and intrepid virtue. ¡le became feelingly alive to the misfortunes of doctor Du Jonquay, his mother, and grandmother, although he had no acquaintance with them; and offered them his credit and his purse, without any other object than that of assisting persecuted merit.

truth cannot be irrevocably obtained from one or other of the parties, and made to appear perfectly without a cloud.

The reasons of the general officer are thus far convincing. Natural equity is on his side. This natural equity, which God has established in the hearts of all Upon examination it is found, that this men, is the basis of all law. Ought we hero of disinterested benevolence is a con- to destroy this foundation of all justice, temptible wretch who began the world as by sentencing a man to pay a hundred a lacquey, was then successively an up-thousand crowns which he does not apholsterer, a broker, and a bankrupt, and pear to owe? is now, like La Perron and Tourtera, by He drew bills for a hundred thousand profession a pawnbroker. He flies to the crowns, in the vain hope that he should assistance of persons of his own profes-receive the money; he negociated with a sion. The woman Tourtera, in the first young man whom he did not know, just place, gave him twenty-five louis-d'or, to as he would have done with the banker interest his probity and kindness in assist- of the king or of the empress-queen. ing a desolate family. The generous Should his bills have more validity than Aubourg had the greatness of soul to make his reasons? A man certainly cannot an agreement with the old grandmother, owe what he has not received. Bills, almost when she was dying, by which policies, bonds, always imply that the she gives him fifteen thousand crowns, corresponding sums have been delivered on condition of his undertaking to defray and had; but if there is evidence that no the expenses of the cause. He even takes money has been had and delivered, there the precaution to have this bargain no- can be no obligation to return or pay any. ticed and confirmed in the will, dictated If there is writing against writing, docuor pretended to be dictated by this old ment against document, the last dated widow of the jobber on her death-bed. cancels the former ones. But in the preThis respectable and venerable man then sent case the last writing is that of Du hopes one day to divide with some of the Jonquay and his mother, and it states witnesses the spoils that are to be ob- that the opposite party in the cause never tained from the general. It is the mag-received from them a hundred thousand nanimous heart of Aubourg that has crowns, and that they are cheats and imformed this disinterested scheme; it is he postors. who has conducted the cause which he seems to have taken up as a patrimony. He believed the bills payable to order would infallibly be paid. He is in fact a receiver who participates in the plunder effected by robbers, and who appropriates the better part to himself.

Such are the replies of the general; I neither substract from them nor add to them-I simply state them.

I have thus explained to you sir, the whole substance of the cause, and stated all the strongest arguments on both sides. I request your opinion of the sentence which ought to be pronounced, if matters should remain in the same state, if the

What! because they have disavowed the truth of their confession, which they state to have been made in consequence of their having received a blow or an assault, shall another man's property be adjudged to them?

I will suppose for a moment (what is by no means probable), that the judges, bound down by forms, will sentence the general to pay what in fact he does not owe;-will they not in this case destroy his reputation as well as his fortune? Will not all who have sided against him in this most singular adventure, charge him with calumniously accusing his adversaries of a crime of which he is him

self guilty? He will lose his honour, in In Greece, neither 'basileus' nortytheir estimation, in losing his property.rannos' ever conveyed the idea of absolute He will never be acquitted but in the power. He who was able obtained this judgments of those who examine pro- power, but it was always obtained against foundly. The number of these is always the inclination of the people. small. Where are the men to be found It is clear, that among the Romans who have leisure, attention, capacity, kings were not despotic. The last Tarimpartiality, to consider anxiously every { quin deserved to be expelled, and was aspect and bearing of a cause in which so. We have no proof that the petty they are not themselves interested? They chiefs of Italy, were ever able at their judge in the same way as our ancient pleasure to present a bowstring to the parliament judged of books,—that is, first man of the state, as is now done to without reading them. a vile Turk in his seraglio, and like barbarous slaves, still more imbecile, suffer him to use it without complaint.

You, sir, are fully acquainted with this, and know that men generally judge of everything by prejudice, hearsay, and chance. No one reflects, that the cause of a citizen ought to interest the whole body of citizens, and that we may our selves have to endure in despair the same fate which we perceive, with eyes and feelings of indifference, falling heavily upon him. We write and comment every day upon the judgments passed by the senate of Rome and the Areopagus of Athens; but we think not for a moment of what passes before our own tribunals.

You, sir, who comprehend all Europe in your researches and decisions, will, I sincerely hope, deign to communicate to me a portion of your light. It is possible, certainly, that the formalities and chicanery connected with law proceedings, and with which I am little conversant, may occasion to the general the loss of the cause in court; but it appears to me, that he must gain it at the tribunal of an enlightened public, that awful and accurate judge who pronounces after deep investigation, and who is the final disposer of character.

KING.

King, basileus, tyrannos, rex, dux, imperator, melch, baal, bel, pharaoh, eli, shadai, adoni, shak, sophi, padisha, bogdan, chazan, kan, krall, kong, koenig, &c., all expressions which signify the same office, but which convey very different ideas.

There was no king on this side the Alps, and in the north, at the time we became acquainted with this large quarter of the world. The Cimbri, who marched towards Italy, and who were exterminated by Marius, were like famished wolves, who issued from those forests with their females and whelps. As to a crowned head among these animals, or orders on the part of a secretary of state, of a grand butler, of a chancellor-any notion of arbitrary taxes, commissaries, fiscal edicts, &c., &c., they knew no more of any of these, than of the vespers and the opera.

It is certain that gold and silver, coined and uncoined, form an admirable means of placing him who has them not, in the power of him who has found out the secret of accumulation. It is for the latter alone to possess great officers, guards, cooks, girls, women, gaolers, almoners, pages, and soldiers.

It would be very difficult to ensure obedience with nothing to bestow but sheep and sheep-skins. It is also very likely, after all the revolutions of our globe, that it was the art of working metals which originally made kings, as it is the art of casting cannon which now maintains them.

Cæsar was right when he said that with gold we may procure men, and with men aquire gold,

This secret had been known for ages in Asia and Egypt, where the princes

and the priests shared the benefit between them.

people, on taxation, on customs, &c., let us endeavour by profound reasoning, to establish the noble maxim, that a shepherd ought to shear his sheep, and not to slay them.

As to the due limits of the prerogatives of kings, and of the liberty of the people, I recommend you to examine that question at your ease in some hotel in the towns of Amsterdam.

KISS.

The prince said to the priest,-Take this gold, and in return uphold my power and prophecy in my favour; I will be anointed, and thou shalt aniont me; constitute oracles,, manufacture miracles; thou shalt be well paid for thy labour, provided that I am always master.-The priest, thus obtaining land and wealth, prophesies for himself, makes the oracles speak for himself, chases the sovereign from the throne, and very often takes his I DEMAND pardon of young ladies and place. Such is the history of the shotim gentlemen, for they will not find here of Egypt, the magi of Persia, the sooth-what they may possibly expect. This sayers of Babylon, the chazin of Syria (if I mistake the name, it amounts to little)—all which holy persons sought to rule. Wars between the throne and the altar have in fact existed in all countries, even among the miserable Jews.

We inhabitants of the temperate zone of Europe have known this well for a dozen centuries. Our minds not being so temperate as our climate, we well know what it has cost us. Gold and silver form so entirely the primum mobile of the holy connection between sovereignty and religion, that many of our kings still send it to Rome, where it is seized and shared by priests as soon as it arrives.

When, in this eternal conflict for dominion, leaders have become powerful, each has exhibited his pre-eminence in a mode of his own. It was crime to spit in the presence of the king of the Medes. The earth must be stricken nine times by the forehead in the presence of the Emperor of China. A king of England imagines that he cannot take a glass of beer unless it be presented on the knees. Another king will have his right foot saluted, and all will take the money of their people. In some countries the krale, or chazan, is allowed an income, as in Poland, Sweeden, and Great Britian. In others, a piece of paper is sufficient for his treasury to obtain all that it requires.

Since we write upon the rights of the

article is only for learned and serious people, and will suit very few of them.

There is too much of kissing in the comedies of the time of Moliére. The valets are always requesting kisses from the waiting-women, which is exceedingly flat and disagreeable, especially when the actors are ugly and must necessarily exhibit against the grain.

If the reader is fond of kisses, let him peruse the Pastor Fido; there is an entire chorus which treats only of kisses, and the piece itself is founded only on a kiss which Mirtillo one day bestows on the fair Amaryllis, in a game at blindman's buff-"un bacio molto saporito."

In a chapter on kissing by John de la Casa, Archbishop of Benevento, he says, that people may kiss from the head to the foot. He complains however of long noses, and recommends ladies who possess such, to have lovers with short ones.

To kiss was the ordinary manner of salutation throughout all antiquity. Plutarch relates, that the conspirators, before they killed Cæsar, kissed his face, his hands, and his bosom. Tacitus observes, that when his father-in-law Agricola returned to Rome, Domitian kissed him coldly, said nothing to him, and left him disregarded in the surrounding crowd. An inferior, who could not aspire to a kiss, his superior kissed his own hand, and the latter returned a salute in a similar manner, if he thought proper.

The kiss was ever used in the worship

In the west, there remains of this civility only the simple and innocent practice yet taught in country places to children -that of kissing their right hands in re-finally abolished in distrust of the conseturn for a sugar-plumb.

Christians, at present bestow on each other kisses of peace, on departing from their assemblies, and also call one another brother and sister. The ancient ceremony was a kiss with the lips, and the priests have carefully preserved it.

killing, wounding, and betraying, while on this point we dare only whisper."

LANGUAGES.

SECTION I.

It is said that the Indians commence almost all their books with these words: "Blessed be the inventor of writing." In the same way we might begin conversation with blessing the inventor of language.

There was no other manner of saluting the ladies in France, Italy, Germany, and England. The cardinals enjoyed the privilege of kissing the lips of queens, even in Spain, though-what is singular -not in France, where the ladies have always had more liberty than elsewhere; In the article ALPHABET we have prebut every country has its ceremonies, mised, that there was never any primiand there is no custom so general buttive language from which all others are chance may have produced an exception.} derivable. It was an incivility, a rudeness, in receiving a first visit from a nobleman, if a lady did not kiss his lips-no matter for his mustachios. "It is an unpleasant custom," says Montaigne," and offensive to the ladies to have to offer their lips to the three valets in his suite, however repulsive." This custom is, however, the most ancient in the world.

We see that the word 'Al' or 'El,' which among some orientals signified God, has no relation to the word 'Gott,' which expresses God in Germany. House,' huis,' can scarcely be derived from the Greek 'domos.'

Our mother, and the languages called mother tongues, have much resemblance. Both have children, who marry into neighbouring countries, and alter their languages and manners. These mothers have other mothers, of whom genealogists cannot discover the origin.

The

If it is disagreeable to a young and pretty mouth to glue itself to one which is old and ugly, there is also great danger in the junction of fresh and vermillion lips of the age of twenty to twenty-five,-earth is covered with families who disa truth which has finally abolished the pute for nobility without knowing whence ceremony of kissing in mysteries and love they came. feasts. Hence also the seclusion of women throughout the east, who kiss only their father and brothers-a custom long introduced into Spain by the Arabs.

Attend to the danger: there is a nerve which runs from the mouth to the heart, and thence lower still, which produces in the kiss an exquisitely dangerous sensation. Virtue may suffer from a prolonged and ardent kiss between two young pietists of the age of eighteen.

It is remarkable that mankind, and turtles, and pigeons, alone practice kissing; hence the Latin word 'columbatim,' which our language cannot render.

We cannot decorously dwell longer on this interesting subject, although Montaigne says, "It should be spoken of without reserve; we boldly speak of

Of the most common and natural Words in all Languages.

Experience teaches us that children are merely imitators; that if nothing was said to them, they would not speak, but would content themselves with crying.

In almost all known countries the first things they say are,—' baba,' papa,' 'mamma,' or such other words, easy to pronounce, which they continually repeat. However, towards Mount Krapak, where it is known that I live, children always say 'dada,' and not 'papa. In some provinces they say 'mon bibi.'

A little Chinese vocabulary is placed at the end of the first volume of the Memoirs on China. I find by this abridged dictionary, that 'fou,' pronounced in a