for a long time they suggested no further
investigation. But they were not for that reason
neglected; on the contrary, their position was
marked with extreme care, and the existence
and place of upwards of six hundred of them
was gradually but surely determined. Their
absolute invariability in the case of ordinary
light seemed, as already observed, to disconnect
them from us and render a satisfactory
explanation impossible; and it was not for many years,
and until close attention had been directed to
other points in the physical history of the sun,
that they seemed likely to reward the patient
investigator. Other solar phenomena were more
attractive. The curiously shifting, yet in one
sense permanent, spots occasionally obscuring
the sun's face were found to multiply and
thicken periodically; and after many years these
periodical changes were found to agree with
similar changes and magnetic irregularities
in the earth, both sets of phenomena going
through certain revolutions in an irregular cycle
of five or six years. Observations made during
total eclipses of the sun next showed that there
exists a very extensive solar atmosphere having
a distinct colour, through which the solar light
passes, and thus we are brought round by a
different path to the curious fact already stated,
that the brilliant white light of the central body
or nucleus of the sun has to penetrate a cloudy
and changing atmosphere containing certain
known metals in combustion before it ultimately
emerges into space. Wonderful, indeed,
are these conclusions, and most strange is it
that there should exist means available to us
of determining so many facts regarding the
intimate constitution of distant bodies in the
heavens. Astronomers long ago succeeded in
weighing the earth and the sun; in measuring
the girth, and determining the shape of the
heavenly bodies, in fixing the time of revolution
of each round its axis, and of the secondary round
the primary bodies, and in proving an absolute
movement in space of the sun, with all its
attendant planets and their satellites. Now, men
are busy inquiring into the actual composition
of the sun, and how far its elements correspond
with those we meet with here on earth. Some
day it may be the lot of a future family of the
human race to discover yet more of the mutual
relation of all matter, and learn what is the
limit, if any exists, of those influences which
bind creation together, and make one vast and
measureless unit of all that exists in the
universe.

THE LAST LEWISES.
A WELL-BELOVED.

ON the frieze of worthies who have glorified
these last two centuries may be made out
distinctly the figures of no less than two fat
Regents. We can point with a just pride to our First
Gentleman of Europe, and unrivalled Adonis of
fifty; and our French neighbours, competing
with us in that line of article, can lay their
finger on an antecedent Regent who was fat also,
dreadfully partial to the ladies, coarser and
unmannerly ; in fact, conspicuous for all the
first-gentlemanly qualities.

About the time, then, that a poor old grand
monarch, gasping on his death-bed, discovered
the hollowness of that trick to cheat him of his
crows'-feet and wrinkles, and that majesty was
indeed, but in a wholly different sense, "of
the age of all the world,"—about this time, the
lamps being lighted, and the fiddles striking up
cheerfully in the orchestra, the curtain rolls
upwards briskly, and the new piece, with the new
actors, begins. The original First Gentleman is
the first figure that comes down to the front.

Would we know what manner of people were
the fine ladies and gentlemen of these prime
Bourbon days? Then let us put our eyes to
the glass of this most curious raree-show. What
a scene and what figures! One in the centre,
to whom the rest do Ko-too; short, corpulent,
with great round cheeks and inflamed
countenance, a squint, an ungainly walk, a hoarse
rough voice—this is the fat Regent. He had
a great square face; and, when he opened his
mouth, rows of white carnivorous tusks flashed
out, very unpleasant to look on. Fat Regent
the First loved the table to the full as much as
fat Regent the Second, and feasted enormously.
He loved his bottle also very dearly, and got
drunk in a strictly gentlemanly way upon Tockaï
(so the partial parent spells it) and champagne.
But the terrible orgies—lasting from five o'clock
in the evening until late next morning, where
he collected the vilest elements, affectionately
styled by him his "roués," and to which society
he did not scruple to introduce his daughter—
have, perhaps, most of all contributed to the
reputation of this model First Gentleman. Dusty,
travel-stained couriers arrive with pressing
despatches; but the doors are barred, and business
must wait until his highness has slept off his
last debauch.

It is that notorious old Duchess "Douairière,"
reigning princess of scandal-mongers, who
furnishes us with the best and most copious
details. The terrible old lady positively scares us
with her vile stories, and though her editors
have been hard at work "deodorising" her
letters, some delightful bits remain behind, very
wicked, and I fear very entertaining. She was
proud of her child; and tells of his artless
frolics with an appalling unction, and a smirk of
maternal affection. She grins and chatters over
his vices, and mumbles out how he graduated in
iniquity at the early age of thirteen. She is
angry, and chides him for that free life of his;
but it is because he shows such bad taste and
indifference in the matter of good looks. And
yet a panegyrist of this old harridan speaks in
touching language of her "solid piety," and of
the "grandeur of her sentiments," which,
panegyrist fears, "made of her only too perfect an
exemplar for the common run of women to hope
to imitate."

Suddenly there comes bounding on the stage,
into the very heart of this polluted atmosphere,
a pretty boy, full of life and gaiety. He has