des Ursins. The three formed a rare triangle, which caused many a singular scene in Rome. After seeing them both die, Alberoni became legate at Ferrara, and continued there a long time." He was living in Rome again, when Saint-Simon compiled these Memoirs, being then fourscore-and-six years old. He survived till 1752-some two years later. We have seen one example of his recreations at Rome-in the case of a Stuart plot hatching at St. Cecilia's.. His attempt against the little Republic of San Marino is characterised as "stillimore unworthy" by Earl Stanhope, who adds, that even had it been successful, it would have brought no advan tage commensurate with its disgrace.. "But Alberoni could never remain tranquil. It would seem, in fact, as if superior talents were often con joined by nature with a certain restlessness which compels them to seek out for themselves some employment. Few men who could be useful in action are happy in retirement."+ Sir Bulwer Lytton has said of him, that his "mere love of meddling and intrigue" attached itself "equally to petty as to large circles." Frederick the Great once remarked of Cardinal Alberoni, that, had two such worlds been given him, as this world of ours, he would have asked for a third. This he said, signifying, M. Sainte-Beuve§ would have us understand, the génie trop vaste, trop remuant, and the imagination trop fougueuse of the Parmesan parvenu. There is a character drawn, in one of M. About's works, of a certain successful ecclesiastic, a man vigorous in mind and body, who, unfortunately for himself and others, was born in a village stable or a Paris garret, with all the instincts of a prince. Which character and career induces the reflection, that the world has never lacked these men of action, whom destiny throws on the pavé without money, without birth, without, in short, any other instruments at command than their own intelligence and strength of will. According to circumstances, says the author, these men become illustrious or infamous, they do much good or much harm; but they never die without doing a something. "Whether they strip the passers-by like Cartouche, or rifle nations like Law, or overturn thrones like Marat, or found dynasties themselves, there is a close relationship between them all; they all belong to the one great family of adventurers." Quite a family man, in this respect, is our Parmesan parvenu; but one of whom the very large family in question may, for family reasons, and from family feeling, be more than commonly proud. An Edinburgh Reviewer has endorsed "Mr. Moore's spirited and elegant sketch of that adventurer," as giving a very just representation of his character: Alberoni being pronounced by this authority, the founder of a sort of dynasty of adventurer-ministers, which formed a characteristic feature of Spanish history under the Bourbon kings. "The majority of them were foreigners; and all were suddenly raised from a class which seldom supplies the other monarchies of Europe with Prime * Saint-Simon, IV. 210. History of England from the Peace of Utrecht, vol. i. ch. x. § Essai sur Frédéric le Grand (1850). Tolla, par Edmond About, ch. vi. Ministers. One foreign financier appeared in France, if a Genevese could be called a foreigner at Paris. But a long succession of foreign princes were raised in Spain by the total incapacity of the noble natives for public affairs."* Alberoni's capacity, and his career, are not quite discriminated as they might be, in strictures of this sweeping sort, from the forgotten nobodies with whom he is classed. He was an adventurer, but he was something more. And it is because he was something more, though an adventurer still, that he has so often attracted the interest, if never the respect, of men with an eye for dash and daring in political aspirants. Byron is one who repeatedly bewrays the kind of spell that Alberoni's history exercised on his fancy. Again and again in his Journal he cites the restless Cardinal. In one place, for instance, he speaks of "a little tumult, now and then," as such an "agreeable quickener of the sensations"-any "aventure of a lively description"-adding: "I think I would rather have been Bonneval, Ripperda, Alberoni," and others he names, "than Mahomet himself." When at Ravenna, in 1821, he comes across a very old woman, who reports herself ninety-five years old; this entry concerns her and the nearly nonagenarian Cardinal: "Told her to come to-morrow, and will examine her myself. I love phenomena. If she is ninety-five years old, she must recollect the Cardinal Alberoni, who was legate here." The old dame comes next day, sure enough; but her memory (so far) is better than Byron's-who records: "I forgot to ask her if she remembered Alberoni (legate here), but will ask her next time."§ But whether next time ever came, and if so, what came of it, in the Cardinal question, deponent saith not. THE ROSE IN THE CITY ALLEY. BY NICHOLAS MICHELL. WHAT dost thou here, Bright lover of the sun and sky, The heavens put on a murky cloak, * Edinburgh Review, vol. xxi. p. 196. Ibid., January 26, 1821. † Byron's Journal, Nov. 22, 1813. Ibid., January 29, 1821. What dost thou here? Thy blushing breast should ope its sweets, Not to these crowded, dusty streets, But where pure rays might shine, And Morn's rich dews thy lips might steep, While bees luxurious o'er thee creep, And quaff their honey-wine, And butterflies might flutter round, By spells of fragrance gently bound. What dost thou here, On this old blackened window-sill? Loud oath, and want's sad sigh: Thy form in some parterre should spring, 'Mid fountains gently murmuring, While glad birds, warbling nigh, Should, in sweet answer, all day long, Enchant thee with mellifluous song. What dost thou here? Thy beauty, prisoner rose, is flown; Pining for Nature's purer scene, Bright suns, fresh gales, and skies serene; Consumptive Beauty! say, Thou'rt like some hearts, fond, gentle, true, Pining in this great city too. What dost thou here, Poor maiden with the pallid cheek, The young, fair limb, all worn and weak, In yonder close, dull room? Toiling the livelong, weary day, Bartering sweet life for scanty pay, A canker in thy bloom, Thy needle-bread, and, like the flower, What dost thou here? Not pent, confined, so young, so frail, But sighs are thine, the tear-drop flows, THE GORILLA AND HIS COUNTRY.* APART from the interest derived from the pursuit of the previously little-known man-monkey, the Gorilla, Mr. du Chaillu's explorations embraced a most interesting portion of Equatorial Africa. The discovery of a hilly and mountainous region between the head waters of the Congo, the Benuwe, the Shari, the Nile, the Zambesi, and the Eastern Lake district, at once explodes the popular theory, which, upon the removal of the supposed central Mountains of the Moon to the east coast, was made to supersede all previous notions. This theory consisted in advocating the existence of a great central watery upland, the surplus waters of which broke through gaps in the surrounding hilly decline, and went to feed the above-mentioned great rivers. The Apingi, or Gorilla range, presents a far more rational and commonplace view of the subject. It is a watershed, same as is seen in other parts of the world, and which may fairly be believed to be more or less continuous with Speke's Mountains of the Moon, north of Lake Tanganyika on the one hand, and with an unexplored hilly region, that may yet be found between the easterly tributaries to Lake Tsad, and the most westerly tributaries to the Nile.t The physical characters, the cannibalistic propensities, a variety of points in habits and manners, notoriously the remarkable mode of salutation found by Andersson among the Damaras, and by Petherick among the Niyam-Ñams, of spitting in the face, would tend to establish a close alliance between the negro tribes scattered over this great and littleknown central intertropical region. At the same time a variety of other circumstances far more open to discussion would come, notwithstanding the diversity of opinion entertained by anatomists as to the existence of fundamental or of mere accidental varieties of structure-differences which may be considered as insuperable, or differences as the great length of arms, or the largely-developed canine teeth, which can readily be accounted for, by difference of habits, climbing trees, and tearing up roots, &c.; to induce the belief, according to the views entertained by the followers of the progressive development theory, that the lowest in the scale of the cannibal negroes would come nearest to the great apes, that still share with him the forest and the mountain in his native land. The singular region of Equatorial Africa, the interior of which it was Mr. du Chaillu's good fortune to be the first to explore, and of whose people, and strange animal and vegetable productions he now presents us with a most interesting account, is, according to our traveller himself, chiefly remarkable for its fauna, which is, in many respects, not only extraordinary, but peculiar. In this comparatively narrow belt, extending on either side of the Equator, is found that monstrous ape the Gorilla. *Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa. By Paul B. du Chaillu. London: John Murray. 1861. Mr. du Chaillu pro oses the unpronounceable name of Nkoomoo nabouali for this range, but Equatorial or Gorilla range would be more significative and acceptable. Here, too, and here only is the home of the very remarkable nest-building ape, the Troglodytes calvus, the nsheigo mbouvé of the natives; of the hitherto unknown kooloo-kamba, another ape no less remarkable than the T. calvus; and of the chimpanzee. North, south, and east of this region, the lion lords it in the forests and the desert; only in this tract he is not found. It would seem, then, as if not the first, at all events the most favoured home of the great ape tribe, and we believe some fanciful generaliser also placed the original home of the negro in Equatorial Africa. Certainly, if there ever was any family relationship, this would appear to have been its centre, or point of propagation. The same region is remarkable in other respects; not only does the fauna contain a very unusual number of species peculiar to itself, but even some of those animals which it has in common with the regions to the north and south, seemed to Mr. du Chaillu to be varieties, a feature which would equally apply to man and to the simiada, as well as to the elephant. Doubtless the peculiar formation of the country causes this exceptional condition. Instead of the vast, thinly-wooded, and arid or sparsely-watered plains of Northern, Eastern, and Southern Africa, the explorer finds here a region very mountainous, and so densely wooded that the whole country may be described as an impenetrable jungle, through which man pushes on only by hewing his way with the axe. These forests, which have been resting probably for ages in their gloomy solitude, seem unfavourable even to the rapid increase of the beasts, who are their chief denizens. There are no real herds of game, nor have the people of this region yet attained that primitive step in the upward march of civilisation, the possession of beasts of burden. Neither horses nor cattle are known here: man, or woman rather, is the only beast of burden. Of the eight years which Mr. du Chaillu spent in this region, the work before us contains the record of the last four-1856, '57, '58, and '59, which were alone devoted to a systematic exploration of the interior. The first four years were chiefly devoted to commercial pursuits, in which he was engaged conjointly with his father. Thus, when he started as a traveller, he had the very great advantages of tolerably thorough acclimatation, and a knowledge of the languages and 'habits of the sea-shore tribes, which proved of infinite service to him among the tribes of the interior, with whom he was in every case able to hold converse, if not by word of mouth, at least by a native interpreter, with whose language he was familiar. It would be tedious to give a detailed epitome or analysis of journeys and explorations extending in different directions, with frequent returns to the sea-coast, over many years. Mr. du Chaillu travelled-always on foot, and unaccompanied by other white men-about eight thousand miles during his four years' travels. He shot, stuffed, and brought home over two thousand birds, of which more than sixty are new species; and he killed upwards of one thousand quadrupeds, of which two hundred were stuffed and brought home, with more than eighty skeletons. Not less than twenty of these quadrupeds are species hitherto unknown to science. What a terrible being is civilised man, armed with all the powers of modern art as applied to destruction, going for the first time into a new and prolific country, and what a contrast does he present to |