imaginations of men an inexhaustible fountain, where all might drink and be satisfied. It was the era, in short, of the celebrated Mississippi scheme, by which the country was brought to the brink of ruin through the magnificent errors of a man of genius.

It is now pretty generally supposed, that although the cupidity of the regent may at first have been awakened by Law, the Scottish adventurer was eventually forced onward in his extraordinary career by the regent. The latter, with a fine person, winning manners, quick talents, and the most daring courage, was yet utterly depraved. He did not even believe in virtue. He turned everything respectable or serious into a jest; and he did not enjoy less the society of his dissolute comrades for believing that every one of them would betray him for a consideration. He was, in fact, the Mephistophiles of the great drama then played in France; and despising rather than hating his fellowactors, he turned their weakness to his advantage, and laughed and joked at their wickedness.

At this time the demon of pride confronted the demon of avarice. Birth jostled with wealth, and it was hard to say which should gain the mastery. Peers and lackeys, princesses and soubrettes, met in the bureau; a duchess kissed the hand of the mighty speculator in public; and the high nobility of France-not without some fits of alarm mingling with their infatuation- | saw their order tottering to its fall. Money lightly gained, was lightly spent. Palaces rose on all sides with the rapidity of enchantment; whole fortunes were lavished on furniture and equipages, dress and jewels; and entertainments were habitually given, which seemed to have had their prototypes in the fairy tales. In the meantime strangers from all parts of the world crowded into the fortunate city, increasing its population, we are told, by the number of half a million; overflowing its dwellings from the cellar to the garret, and sending up the price of provisions to an enormous amount.

Among these visitors there was a young man whose adventures were remembered owing to his connexion both with the nobility and the bubble, both with the regent and his comrades, long after Law had disappeared, and Paris was ruined. This was the Count Antoine Joseph Van Horn, a scion of one of the proudest houses in Europe, related or connected with most of the great families of France, and even with the regent himself. The count was a very striking person in his appearance. He was only twenty-two years of age, but tall and finely-formed; his face was as pale and as beautifully chiselled as that of an antique statue; and a pair of singularly wild and brilliant eyes shed over the whole what might have seemed preternatural light. Ilis brother was the reigning Prince of Horn and Overique.

sented himself before his brother a raving lunatic. It is a curious trait of the time that Van Wert, when degraded from the command he had so foully abused, made an effort to rouse the peasantry in his favour, and maintain himself in the castle by force; and that he was only restrained by being put under the ban of the empire, when, being seized as a state prisoner, he was locked up in a fortress for life.

The count, in the meantime, was carefully tended, and by degrees recovered his reason. Still, a great and permanent change had taken place in his character. He was subject to uncontrollable bursts of passion, and required a certain degree of management to be kept at all within conventional rule. While his mental malady was gradually yielding to mild treatment, if it may not be said to have entirely disappeared, a circumstance occurred which disturbed the tranquil routine of his life. This was the bequest of a valuable property by his relation the Princess d'Epinay; and the young count having now legitimate business to call him to Paris, determined upon the journey. His brother, however, either fearing that he was not yet sufficiently recovered, or from some other cause not mentioned, was averse to the scheme; and the consequence was, that the youth, unable to bear contradiction, or listen patiently to remonstrance, if any was attempted, set out in secret and alone, and flung himself into the vortex of the capital without even a letter of introduction.

Here his appearance.upon the scene excited both curiosity and distrust. Rumours of his early follies, and their extravagant and extraordinary punishment, had preceded him; and here was the scion of a line of princes, handsome, noble-looking, and elegant in manners, wholly unacknowledged by his family, and compelled to introduce himself even to those who felt honoured by being connected with his blood. In these circumstances, his great relatives received him with distinction mingled with reserve. They gave him gay suppers; they took him to the theatres; they initiated him in the thousand extravagances of Paris, at a time when a character of frenzy overspread the revels of the intoxicated city; but their domestic circles were closed against him-their wives were forbidden his acquaintance-and their daughters were warned against those radiant eyes, the ardent gaze of which the ladies, as we are told by a contemporary, declared it to be almost impossible to support.

It is not to be supposed that such restrictions had much effect upon this headstrong and determined youth. People might avoid introducing him to their families, but it was impossible to hide him from their view; and the mystery thus thrown over him added, no doubt, in the female imagination, to the fascination of the tall figure, statue-like face, and wild and melancholy eyes, which were now seen everywhere in the haunts of fashion. The count sought in secret the society from which he was debarred in public, and thus drew upon himself the enmity of some of his most distinguished relatives; and to such a height did this feeling proceed, that a plan is said to have been formed for his being kidnapped and sent off to one of the El Dorados of Law. This was no rare occurrence at the time. The gigantic bubble threatened every day to burst; and it was a common practice to sweep the streets throughout France of their vagrant population, and send them off to some of those colonies which were supposed to be unexplored mines of wealth. This forced emigration, it is needless to add, included frequently the victims of secret vengeance; and many a gay gallant, on awakening from a dream of either allegorical or literal intoxication, found himself dancing upon the billows of the Atlantic.

But the young count was not received in Paris with the distinction which might have been expected from his high birth and fine person. This mere youth was already old in adventures, and a blight had fallen upon his reputation. While a captain in the Austrian service he had been guilty of some offence, it is not stated of what kind; but in all probability it was of the nature which he was afterwards so unfortunate as to offer to the regent of France. At anyrate he fell under the displeasure of the commander-in-chief, Prince Louis of Baden; and his brother, perhaps merely to keep him out of the way for a time, exerted his sovereign authority, and sent him as a prisoner to the old castle of Van Wert, in the hereditary dominions of the family. It is believed that the sentence of the prince involved nothing more than a sufficient degree of solitude and restraint to bring the headstrong youth to reflection; but unfortunately the governor, Van Wert, was a man of a Count Antoine was under the greater risk, from the morose and savage temper, who added, of his own circumstance of his being in the habit, like other wild pleasure, incarceration in a dungeon, and a series of young men of the time, of traversing the streets at such indignities, as literally goaded the lad into frenzy. night in disguise; and on one occasion he actually fell At the end of six months' captivity, he effected his into the hands of a party of crimps, who were appaescape by knocking down two of his jailors; and find-rently lying in wait for him. Having escaped with ing his way to the family seat of Boussigny, he pre- some difficulty, he mentioned the affair to his relation

coil; if placed under water, a needle floated on cork would be carried through it; and when brought into contact with iron filings, they arrange themselves in a circle, one segment of which passes through the helix. The analogy between the vital and chemical actions is thus made out: the formation of blood, with its circulation and development of tubular channels, are coincident, indicating a direct and a circular motion, the latter, with the materials at its disposal, constructing the tube. The veins in the body, as is well known, form a complete circuit, departing from the heart, and reuniting in the capillaries at the extremities-in which arrangement we find a compliance with one of the essential conditions. The cells, constituting the form in which power is first developed, become red globules by the influence of oxygen, and show, by flowing in one direction, that they are acted on by the vital force; and at the same time the arrangement of other small transparent cells round the moving current sufficiently proves the existence of a direct as well as of a circular movement.

themselves on the substance of the disc in concentric layers, showing, even at this early stage of their development, the existence of a law of motion operating in a circular direction. This motion Dr Bullar considers to be identical with that created by electro-magnetism. The next process is that by which these cells are formed into blood, and vessels for its transmission. Faint streaks appear radiating directly from the first centre, uniting at a sharp curve, which afterwards becomes the heart of the animal, and forming eventually a complete circle by the junction of the capillaries at the circumference. In these radii we have evidence of another force, whose direction is at right angles to that by which the deposition of cells in concentric circles had been accomplished. The radiating vessels also appropriate new matter from the yolk, and present in their development a variety of forms, a network of cylindrical and circular channels, yellowish in colour, and all tending to the central germ. An undulatory motion, which has been for some time visible in the substance immediately surrounding the disc, now changes its character, pulsates, and drives the blood It is a well-established fact, both in vegetable and in scarcely perceptible red streaks through the larger animal physiology, that the first indication of organivessels. Around these vessels, which at first are trans-sation is a cell, possessing a central energy, with the parent, there is a continued deposition of cells, in such power of appropriating and arranging other cells, which a manner, as to lead to the inference that the motion in turn become new centres of power, and extend the of the blood in one direction produces another motion assimilating process. Coral, and many other geological at right angles to its course, at the same time forming formations, consist of cells: the integrity of the epiderthe tubes through which it flows. mis is maintained by a continual growth of cells. coid corpuscles,' says Martin Barry, circulate in plants; and spirals appear to be as universal as fibrous structure.' In plants, as in animals, these corpuscles become coils, and eventually spirals. His examination of bloodvessels showed them to be formed with an inner structure of longitudinal filaments, surrounded externally by other spiral filaments. Not only,' he continues, does every tissue seem to arise out of discs having all the same appearance, but the primary arrangement and early metamorphoses of these discs seem to be the same. We recognise the same combination of spiral threads in the mould of cheese as in the brain of man. How wonderful the fact, that out of materials so similar, structures should be found endowed with properties so different!'

Whatever may be thought of these theoretical views, they are in exact conformity with the laws of electromagnetic action. It has been established by Professor Faraday, that when a current is first formed, it tends to produce a current in the contrary direction in all the matter around it; and if that matter have conducting properties, and be fitly circumstanced, such a current is produced.' In the case of the egg of the bird, or the ovum of the mammal, there is no failing of essential circumstances; the material of growth and warmth are abundantly supplied. If iron filings be placed in contact with an electric wire, they immediately range themselves round it in concentric rings. If placed on a sheet of pasteboard over a magnet, they assume the form of regular curves, diverging from each pole, and meeting in the centre. Again, if a flat spiral coil of wire magnetised be laid on iron filings, they take a position in lines through its axis, and bending over at the extremities, form a continuous circumference, as instanced in the radii from the disc of the egg to the circle of capillaries. It should not be forgotten that there is a marked difference between the galvanic and magnetic currents: while the former passes directly along a wire, the latter revolves round it-one is direct, the other rotary.

The spiral coil of galvanic power may thus be taken to represent the disc containing the embryo, while the | arrangement of the radii and capillaries represents the disposition of the iron filings in obedience to the magnetic force. Hence Dr Bullar concludes, that, whether physiological or chemical, the forces are in both cases the same: the galvanic force circulating in the disc once admitted, the magnetic force operating in the direction of the radii of vessels is necessarily involved. And although the actual movements are invisible in

Dis

The same law seems thus to pervade all the vital operations of nature: the explanation, however, to be chiefly looked for, is of the mysteries of the animal economy. How much takes place in the system that cannot be accounted for by the mere action of the heart! What a field for investigation-investigation according to the rigorous principles of philosophy-remains to be cultivated by the diligent student. As an important step in advance, we hail the discoveries of the learned Matteucci; they cannot but stimulate British physiologists.

RECOLLECTIONS OF LONDON LODGINGS. No one who has not tried it, can have any idea of the difficulty of procuring lodgings in London of a respectable and comfortable kind; and if to these qualities we add that of moderate charges, the difficulty is tenfold increased. Lodgings are plentiful, though much more so in some districts than others; but those who keep

the living substance, there is little difficulty in believing them may be said to be all pretty much of one genus them to be such as described, when we see their pro-people in struggling circumstances, who try to make gressive development in obedience to this law.

The truth of the hypothesis is further strengthened by Seebeck's experiments: he showed that the circulation through a coil of a current of heat, instead of galvanism, was equally productive of radiating magnetic currents. In this case the analogy is still more striking: heat is the motive power in both operations; both possess dispositions for the distribution of the forces, and are always at right angles with the other. A still more striking analogy is found in the results attendant on the use of a hollow spiral or helix. The galvanic force passing along the wire creates a current within the

both ends meet by letting their apartments to strangers. Some may be said to make a business of it; but, on the whole, few let lodgings who can command a better means of livelihood.

It has not been without pain that I have remarked a tendency in popular literature to throw ridicule on the letters of lodgings. In some instances, no doubt, they expose themselves to reproof and sarcasm by their attempts to overreach or deceive customers. But reflect for a moment on the manner in which they are too

often treated. They can never guard altogether against imposition. Persons of the fairest appearance, and with what may seem good references, frequently turn out to be of infamous character. Among those even who are in all ordinary respects unobjectionable, how many are reckless as to the trouble they give, or the destruction of furniture and other articles of which they have the use. It is a matter of droll comment, that as you ascend from storey to storey, the accommodations are progressively shabby. On the first floor, which commands perhaps a couple of guineas a-week, things are pretty decent and entire. On the second, there is an evident falling-off: the carpets are threadbare, chairs are not well-matched, the china is cracked, and the candlesticks have long since lost all pretensions to plating. On ascending to the third floor, things are seen to wear a much more disconsolate aspect: the carpets are now in holes, certain chairs have broken backs, jugs have lost their handles, and the teapot is minus a part of its spout. Now, of all this not a little fun may be made. But are the persons, generally speaking, who take these lodgings, deserving of anything better? It is not the letters of the lodgings who break the backs of chairs, kick holes in the carpets, crack glasses, and knock off the spouts of teapots. It is lodgers themselves who play all these merry pranks. I remember once occupying the second floor of a lodging in London, and was robbed of all comfort by the exploits of a German who lived on the floor beneath. This monster, who was some way connected with one of the theatres, never came home till about one in the morning; and all the way up stairs, and till he went to bed, he amused himself with singing an unintelligible German song. At seven he awoke, and commenced smoking in bed, the fumes from his odious pipe ascending through the whole house. Having thus indulged himself for an hour or two, he rose, and, by way of prelude to breakfast, played an air on a bassoon, or some such atrocious instrument. After this, till he sallied out, towards the afternoon, the whole house was kept in a state of distraction with the noises which he and his visitors unscrupulously made. So great was the nuisance, that I at length removed to another establishment.

small trunk to my lodgings. When I had been settled for a few days, I had leisure to look round on my position, and see what sort of a place my new domicile was. The house in which I lodged consisted of four storeys, and I soon perceived that the portion occupied by the owners was a very insignificant portion indeed. The proprietors were a man and his wife. I mention the wife particularly, because she appeared to all intents and purposes as the sole owner. They had a family of three children. The man was engaged in business during the day, so that he did get a little out-door exercise; but the wife and the children seemed fixtures of the establishment. They reserved to themselves a single room, which was an under-kitchen, and this apartment fulfilled the end of kitchen, wash-house, sitting-room, and drawing-room. Their capacity to live without air seemed to me most wonderful. They appeared to consider themselves as strictly nobody, or rather in the light of second-rate pieces of furniture, to be stowed in the least possible space. As for going out, the mistress never dreamt of such a luxury. The consumption of shoes and bonnets was next to nothing. They never visited any friends, and never invited any. If you talked, as I sometimes did, about the pleasures of the country, and the beauty of green fields, the idea of such things seemed almost unknown, or, if ever known, they seemed entirely to have forgotten it. They were born in London, they had lived all their lives in London, and they scarcely seemed capable of forming a conception of any world beyond its suburbs. I believe this to be a most faithful sketch of a very numerous and singular class, which is to be met with in no other place but the metropolis.

I could not help putting to myself the question, while I was the inmate of this domicile, whether these people were happy, and whether it was the sort of life which befits the dignity and capacity of such a creature as man? It seemed to me, who had been accustomed to society, that this mode of existence was scarcely to be called living, but rather vegetating. Their information was positively nothing, except about the streets in their immediate vicinity. As for reading or meditation, there seemed to be no opportunity for either. There was not poverty, but there seemed to be all the inconveniences arising from it. The children in such a family were objects of great pity: too far from the parks to enjoy themselves there, and too well brought up to play in the streets, they were necessarily confined to the house. I learned many excellent lessons during my lodger-life; and, among others, I learned how thankful ought they to be who had the blessing of a garden behind the house-a thing often slighted, but which no one can fully appreciate until he pays a visit to London in the capacity of a lodger.

Such is a sample of the annoyances to which lodginghouse keepers are constantly exposed; and the repetition of these things tends unquestionably to harden their feelings, and indispose them to take any great pains to make their lodgers comfortable. During a residence of several years in London lodgings, I have had occasion to mark the many privations to which their keepers subject themselves for the sake of a livelihood. For one thing, how surprising their capacity for enduring confinement and want of fresh air. Those In some lodgings which it has been my fate to inwho live long in town do not notice this, but it seldom habit, the master and mistress of the establishment were fails to be remarked by strangers. I shall never forget of a superior class, so far as going out is concerned. how very forcibly I was made acquainted with this They could indulge in a walk on Sunday, or occasionally capacity when I went in search of apartments in the attend the theatre; and I have sometimes been surrespectable but not stylish region which lies between prised at the quantity of knowledge which such persons Queen Square and Grey's Inn. The mode of living in possess of the opera, which they look upon as a kind of lodgings was to me quite a novelty. I had left behind earthly paradise, and which they imagine all the world me the comforts and conveniences of a home; added to ought to be very much delighted with. I believe I have which, I had never been accustomed to live in a town, frequently lost all character for taste, in London, by but had breathed the comparatively pure air of the saying I did not care for the opera. But this is wandersuburb of a provincial city. The street which I selected ing from the subject. I was speaking of lodging-house was one of that sort never seen except in London-keepers who can indulge in an outing (a London word), rather narrow, but clean and quiet. The houses were and these consequently must have some factotum in the uniform, and very high. They could scarcely be said shape of a servant-of-all-work, to whom the mistress to look like private dwelling-houses, yet their appear- can resign the charge of the domicile. We hear a great ance was respectable, though not inviting. They seemed deal about slaves and the horrors of slavery, and women exactly the sort of houses that a large and respectable working in coal-pits, and children working in factories, family would not select, so closely were they packed but it is my conscientious conviction that nobody detogether, and so uninviting was their external aspect. serves more pity than the servant-of-all-work in a lodgNotices in various windows informed the passer-by that ing-house. Up early, and down late, on her feet all day 'furnished apartments' were to be had. After a good long, answering the door, attending to bells, cooking deal of inspection, I obtained two rooms on a first floor, and slaving in the kitchen, carrying up coals to the and shortly afterwards removed my carpet-bag and apartments, sweeping stairs-ordered, worried by every