Uniformity is therefore the order of the day in Munich, as well as in Paris. In Paris there is some excuse for monotony, for every thing springs up at the will of one man, and at fabulous speed. But in a town like Munich, where the filling up of the streets has to be intrusted to private builders, there is neither the same excuse nor the same necessity. The present king might have been warned by the spectacle of the Ludwig's Strasse not to lay out his Maximilian's Strasse with the same uniformity. And yet we have the same design;

"Grove nods on grove, each alley has its brother,

And half the platform just reflects the other."

In truth, the new street is more faulty than the old. It is very prettily laid out, with gardens and trees in front, and the houses standing back; but the result is that the pavement is of no use to the houses, and you have to wade through mud or dismount in mud if you would get to them. The houses are generally built without any carriageentrance; but they have excessively high sham double-doors, about onethird of which is actually door, the rest being the wall of a room on the first story. Besides which, having been run up by speculators, not often. the most honest or the most enlightened of men, some of these houses have not one convenience,-nothing but the bare walls. Some of them have no bells at the front door, and families inhabiting them are compelled to wait for half an hour in the snow till they can attract the attention of some one inside. In most other countries, the last builder naturally adopts the existing conveniences, and endeavours to add more, that his house may be an improvement on earlier ones. But in Munich builders abandon the good that existed before, without substituting aught of their own.

Perhaps the most remarkable point in Munich building is, that housearchitects seem to have studied Ruskin in order to avoid his suggestions, and to adopt what he condemns. Thus all the railway-stations in Bavaria are pretty, and the Munich station was embellished the other day with frescoes. I do not myself agree with Ruskin in condemning pretty railway stations; and it must be remembered that his premisses do not apply in Bavaria. But every one will agree in his judgment against placing ornaments too high to be seen, as they have done in Munich with the bas-reliefs on the new National Museum. And all readers of the Edinburgh Lectures must join in the condemnation of the staring goggle-eyed lions' heads which adorned some building, and with which Millais's spirited drawing of a tiger's head is so admirably contrasted. It was only the other day that I saw the newest house that is being built in Munich, and on its outside, at an enormous height from the ground,-it contains seven stories, were several lions' heads, which, so far as I could make them out, seemed literal copies of the wrong samples in the Edinburgh Lectures.

It is generally asserted that German houses have a great advantage over English and French houses in cold weather, because the custom of

putting up double windows prevails throughout Germany. A political philosopher observed, that the only reason why Austria had so great an influence over Italy was, that Germany had a mission to teach the Italians the use of stoves and double windows; and that the war of 1859 was a just punishment on Austria for having been false to her mission. One need only pass a winter's day in Venice to see the necessity of German appliances, and to feel the want of them; but there is no need to compassionate the English on not possessing double windows. An English window is generally made to close tightly; and the glass is so much thicker and better fitted, that it serves the double purpose of keeping out draughts and keeping the warmth in. The glass in Munich is so thin, that it needs reinforcing in winter; and the windows close so badly, that but for the double window and the moss between the cold air would drive in by volumes. I was once witness in London to a scene of amateur burglary,—a gentleman breaking into his own house. In Munich, a slight tap would send almost any window in; but in London the man had to kick with all his might against the sheet of glass for full two minutes, and the glass broke, and fell with a crash like thick ice flung heavily on the pavement.

But if the Munich glass is thin and light compared with the glass of London windows, it must be admitted that in another point Munich studies to provide heaviness and solidity where London aims at lightness and elegance. I need hardly say that I allude to door-keys. "Latchkey" would be inappropriate to describe the German article, and the possession of one ceases to be a privilege coveted and obtained by exemplary conduct, but becomes a duty, a heavy duty. If you could take the aspiring youth who looks forward to the attainment of a latch key with the trembling hope, "a-tiptoe for the blessing of embrace," with which poets invest young lovers, and show him German middle-age groaning under the weight of its key, you would achieve a warning worthy to be ranked with that famous one against finery uttered by the Turk: "My son, if ever you forget God and the Prophet, you may come to look like that," pointing to a dapper French dandy. It is no exaggeration to say that the German door-key, as a weapon of defence, would be effectual against garotters; and that, armed with it, the worst districts of London might safely be traversed. But in peaceful Munich you cannot carry such a murderous implement in your hand without fear of being arrested, or without the danger of terrifying the whole population. And no pockets that can be made are capacious enough to contain the key, or hardy enough to endure under its weight. A series of amusing pictures appeared in the Fliegende Blätter, the comic paper of Munich, illustrating this topic. A man was represented going off with his key sticking a yard out of the flappocket of his coat; he shuts the door hastily, and key and coat-tail are shut in, the key standing out immense and cumbrous within the door, as large as the man on the other side. But even this one great key is not the only burden imposed on the householders of Munich. Each house

VOL. IX.

R

has an outer door, which also boasts a key; and as, by police regulations, the outer door must be shut every night at nine, if you stay out beyond that hour you must carry two keys in your pocket. Fancy the horror of a stranger at some convivial meeting hearing, at each movement of his neighbours, an ominous clanking of iron on iron! Would he not fancy that he was in an assembly of escaped convicts dragging about the remnants of their chains, or of ticket-of-leave men whom a sensible government have rendered harmless, as their nature was thus publicly affiché?

A Whisper.

THERE was never a day so sad and long,
But it wore at length to evensong;
There was never a life so full of grief,
But death came at last to its relief.

There was never a soul so wholly sad,
But it found some moment to be glad ;
There was never a heart so full of care,
But it had one hope to cheat despair.

There was never a winter dark and drear,
But changed to spring in the early year;
There was never a summer, well-a-day !
But it sloped through autumn to decay.

A. M.

The Trials of the Tredgolds.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "A PRODIGAL SON," &c.

CHAPTER XXII.

A NEW LIFE.

"You don't remember me?" Noel asked, as he advanced and bowed to John Moyle's visitor.

The colour of the young man's face was heightened, and the tone in which he spoke evinced some agitation.

“I—I don't think I have ever seen you before," Clare said.

"It is many years ago now since we met. You have very likely forgotten that we ever did so; but it is different with me. I have not too many pleasant memories attaching to my childhood; I cannot af ford to let this go. I was a boy at school by the river-side, some few miles from Town,-alone, with no holidays; the other boys had all gone home. You came down to the school one day, in a carriage, with your father. You went into the playground of the school. You told me your name,-Clare Gray,-and I cut your initials on the door opening on to the meadow at the back of the house. You remember?"

"Ah, yes! I have some recollection of this; yet I am not very clear about it. You were the boy at school?"

"Yes."

"I remember. You gave me a boat you had been carving with your knife. But you have changed so! I should not have known you. And you told me your name."

"Noel Tredgold."

"No; it was not that name, I think."

"I was called Noel Reeve then; but my real name is Noel Tredgold. I have only lately learnt it."

And his lip quivered. There was a look of tender commiseration gleaming softly in Clare's eyes.

"Yes, I recollect now, though I was quite a little girl at the time. I almost wonder that you should know me again. How strange that we should meet now, quite by chance, in this studio!"

"He is my pupil, my dear," John Moyle interposed, by way of ex-. planation; "and a very promising pupil too, though only a beginner as yet. Underneath those wet rags there, is his first attempt at modelling in clay; and I'm proud of it. I've seen few better beginnings than that. I shall make something of him,-as you'll see some day."

Clare had been contemplating the honest, earnest face of the young man. Quite as a child, he had been beyond his years, wise and sadlooking. This was more than ever the case now, when the traces of his recent suffering were still manifest in his face. He was very thin, though broad and strong in frame; and pale and wan, in spite of his tanned look

from exposure to weather and the sun of the country. He was handsome; less from any perfect symmetry of features than from a certain air of strong, simple, self-reliant manliness,-from his grave frank gray eyes,— from his broad thoughtful forehead, with the thick dark-brown hair sweeping across it in a profuse plume.

John Moyle glanced from Clare to Noel. A subtle smile hovered about the old man's mouth; his eyes sparkled cunningly.

"Yes," Clare went on, with a meditative look, "I remember now, quite well. All the incidents of that day come back to me with quite a strange freshness. I went down to the school with papa, in the carriage; and afterwards we met you, Mr. Moyle, out for a walk, and looking very hot and dusty. And then I recollect on our way home we stopped, and papa paid a visit at a large house called the Laurels."

The sculptor started back, gasped, as though breathing with sudden difficulty, turned away, and, to conceal the trembling of his hands, thrust them deep into his pockets. Clare, however, had not perceived the emotion her remark had occasioned.

Soon after she withdrew, taking leave of John Moyle. He seemed to have fallen into an abstracted state, and to be hardly conscious of what was passing; but Clare, with a smile, took his hand almost in spite of him as she bade him good by.

"I shall come again very soon, Mr. Moyle," she said.

He looked at her and nodded his head absently, following her with his eyes as she quitted the studio.

Noel accompanied her through the hall, and handed her into the barouche which was drawn up at the street-door of the house in Quebec Street.

"We shall meet again, Mr. Tredgold, I dare say. Mr. Moyle has arranged to take my portrait. I am to sit to him very shortly. I am going to make a present to papa of my bust in marble. It will be such a surprise to him. Good by."

And she put out her hand.

Mrs. Gifford, carefully covered with shawls and mantles, was reclining in the carriage in rather a dreamy state; a pink-lined, deeply-fringed parasol casting a delicate flush upon her faded face, and shielding her eyes from the light.

"Let me introduce you, mamma, to Mr. Moyle's pupil, Mr. Noel Tredgold."

Mrs. Gifford languidly inclined her head forward, by way of acknowledgment of the young man's bows. She surveyed him for a moment through half-closed eyelids.

"The Park, Joseph," she said faintly, as the footman paused at the carriage-door for instructions, with his white-gloved hand touching the rim of his gold-laced hat. And the barouche rolled away.

"You've been a long time, Clare. I hope you've settled every thing satisfactorily; and I do trust that papa will not be angry. I'm not sure