were forgotten in his offended dignity, and he rushed from the palace, and sought the minister whom the queen had accused. In vain poor V. de la V., with all the eloquence for which he is famed, protested his innocence, and endeavoured to persuade him that he was not present when the deed was done. At last he persuaded him to accompany him to the other ministers, and learn from them the truth of the story. It was told as it occurred. They could not deny having advised her Majesty to transfer the picture from the semi-official to her private apartments; but this in itself was gall to his pride, and he left them in high dudgeon.
He then proceeded to his own palace, and detailed his grievances to Queen Christina. The deed was done, and would be known all over Madrid on the morrow.
Christina’s love for the duke had been true and intense: a slight to herself she might forgive, one to him, never. So the ministry were summarily dismissed.
The queen exulted in having gained her wishes, in getting rid of the distasteful ministers, and was all the better pleased that it should be with the additional gusto of humiliating the duke, and annoying the Queen Mother.
This story may be relied on.
ANA.
Strange is the origin of the name Macpherson, though now as common among the canny Scots as Williams or Bowen in Wales, or as hope or cherries in Kent. During the reign of David I. of Scotland, it appears that a younger brother of the chief of the then powerful clan Chattan espoused the clerical life, and in due course of time became Abbot of Kingussie. His elder brother, whether he fell in battle or died in his bed, somehow or other died childless, and the chieftainship unexpectedly devolved on the venerable abbot. Suiting the action to the word, or rather suiting his convictions to his circumstances, the monk procured from the Pope the necessary dispensation, and the Abbot of Kingussie became the husband of the fair daughter of the Thane of Calder. A swarm of little Kingussies naturally followed, and the good people of Inverness-shire as naturally called them Mac’Phersons, i. e., “the sons of the parson.” After this, who can say, “What’s in a name?”
It has generally been remarked, as a thing without precedent, that the late Duke of Wellington and three of his brothers should have enjoyed the honours of the Peerage at the same time: but a similar instance is, or rather was, to be found in the family of Boyle two centuries ago, when the three younger brothers of the Earl of Cork were severally ennobled as Lords Boyle, Broghill, and Shannon, to say nothing of the youngest of the family, Robert Boyle, the great philosopher, who frequently refused the sweets of both office and title, but whose fame has outlived that of all his coronetted brethren.
The following peerages, held by distinguished individuals, are now without heirs apparent or presumptive, and must therefore cease with the lives of their present holders:—Palmerston, Lyndhurst, Broughton, Ellenborough (earldom), Panmure, Cranworth, Dalhousie (marquisate), Canning, Eversley, Overstone, Wensleydale, Glenelg, Clyde, and Kingsdown.
ONLY FOR SOMETHING TO SAY.
“Not engaged? I’m so glad. Will you talk with me, then?
An oasis for me in this desert of crowd:
Blest be the blindness of dancing men,
And Laurent for playing so loud!
And so you came with the Ardesley set?
Do you talk with them as you talk with me?
Do these men listen and never forget,
And never again be in fancy free?
I scarce remember’d you, fair as you are,
And you’ll beam as brightly when I am gone,—
Careless that thoughts of a vanished star
Make a starless night so lone.
I may take one flower before I go,—
One little bud to tell of the giver?
O yes, it will die in a day, I know,
But the memory—never—never!”
An innocent spirit that knew not pain,
A sweet sunny brow that was stranger to sorrow,
May ponder and dwell on such words again,
Half-glad, half-sad, to-morrow.
Nay, bonny bird, never pine. Among
The fairest and gayest be fair and gay,
Spite of homage wrung from a flattering tongue,
Only for something to say.
“That last valse yours, sir? Certainly, no.
Have I not kept the very next two?
And should I have kept and remember’d them so
For any one else but you?
Oh, I’ll not praise you for dancing in time,
And talking better than all the rest;
But because it is so I think it no crime
To like you for a partner best.
Why did you look, when I danced with Sir John,
With a look as black as a storm of thunder,
And now put your drawing-room manners on,
And your brightest face, I wonder?
Well, will you take me to have some tea?
Dear, how fresh it is on the stair!
You’re not too engaged to stay with me
A minute or two in the air?”
A look that had scorned the tenderest guile,
A heart that deem’d itself stern and strong,
Is bent to the light of a Psyche smile,
And chain’d by a syren-song.
Ho, there, Sir Knight, unconquer’d yet,—
Rover so long, are you caught to-day
In the soft snare set by a clever coquette,
Only for something to say?
’Tis a glorious prowess, in sooth, with a word
To wound the trusting, and tame the proud,
Even as a leaf by a breath is stirr’d,
A spray by a dew-drop bow’d.
And so the battle goes bravely through,
And heart gets harden’d as tongue flows free,
And swells the blazon, “I conquer you,
Lest you should conquer me.”
Fight on, brave souls, ’tis a noble strife—
Play on, rosy lips, ’tis a merry game—
Tourney for tourney, and life for life,
Weapons and lists the same.
Since language was framed but to hide the thought,
(Moral as deep as the proverb is old),
