ems to them the only
atonement in their power, and 'the fellow bears the creature the same
good-will, though she is such a sorry bit of clay'; therefore the end of
each marriage is according, not unto the outward show and promise, but
unto that which lies within the heart. It is thus that poetical justice
endeavours, so far as it may, to anticipate the sentence of Omniscient
justice.

LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT.--THE HOUSE OF WEEPING.

_From Jean Paul Frederick Richter._

Since the day when the town of Haslau first became the seat of a Court,
no man could remember that any one event in its annals (always excepting
the birth of the hereditary prince) had been looked for with so anxious
a curiosity as the opening of the last will and testament left by Van
der Kabel. This Van der Kabel may be styled the Haslau Croesus; and
his whole life might be termed, according to the pleasure of the wits,
one long festival of god-sends, or a daily washing of golden sands
nightly impregnated by golden showers of Danae. Seven distant surviving
relatives of seven distant relatives deceased of the said Van der Kabel,
entertained some little hopes of a place amongst his legatees, grounded
upon an assurance which he had made, 'that upon his oath he would not
fail to _remember them_ in his will.' These hopes, however, were but
faint and weakly; for they could not repose any extraordinary confidence
in his good faith--not only because in all cases he conducted his
affairs in a disinterested spirit, and with a perverse obstinacy of
moral principle, whereas his seven relatives were mere novices, and
young beginners in the trade of morality,--but also because, in all
these moral extravagances of his (so distressing to the feelings of the
sincere rascal), he thought proper to be very satirical, and had his
heart so full of odd caprices, tricks, and snares for unsuspicious
scoundrels, that (as they all said) no man who was but raw in the art of
virtue could deal with him, or place any reliance upon his intentions.
Indeed the covert laughter which played about his temples, and the
falsetto tones of his sneering voice, somewhat weakened the advantageous
impression which was made by the noble composition of his face, and by a
pair of large hands, from which were daily dropping favours little and
great--benefit nights, Christmas-boxes and New-Year's gifts; for this
reason it was that, by the whole flock of birds who sought shelter in
his boughs