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Fixing its joyous, but deep-wrinkled eyes Upon the Pillar of the Angels yonder. That is the image of the master, carved By the fair hand of his own child, Sabina.

We had almost forgotten that our old acquaintance the devil plays a somewhat conspicuous part in this poem. He is an uninteresting creature, however—a poor devil-not in the least like the majestic

image of terror that we recollect to have met in the mighty poems of Milton.

We conclude by expressing a hope that when Professor Longfellow writes a poetical tale again, he will not throw away his great powers on such a foolish subject; nor a heroic saint like Elsie on a cowardly sinner like Prince Henry of Hoheneck.

A SUMMER DAY AT SEVRES AND ST. CLOUD.

I WAS heartily tired of Paris. I had wandered through the Tuileries, musing over the fate of emperor and king; I had spent a silent hour of reflection in the dim aisles of Notre Dame, recalling the great scenes which had been transacted within its walls; I had rambled through the endless galleries of the Louvre and the Luxembourg, and was sated with the miles of painting over which my eyes had travelled, until nothing but a kaleidescope impression remained; I had looked into La Morgue with a shudder, had spent some pleasant moments amid the relics of the past at the Hotel Cluny, I had stood in a dozen churches, I had spent evenings at the theatres and operas, had danced at the Bal Mabille, and eaten an ice at Tortoni's; the Gobelins had been visited; Pere la Chaise had no longer any charms; I was equally tired of the great, gaudy, giddy city, with its tall, gaunt houses and its noisy streets, as of the burning August sun which streamed everywhere, scorching the stony pavement, until the very dogs ran limping as if they had passed through an ordeal by fire.

It was while musing over what I had seen, and planning what I should see next, that idly passing by the Madeleine, one morning, a thousand sweet and balmy odours were borne on the breeze-it was a very breath of heaven upon earth-and swiftly carried my thoughts from the city, with its busy hum of life, to the green fields, the rippling streams, and the shady trees of the country.

I was in the flower market. Merry peasant girls, with their exquisitely-arranged flowers, never shown to better advantage than when grouped artisti

cally with a Frenchwoman's taste and eye to colour; old dames, with quaint, high white caps and wrinkled faces, with streams of lovely plants before them, busy chattering and laughing with very Southern vivacity, these picturesque groups, with many buyers of their fragrant goods all scattered around me, made a very pleasant and happy scene. One of the black-eyed damsels, who seemed, by her pretty ear-rings and neat dress, to be an especial favourite with purchasers, as I passed, in a very quiet manner insinuated a sprig of heliotrope into my buttonhole, and archly extending her hand, waited for my expected donation. It was a graceful way of selling a flower, and giving a souvenir of the flower market of the Madeleine to a stranger, so, placing the douceur in lieu of the flower in the girl's fingers, I sauntered on in an idle reverie.

It was not very long before I came to the conclusion of asking my companions to ramble into the country and spend a quiet day, and remembering the beautiful paintings on porcelain which I had seen in the Exhibition, I resolved to visit Sevrés.

I suppose it was because they felt much the same as I did, that my proposal met their ready acquiescence, and one, suggesting that we might also visit St. Cloud, within a mile or so of Sevrés, our party was quickly arranged, and another hour saw five of us seated in the railway. There are some beautiful panoramas of Paris from this line, and I thought I had never seen it from any point of view looking so picturesque as it did just now from the windows of the carriage. Far in the distance, with the sun shining full on it, rose the "Arc d'

Etoile," whence on the previous day we had glanced over the city. From where we now were, whirling rapidly along, we could form, however, a still better idea of the great extent and picturesque beauty, not only of the French capital but of its environs. The many trees scattered through the streets of the city gave it, at this distance, an air of hushed repose and tranquillity very foreign to its real character, while the heights of Montmartre seemed like guardian spirits over the great network of human life which lay spread over the sunny valley.

So on we passed through many a charming scene of forest glade and silver river, brilliant with the yellow light of August, and, perchance, half unconsciously adding to their beauties by the reflected lustre of our own joyous hearts.

Everything was new to us, the trees and the fields seemed different; the well kept vineyards, so neatly and carefully trimmed; yes, everything was different from what custom had made familiar to us. There are no such odd little houses, with green shutters, in the suburbs of London, even amongst the extraordinary collection of architectural curiosities to be found there. One did not meet in a railway train in England such bonnets and such dresses, wandering unprotected, as we did today. Ladies do not in England travel as we saw some do, with demi-morning caps, without bonnets. At railway stations, too, the young female-clerks, distributing the tickets, were novel to our uneducated eyes; for Bloomerism had not as yet taught us of what the fair sex was capable. No, never in England or in Ireland did we see such awkward, ill-dressed, red and blue animals, yclept soldiers. Never at home had we seen guardhouses filled with soldiery, gambling, card-playing, and smoking. In an English railway carriage strange, indeed, to have heard the shrill laughter, the lively badinage, and medley of sounds which here saluted our ears. Yes, everything was a new, an undiscovered country to us; and our sensations were, no doubt, as vivid as they would have been had we visited Canton, and been presented to the Chinese Emperor, or partaken of a greasy banquet with the King of Timbuctoo.

In high good humour with ourselves,

and everybody else, we stepped out of the train at Ville D'Avray, and mustering up the best French at the command of our party, inquired our way to Sevrés. Descending by a steep road, we found ourselves in a shaded avenue of trees, down which we wandered for some time. Now arose the question, which way to turn?-one contended for the right, another for the left, and a third insisted that our directions had been altogether misunderstood, and that we should retrace our steps. We resolved to put one of the rival theories to the great test of experiment, and turned to the right; but one of our companywho, by-the-bye, though the worst French scholar, except myself, generally found his way the best of our party, and who, on this occasion, had advocated the returning system, boldly addressed, at least, half a dozen people, inquiring the route. Où, Sevrés, où ?" exclaimed he, pointing with his stick, gesticulating and bowing profoundly, to a buxom country-woman, and, to his joy, he proved right, and with a smile at his success, and at the reiterated, "Merci, merci!" of myself, who echoed his questions, and came in like a Greek chorus, to do propriety, and correct all omissions in preceding speeches, we retraced our steps along the shady road.

The straggling houses, which had dotted the road for some time, grew more frequent, and we found ourselves in Sevrés; I suppose it should be dignified with the name of a town, though, from habit or association, I am inclined to call it a village. A village!-how much more poetical than a town-a French village. There was something in the very words which had a charm. Every one has seen French towns-but a village, even the novelists had not touched it-it was a terra incognita. Yet withal, Sevrés possessed some of the stateliness and dignity of a town. It had an hotel, an established national manufactory, there were carriages in the street, soldiers walking about, there were suburbs and neat country seats scattered around it. It had a maire, who would no doubt rather be the first man in Sevrés than the second in Paris, and the little place wore its bustling air of self-importance with the same swagger and strut that the fierce soldier at the gate of the manufactory

adjusted his belt and shouldered his musket, and looked with a grand air at the staring "Liberté, Egalité, and Fraternité' on the whitewashed wall. Having passed through the village of Sevrés, for village we are determined to call it, we walked on to the manufactory of porcelain, the principal object of our visit. It is a large, plain, substantial building, not very imposing in its exterior, and indeed quite a leaden casket for gems as rare as Portia's picture. Sauntering up the avenue of trees which led to the principal entrance, and passing an old beggarman, who, in dress and appearance, was quite a French Edie Ochiltree, we rang the bell of the porter's lodge. What a beau-ideal of a little Frenchwoman responded to the peal, "bien chaussée, bien coiffée et bien gantée." So graceful, so quick, so merry, such tosses of her head and fluttering of her ribbons, as she replied to our questions, and informed us the establishment would be open in a few minutes. A pause before an expected pleasure is perhaps useful, but certainly is annoying, and the ten minutes we had to wait, though occupied rightly and fitly enough, discussing the propriety and the fancied necessity of encouraging particular branches of art or trade, by having national manufactories supported by the State, were nevertheless as tedious as any ten minutes could be among friends. Twelve o'clock struck, the gates opened, 'and we entered, directed by our friend at the gate to ascend the stairs to the museum. Sevrés porcelain !— -we had heard of such a thing, nay more, we may have recollected some charming little egg. shell of a cup, which, as a great treasure, was exhibited to our admiring eyes in the days of our boyhood, by some ancient aunt given to old china;

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had seen in the Great Exhibition, and over which, and examining whose every detail, we had passed many a moment, but not all these together could have given us an idea of the exceeding beauty, the exquisite colouring, the matchless finish, and the classical correctness and purity of the designs of the brilliant specimens of French art and taste which now surrounded us.

Some one derives porcelain from the words "pour cent années," because it was at one time believed that the clay took one hundred years to prepare; however that may be, the name is deserved for another reason-it would take a hundred years to imagine the combinations, the tintings, the shapes, and the forms into which it has been and can be moulded.

There is a lesson of the history of civilization taught in the museum at Sevrés, which any historian might read and learn with advantage. There you have the rude earthen jar of Pompeii, graceful in form, but rough in workmanship; there is the eastern water-pot, recalling those of a different material at the marriage in Cana of Galilee; there is the great wine-jar of Spain, all similar in outline and design. Then you have the vases of Rome and of Greece, whose mathematical proportions, faultlessly regular, can never be excelled. There are the gorgeous hues of Chinese art, exquisite material and consummate talent, but no eye to beauty of design, strange birds, fishes, and flowers, covering the polished vases. Then there is a series of English pottery from Staffordshire, showing the progress of the manufacture from the ware of Wedgewood to the statuary porcelain of Mintorn and of Copeland. There are the rich embossed wares of Dresden, gorgeous in their varied tints. There are funeral urns from Herculaneum, an earthen lamp from the shrine of some Indian divinity; in fact, a history illustrated by specimens of the progress of taste in Ceramic art, from the days of the potter's wheel of the prophet to the May day of 1851.

R.J.

(To be continued.)

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And as, entranced, he gazes
Upon the glorious form,

With admiration turned to love,

His swelling heart grows warm:

And he, who never sighed for

Nor wooed an earthly maid,
But pondered on unreal charms
In heavenly light arrayed,
Gazing on this creation

Of his own raptured mind,
Where every charm of womanhood
Appears, in one combined,—

The purity of childhood

A flower's soft, bending grace-
The glory of a Muse inspired-
A dove-like gentleness,

Now feels his bosom burning

With all-unwonted fires;

And to the Powers that rule in Heaven

His soul in prayer aspires :

"Oh hear me, ye immortals

Enthroned above, if e'er

Your stedfast counsels may be moved
By human wish or prayer!

"This blessing of all blessings
To me, your suppliant give!
Condemn me not to hopeless love,
But grant that it may live:

"Oh, breathe a living spirit

Into the ice-cold stone:

Grant it a human voice and heart,
To answer to my own!"

And at his prayer the marble
Begins with life to glow:

The cheeks, like rose-leaves, gently blush:
The locks turn dark, and flow

In waves of raven blackness,
Like clouds of lingering night,
O'ershadowing a forehead fair
And clear as morning's light:

And large dark eyes, as brilliant
And pure as starry rays,
Reveal a living woman's soul
To his enraptured gaze.

Sunlike, she shines upon him
With radiant smiling face,
And gives him back the kiss of love,
And answers his embrace:

Their hearts together throbbing
With joy, and love, and pride,
She from her pedestal descends
To be the sculptor's bride!

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