stroying, and dreadfully destructive weapons, firearms, pistols loaded with slaughter, and murder, and leaden bullets, and gunpowder. Nature has given us arms and hands to fight with, and to defend ourselves; therefore, I say, when we have just provocation we have a right to use them; but as, unfortunately, all men are not of equal size and strength, it is the duty of the strong to protect the weak; and I will not believe that there is a man amongst you, who would not assist another unjustly provoked or assaulted. For this purpose I call upon you this evening to prevent the crime of bloodshed. My conduct in this matter may appear unmanly and out of all order; but I flatter myself I am an independent being, master of my own actions and opinions, and therefore not obliged to follow in the footsteps of every fashionable fool, or coxcomb, who, in the most friendly manner in the world, advises his friend or his brother to fight a duel, because he has received some trifling insult in a moment of passion, which the offending party, perhaps, is sorry for, but, prompted by pride, refuses to confess his error, or to apologise to the offended party.

"The subject of the quarrel in question will not bear examination. Mr. Baring positively stated, when his temper was much excited, that Mr. Oldham told a lie. Perhaps he did-perhaps he did not. Mr. Oldham, equally excited, shakes or assaults Mr. Baring in an ungentle and ungentlemanly way; and now Mr. Baring, being unable to inflict personal punishment on Mr. Oldham, requires satisfaction. Let his friend state what is required." "Nothing less than, as my friend Furnival would express it, a full, ample, complete, undeniable, unequivocal, never-to-be-contradicted, and satisfactory apology," I replied.

"I shall not make any," said Mr. Oldham. "A descendant of Sir Firebrand Oldham make an apology! Never, sir! A man with the best blood in his veins in England! Never!"

"Then on the part of my principal I beg you to consider yourself horsewhipped," said I.

"A descendant of Sir Firebrand consider himself horsewhipped! Never, sir-I shall not consider any such indignity. I-I-why damme, I had rather be horsewhipped than think so. You are making a fool of me, Mr. Furnival."

Tom whispered a few words into his ear, and then returned to his seat, with an unusual smile on his countenance.

"Gentlemen," said he, “Mr. Oldham cannot consent to such humiliation, without punishing the proposer of such a painful proposition; therefore, in order to keep peace and restore harmony, I am allowed to say that he is willing to consider himself horsewhipped, if Baring will consider himself shot."

This is a common method of settling an affair of honour now, but it was quite new when Tom first proposed it; and if laughter could have any avail in calming tempestuous spirits, it certainly had full operation there; and the result was very satisfactory, for the two intended combatants laughed with the rest, and shook hands across the table, consigning for ever the unfortunate subject of their quarrel to oblivion.

PARMA AND MONACO.

Most people recollect the Prince and Princess of Parma in London. They spent the winter of 1848 and the season of 1849 in its circles, where he was the gayest of the gay. His gaiety was, however, not that of the man of fashion, of wit, or of education, but of a great lubberly boy broken prematurely loose from school, and from a very vulgar school. The rudeness, had breeding, and dulness of the Prince were in a great measure contrasted with the gentle and lady-like bearing of the Princess, a daughter, every one knows, of the unfortunate Duke of Berry, and sister of the present Duke of Bordeaux. The Princess, now Regent of Parma in the name of her son, Robert, born in 1849, exemplifies that rule, which so often held good in the Bourbon family, of the women having better head-pieces, higher qualities, and courage than the men. Neither was she wanting in cheerfulness, which, whenever exuberant, she would excuse with the remark, Mon mari est gamin, il faut bien que je gamine.

Poor Parma, famous for its cheese and its Corregios, has certainly been the most ill-used of cities and of districts. For centuries these have been a kind of make-weight, indispensable in accomplishing a balance between contending or negotiating parties whenever a war was to be concluded or begun, whenever an alliance was to be made or broken. Containing merely its two cities-the one a palace, the other a citadel—it was a convenient and decorous spot for the last of a dying dynasty to conclude the term of existence in it; or it was a fair provision for a younger son, or a reward for an ambitious and talented prince; so that to enumerate the number of rulers and sovereigns to whom Parma and Piacenza belonged, would be to rake up the odds and ends of a score of extinct houses and families.

The old princely families of Italy have, however, one by one, been absorbed by the never-dying houses of Bourbon and Lorraine. The Gonzagas, the Estes, the Viscontis, even the Medici, have disappeared; and singular to say, of the many families which became princely through the ambition and exertions of a Pope, not one has survived. The only remarkable instance of a princely Italian family surviving, though not connected with an imperial or a royal court, is that of the Grimaldis, Princes of Monaco. They are a Genoese family, of which the chief contrived to possess himself of a little principality on the declivity of the Alps, as they sink to the Mediterranean. Monaco is about twenty miles from Nice, within the dominions of the King of Sardinia. It is one of the prettiest spots in the world, commanding the finest views, and growing the most beautiful specimens of the olive and the orange. Its being an independent principality, though sorely onerous to it at present, was once of very substantial use,

VOL. XXXV.

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proved by the existence at Mentone in the little Duchy, of a large and respectable colony of Protestants, which, but for the protection of the princely territory, might have been rooted out. Now, however, Piedmont is liberal; and although Roman Catholic, its government, and even the spirit of its Parliament and people, are strongly opposed to intolerance in religion. Mentone, after the death of the present Duke of Monaco, lapses to Piedmont. The reigning Duke takes this exodus of his house with considerable philosophy. He spends his winters on the Italian Boulevard of Paris, and his summers in the groves of Monaco; he is a perfect Sybarite, and exercises no privilege of sovereignty, save that of coining and of making money. He over-inundated France and French Italy with a valueless sort of a penny, which went by the name of a Monaco, which has been cried down, but which the traveller finds very difficult to avoid taking, whenever change is administered. His mint and his customs form the great prerogative of the Duke of Monaco. He charges so much upon every article of export and import, and his subjects are so determined upon not paying these dues, that there is an everlasting feud between his officers and the people, which, however leading to no loss of life, is a continual source of quarrel and extortion. As the kingdom of Sardinia, by which Monaco is surrounded, is now free-trading, tolerant, and constitutional, of course the inhabitants of that principality long for the day of their being united to Piedmont. But some hallucination got possession of the mind of the Duke's son, that the people were more attached to the family of the old rulers than to their own emancipation. The Duke of Valentenois therefore appeared amongst them one fine morning of April, and besought them to support him in war and resistance to the Court of Turin. In fact, he tried to get up an emeute after the manner of Brunswick: the young Duke failed utterly, however. None of his subjects even said so much as God bless him. And some, taking him to be indubitably insane, seized and deposited the heir of the ducal throne in prison.

The worthy Parmesans would have treated their Duke almost at any time in the same way, if they had not been in fear of the Austrians. But, unluckily for them, the Principalities of Parma and of Modena were of the great reigning families of Austria and France. The one a Hapsburg, the, other a Bourbon, both deemed themselves licensed to misrule. It must be confessed, however, that from 1816 to the death of Maria Louisa, the Duchy of which she was given life-possession, was ruled by her, or rather by her husband, with a decorous degree of sagacity and moderation. It was not without difficulty that she obtained the grant. And, indeed, had Napoleon remained quiet at Elba, it is very improbable that his Empress would have been allowed to possess an Italian Duchy. The great anxiety of the Emperor Francis was to prevent all communication between them; and when au imperial agent brought a letter from Napoleon to Vienna for Maria Louisa, the Emperor Francis put it in his pocket. Count

Neipberg was placed about her, as a most discreet chamberlain and an able business man, as well as one with so few personal attractions, that anything like female tenderness towards him was reckoned out of the question. But propinquity does a great deal in these matters, and Count Neipberg, though but one-eyed, having, by his tact and zeal, won Parma for Maria Louisa, she rewarded him with her hand. She was always delighted to receive the French, and appeared to ask pardon for having been so weak as to repudiate the name and memory of the Emperor. In her sad fate, however, she looked for consolation, rather than consulted her historic dignity.

The arrangements of the Congress of Vienna gave Lucca to the representative of that younger branch of the Spanish Bourbons, who had coquetted with Napoleon, and had been favoured by him. Lucca is a very small principality, with little save what can be squeezed from out its baths and olives. Still the Duke managed to amass money, and, indeed, he thought of nothing else, until the decease of Maria Louisa opened to him the succession of Parma. He was in delight. Parma produced from 250 to 300,000 pounds sterling a year. Out of this he might pay a regiment and a few chamberlains, and hoard the rest. His economical views were interrupted by revolution, with which he had not the sagacity to make any compromise, nor the power to make any resistance. He fled.

The great policy, by which such small houses as that of Lucca supported themselves, was by intermarriage. The Duke of Modena obtained an Arch-duchess. The Duke of Parma, believing in royalist restoration, thought it a good speculation to obtain for his son the daughter of the Duchess of Berri. Her brother is, however, not yet King of France, nor to all appearance likely to be so. However, the Prince found money to spend a season gaily in London, and a summer quietly at a little villa in the neighbourhood of Kingston. From hence he was summoned in 1849. The fashion had been set by Austria to dethrone their elder princes, who had not proved able to cope with revolution, and to try what their sons could do to maintain themselves. The present Emperor of Austria ascended the throne, though but a boy, to fall into the hands of the England- and Palmerston-detesting Schwarzenberg. The Duke of Parma was advised in the same manner to resign, and the Prince and Princess of Parma returned to their capital to rule it.

Politics for the Duke and the Prince consisted in having a little money to spend. But unfortunately the revenue of the Duchy in these bad times did not exceed 250,000l. a year. An Austrian army occupying the duchy, and garrisoning Piacenza, was to be paid. The old Duke, also, was to have a handsome retiring allowance. To do all this on 250,000 pounds a year was impossible: the courtiers and ministers of Parma declared, they could no more than pay and feed themselves. The Prince was wrath. He declared that the duties of government being small, could not be too cheaply done. He therefore dissolved this council of

state, turned the ministers out of office, made a clean sweep of boards and public officers, and taking a domestic, whom he had brought from England as a jockey, and who had been advanced to be coachman and groom, he made of him a baron and a prime minister. We have heard that Baron Ward made as good a prime minister as any that had ever held power there since the days of Neipberg. He knew accounts, he discouraged peculation, and managed the princely household with an economy more advantageous than dignified.

This Necker de basse cour did not, however, please the Parmesans. Court and people were against him. He thought education an idle expense, and he very naturally considered a horsewhipping, administered to a turbulent fellow, a very legitimate employment of the police. All the economy in the world, however, was unable to balance the ducal accounts. But the Parmesans were rich, and the Prince and his minister proposed a forced loan. The rich talked of nothing less than another insurrection, which, however, they deferred till Austria could be brought to permit it. And, in the meantime, the Prince thought he would make himself amends for the disfavour of the great and the rich by living "hail-fellow" with the poor. He therefore frequented the taverns and wine-houses of the towns. He had previously made an escapade with an actress, and had gone with her incognito no one knew whither. Parma was without its sovereign for a time, but Baron Ward was there, vigilant enough, and not to be trifled with. At length, whilst ordering a pint of the ducal wine in a common drinking house, the Duke thought fit to upbraid a soldier, who was drinking also, with want of respect to his person. The man replied: the Prince got in a rage. The other, who knew his vindictive character, thought of the stripes and incarceration that awaited him; and, to avoid them, plunged his short sword into the stomach of the degenerate Bourbon. Such was Parma and its Prince in 1854.