The Sun.
London, England, 1866-05-25 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, MAY 25, 186(

dwellings, how much lasting good might be effected
in a very short space of time. The whole tone of
public feeling would be changed, the prevailing in-
difference roused into interest and energy, and all
classes would gradually reap the benefit of the im-

proved condition of public health and morals.
Mr. Alderman WATERLOW, who has good right to
speak on the subject, observed yesterday that if any
one wished to see the good that had been done, he
had only to pass from one of our crowded alleys to
Peabody-square, Islington, in which such admirable

accommodation was provided for many hundreds of
the working classes. 'They had as yet, however,
only begun to spend the money of Mr. PEABODY,
and all the sums to be derived from the rent of the
buildings is to be applied to the extension of the
work. Before the meeting broke up, having resolved
upon the erection of a statue, Mr. FILLINGIIAM, a
carpenter, made a very excellent suggestion, which
was that a penny subscription should be opened, to
which the working classes themselves might con-
tribute. The proceeds to be devoted to the erection
in London of an asylum of the nature of the Sailors'
Homes, in which American workmen would find
shelter while they were out of employment in this
country. We hope this idea will be carried out,
since it cannot fail to gratify Mr. PEABODY, while
doing public good.

CORRESPONDENCE FROM PARIS.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

PARIS, Thursday Evening.

The Moniteur has not any news to-day in refe-
rence to Germany and Italy except the items fur-
nished by the telegraphic despatches, the authenti-
city of which it generally takes care to say it does
not guarantee. It mentions that there was another
Cabinet Council yesterday at the Tuileries, at which
the Empress was present.
Dr. Nelaton, the eminent surgeon, who, it will be
remembered, went to attend upon Garibaldi after
he was wounded at the battle of Aspromonte, has
been appointed surgeon in ordinary to the Emperor.
The assembly of a Congress is not treated as an
accomplished fact. It will meet as soon as the
official answers to the proposal shall have been re-
ceived from Austria, Prussia, and Italy.
The sons of Abd-el Hader, Sidi-Mahumedin and
Sidi-Mohammed have arrived in Paris from Damas-
cus. Their object in coming is to study European
manners and customs. They have been very gra-
ciously received by the Emperor, and were at the
ball at the Tuileries on Monday night, an entertain-
ment which appeared to surprise and delight them
very much. These two young men are at present
among the prominent lions of the capital.

• There are some striking anomalies in the juris-
prudence of France, some of which, too, are absurd,
unjust, and dangerous. For instance, the man
Aspe, accused with murdering his servant girl
Merie Guillonet at Toulouse, and afterwards cutting
her almost into pieces, has been found guilty, but,
strange to say, the jury have discovered " extenuat-
ing circumstances" in the case, so that this atrocious
criminal will not expiate his crime with his life, but
is sentenced to perpetual hard labour. He can even
appeal against this sentence, so that there may be a
commutation of its severity. The form in which the
jury deliver their verdict is somewhat curious. The
foreman rose amidst solemn silence, and placing his
hand upon his heart said—" On my honour and my
conscience, before God and before man, the decla-
ration of the jury is—Yes--the accused is guilty."
The same reply was then given to other questions
put by the judge, and the foreman of the jury con-
cluded by saying " We find by a majority that
there are extenuating circumstances in favour of the
accused." It will thus be seen that a jury in France
are judges of the law as well as the fact, for their
verdict materially influences the sentence.
When a simple verdict of guilty is given in
cases of murder, the criminal is executed as a
matter of course, unless the Court of Appeal or Cas-
eation should think fit to decide some point in his
favour and save his life. The jury can do so, how-
ever, in their own proper discretion or judgment,
and the judge has no power to overrule the verdict
which saves a murderer's life. It is important to
remark, too, that it is not requisite for the jury to
be unanimous. Aspe's life is safe, because " the
majority" have discovered " extenuating circum-
stances." It is, I think, impossible that an English
jury could form such an opinion from the proved
facts of the case. This was a " murder most foul,
as in the best it is. " Aspe is a vulgar and brutal
villain. He is married and keeps two wine shops,
one or both the resort of the worst characters. The
murdered woman had charge of one of these shops.
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wereme
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ehmeabnorrtoowpedaymhoinseayefereopmtantiemees,
and when she began to be a little importunate for
the return of a portion of her savings he murders
her, and resorts to various artfulful devices to throw
suspicion upon other persons. Not content with the
murder, he severs the head from the body, throws
it into the canal, cuts the limbs into pieces, and
buries them so effectually that some of the portions
have not yet been discovered. With this woman,
too, the married murderer had lived on terms of
criminal friendship. Such are the acts of Monsieur
Aspe, of Toulouse, and such the circumstances which
the jury of Toulouse are far-seeing enough to con-
sider susceptible of " extenuation." Aspe, on hear-
ing the verdict, we are told, hid his face with his
hands, and, under a deep convulsive movement, his
I sobbings redoubled. He then exclaimed, " I am
innocent !" and fell down insensible. The Court
deliberated upon the sentence for a few instants.
The judge, like the jury, seemed to be impressed
with the force of the " extenuating circumstances,"
for he at once consoled the prisoner by telling him
that he was allowed three days to appeal against
even the inconvenience of imprisonment for life.

It appears that six men received serious injuries
at the great fire at Pantin, which I mentioned yes-
terday. The loss is estimated at 800,000 f., but all
the property was insured, so that there will not be
any pecuniary loss to the proprietors.
Among the many valuable demonstrations in
Italy is the composition of a martial hymn by M.
Brofferio, it is said, at the express order of the King.
Tbis hymn is said to be as inspiring and exciting
for the Italians as the " Marseillaise" is to the
French.

A scientific journal says that an engineer of
Paris, M. Lotz, has made such improvements in
locomotive steam-engines as to have the steam un-
der immediate control. Thus omnibuses can be
driven on level roads with perfect ease, and it is
in contemplation to begin the system by organising
a number of them to make the journey along the
boulevards for the Madeleine to the Bastille.
A fearful accident has taken place on the Vin-
cennes Railway. M. Joseph Douet, a merchant
at Varenne-St.-Maur, took his seat at the top of the
carriage from the Paris station. The train had just
reached Trou-a-Sable when M. Douet changed his
place in order to light his cigar. He did not take
notice that the train was entering the Reuilly tun-
nel, and his head was dashed against it with such
violence that a portion of the skull was dashed off.
Death was instantaneous.

I did not see anything about Stephens in the last
New York papers received in Paris, but the Siecle
says it has received private letters from North Ame-

rica stating that he arrived in New York on the 10th

inst. The letter adds that Fenianism is in a rapid
state of dissolution in America. O'Mahony and Ro-
berts mutually reproach each other with being the
cause of the failure of the Eastport expedition.
The Etoile d'Orient, a French paper, published at
Constantinople, which arrived in Paris to-day,
gives some curious particulars respecting the great
Turkish fetes of Courban Bairum. It was on Wed-
nesday, April 23, that these fetes were inaugurated
by the Sultan. His Majesty went first to the
mosque of the Sultan Mohammed, where he offered
up the morning prayer. The Imperial procession
then repaired, to the sound of cannon and trumpets,
towards Zali-Kios, where after the usual formalities
had been concluded, the Sovereign with his " august

hand (so says the account) and with a golden knife,
killed the sheep, which the Prophet has ordered to
be offered as a holocaust to God at a certain period
of the year. Such is Turkish fanaticism, that a
soldier tranquilly cut his throat on the bridge of
Karakani, crying out suddenly just at the moment
that he did so as a sacrifice to the Padischah.
Cellier, the convict, at the House of Detention at
Riom, who murdered the keeper and a fellow priso-
ner, under the circumstances which I described, has
just been found guilty before the Court of Assize for
the department of Puy de Dome, and was sentenced
to death. On receiving sentence, he heartily
thanked the President and the jury. When he
returned to the prison he joyously sang a song
about the guillotine and his fellow-prisoners joined
in the chorus.

An individual has just died from hydrophobia at
Aubagne, near Marseilles, forty-eight hours after
being bitten by a mad dog. He was taken to the
hospital, but refused to have the wound cauterised.
His wife was also bitten by the dog, but has not
experienced any ill effects from the occurrence, but
a surgeon attended to her wound immediately.
The King and Queen of the Belgians are expected
in Paris early next month, on a visit to the Em-
peror and Empress. The critical state of affairs in
Germany, it is said, will probably detain their Ma-
jesties in Paris for two or three weeks.
There is a sensible rise in the temperature to-day,
but it is still very windy, cloudy, and unusually
dusty. A storm seems impending.

LATEST INTELLIGENCE.

(REUTER'S TELEGRAM.)

THE WAR CRISIS.
TRIESTE, MAY 24 (Evening).
It is reported here that an Italian patrol appeared
to-day on the frontier, on the Caffaro, and took
away the half of the bridge on the Italian side of
that river.

VIENNA, May 25.

The Neue Freie Presse asserts that Austria has
consented to the discussion of the Venetian question
by the Congress on the basis of territorial com-
pensation.

The withdrawal of the prohibition against the
exportation of corn was ordered by the Emperor at
the request cd Saxony.

BERLIN, May 25.

In case of war Prussia intends to convoke a
German Parliament to meet in Berlin, and to which
will be admitted all representatives from the dif-
ferent German States who are returned on the
electoral basis of the number of inhabitants.
POTSDAM, May 25.

At the baptism of the infant princess, which took
place yesterday, the royal infant was held during
the ceremony by the King of Prussia and the
Princess Marie of Ilohenzollern.

The Prince of Hohenzollern, father of the
Roumanian Hospodar, was not present. His ab-
sence, it was stated, was caused by the fact of his
preparing to take his departure for the Principalities
at the invitation of the Roumanian deputation.
BRUSSELS, May 25.

Prussia has confidentially proposed to Russia a
marriage between the Prince of Hohenzollern and
the Princess Eugenie Maximianovna Romanovska
of Leuchteuberg.
It is doubtful whether Russia will accept the
proposal.

DRESDEN, May 25.

The Saxon Chambers will meet to-morrow, and
will be formally opened by the King in person on
Monday, the 28th inst.

THE PRINCIPALITIES.

BUCHAREST, MAY 23.

Prince Charles of Hohenzollern delivered the
following speech on the occasion of his visit to the
National Assembly :
"Elected to the throne by the free act of the
Roumanian people, I have forsaken my country and
my family. Henceforth lam a Roumanian. My
election by the plebiscite lays upon me important
duties, which I trust I shall fulfil. I bring you a
loyal heart, sincere intentions, a firm determination
to do good, unlimited devotion to my new father-
land, and an unalterable respect for your laws. I
am resolved to share the good and evil fortune of
Roumania, and wish that between us everything
may be in common. Let us strengthen each other
by union, and endeavour to surmount every diffi-
culty.

"Providence, which has hitherto protected me,
and has removed all the obstacles in my way, will
not leave its work undone.

" Long live Roumania !"
BUCHAREST, MAY 24 (Evening).
A new Ministry has been formed, composed as
follows :
President of the Council and

Minister of the Interior M. LUSCAR CATARDJI
Foreign Affairs
War JEAN GIIIKA.
Finance
Public Worship ROSETTI.
Justice , JEAN CANTACUZENE.
Public Works DEMETRIUS STOURDZA.

CHINA.

SHANGHAI, April 9 (Via Trieste).

Six thousand more Imperial troops, in addition
to 2,000 from Pekin, have been sent from Shanghai
to the province of Shantung to meet the rebels, who
are assembled there in large numbers.

The Government is said to be offering Mandarin
buttons to the rebel chiefs, upon condition that they
swear allegiance.

The ice at Nevahans (?) has broken up, and the
port is now open.
Petty disturbances have occurred there, in con-
sequence of which the English Consul has re-
quested settlers to be constantly armed.
Two thousand boxes of tea have been shipped by
the overland steamer.

10. en,

The coolies on board the Italian ship Napoleon
Canivers revolted, and fired the vessel ; 620 coolies
were burned.

Advices from Japan announce the arrival of the
left wing of the 9th Regiment.

AMERICA.
ARRIVAL OF THE ETNA.

QUEENSTOWN, May 25.

The Inman Company's steamer Etna, from New
York on the 12th inst., arrived at 9 a.m. to-day.
She brings the mails, $477,731, and £2,000 in
specie, and 219 passengers, 54 of whom she landed,
and proceeded at 9 10 a.m.
Her telegraphic advices have been anticipated.

ARRIVAL OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
SOUTHAMPTON, May 25.

The North American Lloyds steamer Mississippi,
from New York on the 10th inst., passed the
Needles at 9 40 a.m. to-day.
Her news has been anticipated.

sensible rebound in the quotations of all the prin-
cipal Securities. The following amounts are posted
up for " discounting" to-day, viz —285,000 f. Three
per Cents. ; 105,000 f. Italian Fives; 300 Mobilier
Shares; 200 Lombards, &c. Threes, for the Account
are being dealt in at an advance of 40c., viz., 63f.
75c.. Italian Fives, at first quoted below 39f., and
afterwards reaching 40f., are now doing at 39f. 50c.,
or an improvement of 45c. Credit Mobilier Shares
are 10f. better, at 515 f. ; Spanish Mobilier 3f. 75c.,
at 248 f. 75c. ; Credit Foncier 10f., at I,llof. ;
and Comptoir d'Escompte 10f., at 682 f. 50c. In
the Railway Department, Lyons show an advance
of Bf. 75c., to 895 f. ; Austrian of 5f., to 300 f. ;
and Lombards of 2f. 50c., to 292 f. 59c. Immo-
biliere Shares have improved 6f. 25c., the price
being 376 f. 25c.

Three o'clock.—The market has closed on the
following quotations :

41 per Cents 92 75

Bank Shares 3370 -r
Italian Loan 39 80
Do. end month 39 85
Mexican Loan 32
Do. Bonds 233 75
Spanish Threes
Home Debt —
Deferred -
rAYB.

mon

3 per Cents.
Do. end month 63 83

Credit Alobilier 515
Do. end month 516 25
Credit Foncier —
Do. end month 1115

RAIL'

For Account.
Orleans 797 50
Northern 1055
Lyons and Mediterranean........., 791 25
Southern 523 75
Western 520
Eastern 497 50
Austrian
Lombard 292 50

North of Spain
Saragossa
Ditto to Barcelona
Roman

LITERATURE.

115 -
147 -

Miss Braddon's New Novel.
The Lady's Mile. Three Vols. By the Author of
" Lady Audley's Secret." Ward, Lock, and Tyler.

Miss Braddon has yet to write a dull book—if
she can ! She has yet to write one, the fate of which
shall be other than successful almost upon the in-
stant of its appearance. Call this luck, if you will,
but there the fact is, and, to say the least of it, it
presents to view a very remarkable coincidence. No
one that has ever read any one among her eight
three-volumed novels—a very library of fiction in
itself, extending now to two-and-thirty volumes
octavo, volumes written, bear in mind, by a
single hand within the lapse of a very few years in-
deed—.can complain that he or she, as the case
may be, has been wearied in their perusal by
even a passing sense of tediousness. That, surely,
is much of itself to begin with, but that is not all.

Miss Braddon, in undertaking to build up for her-
self a reputation as a Popular Novelist—and that
she has done so no one will care to deny, even the
most captious and carping of the cavillers by whose
depreciative criticisms she has been assailed at
times with, as it appears to us, a sort of vulgar acri-
mony very ludicrous to see, because so absolutely
uncalled for and unprovoked—Miss Braddon we say,
in building up for herself her reputation as a Popular
Novelist, has looked first of all, in the writing of
every one of the Eight famous three-volumed Stories
she has now penned, to the telling of her story, to
the construction of some plot that shall be inte-
resting throughout, to the enthrallment (so far as
may be in any way within her capacity as a tale-
teller) of all the readers, young or old, coming to
her pages for entertainment. The " story" with
her, in other words, is her first consideration. Sup-
plementary to that comes every other consideration.
The delineation of character, the display of her
descriptive powers, the manifestation of her sense
of the humorous or of the pathetic, of the terrible,
or of the beautiful—all these things are purely
subsidiary. A tale-teller she is, and feels her-
self to be, above all—a bas blue never ! Her
evidences of reading, her revelations of a delightful
familiarity with the literature of her own country,
and of other countries, are all apropos, are all casual,
parenthetical, purely by-the-way—are never once,
so to speak, dragged in by the head and shoulders
from any feeling of affectation, still less of
ostentation. It is precisely because of all this, and
because she can relate a story worth listening to,
and in language that it is a pleasure to read—so
clear and diaphonous is it in its lucidity—that, one
after another, she has, in a manner, taken the town,
by storm, season after season, with one or two
tales that every reader of novels feels somehow
constrained to read, and that every one of those
readers, once beginning, reads on until the
end—delighted with, by a sort of easy captivation.
So it has been with her.eight well-thumbed fictions
—one after another—Lady Audley's Secret, and
Aurora Floyd, and Eleanor's Victory, and Only a
Clod, and Henry Dunbar, and The Doctor's Wife,
and John Marchmont's Legacy, and now last,
and not by any means least, of the well-known
series, this newly-completed novel of The Lady's
Mile. The mere enumeration above of the title of
its seven predecessors will have reminded those who
are already acquainted with Miss Braddon's capa-
bilities as a novelist that she has hitherto written not
one dull book among those seven. Having said
which, we may premise at once in regard to
this eighth that it is a book to match those
seven predecessors, for inasmuch as it is the
pleasantest reading throughout—for inasmuch
as it is never dull for inasmuch as the
story is interesting in itself, and, besides that, is
told interestingly. It is only fair to Miss Braddon
herself, however, and to her readers also, that we
should add immediately, thereupon, that in writing
it our authoress may be said to have turned over a
new leaf. In " The Lady's Mile" she is hardly at
all—nay, we don't think she is in any way at all—
what people have long since come to speak of,
and know as, Sensational. The incidents flow
on in a manner equably, so to express it—never
once in jerks and spasms. Golden - haired
criminals, black-eye-browed bigamists, slangy
grooms, and blackguard dog-fanciers, no longer
people her chapters cheek-by-jowl with more respect-
able specimens of 'our mixed society in thes e
modern times. But instead of all this—we have,
as the title might lead one to anticipate before
opening the first volume —ladies and gentle-
men ad libitum, artists and merchants, bar-
risters, and country gentlemen, officers in the
army, and members of Parliament, just the class of
people one may see aethis time of the year in the
saddle or rolling in their carriages along the well-
watered sweep of " The Lady's Mile," Hyde-
park, midway between Knightsbridge and Bays-
water. The Lady Cecil Chudleigh, orphan daughter
of Lord Aspendell is the heroine of the story—
a fair exemplar enough of your high aristocrat, one
wanting sadly no doubt in a certain mysterious
quality called " go ;" but having, we are told, a pro-
file like a cameo and a style in its way unexception-
able. Speaking of her, in fact (that is, of the Lady
Cecil) we are informed by our authoress that a gen-
tleman of the genus Swell was thus heard to re-
mark about the heroine of " The Lady's Mile"
upon one occasion :—" If polygamy were admis-
sible," quoth ue, " I'd marry Lady Cecil to-morrow.
She is the woman of women to sit at the had of
a fellow's table and do him credit in society ; but
if I were going home half-seas-over after a four-in-
hand club-dinner at Richmond, I'd as soon have
Lady Macbeth sitting up for me as LordAspendell's
daughter. Not that she'd be coarse or low, like the
Scotchwoman, you know—not a bit of it. She'd
receive me with a stately curtsey, and freeze me to
death with her classic profile. Egad ! when you
come to think of it, you know, old fellow, there
must be a hitch somewhere in the matrimonial law-
Society doesn't confine a man to one horse; society
doesn't compel him to ride his park-hack across
country, or harness his racing stud to his drag ; and
yet society limits an unhappy beast to one wife ; and
if he marries a nice little indulgent creature who
won't look black at him when he goes home late or
smokes in the dining-room, the odds are that she'll
freeze his marrow by dropping her h's and talking
of her par—who was something in the soap-boiling
way—at an archbishop's state-dinner." Her lady-
ship's ancestral home in North Devou—Chudleigh
Combe by, name—is perfectly in keeping with the
portraiture of her own fair self—Chudleigh,
having among its adornments, we learn—besides
" a handsome collection of Oriental china, and a
good deal of quaint old furniture ; brass-inlaid chests

of drawers, wherein Evelina and Cecilia might have
kept their finery ; Indian secretaires, at which Cla-
rissa Harlowe might have written her famous let-
ters ; high-backed chairs, on which Sir Charles
Grandison might have sat, gentlemanlike and un-
bending." As for the hero of the tale—Hector
Gordon—when we are first introduced to him, Cap-
tain, afterwards Colonel of his Regiment--he is
a tall, handsome, accomplished specimen of
what an officer and a gentleman ought to
"ae, and withal a charmingly fresh illus-
tration of those rare paces discoverable in
your high-bred Scotchman, graces that our autho-
ress asks, with seeming surprise, "Has any one ever
sung ?" Adding, thereupon, to her own inquiry—
" What words can fairly describe the nameless
fascination which has a dash of the Irishman's insi-
dious flattery, a spice of the Frenchman's brilliant
vivacity, but which has a tender softness possessed
by neither, a patrician grace not to be equalled by
any other nationality in the world ? In all the his-
tory of modern Europe, the two people who, by
manner alone, have exercised the most powerful
influence upon their contemporaries, have been Mary
Queen of Scots, and her great-grandson Charles
Stuart. Of all the poets, who has ever so enthralled
the hearts of women as George Gordon, Lord Byron,
whose maternal lineage was Scotch ? Of all lovely
and fascinating women whose names will be remem-
bered in the future, is there any fairer or lovelier than
Eugenie Marie de Guzman, Countess of Teba, Em-
press of the French, and scion of the Kirkpatricks
of Closeburn ?" Mention might here also have
been made by Miss Braddon of that paragon
of paragons, the Admirable Crichton, about the
noblest specimen of all, surely, of your high-
bred Scotchman I It is with the old well-born,
thrifty aunt of them both— by the way (that is, of
both hero and heroine)—Mrs. Maclaverhouse—
that Lady Cecil is living as companion when she
first makes the acquaintance of Captain Gordon on
his return from India on sick leave A curious old
dame whose love of economic arrangements, not to
talk of her appetite for the partng of cheeses or the
skin of flints, is happily indicated among other
similar remarks by the following :

"Don't tell me that I've known them for years and
never known them rob me !" exclaimed the widow.
[She is talking of her attendants.] " They may
have robbed me without my knowing it, or they may
not have robbed me because I never gave them the oppor-
tunity ; and they may begin to rob me to-morrow if they
get the chance. Look at the Bishop of Northlandshire's
butler, who had lived with him thirteen years, and ran
away with five hundred pounds' worth of plate in the
fourteenth. Look at Sir Harry Hinchliffe's vallet, who
was such a faithful creature that his master left him an
annuity of two hundred a year ; which he would have en-
joyed very much, no doubt, if he hadn't stripped the house
while his benefactor's corpse was lying in it, and had not
been transported for life in consequence. Don't talk to
me about honesty, Cecil. If Mrs. Krewson is an honest
woman, why do her eyes sparkle so when I order a large
joint, and why are two quarts of Bisque barely enough for
six 1"

Other heroes and heroines there are of course
whose histories are related in the ravelling and
unravelling of the thread of the narra-
tive of this new story of Miss Braddon's,
hight "The Lady's Mile"—others, we mean, besides
the two principal ones just now particularised, to
wit, Lady Cecil and Captain Gordon. There are,
for example, Philip Foley, the young artist,
and Florence Crawford, the coquettish daughter
of William Crawford, the great academician. Again,
there is this very father of Florence's, Mr. Craw-
ford, R.A., and the fastidious and elegant young
widow, Mrs. Champernowne. Neither Hector and
Cecil—nor Philip and Florence make a match of
it, as it happens 1 Hector marrying in India—Lady
Cecil espousing a big Irish barrister—and Florence
taking as her husband what an English dealer
in slang would call a " Cad," and what a Yankee
dealer in slang would term a "Cuss," one Mr. Lobyer.
of Lobyer cotton mills, Lancashire. Further than
this we will afford no clue whatever through the
winding labyrinth of the plot. We are tempted
to give, however, in extenso, as perhaps the most
touching incident of all in the narrative, the fol-
lowing :
It was the middle of August, and the picture wanted
little more than a week's work for its completion, when
the painter yielded for the first time to that languid feel-
ing in the eyelids, and abandoned his work in order to in-
dulge in a brief siesta. All the clocks of Kensington had
just struck three, and the vibration of the different chimes
came floating across the painter's garden. It was an al-
most insupportable summer day—sultry and oppressive—
the day of all others on which the hardest worker is apt to
be seized with a distaste for his labour.

" It's no use," said Mr. Crawford, as he gave a last look
at his canvas ; " I can scarcely see the colours lam using.
I can't stand against this drowsiness any longer."
He threw himself upon a sofa, a noble couch of strictly
classic form, upon which had erst reclined Aspasia the
wise and beautiful, or at any rate the dark-haired mcdel
who had sat for the Grecian beauty ; that maligned en-
chantress who sinned against poetry by descending from a
Pericles to a cattle-dealer. The painter fell asleep almost
immediately ; but for some time after he had lain down he
had a dim consciousness of pain above his eyebrows. By
and by, however, the slumber grew deeper; he no longer
heard the bees humming in his roses, the subdued roll of
distant wheels. He fell into a long dreamless sleep, from
which he awoke at last very suddenly, with a feeling that
he had slept for many hours. _

He had slept for a very long time as it seemed, for it was
quite dark when he awoke.
"No more work to-day," he thought with a sigh. "I
counted on getting an hour between five and six. Why
hasn't Dimond lighted my lamps ?"
The painter groped his way to the bell and rang vio-
lently.
" What a night !" he muttered ; " there must be a
storm brewing. I haven't known it as dark as this all the
summer."
He stood by the mautlepiece waiting. The window
was opposite him, and he felt the warm summer air float-
ing in upon him where he stood. But he could not even
define the broad opening of the window through the pro-
found darkness.
"Lights, Dimond," he said impatiently, as the man
opened the door.
"Lights, sir ?"
"Yes ; of course. Why have you left the lamps till this
time ? Why isn't that passage lighted ?"
" But it's so early, sir—not much after five—and such a
bright afternoon. I didn't think you'd like me to light the
gas yet awhile,"
" Not much after five o'clock !" repeated the painter in a
tone of utter stupefaction.
t‘ No, sir ; just a quarter past by your own clock, sir."
"And a bright afternoon ?" he asked in the same tone.

" Well,—of course, sir, I don't presume to say as re-
gards paintin' ; but in a general way a very bright after-
noon."

4, 0 my God !" cried the painter suddenly.
The servant ran to his Master, alarmed by that sudden
exclamation, which sounded like a cry of agony.
"Is anything the matter, sir ?"
"No ; go—go and get me a cab —immediately—l must
go out—and I shall want you to go with me."

" Me, sir 2"
" Yes, you, sir ! Go at once man, for God's sake—arid
lose no time about it."

The servant departed in bewilderment of mind, and
William Crawford groped his way through the outer dark-
ness to the nearest chair. He sunk into the chair, covered
his face with his hands, and burst into tears.
'; Blind!" he cried ; "blind ! blind ! I said I had
nothing but my art, and now my art is lost to me."
He sat with his head bent forward on his breast, staring
hopelessly into the darkness. Strain his eyeballs as he
might, they could not pierce that darkness. He saw no
Psyche and the Zephyrs, no lovely images created by his
hand, no bright glimpseof summer sunshine on the smooth
green lawn, no changing light upon the summer flowers,
no tender shadows from the grand old cedars—only dark-
ness, utter darkness ; beyond which it might be that his
eyes were never again to penetrate.
"Cab, sir," said the man, presenting hitnself in the door-.
way.

" Come here, Dimond," William Crawford said very
quietly; "come close to me, and give me your arm, please.
I beg your pardon if I was impatient just now, but I have
had a great shock. I have been working too hard lately,
and have injured my sight. God only knows whether
the injury is to be a lasting one ; but for the moment I am
quite blind. I think perhaps I shall manage bettor if you
give me your hand to lead me to the cab. I must go at
once to an occulist, and I shall want you to go with me."
Our authoress herself acknowledges (p. 149, Vol. I.)
that " there is no finer tonic for the true worker
than adverse criticism" ; observing, moreover, that
whereas " the friend's lavish praise may enervate :
the foe's hardest usage braces and fortifies."
Wherefore we would here, before closing these
remarks of ours upon " The Lady's Mile," throw
out the hint (not as foe. be sure, but far rather
as one among the many friends she has won to her-
self by her writings) that the capital portraiture
she has given here in this new book of herself of the
burly boisterous Irish Advocate, Mr, O'Boyneville,
would have been much more humorously pencilled

to the life, if she had not so unnaturally made him
upon any and every occasion, do—what
.bar-
risters, as a rule, never do—talk shop ! It is an
error of art on the Novelist's part, as a delinea-
tion of her contemporaries. Again— while that
odious " Cad" or " Cues" as we have called him,
Mr. Lobyer to wit, is rather too distinctly sugges-
tive of a combination of Toots' and the Game
Chicken—Mr. O'Boyneville is after his fashion sug-
gestive of a rolling into one and the same person of
Mr. Boythorne and Mr. Striver. It seems very cap-
tious, however, to take even these exceptions to
The Lady's Mile—seeing that this last among Miss
Braddon's eight brilliant three-volumed- novels is,
as a pictare of every day life, not only to our
thinking delightful throughout, but, as a whole,
true, both in its outlines and in its colouring, to
that mixed society of which its gifted artist intends
it to be another life-like delineation.

`f- •!t
, Olf /kJ.
UMW:

HER MAJESTY•

WINDSOR CASTLE, Thursday.
This day her Majesty completed her 47th year.
The Queen drove in the grounds yesterday
afternoon and walked and drove again this morn-
ing, accompanied by her Royal Highness Princess
Helena.
Their Royal Highnesses Princess Louise, Princess
Beatrice, and Prince Arthur also walked and drove. •
Their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess
of Wales, attended by the Countess of Macclesfield
and Major Teesdale, and Prince Alfred, attended
by the Hon. Eliot Yorke, arrived at the Castle
this morning, and remained to luncheon.
Count Gleishen also arrived and remained t°
luncheon.
Prince Arthur arrived at the Castle vesterdah
attended by Major Elphinstone.

The Prince and Princess of Wales.
The Prince and Princess of Wales, accompanied
by Prince Alfred, visited the Queen at Win°
Castle yesterday morning.
Their Royal Highnesses dined with the Pike
and Duchess of Sutherland, at Stafford House, ill
the evening.

Her Majesty will leave Windsor Castle to-dal
for Cliveden, the Duchess (Dowager) of Sutherland's sea'
near Maidenhead, where her Majesty will pass a fortnight'
surrounded by her family.
Their Royal Highnesses the Prince and PrinCel
of Wales will leave Marlborough House on Monday ne
for Titness, near Ascot, for the race week. The prince an
princess return to town on Saturday, the 2d proxirae•
Prince and Princess Cellinci are expected the
day at Cataldi's Hotel, Dover-street, from Rome, for the
season.
The Duke of Somerset, as First Lord of t 11:
Admiralty, will give a full-dress dinner to-morrow evenj/3'
at the Admiralty. n'a
The Marquis and Marchioness of Hastings, 3
Sir Piers and Lady Mostyn have left the St. Cite°r6e
Hotel. the
The Marquis d'Andigne has arrived at

Clarendon Hotel, from Paris.
ed
The Earl and Countess Granville are expec-
f
to arrive at their residence in Bruton-street to-daY
Walmer Castle.
party
of
The Earl Russell will receive a select
peers at dinner to-morrow in celebration of her gaies''°
birthday.