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ber, were most unwillingly starved out of Cherbourg. 'Twas the last town they held in France. Amongst other impedimenta, they left behind two enormous guns, pieces of artillery, I find, larger than the celebrated Mons Meg. Four centuries these guns lay "kicking about," as the odd phrase is, on the beach before the town. Suddenly the savans took an interest in them. These stray old rusty cannon were had up and examined. And still more surprising, they were found to be loaded! and with stone balls! And more than that, they were discovered to be BREECH-LOADERS! and made of iron-coil, and not cast! And if any one wants to know all about the great siege for which they had been charged, I can refer him or her to Mr. Stevenson's erudite volume among The Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages, published by the authority of her Majesty's Treasury, under the direction of the Master of the Rolls. In the Reductio Normanniæ, Rob. Blondel, edited by the above-named reverend and learned antiquarian, the late Vicar of Leighton Buzzard, there is a succinct story of the siege, and oftentimes, in other parts of the volume, very interesting mention of this CÆSARIS-BURGUM (now corrupted into Cherbourg), which Julius Cæsar is declared to have built.

Our dear "Mr. Murray" is about as wrong in his description of Cherbourg and its attractions as if he, or the scribbler who wrote under his orders, had never been there. Cherbourg is a large town, a handsome town, a well-built town, with a very ample population of its own, independently of the troops of soldiers and throngs of sailors ever in it or its neighbourhood. There are capital cafés on the quays, and the growing streets towards the Post-office have all the air of the pet plaster-of-paris houses with which M. Haussman has garnished the French capital. On Thursday morning, when we went on shore, we provisioned ourselves readily and cheaply in the fruit and vegetable market-'twas but the Ides of June-where peas, potatoes, asparagus, salads, strawberries, cherries, currants, and cucumbers abounded. I cannot say much about the fish-market, for we came late in the day, and could only take our choice of craw-fish, flat-fish, lobsters, and conger-eels. The old stall-women here, as every where else in the world, as I suppose, were cheats,-voluble, unblushing, denouncing, and asked seventy-five per cent more than they were prevailed upon to take for each transaction. The marchands des comestibles also seemed to be numerous, with excellent shops.

The particular description, for which our good friend in Albemarle Street, however, need not blush, runs to this effect: "Cherbourg, one of the principal naval ports and dockyards of France, is situated at the north extremity of the peninsula of the Cotentin, in the department De la Manche, in the centre of a bay, the extremities of which are formed by Cap Levy on the E., and Point Omanville on the W." The whole bay faces our English coast, and it is but a run of sixty miles over to the south shores of our own country. The sleepless enterprise of contractors,

engineers, and railway directors has, within this month of June 1865, established a new steam route from Poole to Cherbourg in six hours. South Wales, the north and west of England, are to be served by this communication even as a highway to Paris, Caen, Bourdeaux, the south of France, Spain, and Portugal. My lords and gentlemen of the Somerset and Dorset Railway, branching into the London and Great Western main line, have projected this new approach to La Belle France. Of course, these public trustees had an inaugural dinner, after their first trip, at the Hôtel de l'Univers, Cherbourg, where every body embraced every body, and the chairman flattered the company about the success of Gladiateur at the Derby- of course avoiding all the stigma that is put about-and that ever-green Alexandre Dumas got up in his white waistcoat and praised William Shakespeare, and gave a portrait of the great editor of Monte Christo and such amusing works, signed with that worthy's autograph, to all the English visitors. You will find that the Red Book printed near Piccadilly, from which I have quoted already, describes the town as lying in "the hollow of the valley of the Divette, which opens out to the sea under the lofty falaise of the quartz hill of La Roule, crowned by the fort." But trust not this errant-every where errant-compiler for any further information. He bewails very needlessly the "desolate appearance of the roadstead inside the breakwater;" whereas it is a placid marine panorama, quite sufficiently studded with ships-of-war to satisfy even a London club-lounger, who wants movement in every scene. Moreover, we do not see a word in the Handbook about the new quays, and the new streets in the town, the new gardens, the new cafés, nor that "Etablissement des Bains," which I can pronounce with safety to be quite unique. Indeed, I must be so eulogistic here, that if the managers of this place of entertainment do their duty, they will give me a life-admission for the commendation which I am uttering. Stay! I will not put myself in the way of accepting any such favour, but I will transfer the chances of it to M. Duclos, whose flaming notice has been quoted this six weeks ago in the Phare de la Manche. He enumerates the French watering-places where sea-bathing is in vogue: "Dieppe, Trouville, le Tréport, Etretat, Boulogne, Arcachon, Biarritz, &c., où la vie élégante trouve réunis tous les raffinements du high life" (every French journalist is inevitably a coxcomb). Of course my little scribe is, throughout his pleasant little remarks on Cherbourg and its attractions, entreating and waving on his readers to turn their steps this year to the belles côtes Normandes; and I do not think he oversteps the proper terms of encouragement when he recommends, for their behoof and delight, "the splendid country, the powerful elements of interest attached to a military port of the first rank, a new and magnificent establishment of sea-baths, so agreeably and satisfactorily arranged as to leave nought to be desired in addition." I can fancy at this arid season how each reader will sigh for the enjoyment of a "palais balnéaire, dont l'une des façades s'ouvre sur un vaste jardin

plein de fleurs, de verdure et d'ombre, et l'autre sur une plage, véritable tapis de sable, descendant doucement vers la mer," so glibly hit off by M. Duclos' paragraphs. And if any father of a family, young, lively, and fond of a holiday, wants to know where he can accommodate his domestic circle with balls, concerts, races, regattas, and good living, at a cheap rate, I can recommend him to put up at the Etablissement des Bains, Cherbourg, with its magnificent rooms and singularly-fresh prospects before and behind.

On Friday morning, after breakfast, we went over the Magenta, a steam-ram of 1,000 horse-power, and built by the French Government at a price of 280,0007. Her bow is very ugly. With the sprit and the water-line it makes the letter Z: thus Z. There was instant permission afforded us to inspect the vessel, and the first-lieutenant was courteous enough to act as our conductor all over it. He was a jolly little fellow, with a round face, blue eyes, and curly flaxen hair; not a bit like the Frenchman-as most of us know him-in his appearance. I daresay you will not care to be told the details about their great guns, their equipment, or their magazines, "main-deck," "orlop-deck," machinerooms, hospital, or state-cabins. We saw them all. The particular feature which the lieutenant impressed upon us was, that every thing was very "comfortable." His own little cabin was chintzed and carpeted, and hung with gay little looking-glasses, such as even Messrs. Jackson and Graham need not turn up their nose at.

This is the first part of my adventures. Perhaps the good folks who read the T. B. Magazine will be treated to the second part before the year is out.

Good Cheer.

WHAT time Life's weary tumult and turmoil
Threaten my feeble struggling soul to foil,

Which, faint and desolate, sinks with my sorrow's weight,
Thus sings my heart to cheer me for the toil:

"The threatening thorn is mother of the rose,
The sternest strife is herald of repose,

And they who labour best amid this world's unrest
Claim the best guerdon at life's welcome close.

The greenest herbage owes its hue to rain,
"Tis tedious toil that lends the worth to gain;
Is it a strange thing, then, that in the lives of men
The sweetest sweetness is the dower of pain?

The safest bays nestle round dangerous capes,
The clearest spring from prisoning granite 'scapes :
Toil on-and understand, 'tis honest Labour's hand
Presses the richest wine from Life's full grapes!"

T. HOOD.

TEMPLE BAR.

M

NOVEMBER 1865.

Sir Jasper's Tenant.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET," &c. &c.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

DIABOLICAL SUGGESTION.

RS. HARDING entered the cosey little paneled chamber, which was used as a breakfast-room, very early on the morning after Mr. Holroyde's visit. But although the Abbey-clock had not yet struck eight, she found Arthur Holroyde standing in the bay-window, contemplating the woody landscape, beautiful in the sunlight of a delicious September morning. Men who lead actively wicked lives are generally early risers. It is only your passive, negatively bad man-your Charles Stuart, or your Rochester-who lie late o' mornings. Nero must be waking early when he has the burning of Rome to arrange for his evening festival; and Marie Marguerite d'Aubray, Marchioness of Brinvilliers, can have little leisure in which to oversleep herself. Arthur Holroyde's life had been a very active one, and the earliest glories of the eastern sunlight generally shone upon his waking eyes, and found him busy planning the campaign of the day. He was the younger son of a younger son, and had never had any money of his own worth speaking of; yet he had lived, and had lived the sort of life which, in his estimation, was a very pleasant one. He had patronised the best tradesmen, and had been hunted by the best sheriff's-officers, and had taken flight to the pleasantest Continental cities, when the dark hour of insolvency came upon him. He had been outlawed, and had spent many years of his wicked existence in those foreign resting-places where Vice assumes her most graceful shape, and flaunts her brilliant image in the very face of poor humdrum Virtue. And he had contrived to enjoy himself very tolerably, living from hand to mouth, and picking up his money in all manner of crooked ways, but preserving the whiteness of his hands, the perfect symmetry of his slender feet, and the gracious

sweetness of that smile which had been irresistible to weak womankind ever since the penniless undergraduate had left the University with an ineffable belief in his own powers, and a profound contempt for his fellow-men-a contempt which he was wise enough to hide under the

VOL. XV.

II

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