Methinks I see it--a modern temple of Vesta, without its tell-tale fires--square, rectangular, simple, airy, isolated--chaste as Diana and quiet as the grave--the frescoed walls commemorating the legend of Saint Ursula and her eleven thousand--the sacrifice of Jephtha's daughter--Elizabeth Carter translating Epictetus--Harriet Martineau revising the criminal code. In the hall, dear Editor, should hang the portrait of Christopher North--in that locality, appropriately, a Kit-cat! Ponder upon this! The distinction is worthy consideration. As the newspapers say, it is an "unprecedented opportunity for investment!" For the sole Helicon of the institution shall be--"Blackwood's Entire" its lady abbess-- Your humble servant to command, (for the old maids of England,) TABITHA GLUM. _1st Jan. 1844. Lansdowne, Bath._ * * * * * MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN. PART VIII. "Have I not in my time heard lions roar? Have I not heard the sea, puft up with wind, Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat? Have I not heard great ordnance in the field, And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies? Have I not in the pitched battle heard Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?" SHAKSPEARE. The action was a series of those grand manoeuvres in which the Prussians excelled all the other troops of Europe. From the spot on which I stood, the whole immense plain, to the foot of the defiles of Argonne, was visible; but the combat, or rather the succession of combats, was fought along the range of hills at the distance of some miles. These I could discover only by the roar of the guns, and by an occasional cloud of smoke rising among the trees. The chief Prussian force stood in columns in the plain below me, in dark masses, making an occasional movement in advance from time to time, or sending forth a mounted officer to the troops in action. Parks of artillery lay formed in the spaces between the columns, and the baggage, a much more various and curious sight than the troops, halting in the wide grounds of what seemed some noble mansion, had already begun to exhibit the appearance of a country fair. Excepting this busy part of the scene, few things struck me as less like what I had conceived of actual war, than the quietness of every thing before and around me. The columns might nearly as well have been streets of rock; and the engagement in front was so utterly lost to view in the forest, that, except for the occasional sound of the cannon, I might have looked upon the whole scene as the immense picture of a quiet Flemish holiday. The landscape was beautiful. Some showery nights had revived the verdure, of which France has so seldom to boast in autumn; and the green of the plain almost rivalled the delicious verdure of home. The chain of hills, extending for many a league, was covered with one of the most extensive forests of the kingdom.