of Wales himself sent over a confidential person, to secure for him a share in the profits of the great stock-jobbing affair. The British ministry are also said to have offered, in order to propitiate Law, to bring his wife's brother, commonly called the Earl of Banbury, into the House of Lords, from which a charge of illegitimacy, brought against his father, the third earl, had hitherto excluded him. Lady Catherine Law shared largely in the adulation lavished on her husband during his hour of success, and is reported to have shewn much insolence to ladies of rank, speaking usually of duchesses as the most tiresome animals in the world.' Her children, a son and a daughter, might have been married into the first families in Europe; and the father, in his adversity, assumed some merit to himself for not permitting this to take place. Miss Law's hand was sought by the Prince of Tarente, and other suitors of scarcely inferior rank.

All this splendour was doomed speedily to disappear. A constant drain of the specie of the kingdom had been going on since the commencement of the speculating mania. Those who had made large fortunes in paper, secured themselves by converting their wealth into gold and silver, which they either hoarded up, or sent out of the kingdom. Many of the same parties, also, filled their houses with such prodigious quantities of plate, as must have tended materially to reduce the amount of the metallic currency. The fabrication of notes, meanwhile, was proceeding at an enormous rate, upwards of 2000 millions of livres being struck off between December 1719 and May 1720. Thus the stability of the system, and the prosperity, in truth, of the country, came to depend on the maintenance of the paper credit, which the comptrollergeneral endeavoured to secure by a succession of arbitrary edicts, one of which declared the bank-notes to be legally current at five per cent. above the specie. But in spite of all his endeavours, he and his plans began to lose credit with the French regent, chiefly through the secret influence of persons envious of the successful adventurer. His proceedings were represented as particularly detri

mental, on account of the disparity of value which they created between the paper and metallic currencies. By such representations, the regent was induced to take a step which at once and for ever ruined the paper credit, and brought the whole gigantic system to the ground, with a crash which may be said to have shaken all Europe. On the 21st of May 1720, an edict was issued, announcing that a progressive reduction of the India Company's actions, and of bank-notes, was to take place from that day till the 1st of December, when the banknotes should remain fixed at one-half of their present value, and the actions at four-ninths. This edict in an instant lifted the film from the eyes of all France. The hands of the people were filled with paper, the value of which they now saw could be utterly annihilated by a word from the mouth of authority. A run commenced upon the bank, which compelled the government to post soldiers around it, to prevent the very edifice from being pulled down by the infuriated applicants. Seditious libels appeared everywhere, attacking the regent for overturning the credit to which he himself had given existence. Alarmed by these proceedings, he hastily summoned the parliament, and revoked the fatal decree six days after its promulgation. Nothing could restore the credit of the paper-money with the public. The bank was shut for a time on various pretences, but as soon as reopened, it was again besieged by such crowds of people, that in one day (the 9th of July) twenty persons perished in the streets by suffocation. The mob also surrounded the hotel of Law, and compelled the man whom they had lately idolised, and had saluted in the streets with the vives which are seldom given but to royalty, to hide himself for weeks in the houses of friends. On the mind of the projector, the first symptoms of disorder are said to have produced a dreadful impression. Lord Stair describes him as being incapable of sleep, and as subject to such fits of frenzy, as to be found sometimes dancing in his shirt around the chairs of his bedroom, 'seemingly quite out of his wits.' But he struggled hard, by tongue, pen,

and act, to maintain his system, though all his efforts, as well as those of the regent, who deeply regretted the edict of the 21st of May, proved utterly fruitless. From the consequences of the delusion, France did not recover for many years. By the regent's dealings with Law, the national debt had been almost annihilated; but the creditors had been paid in paper, and when that became valueless, they were ruined by thousands. The delusion which caused this wide-spread misery presents, on the whole, a valuable lesson, being a striking example of a fallacious theory carried out to its fullest extent, and on the grandest possible scale.

Law resigned all his offices in December 1720, and retired to a country-seat, which he quitted soon afterwards for Brussels, carrying with him only 800 louisd'ors, the wreck of his once magnificent fortune. This, and other circumstances, prove that there was a degree of disinterestedness in the views of this remarkable man, for which he has not usually received credit from posterity. His latter days were spent in poverty, and he died at Venice in 1729, before he had completed his fifty-eighth year. Several descendants of the Law family are still living in France. One of the projector's grand-nephews arrived at high military and diplomatic distinction in the service of Napoleon and the Bourbons, and died some years ago a marshal and peer of France.

THE TWIN CHIEFS:

A TALE OF THE SABINE.

THE river Sabine is the boundary between the United States and Texas. It empties itself into the Sabine Bay, which opens into the Gulf of Mexico, and is surrounded by low marshy lands, which form an extensive uninhabitable district, the haunt of innumerable flocks of swans, wild geese, ducks, pelicans, cranes, and every species of water-fowl. At the mouth of the bay, as the traveller enters from the gulf, the sides of the river have their bottom covered with mud several feet deep, rendering it dangerous to attempt to land, although it is the only part where any bluff offers a landing-place; it may be accomplished, however, at high-water, in small flat-bottomed skiffs. Here you have an extensive view of swamp, covered with coarse grass and rushes, unbroken by woodland of any description. The tide flows over it, and it would require a coat-of-mail to venture on an investigation of its peculiarities, for the mosquitoes are insufferable; and after in vain attempting to battle them off from your face and hands, you return to your boat covered as thickly as if a swarm of bees had settled on you; nor will you find common cloth garments a sufficient protection against them.

About 100 miles up the river, there is a small Indian village, where the remnants of a large tribe have settled. They date the commencement of their fall from the first arrival of the white man, and will tell you that their race have become degenerate in every respect since that period. They have diminished in their size as well as numbers. They were strong as the hard oak, erect as the cypress, as numerous as the leaves of the forest; now they are weak as women, bent like old age, and few as the stars at summer's twilight. They were a race of

warriors, who set even the Camanchen at defiance, and whose ancestors slept in their graves unmolested; they are no longer fit for war, and the crow follows the white man's ploughshare, croaking with delight as it devours the worms that have fattened on the dead bodies of their forefathers.

Dilka, the chief's wife, had twin sons, who were so equal in their skill, and so equally beloved, that at their father's death it was difficult to determine which should succeed him; nor were they willing to submit to the decision of their tribe, but each declined in favour of his brother. It was therefore decided, that they should act together with equal authority-an arrangement which was rendered highly advantageous from the great number of their people-both in war and peace. Their huntinggrounds extended from the sea-coast to the Rocky Mountains, and the feats of Dilka's sons were whispered by their foes with dread-were sung by the friendly tribes with praise. They were seldom seen apart, unless their duty required it, nor was an angry word ever known to have passed between them: when they practised with the bow together, none would express more delight or warmer eulogies than the defeated brother.

It would be useless for me to make any comment on the perfect symmetry of the form in which nature had moulded these sons of the forest. But it was a sight truly beautiful to see them standing alone beneath some lofty pine, offering up their thoughts to the Great Spirit. One day, when they had descended with a party to fish at the lower part of the river, where the lake was visible, they saw a white object afloat upon its bosom, and long they stood gazing as it increased in size. It was unlike a bird, or anything they had seen before. The blast of surprise was given from the horn of the buffalo, and party after party came hurrying down the river in their canoes, gathering around their chiefs with the spear, the war-club, tomahawk, and bow. A thrilling anxiety filled the bosoms of all, as their attention was drawn to the