"like demagogues
and sons of Baal."

* * * * *

The Persians have a saying, that "Ten measures of talk were sent down
upon the earth, and the women took nine."

* * * * *

AUTHORS AND BOOKS

* * * * *

No man is more enshrined in the heart of the French people than the
poet BERANGER. A few weeks since he went one evening with one of his
nephews to the _Clos des Lilas_, a garden in the students' quarter
devoted to dancing in the open air, intending to look for a few
minutes upon a scene he had not visited since his youth, and then
withdraw. But he found it impossible to remain unknown and unobserved.
The announcement of his presence ran through the garden in a moment,
the dances stopped, the music ceased, and the crowd thronged toward
the point where the still genial and lovely old man was standing. At
once there rose from all lips the cry of _Vive Beranger!_ which was
quickly followed by that of _Vive la Republique!_ The poet whose
diffidence is excessive, could not answer a word, but only smiled and
blushed his thanks at this enthusiastic reception. The acclamations
continuing, an agent of the police invited him to withdraw, lest his
presence might occasion disorder. The illustrious songwriter at once
obeyed; by a singular coincidence the door through which he went out
opened upon the place where Marshal Ney was shot. If he were now in
the vein of writing, what a stirring lyric all these circumstances
might suggest.

* * * * *

AUDUBON AND WASHINGTON IRVING--THE PLAGUE OF RAILROADS.--The voyager
up the Hudson will involuntarily anathematize the invention of the
rail, when he sees how much of the most romantic beauty has been
defaced or destroyed by that tyranny which, disregarding all private
desire and justice, has filled up bays, and cut off promontories, and
leveled heights, to make way for the intrusive and noisy car. But the
effects of these so-called "improvements," upon the romantic in nature
will be forgotten if he considers the injury and wrong they cause to
persons, and particularly to those whose genius has contributed more
to human happiness than all the inventions in oeconomical art.

The Nestor of our naturalists, and in his field, the greatest as well
as the oldest of our artists, AUDUBON, with the comparatively slight
gains of a long life of devotion to science,