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In a moment I thought I recognized the voice | ́fair companion was an artist, while the pianoof the husband. I coiled myself into the cor-forte and harp bespoke her (as she had herself, ner. She would have got out without my being indeed, informed me she was) accomplished in betrayed, if she had not dropped her glove.— other sciences. Why the deuce had she taken it off?—A light was sent for, and the moment it came I beheld in the object of all my indignation, and the cause of all her sorrow-the oldest friend of my life-Charles Franklin. "Why," exclaimed he, the moment he recognized me, "is that you!-fellow-traveller with my wife, and not known to each other?-this is curious!" "Franklin!" said I, in a sort of tremor. "Do you know my husband, sir?" said the lady "how very strange!" Yes, thought I, I wish it were impossible. "I have not seen you these ten years," said Franklin. "Come home with us you must and shall-I- "Indeed," said I-“ I– "Oh, come, come," said Franklin; " you can have no engagement -you shall have no engagement to supersede this. I rejoice in having found you after so long a separation," and then Mr. Franklin introduced me to his wife in due form, much to the astonishment of our fellow-travellers at the other side of the coach, who concluded by what they had seen, as indeed they had shown by what they had said, that we were, if actually not man and wife, two of the oldest and most intimate possible friends.

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I have a melting heart in the way of a proposition from a friend, especially when it is made under extraordinary circumstances, like those which accompanied and preceded Franklin's; but altogether I sincerely declare that I never was more embarrassed in my existence. I still wished to see the adventure through, and behold my Niobe in her own domicile. I looked to my charming companion for a telegraphic signal. If she had frowned a negative, I should have repeated the signal, and strenuously declined going; but by the glare of the lamp at the inn door I thought I saw affirmative in the glance of her eye, which induced me to believe that my visit would not annoy her; and so, really, rather than doom her to a tête-à-tête with her tyrant-though he was my friend-I consented to put myself in a position as irksome almost as position could be.

We left the coach-my trips from Brighton being periodical and frequent, I had no luggage, and we proceeded, with the maid and the bandboxes, to my friend's house-of course I shall be excused mentioning the locality-but it was one of the prettiest bijoux I ever saw; good taste predominated in every part of its decorations, and I soon discovered, by certain drawings which were pendent on the walls, that my

After a suitable delay of preparation, such as taking off things, and refreshing, and all that, our dinner was served-nothing could be nicer or neater. "Fanny, dearest," said Franklin, "let me give you this wing; I know, my life, you like it." "No, Charles, dear, not a bit more, thank you," said Fanny. "Come, love, a glass of wine with me," said Charles; "'t is an old fashion, but we have been apart some weeks, so our friend will excuse it." "To be sure he will," said Fanny, and they drank to each other with looks admirably suited to the action. "How strange it is," said Franklin, "that after so long a separation we should meet in this extraordinary manner, and that Fanny should not have found you out, or that you should not have discovered her!" "Why, my dear Charles," said Mrs. Franklin, "strangers do not talk to each other in stage-coaches." "Very true, my angel," said Mr. Franklin; "but some accident might have brought your name to his ears, or his to yours."

While all this was going on I sat in a state of perfect amazement. Charles Franklin and I had been schoolfellows, and continued friends to a certain period of life; he was all that his wife had described him to be, in the earlier part of his life, but I confess I saw none of the heartlessness, the suspicion, the neglect, the violence, the inattention of which she also spoke; nor did I perceive, in the bright animated look of pleasure which beamed over her intelligent countenance, the slightest remains of the grief and sorrow by which she had been weighed down on the journey. "Do you feel tired, my Fanny?" said Franklin. No, dear," replied the lady, "not very, now; but those coaches are so small when there are four people in them, that one gets cramped."

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Here I felt a sort of tingling sensation behind my ears, anticipatory of what appeared to me to be a very natural question on the part of Franklin, as to whether we had been full during the whole journey; Mrs. Franklin, however, saw in a moment the false move she had made, and therefore directed the thoughts of her barbarous husband from the subject by telling him she had a letter for him from dear mamma-meaning his mother, under whose surveillance she had been forcibly immured at Brighton.

About this period Fanny retired, and proceeded to the drawing-room, cautioning us, as

she departed, "not to be long." Charles flew to the door, and opened it for his departing fair-he accompanied her beyond its threshold, and I thought I heard a sound of something very like a kiss as they parted.

Whether it was that Fanny was apprehensive that, under the genial influence of her husband's wine, or upon the score of old friendship, I might let slip some part of the day's adventure, I know not, but we were very early summoned to coffee, and I confess I was by no means displeased at the termination of a conversation which every moment I expected would take some turn that would inevitably produce a recurrence to the journey, and perhaps eventually tend to betray the confidence which the oppressed wife had reposed in me.

We repaired to the drawing-room.-Fanny was reclining on the sofa, looking as fascinating as ever I saw a lady look. "Charles, dearest," said she, "I thought you would never come up; you and your friend must have had something very interesting to talk about to detain you so long." "We didn't think it long, Fan," said Charles, "because we really were talking on a very interesting subject-we were discussing you." "Oh, my dear Charles!" exclaimed the lady, "you flatter me; and what did he say of me?" said she, addressing me. "That," said I, "I cannot tell you: I never betray anything that is told me in confidence."

Her looks explained that she was particularly glad to hear me say so, and the smile which followed was gracious in the extreme.

"How strange it is," said he, resuming his seat and pushing the wine towards me, "that you should have thus accidentally fallen in with Fanny!-she is very pretty; don't you think so?" "More than pretty, surely," said I; "there is an intelligence, an expression, a manner about her, to me quite captivating." "If you were present when she is animated," said her husband, "you would see that play fulness of countenance, or rather the variety of expression to advantage; her mind lights up her features wonderfully; there is no want of spirit about her, I can assure you." "I was quite surprised when I heard of your elopement," said I. "Her mother," said Charles, "an old woman as proud as Lucifer, was mad after a title for her, and some old broken-down lord had been wheedled, or coaxed, or cajoled, or flattered into making her an offer, which she would not accept; and then the old lady led her such a life, that she made up her mind to the step which made her mine." "And insured you happiness," said I. "Why, yes," said Franklin, "upon my word, taking all things into the scale, I see no cause to repent the step. Between ourselves—of course I speak as an old friend-Fanny has not the very best temper in the world, and of late has taken it into her head to be jealous. An old acquaintance of mine, whom I knew long before I was married, has been over here from France, and I have been a good deal about with her during her stay; and as I did not think her quite a person to introduce to Fanny, she took huff at my frequent absence from home, and began to play off a sort of retaliation, as she fancied it, with a young lieutenant of lancers of our acquaintance. I cut that matter very short; I proposed an excursion to Brighton to visit my mother, to which she acceded, and when I had settled her out of reach of her young hero, and under the eye of my mamma, I returned to fulfil my engagements in London. And now that this fair obstacle to her happiness has returned to the Continent, I have recalled my Shortly after this the happy pair began to better half." "You seem, however, to under-be so excessively kind and tender to each other, stand each other pretty well," said I. "To be sure," replied Charles, "the only point is to keep her in a good humour, for, entre nous, her temper is the very devil-once know how to manage that, and all goes well, and I flatter myself I have ascertained the mode of doing that to a nicety."

"Now," said Charles, "that you have thus strangely found your way here, I hope we shall see you often." "And I hope so, too," said Mrs. Franklin: "I really believe sometimes that things which we blind mortals call chance are pre-ordained. I was not coming by the coach in which I met you, nor should I have been in it, if the other coach had not been full, and then-" "I should have lost the pleasure," said I, "of seeing an old friend enjoying the delights of domestic happiness."

Here Fanny gave me a look expressive of the perfect misery of her condition; and Charles, whose back was turned towards us at the instant, in coming up the room again, while her back was turned to him, made a sort of face, something between the sorrowful and the grotesque, which I shall never forget, but which indicated most unequivocally what his feelings on the subject were.

that I thought it was quite time to beat a retreat, and accordingly took my leave, earnestly pressed by both parties to repeat my visit as often as I could, and to let them see as much of me as possible. I returned them my warmest thanks for their kindness, but named no day for my return, and wished them good-night.

I have not been there since. I called, indeed, once, and Charles called on me, but I have been little in London during the last season, and they have been much in the country. I could not have equitably maintained an intimacy with them, for I felt neutrality would be quite out of the question: thus, although the recurrence of my old friendship with Charles Franklin has been productive of no very satisfactory results as relate to ourselves personally, it has given me an additional

light in my path through the world, and now, whenever I see a picture of perfect happiness presented to my eyes, affection on one side and devotion on the other, assiduity met by kindness, and solicitude repaid with smiles, instead of feeling my heart glow with rapture at the beautiful scene before me, I instantly recollect that I once travelled to London in the BRIGHTON COACH.

THEODORE HOOK.

ZARA'S EAR-RINGS.

"My ear-rings! my ear-rings! they've dropt into the well,
And what to say to Muça, I cannot, cannot tell."

"Twas thus, Granada's fountain by, spoke Albuharez' daughter.
"The well is deep; far down they lie, beneath the cold blue water.
To me did Muça give them, when he spake his sad farewell;
And what to say, when he comes back, alas! I cannot tell.

"My ear-rings! my ear-rings! they were pearls in silver set,
That when my Moor was far away, I ne'er should him forget;
That I ne'er to other tongue should list, nor smile on other's tale,
But remember he my lips had kissed, pure as those ear-rings pale.
When he comes back, and hears that I have dropped them in the well,
Oh! what will Muça think of me, I cannot, cannot tell!

"My ear-rings! my ear-rings! he'll say they should have been,
Not of pearl and of silver, but of gold and glittering sheen,
Of jasper and of onyx, and of diamond shining clear,
Changing to the changing light, with radiance insincere,
That changeful mind unchangeful gems are not befitting well,
Thus will he think:-and what to say, alas! I cannot tell!

"He'll think, when I to market went, I loitered by the way;
He'll think a willing ear I lent to all the lads might say;
He'll think some other lover's hand among my tresses noosed
From the ears where he had placed them my rings of pearl unloosed.
He'll think, when I was sporting so beside this marble well,
My pearls fell in :-and what to say, alas! I cannot tell!

"He'll say I am a woman, and we are all the same;

He'll say I loved, when he was here, to whisper of his flame;
But when he went to Tunis, my virgin troth had broken,
And thought no more of Muça, and cared not for his token.
My ear-rings! my ear-rings! Oh! luckless, luckless well!
For what to say to Muça, alas! I cannot tell!

"I'll tell the truth to Muça, and I hope he will believe

That I thought of him at morning, and thought of him at eve!
That musing on my lover, when down the sun was gone,
His ear-rings in my hand I held, by the fountain all alone;
And that my mind was o'er the sea, when from my hand they fell,
And that deep his love lies in my heart, as they lie in the well!"

J. G. LOCKHART.

EXTRACT FROM "THE BIBLE OF

HUMANITY."

[JULES MICHELET, the distinguished French Historian, was born 1798, died 1874: when forty years of age he was appointed professor of History in the College of France, from which he was displaced by Napoleon III, because he refused to take the oath to uphold his government. Michelet's chief works are: "The Republic," “History of France," "The Women of the Revolution," “Love,” “The Sea,” “ The Insect,” and “ The Bible of Hu[J. W. Bouton, New York.] From his last "epic in prose," we make extract.]

manity."

Volney and Sacy opened up Syria and Arabia. Champollion, standing by the Sphynx, the mysterious Egypt, construed her inscriptions, and showed that she was a civilized empire sixty centuries before Jesus Christ. Eugene Burnouf established the consanguinity of the two ancestors of Asia-the two branches of the Aryas, the Indo-Persians of Bactriana; and the Parsee scholars who had been educated in the College of France quoted in the most remote regions of Hindostan this Western Magician against their Angelican disputant. The Mahabharata, the poetical encyclopedia of the Brahmins, the expurgated translations of the books of Zoroaster, and the splendid heroic history of Persia-the Shah-Nameh-came next. It was known that behind Persia, behind the Brahmanic India, there was extant a book of the remotest antiquity, of the first pastoral age an age which preceded the agricultural. This book, the Rig-Veda, a collection of hymns and prayers, enables us to follow the shepherds of that early period in their religious aspirations-the first soarings of the human mind toward heaven and light. 1833, Rosen published a specimen of it. It can now be read in the Sanscrit, German, English, and French. In this very year, 1863, a profound and able critic, who is also a Burnouf, has expounded its true meaning, and shown its scope.

In

ever silenced. The feeble voice of sophists expires in the immense concert of human brotherhood.

INDIAN ART.

Whatever the English may do to make it appear that the Indian Bible is more modern than the Jewish, it must be admitted that primeval India was the original cradle, the matrix of the world, the principal and dominant source of races, of ideas, and of languages for Greece, Rome, and modern Europe, and that the Semitic movementthe Jewish-Arabian influence-though very considerable, is nevertheless secondary.

But if the English were constrained to admit her renowned antiquity, yet they affirmed that India was dead and buried forever in her elephantine grottoes, her Vedas and her Ramayana, like Egypt in her pyramids. They regarded the country, as large as all Europe, and her population of one hundred and eighty millions of souls, as insignificant, and even contemptuously declared that this numerous people were made up from the refuse of a worn-out nation.

Haughty England, who considered India as a land fit to be cultivated only for the purpose of enriching her rapacious rulers, together with the indignities heaped upon her people by both protestants and catholics, and the indifference of all Europe, made it appear that the Indian soul was really dead. Was not the very race dried up? What is the feeble Hindoo, with his delicate, feminine hand, compared with the blonde European, nourished, surfeited with strong meat and drink, and doubling his force of race, with that half drunken rage which the devourers of meat and blood always exhibit?

The English do not hesitate to boast that they have killed India. The wise and humane W. H. Russell thought so, said so. They have oppressed her with taxes and prohibitory tariffs, and discouraged her arts as far as it was possible. In the more humane markets of Java and Bassora the products of Indian art find a ready sale, and it is solely because of this high estimate of the eastern merchants that her arts exist.

In consequence of all this research we can now see the perfect agreement between Asia and Europe-the most remote age and the present era. It has taught us that The specimens of Indian art exhibited in man, in all ages, thought, felt, and loved in England in 1841, surprised and confounded the same way; and therefore there is but the English people; and when Mr. Royle, a one humanity, a single heart only! A conscientious Englishman, explained these great harmony has been established through marvels of enchantment, the jury could not all space and time. Let the silly irony of award them a prize, because the prizes were skeptics, teachers of doubt, who hold that only to be given on "the progress of fifteen truth varies according to latitude, be for-years," while these productions of India

were the work of an eternal art, alien to every fashion, and more ancient than our arts, which are old at the beginning.

that supreme privilege, the perfect vision or light, which is then divine with its peculiar transfigurations and inward revealings, with its tenderness and glory in which his soul is swallowed up-lost in the boundless ocean of a mysterious Friendship.

In order to secure a fair specimen of Indian art for the Exhibition, a prize of twelve and a half dollars was offered, and was carried off by Hubioula, a common weaver of In the midst of this ineffable mildness the Golconda, who produced a piece of muslin, humble, feeble, half-nourished, and wretched which threw into the shade all English tex-looking being conceives the idea of the tile fabrics, and which was so fine that it wonderful Indian shawl. As the profound could be put through a small ring, and so poet Valmiki beheld his great poem, the light that three hundred yards of it weighed Ramayana, gathered, as it were, in the holless than two pounds. It was a genuine low of his hand, so this poetic weaver pergauze, like that with which Bernardin de ceives his great artistic work which someSaint Pierre clothed his Virginia, like those times is continued through a century. His in which Aureng Zeb wrapped the corpse of son or his nephew, with the same soul, his beloved daughter when he laid her in the hereditary and identical, and with the like white marble mausoleum of Aurungabad. delicate hand, will follow the same line of But neither the endeavors of Mr. Royle, nor thought and carry it on until completed. the acknowledgment of the French that they were treated better than the Orientals, could induce England to give her Indian subjects any other reward than these barren words: "For the charm and beauty of the invention, and the distinctness, variety, commingling and happy blending of colors, there is nothing to be compared to it. What a lesson for European manufactures!"

Oriental art is by far the most brilliant and the least costly. The cheapness of labor is excessive; I had almost said deplorable. The workman lives on a trifle. A handful of rice satisfies him for a day. And then the mildness of the climate, the admirable air and light, the ethereal food which is taken through the eyes, and the singular beauty and harmony of all nature, develop and refine the perceptions and make the senses acute. This is noticeable even in all the animals, and especially in the elephant, who, though huge and shapeless in bulk, and rough in exterior, is a voluptuous connoisseur of perfumes, selecting the most fragrant herbs, and showing his preference for the orange-tree, which he first smells, and then eats its flowers, its leaves, and its wood. Here man acquires an exquisite fineness of perception and feeling. Nature makes him a colorist, and endows him with special privileges as her own child. He lives with her, and all that he does is charming. He combines the most diverse strains, and commingles the dullest hues in such a manner as to produce the sweetest and most exquisite effect.

The sky does everything for the Oriental. A quarter of an hour before sunrise, and a quarter of an hour after sunset, he enjoys

In the execution of strange and exquisite jewelry, and in the fanciful ornamentation of furniture and arms, the hand of the workman is unique. Some of the latest Princes of India sent to the Exhibition referred to, arms which had been worn by their ancestors, and therefore so peculiarly dear to them, as well as of such great value, that we can scarcely understand how they consented to entrust them to others. Another of those Rajahs sent a bedstead of ivory, possibly of his own workmanship, as he superscribed his name on it, which was sculptured and carved with infinite ingenuity and delicacy-an exquisite, chaste, or virgin-like piece of furniture, full of love, it seems, and of dreams. Are these objects things? They seem to be almost human, and to be possessed with the ancient soul of India, as well as with that of the artist who made them, and the Prince who used them.

But these sumptuous productions of rare artists do not indicate the genius of the race so fully as do the inferior arts, and the more simple handiwork. Without expense or noise the Hindoos, with apparent ease, produce works that appear to us very diffi cult. With a little clay for a crucible, and for bellows a couple of the strong, elastic leaves peculiar to the country, a single man in the forest will, in a few hours, turn the crude ore into iron, and again, with the addition of swallow wort, turn the iron into steel, which, when carried by caravans as far as the Euphrates, is called Damascus steel.

It has been observed by many that the peculiar chemical insight of this people has enabled them not only to extract the most

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