Bertollo cleared the rocky bank at a bound, and plunged into the seething torrent. Immediately he rose close to the boy, who stretched his hands towards him. Catching Pedro with one arm, he held him tightly, while with the other he buffeted the angry water. Quick as thought his course was taken. He saw the bridge was but a hundred yards distant; immediately below a fall which would hurl to destruction the strongest swimmer; the right bank was too far away for the time at his disposal, and to attempt the left was simply to be dashed to pieces upon the steep and rugged rocks. In the middle of the stream, between him and the bridge, rose the top of a solitary rock not yet quite covered, and to reach this Bertollo exerted his full strength and skill. Straining every sinew and striking across the current, which seemed eager to sweep him past the object of his hope, he both lessened his speed, and fortunately brought himself near enough to clutch a corner of the rock, to which he clung with all the strength of despair, the boy, silent with terror, grasping his father's neck. "Shouts of joy burst from the people, who, hearing the screams of the boy and his distracted mother, had hurried from the castle. Among the first to stir, the count had leaped on his horse, and galloping to the spot, was rushing about, now giving orders to his men it was impossible to obey, now encouraging Bertollo to hold on till help could come. "A hundred ducats,' he cried, 'to the man who brings them safe to land. Hold on, brave Bertollo, hold on! Oh! save the boy, lads! save the boy!' "But Bertollo felt the waves break over him higher and higher, like the arms of a greedy fiend clutching his prey, and he groaned as he found his strength too rapidly failing. Long before ropes or planks could be brought from the castle, a heavy rush of water swept him from his hold, and a terrible cry rent the air as man and boy once more drove down the stream. Nothing could save them now from being engulfed in the torrent below. A gleam of hope, however, came to the drowning man at that last moment. "Across the wooden pier of the bridge nearest the left bank, where the greatest body of the water passed, there had gathered a huge mass of such wreck as the swollen stream had carried with it-branches of trees, straw, leaves, and pieces of timber. Towards this Bertollo strove. "The count breathed freer, and the ashy colour left the cheek of the mother, as they saw the swimmer, impelled by the current, dash with | the speed of an arrow right against this barrier. Bertollo felt the frail bridge crack and rock under the weight of the pent-up water, which rose so high as nearly to sweep its planks; and it seemed as if he had added the last straw that the old structure could bear, for as the onlookers reached the bridge, they could see the wooden supports give way beneath their load, the rails snap, and the planks of the span he clung to bend below the water. "There was not a moment to lose, neither was there any hesitation, for as two foresters advanced courageously from the one side, the mother, heedless of danger, advanced from the other upon the bridge. It cracked and swayed; she cared not. The angry water curled about her feet, she knew it not; the boy filled her whole thought, and stooping down, she drew him to her, and caught him in her arms. Seeing her hesitate, Bertollo urged her away. She cast an imploring glance to the approaching foresters and rushed tottering towards the bank. "With Pedro clinging mutely to her side, she fell upon her knees, and raising her hands beseechingly to heaven, sunk insensible on the ground. She saw her husband no more, for scarcely had her eyes closed, than the bridge split asunder, and the bold man, hopelessly entangled in the wreck, sank in the boiling chasm." A tear glistened in the old man's eye, and his voice quivered with emotion as he concluded his story. "In the churchyard yonder," he said with a sigh, "you may find a stone on which is carved these words, BRAVE BERTOLLO. His wife rests by his side." He moved sadly away. "Stay;" said I, holding his arm gently, "one who knows so well the father's fate may tell me something more of the son.' "You guess truly," he replied, "Pedro passed a long and happy life in the service of the folks at the castle, and now only waiting the time when he shall sleep beside his kindred, he finds a sad pleasure in wandering near the place where his father snatched him from the jaws of death, at the loss of his own life. I am Pedro." ABSENCE. Oh, absence! skill'd to lend to those we love No less is thine-and mellowing light to pour WHY STIRS MY HEART? 259 AN ODE. [Arthur O'Shaughnessy, born at Kensington, London, 1846. His first volume of poems, entitled an Epic of Women, obtained for him immediate recognition as a poet of high accomplishment and still higher promise. The Daughter of Herodius, The Fountain of Tears, and The Whisper from the Grave have secured extensive popularity. Lays of France and other poems appeared 1872. The following is from the volume entitled Music and Moonlight (1874). He died in 1881.] We are the music makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams; Wandering by lone sea-breakers, And sitting by desolate streams;World losers and world forsakers On whom the pale moon gleams: With wonderful deathless ditties Shall go forth and conquer a crown; And three, with a new song's measure, Can trample a kingdom down. We in the ages lying In the buried past of the earth, Built Nineveh with our sighing, And Babel itself in our mirth; And o'erthrew them with prophesying To the old of the new world's worth; For each age is a dream that is dying, Or one that is coming to birth. A breath of our inspiration A wondrous thing of our dreaming, Till our dream shall become their present, And their work in the world be done. They had no vision amazing And, therefore, to-day is thrilling And the multitudes are enlisted And, scorning the dream of to-morrow, Are bringing to pass as they may In the world, for its joy or its sorrow, The dream that was scorned yesterday. But we, with our dreaming and singing, The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see, Our souls with high music ringingO men, it must ever be That we dwell in our dreaming and singing A little apart from ye. For we are afar with the dawning, And the suns that are not yet high; Intrepid, you hear us cry,- Great hail! we cry to the comers From the dazzling, unknown shore, You shall teach us your song's new numbers, WHY STIRS MY HEART? [Jeremiah Holme Wiffen, born near Woburn, 1792; died 2d May, 1856. He was the author of a volume of verse entitled Aonian Hours; translated Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, and the poems of Garcilasso de la Vega. He wrote the Historical Memorials of the House of Russell. He began life as a schoolmaster, and in 1819 was appointed private secretary to the Duke of Bedford. Why stirs my heart? was it thy voice, my love, In the dim vale, or was it but the dove I dream'd that we were sailing to a shore Happier by far than this; that living breath Inspired our bark, which, without sail or oar, Looked upwards on thy face. I asked why when on earth thou hadst so oft STRUGGLE FOR LIFE MOST SEVERE BETWEEN INDIVIDUALS AND [Charles Darwin, M.A., F.R.S., born at Shrews- He Yet the advantage of plumed seeds no doubt The store of nutriment laid up within the In Look at a plant in the midst of its range, As the species of the same genus usually have, though by no means invariably, much similarity in habits and constitution, and always in structure, the struggle will generally be more severe between them, if they come into competition with each other, than between the species of distinct genera. We see this in the recent extension over parts of the United States of one species of swallow having caused the decrease of another species. The recent increase of the missel-thrush in parts of Scotland has caused the decrease of the song-thrush. How frequently we hear of one species of rat taking the place of another species under the most different climates! In Russia the small Asiatic cockroach has everywhere driven before it its great congener. In Australia the important hive-bee is rapidly exterminating the small, stingless native bee. One species of charlock has been known to supplant another species; and so in other cases. We can dimly see why the competition should be most severe between allied forms, which fill nearly the same place in the economy of nature; but pro-tremely cold or dry, yet there will be compebably in no one case could we precisely say why tition between some few species, or between one species has been victorious over another in the individuals of the same species, for the the great battle of life. warmest or dampest spots. A corollary of the highest importance may be deduced from the foregoing remarks, namely, that the structure of every organic being is related, in the most essential yet often hidden manner, to that of all the other organic beings with which it comes into competition for food or residence, or from which it has to escape, or on which it preys. This is obvious in the structure of the teeth and talons of the tiger; and in that of the legs and claws of the parasite which clings to the hair on the tiger's body. But in the beautifully plumed seed of the dandelion, and in the flattened and fringed legs of the water-beetle, the relation seems at first confined to the elements of air and water. Hence we can see that when a plant or animal is placed in a new country amongst new competitors, the conditions of its life will generally be changed in an essential manner, although the climate may be exactly the same as in its former home. If its average numbers are to increase in its new home, we should have to modify it in a different way to what we should have had to do in its native country; for we should have to give it some advantage over a different set of competitors or enemies. It is good thus to try in imagination to give to any one species an advantage over another. Probably in no single instance should we know what to do. This ought to convince us of our ΠΙ A DESCRIPTION OF AMSTERDAM IN 1631. ignorance on the mutual relations of all organic beings; a conviction as necessary as it is difficult to acquire. All that we can do, is to keep steadily in mind that each organic being is striving to increase in a geometrical ratio; that each at some period of its life, during some season of the year, during each generation or at intervals, has to struggle for life and to suffer great destruction. When we reflect on this struggle, we may console ourselves with the full belief, that the war of nature is not incessant, that no fear is felt, that death is generally prompt, and that the vigorous, the healthy, and the happy survive and multiply. A DESCRIPTION OF AMSTERDAM IN 1631. [RENÉ DESCARTES, the illustrious French philosopher and mathematician, was born at La Haye, in Touraine, March 31, 1596. He graduated from the college of La Flèche in 1612. Experiencing a disgust for scholasti cism, he entered the army in order to obliterate his educational prejudices. He left the army in 1621, and after some years of travel, settled in Holland in 1629 and devoted himself to the study of mathematics, astronomy and metaphysics. His Discourse on the Method of Reasoning Well and of Investigating Scientific Truth, appeared in 1637, and announced important discoveries in Algebra and Geometry. His Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, published in 1641, gave a powerful impulse to philosophical inquiry. He based all positive know ledge on the relation between consciousness and exis tence, which he expressed in the formula: "I think, therefore I exist." He died in 1649, at Stockholm.] LETTER FROM DESCARTES TO BALZAC. I rubbed my hand across my eyes to make sure that I was awake, when I read in your letter that you thought of coming here, and even still I dare not enjoy this news as if it were anything more than a dream. At the same time, I do not find it very strange that a just and generous mind like yours cannot suit itself to the servile restrictions imposed on people at the Court; and since you assure me downright that God has inspired you to quit secular life, I should hold it a sin against the Holy Ghost to dissuade you from this holy resolution,-nay, you may pardon my zeal if I advise you to choose Amsterdam for your retreat, and to prefer it, I do not merely say to all the convents of Capucins and Cistercians, to which crowds of good people retire, but also to the fairest 261 dwellings of France and Italy, and even to that celebrated hermitage where you were last year. However well appointed a country house may be, it always wants innumer able conveniences only to be found in towns, and the very solitude which one expects is never to be found there in its real perfection. I will grant that you have a river which can make the greatest talker dreamy, a valley so lonely that it can inspire you with transports of delight; but it can hardly happen that you will not also have a number of insignificant neighbours who come sometimes to intrude upon you, and whose visits are even more disagreeable than those you receive in Paris. Whereas in this great town where I now am, there being not a soul but myself who is not in business, every one is so engrossed with his profits that I could live in it all my life without ever being seen by anyone. I go to walk every day amid the Babel of a great thoroughfare with as much liberty and repose as you could find in your garden-alley; and I consider the men whom I see just as I should the trees which you meet in your forest or the animals which pasture there; the very sound of their bustle does not interrupt my reveries more than the murmuring of a stream. If I reflect upon their actions, I receive from it the same pleasure which you have in watching the peasants who till your fields, for I see that all their travail helps to adorn the place of my dwelling, and makes me to in seeing the fruit growing in your orchards, want nothing there. If there be pleasure and its abundance before your eyes, think you there is not as much in seeing the vessels arrive which bring us in abundance all the produce from the Indies and all that is rare in Europe? What other place could you choose in all the world where all the comforts of life and all the curiosities which can be desired are so easy to find as here? What other country where you can enjoy such perfect liberty, where you can sleep with more security, where there are always armies on foot for the purpose of protecting us, where poisoning, treacheries, calumnies are less known, and where there has survived more of the innocence of our ancestors? I do not know how you can be so fond of the air of Italy, with which you so often inhale pestilence, and where at all times the heat of the day is insupportable, the cool of the night unwholesome, and where the darkness of the night covers theft and murders. But if you fear the winters of the north, tell me what shades, what fan, what fountains can so well protect you at Rome from the discomforts of heat, as a stove and a good fire can here keep you from feeling cold? GENIUS LOCI. Yes, this is the place where my boyhood Still green are the hills in the distance, And breathing of summer the farms, But the years take the Present forever To the Past with their shadowy arms. I wander in pathways familiar: Come back to me beautiful visions! My boyhood, come back! In the sunshine Come back! From the school that is ended Come back! With a kite in his heaven A LETTER. What is a letter? Let affection tell, A tongue that speaks for those who absent dwell; ANONYMOUS. BARTHOLOMEW FAIR. [John Timbs, F.S.A., born in London, 17th August, 1801; died there 4th March, 1875. Antiquarian and miscellaneous writer. He was sometime editor of the Mirror, and subsequently of the Illustrated London News. In his numerous books he arranged in the pleasantest form the most interesting facts, incidents, and anecdotes of history, antiquities, and literature. Amongst his most important works are: The Curiosities of London (from which we quote); The Year Book of Facts in Science and Art; Popular Brrors Explained: Curiosities of History: Curiosities of Science; Things not Generally Known; Stories of Inventors; Anecdote Biography: School Days of Eminent Men; Club Life in London; Strange Stories of the Animal World; Romance of London; Nooks and Corners of English Life; Anecdote Lives of the later Wits and Humourists, &c. &o.] This ancient Fair presents, through its seven centuries' existence, many phases of our social history with such graphic force, that "he may run that readeth it." The Fair originated in two Fairs, or Markets, one begun by a grant of land from Henry I. to his jester, Rayer, or Rahere, who founded a Priory to St. Bartholomew, in West Smithfield, previous to which, however, a market called "the King's Market," had been held near Smithfield. Out of the two elements, the concourse of pilgrims to the Miraculous Shrine of St. Bartholomew, and the concourse of traders to the King's Market, Bartholomew Fair grew up. Rayer's miracles were most ingenious, for he cured a woman who could not keep her tongue in her mouth: if the wind went down, as sailors far at sea were praying to the denuded saint, they called it a miracle, and presented, in procession, a silver ship at the Smithfield shrine. The forged miracles gave way to the imitative jugglers and mystery players; and these three elements the religious, the dramatic, and the commercial-flowed on till the Reformation. The Priory Fair, which was proclaimed on the Eve of St. Bartholomew, and continued during the next day, and the next morrow, was granted for the clothiers of England and the drapers of London, who had their booths and standings within the Priory churchyard (the site now Cloth Fair), the gates of which were locked every night, and watched, for the safety of the goods and wares. Within its limits was held a court of justice, named Pie Poudre, from pieds poudreux-dusty feet-by which, persons infringing upon the laws of the Fair, its disputes, debts, and legal obligations, &c., were tried the same day, and the punishment of the stocks, or whipping-post, |