good-natured-like, says he, 'This is nice turf you've got. That just shows how little you know about it, sir,' says I, for they've cut it too deep-quite down into the earth.' Well, on this he looks about him for something else to notice; and, seeing those cups and saucers on the mantel-shelf, You've got some old china,' says he. Not old china at all,' says I. That's delft; and before you were born, sir, people thought a good deal of eating off delft, which, being the best ware they could get, they valued as much as we value china now.' So then the young lady says, 'You've a curious clock.' 'Yes,' says I, that really is a curiosity, for it was Pope's, and I bought it at the sale of his effects at Twickenham.' Is it just as it was when Pope had it?' 'Oh, no,' says I, 'I've had it cleaned and done up.' Ah, that's a pity,' said she, for otherwise I would have bought it of you.' Well, I thought this funny; but just then the gentleman, who had gone to the front door, called out, 'It has left off raining now.' You can't justly tell whether it has or not, sir,' says I, because the wind sets agin the back of the house. If you go to the backdoor, you'll be likely to see.' Well, he goes to the backdoor; and, directly he opens it, out darted two dogs, a big and a little one, and began rolling themselves on my peppermint bed. 'Hallo, sir,' says I, do you know I sell my peppermint?' So he laughs, and whistles them off, and says to the lady, 'It really has left off raining now,' so away they go, after thanking me for giving them shelter; and I stand at the door looking after them, and see them cut across the common to a little gate in the park-paling. So I stood thinking to myself, Whoever could they be? Going into the park, too! Why, then, ten to one, it's the queen and Prince Albert! To think of that never having struck me! Yes, yes, I dare say it was, for he's tall and she's short; and they do go about with two dogs. But I didn't know they were expected down here just now. However, I'll just go up to the house with a basket of eggs, and then I shall hear.' So I went up with my basket of eggs; and, sure enough, the servants told me they had come down unexpectedly, and had gone out to walk directly after luncheon, and had been caught in the rain." "Well, but, Mr. B., that is not all." "Oh, no; that is not all. The next day, as they tell me, the queen and all her party were going out on horseback, when she says, 'Have any of you any money?' 'How much does your majesty want?' says one of the equerries. Oh, five or ten pounds.' 'I have five pounds, your majesty. 'Oh, that will do.' So they rode along here; and, as they went by, the queen said to him, 'Go in, and give the poor man in that cottage five pounds for me; and tell him I thank him for having given us shelter yesterday.' So, of course, I was very much pleased; but, you know, I didn't know who he was; so, seeing him come in and leave the gate open, I thought I should be having the dogs in again; so I bawled out, 'Shut the gate after you!' 66 'Well, every autumn since, she has sent me five pounds. Yes, it's very good of her; and I've no way of showing her what I think of it but by taking her a basket of cherrypippins, which is not what everybody can do, for I don't know of any others hereabouts but mine. I have but one tree, and I always save its pippins for the queen. You shall have one, though, ma'am! Here's one for ye!" Old Mr. B. is now dead; and before he died he made his will, and left Pope's clock to the prince-consort. I dare say dozens of such stories as these of the queen's benevolence might be picked up in that neighborhood, where she and the prince spent much of their time during their early married life, and were deservedly popular. At length came the year 1848, when "thrones, dominations, princedoms, powers," experienced strange reverses; and Louis Philippe and his family, after a flight attended by romantic perils, escaped, like birds out of the fowler's net, to hospitable England-so recently called by one of them "perfide Albion." Well, they arrived, with little or no baggage or equipage, with their lives-and that was all; Louis Philippe making his way to our coast under the convenient travelling name of Mr. Smith," the scattered members of his family and suite making their way after him as fast as they could. Directly the news of the fugitives' arrival at Claremont reached Windsor Castle, Prince Albert hastened to them by rail, taking the little yellow fly at the Esher station, which ordinarily awaited chance customers, to convey him to Claremont. The queen did not forget the friendly reception recently given her in France, nor her recent visit to Esher, with Louis Philippe as her guest, seated beside her in the char-àbanc he had given her, and holding in his hand a sprig he had gathered in his old home at Twickenham. Whatever they could want for immediate use was at their service. All that the most delicate, sympathizing kindness could do, was done to make them comfortable in the asylum which, in fact, was destined to be the last earthly home of more than one of the fugitives. Meanwhile, the poor, harassed ex-queen was gradually recovering from the fatigue fortune, chance, a happy turn of affairs, paand agitation of her journey, and creeping tience, good generalship, would enable them slowly into the pleasure-grounds with her to take advantage of the first break in the husband; the lost Duchess de Montpensier clouds, and regain somewhat of their lost was found; the Prince and Princess de Joinville, Duke and Duchess de Nemours, Duke and Duchess d'Aumale, with their children, gathered round the dethroned pair; and by the most admirable and amiable adaptation of their conduct to their altered circumstances, proved themselves far greater in adversity than they had ever done in prosperity ""Tis not in mortals to command success, But we'll do more, Sempronius-we'll deserve it!" position. Even the failure of one or two schemes of this kind was, perhaps, better to them than the intolerable monotony, the complete blank, the absolute want of occupation, motive, or hope. Ex-statesmen, fallen ministers, tried adherents, came and went. There must have been little family councils, closetings, embassies, voluminous correspondences-all coming to nothing, yet held better than nothing. I chanced to see them all, one evening, descend the dimly lighted grand staircase to dinner; the household being drawn up in the hall, almost in the dark, though gleams of bright light now and then streamed from the dining-room. As each prince noiselessly descended, leading his princess-one of them the infanta, whose hand, almost in her childhood, had been so sharply contested-they seemed like figures in a dream, or a silent pageant in a theatre. The ladies plaited straw for their own bonnets, seated on the grass; while the princes read aloud to them, and the children sported around; the terrible Prince de Joinville, late admiral of the French fleet, breathing fire and slaughter whenever he spoke of Albion, now concentrated his energies on preventing the afore-named old punt from foundering, while he rowed his small children-the Another interesting figure was soon added little Prince Pierre, and the tiny Princess to the scene-Helen, the high-minded DuchFrançoise on the lake; the dukes, his ess of Orleans: not beautiful, but good, pious, brothers, no longer the admired of all ob- energetic, dignified, Protestant; differing in servers at Longchamps, might be seen side some of her opinions from her husband's by side on the box of the old yellow fly, family, but casting in her lot among them, driving about the park. In a little while, and beloved by them all for her unaltered some of their own horses and equipages en- sweetness. She soon took a large family abled them to make a better figure; for, house on the skirts of the park, where she when things had shaken down a little, there quietly superintended the education of her was a sufficient residue of property, from one Then came the death of that source and another, really and lawfully their busy-headed, clever, broken-hearted old king own, to enable them to live quite becomingly -once held as the subtlest monarch in on a par with the nobility and gentry of the Europe. The Duchess of Orleans and the land. Till this could be secured, however, Duchess de Nemours were not long followthey were in anxiety and straits; and they ing him. Claremont seemed to keep up its bore their trials with meritorious patience reputation, ever since the days of Lord Clive, and fortitude. It was impressive to see the of being fatal to those who became its occufallen king and dejected queen tottering pants; and now, a bereaved, despoiled, dialong together; the graceful princesses, minished circle gathers within its walls, with whose slightest notice had lately been so nothing to hope, nothing to fear-subdued prized, gliding through green shades, or to take meekly and with fortitude the blighted flitting under porticoes, accompanied by lot God apportions them; and, with true their little children; in the background, the French philosophy, affording noteworthy faithful Swiss, who continued to sleep at his examplesmaster's door, and declared that, if anybody forced an entrance there, it should be through his body. Doubtless, hopes were long cherished that something would turn up-that Providence, two sons. "What liberty He gives when we do fall From The New Monthly Magazine. LADY MORGAN.* WE are indebted to the spirited author of "The Friends, Foes, and Adventurers of Lady Morgan," for having embodied such points as were worthy of preservation from that pleasant, genial, and gossiping book, added a mass of new and important matter, and have thus given to the public, in a cheap, accessible form, at once a trustworthy and a readable life of that very remarkable lady. The first chapter of the present work is almost entirely devoted to a narrative of her father's (Robert Owenson) theatrical career, and to a picture of the Irish stage at the close of the last century. In the second, we have Sydney Owenson at school, then on the stage, and next as youthful poetess. In connection with the second point, Mr. Fitzpatrick says: "In the first edition of this work, it was incidentally mentioned that Lady Morgan in her very early life had performed for some time with her father upon the boards; but no authorities were produced for the assertion, beyond a passing reminiscence expressed by the late Dr. Burke of the Rifle Brigade. 'I well remember,' said that gentleman, the pleasure with which I saw Owenson personate Major O'Flaherty in Cumberland's then highly popular comedy of " The West Indian," and I also well remember that the long-afterwards widely famed Lady Morgan performed at the same time, with her father, either in "The West Indian or an afterpiece. This took place at Castlebar before the merry, convivial Lord Tyrawley and the officers of the North Mayo militia.' "Miss Owenson,' observed a high literary authority, may have performed in private_theatricals at Castlebar before "the convivial Lord Tyrawley," without being a member of any dramatic company, and without playing on any public stage. A genuine biographical charm attaches to the inquiry, and Mr. Fitzpatrick should pursue it. Lady Morgan had a most happy genius for the stage mimicry and characterization, was most passionately attached to private theatricals, and it would be curious to know whether she had ever displayed this genius on the real stage.' management, her ladyship devoted her attention to literature. To this evidence it may be added that one of Ireland's most distinguished Celtic scholars was assured by the late Dean Lyons of Erris, by the late Thaddeus Connellan, itinerant preacher in Connaught, and by the late Mr. Nolan, clerk of the Ordnance at Athlone, that they had seen Owenson and his little daughter act at Sligo, and elsewhere throughout Connaught. But, in recording these reminiscences, it is right to add that the impression of Lady Morgan's nieces is, that she at no period appeared on the stage. "The result of a few substantial benefits at Smock-alley enabled Owenson to hire successively some of the provinical theatres in Ireland. Accompanied by a small but select company, he went the round of them in 1785. Early personal and local associations led him to give the preference of selection to the province of Connaught. nian Academy, and a native of the west of Ire"A distinguished member of the Royal Hiberland, tells me that he often heard his late father describe the colossal form of Owenson as he wound his way, with some theatrical dresses on one arm, and his tiny daughter Sydney supported on the other, down Market Street, Sligo, en route to the little theatre adjacent. This interesting incident probably occurred about the year 1788. Mrs. Owenson must have been dead at that time. It is at least certain that the good lady was not living in 1780. She remained quite long enough, however, to leave an indelible impression on the mind of little Sydney, and to endear her memory, in a peculiar manner, to the children. In some lines on her Birthday,' written about the year 1788, Sydney refers to "The cheap, the guileless joys of youthful hours, The strength'ning intellect's expanding pow ers; The doating glance of fond maternal eyes, "Those lips that ne'er the stern command im- These thrice dear lips-forever, ever closed!' "There are very few persons now living com- convinced us that Sydney Owenson never per"The result of much inquiry on the subject has petent to furnish any personal information on formed at any of the Dublin theatres, but may this point. All we can do is to collect a few have appeared, when a mere child, in connection waifs and strays, and let the reader draw his own with some of her father's professional tours conclusion. An octogenarian player, Mr. W. A. Donaldson, in his recently published Fifty through the western counties of Ireland. OwenYears of an Actor's Life,' tells us, 'Lady Mor- son always flung himself into theatricals with gan is the oldest writer in Great Britain. This highly gifted woman began her career in the dramatic world. Her father was the manager of several theatres in Ireland, where she sustained characters suited to her juvenile years, with considerable ability; but when her father ceased *Lady Morgan: her Career, Literary and Personal, with a Glimpse of her Friends, and a Word to her Calumniators. By William John Fitzpatrick, J. P. Charles J. Skeet. hearty raciness and abandon; but the more he saw of stage life, its temptations, dangers, and anxieties, the stronger grew his disinclination to see any near and dear relative of his treading the boards.' """ The trifling evidence here adduced is still Indeed, the only evidence against it—and it sufficient to satisfy the mind as to the fact. is not worthy of the name of evidence-is the impression of Lady Morgan's nieces that she at no period appeared on the stage-an | crisis, and it would also appear, from a note impression which they would be very likely to foster. Sydney lost her mother in early life; but her father was extremely vigilant, and on one occasion threatened to pitch some young ensigns, who thought they might while away their heavy leisure moments in a flirtation or two, out of the window. We learn elsewhere that appended at the conclusion of the work before us, that Sydney Owenson went out as governess at or about this period, when necessity-that great parent of exertion-induced by her father's misfortune, also first brought her into notice as the authoress of a little volume of poems, "juvenile and otherwise." Croker's assaults also first began at this, the very dawn of her literary career; and one benefit resulted from these attacks, that they aided her reception in high quar "The Connaught gentry paid Owenson such attention that he came to Dublin for little Sydney, and brought her down to Sligo. The fam-ters, nor did they in any way dim the genius ily of Sir Malby Crofton of Colloony, the Everards, the Barclays, the Coopers, Phibbses, Booths, Ormsbys, and Norcots, showed the small girl much kindness and attention. of her who was at the same time preparing her "Wild Irish Girl" for the press. These youthful steps of progress were followed by her marriage with Surgeon Morgan; and the manner in which she got her intended knighted, and thus obtained for herself the title of Sydney Lady Morgan, is very characteristic : "The legitimate drama having failed to take, poor Owenson endeavored to fill his theatre by personating some very loudly comic characters. I remember,' observes an old Sligo lady, enjoying his representation of the Killibegs Haymaker, with suggauns (or straw ropes) round his hat, waist, and legs, his coat in tatters, and riod in the domestic life of Miss Owenson. Mr. "We now approach the most important pestraws sticking out of his brougues. I laughed T. C. Morgan was a surgeon and general medheartily at him, as did his two daughters, who ical practitioner in an English provincial town. were in the pit with, I think, an uncle of the The late Marquis of Abercorn, in passing through present Sir Robert Gore Booth of Lisadile, and it, en route for Tyrone, from his Scottish seat indeed I thought I would be ashamed if my Dudingtone House, Edinburgh, met with an acfather were so dressed, but they enjoyed it cident which threatened dangerous results, and greatly. I knew Miss Sydney Owenson well: Surgeon Morgan was sent for. The doctor was she was a gay, vivacious, smart young woman; promptly in attendance, and for more than a I remember her dining and spending the even-week he remained night and day beside the ing at Mr. Feeney's, a merchant of Sligo; she noble patient's couch. Under the skilful treatcame in the full-dressed fashion of that day; she ment of Mr. Morgan, the marquis at length bedanced gracefully. Being called on for a song, came rapidly convalescent. Hs felt sincerely all our expectations were that we should hear grateful to the young physician for his assiduous some new French or Italian air, but, to our sur- and efficient attention, and invited him on a prise, she took her sweet small harp, and played visit to his Irish seat at Baron's Court, County up the air and sang the song, "Oh, whistle and I of Tyrone, where the marchioness was about to will be with you, my lad.' Mr. Owenson was a organize some splendid fêtes champêtres. The very good comic actor. I remember having invitation was accepted. Anne, Marchioness of seen the same play acted afterwards in Dublin, Abercorn, had a select circle of guests on a visit but not so well as Mr. Owenson did it at Sligo. at the house, and amongst the number Miss Miss Owenson spent a great deal of her time at Owenson. Mr. Morgan was a widower, but the seat of Sir Malby Crofton. She often passed me on the road, riding a nice pony. I the generality of widowers: a congeniality of more literary and romantic and juvenile than thought that she did not sit so straight in her taste brought him and the young authoress into saddle as the ladies who accompanied her.' Another octogenarian of Sligo writes: 'I fre- frequent conversation. Time passed swiftly and quently went to Owenson's theatre in Water- gayly; but in the midst of this festivity and lane, Knox's Street. I remember his daughters ous illness of Robert Owenson, and summoning frolic a letter arrived, announcing the dangerin the pit with Mr. Harloe Phibbs, who attracted his daughter Sydney to Dublin. With weeping general observation, as a report was at that time rife that he was courting Miss Sydney eyes and an aching heart-but not on Morgan's Owenson. There were no boxes in Sligo The- adieu. Owenson made a short rally, and suraccount-she bade the young widower a hurried atre then. Harloe Phibbs was the son of old vived until May, 1812. Surgeon Morgan, in Bloomer Phibbs, who went by the name of the mean time, with a smitten heart followed "Smooth Acres." The fashionable improvi- Miss Sydney Owenson to Dublin, and persedence of the day led to these acres being encum-cuted her with declarations of the love which bered and sold. I remember, on the particular night in question, that Owenson's part was Pan, dressed up in goat-skins, a very amusing character.'" filled him to distraction. The popular Duke of Richmond invited the authoress and Mr. Morgan to one of the private balls at the Viceregal Court. His excellency, in the course of a loungThe invasion of the French and the cap-ing conversation with Miss Owenson, playfully ture of Castlebar appear to have brought alluded to the matrimonial report which had beOwenson's histrionic embarrassments to a gun to be bruited about, and expressed a hope to have the pleasure, at no distant day, of con- subaltern scribes were ready to take it up, gratulating her on her marriage. The rumor and to make a point of attacking indiscrimrespecting Mr. Morgan's dévouement,' she re-inately whatever Lady Morgan did. Had plied, may or may not be true; but this I can she lived in our own time it would have been at least with all candor and sincerity assure your a different thing: she would have had her grace, that I shall remain to the last day of my opposition"-that, with her politics and life in single blessedness, unless some more tempting inducement than the mere change from idiosyncrasies, would have been unavoidable Miss Owenson to Mistress Morgan be offered but she would have had a clear stage and me.' The hint was taken, and Charles, Duke fair play. of Richmond, in virtue of the powers of his office, knighted Surgeon Morgan on the spot." A visit to the continent followed upon her marriage. The object of this journey was to pick up materials for the work on France, which her biographer considers as her chefd'œuvre. The publication of this book aroused the bitter ire of the Quarterly, and caused her to be pursued by all the venom of "shoals of slanderers and snakes in the grass." Lady Morgan was, however, quite capable of fighting her own battles, and she has a most efficient and zealous protector of her fair fame in Mr. Fitzpatrick. Irish by birth, sceptic by education, and democratic by inspiration, she lived half a century before her time. The literary organ of government could at that epoch give the signal, and fifty It is gratifying to find this extraordinary woman's life told in so brief, agreeable, straightforward, and honest a manner. If we were to say that none but an Irishman could have done justice to such a subject, we should only say what we believe; the same amount of research, and even the same amount of sympathy, might have been found on this side of the channel, but the hearty Celtic raciness and local color, never. Indeed, if we were to say, with an Irish conservative paper, that there is but one man in the United Kingdom who could have produced this book, we should, perhaps, be still nearer the mark. The spirit of inquiry which exhausts every source of information, the perseverance and tact, and the genial warmth, are characteristics only of the author of the Life and Times of Lord Cloncurry," and of the "Note on the Cornwallis Papers." 66 ously resolved to carry out their original intention and get married. Hence the ceremony of Saturday last in the noble temple of St. Peters, at Vienna.-Berlin Correspondence of the Court News. On Saturday the matrimonial union of Prince | old friends once more together, they couragePeter of Arenberg with the Countess Dowager Caroline of Stahremberg, née Countess Kaunitz, was celebrated with great pomp at the cathedral of St. Stephen's, Vienna, in the presence of the whole beau monde of the Austrian metropolis. The story of this marriage is a not uninteresting one. Prince Peter is no less than seventy years old, and his new consort, the celebrated Count Kaunitz's daughter, is sixty-one. In early youth both loved each other tenderly, and would have got married but for the opposing wish of their respective parents. It is an old, a very old story this kind of tale, and it is quite unnecessary, consequently, to dwell on details in this particular case, as all cases of the sort resemble each other, like leaves on the same tree. Suffice it to say that Prince Peter of Arenberg had to lead a daughter of Prince Charles de Talleyrand to the altar, and that the young Countess of Kaunitz was united to a graf, or earl, of Stahremberg. Years flowed on; both the former lovers came to have children of their own; both, probably, had cares of their own, and thus their lives rolled on as most human lives do-a mixture of joys and sorrows, pleasures and pains. But, singularly enough, both the husband of Caroline of Kaunitz and the wife of Peter of Arenberg died at the same time, and accident throwing the two MAHOMEDAN FUNERALS.-The funerals are conducted with little or no ceremony. The body, placed upon a bier, and covered with a common cloth if that of a poor person, with white cashmere among the rich, and with a green cashmere if belonging to the family of a cheriff, is thus borne to the cemetery, the followers repeating all the way in a slow, measured tone the words, "Allah! Allah! Allah!" There are no undertakers here for the arrangement of funeral processions, that duty being performed by the relatives and servants of the deceased. It is customary for any person meeting a funeral procession to diverge from his course and take hold of a corner of the bier, walking with it until another passer-by takes his place-the Mussulman usage exacting that each person must lend his services in this way for at least ten paces. I have many a time dismounted on thus meeting a funeral cortege to take my place in it according to this custom.-Mysteries of the Desert. |