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commission, and the rights and duties of our charge, and with authority from the Lord Chancellor of England, the affidavits having been drawn up and recorded, having seen the documents communicated by the Admiralty, after verification of attestations and signatures, after declarations read and heard, after confrontation made, all the statements and legal information having been completed, exhausted, and brought to a good and just issue, we signify and declare to you, in order that right may be done, that you are Fermain Clancharlie, Baron Clancharlie and Hunkerville, Marquis de Corleone in Sicily, and Peer of England; and may God bless your lordship!"

And he bowed to him.

The sergeant on the right, the doctor, the justice of the quorum, the wapentake, the secretary, all the attendants except the executioner, repeated this salutation, still more profoundly, and bowed to the ground before Gwynplaine.

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"I come to awake you, truly," said a voice which he had not before heard.

A man came out from behind the pillars. As no one had entered the cellar since the sheet of iron had given passage to the cortège of police, it was clear that this man had been in the shadow before Gwynplaine had entered, that he had a regular post of observation, and had been allowed there by his function and mission.

This man was fat and pursy, in a court wig and a travelling cloak. He was rather old than young, and very precise.

He saluted Gwynplaine with ease and respect-with the elegance of a gentleman-in-waiting, and without the awkwardness of a judge.

"Yes," he said; "I come to awaken you. For twenty-five years you have slept. You have been dreaming; it is time to awake. You believe yourself to be Gwynplaine; you are Clancharlie. You believe yourself to be one of the people; you belong to the peerage. You believe yourself to be of the lowest rank; you are of the highest. You believe yourself a player; you are a senator. You believe that you are poor; you are wealthy. You believe yourself to be of no account; you are important. Awake, my lord! **

Gwynplaine, with a low voice, in which might be distinguished a certain terror, murmured—

"What does it all mean?”

"It means, my lord," said the fat man, "that I am called Barkil

phedro; that I am an officer of the admiralty; that this waif, the flask of Hardquanonne, was found on the beach, and was brought to be unsealed by me, according to the duty and prerogative of my office; that I opened it in the presence of two sworn jurors of the jetsam office, who are members of parliament, William Brath wait, for the city of Bath, and Thomas Jervois, for Southampton ; that the two jurors deciphered and attested the contents of the flask, and signed the necessary affidavit conjointly with me; that I made my report to her majesty, and by order of the queen all necessary and legal formalities were carried out with the discretion necessary in a matter so delicate; and that the last form, the confrontation, has just taken place; that you have 40,000l. a year; that you are a peer of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, legislator and judge, supreme judge, sovereign legislator, drest in scarlet and ermine, equal to princes, regal as emperors, you carry on your head the coronet of a peer, and you are about to wed a duchess, the daughter of a king."

Under this transfiguration, overwhelming him like a thunder-bolt, Gwynplaine fainted.

(To be continued.)

KITTY M'CREE O' TOSSELL.

A SONG FOR ST. VALENTINE'S DAY.

ERRILY, merrily, pipes the merle,
Merrily lilts the throstle,
Merrily sings the milking girl,
Kitty M'Cree o' Tossell.

Singing down by the meadow gate,
Gay as a golden-gladdie,
Little hen-birds will call for their mate,
Kitty is calling her laddie.
Merrily, merrily, pipes the merle,

Merrily lilts the throstle,
Merrily sings the milking girl,
Kitty M'Cree o' Tossell.

Over the lea, as blithe as a bee,
Trampling new-blown daisies;
Over the stile, with love in his smile,
See he comes singing her praises.
Merrily, merrily, pipes the merle,
Merrily lilts the throstle,
Merrily sings the milking girl,
Kitty M'Cree o' Tossell.

Singing still by the meadow gate,
Why doth the maiden tarry?
Little hen-birds will wait for their mate-

Kitty is waiting for Larry.

Merrily, merrily, pipes the merle,

Merrily lilts the throstle,

Merrily sings the milking girl,

Kitty M'Cree o' Tossell.

"Kitty M'Cree!" "Larry Magee,

Who would have thought o' thus meeting?"
"Kiss, and I'll carry your pail," said he ;

And the lark sang aloud at the greeting.
Merrily, merrily, pipes the merle,

Merrily lilts the throstle,

But merrier sings the milking girl,
Kitty M'Cree o' Tossell,

VOL. IV., N. S. 1870.

EDWARD CAPERN.

X

A WORD FOR WAGNER.

ROM Germany, during the last fifteen or twenty years, has sounded the cry of a new composer, and a new school of music, round which has been fought a sort of

battle. It has been extravagantly extolled and as extravagantly depreciated; it has been set down-school and composeras imposture and charlatanism, something that "would not last," and has been also lifted into quite a social revelation-a new reformer with a new musical gospel of his own. At German gardens the traveller will hear frantic applause and disapprobation mixed, when a piece of this new description has concluded, and will wonder not a little at the excitement of the parties opposed to each other. English critics have long since condemned the whole more severely than they usually condemn musical folly, and when the unhappy prophet came himself in person to conduct a great musical society of London, the furious reception accorded to him and to his works not only quite passed the bounds of what was owing to an invited stranger, who was almost a guest, but seemed to approach the sort of reception a hated political candidate would meet in a hostile borough. The name of the composer is Richard Wagner, and his music is what has been called the music of the future.

Now, apart from the merits of the question, this virulence might almost tempt us to suspect there was "something" in this detested composer and more detested music. It is impossible not to think of another composer, one Robert Schumann, who had been baited, sneered at, "pooh-poohed," for many years, but whose works are daily growing on the English,-the sale of whose music is steadily increasing, as the music-sellers will tell us; and who, though not a "heaven born genius," was still an original composer and pleasing writer, with the most prodigious fancy. We think of Gounod, long, long refused a passport for England,-considered a "mere trifling French writer," one of a "light" school, and not vouchsafed a hearing. All honour to the far-seeing and skilful Mr. Chorley, who, for more than ten years, kept rattling at the gates, begging admittance by reproaching, panegyrising, though no one paid attention. Such intelligence, such perseverance, at last prevailed. So it will be, we

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