lot-box, and from which shall issue-what?-an assembly-an assembly in which you shall all live-an assembly which shall be, as it were, the soul of all—a supreme and popular council, which shall decide, judge, resolve everything-which shall make the sword fall from every hand, and excite the love of justice in every 'heart-which shall say to each, 'Here terminates your right, there commences your duty: lay down your arms! live in peace !' And in that day you will all have one common thought, common interests, a common destiny; you will embrace each other, and recognise each other as children of the same blood, and of the same race; that day you will no longer be hostile tribes-you will be a people; you will no longer be Burgundy, Normandy, Brittany, or Provence-you will be France! You will no longer make appeals to war-you will do so to civilisation. If, at the period I speak of, some one had uttered these words, all men of a serious and positive character, all prudent and cautious men, all the great politicians of the period, would have cried out, 'What a dreamer! what a fantastic dream! How little this pretended prophet is acquainted with the human heart! What ridiculous folly! what an absurd chimera!' Yet, gentlemen, time has gone on and on, and we find that this dream, this folly, this absurdity, has been realised! And I insist upon this, that the man who would have dared to utter so sublime a prophecy, would have been pronounced a madman for having dared to pry into the designs of the Deity. Well, then, you at this moment say-and I say it with you-we who are assembled here, say to France, to England, to Prussia, to Austria, to Spain, to Italy, to Russia--we say to them, "A day will come when from your hands also the arms you have grasped will fall. A day will come when war will appear as absurd, and be as impossible, between Paris and London, between St Petersburg and Berlin, between Vienna and Turin, as it would be now between Rouen and Amiens, between Boston and Philadelphia. A day will come when you, France-you, Russia-you, Italy-you, England-you, Germany-all of you, nations of the Continent, will, without losing your distinctive qualities and your glorious individuality, be blended into a superior unity, and constitute an European fraternity, just as Normandy, Brittany, Burgundy, Loraine, Alsace, have been blended into France. A day will come when the only battlefield will be the market open to commerce and the mind opening to new ideas. A day will come when bullets and bombshells will be replaced by votes, by the universal suffrage of nations, by the venerable arbitration of a great Sovereign Senate, which will be to Europe what the Parliament is to England, what the Diet is to Germany, what the Legislative Assembly is to France. A day will come when a cannon will be exhibited in public museums, just as an instrument of torture is now, and people will be astonished how such a thing could have been. A day will come when those two immense groups, the United States of America and the United States of Europe, shall be seen placed in presence of each other, extending the hand of fellowship across the ocean, exchanging their produce, their commerce, their industry, their arts, their genius, clearing the earth, peopling the deserts, improving creation, under the eye of the Creator, and uniting, for the good of all, these two irresistible and infinite powers— the fraternity of men, and the power of God."*

Hear another, Rabbi Stein :

"I thank God that he has permitted me, the teacher of God's oldest revelation, to live to this day, to address this large and honourable assembly. Could our persecuted fathers rise from their graves and hear the precious word 'Peace,' they would extend their hand to this union, formed of all the nations of the earth. Now that the ark of thought is come to rest on the top of the Ararat of our time, will we send out the dove of peace! Germany may at this moment have no voice to raise for the aim for

Speech at Paris, in 1849.

which we strive, but do not believe on that account that her sympathies are not with us. Germany, whose fields have so often been heaped up with the bloody bodies of her children-Germany cheers you on. A people which arms against itself, appears to me like a man who plants himself before a mirror, and strikes his own reflection. The standing army is perilous to freedom within and without. Not only governments, but also representative assemblies, are called to abolish the policy of an armed peace. Peace, at any price, the cabinets demand. Abolition of standing armies, at any price, is the cry of the people. Let the iron of the hills be no more converted into instruments of murder to divide the people, but let it be forged into rails for roads which may connect distant countries. Let it be said of this age, as it was of Franklin'Eripuit coelo fulmen, sceptumque tyrannis'— 'from heaven he wrested the lightning, from tyrants the sceptre.' Never do I look upon the panting engine, or the railway vomiting forth its steam, but I think of the cloudy pillar by day, and the fiery pillar by night."

Hear a third, Richard Cobden :

"We are tired and disgusted with the old mode of calling in men, with swords by their sides and bayonets over their shoulders, to decide such matters, which should be left to reason and justice. Now, we bring the diplomatists of the world-the governments of the civilised world—to this issue with us: 'Will you have war, or will you have arbitration?' We say: You tell us you are as much opposed to war as we; you deride us as children running up and down, declaring and preaching mere truisms, sentiments upon which all the world are agreed. Well, then, we say, if we are agreed, will you support our plan to settle those disputes which may be raised between nations, and which our diplomatists have taken in hand to settle themselves?' It is done in private life continually. Why, scores and hundreds of British acts of Parliament have been passed, requiring that such disputes should be settled by arbitration. The members of our houses of Parliament do not doubt the possibility of individuals finding the means of subjecting private matters to arbitration; and I say plainly, the principle you find good for individuals in every case, without exception, you will find good for nations; because, never let it be forgotten, that the intercourse of nations is the intercourse of individuals, that the interests of nations are the interests of individuals in the aggregate; and you cannot find a better plan in dealing with nations, than that which is found successful in dealing with the intercourse of individuals."+

Here, then, is the gist of the whole matter, the practical solution of the difficulty, and a common-sense answer to the question, How is war to be abolished? ARBITRATION v. WAR INCLUDES THE WHOLE THEORY OF INTERNATIONAL CONCORD. With this sublime issue ever before their eyes, the friends of peace labour. This is the resolution at every Congress. Henceforth, it is superfluous to reiterate that nations ought not to go to war-the doctrine now is, they need not. If nations will quarrel—and, whilst human nature remains the same untamed thing that it has so long been, the probability is that offences will come-let them not embroil their hands in the blood of their fellows, and slay the innocent to adjust the differences of the guilty-the peaceful subjects to appease the anger of their kings; let them submit the subject of discord to a High Court of Nations, a recognised umpire, whose decision shall be final. În reality, it comes to this even now; for, after the blood of myriads has been shed, and vast treasures worse than thrown into the midst of the sea, + Speech at Frankfort, 1850.

Speech at Frankfort, 1850.

crowned heads, or their representatives, meet to arrange the conditions of peace! War settles nothing. The rage of battle contains no argument. Victory is not a synonyme for "right." Defeat is not convertible into "wrong." Hence, after the physical-force insanity has reduced itself to helplessness, reason assumes its prerogative, and, with pen, ink, and parchment, adjusts the dispute. When gold and life have been destroyed, and the nation lies a mangled corpse, the gordian knot is thrown to the umpire! How much better to have done this first! It would have been moral, just, rational, aye, religious, to have done so, and an appeal to arms would have been avoided, whilst the nations would have continued to enjoy the inestimable blessing of peace! Let the intelligent advocates of this great movement hold on their way; let them lecture, publish, meet in Congress, and by every other proper means preach the doctrine of Arbitration. They have lifted up a noble standard to the nations. Let them not take it down. Numbers, influence, virtue, equity, and piety, will assuredly gather beneath it; and, by the blessing of the God of peace, to their loud shout of national brotherhood, all the people will say, "Amen!"

THE HAUNTED HOUSE.

CHAPTER I.OUR JOURNEY.

EARLY in the spring of 184-, a villanous Florentine Vetturino, who had earned the soubriquet of Marmone (the marble one), by his extreme ardness of head and heart, had undertaken to drive us from Milan to Naples. Being anxious to save time, we chose the short road, leading to Pontremoli, over the highest ridge of the Apennines.

On reaching the little village of Cisa, we found ourselves a prey to one of the most common tricks of the trade, namely, the nccessity of passing the night in the Osteria dell' Aquila Nera, one of the cheapest and dirtiest of cheap and dirty osterie. As usual, when fine weather is worth anything to a traveller, the day had begun tolerably and ended detestably. A substantial pile of clouds settled upon the tops of the mountains, and filled the air above and below us with sleet and drizzle the wind howled most inhospitably, and the road soon became as slippery as a wooden pavement after a drenching shower. The carriage seemed to be dragged through a ledge of deep clay, forming a strip of neutral ground between a towering crag to the right, and a yawning abyss to the left. Cold, tired, and hungry, we had no other amusement than to calculate the probability of one of the leaders slipping over the precipice to the left, or the chance of being overwhelmed by one of the masses of snow which threatened us on the right. were not sorry to hear the creaking of the Black Eagle, as he swung drearily in the sleety wind, in spite of that well-known bird's bad fame for accommodating travellers.

We

The weather was too desperate to admit of our host's appearing to greet us. Marmone, who was, of course, in the worst of humours, left us

as soon as we alighted, and went to look after his jaded horses. We were hungry enough, however, not to be irritated by his want of courtesy. Guided by the flaring light of a huge fire which cast a comfortable glow over sundry little panes of cracked glass, we soon found our way into the kitchen, secured a place in the corner of a chimney-piece, large enough to accommodate half a company of infantry, dried our clothes, restored sensation to our toes and fingers, ordered the usual dinnera pigeon and an omelet-despatched the same with no ordinary zest, and settled ourselves down for the rest of the evening with the customary meerschaum, and a glass of antidote against internal cold.

We anticipated some difficulty in securing a room for the night, and were not without vague apprehensions that something like a nocturnal visitation awaited us.

Moreover, our

The bed of an Italian osteria is seldom one of roses! host had informed us, in the early part of the evening, that his best apartments were occupied by a carriage full of travellers who arrived about an hour before us, and the choice of our chamber seemed to excite no small agitation in the household. So much so, that, when we imperiously required a tall servant girl with red elbows and redder face to guide us towards our dormitory, we were followed thereto by a whole family of huge men, large women, and stout children, each bearing some species of light. But who in these days dares to own himself a believer in ghosts and haunted rooms?

CHAPTER II.-THE PRELIMINARY PLEASURES OF AN ITALIAN bed.

So we entered doggedly, and dismissed the attendants (who told us to call if we wanted anything), cocked our pistols, placed a chair against the door, closed the window securely, hid our purse under our pillow, undressed like one about to do a desperate deed, climbed up a lofty bedstead, dashed through its outworks of dirty hangings, and deposited our weary limbs upon a mattress, whose stuffing of Indian corn leaves crackled and rustled under our weight. A few minutes, and we should have been happy! But, alas! the enemy was too strong and active for us. For a time, we defended ourselves stoutly, but numbers, as usual, at last prevailed. With a groan, we abandoned the field of battle, and fled. Our host, summoned by a roar rather than a call, entered at the head of his establishment, all in a state of violent excitement. Had we seen anything? No, but we had felt more than we wished. Knowing, by experience, that our frame requires a few minutes' breathing time before making a second attempt to sleep, we ordered a mattress to be spread on the ground, and began to recruit exhausted nature by means of a certain narcotic weed, and the contents of a certain little bottle half bound in leather. Our host again retired, recommending us to the care of the holy Sant' Antonino the younger.

CHAPTER III.-OUR FIRST VISITER.

"Entrate! Who can that be at the door?"

Still a kind of scratching continued. We heard it plainly, even through the roars of the Tramontana wind as it tore madly round the corners of the little inn, and the splashing of the torrents which were deluging the face of nature.

"Entrate." No one, however, entered.

We rose, not steadily, but determinately, grasped one of the tall brass lamps, whose wicks flickered desperately amidst the multitudinous currents of air which assailed them, and without much difficulty opened the door. He was a bad looking dog, neither large nor small, evidently one of the low-life order. We could not but remark that we had never seen the breed before; however, we at last worked up a kind of resemblance between him and a poodle. His dirty black coat curled in crisp locks over all his body, and nearly hoodwinked a pair of staring, red, impudent eyes, and a muzzle detestably expressive; his legs were short, crooked, and ragged, and, finally, his tail had apparently met with an accident which deprived it of the power of wagging.

That dog's manners admirably matched his appearance. He seemed perfectly at his ease, stalked about the room, sniffing at every object with the air of an owner, and seemingly resolved to pay as little attention to us as possible. Yet, in spite of his assumed nonchalance, we could see by the twinkling of his villanous red eye that he was wide awake to all our movements.

There was something amusing in his oddities, so we did not turn him out of the room; on the contrary, we addressed him politely, by every variety of canine name from Borrichio to Rosa, returned to our chair, mixed a third glass of "antidote," looked intently at, and reflected upon, our strange visiter. His manners now changed from the rude to the peculiar. The sniff gradually became a grunt, and he began to describe a series of gyrations about the room. At first, his gait was slow and leisurely; it presently increased in speed, till our head actually swam in the endeavour to keep sight of his ragged back rushing violently round us, and his odious eye always fixed upon the centre of the circle-ourselves. This continued " usque ad nauseam "—literally as well as figuratively.

"Che il Diavolo ti pigli!" cried we, almost losing our balance, in an attempt to startle him by a show of offence. Our exclamation seemed to produce an effect upon him; he stopped suddenly, gave utterance to a sharp yelp, flew towards the door, and evidently quitted the room. Surely the door was closed! We again arose, this time with greater difficulty. It certainly was shut, so we returned to our chair in a state of all-absorbing wonder, mixed another glass of antidote, and proceeded to consider how that dog could have passed through the door.

"Interruptions will never cease to-night! Don't people sleep at Cisa? Entrate! Come in, will you?" we exclaimed, when a low knocking became audible.

This time the door was opened by a visiter of very different appearance, who carefully closed it, and advanced towards us with a profusion of polite bows.

CHAPTER IV. OUR SECOND VISITER.

Who could the old gentleman be? Probably one of the strangers who had secured the best rooms, and, hearing of our discomfort, had come to offer us a better lodging. We were too tired to rise, and he seemed to guess as much. With a waive of the hand, intended to forbid ceremony, he sat down upon the nearest chair at the table close by