jackets with broad crimson facings, yellow belts, pantaloons and gloves, jack-boots, and enormous cocked hats edged with gold lace. Following in the suite of this august personage, with his admission-ticket in his hand, he was not a little surprised when the Garde Nationale stationed at the gates informed him that he could only enter the church by the Descent from the Cross, which after a little explanation he found to be the name of one of the side doors upon which his book was billeted. Five minutes' shouldering enabling him to penetrate to the proper entrance, he was admitted into the building, the spacious cross ailes of which were hung with tapestry, handsome perhaps some fifty years ago, but wearing now a most sorry, threadbare, and forlorn appearance. The company were ranged in chairs upon the pavement, leaving a passage in the middle, up and down which were perpetually passing priests, choristers, beadles, and vergers of every description; "Peel'd, patch'd, and piebald, linsey-woolsey brothers," intermixed with Gardes du Corps looped round the arm with a profusion of silver cord, king's pages with their broad white shoulder-knots falling down to their wrists, and the fur grenadier caps of the National Guard, who were on duty with fixed bayonets, giving the word of command, and rattling their musquets as unconcernedly as if standing at ease upon the Place d'Armes. At the meeting of the cross ailes was a large elevated platform, carpeted, and exhibiting various little thrones for the mayor, the prefect, and all those obscure dignitaries of a country town, who endeavour

to obtain by their self-importance some compensation for the insignificance of their offices; and in front of two elevated crimson arm-chairs were seen the representatives of the illustrious godfather and godmother, suggesting, from the anniversary (Twelfth Day), the gorgeousness of their apparel, and the royal association, that they might peradventure be some gilt king and queen accidentally transplanted from a huge English twelfth-cake.

In the centre of this platform, under a baldaquin or square canopy of crimson silk, edged with broad gold fringe, and surmounted with plumes of ostrich feathers, were suspended the great objects of curiosity —the four sisters, whose sumptuous and tasteful dress justified the words of Ovid-" Non omnibus una, nec diversa tamen, qualem decet esse sororum." A Parisian milliner had been summoned for their equipment, to the great scandal of the Versaillian sisterhood, who, maintaining their competency to adorn belles of flesh and blood, could not understand why those of metal should be deemed beyond the researches of their art. Mary, as the eldest, was the most splendidly attired, wearing a superb petticoat of embroidered gold brocade, over another of silver tissue, festooned at the bottom, and fastened with white satin rosettes, so as to exhibit the end of the clapper, like a fairy foot, peeping out beneath. Anatole, Martin, and Zoe, were arrayed alike, in plain gold brocade over a silver tissue; and the whole four displayed much more of humanity in their appearance than certain hooped Dowagers who may be seen

sideling through the rooms at St. James's on a Courtday. The solemnities began with a Latin hymn to the beautiful air of "La Suissesse au bord du Lac;" for the Catholics, like Rowland Hill, see no reason why the Devil should have all the good tunes; and none of the customary splendours observed in the grand ceremonials of the church were omitted. Priests without number, and in every variety of costume, enacted their theatrical mummery; little bells were rung, little boys scattered incense, little censers of fuming frankincense were carried to and fro; the bells to be baptised were crossed by the Pontiff, and anointed with the huile des infirmes, as well as with the holy chrism, until the time arrived for the sponsors to give their answers, when an expedient was adopted, which, considering the responsibility they might have otherwise incurred, does infinite credit to the prudence of those august and bedizened personages. A white satin ribbon being passed from the iron tongue of each bell to the hands of the sponsors, they gave a smart pull every time a response was required, and thus made the sisters answer for themselves. Mary, Anatole, and Martin, signified their acquiescence by a very distinct and sonorous toll; but Zoe, the youngest, seemed to hesitate, and make very imperfect attempts at enunciation. Some said it was mauvaise honte, others surmised that she lisped, a third attributed it to timidity; to which a fourth rejoined, that any one might be excused a little alarm who was on the point of being hung up in the belfry but it was presently discovered that a portion of the silver tissue had intervened between

the clapper and the side of the bell; which impediment being removed, Mademoiselle Zoe instantly uttered a petulant and sharp toll, as if anxious to show that she had as good a tongue in her head as any of her sisters. Thrice did each deliver a similar response to as many interrogatories; and if, after this public and solemn pledge made before the proxies of Majesty, and in presence of the assembled population of Versailles, they can ever forfeit their words and be wanting to their duty, I can only say they must have more brass in their composition than even the manufacturer himself is probably aware of.

A sermon followed, in which the metallic sisterhood were apostrophized, exhorted, and dehorted; to all which they submitted with becoming resignation, except for a single moment, when Anatole, in the midst of a most pathetic appeal, sent forth a sudden and dissonant clash. As strenuous endeavours are now making to bring miracles into vogue, this occurrence was at first hailed as a supernatural manifestation, but a moment's inquiry ascertained that it was attributable to the gigantic Swiss Beadle, who had accidentally entangled his foot in the satin ribbon, and jerked out of Anatole's iron jaws that alarming yell. As far as the writer's observation extended, he verily believes that the congregation would have been deeply edified by the discourse, could they have only determined whether Madame de Veracques' veil and lappets were vraie dentelle de Malines, ou de Bruxelles; and he is the more inclined to this opinion, because at the conclusion of the ceremony, when the whole as

semblage was allowed to mount the platform and walk round the bells, there was not one who did not appear to be profoundly penetrated with the solemnity of the brocade, and suitably affected by the awfulness of the white satin rosettes.

A LECTURE UPON HEADS AND UNWRITTEN BOOKS.

"A creature of a more exalted kind

Was wanted yet, and then was man design'd,
Conscious of thought."

DRYDEN.

WHICH is the most prolific and inexhaustible-which has the greater capacity-the material, or the intellec tual world? If any man, fully competent to analyse this question, should give judgment in favour of the former, I would tell him that his decision refutes itself, confirming the mastery of mind by the very act of its exercise even when pronouncing its own inferiority. It is indeed wonderful, stupendous, overpowering, to contemplate the external world, its planetary system, its various elements, and the infinite diversity of their productions, human, animal, vegetable, and mineral: but how much more astonishing that all these wonders should be condensed and epitomized in the narrow limits of a single skull! Within that little focus of mira cles the system of the universe performs its sublime