one of these two celebrities might explain
the mystery of the second appearance of the
Bergmand'l.

WAR.
I.

Two Mothers lifting prayers unto one God,
In alien language, and on hostile sod.

Two Maidens wailing, in a different tongue,
The gory mass of silent men among.

Two Monarchs couch'd in indolent repose,
Reaping Ambition by their subjects' throes.

Foes, that have never done each other ill:
Friends, whose sole union is the aim to kill.

Banners clutch'd fierce—the death-grasp of the brave—
A tatter'd rug that glorifies the grave.

Far-rolling smoke above a vulture plain;
Artillery piled on ramparts of the slain.

Nature swathed round in one close crimson shroud;
Black speechlessness of the low thunder-cloud.

The fields untill'd, the rich Heavens raining dearth;
Weeds in the garden; weeping by the hearth.

II.

Now, in the Land of Shades, two Mothers meet,
Mourning, embracing,—with ensanguined feet.

Two Maidens clasp one urn that doth enclose
The ashes of their lovers, who were foes.

Two Kings in silence meet—in silence part—
They find, too late, they have a human heart.

Nations of slain, whose armies won and lost,
Mingle their shades: Death holds no hostile ghost.

Their records shall instruct, with heartfelt moan,
Their sons to combat with life's ills alone.

Nations, who strove to waste each other's lands,
Turn swords to ploughshares for their common hands.

Oh, misery! before that day can come,
War-fiends may thrust their fangs in many a home.

TRAVELS IN CAWDOR STREET.

To the unobservant peripatetic, Cawdor
Street is merely a thoroughfare, leading from
Soho to Oxford Street, just as the "Venus de
Medici" would be the stone figure of a lady,
and nothing more, and the " Transfiguration"
of Raphael simply so much canvas, covered
with so much paint. To the ordinary street
lounger, even Cawdor Street can only offer a
few musty shops, filled with ancient
furniture; half-a-dozen dingy book-stalls, some
brokers' shops, and a score or more
receptacles for cloudy-looking oil pictures in
tarnished frames.

And, perhaps, this is the most sensible way
of looking, not only at Cawdor Street, but at
things generally. Why the plague should
we always be making painful and blue-
looking anatomical preparations, when we
should be satisfied with the nice, wholesome-
looking, superficial cuticle? Why should we
insist on rubbing the plating off our dishes
and sugar-basins, and on showing the garish,
ungenteel-looking copper beneath? Why
should we lift up the corner of the show and
pry out who pulls Punch's legs, and causes
Shallabala to leap? Why can't we take
Cawdor Street, its old curiosity shops,
brokers, book-stalls, and picture-dealers for
granted?

We ought to do so, perhaps; but we can't.
I am sure that I cannot. Cawdor Street is
to me a fearful and wonderful country to be
explored. There are mysteries in Cawdor
Street to be unravelled, curiosities of custom
and language to be descanted on, causes to
be ascertained, and effects to be deduced.
Though from eight to ten minutes'
moderately rapid exercise of the legs with which
Nature has provided you, would suffice to
carry you from one end of Cawdor Street to
the other, I can sojourn for many hours in
its mysterious precincts. I am an old
traveller in Cawdor Street, and it may not be
amiss to impart to you some of the
discoveries I have made during these my
travels.

I will spare you the definition of the
geographical boundaries of Cawdor Street. I
will be content with observing that its
south-westerly extremity is within a hundred
miles, as the newspapers say, of Princes
Street, Soho. The climate may, on the whole,
be described as muggy; fogs appear to have
a facility in getting in, and a difficulty of
getting out of it. The coy and reserved
Scotch mist, and the bolder and more
prononcé pelting snow, linger pertinaciously on
its pavements; and when it is muddy in
Cawdor Street—it is muddy.

Cawdor Street has public-houses, and
butcher-shops, and dining-rooms, as other
streets have. It has the same floating
population of ragged children, policemen, apple-
women, and domestic animals. The inhabitants,
I have reason to believe, pay rent and
taxes; cabalistic metallic plates point out the
distance of the fire-plug from the foot-
pavement; and the banners of Barclay and
Perkins, conjointly with those of Combe and
Delafield, of Truman, Hanbury, and Buxton,
and of Sir Henry Meux, hang out, as in other
streets, upon the outward walls.

The intelligent reader will, I dare say, by
this time begin to ask, why, if Cawdor
Street resembles, in so many points, hundreds
of other streets, I should, be at the trouble
of describing it? Patience; and I will
unfold all that Cawdor Street has of
marvellous, and why it is worth travelling in. It
is the seat of a great manufacture;—not of
cotton, as is Manchester the grimy and tall-
chimneyed; not of papier mâché, as is
Birmingham the red-bricked and painfully-
paved; not of lace, as is Nottingham the
noisy and pugilistic; but of Art. Those well-
meaning but simple-minded men who, two