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Alleyn, Drayton, and Field, from the Dulwich Gallery; Samuel Daniel, from the likeness prefixed to his Civile Warres'; Spenser, from a portrait at Dupplin Castle; James I., from Paul van Somer; Fletcher, from the 1647 edition of his and Beaumont's' Works,' and so forth. Of singular use to the student are the views of Shakespearian London, presenting the Bankside, with views of the Globe and the Swan theatres and the Bear Garden, These are taken from Visscher's 'View of London,' executed in 1616. With these may be classed the recently discovered sketch of the stage of a London theatre made by a Dutch visitor to London in 1596, now in the University Library at Utrecht; the interior of a London playhouse, from the title-page of Roxana'; Norden's View of London Bridge from East to West in 1597,' and innumerable further illustrations of a similar kind. Most important sections are the reproductions of title-pages to Shakespeare's works, the facsimiles of autographs, signatures, seals to documents, and other like matters. It will convey an idea of the number and variety of the illustrations supplied when we say that the mere list occupies eight pages. Thus equipped, Mr. Lee's book will take up its position as the standard authority upon the greatest of EnglishOn its literary claims we have previously insisted. If we have dwelt upon the illustrations it is because they do not serve a purely decorative purpose. Whatever information we possess as to the state of London and the stage in Shakespeare's times is incorporated in the volume. That Mr. Lee will, as further editions are called for, strive lovingly to augment the value and attractions of his work we doubt not. As it stands, however, though it will not replace, for the student, all previous or contemporary works, it will at least enable him to dispense with a library of reference, and leave no trustworthy or important information concerning Shakespeare ungarnered.

men.

The Students' Standard Dictionary. By James C. Fernald and others. (Funk & Wagnalls Co.) WE recently reviewed an 'Intermediate-School Dictionary founded on the well-known Funk & Wagnalls dictionary. This volume is similar in origin and appearance, only larger, running to some nine hundred pages, and, it must be added, uncomfortably heavy to hold. It is meant for "the English-speaking peoples," and therefore it seems a pity that it is distinctly American in tone and phraseology. The vocabulary is, however, more extensive than that of the ordinary English dictionary of the same size. It is strong in words like breakman, which are hardly English; on the other hand, a word like camisole is omitted-perhaps because not American. It is very unsafe to meddle with English university matters without securing expert knowledge. The term Senior Wrangler is current-not obsolete, as these pages represent; and if this special title is included, why is not tripos inserted, which has a much wider application? The "Standard Script" handwriting, of which specimens are given on p. 823, is a really sensible thing, and the appendices are useful, though the list of distinguished persons occasionally donne furieusement à penser. We notice that the big Standard Dictionary' includes English editors, and suggest that in condensations or revisions their services should be not merely to ornament the title-page. Let them make the English usage as prominent as the American, or, at any

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rate, give it fair representation. Then the 'Dictionary' will do, and do remarkably well, for "the English-Speaking Peoples," who care, it is probable, a good deal more about empire than English. The Library. Edited by J. Y. W. MacAlister, F.S.A. (Kegan Paul.) IN its new guise the Library is at once more convenient and more attractive than before. It is more remunerative also, and its illustrations constitute a pleasing feature. We are afraid that some difficulty will be experienced in keeping it at its present level of excellence. Mr. A. W. Pollard contributes a capital paper, illustrated, on 'Woodcuts in English Plays. Mr. Delisle's Discovery of Long-Missing Pictures' has a finely executed plate. Mr. J. D. Brown writes on Library Progress.' Mr. E. F. Strange deals with The Decorative Work of Gleeson White,' and Mr. R. G. Redgrave writes on The First Four Editions of " English Bards and Scotch Reviewers." Among other contents is a portrait of Dr. Richard Garnett, serving as frontispiece.

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WAR subjects take up the lion's share in the reviews as in the newspapers and in general conversation. Room is, however, found in the Fortnightly for a few articles on literary and social topics. Prof. Lewis Campbell writes On the Growth of Tragedy in Shakespeare.' There are many points raised on which we should like to join issue with the Professor, but the article is thoughtful and suggestive, and is sure to be carefully studied in Shakespearian circles. Mrs. Hannah Lynch deals trenchantly with Zola and Tolstoi in Fécondité" versus "The Kreutzer Sonata." Zola's book, which we ourselves began and were unable to continue, she finds the unexpected revelation "of a freshness and an animal simplicity, a sunshine and gaiety," which are welcomed as something new in his works. Severe reprobation is bestowed upon both authors, though Tolstoi is credited with supreme genius. Of the wealthy bourgeois of M. Zola it is said that if the obscene apes were endowed with the gift of speech they could scarcely make a more obscene use of it than do these people. There is, alas! much truth in this arraignment. Mr. J. C. Bailey writes very eulogistically concerning Stevenson's Letters,' and quotes some delightful passages, including the charming letter in which Stevenson makes over his birthday to Miss Annie H. Ide, who, being born on Christmas Day, was practically without a birthday. Few more entertaining and graceful pieces of humour are in existence. Mr. Frazer's Suggestion as to the Origin of Gender in Language' is ingenious, if not wholly convincing, which, indeed, it does not pretend to be. Dr. St. George Mivart's Some Recent Catholic Apologists' will scarcely commend itself, we fancy, to the authorities who have placed some of his works in the 'Index.' Prof. Sully contributes an essay on Philosophy and Modern Culture,' which was first delivered as a lecture at University College, London. Paths of Glory,' by Mr. Joseph Jacobs, deals with the kind of work that gets people into Who's Who,'' Men of the Time,' and the Dictionary of National Biography.' It is readable and entertaining.-The first five papers in the Nineteenth Century are on the war, and two or even three others are on subjects more or less closely connected with it. In the matter with which we can deal is 'Shakespeare and

when read by the light of to-day. Urbanus Sylvan deals whimsically, but flippantly with Dr. Dowden, Dr. Gosse, and other modern critics or writers. One is surprised to find him speaking of the 1671 edition of 'Paradise Regained' and Samson Agonistes' as a "large and well-printed octavo." Mr. Stephen Gwynn gives a study of Sir Charles Napier. There are some amusing Humours of Irish Life,' and an unappetizing account of A Boer Interior.'-The Poetry of Windmills,' which appears in Temple Bar, expresses sentiments we have often felt. Next to a ship a windmill is to us one of the most fascinating of human inventions. The author holds that "it is sacrilege to approach them too nearly." She holds that Cervantes saw aright when Don Quixote entered into conflict with them as giants. On the Banks of the Dove' is a fantasy concerning Walton and Cotton. 'A Calculating "Philosopher" deals with Babbage, the sanguine inventor of the calculating machine, and next to John Leech the most distinguished victim of street noises. 'Sir Anthony Van Dyck' may be read with pleasure. Much of the fiction is excellent.-Not much of a dilemma to a collector is that in which in the Gentleman's the hero of 'A Bookman's Dilemma' finds himself. It is, however, amusing to hear of a Kilmarnock Burns and a first Walton's Angler' being sold all but uncatalogued in a country sale. Mr. Walters describes French London in 1793,' the London of priestly and aristocratic_refugees. Miss Lily Wolffsohn depicts Low Life in Naples as Pictured by Neapolitans,' and Mr. Percy Fitzgerald describes a residence, of two days in Walcheren Island.—In Longman's Mr. Lang, At the Sign of the Ship,' expresses a not too favourable estimate of the "Man in the Street," and gives an amusing account of his sufferings from notoriety - hunters. Mr. H. G. Hutchinson, in A First Essay in Dreams,' speaks of flying as a common experience in dreaming. Our own observation is that it is not flying of which we dream, but a sort of levitation, with sometimes a consciousness of danger. 'Kauri Gum' and 'Summer in the Forest' are both readable.

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the Modern Stage,' by Sidney Lee. The chief aim of the contribution is to protest against the idea that Shakespeare in representation is to be sacrificed to pageantry. Lovers of Shakespeare should urge simplicity in the production of his plays. The instance is advanced of the splendid series of revivals undertaken by Phelps and Greenwood at Sadler's Wells. If modern managers would be content with scenic accessories that are adequate and illuminatory instead of burdensome, they might give three or four plays where now they give one. No one is better entitled to be heard than Mr. Lee, and it is to be hoped that the seed he sows will not fall on desert ground. Under the title, which we scarcely like, of 'The Prince of Journalists,' Mr. Herbert Paul has an excellent article on Swift, with most of the conclusions of which we agree. In common, however, with most modern writers, Mr. Paul overpraises the style of Swift, which, admirable as it is in lucidity-perhaps the best of gifts-and in simplicity, has "the defects of its qualities," and is open to attack. This, we know, is an unpopular view. With the remaining praise and the general estimate of Swift we concur, and we recall no modern apophthegm so exquisite as Swift's "The reason why so few marriages are happy is because young ladies spend their time in making nets, not in making cages." Supposing the curious ghost-story of Nathaniel Hawthorne to be, as it professes to be, true, that admirable writer was the most unutterable donkey that ever drew breath. Mr. J. Cuthbert Hadden has a valuable paper on The Tinkering of Hymns. We agree with every word that he says in condemnation of such processes, but think that in most cases he is far too indulgent. In this review, also, Dr. St. George Mivart is issuing a challenge to the Roman Catholic Church, the result of which we want to see. The Jews in France,' 'The Common Mule,' 'Climate and Atmosphere,' and 'Can Sentences be Standardized?' are all worth reading.The frontispiece to the Pall Mall is a fine reproduction of Holbein's Anne of Cleves,' the illustrations generally being of high merit. Mr. William Archer concludes his account of 'The American Stage,' which is regarded in a favourable light. A good description is furnished of the younger American dramatists, with whom we are beginning to form an acquaintance. In the second part of 'Lotteries, Luck, Chance, and Gambling Systems' Mr. J. Holt Schooling establishes to his own satisfaction that there is such a thing as luck. On the whole, though we pretend to no special knowledge, We cannot undertake to answer queries privately. his statistics impress us less favourably than do his To secure insertion of communications correreproductions of the quaint designs of our ancestors spondents must observe the following rule. Let intended to beguile people into the purchase of each note, query, or reply be written on a separate lottery tickets. Morocco, the Imperial City,' slip of paper, with the signature of the writer and by Mr. F. G. Aflalo, tells us little that is new, such address as he wishes to appear. Correspondbut has some capital sketches of spots of in-ents who repeat queries are requested to head the terest. Military Heroes at Westminster,' by Mr. Murray Smith, of which the first part appears, appeals strongly to us at the present moment.Elizabethan London,', by the Bishop of London, with which the new volume of the Cornhill begins, is a lecture delivered a couple of months ago at the Queen's Hall before the London Reform Union. It gives many particulars with which the average student of past London is likely to be unfamiliar, and draws together many proofs of the mistrust with which Londoners regarded foreigners. Lady Broome's 'Natal Memories' have painful interest

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Notices to Correspondents.

notices:-
We must call special attention to the following

ON all communications must be written the name and address of the sender, not necessarily for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith.

second communication "Duplicate."

THOMSON SHARP ("The mill can never grind with the water that is past ").-See 8th S. iii. 116.

NOTICE.

Editorial Communications should be addressed to "The Editor of 'Notes and Queries ""-Advertisements and Business Letters to "The Publisher". at the Office, Bream's Buildings, Chancery Lane, E.C.

We beg leave to state that we decline to return communications which, for any reason, we do not print; and to this rule we can make no exception.

LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 13, 1900.

CONTENTS. - No. 107.

forward on behalf of other men. Quite unconsciously he ceases to be a critic and becomes an advocate. The late Mr. Hayward, NOTES:- Mr. Dilke on Junius, 21-Was Shakespeare who, like Mr. Dilke, was a vigorous and skilful Musical? 22-Murder of the Emperor Paul of Russia, 23-opponent of the theory concerning Francis, Dr. Johnson and Vestris-"International Library of had no Junius to offer for acceptance or Famous Literature," 24-" Hopping the wag"-" Chiaus" scorn. In the Athenæum for 9 April, 1898, -Portrait by the Marchioness of Granby, 25-"Flannelized "-"Boytry "-"Bathetic "-Discoverer of Photography-Church older than St. Martin's-Enigma by I ventured to write that I did not care who wrote the letters signed Junius," my self"Seeke"-Sutty, Bookseller, 26-imposed task of demonstrating that Mr. Chaucer-Walter Holmes-Peter Travers-Emery Family Dilke and Mr. Hayward were justified in United Empire Loyalists-Wharton-Holbein Gateway their conclusions as to Francis having then in Whitehall, 27-" Hail, Queen of Heaven"-"Farntosh been accomplished.

Praed-"Hanky-pauky," 26. QUERIES:-"Seek" or

Dress of Charterhouse Scholars - Nursery Rimes-"Dan"

-Fall of the Roman Empire-William Duff-"Tankage' Dr. Hayden, of Dublin - The Book of Praise,' &c.-Father Taltarum - " Gordon - The Word "Slang' "Anchylostomeasis"-Cecil, Lord Burleigh-Egyptian Chessmen, 28-De Benstede or Bensted Family, 29. "Up, REPLIES:-Origin of the English Coinage, 29 Guards, and at them!"-"Papaw"-Artists' Mistakes, 32 Mildred's, Poultry, 33-Aldgate and Whitechapel-Un

-Worcester Dialect Black Jews-Poet Parnell

St.

claimed Poem by Ben Jonson -"Newspaper," 34-
Rubens's Portrait of the Marchesa Grimaldi - Instru-
mental Choir-Newman and N. & Q.'-" Mary had a
little lamb"-"Hoodock"-Future of Books and Book-
men-Thames Tunnel, 35-Child's Book-"Nefs," 36-
Garrard, Master of the Charterhouse-Venn: Mountford,
37-" By the haft"-Double-name Signatures for Peers
-Lincolnshire Sayings-"Elixir Vitæ" in Fiction-
"None," 38.

NOTES ON BOOKS :- Dictionary of National Biography,
Vol. LXI.-Ward's 'The Bride's Mirror'-Leland's Un-

published Legends of Virgil'-Blew's 'Racing.' Notices to Correspondents.

Hotes.

MR. DILKE ON JUNIUS.

WHEN Notes and Queries recently celebrated its Jubilee, Mr. Merton Thoms most courteously offered for publication some of the letters which Mr. Dilke had written to his father. One of them will be of much interest to the readers of 'N. & Q.' While Mr. Dilke edited the Athenæum, he wrote many reviews of books concerning Junius, which were collected and published in 1875 by his grandson, Sir Charles W. Dilke, with the title Papers of a Critic.' I read these papers not only with interest, but profit, and with pardonable gratification that the view which I had formed of Francis and Junius, and made public in 1874 in my Wilkes, Sheridan, Fox,' had been formed without knowing what Mr. Dilke had written long before. Since then I have never ceased regretting that Mr. Dilke did not live to read the facts which have been made public and which confirm his inferences.

The chief point in Mr. Dilke's letter is the phrase "I never was a hunter after Junius." For that reason he was the better critic. The writer who has his own Junius makes light of the evidence in support of claims put

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It may help some readers of Mr. Dilke's letter to explain his reference to Mason. In a review of the correspondence of Horace Walpole and Mason which appeared in the Athenæum for 17 May, 1851, Mr. Dilke amused himself, as he phrased it, by speculating whether the author of 'The Heroic Epistle,' either alone, or in concert with Walpole, might not have written the letters signed "Junius." He may not have known that Walpole had satisfied himself that Junius was Wolfran Cornwall, who died in 1789 while Speaker of the House of Commons. Horace Walpole's 'Hints for discovering Junius' appeared in facsimile in the Athenæum for 24 January, 1891. Neither can Mr. Dilke have known that Mason's handwriting does not resemble the Junian hand in any particular. Mr. Dilke hints in the following letter that he "could perhaps throw out other and even better speculative possibilities." I have been told on excellent authority that Mr. Dilke considered George Steevens as a possible Junius.

76, Sloane Street, Friday. MY DEAR SIR,-They sent up last night from Wellington Street the Critical Memoirs,' for which I am greatly obliged.

It is not, I fear, in the remotest degree probable

that the twelvemonth will enable me to solve the Junius mystery-for many reasons, one being allsufficient, I never was a hunter after Junius. You will be surprised at my saying so, but it is the fact.

I have always, in my idle way, been a curious inquirer into two or three periods of our historythe last and worst the early part of the reign of George II., and thus, incidentally, I was led to test the accuracy and truthfulness of the edit. of 1812, 14, of J.'s Letters. Some papers which Sir Harris Nicolas wrote for the Athenæum, and in which he assumed all true, led to a discussion, and he thought it better to stow them away until he had leisure to examine critically. This was only "labouring in

my vocation."

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examination of edit. 1812, 14, and other people's speculation on that edition.

The utmost I have ever heard hazarded was in the paper on Mason, and it amounted only to this. Here is a man, never named or hinted at, who might have written the Letters not a word to show that he did write them. I could, perhaps, throw out other and even better speculative possibilities. I have, indeed, some vague general characteristics which I think might help the inquirer, and a thorough conviction that all speculators, led and misled by edit. 1812, 14, are hunting in a wrong direction; but for myself I have never even put on top-boots and leathers, never even entered the field as a sportsman, and doubt if I ever shall. Yours very truly,

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W. FRASER RAE.

solid ground; but to deduce the inference therefore possessed of a "considerable knowfrom the statement that the dramatist was ledge" of music is clearly to make the conclusion wider than the premises. An author may put such words into his puppets' mouths as (‘Richard II.,' V. v.)

Music do I hear?

Ha, ha! keep time: how sour sweet music is, When time is broke and no proportion kept! or as (Merchant of Venice,' V. i.)

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! Here we will sit, and let the sounds of music Creep in our ears: soft stillness, and the night, Become the touches of sweet harmony, and yet be utterly devoid of music. If a small personality be permissible to emphasize my point, music, vocal or instrumental, is to me a thing of beauty" and "a joy for ever"; yet I know no more of the scales than a cow does of the zodiac; and I too have sung in humble verse the glories of Calliope, though powerless to twang a string correctly on her divine lyre.

C. W. DILKE. Not the least pregnant of Mr. Dilke's remarks is one to the effect that he had a thorough conviction that all speculators, led and misled by edit. 1812, 14, are hunting in a wrong direction." In that edition, which George Woodfall gave to the world, there are upwards of a hundred letters which are supposed to have proceeded from Junius's pen. No proof of authorship has been adduced. Yet it is the letters thus fathered upon Junius which have been cited as evi- Again, that music is a powerful and necesdence that Francis was the man. An edition sary adjunct to the complete enjoyment and of Junius's authentic letters seems to me to set-off of a dramatic piece is outside discusbe a desideratum. I have tried to convince sion. Shakespeare was practical enough to more than one publisher of this. The pre-recognize this, and accordingly made provailing opinion among publishers appears to vision for its introduction. When Mr. be that the editions (George Woodfall and Verity, then, further says that " on the stage, Bohn) containing the spurious letters are especially in pathetic scenes, a musical acgood enough for the public. companiment almost always adds charm," I am thoroughly at one with him. But a sensible recognition of this factor in dramatic success no more argues a musical education or talent than the possession of a Stradivarius or a Sternberg does. Once more, that แ music is a great feature in modern representations of Shakespeare" no one can reasonably question; without it, "No one can doubt that Shakespeare himself had in fact, even the elaborate staging of the a great love of music, and considerable knowledge plays by Irving and Benson would lack too; though not, I suppose, the scientific know three-fourths of its attractiveness. But ledge of it that Milton had." surely this is a poor plea for the poet's "conHis " great love of music" I do not im- siderable knowledge" of music. Never was peach; but I very much question his "consider a weaker defence of a lost cause. In venturable knowledge" of it. Mere allusions and ing thus to arraign Mr. Verity at the bar of they are copious, as every one knows-to it, historical accuracy, I am not conscious of the as appreciation of it, hardly constitute a proof remotest wish to undervalue his excellent of a practical acquaintance with any musical labours as editor of the "Pitt Press Series," instrument, nor even of a knowledge of the still less of a desire to belittle "the poet of technique of the art. It is mere supposition all nations and the idol of his own "--to shift (and a somewhat strained one) to argue other-an allusion from Moore's shoulders to those wise. That the poet used music in the per- of Shakespeare. Good work, like virtue, is formance of his plays is a more reasonable its own reward, so is sound scholarship; all conjecture, and quite another question. When, therefore, Mr. Verity states that "Shakespeare's use of music is a suggestive subject of study," he is, in my judgment, on

WAS SHAKESPEARE MUSICAL? THE editor of the "Pitt Press Shakespeare for Schools" (Mr. A. W. Verity, M.A.) thinks so in his notes to 'King Richard II.' (1899). He says:

the more reason why, whilst those receive their due appreciation, unsupported statements should be sternly pilloried. As for Shakespeare, the denying to him one

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accomplishment in no wise dims the transcendent brilliancy of his many others. I am simply and solely holding a brief in the interests of "whatsoever things are true"; and until Mr. Verity can adduce better proof than mere assertion of Shakespeare's musical knowledge, I shall continue to believe that he was, so far as direct evidence is concerned, entirely ignorant in that line. The efforts made of late years to make him a master of everything to which he has referred have something of the reductio ad absurdum in them. Because he frequently refers to archery, Mr. Rushton (Shakespeare an Archer') forthwith turns him into an archer; because he often uses legal terms the same author ('Shakespeare a Lawyer') incontinently makes him a lawyer; because he writes of "sweet music Mr. Verity would have us believe he was а musician; because his pages bristle with passages about bees and glowworms he is an entomologist, though his numerous and glaring blunders anent those insects give him less claim to that than to the other titles. Clearly Shakespeare, or any man of wide reading and observation, could be generally conversant with all four without actually being any one of them. Macaulay can scarcely be considered a soldier, though he is the author of the 'Battle of Ivry, nor Kipling a sailor because he wrote A Fleet in Being.' But enough. Shakespeare's knowledge, like Gladstone's, was encyclopædic; but it is surely the Ultima Thule of bathos to hoist him into the professorial chair of every branch of it, or at least to credit him with a proficiency which he himself would be the first to repudiate. J. B. McGOVERN.

St. Stephen's Rectory, C.-on-M., Manchester.

THE MURDER OF THE EMPEROR PAUL OF RUSSIA.

THE accompanying account of the murder of Paul I. of Russia is taken from 'Étude Critique du Matérialisme et du Spiritualisme par la Physique Expérimentale,' by the wellknown writer and chemist Prof. Raoul Pictet, of the University of Geneva, published two years ago. The interest of the historical event in question, and the fact of the work in which the narrative appeared being probably unknown to many readers of N. &Q, may justify its insertion in that valued periodical whose jubilee has just been celebrated so worthily:

I am about to relate an historical event which was told me by an eye-witness of the assassination of the Emperor Paul I. of Russia on 15 Jan., 1804.

This witness was one of my aunts, who died at the advanced age of ninety-three years in 1869, having preserved the fulness of all her intellectual faculties Livonian nobility, having been born Countess until that extreme old age. As a young lady of the Sievers, she had been admitted into the palace in the capacity of one of the empress's maids of honour.

The last few months of the Emperor Paul's reign were signalized by eccentricities verging on by his absolute power, ordered carriages and sledges madness. This monarch, whose brain was turned to be stopped in the streets, and obliged all his serfs, lords, nobles, and villains to alight on the carriageroad and kneel before him as he passed! In short, those about him determined to obtain his abdication cution of the palace plot my aunt noticed some by fair means or foul. Some days before the exeuneasiness at the drawing-rooms and during the receptions. Various sentences exchanged in a low tone, suspicious behaviour and secret conferences in corners of the rooms, did not escape her observation. The emperor, too, guessed that something was brewing against him, and appeared to be more reserved, as if on his guard.

The very evening of the crime there was a grand court at the palace; all the official world and the diplomatic body were invited. The foreboding signs had become so evident that, about midnight, my aunt, who had retired to her rooms, which opened on to the long corridor of the Winter Palace, instead of going to bed, wrote a long letter to her father, who was at that time marshal of the Livonian nobility. She had half-undressed herself and sat writing at her table, with uncovered shoulders and jupon). About half-past one an unusual noise was wearing a short petticoat (les épaules nues et en simple heard in the corridor. This corridor, which was very long, traversed the palace from end to end, and terminated at the emperor's private apartments. Seized the taper which was on her table and opened her with emotion and fear, my aunt hurriedly took up chamber door. At the same moment Count Pahlen, the grand chamberlain, went by very agitated, and accompanied by four other nobles of the Court.

What passed through my aunt's mind then no one can say; but this is her true story of what happened. I heard it more than twenty times at least during the two years I lived near to her at Paris in 1868-9, when I was studying at the Ecole Polytechnique and at the Sorbonne. My aunt loved to tell me this tragic adventure, which still moved her so much after sixty-four years that she never dared to write it down.

"So I seized my taper, and, impelled by a force for which I cannot even now account, followed Count Pahlen and his four acolytes. Not one of in so unusual a costume. them was astonished to see me following them thus We walked a distance of about sixty yards to the emperor's chamber. The five men only exchanged gestures, not a word was uttered. Count Pahlen entered first without knockBehind him walked his colleague carrying a taper ing; he held in his hand a roll of white paper. in his hand; then all the others and myself entered. The Emperor Paul was seated at his table writing. Evidently he expected something and his suspicions were aroused. Count Pahlen first addressed him: 'We come, your Majesty, to ask of you, for the good of the country and your own, your abdication! Your health condemns you to retirement; all the physicians and we have arrived at the conclusion

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