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THE BOOK OF THE MONTH.

The Mill on the Floss. BY GEORGE ELIOT, Author of " Adam Bede."

THE appearance of "Adam Bede," some twelve months since, was hailed by the readers of fiction as proclaiming the advent of a new, fresh, and powerful writer. The book excited an absorbing interest in the minds of the subscribers to the circulating-library, whose voracity for fiction is only paralleled by that of the Esquimaux for blubber and train-oil, and whose wants are met by caterers chief among whom is the magnate Mudie. Very natural was it, that a book which had so deeply affected the emotions of the novel-reader should also stir his curiosity. On concluding the final chapter, the delighted novel-reader turned once more to the commencement of the book, and fastened upon its title-page. After some reflection, a spirit of hardy scepticism came over this typical representative of his class-and, out of his gratitude, he began to doubt the sex of the author. Notwithstanding the very masculine christian and surname placed upon the title-page, it was considered that certain traits of style betokened the hand of a lady. "Jane Eyre" immediately recurred to the mind of the sceptic, and the transformation of Currer Bell into Charlotte Brontë was deemed a sufficiently good precedent for a similar change in this instance. Unfortunately, the feminine equivalent for George Eliot was not forthcoming at this stage. But, after some short epistolary skirmishing in the newspapers, it appeared that the author was really a lady-a Miss Evans; and, although George Eliot is again placed on the title-page of "The Mill on the Floss," all its readers with the exception of a few illogical individuals who are said to consider the workmanship too good for a woman-will agree in assigning its creation to a feminine brain.

The novel opens with a dialogue between Mr. Tulliver and his wife, wherein the male member makes known to his better half his resolution about Tom, his son. Mr. Tulliver is the owner of Dorlcote Mill, standing on the "Floss "—a broad, navigable river, which "hurries on, between its green banks, to the sea." "I mean to put him to a downright good school at midsummer," says Mr. Tulliver. "The two years at th' academy 'nd ha' done well enough, if I'd meant to make a miller and farmer of him; for he's had a fine sight more schoolin' nor ever got all the schoolin' my father ever paid for was a bit o' birch at one end and th' alphabet at th' other. But I should like Tom to be a bit of a scholard, so as he might be up to the tricks o' them fellows as talk fine and write with a flourish. It 'ud be a help to me wi' these law-suits, and arbitrations, and things. I wouldn't make a down-right lawyer o' the lad-I should be sorry for him to be a raskill."

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Thus speaks Mr. Tulliver, farmer and miller, apparently prosperous, but, in reality, sunk in embarrassment, through always being at law.

Mr. Tulliver has a special hatred for lawyers -they are never spoken of but as "raskills"

the agents of Satan; and in giving his boy, Tom, a "scholard's education," it is with the view of making him a match for these wily gentry. We are presently introduced to Tom Tulliver and Maggie-the son and daughter of the miller. A considerable portion of the first volume is taken up in laying bare the minds of this boy and girl. Maggie is a wayward, impulsive, fretful, passionate, sensitive girl. Tom is a strong, practical, unromantic, domineering boy; and, in depicting their early characters, the authoress has made Tom, the boy, father to the man; and Maggie, the child, is but a foreshadowing of Maggie, the woman.

The father insists on putting his son to a better school than that which he is in at present, for the reasons above given. Mrs. Tulliver consents, after suggesting that she should "kill a couple o' fowl, and have th' aunts and uncles to dinner, next week, so that they may hear what sister Glegg and sister Pullet have got to say about it."

The portrait of Mrs. Tulliver is sketched, at this point, in a few powerful touches.

The three sisters of Mrs. Tulliver are drawn with remarkable force, but all their characters are so hard and disagreeable, that one feels the want of some relief. So uninviting are these three representatives of the awful "Dodson family," that one seeks to believe that, unlike all the rest of the book, they are unnatural creations. They are all vulgar, selfish, and narrow-minded. Mrs. Glegg, the eldest of the Dodson girls, is a bitter being, the wife of a "wool-stapler, retired from active business for the purpose of enjoying himself through the rest of his life." Mrs. Pullet is a tearful woman with a passion for tidiness and order. Mrs. Deane is a swarthy woman, of a sour disposition. One of these ladies has a daughter, Lucy Deane, a neat, pretty, amiable girl, and a most striking contrast to the daughter of Mr. Tulliver, Maggie, who is chiefly remarkable for her tall, graceful form, dark, heavy locks, and brown skin.

After some domestic deliberations, Mr. Tulliver sends Tom for his "first half" to the Rev. Mr. Stelling, a well-sized, broad-chested man, not yet thirty, with flaxen hair standing erect, and large, lightish-grey eyes, which were always very wide open. He had a sonorous bass voice, and an air of defiant self-confidence, inclining to brazenness. He had entered on his career with great vigour, and intended to make a considerable impression on his fellow-men. In short, Mr. Stelling meant to rise in his profession, and to rise by merit, clearly, since he had no interest beyond what might be promised by a problematical relationship to a great lawyer who had not yet become a Lord Chancellor. A clergyman who has such vigorous intentions naturally gets a little into debt at starting

it is not to be expected that he will live in the meagre style of a man who means to be a poor curate all his life. Under the direction of this worthy divine, Tom Tulliver's practical mind is plunged into all the awful míseries of Latin grammar and Euclid, these being the Rev. Mr. Stelling's text-books for making a sound scholar. He believes in no other sort of training for a boy. After some time, Tom finds a slight diversion in his toilsome studies in the advent of a new pupil, Philip Wakem, the son of Lawyer Wakem, old Mr. Tulliver's enemy. The boy Philip is a hump-back, but is endowed with a fine and sensitive nature. The lad has the perception of an artist, the soul of a poet. Tom's feelings on first seeing this poor youth are graphically detailed. He had a vague notion that the deformity of Wakem's son had some relation to the lawyer's rascality, of which he had so often heard his father talk with hot emphasis; and he felt, too, a half-admitted fear of him, as probably a spiteful fellow, who, not being able to fight you, had cunning ways of doing you a mischief by the sly.

So far there is very little complication of plot-indeed, the first volume is chiefly a collection of portraits, with a slight variation of incident, or, more properly speaking, it is a chain of events. But troubles for the house of Tulliver are at hand.

We should have liked to have quoted a series of bright, freshly-painted portraits from this novel. Our limited space forbids this. We must proceed, rather, to give our readers a slight notion of the plot. The miller has lost his great law-suit, and his ruin is impending. Lawyer Wakem has been the chief instrument in bringing the affair to a termination so disastrous to Mr. Tulliver. The violent struggle which ensues in the mind of the miller is described with a minuteness and a power truly marvellous. Mr. Tulliver must now become the agent of his hated neighbour, the "raskill" Wakem. He determines to serve him like an honest man, but, in the overwhelming force of his malice, he makes his son inscribe, at his dictation, a terrible curse in the family Bible. And so the Tullivers set out on their journey through the valley of humiliation. A long and weary journey it is, but the Tulliver family are stout of heart, and both Tom and his father are resolved to remove the disgrace of debt by years of manful energy. Time goes by. Maggie is now seventeen. Her form has developed into queenly proportions. Long intervals of silent, solitary self-communing have given her mind an unusual fervour and intensity. The deformed youth, Philip, has been abroad, and has now coine home; and the childish gratitude of the maiden for his gentle sympathy with her has ripened into love for the son of her father's enemy and master. She has stolen interviews with her lover in the Red Deeps, an exhausted stone-quarry. Discovery awaits the lovers, however. Tom, who combines all the decision and inflexibility of the Dodson nature with the hard, practical character of his father, suspects his sister, and, on extracting a confession from her, forces her to spurn her lover, whom he cruelly insults. There is another pair of lovers in the shape of Lucy Deane and Mr. Stephen

Guest, "whose diamond ring, attar of roses, and air of nonchalant leisure at twelve o'clock in the day, are the graceful and odoriferous result of the largest oil-mill and the most extensive wharf in St. Oggs."

Poor Maggie! Her whole heart belongs to Philip Wakem; but Stephen has been fascinated by her magnificent form and powerful intellect. The young man forsakes Lucy Deane for Maggie. Maggie's wild, impulsive nature betrays her into what will appear to most readers a cruel piece of treachery towards her cousin. Hardly has she realized the extent or nature of her feelings towards Stephen Guest, when this bold and disloyal lover rows away with her out to sea in a boat. He declares his passion; but honour and duty are not dead in Maggie's breast. She spurns the offer of his hand, and, with an angry resistance, demands to be taken back. She returns, but her absence has been remarked; the town of St. Oggs is scandalized, and unhappy Maggie is sacrificed on the altar of social propriety. The bitter reproaches of Tom cut like a whip; his words are awful in their intensity of scorn. The catastrophe approaches: the old mill is swept away by an inundation; Maggie and Tom seek to escape in a boat; the frail craft is borne along the dark flood; but, just as the sight of some tall, strong houses revives hope in their breasts, death, in a most horrible shape, starts up before them. The boat is driven against some immense fragments of wooden machinery, which are being driven along with the boiling current. Brother and sister are clasped in each other's arms as the boat is driven beneath the black water, and, when it reappears, keel upwards, both have gone down in an embrace never to be parted.

Although the "Mill on the Floss" may be set down as inferior to "Adam Bede," it displays no evidence of diminished powers in its author. In some quarters, surprise has been expressed that George Eliot-or Miss Evanscould have produced so grand a piece of literary workmanship within a year after the publication of her "Adam Bede." But it surely must have escaped these people, that such a book as that could never have been written without vast preparation. A goodly pile of MS. must have been the forerunner of this first work. The order of publication is not necessarily the order of composition. Did not Charlotte Brontë's "Professor" appear as a posthumous work? And is it not known that this was the very novel which the lamented lady sent to almost every publisher in the United Kingdom without finding one willing to produce it to the public? And was not "Jane Eyre," the first novel published, in reality written subsequently to this last-issued work?

We believe the "Mill on the Floss" to be inferior to "Adam Bede," merely because it was written partly, if not totally, before "Adam Bede." To our mind, the comparatively crude sketches of the Dodson family were the first efforts of the author in that marvellous, minute, and daring style of wordpainting which resulted in the more mellow and harmonious characters of Mr. and Mrs. Poyser, &c.

BILLS OF FARE FOR DINNERS IN MAY.

SOUPS.-Asparagus Soup, Soup à la Julienne, Potage Printanier or Spring Soup, Calf's Head Soup, Soup à la Reine.

FISH.-Carp, chub, crabs, crayfish, dory, herrings, lobsters, mackerel, red and grey mullet, prawns, salmon, shad, smelts, soles, trout, turbot.

MEAT.-Beef, lamb, mutton, veal. POULTRY.-Chickens, ducklings, fowls, green geese, leverets, pullets, rabbits.

VEGETABLES.- -Asparagus, beans, early cabbages, carrots, cauliflowers, cresses, cucumbers, lettuces, peas, early potatoes, salads, sea-kale -various herbs.

FRUIT.-Apples, green apricots, cherries, currants for tarts, gooseberries, melons, pears, rhubarb, strawberries.

RECIPES.

Soup à la Julienne.

INGREDIENTS.- pint of carrots, pint of turnips, pint of onions, 2 or 3 leeks, head of celery, i lettuce, a little sorrel and chervil, if liked, 2 oz. of butter, 2 quarts of stock. Mode. Cut the vegetables into strips of about 1 inch long, as shown in the engraving, and be particular they are all the same size, or some will be hard whilst the others will be done to a pulp. Cut the lettuce, sorrel, and chervil into larger pieces; fry the carrots in the butter, and pour the stock boiling to them. When this is done, add all the other vegetables, and herbs, and stew gently for at least an hour. Skim off all the fat, pour the over thin soup slices of bread, cut round about the size of a shilling, and serve.

Time.-1 hour. Average cost, 1s. 3d. per quart. Sufficient for 8 persons.

Note. In summer, green peas, asparagustops, French beans, &c., can be added. When the vegetables are very strong, instead of frying them in butter at first, they should be blanched, and afterwards simmered in the stock.

Potage Printanier, or Spring Soup. INGREDIENTS.- a pint of green peas, if in season, a little chervil, 2 shredded lettuces, 2 onions, a very small bunch of parsley, 2 oz. of butter, the yolks of 3 eggs, 1 pint of water, seasoning to taste, 2 quarts of stock.

Mode.-Put in a very clean stewpan the chervil, lettuces, onions, parsley, and butter, to 1 pint of water, and let them simmer till tender. Season with salt and pepper; when done, strain off the vegetables, and put twothirds of the liquor they were boiled in to the stock. Beat up the yolks of the eggs with the other third, give it a toss over the fire, and at the monent of serving, add this, with the vegetables which you strained off, to the soup.

Time.- of an hour. Average cost, 1s. per quart. Sufficient for 8 persons.

THE FLOWER GARDEN.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS AND DIRECTIONS. -With the exception of June, this month is the driest in the year. The weather becomes gradually warmer, but, as an occurrence of severe frosts in the night is not unusual, it will be well to be provided against the injury which will be occasioned by these. In all gardens, by this time, all the walks ought to have been picked up, if necessary, all weeds removed, the lawns mowed, so as to give every chance for the flowers soon to display their beauties.

WHAT SEEDS TO Sow.-Seeds of Brompton and Queen stocks, tiger flowers, mignonette, and annuals may be now sown to succeed those which were sown in April. The annuals should be sown in patches, and, as soon as they begin to show themselves, they should be gradually thinned, as this operation will greatly increase the strength of those which remain. Other seedlings also, which require it, should be pricked out and transplanted.

WHAT PLANTS TO BED OUT.-As fuchsias, geraniums, verbenas, and hydrangeas attain a much finer growth when placed in the open ground than when they are kept in the flowerpots, as do also all similar plants, it will be well to plant these out into the borders about the end of the month. Both verbenas and geraniums, being of a straggling growth, are not well adapted to mix with other flowers. When planted in small beds by themselves, circles, ovals, pine-shapes, &c., they will answer much better, and make a far more beautiful effect. Cupheas may now be planted, and little patches also of the dwarf blue lobelia, to which may be added the tall scarlet flower. Dahlias may also now be planted.

THE ORCHARD AND FRUIT TREES.

It will be very necessary to keep a sharp lookout for the insects which, now that the warm weather has invited them forth from their winter hiding-places, will very likely play "old gooseberry" with the fruit-trees.

THE KITCHEN GARDEN.

WHAT SEEDS TO SOW AND VEGETABLES TO PLANT.-A row of cauliflowers may be planted this month, in addition to those which have already been planted, and the ground should be well stirred amongst the latter. A further planting of potatoes may also be now made, and the ground earthed-up round the earlier ones, taking care, at the same time, to remove all weeds. Such rows of peas and beans which had not previously been hoed and staked, should now be attended to. Cabbages, lettuces, celery, and other crops of this kind, which require it, should now be pricked or planted out. Crops of vegetables to succeed those already in the ground may now be sown, and, if not already done, a full potato and scarlet-runner crop may be planted. Endive and broccoli should also be sown. Carrots, parsnips, and onions should also be thoroughly hoed, thinned out, and weeded, so that they may grow strongly and finely. At night and early in the morning, snails and slugs should be carefully removed from all young lettuces, cabbages, scarlet runners, and other vegetables.

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THE FASHIONS.

We have just been inspecting the show-rooms of our first houses, and will describe two or three out-door garments for the beginning of the fine season. In the first place, for the country and sea-side, we saw a demi-saison made of a thin grey cloth, in the form of a jacket, with side-pieces. It had a narrow square collar bordered by a diminutive fancy trimming; buttons in front as far as the waist; close sleeves, with passementerie figuring a square opening. The back was quite straight, without a seam down the middle; pockets in front, with passementerie round the openings.

For a more dressy toilet, there was a mantilla forming a shawl, and trimmed with two deep flounces, the lower one draped at the sides by a bow of ribbon or gimp. The flounces terminate in a point in front, and the ground is decorated with two rows of gimp trimming.

AS TO DRESSES, they are all trimmed at the bottom only. One of the prettiest we have seen, intended for the spring season, had nine narrow flounces scarcely exceeding a nail in width. Just over the highest flounce, a row of buttons begins and runs up to the top. The body is plain and the waist short. The sleeves, wide, with an elbow, form a band just below the bend of the arm. A narrow frill is put on the revers. These sleeves are always accon.. panied by large puffed muslin under-sleeves.

Another dress has its flounces arranged in three groups; the bottom one consists of five, the next of three, and the third of two. The sleeves are puffed and slashed, with a ribbon bow in each of the slashes.

IN BALL DRESSES there is little novelty, for winter balls are almost over, and summer balls have not begun.

Dresses are worn so long behind that they form quite demi-trains, but in the front they are made only the ordinary length, just to touch the ground.

A NEW TRIMMING for dresses we may here mention. It consists of rows of velvet squares round the skirt, each square touching at the corners. These squares are first cut in stiff muslin, and then covered with black velvet by turning over the edges and sewing on the under side. The squares are then slip-stitched on to the dress. Smaller squares form a trimming for the sleeves, which are made large and open. A small lace collar is worn with it, and puffed under-sleeves trimmed with lace.

BONNETS are worn rather large this season, slightly pointed in the front, raised at the top, projecting slightly over the face, and receding at the side. White crape bonnets are exceedingly fashionable. We may also mention a new trimming for bonnets: it consists of a straw chain, which may be looped on the bonnet in any way that taste and fancy may dictate. They are also trimmed with a bow at the top, without ends.

Plain crinoline bonnets are very suitable for the spring season, trimmed with black lace and some bright shade of ribbon-pink is very fashionable, also Eugénie blue and maize.

FOR HEAD-DRESSES we have quite a change of style. The cachepeigne is no longer worn, but the trimming is placed high at the top of the head, and very little at the back. For the morning, ribbon is much used. A pretty headdress is made of three rosettes of ribbon to the front, with a rosette of black lace between each; a piece of ribbon then passes down each side of the head, and finishes at the back with a knot and two short ends.

DESCRIPTION OF FASHION PLATE. 1. WALKING DRESS. - Bonnet of white crape, with a bunch of feathers at the side, and trimmed with white blonde. The front is wide at the bottom, and rather flat at the top, with a full white cap in the inside. On the right-hand side of the bonnet is a bunch of ostrich feathers, which should be so arranged as to fall a little over the front of the bonnet, and the tips fastened in the cap. On the left hand, inside, is a bunch of green and white daisies. The curtain is formed of one piece of crape, and is covered with a piece of blonde rather wider than the curtain, so that it just comes below all round. The strings are of plain white silk ribbon, with a very narrow fancy edge of the same colour.

Dress of white muslin, with a double shawl of the same material. The dress has seven flounces, each one trimmed with small ruchings of green. The edge of the shawl is trimmed to correspond.

The

2. WALKING DRESS.-White silk bonnet, bound with black velvet and trimmed with blonde and violet poppies. The front is bound with black velvet, covered with blonde. curtain is made of black velvet, and trimmed with blonde to correspond, and should be made spreading. The crown is soft, and made of white silk. Three violet poppies are arranged on one side of the bonnet, rather forward, so that one of them comes into the cap. Full cap of white blonde, with white ribbon strings.

Dress with plain skirt in violet-coloured silk. Black silk mantle, falling over the shoulders, with two frills, the top one finished off by a puffing of black silk,

3. DRESS For a little Girl of EIGHT OR NINE YEARS OF AGE.-Straw hat, with turned-up edges, trimmed with green velvet. A feather is fastened in the front, and falls over to the back on the left side.

Dress of pink and white striped material, trimmed with strips of darker rose-coloured silk. The body is three-quarters high, and is trimmed with a berthe, which crosses in front. The sleeve forms a puff, with one frill; the waist is round, with a rose-coloured sash tied in front. The skirt is trimmed with three flounces. The width of the rose-coloured silk on the berthe and sleeves is an inch and a half; that on the bottom flounce, three inches; on the middle one, two inches and a half, and on the top one, two inches. The drawers are trimmed with muslin embroidery.

Enthishwomans ConUERSAZIONE

corre.

spondent, not a young lady, we think, is in a terrible fright about our going to war with France, or France going to war with us. She thinks, she says, if we have no objection, that the first is the best; by which we fancy she means that we had better go to war in France. Yes, that certainly would be the better plan; for no Englishman or Englishwoman would like to see Napoleon's Zouaves, and the Chasseurs de Vincennes, quartered in the pleasant cornfields of Sussex, or turning the Kentish hop-poles into tent-poles. And then, too, terrible question -most terrible of all questions-where would our ladies get, how could they get, when could they get, that without which we are perfectly assured that no young maid, or middle-aged matron, could do without-the Paris fashions; especially now they have once seen them engraved, printed, and painted so beautifully in this magazine? No, Miss J. Purr (does she mean j'ai peur?), the force of fashion alone, we believe, and the immense interests connected with the ENGLISHWOMAN'S DOMESTIC MAGAZINE, would keep this nation from a war with France. This is in entire confidence; but we hereby give each of our readers permission to impart the secret to her husband, brother, or lover (yes), so that he may take it into account in his next operations on the Stock Exchange, and, as a return for the information, present her with a new silk dress (now the duty is off, they don't cost much) and a set of the eight volumes of the ENGLISHWOMAN'S DOMESTIC MAGAZINE already pub

lished.

GEORGIANA.-Be kind enough to send your real name and address. These must always accompany every letter, not necessarily for publication, but as a pledge of the good faith of the writer.

MILLICENT TURNBULL."Wayside Weeds and Forest Flowers" will be commenced in our next number. The first part will be devoted to directions for collecting, examining, drying, and preserving wild-flowers.

CAROLINE. You are not quite right in your estimate of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough. Her beauty was always of the scornful and imperious kind, and her features and air announced nothing that her temper did not confirm; both together, her beauty and temper, enslaved her heroic lord, who, though so great a general in the field, was as nothing in his own house. One of her principal charms was a prodigious abundance of fine fair hair. One day, at her toilette, being in anger with him, she cut off her commanding tresses and flung them in his face. Nor did her insolence stop there, nor stop till it had totally estranged and worn out the patience of the poor Queen, her mistress. The Duchess was often seen to give her Majesty her fan and gloves, and turn away her own head, as if the Queen had offensive smells. Incapable of due respect to her superiors, it was no wonder she treated her children and inferiors with supercilious contempt. Her eldest daughter, the Countess Godolphin, and she were long at variance, and never, indeed, reconciled. With her youngest daughter, the Duchess of Montrose, old Sarali, as Walpole calls her, agreed as ill. "I wonder," said the Duke of Marlborough to them, "that you cannot agree, you are so much alike." (That was the reason they could not, we should say.) Of her granddaughter, the Duchess of Manchester, daughter of the Duchess of Montagu, she affected to be fond. One day she said to her, "Duchess of Manchester, you are a good

creature, and I love you mightily-but you have a mother!" And she has a mother," answered the Duchess of Manchester, who was all spirit, justice, and honour, and could not suppress sudden truth. In these days, as you suggest, we are not so outspoken; it is ill-bred, remember, either to argue, suggest a contradiction, or have a mind of your own.

STAR-GAZER "The Poetry of the Months," you will see, is commenced in this number. Poems on "June" will be printed in the June number; on "July," in July, and so on. Each paper should be sent to the office on or before the 5th of the month preceding that in which the poems will be printed.

ENQUIRER.-Mr. Augustus Mayhow, whose graceful fun we don't wonder at your admiring, will contribute a series of papers, under the title of "Mrs. Letts's Diary. Including the opinions of a young and tender wife. Edited by a lady of thirty years' vast experience. Prepared for the press by Augustus Mayhew."

EMMA E.-You like, of course, to be "in the fashion." No young lady of sense and position wishes to be unlike her sisters and her cousins. It isn't in human nature that she should. In reply to your query respecting bonnets, we have to say that the reign of small bonnets is extinct; that dynasty is dethroned to give way to much larger-sized ones, which come considerably forward over the head, and have a somewhat "coal-scuttle" appearance in front, while the back of the bonnet is composed of a "loose crown." So, if a young gentleman given to punning asks you to lend him five shillings, you can't now be able to reply that you haven't a loose crown about you. Mothers, therefore, beware!

ADA S.-We agree with you in thinking that the horrid little London boys are a very great nuisance indeed; but we fear Sir Peter Laurie, with all his alderman's horses and all his alderman's men, can't put them down. That the amplitude of your crinoline should have been treated, as you say, by a number of little boys, posted at regular distances in Chancery-lane, as they would have treated their common iron hoops, is too much for us to bear. We hope you will have more mercy on our nerves in future than to tell us of such horrible war-whoops.

MARIAN HETHERIDGE. We shall be happy to receive the selections from your album, and hope others of our friends will grant us a peep into some of their treasures in this way; for we are convinced that clever jeux d'esprit and interesting impromptus are lying perdus in the pages of many a young lady's album. Open their beauties to the world, fair readers, and be generous in extending to the thousands who read the EN LISHWOMAN'S DOMESTIC MAGAZINE that which has hitherto charmed but a small circle. What you allude to, we fancy, are the lines written by the poet Campbell to a young lady who asked him to write "something original" for her album.

An original something, fair maid, you would win me
To write-but how shall I begin?
For I fear I have nothing original in me
Excepting Original Sin.

If the selections from your album are not less clever than the above, we think you may depend on seeing them in print.

MRS. GORE (Reading).-We admit that that is a part of the newspaper which we always avoid, for we cannot own to any liking for reading of the brutal murders which, it is a strange thing to observe, so many of the weaker sex prefer to become acquainted with. You speak in your letter of an act of coolness, but we don't think it is equal to what occurred in the case of a footman of Lord Dacre, who was hanged, as nearly as possible, hundred years ago, for murdering his fellow-servant, the butler. George Selwyn had a great hand in bringing him to confess his crime, and you may imagine the coolness of the wretch from the fact that, as he was writing his confession, he stopped at "I murd-," and asked, "How do you spell murdered?"

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