of that kind which the French denominate morale observatrice, is to be found in Montaigne's Essays-there is the germ at least, and generally much more. He sowed the seed and cleaned away the rubbish, even where others have reaped the fruit, or cultivated and decorated the soil to a greater degree of nicety and perfection. There is no one to whom the old Latin adage is more applicable than to Montaigne: Pereant isti qui ante nos nostra dixerunt.' There has been no new impulse given to thought since his time."

OF ELOQUENCE IN STYLE. "There are two sorts of beauties in an eloquent style. The one consists in thoughts fair and weighty, but also extraordinary and striking; of which kind of beauty Lucan, Seneca and Tacitus are full. The other does not, on the contrary, consist in rare thoughts, but in a certain natural air, a facile simplicity, elegant and delicate; that presents common images, but lively and agreeable, and knows so well the art of following in its movements, that it never fails to express in each topic the parts of which it is susceptible, and to draw forth the passions and emotions the subject ought naturally to produce. This beauty blongs to Terence and Virgil; and we may see how much rarer it is than the other, since there are no authors who have been less nearly approached than these."

There is a remark in the preface, attributed to La Bruyère, that Nicole wanted the judgment, solidity, profundity and exactness of a true writer in morals, which is as much as to say of a horse, it appears to me, that he only wants wind, bottom and legs. A fragment on the Essays of Montaigne certainly discloses very little of the above qualities.

UPON THE ESSAYS OF MONTAIGNE.

"Montaigne appears to me a man, who after he had exercised his mind on all the affairs of the world to weigh their good and evil, had light enough to perceive their folly and vanity. He has very well exposed the

"Extreme delicacy of mind is a species of weakness it perceives eagerly, and yields too readily.

"There are some characters gloomy throughout. Some minds have surface without depth,others depth without surface, and there are those in whom both advantages are united. The first deceive the world and themselves; the world deceives itself with the second in not judging them for what they are, but they do not deceive themselves; only the last deceive neither others nor themselves.

"There are some who find out truths; others images for the truths, as comparisons; others who find out truths for images-three different kinds of intellect. The first arises from clearness and subtility of mind; the second from ardor of mind, which, conceiving vividly, finds by this same vivacity comparisons to express itself: To what shall I compare you, O daughter of Jerusalem? To what shall I say you are like? The overflowing of your iniquity is like the sea;' the third comes from neither ardor or subtility of mind, but from a certain agility, which applies the same images to different forms of truth, and finds readily such as suit it.

"It is a great evil to know the defects of one's mind, to feel them, and not to be able to correct them.

There are such gentle fools [sots si doucement] that they do not perceive it at all. Their words and their judgments always agree, and they feel no internal reproach to warn them of their defects.

"The true men of intellect are those who have but one kind of talent, but it is just, and conceives easily and promptly, what it expresses in an agreeable manner."

On the whole, we are inclined to think well of Nicole, and desire his better acquaintance. He is a devout writer, and frequently concludes his moral in divinity. He appears also to be an elegant and graceful writer."

AFTER a hurried walk, I reached the Rancho. The first object that met my eye there convinced me that a new arrival had occurred during the night. A horse was standing at the picket blocks, rigged off in a style so peculiar as can only be conceived of on this frontier. There was something taken from all parties to compose this characteristic equipment. The bridle, lariat, quirt, and buffalo-robe had belonged to some Comanche warrior, who had bitten the dust before the unerring rifle of perhaps their present owner. The silver-mounted saddle had once been honored by the seat of some tinsel-bearing braggadocio of Santa Anna's regular officials. The blanket was American, probably from the packs of the Santa Fé traders. The half-gallon water-gourd looked like a " big-bellied bottle," with a second one, a little larger, hitched to its bottom by the neck, and all made fast by a transparent raw-hide, fitting like wax, drawn over them both. I thought it was a double glass-bottle, in reality, until examination showed me that it was a complete gourd. The raw hide cover was marked with sundry curious hieroglyphics, which showed that it came from some Indian village toward the Rocky Mountains. The steed himself was a regular vicious-looking, pied, skew-ball of a mustang. "And the owner of this eccentric paraphernalia! he must be an out-and-outer a real wild boy and this horse is foamy and blown-he must have been running for it! Some more news from the Comanches, I expect! I'll call the Colonel out, and tell him about that fellow, Agatone, first, before I go in to see this man, for he may not be the right sort of character to talk before."

I saw the Colonel, at this moment, step, yawning and stretching, lazily to the door. He was just in the act of greeting me with his usual loud jeering welcome, when I made a quick gesture of caution, and beckoned him out. He caught his breath instantly, and stepped quietly behind the house. I followed him, and having communicated my news in a whisper, he almost turned black in

the face, and champed his teeth heavily, like a wild boar, at hearing that his mortal enemy had been so near him and escaped. He seized me, with the grip of a grizzly bear, by the arm, and hurried me into the cow-pen at a safer distance from the house; and between the low, smothered growl of curses to the name of Agatone, he questioned me eagerly as to every point in regard to the appearance of the men, the length of time since they started, the direction they took, &c., until, being satisfied in this respect, he grew a little more self-possessed, and thanked me for coming so soon to let him know. "For," said he, "I havn't a doubt the wolfish sneak has a camp somewhere close at hand, and all his pack with him. I must go over to the old madam's and start the Tonquowa on his trail; for, although she likes the Indian, he likes me better, and hates Agatone more. He will find out where they are camped, and bring me back the news; and then he fairly trembled as he clutched his knife. "But I am glad you called me out as you did, for that d-d mongrel creature in the house, there-I wouldn't have him to hear this for a horse!"

"Who is he, Colonel ?"

"Why, the devil only knows, for nobody else claims him! He's a half-breed Mexican and white. His name is Davis. He's a thieving, cut-throat rascal, that lives between both parties, and on both. He has been all through Mexico, California-everywhere, indeed! - knows everybody, and has plundered everybody -Americans, Mexicans, Indians, and all; and every one hates him, and feels uneasy while he is about; for he is such a lying, treacherous villain, that there is no telling when you are safe where he is. He has been living, until the last month or two, down yonder, at the Rancho of that poor fool of a Texan lieutenant I told you about, that married a Mexican woman, and has been making a

spike buck' of him; and he, poor sneak, hasn't had the manhood to drive him off. He went away of himself, a short time since, on some treacherous expedition, and I hoped he was gone for good, when

he came staving up here this morning, all in a sweat, with the news that there is a large camp of Comanches, about fifteen miles off, on the Medina. He says they chased him, but I doubt it. I am afraid there is some treachery in it. I don't like him and Agatone being in the neighborhood at the same time. I expect, for one, that we shall have to tie him up and shoot him! But I must go! You walk in as if you had just come, and be cautious how you talk before him."

So we parted-he setting off speedily for the Rancho, while I stepped carelessly into the house. There were two men sitting at the table with the Texan, who introduced me in a characteristic manner-merely saying, as he nodded from me to a tall, stout, sunburnt young American, who had rather a soft look out of his large, meaningless, flaring eyes, "Kentuck, this is the lieutenant! and this man," nodding at the other one, is Davis! Sit down, or you'll have nothing left here to eat. The woman' will have to cook more for the colonel. Did you see him as you came along?"

"Yes, I saw him going toward the upper Ranchos."

Did your pet Mexican die? haw, haw! You were nicely set to work, to go to all that trouble to save a filthy hog of a Mexican from dying. Why, I had much sooner have stamped his entrails out!" "I have no doubt of it," said 1, so soon as the laugh in which the other two had joined would permit me to be heard; "it would be impossible for you to understand the interest I took in this man." "Yes, I have got no blarney in me to waste on a brute of a Mexican !"

"Nobody doubts your having too much of the brute in you, to care for others, whether brutes or mea." I said this in rather an excited tone, for I was provoked at the taunting coarseness of my reception

The Texan sprang to his feet, and clutching at his belt, said, "Look here, Kentuck, I don't allow people to talk to me in that sort of a way, sir!"

The lieutenant here interposed, in a good-humored manner, and soon restored a negative sort of peace, though the Texan was surly about it for some time.

This was a very foolish display of sensitiveness on my part, which a little farther knowledge of the spirit of frontier life would have saved me from. He did not mean anything more than a coarse joke; and my dignified flare-up was all

"pearls before swine" among such men, which I felt afterwards was a little verdant, and out of keeping with the tone I should have preserved under circumstances I had voluntarily thrown myself into. The truth is, I was fagged and out of spirits, from the loss of the whole night's rest, after the fatigues and suffering of the day before, and had little of the reckless buoyancy left, which was necessary to carry me without difficulty through such scenes. I dwell upon this little incident, because it was characteristic, and the reader will see that I afterwards had some trouble about it. When we were quieted again, and got to work upon our breakfast, I took a good look at the new

comers.

The lieutenant, as they called him, impressed me as rather a greasy, easy, goodfor-nothing sort of a somebody; while Davis, who was a thin, athletic person, with a pale, olive complexion, wore upon his sharp face that keen, restless, knavish look, to be in the presence of which, makes one feel fidgety. There was a quick, incessant play of light about his eyes that reminded me of a snake's tongue vibrating in strong sunshine. The fellow was dressed in the extreme of a mongrel dandyism, which seemed to be the result of an untiring effort to unite all the exaggerations of all the costumes he had ever seen, and was more of a hotch-potch than even the equipage of his horse. His coarse, black hair, plastered with lard into genuine "soap locks," a half-yard in length, was sticking about his shoulders, over which was thrown, with a most jaunty air, a full circle cloak of coarse blue cloth, lined down the fronts with flaming scarlet velvet, which was so disposed as to show its every inch ;. his neckcloth was a coarse silk of the same gaudy color, and disposed in folds, the amplitude of which would have laid the Broadway dandies altogether in the shade; and, in point of jewelry, he could have snapped his fingers at them too, so far as number was concerned, at least: his smutty bosom was literally studded with pins and brooches of every quality and size, from copper and tin foil, up to pure gold. When, as he caught my eye upon him, mistaking its expression for admiration, he jumped to his feet, and jerked up his "sombrero,"-banded two-thirds of the way to the top of its sugar-loafed crown with red and white beads-and setting it pertly awry upon his stringy locks, with

arms a-kimbo, under-lip compressed, and eyebrows puckered into an expression of savage pomposity, he strutted stiffly out to and fro in front of me I could scarcely avoid bursting into a hearty fit of laughter, as he recalled Ford's quaint description of an "Old-Time Euphuist," or transcendental cocxomb:

"Resplendent-glistening Like Juno's witless Bird, he ruffled, when Beneath the opening portcullis of Morn He strutteth back and forth-the mimic Argus

Of his wide tail outspread, that he might

sun

The tasseled glories of his shiney head Within its hundred eyes!"

.

Oh, it was rich! I screwed my face into an expression of intense admiration. This went to his heart, and stepping in front of me, with a lordly wave of his hand, that fairly glistened with rings of every metal and size, he addressed me with a loud nasal twang to his insolent voice: "Señor Kentuck! I have been a great traveler! Prodigious traveler! I have seen the world, Señor, like a brave man! and have tasted all there is in it a gallant man dare taste! Yes, Señor, from the Pulque' and the Noyau' of the dirtyRancho' of Dobeys' and logs, to the flashing wines in the marble mansion on the Hacienda' of a Don'— from the dirty calabash of a naked Indian, to a silver bowl in the palaces of Montezuma! I have drank till I could touch it with my finger! and this ain't all either; the Señoras have loved me in all these places! I have sucked the nectar from the yellow flowers in my way from Tierra Calliente,' where they melted to a look, and died away to my touch, up to Tierra Fries,' where their frozen bosoms could thaw to no other glance than mine! and, in the great Mexico itself, they crowded around me with such eagerness that they almost tore my splendid clothes to tatters, and I had to draw my stiletto so, to keep them off!" and suiting the action to the word, he whipped it out and flourished it with wonderful rapidity before our eyes. "Yes, Seño-" "Yes," interrupted Texas, jumping to his feet, "you beat thunder and alligator swallowing all hollow! You'll die off into a long jackass bray-pewter drops-cotton velvet-glass beads and all, if you don't stop. Blast me, you are worse than a Mexican!" This seemed the climax of contempt, according to his ideas of the force of expletives, and he paused

for breath, looking at the fellow with the most ludicrous expression of contempt.

Davis had paused at the interruption, his hand still holding the stiletto in the air. He had listened, at first, with an expression of blank astonishment, that anybody should dream of interrupting so musical a flow of eloquence; but when he heard his finery talked about in such disrespectful terms, his eyes fairly blazed again with malignant ferocity, and there was a very devil's venemous passion in his whole air, as he stood for an instant gazing at the Texan after he got through; then, quick as the spring of a wild-cat, threw himself, convulsively, at his unarmed breast-the stiletto must strike him full in the throat! I sprang towards them, but a stronger arm was upon him before me. Sooner than I could think, he was lying prostrate and stunned against the opposite side of the house, and the Colonel, with his knee upon his breast, was wrenching his weapon from his hand, when the lieutenant and myself together, succeeded in arresting his arm. Damn it, let go boys; we will have to kill him yet, anyhow!"

The Texan here interposed, and we dragged the Colonel off backwards.

66

If there is any killing, I'll do it myself!" said the Texan, as he sprang with his heavy boot-heels upon the chest of the prostrate wretch. Leaving the Colonel to recover his feet we ran to him and jerked him off, telling him the man was dead already. We succeeded after great difficulty in quieting them, as they saw that the man yet lay perfectly still. I threw some water in his face, and in a little while he began to stir, and was shortly on his feet again, for he was only stunned: he staggered out of the door, and vomited a quantity of blood that had been started by the Texan's heels, while he stood laughing at him and enjoying the fun," as he called it. The man came sullenly into the house after a while, half-doubled up, and seeming effectually cowed-his head muffled in a bandagehis finery all bedraggled-his vain-glory all gone-looking as I have seen a dunghill cock, which had been caught stealing dough in the kitchen, and been thoroughly ducked in the slop-tub by the angry old black cook, and which, shaking the bran and filth from its eyes and stringy feathers, would slink, with a doleful air, to hide its diminished head in a corner from the gaze of its dames, till its glory was replenished. Could some of those " Yel