physico-terrestrial researches recommended by
the Académie.

A curious incident, not without precedent,
has occurred with relation to the new discovery.
It will be remembered that when M. Le
Verrier, by mathematical calculation,
indicated the place of the still unseen planet
Neptune, Mr. Adams, almost simultaneously,
by the same means arrived at the same result.
In the present case, at the very time when
M. Janssen's letter reached France, Mr. Norman
Lockyer, while exploring the outskirts of
the sun, observed the bright lines which betray
a protuberance, and which he found upon the
black lines of the ordinary spectrum. Mr.
Lockyer was acquainted with the position of
the lines of the protuberances indicated by MM.
Rayet, Tennant, and Herschell; and he was
able, by comparison, to recognise, like M.
Janssen, the lines characteristic of the
protuberances.

The discovery was made on the 20th of
October, communicated to Mr. Balfour Stewart
on the 21st, and transmitted on the 23rd to
Mr. Warren De la Rue, then in Paris. On the
25th, the Moniteur published M. Janssen's
letter. On the 26th, that letter, and also the
English letter to Mr. Warren De la Rue, were
simultaneously communicated to the Académie
des Sciences. The coincidence is singular.
The French astronomer, however, while fully
admitting the independence of his rival's
proceeding, claims, nevertheless, a month's priority
in the discovery.

Be it so. Two philosophers working
separately, have supplied us with the means of
sounding space. We are enabled by the
spectroscope to test the nature of objects not only
at prodigious distances, but in regions which
are absolutely invisible and impenetrable by
human eye. And to connect all this with what
exists at home, the magic tell-tale has whispered
to us that a comet which flitted past us in June,
although at an enormous distance, carried about
with it volatilised, in its eccentric wanderings
through the heavens, the same elements which
here lie entombed and imprisoned, though not
for ever, in the shape of coal. If it would only
crystallise properly and come back to us, it
would be the finest diamond that ever was
seen. Fancy the discovery of such an islet
fallen into the sea, even if not bigger nor taller
than the Calf of Man!

    A SLIGHT QUESTION OF FACT.

IT is never well for the public interest that
the originator of any social reform should
be soon forgotten. Further, it is neither
wholesome nor right (being neither generous
nor just) that the merit of his
work should be gradually transferred
elsewhere.

Some few weeks ago, our contemporary,
THE PALL MALL GAZETTE, in certain
strictures on our Theatres which we are
very far indeed from challenging,
remarked on the first effectual discouragement
of an outrage upon decency which the
lobbies and upper-boxes of even our best
Theatres habitually paraded within the
last twenty or thirty years. From those
remarks it might appear as though no such
Manager of Covent Garden or Drury Lane
as Mr. MACREADY had ever existed.

It is a fact beyond all possibility of question,
that Mr. MACKEADY, on assuming the
management of Covent Garden Theatre
in 1837, did instantly set himself, regardless
of precedent and custom down to that
hour obtaining, rigidly to suppress this
shameful thing, and did rigidly suppress
and crush it during his whole management
of that theatre, and during his whole
subsequent management of Drury Lane. That
he did so, as certainly without favour as
without fear; that he did so, against his own
immediate interests; that he did so, against
vexations and oppositions which might
have cooled the ardour of a less earnest
man, or a less devoted artist; can be
better known to no one than the writer of
the present words, whose name stands at
the head of these pages.

   THE MYSTERY OF THE MOATED-
                      SCHLOSS.

    IN TWO CHAPTERS. CHAPTER II.

WITH a firmer and more rapid step,
Magda recrossed the bridge, and passed
under the portcullis once more. She would
not return to the parlour. By her desire,
Bettine conducted her straight to the tapestried
room, which was now flooded with moonlight.
She threw the window wide, and
then, dismissing Bettine, she knelt down
beside the great old-fashioned bed, and
prayed—- prayed for forgiveness of her many
sins, poor little soul!—- for courage to meet
present trial, whatsoever it might be—- for
faith that should resist any devil's
machination, and strength to overcome temptation.
And to this was joined a fervent
prayer that "unser Vater" would shield
her Albrecht from all evil, and remove that
dark and nameless cloud under which he
suffered.

She rose and blew out the candles, which
flared in the night breeze, and sent flickering
shadows upon the tapestry. She did
not need them to undress by, for the room
was as light as day. She could see the
faces of Ahasuerus and Esther in their
royal robes on the wall opposite, with the
black-bearded Mordecai, and the evil-eyed
Haman hanging on the gallows, which last