black leather, such as had been worn during the preceding reign, all embroidered in quaint devices with bright red silk, which made her look for all the world like a culprit about to suffer death by an auto-da-fé. Her malicious black eyes seemed to kindle like living coals as they glared upon the poor little Weasel, who, no longer playing the part of aggressor, was content to act only on the defensive, and struggling fiercely to free herself from the grasp by which she was held, kept rending every moment with a sharp crackling sound, some portion or other of the decayed finery in which she was attired;—the small malevolent countenance of the Countess growing more excited at the resistance, as with concentrated rage she drew the child, although but slowly, towards the door. The beautiful stranger again interposed, and, taking the Weasel by the hand, she whispered a few words gently into her ear, and disengaged her with a quiet effort from the gripe of the Countess, who grinned complacently as she suffered the opposition. At the moment her glance fell upon me, who, now inspired more by curiosity than alarm, stood gazing on the scene, and wondering how it would end.

"Whose child is this?" exclaimed she, dragging me forwards to the light with as little ceremony as she had before used towards Belette. "Why is he suffered to run wild about the corridors to occasion all this brawl and disturbance among the peaceful inhabitants of the Palace?" Hereupon old Nanon stepped forward, I thought, to defend me and to rescue me from her talons; but not so, the wretched time-serving old crone who had so often railed against the Countess, bestowing upon her the most injurious epithets, held up her finger, and bent close to her ear, whispering something which I could not hear distinctly; but she grinned so hideously, and opened her toothless mouth so wide that I overheard the concluding words, at least," Récollet, or Knight of Malta."

The old Countess had listened with a chuckling laugh, leering at me all the while with the expression of a mocking fiend. "Ha! ha! is it so?" Then Belette and he should be friends indeed; they should love each other; they should be man and wife!” Thus saying, she drew the pale face of the Weasel close to mine, which was all swollen and flushed with passion, bidding us kiss and love. The chorus of old hags set up a scream of laughter as Belette kissed me fervently, throwing her arms round my neck, and clinging to me with a transport of fondness as she sobbed, close to my ear, so that no one but myself could overhear her speech.

"Oh! do not throw me off; I love you dearly; Melchior de Braine, do let me talk with you sometimes, and I will love and cherish you, and tell you many things I am sure you would like to know!" As she spoke the words she clung yet closer to my side, and I thought she would have swooned away, so painful was the convulsive effort with which she held me. I was almost as much frightened at this sudden display of feeling on the part of the Belette as I had been at her sudden attack, and I struggled fiercely to free myself from her embrace. The old beldames, who evidently imagined that these frantic demonstrations of love were intended to annoy and worry me, an opinion in which they were confirmed by my furious struggles to escape, laughed all the more, dancing round us as they clapped their hands like the witches at their Sabbath festival. The lady who had been watching us with a strange kind of

interest again came to my aid, and detaching the arms of Belette from their tight hold of my neck, she led her away without saying a word, never pausing until she stood upon the step of the door of the Countess's chamber, when she turned and looked at me with such an expression of sadness and commiseration that I felt a yearning desire to rush after her, and to throw myself at her feet and supplicate her in mercy to tell me why she thus glanced at me with such pity. But before I could move towards her she had disappeared through the red door, still holding the Weasel by the hand, whose sobs I could hear even after she was out of sight.

The events of that afternoon had been full of meaning and importance; they seemed big with future consequences; perhaps they would prove to be the key-stone of my future fate. "Récollet, or Knight of Malta!" these were the words which old Nanon had uttered, leaving them in my brain as themes for many and most abstruse deductions. Was it my father of whom she spoke who had been a Récollet, a monk who had forsworn his vows; or a Knight of Malta who had wearied of his vow of celibacy? Such things, then, were too common to excite the smallest degree of wonder or condemnation; or was it myself who was chosen to fulfil that destiny in the world. "A Monk, or a Knight of Malta!" For the first I felt an insuperable aversion, while the second rather agreed with my love for distinction and ardent thirst of adventure. The sudden softening of the Belette, her unsought, unexpected demonstration of love for me was not remembered until that night, when I tossed about uneasily in the little bed which stood in a dark closet behind the one single room which we could call our own. It was then that the whole scene recurred to me vivid and real, as though it had all been enacted over again for my pleasure. The loathing horror which I had ever felt for the Belette yielded by degrees to the most extravagant curiosity. I now no longer feared or despised her; the memory of the words she had uttered,"I could tell you many things which I am sure you would like to know," had completely obliterated, in one instant, all my preconceived terror and disgust.

By some extraordinary coincidence, the conduct of my mother (for so I must ever call Madame de Braine) was most singular on that evening. She had returned from paying her visits to the floor below in a most excited state; speaking in veiled sentences to my father during the whole of the supper. She had related the history of the divers people whom she had been to see, and their whole actions, purposes, and aims were discussed and canvassed over. She spoke mysteriously, and with the greatest caution of some discovery which had been made at Versailles of some kind of court conspiracy, and which would have the most serious consequences, involving many persons of the highest rank; the end of all her remarks upon the subject I shall never forget. "Madame de Talleyrand tells me that Madame de Cossé is implicated, and if so, she will be expelled the palace. Madame de Talleyrand says that she sincerely hopes this suspicion would be found to be correct, as in that case she would immediately apply for Madame de Cossé's room, which being to the south, is much more convenient and agreeable; therefore, there is still some chance, my dear, that we may be removed to the floor below, and this is the only thing I ever wished to live for."

THE HISTORY OF NEWSPAPERS.

A COMPLETE history of the newspaper press of England would make a library in itself; but it may be doubted whether for any practical end such an accumulation of facts would repay the labour of collection. The only history of the press in which the world at large is interested, or which, indeed, conveys a moral worth gathering, is the history of public opinion illustrated by the progress of the liberty of printing. The mere chronicle of the rise and expansion of newspapers is of no further value, beyond any curiosity that may attach to its personal details and anecdotes, than as it bears upon the larger question of public liberty.

Mr. Hunt to a certain extent has combined both these views of the subject, and traced with sufficient fulness the progress of the press from the date of the first newspaper to the present time, relieving the narrative by a variety of incidental facts, personal and statistical, picked up by the way. He is entitled to credit for the industry with which he has availed himself of a variety of sources of information, and for having exhibited in a convenient campass a clearer account of the birth, struggles, and growth of newspapers in this country than, we believe, can be found elsewhere. But we should have been better satisfied with his labours if he had set about them with a more distinct object before him. The book is more amusing than instructive-more curious than useful. We traverse a multitude of circumstantial details, but we arrive at no definite result. We see plainly enough that the press was formerly exposed to unmerciful persecutions, for it is in the nature of his materials to expose that fact, and that it has now outgrown the power that once coerced and chastised it. But the steps by which we have made this great advance are not shown as connectedly and intelligibly as we could have desired, and the action of newspaper liberty upon the people and their institutions is left to be supplied by the contemplative reader. Nevertheless, we are grateful for what Mr. Hunt has actually accomplished; and since he modestly describes his work as a collection of contributions to our newspaper history, we are not quite sure that we have a right to expect anything more from him than he has done. But he has executed a very troublesome undertaking so well that we could not help expressing our regret that it did not occur to him to resolve it into a more thoughtful shape.

Considered as a repertory of facts connected with the origin and onward course of newspapers, these volumes will abundantly repay the time they will consume in the perusal. The few persons who are familiar with newspaper offices and their traditions will probably miss some (to them) well-known anecdotes, which in their opinion ought to have found a place in such a work, and they will, no doubt, think that others have been unnecessarily expanded. But it must be remembered that such works are always liable to this kind of criticism, and that they are not always the worse for being obnoxious to it. To the public, for whose benefit these compilations are undertaken, the bulk of the details will be new and fresh, and sufficient for the purpose. Now would it be

The Fourth Estate: contributions towards a History of Newspapers, and of the Liberty of the Press. By F. Knight Hunt. 2 vols. D. Bogue.

possible to produce a book devoted to the history of a special class or calling, to which similar objections might not be taken? We think that, in this respect, Mr. Hunt has dealt judiciously with his materials, and supplied the curiosity of his readers with even more than enough of that sort of gossip which is current in newspaper circles, but which is not of any particular interest outside of them. There is some excellent and sound writing in the book, which is commended to general attention no less by the attraction of the subject than by the care and discretion evinced in the treatment.

MAHOMMEDANISM: ITS RISE AND PRESENT
PROGRESS.*

Ir is only from absolute necessity we Christians receive as facts what this history relates; we only do not disbelieve, because the historical evidences are such, that we cannot withhold our belief from the statement here made, that a few thousands of unlettered Arabs, within the lifetime of one man brought under their dominion, and converted to their faith all the nations, from the gates of Caucasus to the Pillars of Hercules, and from the banks of the Ganges to the Sus in Mauritania; the story would be incredible, if the proofs were not incontestable; and well might the Arabian Caliphs point to their continuous career of victory, to their ever advancing and conquering hosts, as the all-sufficient proof of the truth of their faith, and of the high pre-eminence of their prophet.

Such an uninterrupted succession of conquests of the wealthiest and most populous portions of the earth's surface-so speedy a disappearance of all the religions that once prevailed there-and so complete and steadfast the establishment of an entirely new religion in their stead, are circumstances that have never been paralleled in the world, since it was created; nor have they ever been rationally accounted for-and they remain still, even to this our day, as wonderful as inexplicable.

That Mahomet should wrest to his faith so many millions who had been brought up in the Christian faith; that he should wield an almost absolute power over the souls, as over the bodies of his followers; that every Christian kingdom should quail before him-every Christian establishment in the countries he conquered, be broken up, and scattered abroad, or utterly destroyed by him, are marvels still in our eyes; nor can we do more than dimly discern the outlines of these strange beginnings to a yet, probably, far distant end. Yet great as were undoubtedly the triumphs he achieved by his immediate successors, and extended and enduring as was the empire he and they established; yet could he only have triumphed by sufferance of the Divine will, he could do no more than fulfil the mission and complete the work he was designed by Divine providence to do. He might, nevertheless, be a

* Lives of the Successors of Mahomet. By Washington Irving. Murray: 1850.

vile false prophet-a rank impostor, or a gross self-deceiver, and there may be no words bitter enough, or scornful enough, to express the wrath we feel, and the contempt we have for him, and for all the readers of his Koran, as of the veriest synagogue of Satan :-but this does not make him the less an historical personage of the very highest fame and consideration, who has for twelve hundred years exercised a more important influence in the world, and equally over the minds of men, as over their governments, and arts, and civilization, than any other mortal man that has ever lived on this earth. All our abuse of the man, therefore, and all our assumed contempt for the Koran and its doctrines, does not make Mahomet otherwise than he is, the most remarkable character that has appeared among men since the days of the Apostles nor is his influence decreasing in the world, as many people, in their ignorance, imagine; on the contrary, more converts are yearly gained to Mahommedanism from the heathen tribes in Asia and Africa, than are gained to Christianity by all the labours of all the Missionary Societies throughout the world; while no converts whatever are gained from Mahommedanism to Christianity.

This is a distasteful truth, which makes missions to Moslems an expensive and wholly profitless undertaking; the fact is, they have much more to say for themselves than we suppose, and are far too well taught and grounded in their own tenets, and too well satisfied with their present enjoyments and future prospects, to give the least heed to what we write and say against them. Every man who has gone among them to convert them has, therefore, returned baffled and discomfited; as well he may, since there is not one, among ten thousand of us, who knows what the Mahommedan doctrines of the faith are, and how closely woven, and inseparably connected together, are all the laws and institutions of the state with the articles of the Moslem Creed. Our religion has so little to do with our legislation, that our government might be generally the same, although we became all infidels; but no such anomaly could possibly occur in a country where Mahommedanism was the national belief. This volume of Lives will greatly enlighten many of our minds on this matter; and will in part explain why a hundred millions of souls in India still remain in all the darkness and ignorance of Paganism, although we have been overrunning it with Christian armies for a century past; for where we have built one church, the Caliphs would have built ten thousand mosques. They, indeed, never advanced an army, but mosques arose in their track, and the plunder of palaces, the ransom of cities, the collected tribute from the conquered nations, were all liberally, or even profusely, bestowed to the founding of mosques in every town of their daily increasing empire. To establish their faith, to increase their converts, to do honour to their prophet, and to make their religion the religion of the world, was the leading thought with them in all their conquests. With us, religion is the last thing cared for, no churches mark our conquests-no Christian converts are found in the track of our armies ; and of so little worth do our rulers regard our faith, that Christianity has never been considered by them as a gift worthy of the conquered nation's acceptance. Manchester goods they may have, by paying for, in any abundance, but the state makes no provision for sending to them the blessed and everlasting Gospel. We might well go back twelve hundred years for counsel in the matter; and in the "Lives of