In the barracks, his board, lodging, and firing were all found him, and things went on in a regular course, so long as a man only did his duty; but Stephen was now left to shift for himself, and he felt this a hardship. Gladly would he have gone back into service, to have again a fixed duty and a fixed pay; but this could not be: and a good thing it was that Margaret was a woman of resolution. For the first year or two, whilst their household was small, all had gone on well and smoothly; but as the family and debts increased, so did difficulties and disasters.

It may be matter for wonder that anybody should have permitted Stephen to get into their debt. But the debts were not personal; they were in the form of mortgages on the land and cottage, the interest of which required to be periodically and faithfully paid. Like a large proportion of small holdings, this one was mortgaged to nearly its full value, with the additional burden of the mother's life-rent; and therefore it could not be sold by its nominal proprietors.

A man falling into poverty is like one who is shipwrecked upon a small island in the open sea: he stands forlorn, watching the turbulent waves as they wash away the land, and swallow it up. He stands upon a small plot of ground, and he feels this too at length sink away, and himself with it. The worst that can happen a man in this state is despondency: it destroys his courage, and all power to rouse himself, or attempt to redeem his position.

Stephen's life passed monotonously, and wrapped in gloom he was ready to do any kind of work, and worked in downright earnest: true though it be that, as the saying goes, toil has a bitter root, but sweet fruit, Stephen could no longer taste either the one or the other. No work was hard to him, but he knew not the comfort which lies in the consciousness of having done one's duty. The springs of his mind were in a manner closed and choked up.

Only the day before, his eldest child was laid in the earth he had stood by, and looked on with a vacant stare. At the sight of the coffin, he asked himself where the money was to come from to pay for it; and when the clergyman spoke words of comfort and blessing, Stephen thought to himself that these words had likewise to be paid for. Even 'death brings its charge,' he murmured to himself.

Those who are at dispeace with themselves, fall naturally into quarrels with others. Stephen's bad humour had made his wife sulky and snappish, and in this manner bad led to worse. That night the mutual ill-temper came to an open rupture, of course each blaming the other. After a storm of sharp words, Stephen remained silent. His thoughts turned to the time when he was free in the world, ere other lives were dependant on him; and the past appeared to him as a lost paradise. But he thought not of all the hardships he had then to undergo, nor how often he had sighed to be his own master, and longed for his present life. He now saw only the gloom around him, and thought how different it was when no one in the world had any claim on his exertions.

'Here am I toiling like a slave for these women,' said he internally,' and getting no thanks for my pains; my wife even casts up that I got a cottage and land with her in marriage. 'Tis false! I got nothing of the sort. The payment of interest on mortgages is a millstone round my neck. To be sure if granny were gone, I might contrive to give up the property, and have a small balance over. But she wont die these dozen years. Old half-mad women are as tenacious of life as cats. ... Ha! what notion was that which crossed my mind? Kill granny! No, no; that would never do. I have been a soldier, but never shall be a murderer.'

As the fearful thought flashed across the imagination, Stephen started convulsively: his face grew red as fire. The child upon his knee, roused by his shudder, seized him by the chin. Stephen's features brightened: he lifted the child up, and kissed it fervently, as if by that kiss

he would ask forgiveness for the sinful thought that had sprung up in his soul.

Stephen took the child in his arms, and turning to his wife, who was busy preparing some potatoes for supper, he inquired in a kindly tone if he could help her.

The woman answered acrimoniously, the fact being, that she had not yet vented her anger.

Stephen was thrown back on himself-on his own evil thoughts. In a chaos of passion, in which vexation predominated, he fell to rocking the child, which lay fast asleep upon his knee, with its little hands closed and raised towards his breast, until at length he perceived that he had almost thrown it on the ground, and stopped.

Hungry as he was, Stephen scarcely felt it a relief when supper was announced as being ready. The potful of boiled potatoes was emptied on the table, and salt was set down for general use. Stephen forced himself to swallow a potato, but his throat seemed sewn up, and he muttered to himself, The best thing, after all, is for a man to be dead and buried.' He leant back and shook his head, as if wishing to shake off the thought of what was done, and could not be undone.

Margaret had been accustomed, before she tasted a bit herself, to peel the best potatoes with wonderful alacrity, slice and salt them, and push them to her husband: and this little attention she continued all the time she herself was eating. But this evening he sat waiting long in vain: the truth was, that Margaret dawdled somewhat, and he gave her a significant look: his wife saw in it only anger and reproach. What claim, indeed, had Stephen to her watchful attention? Could not he help himself? So thought Margaret, in her foolishness, and she pushed the peeled potatoes over to the children, as if to make up for their father's hasty words.

Stephen smiled to himself; and partly out of real kindness, and to make amends, but partly, too, from a little secret desire of retaliation, he now laid before Margaret a potato which he had himself peeled. But in a sharp tone she only said, 'Eat it yourself: I do declare you have never washed your hands after your stone-breaking!'

Stephen bit his lips, and presently blurted out, 'Get a baker for your husband; he'll always have clean hands with kneading his dough.' So saying, he clasped his pocket-knife, rose up, and left the house.

He now gave vent to his rage, and began to storm, whilst the silent voice of conscience interrupted his exclamations. Stephen thought thus to himself:'Truly I am the most miserable man in the world.'

The question is, how that is to be understood,' replied the voice.

Have I not to labour for wife and children, and slave like a horse out of doors in the wind and rain?' 'Whilst your wife has all the care and trouble at home, with her helpless mother and crying children, without peace or rest.'

I never get a good word in return for all my labour.'

'Ask yourself whether you have not received many more good words than you have given ?'

'I bring home every farthing I earn, and keep nothing for myself.'

'Do your wages belong to you or to your family, or has your wife secret treasures?'

'I never allow myself any pleasure.'

'And pray does your wife at home eat roast meat and salad?'

For weeks I have not tasted a drop of beer.' 'Does your wife, then, drink wine every day?' 'And for all this I get never a word of thanks.' 'What thanks do you require for doing your duty ?' 'She treats me like a dog, and makes only an ill return for all my kindness. I have never a happy moment.'

'Oh how you lie to your own soul! Can you have

forgotten the hundreds of hours, of days, when her love and goodness have blessed and strengthened you? Nay, could you not at any time wind her round your finger by a kind word?'

My home is made unbearable, my life a burden. Oh that some one would send a bullet through my head!' 'Strike down your own wicked thoughts-destroy them; that is wiser.'

'Well, when I am dead and gone, she'll then learn what I have been to her.'

'Ay, what? A man unable to control his passions; and who, not content with the troubles that come of themselves, is ever worrying himself and his family.' 'I only wish that I could go out into the wide world, and forget everything.'

'Nay, there is one whom you cannot forget. I shall accompany you wherever you go.'

So thought Stephen to himself, and thus did the voice of conscience try to make itself heard within him; but he would not listen to it.

As he sauntered through the village, he felt as if he were a stranger and alone-as if he knew no one. He was a stranger to his own heart, as he was in his own home. He was ashamed to go to the public-house to drive away his cares, for his eldest child had been buried only the day before. Seeing by chance a light in the schoolmaster's house, he resolved to drop in upon him. He and the schoolmaster were great friends. The latter was a good sort of man, in the prime of life. He had drawn up for Stephen the petition which had procured him the little post of road-mender, and they had ever since been in the habit of meeting frequently. Stephen, who had lived many years in the town, and had a certain feeling of importance, thought this was just the man for him-one who, in spite of his humble condition, could understand him; and this was in reality the case.

At the schoolmaster's house Stephen met a number of men and lads, all patiently listening to a harangue. They were intending emigrants, who had come to be instructed by the schoolmaster about the geography and nature of North America, as to how they should get thither, the best means of settling there, and so forth. A thought flashed across Stephen's mind, of which we shall hear more presently.

When the lecture was ended, the folks all rushed into the open air. Every man seemed ready that instant to run off into the backwoods, and set to work, felling the trees of the forest that had stood there untouched since the day of creation, or digging and ploughing up the soil. At moments of excitement and enthusiasm like these, men are often able to perform almost superhuman feats; ay, and at such moments acts of daring and valour are achieved upon the field of battle. And yet, in truth, it is much easier to advance boldly up to the cannon's mouth than silently to work upon one's own secret will, and to combat the petty troubles and vexations of life-a struggle of the heart. Such a struggle Stephen had to encounter.

Many of the assembled throng now betook themselves to the public-house. They could not immediately set about anything for their future prospects, and thought themselves therefore at liberty to break through all restraints, and give themselves up to idleness, until the new scene of activity opened to them. Into this torrent of enthusiasm Stephen plunged, and heard all that was said in favour of emigration. Next day his humour was not improved. He had formed a project in his mind, not a word of which he said to Margaret; he wished to perfect the scheme quite alone. Moreover, he knew well enough the obstacles which stood in his way, and resolved to say nothing until these were overcome, his preparations made, and all was ready. He got a notion into his head that here, in his own country, no one could properly become a man; that life in earnest could only begin in the new world. He seemed to have now awakened to an estimate of the full power of manhood; and in fact this was in a certain

sense the case. He felt a kind of pride, of self-importance, in doing all without saying a word; but Stephen had yet to learn from experience what a man gets by separating himself from those to whom the ties of nature have bound us; he had yet to discover the abyss toward which he was rushing.

Margaret, too, on her part, was looking forward to a new life-she was expecting another child; but she did not dare to disclose this to Stephen. Was he not her wedded husband in the sight of God and man? and yet she wept in silence, as if she had to hide a secret feeling of shame. She sighed when she thought that the new life would bring only fresh sorrow into the house; and recollected with what cold indifference Stephen had borne the death of their eldest child, or rather with the satisfaction of having a burden taken from his shoulders. Thus were these two persons, united by the closest and holiest ties of nature, and living under the same roof, parted as if by the wide sea.

Stephen, when at his work, would shake his head involuntarily, as if a horse-fly had stung him; and he would sometimes hold a stone for a whole minute under his foot, and forget to split it, as he sat lost in thought. And now the minutes seemed hours, for he had lost the only treasure which he had kept through all his poverty

his watch. "Tis true he had only pawned it, to pay the expenses of the funeral, but he knew that he should never be able to redeem it; and he felt as if he had parted with a portion of his very existence, and an instinctive consciousness of coming misery stole upon his mind. As he used to sit thinking over the future, and how he should work in the backwoods of America, felling the trees and clearing the ground, every blow that he gave a stone with his hammer seemed to him a useless waste of labour: he longed to be at work on his own land, and not sit hammering there upon a heap of stones for mere pitiful day-wages. Then involuntarily he put his hand to his pocket, where he used to wear his watch, and he thought, Ah! if the old grandmother's bed were but empty, I could sell it and get my watch again.'

This thought, which suggested itself as it were by accident to his mind, from this time haunted him perpetually. As long as the old woman lived, Margaret would not consent to emigrate, nor could the cottage and grounds be turned into cash. At home, Stephen was now always silent, except when he broke forth from time to time; for the merest trifle threw him into a passion, and he quarrelled with all around him, because he quarrelled with himself. Margaret remarked the change in her husband, and began to experience feelings of remorse: she felt that she had gone too far-wished she could have recalled some exasperating expressions. One thing puzzled her: Stephen was evidently thinking over some scheme which he kept a secret from her. Could it have any relation to granny? He took looks of her that were positively frightful; at the same time he spoke gaily to the old woman, and listened to her long confused stories about the hymns she had learned.

It was no small aggravation of Margaret's disturbance of feeling that she had to contend with painful privations. The family were forced to live almost at the brink of starvation. A good stock of linen, the last thing a German peasant parts with, had been sold in liquidation of some pressing debts. Various articles of furniture had previously disappeared for similar emergencies. There was not a bedstead left in the house, except that on which the grandmother lay.

How melancholy was the picture which the interior of the cottage disclosed! The family one evening had retired to rest, after the mere shadow of a meal. Stephen stretched himself on the floor, supperless and hungry, and wrapped his old tattered soldier's cloak about him. Margaret had taken the child to herself, that they might keep one another warm; but she found no rest, for the voice of hunger cried aloud within her for food. Moreover, she lay thinking of her disagree

ment with her husband; she wanted to speak openly to him about matters, but she felt choked, and her tongue was parched. Stephen, too, could not sleep; he lay tossing from side to side, restless from hunger and the struggle that was going on in his own mind.

A word spoken in kindness, one to the other, would have led to a reconciliation; but who was first to speak that word?

In his restlessness, Stephen uttered a deep sigh. It was dark, and Margaret could not see her husband; but she heard him sigh, and knew, that he lay not further than an arm's length from her. The feelings of the wife and mother were melted: pride gave way before the influence of the affections: Margaret stretched forth her hand and laid it gently on the shoulder of her husband. It was a movement as if guided by an angel of mercy.

'Dear Stephen,' said the wife.

'Dear Margaret,' replied the husband. As he said so, his long frozen-up feelings found vent in tears. In tenderness there is repentance. Stephen resolved to unburden his thoughts to Margaret. He told her all-all that he had contemplated, and his sinful desire for the old woman's death. His feelings found a vent in tears, and Margaret wept with him. She told him that she had suspected his thoughts of emigrating; but had feared to speak. Stephen was now enraged with himself, but Margaret pacified him with affectionate words; and at length he said, 'Forget it all-forgive me! I see-I see: do not ask me more-forget it all! You are good and kind, Margaret; and indeed I will repay your love! Let us, above all, be of one heart and mind.' Their poverty and long estrangement were all now forgotten; everything looked brighter; they no longer felt any hunger; and as they talked over their future hopes and plans, they reconciled one another to wait patiently for the present in their little cottage. Stephen determined to work hard, and to conquer every bad passion in his breast; and this resolution restored peace to him.

From that day he was unusually brisk and diligent at his work spring was approaching, and with it the pressure of want began to be less felt. In his conduct to the grandmother Stephen showed a remarkable tenderness, and Margaret did not understand what he meant when he one day said, 'I do so hope that good old soul may live many years yet! Sometimes I have thought to myself that our little child would learn to walk alone, and run upon our own land in America; but no matter-'tis all one-it can play about just as well here.' Often in an evening he would sit playing with the old woman like a child, and yielded to her in everything, for she was very self-willed. He heard her regularly repeat the verse out of the hymn-book; but sometimes she did not know what hymn she had been set to learn, and then he would read to her the first lines of all the hymns alphabetically; but whilst he was reading, she forgot what she had wished, and wanted to play again with her beans. Stephen's conduct is told in a few words-it sprang, in truth, not only from patience and forbearance, but from a refinement of feeling.

One day the old woman was in great delight, when the schoolmaster, coming to call upon Stephen, heard her repeat her verse, and made her a present of a little picture. Stephen, too, shared in this innocent and childish joy.

When spring came, and the troop of emigrants prepared for their departure, the old feeling of restlessness came over Stephen again: he stood watching the folks as they passed him while at work breaking stones on the road, and he bade them farewell with a bitter smile.

'So,' said he, 'I have to mend the roads, to help you on your way! Perhaps it may turn out that you are but going before to smoothe the way for me who knows?'

As Captain Lumbus drove past, he cried out to

Stephen, Hollo, you stone-hammerer! in America I'll buy a dukedom, and call it Lumbia, and when you come over, I'll make you a present of a hundred acres.' Stephen did not answer.

For some days after the departure of the troop of emigrants, the village seemed quite deserted: their well-known faces were missing, and every one felt sure that they would never be forgotten. But no-when a man, or a community of men, sinks in the stream of life, it is as with a stone falling into the water: at first it parts the tide, but the rings which it creates enlarge and grow fainter as they recede, until at length the water flows on smooth as before. The wanderers were scarcely gone, when the young swallows, twittering in secret, took counsel together where they should fix their nests; then off they flew, circling around this roof and that, and on the wing discussing their plan of building. Ere they had finished their nests, hardly a person in the village had longer a thought for the troop of their brethren who had so lately gone forth from among them to settle and build in distant lands. Where were they now hovering? Stephen and the schoolmaster were almost the only persons who talked frequently of their distant friends, and accompanied them in thought across the ocean.

Autumn was come again. A merry little girl was added to Stephen's family, but a friend was withdrawn from it. The schoolmaster was imprisoned: he had received a letter from his brother, who had emigrated with the rest, describing the voyage to America, and the first steps taken to fix on a settlement. The schoolmaster had made several copies of this letter, which gave offence to the police; for it was construed into an attempt to evade the censorship of, and tax on, the public press. Some weeks elapsed before the poor man was set at liberty, and when he returned home, he felt that his position was changed: the little authority of his office was gone, and he finally resolved to emigrate. He told his intention to Stephen, who was, without any great difficulty, persuaded to accompany him; for the desire of emigrating only slumbered in his mind, and the slightest circumstance sufficed to reawaken the thought. Stephen, however, had to suffer a heavy punishment for the wicked thoughts which he had once allowed to enter his breast.

One day he was nailing up some boards in an outhouse, near which stood a ladder he had been using. Unsettled and capricious, the old grandmother had wandered to the spot, and, unperceived by her son-inlaw, had climbed to the top of the ladder, where a favourite cat had taken up its station. All at once a piercing shriek was heard; the old woman fell headlong down the steps. Stephen ran to the spot, and stood horror-struck with his hammer in his hand. Several of the neighbours also came running up and gathered round the old woman, who lay senseless on the ground, apparently at the point of death. Pale as ashes, Stephen stared fixedly on the senseless body. There, thought he, was the accomplishment of that which he had so often contemplated-nay, desired in the bottom of his soul! A feeling of terror and remorse seized him, as if it was his wish that had done the deed: he ran away from the place, and acted as if out of his senses; he knew not which way to turn or what to do. Presently the constables came up, and Stephen had to go with them before the magistrate. The thought which he had kept hidden in the depths of his soul, which he had combated and conquered, and to which he imagined no one could ever penetrate, now occurred, as it were naturally, to the mind of every one, and a charge was immediately founded upon it. He was accused of having wilfully thrown the old woman down the ladder, and killed her with the hammer.

Notwithstanding his denial of the crime laid to his charge, he was committed for further examination. His confinement, however, was of no long duration. The old woman had not been killed outright, as was at first supposed. She recovered sufficiently to explain the

cause of her fall, and died next day, surrounded by her family. When she was buried, Stephen wept over her grave. These were the last tears he shed on his native soil, for with steady and sober resolution he now made all his preparations for removal from his native country, and at length emigrated. He had grown strong in the struggle with himself and with the world. He had learnt by hard experience to know himself and others, and his mind was now at peace. With the renovated spirit of youth and hopefulness, he was free to steer his course toward a new home, and to enter upon a new life.

The schoolmaster and Stephen, with their families, were among the first of those who went to seek their fortunes in America, and there they settled in one of those districts which have been appropriated by their industrious countrymen. There also they were successful in their labours; and under the shadow of their own vine and fig-tree, they had no reason to regret having sought a new home beyond the waters of the Atlantic.*

AN UNKNOWN REPUBLIC. AMONG the higher recesses of the Pyrenees there exist two small republics, having scarcely any dependence on, or connection with, the monarchy of Spain on the one hand, or the newly-got-up republic of France on the other. One of these-Andorre is not unknown to the world; but the other, which is of considerably less extent and population, may never probably have been heard of in England. Goust, as this obscure little commonwealth is termed, has its locale at the southern extremity of the valley of Ossau, or rather the track which leads to it there begins. This track winds along the face of a steep, through forests, rocks, and clouds, till the stranger, faint and dizzy, begins to fancy that he is in the nightmare, climbing some miraculous bean-stalk. But courage! Goust is no mushroom power: it is full of the ease and dignity of years; and at every step you find traces of bygone generations. Here the corner of the cliff is rounded; there a rustic seat invites you to rest for a moment; and again the hewn trunk of a tree affords you passage over some mountain torrent. Pleasant is it for the wayfaring man to pause in such a place; to feel the sunbeams showering upon him through the trees; to drink of the sparkling waters, with his hand for a cup; to lean over the precipice, and watch them leaping in mad joy into a bottomless abyss; to listen to their voice as it mingles with the singing of birds; and to see in imagination the distant world below, with all its paltry cares and mean ambitions. And more than pleasant for him is it to resume the journey after such a pause, to stride forward like a giant refreshed, and to feel that his spirit belongs to that upper region to which his feet are hastening.

The apex of the mountain is at length sufficiently near to be discerned above your head, for you are.now between three and four thousand feet from the level of the valley, and a beautiful and yet fantastic scene it presents. Instead of the naked rocks you might have expected, a green coronal hangs upon the peak; and this, as you approach, resolves into trees and bushes, and gardens and fields, forming a little fairy oasis, belonging more to the air than the earth. This is the domain of Goust; and in the midst of these trees are its ten houses, inhabited by its population of fifty souls.

We cannot answer for the exact number of the people; but we know that the number of the houses has been the same through all tradition. Indeed the permanence of everything at Goust is its most striking characteristic; and in the present age of revolution, it may be worth while to try to ascertain the cause. As

for the government of the community, we are not prepared to say that it has any definite form at all. At anyrate there is no council-chamber, no parliament, no justice-room. Certain voices are listened to with respect and obedience, but age appears to be the sole qualification. At Goust all intellects are alike, the sole difference being made by experience. A man of a hundred years of age is wiser than a lad of fifty or sixty; and indeed till the first-mentioned age is attained, the judgment can hardly be reckoned mature. Centenarians are the rule amongst the old men, not the exception; and Dr Cayet, the chronicler of the place, who writes in 1605, mentions the death in that year of an individual who was born in 1482.

The religion of Goust has neither priest nor temple; but, except when they are shut up by the snow during winter, the inhabitants do not suffer the insularity of their position to deprive them of spiritual comfort. Laruns is the grand centre of the Christianity of the country; and thither, on great occasions, descend the population of the peaks and precipices of this portion of the Pyrenees. At Laruns they are baptised, married, and buried; for people die some time or other even at Goust. Lovers walk to the distant church to become husband and wife, and infants are carried thither to be made Christians; but the dead, who cannot walk, and whom it would be difficult to carry along a descending path cut in the face of an almost perpendicular cliff, require some contrivance. They are made to slide down the precipice, and the mourners follow, having hold of a rope attached to the coffin. When the path at length becomes more practicable for a funeral procession, the cortège is met by a priest, and they take their way, with holy hymns, to the cemetery of Laruns. But these are not the sole visits of our republicans to the lower world. They carry milk and vegetables even to the Eaux-Chaudes, and may be seen trafficking for luxuries, comforts, or necessaries in the most distant corners of the valley of Ossau. There is, indeed, one commodity-luxury, comfort, and necessary in onethe search for which brings every young man of Goust into the valley at one time or other. At home there are young girls enough, but all are within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity, and it is necessary to go abroad for a wife. Down, therefore, they plunge-these adventurous bachelors-like angels (Thomas Moore's) coming to woo the daughters of men; and casting the eagle glance of the mountaineer round this Tempe of the Pyrenees, they are not long of singling out their destined bargain. The marriage takes place, as we have said, at Laruns; and then comes the young wife's expedition, undertaken probably for the first time, into the cloudland which is henceforward to be her home. As she ascends farther and farther from the level earth, and the path becomes narrower and steeper, she clings closer and closer, it may be supposed, to the arm she has selected for her support in the journey of life. The valley beneath is already covered with tumbling clouds, and she is terrified to look back upon the dizzy path by which she has climbed out of the vapour. Forward-forwardis her only hope; her destiny is fixed beyond recall; the metaphors of poetry are to her substantial facts. But how beautiful is the oasis that at length rewards her labour! How deep is the feeling of security with which her lately quaking heart is filled! And how strange the next morning is the silence of the desert air, which awakens her with a start and a thrill! But her dream is interrupted by the hungry yet joyous cries of the household for breakfast; and in half an hour the young girl of Ossau is converted into the thrifty, thoughtful, methodical, hard-working matron of Goust.

This incident is fertile in consequences; for the union of the two families does not end here. The adventurous brother of the bride follows her steps, both in affection and curiosity, to see what strange abiding-place the Among the soaring fancy of his sister has chosen. curiosities of the place, his eye rests upon a rich warm cheek and flashing eye, which has the same effect upon

him-for love delights in contrasts-which the pale and pensive face of the girl of the valley produced upon the heart of the mountaineer. The one damsel descends as willingly as the other climbed; and by and by the daughter of Goust becomes the wife of Ossau. Thus are knit together by kindred sympathies the two extremes of the region, and sweet thoughts and loving memories fly backwards and forwards, like doves, between heaven and earth. Thus, too, the principle of population is regulated, and the human ebb and flow goes far towards keeping the numbers of the oasis at an average which has remained steady for ages.

But when this equilibrium is interrupted by circumstances when, for instance, there come some additional mouths, which threaten, when they grow larger, to stint the commons of the hamlet-then appears the wisdom of the government of Goust. A boy, perhaps two or three, if it be necessary, are equipped, and sent forth to push their fortune in the valley. And these are no loss to the hamlet: they form its advanced guards, and become points d'appui of its traffic. They are not exiles, but agents. They are true colonists, linked to the mother-land by love and reverence, and a constant interchange of good offices. In greater social aggregations the same necessity is felt, and the same means of relief is at hand; but, less clear-sighted than the centenarians of Goust, or else bewildered by the complications of a numerous society, such communities lose time in arguing and temporising, till the evil becomes intolerable, and the whole fabric of the state is shaken --perhaps shattered. The mouths continue to increase, while the produce remains stationary. Envy, hate, crime, take the place of love, innocence, and peace. The food is ravished which can no longer be earned; and the public misery at length revenges itself upon a government whose worst crimes were indecision and imbecility.

But although our hamlet escapes some of the evils, it yet misses, we must own, some of the advantages of a society in a more complicated state. In it individuals are nothing, and the mass everything. There is no opportunity for the innovations of genius, no field for experiment and improvement. The whole body politic must advance at once, or all remain stationary. Originality is reckoned madness; novelty is a crime-an insult. Agriculture and implements, manners and knowledge, are at this day what they were in the time of Henri Quatre; and long before then, the enduring stereotype had been cast. The stream of the world rolls by several thousand feet beneath, washing the base of that eternal rock, but unable to reach the summit with its voice or its spray.

Goust, we have said, is a democracy; and it is so in the strictest sense of the word. Distinctions of rank are unknown, and the only existing superiority is that of age. As a man in the progress of years becomes callous to the ordinary enjoyments of life, there open out to him new vistas of power and utility. Seated before their cottage doors, wrapped in the twilight radiance of the setting sun, the decemvirs of the hamlet receive the homage of their descendants. Their decisions, however, are not despotic, but constitutional; for the government is traditional, and the qualifications of a functionary are nothing more than years and memory. Property remains to this day on its original basis. No family has an inch more land than its neighbours. There being no inferiority of wealth, there is no pride of purse; and where the condition of all is known to all, there can be no pretension, no ostentation, no hypocrisy. It would seem, indeed, that there is an equality even in the intellect of the inhabitants, the means of its cultivation being so humble and so uniform; and thus the hamlet of Goust presents an almost absolute equilibrium, individual, social, and territorial, and may be looked upon as an expression of the democratic state in its simplest and purest form. Such as it is, it might form a useful study, both as regards its advantages and disadvantages, for the statesmen of these last days, if

they could only raise their eyes high enough from the crowd that is rushing and struggling on the surface of the earth.

We have only to add, that this hamlet is one of several perched on the pinnacles of the Pyrenees, and almost forgotten by the parent state to which they belong. Escaping interference through their poverty, insignificance, and remoteness, they have grown up into self-supporting communities, and preserved a traditional independence in the midst of the political changes which have convulsed the rest of the country.

WALKS IN A BRAZILIAN FOREST. MUCH as I have seen of grand and imposing scenerymountains, rocks, waterfalls, and the great ocean itself nothing has ever so effectually impressed me with feelings of the sublime and wonderful as the vast forests of Brazil. It is indeed allowed that the whole kingdom of nature presents no spectacle more grand, and at the same time pleasing and curious, than the Brazilian Forest. The woods of North America are doubtless as extensive and pathless, but they are comparatively monotonous and tame in their aspect; the climate under which they flourish not being calculated to impart picturesque, varied, and permanent beauty. Equipped for the expedition, and accompanied by a guide, the traveller plunges into the forests of Brazil as into a sea of trees, flowers, and animal existencesall new, strange, and overwhelming in their abundance and illimitable variety. He sees what nature, under a burning sun, and with a rich soil, can do when left to herself. How puny man's efforts in comparison! After a day or two's wearisome rambling, he finds he has penetrated to the home of the beast of prey, the paradise of the insect and bird, and the court-royal of the vegetable kingdom. There, lost in wonder, moved by feelings wholly new to his mind, he is never weary of beholding. To use the bright colours of Dr Von Martius-in these vast woods, whose summits, bound together by wreathes of wonderful flowers, appear to fathom the blue sky, while the plains at their feet are clothed with the most lovely and odoriferous plants; and while beyond the eye catches a glimpse of the vast territory of the royal race of the palms, the traveller may easily conceive himself to have been suddenly transplanted into the fabled gardens of Hesperides." These forests are of vast antiquity: the surface of the soil appears to indicate that while in other countries rough places have been made plain, valleys exalted, and mountains dethroned, here centuries have rolled past leaving scarcely a feature of the forest scenery seriously affected. The enormous dimensions of the trees, with the sure register of their age, preserved by themselves in their concentric rings, are evidences of this remarkable fact. The Brazilians call them 'Virgin Forests.' One of the circumstances which at first impresses most is the delicious coolness of the air. On the borders of these forest - realms a tropical heat beats upon the traveller's head; but on plunging into these wooded recesses, this is exchanged for an almost temperate climate. In less dense portions the mass of the solar rays is broken up into myriad-penciled streaks, which come piercing down through the verdant roof, divested of more than half their energy. There is a subdued and indefinite murmur pervading these majestic groves, like the hum of human life heard afar off: the tiny horn of the insects, the strange voices of birds, and the distant cries of the monkeys, make the solemn scene vocal with nature's hymn. But disregarding these, the traveller turns to the contemplation of the stupendous vegetation crowding around him, which coats the soil, creeps up the trees, flings its airy garlands aloft; which forms the foreground, the background, and the very sky of this sylvan picture.

The scene abounds in contrasts. The towering palm shooting up into the cloudless sky, seeking the nearest proximity to the sun, carries its graceful head high