dated, and she began to entertain fears for her personal safety. Some of her friends recommended her to purchase false diamonds, but she answered, "Molière could do without diamonds, so shall I." She accordingly appeared before the public without aigrette or rivière, and the public appreciated the sacrifice and applauded. In after times, Mademoiselle Mars deposited her valuables in the bank, which led to many extemporised good things, among which was one that concluded by saying, "that in order that nothing should be wanting to the treasure, the charming Mars must take up her abode in the bank with her casket."

IV. THE STORY OF THE VIOLETS.

MADAME ACLOCQUE ventured, in her intimate conversations, to allude to so delicate a subject as the great actress's friendship for the Emperor Napoleon. She said, that while she was giving lessons of elocution to the Princess Eliza, she experienced feelings of extreme timidity, which she could not overcome, hoping and fearing at the same time to see Buonaparte. Madame A- surmised that this arose from a softer sentiment that had been awakened in the emperor's favour. "If it was love," she answered, "I really cannot tell you. At all events it was a sentiment made expressly for him alone, for I never felt it for any one else, no more than he resembled any one else."

The partiality of the great actress for the still greater actor, led to the only public event that chequered the ordinary routine of domestic and theatrical occurrences throughout the whole of her life-an existence which one of her biographers has remarked, was "rich in glory but poor in adventures."

After the restoration of the Bourbons, violets remained the insignia of the Buonapartistes. Mademoiselle Mars, who did not care to disguise her predilections, appeared at that period at the Champ de Mai, with a white dress decorated with the seditious symbol. It has been attempted to explain the act away as having had its origin in the simple love which Mademoiselle Mars bore to a flower with so sweet a perfume, but this is now perfectly unnecessary. M. de Keratry in his funereal discourse alludes openly to the fact, that the flower of spring bore an emblematic character, and a nation's recollections placed a bouquet of the proscribed flowers upon her coffin.

But great was the commotion produced by this indirect, yet eloquent demonstration of feeling on the part of the actress, in 1815. A great lady denounced Mademoiselle Mars to the Duke de Duras, and the whole court was thrown into agitation. At the theatre, for the first time, the public favourite was hissed, and she was called upon to cry out "Vive le Roi." "What do they want?" inquired the actress, with one of her looks of charming ingenuousness. According to some, Fleury,+ according to others, Baptiste, explained that she was requested to exclaim "Vive le Roi." "I have already cried out 'Vive le Roi,"" answered Mademoiselle Mars, saving her popularity without offending her conscience.

V.-HER DEATH AND BURIAL.

MADEMOISELLE MARS made her last appearance before the public on the 8th of March, 1841, when she played for the last time Célimène (a character she had so identified with herself, that her town residence was often designated as the Hotel Célimène), and her no less favourite cha

* Mademoiselle Mars, Notice Biographique, &c. J. Hetzel, Warnod et Co. † Mademoiselle Mars; sa Vie, ses Succès, sa Mort. Marchant.

racter of Araminte, in the "Fausses Confidences." Never did a dramatic solemnity produce so deep a sensation.

Mademoiselle Mars retired from that period to the enjoyment of domestic peace and happiness. This was further ensured by a valuable appointment conferred by government, that of inspector of dramatic studies at the Conservatoire.

The 26th of May, 1844, she was awakened by an extraordinary noise in her head, which she described as if a flight of bees were in the room. Doctor Piron ordered twenty leeches to be applied, but she remained deaf for twelve days afterwards. From that time forward she became thoughtful, and often melancholy. She was much affected by hearing of the death of any of her acquaintances. At length cerberal irritation declared itself, and was followed by persistent delirium, from which she was relieved by death the 20th of March, 1847.

Brindeau announced the sad event the same evening at the Théâtre Français in the following words" Gentlemen, it grieves us to have to announce the death of that great actress who was called Mademoiselle Mars."

Mademoiselle Mars has left a son who succeeds to all her wealth. Twenty years before she had lost a beloved daughter, who had followed an elder brother to the grave. Upon that sad occasion she withdrew herself from the stage during a whole year.

A thousand anecdotes have been published, illustrating the private character and disposition of one so celebrated.

It is certain that Made

moiselle Mars was any thing but illiterate, and it is well known that she studied, and was partially acquainted with both the English and Italian languages. Her whole life was one of almost classical simplicity. Her great pleasure was to live in the midst of a small circle of men of letters, artists, and persons of distinction, whose conversation improved her mind Her feelings of propriety were instinctive. She was much shocked at a

benefit for the young Rachels, seeing a brother and sister playing the parts of lovers. Of Madame Lafarge she used to say, "That woman fills me with horror, with her twenty-four years of age, and her gangrenous nature !"

Mademoiselle Mars was of an exceedingly charitable disposition, notwithstanding her predominant anxiety about her diamonds. Madame Aclocque relates, that she has often seen her wrap twenty francs in a bit of flannel, and send them to a friend in distress.

The funeral of Mademoiselle Mars was a great public solemnity. Service was performed at La Madeleine, the chief mourners being Messrs. Keratry, Viennet, Liardères, Baron Taylor, Auber, and Samson.

The companies from all the principal theatres in Paris were there in a body. A crowd of men of letters, artists, musicians, and other public characters were also there. Upwards of forty carriages, conveying ladies, joined the procession that followed the coffin to the grave. M. Samson expressed in the name of the Comedie Française, the regrets experienced at the heavy loss which art had sustained in the person of Mademoiselle Mars. M. de Keratry, Peer of France, and Vice-President of the Commissions of the Royal Theatres, pronounced a lengthened panygeric on the talent, genius, and goodness, of the deceased. The Baron Taylor delivered for M. Viennet, in the name of the dramatic commission, a grateful farewell to one, who had more than any other, contributed to the success of dramatic authors; and, finally, it was resolved that, as with Talma, her name shall be Mademoiselle Mars' sole monumental memorial.

CHINA: ITS PRESENT CONDITION AND PROSPECTS.

If the Chinese were to suddenly take a literary and wandering turn, they would no doubt find and describe things in London and Paris quite as singular to them as their gentlemen's pig-tails and their ladies' small feet are to us. If the abilities thrown into the manufacture of josses, bronzes, and porcelain, and the dexterity shown in dwarfing trees, and concocting green teas out of black, was to take an inquisitive turn, asto what was going on beyond the great wall, there would indeed be no end to the discoveries to be made by so intelligent a race.

Geographical discovery is but a relative thing. Enterprize makes: known a city in Central África, whose inhabitants unknown to Europeans,. were themselves familiar by their travels, with the "white faces." Congregations of men in repute in ancient times, have in some cases: only recently been brought into contact with Europeans. Even in Asia Minor, only four or five years ago, a populous town, surrounded by villas and country houses, inhabited by rich proprietors of large corn and saffron districts, was not known even by name to us, although in that town itself, all kinds of European manufactures and objects of art were to be obtained as readily as at Constantinople.

So it is in regard to civilisation. The Chinese are as skilful as Germans in agriculture or horticulture, as dexterous in thieving as any Neapolitan, as versed in the manufacture of silk or cotton as the French, as perfect in most of the handicrafts, as tailoring or carpentry, as any European nation, and they beat England in what that country takes most pride in-in success in mercantile speculations. But the Chinese have a false notion of their own importance, they are ruled by at once an alien and an inefficient government, they worship idols, are intellectually stationary, and above all, reject all overtures of friendship and alliance on the part of other nations. The national flag should be the wolf and the lamb, a fable which appears never to be absent from their thoughts.

The west of Europe and North America, it must be remembered have perfected their civilisation upon the ruins of empires; and modern languages and literatures have sprung from the dying embers of extinct nationalities. The Chinese, on the contrary, have been nearly always the same. They are indebted to themselves for what progress they have made, and they have themselves to blame for their comparative imperfections, by not cultivating intercourse with other nations. But then again they have existed, it is possible, from ages of civilisation almost contemporaneous with those of Egypt and Assyria, or with Greece and Rome. This is more than all those nations to whom the love of lucre has dictated a boundless commerce, or whom ambition has soiled with the blood of foreign conquest, can now boast of.

It is tiresome to hear it repeated by every new writer upon ChinaMr. Fortune among the last-that we know nothing of the Chinese. We know every thing almost, that is requisite to be known to regulate our conduct, and guide us in our intercourse with those whom a high authority has proclaimed to be "an industrious, sober, obedient, pacific, and educated people." It is not altogether true that it is "the wonderful astuteness of a people who unite an Oriental subtlety of design to an English appreciation of technicalities, who are cool, far-sighted, stubborn,

and who despise foreigners," that has defeated our projects. It is quite evident, granting the positive national disinclination to the loving embrace of the Barbarian, that the chief blame for want of success lies with ourselves. As to the Chinese, they are like ourselves. Some are good, some bad; some astute, some stupid; some innocent, some designing-but they are happy within themselves. Mr. Fortune himself states that labour is a pleasure in China, because every one enjoys its fruits, and all go singing to their task; but they do not care to have commerce forced upon them; friendly "interventions" are not to their taste, and even civilisation itself does not carry an alluring aspect when booming through the smoke of cannon.

We may be the least barbarian of the two nations, but even this was not very clearly manifested by the steps taken to establish more intimate commercial relations, no more than when insisting upon a less exclusive system on the part of the Chinese, we ourselves adopted the most illiberal policy that can be possibly conceived.

It will scarcely be believed that a Frenchman or an American may travel in the interior of China-navigate, like M. Isidore Hedde, the imperial canal, among elegant boats conducted by young girls, richly dressed; and that if an Englishman should attempt to do the same, he is subjected to penalties and deportation by his own government.*

Again the monopoly of the opium farm has, by contracting one kind of trade within the narrow limits of one man's privilege, reduced other collateral branches to the lowest point. The effect of such a system, the Times truly remarks, ought to have been foreseen. It insures a revenue of some 4000l. a-year; but it lost a commerce with which no amount of revenue could be put in competition. By driving away the general body of Chinese merchants, the trade has been thrown back into the hands of a few middlemen, whose combination regulates the scale of prices between the English merchants and the Chinese consumer.

And lastly, and not least, that site for a British station which is universally-indeed, without a dissentient voice-acknowledged to have been the best, in point of climate, health, and productiveness ;-the amiability and good disposition of its inhabitants; and for the advantages of its position in a commercial, military, and naval point of view, was the first given up.

Is it surprising then, that after four years have elapsed since that great commercial treaty was ratified, which was won by the force of arms from a reluctant people; that when we do every thing in our power to preserve those prejudices intact by impeding commerce and inter-communication, and giving no countenance to friendly medical and religious missions; that it should be found that we have, in reality, gained little or nothing by that treaty, and that a commission of inquiry should be called for in the House of Commons to examine into our relations with a people who, in themselves, constitute nearly one-third of the population of the globe.

It will be easy to cast the reproach of this want of success on the stubbornness of the natives of the celestial empire; but this will never do, so long as our consuls at the new ports are armed with powers far more arbitrary and illiberal than what has ever been exhibited by the most vain-glorious of the mandarins themselves. The nation has a right to

• Robert Montgomery Martin's China, p. 12.

demand, that the prospects opened to civilisation by the intrepidity of its sons shall not be thus sacrificed by the exclusiveness of a mistaken policy, and to express its sense also of the responsibility to Him who permitted our successes for His own wise purposes; of our proceedings towards a great people, now first brought into contact with civilisation, for their own welfare, or for their own misfortune, as commerce and inter-communication are made the instruments of good or of evil.

Let us turn, however, in illustration of what has been here said, to some of the practical results of the newly-opened intercourse with China, as depicted by Mr. Fortune. This gentleman obtained the appointment of Botanical Collector to the Horticultural Society of London, when the news of peace with China first reached England, in the autumn of 1842, and he proceeded to China in that capacity early in the spring of the following year. Excepting in that final and eventful narrative of a traveller's exploits,-the raking the decks fore and aft of two piratical vessels, with a double-barrelled gun, wounding many, killing some, causing forty or fifty men to disappear in a marvellous manner, and silencing a broadside of guns-Mr. Fortune's work is characterised by modesty, discrimination, and good sense, as his progress appears to have been by good temper and perseverance, Mr. Fortune had a particular object in view, and a more innocent and interesting one cannot be imagined. For it is not, surely, all that we can get from a nation in a commercial point of view that should interest the philanthropist and the man of letters? It is also what that country can contribute towards the improvement of our own tastes, to enlarge our own sphere of observation, add to the existing stock of information, and even increase the resources of what is rather the luxury of civilisation, than civilisation itself; that claims the attention of those who are not wrapt up in the one and only life-struggle of turning events and things into gold,-who are not yoked hand and foot to "earth's demon"-1 -mammon.

On the 6th of July, 1843, after a passage of four months, Mr. Fortune had the first view of the shores of China. He had often heard of the barren hills of the "flowery land," but the fact exceeded his imagination. There was only one kind of tree, the Chinese fir, and it was merely "a stunted bush." We shall, however, be brief with Hong-Kong. Mr. F. admits that the bay is beautiful; and the town of Victoria, notwithstanding the floods, is becoming "a very pretty little place." The plants of the island are of an interesting description, but all the most ornamental flowers are only found high up on the mountains. The ravines are crowded with ferns and creeping shrubs. Many species of the well-known azalea cover the sides of the hills, at an elevation of 1500 feet above the sea. From the general absence, however, of trees and shrubs, the island has a barren and desolate appearance. Wild goats feed on the most inaccessible crags, and there are also deer and foxes, but extremely rare. The only birds are wood-pigeons, kingfishers, and some small songsters. Fish are, however, very abundant.

It has long been a prevailing opinion that Victoria ought to have been built on the south side of the island; but Mr. Fortune says that this has been latterly disproved, for the troops stationed at Aberdeen, on the south

* Three Years' Wanderings in the Northern Provinces of China, &c. By Robert Fortune, Botanical Collector to the Horticultural Society of London.