The brevity of what are called "thoughts," produce misery. But let us settle the meaning makes them a favorite with young literary as- of the words. By happiness, we do not necessarily pirants; but their productions are generally mean a state of worldly prosperity. By virtue, nothing more than a collection of pompous we do not mean a series of good actions, which truisms or commonplaces. Mrs. Jameson has may or may not be rewarded, and, if done for suffered and seen others suffer; she has mixed, reward, lose the essence of virtue. Virtue, acin various degrees of intimacy, with numbers and the habitual courage to act up to that sense cording to my idea, is the habitual sense of right, of persons, often remarkable; she has dwelt of right, combined with benevolent sympathies, upon questions which occupy the minds and the charity which thinketh no evil. This union affect the happiness of society, not at first to of the highest conscience and the highest symwrite about, but to arrive at the truth concern-pathy fulfils my notion of virtue. Strength ing them; she has investigated the principles is essential to it; weakness is incompatible which regulate criticism and taste. Results of with it. Where virtue is, the noblest facthis lifelong study will be found in her ulties and the softest feelings are predominant; pages; and the thoughts that spring from a mind the whole being is in that state of harmony which I call happiness. Pain may reach it, passion stored with the accumulations of observation may disturb it, but there is always a glimpse of and experience are the thoughts of value. blue sky above our head; as we ascend in digIt follows from these premises, that Mrs.nity of being, we ascend in happiness, which is, Jameson is frequently touching upon those in my sense of the word, the feeling which conmoot questions which either in discussion or nects us with the infinite and with God. actual experiment occupy society in every age, till the subject is settled, or worn out, to be renewed again in some future stage of social progress. Here is her contribution on cheap productions.

And vice is necessarily misery; for that fluctuation of principle, that diseased craving for excitement, that weakness out of which springs falsehood, that suspicion of others, that discord with ourselves, with the absence of the benevolent propensities, these constitute misery as a state of being. The most miserable person I ever met with in my life, had £12,000 a year; a canning mind, dexterous to compass its own ends; very little conscience,-not enough, one would have thought, to vex with any retributive pang; but it was the absence of goodness that made the misery, obvious and hourly increasing. The perpetual kicking against the pricks, the unreasonable exigence with regard to things, without any high standard with regard to persons,-these made the misery. I can speak of it as misery who had it daily in my sight for five long years.

It is well that we obtain what we require at the cheapest possible rate; yet those who cheapen goods, or beat down the price of a good article, or buy in preference to what is good and genuine of its kind an inferior article at an inferior price, sometimes do much mischief. Not only do they discourage the production of a better article, but if they be anxious about the education of the lower classes, they undo with one hand what they do with the other; they encourage the mere mechanic and the production of what may be produced without effort of mind and without education, and they discourage and wrong the skilled workman for whom education has done much I have had arguments, if it be not presumption more, and whose education has cost much more. to call them so, with Carlyle, on this point. It Every work so merely and basely mechanical, appeared to me that he confounded happiness that a man can throw into it no part of his own with pleasure, with self-indulgence. He set aside life and soul, does, in the long run, degrade the with a towering scorn the idea of living for the human being. It is only by giving him some sake of happiness, so called. He styled this kind of mental and moral interest in the labor philosophy of happiness "the philosophy of the of his hands, making it an exercise of his under-frying pan." But this was like the reasoning of standing and an object of his sympathy, that we a child, whose idea of happiness is plenty of can really elevate the workman; and this is not sugar-plums. Pleasure, pleasurable sensation, the case with very cheap production of any kind. is, as the world goes, something to thank God for. I should be one of the last to undervalue

Seemingly wide as the poles asunder, but perhaps not so far apart as they seem, are these remarks on poetical justice in real life, illustrated by a startling character, yet of com

mon occurrence.

I was reading to-day in the Notes to Boswell's Life of Johnson, that "it is a theory which every one knows to be false in fact, that virtue in real life is always productive of happiness, and vice of misery." I should say that all my experience teaches me that the position is not false, but true; that virtue does produce happiness, and vice docs

it; I hope I am one of the last to live for it; and either to inflict or suffer. But happiness lies bepain is pain, a great evil, which I do not like yond either pain or pleasure; is as sublime a thing as virtue itself, indivisible from it; and under this point of view, it seems a perilous mistake to separate them.

The following thought is profoundly true. It explains the failures of men of reflection in a regular course or life of action; the great type of whom is Hamlet the Dane.

Those who have the largest horizon of thought,

the most extended vision in regard to the rela-ring to her experience, she never either moraltion of things, are not remarkable for self-ized or generalized; but her scorn of "ces bêtes was habitually expressed with just reliance and ready judgment. A man who sees à couronne limitedly and clearly, is more sure of himself, such a cool epigrammatic bluntness as that of and more direct in his dealings with circum- Madame de Coeslin. stances and with others, than a man whose many-sided capacity embraces an immense extent of objects and objections,-just as, they say, a horse with blinkers more surely chooses his path, and is less likely to shy.

These two anecdotes are equally good in their way. The one is not, as Mrs. Jameson intimates, better than the other; only the speaker in the one case was a lover, in the other a diplomatist. Perhaps a dash of satire lurked in the mot of Talleyrand, as who should say, "Madame de Staël can do everything."

We all remember the famous bon mot of Tal When seated between Madame de leyrand. Staël and Madame Récamier, and pouring forth gallantry, first at the feet of one, then of the other, Madame de Staël suddenly asked him if she and Madame Recamier fell into the river, which of the two he would save first? "Madame," replied Talleyrand, "je crois que vous pouvez nager!"

Now we will match this pretty bon mot with one far prettier, and founded on it. Prince S., whom I knew formerly, was one day loitering on the banks of the Isar, in the English garden at Munich, by the side of the beautiful Madame de V., then the object of his devoted admiration. For a while he had been speaking to her of his mother, for whom, vaurien as he was, he had ever shown the strongest filial love and respect. Afterwards, as they wandered on, he began to pour forth his soul to the lady of his love with all the eloquence of passion. Suddenly she turned and said to him: "If your mother and myself were both to fall into this river, whom would you save first?" 'My mother," he instantly replied; and then looking at her expressively, immediately added, "To save you first, would be as if I were to save myself first."

Something complimentary to crowned heads among extracts from Chateaubriand.

Madame de Coeslin (whom he describes as an impersonation of aristocratic morgue and all the pretension and prejudices of the ancient régime), "lisant dans un journal la mort de plusieurs rois, elle ôta ses lunettes et dit en se mouchant, Il y a donc une épizootie sur ces bêtes à couronne!'" I once counted among my friends an elderly lady of high rank, who had spent the whole of long life in intimacy with royal and princely personages. In three different courts she had filled offices of trust and offices of dignity. In refer

a

A nice bit of criticism from the section on Art; and useful, as showing, in the first anecdote especially, how a keen observer can turn the most common action to account.

Lavater told Goethe, that on a certain occasion when he held the velvet bag in the church as collector of the offerings, he tried to observe only the hands; and he satisfied himself that in every individual, the shape of the hand and of the fingers, the action and sentiment in dropping the gift into the bag, were distinctly different and individually characteristic.

What, then, shall we say of Van Dyck, who painted the hands of his men and women, not from individual nature, but from a model hand,

his own, very often? And every one who considers for a moment, will see in Van Dyck's portraits, that however well painted and elegant the hands-they in very few instances harmonize with the personalité; that the position is often affected, and as if intended for display, the display of what is in itself a positive fault, and from which some little knowledge of comparative physiology would have saved him.

There are hands of various character. The hand to catch, and the hand to hold; the hand to clasp, and the hand to grasp; the hand that has worked or could work, and the hand that has never done anything but hold itself out to be kissed, like that of Joanna of Arragon in Raphael's picture.

Let any one look at the hands in Titian's portrait of old Paul IV: though exquisitely modelled, they have an expression which reminds us of claws. They belong to the face of that grasping old man, and could belong to no other.

We will close our extracts with a lesson on the necessity of incessant care even to maintain excellence, and another proof of the wonderful riches of Shakspeare.

I once asked Mrs. Siddons, which of her great She replied, characters she preferred to play? after a moment's consideration, and in her rich, deliberate, emphatic tones, "Lady Macbeth is the character I have most studied." She afterwards said that she had played the character during thirty years, and scarcely acted it once without carefully reading over the part, and generally the whole play, in the morning; and that she never read over the play without finding something new in it," something," she said, "which had not struck me so much as it ought to have struck me.”

From The Athenæum.

of flowers at her feet. Was it of those perish

Haps and Mishaps of a Tour in Europe. By able wreaths placed on her brow amid the glare Grace Greenwood. Bentley. and tumult of the great world, she mused-or of that later crowning of her womanhood, when softly and silently her brow received from God's own hand the chrism of a holy and enduring world-renowned artiste, who dreamed there alone, love? Was it the happy, loving wife, or the great looking out over the sea?

"SUNNY MEMORIES" appear to be setting in with great severity. We had hoped that Mrs. Stowe had flung enough of rosy hues and golden tints about this honest, unpretending, murky London-had praised the beauty of our women and flattered the genius of our men When these wonderful people arrived in sufficient to satisfy America for one generation Liverpool there were crowds to welcome them at least; but such it seems is not the case. on the pier; but unhappily " the presence of "Grace Greenwood," if a less conspicuous, is a strong police force kept down all enthusiastic not a less peremptory adorer of England and the demonstration,"-as we all know it is apt to do English and of everything that England and in England. the English have taken into favor. Her ador-long for something to admire :Grace," however, does not wait ation, we dare say, is quite sincere; we wish

we could add, that it is expressed with the O, the glorious old trees, the beautiful green modesty which becomes sincere feeling. But hedges, the gorgeous flowers of England! What the truth must be told :-" Grace Greenwood" words of mine would have power to set them is not modest in her admiration. The reader whispering, and waving, and gleaming before shall judge for himself at once. The lady is you? I never shall forget the effect wrought on board the steamer in which Madame Gold-upon me by the sight of the first flowers I saw, schmidt and her husband returned to Europe. born of the soil and blossomed by the air of Old England. You will think it strange, but the first tears I shed after my last parting with my My seat at table was on the left of Captain friends at New York fell fast on the fragrant West, and opposite the Goldsel.midts. Otto leaves, and glistened in the rich red heart of an Goldschmidt, husband of Jenny Lind, impressed | English rose. In some mysterious depths of asme, not only as a man of genius, but of rare re-sociation, beyond the soundings of thought, lay finement and nobility of character. He is small, the source of those tears. and delicately formed, but his head is a remarkably fine one, his face beautiful in the best sense of the term. He is fair, with hair of a dark golden hue, soft brown eyes, thoughtful even to sadness. I have never seen a brow more pure and spiritual than his. Yet, for all its softness and youthfulness, Mr. Goldschmidt's face is by no means wanting in dignity and manliness of expression. There is a maturity of thought, a calm strength of character, a self-poise about him, which impress you more and more.

This is pretty well for a beginning. by the admiration takes a poetic form, Mr. Goldschmidt becomes in " Grace wood's" eyes, a Corinthian column :

Mr. Martineau is the next victim of her enthusiasm :-

I found him, in personal appearance, all I looked for. The pure, fervid, poetic spirit, and the earnest eloquence which adapt his writings alike to the religious wants, the devotional sense, the imagination and the taste of his readers, all live in his look, and speak in his familiar tones. He is somewhat slender in person, with a head By and not large but compact and perfectly balanced. and His perceptive organs are remarkably large, his Green-brow is low and purely Greek, and his eyes are

of a deep, changeful blue. There is much quietude in his face-native, rather than acquired, I than of conscious power. About his head, altoshould say-the repose of unconsciousness rather

The pure and graceful Greek column makes no solid or defiant show of strength, like the un-gether, there is a classical, chiselled look; the hair chiselled stone or the jagged rock, yet it may be as strong in its beauty and perfect proportions. and decidedly pleasanter to lean against.

After the husband comes the wife :

grows in a way to enchant an artist, and every feature of his face is finely and clearly cut. But the glow of the soul is all over.

We pass from Liverpool to Edgbaston-from Mr. Martineau's chapel to Mrs. Sturge's drawing-room :

For the first few days of our voyage, she seemed singularly shy and reserved. I have seen her sit hour after hour by herself, in some unfre I was received into the warmth and light of a quented part of the vessel, looking out over the pleasant little drawing-room, opening into a consea. I often wondered if her thoughts were then servatory of beautiful bright flowers. I was met busy with the memories of her glorious career-with sweet words, and sweeter smiles of welcome, if she were living over her past triumphs, the by the lovely young wife of Joseph Sturge, and countless times when the cold quiet of the high-by his fair children-quaint, Quaker specimens est heaven of fashion broke into thunders of ac-of child beauty, which is found in its rosy perclamation above her, and came down in a rainfection in "merrie England."

Richard Cobden I found to be, personally, all that his noble political course and high-toned eloquence had led me to expect. He is most kindly and affable in manner, converses earnestly and thoughtfully, though with occasional flashes of humor, and nice touches of satire.

We hope Mr. Cobden is satisfied. Mr. Disraeli gives "Grace Greenwood" nothing; and he is told to his face-with a variation of the humor for once that "his face bears no high character, but is cold, politic, subtle in expression." Mr. Hume "is a fine specimen of a true-souled man,"-whatever that -and the Duchess of Sutherland is "the most magnificent of matrons." Here, again, we have admiration poured upon us in a summer shower:

may mean

I have spent a deightful evening with Mary Howitt-a charming, true-hearted woman, as she has unconsciously written herself down in her books. The poct, Alaric Watts, was present, and the painter, Margaret Gillies. Mary Howitt the younger, a beautiful, natural girl, is an artist of rare talent and poetic spirit. I have also met the authoress, Mrs. Crowe, a very interesting and genial person, who, if she has a "night side" to

her "nature," never turns it on her friends.

much astonished. "Miss Muloch is an Irish-
woman, about twenty-five, petite and pretty."
"The fine wit and humor, and wide knowledge
of life which give so much of richness and
spirit to Mr. and Mrs. Hall's sketches of Irish
character-impart a peculiar charm to their
manner." The authoress of "Margaret Mait-
land" is "a fair Scotchwoman, not over twen-
ty-two, a modest, quiet, lovable
who
person,
seems far from having made up her mind to
admit the fact of her own genius." Miss Par-
doe is "
a very charming person." Dr. Mac-
kay is the "hearty, generous-spirited poet,"
with "the beautiful wife."

Has the reader had enough of "Grace Greenwood" and her admiration? We shall follow her only to one other fire-side. Mr. Charles Dickens offers hospitality to the lady; and here is what the lady thinks of her entertainer. First of Mr. Dickens himself:-

He is rather slight, with a fine symmetrical head, spiritedly borne, and eyes beaming alike with genius and humor. Yet, for all the power and beauty of those eyes, their changes seemed to me to be from light to light. I saw in them no profound, pathetic depths, and there was foolish to look for these on such an occasion, around them no tragic shadowing. But I was when they were very properly left in the author's study, with pens, ink, and blotting-paper, and the last written pages of "Bleak House.'

Next of Mr. Dickens's wife :

Mrs. Dickens is a very charming person-in character and manner truly a gentlewoman. Now of Mr. Dickens's children :--

Such of the children as I saw seemed worthy to hand down to coming years the beauty of the

mother and the name of the father.

Then of Mr. Dickens's style of living:

Talfourd, we learn, was "a small modestlooking man." Prince Albert, it seems, "is now getting stout, and is a little bald." We Mr. Dickens's style of living is elegant and are glad, however, to be assured on such good tasteful, but in no respect ostentatious, or out of authority, that "Her Majesty is in fine pres-character with his profession or principles. I was ervation." We doubt whether" small and mod-glad to see that his servants wore no livery. est-looking" are the adjectives that best describe the author of "Ion ;" but what shall we say to "Grace Greenwood" on the Rupert of Debate?

The Earl of Derby held the crown on its crimson cushion gracefully, like an accomplished waiter presenting an ice.

In one breath we have, " Mr. Tupper-a poet whose manners are as popular as his works;" Mrs. Crosland-"the delightful authoress;" Mr. Jerdan-" one of the finest wits and most remarkable personages of his time."

After this the reader is not likely to be

Afterwards of Mr. Dickens's guests:

Next to me at table sat Walter Savage Landor-a glorious old man, full of fine poetic thought and generous enthusiasm for liberty. Opposite sat Charles Kemble and his daughter Adelaide, Madame Sartoris. At the other end of the table were Herr Devrient, the great German actor, Barry Cornwall and his wife, a Charles daughter of Mrs. Basil Montague. and agreeable in conversation, and preserving to Kemble is a grand-looking old man, animated a wonderful degree his enthusiasm for a profession around which he and his have thrown so much of glory. In Adelaide Sartoris you recog nize at a glance one of that royal family of

Kemble, born to rule, with a power and splendor my experience of English life and character has unsurpassable, the realm of tragic art. Herr been pleasant-altogether pleasant. Devrient is a handsome, Hamlet-ish man, with a melancholy refinement of voice, face, and manner, touching and poetic to a degree, though not quite the thing for a pleasant evening party.

"Grace Greenwood" does not see that in this last instance Mr. Carlyle is quizzing-as his humor is, in such a presence. Satire, however, is a relief after so much silliness. What

Lastly of what Mr. Dickens said to "Grace Mr. Dickens may think of the above exhibiGreenwood:"—

During this evening, Mr. Dickens spoke to me with much interest and admiration of Mrs. Stowe and Mr. Hawthorne. Wherever I go, my national pride is gratified by hearing eloquent tributes to these authors, and to the poet Longfel

tion of himself, his family, and house, we will not pretend to know,--and he himself can say, if he chooses. How Mr. Dickens's guests may like their share in the exhibition the reader will readily surmise. Simple English folks, who do not care to see themselves flaunting in print in such a fashion-though anxious to low. The "Memorials" of Margaret Fuller have also created a sensation here. Carlyle says, show all proper courtesy to the representatives "Margaret was a great creature; but you have of America in England-are hereby made no full biography of her yet. We want to know aware at what a price they may receive into what time she got up in the morning, and what their houses the wandering sisterhood of the sort of shoes and stockings she wore." Thus far quill from America.

In a letter to the Times, "F. R. C. S." re-cently discovered, containing the mortal remains marks, that while science has been applied to all kinds of processes in arts, manufactures, and locomotion, the propelling power in military projectiles is still derived from a very clumsy and inconvenient mixture of charcoal, sulphur, and saltpetre." The bullet has been improved by substituting a plane surface of propulsion in lieu of a spherical; the Lancaster gun proves that new inventions may give us a great start of the enemy: but many things, like gunpowder, remain comparatively unimproved by science even since the days of a Roger Bacon. In the presence of such facts, there is no sufficient disproof of the complaint that the officials often reject scientific suggestions without proper inquiry. F. R. C. S. suggests a commission to examine suggestions and plans; and is there any reason why such a body should not be appointed? We can imagine the toil which it would have to go through; but it is true that amongst the mass of raw suggestions brought forward by "unscientific Warners," there often does lurk some admirable invention. Why should those sterling discoveries be left to the winnowing hand of time and undirected discussion? Why not imitate the poor Negroes of Brazil, or the diggers of the gold-fields, who wash and sift the mass of rubbish to find the diamond or the gold, instead of waiting until we stumble over treasure by chance in the wild waste of time and space?-Spectator.

THE REMAINS OF BOSSUET.-By the orders of the Bishop of Meaux, the leaden coffin, re

of Bossuet, was opened on the 14th instant. The head was found covered with four folds of linen, which was cut away with a pair of scissors, and less changed than might have been expected, the features were then seen. They were much considering that the body has been buried a century and a half. The head was leaning a little to the right, like to that of a person asleep, and the left part of the face was in particular exceedingly well preserved, and at once reminded lookers-on of Rigaud's portrait of the deceased. The mouth was open, the eyes shut, the nose somewhat fallen in, the hair white, and the moustaches and imperial visible. The skull had been sawed across der to let aromatic substances be placed in its so as to allow the brain to be taken away, in or stead. An artist, who was present, took a sketch of the face as it appeared when the coffin was opened. When it was known that the features of the deceased could be seen, a great number of persons hastened to the cathedral. Several ecclesiastics also arrived from Paris, and among them the curé of St. Roche and the cure of St. Lois d'Antin. In the night of the 14th, a glass was fixed over the face, so as to preserve it from the contact of the external air, and the next day, formed, at which the bishop officiated. Pontifiat 10 in the morning, a funeral service was percal ornaments covered the coffin, a crozier was placed close to it, and Bossuet once more appeared as bishop in his own cathedral. All the functionaries of the town were present on the occasion, as well as a large number of other persons. After the mass had finished, the crowd walked round, in order to see the features of the deceased. The coffin was replaced in the evening in the vault.-Galignani's Messenger.