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distresses, by painting her kindness to Charlotte's child, and by describing a meeting between Edward and Ottilie, filled with all manner of erabracings and declarations, with that child sleeping on the grass beside her. But worse remains behind. Edward has persuaded the Captain to make another effort to obtain Charlotte's consent to a divorce. That highly honourable specimen of the military profession has gone on to the castle, leaving Edward lurking about his own domain, waiting impatiently for his answer. On that particular occasion, Ottilie has carried out the child to the side of a lake, and is engaged in reading. And, as we are told it is "one of those works from which gentle natures find it impossible to tear themselves away," I conclude it was some book of a moral and religious tendency, like this one—probably the Sorrows of Werther. Edward, prowling about, sees her; she sees him. He seizes her in his arms—she points to his child;—he gazes at it, and sees the aforesaid likenesses, and makes sundry remarks on the occasion, worthy of his refinement and honourable feelings.

"Hark!" at last cries Edward, springing up, "I heard a gun, which was the signal agreed on with the Captain———'twas nothing but a gamekeeper." So the conversation is renewed. It begins to grow dark. Ottilie springs up, alarmed, but the "hope (of a divorce) shines out of heaven upon their heads. She clasps him in the tenderest manner to her breast. They fancied—they believed that they belonged to each other; they exchanged, for the first time, decided—free kisses, and separated with agonies of grief."

For the first time, the old goat?—why, there is not a page of his book where they are notkissing and hugging —but, perhaps, he has some peculiar meaning in the epithets—decided and free. What is a decided kiss, Mr North?—what is a free kiss?—Perhaps he intends to state, that her conduct was on this occasion decidedly free, and, there can be no doubt, it was a good deal freer than would have been allowable in the vestal virgins But whether free or not, Edward has retired without casting another look on his own child, and Ottilie hurries off, as she is afraid of alarming Charlotte by being absent at such an hour. The way round the lake is long—she is a perfect Ellen Douglas in her management of a boat, and steps into a skiff to cross the water—"She grasps the oar and pushes off. She uses all her force and repeats the push; the boat reels a little, and moves from shore. The child is in her left arm, the book in her left hand, the oar in her right, she reels also, and falls in the boat. The oar leaves her hand on one side; and, in spite of all her efforts, the child and book fall from her hand on the other—and all into the water! She siezes the child's frock; but in her position she finds it impossible to rise. Her unoccupied right hand is insufficient to turn her round and raise her up. At last, she succeeds in drawing the child from the water; but its eyes are closed it has ceased to breathe!"

Yes, Mr North, this, I assure you, is considered a highly affecting incident, and the death of the innocent little creature is approved of by certain judges, as raising a new obstacle to the course of Edward's true love, and therefore exciting the reader's sympathy to a still tenderer point with the love-lorn Ottilie. In this country, I am happy to say, the "Shirra" would have held a precognition, which would not very materially have enhanced the reputation of that delicate-minded young lady.—An English coroner would have levied a deodand on the boat, presenting a bill, at the same time, against Ottilie for manslaughter at least. But in Germany things are much more comfortably managed. The Captain arrives at this very time on his embassy from Edward. This embassy, you recollect, was to persuade Charlotte to consent to a separation from her husband, and thus open the way for a marriage with Ottilie; the Captain at the same time succeeding Edward, and the "respectable old gentleman she had never loved," in the possession of Charlotte. He is shown to a room where he finds a single waxlight burning. In the gloom he perceives Ottilie senseless, or asleep, resting on Charlotte's lap, and the poor little dead child in grave-clothes, on a sofa at her side. It is in this state of affairs that he pleads his cause. And he succeeds!!! Charlotte consents to the separation, on the rather anti-Malthusian plea that she is called upon to