Original Communications.

VIEW OF OLD LONDON.

The Surrey Zoological Gardens have lately changed hands, and under the new proprietor, Mr. Tyler, they have been greatly improved. Renovation appears in every part, and each step we advance, something strange or beautiful, or both, fails not to meet the eye.

But the grand feature of the present season is the picture or model of Old London. This was a happy thought: the beautiful site of these grounds offers the means of producing artistical effects, such as, perhaps, were never before attempted in any part of the world. When we look on the vast sheet of water found there, we have a representation of a river, more perfect than the noblest pencil could ever furnish. If, then, a tasteful arrangement be made on its margin, there is nothing to prevent a most animated representation being brought before us of all the principal cities in the world. The lake cannot fail to perform its part well; admired as the No. 1220.]

Tiber last summer, it is equally great in the character of old Father Thames in the present year. On its banks we see London, not the London of to-day, but the old city, such as it was before the great fire in 1666, with the ancient cathedral of St. Paul's, or Powles, as it was formerly called, with its square tower; with the bridge, sustaining a palace and numerous houses. So crowded and so irregular the erections seem, as here presented, that doubts may be entertained of the accuracy of the exhibition; but we have no reason to call it seriously in question, if Sir William D'Avenant be a good authority. Writing of London about the period intended to be recalled, he says:

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"Sure your ancestors contrived your narrow streets in the days of wheelbarrows, before those greater engines, carts, were invented. Is your climate so hot that as you walk you need umbrellas of tiles to intercept the sun? or are your shambles so empty that you are afraid to take in fresh air, lest it should sharpen your stomachs? Oh! the goodly landscape of Old Fish Street, which if it had not the ill-luck to be crooked, was narrow enough to have been your founders' [VOL. XLIII.

perspective; and where the garrets, perhaps not for want of architecture, but through abundance of amity, are so narrow, that opposite neighbours may shake hands without stirring from home. Is unanimity of inhabitants in wide cities better expressed than by their coherence and uniformity of building, where streets begin, continue, and end, in a like stature and shape. But yours look as if they were raised in a general resurrec tion, where every man hath a several design, differ in all things that can make a distinction. Here stands one that aims to be a palace, and next it one that professes to be a hovel; here a giant, there a dwarf; here slender, there broad; and all most admirably different in faces, as well as in their height and bulk."

The London Bridge represented in the Gardens, was erected in the year 1178. It is here copied from Hollar's well-known print. It remained covered with buildings till the year 1560, which overhung the river. These were, for the most part, occupied by pin-makers, the first of whom was said to have been a Spanish negro, who introduced the art. The remains of a draw bridge in the middle, protected by an ancient tower, were then still to be seen.

It is always interesting to contrast the past with the present. The London here imagined is no more. In the fullness of time must that on which we now gaze also pass away. Will a modern Isaiah heave a sigh, "How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! She that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary? The mountain of Zion is desolate, the foxes walk upon it." Or, will the fanciful imagining of a poet of our own time, be murmured over the sad reality,

"Here London stood, and gloried in her might,

And lived in peace and joy, and wealth and guilt: Where are thy merchants now, thy dearest pride? The great men of the earth ?""

"Their name is passed; Their arts have perished; and their land is wild, As it had never been a land of men!"

HENRY DE LORRAINE, THE LAST DUKE OF GUISE. (Continued from page 372.) The haughty spirit of Henry was mortified beyond measure at finding himself in such company, and the scene before him so different from that which had been described, and from all that he had imagined. Del Ferro's absurdities were every day more startling and extravagant. Not only was he an impostor, but he was so brutally ignorant of all which a real ambassador from France must have intimately known, that one day passing through the streets, he threw himself on his knees, as he said,

before the picture of the king, his master. While really bending before a portrait of Henry IV, with a long white beard, he supposed it to be that of Louis XIV, then a boy. On another occasion, this person, so fond of prostrating himself, acted a very different but not less ridiculous part. To give importance to a a procession in which the duke moved, he preceded him with a drawn sword, cutting at every one that came in his way, and wearing, wrote the Duke," a black perriwig, such as is worn in our theatres by furies, made of a horse's tail."

The unutterable disgust thus inspired, was not slow in ripening into deep resentment, and crimes the most fearful suggested themselves to the inflamed mind of Guise. When so pitiable a being as Gennaro stood between him and his ambition, there were no means by which he could be effectually removed that the duke might not be brought to regard with complacency. The Spaniards hated the rebellious populace as well as the nobility, but the nobility hated the mob more than the Spaniards. For the middle classes-the merchants, lawyers, and thriving shopkeepers who were called the "black cloaks," they were sick of the revolution, but could not agree on the means of putting an end to its disorders. In short, there was no point of union. All was confusion and discord. The lower classes who furnished the only soldiers at his command, he described to be very proper for insurrections, but they committed so many outrages that it afterwards became necessary to offer their heads as a sacrifice to public hatred. He was for a time popular with all classes, but seems to have been heartily ashamed of his admirers.

At length the succours which he had been promised from France, arrived, and it was proposed by the commanding officer who brought them, to put the supplies now forwarded, not into the hands of Guise, but into those of Gennaro. This he attributed to the underhanded doings of that wretched person, against whose ignorance, brutality, and treachery, he now loudly exclaimed. He got a body of men some thirty or forty thousand strong, to call upon him to place himself at their head as their king. It was, however,necessary to compel Gennaro to resign. This he was soon bullied into doing. While hating Guise most sincerely, he pretended he was but too happy in surrendering the power he had been trusted with, into the hands of De Lorraine. When that was done, the latter assumed the title of "Duke of the Republic, Protector of the liberties, and Generallissimo of the armies of Naples;" that of king, though the object dearest to his heart, he did not dare to claim. Even the distinction of duke was too much in the eyes of his friends. The

French fleet withdrew after a contest with a Spanish squadron, and left him to deal with a discontented nobility and mutinous troops, as he might, without any means but his own, and no prospect of finding any. He met the dangers to which he was exposed, with characteristic determination. Those who opposed his authority, he got rid of expeditiously by slaying them with his own hand. On this desperate course he was admonished that it involved him in great danger, his answer was sufficiently arrogant. "Odi profanum vulgus. Naturally, I despise the mob. When God formed a man of my rank, he placed his stamp upon my features, that groundlings can only look upon me and tremble."

Yet still he lived in dread of assassination. One desperate man assailed him with a poniard, but failed in his object. An attempt was afterwards made to poison him, and thus the duke protector, with all his courage, found it no easy task to defend himself. Gennaro, who dared not to manifest hostility, did not scruple to plot his murder. This was his position, when one of his adherents, Augustino Mollo, waited on him one night, and said,

"I have brought you something that will relieve you from the designs of Gennaro for ever. Here is a vial apparently of clear and beautiful water. Get him to swallow this, and it will carry him off in three or four days, without his having the least suspicion of his fate, as it is perfectly tasteless."

The duke was not above availing himself of the unworthy means suggested for dismissing the poor demagogue from life. On the following day, he contrived to get him to swallow the whole of the draught. It made him sick, but occasioned no other inconvenience beyond an illness of a few days' duration. The duke wished him dead, and had no conscientious scruples about the manner in which he should be disposed of; his sole anxiety was that it might be accomplished in such a way, that France should not suppose he had fallen the victim of attachment to her interests.

In this deplorable condition he remained for some time, the chief of a nation without power, supported only by the most desperate; who were likely to prove the most faithless of mankind. His army was composed of regiments formed of banditti. Of this force he numbered 3,500, the oldest of them was under forty-five years of age, the youngest about twenty. They were tall, with long curling hair, and had coats of Spanish leather, with sleeves of velvet or cloth of gold. Their lower garments were made of scarlet cloth, adorned with gold lace. They had each two pistols stuck in their velvet girdles, a cutlass, and a firelock, with a cap of cloth of gold or silver.

These men, though fierce in appearance were not to be depended upon. One of them, Paul of Naples, defied his authority, and plundered some of the citizens. Guise acted with his wonted resolution on this occasion. He caused the offender to be seized and put to the rack, when he confessed that he had plotted against the duke's life. He was thereupon condemned and executed.

Gennaro, the timid trembling Gennaro, had got the tower of the Carmelites filled with his friends. This gave De Lorraine great uneasiness, and he could find no means of disposing of a rival whom he scorned to recognise as such. He however believed that he was gradually conquering the diffi culties of his situation, when a celebrated Italian astrologer, named Cucurullo, waited on him to solicit a passport, that he might leave Naples.

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Why, Curucullo," demanded the Duke, "would you withdraw?"

"The stars," replied the astrologer, "hitherto favourable to you, now change their course, and are about to shine on the Spaniards, your foes."

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Show me your calculations?"

Duke, they are here," said Curucullo, laying before De Lorraine a sheet of paper, and explaining the courses and the aspects of the heavenly bodies.

"Thou hast studied thy wits out of thy head," said Guise, and he then proceeded to show the astrologer from his own data, that the danger was past.

"In eight days," Curucullo solemnly replied, "thou wilt be a captive."

The duke affected to laugh at the warning, and gave the desired passport. Curucullo withdrew, and the duke, exulting in his growing power, conducted an expedition against Nisita, opposite Mount Pansilippo. He was thus engaged, when he read the following note from Augustino Mollo.

"Naples is worth more than a wretched shoal. Return, the city will be presently attacked."

Guise remained one night longer before Nisita. Before the dawn of another day, his kingdom had passed away. An attack on it was made by a sally from all the castles, April 6th, 1458, headed by Don Juan of Austria and the new viceroy, the Conde D'Onata, and all gave way before him. Guise attempted to retake Naples, but in verification of Curucullo's prediction, was made prisoner. The Spaniards threatened to execute him, but this was prevented by Don Juan. Gennaro was beheaded with little ceremony; Guise was sent to Spain, where he remained four years. Mademoiselle de Pons proved faithless. He eventually gave himself up to dissipation. As one of the gallants of the court of Louis XIV, he shone among the votaries of pleasure, and died in 1664.

CHILDISHNESS OF NAPOLEON. Mrs. Abell, formerly Miss Balcombe, was a child living with her parents and family at Briars, in St. Helena, when Napoleon Bonaparte arrived there in 1815, and he became their inmate. Her recollections of him give a more lively picture of the childishness which he occasionally used to assume, than we remember to have seen from any other hand. The pleasure of teasing could hardly be more luxuriated in than it was on one occasion, when the young lady, having been refused permission to go to a ball about to be given by Sir George Cockburn, at her request, Bonaparte obtained her father's consent. He questioned her as to what dress she was to wear. What followed shall be told in her own words:

"I now ran up stairs to bring my dress down to him. It was the first ball-dress I had ever possessed, and I was not a little proud of it. He said it was very pretty; and the cards being now ready, I placed it on the sofa, and sat down to play. Napoleon and my sisters were partners, and Las Cases fell to my lot. We had always hitherto played for sugar-plums, but tonight Napoleon said, "Mademoiselle Betsee, I will bet you a Napoleon on the game.' I had had a pagoda presented to me, which made up the sum of all my worldly riches, and I said I would bet him that against his Napoleon. The emperor agreed to this, and we commenced playing. He seemed determined to terminate this day of espiglerie as he had begun it. Peeping under his cards as they were dealt to him, he endeavoured whenever he got an important one, to draw off my attention, and then slily held it up for my sister to see. Isoon discovered this, and calling him to order, told him he was cheating, and that if he continued to do so, I would not play. At last he revoked intentionally, and at the end of the game tried to mix the cards to gether to prevent his being discovered, but I started up, and seizing hold of his hands, I pointed out to him and the others what he had done. He laughed until the tears ran out of his eyes, and declared he had played fair, but that I had cheated, and should pay him the pagoda; and when I persisted that he had revoked, he said I was méchante and a cheat; and catching up my ball dress from off the sofa, he ran out of the room with it, and up to the pavilion, leaving me in terror lest he should crush and spoil all my pretty roses. I instantly set off in chase of him, but he was too quick, and darting through the marquee, he reached the inner room, and locked himself in. I then commenced a series of the most pathetic remonstrances and entreaties, both in English and French, to persuade him to restore me my frock, but in vain; he was

inexorable, and I had the mortification hearing him laugh at what I thour the most touching of my appeals I was obliged to return without it. He afterwards sent down word he intended to keep it, and that I might make up my mind not to go to the ball. I lay awake half the night, and at last cried myself to sleep, hoping he would relent in the morning; but the next day wore away, and I saw no signs of my pretty frock. I sent several entreaties in the course of the day, but the answer was, that the emperor slept, and could not be disturbed. He had given these orders to tease me. At last the hour arrived for our departure for the valley. The horses were brought round, and I saw the little black boys ready to start with our tin cases, without, alas! my beautiful dress being in them. I was in despair, and hesitated whether I should not go in my plain frock, rather than not go at all, when, to my great joy, I saw the emperor running down the lawn to the gate with my dress. 'Here, Miss Betsee, I have brought your dress; I hope you are a good girl now, and that you will like the ball; and mind that you dance with Gourgaud.' General Gourgaud was not very handsome, and I had some childish feud with him. I was all delight at getting back my dress, and still more pleased to find my roses were not spoiled. He said he had ordered them to be arranged and pulled out, in case any might have been crushed the night before."

THE PRIZE PLAY.

Nothing can be more perfect than the unanimity which prevails on the subject of the new prize play. All the critics concur in pronouncing it to be wanting in plot, and abounding in low, hackneyed, ineffi cient caricature. Mr. Webster wishes it to be borne in mind that he did not choose the play. Not he, indeed, such trash would never have been put on the stage by him! The committee, or Seven Sages, who made choice of it, say no blame should attach to them; had there been a better play, that better play they would have preferred; but ninety-seven out of the ninety-eight candidates aver a much better play was actually submitted (saving the alliterative sameness of the sentence) to the said seven sages.

These gentlemen, it seems, had twenty meetings. That was not too many. To read nearly five plays on each occasion, and to discuss their merits, was no light matter. We do not dispute their fitness, though what rendered Mr. Young, who was never seen but in tragedy, a particularly good judge of comedy, we have yet to learn. A play-licenser who had been accustomed to a fee of a guinea or two for merely reading a song, would not for a trifle read

nt to come to a verdict than he inquiry ad infinitum. So settled, and Mrs. Gore got suppose, though the manager tisfied that he had his Quid

admitted that the business was re rationally after all than cted from the original plan, be remembered, was to have in a sort of congress, at which nd female, were to assist, Mr. ave the casting vote. The

to have tried to get at a ledge of the pieces offered. y to be blamed for placing 1 so ridiculous a position. the idea was a foolish claphumbug. Does any one beh moderate encouragement a reading within a reasonable of being contemptuously negeeks and months, that there been any falling off in the is the unfeeling delays, the 1, last, not least, the butchery plays, even after they are acas degraded the stage. Let be reformed, and no other d be offered for dramatic

LES OF BOOKS. titles affect a punning strain, e de la Guard's "Simple cobwam, in America, willing to e country, lamentably tattered oper-leather and sole, with all ches he can, for

nd shoes are torn up to the lefts, t thrust their awls up to the hefts." (1647.) empt to edify by exhibiting aphy, as in John Gower's f "The Cow-ragious Combat,"

f religious works are frequentful, sometimes ludicrously so. arest works of Caxton's press e Chastysing of God's Chylble to man's soul, and right his Body, specially in Adveritle of one published in 1658, 'A Wise Virgin's Lamp burnSweet Incense of Love to a I waiting for Him, found in closet after her death." Not

What lawyer can read without a smile such titles as these:-"Law is a bottomless Pit, exemplified in the case of John Bull, Nicholas Frog, and Lewis Baboon, who spent all they had in a Law-Suit"; "The Trial of a Black Pudding, or the Unlawfulness of eating Blood," (1652;) "The Debate between Pride and Lowliness, pleaded in an Issue of Assize."

Black-puddings are noticed again in “A History of the Generous Usurer, Mr. Nevill, of Thames Street, who allowed his Maid a Black-Pudding for Dinner." (1641.) An epicure will be pleased with the title of "A Learned Dissertation on Dumpling, with a word upon Pudding." (1726). Medical men will be amused with the title of "Banister's Historie of Man, sucked from the sap of the most approved Anatomists, for the Utilitie of all Godly Surgeons." (1578). Readers afflicted with the gout may seek consolation in a book published at Philadelphia, entitled The Honour of the Gout, demonstrating that it is one of the Greatest Blessings which can befal Mortal Man." (1732). Husbands and wives may feel interested in "Strange and terrible news from Cambridge, being a true Relation and Trial of some Quakers who bewitched Mary Phillips out of the bed from her husband, and having transformed her into a mare, rode her from Dinton, towards Cambridge: with the manner how she became visible again in her own likeness and shape, with all her sides rent and torn as if they had been spur-galled.” (1659). Then there is John Gode's "Discourse of the great Crueltie of a Widow towards a Young Gentleman, and by what means he requited the same, set forth in English

verse."

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The literary, musical, and dramatic world may wince at such titles as these: Stephen Gosson's School of Abuse, containing an Invective against Poets, Pipers, Players, and Jesters." (1579); "The Penniless Parliament of Thread-bare Poets." (1608). A foreign musician fancied that the violin was the subject sung of in a little book called, "The Lay of the Scotch Fiddle." (1814). Not long since, a policeman collared a poor scholar whom he overheard say, "I have been seeking The Life of the Duke of Wellington.' The mottoes on books are frequently quaint and amusing. Thus "Robert Record's Whetstone of Wit" (1557), has these lines:

"Though many stones do bear great price,