them nearer the range of the ridiculous than the sublime, and perhaps generally manage to inveigle Young America into a costume which renders him as striking a caricature of mankind as possible, surely these little cynical eccentricities may be forgiven us, in regard of the many really valuable services we perform.

most of the passing hours, I await with a dry eye the progress and final consummation of human affairs. What is to come next, from the legislature, the comet, or the city authorities, is a matter of profound indifference. I will give or take the odds on the double event.

THE

DE L'AMITIÉ.

THE best thing to be said of L'Amitié is, that he has not engaged the attention of our modern writers. When your genuine author sits down with his fine eyes rolling, his (once) fine hair tossed wildly up, a bran-new steel pen in his hand, he chooses no such feeble theme. Your dramatist does not summon before you two healthy unromantic people taking much comfort in each other in a quiet way, but he must fever you with love, tear you with jealousy, sting you with remorse, or glut you with revenge-(the favorite terms with dramatists, but not with our moderate selves).

At the conclusion of the third volume or of the fifth act you go home prematurely gray, or go back, as the case may be, to your ordinary pursuits with nerves unstrung, to find the business of life quite too dull an affair for your stimulated taste.

Nor are our efforts entirely devoted to the good of the public at large. When your successful citizen, retired on a fortune acquired in the brewery or the shop, has happily succeeded in surrounding himself with all the means and appliances of a life he is unfitted to lead; when he has gathered together books that he can not understand, pictures he is unable to appreciate, horses he is afraid to mount, and choice wines that make him ill, how great is his indebtedness to some friend of the walking-gentleman fraternity, who kindly takes all the trouble off his hands, and assists him in the difficult task of meeting Providence half-way, by a proper use and enjoyment of these late-in-the-day gifts. My services will be cheerfully at the disposal of any gentleman so situated, provided there be no marriageable daughter in the case, with whom matrimony would be expected. I am not a marrying man; and a careful perusal of the various statutes in force in this State on the There have been poems, it is true, subject of the law of husband and wife, has led Friendship;" there have been compositions writme greatly to fear and distrust a relation which ten by boarding-school misses ringing constant is involved in so much perplexity and uncer-changes on the word; but with all due deference tainty. I confess these doubts have not been to these profound metaphysicians in black silk altogether removed by a contemplation of the aprons, is there not yet a volume unsaid on the institution of wedlock as it exists among us. pleasant theme? The luxury is becoming much too expensive for any but men in trade, who will soon have a monopoly of the market. In place of the old maxim, None but the brave," we now read, "None but the rich deserve the fair." The consolation is, however, that the quid pro quo which is obtained for all this outlay, is constantly diminishing. We have daily less woman and more petticoat.

On

This profane pen attempts not to describe or trifle with that noble something which the world calls Friendship, but which means all loyalty, all truth, all generosity, and all honorthat noble something of which the dear old story of Damon and Pythias is the familiar and dramatic expression-that noble something of which "In Memoriam" is the sweet and touching requiem. If Tennyson "did for friendship what Petrarch did for love," he did also more-an incalculable tribute to our cause: he showed us that Love did not fill the niche whence Friendship was stricken down, that the laurel crown was not the lotus, that through many a long and proudly famous year this sorrow endured, and that all praise was incomplete because it included not his voice.

No! when men so love each other, the word is too small for the subject, and there is not one in the language to reach it.

Happily settled at last in a profession so eminently adapted to my tastes and inclinations as that I have endeavored to describe, I find myself quite contented with my lot. I think I have discovered the true philosopher's stone-which is nothing after all but philosophy itself, refined In the crucible of experience. After rambling far in search of the jewel, I have finally found it at home. But the journey, like virtue, has boon its own reward. Quite clear of the restlossness of ambition, the eagerness of speculation, and the harassing uncertainties of an un- But under the head "De l'Amitié," let us dofiued position, I am enabled with imperturb-examine that lighter sentiment which exists able coolness to let the world wag. Commonplace people might perhaps consider me a loungor; but if any one of them will get out of the omnibus and stop off with me from Grace to Trinity, I think he will not again so mistake my mountain stride. If not a great man, I am If not engrossed with a reasonably happy oue. the quarrels of others, I at least have none of my own. Natistied with the condition in life of du ordinary privato Christian, and making the

between men and women, and which is not L'Amour. That something which remotely and indefinitely makes much trouble in the world from not being understood, but which, when treated aesthetically, esoterically, and exoterically, will be found to be the "wine of existence," the temperate zone of emotions, where grow the most useful and sustaining fruits.

De l'Amitié expresses that sentiment you have for your young aunt, or your elderly cousin, or

the elder sister of her whom you love, or possi- | her husband; she likes his friend. Is there any bly the wife of your friend, or remotely possibly reason on earth why Mrs. Sinclair and I should some young and handsome person whom you do not be friends-intimate and dear friends? not love, but for whom you decidedly entertain None that I can see, except that she will show a friendship. me daguerreotypes of the children, in which I see nothing but cannon-ball heads, and very big hands, and much shoulder ribbon. That is Mrs. Sinclair's only weakness.

version. Perhaps my fancy did not altogether | day Sister Eulalie asked me to go and talk to deceive me.

I had some business to transact with the sisterhood, and had scarcely concluded it when Sister Eulalie promptly dismissed me for a dirty boy, who came, crying, to ask her attendance on his dying mother. A sudden inspiration induced me to ask leave to accompany her. "Yes, if you have the heart to help the suffering, come," was her answer.

The lay sister arrived with a basket containing the necessary articles for the sick, and I followed the black figures at a respectable distance, and on arriving at a most miserable tenement was sent by Sister Eulalie for a doctor.

In fifteen minutes after I was thus dispatched there stood about the bedside of this poor woman the two sisters, a physician, a priest, and myself. So potent a monarch is King Death! What other potentate could have commanded such instant attendance in that miserable garret?

It was an awful scene, one I shall not describe in these pages.

"A single warrior,

In sombre harness mailed,

little Bertha, who she said was an uncommonly bright child, with a great desire for knowledge. I went to the bedside of the poor little sufferer, and talked with her. Several hours of the day she suffered intense pain; but she told me, with a look of gratitude, that two hours of every day she was quite easy. Born in the lowest strata of city poverty and vice, she had been crippled by neglect or accident, and had been perfectly ignorant of every thing, even the name of God, until Sister Eulalie had found her, almost dying, in some miserable cellar. Strange to say, in this neglected creature was a soul so pure, a mind so elevated, that in a daily acquaintance of two years I never heard a vulgar word or idea from her lips-all was aspiration and refinement. On asking her one day what I could bring her, she said, "I have heard there are such things as wild flowers. Is it true? and would you bring me one? I have seen green-houses where flowers grow in pots, but a lady read me a verse of Scripture the other day, and it said, 'Behold the lilies of the field, how they grow!' and when I asked her if such things grew any where but in greenhouses, she told me of green hillsides, and brooks with lilies in them; but I shall never see them. Would you bring me one wild flower?" Before the summer had passed my little Ber

Such

Dreaded of man, and surnamed the Destroyer," is terrible enough when he comes to the chambers of case-how much more solemn is his presence in the midst of want, of penury! Here the ragged children crowded around their only | tha was quite a botanist. The little vase of friend, and the final scene of her hard, earthly flowers which stood by her bedside was crownstruggle contained the bitter certainty of their ed daily with the flora of the season. desolation. simple facts in botany as I could give her in my half hour's visit furnished her with a new and delightful subject for meditation; and when, two years after, Sister Eulalie and I stood by her humble coffin, both weeping bitterly, that sweet odor of violets, which always now recalls her to my memory, stole upon my senses.

Yet Sister Eulalie was there! On her pure breast lay the head of the dying woman; into her eyes, as into the blue depths of a summer sky, looked the poor sufferer.

The good sister had laid my last offering on the wasted breast of the deformed child, and said, as she looked at her, and at the bunch of violets,

The next morning found me in the poor garret, feeling as if I were the young man spoken of in Holy Writ, who was to "sell all he had and give it to the poor." There was Sister Eulalie and her attendant. There lay the remains of the poor mother, neatly and reverently disposed, as becomes the dignity of death. The children, too, had been cared for, and were hanging about Sister Eulalie, who, preciousness. saint! was mingling her tears with theirs.

"She, like them, was plucked by the wayside, and, like them, breathed naught but sweetOh! my friend, do not forget these wayside sufferers ""

Friendship is not always so happy or so beneficial as my reminiscences would seem to prove. It may have unworthy objects, but it is free from the intoxications and subtleties of deeper emotions, and has this advantage, it is less selfish; friendship, properly considered, excludes selfish

For many years, in prisons and in hospitals, I met Sister Eulalie. She had little time for me, or for what the world calls friendship, and yet I can with confidence rank her among my friends. One can not influence another for good without in turn receiving something; and I am certain that this woman, in the midst of a life devoted to the highest and most absorb-ness. ing duties, gave me some portion of her thought and her regard. Through Sister Eulalie I reached another friend, for it was not one of her traits to allow a kindled fire to go out, and she introduced me to that vast world of which I knew little-the world of the poor.

Why Marian Stanley, beautiful, gifted creature, always remains associated in my mind with little Bertha, I can not tell. Is it because extremes meet? Or is it because I never knew two lives so full of pain? Bertha had two hours of ease each day; I doubt if Marian had one. In one of the wards of the hospital which The one was a pauper and a cripple, and spent Sister Eulalie visited, and which she induced her life in a cellar and a hospital; the other was me to visit, I had noticed a little girl shocking- a beauty and a genius, and lived in the fullest ly deformed, evidently suffering much. One sunshine of prosperity and admiration. Marian

Stanley was miserable from having too much. | every other woman's rival. "Do I not," said She was unfortunate in a higher sense-she married an uncongenial man. For a few years I believed the struggle she was making with a real calamity would work a genuine reformation, and be the germ of future peace; but alas, and alas! there came a new evil into her life, and Marian Stanley loved madly and wickedly.

She was not the woman to acknowledge it or to yield to it. For years she fought singlehanded with temptation and despair, and conquered. Once did I see her waver: I was read-ence Nightingale has friends, Catherine Sedging her some story of a woman like herself. "Stop," said she, "I can not bear it." What to do for this woman! Henceforth there was no concealment between us. I had known her secret-now we spoke of it. The spectacle of this woman holding a serpent at arms' length, unable to throw it down, to trample on it, longing to take it, poisonous as she knew it to be, to her heart, yet restrained by pride alone-ye gods! what a sight was there. Phædra, torn by passions as by wild horses, was alone a parallel.

seem almost to discern a predestined order of events, like the rotation of the seasons, and we need the refreshing example of one stably free nation to assure us that it was not the design of Providence that mankind should crouch at some one's feet. Without this comforting fact in clear view, indeed, the study of history would be intolerable. No man of feeling could endure so uniform a chronicle of successful wrong and vanquished right. Not alone would his heart bleed at the ever-recurring spectacle of triumphant tyranny and banished freedom; the complacence with which mankind have finally submitted, in almost every case, to oppression is more sickening still. One may groan over the ravished fueros of Aragon, the feudal usurpations of Germany, or the stolen name of Poland; but is not the sight of a Frenchman voting himself content with a despot, or an Englishman devoutly hugging his "Old Man of the Mountain," whose noble legs are clasped round his neck, a far more saddening object of contemplation?

Some five years ago, the people of Ajaccio, in Corsica, were enabled to execute a darling project-the erection of a statue and monument to Napoleon. It consists of a marble statue on a high granite pedestal; and stands on the market-place in front of the Town-house. On the pedestal the following inscription, in French, is engraved:

"His native city to the Emperor Napoleon, on the 5th May, 1850, the second year of the Presidency of Louis Napoleon."

test for liberty than that waged for centuries by these very Corsicans. Not a sounder framework of political freedom than that contained in the Corsican constitution of Paoli, promulgated, be it remembered, years before the United States became independent, and while the rest of Europe was groveling in servitude.

From the eleventh to the nineteenth centuries the history of Corsica is a series of neverending conflicts between the people and their oppressors. A succession of heroes arose during that period, whose names, had they lived in France, Germany, Spain, or England, would have been familiar to every school-boy, and synonymous with the greatest and noblest virtues. Men of iron, more Roman than the Romans; knowing neither fear nor tenderness; in many respects unique and unequaled; living only for their country, and seeking its freedom with an energy, a clearness of vision, and a perseverance which render their total failure perfectly astounding. Rome produced some such; but they were accidents, who flashed across the darkening page of her annals. On whose shoulders fell the mantle of Gracchus? Greece had patriots, but they soon made way for politicians. The line of Corsican heroes is unbroken from Sambucuccio to Paoli. Over and over again the Corsicans lay crushed and panting at the feet of foreign tyrants; but there never was a time when some gallant patriot was not plotting or fighting to dash off the yoke. One killed, another sprang out of obscurity into his place. A dozen executed, twice as many were in arms the next day. At home, abroad, in the towns, in the mountains, ill or well clad, in plenty or starving, the Corsican chiefs, before the French conquest, never lifted their eyes from the one great work of securing liberty for their rocky isle.

It was at the close of the tenth century that the Corsican people first rose bodily against their feudal tyrants. While the Capets were clamping their hold on France, and the Saxon monarchs preparing England for a Norman despotism, the farmers, fishermen, and mountaineers of Corsica met together, chose an assembly of delegates, elected podestas, defined the powers of their magistrates, and established a form of government essentially democratic. The man of the movement, its master spirit till his death, was Sambucuccio d'Alando. The barons or seigniors fought a while, unsuccessfully; then withdrew to their castles, leaving the country between Aleria, Calvi, and Brando-called Terra del Commune-say People's Land—a demo

The peasants come in from the mountains, and resolve to have their sons taught French so as to read it. Ask one of them how it comes that this monument to their greatest man bears an inscription in a foreign tongue? how these Bonapartes are spoken of as if they had been Emperors and Presidents of Corsica instead of France? how, in short, every thing that savors of authority in the island, from the préfet to the gensdarmes, is French, and the people only are Corsican?-and he shrugs his shoulders, or perhaps answers, "Anch' io son Francese." And so he is in one sense. He pays his taxes to support the French Government, at the rate of about five francs per head per annum for each soul in his family; and as the French tariff obliges him to buy every thing from France at enormously high prices, and agriculture is almost unprofitable, commerce sluggish, and native industry comparatively unknown, he finds it pretty hard work. The representatives whom he sends to Paris when France indulges in rep-cratic republic. resentative luxuries, are lost in the crowd. The Sambucuccio dying, seigniors sprung from distant department of Corsica serves as a refuge for those whom the Government must appoint to office, but dare not trust with power in France. Tranquilly they reign; and in his square at Ajaccio, or on his mountain heath, the Corsican is content, asks for nothing better than the fate fortune has allotted him, and is ashamed of not being more of a Frenchman.

Yet there is not in all history a nobler con

their lairs and fell on the people. With the free city of Pisa the Corsicans had had much to do; to Pisa they sent, as the Britons to Saxony, calling for aid. Malaspina came over in a trice, and back to their lairs flew the seigniors. For a century, more or less, Pisans held some sort of authority in the island. Giudici, judges; interpreters rather than makers of the law; wisely tolerant of the power of the vedute or diets