the critic liable to severe reprehension, and even to punishment, the brothers were repeatedly prosecuted by the government.

3. When a fashionable newspaper, with fulsome flattery, had called the profligate prince regent (afterwards George IV.) an Adonis, the brothers added, in their paper, "an Adonis of fifty!" for which cutting sarcasm they were sentenced to a fine of two thousand five hundred dollars, and two years' imprisonment.

4. As the brothers rejected all offers to remit the penalty on condition that the paper should change its tone, they underwent the full sentence; but so much popular sympathy was excited in their behalf, that the cells of their prison were transformed into comfortable apartments, constantly supplied with books and flowers; and there their friends-Byron and Moore among the number-frequently visited them. The cheerful poet gives us the following pleasant picture of his two rooms "on the ground floor,”—a fine example of making the most of adverse circumstances:—

1. Within Prison Walls.

1. "I papered the walls with a trellis of roses; I had the ceiling colored with clouds and sky; the barred windows were screened with Venetian blinds; and when my bookcases were set up, with their busts and flowers, and a piano-forte made its appearance, perhaps there was not a handsomer room on that side the water. I took a pleasure, when a stranger knocked at the door, to see him come in and stare about him. The surprise on issuing from the Borough, and passing through the avenues of a jail, was dramatic. Charles Lamb declared there was no other such room, except in a fairy-tale.

2. "But I had another surprise, which was a garden. There was a little yard outside, railed off from another belonging to the neighboring ward. This yard I shut in

with green palings, adorned it with a trellis, bordered it with a thick bed of earth from a nursery, and even contrived to have a grass-plot. The earth I filled with flowers and young trees. There was an apple-tree from which we managed to get a pudding the second year. As to my flowers, they were allowed to be perfect. My friend the poet, Mr. Moore, told me he had seen no such heart's-ease.

3. "Here I wrote and read in fine weather, sometimes under an awning. In autumn, my trellises were hung with scarlet runners, which added to the flowery investment. I used to shut my eyes in my arm-chair, and affect to think myself hundreds of miles away. A wicket out of the garden led into the large one belonging to the prison. The latter was only for vegetables, but it contained a cherrytree, which I twice saw in blossom."

4. Leigh Hunt was a prolific and pleasant writer, both in prose and in poetry, and several selections from his works were read at our regular meeting. There were some pleasing lines, written in 1840, on the occasion of the birth of the Princess Royal, Victoria Adelaide, who, in 1858, married Frederic William, Crown-Prince of Prussia and the German Empire. There was another, "A Funeral Scene at Ravenna," taken from his touching story of Ri'mini (rce'me-ne). Then followed that exquisite narrative gem, "Abou Ben Adhem and the Angel," for which, alone, we can find room. here:

2. Abou Ben Adhem and the Angel.

1. Abou Ben Adhem-may his tribe increase !—
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold.

2. Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the presence in the room he said,

"What writest thou?" The vision raised its head, And with a look made of all sweet accord,

Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord."

3. "And is mine one?" said Abou.

"Nay, not so,"

Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still; and said, "I pray thee, then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow-men."

4. The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night It came again with a great wakening light,

And showed the names whom love of God had blest,— And, lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.

CHAPTER XXXI.-AROUND THE WORLD.—No. 16.

FROM THE CAPE TO BOMBAY.

I.-At the Cape.

1. My last letter closed on the 27th of August, just as we were expecting to make our landing at Cape Town. But as we were standing off the entrance to the harbor we were boarded by an English pilot, who informed us that although the harbor of Cape Town is safe for vessels during the prevalence of the south-west monsoons-from September to May, it is not safe while the north-west winds prevailfrom June to September. So, passing on thirty-two miles farther south, at the extremity of a long and narrow peninsula we rounded the lofty promontory of Cape Peak, or Cape of Good Hope, and in a spacious bay on the east of it found a secure shelter at Simon's Town.

2. Prof. Howard gave us an account of Gama's trials, and of the storms that he encountered, when he reached the vicinity of the bold promontory that no European had hitherto sailed past. Gama fancied that he here saw the Spirit of the Cape, appearing to him in a fearful cloud that suddenly enveloped his tempest-tossed vessels, and struck terror into the hearts of the sailors, who demanded his immediate return.

3. The poet Camoens, in one of his most beautiful descriptions, represents the apparition as threatening the bold mariner with dire disasters-to be visited upon the Portuguese nation, also-if he should press forward into the unknown seas beyond.

4. From the steamer we went out to Feldhuysen, where Sir John Herschel had resided; passed overland to Cape Town; ascended Table Mountain, and made a few excursions into the interior to study the character, condition, and manners of the people.

5. We saw here a strangely mixed population. There were some of the native Hottentots-a degraded race—now employed as servants or herdsmen ; the native Caffres, tall and robust; and many Boers, or boors, as they are called, who are peasant farmers, mostly of Dutch descent. It was not, altogether, a pleasant population to look upon, nor was the appearance of the country at all inviting.

6. We had come here in the dry season, when the scanty vegetation of a hard, slaty soil was parched into a brown stubble; but we were told that, when the rainy season sets in, the seemingly dead blades of the plants that abound here rush into life with a rapidity that is perfectly enchanting; then, in a few days, millions of flowers of the most brilliant hues enamel the earth, and the barren waste is suddenly transformed into a vast flower-garden.

7. We dug from the parched soil numerous bulbs and tubers of what the Doctor told us were splendid varieties of the iris, gladiolus, amaryllis, African lily, and other plants,

natives of the Cape, that bloom here in the greatest profusion. These botanical specimens we shall bring home with us. I also learned from the Doctor that most of the species of the pelargo'nium now found in our country, as well as many other exotics of our green-houses, were brought, originally, from the Cape of Good Hope. Mr. Agnew's botany pupils may make a note of this.

8. But adieu to this strange land, and to its people still more strange. To-morrow we expect to be on the way to the East Indies.

II.-Mauritius.-Bombay, and its People.

1. Sailing from the Cape on the 16th of September, twenty-seven hundred miles away, toward India, we entered the harbor of Port Louis, the capital of Mauritius, a small rocky island in the Indian Ocean, belonging to England. It is directly on the old route of traffic between the Cape and Bombay.

2. This is the island, as Prof. Howard informed us, once known as the Isle of France, where is laid the scene of the famous story of Paul and Virginia, written by Bernardin de Saint Pierre. The Professor told us the story in his interesting way,-related the historical facts on which it is founded,―and gave a vivid description of the wrecking of the vessel—a real event—in which the heroine of the story was lost, within a cable's length of Port Louis. Then Dr. Edson gave us accounts of some terrific tempests that have swept over the island.

3. As from the Cape to Mauritius, so, also, from this latter island to Bombay, I could find little of interest to write about, and I shall pass by this portion of our "life on the ocean wave," without further notice. It was not the season of the year for the monsoons, which so often sweep over the Indian Ocean during the periods of the vernal and the autumnal equinox; and therefore we had