DREAMS, books, are each a world: and books we know, Are a substantial world, both pure and good; Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, Our pastime and our happiness will grow. There find I personal themes, a plenteous store, Matter wherein right voluble I am, To which I listen with a ready ear; Two shall be named, preëminently dear,— The gentle lady married to the Moor; And heavenly Una, with her milk-white lamb. Blessings be with them, and eternal praise, Who gave us nobler loves and nobler cares— The poets, who on earth have made us heirs Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays! Oh! might my name be numbered among theirs, Then gladly would I end my mortal days. —_Wordsworth’s “Personal Talk.”_ NAPOLEON’S MARSHALS. Napoleon’s marshals were twenty-six in number, of whom seven only were born in a rank which would have entitled them to become general officers under the old Monarchy. These were Kellermann, Berthier, Davoust, Macdonald, Marmont, Grouchy, and Poniatowski, a Pole. Of the others, Murat was the son of an innkeeper, Lefèbvre of a miller, Augereau of a mason, Bernadotte of a weaver, and Ney of a cooper. Masséna’s father, like Murat’s, kept a village wine-shop; Lannes was the son of an ostler, and was himself apprenticed to a dyer; Victor, whose real name was Perrin, was the son of an invalided private soldier, who after leaving the service became a market-crier; while Soult’s mother kept a mercer’s shop, and Oudinot’s a small _cafè_ with a circulating library. The marshals sprung from the _bourgeoisie_ or middle class were Serrurier, whose father was an officer, but never rose above the rank of captain; Bessières, whose father, though a poor clerk in a lawyer’s office, was the son of a doctor; Suchet, who was the son of a silk-merchant; Moncey, the son of a barrister; Gouvion, who assumed the name of Saint-Cyr, and whose father practiced as an attorney; and Brune, who started in life as a journalist. It is curious to trace through the lives of the different men the effect which their earliest associations had upon them. Some grew ashamed of their parentage; whilst others bragged overmuch of being self-made men. Only one or two bore their honors with perfect modesty and tact.