artist Bottiger felt he dared not speak, lest he should awake this blessed spirit to a world of care. Opposite to this exquisite work of art stands a statue of the king, who survived his consort thirty years, having died in June 1840. Likenesses of the queen were multiplied in every form. The artist Ternite was commanded to paint her as she had never been represented before-as a sovereign. A drawing had been made of her after her death, on first seeing which the king exclaimed: Fearfully true!' and burst into tears, the first he had been seen to shed. In memory of their happy union, the king instituted the Louisen Denkmal, by which three bridal couples receive 100 dollars each on the anniversary of the queen's death; and the Louisen Stiftung, for educating preceptresses of youth. He also instituted, after the Liberation War, on the queen's birthday, the order of the Iron Cross, in memory of the struggles, oppression, and final triumph of Prussia; and another order, that of the Golden Cross, called the Louisen Orden, to be worn by all her own sex, from the noble lady to the wife of the artisan, who, during the struggle, had tendeď the sick and wounded, enemies as well as countrymen.

When the news of the death of the queen, so suddenly cut down at the early age of thirty-four, had spread throughout the Prussian land, it seemed as if there was not a house in which there was not one dead. In solemn death-chime, bell answered to bell. From the stately palace in the gay city, to the rude hut in the most remote hamlet, she was regarded as a saint; and throughout all Europe, as the victim of the war. Of four daughters of rare charms and virtues, 'the four fair sisters near the throne,' to whom Jean Paul dedicated his Titan, the blest parent had now to mourn the fairest not of them alone, but the fairest among ten thousand. The admirable Princess William, in a touching letter to Stein, after saying how she repented of every word she might have uttered in disparagement of the queen, adds: "For now I clearly see that if I did so, it certainly arose from envybecause she was so much better than I.' A true testimony to the worth of the writer, as well as to that of the illustrious deceased. But the tears of Louisa, and the mute and heart-stricken reverence with which the king worshipped her memory, supplied new nourishment to the growing spirit of liberty, and inspired the pen of the poet with one only theme. And could she have foreseen the splendid victories to be achieved, the noble Prince of Prussia, who had first remonstrated, then offered himself a captive, now leading forth his country's legions; and the gallant old Blucher, the hero of the Katzbach, heading the furious charge, when the windows of heaven were opened, and the floods descended, and heaven's dread artillery answered to man's, still exclaiming 'On! forwards!' his gray hair, on which seventy-one summers had shone, streaming in the wind, his keen blue eye gleaming to the lightning flash; and how his cry was still 'On! forwards!' till, by the glorious victory of Leipzic, the accursed invader was

driven from the soil, she might have died in triumph as well as in peace. When the king returned triumphant from the war, after offering up public thanks to Almighty God, he repaired to Charlottenburg, and, with deep emotion and uncovered head, laid a laurel-wreath on the tomb of her who had never ceased to predict a day of victory; in the joy of which, from her exquisitely sensitive nature, she lived not to participate. And who can look around and see that every good work demands a sacrifice, and listen to the words of the Eternal, which saith: As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten,' and not deem hers an eminently happy lot? She had many years of rare felicity, such as evidently filled her own meek soul with wonder and vague dread; and when troublous times arose, the sting was taken from her wounds both by heavenly and earthly love. A few days of suffering the darkened chamber-the sorrow of friends-the death-clutch of agony-then all was still. And never was there laid dust to dust with a more sure and certain hope of a glorious resurrection.

JM. CORNER S

THE BASKET OF CHERRIES.

I.

OTHING has so singular a fascination for the mind as the idea of exploring an unknown river. We daresay that most of our readers have in their boyhood, like ourselves, determined, in a moment of geographical enthusiasm, to devote their energies, when they shall have arrived at man's estate, to throwing the exploits of Bruce or Mungo Park into the shade. For our part, we were once actually on the point-at least so we told our friends -of starting for the sources of the White Nile; but a pair of bright eyes that flashed upon us on board the Folkestone boat led us away vid Aix-la-Chapelle and Cologne as far as Heidelberg, where we discovered that the said bright eyes were on their way to be married with a very poetical pair of blue eyes belonging to a German professor. Thus we did the Rhine

1

instead of doing the Nile; and afterwards walked through Switzerland with our heart in a sling, and spent a month drinking milk in a real châlet.

Our friend Victor Moreau, when engaged in his law studies at Paris, used to express a great desire to navigate the Amazon, which, some comparative fluvial maps hung up in the Rue Castiglione informed him, was the largest river in the world. Nothing less would satisfy his ambition, although he had never seen any stream of water except the Seine, for he was born at Etampes, and had not even ventured so far as the Loire. One day he happened to be strolling across the Pont Royal with some friends, and stopped to lean over the parapet. What is the reason,' exclaimed one of his companions, that this moving volume of water excites in us romantic feelings? I never see those ripples and those eddies without allowing myself to be carried, according to my mood of mind, away into the past or into the future. Generally speaking, the current takes me with it, and I travel down the stream, making it an image of my own life, which widens its bounds as it proceeds, receiving ever new tributes of thoughts and impressions."

For my part,' said another, 'I seldom pass here without thinking of that capital boating-match in which we were all nearly drowned under the bridge of Asnières."

'You are a prosy fellow,' said Victor. Lucien's ideas suit me better, although I confess that this paltry stream serves only the purpose of suggestion, just as a pool may give us the notion of a What do you say to making up a party for exploring the

sea.

Amazon?'

The young men laughed for the hundredth time at this proposal, which Victor used periodically to make in the same tone with which others would talk of an excursion to St Germain. Everybody knew that it was a harmless aspiration, to be classed with those which some young ladies express about being little birds, butterflies, or summer clouds, when they feel an indolent tendency to locomotion. The fact was, that Victor was the least enterprising of men. Since his arrival in Paris, he had scarcely ever been beyond the walls, and then only by rail or omnibus. It was currently reported, that he had not even ventured on board the St Cloud steamer. There was little likelihood, therefore, of his blossoming into a celebrated traveller. Lucien Artenay, his friend, had made the tour of France, taken a run through Piedmont, gone over to see the Great Exhibition, and spent a week at Brussels. He was, therefore, looked upon as a phenomenon, and a young author of his acquaintance had proposed to write his biography. There is no people so stay-at-home as the French. Their activity spends itself in the narrowest possible circle; and if they do move out of it by any chance, they consider themselves to have accomplished a feat. We have a friend who has been making up his mind for the last six months to go to Vichy.

He has bought a portmanteau, a pair of pistols, a map, a pocketcompass, an impermeable cloak, and a book on the manners and institutions of the country; but it is very doubtful whether his courage will not fail him at the last moment. However, he has gained already an anticipated reputation among his friends, who call him The Traveller.

Lucien was rather an exception among Frenchmen. He so rarely talked of his excursions, that some people believed he had never made them. Like Victor, he had formed vast plans of exploration, but unlike him, it was at first with the serious idea of carrying them out. If he had not done so, the reason lay with others. His parents, who were solidly established in business on the Boulevards, objected to allowing their only son to risk his life and limbs in such useless expeditions, and were careful to prevent his breaking bounds by keeping him on a limited supply of money. Perhaps he did not take very energetic means to change their resolution; and it is reported, that after he had passed the age of twenty, he seldom referred to his wandering schemes except when allusion was made to the necessity of marriage. Not that he had any theoretical hatred of that institution; but the fact was, that M. and Madame Artenay had set their wishes on a union between him and Mademoiselle Caroline Cauchard, who was very deficient in geographical knowledge, but who, on the other hand, had expectations of a large fortune from her father, a retired grocer of the Marais. On one occasion, when this matter was pressed very hard upon the young man, he brought home his newly-made acquaintance, Victor Moreau, and talked the whole evening of Americanus Vespuccius, the Orinoco, the Amazon, and other terrible topics. Victor was in his glory. He drank a huge amount of sugar and water, and had the impudence to propose to M. Artenay himself to join in his fluvial explorations.

Take care how you associate much with that young man,' said Madame Artenay to her son next morning. 'I never knew any good come from any one who talked of going a long way off.'

In this good woman's mind, one of the capital sins was vagrancy. We form most of our opinions from our affections; and it is quite certain that, had it been in her power, she would have condemned to transportation-the greatest punishment she knew of any one who should persuade her boy to cross the French frontier into the savage regions beyond. Her dutiful son had taken care never to boast in her presence of his scraps of foreign travel.

Having thus, to the best of our ability, introduced our two young friends, Victor Moreau and Lucien Artenay, to the reader's acquaintance, we shall accompany them, when they left their friends, to the lodging of the former, situated in the neighbourhood of the Luxembourg. As they walked along arm in arm, several grisettes turned back to look at them, from which it will readily be inferred, that they were both fine handsome fellows.