new thought respecting it occurred to him, which he traced to its results with a facility and success quite the same as if he had never left off his mathematical studies. In the short space of eight days he completed an original method of solving this class of problems, which ranks among his most brilliant claims to distinction as a geometrician.

The last years of Pascal's life, it is well known, were chiefly occupied with preparations for a great work which he meditated on the Christian religion. From the fragments which he left behind him, we can but faintly gather the outline of this work. There remains enough, however, to testify to the magnificence of its conception. Here lie, as it were, a noble pedestal, and there a sculptured pillar, and there an ornament of rich chasing and exquisite device; and we may imagine, although we cannot supply, the sublime temple which Pascal would have reared of these rare materials to the honor of his God had his life been spared. All the inconsistencies and exaggerations which critics now so easily detect in the "Thoughts," the mere broken pieces which were as yet to be hewn and molded together by his consummate genius, would doubtless have disappeared as the fabric arose in compact beauty and strength under his plastic hand. Every exaggeration would have been softened down under the influence of his fine judgment and almost perfect taste, and what now remains a mere glorious project would have been a luminous work.

But if the "Thoughts" are thus at the very best unfinished, we have hitherto only possessed them in a still more imperfect state even than that in which they were left by Pascal. Fragments at the best, they have been still further broken and mutilated by the rude and impertinent hands of editors and commentators.

M. Cousin deserves the credit of having first taken active steps to remedy this unsatisfactory state of things. He instituted, in 1843, an elaborate comparison between the published list of the "Pensées" and the original MSS. of Pascal, which had fortunately been preserved in the Royal Library at Paris; and being struck with their wide and serious discrepancy, he drew up a report on the subject, which he laid before the French Academy. This had the effect of exciting a prominent at

tention to the subject, and M. Faugères was found immediately ready to undertake a new edition in strict conformity with the original MSS. This task M. Faugères has executed in a most highly satisfactory manner. He has collected with industrious care the entire autograph MSS. of Pascal, and transferred them in their original and unmutilated form to his pages.

But while Pascal thus meditated in seclusion, the shadow of death was creeping fast on him; he was hastening to an early grave. With declining strength his devotional austerities rather increased than diminished. Sorrow also preyed upon him. Apart from his general sympathy with the sufferings of his Port Royalist brethren, he had specially to mourn the death of his sister Jaqueline, who fell a victim to the conflict between expediency and conscience in the matter of the formulary. Henceforth he seems to have secluded himself from the world more than ever, devoting his time especially to duties of charity. He had taken a poor man, with his whole family, to live in his house. One of the children having fallen ill of small-pox, he removed, at her earnest solicitation, to the house of his sister, Madame Perier, who had come to Paris with her family, just to be near him and watch over him. Almost immediately on his removal he was seized with an alarming sickness. The physician did not apprehend any immediate danger, but he himself judged otherwise. He desired to have the sacrament administered to him, committed himself to the disposal of God, and, convulsions having supervened, he expired on the 19th August, 1662, in the fortieth year of his age.

Thus lived and died one who has left behind him an imperishable name equally in science, literature, and religion. Had he accomplished nothing more than the brilliant researches of his youth, he would yet have been remembered among the most illustrious of the noble band who ushered in the high advance of modern science; but the succeeding luster of his literary renown as the author of the " Provincial Letters," the mellow glory of his piety, and the lofty and comprehensive radiance of his genius, so conspicuous in the "Pensées," have nearly eclipsed the remembrance of his early scientific greatness. It is but seldom, surely, that we see so manifold a gift of mental endow

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ment bestowed on any of the sons of men -a union of talents at once so splendid and so homely, so rich in the higher attributes that soar into the mystic empyrean of sublime contemplation, and at the same time in the observant, ingenious, and reflective faculties, that range freely amid the more complex phenomena of nature, the pettiest details of mechanical contrivance, or of literary argumentation, and the abstruser difficulties of the higher geometry.

The personal character of Pascal is no less fitted to draw our love than his many high intellectual qualities our admiration. Sweetness of temper, warmth of affection, the most unassuming simplicity, and the gentlest humility, are the features that beam forth upon us in all his conduct and writings. Amid all the temptations of his controversy with the Jesuits, he never forgets that benignant courtesy which tempers with grace even the wound which it inflicts; and however strong may be the current of righteous indignation in which his eloquence sometimes flows, it is never agitated by the turbulence of asperity, nor the foul energy of abuse. He was too penetrated by the "divine spirit of charity to permit his taking any unfair advantages against even such enemies as the Jesuits. His labors of active benevolence were unceasing; his generosity knew no bounds; he even beggared himself by his prodigal benefactions; he did what few do-mortgaged even his expectancies to charity."

The depth and sincerity of Pascal's piety it were needless to dwell upon. No one ever cherished more profound and influential convictions of religion, or sought more thoroughly to resign himself to their sacred sway. He lived continually as under the "great Taskmaster's eye." He dwelt with a delighted earnestness on the lofty ideal of Christian virtue, and few characters have, perhaps, borne in greater purity and loveliness the impress of some of its higher features. It must be confessed, at the same time, that there was much in Pascal's views of religion that cannot be commended. In the later years of his life, especially, its darker and less cheerful aspects were far too predominantly present with him. The awful shadow of eternity lay on him so heavily as almost to conceal the brightness of earth, and check the warm and genial flow of natural affection. Suffering seems not only to have

chastened, but depressed and darkened his spirit, so that he felt distrustful even of the blessings of life, and shrank from its joys. It is, we believe, undoubted that his ascetic practices were of the most rigid and unyielding nature. He is even said to have worn beneath his clothes a girdle of iron with sharp points affixed, which he struck into his side whenever he felt his mind disposed to wander from religious objects, or take delight in things around him. And he gives deliberate expressions to the feelings under which he thus acted in such sayings as the following :-"I can approve only of those who seek in tears for happiness." "Disease is the natural state of Christians." We need not say how great a misconception of Christianity these statements present. Blessed, no doubt, are the uses of affliction; but blessed also are the uses of prosperity; and the Christian is to be educated as well by the light and warmth of bright days, and benign and joyful affections, as by the sad painfulness of disease and the shadowed loneliness of sorrow. So far from Christianity requiring from us the abnegation of any of the true and pure emotions of our nature, it is its very glory that it consecrates and hallows them allthat it invests them with a higher interest and a more enduring loveliness. Under whatever misconception, however, and formal extravagances he lived, as may appear in the writings or life of Pascal, we must not forget the rare Christian strength and beauty that lay beneath; the faith which bore him with so meek a fortitude through | all his trials, and the love which never wearied in its labors and never wasted in its strength.

As a writer, we have already so far spoken of Pascal. In this capacity it is not too much to say that he shines with the brightest luster. There is at once a breadth of power and a felicity of touch in all his literary productions which stamp them classical, and may be said to have already placed them beyond all the ordinary chances of oblivion. The singular purity and finish of his style are proverbial. It is copious and powerful, yet flexible and easy, owning the lightest play of thought, rising at times into passages of transcendent compass and beauty, yet moving gracefully and tastefully in the least labored sketches; as M. Faugères truly says, "Lofty without exaggeration, everywhere

replete with emotion, yet self-sustained, animated without turbulence, personal without pedantry or egotism, at once magnificent and modest."

And thus we close our cursory sketch of the life and works of this great man. Familiar as may be his name, his works, we are pretty sure, are yet but very partially familiar, and models as they are both in style and sentiment, at once adorned with the brighest graces of literary art, and full of the deepest springs of thought, we know of none that will more amply reward a close and repeated study.

THE DUEL OF D'ESTERRE AND DANIEL

IN

O'CONNELL.

N a conversation after dinner about handwriting, as indicating character, the master of the house produced a document penned, as he truly observed, under very peculiar circumstances. It is the fragment of a letter from Daniel O'Connell to his fidus Achates, George Lidwell, written after the duel with D'Esterre, but before the final consummation of the tragedy. Lidwell was to have been O'Connell's second upon the occasion, but, for some pressing reason, was obliged to leave Dublin pending the preliminary defiances, which were of unusual duration.

As D'Esterre only survived the rencontre forty-eight hours, this letter may be considered a dispatch from the field of battle, while as yet the flush of victory had not been dashed with remorse, and a little exultation-all the facts and circumstances of the case considered-might, perhaps, have been excusable. But there is nothing of the kind. It is a dry, hard letter enough, indicating that instinctive attention to "number one" which appears to have grown with the writer's growth, and never to have deserted him during the most vehement or the most soul-subduing passages of his life. The effect of the transaction upon his own fortunes (his "good chance," as he calls it) seems to have been the uppermost thought; but that apart, no feeling of a truculent or unbecoming nature displays itself.

On the other hand, we cannot discover any latent spark of the almost maudlin sensibility which, in his latter days, imparted so high a coloring to Mr. O'Connell's reminiscences of this unhappy affair. Although his antagonist lay at that mo

ment in a state of imminent danger, with a lovely young wife anxiously watching every flutter of his ebbing life, while the cries of her firstborn in the cradle beside her gave poignancy to her sufferings, and hightened the interest of "the situation," the sentimental victor notices none of these matters, but coolly relates how "greatly" under his mark the unhappy man had aimed; and then, in a postscript, speculates on the Earl of Donoughmore taking charge of the Catholic Petition. All this is extremely characteristic; and the firm, even, round hand in which it is indited, repels the suspicion of an assumed coolness.

It is written on a sheet of letter-paper, a part of the leaf from the date nearly to the bottom having been worn off. It is doubtful, therefore, where it was written; but most probably from the first three letters (and part of a fourth) of the name, which are still preserved, he was then at Moorefield, a roadside inn and postinghouse, near the Curragh of Kildare, then, and down to a recent period, much frequented by southern travelers. The seal has been broken off, but enough remains to show that the wax was black, and the direction on the back is

and again and again for you
"I write merely to thank y
-ness.-Indeed I do not use a pl
I say I want words to thank
I ought.

"The papers will give you a
details of my affair with D'Este
-sequent to your leaving this.-We
little fighting.-He fired greatly
He is I am happy to tell you
this morning but his life is still
there never was so fortunate a man
danger. If he recovers I shall say

I am-and to make my good chance quite perfect-my wife never heard a word of it until I returned from the ground. "Believe me to be "Your most sincerely "Obliged and faithful

"DANIEL O'Connell.

The reading of this letter recalls in a vivid manner some of the most striking incidents connected with that tragical event in O'Connell's history. It was in January, 1815, that in one of his political diatribes at the agitation-shop of the day, (whether it was called board, or club, or society,) O'Connell complimented the municipal body of the city of Dublin with the title of a "beggarly corporation." It is noteworthy, that nearly thirty years after that, having first richly earned for himself the distinctive appellation of "King of Beggars," he ruled the same city as its Lord Mayor, representing a corporation composed of as tag-rag materials as ever disgraced any age or country.

That, however, is nothing to the matter. The old corporation had no great right to pride itself on its gentility, and it was considered a hectoring proceeding when one of its members took up a censure bestowed upon the general body as a personal offense, and resolved to fasten a quarrel upon its author. This was Mr. D'Esterre, a retired marine officer, who had formed a mercantile connection in Dublin and become a member of the common council. His affairs were supposed to be in a tottering state at the time, and therefore, perhaps, he was the more quick to take the reflection to himself. Some were so charitable as to insinuate that he was anxious to seize so good an opportunity to recommend himself to the government by humbling a public enemy. Whatever might be his motive, he called upon Mr. O'Connell to retract the offensive words, and Mr. O'Connell stoutly refused to do so.

Thereupon ensued a state of society such as may have been often witnessed in the olden times of Irish misrule; but it is vain to hope, under the present state of police, that we ever shall "look upon its like again." For two or three days the town was domineered by two factions, who traversed the streets in opposite directions, ostensibly in search of one another, but never once contrived to come face to face.

At one time Mr. D'Esterre, armed with a cane, sallied forth from Dawson-street, attended by some score of true-blue supporters of our glorious constitution, all similarly equipped. Swaggering along the sunny side of Stephen's-green, they would pass down Grafton-street and cross the river by Carlisle bridge. Rumor ascribed this demonstration to a deadly intention to

horsewhip O'Connell wherever he should be found.

When this party had comfortably housed itself back again with the Lord Mayor, or was seated at Atwood's Coffee-room in Dame-street, "nursing its wrath to keep it warm," over a competent supply of mock turtle, Daniel O'Connell with a stalwart following would come like tragedy, "sweeping by," every mother's son brandishing a defensive cudgel, and casting fierce looks across the street at the gownsmen who crowded about the college gates, eager and impatient to behold the conflict.

A strapping fellow was Dan in that day, tall, active, muscular, and full of life. Hand to hand, he would have been an ugly customer to any champion the thick-winded corporation could have turned out against him.

But as in the Homeric battles, often two heroes "ranging for revenge" would traverse the field for the length of a day without collision, an envious mist interposing, so the steam of Atwood's soup, or the hats of the liberty boys tossing in the air, still concealed these fiery spirits from each other's sight; and it was not till the second night, when they were tired and ashamed of strutting and fretting on the pavement, that a cartel was delivered at Mr. O'Connell's house, and a meeting appointed for the following day.

After breakfast on the following morning, accordingly, was Mr. O'Connell, accompanied by Major Mac Namara and some other friends, seen passing through the leading streets of our metropolis in a coach drawn by four horses, toward the Naas Road; and much about the same hour a like equipage with Mr. D'Esterre and his friends proceeded in the same direction.

It was not unusual in those days to manage such matters in such a way. Although Lord Norbury had already pronounced his opinion, that "the first report of a duel should be that of the pistols," display and fanfaronade were not considered evidence of a reluctance to do real business and at a much latter period parties in quest of barbarous satisfaction have been seen to move with an undisguised intent of murder toward the field, gathering their friends and admirers as they advanced, and followed by any quantity of barren disinterested amateurs who might think it worth while to "see the sport."

Thus I well recollect to have seen, about six years after that, the quiet village of

Abbeyleix disturbed from its propriety by an inroad of equipages, crowded inside and out with stern-looking passengers, who demanded refreshment for themselves and provender for their horses. They had been routed by a magistrate, a singularly meddling and officious person, who had interdicted their meeting in the adjacent county of Kilkenny; and Abbeyleix, with its sequestered woods and lawns, being considered "a nice quiet place to fight in," they came trooping, in number about thirty, first to breakfast, and afterward to settle the difference with what appetite they might.

It was a motley muster as could well be assembled at a short notice, made up of halfpay militia subalterns, attorneys, sporting squires of a grade now nearly extinct, and two or three gentlemen of unequivocal pretensions. There were noted fire-eaters in the number, at least half a dozen, who had each killed or seriously disabled his man or two; and it was strange to remark what an inferior order of humanity those manslayers represented. They were distinguished among the rest by their smallness of stature and mean appearance, without anything manly in their bearing, but on the contrary a sinister and rather sneaking cast of features, as if they were ashamed to look at the image which they had defaced. It was, perhaps, natural that it should be so; for the motive which most commonly led to the perpetration of those homicides was a pitiful and vulgar thirst for eminence, which is not easily gained by a person of low attainments, unless by some extraordinary exertion he can raise himself from the ground

"Et virům victor volitare per ora."

shades of evening were descending upon them, in an island near the source of the River Suir in the county of Tipperary, from which they had the satisfaction of retiring, after a few moment's delay, to their respective homes, leaving the freshcolored lad above-mentioned on the grass behind them, with a bullet in his head. He died the following day, and all because the law is, or was, so punctilious as not to permit a county magistrate to follow or arrest a murderer prepense one inch beyond the confines of his own jurisdiction.

But what has all this to do with O'Connell's rencontre with D'Esterre, which no magistrate, lay or clerical, paid or unpaid, dreamt of opposing or interfering with in the slightest degree? The only visible exertion of authority was the dispatch of a squadron of dragoons from the royal barracks, after it was ascertained that all Dublin was pouring out its population toward the expected field of battle. Gigs, cars, and postchaises, equestrians, to no end, and an innumerable concourse of the lightfooted sons of the sod, crowded the broad road at the back of Kilmainham jail and hurried away south. As soon as this state of things was known at the castle, orders were sent to the military authorities to be on the alert; but whether with a view to arrest the principal authors of the commotion, or to see fair play observed between them, is a question that is not likely at this time of day to receive a thorough solution. If the purpose was to interrupt the combat, the precaution was tardily resolved upon; for the departure of the belligerents had been known some hours before the troopers were in the saddle.