guess the purport of her visit. Admit her instantly." "The lady is anxious to be permitted to see your majesty alone," said the usher respectfully. The monarch glanced rapidly about him with a slight inclination of the head, and in a moment the apartment was cleared; while, as the retreating steps of the courtiers were heard in the gallery, a lateral door fell back, and, closely veiled, and enveloped in a heavy mantle, Diana rushed into the saloon and threw herself at the feet of the king, screaming breathlessly, "Mercy! mercy!" "I pity you, madame, from my very heart," said Francis, as he lifted her from the ground, and placed her upon a seat. "Do more, sire," exclaimed Diana, rising and standing erect, her beautiful figure relieved by the sombre drapery which she had flung aside in the effort. "You are a great and powerful sovereign. Do more. Forget that Jane de Poitiers was the friend of Charles de Bourbon, and remember only that he was the zealous and loyal subject of Francis I. The most noble, the most holy of all royal prerogatives, is mercy." "Madame- 99 "Ah, you relent! My father is saved!" exclaimed the grande seneschale; "I knew it I felt it-you could not see those venerable gray hairs soiled by the hands of the executioner." What more passed during this memorable interview is not even matter of history. The writers of the time put different interpretations upon the clemency of the king, Suffice it that the Count de St. Vallier was reprieved upon the very scaffold; and that Madame de Brézé remained at court, where she became the inspiring spirit of the muse of Clemont Marot, who has succeeded, by the various poems which he wrote in her honor, and of which the sense is far from equivocal, in creating a suspicion that it was not long ere she became reconciled not only to the manners but also to the vices of the licentious court, in which thereafter she made herself so unfortunately conspicuous. Some historians acquit her of having paid by the forfeiture of her innocence for the life of her father, from the fact that in the patent by which his sentence was remitted, no mention is made of her personal intercession, and that his pardon was attributed to that of the grand seneschal himself, and others of his relatives and friends; but it appears scarcely probable that Francis would, under any circumstances, have been guilty of the indelicacy of involving her name in public disgrace, aware, as he necessarily must have been, of the suspicion which was attached to every young and beautiful woman to whom he accorded any marked favor or protection. DIANA'S CARE OF HER CHARMS. At this period, 1535, the widow of Louis de Brézé had already attained her thirty-first year, while the Prince Henry was only in his seventeenth; and at the first glance it would appear as though so formidable a disparity of age must have rendered any attempt on her part, to engage the affections of so mere a youth, alike abortive and ridiculous; but so perfectly had she preserved even the youthful bloom which had added so much to her attractions on her first appearance at court, that she appeared ten years younger than she actually was. Her features were regular and classical; her complexion faultless; her hair of a rich purple black, which took a golden tint in the sunshine; while her teeth, her ankles, her hands and arms, and her bust, were each in their turn the theme of the court poets. That the extraordinary and almost fabulous duration of her beauty was in a great degree due to the precautions which she adopted. there can be little doubt, for she spared no effort to secure it; she was jealously careful of her health, and in the most severe weather bathed in cold water; she suffered no cosmetic to approach her. denouncing every compound of the kind as worthy only of those to whom nature had been so niggardly as to compel them to complete her imperfect work; she rose every morning at six o'clock, and had no sooner left her chamber than she sprang into the saddle; and after having galloped a league or two, returned to her bed, where she remained until midday engaged in reading. The system appears a singular one, but in her case it undoubtedly proved successful, as, after having enslaved the Duke d'Orleans in her thirty-first year, she still reigned in absolute sovereignty over the heart of the King of France when she had nearly reached the age of sixty! It is certain, however, that the magnificent Diana owed no small portion of this extraordinary and unprecedented constancy to the charms of her mind and the brilliancy of her intellect. Ar a recent meeting of the Ethnological Society an interesting paper was read from E. G. Squier, our charge des affaires at Guatemala. Mr. Squier has already commenced his antiquarian researches, and forwarded several curious relics to Washington. He gives an account of the recent discovery of an ancient city, buried beneath the forest, about a hundred and fifty miles from Leon, which far surpasses the architectural wonders of Palenque. A curious letter was also read, addressed to the President of the United States, from the last of the Peruvian incas. Samuel G. Arnold, of Providence, who has recently returned from South America, met with the venerable inca, who is ninety years of age. He found him sitting in the shadow of the Temple of the Sun, reading Tasso.-N. Y. Mirror. From the N. Y. Tribune. IT CANNOT LAST. Ir cannot last-this pulseless life, To tear with terror Europe's breast. Peace cannot dwell 'mid armies vast; Content comes not with hunger-pains; The seeming 's false-it cannot last. Though north and west and east and south No crimson flag provokes the blast— Though sealed is Freedom's trumpet mouth, And quenched her fires-it cannot last. Though frightened men in frenzy turn To seek for safety in the past— From moss-grown tomb and mouldering urn Demanding life-it cannot last. Though Despotism bids the sun To stand at midnight's zenith fast, RED FLAG From the Edinburgh Review. icy of recent fiscal regulations, yet agreed in feel1. Die Chemische Forschungen auf dem Gebiete ing that new difficulties only demand new exerder Agricultur und Pflanzenphysiologie. Von tions-and that to resolute men, the conquest of EMIL THEODOR WOLFF. 8vo. pp. 549. Leip- the stubborn land is as sure as the dominion of zig: 1847. 2. Précis Elémentaire de Chimie Agricole. Par le Docteur F. SACC, Professeur à la Faculté des Sciences de Neufchatel (Suisse.) 8vo. pp. 420. Paris: 1848. the sea. On quitting the British shores, after such a tour, our imaginary foreigner would carry with him a true impression of the flower of English 3. Mémoire sur les Terrains Ardennais et Rhénan and Scottish agriculturists; and his original estide l'Ardenne, du Rhin, du Brabant et du Con-mate of the skill of these island farmers, of their dros. Par ANDRÉ DUMONT, Professeur de Géologie à l'Université de Liège-Extrait du manliness and firmness, would only be strengthened tome xx. et du tome xxII. des Mémoires de by his actual survey. l'Académie Royale de Belgique. 613. 4to. PP. 6. Contributions to Scientific Agriculture. By JAMES F. W. JOHNSTON, M.A., F.R.S.L. L.& E., F.G.S., &c. 8vo. pp. 231. London and Edinburgh 1849. 7. On the Use of Lime in Agriculture. By JAMES F. W. JOHNSTON, F.R.SS. L. & E., &c., &c. Fcap. 8vo. pp. 282. London and Edinburgh: 1849. SUPPOSE an intellectual foreigner, previously unacquainted with Great Britain, with the character of its people, or with its social condition, to be informed that they occupied a small and remote corner of Europe, shrouded for many months of the year in fogs and mists, and seldom and briefly visited by the fervid sun, and that they raised from it with cost and difficulty the means of subsistence for their rapidly increasing numbers :-but that nevertheless, their legislature, though one in which the landowners were predominant, had recently thrown open their harbors to all comers, and trusting to their superior energy, perseverance, and skill, had invited the most fertile and favored regions of the globe to a free competition in their own grain markets-how would such a man admire the open boldness—how respect the determination of such a people, and long to study not only their character and habits, but the modes of culture practised with such success in a country so little favored by nature! And were he actually to come among us, it would be easy for him, having started from the Land's End, to proceed from one warm-hearted and hospitable farmer to another, till the Pentland Firth arrested his course ;-and all his journey long he might converse with cultivators of ardent minds, full of general as well as practical knowledge, who refused to despond, while they saw so much everywhere around them awaiting the hand of the improver-who, differing widely from each other in political opinion, or on the absolute polVOL. XXIII. 27 CCLXXXIX. LIVING AGE. But if, instead of being carried along, by his friends or his letters, where the best men and the most skilful culture were to be seen, he should fall into a less known and beaten way, and turning into the by-paths of our rural districts, were to quarter himself on the less instructed class of farmers among whom are many who hold large breadths of land-how ill would the depression and despondency and ignorance of many he now met with agree with his pre-conceived opinions and glowing anticipations! What he had admired as a resolute, far-seeing determination, he would here be taught to regard only as the most culpable rashness; and what he had ascribed to large knowledge and confidence in approved skill, he would now be told to attribute to the temperament of over sanguine men, ignorant of what practical agriculture can effect at present, and of what it can ever reasonably hope hereafter to perform. How different the estimate of the character, the skill, and the social state of the country, which this second tour would leave with him, from that which we suppose him to have carried away from the other! It may be that our former class of cultivators are, in some things, too credulous and venturesome; but most certainly the latter class are too desponding; and underrate, generally from want of knowledge, the command which existing skill might win for them over the difficulties in which they feel or fancy themselves to be placed. To many, indeed, it may seem strange that in a country like ours, which, as a whole, certainly stands at the head of European agriculture, so much ignorance should prevail in regard to the principles of the rural arts-even in the best cultivated districts, and among farmers of the first or leading rank. But the truth is that a few individuals in each county set the example to the rest; make the first trials, run the first risks, and establish the successive improvements. The major part live upon the wits of these men; advance by the help of their knowledge, and adopt the experiments which they have tested. And thus the entire district no doubt advances, while the whole body of farmers obtain the credit of understanding what each of them comes at last to practise. It must, indeed, always be so, in every art. All may learn how to do a given piece of work; but only a few will understand the principles on which the several steps in the process depend, or will be able to explain how the process must be altered when circumstances alter, or when a change in the stances, which long experience had introduced among market renders necessary a corresponding change the native farmers. in the article to be produced. The true intellec- In fact, an inspection of the heavy soils of tual character, therefore, of British agriculture-Huntingdon and the adjoining counties, which rest the soul and spirit of it-is only to be seen in that upon and are mainly derived from the Oxford elay, upper class of men, among whom we supposed our will at once explain to a person who has examined foreigner to have gone in the first instance. They the surface of the northern half of the island, why form the locomotive, by which the heavy rural Scottish farmers, introducing unmodified Scottish train is slowly dragged ahead-and which so practices, should fail, in these quarters, to cultivate stoutly snorts against, and battles with, the steep- with a profit. To say nothing of differences of est gradients! climate, it is enough that in all Scotland there are no clay soils which at all resemble the clays of these counties-none so difficult and expensive to work, so stubborn under the plough, so susceptible to rain and drought; in which the tid-the time between too wet and too dry-is so short, and which in their present state require such special methods and so large a force to work. Under circumstances so new to them, it is not wonderful, therefore, that men, locally skilful, and yet unprovided with principles to guide them, should have miscarried in adapting their home methods to these new conditions. How much more generally useful would that measure of prudence and practical skill, which is almost necessarily acquired by every settled member of the agricultural community, become, were such principles universally diffused among them! It is not wonderful that practical men, who have never learned to take this humbling view of their own apparent skill, should undervalue the aids of the very science which, unknown to themselves, has really made them what they are. It has so often happened in ordinary experience that failure has attended the farming of mere men of books and science, from the want of business habits, and of a prudent conduct of their affairs; while such prudent conduct, with ordinary observation and some skill in bargaining, has so often made a farmer thrive-that book knowledge has often been driven to the wall, and the value of practice above science immeasurably extolled, where rent had to be paid. In the mean time, the real state of the question is overlooked-Assume the same prudence, energy, and business skill in both cases; and then the man who knows the principles of his art the best, will, under the same circumstances, unquestionably make the most money. While we ask, therefore, for more instruction, we stipulate for no less prudence than before. As often as farmers of merely local skill, (and most of our best practical men are, as we have shown, entitled to no higher character,) shift to new counties, where other soils and other customs prevail, their local knowledge, to their frequent loss and mortification, is found to fail them. They presume, in their shallow self-sufficiency, that what they did elsewhere must succeed everywhere; and that the local practice of the districts they have left will yield as large or even larger profits in these to which they have come. But while apprehension and despondency, whether arising from defective knowledge or from other causes, are disturbing the minds of so many, not only of the occupiers, but of the owners of land, it is of consequence to inquirefrom what sources relief and hope are to be looked for? and, apart from fiscal regulations, what our own hands and heads can do, to uphold, as in times past, the prosperity of the agricultural interest, and the comfort of our rural population? stock-feeding, and high manuring; and, within a A pamphlet recently published by Mr. Caird, a Wigtonshire farmer, discusses this question in a practical, though too limited sense. His position, that high-farming is the best substitute for protection, is well illustrated by the results of the actual management of a farm of two hundred and sixty We had the opportunity, a few months ago, of acres on the estate of Colonel M'Douall, of Logan. attending an agricultural meeting on the borders in Wigtonshire. The improvements consisted of of the fen land of Huntingdon, where the Direct | drainage, judicious grain-cropping, more extended Northern Railway runs across the bog which quakes around Whittlesea Mere. At this meeting one of the most noted farmers of the district, in commenting upon the alleged superior skill of his Scottish brethren, so often, he said, cast in their teeth, stated, that in his recollection no less than six and twenty Scottish farmers had come to settle in that country; and all had failed except one, who was still under trial. The same result, in so many instances, can scarcely be accounted for by any cause less general than this;-skilful cultivators as they might have been at home, they had been unable to discriminate between the character of the soil and climate which they had left, and that of the soil and climate to which they had removed; and consequently they had undervalued the *High-farming, under liberal Covenants, the best many local adaptations to those peculiar circum-Substitute for Protection. Blackwood: 1849. Supposing two thirds of the whole improvable land of Great Britain, and nine tenths of that of Ireland, to be neither drained, according to our more perfect methods, nor subjected to the greater pressure of high-farming, over this proportion of the two islands the rents of land and the profits of the cultivator might be kept up to at least their present state, by the universal adoption of the more skilful and improved culture described by Mr. T |