinching as if she were fascinated.

Mrs. Leigh did not turn away, nor move. For it seemed as if motion would

unlock the stony command over herself which, while so perfectly still,

she was enabled to preserve. But by-and-by Lizzie cried out, in a

piercing voice of agony,

"Mother, don't look at me! I have been so wicked!" and instantly she hid

her face, and groveled among the bed-clothes, and lay like one dead--so

motionless was she.

Mrs. Leigh knelt down by the bed, and spoke in the most soothing tones.

"Lizzie, dear, don't speak so. I'm thy mother, darling; don't be afeard

of me. I never left off loving thee, Lizzie. I was always a-thinking of

thee. Thy father forgave thee afore he died." (There was a little start

here, but no sound was heard). "Lizzie, lass, I'll do aught for thee;

I'll live for thee; only don't be afeard of me. Whate'er thou art or

hast been, we'll ne'er speak on't. We'll leave th' oud times behind us,

and go back to the Upclose Farm. I but left it to find thee, my lass;

and God has led me to thee. Blessed be His name. And God is good, too,

Lizzie. Thou hast not forgot thy Bible, I'll be bound, for thou wert

always a scholar. I'm no reader, but I learnt off them texts to comfort

me a bit, and I've said them many a time a day to myself. Lizzie, lass,

don't hide thy head so, it's thy mother as is speaking to thee. Thy

little child clung to me only yesterday; and if it's gone to be an

angel, it will speak to God for thee. Nay, don't sob a that 'as; thou

shalt have it again in heaven; I know thou'lt strive to get there, for

thy little Nancy's sake--and listen! I'll tell thee God's promises to

them that are penitent; only don't be afeard."

Mrs. Leigh folded her hands, and strove to speak very clearly, while she

repeated every tender and merciful text she could remember. She could

tell from the breathing that her daughter was listening; but she was so

dizzy and sick herself when she had ended, that she could not go on

speaking. It was all she could do to keep from crying aloud.

At last she heard her daughter's voice.

"Where have they taken her to?" she asked.

"She is down stairs. So quiet, and peaceful, and happy she looks."

"Could she speak? Oh, if God--if I might but have heard her little

voice! Mother, I used to dream of it. May I see her once again--Oh,

mother, if I strive very hard, and God is very merciful, and I go to

Heaven, I shall not know her--I shall not know my own again--she will

shun me as a stranger, and cling to Susan Palmer and to you. Oh woe! Oh

woe!" She shook with exceeding sorrow.

In her earnestness of speech she had uncovered her face, and tried to

read Mrs. Leigh's thoughts through her looks. And when she saw those

aged eyes brimming full of tears, and marked the quivering lips, she

threw her arms round the faithful mother's neck, and wept there as she

had done in many a childish sorrow, but with a deeper, a more wretched

grief. Her mother hushed her on her breast; and lulled her as if she

were a baby; and she grew still and quiet.

They sat thus for a long, long time. At last Susan Palmer came up with

some tea and bread and butter for Mrs. Leigh. She watched the mother

feed her sick, unwilling child, with every fond inducement to eat which

she could devise; they neither of them took notice of Susan's presence.

That night they lay in each other's arms; but Susan slept on the ground

beside them.

They took the little corpse (the little unconscious sacrifice, whose

early calling-home had reclaimed her poor, wandering mother), to the

hills, which in her life-time she had never seen. They dared not lay her

by the stern grandfather in Milne-row church-yard, but they bore her to

a lone moorland grave-yard, where long ago the Quakers used to bury

their dead. They laid her there on the sunny slope, where the earliest

spring-flowers blow.

Will and Susan live at the Upclose Farm. Mrs. Leigh and Lizzie dwell in

a cottage so secluded that, until you drop into the very hollow where it

is placed, you do not see it. Tom is a schoolmaster in Rochdale, and he

and Will help to support their mother. I only know that, if the cottage

be hidden in a green hollow of the hills, every sound of sorrow in the

whole upland is heard there--every call of suffering or of sickness for

help, is listened to by a sad, gentle-looking woman, who rarely smiles

(and when she does, her smile is more sad than other people's tears),

but who comes out of her seclusion whenever there's a shadow in any

household. Many hearts bless Lizzie Leigh, but she--she prays always and

ever for forgiveness--such forgiveness as may enable her to see her

child once more. Mrs. Leigh is quiet and happy. Lizzie is to her eyes

something precious--as the lost piece of silver--found once more. Susan

is the bright one who brings sunshine to all. Children grow around her

and call her blessed. One is called Nanny. Her, Lizzie often takes to

the sunny grave-yard in the up-lands, and while the little creature

gathers the daisies, and makes chains, Lizzie sits by a little grave,

and weeps bitterly.

STEAM.

How wonderful are the revolutions which steam has wrought in the world!

The diamond, we are told, is but pure carbon; and the dream of the

alchymist has long been to disentomb the gem in its translucent purity

from the sooty mass dug up from the coal-field. But if the visionary has

failed to extricate the fair spirit from its earthly cerements, the

practical philosopher has produced from the grimy lump a gem, in

comparison to which the diamond is valueless--has evoked a Titanic

power, before which the gods of ancient fable could not hold their

heaven for an hour; a power wielding the thunderbolt of Jove, the sledge

of Vulcan, the club of Hercules; which takes to itself the talaria of

Mercury, the speed of Iris, and the hundred arms of Briareus. Ay, the

carbon gives us, indeed, the diamond after all; the white and feathery

vapor that hisses from the panting tube, is the priceless pearl of the

modern utilitarian. Without STEAM man is nothing--a mere zoological

specimen--Lord Monboddo's ape, without the caudal elongation of the

vertebrae. With steam, man is every thing. A creature that unites in

himself the nature and the power of every animal; more wonderful than

the ornithorhynchus--he is fish, flesh, and fowl. He can traverse the

illimitable ocean with the gambolings of the porpoise, and the snort of

the whale; rove through the regions of the earth with the speed of the

antelope, and the patient strength of the camel; he essays to fly

through the air with the steam-wing of the aeronauticon, though as yet

his pinions are not well fledged, and his efforts have been somewhat

Icarian. And, albeit our own steam aeronavigation is chiefly confined to

those involuntary gambols (as Sterne happily called Sancho's blanket

tossing), which we now and then take at the instance of an exploding

boiler, yet may we have good hope that our grandchildren will be able to

"take the wings of the morning," and sip their cup of tea genuine at

Pekin. He is more than human, and little less than Divinity. Were

Aristotle alive, he would define the genus "homo"--neither as "animal

ridens," nor yet "animal sentiens," but "Animal VAPORANS." True it is,

doubtless, that man alone can enjoy his joke. He hath his laugh, when

the monkey can but grin and the ape jabber--his thinking he shares with

the dog and the elephant; but who is there that can "get up the steam"

but man? "Man," say we, "is an animal that VAPORETH!" and we will wager

one of Stephenson's patent high-pressure engines again our cook's

potato-steamer, that Dr. Whately will affirm our definition.--_Dublin

University Magazine._

[From The Ladies' Companion.]

PAPERS ON WATER.--No. 1.

WHY IS HARD WATER UNFIT FOR DOMESTIC PURPOSES?

Few subjects have attracted more attention among sanitary reformers,

than the necessity of obtaining a copious supply of water to the

dwellers in large cities. Experience has shown that the supply should be

at least twenty gallons daily for each inhabitant, although forty

gallons are necessary to carry out to the full extent all the sanitary

improvements deemed desirable for the well-being of a population. But in

looking to quantity of supply, quality has been thought of less

importance; there could not be a more gross error, or one more fatal to

civic economy and domestic comfort. As we are anxious to instruct the

readers of this Journal in the science of every-day life, we propose to

consider the subject of water-supply in some detail, and in the present

article to explain the serious inconveniences which result from an

injudicious selection of hard water for domestic purposes.

The water found in springs, brooks, and rivers, has its primary origin

in the rain of the district, unless there should happen to be some

accidental infiltration from the sea or other great natural reservoirs.

This rain, falling on the upper soil, either runs off in streams, or,

percolating through it and the porous beds beneath, gushes out in the

form of springs wherever it meets with an impervious bed which refuses

it a passage; pits sunk down to the latter detect it there, and these

form the ordinary wells. In its passage through the pervious rocks, it

takes up soluble impurities, varying in their amount and character with

the nature of the geological formations, these impurities being either

mineral, vegetable, or animal matter. The mineral ingredients may be

chalk, gypsum, common salt, and different other compounds but it is the

earthy salts generally which impress peculiar qualities on the water.

The salts of lime and magnesia communicate to water the quality termed

_hardness_, a property which every one understands, but which it would

be very difficult to describe. By far the most common giver of hardness

is chalk, or, as chemists term it, carbonate of lime; a substance not

soluble in pure water, but readily so in water containing carbonic acid.

Rain water always contains this acid, and is, therefore, a solvent for

the chalk disseminated in the different geological formations through

which it percolates. Gypsum, familiarly known as plaster of Paris, and

termed sulphate of lime by chemists, is also extensively diffused in

rocks, and being itself soluble in water, becomes a very common

hardening ingredient, though not of such frequent occurrence as chalk.

Any earthy salt, such as chalk or gypsum, decomposes soap, and prevents

its action as a detergent. Soap consists of an oily acid combined

generally with soda. Now, when this is added to water containing lime,

that earth unites with the oily acid, forming an insoluble soap, of no

use as a detergent; this insoluble lime-soap is the curd which appears

in hard water during washing with soap. Hard water is of no use as a

cleanser, until all the lime has been removed by uniting with the oily

acid of the soap. Every hundred gallons of Thames water destroy in this

way thirty ounces of soap before becoming a detergent. But as this is an

enormous waste, the dwellers in towns, supplied with hard water, resort

to other methods of washing, so as to economize soap. If our readers in

London observe their habits in washing, they will perceive that the

principal quantity of the water is used by them not as a cleanser, but

merely for the purposes of rinsing off the very sparing amount employed

for detergent purposes. In London, we do not wash ourselves _in_ but

_out_ of the basin. A small quantity of water is taken on the hands and

saturated with soap so as to form a lather; the ablution is now made

with this quantity, and the water in the basin is only used to rinse it

off. The process of washing with soft water is entirely different, the

whole quantity being applied as a detergent. To illustrate this

difference an experiment may be made, by washing the hands alternately

in rain and then in hard water, such as that supplied to London; and the

value of the soft water for the purposes of washing will be at once

recognized. Even without soap, the soft water moistens the hand, while

hard water flows off, just as if the skin had been smeared with oil.

Now, although the soap may be economized in personal ablution by the

uncomfortable method here described, it is impossible to obtain this

economy in the washing of linen. In this case, the whole of the water

must be saturated with soap before it is available. Soda is, to a

certain extent, substituted with a view to economy, as much as L30,000

worth of soda being annually used in the metropolis to compensate for

the hard quality of the water; and, perhaps, as an approximative

calculation, L200,000 worth of soap is annually wasted without being

useful as a detergent. This enormous tax on the community results from

the hardness both of the well and river water; the former being

generally much harder than the latter. But this expense, large as it may

seem, is not the only consequence of a bad water supply. The labor

required to wash with hard water is very much greater than that

necessary when it is soft, this labor being represented in the excessive

charges for washing. In fact, extraordinary as it may appear, it has

recently been shown in evidence before the General Board of Health, that

the washerwoman's interest in the community is actually greater than

that of the cotton-spinner, with all his enormous capital. An instance

of this will suffice to show our meaning: a gentleman buys one dozen

shirts at a cost of L4, three of these are washed every week, the charge

being fourpence each, making an annual account of L2 12_s._ The set of

shirts, with careful management, lasts for three years, and has cost in

washing L7 16_s._ The cotton-spinner's interest in the shirts and that

of the shirt-maker's combined, did not exceed L4, while the

washerwoman's interest is nearly double. A considerable portion of this

amount is unavoidable; but a very large part is due to the excessive

charges for washing rendered necessary by the waste of soap and

increased labor required for cleansing. A family in London, with an

annual income of L600, spends about one-twelfth of the amount, or L50,

in the expenses of the laundry. On an average, every person in London,

rich and poor, spends one shilling per week, or fifty-two shillings a

year for washing. Hence, at least five million two hundred thousand

pounds is the annual amount expended in the metropolis alone for this

purpose. Yet, large as this amount is--and it matters not whether it be

represented in the labors of household washing or that of the professed

laundress--it is obvious that the greatest part of it is expended in

actual labor, for the washerwoman is rarely a rich or even a thriving

person. Hence, it follows that this labor, barely remunerative as it is,

must be made excessive from some extraneous cause; for it is found by

experience that one-half the charge is ample compensation in a country

district supplied with soft water. The tear and wear of clothes by the

system necessary for washing in hard water, is very important in the

economical consideration of the question. The difference in this

respect, between hard and soft water, is very striking. It has been

calculated that the extra cost to ladies in London in the one article of

collars, by the unnecessary tear and wear, as compared with country

districts, is not less than, but probably much exceeds, L20,000.

We now proceed to draw attention to the inconvenience of hard water in

cooking. It is well known that greens, peas, French beans, and other

green vegetables, lose much of their delicate color by being boiled in

hard water. They not only become yellow, but assume a shriveled and

disagreeable appearance, losing much of their delicacy to the taste. For

making tea the evil is still more obvious. It is extremely difficult to

obtain a good infusion of tea with hard water, however much may be

wasted in the attempt. We endeavor to overcome the difficulty by the

addition of soda, but the tea thus made is always inferior. One reason

of this is, that it is difficult to adjust the quantity of the soda. Tea

contains nearly 16 per cent. of cheese or casein, and this dissolves in

water rendered alkaline by soda; and although the nutritious qualities

are increased by this solution, the delicacy of the flavor is impaired.

The water commonly used in London requires, at the very least, one-fifth

more tea to produce an infusion of the same strength as that obtained by

soft water. This, calculated on the whole amount of tea consumed in

London, resolves itself into a pecuniary consideration of great

magnitude.

The effect of hard water upon the health of the lower animals is very

obvious. Horses, sheep, and pigeons, refuse it whenever they can obtain

a supply of soft water. They prefer the muddiest pool of the latter to

the most brilliant and sparkling spring of the former. In all of them it

produces colic, and sometimes more serious diseases. The coats of horses

drinking hard water soon become rough, and stare, and they quickly fall

out of condition. It is not, however, known that it exerts similar

influences upon the health of man, although analogy would lead us to

expect that a beverage unsuited to the lower animals can not be

favorable to the human constitution. Persons with tender skins can not

wash in hard water, because the insoluble salts left by evaporation

produce an intolerable irritation.

In order to simplify the explanation of the action of hard water,

attention has been confined to that possessing lime. But hard waters

frequently contain magnesia, and in that case a very remarkable

phenomenon attends their use. At a certain strength the magnesian salt

does not decompose the soap, or retard the formation of a lather, but

the addition of soft water developes this latent hardness. With such

waters, the extraordinary anomaly appears, that the more soft water is

added to them, up to a certain point, the harder do they become. Some of

the wells at Doncaster are very remarkable in this respect, for when

their hard water is diluted with eight times the quantity of pure soft

distilled water, the resulting mixture is as hard--that is, it

decomposes as much soap--as the undiluted water. Thus the dilution of

such water with four or five times its bulk of soft rain water actually

makes it harder. The cause of this anomaly has not yet been

satisfactorily made out, but it only occurs in waters abounding in

magnesia.

Having now explained the inconveniences of the hardening ingredients of

water, we propose to show in the next article the action of other

deteriorating constituents; and after having done so, it will become our

duty to point out the various modes by which the evils thus exposed may

best be counteracted or remedied.

L.P.

EARLY RISING.

Did you but know, when bathed in dew,

How sweet the little violet grew,

Amidst the thorny brake;

How fragrant blew the ambient air,

O'er beds of primroses so fair,

Your pillow you'd forsake.

Paler than the autumnal leaf,

Or the wan hue of pining grief,

The cheek of sloth shall grow;

Nor can cosmetic, wash, or ball,

Nature's own favorite tints recall,

If once you let them go.

HERRICK.

[From Household Words.]

A TALE OF THE GOOD OLD TIMES.

An alderman of the ancient borough of Beetlebury, and churchwarden of

the parish of St. Wulfstan's, in the said borough, Mr. Blenkinsop might

have been called, in the language of the sixteenth century, a man of

worship. This title would probably have pleased him very much, it being

an obsolete one, and he entertaining an extraordinary regard for all

things obsolete, or thoroughly deserving to be so. He looked up with

profound veneration to the griffins which formed the waterspouts of St.

Wulfstan's church, and he almost worshiped an old boot under the name of

a black jack, which on the affidavit of a foresworn broker, he had

bought for a drinking-vessel of the sixteenth century. Mr. Blenkinsop

even more admired the wisdom of our ancestors than he did their

furniture and fashions. He believed that none of their statutes and

ordinances could possibly be improved on, and in this persuasion had

petitioned parliament against every just or merciful change, which,

since he had arrived at man's estate, had been in the laws. He had

successively opposed all the Beetlebury improvements, gas, water-works,

infant schools, mechanics' institute, and library. He had been active in

an agitation against any measure for the improvement of the public

health, and being a strong advocate of intra-mural interment, was

instrumental in defeating an attempt to establish a pretty cemetery

outside Beetlebury. He had successfully resisted a project for removing

the pig-market from the middle of High-street. Through his influence the

shambles, which were corporation property, had been allowed to remain

where they were, namely, close to the Town-hall, and immediately under

his own and his brethren's noses. In short, he had regularly,

consistently, and nobly done his best to frustrate every scheme that was

proposed for the comfort and advantage of his fellow creatures. For this

conduct he was highly esteemed and respected, and, indeed, his hostility

to any interference with disease, had procured him the honor of a public

testimonial; shortly after the presentation of which, with several neat

speeches, the cholera broke out in Beetlebury.

The truth is, that Mr. Blenkinsop's views on the subject of public

health and popular institutions were supposed to be economical (though

they were, in truth, desperately costly), and so pleased some of the

rate-payers. Besides, he withstood ameliorations, and defended nuisances

and abuses with all the heartiness of an actual philanthropist.

Moreover, he was a jovial fellow--a boon companion; and his love of

antiquity leant particularly toward old ale and old port wine. Of both

of these beverages he had been partaking rather largely at a

visitation-dinner, where, after the retirement of the bishop and his

clergy, festivities were kept up till late, under the presidency of the

deputy-registrar. One of the last to quit the Crown and Mitre was Mr.

Blenkinsop.

He lived in a remote part of the town, whither, as he did not walk

exactly in a right line, it may be allowable perhaps, to say that he

bent his course. Many of the dwellers in Beetlebury High-street,

awakened at half-past twelve on that night, by somebody passing below,

singing, not very distinctly,

"With a jolly full bottle let each man be armed,"

were indebted, little as they may have suspected it, to Alderman

Blenkinsop, for their serenade.

In his homeward way stood the Market Cross; a fine medieval structure,

supported on a series of circular steps by a groined arch, which served

as a canopy to the stone figure of an ancient burgess. This was the

effigies of Wynkyn de Vokes, once mayor of Beetlebury, and a great

benefactor to the town; in which he had founded almhouses and a

grammar-school, A.D. 1440. The post was formerly occupied by St.

Wulfstan; but De Vokes had been removed from the Town Hall in Cromwell's

time, and promoted to the vacant pedestal, _vice_ Wulfstan, demolished.

Mr. Blenkinsop highly revered this work of art, and he now stopped to

take a view of it by moonlight. In that doubtful glimmer, it seemed

almost life-like. Mr. Blenkinsop had not much imagination, yet he could

well nigh fancy he was looking upon the veritable Wynkyn, with his

bonnet, beard, furred gown, and staff, and his great book under his arm.

So vivid was this impression, that it impelled him to apostrophize the

statue.

"Fine old fellow!" said Mr. Blenkinsop. "Rare old buck! We shall never

look upon your like again. Ah! the good old times--the jolly good old

times! No times like the good old times, my ancient worthy. No such

times as the good old times!"

"And pray, sir, what times do you call the good old times?" in distinct

and deliberate accents, answered--according to the positive affirmation

of Mr. Blenkinsop, subsequently made before divers witnesses--the

Statue.

Mr. Blenkinsop is sure that he was in the perfect possession of his

senses. He is certain that he was not the dupe of ventriloquism, or any

other illusion. The value of these convictions must be a question

between him and the world, to whose perusal the facts of his tale,

simply as stated by himself, are here submitted.

When first he heard the Statue speak, Mr. Blenkinsop says, he certainly

experienced a kind of sudden shock, a momentary feeling of

consternation. But this soon abated in a wonderful manner. The Statue's

voice was quite mild and gentle--not in the least grim--had no funereal

twang in it, and was quite different from the tone a statue might be

expected to take by any body who had derived his notions on that subject

from having heard the representative of the class in "Don Giovanni."

"Well, what times do you mean by the good old times?" repeated the

Statue, quite familiarly. The churchwarden was able to reply with some

composure, that such a question coming from such a quarter had taken him

a little by surprise.

"Come, come, Mr. Blenkinsop," said the Statue, "don't be astonished.

'Tis half-past twelve, and a moonlight night, as your favorite police,

the sleepy and infirm old watchman, says. Don't you know that we statues

are apt to speak when spoken to, at these hours? Collect yourself. I

will help you to answer my own question. Let us go back step by step;

and allow me to lead you. To begin. By the good old times, do you mean

the reign of George the Third?"

"The last of them, sir," replied Mr. Blenkinsop, very respectfully, "I

am inclined to think, were seen by the people who lived in those days."

"I should hope so," the Statue replied. "Those the good old old times?

What! Mr. Blenkinsop, when men were hanged by dozens, almost weekly, for

paltry thefts. When a nursing woman was dragged to the gallows with a

child at her breast, for shop-lifting, to the value of a shilling. When

you lost your American colonies, and plunged into war with France,

which, to say nothing of the useless bloodshed it cost, has left you

saddled with the national debt. Surely you will not call these the good

old times, will you, Mr. Blenkinsop?"

"Not exactly, sir; no, on reflection I don't know that I can," answered

Mr. Blenkinsop. He had now--it was such a civil, well-spoken

statue--lost all sense of the preternatural horror of his situation, and

scratched his head, just as if he had been posed in argument by an

ordinary mortal.

"Well then," resumed the Statue, "my dear sir, shall we take the two or

three reigns preceding? What think you of the then existing state of

prisons and prison discipline? Unfortunate debtors confined

indiscriminately with felons, in the midst of filth, vice, and misery

unspeakable. Criminals under sentence of death tippling in the condemned

cell, with the Ordinary for their pot-companion. Flogging, a common

punishment of women convicted of larceny. What say you of the times when

London streets were absolutely dangerous, and the passenger ran the risk

of being hustled and robbed even in the daytime? When not only Hounslow

and Bagshot Heath, but the public roads swarmed with robbers, and a

stage-coach was as frequently plundered as a hen-roost. When, indeed,

'the road' was esteemed the legitimate resource of a gentleman in

difficulties, and a highwayman was commonly called 'Captain'--if not

respected accordingly. When cock-fighting, bear-baiting, and

bull-baiting were popular, nay, fashionable amusements. When the bulk of

the landed gentry could barely read and write, and divided their time

between fox-hunting and guzzling. When duelist was a hero, and it was an

honor to have 'killed your man.' When a gentleman could hardly open his

mouth without uttering a profane or filthy oath. When the country was

continually in peril of civil war; through a disputed succession; and

two murderous insurrections, followed by more murderous executions,

actually took place. This era of inhumanity, shamelessness, brigandage,

brutality, and personal and political insecurity, what say you of it,

Mr. Blenkinsop? Do you regard this wig and pigtail period as

constituting the good old times, respected friend?"

"There was Queen Anne's golden reign, sir," deferentially suggested Mr.

Blenkinsop.

"A golden reign!" exclaimed the Statue. "A reign of favoritism and court

trickery at home, and profitless war abroad. The time of Bolingbroke's,

and Harley's, and Churchill's intrigues. The reign of Sarah, Duchess of

Marlborough and of Mrs. Masham. A golden fiddlestick! I imagine you must

go farther back yet for your good old times, Mr. Blenkinsop."

"Well," answered the churchwarden, "I suppose I must, sir, after what

you say."

"Take William the Third's rule," pursued the Statue. "War, war again;

nothing but war. I don't think you'll particularly call these the good

old times. Then what will you say to those of James the Second? Were

they the good old times when Judge Jefferies sat on the bench? When

Monmouth's rebellion was followed by the Bloody Assize. When the king

tried to set himself above the law, and lost his crown in consequence.

Does your worship fancy these were the good old times?"

Mr. Blenkinsop admitted that he could not very well imagine that they

were.

"Were Charles the Second's the good old times?" demanded the Statue.

"With a court full of riot and debauchery; a palace much less decent

than any modern casino; while Scotch Covenanters were having their legs

crushed in the 'Boots,' under the auspices and personal superintendence

of His Royal Highness the Duke of York. The time of Titus Oates, Bedloe,

and Dangerfield, and their sham plots, with the hangings, drawings, and

quarterings, on perjured evidence, that followed them. When Russell and

Sidney were judicially murdered. The time of the great plague and fire

of London. The public money wasted by roguery and embezzlement, while

sailors lay starving in the streets for want of their just pay; the

Dutch about the same time burning our ships in the Medway. My friend, I

think you will hardly call the scandalous monarchy of the 'Merry

Monarch' the good old times."

"I feel the difficulty which you suggest, sir," owned Mr. Blenkinsop.

"Now, that a man of your loyalty," pursued the Statue, "should identify

the good old times with Cromwell's Protectorate, is, of course, out of

the question."

"Decidedly, sir!" exclaimed Mr. Blenkinsop. "_He_ shall not have a

statue, though you enjoy that honor," bowing.

"And yet," said the Statue, "with all its faults, this era was perhaps

no worse than any we have discussed yet. Never mind! It was a dreary,

cant-ridden one, and if you don't think those England's palmy days,

neither do I. There's the previous reign, then. During the first part of

it, there was the king endeavoring to assert arbitrary power. During the

latter, the Parliament were fighting against him in the open field. What

ultimately became of him I need not say. At what stage of King Charles

the First's career did the good old times exist, Mr. Alderman? I need

barely mention the Star Chamber and poor Prynne; and I merely allude to

the fate of Strafford and of Laud. On consideration, should you fix the

good old times any where thereabouts?"

"I am afraid not, indeed, sir," Mr. Blenkinsop responded, tapping his

forehead.

"What is your opinion of James the First's reign? Are you enamored of

the good old times of the Gunpowder Plot? or when Sir Walter Raleigh was

beheaded? or when hundreds of poor, miserable old women were burnt alive

for witchcraft, and the royal wiseacre on the throne wrote as wise a

book, in defense of the execrable superstition through which they

suffered?"

Mr. Blenkinsop confessed himself obliged to give up the times of James

the First.

"Now, then," continued the Statue, "we come to Elizabeth."

"There I've got you!" interrupted Mr Blenkinsop, exultingly. "I beg your

pardon, sir," he added, with a sense of the freedom he had taken; "but

everybody talks of the times of Good Queen Bess, you know."

"Ha, ha!" laughed the Statue, not at all like Zamiel, or Don Guzman, or

a pavior's rammer, but really with unaffected gayety. "Everybody

sometimes says very foolish things. Suppose Everybody's lot had been

cast under Elizabeth! How would Everybody have relished being subject to

the jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Commission, with its power of

imprisonment, rack, and torture? How would Everybody have liked to see

his Roman Catholic and Dissenting fellow-subjects butchered, fined, and

imprisoned for their opinions; and charitable ladies butchered, too, for

giving them shelter in the sweet compassion of their hearts? What would

Everybody have thought of the murder of Mary Queen of Scots? Would

Everybody, would Anybody, would _you_, wish to have lived in these days,

whose emblems are cropped ears, pillory, stocks, thumb-screws, gibbet,

ax, chopping-block, and scavenger's daughter? Will you take your stand

upon this stage of history for the good old times, Mr. Blenkinsop?"

"I should rather prefer firmer and safer ground, to be sure, upon the

whole," answered the worshiper of antiquity, dubiously.

"Well, now," said the Statue, "'tis getting late, and, unaccustomed as I

am to conversational speaking, I must be brief. Were those the good old

times when Sanguinary Mary roasted bishops, and lighted the fires of

Smithfield? When Henry the Eighth, the British Bluebeard, cut his wives

heads off, and burnt Catholic and Protestant at the same stake? When

Richard the Third smothered his nephews in the Tower? When the Wars of

the Roses deluged the land with blood? When Jack Cade marched upon

London? When we were disgracefully driven out of France under Henry the

Sixth, or, as disgracefully, went marauding there, under Henry the

Fifth? Were the good old times those of Northumberland's rebellion? Of

Richard the Second's assassination? Of the battles, burnings, massacres,

cruel tormentings, and atrocities, which form the sum of the Plantagenet

reigns? Of John's declaring himself the Pope's vassal, and performing

dental operations on the Jews? Of the Forest Laws and Curfew under the

Norman kings? At what point of this series of bloody and cruel annals

will you place the times which you praise? Or do your good old times

extend over all that period when somebody or other was constantly

committing high treason, and there was a perpetual exhibition of heads

on London Bridge and Temple Bar?"

It was allowed by Mr. Blenkinsop that either alternative presented

considerable difficulty.

"Was it in the good old times that Harold fell at Hastings, and William

the Conqueror enslaved England? Were those blissful years the ages of

monkery; of Odo and Dunstan, bearding monarchs and branding queens? Of

Danish ravage and slaughter? Or were they those of the Saxon Heptarchy,

and the worship of Thor and Odin? Of the advent of Hengist and Horsa? Of

British subjugation by the Romans? Or, lastly, must we go back to the

ancient Britons, Druidism, and human sacrifices, and say that those were

the real, unadulterated, genuine, good old times, when the true-blue

natives of this island went naked, painted with woad?"

"Upon my word, sir," said Mr. Blenkinsop, "after the observations that I

have heard from you this night, I acknowledge that I _do_ feel myself

rather at a loss to assign a precise period to the times in question."

"Shall I do it for you?" asked the Statue.

"If you please, sir. I should be very much obliged if you would,"

replied the bewildered Blenkinsop, greatly relieved.

"The best times, Mr. Blenkinsop," said the Statue, "are the oldest. They

are the wisest; for the older the world grows, the more experience it

acquires. It is older now than ever it was. The oldest and best times

the world has yet seen are the present. These, so far as we have yet

gone, are the genuine good old times, sir."

"Indeed, sir!" ejaculated the astonished alderman.

"Yes, my good friend. These are the best times that we know of--bad as

the best may be. But in proportion to their defects, they afford room

for amendment. Mind that, sir, in the future exercise of your municipal

and political wisdom. Don't continue to stand in the light which is

gradually illuminating human darkness. The Future is the date of that

happy period which your imagination has fixed in the Past. It will

arrive when all shall do what in right; hence none shall suffer what is

wrong. The true good old times are yet to come."

"Have you any idea when, sir?" Mr. Blenkinsop inquired, modestly.

"That is a little beyond me," the Statue answered. "I can not say how

long it will take to convert the Blenkinsops. I devoutly wish you may

live to see them. And with that, I wish you good-night, Mr. Blenkinsop."

"Sir," returned Mr. Blenkinsop, with a profound bow, "I have the honor

to wish you the same."

Mr. Blenkinsop returned home an altered man. This was soon manifest. In

a few days he astonished the Corporation by proposing the appointment of

an Officer of Health to preside over the sanitary affairs of Beetlebury.

It had already transpired that he had consented to the introduction of

lucifer-matches into his domestic establishment, in which, previously,

he had insisted on sticking to the old tinder-box. Next, to the wonder

of all Beetlebury, he was the first to propose a great, new school, and

to sign a requisition that a county penitentiary might be established

for the reformation of juvenile offenders. The last account of him is,

that he has not only become a subscriber to the mechanics' institute,

but that he actually presided there at, lately, on the occasion of a

lecture on Geology.

The remarkable change which has occurred in Mr. Blenkinsop's views and

principles, he himself refers to his conversation with the Statue, as

above related. That narrative, however, his fellow-townsmen receive with

incredulous expressions, accompanied by gestures and grimaces of like

import. They hint, that Mr. Blenkinsop had been thinking for himself a

little, and only wanted a plausible excuse for recanting his errors.

Most of his fellow-aldermen believe him mad; not less on account of his

new moral and political sentiments, so very different from their own,

than of his Statue story. When it has been suggested to them that he has

only had his spectacles cleaned, and has been looking about him, they

shake their heads, and say that he had better have left his spectacles

alone, and that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and a good deal

of dirt quite the contrary. _Their_ spectacles have never been cleaned,

they say, and any one may see they don't want cleaning.

The truth seems to be, that Mr. Blenkinsop has found an altogether new

pair of spectacles, which enable him to see in the right direction.

Formerly, he could only look backward; he now looks forward to the grand

object that all human eyes should have in view--progressive improvement.

He who can not live well to-day, will be less qualified to live well

to-morrow.--MARTIAL.

Men are harassed, not by things themselves but by opinions respecting

them.--EPICTETUS.

[From the Dublin University Magazine.]

MEMOIRS OF THE FIRST DUCHESS OF ORLEANS.

While the fortunes of the last Duchess of Orleans are still in

uncertainty, it may not be unpleasing to read something of the family

and character of the first princess who bore that title. The retrospect

will carry us back to stirring times, and make us acquainted with the

virtues and sufferings, as well as the crimes, which mark the family

history of the great European houses. The story of Valentina Visconti

links the history of Milan with that of Paris, and imparts an Italian

grace and tenderness to the French annals. Yet although herself one of

the gentlest of women, she was sprung from the fiercest of men. The

history of the rise and progress of the family of Visconti is, in truth,

one of the most characteristic that the Lombardic annalists have

preserved.

The Sforzias, called Visconti from their hereditary office of

_Vicecomes_, or temporal vicar of the Emperor, were a marked and

peculiar race. With the most ferocious qualities, they combined high

intellectual refinement, and an elegant and cultivated taste, in all

that was excellent in art, architecture, poetry, and classical learning.

The founder of the family was Otho, Archbishop of Milan at the close of

the 13th century. He extended his vicarial authority into a virtual

sovereignty of the Lombard towns, acknowledging only the German Emperor

as his feudal lord. This self-constituted authority he transmitted to

his nephew Matteo, "Il grande." In the powerful hands of Matteo the

Magnificent, Milan became the capital of a virtual Lombardic kingdom.

Three of the sons of Matteo were successively "tyrants" of Milan, the

designation being probably used in its classical, rather than its modern

sense. Galeazzo, the eldest, was succeeded by his son Azzo, the only one

of the male representatives of the Visconti who exhibited any of the

milder characteristics befitting the character of a virtuous prince.

Luchino, his uncle and successor, was, however, a patron of learning,

and has had the good fortune to transmit his name to us in illustrious

company. At his court, in other respects contaminated by vice, and made

infamous by cruelty, the poet Petrarch found a home and a munificent

patron. Luchino cultivated his friendship. The poet was not above

repaying attentions so acceptable by a no less acceptable flattery.

Petrarch's epistle, eulogizing the virtues and recounting the glory of

the tyrant, remains a humiliating record of the power of wealth and

greatness, and the pliability of genius.

Luchino's fate was characteristic. His wife, Isabella of Fieschi, had

frequently suffered from his caprice and jealousy; at length she learned

that he had resolved on putting her to death. Forced to anticipate his

cruel intent, she poisoned him with the very drugs he had designed for

her destruction.

Luchino was succeeded by his brother Giovanni, Archbishop of Milan, the

ablest of the sons of Matteo. Under his unscrupulous administration the

Milanese territory was extended, until almost the whole of Lombardy was

brought under the yoke of the vigorous and subtle tyrant. Although an

ecclesiastic, he was as prompt to use the temporal as the spiritual

sword. On his accession to power, Pope Clement the Sixth, then resident

at Avignon, summoned him to appear at his tribunal to answer certain

charges of heresy and schism. The papal legate sent with this commission

had a further demand to make on behalf of the Pontiff--the restitution

of Bologna, a fief of the church, which had been seized by the Milanese

prelate, Giovanni Visconti, as well as the cession, by the latter, of

either his temporal or spiritual authority, which the legate declared

could not be lawfully united in the person of an archbishop. Giovanni

insisted that the legate should repeat the propositions with which he

was charged at church on the following Sunday: as prince and bishop he

could only receive such a message in the presence of his subjects and

the clergy of his province. On the appointed day, the archbishop having

celebrated high-mass with unusual splendor, the legate announced the

message with which he was charged by his Holiness. The people listened

in silence, expecting a great discussion. But their astonishment was not

greater than that of the legate, when Archbishop Giovanni stepped forth,

with his crucifix in one hand, while with the other he drew from beneath

his sacerdotal robes a naked sword, and exclaimed, "Behold the spiritual

and temporal arms of Giovanni Visconti! By the help of God, with the one

I will defend the other."

The legate could obtain no other answer save that the archbishop

declared that he had no intention of disobeying the pontiff's citation

to appear at Avignon. He accordingly prepared, indeed, to enter such an

appearance as would prevent citations of that kind in future.

He sent, as his precursor, a confidential secretary, with orders to make

suitable preparations for his reception. Thus commissioned, the

secretary proceeded to hire every vacant house in the city and

surrounding neighborhood, within a circuit of several miles; and made

enormous contracts for the supply of furniture and provisions for the

use of the archbishop and his suite. These astounding preparations soon

reached the ears of Clement. He sent for the secretary, and demanded the

meaning of these extraordinary proceedings. The secretary replied, that

he had instructions from his master, the Archbishop of Milan, to provide

for the reception of 12,000 knights and 6,000 foot soldiers, exclusive

of the Milanese gentlemen who would accompany their lord when he

appeared at Avignon, in compliance with his Holiness's summons. Clement,

quite unprepared for such a visit, only thought how he should extricate

himself from so great a dilemma. He wrote to the haughty Visconti,

begging that he would not put himself to the inconvenience of such a

journey: and, lest this should not be sufficient to deter him, proposed

to grant him the investiture of Bologna--the matter in dispute between

them--for a sum of money: a proposal readily assented to by the wealthy

archbishop.

Giovanni Visconti bequeathed to the three sons of his brother Stephano a

well-consolidated power; and, for that age, an enormous accumulation of

wealth. The Visconti were the most skillful of financiers. Without

overburthening their subjects, they had ever a well-filled

treasury--frequently recruited, it is true, by the plunder of their

enemies, or replenished by the contributions they levied on neighboring

cities. The uniform success which attended their negotiations in these

respects, encouraged them in that intermeddling policy they so often

pursued. We can scarcely read without a smile the proclamations of their

generals to the inoffensive cities, of whose affairs they so kindly

undertook the unsolicited management.

"It is no unworthy design which has brought us hither," the general

would say to the citizens of the towns selected for these disinterested

interventions; "we are here to re-establish order, to destroy the

dissensions and secret animosities which divide the people (say) of

Tuscany. We have formed the unalterable resolution to reform the abuses

which abound in all the Tuscan cities. If we can not attain our object

by mild persuasions, we will succeed by the strong hand of power. Our

chief has commanded us to conduct his armies to the gates of your city,

to attack you at our swords' point, and to deliver over your property to

be pillaged, unless (solely for your own advantage) you show yourselves

pliant in conforming to his benevolent advice."

Giovanni Visconti, as we have intimated, was succeeded by his nephews.

The two younger evinced the daring military talent which distinguished

their race. Matteo, the eldest, on the contrary, abandoned himself to

effeminate indulgences. His brothers, Bernabos and Galeazzo, would have

been well pleased that he should remain a mere cipher, leaving the

management of affairs in their hands; but they soon found that his

unrestrained licentiousness endangered the sovereignty of all. On one

occasion a complaint was carried to the younger brothers by an

influential citizen. Matteo Visconti, having heard that this citizen's

wife was possessed of great personal attractions, sent for her husband,

and informed him that he designed her for an inmate of his palace,

commanding him, upon pain of death, to fetch her immediately. The

indignant burgher, in his perplexity, claimed the protection of Bernabos

and Galeazzo. The brothers perceived that inconvenient consequences were

likely to ensue. A dose of poison, that very day, terminated the brief

career of Matteo the voluptuous.

Of the three brothers, Bernabos was the most warlike and the most cruel;

Galeazzo the most subtle and politic. Laboring to cement his power by

foreign alliances, he purchased from John, king of France, his

daughter, Isabelle de Valois, as the bride of his young son and heir;

and procured the hand of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, son of Edward III. of

England, for his daughter Violante. While Galeazzo pursued these

peaceful modes of aggrandizement, Bernabos waged successful war on his

neighbors, subjecting to the most refined cruelties all who questioned

his authority. It was he who first reduced the practice of the torture

to a perfect system, extending over a period of forty-one days. During

this period, every alternate day, the miserable victim suffered the loss

of some of his members--an eye, a finger, an ear--until at last his

torments ended on the fatal wheel. Pope after pope struggled in vain

against these powerful tyrants. They laughed at excommunication, or only

marked the fulmination of a papal bull by some fresh act of oppression

on the clergy subject to their authority. On one occasion Urban the

Fifth sent Bernabos his bull of excommunication, by two legates.

Bernabos received the pontifical message unmoved. He manifested no

irritation--no resentment; but courteously escorted the legates, on

their return, as far as one of the principal bridges in Milan. Here he

paused, about to take leave of them. "It would be inhospitable to permit

you to depart," he said, addressing the legates, "without some

refreshment; choose--will you eat or drink?" The legates, terrified at

the tone in which the compliment was conveyed, declined his proffered

civility. "Not so," he exclaimed, with a terrible oath; "you shall not

leave my city without some remembrance of me; say, will you eat or

drink?" The affrighted legates, perceiving themselves surrounded by the

guards of the tyrant, and in immediate proximity to the river, felt no

taste for drinking. "We had rather eat," said they; "the _sight_ of so

much water is sufficient to quench our thirst." "Well, then," rejoined

Bernabos, "here are the bulls of excommunication which you have brought

to me; you shall not pass this bridge until you have eaten, in my

presence, the parchments on which they are written, the leaden seals

affixed to them, and the silken cords by which they are attached." The

legates urged in vain the sacred character of their offices of

embassador and priest: Bernabos kept his word; and they were left to

digest the insult as best they might. Bernabos and his brother, after

having disposed of Matteo, became, as companions in crime usually do,

suspicious of one another. In particular, each feared that the other

would poison him. Those banquets and entertainments to which they

treated one another must have been scenes of magnificent discomfort.

Galeazzo died first. His son, Giovanni-Galeazzo, succeeded, and matched

the unscrupulous ambition of his uncle with a subtlety equal to his own.

Not satisfied with a divided sway, he maneuvered unceasingly until he

made himself master of the persons of Bernabos and his two sons. The

former he kept a close prisoner for seven months, and afterward put to

death by poison. The cruelty and pride of Bernabos had rendered him so

odious to his subjects, that they made no effort on his behalf, but

submitted without opposition to the milder government of

Giovanni-Galeazzo. He was no less successful in obtaining another object

of his ambition. He received from the Emperor Wenceslaus the investiture

and dukedom of Milan, for which he paid the sum of 100,000 florins, and

now saw himself undisputed master of Lombardy.

The court of Milan, during such a period, seems a strange theatre for

the display of graceful and feminine virtues. Yet it was here, and under

the immediate eye of her father, this very Giovanni-Galeazzo, that

Valentina Visconti, one of the most amiable female characters of

history, passed the early days of her eventful life. As the naturalist

culls a wild flower from the brink of the volcano, the historian of the

dynasty of Milan pauses to contemplate her pure and graceful character,

presenting itself among the tyrants, poisoners, murderers, and infidels

who founded the power and amassed the wealth of her family. It would be

sad to think that the families of the wicked men of history partook of

the crimes of their parents. But we must remember that virtue has little

charm for the annalist; he records what is most calculated to excite

surprise or awake horror, but takes no notice of the unobtrusive

ongoings of those who live and die in peace and quietness. We may be

sure that among the patrons of Petrarch there was no want of refinement,

or of the domestic amenities with which a youthful princess, and only

child, ought to be surrounded. In fact, we have been left the most

permanent and practical evidences of the capacity of these tyrants for

the enjoyment of the beautiful. The majestic cathedral of Milan is a

monument of the noble architectural taste of Valentina's father. In the

midst of donjons and fortress-palaces it rose, an embodiment of the

refining influence of religion; bearing in many respects a likeness to

the fair and innocent being whose fortunes we are about to narrate, and

who assisted at its foundation. The progress of the building was slow;

it was not till a more magnificent usurper than any of the Visconti

assumed the iron-crown of Lombardy, in our own generation, that the

general design of the Duomo of Milan was completed. Many of the details

still remain unfinished; many statues to be placed on their pinnacles;

some to be replaced on the marble stands from which they were overthrown

by the cannon of Radetski. Of the old castle of the Visconti two

circular towers and a curtain wall alone remain: its court-yard is

converted into a barrack, its moats filled up, its terraced gardens laid

down as an esplanade for the troops of the Austrian garrison. The family

of the Visconti have perished. Milan, so long the scene of their glory,

and afterward the battle-ground of contending claimants, whose title was

derived through them, has ceased to be the capital of a free and

powerful Italian state: but the Cathedral, after a growth of nearly

four centuries, is still growing; and the name of the gentle Valentina,

so early associated with the majestic Gothic edifice, "smells sweet, and

blossoms in the dust."

The year after the foundation of the Duomo, Valentina Visconti became

the bride of Louis Duke of Orleans, only brother to the reigning monarch

of France, Charles VI. Their politic father, the wise King Charles, had

repaired the disasters occasioned by the successful English invasion,

and the long captivity of John the Second. The marriage of Valentina and

Louis was considered highly desirable by all parties. The important town

of Asti, with an immense marriage portion in money, was bestowed by

Giovanni-Galeazzo on his daughter. A brilliant escort of the Lombard

chivalry accompanied the "promessa sposa" to the French frontier.

Charles VI. made the most magnificent preparations for the reception of

his destined sister-in-law. The weak but amiable monarch, ever

delighting in fetes and entertainments, could gratify his childish

taste, while displaying a delicate consideration and brotherly regard

for Louis of Orleans. The marriage was to be celebrated at Melun.

Fountains of milk and choice wine played to the astonishment and delight

of the bourgeois. There were jousts and tournaments, masks, and

banquets, welcoming the richly-dowered daughter of Milan. All promised a

life of secured happiness; she was wedded to the brave and chivalrous

Louis of Orleans, the pride and darling of France. He was eminently

handsome; and his gay, graceful, and affable manners gained for him the

strong personal attachment of all who surrounded him. But, alas! for

Valentina and her dream of happiness, Louis was a profligate; she found

herself, from the first moment of her marriage, a neglected wife: her

modest charms and gentle deportment had no attractions for her volatile

husband. The early years of her wedded life were passed in solitude and

uncomplaining sorrow. She bore her wrongs in dignified silence. Her

quiet endurance, her pensive gentleness, never for a moment yielded; nor

was she ever heard to express an angry or bitter sentiment. Still she

was not without some consolation; she became the mother of promising

children, on whom she could bestow the treasures of love and tenderness,

of the value of which the dissolute Louis was insensible. Affliction now

began to visit the French palace. Charles VI. had long shown evidences

of a weak intellect. The events of his youth had shaken a mind never

robust: indeed they were such as one can not read of even now without

emotion.

During his long minority the country, which, under the prudent

administration of his father, had well nigh recovered the defeats of

Cressy and Poietiers, had been torn by intestine commotions. The regency

was in the hands of the young king's uncles, the dukes of Anjou and

Burgundy. The latter inheriting by his wife, who was heiress of

Flanders, the rich provinces bordering France on the northeast, in

addition to his province of Burgundy, found himself, in some respects,

more powerful than his sovereign. The commercial prosperity of the Low

Countries filled his coffers with money, and the hardy Burgundian

population gave him, at command, a bold and intrepid soldiery.

From his earliest years, Charles had manifested a passion for the chase.

When about twelve years old, in the forest of Senlis, he had encountered

a stag, bearing a collar with the inscription, "_Caesar hoc mihi

donavit_." This wonderful stag appeared to him in a dream a few years

afterward, as he lay in his tent before Roosebeke in Flanders, whither

he had been led by his uncle of Burgundy to quell an insurrection of the

citizens of Ghent, headed by the famous Philip van Artevelde. Great had

been the preparations of the turbulent burghers. Protected by their

massive armor, they formed themselves into a solid square bristling with

pikes. The French cavalry, armed with lances, eagerly waited for the

signal of attack. The signal was to be the unfurling of the oriflamme,

the sacred banner of France, which had never before been displayed but

when battling against infidels. It had been determined, on this

occasion, to use it against the Flemings because they rejected the

authority of Pope Clement, calling themselves Urbanists, and were

consequently looked on by the French as excluded from the pale of the

church. As the young king unfurled this formidable banner, the sun,

which had for days been obscured by a lurid fog, suddenly shone forth

with unwonted brilliancy. A dove, which had long hovered over the king's

battalion, at the same time settled on the flag-staff.

"Now, by the lips of those you love, fair gentlemen of France,

Charge for the golden lilies--upon them with the lance!"

The French chivalry did indeed execute a memorable charge on these

burghers of Ghent. Their lance points reached a yard beyond the heads of

the Flemish pikes. The Flemings, unable to return or parry their

thrusts, fell back on all sides. The immense central mass of human

beings thus forcibly compressed, shrieked and struggled in vain. Gasping

for breath, they perished, _en masse_, suffocated by the compression,

and crushed under the weight of their heavy armor. A reward had been

offered for the body of Philip van Artevelde: it was found amid a heap

of slain, and brought to the king's pavilion. The young monarch gazed on

the mortal remains of his foe, but no wound could be discovered on the

body of the Flemish leader--he had perished from suffocation. The corpse

was afterward hanged on the nearest tree. When the king surveyed this

horrible yet bloodless field, the appalling spectacle of this mass of

dead, amounting, it is said, to 34,000 corpses, was more than his mind

could bear. From this period unmistakable evidences of his malady became

apparent. The marvelous stag took possession of his fancy; it seemed to

him the emblem of victory, and he caused it to be introduced among the

heraldic insignia of the kingdom.

In his sixteenth year, the king selected, as the partner of his throne,

the beautiful Isabeau of Bavaria. She also was a Visconti by the

mother's side, her father having wedded one of the daughters of

Bernabos. In her honor various costly fetes had been given. On one of

these occasions the royal bridegroom displayed his eccentricity in a

characteristic manner. The chroniclers of the time have given us very

detailed accounts of these entertainments. The costumes were

extravagantly fantastic: ladies carried on their head an enormous

_hennin_, a very cumbrous kind of head-dress, surmounted by horns of

such dimensions, that their exit or entrance into an apartment was a

work of considerable difficulty. The shoes were equally absurd and

inconvenient; their pointed extremities, half a yard in length, were

turned up and fastened to the knees in various grotesque forms. The

robes, the long open sleeves of which swept the ground, were emblazoned

with strange devices. Among the personal effects of one of the royal

princes we find an inventory of about a thousand pearls used in

embroidering on a robe the words and music of a popular song.

The chronicle of the _Religieux de St. Denis_ describes one of these

masked balls, which was held in the court-yard of that venerable abbey,

temporarily roofed over with tapestries for the occasion. The sons of

the Duke of Anjou, cousins of the king, were prepared to invade Naples,

in right of their father, to whom Joanna of Naples had devised that

inheritance. Previous to their departure, their royal cousin resolved to

confer on them the order of knighthood. An immense concourse of guests

were invited to witness the splendid ceremonial, and take part in the

jousts and tournaments which were to follow. The king had selected a

strange scene for these gay doings. The Abbey of St. Denis was the last

resting-place of the kings of France. Here mouldered the mortal remains

of his predecessors, and here were to repose his bones when he, too,

should be "gathered to his fathers." The celebrated "Captain of the

Companies," the famous du Guesclin, the saviour of France in the reign

of his father, had paid the debt of nature many years before, and

reposed there among the mortal remains of those whose throne he had

guarded so well. The astonishment of the guests was extreme, when it

appeared that the exhumation and reinterment of du Guesclin formed part

of the programme of the revels. The old warrior was taken up, the

funeral rites solemnly gone through, three hundred livres appropriated

to the pious use of masses for his soul, and the revelers dismissed to

meditate on the royal eccentricities.

The murder of the Constable of France, Oliver de Clisson, followed soon

after, and quite completed the break down of poor Charles's mind. This

powerful officer of the crown had long been feared and hated by the

great feudal lords especially by the Duke of Brittany, who entertained

an absurd jealousy of the one-eyed hero. Although Clisson, by his

decisive victory at Auray, had secured to him the contested dukedom of

Brittany, the jealous duke treacherously arrested his benefactor and

guest, whom he kept prisoner in the dungeons of his castle of La Motte.

In the first transports of his fury the duke had given orders that de

Clisson should be put to death; but his servants, fearing the

consequences of so audacious an act, left his commands unexecuted.

Eventually, the Constable was permitted by his captor to purchase his

freedom, a condition which was no sooner complied with, than the duke

repented having allowed his foe to escape from his hands. He now

suborned Pierre de Craon, a personal enemy of de Clisson, to be the

executioner of his vengeance. The Constable was returning to his hotel,

having spent a festive evening with his sovereign, when he was set on by

his assassins. He fell, covered with wounds, and was left for dead. To

increase his torments, the murderer announced to him, as he fell, his

name and motives. But, though severely injured, Clisson was yet alive.

The noise of the conflict reached the king, who was just retiring to

rest. He hastened to the spot. His bleeding minister clung to his robe,

and implored him to swear that he should be avenged.

"My fidelity to your majesty has raised up for me powerful enemies: this

is my only crime. Whether I recover or perish from my wounds, swear to

me that I shall not be unavenged."

"I shall never rest, so help me God," replied the excited monarch,

"until the authors of this audacious crime shall be brought to justice."

Charles kept his word. Although suffering from fever, the result of this

night's alarm and exposure, he collected a considerable army, and

marched for Brittany. His impatient eagerness knew no bounds. Through

the sultry, noonday heat, over the arid plains and dense forests of

Brittany, he pursued the assassin of his Constable. He rode the foremost

of his host; often silently and alone. One day, having undergone great

personal fatigue, he had closed his eyes, still riding forward, when he

was aroused by the violent curveting of his steed, whose bridle had been

seized by a wild-looking man, singularly clad.

"Turn back, turn back, noble king," cried he; "to proceed further is

certain death, you are betrayed!" Having uttered these words, the

stranger disappeared in the recesses of the forest before any one could

advance to arrest him.

The army now traversed a sandy plain, which reflected the intensity of

the solar rays. The king wore a black velvet jerkin, and a cap of

crimson velvet, ornamented with a chaplet of pearls. This ill-selected

costume rendered the heat insufferable. While musing on the strange

occurrence in the forest, he was aroused by the clashing of steel around

him. The page, who bore his lance, had yielded to the drowsy influences

of the oppressive noonday heat, and as he slumbered his lance had fallen

with a ringing sound on the casque of the page before him. The

succession of these alarms quite damaged Charles's intellect. He turned,

in a paroxysm of madness, crying, "Down with the traitors!" and attacked

his own body-guard. All made way, as the mad king assailed them. Several

fell victims to his wildly-aimed thrusts, before he sunk at length,

exhausted by his efforts, a fit of total insensibility followed. His

brother of Orleans and kinsman of Burgundy had him conveyed by slow

stages to Paris.

Charles's recovery was very tedious. Many remedies were tried--charms

and incantations, as well as medicines; but to the great joy of the

people, who had always loved him, his reason was at length pronounced to

be restored, and his physicians recommended him to seek amusement and

diversion in festive entertainments.

Another shock, and Charles VI. became confirmed lunatic. This tragical

termination of an absurd frolic occurred as follows:

On a gala occasion the monarch and five knights of his household

conceived the design of disguising themselves as satyrs. Close-fitting

linen dresses, covered with some bituminous substance, to which was

attached fine flax resembling hair, were stitched on their persons.

Their grotesque figures excited much merriment. The dukes of Orleans and

Bar, who had been supping elsewhere, entered the hall somewhat affected

by their night's dissipation. With inconceivable folly, one of these

tipsy noblemen applied a torch to the covering of one of the satyrs. The

miserable wretch, burning frightfully and hopelessly, rushed through the

hall in horrible torments, shrieking in the agonies of despair. The fire

was rapidly communicated. To those of the satyrs, whose hairy garments

were thus ignited, escape was hopeless. To detach the flaming pitch was

impossible; they writhed and rolled about, but in vain: their tortures

only ended with their lives. One alone beside the king escaped.

Recollecting that the buttery was near, he ran and plunged himself in

the large tub of water provided for washing the plates and dishes. Even

so, he did not escape without serious injuries. The king had been

conversing in his disguise with the young bride of the duke of Berri.

She had recognized him, and with admirable presence of mind and

devotion, she held him fast, covering him with her robe lest a spark

should descend on him. To her care and energy he owed his preservation

from so horrible a fate; but, alas! only to linger for years a miserable

maniac. The terrible spectacle of his companions in harmless frolic

perishing in this dreadful manner before his eyes, completed the wreck

of his already broken intellect. His reason returned but partially. Even

these slight amendments were at rare intervals. He became a squalid and

pitiable object; his person utterly neglected, for his garments could

only be changed by force. His heartless and faithless wife deserted

him--indeed, in his insane fits his detestation of her was

excessive--and neglected their children. One human being only could

soothe and soften him, his sister-in-law, Valentina Visconti.

Charles had always manifested the truest friendship for the neglected

wife of his brother. They were alike unhappy in their domestic

relations; for the gallantries of the beautiful queen were scarcely less

notorious than those of Louis of Orleans; and if scandal spoke truly,

Louis himself was one of the queen's lovers. The brilliant and beautiful

Isabeau was distinguished by the dazzlingly clear and fair complexion of

her German fatherland, and the large lustrous eyes of the Italian. But

Charles detested her, and delighted in the society of Valentina. He was

never happy but when near her. In the violent paroxysms of his malady,

she only could venture to approach him--she alone had influence over the

poor maniac. He yielded to her wishes without opposition; and in his

occasional glimpses of reason, touchingly thanked his "dear sister" for

her watchful care and forbearance.

It must have been a dismal change, even from the barbaric court of

Milan; but Valentina was not a stranger to the consolations which are

ever the reward of those who prove themselves self-sacrificing in the

performance of duty. She was eminently happy in her children. Charles,

her eldest son, early evinced a delicate enthusiasm of mind--the

sensitive organization of genius. He was afterward to become, _par

excellence_, the poet of France. In his childhood he was distinguished

for his amiable disposition and handsome person. Possibly at the time of

which we now write, was laid the foundation of that sincere affection

for his cousin Isabella, eldest daughter of the king, which many years

afterward resulted in their happy union. One of the most touching poems

of Charles of Orleans has been charmingly rendered into English by Mr.

Carey. It is addressed to his deceased wife, who died in child-bed at

the early age of twenty-two.

"To make my lady's obsequies,

My love a minster wrought,

And in the chantry, service there

Was sung by doleful thought.

The tapers were of burning sighs,

That light and odor gave,

And grief, illumined by tears,

Irradiated her grave;

And round about in quaintest guise

Was carved, 'Within this tomb there lies

The fairest thing to mortal eyes.'

"Above her lieth spread a tomb,

Of gold and sapphires blue;

The gold doth mark her blessedness,

The sapphires mark her true;

For blessedness and truth in her

Were livelily portray'd,

When gracious God with both his hands

Her wondrous beauty made;

She was, to speak without disguise,

The fairest thing to mortal eyes.

"No more, no more; my heart doth faint,

When I the life recall

Of her who lived so free from taint,

So virtuous deemed by all;

Who in herself was so complete,

I think that she was ta'en

By God to deck his Paradise,

And with his saints to reign;

For well she doth become the skies,

Whom, while on earth, each one did prize,

The fairest thing to mortal eyes!"

The same delicate taste and sweet sensibility which are here apparent,

break forth in another charming poem by Charles, composed while a

prisoner in England, and descriptive of the same delightful season that

surrounds us with light and harmony, while we write, "le premier

printemps:"

"The Time hath laid his mantle by

Of wind, and rain, and icy chill,

And dons a rich embroidery

Of sunlight pour'd on lake and hill.

"No beast or bird in earth or sky,

Whose voice doth not with gladness thrill;

For Time hath laid his mantle by

Of wind, and rain, and icy dull.

"River and fountain, brook and rill,

Bespangled o'er with livery gay

Of silver droplets, wind their way.

All in their new apparel vie,

For Time hath laid his mantle by."

We have said little of Louis of Orleans, the unfaithful husband of

Valentina. This young prince had many redeeming traits of character. He

was generous, liberal, and gracious; adored by the French people; fondly

loved, even by his neglected wife. His tragical death, assassinated in

cold blood by his cousin, Jean-sans-peur of Burgundy, excited in his

behalf universal pity. Let us review the causes which aroused the

vindictive hostility of the Duke of Burgundy, only to be appeased by the

death of his gay and unsuspicious kinsman.

Among the vain follies of Louis of Orleans, his picture-gallery may be

reckoned the most offensive. Here were suspended the portraits of his

various mistresses; among others he had the audacity to place there the

likeness of the Bavarian princess, wife of Jean-sans-peur. The

resentment of the injured husband may readily be conceived. In addition

to this very natural cause of dislike, these dukes had been rivals for

that political power which the imbecility of Charles the Sixth placed

within their grasp.

The unamiable elements in the character of the Duke of Burgundy had been

called into active exercise in very early life. While Duke de Nevers, he

was defeated at Nicopolis, and made prisoner by Bajazet, surnamed

"Ilderim," or the Thunderer. What rendered this defeat the more

mortifying was, the boastful expectation of success proclaimed by the

Christian army. "If the sky should fall, we could uphold it on our

lances," they exclaimed, but a few hours before their host was

scattered, and its leaders prisoners to the Moslem. Jean-sans-peur was

detained in captivity until an enormous ransom was paid for his

deliverance. Giovanni-Galeazzo was suspected of connivance with Bajazet,

both in bringing the Christians to fight at a disadvantage, and in

putting the Turks on the way of obtaining the heaviest ransoms. The

splenetic irritation of this disaster seems to have clung long after to

the Duke of Burgundy. His character was quite the reverse of that of his

confiding kinsman of Orleans. He was subtle, ambitious, designing,

crafty--dishonorably resorting to guile, where he dared not venture on

overt acts of hostility. For the various reasons we have mentioned, he

bore a secret but intense hatred to his cousin Louis.

In the early winter of 1407, the Duke of Orleans, finding his health

impaired, bade a temporary adieu to the capital, and secluded himself in

his favorite chateau of Beaute. He seems to have been previously

awakened to serious reflections. He had passed much of his time at the

convent of the Celestines, who, among their most precious relics, still

reckon the illuminated manuscript of the Holy Scriptures presented to

them by Louis of Orleans, and bearing his autograph. To this order of

monks he peculiarly attached himself, spending most of the time his

approaching death accorded to him. A spectre, in the solitude of the

cloisters, appeared to him, and bade him prepare to stand in the

presence of his Maker. His friends in the convent, to whom he narrated

the occurrence, contributed by their exhortations to deepen the serious

convictions pressing on his mind. There now seemed a reasonable

expectation that Louis of Orleans would return from his voluntary

solitude at his chateau on the Marne, a wiser and a better man, cured,

by timely reflection, of the only blemish which tarnished the lustre of

his many virtues.

The aged Duke of Berri had long lamented the ill-feeling and hostility

which had separated his nephews of Orleans and Burgundy. It was his

earnest desire to see these discords, so injurious to their true

interests and the well-being of the kingdom, ended by a cordial

reconciliation. He addressed himself to Jean-sans-peur, and met with

unhoped-for success. The Duke of Burgundy professed his willingness to

be reconciled, and acceded with alacrity to his uncle's proposition of a

visit to the invalided Louis. The latter, ever trusting and

warm-hearted, cordially embraced his former enemy. They received the

sacrament together, in token of peace and good-will: the Duke of

Burgundy, accepting the proffered hospitality of his kinsman, promised

to partake of a banquet to be given on this happy occasion by Louis of

Orleans, a few days later.

During the interval the young duke returned to Paris. His sister-in-law,

Queen Isabeau, was then residing at the Hotel Barbette--a noble palace

in a retired neighborhood, with fine gardens, almost completely

secluded. Louis of Orleans, almost unattended, visited the queen, to

condole with her on the loss of her infant, who had survived its birth

but a few days. While they were supping together, Sas de Courteheuze,

valet-de-chambre to Charles VI., arrived with a message to the duke: "My

lord, the king sends for you, and you must instantly hasten to him, for

he has business of great importance to you and to him, which he must

communicate to you this night." Louis of Orleans, never doubting that

this message came from his brother, hastened to obey the summons. His

inconsiderable escort rendered him an easy prey to the ruffians who lay

in wait for him. He was cruelly murdered; his skull cleft open, the

brains scattered on the pavement; his hand so violently severed from the

body, that it was thrown to a considerable distance; the other arm

shattered in two places; and the body frightfully mangled. About

eighteen were concerned in the murder: Raoul d'Oquetonville and Scas de

Courteheuze acted as leaders. They had long waited for an opportunity,

and lodged at an hotel "having for sign the image of Our Lady," near the

Porte Barbette, where, it was afterward discovered, they had waited for

several days for their victim. Thus perished, in the prime of life, the

gay and handsome Louis of Orleans. The mutilated remains were collected,

and removed to the Church of the Guillemins, the nearest place where

they might be deposited. This confraternity were an order of hermits,

who had succeeded to the church convent of the Blanc Manteax, instituted

by St. Louis.

The church of the Guillemins was soon crowded by the friends and

relatives of the murdered prince. All concurred in execrating the author

or authors of this horrid deed. Suspicion at first fell upon Sir Aubert

de Canny, who had good reason for hating the deceased duke. Louis of

Orleans, some years previously, had carried off his wife, Marietta

D'Enghein, and kept her openly until she had borne him a son, afterward

the celebrated Dunois. Immediate orders were issued by the king for the

arrest of the Knight of Canny. Great sympathy was felt for the widowed

Valentina, and her young and fatherless children. No one expressed

himself more strongly than the Duke of Burgundy. He sent a kind message

to Valentina, begging her to look on him as a friend and protector.

While contemplating the body of his victim, he said, "Never has there

been committed in the realm of France a fouler murder." His show of

regret did not end here: with the other immediate relatives of the

deceased prince, he bore the pall at the funeral procession. When the

body was removed to the church of the Celestines, there to be interred

in a beautiful chapel Louis of Orleans had himself founded and built,

Burgundy was observed by the spectators to shed tears. But he was

destined soon to assume quite another character, by an almost

involuntary act. The provost of Paris, having traced the flight of the

assassins, had ascertained beyond doubt that they had taken refuge at

the hotel of this very Duke of Burgundy. He presented himself at the

council, and undertook to produce the criminals, if permitted to search

the residences of the princes. Seized with a sudden panic, the Duke of

Burgundy, to the astonishment of all present, became his own accuser:

Pale and trembling, he avowed his guilt: "It was I!" he faltered; "the

devil tempted me!" The other members of the council shrunk back in

undisguised horror. Jean-sans-peur, having made this astounding

confession, left the council-chamber, and started, without a moment's

delay, for the Flemish frontier. He was hotly pursued by the friends of

the murdered Louis; but his measures had been taken with too much prompt

resolution to permit of a successful issue to his Orleanist pursuers.

Once among his subjects of the Low Countries, he might dare the utmost

malice of his opponents.

In the mean time, the will of the deceased duke was made public. His

character, like Caesar's, rose greatly in the estimation of the citizens,

when the provisions of his last testament were made known. He desired

that he should be buried without pomp in the church of the Celestines,

arrayed in the garb of that order. He was not unmindful of the interests

of literature and science; nor did he forget to make the poor and

suffering the recipients of his bounty. Lastly, he confided his children

to the guardianship of the Duke of Burgundy: thus evincing a spirit

unmindful of injuries, generous, and confiding. This document also

proved, that even in his wild career, Louis of Orleans was at times

visited by better and holier aspirations.

Valentina mourned over her husband long and deeply; she did not long

survive him; she sunk under her bereavement, and followed him to the

grave ere her year of widowhood expired. At first the intelligence of

his barbarous murder excited in her breast unwonted indignation. She

exerted herself actively to have his death avenged. A few days after the

murder, she entered Paris in "a litter covered with white cloth, and

drawn by four white horses." All her retinue wore deep mourning. She had

assumed for her device the despairing motto:

"Rien ne m'est plus,

Plus ne m'est rien."

Proceeding to the Hotel St. Pol, accompanied by her children and the

Princess Isabella, the affianced bride of Charles of Orleans, she threw

herself at the king's knees, and, in a passion of tears, prayed for

justice on the murderer of his brother, her lamented lord. Charles was

deeply moved: he also wept aloud. He would gladly have granted her that

justice which she demanded, had it been in his power to do so; but

Burgundy was too powerful. The feeble monarch dared not offend his

overgrown vassal. A process at law was all the remedy the king could

offer.

Law was then, as now, a tedious and uncertain remedy, and a rich and

powerful traverser could weary out his prosecutor with delays and

quibbles equal to our own. Jean-sans-peur returned in defiance to Paris

to conduct the proceedings in his own defense. He had erected a strong

tower of solid masonry in his hotel; here he was secure in the midst of

his formidable guards and soldiery. For his defense, he procured the

services of Jean Petit, a distinguished member of the University of

Paris, and a popular orator. The oration of Petit (which has rendered

him infamous), was rather a philippic against Louis of Orleans, than a

defense of Jean-sans-peur. He labors to prove that the prince deserved

to die, having conspired against the king and kingdom. One of the

charges--that of having, by incantations, endeavored to destroy the

monarch--gives us a singular idea of the credulity of the times, when we

reflect that these absurd allegations were seriously made and believed

by a learned doctor, himself a distinguished member of the most learned

body in France, the University of Paris. The Duke of Orleans conspired

"to cause the king, our lord, to die of a disorder, so languishing and

so slow, that no one should divine the cause of it; he, by dint of

money, bribed four persons, an apostate monk, a knight, an esquire, and

a varlet, to whom he gave his own sword, his dagger, and a ring, for

them to consecrate to, or more properly speaking, to make use of, in the

name of the devil," &c. "The monk made several incantations.... And one

grand invocation on a Sunday, very early, and before sunrise on a

mountain near to the tower of Mont-joy.... The monk performed many

superstitious acts near a bush, with invocations to the devil; and while

so doing he stripped himself naked to his shirt and kneeled down: he

then struck the points of the sword and dagger into the ground, and

placed the ring near them. Having uttered many invocations to the

devils, two of them appeared to him in the shape of two men, clothed in

brownish-green, one of whom was called Hermias, and the other Estramain.

He paid them such honors and reverence as were due to God our

Saviour--after which he retired behind the bush. The devil who had come

for the ring took it and vanished, but he who was come for the sword and

dagger remained--but afterward, having seized them, he also vanished.

The monk, shortly after, came to where the devils had been, and found

the sword and dagger lying flat on the ground, the sword having the

point broken--but he saw the point among some powder where the devil had

laid it. Having waited half-an-hour, the other devil returned and gave

him the ring; which to the sight was of the color of red, nearly

scarlet, and said to him: 'Thou wilt put it into the mouth of a dead man

in the manner thou knowest,' and then he vanished."

To this oration the advocate of the Duchess of Orleans replied at great

length. Valentina's answer to the accusation we have quoted, was concise

and simple. "The late duke, Louis of Orleans, was a prince of too great

piety and virtue to tamper with sorceries and witchcraft." The legal

proceedings against Jean-sans-peur seemed likely to last for an

interminable period. Even should they be decided in favor of the family

of Orleans, the feeble sovereign dared not carry the sentence of the law

into execution against so powerful an offender as the Duke of Burgundy.

Valentina knew this; she knew also that she could not find elsewhere one

who could enforce her claims for justice--justice on the murderer of her

husband--the slayer of the father of her defenseless children. Milan,

the home of her girlhood, was a slaughter-house, reeking with the blood

of her kindred. Five years previously her father, Giovanni-Galeazzo

Visconti, had died of the plague which then desolated Italy. To avoid

this terrible disorder he shut himself up in the town of Marignano, and

amused himself during his seclusion by the study of judicial astrology,

in which science he was an adept. A comet appeared in the sky. The

haughty Visconti doubted not that this phenomenon was an announcement to

him of his approaching death. "I thank God," he cried, "that this

intimation of my dissolution will be evident to all men: my glorious

life will be not ingloriously terminated." The event justified the omen.

By his second marriage with Katharina Visconti, daughter of his uncle

Bernabos, Giovanni Galeazzo left two sons, still very young,

Giovanni-Maria and Philippo-Maria, among whom his dominions were

divided, their mother acting as guardian and regent.

All the ferocious characteristics of the Visconti seemed to be centred

in the stepmother of Valentina. The Duchess of Milan delighted in

executions; she beheaded, on the slightest suspicions, the highest

nobles of Lombardy. At length she provoked reprisals, and died the

victim of poison. Giovanni-Maria, nurtured in blood, was the worthy son

of such a mother. His thirst for blood was unquenchable; his favorite

pursuit was to witness the torments of criminals delivered over to

bloodhounds, trained for the purpose, and fed only on human flesh. His

huntsman and favorite, Squarcia Giramo, on one occasion, for the

amusement of his master, threw to them a young boy only twelve years of

age. The innocent child clung to the knees of the duke, and entreated

that he might be preserved from so terrible a fate. The bloodhounds hung

back. Squarcia Giramo seizing the child, with his hunting-knife cut his

throat, and then flung him to the dogs. More merciful than these human

monsters, they refused to touch the innocent victim.

Facino Cane, one of the ablest generals of the late duke, compelled the

young princes to admit him to their council, and submit to his

management of their affairs; as he was childless himself, he permitted

them to live, stripped of power, and in great penury. To the sorrow and

dismay of the Milanese, they saw this salutary check on the ferocious

Visconti about to be removed by the death of Facino Cane. Determined to

prevent the return to power of the young tyrant, they attacked and

massacred Giovanni-Maria in the streets of Milan. While this tragedy was

enacting, Facino Cane breathed his last.

Philippo-Maria lost not a moment in causing himself to be proclaimed

duke. To secure the fidelity of the soldiery, he married, without delay,

the widow of their loved commander. Beatrice di Tenda, wife of Facino

Cane, was an old woman, while her young bridegroom was scarcely twenty

years of age: so ill-assorted a union could scarcely be a happy one.

Philippo-Maria, the moment his power was firmly secured, resolved to

free himself from a wife whose many virtues could not compensate for her

want of youth and beauty. The means to which he resorted were atrocious:

he accused the poor old duchess of having violated her marriage vow, and

compelled, by fear of the torture, a young courtier, Michel Orombelli,

to become her accuser. The duke, therefore, doomed them both to be

beheaded. Before the fatal blow of the executioner made her his victim,

Beatrice di Tenda eloquently defended herself from the calumnies of her

husband and the base and trembling Orombelli. "I do not repine," she

said, "for I am justly punished for having violated, by my second

marriage, the respect due to the memory of my deceased husband; I submit

to the chastisement of heaven; I only pray that my innocence may be made

evident to all; and that my name may be transmitted to posterity pure

and spotless."

Such were the sons of Giovanni-Galeazzo Visconti, the half-brothers of

the gentle Valentina of Orleans. When she sank broken-hearted into an

early grave--her husband unavenged, her children unprotected--she felt

how hopeless it would be to look for succor or sympathy to her father's

house; yet her last moments were passed in peace. Her maternal

solicitude for her defenseless orphans was soothed by the conviction

that they would be guarded and protected by one true and faithful

friend. Their magnanimous and high-minded mother had attached to them,

by ties of affection and gratitude more strong, more enduring than those

of blood, one well fitted by his chivalrous nature and heroic bravery to

defend and shelter the children of his protectress. Dunois--"the young

and brave Dunois"--the bastard of Orleans, as he is generally styled,

was the illegitimate son of her husband. Valentina, far from slighting

the neglected boy, brought him home to her, nurtured and educated him

with her children, cherishing him as if he had indeed, been the son of

her bosom. If the chronicles of the time are to be believed, she loved

him more fondly than her own offspring. "My noble and gallant boy," she

would say to him, "I have been robbed of thee; it is thou that art

destined to be thy father's avenger; wilt thou not, for my sake, who

have loved thee so well, protect and cherish these helpless little

ones?"

Long years after the death of Valentina the vengeance of heaven did

overtake Jean-sans-peur of Burgundy: he fell the victim of treachery

such as he had inflicted on Louis of Orleans; but the cruel retaliation

was not accomplished through the instrumentality or connivance of the

Orleanists: Dunois was destined to play a far nobler part. The able

seconder of Joan of Arc--the brave defender of Orleans against the

besieging English host--he may rank next to his illustrious

countrywoman, "La Pucelle," as the deliverer of his country from foreign

foes. His bravery in war was not greater than his disinterested devotion

to his half-brothers. Well and nobly did he repay to Valentina, by his

unceasing devotion to her children, her tender care of his early years.

Charles of Orleans, taken prisoner by the English at the fatal battle of

Agincourt, was detained for the greater part of his life in captivity:

his infant children were unable to maintain their rights. Dunois

reconquered for them their hereditary rights, the extensive appanages of

the house of Orleans. They owed every thing to his sincere and watchful

affection.

Valentina's short life was one of suffering and trial; but she seems to

have issued from the furnace of affliction "purified seven times." In

the midst of a licentious court and age, she shines forth a "pale pure

star." Her spotless fame has never been assailed. Piety, purity, and

goodness, were her distinguishing characteristics. She was ever a

self-sacrificing friend, a tender mother, a loving and faithful wife.

Her gentle endurance of her domestic trials recalls to mind the

character of one who may almost be styled her contemporary, the "patient

Griselda," so immortalized by Chaucer and Boccacio. Valentina adds

another example to the many which history presents for our

contemplation, to show that suffering virtue, sooner or later, meets

with its recompense, even in this life. The broken-hearted Duchess of

Orleans became the ancestress of two lines of French sovereigns, and

through her the kings of France founded their claims to the Duchy of

Milan. Her grandson, Louis the Twelfth, the "father of his people," was

the son of the poet Duke of Orleans. On the extinction of male heirs to

this elder branch, the descendant of her younger son, the Duke of

Angouleme, ascended the throne as Francis the First. Her

great-grand-daughter was the mother of Alphonso, Duke of Ferrara, the

"magnanimo Alfonso" of the poet Tasso. His younger sister, Leonora, will

ever be remembered as the beloved one of the great epic poet of

Italy--the ill-starred Torquato Tasso.

The mortal remains of Valentina repose at Blois; her heart is buried

with her husband, in the church of the Celestines at Paris. Over the

tomb was placed the following inscription:

'Cy gist Loys Duc D'Orleans.

Lequel sur tons duez terriens,

Fut le plus noble en son vivant

Mais ung qui voult aller devant,

Par envye le feist mourir.'

M.N.

THE SNOWY MOUNTAINS IN NEW ZEALAND.

The "Wellington Independent" gives the following account of a recent

expedition made by the Lieutenant-Governor to the Middle Island: After

leaving the Wairau, having traversed the Kaparatehau district, his

Excellency and his attendants reached the snowy mountains to the

southward, about four short days' journey from the Wairau, and encamped

at the foot of the Tapuenuko mountain, which they ascended. Previously

to starting into the pass which is supposed to exist between the Wairau

and Port Cooper plains, his Excellency ascended the great snowy mountain

which forms the principal peak of the Kaikoras, and which attains an

elevation of at least 9000 feet, the upper part being heavily covered

with snow to a great depth. He succeeded in reaching the top of the

mountain, but so late as to be unable to push on to the southern edge of

the summit, when an extensive view southwards would have been obtained.

In returning, a steep face of the hill (little less than perpendicular),

down which hung a bed of frozen snow, had to be crossed for a

considerable distance. Mr. Eyre, who had led the party up the dangerous

ascent, was in advance with one native, the others being 200 feet before

and behind him, on the same perpendicular of the snow. He heard a cry,

and looking round, saw Wiremu Hoeta falling down the precipice, pitching

from ledge to ledge, and rolling over and over in the intervals, till he

fell dead, and no doubt smashed to pieces at a depth below of about 1500

feet, where his body could be seen in a sort of ravine, but where it was

impossible to get at it. His Excellency narrowly escaped from similar

destruction, having lost both feet from under him, and only saving

himself by the use of an iron-shod pole which he carried. Another of the

natives had a still narrower escape, having actually fallen about

fifteen yards, when he succeeded in clutching a rock and saving himself.

The gloom which this unfortunate event caused, and the uncertainty of

crossing the rivers while the snows are melting, induced his Excellency

to return.

GENIUS.

Self-communion and solitude are its daily bread; for what is genius but

a great and strongly-marked individuality--but an original creative

being, standing forth alone amidst the undistinguishable throng of our

everyday world? Genius is a lonely power; it is not communicative; it is

not the gift of a crowd; it is not a reflection cast from without upon

the soul. It is essentially an inward light, diffusing its clear and

glorious radiance over the external world. It is a broad flood, pouring

freely forth its deep waters; but with its source forever hidden from

human ken. It is the creator, not the creature it calls forth glorious

and immortal shapes; but it is called into being by none--save

GOD.--_Women in France during the Eighteenth Century._

[From Household Words.]

FRANCIS JEFFREY.

Jeffrey was a year younger than Scott, whom he outlived eighteen years,

and with whose career his own had some points of resemblance. They came

of the same middle-class stock, and had played together as lads in the

High School "yard" before they met as advocates in the Court of Session.

The fathers of both were connected with that court; and from childhood,

both were devoted to the law. But Scott's boyish infirmity imprisoned

him in Edinburgh, while Jeffrey was let loose to Glasgow University, and

afterward passed up to Queen's College, Oxford. The boys, thus

separated, had no remembrance of having previously met, when they saw

each other at the Speculative Society in 1791.

The Oxford of that day suited Jeffrey ill. It suited few people well who

cared for any thing but cards and claret. Southey, who came just after

him, tells us that the Greek he took there he left there, nor ever

passed such unprofitable months; and Lord Malmesbury, who had been there

but a little time before him, wonders how it was that so many men should

make their way in the world creditably, after leaving a place that

taught nothing but idleness and drunkenness. But Jeffrey was not long

exposed to its temptations. He left after the brief residence of a

single term; and what in after life he remembered most vividly in

connection with it, seems to have been the twelve days' hard traveling

between Edinburgh and London, which preceded his entrance at Queen's.

Some seventy years before, another Scotch lad, on his way to become yet

more famous in literature and law, had taken nearly as many weeks to

perform the same journey; but, between the schooldays of Mansfield and

of Jeffrey, the world had not been resting.

It was enacting its greatest modern incident, the first French

Revolution, when the young Scotch student returned to Edinburgh and

changed his College gown for that of the advocate. Scott had the start

of him in the Court of Session by two years, and had become rather

active and distinguished in the Speculative Society before Jeffrey

joined it. When the latter, then a lad of nineteen, was introduced (one

evening in 1791), he observed a heavy-looking young man officiating as

secretary, who sat solemnly at the bottom of the table in a huge woolen

night-cap, and who, before the business of the night began, rose from

his chair, and, with imperturbable gravity seated on as much of his face

as was discernible from the wrappings of the "portentous machine" that

enveloped it, apologized for having left home with a bad toothache. This

was his quondam schoolfellow Scott. Perhaps Jeffrey was pleased with the

mingled enthusiasm for the speculative, and regard for the practical,

implied in the woolen nightcap; or perhaps he was interested by the

Essay on Ballads which the hero of the nightcap read in the course of

the evening: but before he left the meeting he sought an introduction to

Mr. Walter Scott, and they were very intimate for many years afterward.