"Why, that's thirty-five years ago." "Don't talk so loud, please; people may hear -all the world's not asleep. I bear my years well, you see. Careful is my regimen-allow no excitement-none. I am here to exist, and to study existence. I was organised to live, and I live for life. But you need not mention the matter more, though it be mathematically right that twenty-four from fifty-nine leaves-how many did you say?" "Why, thirty-five." plain its nature, nor give any proof on the subject ?" "There are facts, don't you see?" "No, I don't see them. There are weak imaginations, weak nerves, and I do not know the influence of the imagination over the physical system." "That is it you do not know; and because you do not know, therefore you put away and repudiate what others do know." "Not where they have any proof that is better than Mr. Anderson's tricks. A very clever magician that, too-just as clever as William Gawtrey; but he puts his talents to a better use." "But who is William Gawtrey ?" "Thirty five, yes; that's a long time. Your father was active and young then. He never studied the act of attaining longevity. He was strong and died; I was weak then and live. That is the intellectual and rational view of my posi"Was, I should have said. He is dead nowtion. I am thirty-five years younger, so you may killed by a fall in Paris, when he had gone from forget the figures. I was saying that we must bad to worse. He was one of the men who hang educate common minds, ere they can comprehend loose upon society-had been in many trades— the blessings of animal magnetism and the in- and amongst others, a professor of animal magnetism tensely dark mysteries of their hidden life-their-it was lucrative, he said, till it went out of inner nature." "You're a believer in animal magnetism, then? Can you explain it ?" "Not definitively, so as to make it all quite clear to you." Mine is a common mind, then-needs to be educated, eh? Is that it ?" "I don't wish exactly to say that your mind is so. I merely remark that young gentlemen who understand horses, and are more or less on the turf, are not likely to comprehend." "Beg your pardon, Nimmo, that's not my likeness. Never betted a hundred guineas in my life, from my cradle to this present night-dare not, either." "Just so; young gentlemen who are under female influence of a certain restricted class, too --all good and right for you, too, in a worldly point, you see-you never could grasp grand ideas-you are not allowed, being under a bridle, and running in a track. You cannot stretch out into the immensity of space that is above and around you. Your class are like a railway train -you can go forward, but you cannot go off the track." "Without going to smash, you mean, Mr. Nimmo." "No, I don't mean anything fatal, involving breakage, bruises, damages, deaths, and law pleas." "Then what do you mean ?" Well, that you are fastened up, and cannot get out of the circle." "But where's the good of getting if you do not know where you go. Here are you talking of the intellectual and the rational system, yet you do not comprehend a bit something in which you believe. Is it intellectual to believe in animal magnetism, and you cannot explain it ? or rational to credit this mesmerism, and you can neither ex fashion. Perhaps, he thought, it will come in again." "Never heard the name in all my acquaintance with science." "Oh, William Gawtrey-why, he is one of Bulwer's creations-a fancy fellow, you knowdrawn by that imagination which has been recently bent on the colonies." "Exactly; there's no such person, of course." "True; I thought you had read Bulwer's 'Night and Morning.' "Fair dividend, yes-very good." "The miners complain desperately of their houses, and I don't wonder. People can't be decent in such houses, and so they drink and spend their money. Could you do nothing to help education, and so on, there ?" "I do anything? Certainly not! The men are paid their money, of course. Any interference with the course of trade resembles giving alms, and is positively and really sinful." "Just so. I forgot to tell you, by the way, that in saying, without the use of my senses, I would be nothing,' I begged the entire question, stating what I did not know. Botheration, mare, what's going on now. Why, Nimmo, here's a young fellow asleep on the road; and, except for the beast's sense of sight, he might have been roughly wakened. You hold my bridle here till I see what's to be done. That won't disturb the course of trade, I trust." 428 THE DAY AFTER DEATH. THERE is a calm more terrible unto the stricken Dread Death! he will not think of thee-sweet soul Than all the raging tempests of wild grief which o'er it roll: A calm which from the strong man takes his strength of heart away, And veils in midnight darkness all the sunshine of the day; From beauty steals its loveliness, from life its many joys, And leaves the man, amidst his griefs, a child 'midst broken toys Leaves him a sense of loneliness mysteriously dread, And voices ever whispering-dead, dead; amidst the dead. Death, long will he gaze On her to whom thou givest back the beauty of past days Oh, cheek lit with transparency; Oh, thou seraphic gleam. Of what the dead in heaven are; Oh, fade not yet, dear dream. Alone with death he trembled not, with her there was no fear, But thrice he kissed and left her, growing colder and more dear: One only thought was on him then-to tread the path she trod; For Love renews its strength in death, and death is peace with God. Then will be to her chamber go, where still she And now, when others turn from him, he feels seems to sleep, Forgetful of the voices go, to speak and not to weep: Will gently draw aside, and even still more gently close, The curtain round the form that lies in loveliest repose. that she is near, And soft and sweet her well-known voice is ringing in his ear; His early loved, his lately lost, doth sit with him awhile, And brighter than the sun, he feels the brightness of her smile. WILLIAM JOHN Åbram. POLITICAL NARRATIVE. THE last month has been eventful. The Piedmontese army advanced, and after a series of severe combats, they occupied Palestro, a village where the Austrians were strongly posted. The losses on neither side in this engagement have been correctly stated, but they were severe. The Piedmontese and one regiment of Zouaves were the chief sufferers among the Allies. The Austrians lost, according to the Allied statements, 400 men, who were drowned in a canal, and 1,000 prisoners. These figures have no reference to the numbers of killed and wounded in the course of fighting. The united loss of all parties amounted, probably, to 4,000 in killed and wounded. The Allies won Palestro. Thereafter, they advanced on Modara and Novara, creeping closer to the Ticino. The Allies, instead of crossing the Po, after the junction of the Ticino, had changed their front rapidly, by the aid of the railways in their rear, and they decided to make their attack on the Ticino. General Neil entered Novara on the 2nd of June, and on the evening of the 3rd of June, the French, under General MacMahon, crossed the river at Turbigo, and established them selves on the left or Milan bank of the Ticino. On the morning of the 4th, the French crossed opposite the village of Magenta. It does not appear that Count Gyulai, the Austrian commanderin-chief, employed any means to annoy the French in crossing the river, or to oppose the passage. He had never recovered from his idea that the French would cross the Po, in the direction of Pavia, where the Austrians were in force, and supported by fortifications to meet them. Magenta was held by a considerable force of Austrians, and the Emperor of the French ordered an attack on the position by his Imperial Guards and Zouaves. They were beaten back, and charged upon the causeway between them and the river in their turn. Both armies received reinforcements during the day, and the battle of Magenta was a succession of assaults upon the position, repulses and successes. Magenta was six times gained, and six times lost. The Imperial Guards and the Zouaves lost heart and lost men in great numbers. General Le Clerc and General Espinasse were both shot. The battle, according to an Austrian telegraph to Vienua, was "going well." Count Gyulai was deceived into the opinion that he had won. Some people even say that he had ordered dinner, satisfied with the day's work. Meantime, another branch of the conflict had been proceeding farther up the river, where MacMahon crossed the Ticino. The two divisions | of the combatants were not far separated. The distance from Magenta is only a few miles to Turbigo. The proceedings there were not faithfully reported to Count Gyulai; or in his anxiety to preserve the central position, he altogether neglected his right wing. MacMahon, with some difficulty, carried Buffaldora, and drove its defenders, who survived his assault, in upon the flank of the Austrians at Magenta. He acted without orders, from an idea that to the eastward lay his work. The French were now strengthened by a stream of reinforcements from Canrobert's division. When MacMahon attacked in flank a stouter effort was also made in front. Still, the place might have been kept, but at this juncture a large number of Italians in the Austrian service passed over to the Allies. The day was lost, then, and a slow and stubborn retreat for four miles was made. The French did not pursue. Another attack on Magenta was said to have been made on the following day by the Austrians. One telegraphist even asserted that they had thrown the French over the Ticino. That was an invention. The French remained on the left bank of the Ticino. Napoleon telegraphed to his Empress that they had taken 7,000 prisoners. The Austrians admitted the loss of 4,000 men missing. They knew, however, that these men were missing from a determination not to be longer present. They were deserters, who lost the key of Magenta, or took it with them. The French Emperor acknowledged that they had captured three and lost one piece of artillery, and that they had gotten one flag, which was cut from the hand of a dead colonel, who had clutched the silk as the colour staff fell from the hand of his ensign. Both were dead-the old and the young officer beside its folds. Rumours of all kinds continued to arrive regarding the losses of the two armies. Napoleon telegraphed his losses at 3,000 killed and wounded; Gyulai estimated that of the Austrians at 4,000 to 5,000 in killed and wounded. At Turin the loss of the Austrians was given at 5,000 killed and 8,000 wounded, and of the French at 3,000 killed and 5,000 wounded. Gyulai had made an estimate of the Allied loss, saying that it was one half more than his own. At last we had numerical returns. The Paris Moniteur has altered twice its reports, always falling into mistakes as it wrote. The last one gives nearly 5,000 killed and wounded, including 300 to 400 prisoners. The Austrian numerical return carries up their losses to more than 6,000 men Their head quarters remained at Abbiate Grassio, in what Count Gyulai styled a strong flanking position; and so it was if the Allies had advanced on Milan. They respected him, however, although Magenta is only twelve miles from the Lombard metropolis. They reposed to re organise, in the language of Napoleon. It was now that the Austrian plans were changed. Gyulai was superseded. He had always opposed the policy of Marshal Hesse, who wished to retire into the quadrangle, and there abide the assaults of the Allies. Gyulai wanted more active measures. There is no doubt that these measures distracted the counsels of the Austrians, and weakened both leaders. Hesse and his policy were now in the ascendant. Orders had been issued to change the entire plan of the campaign. Pavia, and all its fortifications, Piacenza, with no small portion of its stores, and all the positions held by the Austrians between the Mincio and the Po, or the Ticino, were abandoned. The Austrian garrison in the Dukedoms of Modena and Parma were withdrawn. Even the garrisons which held Ancona and Bologna in the Ecclesiastical States were brought into the camp, and that was formed by the quadrangle, of which the Mincio is the outer line. These operations were accomplished without any molestation from the Allies, with the exception of attacks by Garibaldi in the western districts. and the battle of Martigno. That small town was held by a brigade of Austrians to cover the retreat of the main body. Their expulsion was a murderous struggle between them and the Zouaves. The slightest reliance cannot be placed upon the bulletins of the French, until checked by their own correspondence; and all the letters by the postal routes are examined. There is a good omen, perhaps, in the time now allowed to elapse before the French public are permitted to know the price of glory. Even they might consider it too expensive. The same reason causes concealments of the numbers of fatalities. It is better two or three years afterwards to return the numbers of those who perished by sickness or wounds in round figures. The dead are forgotten, perhaps, or mourned for ere then. This plan differs from the nominal lists made plainly by the late Lord Raglan. The killed and wounded at this battle between Milan and Mincio, on both sides, and perhaps divided equally, amounted to not under three thousand men. The French did not pursue. It is a characteristic of these struggles, that they do not end in a decisive victory. The change in the Austrian policy, after Magenta, has, however, given all the consequences of a great victory to the Allied cause. Tuscany has been abandoned by its Duke, and the French, under Prince Napoleon, have taken possession of the army of Leghorn, Florence, and all the land, with the consent of the people, who suppose stupidly that they are only using the French-the Barbarians as they style us all for the King of Sardinia's trustees. Modena has, after a slight show of resistance, been abandoned by its Duke, who has taken part of his own army, and a part of the Parmese, to join the Austrians. Parma has been a well-governed state for several years by the Duchess Regent; but she has been obliged to leave her home, release her army from their oaths of allegiance, and remove to Switzerland. There was no reason for the fight of the Duchess, except to "square the circle" of Napoleon's ambition, and Victor Emmanuel's desire to rule in Italy. The Duke of Tuscany was an intolerant personage; but to Roman Catholics Tuscany was, we believe, a pleasant residence. The Duke of Modena was an extremely objectionable person to the national party, because he supported the Austrians; but otherwise, we suppose him to have been an indifferent ruler-neither very bad nor very good. The Duchess of Parma had governed her dominions well, and deserved all consideration., Lombardy is represented as having been governed with an easy and kind rule by the Archduke who had it in keeping. There is one fact which should be recorded in favour of the Austrian commanders and soldiers during the war. They appear not to have destroyed crops or trees that could be spared. As they are at present not in good fortune, it is right to say any good of them that is true. These are the four independent or separate parts of Italy that have been partly "liberated," if we may use a word which is employed by the Piedmontese, but which, we believe, has very little meaning on the topic. Naples and Rome, we understood, were the two worst governed states of Italy. Naples is to be unimproved, at the special desire of Russia. Rome is to be kept for the convenience of the French; and, as at Perugio, in this month, people will be butchered by foreign soldiers if they attempt to escape from the domination of cardinals and the Pontiff. The quadrangle into which the Austrian army passed is formed by the Mincio, which is the continuance or outlet of the long and narrow Lake di Garda. Lake and river may be forty miles long, from the top to the Po. The lake is backed by a range of mountains. Between these mountains and another and a higher range, runs the Adige, in a narrow glen. It emerges from this long channel at Verona, almost opposite the spot where the Mincio leaves the lake, and twelve to fourteen miles distant. Verona is the most extensive of the four Austrian fortifications. It is a town of considerable extent, and the entrenched camps around it are extensive and formidable. Leguno, twenty miles further down the Adige, and nearer to the Po, is not so extensive, but is considered very strong. Peschiera, in the Mincio, opposite to Verona, stands upon an island, and is a place of great strength-although it was taken by Charles Albert, with the Piedmontese army, in 1848. Mantua, on another island of the Mincio, is almost opposite Leguno, and twenty miles from that place. It is considered impregnable by a siege. The defenders believe that it can only be forced by blockade. Between Leguno on the Adige, and Mantua on the Mincio, the distance to the junction of these rivers with the Po is only a few mil es of marches. The latter river, at that point, is a bold and rapid stream of great breadth; and it is supposed that armed vessels could not readily make head against its swift current. The Austrians were expected to abide the assault of the Allies in this quadrangle; but contrary to all expectation, they re-crossed the Mincio on the 23rd of June, and fought, according to Napoleon, for sixteen hours of Friday, the 24th of June, which, hereafter, will be memorable in history as the battle day of Solferino-a village five miles from the Chiese, a river running nearly parallel with the Mincio, and almost the same distance from the latter stream. The French Emperor says that they have taken six thousand prisoners, thirty cannons, and three flags. The Austrians acknowledge that their centre was broken, order could not be restored, and they retired in a thunderstorm, with heavy loss. They re-crossed the Mincio. As usual, the French did not pursue. A week has elapsed since the battle, yet no report of the numbers of killed and wounded men has yet been made by any of the combatants. That number, we fear, is appalling. The Austrians had 150,000 men engaged, by their own account. The Allies had probably a superior force. The combat, according to the Allies, continued for sixteen hours according to the Austriaus for twelve hours. The right wing of the Allies was driven back, but the centre of the Austrians was pressed in. The combat was sustained with bitter vehemence to the end. It is impossible not to fear even to look at these figures. And all these deaths will have been done in the outraged name of liberty, to please two or three gentlemen in search of their own ends and purposes-which had need to be valuable. As At home, meanwhile, the Derby Government were defeated in the Commons on the 11th, by a majority of 13, and immediately resigned. The defeat was accomplished by a combination of the Independent Liberals and the Whigs. The new Cabinet, under Viscount Palmerston, commences business to day. To-day, therefore, the real business of the year may be said to commence. yet, Parliament has been engaged on factious work. The duration of the new Cabinet depends on many points. The principal is, the conduct of its members, who are extremely likely to disagree. The two leading men in the Cabinet never have agreed hitherto, but adversity may have taught them lessons which they would have never learned in prosperity. Then the character of their Reform Bill may affect them. At present, perhaps, they are in more danger from their foreign policy. Any tendency to Napoleonism would overthrow the strongest ministry in this country. Any measure with affinity to the Conspiracy Bill would be fatal. LITERARY REGISTER. A Decade of Italian Women. By T. AUGUSTUS TROLLOPE. London: Chapman and Hall. THIS very artistically compiled work commences with the extraordinary history of Catherine of Siena. We will epitomise this chronicle of fanaticism, absurdity, and falsehood for the benefit of our readers. Catherine of Siena, or St. Catherine, as she was called, was born at Siena, in the year 1347, when Petrarch and Bocaccio were still writing, and at which era Italy was beginning to emerge from the dark days of ignorance into which it had been cast. The printing press was soon afterwards introduced, and the story of her life was, within a century of her death, printed at Florence. The accredited imposture is, therefore, the more inexcusable, as the plea of extreme ignorance cannot be urged in extenuation. The father of this reputed saint was a dyer, named Giacomo Benincasa. He lived in an obscure part of the town, among the "skin-dressers." The lower flat of this abode has been converted into a chapel, in honour of its former inhabitant, and "Virginia Domus" is conspicuously carved over the door. A little dark closet, nine feet long and six wide, is held in particular veneration, from having been the bed-chamber of Catherine. The floor is of brick, and— On this, with a stone, still extant in situ, for a pillow, the future saint slept. The bricks, sanctified by this nightly contact with her person, have been boarded over to preserve them from the wear and tear of time, and from the indiscrete pilfering of devout relic hunters. From the life of Catherine of Siena, written by the "Blessed Raymond of Capua," the Dominican confident and confessor of the saint, the author draws his information. His own explanation of her "miraculous existence" is very sensible and rational. We shall give it in due course. This "Life," after going through various editions, was reprinted so late as 1851, when it was brought out at a cheaper rate, as a means of supplying the people of Italy with wholesome and profitable mental food." We shall see the quality of this wholesome food as we procced with the story. The first miracle-one of precocity, certainly is that, at the age of six, this very wonderful child one morning retired to a dark corner of her father's house, and abjuring all matrimonial thoughts, and in anticipation of her future state, vowed herself exclusively to the Saviour, and in a long and elaborate prayer implored that she might be devoted entirely to the church. Of course, according to Roman tradition, her prayer was answered, and she became beatified. Her childhood is thus described: -. Catherine was the youngest of a family of twenty-five children. Her twin sister died a few days after her birth. At a very early age she was observed to be taciturn and solitary in her habits; and was remarkable for the small quantity of nourishment she took. From her childhood she was subject to "fits or extacies. These were seized on by her Dominican confessor as evidence of something supernatural; but, says the author, "the descriptions of these seizures, given by her biographer, on more than one occasion, shows them to have been of a cataleptic nature." And thus he accounts for her long abstinences, and all those phenomena which were interpreted as miracles by her admirers. The following quotation will show the absurdities which were considered meritorious in her early life : At five years old it was her practice, in going up-stairs, to kneel at each step to the Virgin. She habitually flogged herself, and induced other children to imitate her in doing so, at six years of age. At seven she deprived herself of a great portion of her food, secretly giving it to her brother, or throwing it to the cats. At the same age she would watch from a window to see when a Dominican monk passed, and as soon as ever he had moved on she used to run out and kiss the spot on the pavement on which he had placed his feet. on uncooked vegetables. She used to sleep but one quarter of an hour in the twenty-four, always flogged herself till the blood streamed from her three times a day, and lived thice years without speaking. She wore a chain of iron round her body, which gradually ate its way into her flesh. And finally she remained wholly without food for many years. The Dominican, Raymond, positively affirms the lieve him or not, as we like. truth of the foregoing statements. We can beThe following is a proof of the horrible blasphemy which is not only tolerated, but lauded by the Roman Church. Passing from the saint's achievements in this kind, we personal and familiar communication and conversation with find her equally distancing all competitors in the matter of the She began to have visions at six years old. Returning home one day about that time, through the streets of Siena, she saw in the sky, immediately over the Dominican's church, a throne, with Christ sitting on it, dressed in papal robes, accompanied by St. Paul, St. Peter, and St. John. At a later period, Christ appeared to her daily as soon as she retired to her cell-as she informed Father Raymond -for the purpose of teaching her the doctrines of religion which, said she, to her confessor, "no man or woman ever, taught me, but only the Lord Jesus Christ himself-sometimes by means of inspiration, and sometimes by means of a clear bodily appearance, manifest to the bodily senses, and talking with me as I now talk with you. Again, a little further on in her career we read, that the Lord appeared to Catherine very frequently, and remained with her longer than he had been wont to do, and sometimes brought with him his most glorious mother, sometimes St. Dominic, and sometimes both of them, but mostly he came alone, and talked with her, as a friend with a most intimate friend; in such sort as she herself secretly and blushingly confessed to me, the Lord and she frequently recited the Psalms together, walking up and down the chamber as two |