THE BELLS AT SPIRE.

FROM THE GERMAN OF VON OER.

I.

IN Spire's last hovel, poor and mean,
An old man lies in death-pangs keen;
His covering, rags, and hard his bed
Ah, many tears those dim eyes shed!

There's none to watch his failing breath,
His sole attendant-bitter death!
As on that heart He sets his seal,
Suddenly rings a wondrous peal!
The bell that tolls for dying kings,
Untouched by mortal ringer, swings ;-
And great and small, in perfect time,
Rings out each bell to swell the chime.

In Spire, and far and wide they say
The emperor is dead to-day;
The emperor died, the emperor died!
Knows no one where the emperor died?

II.

In Spire, that royal city old,
The emperor on his couch of gold,-
With weary hand and weary eye,
Henry the Fifth lies down to die!
In haste and fear the servants crowd,
The rattle in his throat is loud,-
As on his heart death sets his seal,
Suddenly rings a wondrous peal!
The little bell so long unswung,
Only for some poor sinner rung
Rings out alone, and ringeth long,
No other bells the peal prolong.

In Spire, and far and wide they say ;-
Some criminal is judged to-day,
Who may the wretched sinner be,-
And prithee, where's the gallows-tree?
Albany.

L. E. P.

STAND BY THE FLAG.

STAND by the flag!-its stars like meteors gleaming,

Have lighted arctic icebergs, southern seas, And shone responsive to the stormy beaming Of old Arcturus and the Pleiades.

Stand by the flag!-it is a holy treasure;

Though wrong may dim some stars which should be light,

A steady, gentle, and persistent pressure,

Kindly exerted, yet will make them bright. Stand by the flag!-though death-shots round it rattle,

And underneath its waving folds have met, In all the dread array of sanguine battle,

The quivering lance and glittering bayonet. Stand by the flag!-all doubt and treason scorning

Believe, with courage firm, and faith sublime, That it will float until the eternal morning Pales, in its glories, all the lights of time!

You at home that stay From danger far away,

glory,

To foes a fear, to friends a festal robe, And spread in rythmic lines the sacred story Of Freedom's triumph over all the globe. Stand by the flag!-on land and ocean billow, By it your fathers stood unmoved and true, Living defended-dying, from their pillow,

With their last blessing passed it on to you. Stand by the flag !-immortal heroes bore it Through sulphurous smoke, deep moat and armed defence,

And their imperial shades still hover o'er itA guard celestial from omnipotence.

ease;

From The Examiner.

The Secret History of the Court of France under Louis XV. Edited, from Rare and Unpublished Documents, by Dr. Challice. In Two Volumes. Hurst and Blackett. THERE is reason in Dr. Challice's complaint that French history, as read in England, is too full of scandal. The greater part of what is told is true; but other truth, pleasanter and better deserving of study, is too little heeded. "Such injustice is unworthy of a time that boasts of progress, and of England which proclaims universal toleration and free inquiry." Therefore this book has been written. Having inherited some valuable manuscripts prepared by two Englishmen, father and son, who were resident in Paris at the time, Dr. Challice has collated them with all other available authorities, and especially with a mass of unprinted document in the British Museum, and worked the whole into readable shape, with the main object of giving a truer and more favorable account than is elsewhere presented of Madame de Pompadour, and her surroundings. Handling his subject with enthusiasm an enthusiasm, we may note in passing, which, in its intensity, sometimes breaks through the rules of grammar, and does detriment to a style which, with a little curbing, would be unusually good, he often, in avoiding error on one side, inclines to error on the other. It is right to vindicate the famous mistress of Louis XV. from the aspersions of her enemies; but she is not exactly the woman whom we care to see canonized. Nor is French society in the eighteenth century entitled to a great deal of favor. This, indeed, is readily admitted by Dr. Challice. In removing many grievous charges from his heroine, he has had to transfer them to other individuals, or to the whole degraded nation. Everywhere there was a heavy and unsightly burden of vice that pressed down, almost stifled the goodness yet remaining in the land. All that can be done is to pick out the worthiest exceptions to the rule of degradation, and give them the justice which is their due. That this has been attempted in right manly spirit, and has to a great extent been affected in the volume before us, we readily acknowledge.

In the score of years here traversed there is certainly no lack of interest. The story opens with the commencement of the French

war against Hungary in 1744. Four years before Maria Theresa, heiress of the house of Austria, had been placed in the greatest peril by Frederic the Great, the new king of Prussia; and in a foolish moment, Louis XV. had pledged himself to join in the strife. He had done so mainly through the influence of his then mistress, the Duchess of Châteauroux, and when, after a little hard fighting, he received, as it was thought, his death wound, the popular execrations against her were loud and furious. Soon the king recovered; but the duchess, startled by a sudden access of joy to her mind, long tormented by private grief and national insult, fell down dead. Straightway, we are told, "the highest ladies in the land were rivalling each other in their endeavors to supply to the monarch the loss of his favorite." The fortunate one is the heroine of these volumes.

The daughter of a woman famous even in that dissolute time, for her utter viciousness, she had been married, while yet a girl, to a financier named d'Etioles. In her very childhood, a fortune-teller, struck by her strange beauty, had predicted that she should become "part and parcel of the king," and she never forgot the words. To her friend Voltaire she used to say, "I believe in my destiny," and she satisfied her husband with the promise, "I will never be unfaithful to you, save for the king of France." Yet she was better than the average of women in her day. It was a day of reckless perversion of all sacred laws, and most of all of the law of marriage. Whenever a true wife was found, she was accounted a saint, and mocked at accordingly by the philosophical atheists of the age. Madame d'Etioles knew that she was floating down a stream which issued in foul waters, and she made some effort to save herself. She might have been saved had not a mere accident placed within her reach the glittering prize promised to her from childhood.

The king being out hunting one day, it chanced that he shot a stag while it was speeding past the gate of the financier's dwelling, and etiquette required that the antlers of a victim so slain should be presented to the master of the house. He therefere entered, and there for the first time saw the lady of whose wit and beauty he had heard. Before long Madame d'Etioles, then in her twenty&cond year, was installed at Versailles with

It is curious to follow the marchioness to the court and observe her demeanor there. Strangest of all was the friendship formed between her and the queen of France. For, of course, there was a queen, and one of whom her rival could write thus approvingly: "She has laid at the foot of the cross her domestic troubles. Far from murmuring at a destiny which would have filled the days of one less excellent with bitterness, she rather regards it as a trial to her constancy which will find its recompense in an

other life."

When mothers could rejoice upon their death-beds at their daughters' infamy, and when queens could accept the friendship of their husbands' concubines, a good deal of allowance must be made for a young and

beautiful woman, covetous alike of love and of power, led on as she thought by the star of destiny, and tempted as cunningly as was Madame de Pompadour. And undoubtedly, as far as it might be, the influence which came with her to Versailles was a healthy one. If a woman was needed to preside over France, and if adultery was the necessary stepping-stone to power, a better choice could hardly have been made. The king had hitherto given himself to gambling; one of madame's first conquests was the curing him of this vice and the obtaining of an Order in Council which forbade all games of chance. In her modest home she had been famous for her splendid powers of mind; she now inspired the king with something of her own liking for music, painting, and the drama, and won his patronage for her former literary and artistic friends. Montesquieu and Voltaire, Marmontel and De Bernis received especial favor, and an intellectual stimulus was imparted to the whole nation. She possessed, says her last biographer, "plenty of head but still more

heart."

"The latter never failed her where true merit was pining for recognition. Thus, she not only drew around her the brilliant and

who could entertain the king and herself, but her protection sheltered the old, the Crébillon the elder, who had written fine decrepit, and the unfortunate. There was tragedies, but who was now broken down by infirmity, whom she revived by the magic of her kindness in obtaining for him the honor of a gratuitous impression of his works at the Imprimerie Royale, and for this grand edition (of the Louvre) herself engraving the illustrations. When the good old Créthis, he was half mad with joy, and started billon, then eighty-one years old, heard of at once to Choisy to thank the marquise, who was ill there. She gave orders for the aged author's admission, and even permitted him to seat himself near the balustrade by which her bed was surrounded. In a transport of gratitude the old man caught the hand of wit of Crébillon was startled into fresh life the marquise, just as the king entered. The by the occasion. Ah, madame,' he cried in mock terror, we are lost; the king has surprised us!'

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"The king himself laughed heartily at this exclamation, and, approaching the marquise, gallantly raised her hand to his own lips, in appreciation of her kindness to his subject.”

In her honest patronage of literature and art, and in her encouragement of them by her own example, the royal mistress only followed her old predilections. But it was not long before she learned a new art. Beginning with a mere wish to know every thing which interested the king, whom she really enough loved, she applied herself to the study of politics, taking careful note, so she has recorded, of the past as well as of the present, and sparing no pains to be thoroughly expert in the theory of government. Her next work was to practise it. We need not follow her into this public and best known portion of her life. Very soon the king learned to seek and implicitly to follow her guidance on all affairs of state. Every thing that was good and much that was bad in the administration of France during fifteen years are traceable to her bold masculine mind. She it was who sent the Young Pretender to Great Britain and planned the invasion of English America; who treated haughtily with Maria Theresa in her time of power, and who was held out against the machinations of Frederic of Prussia. If France could have been regenerated, she would have effected the work. In attempting it she neglected nothing. Let one illus

"All this the marquise had to bear."

darkening for the hideous deluge of blood which was to fall in the French Revolution, the inevitable retribution for all that heaped

NATIONAL SAVINGS BANKS. - On Monday three hundred post-office savings banks will be opened for the deposits of the public. This announcement may probably not strike the reader as one of a very important nature, but the new system which will be thereby inaugurated is one calculated to have the very best possible influence in engendering thrifty and provident habits amongst the poorer classes of the community. Hitherto, the savings bank has been an institution which the people, for whom it was originally and expressly intended, have been either unable or else ashamed to approach. The grand imposing-looking building was open perhaps twice a week, and then only for a few hours in the middle of the day, when the laboring man or his wife, could not attend to deposit their week's accumulation, which was, therefore, generally squandered upon an object either unnecessary or else positively harmful. Thus, instead of the money being laid by for a rainy day, it generally found its way, before it could possibly be deposited in safety, into one of those flaring brazen man traps which everywhere abound in our

streets.

so that, beyond multiplying as far as practicable such excellent establishments in opposition to the man traps to which we have alluded, we hardly see that more could possibly be done to encourage habits of thrift amongst those classes of the public who are the first to suffer on the approach of evil times, such as a want of employment, or a hard winter like our last. The forms which the depositor will have to go through are exceedingly simple, and will occupy little or no time, and certainly ought never to be productive of delay, in observing them. It will only be necessary to give his address and occupation to the postmaster; to deposit his money and sign his name, as every stranger has to do on opening an account in any bank; and to receive his deposit book, with the entry duly made, and attested by the postmaster's signature. The next day the depositor will receive from the district office an acknowledgment of the sum lodged at the local office; and if such acknowledgment should not be received within ten days, or if it should when received be found inaccurate, the depositor will have to notify the same to "The Controller, Savings Bank Department, General Post Office." Should the experiment justify the expectations formed of it, of which there can be little doubt, the system will hereafter be extended so as to embrace every money-order office in the kingdom, when instead of the three hundred now to be opened there will be, in addition to the savings banks previously in existence, twenty-five hundred Post-office Savings Banks. Such a system cannot but be attended by the best wishes for its success of every thoughtful man in the country, as calculated, almost beyond any other social cause, to introduce the highest possible degree of happiness, contentment, and prosperity into the homes of our laboring classes.-Press, 14

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