science-a name that will excuse anything to a German understanding; but it is no part of their creed that they have a mission requiring them to put to death every animal weaker than themselves. And so the little birds are very confiding, and perhaps a trifle happier than if they believed their lives to be in constant danger from the other twolegged animals. It is all so quiet and peaceful, and has such an air of having been always quiet and peaceful, and going to be always quiet and peaceful, that "historic doubts" are engendered, and one questions whether it be not easier to believe that a narrative of strife and carnage has been forged than that these tranquil plains have ever resounded to "great ordnance in the field," or been enriched with the gore of tens of myriads. They show you a ball lodged in the angle of a church, or a hole through an old gable-good; but what do these prove? You may see, standing about, pillars commemorating this or that episode in the great epic; but we have heard before how a column sometimes "lifts its head and lies," and they who would write cunningly devised fables would chisel also false inscriptions. If Troy was a fancy, why not Leipzig? It would be pleasant to believe the latter to be but a glorious myth; and, standing here on this gentle April day, one feels strangely tempted toward such a belief.

But no. Whatever nature may seem to cry aloud in this her tranquil mood, the testimony of "articulate-speaking men," of men who felt only too keenly all that they spoke and left on record, assures us that the battle of Leipzig was a great fact-the greatest probably that has had place in Europe since the middle ages. On these plains

was in reality broken the devilish power of the French Revolution. There began that chastisement of an impious nation, which has never to this day ceased. Here religion, order, justice, national independence, again asserted themselves, and overturned the sway of the sword, of rapine, of unbelief, and of all the evil passions of fallen humanity. The tide of French aggression was fairly turned back; the limit of revolutionary success had been reached; and blighted, pillaged Europe was permitted once more to breathe freely, and entertain the trembling hope of one day being again at rest, and of men rearing vines and fig-trees which they might dare to call their own. Here set that star of which Napoleon spoke so arrogantly, and ́in which he placed so great trust. Hereafter he was but a broken adventurer, put to all his shifts to prolong his doomed empire, going from fall to fall, and at last perishing miserably!

If, then, the spot where a great blow has been struck for freedom should be sacred in men's eyes, these plains of Leipzig are hallowed ground. It is good to meditate in sight of them; and, from the midst of the silence and plenty and peace which now reign there, to cast back a thought to the havoc and misery which they have witnessed. Happy are the generations which inherit the prosperity without having known the sorrow with which it was purchased! but they must never forget the price that was paid, nor enjoy their blessings without a thought of the great struggle through which they are this day free. He who smote the people in wrath with a continual stroke, he that ruled the nations in anger, is persecuted, and none hindereth. The whole earth is at rest,

and is quiet; they break forth into singing."

Great scarcity of the sinews of war all over the continent of Europe is said by some of the very wise to be the sole cause of the nations being peacefully disposed at this moment. If so, we discover a new virtue in poverty. It is pleasant, too, to reflect that England, which has means, and which has some stake in the subjects of contention, is no longer content to be voiceless when so many throats are sounding their claims and designs. I do not think the cause of peace will be in the least injured by England rousing herself; and I am sure that the respect of other Powers and our own self-respect will be largely increased by her so acting. As long as the world continues to be such as it now is, the axiom will hold that they who desire peace should be ready for war-honourable peace, that is to say. Of course,

at the expense of being kicked and spit upon, a nation may for a time buy off hostilities. But this is but futile policy, as we learned three or four years since. A British Minister should deserve to have in his epitaph some words which were engraved over the shell of Commodore Trunnion: "He kept his guns ready loaded, and his tackle ready manned, and never showed his poop to the enemy except when he took him in tow." But I must not be

gin to scribble about politics after so long a letter on warlike matters. It has given me much pleasure to survey these battle-fields, and to learn what I could concerning them; and if you and the readers of Maga care to follow my wanderings, I shall again rejoice. Now, for the present, farewell. Accept, my dear Editor, these presents, and the warm regard of

A WANDERING ENGLISHMAN.

"DEAR! Did you really? How clever!"

"I can put up with everything about her, but that' How clever!'" cried Elizabeth, when the lady had departed. "It always comes out in the same tone, and with the same emphasis. Whatever one does, if it be but the veriest trifle, something that even a Lady Adelaide could accomplish herself without too much trouble, it is sure to obtain that all-embracing epithet. I do not believe her vocabulary could supply any other note of admiration. She never rises above it, and never falls below. When she heard that Captain Webb had swum across the Channel, and that I had worked a crochet anti-macassar, she said of us both, 'How clever!'" Her friend laughed. "Is it not provoking, Anne?" "Provoking? Perhaps; if it were worth being provoked about." "You think it is not? But you don't know till you have been tried. I had rather endure one good swordcut and have done with it, than be the victim of a thousand lancetpricks. How often did you hear that little soft ejaculation during the last half-hour? Be on your honour, Anne."

"More than once, I confess."
66 And you had noticed it?"
"Yes, I had."

"Well, was it not, as I said, called forth by great and small, somethings and nothings, alike Was it not a most absurd comment, most promiscuously applied, by a most stupid woman? Come, Anne, join me; it will do you good, or, if not, it will do me good to hear it. Say what you think, you prudent

Anne; confess, break forth, you fountain of wisdom, and overflow your banks like Jordan! You had noticed it, you had felt it all the time, and yet you shake your head, you knit your brows? Oh, I fear you not; I shall say my say, and moan my moan, and none shall stop me. See, I am the better for it already! I have not upon my word, I have not felt so charitably disposed towards the poor dear lady for a long time.”

Anne, smiling-"That does you credit, surely. The prick of a pin stirs up this tempest, and the tempest subsides with the same show of reason wherewith it arose. A storm in a teacup, Lizzie. Much ado about

"Not nothing-not nothing, you tiresome creature! you will not surely pretend to declare that it is nothing?"

"You will not surely venture to affirm that it is something?"

"I affirm it, and maintain it, Anne."

"Then you are a little-foolish, dear."

"And you are a very great deal exasperating, darling."

Anne smiles, Elizabeth laughs. The door opens, and a footman, with uncertain, bewildered steps, approaches the upper end of the

"Now it will be, 'How clever!' to have found them so quickly! and with more grounds for saying so than usual," continues Mrs Tresham, with curled lip. "Anne, you might have pity upon me. What may be amusing in a friend, is torture from a relation. If Lady Adelaide could only be metamorphosed into an ordinary acquaintance-a neighbour even, though not too near at handhow joyfully would I engage her in conversation, nor dream of attempting to clear a single cobweb off her brains!"

"You would simply despise her more than ever."

'No, no, no; at least I think

not."

"You would."

"And have you no compassion? Yet I would grieve from my heart if you should ever have the misfortune to be tacked on to aa-Lady Adelaide. What can I say more? Yet I defy you, even you, my mentor, to twist anything undutiful or disrespectful out of such a tame conclusion, such a paltry climax." Anne, gravely-"She is a very kind-hearted woman."

"So she is."

"And you have no fault to find with her, save that she calls you clever?"

"Clevar, not clever. You missed the accent, dear."

"Is that her only fault?" perseveres Anne.

"Hum! I did not say so; I did not go so far as that. Her only great fault, perhaps her only perpetual, ever-recurring fault."

"She has no other that you cannot condone ?"

"Is not this enough? I began years ago, by being called a clever child, then I was a clever girl, and now I am a clever woman.

I was

tired of the word, before I had ever

fectly sick of it."

"After all, Lizzie, what a baby you are!"

"A baby, if you like. I have no objection at all to being called a baby. Nice, little, soft, fluffy things, made to be petted and kissed. But the other is a term of abuse, a positive insult." "Nonsense!"

"It is; so applied, by such lips. Nay, Anne, sweet Anne, frown not so seriously. It spoils thy dimples, Anne, contorts the brow, and distorts the mouth. I say it again, again, again; I will not be called a clever woman.”

Anne." One might be called a worse thing."

Elizabeth, confidentially.-"But, good Anne, one word. Were you ever tired of being called pretty?"

Lady Adelaide and her new niece were, as may have been gathered by the foregoing dialogue, perhaps as ill suited to each other as it was possible for any two people to be.

Elizabeth, a gay, triumphant bride, in the heyday of her charms, little disposed to tolerate anything contemptible and ridiculous, was seriously disturbed by finding in the relation who of all her newlyacquired kindred stood nearest to her, one who was a perpetual source of mortification.

Yet Lady Adelaide was all that a fine lady has any need to be.

She was cheerful, gentle, and indolent; inclined to patronise bazaars and work-parties-her young friends in general, and Elizabeth in particular.

Her nephew's wife was quite charming so lively, so clever.

It was only a pity they did not see more of each other. John used to be in and out continually-the

Priory had been quite his home; but that could not be expected now. The young people were sure to be so much sought after, they would be such acquisitions in any society, that of course their engagements must be numerous.

And then dear Elizabeth was so accomplished, had so many many resources, not an idle body like her old aunt, who had time to run about and bore all her neighbours.

Behind backs Lady Adelaide was as charitable as her niece was merciless.

"Elizabeth thinks she's a born fool," quoth John.

"John! I never used such an expression in my life!'

"Do you not think so?" Now Elizabeth did. John, for his part, was rather fond of his aunt.

She was invariably kind and good-humoured, and more he did not expect from her; indeed her foibles were so far from being an annoyance to him, that it may be questioned whether he would not have missed something out of his life if Lady Adelaide had grown sensible.

With Elizabeth, of course, it must be different.

No softening influences of association could deaden her feelings, no early impressions of awe hold her senses still in check. Lady Adelaide broke upon her mature vision with all the shock of a novelty, and unfortunately that vision was only too acute.

Elizabeth could be magnanimous, she could pardon, but she could never fail to see.

"What would you have?" cried John. "She is good-looking and good-tempered, and never said an unkind word of any one in her life. She is the most popular woman in the neighbourhood."

"That I am not worth a thousand Lady Adelaides."

"Ha! ha! so I think. But, little one, clever as you are, there is one thing you cannot do-and that is, argue."

How came John always to have the best of it? Chatter as she might, this quick-witted and highspirited girl was as devotedly subject to her sober-minded husband as any wife ever was in this world before.

It was evident that she was a happy bride.

Contentment beamed in her lively dark eye; and the ring of her quick firm footstep, the snatches of song which broke forth at intervals through the little house, the pleasure she took in her pretty possessions, the glory in her small achievements, all spoke of the satisfaction of a heart at rest.

Still, the dead fly in the ointment was there, small though it That fly-would any one have guessed it?-was Lady Adelaide.

was.