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er's example in this as they do in wearing tight sleeves, velvet "bournous," or braided hair. Early every morning the young baron received perfumed billets, with invitations to dinners, concerts, and balls. He was a favorite partner in dancing, and an object of envy to all those provincials whose backward, homely, and stiff manners serve as a sort of neutral tint, wherewith to cover the back-grounds of the "grands tableaux" of the Petersburgh salons. To the men he was civil but not servile; still he graduated his civilities and salutations according to the sliding scale of the class number or the rank of the decoration. So that he saluted an order of St. Anne, with the crown, with a condescending smile, and a St. Andrew of the first class with deep reverence. But there was no servility or real humility in all this he did so from an internal conviction that he was only doing his duty in giving every man his due. Thus by degrees, he became wholly immersed in the whirlpool of the great world, and he began to think only of pleasure-seeking, and to dislike all other occupations, keeping, however, meanwhile, in view his own promotion and other advantages, with cold steady calculation. Just about this time he was entrusted, by his chief, with a mission to the small provincial town described at the commencement of this story.

But what had become of Charlotte meanwhile? The reader will have already recognized in the Charlotte Karlowna of the opening chapter, her who had, as the professor's daughter, so hopelessly loved the baron. But how came she to pass from her father's peaceful roof to the town of S? and how did her love to the baron end in her bowing her neck to the yoke of matrimony with an apothecary? But all women are alike—they weep for one and smile on another. Whilst Charlotte, like a genuine German maiden, lost herself in the ideal atmosphere of her day-dreams, a sturdy-built, reddishhaired student began to parade by the professor's house, regularly at the same hour, and to heave two sighs, daily, under her window. Fuhrenheim had long since disappeared. The only news they heard of him represented him as seeking amusement in the fashionable world of the capital, and flirting about from one fair one to another. Report said, too, that he was looking out for a good match, and that he never referred to his student years except for the purpose of turning them into ridicule. One half of these reports were, it is true, perfectly devoid of foundation, but they produced their effect. At first poor Lottchen wept, then she became indignant with her former lover; at length even this feeling ceased, and all the treasures of her love were expended on her father. A loving heart,

though once deceived, does not, therefore, grow cold and indifferent, but generally transfers its superabundance of celestial fire to a more worthy object. And thus the maiden seemed to forget herself, and to be wholly occupied in nursing her valetudinarian father, and endeavouring to soothe, to the best of her ability, the last moments of his life. But all this time the aforesaid red-haired student had continued to promenade before her windows so regularly that she became at length quite accustomed to his appearance, as to something necessary and inevitable. There are a certain sort of quiet persons that know how to wait, and they generally attain their object by this means. At length the student contrived one day to edge his way into the professor's house, and to open his acquaintance with a Latin colloquy; after which he drank a glass of Rhine wine, and smoked two cigars.

By degrees the old man became much attached to his new friend, although he often thought, with an involuntary sigh, of the old, who was now floating in the vortex of fashionable dissipation at St. Petersburgh. Henceforward the student came more and more frequently, and Lottchen, who had at first taken but little notice of him, began to accustom herself to his conversation, as she had previously done to promenades before her window. After a time he took possession of Fuhrenheim's old lodging, but he never uttered a word to Charlotte either of love, or hope, or poetry, as he feared thereby to endanger the success of his plans; but he contrived, in one way or the other, to make himself useful to her in her household affairs. He taught her to substitute certain officinal plants for more expensive spices, in the kitchen; he distilled liqueurs with her, and bought mushrooms and herbs at the market. In the end he managed to make himself indispensable in the house. And time passed over quickly, bringing in its train sickness, death, and sorrow. The old professor grew more and more decrepit; his books were neglected, the cigars lay untouched, and the Rhine wine was forgotten. He was not long sick, but met death like a wise man, the entire of whose life had been devoted to the practice of religion and the pursuit of knowledge. The student nursed him like a son, prepared and administered to him, with his own hands, the restoratives ordered for him, and, just before his death, received his blessing and the hand of his inconsolable daughter.

The old man's death was to her so severe a blow that she encountered this change in her destiny with seeming indifference. It is true, her bridegroom elect did not tease her with demonstrations of excessive tenderness; he began, however, to put things to rights in the house,

and to make preparations for the wedding: and | order that he might have his whole afternoons thus it happened that Franz Iwanowitsch attained free for-doing nothing. After saluting the his end. apothecary, he usually went straight to the sitting-room, to Charlotte, with the usual phrase— 'Banjur, madame vautre santah gut!"

The wedding soon took place—a cold and sad ceremony, like a sacrificial feast over a recent grave. The bridegroom seemed much affected, but he spared his reluctant bride all protestations of tenderness. He was thinking only of laying a foundation for his future success in life; and having passed his examination as apothecary, he set out for Russia with his young wife, to try and acquire a competence for her support.— There was no apothecary in the little town of S―, and he therefore settled himself down there, speculating on the richness in officinal herbs of the surrounding country- all his own fortune and the scanty remains of the professor's property, scarcely sufficient to furnish his shop with the necessary pharmaceutical implements, in that same house in which in former times the nobles of the province had danced to the music of the Hebrews, and in front of which was suspended in all its glory the sign with the well-known inscription, AIITEKA.

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Poor Charlotte! what a destiny, for herwhat bitter disappointment!-still the same poverty, but the poetry had fled; still the same cares, but without their corresponding joys; still the same loneliness of heart, but not a single ray of hope; and no friend to whom she could confide her sorrows, or with whom she could lament over the past. Her industrious husband, whose limited earnings did not permit him to keep an assistant, was employed from morning till night in rolling pills, drying plants, and making decoctions; always himself content with his lot, and always in good temper, he endeavoured to cheer up his wife with a quiet joke or a playful allusion, but he was never troublesome to her, and never demanded from her hypocritical demononstrations of affection. He was satisfied with giving her a modest and sincere example of resignation and patience. She felt happy that he did not understand her, and she carefully concealed from him her misery and her recollections of the past. They had but few acquaintances, and these they rather avoided than sought. The burgomaster could only admire Polish ladies; the justice of peace was equally fervent in his admiration of corn brandy; the police inspector only delighted in taxes and imposts; and fat Mrs. Cruvogarska was a great fancier of dogs and gossip. All these paid occasional visits, in the hopes of getting any medicines they might require somewhat cheaper than the regular prices, or perhaps even gratis.

Their most regular visitor was the proprietor of the braided coat, whose acquaintance we have already made, and who came every morning, in

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"Gut," replied Charlotte, with a smile and a half-suppressed sigh.

"Oh, madam, may I take the liberty-just one pipe- I should like so much to have a whiff or two," and then he laid his forefinger on his upper lip with an expressive gesture. A pipe was then handed him, and he began to puff' away like a chimney, letting out between each puff all the little gossip of the place in fragments, and perhaps then try his hand at some exceedingly awkward attempt at making love to Charlotte. She smiled at all this with a mixed feeling of pity and contempt, and then the lout would lay aside his pipe and take his leave.

And thus Charlotte was left alone - always alone. She would sit for hours together at the window, gazing at the gray clouds as they swept over the sky in unbroken succession, affording neither the possibility of sunshine nor the promise of storm, but drifting past cold, heavy, and leaden, like her own fate. The streets presented daily the same sights as we have already described. This disgusting picture of human suffering, misery, and destitution appeared to have been created for the express purpose of casting a dark shade over the best years of her life; and all this gave a wider field to the play of fancy in this her solitude. Old dreams of by-gone days recurred again to her; the phantom of love — of that torturing, burning love that agitates the heart with its fiery throes, burned like a blazing comet in the long dark night of her loneliness. She felt often as if she must rush forth out into the wide world; she would have given her whole life for one moment of that happiness and love to which she felt a stranger; and to complete her misery, she could neither hate nor despise her husband. 'Tis true, he did not understand her; but he was an honest and honorable man, that endeavoured, to the best of his ability, to lighten the burden of her domestic cares, and who plied his miserable profession with untiring zeal, in order to prepare a better future existence for her. And thus two years passed, until the morning on which Baron Fuhrenheim came to the apothecary's shop to ask for soda powders.

- Dublin University Magazine.

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THE NEW CROMWELL LETTERS.

to the remarkable publication, in the last number of Fraser's Magazine, of thirty-five Letters attributed to Oliver Cromwell, which have never seen the light from the time when they were written to the present; but they are so important, and come before the world in a manner so strange, that we feel it our duty to do more than give them merely a passing notice.

We have already, more than once, adverted | end? Not much less than a year ago, Mr. Carlyle received from an unknown correspondent an intimation that such documents were in existence and in his power; but the unknown correspondent would not relinquish them, and allow them to be printed-for fear of what? For fear that some new royalist and republican feud might be stirred up in his own family, and embers that had lain dark and dead (not merely dormant) for 200 years might be raked up and burst into sudden flame. Surely there is something more than ridiculous in such an apprehension! The absurdity, in our view of it, amounts to the incredible. Whatever other reason may have operated, we do not believe that this, or any thing like it, existed as a reason in the mind of Mr. Carlyle's unknown correspondent and influenced his conduct. We do not profess to be able to explain the matter;— but we are convinced that nobody will be satisfied with the explanation offered.

We begin by saying that in the main we believe them to be genuine. That is our deliberate conviction, after reading them again and again for the purpose of arriving at a sound opinion. We say we believe them in the main to be genuine, because we are by no means confident that the individual who transcribed them was quite familiar with handswriting of the period of the Civil Wars; or, if he were, that in every instance he meant to copy the precise and exact words of the originals. As to the part of the story that relates to the subsequent burning of these originals, and of the Diary of a person of the name of Samuel Squire, found in the same depository with the Letters, we own that we do not credit one word of it. We are confident that the Letters and the Diary are still in existence, notwithstanding the pains taken to make people think they have been destroyed. This brings us to say something—and it shall be very brief-respecting the real or supposed history of the papers.

Every body is aware that not long since Mr. Thomas Carlyle prepared and printed a work called Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches'; and every body is aware, too, that one of the great and avowed deficiencies in the volumes related to the conduct of Cromwell in the early part of his military career at the breaking out of the hostility between Charles and the Parliament. It is known, likewise, that Mr. Carlyle took a somewhat new view of the character of his hero; and what is most singular about these documents is, that they furnish distinct evidence of Mr. Carlyle's sagacity in adopting this new view. The Letters are, therefore, exactly what Mr. Carlyle wanted. They supply a much lamented hiatus in his history and they support most marvellously his position respecting the disposition, temper, and habits of Cromwell. These are coincidences, — but we believe them to be nothing more; and if proof of fabrication were ever so strong, we should acquit Mr. Carlyle himself of all participation in the fraud.

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How did the letters come into his hands? There begins the mystery:- but where will it

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Has Mr. Carlyle ever seen-or made any effort to see his unknown correspondent? He admits that he has not:- but he employed a friend, who lived not from the "cathedral city," where the unknown correspondent resided, to visit him. This friend did not do so at first; but did wait upon the mysterious personage afterwards, - and described him to Mr. Carlyle as a gentleman of honorable, frank aspect and manners, still in his best years, and of robust manful qualities." This may be so:but why did not Mr. Carlyle take an opportunity of himself seeing the possessor of the Letters and papers? Why did he not do so early in the transaction; for who knows but he might have been intrusted with the originals- and have removed the chimerical and, to us, apochryphal, apprehensions of the owner? - who knows what other documents of the same kind may now be lurking behind the fears and follies (whatever their kind) of his incognito correspondent, which his arguments and his influence might have dragged to light? Mr. Carlyle writes as if he had taken no trouble of the kind. There are railways to Norwich, Lincoln, Peterborough, or Ely, (in whichever of these "cathedral cities" the proprietor of the documents may happen to reside) — and the journey would have occupied only a few hours. Why should Mr. Carlyle be content with the intervention of a friend in a matter of such moment and interest? Yet it is well on some accounts that this friend intervened; since he saw the owner of the papers, and if confirmation should be finally wanted can

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in most important respects bear out the narrative of Mr. Carlyle. Still, it seems to us passing strange that the latter should himself have forthat he could bring himself to forbear. Mr. Carlyle terms the Diary of Squire "probably the most curious document in the archives of England, a piece not to be estimated in tens of thousands," yet he rests secure and quiet at home, and waits, until, all of a sudden and completely by surprise, the post brings him "a heavy packet" containing copies of the 35 Letters and extracts from the Diary.

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To revert for a moment to the question whether the documents are really consumed by fire? Mr. Carlyle, we think, somewhat hastily concludes that they are all "ashes." What says his unknown correspondent? He tells Mr. Carlyle that it was impossible for him now to produce the Journal of Squire. "What you ask is impossi

We can scarcely reconcile this supineness this indifference to an interview - with the somewhat rhapsodical strain in which Mr. Carlyle indulges when writing of the value of the documents, whether as matter of history or as a marketable commodity. Very early in the transac-ble, if you offered me the Bank of England for tion he seems to have been made acquainted with their importance; since, before he received his "heavy packet" by post, his mysterious correspondent had proved to him that they explained the, till then, unknown fate of the son of the Protector. This was a great point at once cleared up; and it does astonish us that to this moment Mr. Carlyle can say, "With my unknown correspondent I have not yet personally met." Nevertheless, he believes him to be "a person of perfect veracity and even of scrupulous exactitude in details" — upon whose statements the utmost reliance is to be placed.

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security:- the Journal is ashes." He does not assert that the Letters of Cromwell have been burnt, but merely that the Journal of Squire has been so destroyed; yet Mr. Carlyle, after a good deal of flourishing about " closed lips, sacrificial eyes, terrible hand and mood," &c., takes it for granted that not one of the old "Puritan Papers" had escaped, that Journal, Cromwell autographs, and whatever else there might be, have been "sternly consumed with fire." We repeat our own conviction, that not one of them has had this fate that all have been preserved ; and that even the Diary of Samuel Squire, CorNow, as to his "scrupulous exactitude in de- net and Auditor in the Stilton Troop, will at tails" we must be permitted to entertain some some future day - and that perhaps not very far small doubt. We believe, as we have said, the distant-revisit the daylight. The story is very Letters to be (saving perhaps in a few words like an experiment by their owner to excite adand expressions) genuine as far as they go. We ditional curiosity—to bring the documents most think it scarcely possible-certainly most improb- effectually into public notice, and to enhance able that so complicated and multifarious a their pecuniary value when hereafter they shall forgery could have been perpetrated. If an in- be brought to the hammer or sold by private dividual had projected an imposition on the cre- contract. dulity of Mr. Carlyle, he might have written one or two letters of some length in order to accomplish his object; but would not have attempted thirty-five such experiments, dating them from so many places and at such various times. And, be it observed, the dates and places tally most precisely with other minute or material points of history. We should have made this remark if there had been only five letters; but how much more forcible does it become when we know that there are no fewer than thirty-five? But when we state that in our opinion these Letters are genuine as far as they go, who shall say how much further they might have gone! Who shall say that we have all the letters; -or if we bave all in point of number, that we have all in point of quantity? If the owner were so frightened at his own shadow-or at something even less substantial, how much may he not have omit

It is in this respect that Mr. Carlyle has been imposed on. There is no forgery, we feel sure, in the Letters-notwithstanding some suspicious readings, which we believe to be resolvable into errors of transcription; - but there is, unless we are greatly mistaken, forgery in the tale palmed upon Mr. Carlyle, and which he has been innocently made the instrument of palming upon the world. In his natural eagerness to avail himself of evidence that confirms so exactly and importantly his own notions, he has not considered and detected the hollowness and falsehood of the alleged pretexts for mystery and concealment. Of these, the hollowest and the falsest is the assertion that the publication would revive family feuds that it would set the living Roundheads and Cavaliers of his circle of relatives by the —as if a new Civil War were now pending or raging! Why, if such were really to be the

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consequence, is it not just as likely to be pro- | than for him to relieve himself from it. Though duced by printing the copies as the originals? he has not seen personally the owner of the paAnd let us ask those who have patiently read the pers, his friend has; and can, of course, be proLetters, from No. 1 to No. 35, together with duced to state that the said owner admitted havthe appendix of names, scraps, and jottings, ing sent them, and under the very peculiar what there is to be found in any one that can by circumstances which have occasioned our repossibility be tortured into an offence to the liv- marks. In many minds, a strong suspicion exists ing or the dead? as to the non-authenticity of these Letters and Diary; and, as we have said, we cannot help thinking that there are in them words, and even phrases, which may not be warranted by the originals. Athenæum.

If any weight rest in this affair upon Mr. Carlyle's shoulders beyond the mere fact that he gave too ready credence to the tale of the history of these documents, nothing can be more easy

BY

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OLD SONGS.

ELIZABETH YOUATT.

In ancient times, the Muses were said to be niscences indissolubly connected with Old Song only three, Mneme, or "Memory;" Metele, or-and who has not some such? "Meditation;" and Aoide, or Song." According to the poet Aleman, they were the daughters of Uranus and Gæa, dwelling in Mount Helicon, but nevertheless children of Earth. It is of the last-mentioned of these three gentle sisters that we are about to write, claiming her as one of the sweetest of our household deities to this day.

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Music has been called "an artistic union of inarticulate sounds and rhythm, exciting agreeable sensations, and raising mental images and emotions directly or indirectly pleasing. As an adjunct, it is a beautiful illustration of language; combined with the sister art it becomes a highly ornamental kind of eloquence." It is a tuneful link between the present and the past-a sweet and mysterious voice, whispering of by-gone days and friends and scenes and bright, fairy hopes that may never come again. "Musical floods of tears!". to quote the words of one of its most enthusiastic votaries—" gushes of pure joyfulness! exquisite embodiments of fugitive thoughts!" A thing of dreams, and memories, and beauty! Melodious outpourings of genius, that slip into the heart, as dear old Christopher North says, just like light, no one knows how, filling its chambers sweetly and silently, and leaving it nothing more to desire for perfect contentment.

Madame De Stael advocates the infinite superiority of instrumental over vocal music, on account of the vagueness of the former leaving so much to the imagination; while Mestastasio describes it as possessing that advantage over poetry, which a universal language has over a particular one. But this is a subject upon which we have no intention of entering, the present paper being devoted to the thoughts and remi

We are told by Lucretius, that "the birds taught man to sing." "And did God teach the birds?" asked one who was too bright and pure for this world, and is now, we trust, among the angels in heaven. The expression of that childish face, with the clear earnest eyes, and thoughtful brow, is haunting us yet. "Did God teach the birds? or did they burst out singing all at once, when they opened their eyes upon so beautiful a world? I do not think I should have required teaching, it seems so natural to sing when we are happy!" Like that young child, many of our ancient philosophers believe song and speech to have been coeval.

Music among the Greeks is a comprehensive term, signifying poetry sung with some sort of accompaniment. According to tradition, Cadmus with his Phoenicians originally introduced music into Greece. But Plutarch, in his "Dialogue on Music," first makes Lycias a professor of the art, repeats the statement of Heraclides, that Amphion, the son of Jupiter and Antiope, taught the Greeks to compose and sing lyric poetry: then by a second interlocutor, Soterichus contradicts the first, assigning to Apollo the merit of having converted Greece into a musical nation

Apollo, the singer, as he is termed by Horace. "By what is called Greek music, therefore," writes the able author of that article in Knight's Cyclopædia, " we understand the union of poetry and music, the former of the two exercising the greatest sway over the mind, because expressing noble sentiments- gracefully inculcating religion and morality-teaching obedience to the laws― exciting generous feelings-and inspiring patriotism and courage. It is thus only that we can account for the effects said to be wrought by ancient music." And again, he repeats his

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