bodies, all put to their best to win; the
grey losing his chance by running down
the unlucky Larry, as described; Larry,
the grey, and the grey's rider, all going
over together, the jockey bitterly bewailing
the loss of his chance.

Altogether, it must be called a most
enjoyable day, and Ballyskelter has reason
to be proud of such honest sport: and
going away home, I am tempted to join in
the good wishes I heard most frequently
during the day, "More power to your
elbow!" also cordially endorsing the
ejaculation of the old people, "Good luck to the
Ould Ballyskelter races!"

       IMPERIAL VICISSITUDES.

THE father of the Great Napoleon, a
Corsican advocate, who fought beside Paoli,
and was no doubt in his time bored by
Boswell, had eight children, five sons and
three daughters. The sons were Jerome,
afterwards King of Westphalia; Louis,
King of Holland; Lucien, Prince of Canino;
Joseph, King of Spain; and the great
Bonaparte himself. The daughters: Eliza, Grand
Duchess of Tuscany; Pauline, the beautiful
but not very respectable Princess Borghese;
and Caroline, the wife of Murat.

Louis, the father of Napoleon the Third,
seems to have been an amiable,
high-principled man, of no ambition, who detested
his wife, and adored the works of Rousseau.
He chivalrously refused to carry out his
brother's continental system, which
debarred his Dutch subjects from their
profitable trade with England, and finally
abdicated rather than yield the point.

Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, the third
son of Louis Bonaparte, ex-King of
Holland, by Hortense, the daughter of the
Empress Josephine by her first marriage
with General Beauharnais, was born at the
Tuileries, April the 20th, 1808. His birth
was announced through the whole Empire,
from the Rhenish provinces to the shores
of Holland; from the Invalides to the
Castle of St. Angelo, by the exulting
roar of cannon. The rejoicing was the
greater because the emperor was not yet
divorced, and having no children, had
adopted, by a plébiscite of the year '12,
the children of his brother Louis. The
late emperor's name was the first to be
inscribed on the family register, and that
proved an omen. The King of Rome's was
the next name, but death soon erased it.

Louis Napoleon was baptised in 1811 at
the palace of Fontainebleau, by his great
uncle, Cardinal Fesch. The emperor was
his godfather, and Josephine his
godmother. Many stories are told of the
child's romantic generosity and warmth
of heart. One morning, when he was three
or four years old, he was awoke by a
muffled noise of something tumbling into
his room, and as he looked towards the
chimney there appeared a little black man
enveloped in a cloud of smoke. It was a
small Savoyard chimney- weeper. The
child gave way at first to some natural
alarm, then remembering that his governess
had often told him of the hardships
suffered by these poor little slaves, he
scrambled out of bed, got his purse,
and gave the whole of his money to the
astonished and delighted urchin. Some
years later, when Louis was living with
his mother on the shores of the lake of
Constance, he used to play with the children
of the neighbourhood, and especially
with the son of a miller on the Rhine.
One day when Louis wandered beyond the
garden, he returned with only his shirt on,
and walking with bare feet through the mud
and snow. It appeared that while playing
near the gate, he had seen a poor family
pass by so wretched and destitute, that it
pained him to see them, and having no
money, he had given one child his shoes
and another his coat. He was passionately
fond of the brother he afterwards lost
in Italy, and was the idol of the childless
empress. The emperor was also very
fond of the gentle, lively boy, and used
to have him in during lunch to question
him about his studies, and to hear him
recite the fables which he had marked for
him. The birth of the King of Rome
did not lessen the emperor's affection, and
on his return from Elba, the King of Rome
being a prisoner at Vienna, Napoleon's
affection for the promising nephew had room
to expand. The child (then only seven) was
by the emperor's side at the great festival
of the Champ de Mars, and he was there
presented to the deputies of the people
and the army, a ceremony that must have
lighted up the boy's ambition. The night
before his departure for Waterloo, Napoleon
was engaged in conversation with one
of his marshals, when the child entered
the cabinet sobbing, and threw himself on
his knees before the emperor.

"What's the matter?" said Bonaparte,
who was absorbed in thought, and
impatient of any interruption.

"Ah!" said the child through his tears,