sure I should do the advertisement better if he were to send me half-a-dozen, and I were to drink them, first. "Why, no," said he, "I don't think you had better do that, for particular reasons;" and these, with a hideous leer upon his pharmacopoeical countenance, he presently confided to me. The ginger-beer vintage had failed with him, it seemed, that June, and he had about sixty dozen of spoilt "Pop" under his shopcounter with this he had mingled some mulberryjuice, to impart to it a new tone and colour; he himself had bestowed upon it a name-the Narrowmead Mixture and he had come to me to concoct for it a reputation. That panegyric was, however, in consequence of this indiscreet avowal, about the flattest thing I ever wrote, although there was an appropriate Persian air enough about the imagery, when I compared the thing to sherbet, and brought in some impressive allusions to the Prophet Mohammed. The concluding idea, indeed, of the United Kingdom Temperance Alliance presenting a medal to Druggem for having superseded, by the invention of this delightful compound, the use of spirituous liquors, was, I am bound to acknowledge, much better conceived than executed.

'Advertisements such as these require taste, and skill, and fancy; nay-if I may say so-perhaps no small amount of Genius; and they are, besides, our most important consideration. But you may well suppose that the Narrowmead Argus has other departments likewise. The Muse has a column to herself in every number, and a poet-which, by the greatest luck in the world, my eldest boy happens to be-is literally kept upon the premises. It is quite astounding to observe the remarkable fecundity of that lad in supplying us with works of the imagination. Upon the day we go to press, I have only to holloa down the speaking-tube: "Jack, a sonnet, my boy, as quick as you can," or, "Jack, our meteorological observer has not sent in his copy; we must have a couple of pages from you at least," when up comes the fourteen lines, or the little epic, as the case may be, just as though the lad were a word-organ, and ground his verse to order.

'That meteorological observer of ours, although unpunctual, is exceedingly useful to us, and is certainly a most indefatigable son of science. I have my doubts whether he does not live exclusively out of doors. The way in which he goes about, stooping, and crawling, and climbing, in order to capture the temperature, wherever it may be, is amazingly praiseworthy, and all the more so as he does not get any thing for it-except, as I should suppose, unlimited rheumatism. Just look at this report of his, of a month or two back, and then tell me if the man who acts barometer to the Times puts himself to half the trouble which our observer takes: "Number of nights at two feet from the ground, at or below 32 F., twenty-one; number of nights at or below 32° F., on the grass, twenty-five; mean amount of terrestrial radiation, 43; greatest heat in sunshine, 88°"-where our meteorological observer must have got a coup de soleil" mean degree of humidity, saturation being the unit, 93"-where our observer must have caught bronchitis at the least. The scientific information which was supplied by this invaluable ally to the Argus concerning the eclipse of last year, was of a character which required him to correct his own proofs, I can assure you. I hope it was all right at last; but I confess to the editor's being completely in the dark about it; while our compositor and a halffor we keep a man and a boy-were well-nigh frenzied.

Among the natural phenomena of the eclipse, he observed, he said, these facts-that the pigeons

retired to rest during the temporary darkness; that the cats made those unpleasant disturbances which are commonly confined to the hours of the night; and that the winter-flowers which are accustomed to shut up their blossoms at eve, were taken in by the unusual aspect of the sun. This last remark, however, was not properly in his department, but rather belonged to that of our botanical correspondent, who is also one of the most painstaking of his species. He is much more popular with our readers, particularly with our lady-readers, than his collaborateur, since he knows all the banks whereon the wild thyme grows-and, indeed, where everything else grows, from the vernal water-starwort to the hairy bitter cress. Not only does he supply to the various flowers these astonishing names, but he gives to each its local habitation. The colt's-foot is to be found, he says, in numbers on Narrowmead pasture; the common moschatel, in the lane behind Smith's wine-vaults; lords and ladies in profusion upon the race-ground; the cuckoo pint, in the field beyond the Toper's Arms; the ground ivy, in the back-yard of the green-tea establishment of Mixorts & Company; and the lady's smock (a sort of air-plant), very numerous in Scrubbem's drying-ground.

"We have an entomologist, also, as an occasional contributor; but the general effect of him, I think, is more to make our readers' flesh creep than anything else.

Archæology and antiquities form no slight share of the good things we have to offer to our subscribers. Narrowmead in the time of the Druids; Narrowmead under the Heptarchy; Narrowmead during the civil wars-every description, in short, of back-view which Narrowmead has to offer, has been faithfully daguerreotyped from the imagination or erudition of our historical correspondent. Narrowmead Church, it is almost needless to mention, has long been in our columns the home of the literary jackdaw, the hunting-ground of all antiquarian sportsmen; while Narrowmead Tower, which is now put up to auction annually, to be bidden for by enterprising toll-gate keepers, has been proved, in our pages, incontestably, to have been the palace, the prison, the birthplace, or the scene of dissolution of a long array of celebrated characters, from the Earl of Warwick (surnamed the King-maker) to Dr Johnson; and from Mary Queen of Scots to the scarcely less notorious Mrs Manning.

"These comprise the principal literary staff to whom the Argus looks for permanent contributions; but we have countless correspondents besides. Of these, Publicola Junior and the Younger Brutus-ahem!-are perhaps the most remarkable. The former gentleman, referring, only the other day, under the head of "Coming Elections," to the parochial suffrages for a new churchwarden and another constable, used language so indignantly heroic, that he was very nearly getting me horsewhipped, and at this present moment he lies under an indictment for a libel upon the local Board of Health. If I had not given the offender's name up with great presence of mind, at the first hint of danger, the Argus itself would be figuring, in the person of its editor, at the bar of offended justice. Both these gentlemen, however, infuse a certain raciness into the paper which it could ill afford to lose; and in the very rare instances where there is nothing of a public nature to be made a target for their noble scorn, they are good enough to attack one another with the greatest acrimony in adjacent columns.

'For sermons delivered for the benefit of philanthropic societies, for lectures administered gratis at our mechanics' institute, the Narrowmead Argus has always the most fervid praise. This is, however, partly attributable to the fact, that the preachers and

needlework and cookery. Whether it were the practice of stifthouses in general, of madame's in particular, or the lady's own disposition that obtained such credit, certain it was that she had come to the capital after residing the appointed twenty years under the stift-mother's superintendence, with the neat black dress and gold crucifix of the institution, and no tendency whatever to intrigue, scandal, or curiosity touching her neighbours' affairs. The good woman was congratulating herself on the excellent health with which her friends were blessed, in the third winter of her sojourn at Vienna. None of all her acquaintances would acknowledge that they or theirs were ill, or likely to be so; the poor whom she visited were equally free from complaints; her own and her friends' servants declared themselves in a most satisfactory condition; when a transaction occurred which convinced even the empress-queen, and enlightened madame on the mysterious part of her own history.

The archbishop of Salzburg was one of the richest churchmen in the empire. He had estates both in Austria and the Tyrol, large deposits in the imperial bank, revenues from shrines, bridges, and highways; his vineyards produced the best wine; his park contained the finest game, and his country-house was delightfully situated on a rising-ground overlooking the Danube, and within two German miles of Vienna. There Ludwig Firstenfield lived in princely splendour and high favour with Maria Theresa. Almost forty years before, when a rival kaiser had been crowned at Linz-when her right was assailed by all the princes who had promised to maintain it-when the Holy See stood prudently aloof, to see which side should win, he had gallantly championed her cause in and out of canonicals, canvassed the states of Hungary, gave sage counsel in the imperial closet, and advanced money for carrying on the war. The wisdom which the archbishop had displayed in those days of uncertainty, made his advice so necessary to the empress-queen, that he rarely visited his palace in Salzburg, or his castle in Swabia, but resided chiefly at his country-house, within reach of the court, the theatres, and the news. His grace received the best company in Vienna; her majesty and all the imperial family honoured his state-balls with their presence; he had the choicest pictures, the rarest china, the most select conservatories, and his mansion was kept in all sorts of propriety by the administration of Madame Segandorf, his widowed niece, and her three grown-up daughters. Madame Segandorf's husband had been a count of the Austrian Netherlands. His estates were lost partly in the war with France, and partly at French hazard. Mother and daughters had consequently no provision becoming their rank, but they were all amiable, accomplished, and devotedly attached to their wealthy uncle.

The spiritual lord of Salzburg was verging on seventy-five, but still a stately figure at the levée, and a dreaded antagonist at the chess-board. As became an archbishop so high in imperial favour, he was believed to be endowed with every virtue. The court-poets spoke of his canonisation as an event to be expected; the inferior clergy agreed that his residence in the bowers of Paradise was ready. Nevertheless, Ludwig Firstenfield was in no hurry to leave his choice tokay, his first-rate venison, and his elegant countryhouse, of which he gave a convincing proof by keeping its doors steadily closed against Madame von Enslar. The archbishop did not believe the idle tales that were afloat, any more than his imperial patroness; after her majesty's example, he did not even notice them, and greeted the stift-dame, when he met her in society, with almost paternal kindness. Yet, while

his hospitalities were extended to rich and poor, home-born and foreign, who had the smallest pretensions to noble blood, madame was never invited within his walls or grounds.

The

herself thus overlooked for life, but it did not tally The lady would have been probably content to see with another lady's plans. In a moment of amiable weakness, some years before, the archbishop had permitted his niece to learn that his will was made in favour of herself and her daughters. There were none of them growing younger. The grafs and counts to whom the junior ladies aspired, somehow found out that no dowry could be expected till their uncle's death, and were not in haste to propose. Madame Segandorf, being still a fine woman, had considerable calculations on an old prince with heavily encumbered estates and a habit of incessant gambling, and while her solicitude regarding the health and welfare of her dear uncle daily increased, she left no stone unturned to get the stift-dame invited to his country-house. Even the efforts of widows are not always crowned with success. praises of madame's piety, humility, and unbounded reverence for his grace, were sounded without effect. Then madame herself was stirred up to make advances. It was a pity the archbishop should neglect her so; somebody must have prejudiced his mind against her; there were always ill-natured people in the world; perhaps they had led him to believe that she was careless of his good opinion and great interest at court. It might be well to get in his way at times, talk of his most celebrated pictures, and hint a strong desire to see them. These stratagems, and many more, were tried, but all in vain. His grace would take no hints, and hear no insinuations. Poor madame, constantly reminded of the fact, began to think it the black cloud of her life that she was shut out from his country-house; complained of it to all her acquaintances, grieved over it in secret, and was thinking of offerings to the most benevolent saints on the subject, when by chance she hit on a more direct expedient.

Passing through the Jews' quarter in one of her missions of charity, she saw hanging in the shop of a noted dealer in second-hand garments a magnificent morning-gown of crimson damask, flowered with gold. Being a woman, the stift-dame was taken captive by its grandeur. Moreover, it looked perfectly new. The archbishop had a special liking for splendid attire; and if, as Solomon told her, a gift made room for a man, such a present would certainly secure a lady place at his board and in his ball-room. The Jew's price was low compared with the actual value of the robe; it had come into his hands by some chance of trade, and did not suit his customers. Yet decidedly cheap as it was, the cost would leave madame nothing to offer that Christmas at the shrine of Our Lady, who happened to be the patron-saint of her stift. However, the archbishop's good graces were in prospect. Madame went straight home for all her savings, paid for the magnificent morning-gown, saw it safely packed up, and felt herself an already invited guest, when it was deposited, box and all, in a private cupboard, to be seen by nobody till it was despatched to the country-house, as a Christmas gift for his Grace of Salzburg.

Christmas was the archbishop's birthday, which returned for the seventy-fifth time that year, and he determined to celebrate it with more than usual festivity. The uttermost branches of his family were invited months before, and gladly obeyed the summons of their rich and reverend relative. They came from the hills of Bohemia, and the plains of Lombardy; from the frontiers of France, and the borders of Russia; for the house of Firstenfield was numerously represented; and wherever the Hapsburg

sceptre ruled, there were its boughs to be found flourishing in the law, in the church, or in the army. Gifts came in as well as friends-when did a rich man's birthday lack presents?-but among them there was nothing so splendid, nothing so much to the archbishop's taste, as the magnificent morning-gown, sent just as it came from the Jew's shop, by the hand of a trusty messenger, with a note which it had cost the stift-dame two sleepless nights to compose. His grace was delighted, and all his assembled relations envied the lucky sender, except Madame Segandorf, who returned to her praises with fresh vigour, hinted that she feared the poor lady had but a lonely Christmas; everybody had not a dear, kind uncle like her and her girls. The archbishop took no notice of these grateful remarks, but as the present had arrived on the eve of the festival, he did madame the honour of wearing it at his birthday levée.

Everybody admired the morning-gown. The sports of the day, the morning mass, and the evening banquet, all went off well. The bishop's health was drunk in old Austrian fashion-good wishes, predictions, and prayers for length of days and increase of dignity, even to the cardinal's hat, were made on his behalf; but before the rejoicings were fairly over, it was observed that his Grace did not look quite well. Next morning, he was decidedly indisposed; his anxious relations, not knowing the state of his will, remained in the house to see what turn the illness would take; but first, Madame Segandorf sickened also; then her daughters, one after another; then the cousins, cousins-in-law, noble ladies, and high officials who had assembled round the bishop's festive board, began to complain, and retire to their chambers. Half the physicians of repute in Vienna were in full action at the country-house. At first, they thought something might have gone wrong at the banquet, and a strict search after poison was commenced; but in a short time it became evident that the disease was small-pox. The dread and devastation which attended that malady over all Europe in the eighteenth century, are matters of history. It was the desolater of palace and cottage, and the plague of preceding ages had no such terrors for men. In the bishop's country-house, its visitation came with a malignity never equalled. All who sickened, died; all who fled were seized on their homeward ways. The prelate himself survived the widow and her daughters, who had been in such haste for his testament, only a few days; and before the new year was a month old, the numerous house of Firstenfield was so diminished, that its large possessions fell to three poor priests and an old doctor of laws, who, by common consent, built a monastery for the brothers of Lazarus on the site of the elegant country-house.

The court and the public woke up as they seldom wake in Austria. A strict investigation regarding the stift-dame's present was set on foot, and by the perseverance of the police it was discovered to have formed part of the wardrobe of Louis XV., and been worn for the first time in the attack of small-pox which finished his reign. As usual in those times, everything worn by his departed majesty on that occasion was supposed to have been burned; but the magnificent morning-gown tempted a covetous valet: he saved it from the fire; sold it to a travelling Jew, under a stipulation never to shew it on French ground: thus it had found its way to Vienna, and been purchased by the unlucky Madame von Enslar. The sifting of the transaction not only confirmed the public belief in her connection with the last enemy, but induced the empress-queen to command her immediate retirement to her stifthouse, which she never again quitted; and it is said to have given currency to a popular superstition, which still

prevails in Upper Austria, where every out-of-the way village has some tale regarding the unconscious powers of some old man or woman known as the Death-bringer.

MORAL SKETCHES FROM THE BIRD-WORLD.*

IN TWO PARTS.-PART I.

Nor with the magnifying-glass of science, but with the naked eye of tender sympathy and psychological interest, have I ever watched our domestic singingbirds, and as opportunity offered, I have peopled a chamber with some twenty birds, partly for the sake of observing the innate, essential characteristics of every one of these unsophisticated children of nature, and partly also to discover the influence of civilisation upon them through their living together, and their intercourse with human kind.

If my bird-state has originated very much like the free state of North America, in an involuntary going in and out, without any written constitution, without a monarchical form of government, it has yet formed, through a harmonious understanding, a law of society perhaps just as natural as that of J. J. Rousseau. If sometimes the power of the stronger prevails-if now and then Lynch-law is practised-if almost daily the old contest between mine and thine is renewed, one may yet often feel one's self carried back into the golden past, or hurried on into the millennium, as, though with me the lion does not lie down with the lamb, the starling eats in peace out of the same dish as the turtle-dove, which is almost as note-worthy. If vices and crimes do sometimes appear, they may be found among men also, notwithstanding their civilisation, and are sometimes the fruits of it. Such a discord but rarely interrupts the harmonious concert of sweet voices, if the sun shines cheerfully into the chamber and upon the fir-tree that stands within it, and makes their prison a kind of fairy grotto, with branchy lattice-windows, and a roof of green, sunillumined foliage. Let me not be supposed to mean the horrible condemnation of the most innocent hero in the world, whose only fault is his beauty and his voice, to a cage in which he can scarcely move, or at most can only hop from one side of his perch to the other; a condemnation to powder and lead is mercy compared with this lifelong imprisonment in iron. What I mean is bird-houses or chambers, where they can fly about at pleasure.

To give a description of my bird-family, I must attempt it in the form of biographical sketches.

In the first place stands the starling, whom only recently a young raven has sought to rival in humanlike behaviour and varied accomplishments. Perhaps I ought to say, rather, that he is most of all influenced by civilisation, addicted to its enjoyments, and infected by its corruptions. The starling, of all the birds of the wood, attaches himself most to men, and among the assembly of his brethren, is the ever-true merry-maker, the buffoon and court-fool of my establishment. As serviceable as he is in the open field in destroying worms and caterpillars, he is just as useful indoors, in clearing men's heads of whims and idle caprices. It is impossible to be ill-humoured or morose when the rogue has taken it into his head to be merry, and he is in his Sunday humour every day. I have often envied him the ease with which he forgets every annoyance, and the Mark Tapley of the feathered race, resumes his good temper and his cheerful song.

He is a gay brother-student, who, with all his display, does not neglect the sciences; of an inquiring turn of mind, and whose erudition is

* From the German.