him, lord, indeed, of Creation; its splendour
woven into his crown of beauty, its enjoyments
subject to his sceptre of hope and gladness!

I was startled by the hearty voice of the
merchant's son: "Ah, my dear Fenwick, I was
afraid you would not come—you are late.
There is the new friend of whom I spoke to you
last night; let me now make you acquainted
with him." He drew my arm in his and led
me up to the young man, where he stood under
the arching flowers, and whom, he then
introduced to me by the name of Margrave.

Nothing could be more frankly cordial than
Mr. Margrave's manner. In a few minutes I
found myself conversing with him familiarly, as
if we had been reared in the same home, and
sported together in the same playground. His
vein of talk was peculiar, off hand, careless,
shifting from topic to topic, with a bright
rapidity.

He said that he liked the place; proposed to
stay in it some weeks; asked my address, which
I gave to him; promised to call soon at an early
hour, while my time was yet free from professional
visits. I endeavoured, when I went away,
to analyse to myself the fascination which this
young stranger so notably exercised over all who
approached him; and it seemed to me, ever seeking
to find material causes for all moral effects,
that it arose from the contagious vitality of that
rarest of all rare gifts in highly civilised circles
—perfect health; that health which is in itself
the most exquisite luxury; which, finding
happiness in the mere sense of existence, diffuses
round it, like an atmosphere, the harmless
hilarity of its bright animal being. Health, to
the utmost perfection, is seldom known after
childhood; health to the utmost cannot be
enjoyed by those who overwork the brain, or admit
the sure wear and tear of the passions. The
creature I had just seen gave me the notion of
youth in the golden age of the poets—the youth
of the careless Arcadian, before nymph or
shepherdess had vexed his heart with a sigh.

                    SUTTEE IN CHINA,

THE Indian Suttee, or voluntary sacrifice of
a living wife by burning on one pyre with the
corpse of her husband, is abolished throughout
the British dominions, and is supposed to be
rare in the outlying provinces. The act of self-
immolation was often most determined. Of one
widow it is said that she not only set at nought
all admonitions to relent from her purpose, but
that she put a finger into the fire and held it
there for some time as a proof of fortitude; also,
that she took up some of the fire with one hand,
to place it in the other, where she held it while
she sprinkled incense on it to fumigate the
attendant Brahmins. We have all heard of the
custom of Suttee, while the existence of a similar
practice in China is almost unknown in
England, unknown even to many Englishmen in
China who have resided there for years. Of such
a scene of public self-immolation by a Chinese
widow, I, writing now at Foo-Chow-Foo in the
month of January, eighteen hundred and sixty-
one, was a few days ago an eye-witness.

The Chinese Suttee, when it occurs, is the
self-sacrifice of widows, who are also orphans
and childless; who consider themselves useless,
and, as it were, lost in the world; and who seek
death, not only as a means to show their affection
for the deceased husband, but of escape from
the evils of a very wretched and isolated position.
It is commonly a suicide of the desperate,
put forth as a public and glorious act of devotion.
Highly praised by Chinese moralists, both
ancient and modern, many instances of this kind
of solemn self-destruction are recorded in history
and romance, though of late years there has
been scant resort to it in practice.

There is a small book—uncivilly small—
purporting to be the history of all the celebrated
beauties of China. The work is arranged in
divisions, each of which contains the lives of
those ladies notorious for some particular virtue
or vice, whether for chastity or its opposite, for
heroism physical or moral, for kindly gratitude
or cruel hate. The woman whom the Chinese
author thought entitled to the first place in
esteem, was one whose story is as follows:

Her husband was a private soldier in the
imperial army. On his return from service, away
from his comrades, in a distant province, he was
told by his wife how, during his absence, she had
been annoyed by the persecutions of the officer
of his regiment. The poor soldier sought then
to revenge himself on the libertine by taking his
life. He failed in the attempt, and military law
claimed his own life as penalty for the attack on
a superior. In vain he pleaded provocation;
justice was inexorable, and, despite the intercessions
of his friends, he was condemned to die.
His loving wife, on seeing how sad a calamity
her beauty had brought upon her unoffending
spouse, determined that since she could not save
him she would not survive him. She provided,
therefore, for the welfare of her two children by
selling them into the families of wealthy neighbours
where she knew they would be well cared
for. This done, she went to a rapid stream,
and, casting herself in where the current was
strongest, perished beneath the waters. Now
followed her reward. The current, though
so strong, refused to convey her body from
the spot at which her act of piety had been
performed, and there it was soon discovered by
the passers-by, who reported to the district
magistrate the miracle of a dead body lying
unmoved on a running river. This officer, at once
hastening to the river-side, took charge of the
corpse. A statement was then laid before the
higher authorities, and a further investigation
made. The end of it was that the condemned
soldier was pardoned, a public funeral was
granted to the wife, and an arch, inscribed with
the words "Ardently chaste," was erected to
her honourable memory. Moreover, the children
were returned to the arms of their father,
and he, feeling the deep debt of gratitude which
he owed to his virtuous partner, refrained for
his whole life from contracting any other