dictive malice, taking up the pistol in his left hand, advanced within the nearest limit-the count still retaining his position opposite. At last he raised his weapon-every heart was sick with anxiety-long and steady was his murderous aim he drew the trigger-and Count Von Newenberg, with one convulsive spring into the air, fell to the earth with a pistol bullet in his heart. The spectators could scarcely believe their senses, but, alas! it was too true, Of the brave, the generous, and the high-minded young noble, upon whom the sun rose that morning full of health and hope, all that remained now was a senseless lump of clay. The murderer gazed for one brief moment on his work

then turned to the mountains, and never was the gloomy form of the black Baron seen in Heidelberg again.

It is only to students who have distinguished themselves at the university that the honor of a public funeral by torch-light is ever accorded, and that by special leave of the authorities; and as the mortality among them is very slight, it is a spectacle which rarely occurs, and is not often seen by an Irishman. The sorrow for the death of Von Newenberg was deep and universal-his own intimate companions and the whole of the chore to which he belonged were inconsolable at his loss; and when the family of the unfortunate young nobleman, having been apprised of the sad event, at length arrived, a day was fixed for conveying his remains, with public honours, to the grave. Every student of the university, and most of the professors, made it a point to attend. The scene was fraught with melancholy interest, and was one which made a deep impression upon us.

At the distance of little more than a mile from the town lies the new burial-place of Heidelberg. It is a quiet spot, embosomed by trees, upon a sunny slope on the mountain's side. We have seldom seen a place in which the spirit, shattered by the disappointments and torn by the storms of this weary world, could find a calmer repose.

Far off so far that its noise can scarcely reach the ear-roll on the bustle and the toil of life; the plaintive and soothing murmur of the Neckar is heard in the distance, as with a sound like breakers in a dream, it rip

ples past, sweet and musical enough in fancy's ear to soothe even the still repose of death; wild flowers bloom in rich profusion, and tall trees cast their shadows across the quiet graves ;-not these alone, but the rose, the lily, and the violet, planted and tended by careful hands, mark where the loved and lost ones sleep. A German burialplace is indeed an instructive study, and one which fills the mind with sad but pleasant thoughts. No marble monuments, once rich with carving, and decorated by the curious tracery of art, but mouldering and neglected by the hand of time, are there; no emblazoned stone, fresh from the artist's hand, tells in letters of gold the history of the life and the many virtues of the dust which lies beneath it; no rank weeds wave over neglected graves; but a little square piece of earth, amid the green turf, smooth as velvet, with a rustic cross and a weeping willow at its head, planted with those sweet flowers, afford a simple and touching proof that they who sleep beneath are not forgotten, nor even remembered as when, struck by disease, they lay pale and wasted upon the bed of death; but that they are still associated in the minds of the survivors with the fresh and beautiful things of earth, while the bloom of the annual, returning again with the breath of spring, is planted as if to testify that the spirit has quitted its tenement of clay for a land where the summer of its life shall never fade. The dull and solemn tone of the funeral-bell comes floating from the old grey tower of the cathedral, as the mournful train which accompanied the departed student to his resting-place draws near. It is preceded by a band of music, and the trumpets fall with a wailing cadence upon the ear. On it comes!the flaming torches cast a fitful glare through the darkness-now lighting up the faces of the spectators-now falling with an uncertain gleam upon the "Todten bahre," or hearse, which, drawn by six horses clothed in black, with white plumes nodding at their heads, sweeps slowly past. It is a long, long, funeral car without a canopy, upon which the coffin, covered with black cloth trailing in the dust, is laid. It is usually preceded by a company of torchbearers. Crosswise upon the cof

fin were laid two 'schlagers,' fastened together with the chore band and the cap of the young noble, the gay chore colours of the baskethilts being closely muffled with black crape. The Senior of the chore, attired in full dress-a hat, with white plumes, deep white leather gloves, and with his sword trailing behind him on the ground, followed the funeral car. Then comes the whole chore, drawn up in two lines, marching in single file, rach man clad in black, and carrying nis drawn sword, with its point turned to the ground. The remainder of the students, marshalled in separate chores, come next, every one carrying in his hand a torch of blazing pine.

"Solemn the sound of their measured tread,

As silent and slow they followed the dead."

Garlands of flowers are laid on the coffin, and as the procession passes on its way, the wail of the trumpets, the strange costume of the students, the blue steel glancing in the torch-light, formed altogether a spectacle not inferior in interest to anything we had ever seen, though wanting the muffled drum and the well-arranged trappings of martial pomp; it is even a more touching sight than the soldier's funeral. The train reached at last the Friedhof, or churchyard, and the chore of the departed student, assembling round the open grave, lowered the coffin with cords to its last resting place; each man then threw a handful of earth upon it; a short address was pronounced by the clergyman, eulogising the many virtues of the deceased, setting forth his simple and manly virtues, and deprecating the act by which he met his untimely end. The companions of the chore then lowered their swords on the grave, and clashed them together twice or thrice, a burst of music rose from the band, and every voice joined in singing the beautiful words of Schiller's song

"THE GRAVE.

"Deep yawns the grave to mortals-
On its brink dark horrors stand;
A black veil shrouds the portals
Of that undiscovered land.

"The nightingale's sweet singing,
In its breast can never sound
Nor love, her roses flinging,
Break through the mossy ground.

"Nor can the bride forsaken,

As she wrings her hands in woe, Nor the wailing orphans waken The dust that sleeps below.

"But, still, in that place so lonely,

Can the peace we have sought for come And man through its dark gates only, Rest in a quiet home.

"And the heart that with grief is riven,
Finds ever in that still shore,
From the storms of life a haven,

Where its pulses beat no more."

This song concluded, the party then bent their steps homewards, and left him whom they had seen among them but yesterday, in the full flush of youth and happiness, alone with solitude.

The

When we reached the town, we proceeded to the Museum Platz, or grand 'place' of the town, when the whole array was marshalled into a hollow square, the seniors of the respective chores occupying the different corners. The spectacle was now truly magnificent; one vast square of light was formed by the blazing torches which flashed strangely upon the fanciful costume, the white plumes, and gleam. ing schlagers of the students. trumpets rang forth in plaintive music -a thousand voices joined in a magnificent chorus-a thousand swords in the pauses of the music clashed together at a given signal every one flung his torch on high into the air, whirling about through the deep darkness of the night, they looked like so many fiery meteors, each emitting, in its descent, a shower of sparks; crossing each other in the air they all fell together forming in the centre of the square a brilliant pile, which flared for one brief moment, up into a blaze of light, and then suddenly died away, no unfitting emblem of the career of him whose light of life they had so lately seen extinguished. The assembly then dispersed. This sad story, the features of which are doubtless familiar to any one who has happened to be a traveller in Germany within the last two years, will be recognised by many a reader. Two noble families were plunged into the deepest affliction by the mournful event, and in the course of the last summer, at Berlin, a beautiful girl, in whose faded cheek the lines of sorrow were still recent, was pointed out to us as the once celebrated "flower of the Odenwald."

ALACK a day! what a weary world it is grown to be !-with all our newlydiscovered roads to knowledge and wealth, our monster factories, our steam presses, our eternal teachings, and our headlong pursuit of money!

Youth is but a probationary exercise of the faculties, destined to subsequent distinction in some career of ambition; manhood is the open warfare ofcraft against craft, and calling against calling; and even childhood! childhood, that once was free, and happy, and careless, is now a poor, imprisoned, fettered thing, bound up by trammels, flattered into a false esteem of qualities, that confer no pleasure at the time, and lead to no profit afterward-stripped of its fairest gift, imagination, the prompter of hope, the 66

nurse of young desire," it is rendered a miserable state of pedantic self-sufficiency, without knowledge, and, worst of all, without hope.

Where is the beaming eye of happy childhood now ?-where its light step, its lighter heart, its merry laugh, its bursting buoyancy? They are gone, lost, buried beneath a mountain of little Pinnock's catechisms, tales about chemistry, stories of botany, twaddling mockeries of science, serving to corrupt the taste, and not stimulate the ardour of youthful study.

Let us if we will-or rather, if we must-be "slaves of the lamp" of wealth-let us toil, and think, and labour, from morning till late at night, and even through the darksome hours too, let us fashion our minds and train our faculties, curb our generous impulses, and direct our energies to this one only aim and object-let the burden of our song be gold, still gold; but in the name of all charity, let us spare childhood-let one little brief portion of human existence be set apart from terrible conscription-let not infancy be tortured by a load unsuited to its tiny strength-but let its own qualities indulge companionship in the bright visions of

imaginative fiction, glittering and brilliant with all the hues, whose reflection is to be found nowhere so truly, as in their own face.

Oh, for the days of Tom Thumb, and Jack the Giant-Killer, and the Princess Morgiana, and Beauty and the Beast, and Jack and the Beanstalk, and a thousand more! Oh, for the gorgeous dreams of beautiful gardens bending with luscious fruits, and palaces splendid in glittering gems of cataracts leaping from rocks of agate, and flowers whose perfume steep the very senses in delight! Oh, for the warm affections, so ardently, but so truly pourtrayed-the contrasts so skilfully blended, the happy stratagems of mind over brute strength! Oh, for the small and cherished idolatry of some hero or heroine of the hour, suggesting its little world of high thought and noble darings, the nurtured detestation of cruelty, the love of everything like fidelity and devotedness! Oh, for these, in all their freshness and their innocence, rising like air bubbles from the clear well of guileless childhood! Ay, welcome even the very sorrows of the hour, mingled as they are with joys, and making the rainbow of the heart!

The cold and cheerless wisdom of the world is scarce so redolent of happiness, that we should wish to plant it in infancy; nor would all the successes of after life be cheaply purchased at such a price. That they are so, generally, we utterly deny. Few of those who hold their heads above the common herd of mankind, are not lifted above them as much by elevation of sentiment, as by purely intellectual superiority; and not one of these, perhaps, would deny the influence of those day-dreams which gilded his childhood, and made even the glittering triumphs of real life, pale before the passing splendours of young imagination.

Instances of this kind come crowding on our memory. The rugged Na

poleon-the stern warrior that computed victory by the death of so many thousands-even he, we are told by one of his biographers, took singular pleasure in recounting fairy tales to children. The greatest writer of romantic fiction in our own country, used to pride himself on his gift in this way; and even the practical mind of Charles Fox did not disdain the triumph of being the idol of a little circle, who hung upon his words with an attention, as hushed and heartfelt, as ever they were listened to in the great councils of the state.

Well! well!-it was not to seek precedents for our opinion, or to speculate upon it, we commenced this paper. Our object was widely different, and our desire was to address a very different class of readers from those who either care for, or dispute our doctrines. Let the little people be our audience, let us place our chair by the nursery fire; and to an audience, which we far prefer to that assembled in the drawing-room, we will now tell a story of the "Little Tin Soldier." One fact is worth a thousand speculations; and if our narrative be heard with attention and pleasure, we care very little if our theory be slighted.

THE LITTLE TIN SOLDIER.

There were once upon a time twentyfive tin soldiers-downright brothers they were in likeness, and no difference between any of them, because they were all made out of the same tin spoon. They held their guns fast, and they stood up firm and straightred and blue-what a pretty uniform that was! The first word they ever heard in their lives was the loud cry, "tin soldiers, tin soldiers," as a little boy drew aside the cover of the box and looked in at them, for they were his birth-day present. They were all so exactly alike, only one poor fellow, and he had but one leg; the other was shot off, you'll say, in a battle, or perhaps fractured in the box; no, he was born so, "for it happened he was the last melted, and there was not tin enough to make two legs for him;" yet for all that he stood just as prim

and upright on his one leg as his comrades did on their two; that was the very thing made his fate in life so remarkable.

On the table where they were all ranged out, were many other toys; but the most striking of them was a castle made of paper, with windows-real windows, that you could look through and see into all the rooms. In front of the gate was a little grove of trees grouped about a small lake; a pond, which was made of a bit of looking glass, and seemed exactly like real water; and so the little wax swans must have thought, for they swam about and looked at their reflections in the calm surface. But the prettiest of all was a little maiden who stood at the halfopen gate of the castle. She was dressed in snow-white muslin, with a sash of sky-blue over one shoulder, in the middle of which twinkled a star of pure gold; it was only a spangle to be sure, but it glittered like a real star; and the little maiden stretched forth her arms and swung round in a pirouette so lightly and so beautifully, that the tin soldier began to think that, like himself, she had only one leg.

"That were the very wife for me,” thought he to himself, "if she were not so grand, and did not live in that fine castle, while I have nothing better than a wooden box, and there are five and twenty of us in that no place for one like her; for all that I'll try and make my acquaintance with her."

And so he placed himself against a snuff-box that lay on the table, so as to gaze his fill at her, as she stood so easily on her one toe, and never lost the balance.

At last evening came, and the tin soldiers were put up in their case, and the people in the house all went to bed. Then it was that the real fun began, for the toys commenced playing all by themselves-reviews, and visits, and balls, and dances, while in the box the soldiers made such a row, for they could not get the lid off to get out. The wooden nut-cracker-an awkward thing he was began cutting somersaults; and the thin slate pencil, stiff and ungainly like a new recruit, walked up and down the table, and thought a deal of himself; "and the noise was so great that they awoke the canary bird, and he began to sing little verses

upon them all." But there were two there that never stirred or moved the little maiden and the tin soldier ; there she stood, balancing as gracefully as ever, and there was the poor fellow, with fixed eyes upon her just as firm on his one leg.

The clock struck twelve, and just as the last tone died away, off went the lid of the snuff-box. There was no snuff within, but in place of it there sprung out a little black magician, very fierce and very-determined looking. "Tin soldier," said he sternly, "keep your eyes to yourself."

But the tin soldier seemed as if he did not hear him.

"Well, wait till morning comes," said the other, threatening with his clenched fist, and away he went.

Morning came, and the children got up, and the tin soldier was laid close by the window-was it accident, or by the power of the magician?—who knows?but the window burst open by a current of air, and the tin soldier fell head-over-heels out of the thirdstory-high. That was a fearful tumble! and he alighted right on his head, so that the bayonet stuck down deep in the ground. The little boy and his nurse came down to look for him, but though they hunted and sought all around, they never caught sight of him. Had he only cried out "here I am," they'd have soon seen him, but he did not like to scream out that way; it would not have been becoming, because he was in uniform!

The rain now began to fall, at first drops, then in perfect torrents, and when it abated a little, two little urchins came past.

"Look there," cried one-" there's a tin soldier; he shall have a sail for it to-day ;" and they made a little boat out of paper and placed him in it, and set him off down the street-channel. Heavens, what a storm that was, and what big waves were there! for it had rained tremendously, and the waters poured over the stones like a mountain cataract; and the boat how it dipped, and bounded, and twirled round and round so madly, that the tin soldier got addled and confused, but never flurried a bit; he lay still, and changed not a feature, but held his musket as fast as ever. At last the boat dashed down into a deep cavern, dark as ever the little box was with the cover on.

"Where to next?" cried the tin soldier. "Ay, ay, this is the magician's doing. Well, if she were but here at my side, I'd not care if it were as dark again."

As he said this, a great big waterrat jumped out from under the wooden plank over the gutter.

"Has't got a pass?" cried he; "come, out with it, old fellow."

But the tin soldier never spoke a word, but held his gun firm as before. Away went the boat and the rat after it, screaming at the top of his voice"Stop him, stop him; he hasn't paid the toll-he hasn't showed his pass!"

But the stream was even stronger, and wafted the boat forward, and already a gleam of light was seen beyond the channel; but at the instant he heard a terrible sound-a plashing noise that might have made the stoutest heart quake with fear. Only think, where the board stopped, the street gutter was at an end, and the water, with a spring, leaped into a deep canal by a plunge like a downright cataract.

The moment came over went the boat; it disappeared for a second or two, then was seen struggling in the waves, while the tin soldier sat still and firm ; none dare say that he ever winked an eye, or so much as changed colour. There, four times the boat sank to the very edge, the water closed over it; the tin soldier went down deeper and deepereven up to his neck; the waves rose higher and higher, and at last clean over his head. His last thought was of her he was never to see more, while in his brain ran the burthen of an old war-song

"Woe to the soldier, woe,
Through danger he must go."

The boat was dashed to pieces, and he sank down even deeper, when suddenly a great fish sprang at him and swallowed him up. Oh, how dark it was there, and how narrow his prison too; but his stout heart stood by him still, and he lay at full length, and never quitted hold of his musket.

The fish swam here and there, and at length began to make the strangest turnings and turnings; it seemed bewildered, when suddenly a gleam of light broke forth, and a voice exclaimed

"A tin soldier."

For so it was, the fish was caught,