periodical, established at Edinburgh about the year 1830, bearing the title of "Johnstone's Magazine," of which she was the editor, and, we believe, proprietor. It was continued ten or fifteen years. In this was published the "Story of Frankland the Barrister," which is one of the most perfect gems of this kind of literature—wit, pathos, nice delineation of character, are all to be found in it, while the moral lesson is enforced very powerfully. "The Nights of the Round Table" was published in 1835, and contains some admirable tales. "Blanche Delamere" is still a later work; in it she has attempted to show what might be done, and ought to be done by the nobility, to lessen the load of misery pressing on the working classes. We may add, that in all her later works, Mrs. Johnstone, like most thinking writers in the British empire, directs her pen to subjects connected with the distresses of the people. Her tales illustrative of these speculations have neither the wit nor the fancy of their predecessors; the mournful reality seems "to cast a cloud between, and sadden all she sings."
JOSEPHINE ROSE TASCHER DE LA PAGERIE,
Empress of the French, Queen of Italy, was born in Martinique, June 24th., 1763. At a very early age she came to Paris, and was married to the Viscount Beauharnais. By this marriage, which is represented as not having been a happy one, the marquis being attached to another at the time of his union with his wealthy bride—she became the mother of two children, Eugene and Hortense, afterwards so well known. In 1787 Madame Beauharnais returned to Martinique, to nurse her aged mother, but was soon driven away by the disturbances in that colony. During her absence the French Revolution had broken out, and on her return she found her husband actively engaged in public affairs. Although one of the first actors in the movement which was to regenerate France, Beauharnais fell a victim to the blood-thirsty fanaticism of the times. Cited before the bar of the Convention, he was condemned to death, and publicly beheaded on the 23rd. of July, 1794. Josephine was imprisoned, where she remained until the death of Robespierre threw open the doors of the prisons.
Josephine is said to have preserved her serenity during her imprisonment, through her strong faith in a prediction which bad been made her; an old negress in Martinique having foretold, under circumstances of a peculiarly imposing character, that she would one day become Queen of France. However reasonably we may doubt the influence of such a circumstance on the mind of a woman condemned to death in such relentless times as these, there is no question of its being a subject often dwelt upon by Josephine when she actually sat upon the throne of France. The prophecies that come to pass are always remembered! Through her fellow-prisoner, Madame Tallien, Josephine became, after the establishment of the Directory, an influential member of the circle of Barras. According to some writers, she there made the acquaintance of General Bonaparte. The most general belief is, however, that the acquaintance was formed through her son Eugene, in the following manner:—"The day after the 13th. of Vendemiaire, the disarming of the citizens having been decreed, a boy of fifteen called upon General Bonaparte, then commandant of Paris, and with ingenious boldness demanded the sword of his father. The general was struck
