Amsterdam to an English naval officer of distinction, Vice-Admiral Douglas. In 1785 their son, Mr. Douglas, and his wife came to Bergerac to visit their French relatives in Perigord. "It is pleasing to find," says M. Coquerel, "that the memory of Marteilhe, though lost sight of in France, was respected in England, and that the honor of an alliance with the martyr of the galleys was estimated as it deserved." The narrative, of which a brief sketeh has now been given, is so full of striking adventures and curious details, that we believe few of those who may peruse this scanty outline of Marteilhe's history will not be desirous to make themselves acquainted with it in its entirety. And we may venture to express the satisfaction which we have derived from hearing that a record, from the nature of its subject so interesting, and of which the contents are in many respects so honorable to the English name, is likely to be made more accessible to our countrymen by being translated into their own language. One word in accordance with the spirit of the editor's preface should be added in conclusion. There is no polemical design, nor any element of theological bitterness, in this volume. To record the virtues of noble In hearted men, not to reopen wounds, nor to cast odium on creeds or churches, has been the motive of its publication. attempting," says M. Paumier, "to bring to light some glorious passages in the past history of our Church, it has been far from our intention to excite anew those religious conflicts with which our forefathers were inflamed. We know, and we thank God for it, how greatly the times are changed. But that which it is profitable at all times to recall to mind, are those examples of inflexible obedience to conscience, of faithfulness to duty, and of the spirit of selfsacrifice, which in the day of their trial our ancestors exhibited to their descendants as they did also to their persecutors." In the spirit of these remarks we fully concur. It is, indeed, a good lesson for us who live in an easy and tolerant age, in which the exercise of the sterner virtues is more rarely called for, to be reminded of the fortitude of such men as these admirable, though little known, martyrs of the Reformation, who, in the fine language of Sir Thomas Browne, "maintained their faith in the noble way of persecution, and served God in the fire, whereas we honor him in the sunshine." OPHELIA'S STREAM. It is a little wandering stream, By willows and by alders overgrown, With here and there the clear light glimmering through, 'Mid wavering glooms and spots of skyey blue; At times, among the leaves, a sudden beam Burns on the glassy levels flowing down Through bending grass, and rush with turban brown, And weed forlorn with blossoms pale and gold ; Sleek mosses streak the depth, and trailers lave Around the earthless roots that drink the wave; That span its cold course, twist the twinkling midges It is a lonely place, amid the round Of February fields that reach afar, Barren and sad, to their rude eastern bound, The sun has sunk in dolorous haze, and o'er A figure wanders by a well-known way Now she moves swiftly, fixed upon one thought, Then, as she stops to think A moonbeam strikes the water where she sees, 66 In fancy, a loved face, and crying Come, A plunge!-the moon is gone : -Dublin University Magazine. once on a time, in which I had not my little share and my hope for various years was that this might always go on. But now the months pass, faster and faster: and the magazine comes: and there is nothing of mine in it. Very many were the essays this hand used to write; very few they have been for the last two years. And wherefore is it so? Is it that I have no time to write? Truly never man was harder worked; yet I was worked just as hard when each magazine had its pages of mine. Much worried? Yes indeed, and liking it always less: yet the time was when it was a relief from worry, to sit down at this table and write away. Is it that I have got nothing more to say? Not entirely so. Thoughts not unfrequently arise, which in the old days would have furnished matter for sixteen pages of feeble reflection. But with advancing time one grows more modest; and feels less disposed to speak unless sure that one has something to say that is worth hearing. THAT is the thing. The day comes when not the friend who pitches into you most viciously in print, thinks so badly of your doings as you think yourself. And instead of desiring to add to the number of your pages, you wish heartily you could blot out many that exist already. When a man reaches forty he thinks differently of many things. Yet let me, once again, try to do something in the old way; before finally resolving to do the like no more. Let me, not unkindly, set forth the praises of Cantankerous and thick-headed Folly; and show certain reasons why it is profitable to a human being that he be a Cantankerous Fool. There are cantankerous fools whom you can keep at arm's length; cantankerous fools with whom you need have nothing to do: cantankerous fools whom having seen once, you need never see again. But human beings are linked by many social ties; not even our gracious Sovereign herself can successfully resolve that she will never have anything to do with anybody she does not like. And very often you find that you cannot escape from many relations with a cantankerous fool; and that you must just make the best of that offensive being. Now, how carefully you consider the tempers, the crotchets, the idiotic notions and prejudices, of the cantankerous fool from whom you cannot escape! As for a human being of good sense, and good temper, nobody, in the common transacactions of life, minds him. Nobody smoothes him down: pets him: considers him tries to keep him right. You take for granted he will do right, and act sensibly, without any management. If you are driving a docile and well-tem pered horse, who is safe to go straight, you give the animal little thought or attention. But if you have to drive a refractory pig, how much more care and thought you put into that act of driving! Your wits must be alive: you humor the abominable brute: you try to keep it in a good temper: and when you would fain let fly at its head, or apply to it abusive epithets, you suppress the injurious phrase, and you hold back the ready hand. So with many a human being whom you are trying to get to act rationally: who hangs back on all kinds of idiotic pretexts, and starts all conceivable preposterous objections to the course which common senses dictates; frequently changing his ground, and defying you to pin him to any reason he states, as is the way with such creatures. When your tongue is ready to exclaim: "Oh you disgusting and wrong-headed fool, will you not try to behave rationally?" you withhold the ready and appropriate words: you know that would blow the whole thing up: and you probably say, in friendly tones: "My good fellow, there is a great deal in your objections; and we have all the greatest desire to do what you may wish; but there is A and B, difficult men to deal with and in this little matter you must just let us do what has been arranged. Pray do this, and we shall all be greatly obliged to you." Perhaps you even degrade yourself by suggesting to the cantankerous fool reasons which you know to be of no weight, but which your knowledge of the fool makes you think may have weight with his idiotic mind. By little bits of deference and attention, rendered with a smooth brow, beneath which lurks the burning desire to take him by the neck and shake him, you seek to keep straight the inevitable cantankerous fool. my reader, if you want to be deferred to, humored, made much of: if you want to have everybody about you trying to persuade you to act as a sensible man would act without any persuasion; and everybody quite pleased and happy if you have been got after much difficulty into the right track; see that you set yourself before that portion of mankind that cannot get rid of you, in the important and influential character of an ill-tempered and wrong-headed fool. : Yes, The jibbing horse in the team: the loose screw in the machine: the weak link in the chain: they are the important things. People think of them; watch them: stand a good deal to keep them right. As Brutus shammed himself a fool for protection, so might a wise man in these days sham himself a fool for consideration. Don't be sensible and goodnatured; nobody will be afraid of your taking the pet and getting into the sulks, then. But be always taking of fence striking work: refusing to go where you ought: and you will meet the highest consideration. People may indeed confound you behind your back; but before your face they will be civil to a degree they never would be with an amiable and judicious man. You see, you may explode at any moment. You may lie down in the shafts at any moment. You may kick out furiously at any moment. So all hands will try to keep you in good humor. The human being who is called a Privileged Person is generally a cantankerous fool. Sometimes, indeed, the privileged person is so privileged because of the possession of invaluable qualities which make you bear with anything he says and does. Even where these are amiss they are magnificently counterbalanced. But the cantankerous fool from whom there is no escaping, is the most privileged of all privileged people. No matter how ill-bred and provoking he is, you must just suffer it. No matter how far in the wrong he is, you must just try to smooth him down and make things straight. If you get into any altercation or difference with the fool, you are at a great disadvantage. He has no character to lose; but you probably have a reputation for good sense and good humor which any conspicuous disturbance would damage. Then, restrictions of decency in language and conduct fetter you, which are to the. fool what the green rushes were to Samson. You could not for your life get up and roar, as you have seen the fool get up and roar. If you know a man will bellow like a bull if you differ from him in opinion, you just listen to his opinion and hold your tongue. If you know a dog bites, you give him a wide berth. If a ditch be very pestiferous when stirred up, you don't stir it up. The great principles on which the privileges of cantankerous folly and ill-nature found is this: that as we go on through life we grow somewhat cowardly; and if a thing be disagreeable, we just keep out of its way : sometimes by rather shabby expedients. Well, after all, the deference paid to the cantankerous fool is not a desirable deference. True it is that if you have to get twelve men to concur with you in a plan for bringing water into the town of which you are chief magistrate, or painting the church of which you are incumbent, or making some improvement in the management of the college of which you are principal, you bestow more pains and thought on the one impracticable, stupid, wrongheaded and cantankerously foolish person of the twelve, than upon all the other eleven. But this is just because you treat that impracticable and cantankerous. person as you would treat a baby, or an idiot, or a bulldog, or a jackass. The apparent deference you pay the cantankerous man, is simply an inferior degree of the same thing that makes you confess yourself a teapot if a raving madman has you at an open window, and says he will throw you over unless you forthwith confess yourself a teapot. Pigheaded folly is so disagreeable a thing that you would do a good deal to keep it from intruding itself upon your reluctant gaze; and the cantankerous fool, petted, smoothed down, complimented, deferred to, is truly in the most degraded position a rational being can easily reach. "Oh let us humor him; he is only Snooks the cantankerous fool:" "Give in to him a little he will make no end of a row if you don't:" such are the reflections of the people who yield to him. If he had any measure of sense, he would see how degraded is his position: what a humiliating thing it is to be deferred to on the terms on which he is deferred to. But the notion of the presence of sense is excluded by the very terms of his definition. For how can there be sense in a cantankerous fool? All this, the thoughtful reader sees, leads us up to the wide and important subject of the Treatment of Incapacity. That varies, in the most striking way, as the position of the incapable person varies. If a servant, lately come home, proves | very fairly filled; and of course they are quite unfit for his work, you first scold the best judges. This crucial case will him; and if that avail nothing, then you help the ingenuous reader to the great send him away. If the grocer who sup- principle which decides the treatment of plies you with tea and sugar, persists in incapacity. It is this. An Evil you can supplying you with execrably bad tea and remove, you look in the face. You see sugar, you resign your position as his how bad it is. You even exaggerate its customer; you enter his shop no more. badness. But an Evil you cannot get But if the incapable person is in a suffi- rid of, you try not to see. You seek to ciently important place, and cannot be discover redeeming points about it. If turned out of it, the treatment is entire- you have a crooked stick to walk with, ly different. You stand up for the man. and cannot get another, you make the You puff him. You deny that he is in- best of the crooked stick you persuade capable. You say he is "a very good yourself it is nearly straight. But if a appointment," however abominably bad handsome stick is offered you in its place,. you know him to be. The useless judge you pitch the wretched old thing away. you declare to be a sound lawyer, whose Your eyes are opened to a full sense of modesty hinders the general recognition its crookedness. In brief, the great rule of his merits. The clergyman who neg- is, that you make the best of a bad barlects his duty shamefully, and whose ser- gain. mons no man can listen to, you declare to be a good sensible preacher, with no claptrap about him: none of your new brooms that sweep far too clean. The blackleg peer, drunk, profligate, a moral nuisance and curse, is described as a pattern of all the proprieties. As for the hardly conceivable monarch, such as Gorgius IV. of Brentford, who never did a brave or good deed in all his life, he takes his rank as the first gentleman in Europe. Yes the peculiar treatment of the wrong man in the wrong place (by cautious and safe people), is loudly to declare that he is the right man in the right place. The higher the places he disgraces, the louder and firmer the asseveration. And if any man speaks out the fact of the incapacity which all men see, then you bully that man. You fly at him. You abuse him. You tell him his conduct is indecorous: is indecent. You declare that it is not to be supposed that what he says is true: being all the while well aware that it is true. : If a poor curate be idle and stupid, so stupid that he could not do his work if he tried, and so idle that he will not try, that poor curate is sent away. But if the incumbent of a rather important parish be all that, you go on a different tack. You say his health is not good. His church is not empty on the contrary, it is very respectably attended. It strikes a stranger indeed as empty; but those who attend it regularly (especially the incompetent incumbent himself) think it But Many married people have to do so. They are well aware that in marrying, they made an unhappy mistake. they just try to struggle on: though the bitter blunder is felt every day. One great evil of the increased facility of divorce in these latter days, is, that it tends to make men and women hastily conclude that a state of things is intolerable, which while deemed inevitable was borne with decent resignation. You try to put a good face on the trouble which cannot be redressed. You "make believe very much;" as all human beings have at some period of life in regard to their worldly position; the situation of their home; the state of their teeth; the incursions of age on their personal beauty. You were resolved to believe your dwelling a handsome and pleasant one, and your place in life not such a dead failure as in your desponding hours you plainly saw it to be. And who but a malignant fool would try to dispel the kindly delusion which keeps a man from quite breaking down? If your friend Smith was in his own eyes what he is in yours, he would lie down and die; overcome by the sense of being such a wretched little jackass. My friend Jones told me that once upon a time, attending a sitting of the House of Peers in Mesopotamia in America, he heard a man make a speech, every sentence of which cried aloud that the speaker was an inexpressible fool. At first, Jones was indignant at the speaker's manifest self-satisfaction. But |