"Yes," replied the Jew, "your large vase with the nest and the snail. It is a masterpiece; and I am now taking it to the Duke of Remberg.

"You have it with you, then?" said Van Huysum.
'Yes, I have left it in the parlour."
"Show it to me; show it to me!"

The old painter arose and advanced towards one of the glass doors looking out upon the gallery. Salomon followed him, and on removing the cloth which covered a middle-sized picture, revealed to Van Huysum the work of which he spoke. The latter recognised at a glance one of the sketches which his illness had compelled him to abandon, but so well finished in his own style, and with the processes which he thought known only to himself, that on seeing it he started back with a cry of astonishment. A more minute examination, however, enabled him to discover certain touches which betrayed another hand.

"Who sold you that?" said he to Salomon, in a voice hoarse with anger. "Where is the villain that has stolen my secret ?"

Here, uncle," said a soft imploring voice beside him. He turned, and there was Gotta on her knees, her hands clasped together, and big tears coursing rapidly down her marble cheeks.

"You!" said Van Huysum; "this painting by you! How did you find out my method?"

Quite unintentionally; by watching you while at work," replied the girl.

"So, all my precautions were useless, said the painter, "since I had a spy in my house. And how long have you known it?"

"A long time," murmured Gotta. Van Huysum looked at her steadily.

"And why, then, did you not make use of it sooner ?" he asked.

"Because then I only should have profited by it, was her reply; so long as you were able to hold the brush, I had no right to interfere with your discoveries; but when sickness came, and when I knew the time for paying Vanbruk the money due to him was approaching, and when I saw you careworn and anxious, I took courage, and thought that if I employed the knowledge I had stolen from you to give you comfort and repose, it would not be a theft, but restitution. Forgive me, uncle, if I was mistaken; but let me continue to work while you are no longer able to do so, and as soon as you are recovered, I promise you I will forget all I have learnt." Gotta raised her streaming eyes to his, and the tears that hung on the dark lashes, glistened like pearls in the sunbeams that were reflected from the window. He took her tenderly by the hand, and thus proceeded :

"God, my child," said he, "has taught me a great lesson, by setting your example before me. He has taught me that our gifts, whatever they may be, should not be selfishly kept for ourselves alone, but that our true happiness should be in sharing them with others. Keep the brush which to-day has proved our salvation. Until now there was but one Van Huysum: henceforth, I am willing there should be two."

REASON AND EXPERIENCE

15

ARE the great guides of practical life, and it is a point of wisdom to allow each its fair influence. Yet there are few who do this. It is the temper of some to start as it were from the beginning in everything, and try all matters by their own abstract rule of right. They will not ask, "How has this been done hitherto, and what has been the ascertained advantage or disadvantage?" They decide what must be from first principles, and logical sequence, as if there were no doubt that they had all the elements of the argument before them. But in the affairs of life this can seldom happen. We may reason correctly, but if we only reason, we shall probably leave out some of the less obvious circumstances upon which the reasoning ought to be founded. The representative system of government being admitted, some will decide that a community of a hundred thousand ought to have ten times as much representative weight as a community of ten thousand; omitting the consideration (which experience suggests) that large communities often contain but small variety of interests or judgments, and have practically less independence and freedom of choice than communities of far less numerical importance. We discover that gutta percha, when warm, will adhere to leather, and make up our minds that it is therefore appropriate to sole boots withal, which are made for walking in the cold miry roads. But we omit the circumstance that sometimes he who has just left the cold miry road, elevates his heels to the upper bar of the fire-grate, and thus melts off his soles (being of gutta percha) into the fire!

As they who reason rightly enough often find themselves in the wrong from want of knowledge of all the facts which should have come into their reasoning; so they who are led by experience often come to a right result not only without knowing why it is so, but in direct contradiction to what reasonable calculations would have led them to expect. This again is because the result is produced by some circumstances of which they have not taken account, and which, by the closest research, ordinary minds may not be able to discover. Again, in the mechanical arts, no one will deny that it is important that the musical instrument maker, the shipbuilder, and the engineer shall be well acquainted with all the principles of their various arts, so far as they can be known. But experience tells us that no matter how carefully, and with the utmost attention to the most excellent models, men may make a fiddle or a pianoforte, or build a ship, or construct a railway locomotive, it is, experimentally, a matter of great uncertainty how the fiddle or pianoforte will sound, or the ship will sail, or the locomotive will perform its work. Besides all that men know regarding these things-and which it is right and advantageous that they should know-there is something else which they do not know, which sometimes is accomplished, and sometimes is not, and therefore it is, in popular phrase, still a chance whether complete success will be achieved, even where the best general rules are followed.

The same in the sciences. You shall hear some pert doctor affirming that such and such sorts of food contain so much or so little of the constituents of the structure of the human frame, and, therefore, on one sort of diet, all men living in an atmosphere of a given temperature, will become lean, and on another they will become fat. The confident doctor forgets that, however much he may

know of the chemical constituents of food, and of the human frame, he knows very little indeed of the chemistry of digestion, and absolutely nothing of the differences existing in that curious laboratory, the stomach, owing to differences of constitution, and differences in the working of the machinery of the human body. It is useful to know as much as we can of the chemistry of food and of the human frame, but when we reason as if we knew all, the result of such reasoning is palpable absurdity. A hundred men in the same poor-house shall be fed with precisely the same quantities of the same sorts of food and drink: ten shall become as lean as Don Quixote, ten as fat as Sancho Panza, and the remaining eighty neither fat nor lean, but just as they began. We must, therefore, bring experience to our aid, and take results for our guide as well as reasoning, since mere reasoning, or treatment founded thereon, presents such different results.

Without attributing events to mere fortuitous accident, or to one's fortune, as the phrase is, we may still say that things happen we know not how; nor is this a confession of culpable ignorance, but an acknowledgment of existing causes which none at all events none save the very wisest-can discern. Lord Bacon supposes that the wheels of a man's mind may keep way with the wheels of his fortune; "for so Livy, after he had described Cato Major in these words-in illo viro, tantum robur corporis et animi fuit, ut quocunque loco natus esset, fortunam sibi facturus videretur, falleth upon this, that he had versatile ingenium: therefore, if a man look sharply and attentively, he shall see Fortune; for though she be blind, yet she is not invisible. The way of fortune is like the milky way in the sky, which is a meeting or knot of a number of small stars, not seen asunder, but giving light together; so there are a number of little and scarcely discerned virtues, or rather faculties and customs, that make men fortunate."

These virtues, "scarcely discerned even by those of "versatile ingenium," are for the most part not discerned at all, even by the many who pretend cognoscere causas rerum; and Lord Bacon goes to observe that "all wise men, to decline the envy of their own virtues, use to ascribe them to Providence and Fortune, for so they may the better assume them; and, besides, it is greatness in a man to be the care of the higher powers. So Cæsar said to the pilot in the tempest, Cæsarem portas et fortunas ejus; so Sylla chose the name of Felix, and not of Magnus; and it hath been noted that those who ascribe openly too much to their own wisdom and policy, end unfortunate."

If, then, in such a matter as the discovery of those principles and rules of conduct which lead to success in life, we find them to be mixed up with a number of small and scarcely discerned virtues, so that, for the most part, we acknowledge that much, after all, depends upon fortune, how much more should we be disposed, with respect to the more hidden operations of nature, or the complicated circumstances of the growth and decline of states, to suspect our perfect knowledge of causes, and rather to judge by what has happened in like cases, than by an assumed acquaintance with the whole theory of causation which bears upon such events.

Yet Reason," seated on her sov'ran hill," is the greatest of all gifts, unless it be Faith, which, however, requires the correction of reason lest it fall into super

stition. It also saves us from being too much the slaves of our own experience, or, in other words, from becoming the mere creatures of custom. How grand is Shakspere on this point!

"What custom wills in all things should we do't,
The dust on antique time would lie unswept,
And mountainous error be too highly heap'd
For truth to overpeer."

Concerning things which are in their nature permanent -such as the constitution of the universe or of manexperience is evidently more to be relied upon than in improve. With regard to government (the greatest of relation to things which man has invented, and man may all human concernments next to religion), there is much which is divine and permanent, much which is human and transitory. The principle that men must have a guide and a control from some source above themselves, in order to keep them out of fatal error, is one arising from man's moral constitution. The inquiry as to how this happens to be so, or why it is so, is not for us. We know the truth from revelation and experience, and it is in vain to reason about it. Beneath this there is a vast science of government teaching the way in which the existing circumstances of the time (varying, as in many cases they do, so vastly from the circumstances of other times) may be turned to the best advantage for the community.

Then, as to the question what is the best advantage for the community? that depends upon the moral law which comes from above and is permanent; but how that advantage is to be most efficaciously distributed, and most securely maintained, are points of human skill depending much on human inventions and improvements; and the ruler who relies only on experience, following the pattern of those who went before, when existing means had not as yet been heard of, will justly be condemned as wanting in the large discourse of reason.

ing to their inclination; their discourse and speeches acLord Bacon says that men's thoughts are much accordcording to their learning and infused opinions; but their deeds are after as they have been accustomed, and he commends Machiavelli for having noted that there is no trusting to the force of nature, nor to the bravery of words, except it be corroborate by custom. And because custom is the great magistrate of a man's life, he recommends that men should endeavour to obtain good customs.

And similarly we may say with experience, that while it should be our principal guide in the most important affairs, we should take care to have a wise experience, and to use at once, with humility and reverence, the god-like privilege of reason to judge between those things which have been handed down for our example, and those which should rather be looked upon as having been recorded for our warning.

FROM

THE Parisian season preceding that of London enables the modistes of the latter who have tact and talent to cull the prettiest and most elegant novelties, for to Paris alone belongs the honour of holding pre-eminence in the world of fashion; and the Court has lately afforded every opportunity, by its receptions and balls, for display in the richest requirements of the toilette. Velvets, moires, brocades, have been ornamented with the most expensive laces in blonds, guipures, often almost covering the skirt with flounces, having berthes to correspond, whilst in the lighter materials for young ladies more simplicity is called for. The triple skirts of tulle are made wider than ever, the bodies either in drapery with small bouquet of flowers in the centre, or with revers encircling the shoulders and back, but descending in front to the point. Some coloured tulles are made with as many as five skirts, finished with fringe of feathers; the tunic dresses have the corsage frequently finished with a berthe open en coeur behind and on the shoulders, but covering the front of the body something in the style of the paysanne cannezaus. Embroidery is much in favour on evening dresses, and frequently in wreaths, leaving open intervals for the introduction of artificial flowers. The triple skirts are not confined to transparent materials; some taffetas are with three skirts ornamented variously. Gauze lisse dresses are pretty with several flounces in deep vandykes, edged by a small ribbon ruche, the berthe to correspond. Flounces on these ball-dresses are very generally used, and admit of much variety of trimming, and the fashion of the day is rather for profusion of trimmings. The introduction of the narrow ribbons in ornamenting takes off the heavy effect which many styles would give. Bouillon trimmings are very fashionable, either of tulle or gauze, and are equally used on body or skirt; they should be very full, and the effect is always good. Those ladies who require a richer description of dress have much choice of selection in the brocarts and moires, the former with white ground covered with designs in blue or

VOL. 27.

pink, or even gold or silver, also in the taffetas mouchetées with velvet.

As the weather becomes milder the corsages for indoor dresses are worn more open, showing the embroidered chemisette. The silk dresses are not now always made with flounces; frequently biais of velvet are preferred, nor is it indispensable that they should be of the colour of the dress; black is, perhaps, that which produces the best effect, and of course they should be graduated in width when the skirts are ornamented with the velvet; revers of it also decorate the open bodies and sleeves, which are often open to the elbow, and united by bands of velvet. There is much variety now in the make of sleeves; some are of the Spanish style, with puffings the whole length; others in bouillons confined by bands and bows of ribbon; but the pagoda and the sleeve with cuffs are mostly preferred in simple toilette, though a good deal ornamented to correspond with the trimmings on the basques or jacket, the style still in favour. The skirts are worn very long, and, to give them more roundness at the bottom, ladies wear flounced taffetas skirts under the dress, independent of the embroidered one.

Black continues to be very much worn-a colour now some time in vogue, but always approved, and no longer reserved for mourning toilettes; it admits of so much variety in trimming and forms so good a contrast to any colour introduced in the rest of the toilette. The dresses termed à disposition, or bayadere, are still worn. Lampas, popelins, droguets, or brocarts, are used for walking-dresses, as well as moire. No change has yet taken place in the make of bodies; the jacket is still in favour, whether plain at the waist as for stout figures, or fulled for slight ones. Morning dresses may be worn open or close, but evening dresses are always open; the skirts are in large plaits to enable the basques to set properly. Children's dresses are frequently made with several flounces; but a pretty style of trimming for them is with bands of brocaded ribbons of graduated widths; on frocks of thick material, as cachemere, &c., four or five rows may be placed. The frocks of taffetas are with double skirts, and often ornamented with trimmings of stamped velvet; the bodies are very similar to those of ladies.

The head-dresses composed of lace lappets as worn at Court have been found so becoming that the Parisian belles no longer confine them to the court dress, but also wear them in full dress on other occasions; they are made of point lace,