careless chat, one of them is called upon for a story. He tells "The Princess," making himself the fancied hero of the tale.

A prince of a northern clime has been in boyhood betrothed to a southern princess. When the time for marriage arrives, ambassaJors bring tidings from her father that the princess loves to live alone, and will not wed. The prince, a lover upon report, with two friends, steals away from court, and goes to the southern king. From him he learns that the princess, under the teachings of two widows, Lady Blanche and Lady Psyche, has become a convert to what is termed in modern times, "woman's rights;"

"Maintaining that with equal husbandry
The woman were an equal to the man ;"

and that to put this theory into practice, she has retired to a palace, where, excluding all men, she has established a University for maidens and made herself its head. The prince, made more ardent by difficulty, hastens, with his friends, to these academic halls, where are

"Prudes for proctors, dowagers for deans,

And sweet girl-graduates in their golden hair."

Disguised in female dress, they seek and gain admission, as pupils of Lady Psyche; and, after an interview with the proud and dignified Princess Ida, they take their places among the other pupils, who

"Sat along the forms, like morning doves, That sun their milky bosoms on the thatch."

Lady Psyche proves to be the sister of Florian, one of the prince's companions, and her sisterly eye soon pierces through the disguise. She is however, after much persuasion, prevailed upon to keep the secret, on condition that the three strangers will depart on the morrow. Gladly accepting this condition, the mockstudents stroll about the college until evening, and then assemble, with the others, for prayers in the Chapel;

"While the great organ almost burst his pipes,
Groaning for power, and rolling through the court,

A long, melodious thunder to the sound

Of solemn psalms and silver litanies,

The work of Ida, to call down from Heaven

A blessing on her labors for the world."

And here we pause for a moment to remark that the princess, in spite of her efforts seems not to have succeeded at all in transforming women into men.

Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurrel.

All the sciences and all the ologies will not satisfy a woman's heart. For which we are thankful. The studious little witches in this manufactory of the new race of women, though "gorged with knowledge," stuffed with sciences and loaded with languages, were not contented with their wisdom. They

"Murmured that their May

Was passing what was learning unto them?
They wished to marry; they could rule a house:
Men hated learned women."

Thus too, when one of them sings, the song is sad:

"Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

"Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings ouf friends up from the under world,
Sad as the last which reddens over one

That sinks with all we love below the verge ;

So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more." &c.

The princess, however, is not one of these mourners for the flesh-pots of Egypt. She has "an iron will, an axe-like edge, unturnable"; and she uses her will right royally. Indeed were it not for a proud dignity, she would be a little of a vixen. As it is, she wishes that

"this same mock-love, and this
Mock-Hymen, were laid up like winter bats,
Till all men grew to rate us at our worth,
Not vassals to be beat, nor pretty babes

To be dandled, no, but living wills, and sphered
Whole in ourselves and due to none."

But to return to the story: The next day proves the truth of the old maxim, in vino veritas. At supper, one of the companions of the prince, warmed with generous wine, volunteers a song, more suitable to the freedom which comes on when the table-cloth is removed, than to the wise and maiden society by which he is then surrounded. The secret is out at once. Amid the confusion which follows, the princess falls into the river and is rescued by the prince; for which kindness she is so far from thanking him, that she has him and his comrades hustled out of the gates by eight Amazonian termagants, "daughters of the plough." She would treat them more harshly still, for death is the penalty of an intrusion like theirs; but in the meantime the father of the prince, fearing for his son's safety, has invaded the territory of his brother king, taken him captive, and is now surrounding the University, demanding the restoration of the venturesome lover.

But though the prince is thus free, still the question of his marriage with the princess remains unsettled. It is agreed at last to submit it to the trial of arms; and to this Ida herself consents. Fifty warriors on each side, led, the one band by the prince and his two companions, and the other by the three brothers of the princess, enter the lists for combat. The prize is Ida; the cause, woman's rights."

The party of the prince is vanquished; he is lying half dead on the field; and the cause of woman has triumphed. But in that

triumph is hidden a defeat. Ida with her maidens comes down to the lists, to thank those who have fought for her. She sees the prince, pale, bloody and insensible, and on his neck her picture and a tress of her hair, which he has long worn.

"And understanding all the foolish work

Of fancy, and the bitter close of all,
Her iron will was broken in her mind;

Her noble heart was molten in her breast."

She is a woman, with all her pride and with all her foolish plans. She commands all the wounded, friend and foe, to be carried into the University, and dismisses the pupils until more quiet times. Ida and a few others remain to tend the helpless warriors. Need we tell the sequel? Need we say, that as Ida sits by the bedside of the prince during his long illness, and hears her name muttered by him in delirium, she learns a sweeter and a better lesson than her University could have taught, with all its professors?

"All

Her falser self slipt from her like a robe,

And left her woman, lovelier in her mood
Than in her mould that other, when she came
From barren deeps to conquer all with love."

We leave our readers to imagine the rest: and ask them to read only one more quotation:

"From earlier than I know,

I loved the woman he that doth not. lives
A drowning life, besotted in sweet self,
And pines in sad experience worse than death,
Or keeps his winged affections clipped with crime.
Yet there was one through whom I loved her, one
Not learned, save in gracious household ways,

Not perfect, nay, but full of tender wants,

No Angel, but a dearer being, all dipt
In Angel instincts, breathing Paradise,
Interpreter between the gods and men,
Who looked all native to her place, and yet
On tiptoe seemed to touch upon a sphere

Too gross to tread, and all male minds perforce
Swayed to her from their orbits as they moved

And girdled her with music. Happy he

With such a mother! Faith in womankind

Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high
Comes easy to him."

66

Thus it always has been and always will be. Disappointed old maids and women who are only beardless, petticoated men, may talk long and loudly of the equal rights and the independence of their sex. But in the heart of a true woman such theories have no place. 'Love will still be lord of all," and in the love of the woman to the man, as in the love of man to his God, dependence is one of the sweetest ingredients. No woman ever loved a man without being more than willing to make his will her law. This willingness is a part of her disinterested, self-sacrificing na

ture; as truly now as in the days of the patient Griselda. The plans of the Princess Ida, and all similar plans, advocated by Fourierites, or by reformers of any other name, are false in theory and impossible in execution; and none know this better than those whose pretended emancipation is by these plans to be accomplished.

There is, we conceive, a false sentimentality on this subject, which is somewhat prevalent in these days. It is akin to that false benevolence which fears to take the life of the murderer, and which dabbles in sickly cant about the rights of labor. It shows itself in legislation, in what are called enactments to protect the property of married women. The old common law, which upon marriage gave the. wife's property to her husband, is scouted, as being far behind the spirit of the age; and new systems are adopted, which are intended to keep the property of the wife distinct from that of the husband and under her sole control. Yet that old common law doctrine was based on a higher authority than human legislation. It rested upon the divine command, "they twain shall be one flesh." Following this command it treated husband and wife as one; one, as they should be, in property, in interest and in will. Hard as the rule might sometimes be, the end in view, the perfect union formed by the marriage contract, was too great a good to be sacrificed for occasional evils. Nous avons changè tout cela. A court, which took its rules from Pagan authority, first broke through the old principles; and legislation has completed the work. Married women are protected. The wife's interest is one thing, the husband's is another. They are no longer one flesh. The wife owns stock in one steamboat company, and the husband owns stock in an opposition. At home she owns the spoons on the table, and the husband owns the knives and forks. The meat on the table is his, but the platter on which it lies is hers. He drives his horses before her carriage and drinks his wine out of her glasses-covers his floors with her carpets, and places his candles in her candlesticks. Meum and teum stand like a wall

of separation between them. They are not even partners. He owns his property and she owns hers. She may share in his prosperity, but she stands aloof from his adversity. Misfortune may overwhelm him, but she is safe.

Now we have too much faith in womankind to believe that any woman, who is married to a man whom she loves, would ever desire a separation of interests. She would willingly share his prosperity, and more willingly still his adversity. It would be no pleasure to her to see him suffering from storms, while she was secure. She would know no meum towards him; but would gladly sacrifice for him her property, as she would herself. Dependence on him would be a greater happiness than any independence could be.

In fact, whatever be the pretence, it is not for the protection of the wife, but of the husband, that laws such as these to which we

triumph is hidden a defeat. Ida with her maidens comes down to the lists, to thank those who have fought for her. She sees the prince, pale, bloody and insensible, and on his neck her picture and a tress of her hair, which he has long worn.

"And understanding all the foolish work
Of fancy, and the bitter close of all,
Her iron will was broken in her mind;

Her noble heart was molten in her breast."

She is a woman, with all her pride and with all her foolish plans. She commands all the wounded, friend and foe, to be carried into the University, and dismisses the pupils until more quiet times. Ida and a few others remain to tend the helpless warriors. Need we tell the sequel? Need we say, that as Ida sits by the bedside of the prince during his long illness, and hears her name muttered by him in delirium, she learns a sweeter and a better lesson than her University could have taught, with all its professors?

"All

Her falser self slipt from her like a robe,
And left her woman, lovelier in her mood
Than in her mould that other, when she came
From barren deeps to conquer all with love."

We leave our readers to imagine the rest and ask them to read only one more quotation :

"From earlier than I know,

I loved the woman he that doth not, lives

:

A drowning life, besotted in sweet self,

And pines in sad experience worse than death,
Or keeps his winged affections clipped with crime.
Yet there was one through whom I loved her, one

Not learned, save in gracious household ways,

Not perfect, nay, but full of tender wants,
No Angel, but a dearer being, all dipt
In Angel instincts, breathing Paradise,
Interpreter between the gods and men,
Who looked all native to her place, and yet
On tiptoe seemed to touch upon a sphere

Too gross to tread, and all male minds perforce
Swayed to her from their orbits as they moved
And girdled her with music. Happy he

With such a mother! Faith in womankind

Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high
Comes easy to him."

46

Thus it always has been and always will be. Disappointed old maids and women who are only beardless, petticoated men, may talk long and loudly of the equal rights and the independence of their sex. But in the heart of a true woman such theories have no place. 'Love will still be lord of all," and in the love of the woman to the man, as in the love of man to his God, dependence is one of the sweetest ingredients. No woman ever loved a man without being more than willing to make his will her law. This willingness is a part of her disinterested, self-sacrificing na