Peter Stuyvesant; the King of Italy is like
Tony Lumpkin with a pair of enormous
moustaches; Queen Christina closely resembles the
widow in Tristram Shandy; and the King of
Prussia looks like a drill-sergeant—a similitude,
perchance, not very far from the actual truth.
As for that incomparable carte of the Emperor
Napoleon the Third, in a plain frock and a
shiny hat, with his pretty graceful wife on his
arm, his moustaches carefully twisted, and a
waggish smile on his face—what does he look
like? The dark and inscrutable politician? the
arch-plotter? the gloomy man of December?
Not a bit of it. He looks like a confident
gentleman who knows a thing or two, who is
going down into the City to do a little stroke of
business, and will afterwards buy his wife a new
bonnet on Ludgate-hill, or a new dress in St.
Paul's Churchyard.

It is all over with the right divine. D. G.
might as well be effaced from the European
currency. Sovereigns may reign in the hearts
of their people—and there are some who do so
reign, and long may they reign, say I!—but they
can no longer hope to perpetuate their sway by
throwing the dust of flattering portraits in the
eyes of the multitude. Poor old George the
Fourth! What would he have thought of a carte
de visite? How would he have felt at finding
himself bracketed as a twin-brother of Mr.
Tilbury? You can't disguise your wig in a carte
de visite. The false parting WILL come out.
Padding is easily detected. The rods of crinoline
are defined. The king may sit in his counting-
house counting out his money, the queen
may be in the kitchen eating bread and honey,
but the operator pops in at the window and
focuses the twain, and there is no mistake at all
about their being very plain.

AN OLD MEDIUM.

THE Medium of our own day is no original
performer. This sort of self-accredited messenger
has often abounded. The manipulation and
general hocus-pocus have varied, but scratching
through that surface we find the old charlatan
Tartar underneath. Long ago, Mediums
under other names wrote books of vulgar
wonders, as was done only yesterday. Cagliostro
had his séances in lodgings in Paris, just as
Mediums have theirs in apartments in
Mayfair. The story of that skilful quack—whom
it is disrespectful to measure with modern
feeble pretenders—has been told with masterly
dramatic effect by MR. CARLYLE. Not nearly
so familiar is the history of the German
necromancer, Schrepfer, who must be allowed the
credit of being the original "raiser" of defunct
relations, and the original practitioner of putting
them in communication with their nearest of
kin, seated on chairs of any pattern round the
room.

Sir Nathaniel William Wraxall, Baronet, was
posting round Europe in his chaise, about
thirty years from the end of the last century.
He had made large snatches of the grand tour,
had excellent letters of introduction; for Europe
was then studded over with little courts and
little cabinets, each filled up compactly with
kings and electors, grand-dukes and ministers,
each the little miniature centre of balls and all
manner of diversion.

At Dresden he was also introduced to an
uncle of the Elector, a certain Prince Charles,
who had been Duke of Courland, but was now
out of office; and the ceremony took place in
the great gallery of the prince's palace, which
some three or four years previously had been
the scene of a most extraordinary exhibition.
Sir Nathaniel was naturally anxious for some
particulars of it; but he remarked a singular
reserve on the subject among the ladies and
gentlemen of the court. There was a mystery
about the business. The Elector, in fact, wished
the scandal to die out. At last a courtier who
had been present—"a man of sense, courage,
and intelligence"—kindly consented to slake the
curiosity of the eager stranger. This was the
substance of his narrative:

There had been living at Leipzig, a certain
coffee-house keeper, named Schrepfer: whose
business did not produce him very abundant
profits; but another branch of industry, which
he was lucky enough to "exploiter," began to
attract the public. He gave out that he had
studied magic deeply, and that he was in
familiar terms with, the great society of Spirits.
An old-fashioned programme, with nothing very
fresh or striking about it. He affected to
divide his spiritual acquaintances into several
orders—the friendly, the hostile, and the strictly
neutral: thence this speciality in his mode of
dealing, that he never invited any visits from,
spirits in general, without first invoking the
benevolent spirits, who, by this attention, were
propitiated and secured for his protection.
Gradually he came to be talked of. As his
coffee declined, his spirits came into fashion.

The Prince Charles happened to be in Leipzig,
and somehow incurred the resentment of this
coffee-house magician, who was heard to use
some disrespectful language in reference to the
august personage. The prince actually took
the trouble of despatching an officer to inflict
personal chastisement on him; but, while the
punishment was being inflicted, the magician
rushed into a corner, and there, flinging himself
on his knees, loudly called on his friendly spirits
to come to his assistance; at which the officer,
utterly scared, forbore his chastisement, and
fled. This inspired a further awe of the magician.
Not long afterwards, he resigned the
direction of his coffee-house, and appeared at
Dresden with another name, and the quality of
"an officer in the service of France."

It is curious what a similarity there is in
the chameleon colours of these gorgeous
Dulcamaras. Courts are always indispensable to
them. The ci-devant coffee-house keeper in this
new character makes an attempt to be
presented at court, but is rebuffed. Presently,