ing and even composing a scherzo of his own; but that _just
now_ he wanted to hear Beethoven's, which he thought had some merit.
It was cheerfully repeated. "Beautiful! charming!" cried Mendelssohn,
"but still too loud in two or three instances. Let us take it again,
from the middle." "No, no," was the general reply of the band; "the
whole movement over again for our own satisfaction;" and then they
played it with the utmost delicacy and finish, Mendelssohn laying
aside his baton, and listening with evident delight to the more
perfect execution. "What would I have given," exclaimed he, "if
Beethoven could have heard his own composition so well understood and
so magnificently performed!" By thus giving alternately praise and
blame, as required, spurring the slow, checking the too ardent, he
obtained orchestral effects seldom equaled in our days. Need I
add, that he was able to detect at once, even among a phalanx of
performers, the slightest error, either of note or accent.--_Life of
Mendelssohn_.

* * * * *

There is a mutual hate between the virtuous and the vicious, the
spiritual and the sensual: but the pure abhor understandingly, knowing
the nature of their antagonists, while the vile nurse an ignorant
malignity, pained with an unacknowledged ache of envy.

* * * * *

Superstition In France.--The _Courrier de la Meuse_ says: "Witchcraft
is still an object of belief in our provinces. On Sunday last, in a
village belonging to the arrondissement of Verdun, the keeper of the
parish bull forgot to lay before the poor animal at the usual hour
its accustomed allowance of provender. The bull, impatient at the
delay, made a variety of efforts to regain his liberty, and at last
succeeded. The first use he made of his freedom was to demolish a
rabbit-hutch which was in the stable. The keeper's wife, hearing a
noise, ran to the place, and as soon as she saw the bull treading
mercilessly upon the rabbits with his large hoofs, seized a cudgel and
showered down a volley of blows on the crupper of the devastator. But
not being accustomed to this rough treatment, the bull grew angry,
and fell upon his neighbors the oxen, and what with horns and hoofs,
turned the stable into a scene of terror and confusion. The woman
began to cry for help. Her cries were heard, and with some trouble
the bull was ousted from the stable, and forthwith began to butt at
everything in his