66

his head grew giddy, and what Lenormand had | You will be able to pay your creditor, and be a prophesied came literally to pass. His good luck rich man still; the hand that has brought you to had made him crazy; his family, his good wife, beggary shall raise you to fortune, or there are his children, seemed to him a burden; Paris was no stars in heaven.' too narrow for him; he put up his money and set off in secret for London. Arrived there, he speedily dissipated the half of his fortune, and then became a constant guest at the hazard table. At first, like most tyros in play, he won, but fortune soon turned against him, and loss followed loss, till nothing more was left him to lose. There now remained nothing of his destiny unfilled but its dreadful close, and this was not long wanting. In 1828, his body was taken up in the Thames, and it came out on the inquest, that for the last eight days of his miserable life, he had not tasted even a spoonful of warm soup!

But poor Arthur had not a sou, for it was but a few days since the usurer had swept his house by a distress: he had nothing either to pawn or to sell. The creditor coolly directed the bailiffs to remove him; then, finding himself alone with the sorceress, he addressed himself to the task of deprecating her resentment, assumed his blandest aspect, thanked her for the fortunate numbers she had so unexpectedly revealed to him, and avowed his intention to stake ten francs on them without delay. The same sum he counted out on the table of the divineress, as a free-will token of his gratitude. I have long wished,' said he, "to "This event was a terrible shock to Lenor-learn from you what are my numbers: thank mand; she called herself Tribet's murderess, ex- heaven, that an accident, which I must call proviecrated her art, and, for more than a year after, dential, has this day led to the accomplishment of steadily refused every request to divine numbers my wish.' for the lottery.

"Do not suppose,' replied Lenormand, that you will escape the consequences of having offended me. Go; stake what sum you will on the numbers: I will take care that you shall win nothing by them.'

"The asurer did not believe, however, that it was in the power even of the redoubtable Pythoness to alter the course of fate; he hurried to the lottery office and recorded his venture.

"In 1830, however, she was induced once more to do so, under the following circumstances. A man one day hastily entered her cabinet, stated himself to be a printer, Pierre Arthur by name, and entreated her intercession with a creditor, Monsieur So-and-So, whom he knew to have a great veneration for her, and who was at that moment pursuing him with bailiffs. While he spoke, the creditor himself appeared with his "Lenormand had often murmured, that while attendants: he had seen his debtor enter Lenor- she could point out to others the road to wealth, mand's house, and followed him on the spot. it was forbidden her to tread it herself. She could This man was a money-lender: Arthur had been tell those who applied to her the numbers by so unfortunate as to borrow a sum from him four which prizes would be obtained, but was herself years before, and had, since that time, been paying | obliged to refrain from staking anything on these him the usurious interest of twenty-four per cent. numbers, because her doing so was certain to —a drain on his earnings which scarcely left the change good fortune into bad. She had read her poor man in a condition to give dry bread to his own destinies as well as those of others, and knew children. A half-year's interest was now due; he that she was one of the few to whom prizes in was totally unable to raise the requisite sum, and the lottery were peremptorily denied. She now his merciless creditor, rejecting all his entreaties rejoiced at this; she resolved to stake the ten for an extension of time, was about to consign his francs the miser had given her on his numbers, children to inevitable starvation, by throwing sure that when she made them her numbers, they their only support into prison. Lenormand readily would not be drawn. It happened as she anticiundertook the intercessor's office, and appealed to pated; the numbers were not drawn, the usurer the usurer's compassion, but it is scarcely neces-lost his ten francs, and the only drawback on the sary to say that the appeal was vain. The sibyl grew warm: the violation of the sacredness of her roof incensed her, and she said some bitter things to the man of money: this incensed him in his turn, and he told her with a malicious grin, that if she had so much pity for the printer, she had but to pay the two thousand francs which he owed; he would then be her debtor, and she could show him as much indulgence as she pleased.

sibyl's gratification was, that his disappointment did not open the doors of the prison to poor Arthur."

Colonel Favier, we ought to mention, does not guarantee the truth of these stories, but merely gives them as having been current at Paris in 1831, and on the alleged authority of the witch herself. They, therefore, do not stand on the same footing, as to credit, with the communications of Malchus and the Countess N. N. One

"Instead of replying to this taunt, she took the usurer's left hand, and studied its lines in silence. Arthur,' said she, after a few minutes, I have found help for you where you least expected it-thing, however, the colonel states as a in the hand of your oppressor. If you yet pos- matter of notoriety, that Lenormand, eight sess five francs of your own-not borrowed, but

honestly earned money-go immediately and days before the death of Louis the Eightstake it on these three numbers, 37, 87, and 88, eenth, gave the following as the five numin the royal lottery. The tirage is to-day; to-bers destined to come out of the wheel at morrow you are the possessor of 24,000 francs. the next drawing, viz. the number of the VOL. XIII. No. I.

3

that can befall him, but it betokens an ambo, a

king's age, 68; the number of years he had mad do the people appear. Dreams and presentireigned (reckoning from the death of his ments go but a small way: the very beggar swims nephew), 36; the year of the entry of the in an element of omens and suggestions of fortuallies into Paris, 14; the day the king had ate numbers, and there is no possible casualty ascended the throne, 26; and the num-terno, a quaterno, and so on. Even the execu ber affixed to his name in the list of the tion of a criminal is explored for oracular meansovereigns of France, 18. All the numbers ings: how the blood gushes, how the body falls, were drawn, and the lottery undertakers of how the poor sinner looks, moves, bears himself the French metropolis will long remember the day of reckoning that followed.

estrazione. Here we have the whole trade of the

in the last moment-all is eagerly noted, and auguries are deduced from each particular, that inWe now take our leave of Mademoiselle fallibly indicate the winning numbers in the next Lenormand, to whom, witch or no witch, haruspices of old: your Roman will not be robbed some admiration will always remain due, of his heathenism; he only mixes up with his for having contrived to be believed in by faith in these oracles an occasional ejaculation dia generation that neither believed in God rected to some favorite saint, like those prayers for and his angels, nor the devil and his imps. rich Inglesi, or other children of the north, which As to her art, we leave the reader to draw form so large a part in the devotions of the innhis own conclusions about it, whether mere keepers of the eternal city." chance, or some undiscovered properties of numbers, or a real understanding with the invisible world, have most to do with its results. If he decide for the first, we recommend to his consideration the following utterances of the inspired Novalis:-

"The fortuitous is not unfathomable; it, too, has a regularity of its own."

And again :

We conclude with a short anecdote corroborative of this author's views. In the latter part of the eighteenth century, a Roman Catholic priest, named Maas, of Paderborn, practised a kind of divination by means of numbers, which made some noise at the time. He had learned it from a Jew, whom he had charitably taken into his house in a dying state, and who, as a tribute of gratitude, communicated the mysterious art in question to his benevolent host, before he died. It was a method of obtaining answers, in any language, to inquiries respecting the future, or on other subjects unknown, by reckonings made according to certain rules: the practice of it was called "consulting the cabala." Many With respect to the two other solutions, remarkable responses are recorded. which we subjoin some remarks of a writer in Maas obtained in this way, both on private Kerner's "Magikon," who states it as and on public affairs; but the following something not to be denied," that the circumstance is said to have, in the end, powers of invisible beings often exercise a induced him to renounce the art. He once strange influence in games of chance, an influence which it would be difficult to re-lows from the book of the year, Father Prout's *In illustration of the above we quote what fol. solve into the mere effects of " undiscovered Facts and Figures from Italy:"properties of numbers :"_

"He that has a right sense for the fortuitous has the power to use all that is fortuitous for the determining of an unknown fortuitous: he can seek destiny with the same success in the position of the stars, as in sand-grains, in the flight of birds, and in figures."

"There is a book which has a greater circulation in the Roman States than the New Testament, or "We should have many proofs (proceeds this Thomas à Kempis, called the 'Book of Dreams, or Wheelwriter) that the old demons of the heathen creed the Oracle of the Government Lottery.' still carry on their game, under other masks, in only book in a whole village. The faith of credubarrowfuls are sold at every fair, and it is often the Christendom (especially in southern countries), lous ignorance in this book is a most astounding if we were to collect and comment upon the many fact; and no later than four days ago, at the drawing instances which occur to every traveller. What of the lottery, an instance of its infallibility was diabolical mischief is wrought in connexion with quoted in all the haunts of the people. A laborer the lottery! Even in Germany, how many heads fell from the scaffolding of the new hospital in the do you find turned by dreams and presentiments in Corso, and was killed on the spot; his fellow-workrelation to this most ruinous species of gambling, man left the corpse in the street, and ran to consult and that not only among the common people, but Book of Dreams.' Paura, sangue, cascata often among those who have enjoyed the advan-(fear, blood, fall), were the cabalistic words, whose tages of education! Cross the Alps, and the still for his investment of fifteen bajocchi. On Saturday, corresponding numbers, set forth therein, he selected fury becomes an open one; and the further you his three numbers all came forth from the governtravel southwards, the more universally stark ment urn, winning a prize of three hundred ollars."

his

put the question to the "cabala"-Who seized with a feeling of horror, he laid his was its author? Contrary to what usually face on the table, called his housekeeper, happened, no intelligible answer was re- and when he raised his head again, there turned he repeated his calculations, and was nothing unusual to be seen. the result was a kind of admonition, not to make any inquiry on this subject; but, on his persisting, and a third time tempting the oracle with this too curious question, the answer was given-" Look behind you." At this our experimenter was

From Tait's Magazine.

THOMAS MACAULAY.

BY GEORGE GILFILLAN.

[This critique upon one of the most brilliant and suc- |ity, his boundless bonhomie, his fantastic cessful of modern essayists, is conceived in Mr Gilfillan's happiest style, and will be perused with interest. For what reason the writer persists in excluding that portion of his Christian name by which he has been best known, we do not understand. The full name of the subject of the paper is, or has been, Thomas Babington Macaulay.

wondering at the length of his reign over himself, and of his idols, seems, after all, such a capricious domain as that of Letters, to have been the main object of his ambiand while fearlessly expressing our doubts tion, and has already been nearly satisfied. as to his greatness or permanent dominion, He has played the finite game of talent, we own that his sway has been that of gen- and not the infinite game of genius. His tleness of a good, wide-minded, and goal has been the top of the mountain, and kindly man; and take this opportunity not the blue profound beyond; and on the of wishing long life and prosperity to point he has sought he may speedily be "Bonnie Prince Charlie." scen, relieved against the heights which he

In a different region, and on a higher cannot reach--a marble fixture, exalted and haughtier seat, is Thomas Macaulay and motionless. Talent stretching itself exalted. In general literature, as Dickens out to attain the attitudes and exaltation in fiction, is he held to be facile princeps. of genius is a pitiable and painful position, He is, besides, esteemed a rhetorician of a but it is not that of Macaulay. With high class a statesman of no ordinary piercing sagacity he has, from the first, calibre-a lyrical poet of much mark and discerned his proper intellectual powers, likelihood---a scholar ripe and good---and, and sought, with his whole heart, and soul, mounted on this high pedestal, he "has and mind, and strength, to cultivate them. purposed in his heart to take another step," "Macaulay the Lucky" he has been and to snatch from the hand of the His- called; he ought rather to have been called toric Muse one of her richest laurels. To Macaulay the Wise. one so gifted in the prodigality of Heaven, can we approach in any other attitude but that of prostration? or dare we hope for sympathy, while we proceed to make him the subject of free and fearless criticism?

With a rare combination of the arts of age and the fire of youth, the sagacity of the worldling and the enthusiasm of the scholar, he has sought self-development as his principal, if not only end.

Before proceeding to consider his separate He is a gifted but not, in a high sense, claims upon public admiration, we will a great man. He possesses all those sum up, in a few sentences, our impres- ornaments, accomplishments, and even sions of his general character. He is a natural endowments, which the great man gifted but not, in a high sense, a great requires for the full emphasis and effect of man. He is a rhetorician without being his power (and which the greatest alone an orator. He is endowed with great can entirely dispense with); but the power powers of perception and acquisition, but does not fill, possess, and shake the drapery. with no power of origination. He has The lamps are lit in gorgeous effulgence; deep sympathies with genius, without pos- the shrine is modestly, yet magnificently, sessing genius of the highest order itself. adorned; there is everything to tempt a He is strong and broad, but not subtle or god to descend; but the god descends not profound. He is not more destitute of -or if he does, it is only Maia's son, the original genius than he is of high principle Eloquent, and not Jupiter, the Thunderer. and purpose. He has all common faculties The distinction between the merely gifted developed in a large measure, and cultivat- and the great is, we think, this-the gifted ed to an intense degree. What he wants adore greatness and the great; the great is the gift that cannot be given---the worship the infinite, the eternal, and the power that cannot be counterfeited---the god-like. The gifted gaze at the moon like wind that bloweth where it listeth---the reflections of the Divine-the great, with vision, the joy, and the sorrow with which open face, look at its naked sun, and each no stranger intermeddleth--the "light look is the principle and prophecy of an which never was on sea or shore---the con- action. secration and the peet's dream."

He has profound sympathies with genius, To such gifts, indeed, he does not pre- without possessing genius of the highest tend, and never has pretended. To roll order itself. Genius, indeed, is his intelthe raptures of poetry, without emulating lectual god. It is (contrary to a common its speciosa miracula-to write worthily of opinion) not genius that Thomas Carlyle heroes, without aspiring to the heroic-to worships. The word genius he seldom write history without enacting it-to furnish uses, in writing or in conversation, except in to the utmost degree his own mind, derision. We can conceive a savage without leading the minds of others one cachinnation at the question, if he thought point further than to the admiration of Cromwell or Danton a great genius. It is

energy in a certain state of powerful a personification of art, standing on tip-toe precipitation that he so much admires. in contemplation of mightier Nature, and With genius, as existing almost undiluted drawing from her features with trembling in the person of such men as Keats, he pencil and a joyful awe. Macaulay has not cannot away. It seems to him only a long this direct and personal communication swoon or St. Vitus' dance. It is otherwise with the truth and the glory of things. He with Macaulay. If we trace him throughout sees the universe not in its own rich and diall his writings, we will find him watching vine radiance, but in the reflected light for genius with as much care and fondness which poets have shed upon it. There are as a lover uses in following the footsteps of in his writings no oracular deliverances, no his mistress. This, like a golden ray, has pregnant hints, no bits of intense meaning conducted him across all the wastes and-broken, but broken off from some superwildernesses of history. It has brightened nal circle of thought-no momentary splento his eye each musty page and worm-eaten dors, like flashes of midnight lightning, volume. Each morning has he risen revealing how much-no thoughts beckoning exulting to renew the search; and he is us away with silent finger, like ghosts, into never half so eloquent as when dwelling on dim and viewless regions--and he never the achievements of genius, as sincerely even nears that divine darkness which ever and rapturously as if he were reciting his edges the widest and loftiest excursions of own. His sympathies are as wide as they imagination and of reason. His style and are seen. Genius, whether thundering manner may be compared to crystal, but with Chatham in the House of Lords, or not to the "terrible crystal" of the promending kettles and dreaming dreams with phets and apostles of literature. There is Bunyan in Elstowe-whether reclining in the sea of glass, but it is not mingled with the saloons of Holland House with De fire, or at least the fire has not been heated Stael and Byron, or driven from men as on seven times, nor has it descended from the a new Nebuchadnezzar whirlwind, in the seventh heaven. person of poor wandering Shelley-whether in Coleridge,

"With soul as strong as a mountain river, Pouring out praise to the Almighty giver;"

or in Voltaire shedding its withering smile across the universe, like the grin of deathwhether singing in Milton's verse, or glittering upon Cromwell's sword-is the only magnet which can draw forth all the riches of his mind, and the presence of inspiration alone makes him inspired.

Consequently he has no power of origination. We despise the charge of plagiarism, in its low and base sense, which has sometimes been advanced against him. He never commits conscious theft, though sometimes he gives all a father's welcome to thoughts to which he has not a father's claim. But. the rose which he appropriates is seldom more than worthy of the breast which it is to adorn; thus, in borrowing from Hall the antithesis applied by the one to the men of the French Revolution and by the other to But this sympathy with genius does not the restored Royalists in the time of Charles amount to genius itself; it is too catholic the Second, "dwarfish virtues and gigantic and too prostrate. The man of the highest crimes," he has taken what he might have order of genius, after the enthusiasm of lent, and, in its application, has changed. youth is spent, is rarely its worshipper, it from a party calumny into a striking even as it exists in himself. He worships truth. The men of the Revolution were rather the object which genius contemplates, not men of dwarfish virtues and gigantic and the ideal at which it aims. He is rapt vices; both were stupendous when either up to a higher region, and hears a mightier were possessed: it was otherwise with the voice. Listening to the melodies of Nature, minions of Charles. When our hero lights to the march of the eternal hours, to the his torch it is not at the chariot of the sun; severe music of continuous thought, to the he ascends seldom higher than Hazlitt or rush of his own advancing soul, he cannot Hall-Coleridge, Schiller, and Goethe are so complacently bend an ear to the minstrel- untouched. But without re-arguing the sies, however sweet, of men, however gifted question of originality, that quality is maniHe passes, like the true painter, from the festly not his. It were as true that he admiration of copies, which he may admire originated Milton, Dryden, Bacon, or to error and extravagance, to that great Byron, as that he originated the views original which, without blame, excites an which his articles develope of their lives or infinite and endless devotion. He becomes genius. A search after originality is never