versed, from the mouth of the Baltic to the or Utopia, which he peopled with kings north of Norway. There was no Maël- and personages of his own creation. One strom! And the navigator may guide his day, when the friends were communicative bark in peace; the swimming bears may and confidential, the vanity of literature dread no suction; the inadvertent whale overthrew the barriers by which the statesmay spout through its nose in safety; the man, peer of France, and former minister for stately ship may fear no irresistible twist trade and manufacture, had entrenched his and twirl, and may lazily float with fair dignity, and he said: "With this hand I wind and tide across the dreaded spot. It wrote Le Vaillant's travels; I invented all is forever extinguished, abolished, and done his adventures. In some portions of the out of existence by act of the Danish parlia- story I was assisted by a friend; but, in ment. The jubilant lips closed with a bang, fact and substance, I am Le Vaillant, and all my simile was overthrown. the slaughterer of the giraffe, and lover of But, the next effort of this exterminator Narina." The story of the modern Frankof acknowledged truths was more interest-enstein was antedated in the person of M. ing even than his expungement of the northern Sylla and Charybdis; I commend the consideration of it to the erudite inquirers of the Notes and Queries. He was damming up forever the sources of the Nile, when I took courage to make a remark about the explorers of Africa, and named my favorite traveller Le Vaillant. In a moment the dreadful doom was passed. "I big yer parr-don; Le Vaillant never wrote the book!" What! were the plains of Caffraria to be robbed of the picturesque accompaniments of wagons and bullocks, and the groups of attached natives; and the pleasantries of Kees the monkey; and the beautiful tenderness of the desert flower-the fair Narina-the connecting link between the graceful savagery of a naturally gentle nature, and the culture and elegance of European maidenhood? All, all my pretty ones, at one fell swoop? But so it was; and here was his story:

Chaptal. The monster he created over-
whelmed him. Le Vaillant became a real
existence, and the veritable Simon Pure sank
rapidly into oblivion. Many mistakes he
confessed to. He acknowleged the impossi-
bility of the existence of Narina. He was
ludicrously inexact in his description of the
motions of the cameleopard. All succeeding
travellers had tried in vain to find evidence
of his career; but, with the sole exception
of one who discovered an old woman who
said she remembered him living in her kraal,
there was no trace of his ever having been
in Africa. Lichtenstein, a German explorer,
began to smell a rat in 1809, and has the fol-
lowing remarkable passage:
"When Le
Vaillant asserts that he has seen the giraffe
trot, he spares me any further trouble in
proving that this animal never presented it-
self alive before him."

Then, who does not remember the ferocious colonies of the Houswanas: their courage, their size, and the influence they exercised over all the surrounding tribes? Who were these tremendous warriors, these assegayed Romans, founding a long-enduring dominion by self-control and stoic perseverance? They were our friends of the Egyptian Hall, London, the base Bosjesmen or Bushmen-the lowest type of human nature

A gentleman, whose name he gave, and whose character for truthfulness and honor would guarantee whatever he said as having occurred to himself, was engaged in a great commercial speculation in Paris shortly after the peace of 1815. This business brought him often into contact with the members of the French government at the time, and with many of the men of science and literature. Among these, the person with whom he be--but recommended to Chaptal by the vague came most intimate was the celebrated John Anthony Chaptal, the great natural historian, chemist, and statesmen. Like our own Sir Humphry Davy, this man was only not the first poet of his country, because he chose to be her first utilitarian philosopher. He lived, in fact, in two worlds: one consisting of the most plain matters of fact, and the other ideal and imaginative,-an Atalantis

uncertainty of the name which was current among the Dutch colonists of the Cape, the wild heroes of the forest, the Men of the Bush. Who, then, was Le Vaillant? He is mentioned in the Biographe Universelle, "was born in 1753, and died in 1824; a quiet, retired, unsocial man, devoting his whole time to the preparation of his travels and the publication of his essays on the Natural

History of Birds." The whole of this bio- ments, behold Le Vaillant, penniless, shirtgraphy is taken from the prefaces and intro- less, bookless, at full liberty to invent as many ductions to the various editions of the travels. adventures as he likes. There is no one to Nobody ever saw him. The ingenuity with say him nay. He is the Robinson Crusoe of which a local habitation and a name are given the desert, and finds his man Friday in Claas, to this purely imaginary individual is worthy his tame goat in Kees, and transcends all the of De Foe or Gulliver. He is born, not in any imaginings of the mariner of York in the town or district of France where a baptismal creation of the matchless Narina. Looking register might be appealed to, but at Para- at the book with this light thrown upon it, maribo in Dutch Guiana; there he devotes it is an admirable natural history romance. himself to study and the exploration of wood He comes home, but still his impersonation and fell. In 1763 he comes with his parents is sustained. He lives-the world forgetto France, not to Paris or any traceable ting, by the world forgot-at La Noue, near position, but to the wild parts of Lorraine Sezanne. Is there a tomb there to his memand the Vosges. Here he shuns society, and ory? Did he leave a will? Is he in no old gives himself up entirely to the chase. He list of citizens? Two-and-thirty years are comes by chance to the capital in 1777, and not so long a time as to have expunged the sees the royal cabinet of natural history; memory of so distinguished an author. Many and the fire, long dormant, breaks forth. must be alive who knew him, who spoke to He will travel into the native land of those him about his books. People of sixty were strange and captivating animals, and see eight-and-twenty when he died. Did Thiers them in their natural freedom; and at a know him? or Guizot? or Michelet? or time when England and France are at war, Lamartine? "Deed, no," concludes Mr. when no record of his voyage could be possi- M'Ritchie; "and the reason's very plain, ble in the log-books of either country, he the man never existed, body or soul; and embarks in a Dutch vessel at the Texel, and was naething but the idolon or external imreaches the Cape in safety; but the, ship age o' Maister Chaptal." Whereupon the which brought him is sunk, burnt, or other lips closed with a clash, and Le Vaillant diswise destroyed by an English fleet; and alone appeared forever from the rolls of human out of all the crew-sole visitor-with no kind. one to prove his identity or deny his state

Sketches from Life. By Harriet Martineau. | and approval of all her friends, who are as Illustrated. Whittaker & Co.

much deceived in him as she is herself. He THESE "Sketches from Life" have all the takes her to Paris, where at the end of a month appearance of being true transcripts. They are he robs her of every thing she possesses in the hard outlined facts, not filled up or softened by world, leaving her barely the means of returnthe expression of any of the sympathy which ing to England. She lives the rest of her life they might naturally have been expected to ex- under the most dreary and painful circumcite. They are characterized by precisely that stances, never again seeing her scoundrel of a sort of hard, undeniable good sense, which those husband, but never sure that he may not return who have "haill hearts," and who are living some day. This incident, which has the imat ease, can afford to extend to their neighbors. press of being a real fact within the author's Some of the incidents in themselves are very own knowledge, is told with a cynical hardness touching-the story of "The Old Governess," that spoils its truth-for the outside facts of a for instance-but it is narrated in an unsym- thing are only a small portion of the truthpathizing manner, and the troubles are dealt and with the inner life Miss Martineau does not with, not as they would be felt by tender mor- meddle; she does not even indicate that it exists. tals, but as they would appear to some ex-The stories are clever and the incidents forcible; tremely sensible abstract being, who if you pricked him would not bleed. Again, in the story of "The Bride," a nice, good, beautiful, well-born girl has the misfortune to marry an accomplished swindler, with the full consent

but few readers will pronounce this to be a book of "pleasant pages." The good sense is undeniable, only it is too good for human nature's daily food, and we would not like to live on it.

-Athenæum.

From Fraser's Magazine.

THE INTERPRETER.

A TALE OF THE WAR.

BY G. J. WHYTE MELVILLE, AUTHOR OF "DIGBY GRAND," ETC.

CHAPTER I.-THE OLD DESK.

Nor one of my keys will fit it; the old and hoarded repositories: so have poor men desk has been laid aside for years, and is covere now found thousand-pound notes hid ered with dust and rust. We do not make away in chinks and crannies, and straightsuch strong boxes nowadays, for brass hinges way, giddy with the possession of boundless and secret drawers have given place to flimsy wealth, have gone to the Devil at a pace morocco and russian leather; so we clap a such as none but the beggar on horseback Bramah lock, that Bramah himself cannot can command; so have old wills been fished pick, on a black bag that the veriest bungler out, and frauds discovered, and rightful can rip open in five seconds with a penknife, heirs re-established, and society in general and intrust our notes, bank and otherwise, disgusted, and all concerned made disconour valuables, and our secrets, to this faith- tented and uncomfortable-so shall I, perless repository, with a confidence that de- haps-but the springs work, a false lid flies serves to be respected. But in the days open, and I do discover a packet of letters, when George the Third was king, our sub-written on .hin foreign paper, in the free stantial ancestors rejoiced in more substan- straggling characters I remember so well. tial workmanship: so the old desk that I They are addressed to Sir H. Beverley, and cannot succeed in unlocking, is of shining the hand that penned them has been cold for rosewood, clamped with brass, and I shall years. So will yours and mine be some day, spoil it sadly with the mallet and the chisel. perhaps ere the flowers are out again; O What a medley it holds! Thank Heaven beate Sexti!, will you drink a glass less claret I am no speculative philosopher, or I might on that account? Buxom Mrs. Lalaget, moralize for hours over its contents. First, shall the dressmaker therefore put unbecomout flies a withered leaf of geranium. It ing trimmings in your bonnet? The "shinmust have been dearly prized once, or it ing hours are few, and soon past: make would never have been here; may be it rep- the best of them, each in your own way, resented the hopes, the wealth, the all-in-all only try and choose the right way: of two aching hearts: and they are dust and For the day will soon be over, and the minutes ashes now. To think that the flower should are of gold, have outlasted them! the symbol less perishable than the faith! Then I come to a piece of much begrimmed and yellow paper, carefully folded, and indorsed with a date,a receipt for an embrocation warranted specific in all cases of bruises, sprains, or lumbago; next a gold pencil-case, with a head of Socrates for a seal; lastly, much of that substance which is generated in all waste places, and which the vulgar call "fue." How it comes there puzzles equally the naturalist and the philosopher; but you shall find it in empty corners, empty drawers, empty pockets, nay, we believe in its existence in the empty heads of our fellow-crea

tures.

In my thirst for acquisition, regardless of dusty fingers, I press the inner sides of the desk in hopes of discovering secret springs DCLXVIII. LIVING AGE. VOL. XVI. 44

And the wicket shuts at sundown, and the shep

herd leaves the fold.

LETTER I.

"Those were merry days, my dear Hal, when we used to hear the chimes at midnight' with poor Brummel and Sir Benjamin; very jolly times they were, and I often think, if health and pockets could have stood it, I should like to be going the pace amongst you all still. And yet how few of us are left. They have dropped off one by one, as they did the night we dyed the white rose red at the old place; and you, and I, and stanch old Ben,' were the only three left that could walk straight. Do you remember the corner of King-street, and Ben' stripped to the buff,' as he called it himself, going in right royally at the tall fellow with the red head? I never

saw such right and lefters, I never thought green, because they are green, and '-here he had so much 'fight' in him; and, you he thought he had made a decided hit-'I don't remember, Hal, but I do, how the should put the red into the ox, for he is allass with the long locks' bent over you when most more red than brown.' Dear child¡ you were floored, like Andromache over a he has not a glimmering of color; but comdebauched Hector, and stanched the claret position, that's his forte; and drawing, that was flowing freely from your nostrils, drawing, you know, which is the highest and gave you gin in a smelling-bottle, which form of that art. His drawing is extraordi you sucked down as though it were mother's nary-careless, but great breadth and freemilk, like a young reprobate as you were; dom; and I am certain he could compose a nor do you remember, nor do I very clearly, wonderful picture, from his singular sensibilhow we all got back to The Cottage,' and ity to beauty. Young as he is, I have seen finished with burnt curacoa, and a dance on the tears stand in his eyes when contemplat the table by daylight. And now you and I ing a fine view, or a really exquisite 'bit,' are about the only two left, and I am as near such as one sees in this climate every day. ruined as a gentleman can be; and you His raptures at his first glimpse of the Danmust have lost your pen-feathers, Hal, I ube I shall never forget; and if I can only should think, though you were a goose that instil into him the principles of color, you could always pick a living off a common, be it will see Vere will become the first painter of never so bare. Well, we have had our fun; the age. The boy learns languages readily and after all, I for one have been far happier enough. He has picked up a good deal of since than I ever was in those roystering Hungarian from his nurse. Such a woman, days; but of this I cannot bear to speak. Hal! magnificent! Such coloring: deep brown tones, and masses of the richest gray hair, with superb, solemn, sunken eyes, and a throat and forehead tanned and wrinkled into the very ideal of a Canidia, or a Witch of Endor, or any fine old sorceress, all of the olden time. I have done her in chalks, and in sepia, and in oils. I adore her in the former. She is I fancy, a good, careful woman, and much attached to Vere, who promises to be an excellent linguist; but of this I cannot see the advantage.

"Nor am I so much to be pitied now. I have got my colors and my sketch-book, after all; and there never was such a country as this for a man who has half an eye in his head. On these magnificent plains the lights and shades are glorions. Glorious, Hal, with a little red jagged in here and there towards sunset, and the ghostly maize waving and whispering, and the feathery acacias trembling on the lightest air, the russet tinge of the one and the fawn-colored stems of the other melting so softly into the "There is but one pursuit, in my opinion, neutral tints of the sandy soil. I could paint a for an intellectual being who is not obliged picture here that should be perfectly true to to labor in the fields for his daily bread, and Nature-nay, more natural than the old that is Art. I have wooed the heavenly dame herself and never use but two colors maid all my life. To me she has been sparto do it all! I am not going to tell you ing of her favors; and yet a single smile what they are: and this reminds me of from her has gilded my path for many a long my boy, and of a want in his organization and weary day. She has beckoned me on that is a sad distress to me. The child has and on till I feel I could follow her to the not a notion of color. I was painting out of end of the world; she shielded me in the doors yesterday, and he was standing by-dark hour; she has brightened my lot ever bless him! he never leaves me for an instant since; she led me to nature, her grand -and I tried to explain to him some of the reflection-for you know my theory, that art simplest rudiments of the godlike art. is reality, and nature but the embodiment of 'Vere,' said I, do you see those red tints art; she has made me independent of the on the tops of the far acacias, and the frowns of that other jade, Fortune, and golden tinge along the back of that brown taught me the most difficult lesson of allox in the foreground? Yes, papa!' was to be content. What is wealth? you and I the child's answer, with a bewildered look. have seen it lavished with both hands, and 'How should you paint them, my boy?'- its possessor weary, satiate, languid, and dis'Well, papa, I should paint the acacias gusted. What is rank? a mark for envy, an