one, even by princes, as an order, and complied with accordingly. His Majesty may command you to accompany him anywhere he may intend to make use of your services, and I think it to be neither in your own nor in your countrymen's interest to refuse the desire of my august sovereign.'

"Your Excellency will please assure His Majesty," replied Kosciuszko, with dignity, "that I am perfectly aware of my position; I am residing in His Majesty's dominions, and am therefore at present his subject. His Majesty can dispose of me as he pleases, he can drag me with him, but I doubt whether by doing so either my nation or I can render him much service. But under reciprocal favors, both my nation and I are ready to aid him. May Providence forbid that your powerful master should once repent having disdained our good services."

Upon this fearless answer of Kosciuszko, Fouché replied, somewhat excited, as he left his presence:

"I only wish, General, that you may never repent your refusal."

Whereupon Kosciuszko immediately answered:

"It is in the highest interest of His Majesty to treat us as friends and allies.'

But I must bring to a close these reminiscences, though I could long dwell upon the personal character of the hero who was associated with us in our daily, familiar life, and who became so dear to us not only for his public virtues and distinguished position, but for the generous, simple, and affectionate nature which he displayed. He had visited with my father a friend of the family at Vevey, on the Lake of Geneva, and insisted on ascending a neighboring mountain on horseback. On his descent, the horse stumbled and bruised his rider; the injury was not serious, but a slight fever followed, and when that was passed he was removed to Solothurn. This was in August, and Kosciuszko kept an ordinary degree of health until the first of October of the same year, 1817. He did not feel very well on that day, and sent for Dr. Schürer, who visited him at all hours. From the first Dr. Schürer declared that the General was seriously ill of a nervous fever, that this sickness was dangerous for a man of his age, and he earnestly begged to have one or two physicians called in for a consultation. My father sent without delay for the two best physicians of Switzerland, one from Zurich, the other from Bern, and all possible remedies were employed to procure the noble patient some relief: my good parents did not leave our sick friend during the fortnight, but in spite of the uninterrupted exertions of the three physicians and our family, the sickness increased, and on the 15th October one of the noblest men who ever lived breathed his last in the arms of my father, surrounded by the weeping family.

By his will he had ordered that all his written papers in the

VOL. IV.-10

Polish language should, after his death, be burned, and thus doubtless many interesting documents have perished. He bequeathed all his property to the poor of the community, and wished to be carried by them to his last resting-place, and thus was it done. My father had the corpse embalmed and deposited in the vaults of the Jesuit Church. Then he advised His Majesty, the Emperor Alexander, of the death of the General. How great esteem the Emperor felt for Kosciuszko may be seen by the circumstance that he appointed Prince Anton Jablonowski to set out for Solothurn, obtain a special conveyance, and escort the remains to Cracow. Prince Jablonowski arrived in Solothurn, procured from Paris a costly carriage, and, in company with my uncle, attended the removal of the body to Cracow, where it was deposited in the funeral vaults of the kings of Poland, between the coffins of the Prince Poniatowski and of King Johann III., Sobieski, the gallant deliverer of Vienna.

"FOOD FOR GUNPOWDER."

BY CHARLES D. GARDETTE.

I.

"THERE's a soldier acting very strangely over the way. Do come and look at him! Poor fellow! I fear he is

66

Tipsy, of course! They're always tipsy !" exclaimed Mrs. Swinger, emphatically, without rising from the table.

"Oh! I don't think, mother, they-at least, I'm sure he's not tip.

99

"Nonsense, Maria! don't tell me!" again interrupted Mrs. S. "Don't I see thousands of 'em lying round the streets every day of my life? That' sall they go into the army for -to drink whiskey! And I hope the war'll kill 'em all of, every drunkard of 'em! That's all they're good for-to be food for gunpowder !"

This-and more to the same effect-did Mrs. Swinger deliver, with what the French call "an accent of conviction," from behind the coffee-urn, at her daughter Maria in especial, and to whom it might concern among the rest of the family, in general.

Mrs. Swinger's expression of her sentiments on this subject, however, had not the merit of novelty to any of her hearers. Nor were they of that undefined character that needs reiteration to make them intelligible.

In fact, Mrs. Swinger was a woman whose sentiments on many-not to say most-subjects, were marked by a force and comprehensiveness of form and expression analogous to those just quoted.

She was not a cruel woman, nor a passionate woman, nor a heartless woman, nor a sanguinary woman. She was not even

a disloyal woman!

But she was a weak woman, and a foolish woman, and an inconsistent woman, and an impulsive woman, and a peevish woman! And, above all, she was a superlative woman.

That

is, her opinions-or, her manner of conveying thein-were superlative.

Her style of remark--especially of unfavorable remark, to which she had a proclivity-was undeniably the sweeping style. She never minced matters.

On the contrary, she might be said to look at life through a lens of such peculiar powers, that every object or subject became magnified indefinitely; molehills towered into mountains, individuals grew into masses, and exceptions expanded into rules of universal application. Or, at least, she spoke as if she had looked through such a lens. In short, she constantly reminded one of the imaginative urchin who protested to his father that he had seen 66 a million cats in the great loft!" With this difference, however, that Mrs. Swinger could never be brought to confess (unless it might be to herself, as it possibly was occasionally, for she was not exactly a fool) her million cats really amounted to no more than "the old gray Tom and another." So, she said on one occasion, when a certain legal gentleman had offended her sense of honor by a somewhatfishy" transaction-that "all lawyers were rogues: she wouldn't trust one of 'em-not one!" And, when reminded malapertly by her son-in-law (who was her especial bête noir) that two of her own brothers were members of that profession, and had the trust of her entire estate-she silenced him by the super-feminine retort, "Well, suppose they are! that's nothing to do with it! I know what I'm saying, I fancy!"

So, on another occasion, she exclaimed (on hearing that a certain heretofore eminently respectable gentleman, though rather too convivial in his habits, had been detected in an act of embezzlement) that, "for her part, she wasn't surprised, inasmuch as every man who would take a drink at a tavern bar would steal; she didn't care who they were!" And the son-inlaw here, again, observing that he occasionally took a glass with some friend who chanced to be a guest at a hotel, or even at an accidental meeting-she "collapsed" him with "I dare say you do! it's just like you! And what difference does that make to me, I'd like to know?"

So, on occasions innumerous, and matters more or less serious (generally less), Mrs. Swinger swept "the world and the rest of mankind," with her far-reaching besom, into the focus of her magnifier.

And so she visited the sin of drunkenness, without reserva

tion, upon the whole of our gallant armies, "horse, foot, and dragoons," " "at one fell swoop

יין

"I am ashamed of you, Maria!" quoth Mrs. S., taking a fresh start, under the influence of a second cup of coffee"standing there gaping at a drunken, rowdy soldier! I wish Mr. Wheazey would see you, now; upon my word I do! A nice young lady he'd think you, running to every window in the house all day long to stare at drunken riots, and all sorts of disgusting things, as if you never had any thing else to do! I've a great mind to tell him how you spend every minute of your time going to the windows

"I'm sure this is the first time Maria has been to the window this morning, and I have sat here with her these two hours!" said the son-in-law, mildly.

"I'm not speaking to you, I believe !" snapped Mrs. Swinger. "You'd better finish your breakfast, and get down to your business for once in your life before noon! It will be a surprise to your clerks !"

"It certainly would be one, if I did not arrive before ten o'clock!" replied her son-in-law.

"Yes! of course you contradict me! I can't say a single word in my own house-not the simplest word, but I am contradicted flatly to my face by everybody! Maria! if you don't come away from staring at all those drunken men in the street, I'll certainly tell Mr. Wheazey you've fallen in love with a nasty, tipsy fellow in the gutter!" Miss Maria turned away from the window, with an evident cloud of vexation on her pretty face; saying, as she did so, "There were no drunken men, mother, but only a poor sick officer, who fainted; and they have carried him in to Aunt Tilda's. And as to Mr. Wheazey, you are welcome to tell him whatever you like. If I never saw him again, it would not grieve me. I'm sure I wish he'd go to the war! You would have to acknowledge there was one sober man in the army then, mother; for I'm sure that a teaspoonful of any thing stronger than tea would strangle poor Mr. Wheazey-ha! ha! ha!"

Mrs. Swinger

"Ha ha ha!" echoed the son-in-law. turned upon him, but he evaded the storm by a rapid retreat from the room.

Then quoth Mrs. S. to her daughter:-" Maria, I really don't know what to make of you. Where you learn such manners I'm sure I can't imagine. It must be in the kitchen, I think, as you are always there, making yourself some trash or other. You needn't deny it !" added she, as she saw Maria about to reply.

"I was only going to ask you, mother, how I could be always in the kitchen, if I passed all my time looking out of every window in the house, as you said I did, just now.'

"Of course! I knew you were going to be impertinent. I know where you learn that, at any rate-from Alexander, your precious brother-in-law. I have heard nothing but impertinence from his lips-not a word-ever since your poor father died, and he came to live with us. But I'm resolved to put a stop to it. When you marry Mr. Wheazey, if he's silly enough to have you, I shall tell Alexander to go and live with some of his brandy-drinking cronies at the tavern, if he likes, and Mr. Wheazey shall be the only man in this house. He'll never be impertinent, and contradict every syllable I utter-unless you teach him to! He's a gentleman, is Mr. Wheazey, and will have a proper respect for his wife's mother!"

Mother!" exclaimed Maria, now fairly frowning, "you'd oblige me very much by not speaking of me as Mr. Wheazey's wife. I wouldn't marry him if-if he was the-President! And I should have told him so long ago if it had not been for you. I never encouraged his visits, you know very well, mother!" Mrs. Swinger fell back in her chair, and held up her hands in dumb horror. Then her mouth slowly opened into an ellipse-into an ovoid-into a full circle-and there issued from it a gigantic O!!!

"O! Maria Swinger! Never, since I was born, did I hear such a-a- never! You don't encourage Mr. Wheazey's visits? Who does, then, I want to know? Perhaps it's me! No doubt, he comes to see me ! He wants to marry me, I suppose. Oh, you needn't laugh! That's what you mean, you know it is! You're an ungrateful girl, Maria! After all I've done to make things agreeable to Mr. Wheazey and you! Haven't I invited him to dinner and tea, over and over, for your sake? Haven't I gone out of the room, and left you alone together for hours and hours? Haven't Ibut of course you'll say no! you always say no to every thing! You're worse than your brother-in-law. Mr. Wheazey is no favorite of mine, the Lord knows! I never thought nor said a word in his praise; nor against him either, for that matter. Though he is a very respectable young man, and takes care of his money. You don't catch him spending his fortune, and ruining his health, by drinking and gambling all day about the taverns, as your brother-in-law had the brazen impudence to confess he did, just now. But that's what you admire, I suppose. That, and drunken soldiers! Very likely you'll marry some such vile scamp. But if you do"

Here, Maria, with a premonitory haziness in her blue eyes, got up hastily, and left the field to her eloquent and imaginative parent, who dispatched a farewell volley after her, in the shape of

"Oh! you're off, are you, Miss? Your own mother can't say a word to you-not the simplest word of advice-but you