Koong-yay then pressed Lord Amherst to come to his apartments, alleging that they were cooler, more convenient, and more private. This Lord Amherst declined. The Koong-yay, having failed in his attempt to persuade him, left the room for the purpose of taking the emperor's pleasure upon the subject. A message arrived soon after the Koong-yay's quitting the room, to say that the emperor dispensed with the ambassador's attendance; that he had further been pleased to direct his physician to afford to His Excellency every medical assistance that his illness might require. The Koong-yay himself soon followed, and His Excellency procecded to his carriage. The Koong-yay not disdaining to clear away the crowd, the whip was used by him to all persons indiscriminately; buttons were no protection; and however indecorous, according to our notions, the employment might be for a man of his rank, it could not have been in better hands

ELLIS, SARAH (STICKNEY), an English miscellaneous writer, born in London, 1812; died at Hoddesdon, Herts, June 16, 1872. For many years she conducted a school for girls in Hertfordshire. In 1837 she became the wife of the Rev. William Ellis, mentioned below. By her writings she rendered valuable service to the cause of female education. She was the author of numerous works, among them The Poetry of Life, Home, or the Iron Rule, and Women of England (1838); Summer and Winter in the Pyrenees (1841); The Daughters of England (1842); The Wives of England and The Mothers of England (1843); Family Secrets (1841-43); Pictures of Private Life (1844); Look to the End (1845); The Island Queen, a poem, and Social Distinctions, or Hearts and Homes (1848– 49); Mothers of Great Men (1860); Education of the Heart (1869), and Melville Farm (1871).

"Artistically speaking," writes Mrs. Hale in her work on Distinguished Women, “ The Poetry of Life is the best work of Mrs. Ellis. It shows refined taste and a well cultured mind; and, like all the books of this authoress, an attempt at something more than merely pleasing-the wish to inculcate the purest morality based upon the religion of the Bible." Speaking of the novels of Mrs. Ellis, Mrs. Hale says: "We are loath to believe she pictures truly the condition of her country.

women; because, if she does, the character of the men of England must be selfish, sensual, hard and coarse!" The same distinguished American authority gives the crown of superiority in the higher sense of usefulness to the works which her English contemporary has addressed particularly to the women of her own land. "Candid and conscientious, her principles grounded on sincere religion, it seems to be the aim of this excellent woman to be humbly useful in her generation and to make the most use of her talents in doing good. The Women of England, and the other manuals of this series, are written professedly to direct the young, the unwise, and the ignorant. Neither metaphysical subtlety nor novelty was required to strike the sage and the philosopher. Well-known truths, and the sensible reiteration of useful advice are plainly set forth, and the guide of the whole is Christian doctrine. Such works must do good."

A writer in Chambers's English Literature says that "this lady is the Hannah More of the present generation. She has written fifty or sixty volumes, nearly all conveying moral or religious instruction, and all written in a style calculated to render them both interesting and popular."

THE CIRCLE OF GAVARNIE.

The Circle of Gavarnie is so named from its being a sort of basin, enclosed on all sides but one; and at the time we saw it, the depth of the hollow was covered with a thick bed of snow. Of its perpendicular height an idea may be formed by the great cascade, which falls over a surface of rock of fourteen hundred feet, thus VOL. IX.-12

forming the highest waterfall in Europe. On the first melting of the snows, and at the season when we beheld it, it is as magnificent in the volume of water which descends as in its height. At the summit where it rolls over the lofty precipices, two gigantic masses of rock stand forth, as if to guard its fall, which is not interrupted until the last quarter of the distance, where a bolder and darker mass separates the column of water, without the majestic line of the whole cascade being broken. In order to form a correct idea of the beauty of the whole scene, it is necessary to imagine the rock's of the finest marble, streaked and variegated with every tint, from the deepest brown and purple, to the brightest yellow, sometimes varying even to rose-color. A perpendicular wall of this structure rises beyond the great waterfall; and down its side were precipitated twelve other waterfalls, while over its summit lay a vast field of snow again another wall of marble, diversified with cascades, more faint and blue in the distance; and above all, the more majestic wall on which stand the two mighty rocks, called the Towers of Marboré, crowned with eternal snows, and all formed of the most beautiful marble, fluted like the columns of a Grecian temple. The highest of these walls of marble rises at a perpendicular height of about one thousand feet above the amphitheatre, which is formed by the receding of the different beds of snow, in the form of a semicircle. To the right, the snows and the pinnacles of rock seem to mingle into a mere chaotic mass; while, rising immediately from the bed of the hollow basin, are bold buttresses of the adjoining mountain, standing out like barriers to protect the whole; and over their perpendicular sides the most beautiful cascades were pouring, some of them like silver threads, making in all sixteen within the circle.

It is over this portion of the circle that the celebrated Breche de Rolande appears, a giant cleft in a solid wall of rock, about six hundred feet in height, said to have been made by the warrior from whom it derives its name, when he opened for himself a passage for his conquests over the Moors. Amongst the many wonders told of this more than mortal hero, he is said, after

effecting this passage into Spain, to have reached with one leap of his horse, the centre of the rocky defile, now called Chaos; and our guide actually stopped as we passed through it, to show us the mark of his horse's foot-print on the stone where he alighted.

The appearance of the Circle of Gavarnie is very deceptive as to its actual extent. It seemed but a trifle to walk from where we stood at the entrance, to the base of the great waterfall; yet the guide told us it would take an hour to reach it; and I could the more readily believe him, when I reflected that we could but just hear, from where we stood, the hissing fall of that immense body of water. Later in the season, when the heats of summer have prevailed with lengthened power, this waterfall works for itself an archway, which leaves a bridge of snow; and the waters then form a sort of lake in the hollow of the circle, the whole circumference of which is said to be about ten miles.-Summer and Winter in the Pyrenees.