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it is fed by a gentleman of the family; if a girl, by a lady." The account of the proceedings on this occasion, as given by the Japanese Record of Ceremonies, is decidedly amusing to the European mind, but is somewhat too long for quotation here.

When he is three years old, the Japanese infant is invested with a sword belt, and four years later with two diminutive swords, if he belong to the privileged class. The child's head is completely shaved until he is close upon four years old, and then three patches are grown, one at the back and one at each side. On this occasion the Record of Ceremonies ordains that "a large tray, on which are a comb, scissors, paper-string, a piece of string for tying the hair in a knot, cotton wool, and the bit of dried fish or seaweed which accompanies presents, one of each, and seven rice straws these seven articles must be prepared." In another year's time the child is put into the loose trousers peculiar to the privileged class, and he is then presented with a dress of ceremony, on which are embroidered storks and tortoises (emblems of longevity; the stork is said to live a thousand years, the tortoise ten thousand), fir-trees (which being evergreen, and not changing their colour, are emblematic of an unchangingly virtuous heart), and bamboos (emblematic of an upright and straight mind.)" Soon after

the child has reached his fifteenth year, a fortunate day is chosen on which the forelock is cut off, and at this period, being considered a man, he is entrusted with swords of ordinary size; and on this occasion in particular great family festivities and rejoicings take place in honour of the auspicious event. The lad then comes of age, and, casting away childish things, adopts the dress of a grown-up man in every particular. Japanese youths are said to be quite equal to the occasion, and, even at this early age, to adapt themselves most readily to the habits of manhood.

At the stages in his life which we have alluded to, the child has a sponsor, and certain wine-drinking customs and prescribed festivities have to be carefully attended to.

Some Japanese must have a string of names, awful to contemplate, if strict custom be always adhered to; for, besides the name which he receives shortly after his birth, Humbert tells us that "he will take a second on attaining his majority, a third at his marriage, a fourth when he shall be appointed to any public function, a fifth when he shall ascend in rank or in dignity, and so on until the last, the name which shall be given him after his death, and inscribed upon his tombthat by which his memory shall be held sacred from generation to generation."

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SOMEBODY has been writing in one of the papers about the base sovereigns that are curcomposed of platinum, and very hard to detect; and he goes on to say:-" At present, if a man offers a false coin, having a similar false coin in his possession, the statute throws upon him the onus of satisfactorily proving his own innocence. But, if many of AFFECTIVE FACULTIES. Having much of these false sovereigns are about, it is quite one of the affective faculties, we do not like possible that an innocent man should have to be exposed to the acute exercise of the two of them in his possession at once. In- same faculty in others. A person with large deed, the only practical advice of which the veneration shrinks from being an object of position admits is that we should never accept veneration to others. (To one with large selfa sovereign in change, except from our bank-esteem, the veneration of others is, on the ers." What practical advice! and what rich people we must all be! Pray, how many per cent. of our respectable population have banking accounts? We are reminded of the man in one of Mr. Gaskell's novels, who, out at dinner, was perfectly astounded that his hosts did not grow their own pineapples. "No pinery!" he said, in accents of condolence. Let us all join in pitying the man without a

contrary, agreeable.) One with large acquisi tiveness detests being subjected to the action of powerful acquisitiveness in his neighbours. It has often been observed that individuals who are much given to jesting at the expense of their fellow-creatures cannot endure to be the subject of other people's jokes, and that great censurers and reprovers hate to be in the least rebuked or found fault with.

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For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. But we do not prepay postage on less than a year, nor when we have to pay commission for forwarding the money; nor when we club the LIVING Age with another periodical.

An extra copy of THE LIVING AGE is sent gratis to any one getting up a club of Five New Subscribers. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & GAY.

HORATIAN LYRICS.

HORACE TO VIRGIL

ODE III. OF BOOK I.AD VIRGILIUM.

"Sic te Diva, potens Cypri."

MAY that lovable Goddess, the Cyprian Queen, And the brothers of Helen, that bright constellation;

And from every foul wind may old Æolus

screen

Thy bark, for he rules all the winds in creation.

And O ship-that art trusted e'en now to

convey

My Virgil to Athens, the land of the stranger

Bring thy passenger home in all safety, I pray, And save the best half of my Being from danger.

That man must have had a thrice-fortified heart

Of oak or of brass, who first tried navigation;

From the shelter of port who had courage to part,

And to face a sou'-wester without consternation.

A wind that, when met by his foe the nor'-east, Lays about in a way that is perfectly frantic ; Lashes Adria's waves till they're foaming like yeast,

And rouses or soothes the uncertain Atlantic.

What manner of death could that mariner dread,

Who could look the sea-snake in the face without winking; Who could gaze on the breakers, with foam

shivered head,

As they rose all around him, and dreamt not of shrinking?

In vain a wise. Providence severed the lands, And girdled them round with the streams of old Ocean;

Since to shipbuilding men turned their impious hands,

And would find, if they could, the Perpetual Motion.

Mankind are in mischief a go-ahead race,

Forever inventing and hunting for evil; Prometheus- I cite him in proof of my case — Brought fire down to mortals, in league with the Devil.

And ever since fire was brought down from the skies, Consumption and fevers have worried the

nations;

Man's life has grown short since the baking of pies,

He has ruined his stomach by cooking his

rations.

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you must die and cross death's sabie flood,

Just like a pauper, or a common "hatter."

Our lines in one great Central Station meet;

From out the dread urn each one's ticket's shaken

Sooner or later; and our final seat
In the Down Train must certainly be taken
When the bell tolls.

Blackwood's Magazine.

KNAPDALE

From The Quarterly Review. PROSPER MERIMEE: HIS LETTERS AND

WORKS.

he was an enigma when living that people are so eager to know everything concerning him when dead. Was his cynicism real or affected? Had he, or had he not, a heart? Did he, or could he, love anything or anybody at any time? Was he a good or bad man? a happy or unhappy one? These are among the problems raised by the letters, and which M. Taine proposes to solve, or assist in solving, by his acute and discriminating "Etude."

The extraordinary amount of interest taken in her is owing to something more than the Parisian love of scandal, gossip, No literary event since the war has or mystery. Prosper Mérimée belonged excited anything like such a sensa- to that brilliant generation of which MM. tion in Paris as the publication of the Thiers and Guizot are the last, and he Lettres à une Inconnue. Even politics will be remembered longer than many of became a secondary consideration for the those by whom he was temporarily outhour, and academicians or deputies of op- shone. His character was no less reposite parties might be seen eagerly ac-markable than his genius; and the costing each other in the Chamber or the strangely contrasted qualities that formed street to inquire who this fascinating and it will be found almost as well worth perplexing "unknown" could be. The studying as his works. It was because statement in the "Revue des Deux Mondes" that she was an English woman, moving in brilliant society, was not supported by evidence; and M. Blanchard, the painter, from whom the publisher received the manuscripts, died most provokingly at the very commencement of the inquiry and made no sign. Some intimate friends of Mérimée, rendered incredulous by wounded self-love at not having been admitted to his confidence, insisted that there was no secret to tell; their hypothesis being that the Inconnue was a myth, and the letters a romance, with which some petty details of actual life had been interwoven (as in "Gulliver's Travels" or "Robinson Crusoe") to keep up the mystification. But an artist like Mérimée would not have left his work in so unformed a state, so defaced by repetitions, or with such a want of proportion between the parts. With the evidence before us as we write, we incline to the belief that the lady was French by birth, and during the early asking for a cup of tea. Sensibility in him years of the correspondence in the posi- was toned down to the point of appearing abtion of dame de compagnie or travelling sent: not that it was; quite the contrary; but companion to a Madame M de there are thoroughbred horses so well broken B, who passes in the letters by their master that, once well in hand, they under the pseudonym of Lady M. no longer venture on a gambol. It appears from one of them that she inherited a fortune in 1843; and she has been confidently identified with a respectable single lady residing in Paris, with two nieces, and a character for pedantry fastened on her (perhaps unjustly) on the strength of the Greek which (as we shall see) she learned from Mérimée.

Lettres à une Inconnue. Par Prosper Mérimée, de l'Académie Française. Précédées d'une Etude sur Ménmée, par H. Taine. Paris, 1874.

I have often [he commenced] met Mérimée in society. He was tall, upright, pale, and, with the exception of the smile, he had the look of an Englishman; at least, he had that cold, distant air which checks all familiarity from the first. To see him was enough to feel in him the phlegm natural or acquired, the self-command, the will and the habit of being on his guard. In ceremony above all, his physiognomy was impassible. Even in intimacy, and when he related a droll anecdote,

his voice remained unbroken and calm: no éclat or élan; he told the raciest details, in appropriate terms, in the tone of a man who was

This closely corresponds with the character of Saint-Clair in his novel of the "Vase Etrusque," evidently intended for his own:

He (Saint-Clair) was born with a tender and loving heart; but at an age when we too easily receive impressions which last through life, his too expansive sensibility had provoked the raillery of his comrades. Thenceforward he studied to conceal the outward and visible signs of what he regarded as a dishonouring

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salary of 30,000 francs) in 1853. When he first formed the acquaintance of his Inconnue he was thirty-seven years of age, and a recognized celebrity, if not quite in the fulness of his fame. The precise period is fixed by a letter, dated Paris, February, 1842, in which, apologizing for not sending her some Turkish slippers, he sends a Turkish lookingglass instead. "Perhaps you will like it best; for you strike me as having become still more coquette than in the year of grace 1840. It was in the month of December, and you had on stockings of ribbed silk

that is all I remember." It

Werther when she was cutting bread and butter for the children, or the image of Matilda Pottingen associated by Rogero

with the

Sweet kerchief, check'd with heavenly blue,
Which once my love sate knotting in.
It appears from frequent allusions that
the lady had pretty feet and ankles, and
prided herself on her bottines. He is also
enthusiastic in his praise of her hands,
her hair, and her "splendid black eyes."

We have our doubts whether the original inborn bent of a character was ever changed in this manner : whether a warm, loving nature, with sympathetic yearnings, was ever effaced or kept under so as to impress a general conviction of insensibility. Nor do we think that any man can adopt a bad habit like that of habitually suppressing his most generous and ennobling impulses, without damming up or vitiating their source. He will end was quite in his way to be thinking, when by at least partially becoming in sad ear- he wrote this, of Charlotte first seen by nest what he began by simulating. We have recently seen in the "Autobiography of Stuart Mill" to what extent both head and heart may be impaired by the abuse of the analytical process; and Mérimée, although he suffered less from it, practised it to the extent of rendering anything like a sustained illusion an impossibility. He constantly recalls the scene in "L'Homme Blasé" (or Used-up), when the hero, about to strike, suspends the blow to feel by how many beats per minute the rising emotion has accelerated his pulse. "He passed through life (says M. Taine) en amateur: one can hardly do otherwise when one has the critical disposition by dint of reversing the tapestry, one ends by seeing it habitually on the wrong side. In this case, instead of handsome, well-placed figures, we see All is mysterious in you, and the same fag-ends of thread: it is then difficult to causes make you act in the diametrically oppoengage, with abnegation and as a work-site manner to that in which other mortals man, in a common work to belong even to the party which we serve, even to the school which we prefer, even to the science which we cultivate, even to the art in which we excel; if at times we descend into the mêlée as volunteers, we more frequently hold aloof."

M. Taine has culled some of the most illustrative passages for the purposes of his "Etude;" but we think it best to take the letters as they come, and leave them to tell their own story. The first of the collection, written in Paris and received in England, begins with a reproach:

At

would conduct themselves. You are going into the country; well-this is as much as to say that you will have plenty of time; for there the days are long, and the want of something to do leads to the writing of letters. the same time, the watchfulness and restless1 ness of your dragon being less checked by the Fortunately for the indulgence of his regular occupations of the town, you will have humour, unfortunately perhaps for the more questions to undergo when letters are development of his powers, Mérimée had the arrival of a letter is an event. - Not at brought to you. Moreover, in a country house a small independent fortune and a place all: you cannot write, but, on the other hand, which exactly suited him the inspect- you can receive no end of letters. I begin to orship of historic monuments. He was adapt myself to your ways, and I am now elected a member of the Academy in hardly surprised at anything. For all that, 1843, and of the imperial Senate (with a' spare me, I pray, and do not put to too hard a

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