dances of young Navarre and his comrades-the assemblies of fair women and brave men who were celebrating his approaching nuptials, were the last days of courtly splendor that shone on the devoted castle. But a castle is nothing without a murder of its own; and this was only the imagining of the frightful act; so let us slip by a few years, and again we find a French king in occupation of the château. It is the year fifteen hundred and eighty-eight, and the king is Henry the Third-a dastard, effeminate tyrant, and fitting termination to the deteriorated line of Valois.

to the most strict religious observancesfastings, vigils, prayers-and received into the château monks of various orders, whom he lodged in little cells above his chamber. He had resolved on the death of Guise; but to accomplish this, he required accomplices. He availed himself of a certain night when there was a joyous celebration of the marriage of Chris tine of Lorraine with Ferdinand de Medicis. It was December. The court, occupied with the ball, did not perceive the disappearance of the Marshal d'Aumont and the Sieurs de Rambouillet and Beauvais de Nengis. The king consultAgain there is a series of rejoicings, ed them on the conduct of the Guises, but and the old Château-Blois puts on its holi- did not venture to hint what he had reday apparel; for there is a visitor at the solved. The three counsellors discussed castle far more powerful than the king- the question, but offered no proposition. a strong-minded, self-willed, unscrupulous Some other friends were sent for. They man, who does not even try to conceal also slipped noiselessly out of the ballhis hatred and contempt of the puppet room. They were Louis d'Argennes and who filled and dishonored the throne. Colonel Alphonso Corse. They were This is the hard-featured, firm-handed bolder; they resolved on the murder of Duke of Guise, who had studied French history to such an extent, that he has determined to emulate the old mayors of the palace, and after a few years' government in the name of the phantom monarch, to assume the crown openly, and send the wretched king into a convent. Scissors were already kept in readiness by Guise's sister, to clip the locks of Henry, and arrangements made to find a fitting monastery for him, under the name of Friar Henry of Valois. But Friar Henry of Valois was resolved to keep his shining curls, and outwitted the bold Balafré.

A convention of the states had been summoned, over which, by bribery and terror, the Guises had obtained supreme authority. It was only that they might give the semblance of legality to the plans of the discontented, that the form of a deliberative assembly had been given to the deputies now collected in Blois. Each party knew perfectly well what the other meant, but both concealed their real intentions. The king was treated with the most profound respect; the duke with the greatest trust and confidence. The latter was too apt to despise his enemy, who, he already felt, was his victim. He did not give so paltry a being credit for the desperate game he played. But he should have remembered that he had to do with the son of Catharine de Medicis. He should have observed that all of a sudden the king betook himself

Balafré-nodded mutely to each other as they separated, and by different doors rejoined the dancers. How they danced that night, and smiled at their partners, and joked at supper! And so did the other guests. Among the rest the doomed Balafré distinguished himself by his gaiety and abandon.

The day was fixed for the twenty-third. Nor were warnings, as usual in such cases, wanting. One day a roll of paper was placed on Guise's plate at dinner. On it was written, "Be on your guard. There is a design against you." He contemptuously wrote, "They dare not," and threw the paper under the table. But Christmas was drawing near. Henry gave way to still wilder manifestations of religious austerity, and on the night of the twentysecond, announced that on the following day he was going in pilgrimage to Notre Dame de Clery. In the morning of that day the Duke of Guise was to be murdered.

A certain Loignac had undertaken the task, and had engaged the services of another villain of the name of Larchant. The monks were removed privately from their cells in the roof, and replaced with the ordinary guards of the king, called the Forty-five, whom he had bought over to his design. Henry gave orders that he should be called at four o'clock. At that hour punctually, he rose-as calmly, as unembarrassed as if he did not know

ment he shook them off, and staggeredbleeding, blind, and weak-whither? to the chamber of the king! Here, with outstretched arms, open-mouthed, sunkeneyed, he fell at the foot of the bed, and exclaiming, "Mon Dieu !-Misericorde !" lay stark and motionless.

The door of the cabinet at this moment

opens. The king steals noiselessly out, and gazes, calm and unmoved, on the corpse. He orders all the papers to be secured, and slips back into the cabinet.

of the dreadful thing that was to be done -and, candle in hand, went into the cabinet. Du Halde and Bellegarde, his valets-de-chambre, were there already. Loignac soon arrives with nine of the guard, who had slipped down from the garret on tip-toe, but well armed. There, by the light of a solitary candle, they receive their last instructions. And the king posts them himself in his own bedchamber, with orders to let no one out or in. He returns to the cabinet, without a change of muscle, or the least appearance But there was another personage resiof emotion; and sends down word to the dent in the château to whom the news of Marshal d'Aumont to open the council of this great event must be communicated. the day, at which Guise was to take his This was Catherine de Medicis; old, feeseat. He despatches Bellegrade at the ble, and confined to her bed with gout, same time with two chaplains into the ora- but retaining all her taste for blood and tory, commanding them to offer up their treachery. The king goes into her room. prayers for the success of an enterprise" "Tis a noble stroke, my son," said the undertaken for the repose of the kingdom. ancient tigress; "but have you foreseen The weather was cold and sombre; a the effects ?" "Yes," replied the king, chilly rain was falling in torrents, when" I have provided for all." "The cloth's about half-past eight o'clock the Duke of well cut," said the queen with a grim Guise went towards the council-chamber. smile, "we must look to the sewing now." There was a company of soldiers at the foot of the grand staircase. The duke, astonished at their appearance, asked the cause, and was put off with some frivolous excuse. He passed on. Larchant instantly planted soldiers on the steps; he then sent twenty more to the stair of the old cabinet. Ånd at that moment Crillon ordered every door in the château to be closed. The bird was caught. On entering the chamber he found the Cardinals of Vendôme and Guise, Marshals d'Aumont, de Retz, and other gentlemen. The duke complained of the cold, and sat down near the fire; but the door immediately opened, and he was told the king was waiting for him in the cabinet. He rose at once, and saluting the meeting, gracefully drew his cloak around him, and dis: ppeared. The door was instantly shut behind him. In the ante-room he found, to his surprise, the Forty-five. But he saluted them and passed on. He was just about to lift the curtain of the cabinet-door, when a soldier of the name of Montsery seized him by the arm and stabbed him with a poignard in the throat. "Help! treason!" cried the duke. Treason enough there was, but no help. The others assailed him with swords and daggers. The duke, " gathering life's whole energy to die," resisted though unarmed. He knocked down one of his murderers and dragged the others after him in his efforts to escape. For a mo

The sewing was admirably strong. The adherents of the Guises were murdered in cold blood. The cardinal fell beneath the hands of common assassins, for the Fortyfive were men of strong religious feelings, and would not stain their hands with the slaughter of a priest. The other enemies of the king were kept in dungeons in different parts of the kingdom. It was a reign of terror, and all men looked only for safety to Henry of Navarre.

With kings and princes Blois had little to do after this. The Bourbons had no hereditary attachment to the place; and, having had a royal birth to boast of, and a royal murder, what more could a town expect? But its situation still continued as beautiful as ever; its hill as green, its skies as pure, its river as clear and winding. With a little alteration of a line of Horace, in praise of Baiæ, a native poet exclaims,

Nullus in orbe locus Blesis prælucet amoenis. A less classical enthusiast dwells upon the charm of its site, the Loire encircling it with a silver band; the towers of Chambord, on the left, rising majestically above the trees of the Forest of Boulogne; opposite, the eye rests on the dark tops of the woods of Russy; then turning to the right, you see gentle elevations covered with vineyards and country-houses; and might still dream of pomp and chivalry

more.

if it were not for the long straight line | for the first drill, a report was spread that you perceive running through the valley. Napoleon was already in Paris, and not a Alas! it is the railway from Orleans to soul made his appearance on parade. Of Bordeaux-and pomp and chivalry are no these and many other things I might tell; but of what use to ransack the records of a town which even the railway can't re store; which rests on old recollections instead of present deeds; but has the best climate, the richest woods, and the sweetest grapes in France? If you are ever in Paris in the summer, take a return ticket by the Orleans line, and spend three days in old Blois.

If I had time I could dwell on the later history of Blois; how it suffered during the revolution, and how it furnished its quota of heroes to build up the glory of Napoleon. Also how, when the return from Elba was first talked of, a corps of gallant loyalists was raised in defence of altar and crown; and how, on the day appointed

From Tait's Magazine.

THE LIFE OF A

PUBLISHER.

of passion; but they are not the rule of the trade, they are its exceptions. The nature of the risk taken by many publishers often involves serious consequences; and requires far more sagacity and general knowledge in its adoption than are neces sary for the successful prosecution of many other "ventures," involving a larger outlay. The business has many branches, distinctly isolated, and each requiring dif ferent treatment.

Publishers prosecute

ANY profession would furnish a curious ] ends, its fragments, with all the tenacity biographer with material for a book, if he could trace clearly the causes that have led to the rise or fall of a business, and the struggles of individuals to overcome difficulties, or their sorrows as they sunk beneath them. Any life, however humble, fairly told would form an interesting and profitable narrative; and our want in biography is not of subjects, but of truth. Some professions undoubtedly offer more ample material than others for this description of literature. The life of a publisher should be richer in recordable incidents than that of a compositor or an operative paper-maker. Few occupations indeed offer more opportunities of usefulness than a publisher's business. Even in those departments of the trade that may be considered more decorative than useful, it necessarily brings those who pursue it into direct contact with peculiar classes of men. We hear frequently of large profits made by publishers from the labors of literary men, and very rarely of the losses which they experience from the same source. A slight acquaintance with the world is necessary in order to recollect the names of publishers who have grasped, not at wealth merely, but at its odds and

a particular class of publications alone, and often decline to enter upon more than one field. The public are familiar with the general distinction of "religious" publishers which divides into church and dissenting, evangelical and non-evangelical, sections; and the general character of a new work may be assumed with tolerable accuracy from the name of the publisher. Those who devote themselves to scientific business divide in a similar manner, and we should not expect to find an architectural work in the catalogue of a medical house.

Many years ago now, a new class of publishers arose, who communicated with their ultimate customers often without the aid of booksellers. They formed the

tune, which has been well deserved and is well employed. An estimate can not be formed of the advantage conferred upon the public by the original enterprise of Messrs. Blackie and Fullarton, unless we could ascertain the number of books issued by them, and the proportion that would probably not have been purchased unless upon this scheme. Many of their publications have been of a theological character; but no department of literature or science can be named in which they have not operated. The greater part of the houses who have published chiefly in the number trade began business with a comparatively small capital, or with none. Their gigantic establishments have been reared upon very assiduous labor, and are monuments of perseverance, crowned with success; in some measure, because it was accompanied with tact and talent.

number trade, and sold their stock by "a | in Scotland; while the capital sunk in house to shop" canvass of agents, who copyrights, machinery, types, and stereoreceived subscriptions for works to be types, must represent a magnificent forpublished at stated intervals. The numbers, as they appeared, were distributed by a deliverer, who received payment in cash. This mode of selling and transmitting books was, and is still, expensive; but it certainly created a sale that could not, when the plan originated, have been expected by any other mode; and it carried works into homes where they never would have been found if the buyers had been left to purchase them in their complete form. The canvassers and deliverers penetrated into quarters where the ordinary booksellers could not reach, and from which no person sought them. The works were, moreover, placed before probable purchasers in a more attractive form than advertisements and circulars can assume. They were conveyed to the buyers at distant and stated intervals. They were paid easily, because they arrived in small quantities; and for the same reason they were read, when the entire volume, delivered at once, might have remained uncut, as a labor too desperate to commence.

Success in this department of the publishing business required great energy and punctuality. The deliverers were often pursuing a circuit hundreds of miles from the publishing office. A staff of men who would perform the duty, and could, at the same time, be intrusted with the proceeds, was not easily formed; but, after the business was fairly in operation, the men were easily found-for the difficulty in this, as in every similar case, was at the beginning. The publication of books in numbers did not, we believe, originate with persons in the trade. The firm of Blackie and Fullarton, in Glasgow, if not the earliest publishers in this line, certainly rendered it popular, and prosecuted it with success. The firm has now branched into two distinct houses, and one of them, Blackie and Sons, of Glasgow, have, perhaps, the largest business in this department. Neither of the original partners was, we believe, connected from boyhood with printing or publishing; yet the elder Mr. Blackie has seen his business, and the establishments connected with his business, assume a magnitude of which he could have had little expectation fifty years since for his firm may be considered the most extensive book producers

"The Life of Alderman Kelly," by the Rev. R. C. Fell, illustrates very favorably the career of an eminent and successful publisher, who, commencing business on a contracted sphere, completely systema tized the number trade in England, realized a large fortune, and passed creditably through the higher municipal offices, as incidents of a long life, distinguished by unblemished integrity and kindness to those with whom, in any way, the late Alderman became connected. He was born at Chevening in the county of Kent, where his father had been engaged as a shepherd, until his marriage with the daughter of a small farmer in the neighborhood, when he became an innkeeper. But the business was distasteful to both husband and wife, probably because they were unaccustomed to its duties; and they soon took possession of a small farm, having apparently lost in the inn a sum of two hundred pounds, which John Kelly had creditably accumulated when employed as a shepherd, and in purchasing cattle for the neighboring farmers. The farm which they cultivated_at first contained only thirty acres. It was afterwards extended to seventy acres of "cold wet land "—a burden that only adequate capital or immense energy in labor could have enabled them to surmount. They had no capital, and although they passed a very laborious life, yet when John Kelly

died many years afterwards, his son had to pay some hundreds of pounds which the farm.

were due

upon

work, but had not had the means or opportunity of publishing it, readily accepted Kelly's offer for the copyright, and undertook the careful revision and impart an additional stimulus to its sale, it of the press. To enhance the value of the work, was embellished with copper-plate illustrations, and printed in large type, on paper of then superior quality, having the following words, in water in-marks, on every sheet, 'Kelly's Family Bible.' Being at that day quite a novelty, it proved exceedingly attractive, and had a very rapid sale. had from thirty to forty thousand subscribers to Indeed, to this, his first work of importance, he commence with, all procured by his own appointed agents; to whom the several numbers of the work-of which there were, in all, one hundred and seventy-three, at eightpence each-were paid for on delivery. If it be true that its sale ultimately extended to eighty thousand copies, which in duty to government on this Bible alone, the he thought probable himself, he must have paid enormous sum of twenty thousand pounds; for the work, when complete, including its stout paper wrappers, weighed twenty pounds, and the

Thomas Kelly, the future Lord Mayor of London-who was to proclaim the accession of Queen Victoria in the metropolis of her dominions-to entertain the Duke of Wellington in the City-to augurate his equestrian statue on the Exchange and, finally, at the close of his mayoralty, to entertain the Sovereign in the Guildhall-grew up on this cold and rugged farm, in humble circumstances; followed the sheep and the horses as he advanced in years, and gathered his education from little schools, in fragments of time, during his youth. He felt his condition hopeless as a member of a large and a poor family, who seemed destined to drag a scanty livelihood out of sterile soil. His biographer relates the various steps by which he was led to seek employ-duty at that day on all kinds of paper was threement in London. His first engagement was in a Lambeth brewery, where he acted in some capacity, not clearly stated, for two to three years, when the firm stopped its business, and he obtained employment as a shopman with Mr. Hogg, a bookseller in Paternoster-row. He was to board and lodge on the premises, and to receive in addition a salary of ten pounds annually. He remained in this situation for more than twenty years, gradually obtaining additions to his salary, which, however, came slowly, and left him, at middle life, with only eighty pounds a-year, out of which he appears to have paid his father's rent. At the age of thirty-eight, he was offered a partnership with Mr. Hogg's son; but he declined the connexion from some scruples respecting the young man's habits and character, which appear to have been well-founded. At thirty-eight years of age he commenced business upon his own account, obviously without capital, in a single room, for which he was a sub-tenant to a barber in the Row. He prospered with some remainders of stock which he purchased; and then followed his first large speculation in publishing,

THE FAMILY BIBLE.

"One of the first works upon which Kelly tried his experiment was a large Family Bible, in folio, with explanatory notes, by the Rev. John Mal ham, Rector of Hilton, Dorset. This gentleman, who had been engaged for upwards of thirty years in selecting and arranging the materials for the

pence per pound, or five shillings upon every entire copy which he sold. The price to the purchaser of every such copy, in its completed form, fourpence, the total sum produced by the sale of amounting to five pounds, fifteen shillings, and this extraordinary effort-admitting his own estimate of the number of copies sold to have been correct-must have exceeded four hundred and sixty thousand pounds. Of this sum howeverthe agents' allowances for canvassing and delivery being deducted-little more than one-half rehis own payments to the author, paper maker, enturned into the pocket of the publisher, to meet graver, etc. There are grounds for believing, that the success that attended the sale of this Bible led to the publication, on a similar plan, of the one which subsequently appeared under the sanction of our church rulers, and was known as the joint work of the late Dr. D'Oyley and Bishop Mant. At least it is certain that at the conlication of that Bible was determined on, some of sultation held at Lambeth Palace, when the pubthe numbers of its popular predecessor were seen lying on the table. Although this attempt, on the part of the Church, to supply the wants of her members, enjoyed the rare, and, as it was thought by the trade, the unfair privilege, of being exempted from the payment of duty, Kelly in this department of his business, with a persistcontinued, notwithstanding, to prosecute his plans ency and vigor that bade defiance to all competition. To the various editions of the Holy Scriptures which he was afterwards the means of giving to the world, and to the probable number of copies which he sold, I propose to advert hereafter."

The publication of this Family Bible was, at the time, a great effort; yet it was a dear book, not equal, we believe, in any respect, to the editions of the Scriptures, with Matthew Henry's Com