"The Bastile" flourished through many reigns of tyranny and oppression, and was the exigent of each; but it subsequently fell before the advancements that crumbled into dust the feudal hereditaments of France.

We have no space to give its merits a more elaborate survey, but in looking over the volume, we have been impressed with the sad truth it teaches. From the earliest history of France the same great scheme of iniquity has been enacted, and Kings, Queens, Bishops and Plebeians, played alternately the parts of victors and victims. Such is all history, and such is humanity! One fact may not be uninteresting to the American reader. After the demolition of the Bastile, its key was presented, by General Lafayette, to General Washington, by whom it was placed in the hall of Mount Vernon, where, we believe, it yet remains, enclosed in a glass case, fastened to the wall, for the inspection of the curious.

Achievements of the Knights of Malta. By ALEX. SUTHERLAND, Esq. Carey & Hart's Library for the People, No. II.

This is a singularly pleasant book. It tells the story of a wonderful era in our world's history with a charming simplicity and naïveté. It stirs our blood, it makes the heart leap with a generous and kindred enthusiasm, to read of the deeds of those Hospitilliers. It is, indeed, glorious to relieve human suffering, though there is something far more glorious, which is, to prevent it. The world will reach this latter glory only through the first, however, and we hail it as a sign of promise and of progress, when, actuated by a desire of attaining greater perfection," men and women formally or informally dedicate themselves at the altar of God, as the servants of the Poor and of Christ. Well might the Hospitilliers find constant employment in mitigating the evil

that surrounded a people, plunged in misery by terrible wars of religious fanaticism. The same want of wisdom, though differently manifested-the same spirit of war in these last times-may make ere long the necessity for a people compassionate enough to form a new order of Hospitilliers. Whether the demand will create the article, as readily as the necessity has been created, is somewhat questionable. But the Hospitilliers fell from their first estate. They ceased to heal the wounded and the wretched, and went forth a warlike order, rivaling the Knights Templar in creating the evils that they at first sought to cure. For many centuries these two great rivals contested for the palm of chivalric honor, both pretending to be based upon the sternest principles of monkish asceticism, both equally ambitious, and both falling as far short of their profession in their practice, as is usual in this world of pretension. They stood shoulder to shoulder confronting the Infidel on the sands of Palestine, but as soon as success or a truce had caused a cessation of arms, the rancorous hate which their rivalry had fomented, burst forth in mutual recrimination and bloody feuds. The Order of the Knights Templar was fi nally destroyed by the ferocious hate of Philip of France, backed by the treachery of the Pope. They were massacred in all the Christian countries on the globe, miserably perishing by fire, sword, and tortures, while even the dead were horribly outraged. The quarrel of the wretches who preyed upon them, was only appeased by their religiously ceding the plunder to the Hospitilliers. This Order then became the most powerful in the world, conquered Rhodes, and after a long series of vicissi tudes, was finally established in Malta, from which they were driven by Revolu tionary France.

We may take up this book again. It of fers material for a charming article.