eris, the ecclesiastical feasts, the state of the tides, the rising and setting of the sun, &c., for in these there appears to be no possible constructive offence to the government; and they give also moral essays, on such novel themes as "disinterestedness," and "modesty," or a brief tale illustrative of "filial devotion," or an account of an exposition of flowers, together with the necrology of the year, a timorous anecdote or two, a judicial decision, some curious medical cases, and several agricultural and domestic receipts. Now -you will answer-that if this is the nature of the reading which fifteen millions of Frenchmen get, you are not surprised at the fantastic tricks of the nephew of his uncle. Nor are we!

Unfortunately this is not all the reading they find. Three of the small annuals on our table are devoted to the special task of indoctrinating them into the beauties of imperial rule. One is called the Almanac of the Empire, and relates all the great things that the Emperor did during the days of his power. Another is the Almanac of Napoleon, and tells 'what the same glorious individual did all the rest of his days, how he was totally superior to all the other men that ever lived, and how France by his means was raised to a pinnacle of prosperity and renown quite miraculous to see. But then comes the third-for which the foregoing two are only preparatives-called the Imperial Almanac, with a great staring L. N. on the title page, with the "ugly mug" of the same L. N. profusely illustrating the other pages, and a faithful portrait of the identical eagle which lit upon his shoulder (there was some raw meat besides his head in the hat) at the famous descent upon Boulogne. It narrates with a snobbish fidelity that is charming, all the brilliant exploits of the nephew's life, from the time he was born to the time he was about to declare the empire-how he was quite a remarkable infant, and had teeth early; how he rowed his mother in a boat; how he jumped into a stream to save a lady's flower; how he wanted to become a soldier like his uncle, but did not; yet to solace his disappointment, thought it would be equally glorious to sell violets like the little fellow at the gate of the Tuileries; how he put out the gauze of Madame Saqui, the rope-dancer, once, when she caught fire, and many other illustrious and wonderful deeds not chronicled in any other history. We are further informed that he rises at seven o'clock in the morning; that he eats breakfast at eleven; that when sitting at the council board he draws curious figures with a pencil on scraps of paper, having nothing better to do; that he sometimes

rides out in a tilbury; that he dines at seven; that he goes to the opera or some of the minor theatres, and that he sleeps -but nothing is said of that.

The "Almanac of Literature and the Fine Arts," furnishes statistics of the twenty-six theatres of Paris, the names of their directors and principal performers, the pieces that have been performed during the year, portraits of Rachel, Meyerbeer, Sontag, Rohan, Cerito, &c., the officers of the different literary and artistic societies, and a sprinkling of anecdotes about distinguished writers. The latter we do not find very original or very piquant, though a sketch named "a First Representation, or the little Miseries of a Dramatic Author," has much sprightliness of manner. After his play was written, he assembled his friends to hear it read. There were just fifty of them present, and at the close of the exercise he received just fifty different criticisms. One said it had too much action; another, too much dialogue; a third, that the love passages were too ardent; a fourth, that a little love now and then would warm up the heavier parts; another, that it was too classical; another, that it was too romantic; another, that if the three acts were reduced to one it would be capital; and another, that if they were extended to five nothing could surpass its certain success. Thus the manager who had accepted it went away with a long face, the actors who were to perform it were disgusted, and even the callboys began to put their thumbs to their noses. But the play had been announced, and must be played. Then the chief of the claqueurs-as they name the applauders-had to be dealt with, and the proper places for his more or less vehement approvals rehearsed; then the free tickets had to be distributed to suitable personages; then the bill-stickers of other theatres bought up; then the feuilletonists or critics of the journals propitiated by a supper; then the dresses of the leading actress presented to her; then the bouquets for the other actresses purchassed, then came the shaking of hands with friends in the saloons; then the lively jests behind the scenes; then the raising of the curtain, and then-an instant, peremptory, irretrievable damnation of the piece, as stupid beyond endurance!

In the "Almanac of the Illustration," we have pictorial excellence as the chief feature, characteristic scenes for each month of the year, views of famous places, copies of pictures, such as the Conception of Murillo, which sold lately for half a million francs; portraits of well known individuals, the figures of the Carnival, popular sports, and caricatures, all exe

cuted with skill and the invariable French love of effect. Of the latter, or the caricatures, the best is a series representing a ball at Paris. First, an old gentleman full-dressed, with his hands under his coat-tail, and his eyes turned to the chandelier, exclaims, "No one yet! it's diabolical, and so many wax lights burning!" Next, the mistress of the house points out a lank fellow busily consuming ice-cream. "A calamity, that chap," she says, "he is now on his fifteenth glass, cost 17 francs 50 centimes, and the soirée has scarcely commenced." Then, an ambitious mother presents a hideously ugly old man to a modest young girl, remarking aloud, "Ernestine, this gentleman does you the honor of inviting you to dance," and at the same time whispering, "Do the amiable, my child; he has thirty thousand francs income." "It would seem, my friend," observes one dandy to another, "that they give no supper to-night;" to which the other replies nonchalantly, "Then I stop my expenses," and coolly takes off his new pair of gloves. Finally the lady entertainer, a fat frowzy creature of two tons or less, not having been invited to waltz the whole evening, pouts out with great indignation, "Catch me at giving another ball to such idiots!" At the same time the master is thrust violently against the wall by the foot of a dancer, who capers altogether too nimbly under the influence of champagne. On the whole, it is an excellent social satire, and we only wish we could give our readers the cuts as well as the conversation.

Fun is the staple of these almanacs. For two or three consecrated to useful purposes, we have fifteen or twenty given up to anecdotes, calembours, jests, quips, cranks, plays, rebuses and caricatures. It is quite curious to see how they find names for so many works of the same purport. There

is the Laugher's Almanac, the Comic Almanac, the Droll's Almanac, the Facetious Almanac, the Wit's Almanac, the Almanac of Anecdotes, the Almanac of Games, and a great many others whose sole aim it is to raise a smile. Nor do they always succeed in accomplishing it, in spite of the most prodigious and herculean efforts. Sometimes, indeed, their attempts at droll attitudes, are the most horrible distortions. Old jokes are pursued through a thousand transparent changes, run a gauntlet of travesties, and at the end come out the same old jokes, only a little battered and worn, in consequence of the hard usage they have received. Every event of the year is twisted and turned in many ways to discover its ludicrous side. Every personage of note is the butt of innumerable mots. There are comic

reviews of new books, comic notices of the theatre, comic reports of the tribunals, comic sketches of character, comic odes, comic sermons, comic dramas, comic music, comic pictures, and comic conundrums. All the vices of men, and all their misfortunes, and all their miseries, and all their virtues, are food for laughter. In fact, life itself appears only as a vast field of jokes, or Parisian golgotha, where all the skulls are on the broad grin.

But though many of these dashes at fun are disastrous failures, such is the liveliness of French nature, that the great part of them are really amusing pleasantries. We had determined to entertain our readers with specimens of them, but like the man who went into a wilderness to find a straight stick, and returned without any, we found ourselves at the close of the last volume positively bewildered by the multitude of our materials,—it was a veritable embarras du richesse-and so we threw them by in despair.

Besides the almanacs expressly facetious, there are others quite as much so without intending it, we mean the astrological almanacs, and those whose speciality consists in the mysteries and moralities of the art of divination. The marvels they record are truly wonderful. Spirit rappings are elementary phenomena in comparison with them, and the strange revelations of clairvoyants are of quite inferior note beside the lore that one may acquire from cheiromancy, palmistry, ledgerdemain, biblical sorties, or the study of the stars. Old Albertus Magnus has yet his numerous school of disciples; the necromancers are held in grateful remembrance, while the stern Hebrew prophets are tyros and quacks in the light of the illustrious attainments of the modern Merlins and Zadkiels. But in the midst of a great deal of absurdity and pretension, there are some curious things. One prediction is recorded-a prediction authentically traced to the sixteenth century, which clearly indicates the separation of the United States from the mother country, its rise in political power, and its enormous physical developments, and several other striking facts in our history. This prediction, however, is not yet closed, and it goes on to say, that after a time the mother and daughter will be completely reconciled, that they will enter into an alliance, that their sovereignty will be extended over other nations, and especially that the United States will acquire Japan. Who will not believe in the "manifest destiny" after that?

This prophecy is of course cast in the rather vague and symbolical language which marks the vaticinating afflatus--as

if a man who saw into the future incontinently lost the use of the common tonguebut it is yet quite as clear as any utterances of the sort that we have had. It speaks thus:

The proud son (America) and the rough and grasping mother (England) separate with looks of blood. The streams flow with blood.

་་

The leopard (or lion, England) wars fearfully. A good man, wise, strong as David, when his divinely-directed sling struck down the Philistine giant (Washington) raises up the azure standard sown with stars like the firmament. His mighty voice drives back the raging monster into the seas (the Revolution).

"And causes peace, equity, commerce and industry to flourish. A new world arises. A powerful nation possesses the future. May the name of the just and holy be three times blessed."

The prophecy then alludes in a brief way to the contest between Napoleon and England, which is closed in this figurative line, "The claws of the terrible bird (Napoleon), are worn out by the patience and cunning of the leopard (England)." Though, more authentic history relates that those claws were rather extracted as a skilful dentist extracts teeth, and the imperious eagle himself put into a small cage at St. Helena, where he chafed and raved in a quite undignified way. Yet it was not to be expected, as the modern French historians omit very particular reference to these facts, that an old French prophet of 1608 would be at much trouble to foretell them, and the more especially, as his main object was to show how the proud son was going to whip his mother.

But to resume our own more immediate concerns, the prophecy goes on to declare how the leopard would make prodigious incursions into India and China, and then says:

"Is poison then a weapon allowed a great nation (opium)? The land of idols, of rivers, of waters unknown to foreign ships, is invaded by fire (men of war)!

"But thy justice is eternal! Worlds arise from the ruins. The children recognize their mother (the English and Americans meet in the East).

"There is the azure banner again, and there the terrible and conquering leopard. They are meeting beyond the sea (in Japan most likely).

"But times are altered, the rough and grasping mother and the rebellious son meet in a friendly embrace at the limits of the old world (take courage, Kossuth, and ye who dream of an alliance between England and the United States, and mark the consequence)!

"And barbarism and idolatrous worship disappear before them." They will together establish Christianity over the face of the globe.

All that is doubtful about this prophecy is, whether it was written at the time it purports to have been, or whether it bears a later date, when the events to which it alludes were already looming on the horizon. We have no knowledge on the subject which enables us to give an opinion, but we may state that the Almanach Prophétique solemnly avers that it was printed in a book written by one Pièrre Matisac, under the name of "Spectacle Merveilleux et Edifiant de L'Avenir," as far back as the year 1608, in Paris. The publisher's name was Abraham Saugrin, and many copies of the work are still extant in different parts of France.

Another prophecy, given in the same Almanach, relates to the invention of balloons, and is credited to a Jesuit named Boniface Cerrachi, who went from Italy to France in the suite of Cardinal de Bernis, about the time the latter was engaged in the embassy to Venice. He wrote a work which was entitled "Prophétie Mathématique pour la fin du dixhuitième siècle," of which a limited number of copies only were published. In this work there is this announcement:

"In the middle of the nineteenth century Europe will witness a real miracle. It will occur in the air, will change the face of the earth, and work a revolution in the relations of nations, their commerce and industry."

This is briefer and more obscure than the previous prophecy, and does not necessarily refer to the construction of balloons; it may mean a comet or some unexpected and unknown celestial phenomenon, but the writers of the Almanach are clear that it means balloons, and we suppose they know as much about it as anybody. At any rate, balloons appear to be in the legitimate line of succession, or fulfilment, and as we have some pet anticipations ourselves in that respect. we give in our adherence to the balloon theory, which, to say the least of it, is far more pleasant and christian-like, than any bellicose upturn of the elements or a fizzing spitfire of a comet that may take it into its tail (comets have no heads-have they?) to knock our planet into the future state.

Following these and other prophecies are a number of curious apparitions and other tales that might have been taken out of Mrs. Crowe's "Night-Side of Nature," but that some of them have occurred since that marvellous record of ghostly visitings was issued. Among the rest, the

Count de Touche-baff Claremont, one of the most eminent and honorable soldiers of France, relates that when he was with the army in the Peninsular, it was his duty, on the night of the 5th April (1815), to be upon the main guard, during a bivouac directly in front of the English troops. It was in Madrid near the Escurial. He made several rounds of observation during the night, and having returned from these, he got down from his horse, it being after midnight, and threw himself, enveloped in his cloak, upon a bundle of chopped straw. But he had no sooner fallen asleep than a vision of his mother, then in France, in a dying condition, appeared to him. He awoke under the excitement of the emotions caused by the event, but fell asleep again very soon. The apparition was repeated, though at no time was a sign made or a word spoken.

He was very much impressed by the circumstance, but as the French army soon after made a forced retreat across the mountains, the tumult of camp-life quite erased it from his mind. The battle of Vittoria, on the 21st June, in which he was engaged, and the flight that followed, would have served to have dispelled all traces of it, if any had remained. But at length, when the fugitive troops had succeeded in reaching the frontiers of France, he wrote a letter to his mother announcing his safety and return. It was a long while before he received an answer, owing to the various movements of the soldiers, and when he did, it informed him that his "dear good mother had died during the night of the 5th and 6th of April."

As to the graver instruction vouchsafed these poor destitute French readers,-dependent upon the Almanac, remember, for their intellectual pap,-we take the following statement, which is meant to illustrate the primitive condition of American journalism. The writer begins by saying that every body knows the gigantic proportions of American newspapers. "These great sheets are such provinces of paper, their conductors, to fill them up, are obliged to receive and print articles relating to the most trivial domestic matters. Thus, it happens that the fourth page is always devoted to the private correspondence of different citizens of the Union, who thereby effect notable economies in postage. For example:

"Mr. Crawford, tailor, warns Mr. Edward Burns that he will be compelled to send the sheriff after him, if he does not call and settle his little bill, of which a

duplicate is hereunto annexed. For one cloak called a mackintosh," &c., &c. Or. "Mr. John Davis requests his friend Seathan to come and breakfast with him to-morrow morning, at, &c. Note.-He has just recieved some excellent alligator from Florida."

The journal fell into an error of the press, and printed Seethan for Seathan. The next day a gentleman presented himself to Mr. John Davis.

"What is your wish?"

"You have been so kind as to invite me to breakfast!"

"There must be some mistake; you are not my friend Seathan!"

"I regret that; but read the newspaper, sir; there is my name, every letter of it,-I thought perhaps that you had heard of me by chance, and desired to make my acquaintance. As I have also always professed great philanthropy, I am the friend of all the world, and consequently yours. It would have been contrary to my principles to refuse your kind invitation. I dare to flatter myself, too. that my appetite is as good as Mr. Seathan's any time."

Thereupon he sat down at the table and devoured the alligator.

The next day the newspaper had this paragraph. "Mr. John Davis conceives it to be his duty to put his fellow-citizens on their guard in respect to the gluttony of an individual, calling himself Mr. Seethan, who introduced himself to me under the pretext of a mistake, and eat up all my game!"

A third example,

"Mr. Edgar Mortimer, clerk in a store, to Miss Pamela, milliner, with whom he fell in love by looking at her through his glass windows. Young miss! pardon me the liberty I take in addressing you this letter. Why strive to hide your ardent passion," &c.

To which the young lady replies, in the next number,

"I shall be angry, sir, if you continue to trouble the peace of a sensible milliner. with your inflamed accents. You wish to compromise me; but," &c., &c., &c.

The next day a gentleman enters the store of Mr. Mortimer, reproaches him with his letters, and thrashes him with

I

I.

CONCORD TO MONTREAL.

FEAR that I have not got much to say about Canada, not having seen much; what I got by going to Canada was a cold. I left Concord, Massachusetts, Wednesday morning, Sept. 25th,

for Quebec. Fare seven dollars there and back; distance from Boston, five hundred and ten miles; being obliged to leave Montreal on the return as soon as Friday, Oct. 4th, or within ten days. I will not stop to tell the reader the names of my fellow-travellers; there were said to be fifteen hundred of them. I wished only to be set down in Canada, and take one honest walk there as I might in Concord woods of an afternoon.

The country was new to me beyond Fitchburg. In Ashburnham and afterward, as we were whirled rapidly along, I noticed the woodbine (ampelopsis quinquefolia), its leaves now changed, for the most part on dead trees, draping them like a red scarf. It was a little exciting, suggesting bloodshed, or at least a military life, like an epaulet or sash, as if it were dyed with the blood of the trees whose wounds it was inadequate to stanch. For now the bloody autumn was come, and an Indian warfare was waged through the forest. These military trees appeared very numerous, for our rapid progress connected those that were even some miles apart. Does the woodbine prefer the elm? The first view of Monadnoc was obtained five or six miles this side of Fitzwilliam, but nearest and best at Troy and beyond. Then there were the Troy cuts and embankments. Keen-street strikes the traveller favorably, it is so wide, level, straight and long. I have heard one of my relatives who was born and bred there, say, that you could see a chicken run across it a mile off. I have also been told that when this town was settled they laid out a street four rods wide, but at a subsequent meeting of the proprietors one rose and remarked, "We have plenty of land, why not make the street eight rods wide?" and so they voted that it should be eight rods wide, and the town is known far and near for its handsome street. It was a cheap way of securing comfort, as well as fame, and I wish that all new towns would take pattern from this. It is best to lay our plans

widely in youth, for then land is cheap, and it is but too easy to contract our views afterward. Youths so laid out, with broad avenues and parks, that they may make handsome and liberal old men! Show me a youth whose mind is like some Washington city of magnificent distances, prepared for the most remotely successful and glorious life after all, when those spaces shall be built over, and the idea of the founder be realized. I trust that every New England boy will begin by laying out a Keen-street through his head, eight rods wide. I know one such Washington city of a man, whose lots as yet are only surveyed and staked out, and except a cluster of shanties here and there, only the capital stands there for all structures, and any day you may see from afar his princely idea borne coachwise along the spacious but yet empty avenues. Keen is built on a remarkably large and level interval, like the bed of a lake, and the surrounding hills, which are remote from its street, must afford some good walks. The scenery of mountain towns is commonly too much crowded. A town which is built on a plain of some extent, with an open horizon, and surrounded by hills at a distance, affords the best walks and views.

As we travel north-west up the country, sugar-maples, beeches, birches, hemlocks, spruce, butternuts and ash trees, prevail more and more. To the rapid

traveller the number of elms in a town is the measure of its civility. One man in the cars has a bottle full of some liquor. The whole company smile whenever it is exhibited. I find no difficulty in containing myself. The Westmoreland country looked attractive. I heard a passenger giving the very obvious derivation of this name, West-more-land, as if it were purely American, and he had made a discovery; but I thought of "my cousin Westmoreland" in England. Every one will remember the approach to Bellows' Falls, under a high cliff which rises from the Connecticut. I was disappointed in the size of the river here; it appeared shrunk to a mere mountain stream. The water was evidently very low. The rivers which we had crossed this forenoon possessed more of the character of mountain streams than those in the vicinity of Concord, and I was surprised to see everywhere traces of recent freshets, which had carried away bridges and injured the rail