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some people cannot afford to pay much for it; yet I would say avoid very cheap soaps, which irritate the skin, owing to the excess of alkali which they contain. Good soaps are now manufactured at a very moderate price by the principal London perfumers, and ought to satisfy the most economical. White, yellow, and brown are the best colors to select. "Tooth-powders are preferable to tooth-pastes. The latter may be pleasanter to use; but the former are certainly more beneficial.

"The violet is one of the most charming odors in nature. It is a scent which pleases all, even the most delicate and nervous; and it is no wonder that it should be in such universal request.

"Lavender was extensively used by the Romans in their baths, whence its name, from lavare, to wash.' It is a nice clean scent and an old and deserving favorite. The best lavender is grown at Mitcham in Surrey, and at Hitchen in Hertfordshire. Mr. James Bridges, the largest English distiller of lavender and peppermint, has three gigantic stills in operation at Mitcham, each able to contain about one thousand gallons."

The "Book of Perfumes" is a work that owes its

"Lotions for the complexion require, of all other cosmetics, to be carefully prepared. Some are composed with mineral poisons, which render them dangerous to use, although they may be effectual in curing certain skin diseases. There ought to be al-existence to the Society of Arts and the Great Exways a distinction made between those intended for hibition. Mr. Rimmel was called upon by the forhealthy skins and those that are to be used for cu- mer to prepare a paper on the Art of Perfumery, taneous imperfections; besides, the latter may be its History and Commercial Development; and to easily removed without having recourse to any vio-qualify himself for the task, he says he had to delent remedies.

"Paints for the face I cannot conscientiously recommend. Rouge is innocuous in itself, being made of cochineal and safflower; but whites are often made of deadly poisons, such as cost poor Zelgar his life a few months since. The best white ought to be made of mother-of-pearl; but it is not often so prepared. To professional people, who cannot dispense with these, I must only recommend great care in their selection; but to others I would say, cold water, fresh air, and exercise are the best recipes for health and beauty, for no borrowed charms can equal those of

'A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted.' "The materials of perfumery may be divided, according to their nature, into twelve series, animal, floral, herbal, andropogon, citrine, spicy, ligneous, radical, seminal, balmy or resinous, fruity, and artificial.

"The animal series comprises only three substances, musk, civet, and ambergris. Musk is a secretion found in a pocket or pod under the belly of the musk-deer, a ruminant which inhabits the higher mountain ranges of China, Thibet, and Tonquin: the male alone yields the celebrated perfume, the best coming from Tonquin. The odor of musk is also to be found, though in a less degree, in the musk-ox, the musk-rat, and musk-duck. A musky fragrance likewise occurs in some vegetables, as the well-known yellow-flowered musk-plant, but its intensity is not sufficient for extraction.

"Civet is the glandular secretion of an animal of the feline tribe, found in Africa and India.

"Ambergris is now ascertained to be generated by the large-headed spermaceti whale, and is the result of a diseased state of the animal, which either throws up the morbific substance, or dies of the malady and is eaten up by other fishes. In either case it becomes loose, and is picked up floating on

the sea or worked ashore.

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"The floral series includes all flowers available for perfumery purposes, — hitherto limited to eight, jasmine, rose, orange, tuberose, cassia, violet, jonquil, and narcissus. Of all these the rose is queen, the queen of flowers, but to the perfumer deriving its principal charm from the delicious fragrance with which Nature has endowed it. He obtains from it an essential oil, a distilled water, a perfumed oil, and a pomade. Even its withered leaves are rendered available to form the ground of sachet powder, for they retain their scent for a considerable time.

vour a huge pile of big books, in order to see how the ancients ministered to the gratification of the olfactory senses. Then two years later, being called upon by the jury at the Exhibition to draw up the official report of the perfumery class, he thus gained so complete an insight into the world of sweet smells that he was induced to publish in the "Englishwoman's Magazine" a series of articles on the subject. Hence the nucleus of the work.

AUTHORS' RIGHTS AND GAINS IN
FRANCE.

THE contrast between the sums paid for Milton's "Paradise Lost" and Byron's "Childe Harold," or any other great modern work, is a standing source of popular astonishment; though, when taken in connection with the other great changes which the world has seen, there is really nothing exceptional about the case. The same has happened in France, which also goes to prove that the change is the result of a general progression, and not of accident. Certain facts of this kind have been published of late, and have attracted attention.

For instance, we are told that in the seventeenth century Chapelain received 3,000 francs for his first and second editions of "La Pucelle," and that great indignation was then expressed that certain popular authors should receive such large sums, while poor writers were compelled to write verses by the bushel to get a crust. It is said that in Chapelain's time verses were paid for at the rate of four francs a hundred for long, and two francs a hundred for shorts,not a grand rate certainly; but then, be it remembered, the poor writer could live for a week on four francs; and his verses were, to tell the truth, frequently quite as poor as himself.

Boileau is said to have sold "Le Lutrin" for 600 francs; Racine to have received only 200 for the manuscripts of " Andromaque"; Diderot 600 for his "Pensées Philosophiques," while Letourneur got only 400 francs for his translation of Young's "Night Thoughts," which made the publisher's fortune, and Rousseau got 6,000 francs for the manuscript of "Emile," really a large sum for the period; but Delille received only 400 francs for his translation of the Georgics. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre sold his first work, the "Voyage à l'Ile de France," for 1,000 francs, about the same time that Goldsmith got half as much again for one of the best romances ever penned in any country.

Coming down to more recent days, it appears that the Constitutionnel newspaper paid Eugène

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Sue 100,000 francs for the "Juif Errant," in ten | the measure of their patrons' tastes, and are too volumes, and the Débats 160,000 francs for the cautious to break the golden thread that binds Mystères de Paris"; and it was thought marvel- them, and fly, like Pegasus, to the region of the lous that Dumas, Sue, and others should obtain a Gods. shilling a line for their contributions to the feuilletons of the journals. The other day a new system of payment was hit upon, Alexandre Dumas receiving two centimes per letter for his "San Felice," published in La Presse, or about sevenpence a line. Frédéric Soulié, for the "Mémoires du Diable," which made his reputation, received 50,000 francs.

CLUB-LIFE IN LONDON.

Or the several books of gossip about London that Mr. Timbs has lately been shaping out of notes collected by him during many previous years, this certainly is the best. The first volume contains

notices of a hundred London clubs and their most The second volume contains

famous members.

more miscellaneous gossip about London coffeehouses and London taverns.

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George Sand wrote her first novel, in conjunction with Jules Sandeau, and the two received 400 francs between them for their work; "Indiana," by the lady alone, was sold for 1,000 francs; now, the ReMr. Timbs begins by controverting Mr. Carlyle's vue des Deux Mondes pays her 500 francs a sheet speculation that the word club is a relic, "in a sinfor her contributions. In 1823. Victor Hugo's ro-gularly dwindled condition," of the Vow or Gelübde mance of "Hans d'Islande" gained him only 300 of the chivalrous societies common six or seven hunfrancs; "Les Misérables" has already produced dred years ago. The Templars, Hospitallers, and him more than a thousand times that sum. It is others never called their orders clubs; and the noun said that the publisher of the "Mémoires de Théré- is evidently derived from the old verb "to club"; sa" has made about 20,000 francs by that very pop- that is, to join in partnership for anything. The ular and refined production! word club in its social sense coincides in its spelling The position of a popular dramatic author in only by an accident with the quite different word France is regal; his rights, established in 1653, bear club that means a bludgeon or a cudgel. The two magnificent fruit. Scribe left a fortune of 4,000,000 words are of different origin, the social idea of clubfrancs, having commenced by making just £5 by his bing, applied to the division of an expense among first work. At the Grand Opéra a sum of 500 several persons, as when Steele wrote in the francs is divided nightly between the composer and Tatler, "we were resolved to club for a coach,”—is librettist; at the Opéra Comique the author re- from the Anglo-Saxon cleofan, to cleave or divide. ceives one eighth and a half of the gross receipts It was applied in that sense to social meetings at for a piece of three acts, one sixth and a half for which men clubbed together their several shares to two, and one sixth for one act; at the Français he produce some common result. The Pall-Mall club receives fifteen per cent of the proceeds when his conveys in its name simply the fact of joint contripiece occupies the whole evening, and so on in pro-bution by its members to maintain an institution portion; the Odéon allots twelve per cent in like common to them all. "We now use the word club manner. The principal minor theatres give ten per for a sodality in a tavern," said Aubrey, about 1659; cent, and at the Châtelet, which makes the largest and the Rota, meeting at the Turk's Head, in New receipts, the author's portion has often amounted to Palace yard, seems to have been almost the first 1,000 francs a night; the little theatres in the out- society that called itself a club. The pleasant meetskirts of Paris pay 12, 22, and 30 francs each even-ings at the Mermaid Tavern and the Devil, near ing for pieces of one, two, or three acts respectively; lastly, the provincial theatres are divided into five classes, the first paying 40 or 50 francs, and the last 3 or 4 francs per night.

There are in Paris, at the present moment, four operas, two imperial theatres, seven vaudeville and genre theatres, twelve minor houses of all kinds, three equestrian theatres, and six or seven small theatres in the banlieue, making in all thirty-five, so that dramatic authors have a wide field, and they do not neglect its cultivation. Authors of reputation obtain premiums in addition to the above droits d'auteur; and, moreover, often make a considerable sum by the sale of the manuscript to a publisher.

Temple Bar, of Ben Jonson's days, were not known as clubs till long after their foundation.

The name began with the political clubs like the Rota, founded in 1659. It immediately had a crowd of imitators and rivals, designed to give expression to all sorts of political views, as well as to provide pleasant occupation for their various members.

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Man is said to be a sociable animal," wrote Addison," and as an instance of it we may observe that we take all occasions and pretences of forming our selves into those little nocturnal assemblies which are commonly known by the name of clubs. When a set of men find themselves agree in any particular, though never so trivial, they establish themselves into a kind of fraternity and meet once or twice a week, upon the account of such a fantastic resem

Alexandre Dumas is said to have received 11,000 francs for his "Mariage sous Louis XV." in pre-blance." miums alone; and each piece of M. Sardon is said to produce him on an average, all included, about 80,000 francs. Some fairy pieces have produced sums almost as fabulous as their plots; "Rothomago" is said to have yielded its author nearly 100,000 francs, and the "Pied de Mouton " more than that amount. Corneille received 4,000 francs for " Attila and "Bérénice," and was thought to have

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discovered a mine of wealth.

It is quite evident that it is not want of patronage that prevents the French dramatists of the present time from rivalling Racine, Corneille, Molière, and Beaumarchais; but they doubtless know

The fanciful clubs described in the Spectator were hardly beyond the truth. There was the Beefsteak Club, and the October Club, where, said Swift, "above a hundred Parliament men who drink Oc tober beer meet to consult affairs and drive things on to extremes against the Whigs"; the Saturday Club, of which Swift was a member, although he grumbled at the number of its members and the weakness of its wit, and the Brothers' Club, of

Club-Life in London; with Anecdotes of the Clubs, Coffee
Eighteenth, and Nineteenth Centuries. By JOHN TIMBS, F. S. A.

Houses, and Taverns of the Metropolis, during the Seventeenth,
In Two Volumes.

Saturday

which he himself was the founder. "We take in none," he said, "but men of wit or men of interest; and if we go on as we began, no other club in this town will be worth talking of." The Brothers' was broken up in 1714, to be followed by the Scriblerus Club, also founded by Swift, with Oxford and St. John, Arbuthnot, Pope, and Gay for members. The Calves Head Club was established "in ridicule of the memory of Charles the First"; and the King's Head Club was organized for the support of Charles the Second's government. These, and others like them, were violent enough; but very much worse were such clubs as the Mohocks, described in the Spectator, and the Hell-fire, with the Duke of Wharton for its high-priest of debauchery and profaneness. Very much worthier was the Kit Kat Club, of which Mr. Timbs gives an account, differing much from that recently included in Mr. Knight's "Shadows of the Old Booksellers."

the use of a lancet would affect the fairness of the bet.

"Walpole gives some of these narratives as good stories made on White's.' A parson coming into the Club on the morning of the earthquake of 1750, and hearing bets laid whether the shock was caused by an earthquake or the blowing-up of powder-mills, went away in horror, protesting they were such an impious set, that he believed if the last trump were to sound they would bet puppet-show against Judgment. Gilly Williams writes to Selwyn, 1764, 'Lord Digby is very soon to be married to Miss Fielding.' Thousands might have been won in this house (White's), on his Lordship not knowing that such a being existed.

"One of the youth at White's,' writes Walpole to Mann, July 10, 1744, has committed a murder, and intends to repeat it. He betted £1,500 that a man could live twelve hours under water; hired a desperate fellow, sunk him in a ship, by way of experiment, and both ship and man have not appeared since. Another man and ship are to be tried for their lives, instead of Mr. Blake, the assassin.""

One of the earliest clubs of the modern or tertiary period is "The Athenæum." It was started in 1824 at a meeting in the rooms of the Royal Society, Sir Humphrey Davy, Sir Walter Scott, Chantrey, and Sir Thomas Lawrence being among those present, and Professor Faraday acting as secretary. It was then agreed to establish the club as "The Society." Its name was afterwards changed to "The Athenæum," and in 1830 it was lodged in the building it now occupies, a building designed by Decimus Burton according to Greek architecture, with a frieze exactly copied from the Panathenaic procession in the frieze of the Parthenon, and with Baily's figure of Minerva over its Doric entrance portico.

The Royal Society Club is the oldest now in existence. It originated with Dr. Halley, who "used to come on a Tuesday from Greenwich, the Royal Observatory, to Child's Coffee-House, where literary people met for conversation." The talk lasted so long that they were often troubled where to get their dinner. At last they arranged, according to the old letter-writer quoted by Mr. Timbs, "to go to a house in Dean's court, between an alehouse and a tavern, where there was a great draught of porter. It was kept by one Reynell. It was agreed that one of the company should go and buy fish in Newgate street, having first informed himself how many meant to stay and dine. The ordinary and liquor usually came to half a crown, and the dinner only consisted of fish and pudding. Dr. Halley never ate anything but fish, for he had no teeth." That was in 1731. Before long Reynell took the King's Arms, in St. Paul's Churchyard. Dr. Halley and his friends went with him, "and they began to have The Reform Club, it need hardly be said, was a little meat." On Halley's death his friends re-established by the Liberal members of Parliament, moved to the Mitre, in Fleet Street, and there, in 1743, established the Club of Royal Philosophers. Fifty years later the name was changed to the Royal Society Club, and as such, in various houses, it has flourished to this day.

The oldest clubs of Pall Mall and its neighborhood were founded soon after. Arthur's and White's, originally coffee-houses, became famous as clubs about the middle of the eighteenth century. Boodle's was founded about 1773, and Brookes's in 1778. All were great gaming-places, and famous as the resort of Fox and Sheridan, Selwyn, Garrick, and others of that time, about whom Mr. Timbs collects a batch of curious anecdotes.

· ...

There was heavier gambling at White's than at Brookes's.

"At White's, the least difference of opinion invariably ended in a bet, and a book for entering the particulars of all bets was always laid upon the table; one of these, with entries of a date as early as 1744, Mr. Cunningham tells us, had been preserved. A book for entering bets is still laid on the table.

In these betting-books are to be found bets on births, deaths, and marriages; the length of a life, or the duration of a ministry; the placeman's prospect of a coronet; on the shock of an earthquake; or the last scandal at Ranelagh, or Madame Cornelys's. A man dropped down at the door of White's; he was carried into the house. Was he dead or not? The odds were immediately given and taken for and against. It was proposed to bleed him. Those who had taken the odds the man was dead protested that

who were working together in 1830-32 for the carrying of the Reform Bill. It was lodged in Great George Street and in Gwydyr House, Whitehall, until the end of 1837, when its present home was built from the design of Barry.

The Carlton, founded by the Duke of Wellington in 1831, had in 1836 a new house built for it in Pall Mall from the designs of Sydney Smirke, who rebuilt it in 1854 on a more sumptuous scale as a copy of Sansovino's Library of St. Mark at Venice. A combination of Sansovino's Library of St. Mark and his Palazzo Cornaro was designed by Messrs. Parnell and Smith for the Army and Navy Club house, opened in 1851. Upon these and all such matters Mr. Timbs faithfully gives the information to be looked for in a book like his.

About all the later clubs, coming down to the Whittington, started in 1846, with Douglas Jerrold for its first president, Mr. Timbs has abundance of facts and anecdotes. He then turns back two hundred years to talk of the old coffee-houses and taverns. The oldest taverns were very old indeed. The Anglo-Saxons had their wine-houses and guesthouses, and the same places were carried on as taverns from the time of the Norman conquest. Chaucer tells how the 'prentices of his time "loved better the tavern than the shop," and to this day the indentures of all city apprentices stipulate that they shall not "haunt taverns." Shakespeare's account of the Boar's Head, in Eastcheap, is true for the taverns of his own time, though hardly for the days of Henry the Fourth; and there are many

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other pictures of tavern-life under Queen Elizabeth | pany of them all. We are carried to these places and James the First. in chairs (or sedans), which are here very cheap,a guinea a week, or a shilling per hour,—and your chairmen serve you for porters to run on errands, as your gondoliers do at Venice.

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Bishop Earle, who wrote in the first half of the seventeenth century, has left this character' of a tavern of his time: A tavern is a degree, or (if you will) a pair of stairs above an alehouse, where men are drunk with more credit and apology. If the vintner's nose be at the door, it is a sign sufficient, but the absence of this is supplied by the ivybush. It is a broacher of more news than hogsheads, and more jests than news, which are sucked up here by some spongy brain, and from thence squeezed into a comedy. Men come here to make merry, but indeed make a noise, and this music above is answered with a clinking below. The drawers are the civilest people in it,- men of good bringing up; and howsoever we esteem them, none can boast more justly of their high calling. "T is the best theatre of natures, where they are truly acted, not played, and the business, as in the rest of the world, up and down, to wit, from the bottom of the cellar to the great chamber. A melancholy man would find here matter to work upon, -to see heads, as brittle as glasses, and often broken; men come hither to quarrel, and come here to be made friends; and if Plutarch will lend me his simile, it is even Telephus's sword that makes wounds, and cures them. It is the common consumption of the afternoon, and the murderer or the maker away of a rainy day. It is the torrid zone that scorches the face, and tobacco the gunpowder that blows it up. Much harm would be done if the charitable vintner had not water ready for the flames. A house of sin you may call it, but not a house of darkness, for the candles are never out; and it is like those countries far in the north, where it is as clear at midnight as at midday. After a long sitting it becomes like a street in a dashing shower, where the spouts are flushing above, and the conduits running below, etc. To give you the total reckoning of it, it is the busy man's recreation, the idle man's business, the melancholy man's sanctuary, the stranger's welcome, the inns-of-court man's entertainment, the scholar's kindness, and the citizen's courtesy. It is the study of sparkling wits, and a cup of comedy their book, whence we leave them.'"

It was about then that coffee-houses came into fashion, almost, if not quite, the first being that founded by Thomas Garway, or Garraway, in 1651. It, Jonathan's, and Lloyd's soon became famous haunts of city merchants and stock-jobbers, continuing their fame to the present day. Others, without number, were soon opened in all other parts of London.

"A cabinet picture of the coffee-house life of a century and a half since is thus given in the wellknown Journey through England' in 1714. 'I am lodged,' says the tourist, in the street called Pall Mall, the ordinary residence of all strangers, because of its vicinity to the Queen's palace, the Park, the Parliament House, the theatres, and the chocolate and coffee houses, where the best company frequent. If you would know our manner of living, 't is thus:-'We rise by nine, and those that frequent great men's levees find entertainment at them till eleven, or, as in Holland, go to tea-tables; about twelve the beau monde assemble in several coffee or chocolate houses; the best of which are the Cocoa-tree and White's Chocolate-Houses, St. James's, the Smyrna, Mrs. Rochford's, and the British Coffee-Houses; and all these so near one another, that in less than an hour you see the com

"If it be fine weather, we take a turn into the Park till two, when we go to dinner; and if it be dirty, you are entertained at piquet or basset at White's, or you may talk politics at the Smyrna or St. James's. I must not forget to tell you that the parties have their different places, where, however, a stranger is always well received; but a Whig will no more go to the Cocoa-tree or Ozinda's, than a Tory will be seen at the Coffee-house, St. James's. "The Scots go generally to the British, and a mixture of all sorts to the Smyrna. There are other little coffee-houses much frequented in this neighborhood, -Young Man's for officers, Old Man's for stock-jobbers, paymasters, and courtiers, and Little Man's for sharpers. I never was so confounded in my life as when I entered into this last : I saw two or three tables full at faro, heard the box and dice rattling in the room above stairs, and was surrounded by a set of sharp faces, that I was afraid would have devoured me with their eyes. I was glad to drop two or three half-crowns at faro to get off with a clear skin, and was overjoyed I so got rid of them.

"At two, we generally go to dinner; ordinaries are not so common here as abroad, yet the French have set up two or three good ones, for the convenience of foreigners, in Suffolk Street, where one is tolerably well served; but the general way here is to make a party at the coffee-house to go to dine at the tavern, where we sit till six, when we go to the play; except you are invited to the table of some great man, which strangers are always courted to, and nobly entertained.""

We commend Mr. Timbs's book as one of the pleasantest that can be turned to for gossiping information about London life during the past two hundred years. His subject introduces him to nearly all the greatest politicians, wits, playwrights, and merchants of London since the days of Charles the Second, and he handles it in the best possible

way.

BELGIAN BONE CAVES.

THE explorations of the Belgian bone caves, which have been carried on for some time past by MM. Van Beneden and Dupont, have been referred to several times in the pages of The Reader. We have now to lay before our readers an account of the progress of the work up to the end of November last, and for this purpose we make use of a report recently presented by M. Dupont to the Belgian Minister of the Interior. We may premise that all the bone caves in this locality furnish indisputable evidence of one fact, viz.: that the cave-dwellers were destroyed by a sudden inundation, which covered the whole of Belgium and the North of France, the evidences of which M. Dupont finds in the limon of Hesbaye and the yellow clay of the fields, and in the peculiar arrangement of the debris in the caverns. The cave at present under examination was discovered in May last, and is situated on the banks of the river Lesse, opposite the hamlet of Chaleux, about a mile and a half from the well-known Furfooz cave.

At an epoch long before that of its habitation by man, this cavern was traversed by a thermal spring.

It is well lighted, is easy of access, and its situation The number of objects obtained from this cavern is most picturesque. The number of objects found is greater than that obtained from the whole of the in this cave is enormous, and would appear to point caves previously explored. Of worked flints, in to an extended period of occupation by these primi- various stages of manufacture, thirty thousand were tive people. The grand trou de Chaleux, as M. Van collected. Besides these, M. Dupont obtained sevBeneden has proposed to call it, has also been sub-eral cubic metres of bones of all kinds, the horses' jected to the inundation, but the contents have been teeth already mentioned, and a vast quantity of mispreserved almost intact, and this circumstance gives cellaneous articles. a value to the discoveries which was to some extent wanting in the Furfooz caves. According to M. Dupont's theory, the former inhabitants of the cave, warned by the dangerous cracks in the walls and ceiling, suddenly abandoned their dwelling-place, leaving behind them their tools, ornaments, and the remains of their meals. Soon afterwards the roof and sides fell in, and the pieces thus detached covered the floor. In this manner the remains have been preserved from the action of the waters, and have remained undisturbed until the present day. The unfortunate inhabitants doubtless saw in this occurrence the manifestation of a superior power, since the cavern does not appear to have been inhabited after this period, only a few worked flints and bones, probably the result of an occasional visit, having been discovered on the upper surface of the

cavern.

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The facts acquired by the excavations at Chaleux, combined with those obtained at the Furfooz caves, form a striking picture of the early ages of man in Belgium. "These ancient people and their customs reappear, after having been forgotten for thousands of years, and like the fabulous bird in whose ashes are found the germ of a new life, antiquity becomes regenerated from its own debris. We see them in their dark, subterranean dwellings, surrounding the hearth, which is protected by the supernatural power of immense, fantastically-shaped bones, engaged in patiently making their flint tools and utensils of reindeer horn, in the midst of pestilential emanations from the animal remains, which their indifference allowed them to retain in their dwelling. The skins of wild beasts, having the hair removed, were stitched together by the aid of their sharpened flints and ivory needles, and served as An important point seems to be established by clothing. We see them pursuing wild animals, armed M. Dupont's researches, - viz. the extended com- with arrows and lances tipped with a barb of flint. mercial relations of these primitive peoples. The We take part in their feasts, where a horse, bear, or flint which was used for the manufacture of their reindeer replaces, on days when their hunting has implements is not that of Belgium, but, according been successful, the tainted flesh of the rat, their to M. de Mortillet, was brought from Touraine. only resource against famine. Their trading exSeveral specimens of fossil shells, most of which tended as far as the regions now forming part of had been perforated, probably for the purpose of France, from whose inhabitants they obtained shells, being strung together, and worn as ornaments, were jet, with which they delight to ornament themselves, collected, and were submitted to M. Nyst, the well- and the flint which is so valuable to them. But a known palæontologist. He recognized most of them falling-in of the roof drives them from their prinas belonging to the calcaire grossier of Courtagnon, cipal dwelling, in which lie buried the objects of near Rheims. Two species belonged to the depart-their faith and their domestic utensils, and they are ment of Seine-et-Oise. Some fragments of jet and forced to seek another habitation..... We know a few sharks' teeth were from the same locality. nothing certain of the relation of these people with "We cannot therefore deny," says M. Dupont, "the those of earlier times. Had they ancestors in this relations of these men with Champagne, whilst there country? The great discoveries of our illustrious is no evidence to show their connection with Hainaut compatriot Schmerling, and those which Professor and the province of Liége, which could have also Malaise has made at Engihoul, seem to prove that furnished them with their flint." the men whose traces I have brought to light on the Amongst other objects brought to light during the Lesse did not belong to the indigenous races of Belexcavations were the forearm of an elephant, which gium, but were only the successors of the more anappears to be that of the mammoth of Siberia, ancient population. I have even met with certain evianimal which did not exist in Belgium at that epoch. "When we reflect that, till within a comparatively short time, these bones were looked upon as those of a race of giants, and gifted with miraculous powers, we cannot be surprised that our inhabitants of the caverns of the Lesse, whose civilization may be compared to that of those African nations who are sunk in the darkest depths of fetichism, attributed similar properties to those enormous bones which were placed as a fetich near their hearth."

dences of our primordial ancestors at Chaleux, but the trail was lost as soon as found. Our knowledge of these ancestors stops short at this point."

We have given in the above abstract an account of the most important features in M. Dupont's report, which is of great interest. We trust that these explorations, which have been carried on at the expense of the government, will be continued.

MR. TUPPER'S WORK AS A POET.*

Judging from the quantity of bones found in the cavern, the principal food of these cave-dwellers was the flesh of the horse. M. Dupont collected nine which they themselves satisfy. Every one has reALL the greater poets have formed the taste hundred and thirty-seven molar teeth belonging to marked the struggle through which Wordsworth had this animal, a number which corresponds to about to pass before, in the evening of his days, he found forty heads, supposing each set of teeth to be com- a generation in whom he had instilled a thirst for plete. The marrow seems to have been in great re- the "lonely rapture of lonely minds," and full of quest, all the long bones having been broken, so as to extract it. Most of them retain traces of incis-which he slaked that thirst. Even Mr. Tennyson gratitude for the clear draughts of melody with ions made by their flint tools. The large number of had to fight his way over minds that rebelled against bones of water-rats would also lead us to suppose that they formed a part of the food of these people, as did the badger, hare, and boar.

* Moxon's Miniature Poets. A Selection from the Works of MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER, M. A., D. C. L., F

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