so proverbially revengeful, seems very
extraordinary, and only to be accounted for as the
result of an abstract thought of some
lofty-minded hidalgo, speculating on friendship.
Don Quixote might have said it.

"A stitch in time saves nine." One of the
most sensible and practical of all proverbs, as
everybody's experience can avouch. Yet, in
defiance of all their own experience, how
many people we often see who constantly
neglect the stitch in time! They do not forget
it, or overlook it; and when they do, if
you point it out to them, they still neglect it.

"Chi non so, niente, non dubita di niente;"
he who knows nothing, doubts of nothing.
The converse is equally true. He who knows
much, is careful how he doubts of anything.
This is peculiarly inculcated, at the present
time, by the extraordinary discoveries and
success of science.

A NEW WAY OF MANUFACTURING
GLORY.

AFTER a week's residence in Brussels, that
most compact of capital cities, under the
supposition that I had encountered, and, like
Richard, conquered and plucked the heart out
of, every "lion" of celebrity, I was about
departing by railway for Namur, to take

"The morn upon the silent Meuse,"

when my friend, Dr. Philaster, who may be
said to be in the lair of every lion in Flanders,
was announced to me. From him, I first
learned that a man may buy guide-books and
read them, seek out all the "sights" they
indicate, and see them, and yet know very
little of anything novel, and find, positively,
nothing new, without a trusty and
well-initiated companion to accompany him in his
pilgrimages, and heroic endeavours to meet
with the marvellous. Almost the first question
I heard from my friend, after the first shake
of the hand, was, whether I had seen
M. Robyns' private Museum. The second,
on receiving a negative, whether I would
delay my journey to visit it with him. His
account satisfied me there was something
worth seeing, and that I had better not miss
the opportunity of going with a mutual friend;
so, letting loose once more our gasping
port-manteaus, and releasing their many-wrinkled
contents from press, we sallied forth
immediately.

On the way, I made some acquaintance
with the character of the gentleman I was
about to visit. M. Robyns is a rich man, a
millionnaire, whose passion and pursuits it has
been, from youth upwards, to collect the most
incongruous articles and curiosities of every
possible description and kind. Some, of more
virtu than value; some, of more value in coin
than in art or antiquity; some have nothing
to boast of but their own eccentricity, and
that of the proprietor who put them in the
position they occupy. With money at his
disposal, possessed of an indefatigable industry,
and being a fine naturalist, it may be easily
imagined that he has succeeded in bringing
together many valuable and curious objects.
But "vaulting ambition" is not the only thing
that overleaps itself; and the restless excess
of this passion for collecting, is strangely
developed in the indiscriminate agglomeration of
every possible thing possessed of a body, and
within reach of powder and shot or corporal
touch, or the gold that melts iron gates, or the
cunning of man, which he has assembled and
united in his Museum. I shall but allude,
slightly, to what I beheld in a hasty survey,
my object being solely to draw the attention
of travellers to a place very well worth the
trouble of visiting.

"He is jealous of English visitors," said the
Doctor, "and has reason to be so, of which
more anon: but I have known him for many
years, and doubt not I can get you in, if he is
at home; if not, it is problematical, for
Mademoiselle has then to be consulted."

"And who is Mademoiselle?"

"Why, you must know, he is unmarried,
and Mademoiselle is a young person who
directs his household, but whose chief business
it is to provide specimens and objects for his
Museum."

"A young lady of peculiar talent?"

"Genius, sir, genius. Observe her head
when you see it." The doctor is a great
phrenologist.—But we are at our destination.

M. Robyns is not at home, when we inquire;
he will return shortly; but, in the meantime,
Mademoiselle, receiving the Doctor's name,
begs us to walk in.

We pass through the gateway of a blind
white house, and find ourselves in a large
square court-yard, having a small piece of
water in it for ducks to swim at ease. Other
animals, dogs, cats, goats, are loitering about
in the autumn sunshine. There is nothing
peculiar in all this, and yet we feel ourselves
transplanted at once into an atmosphere where
animals, living or dead, are suddenly of superior
importance. From the court-yard we pass,
unescorted, into a closely-crowded miniature
botanical garden, the first aspect of which an
ancient Greek would have taken for a plantation
of lotus; every flower being covered and
capped by a white card, indicating its genera
and birth-place; a system which, among all
things, lifeless or human, however much it
may serve to blazon their ancestral renown,
will essentially diminish and deface their
individual beauty. This Garden, or Purgatory
of Plants, is flanked on either side by two.
long sheds or out-houses, running parallel the
whole length down. A high square wall shuts
in yard and garden from the rest of the world.

"And, observe," interposes the Doctor,
while we follow his admonition to mark what
we see, " that, from within the enclosure of
that wall, war is waged upon the rest of the
world!"

We are tempted to ask how long the