"Good heaven! there you go again with your duties! but you yourself say that the Church does not require one to kill oneself, body and soul, in its service. If it brought you anything beyond blessings! But see the state in which it has placed you! Look around you! Look at all you possess! Here are the fruits of thirty years' hard work! You have never fifty francs in your purse!" "Alas! my good Marguerite," her master answered, scratching his ear like a school-boy caught out in some trick, "it is very different with the misfortunes of those poor people down there." "Well, you can preach a sermon, and make a collection for them—some one will help them, for certain." "We must hope so. But ought we not to set the example, Marguerite?" "There you are again, with your ridiculous "But who can tell?" murmured the Curé, “Pro-ideas-your false views. Every one should help vidence is good-we should never despair." "You are right; for if Providence does not interfere, I do not see where we are to find a crust for our old age, since you can keep nothing of what you gain now. Look at yourself, if you please. Is there a poorer man in your parish than you are? Where are the fine promises you made me at Easter? Here is the Assumption coming, and what are we to do? What have you made by all your walks to-day? Nothing." “Ah, ah," said the Priest, mysteriously. "Well, then, some poor silver pieces-how will you buy a surplice out of them?" his neighbour according to his means-the rich "Remember that they have nothing." They have neither bread nor clothes." “Good patience!" exclaimed the housekeeper, suddenly struck with a new light. "Dieu de ciel! What have you done with the money you shewed me yesterday?" "Marguerite," he answered, in some confusion, "you need not order my gown yet-I will make this hold till Christmas." Marguerite was interrupted by a violent clap of thunder, which shook the house, while the lightning traced its fiery course along the moun-making this purchase; but self-denying as he tain's side. The old woman seized a blessed branch, which she dipped in the holy water suspended by the wall, and began to shower the sacred drops about, while the Curé recited a fervent prayer. The rain now poured down in torrents, and he tranquilly continued He had voluntarily relinquished the means of was, and willing to sacrifice his own dignity to another's wants, we must not suppose him insensible to the necessity of proper appearances. He was not one of those who condemn every concession to the prejudices of society; and still less was he one of those vain-glorious apostles who pride themselves on their ragged garments. He felt his poverty, but bore it bravely; and was always ready to renounce his most legitimate "What?" she said, fancying she had misun-wishes in favour of another's wants; and thus, derstood him. "What are you saying?" "Marguerite, you must look out for a tailor who can make a surplice properly and quickly, for your master." during ten years, he had not been enabled, with "That you have forgotten that the 25th of all his privations, to amass the small sum necesJuly will soon be here." "Well!" "Well! I called to-day on Madame la Laconne Dubief, who wishes to have ten perpetual masses for her husband's soul; and she begged my acceptance of these two hundred francs in recompense." As he spoke, he drew out a well-filled purse, and Marguerite stretched forth her hand to take it, as if to convince herself that she was not dreaming, when the Curé, uttering a loud cry, suddenly rose. A strong red light was reflected on the mountain's side; he ran to the doorthe flames were bursting from the roof of a house in the middle of the village. "Fire! fire!" he cried. Marguerite, make haste! run-ring the church bell to give the alarm.” 66 She hastened to an inner door which led to the belfry, and the Curé, catching up his hat and cane, hurried to the place of ruin. The next day all was over; one house only, the poorest of all, had perished; but the Cure had lost the greater portion of his gown in the flames. "Fortunately," said Marguerite, as she finished stitching on a piece whose colour did not match particularly well with the rest of the cloth, "fortunately, thanks to Madame la Baronne's generosity, the evil is not without a remedy." sary to the accomplishment of his greatest ambition-a new gown. By dint of thinking of it, and, thanks above all to Marguerite's constant dunning on the subject, the wish had acquired the tenacity of a fixed idea; and certainly, to judge by the deplorable appearance of the old surplice, there was nothing unreasonable in his desire. One could only, on seeing it, deplore the evil destiny which constantly withdrew the long coveted object at the very moment when its attainment seemed most secure. Years had rolled on, holydays had succeeded each other, and still the poor Curé repeated, with indefatigable perseverance "I will buy it next year-at Easter-at Whitsuntide-at the Assumption-at Christmas." Ten times he had gone round the fatal circle; the seasons were renewed-the holydays returned, with pitiless regularity, leaving each time a more perceptible trace of their passage on the folds of the unfortunate gown. With the next spring an unexpected event renewed the Curé's anxiety-a pastoral visit from the Bishop was suddenly announced in his diocese. This news at first threw him into that sort of stupor which arises from imminent danger; he had a vertigo, as if the earth were trembling beneath his steps-then a feverish anxiety and supernatural activity succeeded to this prostration of mind. He went and came, was everywhere, doing a hundred things at the same moment; he talked alone and aloud, using all the means by which cowards seek to shun their fears; but all efforts had one miserable result-he was obliged definitively to renounce all hopes of honourable escape. He saw himself appearing shabby, mean, and seedy-lookinglike a man of dissolute life before his ecclesiastical superior; when Providence came once more to his succour, in the person of a charitable widow, to whom Marguerite had confided his troubles. No time was to be lost-a tailor was sent for from a neighbouring village. The man was poor, and they not only gave him the cloth, but paid him beforehand for his work. On returning homewards, the tailor, who liked a drop, stopped at a little inn, where wine-the poor man's consolation-so bewildered him that he forgot the distinctions between meum and teum. The Curé supported this new stroke with the lethargic insensibility of one who has no longer strength to suffer. They caught the thief; but the Priest would not prosecute him-saying to himself that one misfortune could not repair another, and alleging to the world that the money squandered by the tailor was a gift, not a theft. Marguerite, then, thought her master had gone mad. The redoubtable day arrived, and the chimes of many bells told of the bishop's presence. The Cure, accompanied by his Sacristan and two choristers, went to receive his lordship at the entrance of the village; and the local authorities, in full costume, bore the canopy under which he would walk to the church. The Curé, proud and happy in the dazzlingly white robes which covered his gown, firmly advanced at the head of his little escort, and the procession proceeded along the gaily decked street to the church. Mass was performed, and then he paid his respects to the prelate. his His lordship was seated between his two chaplains, who stood by him in a respectful attitude, and the first persons of the village. He was a very handsome man, about forty years old; manners were highly polished; his birth and countenance were alike noble, and he expressed himself with the grace and fluency of one accustomed to speak in courts. The old Priest felt abashed the moment he doffed his convenient white robes; and the young prelate frowned when he saw the poverty-stricken gown of the venerable Curé, who trembled like a criminal before his judge. "Is your parish then so very poor, sir?" asked the Bishop, "your income so parsimonious, that you cannot afford that care of your person necessary to your sacerdotal dignity?" "If your lordship would excuse "We are far, sir," the prelate gravely continued, "from those happy times when the Church, honoured in herself, needed no other ornaments than the virtues of her servants. Priests now are neither martyrs nor apostles; they are men of the world who re-animate the cause of religion by rendering it respectable and agreeable. To act otherwise, Monsieur le Curé, is to show an unskilfulness or false pride which are equally blameable." 66 Monseigneur, my poverty alone is in fault, I assure you He stopped short; even in self-justification he could not palliate the truth. "I know all. I know that your improvidence and undiscriminating charity compromise the necessary standing of a minister of the church, and I loudly blame your conduct. Go, sir, and remember, that in sacrificing what we owe to ourselves, we risk failing in the respect we owe to others." As soon as the Curé was gone, the Bishop turned to those around him and said, with a smile, "The lesson was rude, but it was neces sary: I think our good Curé will be cured for some time of his excessive liberality. At all events, Monsieur l'Abbé," he added, addressing himself to one of his chaplains, “take care that you quietly send a new gown to my worthy penitent, with three hundred francs for his poor parishioners." Before returning to his house, the Curé, who had been painfully effected by this scene, prayed long in the church-a cold chill struck on him --and on leaving he was ill and feverish. Marguerite scolded less roughly than usual, and obliged him to go to bed. A few days afterwards a doctor stood mournfully by that humble pallet. Marguerite was sobbing in her apron. A stranger entered; on one arm he bore a gown of the finest black; in the other hand he held a heavy purse. "From Monseigneur,” he said. The sick man smiled sadly. "Thank his lordship, I beg-in the name of my successor and recommend to his kindness an ardent preacher, to whom I listened too little." He pointed to the weeping Marguerite. "Just Heaven!" he added in a lower tone; "I have doubtless been ambitious, but since it is so difficult to gain a new gown in this world, grant, I implore, that the poor may be less numerous and housekeepers more tractable." These were his last words. TO W. C. BENNETT. (On receiving his Poems.) I need not ask if, what time eve brings rest, Thy pen have soothed thee; while 'mid fireside rays One gentle form hath met thy loving gaze, With baby innocence upon her breast, All gently breathing in its dreamless sleep. Sweet household joys in pleasant song enshrined Are here, and that gay sunlight of the mind Which Heaven bestows, and only good men keep. Sing on! Of old, the nightingale's clear song Drove countless frogs to hush in blank despair Their own vile voices. So, I deem, a throng Of sweet truth-singers may, 'spite Wrong and Care, Do much to still a thousand noisy lies That torment heaven and earth with old-world cries, And strive-but all without success, thank God!— To catch the ear of man, and turn him from the Onward Road. 22nd Nov., 1851. MARIA NORRIS. Who'll taste those ripenings of the south I almost wish it were my trust I wish I had not, as I must, Sure aim takes Cupid, fluttering foe, -Fraser's Magazine. THOUGHTFUL HOURS: BY A FAST MAN. Husband and wife should run together on an equality it is dangerous for either to take the lead. The most difficult driving is that of a tandem! ** Be not too ready to pronounce that, what you think a bad youth, will necessarily become a bad man. Yonder sturdy oak may have grown from an acorn that had been rejected by a hog! ** How often we hear the harsh expression"A good-natured fool!"-as if the milk of human kindness was always adulterated-like our common milk in London - with calves' brains! For a heavy fellow to try poetry, is like a hod-man marching up Jacob's ladder loaded with bricks. Your gentlemen, who are mad about ancient descent, should adopt the rag-shop's announcement-"The best price given for old bones." A white ash is the sign of a good cigar-as a fair memory of a good life. MUSQUITOES.-These troublesome insects seem nearly equally annoying throughout the New World. I do not think them at all worse in Jamaica, than in Canada or Newfoundland, perhaps not so bad. In marshy places, even in England, the punctures of these minute tor Many young military men are merely orna- mentors (for musquitoes are mercly gnats) are ments-like "arms" put on 66 spoons." -Punch's Pocket-Book. as painful, and perhaps as numerous, as in many parts of Jamaica. Some situations are of course more subject to their presence than others. MATERNAL AFFECTION OF THE CROCODILE. Blue-fields, situated on a rising ground, open -After burying the eggs in the soil, to be there and exposed to the invigorating sea-breeze, enmatured by the sun, the female visits from time joys a remarkable immunity from them. The to time the place in which they are secreted, and, humid forest harbours them, especially in the just as the period of hatching is completed, ex- mountains; and in many cases the roads are alhibits her eagerness for her offspring in the most quite free from them, where if you step into anxiety with which she comes and goes, walks the wood on either side, though only a few around the nest of her hopes, scratches the paces, you would presently be surrounded by fractured shell, and by sounds which resemble their shrill trumpets, and covered with their the bark of a dog, excites the half-extricated bites. There is a good deal of difference in the young to struggle forth into life. When she character of the wounds inflicted by different has beheld, with this sort of joy, fear, and species: those that frequent the lowlands (Culex anxiety, the last of her offspring quit its broken pungens, for example) are of larger size, sing casement, she leads them forth into the plashy with a graver sound, and insert the proboscis pools, away from the river, and among the thick often without any present pain, but a hard white underwood, to avoid the predatory visits of the tumour presently rises on the spot as large as a father. In this season of care and of watchful- silver threepence, which itches intolerably, and ness over them, she is ferocious, daring, and remains attended with dull pain and tension for morose, guarding with inquietude her young many hours. The mountain musquitoes are wherever they wander. She turns when they generally very much smaller, C. fusciatus, for inturn, and by whining and grunting, shows a stance, a minute species: they are more pertiparticular solicitude to keep them in such pools nacious, associate in more numerous swarms, only as are much too shallow for the resort of emit a sharp shrill hum, and produce a sudden the full-grown reptile. When I was in Yasica, twinge as they pierce the flesh, as if a spark of a river district of that name, as many as forty fire had fallen on it. A violent itching is the had been discovered in one of these secret re- immediate result, but it soon goes off, leaves sorts; but in half an hour, when the boys who scarcely any perceptible tumour, and is soon had found them out returned to visit their hiding-forgotten. These, however, are more intolerable place, they saw only the traces of the coming than the former, the recurrence of the sparkand going of the watchful parent who had led like prick at every moment, or rather all over them away to some further and safer retreat. In the exposed parts of the person at the same mothis period of their helplessness, the mother ment, is too maddening to be endured; and it is feeds them with her masticated food, disgorging almost impossible to face a phalanx of these tiny it out to them as the dog does to its pups. In adversaries, where they are numerous, without general it is rarely seen otherwise than crouching some device for keeping them off. A fragment with its belly to the earth, and crawling with a of the earthy nest of the duck-ants (Termites) curvilinear motion; but at this time it may be answers well for this purpose; being ignited, it observed firmly standing on its feet. This is continues to smoulder a considerable time, sendthe attitude of anger and attack; and its springing forth a large volume of smoke; this carried is quick-a sort of agile leap, by no means short in the hand, and waved to and fro, is the most in distance. During all this time of protection effective weapon against these winged warriors. and dependence, is heard the voice, by which—Ibid. the young makes its wants known, and the parent assures its offspring of its superintendence. It is the yelping bark of the dog, and the whining of the puppy. From all these facts I take it that when the sound of the dog's bark is heard, the Caymans press to the spot from which it issues, agitated by two several passions-the females to protect their young, and the males to devour them; and to this, and not to their predilection for the flesh of dogs, are we to ascribe the eagerness with which they scud away, agitated by that voice which in the one case is the thrilling cry of danger, and in the other the exciting announcement of food.-A Naturalist's Sojourn in Jamaica: By Philip Henry Gosse, SATIRE.-A little wit, and a great deal of illnature will furnish a man for satire; but the greatest instance of wit is to commend wellTillotson. fools that have not sense enough to be honest. TRICKS and treachery are the practice of -Anon. CHINESE MAXIMS FROM THE CRYSTAL Let every man sweep the snow from before his own door, and not busy himself about the frost on his neighbour's tiles. Great wealth comes by destiny, moderate wealth by industry. The ripest fruit will not fall into your mouth. The pleasure of doing good is the only one that does not wear out, Dig a well before you are thirsty. Water does not remain on the mountain, nor vengeance in a great mind. to one of its carriers. The carrier falling sick, sent out a boy to deliver the papers, who, being unacquainted with the round, was followed by the dog, who stopped at the door of every subscriber and wagged his tail, never missing one in a list of six hundred. At the door of all subscribers who had not paid for their paper for a length of time, the dog was heard to howl! SILENCE.-Zenc, of all virtues, made his choice of silence; "For by it," said he, “I hear other men's imperfections, and conceal my A LIKELY DOG.-The Albany Knickerbocker gives an account of a wonderful dog belonging | own." LITERATUR E. THE KEEPSAKE (1852). Edited by Miss Power.-(Bogue.)—The first idea of the literary "Annual" as a Christmas and New Year's Gift, was a "happy thought;" and what was intrinsically good five-and-twenty years ago, cannot be intrinsically bad now, provided it have kept pace with the changes and improvements that the progress of time demands. With regard to the Keepsake we positively assert that this is the case. We know very well that it is the fashion to talk of the palmy days of the Annuals as of days gone by; and certainly when fashion, that emblem of caprice, sets up its hoot and its cry, the noise is not easily to be quelled. There is no help but patience; and though meanwhile a great deal of injustice is perpetrated, by-andby the truth again comes to light. We most sincerely believe that the Annuals were first run down by a set of newspaper writers, soi disant critics, but in reality disappointed authors, who, without talent or repute, failed to get themselves admitted into the charmed circle of "Keepsake" or "Souvenir" contributors. Things are very different now: within the last dozen years a new race of reviewers has sprung up, men of wider capabilities, finer appreciation, and much nicer honour; but still, as they seem to have felt no particular vocation to write up the Annuals probably really never looking into them -a certain repute for frivolity (the mud flung at them) has to some extent remained unremoved. Half-a-dozen old favourites have died of the slander, gone out of existence from the world of things that are; but the KEEPSAKE, the strongest it would appear of its race, comes to us as the last leaves are falling, and in its accustomed suit of crimson and gold looks like a Christmas visitor whom we should be sorry indeed to miss. We open at the first page, "List of Contributors." Ha! what names are here? Thomas Carlyle and Charles Dickens to begin with; and their articles-believe us, dear reader -are by no manner of means those "sweepings of the study" which the decrier of the annual always pronounces its articles with a "name" attached to be. By no means, but papers that would have shone forth with honour 66 in the pages of a first-rate magazine, and intoxicated its editor with delight in procuring them. To be sure Carlyle calls his article an extract from an unpublished work by an American friend; but no lover of the great Scottish philosopher can have any doubt about the rounding of his periods, or mistake the words of another for his, any more than they would take the gaspings of an accordion for the swell of a cathedral organ. Dickens's "To be Read at Dusk," is a semi-supernatural story-or stories rather-full of fine fancies, and picturesque description, reminding the reader (being fully as good) of those exquisite short tales which appeared under the head of " Master Humphrey's Clock." Albert Smith also contributes an excellent sketch, "Alexandria to Cairo;" and there is a vivid ghost-story, entitled Hartsore Hall;" while Mrs. Abdy, Mrs. Shipton, Maria Norris, and the accomplished Editress herself, supply stories of first-rate quality. In the poetical department shine Barry Cornwall, Monckton Milnes, Lord John Manners, C. H. Hitchings, W. C. Bennett, Mrs. D. Ogilvy, and other poets of less note, but great merit; one of the characteristics of the Keepsake being, that articles without popular names to recommend them, have a sterling excellence about them which piques curiosity to know who are the authors. In short the present volume will bear comparison with any of its predecessors. The engravings have been executed under the superintendence of Mr. Frederick Heath, who evidently inherits his father's taste and talents, and are from drawings by the first artists. The portrait of Lady Dorothy Nevill, engraved by Mote, after Buckner, is very beautiful; and "The Farewell," "Helen," and "The Orphan," are likewise among our favourites. Teazle," a characteristic and highly-finished plate, has suggested an apropos chapter by Mrs. Newton Crosland, in which we believe some truths about the drama are expressed— heterodox as at the first sight they may appear. Lady THE PARLOUR LIBRARY. (Simms and M'Intyre.)-Two recent numbers of this excel |