he was known as "Old Girard." His business whole streets tenantless; the hearse was the could not have been very prosperous at this period, considering the disturbed and depressed state of the country. He was quietly biding his time. His store was well-filled with old blocks, sails, pieces of cordage, and other materials useful for ship-building.

In 1780, Stephen Girard again commenced the New Orleans and Saint Domingo trade. In two years he had progressed so far as to be able to purchase a ten years' lease, with renewal, of a range of brick and frame stores, one of which he occupied himself. The rents were low at the time, and the purchase very advantageous -perhaps the turning point in his fortunes.

vehicle most frequently seen in the streets; those who wore the badge of mourning on their arms, were avoided even by their friends; and the fumes of tobacco and camphor filled every house in the city. While the pestilence was at its height, a square repulsive man boldly entered one of the most crowded hospitals, and bore out in his arms a victim in the last saffron-colored stage of the disease. For days and weeks, this man continued to perform the same terrible office of attending upon the sick and dying, discharging the most painful and dangerous duties of the lowest servant in the place. This repulsivelooking Samaritan was Stephen Girard, with In 1780, his wife, Mary Girard, from whom his strong will, his bodily energy, his stout he had been divorced, was admitted an insane heart, and his one eye. The hard, griping patient into the Pennsylvania Hospital. Here trader was not so selfish after all. When all she remained shut up, twenty-five years and one the paid attendants, all the visitors of the month, while her husband was busily pursuing poor were either dead, dying, or had fled; his one object in the world; at last she died in when no offers of money would purchase that the year 1815. On being told of her death, labor which was required for the re-organiStephen Girard selected her burial-place and zation of the pest-house hospital at Bush requested that he should be called as soon as all Hill; two men nobly volunteered for the the arrangements for her funeral were com- forlorn task Stephen Girard and Peter pleted. She was buried in the manner of the Helm. On the afternoon of the same day on Friends. Her husband was there, glaring with which he offered his services, Stephen Girard, his one tearless eye, silent and unmoved; after a merchant of growing wealth and influence, taking one short look at the remains, he departed, saying, "all is well." He returned home, and began to give largely to the local charities and hospitals from this day.

A circumstance occurred at this period, which materially aided Stephen Girard in his cherished determination. He was engaged in the West India trade-particularly in the Island of Saint Domingo-and at the moment of the well-known outbreak of the slaves, he had two vessels lying off the port. The affrighted planters rushed to the docks, and deposited their most valuable treasures in those ships for safety, returning to secure more. They were nearly all, with their families, massacred. Stephen Girard advertised liberally for the owners to the property, but ery few claimants ever appeared, and it was transported to Philadelphia to swell the store and increase the power of the one-eyed capitalist, who commenced the building of those large ships engaged in the trade with China and Calcutta, which were, at that time, the pride of America.

In 1793, a fearful pestilence broke out in the City of Philadelphia. The yellow fever left

a foreigner with no ties of country between him and the afflicted city, entered upon his dangerous task with all the perseverance and decision of his character. He soon established order and cleanliness; provided accommodations, and procured supplies; and, for sixty days continued to discharge his duties at the hospital.

In 1812, Stephen Girard, the one-eyed cabin boy of Bordeaux, purchased the banking premises of the old Bank of the United States (whose charter was not renewed), and started the Girard Bank: a large private establishment, which not only conferred advantages upon the community greater than the State institution upon which it was founded, but, while the public credit was shaken, and the Government finances were exhausted by war, the Girard Bank could command large subscriptions of loans, and put itself in the position of the principal creditor of the country. In 1814 Girard subscribed the whole of a large Government loan from patriotic motives, and in 1817, he contributed, by his unshaken credit and undiminished funds, to bring about the resump

tion of specie payments. In 1831, his cal opinions were heterodox in the extreme, operations were so extensive, that when the and he loved to name his splendid vessels country was placed in extreme embarrassment from the scarcity of money by reason of the balance of trade being against it, he was enabled, by a single transaction with an eminent English firm, to turn the exchanges, and cause specie to flow into the States.

after Voltaire and Rousseau. He was devoted to the improvement of his adopted city and country: he was a determined follower of ostentatious charity. No man ever applied to him for a large public grant in vain, while the starving beggar was invariably sent from his gate. He steadily rose every morning before the lark, and unceasing labor was the daily worship of his life.

Stephen Girard began his remarkable trading career with one object, which he steadily kept in view all his long life-the Thus he attained his eighty-second year. making of money for the power it conferred. In 1830, he had nearly lost the sight of his He was content, at starting with the small one eye, and used to be seen groping about profits of the retail trader, willing to labor in his bank, disregarding every offer of assistany capacity to make those profits secure. ance. Crossing one of the Philadelphian He practised the most rigid personal econ- roads, he was knocked down by a passomy; he resisted all the allurements of pleas- ing waggon, his face was bruised, and his ure; he exacted the last farthing that was right ear was nearly cut off. His one eye, due to him; and he paid the last farthing which before opened slightly, was now entirely that he owed. He took every advantage closed; he gradually wasted away, and his which the law allowed him in resisting a health declined. On the twenty-sixth of claim; he used men just so far as they would December, Stephen Girard expired in a back accomplish his purpose; he paid his servants room, on the third floor of his house, in no more than the market price; when a Water-street, Philadelphia, leaving the bulk faithful cashier died, he exhibited the utmost of his large fortune, upwards of a million indifference, making no provision for his sterling, to found charities, and to benefit family, and uttering no sentiment of regret the city and the country in which he had acfor his loss. He would higgle for a penny quired it. with a huckster in the streets: he would He left his monument, in the "Girard deny the watchman at his bank, the custom- College;" that marble-roofed palace for the ary Christmas present of a great-coat. To education and protection of the orphan chiladd to his singular and deficient character, he dren of the poor, which stands, the most perwas deaf in one ear, could only speak broken fect model of architecture in the New World, English, never conversed upon any thing but high above the buildings of Philadelphia, business, and wore the same old coat, cut in visible from every eminence of the surroundthe French style, for five years together. An ing country. Every detail of the external old ricketty chair, remarkable for its age, and and internal arrangement of this Orphan marked with the initials "S. G." drawn by a College was set forth clearly and carefully in faded horse, was used when he rode about the | his will; showing that the design upon which city. He had no sense of hospitality, no friend he had lavished the mass of his wealth, was to share his house or his table. He was deferen- not the hastily-developed fancy of a few hours tial in appearance, to rank and family. Violent or days, but was the heart-cherished, silent and passionate; only to one man-an old and project of his whole life. faithful clerk named Robergot. His theologi

I GAVE my love a chain of gold,
Her beauteous neck to bind :
But she keeps me in faster hold,
With chains around my mind.

I think I have the harder part,
For 'neath her lovely chin,

She carries links outside her heart-
My fetters are within!-Campbell.

OH! LOVE WHILE LOVE IS LEFT TO THEE. | But from their hearts the tide careers,

No. 739.-24 July 1858.-Enlarged Series, No. 17.

CONTENTS.

Correspondence: Dr. Kane and the Geographical

1. Blood; the River of Life,

2. The Eve of a Revolution,

3. Mr. Dickens,

4. Professor Wilson,

5. Journey to the Moon,

6. A New Novelist,

7. Gold in British America,

8. Autobiography of Yeh,

9. Mrs. Mathews' Tea-Table Talk,

10. Col. Graham's Art of War,

11. Bancroft's United States, Vol. VII. 12. Yeh,

13. Memoirs of Rachel,

14. My Lady Ludlow-Chap. 2,

15. France Equivocating,.

16. The American Difficulty,

17. The Slave Trade,

18. Attitude of France,

19. Legends and Lyrics. By Miss Procter, 20. George Withers' Hallelujah,

POETRY.-Three Scenes for the Study, 279.

SHORT ARTICLES.-Old Proverb, 256. House of Skulls, 256. Hugh Miller, 256. A Happy Childhood, 262. Linguists, 273. Bright Side of Transportation, 273. Piedmontese, 273. Border Literature, 278. Pure Air, 278. Shrewd Dog, 278. Love and Friendship, 278. Hope, 285. Depopulation of Trout Streams, 288. Cupid's Torch, 288. Rachel, 296. Frederick, 296. Butterfly Vivarium, 300. Picturesque Italy, 307. Cruise of the Betsey, 313. Rachel's Souvenirs, 313. Pulse, as Food, 315. Wasting Palsy, 318.

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CORRESPONDENCE.

ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY DR. | that meeting, which was inserted in the " Times," KANE. The last meeting of this society for was to the effect that Dr. Rink, who commenced the session was held on 14 June; Sir R. Mur- by paying the highest tribute of respect to Kane's chison, president, in the chair. A map of the memory, after reviewing the speculations of that United States and the adjacent countries, from undaunted traveller with regard to the physical Hudson's Bay to the Rio Grande, including the geography of Greenland, referred to the queswhole of British America lying south of Hud- tion of the "open Polar Sea," supposed to have son's Bay and Newfoundland, measuring fifteen been discovered by Morton, the steward, and the feet by twenty-six, was exhibited by Mr. H. V. Greenlander Hans, and threw great doubts upon Poor, of the United States; and a large paint- the accuracy of their statements, and upon Dr. ing of the family of the geographer Gerard Kane's theory of the Polar Sea, assumed to be Mercator, found in the Earl of Peterborough's kept open by a branch of the Gulf Stream, from house at Southampton, was exhibited by Mr. Nova Zembla, down Smith's Sound, to Baffin Evans. The papers read were-1. Account of Bay, &c. At the request of the chairman, Dr. an Expedition from Damara Land to the Ovam- Shaw then read a letter addressed to the Hon. po in search of the River Cunene, by Messrs. G. M. Dallas, by Professor A. D. Bache, the Green, Hahn, and Rath. 2. Ascent of the Superintendent of the United States' Surveys, River Limbong, in Borneo, by Lieutenant De and one of the medallists of the society, from Crespigny, R.N. The President next intro- which it appeared "that an examination had duced to the meeting Mr. Poor, of America, who, been made of the data for Morton's northings in in company with another gentleman, formed a the expedition, by Mr. C. A. Schott, Assistant deputation from the Geographical Society of to the Coast Survey, and who was chosen by Dr. New York, their object being to seek an expla Kane to reduce many of the results of his obsernation respecting the correctness of the follow-vations. Mr. Schott admits that Dr. Kane "had ing paragraph, which had lately appeared in adopted the mean of the results by the two meth"Wilmer and Smith's European Times :- ods"-by dead reckoning and astronomical ob"At a meeting of the Royal Geographical So-servations-instead of that given by either ciety, Dr. Rink, a Dane, read a paper in which method singly, and concludes by saying that, he challenged the accuracy of nearly all the al-believing the astronomical observations to be leged discoveries of Dr. Kane on the north coast of Greenland. The lecturer maintained that the line of coast on the American coast of Baffin Bay, as high as 81 degrees of latitude, sketched in Dr. Kane's chart, was fictitious, and was founded on observations reported to have been made from points where it was impossible to have seen the land. Many other por tions of Dr. Kane's narrative were disputed, and it was roundly asserted that the American was hoaxed by his steward. These views were endorsed by Sir G. Back, Captain Colinson, and Dr. Armstrong. Sir R. Murchison was in the chair, but he said nothing on the disputed question." The American Geographical Society, in consequence of the above paragraphs, and feeling naturally a deep interest in maintaining the truthful character and scientific reputation of Dr. Kane, requested to have a copy of Dr. Rink's paper, together with the observations of those who spoke on the occasion, which the chairman stated the secretary would be happy to furnish; but he begged most emphatically to declare that the account from the New York paper was inaccurate, and expressed his regret that so garbled a statement should have appeared. The true account of the proceedings of

"

entitled to greater confidence, 80 deg. 56 min. for the latitude of Cape Constitution should be adopted in preference to 81 deg. 15 min., as given in the chart in vol. i. In no case, however, could a latitude lower than 80 deg. 53 min. be assigned." This view Professor Bache" considers the correct one," but remarks that "the conclusions in regard to the open Polar Sea do not depend in any way upon this difference." The meeting having been addressed by Captain Colinson and Professor Alexander of the United States, the chairman stated that another Arctic expedition was about being organized in the United States, and the meeting was adjourned to November next.

Preparing for separate publication at this office MY LADY LUDLOW. A great variety of Biographical notices is given in this number; Dickens; Yeh; Wilson; Rachel.

Upon the authority of a gentleman from China, we are able to state that the Great Commissioner's name is pronounced as if written Yew.

A correspondent informs us that Madame Knight taught little Benjamin Franklin to write