Demaistre bit his lip and turned pale; but like the hero Narses, defeat cowed not his spirit, and contempt rather inspired than abashed him. Dropping the subject easily, he took up a very jocular and confiding tone, rattled over a variety of pleasant topics, and pretending to have an appointment at eight, left Jenkins in a high good-humor with himself, and consequently with every one else.

The German soon looked up, and recognizing Jenkins, who had not till then seen that the enemy of Demaistre was an old acquaintance of his own, the two joined company and entered into conversation, assisting their wits with an occasional glass of brandy-and-water.

The German had before him a copy of the London Times-Jenkins, a Herald. They exchanged. The two papers, of the same date, had each an article on the military power of the respective countries.

"Your countrymen," said the German, "are the most irascible and insolent in the world, and the strongest for war, but they do not feel it. The English, on the contrary, feel powerful, and are essentially weak: they outface you."

"We shall one day feel and understand our power," replied Jenkins, "and England her weakness, and she will then perhaps assume a civiller tone toward us. But how is it that you Prussians, who are a military people, trained, every man of you, to arms, are not the leading power in Europe?"

"For the same reason, sir," replied Conrad, "that you Americans are not the first in the world. I call you Americans,-I should have said Republicans; for though you are a compactly organized power, you are not a nation, in the ancient sense. Neither is Prussia a nation; its nationality is young and weak; it could even reconcile itself, as some of your fools do, to dismemberment and subjugation. The masses of the people have not liberty enough; they have discipline and education instead."

Jenkins smiled. "Liberty," said he, "is no longer a passion with us. The old enthusi

"Nor perhaps ever will," replied Conrad, sighing, "though I would give my life to be assured of it. But you have it in your hearts as warm as ever, though you talk less about it; and that is no doubt right. But you are looking for something new to interest you, and must have change."

"Do you mean to say that our form of government will change?"

"No, not materially; but the spirit of your early history, your 'spirit of '76,' as you call it, is an extinct form of enthusiasm. Your hot adventurers, who know little of the past, cannot feed their imaginations on the glory of their fathers; they wish to make a little fresh glory for themselves." "And what follows?"

"Look at history and it will tell you. What followed liberty in Athens?" "Conquest!"

"What in Rome?"

"Do you mean to suggest," said Jenkins, with an expression of surprise," that Great Britain owes her vigor, these last two centuries, to an infusion of the democratic principle?"

66

Why not? The more of democracy the more of war, and the more, too, of public authority and of popular activity. The most despotic empires are the most peaceful. When the will of the multitude rules, you have perpetual wars. Merchants under a strong government delight in war: witness Greece, Carthage, Egypt, England. And you too must come to it. War opens the way for commerce. We say Commerce is king, we mean to say, interest is king. The Southerner is valiant in defense of his property, the Englishman in defense of his commerce. The American will again make war, as he has already made it, for his freedom of industry, the liberty to work and sell. He must shut out the foreigner or he starves, and if he cannot otherwise do it, he will fight for it.

"When the American cotton grower, farmer, and cloth maker believe in a common interest, and feel that together they stand against the world, they will make one nation, and be masters of the seas. In Prussia, the people do not know

can

dence of a new spirit that will spoil your silly Republic."

Jenkins could not avoid laughing outright at the extraordinary excitement of the old German, about so insignificant a person as he took our hero to be; he had not then heard of the terrible affair of C. B-, the great bribe offered to the member from J-k-n, by the Russian Autocrat, to betray the whole Continent to a handful of bayonets. Fnce was certainly mixed up in that business. Could the Widow Tibbs, and the P.'s, and the Q.'s, and the S-'bbs, and C-tt-ings have known it, doubtless they would have had their coats of arms newly furbished.

The talk of the German grew wearisome to Jenkins, who, of all topics, hated a political one. To escape its continuance he drew the old gentleman into a talk upon music, which was a hobby with both. They soon left the Café, and Jenkins, by the invitation of his friend, went with him to his lodgings, though it was late.

CHAPTER VI.

THE FOREIGN ARTIST.

Ar Conrad's they found a stranger waiting for that gentleman. This was the veritable Sir Charles Humdrum, gentleman artist, from his studies at Dusseldorf. Attending upon his heels stood the veritable Tom Jotting, the "items man" of the world-wide "Sunday Morning Maniac." As a living representative of English nobility, Sir Charles seemed to be an object of intense and awful interest to Jotting, which he made no effort to hide; and between the knight and his admirer, there was a harmony of natures like that of the sexes, or, not to desecrate that generous relationship, like the affinity between a big schoolboy and his little fag. Sir Charles was a tall, fresh-looking youth, very white and red, and with a noticeably clean skin. It was evident he washed with regularity; and Jotting, who, with a view to correct information, got up an intimacy with his washerwoman, assured me that his shirts, (of fine linen,) two dozen, were changed twice a day. Jotting is happy

His eye was large and open, with wetlooking lids, like a young heifer's; and his nose turned up at the tip, thin and very white, as though he pulled it much himself. Sir Charles, it was evident, never drank; his dietary holds him to a milk diet, for," said Jotting, rising on the theme, “he had no more of dyspepsia about him than a pig. His teeth, white, long, and even, had a harmless look, and pushed the upper lip a little forward, as though nature had mixed a trace of the herbivorous, or horse temperament, (racer, of course,) in his blood.

"On being introduced he shook hands with his glove between the little finger and the palm, and smiled sweetly like a girl of sixteen, but very cool, like old maids at morning visits the day after a funeral. The unconscious superiority of his nature enabled Sir Charles to govern with discretion a pair of the longest and straightest legs I ever saw, which were, in fact, perfectly continuous with his body from the armpits to the ankles. Their absolute length could not be accurately determined; one could only broach conjecture on that important point from the gentlemanly movement of the hips, which were high and narrow. But what we most admired," continues Jotting,

66

was the wonderful ease of his fingers, which resembled a bunch of peeled radishes, so easy were they, and independent of each other; so white and taper, with the high blood of Normandy imparting a flush to the cuticle. He gave us his two fingers in a lord and master' style, and seemed ennuyée with the effort. He coughed slightly, and with great ease; yawned almost imperceptibly, examined my boots an instant with his eye-glass, and turned to a friend, who stood near, as if to say, 'My dear fellaw, who the juce have you here?' exactly as English lords do these things in real life.”

"You may laugh if you will, sir," said Jotting, as I was looking over the description, in a wet proof of the Maniac, 'but I can tell you, sir, there are points about real nobility beyond the comprehension of a republican, and one of these is the voice. God knows, my sister has a silvery voice, but Sir Charles's is the pure thing. Voice, Mr. Rigmarole, is a thing that indicates blood. A man must

have it from his grandmother; I do not mean to say that a man ought absolutely to have his grandmother's tone, but he must have her blood in him. A man, sir, must have the blood of his grandmother to have a good voice. A large degree of self-consciousness is equally necessary to the speaking of a good article of English. None but a full-blooded lord can sound the vowels and consonants correctly, or give that sportive, half-lazy, half-impudent drawl, which is so juced superior. In fact, to speak good English, one must have lounged in an Oxford cloister, after playing trap at Eton with the young aristocracy. Greek accidence is a part of the secret. A neat use of slang, like the acid in punch, never de trop, an articulation and cadence like the higher octaves of a boudoir piano, touched by the neat finger of our little Hoffman, (who, now I think of it, bade me give you

a ticket, here it is,)—shall I add spicy hautboyish inflexions of the voice, for the introduction of my gentleman's polished teethbetrayers, (I mean a smile,) and jaw-depressors, (I mean dashes of aristocratic dullness,) put in as though my gentleman ought not to know anything out of the Court Journal, and cannot recollect his younger brothers' names, were he damned for it;-in fine, an easy evenness of tone and carriage, as though my lord had been in h―l and seen nothing there particularly striking.-Ah, sir, to acquire all this is an art-is high art, and requires a combination of blood and education which only Oxford and St. James's, and a life of easy spending, can give a man; fore Heaven! I am sure to know a gentleman now. I wish only to hear him say, Aw! in the dark; that little exclamation betrays it all." [TO BE CONTINUED.]

Our college system is known to be objectionable. Our graduates are strangely deficient in those branches which the College makes its especial care, and are proverbially ignorant of those practical sciences which exert so weighty an influence on the present world. We find among them few masters of Latin and Greek, fewer still who are at all skilful in mathematics. He would be thought an indifferent French teacher whose pupils, after having been three or four years under his care, were unable to pronounce and translate a page of Molière. Yet it is common knowledge that not one graduate in three can read and translate a section of Tacitus without blundering in his quantities, if not in his rendering. Rari nantes are they who can solve you a quadratic equation

Without stopping to enlarge upon what no one will dispute, it may safely be said that a system of education that furnishes such meagre and unsatisfactory results should be looked into and reformed, if reformation be possible; and that the scrutiny should be conducted, and the plan of reformation proposed, by one intimately conversant with the broad and intricate subject of University education.

In such a matter as Collegiate Reform, the first steps towards alteration and improvement must be taken by more competent parties than the superficial public, or the newspaper. Declamation against the conservative College is utterly useless, and is often of positive injury in strengthening the evils which it strives to eradicate. Open abuse only recoils upon itself. Of all the attacks that have been made on our college