“Nodier’s parties were extremely amusing,” says our authoress; “his charming daughter was the life of the whole; she drew around her young girls of her own age; poets, musicians, painters, young and joyous as these, were their partners in the dance, and every one was full of hope and dreaming of glory.  But what brought all the light-heartedness, all the enthusiasm, all the exultation to its utmost height was, that, in all that youth, so trusting and so hopeful, no one gave a single thought to money!”

Assuredly, it would be impossible to say as much nowadays.

Taken as a whole, Mme. Ancelot’s little volume is, as we said, an amusing and an instructive one.  It is not so from any portion of her own individuality she has infused into it, but, on the contrary, from the entire sincerity with which it mirrors other people.  We recommend it to our readers, for it is a record of Paris society in its successive transformations from 1789 to 1848, and paints a class of people and a situation of things, equally true types whereof may possibly not be observable in future times.

Footnote 1:  Les Salons de Paris.—­Foyers Eteints.  Par
Mme. Ancelot. 12mo.  Paris.

Footnote 2:  It will be remembered that on field-days Murat had adopted a hat and feathers of a most ridiculous kind, and that have become proverbial.

THE DISCOVERER OF THE NORTH CAPE.

A LEAF FROM KING ALFRED’S “OROSIUS.”

  Othere, the old sea-captain,
    Who dwelt in Helgoland,
  To Alfred, the Lover of Truth,
  Brought a snow-white walrus-tooth,
    Which he held in his brown right-hand.

  His figure was tall and stately;
    Like a boy’s his eye appeared;
  His hair was yellow as hay,
  But threads of a silvery gray
    Gleamed in his tawny beard.

  Hearty and hale was Othere,
    His cheek had the color of oak;
  With a kind of laugh in his speech,
  Like the sea-tide on a beach,
    As unto the King he spoke.

  And Alfred, King of the Saxons,
    Had a book upon his knees,
  And wrote down the wondrous tale
  Of him who was first to sail
    Into the Arctic seas.

  “So far I live to the northward,
    No man lives north of me;
  To the east are wild mountain-chains,
  And beyond them meres and plains;
    To the westward all is sea.

  “So far I live to the northward,
    From the harbor of Skeringes-hale,
  If you only sailed by day,
  With a fair wind all the way,
    More than a month would you sail.

  “I own six hundred reindeer,
    With sheep and swine beside;
  I have tribute from the Fins,—­
  Whalebone, and reindeer-skins,
    And ropes of walrus-hide.

  “I ploughed the land with horses,
    But my heart was ill at ease,
  For the old seafaring men
  Came to me now and then
    With their sagas of the seas,—­