CHILDREN PLAYING ON THE SHORE.

JUST before the sunset,

In the hours of even;
Just before the twilight
Veils her face with blushes,
On the horizon, westward,
Richly interweaven,
Amber, gold, and purple,
From the Day-God flushes:

And the air refreshing

As

Breathes from off the ocean,
upon the low beach
Beat the pulses tidal,
Curling clear as crystal,
With a gliding motion,
Shining in its beauty,
Glitt ring like a bridal.

Lo, the children playing
On the silv'ry sands;
Picking up white pebbles
With their tiny hands;
Little, worthless pebbles,
Yet each one to them
Precious as rare jewel
In a diadem.

Watch them, earnest, digging,
With their wooden spades;
Forming sand-built houses,
Mimic, frail blockades.
So as age advances,

Men form great designs,
That are quickly scattered
By Time's waves and winds.

List their merry prattle
Ringing with delight,
Every little pleasure

Doth their hearts excite.
Hither, thither, straying
Like young birds set free,
Not a glimpse of sadness,
All is bright they see.

They heed not the sunset
Glorious and sublime;
Their lives are but dawning
On the shoals of Time:
Time, for them, is Present,
Nought beyond they dream,
They're like lilies floating
On life's tranquil stream.
Bless those little children,
Happy at their play,
Once we prized such trifles
Just as much as they;
Once, like them, no sorrow
Seared our brows with pain;
Once our thoughts were taintless,
Once no aching brain.

Now our hearts are troubled,
Each day brings its care;
Oh, those joyous children,
Would like them we were.
Those dear days of childhood,
Could we call them back,
Who would wish to wander
From their peaceful track?
Who would yearn for riches,
Toil for transient fame,
That vain glitt'ring bauble,
Ending with-a name?
Ending, when o'erwearied
Hearts have lost desire,
Ending when the last sound
Vibrates on life's lyre?

Yes, I love those children
Sporting on the shore,
The Great Master loved such
In the days of yore;
Took them to His bosom,

Spoke the sweet decree,
"Suffer little children
To come unto Me."

T. J. OUSELEY.

NOTES OF THE MONTH.

NEW FRENCH NOVELS AND ROMANCES.

THE moral and political disquiet of France has had little effect upon literature. The genius of the country, once so bellicose, is becoming daily more mercantile, literary, and practical. That France will not remain quiet under its present afflictions and humiliations, no one doubts; but whilst abiding an opportunity that may not present itself for a long time yet, her vivacious intellects are, when not engaged in political or military controversies, busy alike in the field of belles-lettres, of history, philosophy, and fiction.

It will not perhaps be uninteresting to our readers to inform them as to what has been done worthy of notice in the more popular branches of literature. Among all the well-known names, M. Paul Féval stands foremost for productiveness, if not for talent. His "Quai de la Ferraille" is a real romance of the old school. The epoch is the earlier part of the reign of Louis XIV., when Paris was almost at the mercy of the great Coësre, King of Argot, and of Thunes, Duke of Egypt, bands of malefactors, with whom most are now familiar from Victor Hugo's popular romance. The story concerns three inheritors of an ancient family of Bearn-the noble family of Grailly. These three claimants are no less personages than the Captal de Buch, a title renowned from the days of the Black Prince; Grailly la Taupe, or "the mole;" and De Lescon, a garçon of the good old type, equally pointedly surnamed "Flamberge," or "the torch." This Flamberge, without a coat of mail or a sou in his pocket, is a serio-comic hero. He saves the lives of the two children of his uncle, the Captal de Buch, amidst a hundred perils and dangers; he fights like a lion against the band of "Féroces," organised by Grailly la Taupe and Mariotte la Basquaise, a natural daughter of the prefect of police, Nicolas de la Reynie. Emigrating to America, he becomes a buccaneer, and then returning to his own country, snubs the Grand Monarque, kills his father's assassin, Grailly la Taupe, at the very moment that the latter is about to poison Henrietta of England, and finally marries his cousin, Agénor de Buch, and becomes sole heritor of the Grailly property. One of the best characters in this wild romance is that of the Dame de Saintis, a kind of Don Quixote in petticoats, who wears enormous spectacles upheld by prongs of iron, and translates Livy in doggerel French rhymes.

The "Cavalier Fortune" or fortunate cavalier, according to the ideas of the same author, is indebted for his successes, as well as for his pains and penalties, to his likeness to the Duke of Richelieu, the greatest libertine of the eighteenth century. A soldier of fortune at the onset, he is commissioned to Madrid to bring back certain papers having reference to the conspiracy of Cellamare; he kills one of his competitors on the way, is subsidised by the Duchess of Maine, intrigues at court and in the city, is beaten and wounded by sundry "gentilshommes," who mistake him for a greater personage in disguise, loses his money, goes to sleep in a hole and wakes up beside a corpse, spends a month in the prison of the Châtelet, makes his [escape, and becomes finally prosperous, and, it is to be supposed, happy.

"Maman Léo" is an episode of the interminable story of the "Habits-Noirs," also by Paul Féval. We have the usual personages, the apocryphal Louis XVII., the wonderful detective Lecoq, Toulonnais-l'Amitié, Echalot, Remy d'Arx, and the Père -the old man of unlimited powers, and the father of crimes ever unpunished. M. Paul Féval is taken to task for abusing the mystery of the "Habits-Noirs" as much as Ponson de Terrail has the incarnations of Rocambole.

Maman Marquis, the heroine of the "Tache Rouge," is in every respect a preferable person to Maman Léo. This good lady, who keeps an excellent pension bourgeoise in the Rue Dauphine, for the benefit of students, is no other than Constance-Angèle Lamiral de Thiais, Marquise de Saint-Pierre d'Agave. Ruined in her fortune, and her honour sullied by the Baron Chauffour, a parvenu who preys upon the blood of his victims, Maman Marquis has only one object in view, that of avenging her murdered daughter, rehabilitating her name, exposing the infamous Chauffour, and restoring her fortune to her grand-daughter. She works at this great and difficult enterprise with the greatest apparent indifference, and yet with the most profound and energetic resolve. The development of the plan for action thus traced by herself is carried out with great skill, and if the story is more moral than its predecessor, it is not the less dramatic.

M. Ernest Serret has treated of the "Rancunes des Femmes, an inexhaustible theme. He has, however, treated it in only one of its phases, that of the hostility borne by women towards those men who have not married them. The story of Edouard Dervilliers, a studious young man, the two daughters of M. de la Verpillière, and of the gallant Chevalier Anatole de Pontécourt, is at the best a satire, and that not a very effective one.

The ever juvenile Jules Janin is as full of life, animation, and

malice as ever in his "Petits Romans d'Aujourd'hui." The "Revenant," "La Mi-Carême d'un Convalescent," "Bicêtre Eventre," are so many chef-d'œuvres of their kind. But of all these tales, "La Douane et l'Amour," a kind of romantic olla podrida, in which Pius VII., Napoleon I., Dupaty, Girodet, Colnet, the Vicomte d'Arlincourt, and M. Boucher de Perthes, the most incongruous personages, in the most incongruous country in the world, are made to figure, is by far the best.

M. Victor Cherbuliez, who has hitherto distinguished himself by sketches, which, when not purely descriptive, are rather psychological studies than narratives, as in his "Prince Vitale," "Comte Kostia," and "Prosper Randoce," has at last produced a work with action and movement in it. It is entitled "L'Aventure de Ladislas Bolski," and relates the story of the grandson of a traitor to the Polish cause, and the son of a coward. Ladislas was carefully educated by his mother in utter ignorance of all that related to Poland. Like a true Bolski, he, however, precipitates himself headlong into the vortex of Parisian life. But he is snatched from destruction by Tronsko, a teacher of languages, the very incarnation of patriotism, a man austere almost to ferocity, and who, perceiving the enthusiastic nature of his pupil, submits him, before permitting him to serve his country, to the experiences of study and travel. Ladislas is, however, no sooner in Switzerland than he falls in bondage to a calculating Russian lady—the Countess de Lievitz. Tronsko, the Mentor of this Polish Telemachus, tears him from the unworthy connexion, and sends him on a mission into the very heart of Poland. Ladislas, ever dominated by the passion of the moment, and therefore as ready for good deeds as for evil, starts disguised as a hairdresser, but he betrays himself, and falls into the hands of the Russian police. His evil genius presents itself in his dungeon in the person of the countess, on her way from St. Petersburg, having obtained his pardon on condition that he shall renounce his country. The victim signs the fatal bond upon an assurance that the heartless woman will meet him in a week's time at Geneva, but she deceives him, and sends her maid. Here follows a quid pro quo, in which M. Victor Cherbuliez, from whose pen better things might have been expected, fairly enters into rivalry with M. Pigault-Lebrun. At last, Bolski and the countess are both committed to the depths of the lake of Geneva, whither the work itself might not have been consigned, but for that nocturnal comedy so fatal to its acceptance.

M. Antonin Rondelet, having in view the important yet often overlooked fact, that novels and romances may as much affect conduct in life as the most moral books, uses this pleasant mode of conveying lessons to great advantage. His "Memoires d'un