fat, the thin, the melancholy, the merry, the dissipated, the dyspeptic, the sentimental, the jocose, the blunt, the ceremonious, the courtly, the rude, the critical, the free and easy: one came forty miles out of his way and pronounced the whole thing an imposition and myself a humbug; another insisted upon my getting up at dinner, that he might sit down in my chair, characterised by the confounded guides, as «la chaise de Vandyk; a third went so far as to propose lying down. in the great fourpost bed just to say he had been there, though my wife was then in it. I speak not of the miserable practice of cutting slices of all the furniture as relics. John Murray took an inventory of the whole contents of the house for a new edition of his guidebook, and Holman the blind traveller felt me all over with his hand, as I sat at tea with my wife; and, last of all, a respectable cheesemonger from the Strand, after inspecting the entire building from the attics to the cellar, pressed sixpence into my hand at parting, and said, «Happy to see you, Mr. Vandyk, if you come into the city!»

Then the advice and counsel I met with, oral and written, would fill a volume, and did; for I was compelled to keep an album in the hall for the writers' names.

One suggested that my desecration of the temple of genius would be less disgusting, if I dined in my kitchen and left the ancient dining room as the great artist had left it.

Another hinted that my presence in my own house destroyed all the illusions of its historic associations.

A third, a young lady-to judge by the writing-proposed my wearing a point beard and lace ruffles, with trunk hose and a feather in my hat; probably to favour the illusion so urgently mentioned by the last writer, and, perhaps, to indulge visitors like my friend the cheesemonger.

Many pitied me-well might they!-as one insensible to the associations of the spot; while my very servants, regarding me only as a show part of the establishment, neglected their duties on every side, and betook themselves to ciceronéship, each allocating his peculiar territory to himself, like the people who show the lions and the armour in the Tower.

No weather was either too hot or too cold, too sultry or too boisterous, no hour too late or too early, no day was too sacred. If the family were at prayers, or at dinner, at breakfast, or in bed, it mattered not: they had come many miles to see the château, and see it they would.

Alas! thought I, if, as some learned persons suppose, individuals be recognisable in the next world, what a melancholy time of it will be yours, poor Vandyk! If they make all this hubbub about the house you lived in, what will they do about your fleshly tabernacle?

As the season advanced, the crowds encreased, and, as autumn began, the conflicting currents to and from the Rhine all met in my bed-room. There took place all the rendezvous of Europe. Runaway daughters there first repented in papa's arms, and profligate sons promised amendment for the future. Myself and my wife were passed by unnoticed and disregarded amid this tumult of recognition and salutation. We were emaciated like skeletons: our meals we eat when we could, like soldiers on a retreat, and we slept in our clothes, not knowing at what moment the enemy might be upon us. Locks, bolts, and bars were ineffectual: our resistance only encreased curiosity, and our garrison was ever open to bribery.

It was to no purpose that I broke the windows, to let in the north wind and acute rheumatism; to little good did I try an alarm of fire every day about two, when the house was fullest, and I failed signally in terrifying my torturers when I painted the gardener's wife sky blue, and had her placed in the hall, with a large label over the bed, « collapsed cholera. » Bless your heart, the tourist cares for none of these, and I often think it would have saved English powder and shot to have exported half a dozen of them to the East, for the siege of St. Jean d'Acre. Had they been only told of an old picture, a tea-pot, a hearth-brush-or a candlestick that once belonged to Godfrey de Bouillon or Peter the Hermit, they would have stormed it under all the fire of Egypt. Well, it's all over at last human patience could endure no longer, we escaped by night, got away by stealth to Ghent, took post horses in a feigned name, and fled from the Château de Van

:

dyk, as from the plague. Determined no longer to trust to chances, I have built a cottage myself, which has no historic associations further back than six weeks ago, and fearful even of being known as the ci-devant possessor of the château, never confess to have been in Ghent in my life, and, if Vandyk be mentioned, ask if he is not the post-master at Tervue

ren.

Here then I conclude my miseries. I cannot tell what may be the pleasure that awaits the live lion, but I envy no man the delights that fall to his lot, who inhabits the den of the dead one.

(DUBLIN UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE.)

VOL. I.

59

CENSUS OF THE UNITED STATES.-The editor of the Cincinnati Chronicle has been examining the six returns of the census, taken at intervals of ten years each, since the adoption of the constitution. The investigation shows some curious facts.1. The population of the United States increases exactly 34 per cent, each ten years, and doubles every 24. The law is so uniform and permanent, that, when applied to the population of 1798, and brought to the present time, it produces nearly the result as shown by the census of 1841. And thus we may tell, with great accuracy, what will be the census of 1850. It will be nearly twenty three millions.-2. But, although this is the aggregate result, it is by no means true of each particular part of the country, for New England increases at the rate of 15 per cent, each ten years, while the northwestern states increase 100 per cent, in that period. 3. The slave population increased at 30 per cent, but since at time, at less than 25 per cent. The free population have, however, increased at the rate of 30 per cent. At this rate, therefore, the difference between the free and slave population is constantly increasing.-4. Another fact is, that the coloured population increases just in proportion to the distance south, and that slavery is certainly and rapidly decreasing in the states bordering on the free states. This state of things continued would, in half a century, extinguish slavery in these states,

and concentrate the whole black population of the United States on the Gulf of Mexico and the adjacent states on the southern Atlantic. (CHRONICLE.):

J

NEW WARLIKE INVENTION.-Some highly interesting experiments have lately been made at Portsmouth, for the purpose of ascertaining the application and capabilities of the mantelet, lately invented by Lieut.-Col. Blanchard, of the Royal Engineers, to gun rocket practice, and the result has proved highly satisfactory. Each mantelet requires only two men, one of whom is capable of carrying it nearly a mile, and rockets also; the other carries the gun and sticks. They both advance against the ennemy to the required distance, nearly covered by the mantelet, and when in the act of firing completely so. The same protection from the enemy's musketry is afforded in retiring as in advancing, the two men being so disposed as to admit of this destructive weapon being fired with the greatest safety over the manteleteer 's head, whilst preparing the next round; and such is the accuracy to be acquired by practice, that the rocket may at the distance of 400 yards be fired into an embrasure. One or two mantelets may also be so disposed on the forecastle of ships' boats, that a beach may be swept, or a landing secured, while the rocket party, troops, or boat's crew, are sheltered from the enemy's musketry without impeding the rowers. The application of the mantelet to so formidable a weapon of war as the Congreve rocket, solely originated with, and was suggested to, the inventor of the mantelet by Lieutenant-Col. Menzies, R. H., commanding the Royal Marine Artillery, who has also written an ingenious little drill for its adoption.

(TIMES.)

EARTHQUAKE AT CARTAGO. This calamity took place at 6 o'clock on the morning of the 2nd Sept. In a second, the Department of Cartago has become a total ruin. The destruction is so great that the site of any particular edifice is hardly to be distinguished among the ruins. In the city, the houses, even to the stone-work, were thrown upwards by the shock, and fell down again in heaps of rubbish. It is painful to dwell upon this event. The loss of life is very great