that he was one of the workmen employed | M. Dupressoir's coffers through the mein painting the outside of the house. dium of the croupier's rake.

"Ask him to come up here," said Halévy; and, on the man's appearance, inquired where he had first heard the air he had been singing.

"Ma foi, monsieur," replied the individual addressed, "I picked it up the other day out of a piece they were rehearsing at the Opéra Comique, while we were repainting the interior."

"If this goes on," dryly remarked Maître Jacques to a fellow-sufferer, while their respective stakes were being swept away,

"I shall soon not have a note left."

"You are luckier than I am," ruefully observed his companion, "for your head is full of them."

"That may be," retorted Offenbach, "but, unfortunately, they don't pass current at the roulette."

"Ah!" said Halévy, with a sigh of relief, "you have an excellent memory; but," During his stay there, I remember his he added, half in soliloquy, "I was terri- exhibiting with great delight to a circle of bly afraid that mine was a better one!" Parisian journalists the washing-bill of a Among the innumerable visitors to Ros-local laundress, evidently desirous of sini's villa, at Passy, was a certain Italian displaying her proficiency in the Gallic marquis, an amateur musician of no par- tongue; one item of which especially fasticularly good repute, who continually pes- cinated him. tered the maestro for an autographic recommendation of his compositions, on the plea that he was a poor man, and that such a testimonial would materially in crease their sale. Wearied by his importunities, the author of "Guillaume Tell" at last consented, and complied with the request as follows:

"I have a very agreeable recollection of the Marquis de S- -'s music.

"G. ROSSINI."

This passport to fame was, of course, triumphantly exhibited by the recipient, and one of the writer's friends, happening to see it, inquired how he could possibly have expressed a favorable opinion of music which was a barefaced imitation of his own.

"Perhaps that is why I like it," replied Rossini with a twinkle in his eye. "It is always pleasant, you know, to recognize an old acquaintance."

One of the many postulants for his approbation was a young musician, who brought him a funeral march of his composition in memory of Meyerbeer, lately dead. Rossini looked through it attentively.

"Not bad," he said, "but it would have been still better if Meyerbeer had written it in memory of you."

The same irrepressible humorist briefly summed up his opinion as to the relative merits of Mendelssohn and Wagner by saying that, whereas the former had composed "songs without words," the latter had only written "words without songs." Offenbach's passion for roulette was proverbial. When his "Princesse de Trébizonde was produced at the Baden Theatre, the major part of the liberal honorarium received for it speedily returned to

"How do you think she has spelt 'trois
paires de chaussettes '?" he asked one
after another.
"You'll never guess, if

you try for a week;" and, extracting from
his pocket-book the document in question,
he handed it round with a broad grin of
intense enjoyment. It ran thus:
"3 pères cho 7."

During Weber's short sojourn in Paris, on his way to London in 1826, two things appear principally to have caught his fancy, Boieldieu's new opera, "La Dame Blanche," and the excellence of the oysters. Writing of the former to Winkler, he bids him have it translated, put on the stage by " Musje" Marschner, and played as soon as possible, saying,

"Such a comic opera has never been composed since the Figaro.'

In a notice of Wagner, recently published in Germany, the following anecdote is related of one of his visits to Cologne. At the hotel where he was staying, the best suite of rooms were occupied by a Prussian general, who had arrived on a tour of inspection. One evening, while at work in his solitary chamber, the sound of music immediately under his window struck the composer's ear. It was doubtless a serenade in his honor, and he nat urally felt gratified by the flattering attention. When it was over, he opened the window, and was beginning to express his thanks to the performers in well-chosen terms, when, to his surprise and confusion, his harangue was interrupted by a voice from below rudely bidding him hold his tongue, and intimating, amid roars of laughter from the assembled spectators, that the compliment was not intended for him, but for the general!

The only French musician for whom Wagner appears to have entertained a

real friendship was Victor Massé, then | ory, is sure to be, not of the great misholding the important post of chef des sionary pope, who resolved to convert chours at the Opera, and one of the few England as he gazed on the "angel" faces Parisian appreciators of the foredoomed of the fair-haired Anglo-Saxon slave"Tannhäuser." The other principal com- boys in the Roman market-place, but of posers were either hostile or indifferent, the proud dispenser of earthly crowns and the critics, almost without exception, and strong-wristed reformer of a corrupt dead against the new-comer. The latter's church, who uttered no idle boast when great crime, however, in the opinion of he compared the papacy and the Empire the Jockey Club, was his very natural re- to the greater and lesser lights in the fir fusal to permit the interpolation of a ballet, mament of heaven, and summed up his and one of that body gravely justified his own wonderful career with substantial share in the disturbance which took place accuracy, if with some pardonable exag. on the third and last performance of the geration, in his dying words at Salerno, work by saying, "I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity, and therefore I die in exile." At any period and under any circumstances only a master mind could have left a mark like his on the entire later history of Christendom. It is true that he held an office, not then indeed or till many centuries afterwards regarded by anybody as infallible, but looked up to by all as visibly

"If the piece had been allowed to stand on its own merits, it might have had a run, and how could we possibly have shown ourselves in the foyer without even a rat to talk to!"

The well known pianist, Leopold de Meyer, is the hero of an anecdote which, se non è vero è ben trovato. He was playing some years ago before an arch-representing the royalty of Christ in the duke of Austria, and in his anxiety to please his illustrious auditor, exerted himself so strenuously that he literally perspired at every pore. At the conclusion of the concert, the archduke deigned to express a wish that the artist should be presented to him.

"Monsieur," blandly remarked his imperial highness, "I have heard Thalberg (a pause, and a low bow from the pianist), "I have heard Liszt " (another pause, and a still lower bow); "but I never yet met with any one" (a third pause, and a quasigenuflection on the part of Leopold de Meyer) "who perspired as you do!"

From The Saturday Review. EIGHTH CENTENARY OF GREGORY VII.

government of his earthly Church. But on the other hand the actual reign of Gregory extended over no more than twelve years, while during the previous quarter of a century, under five successful pontiffs who were virtually his nominees and his instruments, he had been the real ruler of the Church. And moreover it must be remembered that the papacy, when he came to its rescue, so far from offering a vantage-ground for his enterprise to a born ruler of men, had sunk into a state of utter and seemingly hopeless degradation, not for a few years or a few pontificates, but for about a century and a half, which has had no parallel before or since, except perhaps under the scandalous administration of Alexander VI. But Alexander reigned for ten years only, and if neither his immediate predecessors or successors were models of sanctity, they were respectable as com pared to him, and some of them were men of no mean ability. But it was far otherwise with that terrible "iron age," the tenth and beginning of the eleventh century,

WHATEVER difference of opinion there may be as to his character, his principles, or his aims, there can be no question that Gregory VII., if not the greatest, is at least the grandest and most striking figure in the long line of two hundred and fifty-eight pontiffs who have sat succesa dark and dreadful time, sively on the throne of St. Peter. There The heaven all blood, the wearied earth all is something more distinctly apostolic crime,

about the firm but gentle and beneficent when men said that "Christ was sleeping rule of his earliest namesake in the pain the ship," and prophecies of his speedy pacy, Gregory the Great, who has more- return to judge the world were rife on over a special and abiding claim on the every side. The papal office had lost grateful reverence of Englishmen. Yet the first thought of every student of ecclesiastical history, even though he be an Englishman, on hearing the name of Greg.

alike its religious character and its claim to moral purity. "For above a century the chief priest of Christendom," to cite Mr. Bryce's words, "was no more than a

tool of some ferocious faction among the nobles. Criminal means had raised him to the throne; violence, sometimes going the length of mutilation or murder, deprived him of it.”

Gregory VII. had, as we have seen, enormous difficulties to contend against, but he had two immense advantages, one in his own transcendent genius, one in the circumstances of his age. He had, as has been justly remarked, that rarest and grandest of gifts, an intellectual courage and power of imagination which accepts with all their consequences and dares to carry out in act the principles it has once firmly grasped; and this power it was which enabled him not simply to deduce in theory, but to apply and enforce in his policy, the logical conclusion of principles which in our day would be widely disputed within as well as without the pale of Roman obedience, but which no Catholic ventured openly to question then. Henry IV. might challenge Gregory's application of his principles, but only at the peril of his soul and of his crown could he presume to challenge their truth. To quote Mr. Bryce once more, "Nobody dreamed of denying his principles; the reasonings by which he established the superiority of spiritual to temporal jurisdiction were unassailable." That indeed was his fulcrum to move the world; the logical force of his reasoning was irresistible, but it was a masterpiece of genius to make logic into a practical reality.

-

intended nor destined to be more than a form of the imperial right of confirma. tion. It was not so easy to settle the long quarrel of investitures, nor was it finally settled till nearly forty years after Gregory's death by the Concordat of Worms, ratified at the first Lateran Council in 1123. But he had himself already struck the decisive blow, when at a Roman synod held in 1075 he abrogated by a peremptory decree the entire right of investiture by the temporal sovereign, and thus at once precipitated the breach with the emperor which continued during both their lives. He went further, and deduced from the power of the keys the inherent right of the pope to revise, and confirm or reject according to the merits of the case, the election of the emperor. Less dazzling at first sight, but more permanent and pregnant in its results, was the great internal reform designed and effected by the dominant will of Hildebrand. There was in truth at bottom a close moral connection between the two. It was no new discovery of Gibbon's that, in his sense of the words, "the virtues of the clergy are more dangerous than their vices." The degradation of the papacy under the heel of a brutal and licentious aristocracy, and the general collapse of all spiritual life and power during the tenth century, had been rendered possible only by the wide. spread demoralization of prelates and clergy, who cared rather for the loaves and fishes, which civil potentates could It would be absurd within our present offer or withhold, than for the Gospel they limits to attempt even a slight sketch of professed to preach. The crying evil of the eventful pontificate of Hildebrand, and the age, against which all saints and rehis reforming government of the Church formers were raising their voices, was the really began, as was intimated just now, simony and incontinence of the priesttwenty-five years earlier with the acces- hood. Clerical marriage had long before sion of Leo IX. It must suffice very been forbidden in the West, but it had briefly to indicate here the two main ob- not been declared invalid, and in fact was jects at which he aimed, and in both of almost universal among the secular clergy; which to a large extent he succeeded; in and one inevitable result of this in the the one case the result of his policy lasted feudal age. -as Milman, whose sympa. for many centuries, in the other his great thies are all the other way, is careful to reform has fixed, for good or for evil, the insist was that Church benefices tended discipline of the Latin Church from that to become fiefs handed down from father day to our own. But let us first say a to son, and thus the clergy were sinking word on what may be called the political as is said to be often the case now in side of his work, his emancipation of the Russia-into an hereditary caste; hence Church from secular control. One part too the wide prevalence of simoniacal bar. of that task was accomplished under his gains. Here again, as in the conflict influence, but several years before he him- between Church and State, Gregory went self became pope, when in 1159 Nicholas | to work with the directness and energy II. in a synod held at the Lateran trans- of a master genius; he perceived at once ferred the right of election to the papacy that no half-measures could avail, and from the clergy and people of Rome, who struck at the root of the evil by pronounhad so grossly abused their privilege, to cing all clerical marriages, not merely unthe College of Cardinals, a formal reser- lawful but invalid, and with a curious vation being made which was neither anticipation of modern democratic policy

-appealing to the laity to assist him by | with physical power, of literature with refusing all ministrations of a married or ignorance, of religion with debauchery," simoniacal priest. and Hildebrand, who "is celebrated as

abuses of his age, is yet more justly entitled to the praise of having left the impress of his own gigantic character on the history of all the ages which have succeeded him." Milman, who had less than no sympathy with ecclesiastical preten. sions of any kind, names him "the Cæsar of spiritual conquest," before whose eyes floated in dim outline the beautiful vision of St. Augustine's "City of God," which he aspired, however imperfectly, to make a reality on earth. It is but a shallow libel on his memory to call him the founder of Ultramontanism. That bastard scheme of a narrow and vicious centralization had its inception four centuries later in the startled recoil of a corrupt and craven Curia from the strong reforming spirit which found articulate but only temporary expression in the famous Council of Constance, and was finally stereotyped by the ejection of the Teutonic element at the Reformation.

Hildebrand has paid the accustomed the reformer of the impure and profane penalty of greatness. An extravagant homage has been followed by a far more extravagant defamation. From the Reformation onwards it became the fashion among Protestants to load his memory with every term of obloquy and reproach, in which the compilers of the English "Homilies set a somewhat conspicuous example, while even Roman Catholics seemed half ashamed to speak of him; he was represented as a cruel and narrow minded bigot, the typical Giant Pope of the "Pilgrim's Progress," whose teeth had not yet been drawn. A juster estimate has succeeded, and sceptical or Protestant writers in Germany and France were the first to make reparation for a great literary wrong. Guizot hailed him as the champion and pioneer of modern civilization. Sir James Stephen, who loved him little, could not refrain from testifying that "his despotism, with whatever inconsistency, sought to guide mankind by moral impulses to a more than human sanctity, while the feudal despotism with which he waged war sought, with a stern consistency, to degrade them into beasts of prey, or beasts of burden. It was the conflict," he adds, "of mental

But Hildebrand, who expired at Salerno in exile, on May 25, 1085, may justly be styled the founder of the mediæval papacy, and it must be allowed on all hands that the architect of so stately an edifice has well earned the honors of his eighth centenary.

CHICORY WITH COFFEE. The chicory root, and Germany. In Belgium, where it is also which was used more with coffee when the lat- used as a vegetable, it is very extensively ter brought a higher price than it does now, grown, its culture and its manufacture (both but which is still greatly used on the Continent, of which are unrestricted) forming two of the somewhat resembles a parsnip. The stem greatest industries of that country; and its inrises to a height of two to three feet, the fusion is largely drunk as an independent bevleaves round the base being toothed, not un- erage. For home consumption it is put up in like those of the dandelion; indeed, it is small round and square packets of various closely allied to that plant. The preparation weights, with highly colored and attractiveof chicory, as carried out in Belgium, is very looking labels attached, and so dispensed to simple. The older white roots are selected, the public, who can also purchase it in a loose cleaned, sliced, and kiln-dried, and are then state. To preserve it in good condition, chicory ready for the manufacturer. It is roasted in should be kept in a tightly closed tin box and an iron cylinder, called a drum, which revolves in a dry place; otherwise it will become lumpy over a coke furnace. When taken out it is of and rank, and unfit for use. Instead of being a dark brown color, and while hot it is soft and ground down to a fine powder chicory is somepliable, but after being raked out and sub-times granulated; that is to say, ground into jected to a draught of cold air, it becomes | grains or small lumps. This is often done hard and crisp, and is then ready for the mill. From the mill the powder is passed through a cylinder sieve, from which it emerges as fine as the finest flour; and the partially ground pieces, or foreign matters that may have found their way into the chicory, drop into a separate bin. The shades of color vary occasionally to suit the taste of the purchaser. The chicory root is cultivated in Belgium, Holland, France,

when it is intended for export, as in this state it can be packed loosely in barrels, and is less likely to deteriorate. When exported in powder it is packed in tin cases, which are hermetically soldered down to prevent injury from atmospheric changes. The London Grocer says that large quantities prepared in both ways are annually shipped from Belgium to all parts of the world.