THE DUC DE L'OMELETTE.

And stepped at once into a cooler clime.—COWPER.

KEATS fell by a criticism. Who was it died of The Andromache?* Ignoble souls! - De L'Omelette perished of an ortolan. L'histoire en est brève-assist me, Spirit of Apicius!

A golden cage bore the little winged wanderer, enamoured, melting, indolent, to the Chausée d'Antin, from its home in far Peru. From its queenly possessor, La Bellissima, to the Duc de l'Omelette, six peers of the empire conveyed the happy bird. It was "All for Love."

That night the Duc was to sup alone. In the privacy of his bureau he reclined languidly on that ottoman,-for which he sacrificed his loyalty in outbidding his king-the notorious ottoman of Cadêt.

He buries his face in the pillow-the clock strikes! Unable to restrain his feelings, his Grace swallows an olive. At this moment the door gently opens to the sound of soft music, and, lo! the most delicate of birds is before the most enamoured of men! But what inexpressible dismay now overshadows the countenance of the Duc? "Horreur ! —chien! — Baptiste! — l'oiseau! ah, bon Dieu! cet oiseau modeste que tu as deshabillé de ses plumes, et que tu as servi sans papier!" It is superfluous to say more the Duc expired in a paroxysm of disgust.

"Ha! ha! ha!" said his Grace on the third day after his de

cease.

"He! he he!" replied the devil faintly, drawing himself up with an air of hauteur.

"Why, surely you are not serious," retorted De l'Omelette. "I have sinned-c'est vrai-but, my good sir, consider!—you have no actual intention of putting such - such - barbarous threats into execution."

"No what?" said his Majesty. "Come, sir, strip!"

"Strip, indeed! very pretty, i' faith! No, sir, I shall not strip, Who are you, pray, that I, Duc de l'Omelette, Prince de Foie-Gras, just come of age, author of the 'Mazurkiad,' and Member of the Academy, should divest myself at your bidding of the sweetest pantaloons ever made by Bourdon, the daintiest robe-de-chambre ever put together by Rombêrt; to say nothing of the taking my hair out of paper; not to mention the trouble I should have in drawing off my gloves?"

"Who am I? Ah! true: I am Baal-Zebub, Prince of the Fly. I took thee just now from a rosewood coffin, inlaid with ivory. Thou wast curiously scented, and labelled as per invoice. Belial sent

Montfleury. The author of the Parnasse Réformé makes him thus express himself in the shades. "The man, then, who would know of what I died, let him not ask if it were of the fever, the dropsy, or the gout; but let him know that it was of The Andromache."

thee - my Inspector of Cemeteries. The pantaloons, which thou sayest were made by Bourdon, are an excellent pair of linen drawers, and thy robe-de-chambre is a shroud of no scanty dimensions."

"Sir!" replied the Duc, "I am not to be insulted with impunity! Sir, I shall take the earliest opportunity of avenging this insult ! Sir, you shall hear from me! In the mean time au revoir ! " and the Duc was bowing himself out of the Satanic presence, when he was interrupted and brought back by a gentleman in waiting. Hereupon his Grace rubbed his eyes, yawned, shrugged his shoulders, reflected. Having become satisfied of his identity, he took a bird's-eye view of his whereabouts.

The apartment was superb. Even De l'Omelette pronounced it bien comme il faut. It was not very long, nor very broad,—but its height-ah, that was appalling! There was no ceiling-certainly none – but a dense whirling mass of fiery-coloured clouds. His Grace's brain reeled as he glanced upwards. From above hung a chain of an unknown blood-red metal, its upper end lost, parmi les nues. From its nether extremity hung a large cresset. The Duc knew it to be a ruby; but from it there poured a light so intense, so still, so terrible, Persia never worshipped such - Ghebre never imagined such- Mussulman never dreamed of such when, drugged with opium, he has tottered to a bed of poppies, his back to the flowers, and his face to the god Apollo! The Duc muttered a slight oath, decidedly approbatory.

But

The corners of the room were rounded into niches. Three of these were filled with statues of gigantic proportions. Their beauty was Grecian, their deformity Egyptian, their tout ensemble French. In the fourth niche the statue was veiled-it was not colossal. then there was a taper ankle, a sandalled foot. De l'Omelette laid his hand upon his heart, closed his eyes, raised them, and caught his Satanic Majesty-in a blush.

But the paintings! Kupris! Astarte! Astoreth!—a thousand and the same! And Raffaelle has beheld them! Yes, Raffaelle has been here; for did he not paint the .? and was he not conse

quently damned? The paintings!-the paintings! Oluxury! O love!-who, gazing on those forbidden beauties, shall have eyes for the dainty devices of the golden frames that lie imbedded and asleep against those swelling walls of eider down?

But the Duc's heart is fainting within him. He is not, however, as you suppose, dizzy with magnificence, nor drunk with the ecstatic breath of those innumerable censers. The Duc de l'Omelette is terror-stricken; for through the lurid vista which a single uncurtained window is affording, lo! gleams the most ghastly of all fires!

The poor Duke! He could not help imagining that the glorious, the voluptuous, the never-dying melodies which pervaded that hall, as they passed filtered and transmuted through the alchemy of the enchanted window-panes, were the wailings and the howlings of the hopeless and the damned! And there, too-there-upon that ottoman!--who could he be ?-he, the petit maitre-no, the Deity-who sat as if carved in marble, with his pale countenance, so sneeringly.

*

*

*

*

But a Frenchman never faints outright. Besides, his grace hated a scene - De l'Omelette is himself again. There were some foils

VOL. VIII.

2 B

upon a table—some points also. The Duc had studied under B—; he had killed his six men. He measures two points, and, with a grace inimitable, offers his Majesty the choice. Horreur! His Majesty does not fence!

But he plays!-what a happy thought! His Grace, however, had always an excellent memory. He had dipped in the "Diable" of the Abbé Gaultier. Therein it is said, "Que le Diable n'ose pas refuser un jeu d'Ecarté."

But the chances-the chances !-True-desperate: but not more desperate than the Duc. Besides, was he not in the secret?-had he not skimmed over Père Le Brun? was he not a member of the Club Vingt-un? "Si je perds," said he, “je serai deux fois perdu, I shall be doubly damned-voila tout!" (Here his Grace shrugged his shoulders.) "Si je gagne je serai libre,-que les cartes soient préparées!"

*

His Grace was all care, all attention his Majesty all confidence. A spectator would have thought of Francis and Charles. His Grace thought of his game. His Majesty did not think-he shuffled. The

Duc cut.

The cards are dealt. The trump is turned-it is—it is—the king! No: it was the queen. His Majesty cursed her masculine habiliments. De l'Omelette laid his hand upon his heart.

They play. The Duc counts. The hand is out. His Majesty counts heavily, smiles, and is taking wine. The Duc slips a card. His Grace "C'est à vous à faire," said his Majesty, cutting.

bowed, dealt, and arose from the table en présentant le Roi. His Majesty looked chagrined.

Had Alexander not been Alexander, he would have been Diogenes; and the Duc assured his Majesty in taking leave, "Que s'il n'était pas De l'Omelette il n'aurait point d'objection d'être le Diable.”

THE MOCKINGS OF THE SOLDIERS.

FROM ST. MATTHEW.

"PLANT a crown upon his head,
Royal robe around him spread;
See that his imperial hand
Grasps, as fit, the sceptral wand:
Then before him bending low,
As becomes his subjects, bow;
Fenced within our armed ring,
Hail him, hail him, as our King!"

Platted was of thorns the crown,
Trooper's cloak was royal gown;
If his passive hand, indeed,
Grasp'd a sceptre, 'twas a reed.
He was bound to feel and hear
Deeds of shame, and words of jeer;
For he whom king in jest they call
Was a doom'd captive scoff'd by all.

But the brightest crown of gold,
Or the robe of rarest fold,
Or the sceptre which the mine
Of Golconda makes to shine,
Or the lowliest homage given
By all mankind under heaven,
Were prized by him no more than scorn,
Sceptre of reed, or crown of thorn.

Of the stars his crown is made,
In the sun he is array'd,
He the lightning of the spheres
As a flaming sceptre bears:
Bend in rapture before him
Ranks of glowing seraphim;
And we, who spurn'd him, trembling stay
The judgment of his coming day.

W. M.

MORAL ECONOMY OF LARGE TOWNS.

BY DR. W. C. TAYLOR.

JUVENILE LABOUR.

LORD ASHLEY has directed the attention of the government and the public to one of the most important questions in our social economy, the condition of the generation immediately rising into manhood; and though his investigations embrace only a part, and that not the most important, of so extensive a subject, his labours cannot fail to produce valuable results, if the commissioners of inquiry appointed at his suggestion direct their attention not to making a case, but to collecting information. Reports are too often the records of the opinions the writers have formed, rather than the facts they have collected. In many of them we have lectures on political economy, on domestic and foreign policy, and on various branches of science, not always thoroughly comprehended, instead of such an array of facts as should form the foundation of opinion. It is but fair to add that this censure is more applicable to old reports than to those of ancient date. Indeed there was a time when it seemed a sufficient qualification for a commissioner that he was tolerably acquainted with Adam Smith and Joe Miller, for these authors furnished the staple of his report.

Those who have taken an interest in the education of the working classes, and watched its results in the practical operations of life, are aware that there is a stage when its beneficial results are exposed to a very rude trial, namely, the period when the children. leave school. The poor require that children should begin to do something towards assisting in their own support when they reach the age of eleven or twelve, which is precisely the period when the moral training, that ought to form the chief element of education, might be expected to have the most influence on their minds. In general they leave school with only some smattering of reading and writing, and perhaps a little arithmetic, nothing has been done towards expanding their minds, or forming their principles; indeed before the great majority of their teachers could inculcate the elements of morality, they would require to be instructed in them themselves. On this most important point the selection of teachers a culpable spirit of negligence, or a still more culpable spirit of jobbing, exists among many who profess themselves the warmest friends of national education. Their notion of a school is simply a parcel of children packed into a room, seated on forms, with books or slates before them, and some grown person sitting in the middle, with a cast-iron countenance, never ruffled by a smile, whose value in the eyes of his patrons increases in the direct proportion of his approximation to an automaton. The patrons of charity-schools too frequently endeavour to make their benevolence perform double duty; there is to be charity in the appointment of the teacher, as well as in the admission of the scholars; and hence, with intentions as good as ever formed pavement in a place unmentionable to ears polite, when the office of schoolmaster is vacant, they vote for some broken tradesman, decayed farmer, superannuated

servant, or helpless pauper, for the very sensible reason that “he wants the place, poor man!" The more-important question, " Does the place want him?" is never taken into account; and thus, by imposing double work on their charity, they make one part of it neutralize the other.

The three great blunders made in education, even by sensible men, cannot be too often exposed; they are, first, a confusion between the means and the end, a belief that reading and writing are education, which is about as wise as to suppose that a hammer and saw are an arm-chair; secondly, that the qualifications required in a teacher are of such ordinary amount that they may be found anywhere,-teaching, farming, and gig-driving, all ranking among the gifts of Nature; and, thirdly, that moral training is produced by some inexplicable chemical compound in the school atmosphere, which produces so deep a constitutional effect that it lasts for life. It requires very little reasoning to prove that where any of these errors is committed,-and in seven-eights of the schools throughout England all three flourish gloriously, the education conferred must be miserable in amount, and soon forgotten. That such is the fact sufficiently appears from the educational inquiries made by that invaluable institution, the Manchester Statistical Society. In their report on the township of Pendleton, we find the following anecdotes, equally amusing to the reader, and disgraceful to the nation.

"A considerable number of persons stated that they were once able to read in the Bible, but had now forgotten it. This takes place, according to some, because they have so mitch else to think about; others consider that hard work drives it out of their heads ; and one woman attributed her loss of learning to having had 'such a big family.' A hand-loom weaver, speaking in reference to his ability to read formerly, said, 'I could say th' catechis fro' end to end, and ne'er look at book; but I cannot read now. I can only spell out words i' th' Testament, but cannot expenale them, or summut o' that.' A young woman, twenty-eight years of age, said she could have read in the Testament when young, but can only tell her letters now; cannot account for it, except that she has never tried to read for years. A crofter said he was at least three years at a day-school, and could read the Bible, but has quite forgotten how it's done now.'

Our own private investigations have convinced us that much of the learning acquired, or supposed to be acquired in the schools for the lower ranks, is forgotten twelve months after the children have left school, and sometimes at an earlier period; the report from which we have quoted states

"1. One youth said he had been to school, but what instruction he had had was not 'gradely,' for he could not say his letters.

"2. A female, referring to her school-days, said they did not learn much, for the mistress used to set the scholars agate o' peeling potatoes and fetching water, 'stead of setting them to read."

"3. A man, who had attended a free-school in Staffordshire, complained that the master took no trouble with the scholars, and hence he never learned to read properly: -one lad teached another all that was taught.'