one in the Invalides. You are aware they have just procured a ship-load of marble from Carara, which is to be devoted to the purpose, barring what they threw overboard in a gale of wind. But there is no end to my statues, good, bad, and indifferent; and in the log-huts of North America there are figures in grey-coats, cocked-hats, military-boots, and with arms folded behind them. There are some good sculptors in France; à propos, there is a good female sculptor there, though this is not generally a feminine art, notwithstanding that it might be. I mean the Princess Marie, daughter of Louis Philippe. Her figure of Joan of Arc is excellent. It has no ultra-Grecian classicality about it, which is often above nature; but it is plain, downright human truth, such as touches every body the moment they look at it. Her 'Angel Suppliant' is a superior work of art too. I like to see a woman do these things. There is that wicked dog D'Orsay, you have stolen him from France altogether. He had always plenty of talent in him, but he was too lazy to call it forth. His creditors have at last become his best friends; they have taught him to draw and to model. His small group of your grace on horseback is very praiseworthy, and the electrotype from it has been well taken. His model of me was good too, and he has several recent productions most creditable. My statue here, by Canova, is one of his best works, and I am not a little proud of it. Canova was remarkable for the feminity of his faces. One would have supposed he was always sculpturing women, or that he thought he was. He has given me as smooth a chin as Diana's. I was never insensible to works of art when they were good. Witness how I enriched France with all the best painting and sculpture which my victories brought into my possession. I collected these even amid the smoke of my cannon."

"Some phrase it differently," was the rejoinder. "Some say you robbed all the galleries and museums of Europe, and carted away their contents to Paris. I say nothing."

"These things," said the emperor, with more warmth than is usually found in stone, "became mine by right of conquest; and I had power to remove them to what part of my dominions I chose. And they should have remained there, too, if the present fortifications had existed then. The allies, in that case, should never have approached the Tuileries. However, as the proverb says-Paris n'a pas été fait tout en un jour '—which is giving it a literal signification. But great things have been achieved at last."

"Poo, poo," cried the figure on the archway, carelessly; "all France, and Paris too, were at our feet before we got near the Tuileries, and therefore, in spite of the 'enceinte continue,' as you call it, and the 'forts detachés,' the capital must have fallen."

"Oh, que non !" persisted the Corsican.

"F. M. the Duke of Wellington's statue presents its compliments to Napoleon Bonaparte's statue, and begs to give it free permission to hold just what opinion it chooses on this point-or any other."

"Filex doux-draw it mild," was the reply. "I might then have never seen that cursed rock, St. Helena, or been persecuted by Sir Hudson Lowe."

"Or bullied by Betsey Balcombe."

"The romping young jade once chased me into a corner with a drawn sword till I almost began to doubt what she meant by her vagaries. I did not know what she might have been set on to do by others, for I had no confidence in anybody. I feared everything I doubted everything-I mistrusted everything. I was treated like a felon-watched-suspected-guarded-dogged -dodged-stinted of money till I was obliged to break open my own silver plate and sell it, and after my death my heart was gnawed by the rats."

"Oh !"

66

"Ay, oh," coutinued the emperor's effigies. My heart was taken out after my death by Mr. Sawbones, and put into a basin of spirit to preserve it for awhile, until further disposed of. It stood on a table in the room where he was sleeping. But he was strangely aroused from his slumbers by an unaccountable noise as of splashing and pulling about. On rising with some precipitancy to ascertain what this could possibly mean, he discovered a large rat making off with my heart, after having fished it out of the basin."

"Oh, oh !"

"You may oh, oh,' as much as you please, but it's true. It is miserable to think that the mighty heart of Napoleon should have come to this. Mais passons tout ça. Il m'ennui de parler toujours de moi-même. De plus, qui ne sait pas les details, les plus minutieux, de l'histoire de Napoleon et du Duc de Vilainton? Let us talk of something else-how do you like frogs?"

"Indeed, I never tasted any."

"They are delicious with white sauce. Talking of frogs reminds me of France again. There will be a pretty row over there when Louis Philippe goes-mark my words. My madbrained nephew was too precipitate. He blindly spurred over an unmade road before he had first paved the way. My statue has been chuckling with delight ever since he so dexterously gave them the slip out of his prison at Ham. Henry the Fifth has a strong party, though they keep quiet till the moment arrives. As for the pretended Duke of Normandy, he will soon be forgotten, unless he gets some friend to shoot at him again, by which

the penny-a-liners will advertise his name. Those fortifications were not made for nothing. It is amusing to think that, if they turn their guns inwards, they can batter all Paris to pieces-except the Tuileries."

"A curious coincidence," said the bronze. "Quite accidental, no doubt."

"Oh, yes," returned the former, trying to wink its eye significantly, only it couldn't, because the marble was so stiff. "Louis Philippe knew what he was about. There is a troublesome life in store for the young Count de Paris. Minorities are bad things; 'tis a pity Orleans was killed. They have erected a good statue to him in the court of the Louvre, and there is a double exemplaire of this, by Marchetti, at Algiers. But the egregious yet common mistake of putting the horse only upon two legs is very conspicuous in this group, as the raised hoofs are so high from the ground. It is a remarkable thing that the best sculptors and painters of all countries, ancient and modern, have fallen into the error of making their quadrupeds in motion stand upon no more than two legs. This is for want of sufficient observation. Painters, until recently, practised the absurdity, when they depicted moonlight scenes at sea, of making the bright path of the moon's reflection upon the water, broad near the foreground, and narrower as it receded towards the luminary, instead of just the contrary. They bungled between the laws of perspective and the laws of the reflection of light from a polished surface. They were ignorant of optics; and yet this gross ignorance is betrayed on the canvass of some of the finest masters. When a horse is walking, or trotting, he has the appearance, to the superficial observer, of having but two legs down at the same moment; but this is only an appearance. The fact is, he never takes one hoof up until the precise instant in which he puts another down; so that he has always three on the ground at once. He could not stand firm if it were otherwise. There would be no base. He would stand on a line instead of an area. He may prance, like the statue of Peter the Great in Russia, so as to rear up on his two hind legs; and in doing this he will not be so awkwardly placed, nor be so likely to lose his equilibrium, because the centre of gravity is better preserved. He stands on his two legs somewhat as a human being does. But to make him support his weight diagonally, as I may say, by putting him on his near fore leg and off hind leg, or the contrary, so contorts his body, that no living horse could stand so; and yet many of the best painters and sculptors, who pretend to copy nature with truth, are continually falling into this error. Just watch a squadron of cavalry-or, to simplify the experiment, take a single horse. Observe him closely as he walks by you. It is puzzling at first; but minute observation will convince you that he has

always three feet on the ground together. Sculptors, unmindful of this fact, find great difficulty in balancing their horses, and hence they resort to the monstrous expedient of putting a stone or clod of earth under one of the lifted feet, so as still to connect it with the pedestal. Some prolong the misformed hoof downwards till it reaches the ground, while others make the animal stumbling over a molehill, because they must get a support upon three legs somehow. Men of talent ought to be ashamed of such expedients, and the betrayal of such a lamentable want of observation. In witness of what I say, turn to Charles the First at Charing Cross, or to the statue of George the First in Leicester Square, or to that of William the Third in St. James's Square, or to those of fifty others, where the same thing occurs. And now let me point to George the Third in Pall Mall East, whose horse has three legs on the ground. Just remark that horse; see how firm he stands. Compare the others, stepping on stones, or tripping over molehills, with this one, and then tell me where the advantage lies. I speak not as a sculptor or a painter, but as one who knows something of horses, and how horses use their feet."

"I have known something of horses myself in my day," returned the hero on his bronze charger, "and there seems to be some truth in your remarks. I like the firmness with which George the Fourth's horse in Trafalgar Square stands on his pedestal; and I can say the same thing of the intelligent-looking animal that bears me in front of the Royal Exchange. Some would-be critics denounced these, alleging that they wanted life because they were not rearing up or running away. If this argument were valid, of course all the statues of our great men, standing as single figures, ought to be capering in some manner. Yet most of them are modelled perfectly motionless, with their feet still, and their bodies preserving a dignified composure. People have already begun to carp at me up here on the gateway, only, I believe, because I am a new statue."

"Of course they have begun," rejoined the other. "It is meat and drink to them, as you said just now. They began by objecting to your situation. But why did they not cry out years ago? No, they must wait till the scaffolding was put up. Lord Palmerston was the first to question the desirableness of your site. Lord William Bentinck is in fits. William the Fourth permitted it, the queen gave her consent, and £30,000 was subscribed; and goodness knows that I have no objection that you should be there, whilst I am so comfortably lodged in Apsley House. Some say you stand the wrong way, and some that the arch won't support you. Fifty tons is no trifling weight, certainly, to which the cannon taken at Water

"Speak out-at Waterloo."

Suddenly the statue of Napoleon turned stubborn, and though his grace twitted him to go on, by prompting him with a few leading words, still it availed nothing. No, he would not speak. He persisted in his silence, and in that persistency the marble stood as firm as a rock.

Jersey.

FLOWERS.

FLOWERS, innocent flowers!

I love ye for your gentle, mystic birth;
I love ye for your calm and holy meanings;
Fairer ye are than aught that's left to earth,
From fields of Paradise man's purest gleanings.
Flowers, heavenly flowers!

Flowers, childhood's flowers!

There are few things we loved in other years
That have not yet been chilled by death's pain,
But these still weep for us the same fond tears,
Nor checked by time, unspoiled by worldly stain.
Flowers, changeless flowers!

Flowers, solemn flowers!

When death has closed the lids we love in sleep,
We place ye in the clasp of that cold hand,
As though we fain would your bright eyes keep
Watch, till the sleeper reach his father-land.
Flowers, mournful flowers!

Flowers, tender flowers!

Ye have deep words within those nectar❜d bells,
And when we greet ye from a heart that errs
We feel the penitence that soft speech tells,
And kiss the little peaceful messengers.
Flowers, kindly flowers!

Flowers, faded flowers!

Amidst the struggles of this cold world kept,
For those dear hours ye but record too well,
How I have turned from crowds and lonely wept
O'er all that's lost for ever, ye can tell.
Flowers, hoarded flowers!

Flowers, innocent flowers!

I love ye in your springing or your death;
Ye ever are to me a beauteous token

Of youth's hopes; and wooing your soft breath
I half forget that all these ties are broken.

Flowers, blessed flowers!

ANNIE.