memories of veteran English playgoers, from her
performances at Covent Garden Theatre—the
Covent Garden of the Kembles and the Youngs.
It was little enough indeed that she did there to
make up for encumbering the house with her
rope, and marring the effect of the dramatic
portion of the evening's entertainment; but
that little sufficed to make people's flesh crawl
on their bones, and to give them, if not a new,
at least a violent sensation.

The rope was stretched from the back of the
stage to the back of the one-shilling gallery.
At the appointed moment, Madame, suddenly
becoming visible, like a fiendish apparition,
climbed to her station on the foot of the rope,
with the agility of an ape, and then, with nothing
to balance her but a short wand held between
her two hands, and with her eyes fixed
on the upper end of the rope, started on her
ascending course at what appeared to be a rapid
run, but which, doubtless, was a skilfully regulated
pace, consisting of a quick succession of
short steps. The eye of the spectator would be
more likely to be caught by a brilliant vibration
of the feet, and by the apparent effort, than by
the actual onward progress made. Anxious
were the looks upturned from the pit, as the
human meteor sped on its way overhead.

Arrived at the summit of her aerial mount,
she turned round abruptly and immediately
began the descent, which, unlike other faciles
descensus, was by no means easy, especially as
she had to combine apparent rapidity with the
power of putting a continual break upon herself
—a constant restraint upon her own impetus
down such a slope. In this, her light weight
would be in her favour, seeing that the momentum
of an object is made up of the velocity
and the mass. Her journey ended, she leaped
away and out of sight with the same imp-like
briskness as she had begun. The apparition was
gone until the clock struck the following
evening.

One of the last, if not the very last, and certainly
not the least surprising of her appearances,
occurred at Havre, in August, 1852. Political
events in France had then taken so clear and
decided a course, that it was deemed expedient
to celebrate them by a "Venetian Fête," got up
with properties sent down by "The Administration
of National Pleasures;" the same properties
which have since contributed to national
pleasures at Chambery and Nice. Madame Saqui
was then decrepid, poor, and old; she had seen
some seventy hard-working winters; but she
was game to the last. In politics, she was a
staunch Bonapartist. She had danced for the
First Consulate and for the first Empire, and
she would dance for the second Empire.  The
authorities could not refuse her.

The rope, fixed to the ground at each end,
and then raised by props, so as to leave a
horizontal portion, or rather a gentle catenary curve
in the middle, at a sufficient elevation to be
dangerous, was located in one of the largest
open spaces belonging to the town, for the
accommodation of the crowds of spectators.

The day of the Venetian Fête was stormy,
with wind, rain, and heavy squalls from the sea.
At four in the afternoon, the hour fixed for
Madame's exhibition, it blew almost a hurricane.
The rope quivered in the gale. With
her costume (an enchanter's robe with flowing
sleeves, and a long white beard) and her
fleshless frame, she was altogether as light a body
as one of Mr. Waterton's owls stuffed with
cotton wool. The gale would have carried her
away past finding, and she consented not to make
the attempt then. But about seven in the
evening there was a temporary lull, and the old
acrobat's heart glowed to renew her triumphs.
Confidently she set foot on her beloved rope,
mounted steadily, took the level portion undismayed,
and descended safely. She had done it;
she had run the rope for the second Empire,
and so sealed its prosperity. She considered it
next door to a coronation.

On this occasion it was observed that Madame
Saqui, in consequence of age and infirmity,
walked not too well on vulgar earth, but that as
soon as she set foot on hempen ground, her
vigour returned and she became inspired; also,
that she grasped the rope with her feet, Blondin-
wise, and likewise chimpanzee-wise, with
the exception of having no pedestrian thumb.

Madame Saqui does not seem to have ever
imagined omelette-cookery or other operations
at her giddy eminence. An amateur, who might
never have heard her named, improvised a
pleasant interlude of the kind. As soon as the
first chain of the Menai-bridge was fairly hung
and fixed between its points of suspension on
the opposite shores, a Welsh cobbler walked along
it to the middle, sat down, and there made a
pair of shoes. He was followed by a less
courageous individual, who crossed the Strait on
the single chain astride.

HAPPY AS A PRINCESS.

FOR is it not the ultimate of human happiness
to be a princess and a queen's daughter?
Is there anything more beautiful, more enchanting,
than her rose-coloured existence? Does
she not live in the most magnificent palace in
the world, always dressed in gold and silver,
with a diamond crown on her head, surrounded
by the most amiable and beautiful young ladies
—none of whom are to be compared in any
manner to herself, though—and with a thousand
kings and princes, all handsome young men, of
undeniable territories, fighting at tournaments,
and doing the most incredible prodigies of valour,
for sake of her smiles alone?  To be sure she
has the trifling inconvenience sometimes of a
fairy godmother, as spiteful as she is ugly; of a
dwarf, or an evil genius, or an ogre, or a Saracen,
for her lover, who may carry her off and
bury her in some enchanted cave, guarded by
dragons, and only lighted by carbuncles or
sapphires; but then she is always sure to be
delivered by the most charming prince that was
ever seen, and her very sufferings are only so
many enhancements of her future joys. Who