were no longer infested with robbers; the oxen began to plough; the pilgrims visited the sanctuaries; the roads and inns were replenished with travellers: trade, plenty, and good faith were restored in the markets; and a purse of gold might be exposed without danger in the midst of the highways."

Amidst all these evidences of comfort and security to the people-some dark and discontented countenances might be seen mingled in the crowd, and whenever one who wore the livery of the Colonna or the Orsini felt himself jostled by the throng, a fierce hand moved involuntarily to the sword-belt, and a half suppressed oath was ended with an indignant sigh. Here and there too, contrasting the redecorated, refurnished, and smiling shops-heaps of rubbish before the gate of some haughty mansion, testified the abasement of fortifications which the owner impotently resented as a sacrilege.

Character of Rienzi.

"In intoxication," says the proverb, men betray their real characters." There is no less honest and truth-revealing intoxication in prosperity, than in wine. The varnish of power brings forth at once the defects and the beauties of the human portrait.

The unprecedented and almost miraculous rise of Rienzi from the rank of the pontiff's official to the lord of Rome, would have been accompanied with a yet greater miracle, if it had not somewhat dazzled and seduced the object it elevated. When, as in well-ordered states and tranquil times, men rise slowly, step by step, they accustom themselves to their growing fortunes. But the leap of an hour from a citizen to a prince-from the victim of oppression to the dispenser of justice -is a transition so sudden as to render dizzy the most sober brain. And, perhaps, in proportion to the imagination, the enthusiasm, the genius of the man, will the suddenness be dangerous-excite too extravagant a hope -and lead to too chimerical an ambition. The qualities that made him rise, hurry him to his fall; and victory at the Marengo of his fortunes, urges him to destruction at its Moscow.

In his greatness, Rienzi did not so much acquire new qualities, as develope in brighter light and deeper shadow those which he had always exhibited. On the one hand he was just--resolute; the friend of the oppressedthe terror of the oppressor. His wonderful intellect illumined everything it touched. By rooting out abuse, and by searching examination and wise arrangement, he had trebled the revenues of the city without imposing a single new tax. Faithful to his idol of liberty, he had not been betrayed by the wish of the people into despotic authority; but had, as we have seen, formally revived, and established with new powers, the parliament

ary council of the city. However extensive his own power, he referred its exercise to the people; in their name he alone declared himself to govern, and he never executed any signal action without submitting to them its reasons, or its justification. No less faithful to his desire to restore prosperity as well as freedom to Rome, he had seized the first dazzling epoch of his power to propose that great federative league with the Italian states which would, as he rightly said, have raised Rome to the indisputable head of European nations. Under his rule trade was secure, literature was welcome, art began to rise.

On the other hand, the prosperity which made more apparent his justice, his integrity, his patriotism, his virtues, and his genius, brought out no less glaringly his arrogant consciousness of superiority, his love of display, and the wild and too daring insolence of his ambition. Though too just to avenge himself by retaliating on the patricians their own violence, though, in his troubled and stormy tribuneship, not one unmerited or illegal execution of baron or citizen could be alleged against him, even by his enemies, yet he could not deny his proud heart the pleasure of humiliating those who had ridiculed him as a buffoon, despised him as a plebeian, and who, even now, slaves to his face, were cynics behind his back. They stood before him while he sat," says his biographer; "all these barons, bareheaded; their hands crossed on their breasts; their looks downcast;-oh, how frightened they were!"-a picture more disgraceful to the servile cowardice of the nobles than the haughty sternness of the tribune. It might be that he deemed it policy to break the spirit of his foes, and to awe those whom it was a vain hope to conciliate.

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For his pomp there was a greater excuse: it was the custom of the age; it was the insignia and witness of power; and when the modern historian taunts him with not imitating the simplicity of an ancient tribune, the sneer betrays an ignorance of the spirit of the age, and the vain people whom the chief magistrate was to govern. No doubt his gorgeous festivals, his solemn processions, set off and ennobled-if parade can so be ennobled by a refined and magnificent richness of imagination, associated always with popular emblems, and designed to convey the idea of rejoicing for liberty restored, and to assert the state and majesty of Rome revived no doubt these spectacles, however otherwise judged in a more enlightened age and by closet sages, served greatly to augment the importance of the tribune abroad, and to dazzle the pride of a fickle and ostentatious populace. And taste grew refined, luxury called labour into requisition, and foreigners from all states were attracted by the splendour of a court over which presided, under

Whittington and his Cat.-This nursery story has been well known in Persia for centuries. It was imported into Europe much

about the same time as others of which Boccaccio, Sachetti, &c., availed themselves. We believe that the earliest European version of its principal incidents is to be found in the Facezia, Motti, Buffonerie, et Burle of the Piovano Arlotto; but, there is an old Hungarian tradition to the same effect; both were, doubtless, derived from the same source. In these instances, the story is, of course, unconnected with any English worthy; and we do not believe it was applied to Sir Richard Whittington until late in the reign of Eliza beth, when some such man as Richard Johnson, author of the Seven Champions, or Thomas Deloney, author of the Six Yeomen of the West, converted the tale to their own purposes.-Morning Chronicle. The veri table history of Sir Richard Whittington, with his "effigies," and some further particulars of the cat story, will be found in the Mirror, vol. xxv. p. 210.

The Royal George.-About six months since it was stated that only two persons were then living who were on board the Royal George, at the time she went down; one of whom is the present Admiral, Sir Philip Henderson Durham; the name of the other survivor is presumed to have been Mark Brown, who, for many years, resided at Shottisham, in Norfolk, and who was an armourer in the crew of the Royal George, at the time of its destruction. He was an intelligent person, and gave a vivid description of the catastrophe. He was on deck when the vessel began to fill, and climbed over the gunwale on to her side; and, for a period of five minutes, or more, while she was filling with water, he witnessed, by looking through the port-holes, the struggles of the crowd between decks to save themselves.

As soon

as she had filled, the vessel righted, and went down. Brown went down with her, but was immediately thrown up to the surface, as he supposed, by the air rushing out of the port-holes; he succeeded in catching at a floating hammock, and was afterwards picked up. He was, subsequently, at sea for many years, and eventually settled at Shottisham, where he brought up a large family, one of whom is now the landlord of the White Lion Inn, at Sanbridgenorth. Brown died at Shottisham, on the 27th of September last, at the age of 84.- Hertford Reformer.

Eugene Aram-There is now living at Knaresborough, a Chelsea pensioner, named Edward Day, upwards of 100 years of age: he was formerly a hatter, and was in the employ of Mr. Francis Moore, the constable of Knaresborough, who was sent in 1758, with a warrant to Lynn, to take Eugene Aram for the murder of Daniel Clarke. Day says that on his master's return, he was the man that assisted Eugene Aram into the house, and dressed a sore on his arm.

Reverse of Fortune.-The Marquis de Saint Paer was formerly the possessor of a fine domain near Andely, in Normandy; but in consequence of his wanton extravagance, he was obliged to part with the whole of his estates, and, at length, became reduced to want, receiving charity from those upon whom, in his prosperity, he had bestowed it. Still, he could not leave the scenes of his former splendour, and lived for twenty years in a low thatched hut in the confines of his ancient château. A short time since he was found dead, from cold and hunger, under a hedge, not far from its walls.

Living. At the foot of the Maritime Alps, three persons and a servant can live for less than 70%.; a-year their fare including every delicacy of fish, flesh, and fowl, with a constant supply of the finest fruits and vegetables, and abundance of good wine.

Lord Byron used to say that a man ought to marry by all means, although he owned that the greater part of marriages are unhappy. A man cannot be happy without a wife. It is a strange state of things we live in; a tendency so natural as that of the union of the sexes ought to lead only to the most harmonious results; yet the reverse is the fact. There is certainly something radically wrong in the constitution of societythe "time is out of joint." It is strange, too, what little real liberty of choice is exercised by those even who marry according to what is thought their own inclination. Many a man thinks he marries by choice, who only marries by accident. In this respect, men have less the advantage of women than is generally supposed.

Pride of Ancestry--A mature spinster of the illustrious house which has produced our present Colonial Secretary, having desired her attendant to read the Scriptures to her, the latter stumbled on a passage in Genesis, in which the word giants was rather defaced, and read: "There were Grants on the earth in those days."-" Ah!" exclaimed the lady with rapture, "there is a convincing proof that my family yields to none in antiquity!"

Paris Advertiser.

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THESE picturesque ruins stand at Arques, a small town of France, in the department of the Lower Seine. It was here the truly great Henri IV. gained a complete victory over the Duke of Mayenne, General of the League, in 1589. The town stands on a river of the same name, four miles south-east of Dieppe; rendered also remarkable by the embarkation of William the Conqueror for England; after which period it rose to be one of the principal maritime towns in France.

It is not easy to determine when Arques Castle was built; but we have the authority of Flodoard, who says, in 944 it was a military post. From the highest point of the ruins may be seen the manor of Gosselin, the inheritance of Matilda, the last descendant of the illustrious house of William of Tankerville. D

VOL. XXVII.

Philip Augustus entered these ramparts as victor during the captivity of Richard Coeur de Lion; and the year had not passed when he came to lay siege to the town. The peace of 1196 restored him this important fortress. Philip besieged it in his turn in 1202, when the news of the defeat and capture of the unfortunate Arthur recalled him to Tourrain. With other possessions in Normandy, it was given up to this warlike king; but, by the destiny of war, it fell again into the hands of the English in 1419. By the skill of Warwick and Talbot, (alluded to by Shakspeare,) it did not return to the French till 1449, at the taking of Rouen.

The site of the castle is well fitted for the seat of war, abounding, as it does, with glens suitable for ambuscades, and placed on the conflux of three great rivers, the Varenne, Be759

thune or Arques, and l'Helna or Eldona; on the north-east, it is bounded by the ocean, and opposite are the valley or plains of Arques, once entirely laid waste in revenge by Baudouin, Count of Flanders.

The Castle of Arques was twice conquered by poetic kings: to one was intrusted the traditions of the bards; to the other, the romances of the troubadours: and it is said that Henri IV. here first received the inspiration of his muse.

The little town of Arques is remarkable for the originality of its construction; it has much of the appearance of a Flemish town during the middle ages. At the time of its siege by Richard Cœur de Lion, it is described as a mere swamp or bay, the sea having made such encroachments upon it. M. P.

Attachment of a Horse.

A GENTLEMAN, (the member of a family well known to him, who detailed this anecdote to the writer,) was exceedingly fond of fieldsports, and rode for many years a favourite hunter, literally up to the hour of his death; since, when out coursing one day, he fell from the animal's back dead to the ground, in an apoplectic fit. His fellow sportsmen, who were beating about the field at some little distance, seeing Major A-- fall, immediately rode up to his assistance; when, with astonishment, they beheld his favourite steed, after neighing expressively, galloping two or three times round him, and exhibiting incontestable symptoms of the deepest grief, lay down beside his beloved master, and expire!

Dog's

in India, we are told, if not native, but European, lose their voice, or, at least, never give note in hunting, after the first year. Greyhounds are exceedingly valued, because the second year of their residence in such a climate is sure to kill them; so that, though often imported, they are always rare.

A dog, having been chained up one day, contrary to his inclination, exhibited strong symptoms of ill-humour; and, getting loose in the night, he ran into his master's poultry yard, where, never having touched a fowl before, he destroyed fourteen chickens. This was in mere vengeance, for he did not eat, but hid up, his mangled victims; which being found, the fact was proved against him, and his life expiated the ferocious deed. Some young lads recently bathing, in the vicinity of London, a friend of the writer happened to pass the spot with a large, handContinued from Mirror, vol. xxiii., p. 107.

some dog of the Mont St. Bernard breed. The animal seemed to watch with much anxiety the boys in the water, and when he saw one dive down beneath it, in he plunged, seized him gently by the leg, and drew him to the shore. The lad was not in the least hurt, but rather alarmed, fancying the dog meant him an injury; but, in truth, the noble creature, believing he beheld a human being nearly drowned, only rushed into the water to save him.

Some time since, a tinker, walking one evening by the banks of the Cam, observed a dog rushing and plunging franticly in and out of the river, barking, growling, and seeming to endeavour to bring up something from the bottom of the water; till, at last, the poor brute, appearing to lose breath and strength, after a few struggles, sank to rise no more. The tinker took note of the spot, gave information of the circumstance, and, upon the river being dragged, the bodies of a man and dog were brought up. The faithful and courageous animal, it was thus made evident, had sacrificed his own life in an ineffectual attempt to draw the body of his drowned master from the bottom of the

river.

Cats.

The following habits were peculiar to a cat belonging to a friend, a young gentleman:

Of a most affectionate disposition, she would, when he was from home, be shy and absent, seldom indeed troubling the family with her presence; but Master R.'s return from school was always the signal for the re-appearance of puss; she met him in the hall, and would scratch every morning at his bed-room door, for admission to play with him before he was up. When the family had fish for dinner, the cat, who was extremely fond of it, though not allowed to be fed in the parlour, always followed the dish into the dining-room, sat and watched its disappearance with great anxiety, and then quietly followed the remnants out again. Canaries were kept, and puss, though fond of eating birds, was the faithful guardian of these pets, never suffering any other cats, or animals, to approach their cages.

In well-treated cats, we have often observed this trait:-A poor woman residing at Abington, near Cambridge, had a couple of pretty cats, (and, by the way, how beautiful, in general, are cottagers' cats!) who were great pets of her only son, fed by him constantly, and played with every day. The lad died, the cats missed their friend, and uttered for him wailings lamentable to hear. For weeks after his loss, they laid before the fire, screaming and moaning most pitiably; they scarcely stirred from their places, refused food, became perfect skeletons, and one of them, which had kittens, could not be brought

to take the slightest notice of her offspring. When our informant saw them, they appeared to be in a deep decline, and about to follow their beloved master and associate to the grave.

A friend told us, that a cat in a family of her acquaintance, had such a particular antipathy to the man-servant, that when he laid the table for dinner, she has been seen to jump upon it, push off every thing, and scratch the cloth down.

A cat in Dublin, whom her mistress wished to get rid of without killing, was taken one dark night in a bag, and put down in a distant part of the city, or its suburbs; but next day puss made her appearance again at home, and though the experiment was twice or thrice repeated, she always returned.

Another cat, given to a friend, thrice returned to her old home; though the distance was sixteen miles between that and her new one, and a broad river, and some smaller streams, lay across the country through which she had to travel.

Being recently in a boat upon the Thames, we observed a beautful, white cat come from the house of one of the keepers of those lochs, which may not inaptly be denominated river-turnpikes, steal down the bank, and watch intently the subsiding of the waters in the loch: when they sink, they generally leave a few small fish behind them at the edge of the bank; for these the sagacious cat had come, and in spite of wet feet, and antipathy to the water, made capture of her silvery, slippery prey.

Burmese Cats.

A Tame Jackal.

An officer in India brought up a young jackal, which he so far succeded in taming, that it would fetch and carry like a dog; otherwise, it was a wild, fierce, and beautiful creature, a great thief, and a dangerous companion.

A friend and his lady, with their young child, went to visit B, and the jackal was, as usual, fastened up for the night; but, lo! in the midst of it, a loud cry was heard from the nurse; the jackal had got loose, and carried off the unfortunate infant from its cot; instant pursuit, however, being made, the animal dropped the child, which was found unharmed, outside the house, and the brute, when caught, was more securely caged. It was supposed, that as the poor infant was suffering under some complaint which made the application of a poultice necessary, the jackal had been attracted to it by the smell of the bread and milk; and to a miracle of Providence only, could thus be attributed its safety.

This jackal used to jump upon the breakfast and dinner table, and carry off whatever bread and meat he could steal undetected; but when his master's stores were inaccessible, he made light of pillaging loaves of bread and legs of mutton from the other offi cers. B- had a little dog, Vixen, who was always very bitter against the jackal, but the creature being more than a match for her, he wished to train Victim, a large, fierce dog, to keep his strange pet in order. Victim, however, hung back from his duty, at first, as was supposed, from cowardice, but it was afterwards discovered, from a motive even less worthy; for the jackal was seen to share with him all his stolen dainties. In spite of its peccadillos, this jackal was very faithful and affectionate to his master, and followed him, like a dog, wherever he went, or rather, ran by his side at the distance of a few feet,

Curious Phenomenon,

The following we give on the authority of a young, naval officer, who witnessed the circumstance: -The vessel in which this gentleman, and a large crew and company, were sailing, was in the midst of the Atlan tic, and the wind was blowing rather stiffly, when suddenly, they were not less astonished than alarmed, to behold astern, driving for. wards with fearful rapidity, not a stormy swell of the sea, but an immense mountain of water, far higher than the main-mast, of proportionable bulk, and inconceivably majestic and terrible :-"Every body on board," said Lieutenant P "rushed on deck, to behold this terrible phenomenon; the ship was instantly put out of her course to avoid being overwhelmed; and this unaccountable mountain of water, which was, at least, 300 feet high, and looked as if many square