ful; and nature, pranked out in her garb of loveliness, seemed to mock at human suffering; that suddenly as the city groaned with victims, those who had hitherto laden the death-carts, and carried them forth to burial, withdrew despairingly from the task, and literally left the dead to bury their dead.

For a brief interval the panic was frightful; the scorching heat of the unclouded sun,-the rapid effects of the disease upon the bodies,-the difficulty of procuring substitutes for the revolting duty,-all conspired to excite the most intense alarm, lest the effluvia of putrefaction should be superadded to the miasma, which was already feeding the malady.

In this extremity, the mayor of the town addressed himself to three young men, of whose courage and resolution he had a high opinion, and who instantly consented to devote themselves to the preservation of their fellow-citizens. The sexton, measuring and hollowing out his narrow space of earth, was replaced by work. men flinging up the soil from deep trenches, extending some hundred feet in length; while the courageous trio who had undertaken to transport the bodies, speedily filled up the common grave which was thus prepared for them.

The same prayer was murmured over a score; the tinkling of the same little bell marked the service performed for a hundred, whose sealed ears heard not the sound; and for awhile the work went on in silence. But that silence was at length rudely and strangely broken. Human nature, wrought up to its last point of endurance, acknowledged no authority-spurned at all duty,-and the tools of the workmen were cast down as they sprang out of the trenches, and refused to pursue their task.

It must have been a frightful scene, and one never to be forgotten, when the gleaming of bayonets was apparent within the walls of the grave-yards, and the troops stood silently along the edge of the trenches, partially heaped with dead; compelling, by the mute eloquence of their arms, the labors of the living! And this in a burial-place! where all should be still, and solemn, and sacred!

The compulsatory work was completed, and I stood yesterday upon this spot of frightful memories, beside the long, deep, common graves of upwards of four thousand of the plague-smitten. The sun was shining upon them, insects were humming about them, on those which had been first filled up, the rapid vegetation of this fine climate had already shed a faint tinge of verdure; above them spread a sky of the brightest blue without a cloud: on one side the eye rested on the distant city, and the ear caught the busy hum of its streets; on the other, swelling hills and rich vineyards stretched far into the distance; but they lay there, long, and silent, and saddening,—the mute records of a visitation which has steeped the city in tears of blood.

It was awful, as I paused beside these vast tumuli, to remember that two short months had peopled themto stand there, and to picture to myself the anguish and the suffering, the terror and the despair, amid which they were wrought; to know that within their hidden recesses were piled indiscriminately the aged and the young, the nursling and the strong man, the matron and the maiden; and, above all, was affecting to trace the hand of surviving tenderness which had planted the record-cross, and the tributary wreath, upon some spot of the vast sepulchre, which was believed to cover the regretted one. I say believed; for who could measure with his eye that fatal trench, and make sure note of the narrow space where his own lost one lay, above, or beneath, or in the midst of that hour's victims ?

Would you endeavor to divest yourself of these revolting images, they are brought back upon you with tenfold force, as you pause at the termination of the trenches; for there your eye falls on a tall black cross, crowned with immortelles, and bearing the inscription:

Choleriques du Mois de Juillet.

You turn away with the blood quivering in your veins, and a second cross, wreathed and fashioned like the first, marks the graves of the

Choleriques d'Aout et Septembre.

And here, thanks to an all-gracious Providence! the last-formed trench yet yawns hollow and empty for full two-thirds of its length. The Destroying Angel slowly furls his wings,-Death, glutted with prey, pauses in his work of devastation

I do not think that I shall again have courage to enter the cemetery.

The Château d'If, or State Prison, where the Man in the Iron Mask passed his captivity, and the plot of the Maniac Soldier, deserve the reader's attention.

Since our return here, we have spent one interesting morning at the Château d'If. Despite the season of the year, the sky was blue and bright when we embarked for the rocky islet on which stands the fortress. It was not blowing more than what sailors call a "fresh breeze," and the wind was a side-wind, giving promise of assistance homeward as well as outward. In an hour and a half we were under the rock; and our letter having been duly presented by the sentinel to the sergeant, by the sergeant to the officer on guard, and by the officer on guard to the commandant, we were at length invited to land; and after climbing some rude steps cut in the living rock, and passing under a covered doorway, we found ourselves on an esplanade, surrounded by the guard-house, the barrack, and the walls of the fortress; having the castle itself immediately before us.

A second flight of stairs led us to a small platform; whence, passing under an arched entrance, we reached the court in the centre of the dungeons. The interior door of this gloomy passage is closed by an iron grating, and just without the grating a strong staple is attached to the wall. Here we were told that criminals, sentenced to death by the cord, were executed; while the other prisoners were compelled to witness the catastrophe from within the court. An iron gallery runs entirely round the enclosure, which is square, and surrounded by dungeons; those on the ground-floor being appropriated as condemned cells, and those opening upon the terrace as receptacles for state prisoners.

A very deep well occupies one angle of the court, and immediately above it is the cell of the Iron Mask.

Although this mysterious personage was its tenant only during a few weeks, ere he was removed to his dungeon at St. Marguerite's, I nevertheless examined it with much attention. The walls are covered with rough sketches nearly obliterated, which the jailer assured us were all traced by the hand of the Iron Mask himself. Pass over the assertion without cavil, my dear; why should we, by examining into such things too closely, annihilate the little romance that is still left to us in this age of mechanism and railroads?

It is at all events certain, that there was a melancholy interest attached to the rude outlines which had been scratched with bricks and charred wood upon the whitewash of the cell-they were all symbolic of liberty. There were birds soaring in the air-ships braving the tempest-wild horses scouring the desartand, perhaps dearer still to the heart of the captive, a fair landscape, which was evidently rather a work of memory than a creation of idleness.

There were also traces of more bitter and reckless feeling; but these were evidently the work of a later hand-the productions of some less tutored and enduring nature. Many political epigrams had been partially effaced, but more than one still remained to prove the indomitability of the spirit whence they had emanated From this cell we proceeded to that of Mirabeau; and it was not without emotion that I stood in the centre of his narrow prison, and leant upon the rude plank, fixed within the recess of the solitary window, whereon he wrote his celebrated "Lettres à Sophie."

We next entered the council chamber; a vaulted apartment, where iron staples are driven into the stonework about three feet from the ground, to which the prisoners were formerly attached in a crouching attitude, and thus detained during the whole process of their trial. It is lighted by two grated apertures opening from the domed roof, and one narrow embrasure.

The next cell that we invaded, was that of Armand Polignac, implicated in the fabrication of the Infernal Machine in 1804; and we were not a little startled on discovering that the adjoining apartment had been used as a theatre by the prisoners, who had amused their captivity by enacting plays within its grim and grated precincts.

Beyond this "mockery of mirth" opens an Oubliette, wherein the prisoner could enter only upon his hands and knees; and whence being impelled onward by the bayonets of the guard, he ultimately fell through a closed funnel upon the jagged rock which forms the foundation of the fortress. All this was gloomy enough; and I was not sorry to find myself, a few moments later, standing upon the summit of the lower of the towers, with the fine, light, aromatic breeze playing about me.

My visions were, however, soon called back to earth, and earthly horrors; as our cicerone pointed out the spot upon this narrow space, where, standing against a gray and hoary buttress, supporting a portion of the castellated outer wall, the prisoners condemned to be shot were executed. The fatal bullets might be traced in considerable numbers by deep indentations in the brick-work; but I was in no mood to pursue so heartsickening an occupation.

From this tower, we proceeded to visit the condemned cells; and miserable indeed they were,-without a ray of light, or a breath of air. It appeared almost impossible for human beings to exist in such an atmosphere, even for a few hours; but we are assured that, such is the tenacity of life, there had been instances of an individual lingering amid their horrors for months.

You may imagine the misery of such incarceration, when I tell you that a gentleman of the party measured two of these cells: the larger one was eleven feet long, six feet across, and five feet six inches in height; while that within was but seven feet in length, four in breadth, and five feet two inches high. This den was approached through a short gallery, whose wall was perforated at the extreme end by a small window, through which a stout man could with difficulty thrust his arm; and even this miserable aperture was crossbarred with iron!

The gallery was the exercise ground of the condemned tenants of the adjacent dungeons; and they were permitted singly to traverse this gloomy passage for two hours each day!

From the summit of the principal tower there is a fine view, not only of the city itself, but of a wide extent of picturesque country, and a noble sweep of sea. The new lazaretto, occupying an island elose beside the fortress, is a convenient and cheerful-looking building; and the light-house in the distance forms a prominent and pleasing object.

Altogether, the Château d'If, with its dungeons, its galleries, and, above all, its associations, is well worthy of a visit.

There is a local tradition attached to this island, which is worthy of repetition. Here it is :—

In the year 1765, a brave old soldier, named Francœur, was one of the garrison of its now dilapidated fort: and this man, who had once or twice previously been insane, but who was considered at that period perfectly free from the malady, suddenly conceived the absurd idea that he was king of Ratoneau. He was at the moment posted as sentinel at the door of the dungeon, and his comrades were absent in search of their daily provisions. Acting upon the impulse of his disordered phantasy, he lowered the portcullis, rushed to the powder magazine, loaded the guns, and having arranged his battery in the most scientific manner, began firing upon his astonished fellow-soldiers, who were scattered over the island, quite unprepared for so sudden and determined an attack, and who had no alternative but to conceal themselves as they best could among the rocks, until a boatman was at length prevailed upon to venture to their assistance and bring them off. The island was, at the time, covered with flocks of goats; and these were the only subjects over whom the self-elected king Francœur was enabled to assert his sovereignty; of which the proof consisted in their destruction, as the cravings of his hunger prompted. This was the only food on which he subsisted; and for a few days it appeared to suffice him, for he continued unweariedly the duties of his watch, leaving the fort every night with a lantern in his hand to visit the outposts; and amusing himself during the day by firing on the Château d'If.

As all his movements were overlooked by the garrison of that fortress, it was not difficult to take him at a disadvantage; and the Duke de Villars, who was at that period governor of Marseilles, despatched a company of infantry to dethrone the distraught sovereign, who surrounded him during his nightly perambulation, and made him a prisoner. Regal to the last, Francœur opposed no vulgar violence to the legitimate coercion of the soldiery, but exclaimed with a theatrical gesture, "Brave men! I owe you no unkindness-no anger; all is regular, and you have done your duty according to the rules of war. The king of France is more powerful than I am-his troops are more numerous, and better disciplined-I surrender myself with the honors of war-I ask only to march out with my pipe and my havresac."

The reasonable request of the abdicating monarch was granted; and he was first removed to the lunatic asylum, afterwards to the Hôtel des Invalides, where he held his court in peace until his death.

The Marseillaise have another version of this story, which ascribes the feat to a criminal who had escaped the hands of justice; and I cannot undertake to assert which is the correct one; but mean while, l'un vaut bien l'autre !

“THE MUSICAL REVIEW," is the title of a new weekly publication issued in New York. The editor evidently understands what he is writing about-a circumstance not very frequent among the critics of the day. We heartily wish him success; but he must not depend upon newspapers for notices of musical performances-we refer particularly to the production of a new oratorio, by one of the Boston Musical Societies; in spite of the praise awarded, we happen to know that the affair was a prodigious failure.

Carey, Lea, and Blanchard have finished the publication of their large and elegant edition of Lockhart's Life of Sir Walter Scott. We had penned some remarks upon a portion of the contents of the last volume, but are compelled to postpone their insertion from want of room.

LONDON REPRINTS.

We have much pleasure in stating, for the satisfaction of that portion of the reading public which cannot believe in any thing perusable unless it bears the British stamp, that the trans-Atlantic editors have lately ho. nored us with a considerable share of their attention, and are continually reprinting various of our articles in their pages, without the slightest acknowledgment. We have been compelled to laugh heartily at the admiration these borrowed pages have caused in the critical perceptions of certain editors here, who fill their papers with long extracts from English publications, and highly commend the very articles which their critical sagacity entirely overlooked when originally published in their own country. There is at present a rage in America for reprints of London periodicals; the newspaper editors take the first cullings; the small booksellers repub. lish the magazines entire, and the large traders form a volume of tales from the most interesting portion of their contents. But the deceived reader finds the reading matter a very second-hand and stale affair, and fre quently recognizes an old friend in the much-lauded English production. Chamber's Edinburgh Journal, for December, contains five long articles extracted from American Magazines; the number for January has three in successive order, from the Knickerbocker, the Gentleman's, and the New York Mirror, beside four or five more in various parts of the number; yet this work is reprinted in America, and much lauded for its origi nality.

The tale of "The Sister Nuns," which appeared in our number for August, has been copied, with some alterations, in the Monthly Magazine for January; the names of the characters are altered, and the localities changed, but the story is the same. The Londoner calls his tale" Juana, or the Noviciate." "The original Memoir of the Duchess of St. Albans," from our own pen, has been copied from our October number, and transplanted, without acknowledgment, into the pages of La Belle Assemblée. Our article upon "Improv visatori," with a few alterations, has been printed in Chamber's Journal as original. A London newspaper copied a little jeu d'esprit from our pages, entitled “Cosmogonical Squintings." A New York paper recopied the paragraph from the London print, with a few lines expressive of admiration at the foreigner's facility in punning; and in this shape our article traversed the States. "The Convict and his Wife," a tale that originally appeared in our July number, having gone the rounds of the English press, has lately been reprinted in several of the New York, Boston, and Philadelphia papers, as a powerful article from a London Magazine; and a few verses from the pen of a gentleman in New York, on the amiability of character developed in the delineation of the Convict's Wife, in the English tale, were published in the various papers of the day. We beg leave to say a word or two to some of our country friends, and then-" no more but this." W have observed, in more than one of our exchange papers, several long extracts from our "Notices of New Books" inserted in their editorial columns as original matter. This is a poor practice, and will, we trust, be immediately discontinued. We have no objection to any use being made of our contents if proper credit be given; and, in future, we request, that whatever may be extracted from our pages, will be acknowledged in the proper place by the editor, whether English or American. We beg leave to quote the lines addressed to Sir Hans Sloane, who was not very particular as to the means employed in furnishing the shelves of his mu

seum

It is our wish, it is our glory,

To furnish your nick-nackatory.

We only ask, whene'er you show 'em,

You'll tell your friends to whom you ̃owe 'em.

END OF VOLUME THE

JAN 18 1918

SECOND.