est and most business-like style, her age, accomplishments and the amount of her fortune. of a horse or of a house and lot, commenced and was proceeding with some common place remarks upon the importance of marriage, and the consequent respectability and responsibility of his own vocation, when we interrupted him with an assurance that we knew all that, that my friend had duly meditated upon the awful nature of the matrimonial engagement, and believed himself prepared for all its responsibilities, present and prospective. In fine, here is the mode in which affairs are conducted in these matrimonial offices. An American friend whose notice had been frequently attracted by these and similar advertisements, asked me the other day if I had ever visited the establishment of one of these venders of matrimony, and if I knew how they conducted their interesting and important negotiations? But I was equally ignorant with himself upon the subject. I had long since marked upon my notebook a memorandum in relation to them: and upon one occasion had made an appointment The negociateur takes particular notice of the with a friend to accompany me in a visit: but he personal appearance, manners and fortune of the failed to meet me. Since then, however, I have applicant. He learns in what this fortune conalways kept it upon my list of "things to be sists, where it lies and the amount of income. done." It was at once agreed by both of us that He asks the profession, and residence, age, habwe could not pass the morning more satisfactori-its, and character of his client. He asks proof, ly. We would visit M. Foy, whose advertise- documentary, or by the testimony of disinterestment in La Presse had just given rise to our con-ed third persons whose address is to be furnished, versation. P. was to personate Coelebs in search of the truth of the account which the applicant of a Wife: but not speaking French with suffi- gives of himself. The addresses are only to be cient fluency to give and ask the explanations made use of when it shall become necessary to which would be necessary, I was to accompany satisfy the friends of the lady as to the social and him in the character of friend and interpreter. pecuniary position of the client. The strictest We were received by a servant in plain livery, honor and delicacy is professed to be observed who ushered us into an elegantly furnished wait-in the use made of the evidence thus obtained ing-room, stating that M. Foy was now engaged, and in the mode of procuring it. The persons but would very soon be at leisure. We were al- whose addresses are given, are not allowed to lowed to wait, perhaps ten minutes: during which suspect the intention with which the information we had ample time to examine the engravings is sought. The person is then to describe generalupon the walls, and were duly impressed with ly the lady he would be willing to marry her age, the extent of the operations of M. Foy in his religion, personal appearance and accomplishhonorable vocation of negociateur des marriages. ments and the amount of fortune required. The At the expiration of this delay the worthy him- client then takes his leave with an engagement self entered by a side-door. With French po- to call again in the course of three or four days. liteness he excused himself for having kept us In the mean time the negociateur examines his waiting—a client had just taken his leave-and files, (M. Foy assured us with an air of much M. Foy was now entirely at our service. confidence and satisfaction, that he had upon his We were conducted through another room and lists some thousands of ladies,) and selects from a narrow passage into the sanctum sanctorum them those ladies whose qualities, accomplishwhich from the character and arrangement of ments and fortune come up to the requirements the furniture, one would have doubted whether of the applicant. Upon the second visit the gento call an office or a parlour. Having seen me tleman in search of a wife is presented upon a seated upon a sofa, and my friend in possession fair sheet with a list of ladies, (more or less nuof a comfortable arm-chair, M. Foy squared merous, according to the "richness of the reperhimself upon the morocco-covered fauteuil in tory,") from which he is to select the one toward front of his secretary, and turning down the col- whom approaches are first to be made. In this lar of his loose morning-gown, intimated his rea- list, the names of the ladies are scrupulously condiness to be made acquainted with our business. cealed: but all other desirable information is It was soon told. My friend wanted to marry given. The gentleman makes his choice. At and preferred a French lady. He had seen the this stage of the proceedings the negociateur readvertisement of M. Foy and had come to as- quires an advance of 20 Napoleons ($80,) and a certain what facilities Mr. Foy could afford to formal instrument is drawn up, signed by both him, what were the terms, and what the mode of parties. The negociateur agrees on his part, by proceeding. The worthy dealer in matrimony. all the means ordinary and extraordinary in his as though conscious that there must be something power, to facilitate and bring about the marriage shocking to an English or American mind in in question. If himself personally unacquainted ushing without preface in medias res, as if it with the lady's family, he has relations with other were question of a negotiation for the purchase agents who, by means of their particular rela VOL. XV-64 tions, manage (without, as M. Foy solemnly as- consideration of the 20 Napoleons prepaid as sured us, giving the opposite party to suspect mentioned above: the client paying nothing how and why the thing is accomplished,) to pro-more, except the 5 per cent. upon the wife's forcure introduction into the family of which in due tune, due in the event of marriage. season the name has been communicated. Once A word now upon the Cholera: not that there introduced, the gentleman is expected to make is in my mind any fanciful connection between his own but the agents are at hand to watch, the subjects, that would induce me to speak of and facilitate progress by the skilful communica- Cholera immediately after marriage. The two tion of favorable facts respecting the character, subjects are accidentally in juxtaposition upon social position and fortune of the suitor. In due my note-book, and that is the sole reason that season the parties are sounded as to their disposi-they are so in my letter. Yet, verily, American tion with regard to the match, which parental notions of marriage and domestic happiness havanxiety has now come to consider among the ing been fixed in my mind before coming to Eupossibilities of the future. But M. Foy assured rope, if now I found myself compelled to choose us that they are never allowed to suspect, and so between marriage in France, and the Cholera, I skilfully are matters managed, that they never should hardly know which to take. do suspect that the suitor's introduction to the The Cholera in Paris during the first months family is other than the result of pure accident, of its appearance, was of so mild a character or a fortunate concurrence of circumstances. Ac-and so particular in its attacks, that the public cident now marvellously favors the parent in paid but very little attention to it. One of the search of reliable information touching the char-most distinguished physicians of the city, memacter and fortune of the suitor. He does not ber of the assembly, said in his place that there see our worthy negociateur armed with the docu- was no reason whatever for general alarm—that ments and addresses which he had the precau- every year there existed in Paris epidemics more tion to prepare in an early stage of the proceed-fatal than the Cholera had yet been, without atings. Probably the information is satisfactory-tracting at all the public notice. Thus it continit is concluded in family council that it would be ued till the latter part of May. Then it suddenly a good match-the young gentleman is notified assumed a frightful extension. It attacked apthat the way is prepared for him—that his dec-parently without discrimination all classes and laration would be received with favor by the all quarters. For three weeks it was sweeping parents-that the young lady does not abhor off, in the city alone, from six to seven hundred him-in short that he may marry her if he will. daily. The hospitals were crowded—and deaths He proposes, is accepted, the papers are drawn in private houses more than doubled the number up—and a happy marriage in the French accep- of those who were able to reach the hospitals. tation of the term is effected. The family be- Other patients were dismissed from the public lieving it a purely providential affair, (M. Foy establishments in order to make room for those assures us they do,) render to Providence due who had the Cholera. Stroll for half an hour in thanks: but the happy husband knowing the part the city, in whatever direction, and one was sure that M. Foy, 48 Rue d'Enghien has had in bring- to meet several funeral processions. Many a ing about the blessed consummation, bestows his door was hung with black, indicating corpses thanks differently—and not his thanks only. A within-in front of every church were waiting short time after the ceremony, the successful sui- one, two or three hearses at a time, while funetor may again be seen in the cabinet of M. Foy. ral services were being performed over the dead He has the marriage settlement in his hand. M. bodies. The ordinary means of burial at the Foy produces the written contract signed by them disposal of the public authorities were insufficient. both some months ago, upon the occasion of his and the large canvas-covered waggons used in second visit. By virtue of that agreement he Paris for moving furniture, sometimes covered now upon proof of the fortune he has received with black, and sometimes not, were put in rewith the lady, and exhibition of the marriage quisition for the transportation of the dead to the settlement, pays over to M. Foy 5 per cent. upon cemeteries. One of these vehicles would pass the amount of his wife's fortune: and thus ends from door to door, and collecting all the dead his relations with M. Foy, negociateur des marri- bodies in the neighbourhood, move slowly on to ages. If it had so happened that the gentleman the burying-ground, followed without order by a in search of a wife had not upon sight and intro- motley crowd, mostly of women, weeping aloud, duction been pleased with the young lady first friends of some one of the deceased, whose bo selected, the negotiator would have facilitated in dies were in the waggon. Frequently, in the the same manner, his approaches to a second and street, men and women dropped suddenly smita third, until one should be found to his mind: ten with the Cholera. They were taken up and all of the affairs to be managed by M. Foy in transported to the nearest hospital: thence, a most certainly, to be borne on the morrow to the cold and unpleasant for the season. "I awaited common last resting-place-for two in three, if with impatience," continues the writer, "the arnot three in four of those who entered the hos-rival of fine warm weather. It came at last: pitals were destined never to leave them alive. but to my profound astonishment, instead of inAnd in the midst of all this, the Parisians were dicating, as was to have been expected, an inParisians throughout. French insouciance was, crease of electricity in the atmosphere, my maperhaps, never more strikingly illustrated. Que chine showed it to be less and less, till on the voulez-vous? are there not a million of French- 4th, 5th and 6th of June I found it to be imposmen in one city—and can any thing less than a sible to obtain from my machine any thing but pestilence which shall suddenly smite down half slight crepitations without sparks; and on the the population, taking from every man his neigh-7th even these ceased and my machine was perbour, make the other half sad? The brilliantly fectly silent. This diminution of the electric lighted boulevards were thronged at night with fluid coincided exactly as we only too well know the same gay crowds; and they danced at balls, with the increased violence of the cholera. I was and played domino in the Cafés, and laughed at now convinced; and one may well conceive the vaudevilles; they rushed to political banquets, with what anxiety during that sad crisis I conand raged daily in the assembly, and conspired sulted my machine, the faithful interpreter of a nightly in the clubs, while Cholera was decima- great calamity. At last, on the morning of the ting the population. Undeterred by the fearful 8th, feeble sparks re-appeared. They hourly ravages of the pestilence, insurrection on the increased in intensity, and I perceived with joy 13th had prepared for June 1849 its days of civil that the vivifying fluid was again filling the air. war bloodier than those of June 1848. Nothing Toward evening a storm in Paris announced but the prompt preventive energy of Gen. Chan- that electricity had resumed its place in the atgarnier saved Paris and all France from a war mosphere; and I thought I saw cholera disapworse than pestilence. The grand unarmed de-pearing with the cause which produced it. On monstration by which the insurrection commen- the morrow, the 9th, all was right again. The ced, was composed of some fifteen or twenty thousand persons. In its passage along the boulevards, the column filling the street and sidewalks with their tumultuous and noisy masses, met and stopped, till the column had passed no less than eleven hearses conveying victims of Cholera to the grave! During the last fortnight, however, the mortality has been constantly lessening and it has now descended to a figure which presents nothing alarming even to the timid. The number of deaths per day is now less than one hundred. Before dismissing this subject, let me allude to a letter which has lately been read in the Academy of Sciences, and has since appeared in most of the Paris papers. It relates to experiments which would seem to establish a connection between Cholera and the greater or less amount of electric fluid contained in the atmosphere. machine at the slightest touch, promptly, I may almost say with joy, emitted lively sparks. One would have said that it was conscious of the good news it was announcing." The existence of this apparent connection between the electrical state of the atmosphere and cholera is not, I am told, unknown in the United States. Our philosophers have already observed it. It is to be hoped that scientific investigations will, ere long, take it from the list of merely curious phenomena and give it place among the grand beneficent facts with which Science has already illustrated the nineteenth century. But if the extract above given communicates no new scientific fact to your readers, I shall be much surprised if the following does not make most of them open their eyes with astonishment. It is taken from a little work, lately published here, entitled "Some facts relative to the Spheroidal state of bodies-Trial by Fire-man incombustible, &c. By P. N. Boutigny, (of Evreux.)" "The Machine," says the writer, "which was used in my daily observations, is one of considerable power. Ordinarily, after two or three turns of the wheel it emits sparks to five or six centi- "Upon my return home," says M. Boutigny, metres. But since the commencement of the "I did not fail to inquire of the workmen what Cholera I have been unable to produce this would happen if the finger were immersed in the effect even in a single instance. During the incandescent mass of melted iron? Most of them months of April and May the sparks obtained laughed in my face. But that did not discourage with great difficulty never exceeded two or three me. After a while, being at the forge of Magny, centimetres; and almost exactly their variations near Lure, I repeated my question to a workman, accorded with the variations of the march of the who replied that “nothing was more simple;” and cholera." This coincidence excited his particu- to prove it, he instantly passed his fingers into the lar interest, and he watched subsequent results incandescent column of ore which was just then with increased attention. The weather had been issuing from a Wilkinson. Another workman, who stood by, performed the same experiment tion of its moisture to be effected. Persons with equal impunity. Emboldened by what I familiar with the experiment of immersing in saw, I did the same." water a body of incandescent silver or platina, The fact in question was no longer doubtful, will readily understand the mechanism of this. but M. Boutigny hesitated to communicate it to In the first case it is the water retiring from the the Academy until he should be prepared to sup-metal which then seems to be inclosed within a port it by the adduction of various other experi- crystal envelope in the second case it is the liments. These experiments he thus describes: quid metal which retires from the moist hand. "I cut or divided with one hand a spout of melt- In the first. the metal is active and the water pased ore five or six centimetres (about 2 inches) in sive in the second, the moistened hand is acdiameter, as it issued from the furnace; and tive and the fused metal is passive. It is the plunged the other into a vessel filled with the same experiment reversed; and the two form incandescent liquid, which it was really frightful but one. In one word, the hand, inserted in to behold. I shuddered involuntarily. But both metal in a state of fusion, isolates itself. The hands issued victorious from the trial; and now humidity which covers it, passing to the spheroi if any thing appears surprising to me, it is that dal state, reflects the radiant calorie and is not similar experiments are not of every day occur- heated sufficiently to boil. It is true, therefore, rence. Certainly it will be asked what precau- as I said in the beginning, that this experiment tion should be taken to guaranty the hand from apparently so dangerous is in fact almost absothe action of the burning liquid? I answer, lutely without danger. I have often repeated it none! Fear not. Perform the experiment with with lead, bronze, &c., and invariably with the confidence. Pass the hand rapidly, yet not too same success. Thus in the course of ten years rapidly, into the molten mass. If the experiment I have made ice in a furnace heated to whiteis made timidly and with too great rapidity, you ness, and have bathed with impunity in a mass may overcome the repulsive force which exists of incandescent metal; and that by virtue of in incandescent bodies, and thus establish con- the laws which govern matter in the spheroidal tact with the skin. In that case the skin would indubitably remain there and in a condition not difficult to conceive. The experiment succeeds particularly well when the skin is moist. The involuntary terror which one experiences in presence of these masses of fire almost always puts the whole body in that condition of moisture essential to success. The following I have found The pretended miracle by which one of the to be the best preparation for the experiment. I Eastern Magi, disciples of Zoroaster, is narrated rub my hands with soap, so as to give them a to have gained thousands of converts, is now of polished surface. Then at the moment of mak- easy solution. He proposed that twenty pounds ing the experiment I plunge the hand into a cold of molten brass should be poured hot from the solution of sal ammoniac saturated with sulphu- furnace upon his naked body, upon condition rous acid, or simply into water containing sal that if he underwent the trial uninjured, unbeammoniac, or if you have not the latter substance lievers constrained by the prodigy would profess convenient dip the hand merely in cold water." conversion to the faith. It was done and the M. Boutigny then gives the following philoso-scientific imposter witnessed the rapid accepphic explanation of this phenomenon: tance of his creed. state. It results also from these notes that a considerable number of facts reported in history and generally deemed fabulous, may well be true. Ancient philosophers probably knew much that we are now ignorant of. A little more respect for them and a little less admiration for ourselves would do us no harm." "It is to my mind a positively established fact But let those who are disposed to pity the crethat the hand and metal do not come in contact dulity of misled Persian multitudes, and laugh with each other. If there be no contact, heat- at priestly artifices practised 550 years B. C.,reing can only take place by means of radiation. serve their sympathy. I will afford them occasion This is enormous it must be admitted; but in to exercise it much nearer home. The anecdota our experiment no account need be taken of ra- just related reminds me of what has just been diation, for in fact it is nullified by reflection. I passing within the circle of my own observation, think that I have long since proved that water in A. D., 1849, within an hour's walk of the city the spheroidal state possesses the remarkable which calls itself the capital of civilization. To property of reflecting the calorific rays, and that my mind the superstition of the Persians is much its temperature never reaches that of its boiling less surprising, the imposture of the Magi much point: whence it follows that the finger or the less worthy of indignation than that of our day. hand, being moist, cannot attain the temperature About five miles N. W. of Paris upon the right of 100°, the experiment not being of sufficiently bank of the Seine is the pleasant little town of long duration to permit the complete evapora- Argenteuil. It is celebrated as the seat of a FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD. BY EDGAR A. POE. convent founded by the Bernardines, to which in 1120 Eloisa retired after the misfortunes of Abelard, and remained till the Paraclete was prepared for her. But the great object of interest now in Argenteuil is the treasure which its Mrs. Osgood, for the last three or four years, church contains. One thousand and fifty years has been rapidly attaining distinction; and this, ago, saith the veridical chronicle, in the year 799, evidently, with no effort at attaining it. She the Emperor Charlemagne received from the seems, in fact, to have no object in view beyond Caliph Haroun Al Raschid and from the Patri- that of giving voice to the fancies or the feelings arch of Jerusalem a multitude of magnificent of the moment. "Necessity," says the proverb, costly presents. Among them were several in- is the mother of Invention;" and the invention estimable relics taken from the treasury of the of Mrs. O., at least, springs plainly from necesholy city. One of the most precious of these sity-from the necessity of invention. Not to relics, the veritable tunic worn by our Saviour, was write poetry-not to act it, think it, dream it, selected by the Emperor, and presented to the and be it, is entirely out of her power. church of Argenteuil; where it has ever since It may be questioned whether with more inbeen most religiously preserved. It is periodi-dustry, more method, more definite purpose, cally exposed for the veneration of the faithful, more ambition, Mrs. Osgood would have made a and upon these occasions crowds from the whole more decided impression on the public mind. region round about Argenteuil flock to the church She might, upon the whole, have written better to enjoy the blessed spectacle. On Ascensionpoems; but the chances are that she would have day, the 17th ult., the portable shrine containing failed in conveying so vivid and so just an idea the holy garment was borne in solemn proces- of her powers as poet. The warm abandonnesion through the streets of the town, surrounded ment of her style-that charm which now so capwith sacred chant and ceremony by numerous tivates-is but a portion and a consequence of priests and followed by the humble, believing her unworldly nature-of her disregard of mere and adoring population. In the evening at ves- fame; but it affords us glimpses, which we could pers an Apostolical missionary pronounced with not otherwise have obtained, of a capacity for fervent unction a discourse suitable to the occa- accomplishing what she has not accomplished, and in all probability never wlll. In the world of poetry, however, there is already more than enough of uncongenial ambition and pretence. sion. I do not know whether the following advertisement taken, verbatim, from Le Univers, a religious paper of Paris, will strike you as funnily as it does me. It appears to me a literary curiosity well worth preservation. "Prayers for deliverance from the Cholera:at 1 franc the hundred." "Cheap enough!" remarks another journal. At this rate the "Prayers" may be had at less than the fifth of a cent a-piece. W. W. M. SONNET.FRIENDSHIP. As onward, o'er life's devious paths we wend, And no remembrance thrill upon the heart, Mrs. Osgood has taken no care whatever of her literary fame. A great number of her finest compositions, both in verse and prose, have been written anonymously, and are now lying perdus about the country, in out-of-the way nooks and corners. Many a goodly reputation has been reared upon a far more unstable basis than her unclaimed and uncollected "fugitive pieces." ter. Her first volume, I believe, was published, seven or eight years ago, by Edward Churton, of London, during the residence of the poetess in that city. I have now lying before me a second edition of it, dated 1842-a beautifully printed book, dedicated to the Reverend Hobart CaunIt contains a number of what the Bostonians call "juvenile" poems, written when Mrs. O., (then Miss Locke,) could not have been more than thirteen, and evincing unusual precocity. The leading piece is "Elfrida, a Dramatic Poem," but in many respects well entitled to the appellation, " drama." I allude chiefly to the passionate expression of particular portions, to delineation of character, and to occasional scenic effect:-in construction, or plot-in general conduct and plausibility, the play fails; comparatively, of course-for the hand of genius is evinced throughout. |