66 song, accompanied by an orchestra, is the natural and only mode of conversation, and in which pit, boxes, and gallery go for nothing, and, in fact, are only a stone wall or a row of trees, as the case may be. So long as her spell lasts, everything is thus easy, consistent, and intelligible. Which, then, is the truest to Art? And whichever is truest to Art, is, in the best sense, truest to Nature also. "Nature is God's art," as has been nobly said; and as we began by citing a passage in which one of our great poets forgot himself into narrow and bigoted criticism, we will end with a passage from a still greater one, which shows that his "bland and universal eye" saw the whole truth in this matter, as it did in most others : thies, and lead finally to the desired result. It is Art argument to one simple, and, as it seems to us, useless, no doubt, to expatiate to a blind man on conclusive test. Let us consider for an instant the beauties of a landscape, but you may couch him. what effects Jenny Lind, and what effects Grisi,. It could be only in a country where no true would probably produce on the audience, supposing capacity for enjoying the opera exists that such a them both to possess unlimited powers of carrying monstrous assertion could be put forward and com-out their respective systems or principles. Jenny monly maintained, as that Jenny Lind is a greater Lind absolutely makes us believe that she is a Dramatic Artist than Grisi. It is based on igno- lovely and virtuous, but uneducated, peasant girl, rance and prejudice, and supported by the merest exposed to the cruellest suspicions, abandoned by sentimental twaddle; chiefly by that silly old piece her lover, and dying of despair; at the same time of cant, a hundred times refuted, but ever springing she expresses herself solely in song, (accompanied up again as lively as ever from the inexhaustible by an orchestra,) displays varied accomplishments, fount of human folly, which represents Nature and and takes an audience of several hundred strangers Art as two antagonistic powers, the one divine, the into her confidence. The contrast and inconsistenother earthly at best, if not infernal; so that when cy would be so painful to some, and so ludicrous you have dubbed one thing "natural" and another to others, that half the company would rush out of "artificial," you have necessarily exalted the first the house, and the other half would burst into roars and condemned the second. "How charmingly of brutal laughter. Grisi, on the contrary, instead simple and natural is Jenny Lind's acting!" people of bringing the prima donna into the common say. She is just the plain village girl among her world, transports the audience into an operatic fields and her sheep; no consciousness of foot-world, created for the nonce: a world in which lights or audience in her. But Grisi-how artificial she is in comparison! She never forgets that she is treading the stage; whatever else she is, she is always the prima donna." Well, but even granting that your contrast is just, is it so certain that Grisi is in the wrong line, and Lind in the right? An opera is altogether a somewhat artificial production, is it not? and is it not possible that a certain amount of conventional treatment is proper, and is what true artistic feeling suggests, in order to preserve the general harmony and consistency of the whole work? Not only is an opera artificial and conventional, but it is so to such a pitch-it demands such enormous, and in some respects incompatible concessions on the part of the audience, before (one may almost say) it can have any existence at all, that it may well be doubted whether the utmost skill and ingenuity can under the most favorable circumstances harmonize its extravagancies into anything that can be properly and strictly called a pure work of Art; that is, a production consistent with its own conditions, and which, those conditions once conceded, suggests no want and no incongruity; it may well be doubted, we say, whether an opera can ever be more than a performance of which we accept great part in the passive uncritical spirit of a child, because we feel that, on the whole, it furnishes the noblest arena in which musical genius and passion can energize. Surely, then, it is not enough to say of acting in opera that it is natural, unless you can add that it is artistic also. Real hair is not supposed to be an improvement to a statue, and yet it is much more THIS Volume forms the first part, and but a small "natural" than the marble. Acting, and particu- part, of an intended work on the religions, sciences, larly operatic acting, may unquestionably be too antiquities, and peoples of America; the facts for natural; it is not mimicry, still less deception, that which purpose are found in the writings of the earlier is required, it is artistic effect, and Jenny Lind, discoverers and their successors, in the existing rewith all her talent, decidedly errs in this respect-mains of monuments, and in cognate practices and commits, in fact, the very fault which her ultra-ad- remains in the Old World, or which seem such to the mirers praise her so for wanting. She does not act archæological mind. The "high places" mentioned -that is, personate, enough; she retains her self-in Scripture, sun worship, the symbols of the egg and consciousness too absolutely. Instead of acting "Amina," she presents to us Jenny Lind, heartbroken at the loss of her lover; very interesting and charming; but what is she doing there, sing ing songs in front of a row of foot-lights? She has stepped out of the frame, and, instead of performing her part in the production of that delightful whole called the opera of La Sonnambula, she is trying to interest us on her own account. That is not being true, either to Nature or to Art; it is betraying both. Let us submit this Nature-and-Macready banquet. Nature is made better by no mean, But Nature makes that mean; so, o'er that art, A gentler scion to the wildest stock, Winter's Tale. The Serpent Symbol, and the Worship of the Re- of the serpent, the phallic worship and its ramifications, with the growth of the doctrine of the Triune the results of extensive reading; and the theory of God, are the topics treated of. The volume exhibits the author is enforced by continual references to the religions of the Old World, which he holds to be identical with those of the New. The volume is illustrated by numerous wood-cuts. It is an American publication.-Spectator. *See a Sonnet by Alfred Tennyson, read at the From Eliza Cook's Journal. THE MYSTERY OF LOUIS PHILIPPE'S BIRTH. A FRENCH writer of some celebrity, M. Michaud, has just published a book, entitled, "The Public and Private Life of Louis Philippe, of Orleans, Ex-King of the French," in which he adopts and illustrates, by circumstantial details, a story which has long been floating about in France, of a most extraordinary purport. It is to the effect, that Louis Philippe was not a Bourbon, and had not a particle of royal blood in him, but was the son of a very humble Italian, whom some have supposed to be a Jew. Making use of the Athenæum, we give the pith of the story, which runs as follows: That Philippe Egalité-whose character, unfortunately, affords no guarantee against the possibility of such an incident-exchanged his infant daughter for the son of a jailer, with whom he had formed an acquaintance when travelling in Italy, in order to preserve the family estates from lapsing to the crown for want of heirs male. All the incidents connected with this supposed exchange of infants, and with the events of their after-lives, have the character of romance; the time, the scene, the chief actors, and the final issues. Our readers shall see what view M. Michaud takes of the transaction : in Italy, that he made her his wife almost against her inclination, and conducted her to a home of splendor and magnificence on the banks of the Thames. By is now an English peer. On the death of Lord Newthis marriage she had several children, one of whom burgh, she succeeded to a handsome jointure, but of this she afterwards forfeited a great part on her marriage with a Russian nobleman, the Baron de Sternberg. With him she lived for several years in great style, in St. Petersburg. A son was there born to her, who, while yet young, accompanied her to Italy before the death of Chiappini, whom she still regarded as her father. This man, before his death, addressed a letter to her, which altered her whole destiny, and troubled the remainder of her days. This letter, supposing it to be real, revealed to the Baroness de Sternberg the secret of her birth. It ran as follows: My Lady-I am near the term of my earthly existence, and now, for the first time, unfold the On the day that you were born my wife gave birth to following secret, which very intimately concerns you. You a son. Your mother, who is long dead, was a stran- (Signed) This epistle was forwarded to her by the sons of Chiappini; though it is said they kept back some papers which might have been of great use to her in recovering the lost traces of her parentage. Words (says M. Michaud) can hardly express the effect produced by such a discovery on the mind of Marie Stella. Gifted with great energy and lofty sentiments, she passed at once from a position which had been excessively humiliating to a higher rank. Not a jailer, but a great lord, is her father. But who is the great lord? Impatient to fathom this mystery The virtues of the duchess have been pointed to as a refutation of the charge of exchanging children. It has also been alleged, that no inducement existed for either the husband or the wife to perpetrate such a crime. We deny not the virtues of that illustrious lady; but who can tell how far her wishes were controlled by her husband? We know that the greater part of their fortune consisted of demesnes (appanages) which, failing male issue, of necessity reverted to the crown; and that at this very period the duchess, after having been married four years, had given birth to but one child, and that a daughter, stillborn. Such was the state of affairs when the princess and her husband set out for Italy, where, under the titles of Count and Countess de Joinville, they spent several months at a village named Modigliana, situated on the top of the Apennines. Here the duchess proved to be in an interesting situation. The duke, who was fond of mean society, formed an intimacy with a jailer, named Chiappini, whose wife was similarly circumstanced. A bargain was entered into, that if the duchess' offspring should prove a daughter and the jailer's a son, an interchange should be effected. Things turned out according to this anticipation, and the terms of unwilling to believe, with the jailer, that the past the engagement were mutually fulfilled. The jailer evil admitted of no remedy, she made inquiries and received a large sum of money. His son, born at sought evidence in every quarter. Her efforts proModigliana on the 17th of April, 1773, was removed cured her the knowledge that her father was the to Paris, and kept concealed till the 6th of October, Count de Joinville, a French nobleman, whose rank when the ceremony of private baptism was gone and fortune she was ignorant of. To learn all the through, as we have already seen; while the duchess' truth on the subject, she set out in the beginning of daughter remained in Chiappini's house, and was the year 1823 for France, accompanied by her youngeducated as his own child, under the name of Marie est child, Edward, son of Baron Sternberg. Stella Petronilla, supplies being secretly sent once a found her way to the village of Joinville, of which her year from France. According to the Memoirs of father had held the lordship. Here she learned that Marie Stella Petronilla, she continued long in this Joinville had been part of the patrimony of the House melancholy position, ignorant of her high birth, and of Orleans, and that the duke, who perished on the very ill treated by her supposed mother, who loved scaffold in 1793, had sometimes travelled under that her not, and lamented that son whose fate was hidden title. She next visited Paris, and there made several from her. The father had some idea of the truth; vain efforts to reach him who had succeeded to the but, knowing the duke only as Count de Joinville, title and the wealth of that powerful family. She never dreamed that he was a prince of the blood royal consulted many men of business, and became the of France. His reputed daughter excelled all his dupe of sharpers and police officers, who received other children in beauty. Everything, indeed, about much money from her by way of payment, and her indicated that she was of different blood. Her wit robbed her of a good deal more. When her means and precocity astonished every one. Before she had failed, she had recourse to an artifice, which, considercompleted her seventeenth year, she so captivated ing her position and difficulties, was certainly very Lord Newburgh, a British nobleman, then travelling excusable. She made known, through the public She journals, that the Baroness de Sternberg was in was more than once desired to return to England. possession of a secret in which the heirs of the Count The intervention of the ambassador shielded her from de Joinville were much interested. Louis Philippe persecution; but she was now alone. The Baron de was not long in hearing of this; his covetous disposi- Sternberg had conducted her favorite son, Edward, to tion already rejoiced in the hope of some addition to Russia, so that her courage and consciousness of the his immense possessions. He accordingly communi- justice of her claim formed her only protection against cated with the baroness through his natural uncle, the spies that surrounded her. Her memoirs having the old Abbé of St. Phar, who thought that possibly been seized, and the tribunals of justice closed against he too might derive some worldly benefit from the her by the ruling powers, whose tools they then were, adventure; but when the royal duke and his associate they ended by pronouncing her mad; the only prefound that the secret referred to restitution, and not text for this calumny being a peculiar fancy which augmentation, the gates of the Palace Royal were she had for feeding some birds which flew to her hermetically closed against the baroness. She made windows from the gardens of the Tuileries. We great efforts, but, as she was a stranger in Paris, and know, however, on irrefragable testimony, that to the all her motions were watched by the police-then last she retained the full possession of her reasoning nothing better than the slaves of Louis Philippe-she faculties. She never abandoned her claims, but became once more the prey of those designing men, always subscribed herself Baroness de Sternberg, with whom Paris swarms, who were probably the born Joinville. During the last five years of her life, agents of him whose interest it was above all to over- a fear of being arrested in the streets caused her to throw her pretensions. A distinguished writer, whose confine herself to her own house, where she knew she name she does not give, but whom, from her descrip- was safe through the protection of the English ambastion, we readily identify, vainly endeavored to make sador. On the night before her death, in 1845, interest for her with the Duchess of Angouleme. happening to hear the cannon announce the opening After being duped and plundered thus, she was of the chambers, she called for the public journal that obliged to return and renew her search in Italy. She she might read the speech of that brigand. She never returned from Italy, after an absence of several spoke again. months, armed with fresh and important evidence, and, above all, with a judgment pronounced by the Ecclesiastical Tribunal of Faenza, on the 29th of May, 1824, which fixed her rank, and proved that she was not Chiappini's but the Count de Joinville's daughter. From Chambers' Journal. THE FLOATING GARDENS OF MEXICO. THE greater part of the vegetables consumed in Mexico are cultivated in the Chinampas, called by Europeans floating gardens. They are of two kinds; some are movable, and frequently driven up and down by the wind; others firm, and fixed to the shore. The former only can be termed floating, but the number of these is daily lessening. The ingenious invention of the chinampas is traceable to the end of the fourteenth century, and the idea was probably suggested to the Aztecas by nature itself. On the marshy banks of the lakes of Xochimilcho and Calaco, the waters, in their periodical swellings, throw up clods and mounds of earth, covered with grass and tangled roots. These masses, after floating for a long time up and down, the sport of every breeze, sometimes form into groups of small islets. A tribe, too weak and insignificant to establish any settlement on the mainland, took advantage of this portion of the soil thus accidentally placed at their disposal, and the possession of which was not likely to be disputed. The most ancient chinampas were only turf-mounds artificially joined, and then tilled and planted by the Aztecas. These floating islands are found in every zone. Humboldt describes those he saw at Quito, in the River Guayaquil, as being about twenty feet long, floating about in the middle of the stream, and full of the bamboo, the Pistia stateotes, and other plants, whose roots are knotty, and disposed to intertwine. They are also to be found in the small lake called Laga di Agua Solfa of Tivoli, near the Baths of Agrippa, composed of sulphur, of carbonate of lime, and of the leaves of the Ulva thermalis, and shifting from place to place at every breath of wind. Armed with this, and other important pieces of evidence, the baroness set to work again, hopeful and confident; but, unfortunately, she could not find one honest man in Paris to direct her. She fell once more into the snares of the crafty, and spent her money to no purpose. Pecuniary temptations were presented to her in the most insidious manner by Louis Philippe's agents, but she resisted all with a pride truly worthy of royalty. Convinced that she was the daughter of the Duke of Orleans, nothing short of a full recognition of her rights as such would satisfy her. Her stature, mien, and manners, even her voice, testified to this distinguished origin. All impartial men listened with admiration to her forcible assertion of her claims. It was scarcely possible to listen without being persuaded of their justice. She bore a striking resemblance to Madame Adelaide, the duke's sister, while the features of the latter vividly recalled to her her reputed father, the jailer. It is even said that on one occasion, when she conducted her youthful son, Edward, to the picture-gallery, the child, on observing a portrait of Louis Philippe, cried The industry of the Aztecan nation has brought to several times, "Papa Chiappini! Papa Chiappini !" great perfection the idea suggested by the masses of The baroness was vexed by this incident. The police, earth broken off from the banks of the rivers. The who were ever on her track, who did all in their floating gardens found by the Spaniards in great numpower to prevent the circulation of her memoirs, bers, and many of which are still to be found in the threatened her repeatedly with imprisonment. It is Lake of Calaco, were a sort of rafts formed of reeds, a strange fact, that Louis XVIII. and Charles X. not rushes, and rough, prickly, tangling shrubs, and only consented to, but originated all those manoeuvres covered by the Indians with a layer of rich earth, against the baroness. Those princes seemed then to impregnated with muriate of soda. This salt is gradrepose entire confidence in him whom they regarded ually extracted from the soil by watering it with the as their cousin, though that individual was ceaselessly water of the lake, and the ground is more or less ferengaged in schemes which compassed their destruc-tilized, according to the more or less frequent application. The fall of the elder Bourbons, and the succes- tion of this lye-for such, even when salt, the water sion of Louis Philippe to his good cousins, rendered becomes by filtration through the soil. The chinampas the baroness' position more than ever difficult. She sometimes contain a hut for the Indian in charge of a group of these floating gardens, which can be towed quarter-deck, and touching his hat, said, respect or impelled by long poles at pleasure, from one side fully, "I beg pardon, commodore, but one of them of the river to the other; but most of those now known are kings has fallen down the hatchway!"—Olive by the name are fixed; and as this happens just in Branch. proportion to the distance of the fresh-water lake from the salt-water lake, many are to be found along the Vega, in the marshy soil between the Lake of Calaco and the Lake of Tezcuco. Each chinampa forms a parallelogram, three hundred feet long and about twenty in breadth, and is separated from its neighbor by a narrow dike. In these chinampas are cultivated beans, peas, capsicums, potatoes, artichokes, and a great variety of other vegetables, and the borders are generally edged with flowers, and sometimes by a little hedge of rose-trees. Indeed, the beauty of the scenery altogether makes a boating excursion round them, especially those of Istacalco and Lake Chapala, most delightful. DISCOVERY IN EGYPT.-A most interesting discovery has been made in Egypt. It is known that there exists in Mount Zabarah, situated on an island in the Red Sea, a mine of emeralds, which was formerly worked by the pachas of Egypt, but abandoned in the last years of the reign of Mehemet Ali. An English company have solicited and recently obtained authority to resume the working of this mine, which is believed to be still rich with precious stones. Mr. Allan, the engineer of the company, while directing some important excavations in this place, has discovered at a great depth traces of an ancient gallery, which must evidently be referred to the most remote antiquity. Upon removing the rubbish, they found tools and ancient utensils, and a stone upon which is enPERILOUS ADVENTURE.-The captain of a whaler, says Cheever, gives the following account of an advengraved a hieroglyphic inscription, now partially defaced. This circumstance proves the truth of the ture which came very near being his last. In giving opinion expressed by Belzoni, on the strength of other an account of the accident and singular escape, he indications, that this mine was worked in ancient said that as soon as he discovered that the line had caught in the bow of the boat, he stooped to clear it, and attempted to throw it out from the chock, so that it might run free. In doing this he was caught by a turn round his left wrist, and felt himself dragged overboard. He was perfectly conscious while he was rushing down with unknown force and swiftness; and it appeared to him that his arm would be torn from his body, so great was the resistance of the water. He was well aware of his perilous condition, and that his only chance of life was to cut the line. But he could not remove his right arm from his side, to which it was pressed by the force of the element through which it was drawn. When he first opened his eyes it appeared as if a stream of fire was passing before them; but as he descended, it grew dark, and he felt a terrible pressure on his brain, and a roaring as of thunder in his ears. Yet he was conscious of his situation, and made several efforts to reach his knife, that was in his belt. At last, as he felt his strength failing and his brain reeling, the line for an instant slackened, he reached his knife, and instantly that the line became again taut, its edge was upon it, and by a desperate effort of his exhausted energies he freed himself. After this he only remembered a feeling of suffocation, a gurgling spasm, and all was over, until he awoke to an agonized sense of pain, in the boat. ONE day, when the flag-ship of an American commodore was lying in the bay of Naples, she was honored by a visit from the king and royal family, with suite, who came out in gilded barges and the full parade of royalty. The ship was dressed from deck to truck in holiday attire; side-boys were mustered at the ropes, the marines presented arms, the guns thundered forth a royal salute, and the commodore welcomed his guests to the quarter-deck with the politeness befitting an officer of rank. One of the suite, a spindle-shanked and gaudily attired Neapolitan, strayed away from the party, and, cruising about midships, espied a windsail, an object he had never seen before. As it was fully expanded by the air, he took it for a pillar, and, folding his arms, leaned against it, when it yielded to his weight, and he disappeared below, heels over head, with a velocity that was actually marvellous, as was his escape from injury. The mishap chanced to have only one witness. This was a veteran tar, who, approaching the times. The nature and form of the implements discovered, and the configuration of the gallery, the plan of which has been readily traced, prove most conclusively that the ancient Egyptians were skilful engineers. It seems, from examination of the stone which has been discovered, that the first labors in the mine of Zabarah were commenced in the reign of Sesostris the Great, or Rameses Sesostris, who, according to the most generally received opinion, lived about the year 1650 before Christ, and who is celebrated by his imuments with which he covered Egypt.-Com. Adv. mense conquests, as well as by the innumerable mon CHINESE IN CALIFORNIA.-Within a week past, nearly five hundred Chinese emigrants have arrived upon our shores, all in two ships, hale and hearty. They remain but a day or two in our city, and are then off to the mines-first buying a pickaxe, shovel, and a few necessary mining tools, and not a few of them drop their own native "rig," and equip them selves in a pair of thick heavy cowhide boots, in lieu of their wooden shoes. Besides, many of them dress up in the real Yankee style-all of which is good for trade! One feature in regard to this class of foreigners is, that even the celestials are rapidly acquir ing our own language-and when I recently adopted the plan of distributing Chinese Bibles and tracts to them, as they came to buy goods, my heart was made glad to hear their "Thank you," with a smile of gratitude, and then to see them fold up the books carefully in their pocket handkerchiefs. convincing evidence to my mind that they had been sent here for good.-Letter to the Journal of Com merce, dated San Francisco, 15 May. This was Jewish Perseverance, or the Jew at Home and Abroad; an Autobiography. By M. Lissack. The autobiography of a Polish Jew, who, in consequence of his father's death and straitened means, was obliged to give up the study of physic and seek fortune as he could. He came to England in search of property left by a relation, but found it already distributed at least the chief Rabbi said so; and he had to turn travelling merchant for a livelihood. He is now established at Bedford as a teacher of German.-Spectator. The LIVING AGE is published every Saturday, by E. LITTELL & Co., at the corner of Tremont and Bromfield Streets, Boston. Price 12 cents a number, or six dollars a year in advance. Remittances for any period will be thankfully received and promptly attended to. LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 376.-2 AUGUST, 1851. From Chambers' Papers for the People. In the middle of the eighteenth century, at the village of Rammenau, near Pulsnitz, in Upper Lusatia, there lived and worked among his contemporaries a certain manufacturer of ribbons, named Christian Fichte. He, recently married, and reputably established in trade there, paying rates and taxes, and other like dues and imposts, cheerfully fronted the world, and took thankfully from fortune whatever benefits she sent him. Among the tnost memorable of these was a firstborn son, who struggled into existence on the 19th of May, 1762. This is he who, being subsequently baptized according to orthodox prescription, was thereafter called by the name of Johann Gottlieb Fichte-a name since considerably well known, and not indifferently respected, by all persons who are anywise acquainted with German Transcendentalism. Gottlieb, who very soon appeared, dressed in a clean smock-frock, and bearing in his hand a most enormous nosegay, as a token of respect from his mother to the mistress of the castle. He answered all questions put to him with a quiet and natural simplicity; and, on being requested to repeat as much as he could recollect of the morning's sermon, he proceeded to deliver a long and eloquent dis course, which, from its grave and impressive tendency, threatened rather to discompose the gayety of the company. Desiring to escape this consummation, the count thought it necessary to interrupt him, signifying doubtless that, of an admirable memory and good natural powers of elocution, a sufficient proof had been exhibited. The young preacher, however, interested his auditory greatly, and more especially the baron, who, after making some inquiries of the clergyman, which were favorably answered, determined to undertake the charge of the boy's education. The consent of the parents having been with difficulty obtained, young Fichte was shortly consigned to the care of his new patron, and departed with him, as it seemed, for foreign parts. His destination was the castle of Siebeneichen, a country seat of the baron, situated on the Elbe, near Meissen. Here the heart of the poor boy sank within him, as he daily contemplated the gloomy grandeur of the baronial hall, and the mountains and dark forests by which it was sur As the boy grew up he showed signs of extraordinary capacity, and waxed steadily in favor with all who were interested in his welfare. Long before he was old enough to be sent to school his father had taught him to read; taught him also a number of pious songs and proverbs, and initiated him somewhat into the higher mysteries of Bible-history and the Catechism. Often, by way of entertaining his curiosity, the father would relate to him the story of his personal wanderings in Sax-rounded. His first sorrow, his earliest trial, had ony and Franconia, whither, in conformity with a well-known German usage, he had gone in former years for improvement in his calling. To these recitals young Gottlieb listened with exceeding interest, and was thereby awakened into some vague sympathy with the existing outward world. The wonder and manifold train of feelings thus excited fostered in the boy a fondness for solitary rambles, and often impelled him forth into the lonely and quiet fields, where for many hours he would hold a still communion with his thoughts. A quiet, pensive child, he was already receiving influences and forming habits which were afterwards to grow to great results. come to him in the shape of what a misjudging world might regard as a singular piece of good fortune; and so deep a dejection fell on him, as seriously endangered his health. His kind fosterfather, entering into the feelings of the child, prudently removed him from the lordly mansion to the residence of a country clergyman in the neighbor. hood, who, though himself without family, was greatly attached to children. Under the care of this worthy pastor and his wife, Fichte passed some of the happiest years of his life, and ever afterwards looked back upon them with tenderness and gratitude. Here he received his first instructions in the ancient languages, in which, however, he was left pretty much to his own efforts, seldom receiving what might be called a regular lesson from his teacher. This plan, though it might invigorate and sharpen his faculties, left him imperfectly acquainted with grammatical principles, and retarded to some made rapid advances; and his preceptor soon perceived the insufficiency of his own attainments for furthering the studies of a pupil so promising, and therefore urged upon his patron the desirability of sending him to some public school. He was accordingly sent, first to the town school of Meissen, and afterwards to a higher seminary at Pforta, near Raumburg. Among the persons whose attention young Fichte very soon attracted was the clergyman of the village, who, perceiving his talents, often assisted him with instruction. Happening one day to ask him how much he thought he could remember of the last Sunday's sermon, the boy aston-extent his subsequent progress. He, nevertheless, ished the good pastor by giving a very correct account of the course of argument pursued in the discourse, and also of the several texts of Scripture quoted in illustration. This circumstance was subsequently mentioned incidentally to a nobleman residing in the village; and when, a short time afterwards, a certain Baron von Miltitz, who was on a visit at the castle, chanced to express his regret at having arrived too late for sermon on the Sunday morning, he was half-jestingly apprized that it was of very little consequence, as there was a boy in the neighborhood who was capable of repeating it from memory, and might easily be sent for, if desired, to reproduce it for the baron's edification. A messenger was presently despatched for little CCCLXXVI. LIVING AGE. VOL. XXX. 13 This latter establishment retained many traces of a monkish origin; the teachers and pupils lived in cells, and the boys were permitted to leave the interior only once a week, and then under inspection, to visit a particular play-ground in the neighborhood. The stiffest formality pervaded the whole economy of the place; the living spirit of |