* * * * *

Among the persons lately deceased who are worthy of mention is Madame DE SERMETZY, who died at her country seat, near the French city of Lyons, at the age of eighty-one years. Had circumstances favored the development of her genius, she would have acquired a name among the sculptors of the time. She left behind her a number of works in terra cotta. A Psyche of life-size is said to be full of expression and grace; a Plato is remarkable for anatomical correctness and manly force. Both are in the Academy at St. Pierre. She also modelled a Sappho, a Lesbia, and some dozen busts. Of smaller works, statuettes and groups, she has left some two hundred in terra cotta, among them a St Augustine, said to be admirable for expression and nobleness. The churches constantly received from her gifts of beautiful angels and madonnas. A few years before her death she modelled a madonna of the size of life, which is one of her best works. Want of means alone prevented her from executing her productions in marble. She was also familiar with the literature, not only of her own nation, but of the Latin, Spanish, Italian, and English languages, which she spoke with fluency and correctness, a rare accomplishment for a French woman. During the Empire and the Restoration she was intimate with Madame Recamier and Madame de Stael, and for penetration and readiness of mind and charm of manners was not unworthy to be named with these remarkable women.

* * * * *

MARSHAL DODE DE LA BRUNIERE, one of the soldiers of Napoleon, who raised him to the rank of Lieutenant-General, and employed him in many important services, died at Paris on the 28th February, aged seventy-seven. He served in the campaign of Egypt as a lieutenant of engineers. After the siege of Saragossa he was made a colonel. He participated in all the great battles of the empire, and was finally made a peer of France and a marshal by Louis Philippe, after having directed the construction of the gigantic fortifications around Paris. He was a frank, affable, and kind-hearted man.

* * * * *

M. MAILLAU, one of the most productive of Paris dramatists, died in that city March, twelfth, aged forty-five. He was born in Guadaloupe, and began life in France as a lawyer, but soon abandoned that profession to write for the stage. He wrote a large number of dramas, some of which were very successful. The last one, called La Revolution Francaise, has run a hundred and fifty nights, and is still performing. He was an excellent fellow, and nobody's enemy but his own.

* * * * *

DR. HENRY DE BRESLAU, senior of the Faculty of Medicine in the University of Munich, died lately. He was second medical officer on the staff of Napoleon, under Larrey, and followed the French army in the Russian campaign. He was made prisoner on the field of Waterloo. France, Bavaria, Saxony, Greece, and Portugal, had recognized his scientific eminence by severally enrolling his name among their orders of chivalry.

* * * * *

COMMISSIONER LIN, whose seizure and destruction of the opium in 1839 led to the war with China, died suddenly on the eighteenth of November last, while on his way to the insurrectionary district of Quan-si.

* * * * *

JOHN LOUIS YANOSKI was born at Lons-le-Saulnier, France, March 9, 1813, and died at Paris early in February last. Though not known much out of his own country, few literary men have possessed more admirable and substantial qualities. He was feeble in bodily powers, but endowed with indefatigable ardor in the pursuit of intellectual objects, and a mind at once penetrating and judicious. He was educated in the College of Versailles. In 1836 he became a tutor in history at the University at Paris. Subsequently he was selected by Thierry to assist in the preparation of his history of the Tiers-Etat, and spent four years in working upon it. At the same time he labored assiduously in other directions. In 1839 he gained two prizes from the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, one for a memoir on the organization of the national forces from the twelfth century to the reign of Charles VII; the other for an essay on the abolition of slavery in antiquity. In 1841 the Academy selected him to prepare, under the direction of M. Mignet, a view of the progress of the moral and political sciences, a work which was not completed when he died. In 1840 he was made professor of history in Stanislas College; in 1842 Michelet chose him for his substitute at the College of France, but in that capacity he gave but a single lecture, being seized while speaking with hemorrhage of the lungs, from which he did not recover for several months. Notwithstanding the labors required by all these occupations he found time to write for Didot's Univers Pittoresque a history of Carthage from the second Punic war to the Vandal invasion, a history of the Vandal rule and the Byzantine restoration, another of the African Church, and one of the Church of Ancient Syria. He also furnished many important articles to the Encyclopedic Dictionary, wrote often for the National newspaper, and for two years was chief editor of the Nouvelle Revue Encyclopedique. He was a republican in sentiment, and a character of exceeding nobleness and energy.

* * * * *

COLONEL COUNT D'HOZIER, a distinguished French officer, who was compromised in the affair of Georges Cadoudal, died early in March, in Paris, aged seventy-seven. On the occasion of the conspiracy referred to, he was sentenced to death, but obtained his pardon through the interference of the Empress Josephine, and as a commutation of his punishment was imprisoned until the year 1814 in the prison of the Chateau d'If—the scene of the confinement of Dumas' hero, the Comte de Montechristo.

* * * * *

M. GEORGE BRENTANO, the oldest banker at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, died a few weeks ago, aged eighty-eight. He was brother of two persons well known in the world of letters, M. Clement Brentano and the Countess Bettina d'Arnim, the correspondent of Goethe.

* * * * *

FREDERIC XAVIER FERNBACH, the inventor of that mode of encaustic painting which is called by his name, died at Munich on the 27th February. A history of his experiments and inventions was published many years ago.

* * * * *

M. JULES MARTIEN, author of a volume on Christianity in America, died in Paris on the twenty-first of March.

FOOTNOTES:

[M] Farmer's Genealogical Register: Articles Hill-Russell.



"OTSEGO HALL," THE RESIDENCE OF J. FENIMORE COOPER.



In the delightful home which in the above engraving is reflected with equal spirit and fidelity, our great novelist has composed the larger portion of those admirable tales and histories that display his own capacities, and the characteristics and tendencies of our people.

Here also was written the beautiful work by Mr. COOPER'S daughter, entitled "Rural Hours." Could any thing tempt to such authorship more strongly than a residence thus quiet, and surrounded with birds, and flowers, and trees, and all the picturesque varieties of land and water which render Cooperstown a paradise to the lover of nature?

In the last International we sketched the career of Mr. Cooper, and gave an account of his writings, and an estimate of their value. What we add here shall relate to the work which entitles his daughter to share his eminence. "Rural Hours" is one of the most charming contributions literature has ever received from the hand of a woman. Though in the simple form of a diary, it is scarcely less than Thomson's "Seasons" a poem; yet while seeming continually to reflect the most poetical phases of nature and of rural life—so delicate is the appreciation of natural beauty, and so pure and unaffected and exquisitely graceful the style of composition—it has throughout even a Flemish truth and particularity of detail. If we were called upon to name a literary performance that is more than any other American in its whole character, we cannot now think of one that would sooner receive this praise. A record of real observations during the daily walks of many years in a secluded town, or of the changes which the seasons brought with their various gifts and forces into domestic experience, it is a series of pictures which could no more have been made in another country than so many paintings on canvas of scenes by Otsego lake. The leaves are blown over by Otsego airs, or if the eye grows heavy and the pages are unturned it is for slumberous spells that attach to delineations of the sunshine and silence of Otsego's August noons. And the views Miss Cooper gives us of the characters and occupations of the agricultural population in that part of the country, who wear curiously interblended the old English and Dutch habits with here and there a sign of the French, and the republican freedom which in three generations has taken the tone of nature, are as distinctive as the descriptions of changes which the maple assumes in the autumn, or of the harvest of Indian corn, or a deer hunt in the snow. Upon a careless reading of "Rural Hours" we might fancy that Miss Cooper was less familiar than perhaps should be for such a task with botany and other sciences, but a closer study of the book reveals the most minute and comprehensive knowledge, so interfused that it is without technical forms only, and never deficient in precision. The style is everywhere not only delightfully free, while artistically finished, but it is remarkably pure, so that there is in the literature of this country not a specimen of more genuine English. In this respect the work of one of the most highly and variously educated women of our time, to whom the languages of the politest nations were through all her youth familiar in their courts, may be well compared with the compositions which "literary ladies" with Phrase Books make half French or half Italian.



GEORGE W. DEWEY.



Of our younger and minor poets no one has more natural grace and tenderness than GEORGE W. DEWEY. The son of a painter, and himself the Secretary of the Philadelphia Art Union, it may be supposed that he is well instructed in the principles upon which effect depends; but while native genius, as it is called, is of little value without art, no man was ever made a poet by art alone, and it is impossible to read "Blind Louise," "A Memory," or "A Blighted May," without perceiving that Mr. Dewey's commission has both the sign and the countersign, in due form, so that his right to the title of poet is in every respect unquestionable. He has not written much, but whatever he has given to the public is written well, and all his compositions have the signs of a genuineness that never fails to please. There is no collection of his poems, but from the journals to which he contributes we have selected the following specimens:

A MEMORY.

It was a bright October day— Ah, well do I remember! One rose yet bore the bloom of May, Down toward the dark December.

One rose that near the lattice grew, With fragrance floating round it: Incarnardined, it blooms anew In dreams of her who found it.

Pale, withered rose, bereft and shorn Of all thy primal glory, All leafless now, thy piercing thorn Reveals a sadder story.

It was a dreary winter day; Too well do I remember! They bore her frozen form away, And gave her to December!

There were no perfumes on the air, No bridal blossoms round her, Save one pale lily in her hair To tell how pure Death found her.

The thistle on the summer air Hath shed its iris glory, And thrice the willows weeping there Have told the seasons' story,

Since she, who bore the blush of May, Down towards the dark December Pass'd like the thorn-tree's bloom away, A pale, reluctant ember.

BLIND LOUISE.

She knew that she was growing blind— Forsaw the dreary night That soon would fall, without a star, Upon her fading sight:

Yet never did she make complaint, But pray'd each day might bring A beauty to her waning eyes— The loveliness of Spring!

She dreaded that eclipse which might Perpetually inclose Sad memories of a leafless world— A spectral realm of snows.

She'd rather that the verdure left An evergreen to shine Within her heart, as summer leaves Its memory on the pine.

She had her wish: for when the sun O'erhung his eastern towers, And shed his benediction on A world of May-time flowers—

We found her seated, as of old, In her accustom'd place, A midnight in her sightless eyes, And morn upon her face!

A BLIGHTED MAY.

Call not this the month of roses— There are none to bud and bloom; Morning light, alas! discloses But the winter of the tomb. All that should have deck'd a bridal Rest upon the bier—how idle! Dying in their own perfume.

Every bower is now forsaken— There's no bird to charm the air! From the bough of youth is shaken Every hope that blossom'd there; And my soul doth now inrobe her In the leaves of sere October Under branches swaying bare.

When the midnight falls beside me, Like the gloom which in me lies, To the stars my feelings guide me, Seeking there thy sainted eyes; Stars whose rays seem ever bringing Down the soothing air, the singing Of thy soul in paradise.

Oh, that I might stand and listen To that music ending never, While those tranquil stars should glisten On my life's o'erfrozen river, Standing thus, for ever seeming Lost in what the world calls dreaming, Dreaming, love, of thee, forever!

THE SHADY SIDE.

I sat and gazed upon thee, ROSE, Across the pebbled way, And thought the very wealth of mirth Was thine that winter day; For while I saw the truant rays Within thy window glide, Remember'd beams reflected came Upon the shady side.

I sat and gazed upon thee, ROSE, And thought the transient beams Were leaving on thy braided brow The trace of golden dreams; Those dreams, which like the ferry-barge On youth's beguiling tide, Will leave us when we reach old age, Upon the shady side.

Ah! yes, methought while thus I gazed Across the noisy way, The stream of life between us flow'd That cheerful winter day; And that the bark whereon I cross'd The river's rapid tide, Had left me in the quietness Upon the shady side.

Then somewhat of a sorrow, ROSE, Came crowding on my heart, Revealing how that current sweeps The fondest ones apart; But while you stood to bless me there, In beauty, like a bride, I felt my own contentedness, Though on the shady side.

The crowd and noise divide us, ROSE, But there will come a day When you, with light and timid feet, Must cross the busy way; And when you sit, as I do now, To happy thoughts allied, May some bright angel shed her light Upon the shady side!



Ladies' Fashions for the Early Summer.



Costume for a Young Girl.—In the above engraving the largest figure has boots of pale violet cachmere and morocco; trowsers of worked cambric; and dress of a pale chocolate cachmere, trimmed with narrow silk fringe, the double robings on each side of the front as well as the cape, on the half-high corsage, ornamented with a double row of narrow silk fringe, this trimming repeated round the lower part of the loose sleeve; the chemisette of plaited cambric, headed with a broad frill of embroidery; full under sleeves of cambric, with a row of embroidery round the wrist; open bonnet of pink satin, a row of white lace encircling the interior next the face. The second miss has button gaiter boots of chocolate cachmere; trowsers and undersleeves of white embroidered cambric; frock of plaided cachmere; paletot of purple velvet; hat of a round shape, of white satin, the low crown adorned with a long white ostrich feather.

The Boy's Dress is made to correspond as nearly as may be with that of the youngest girl—embroidered pantalettes, and under sleeves trimmed with pointed lace.



Ladies' Morning Promenade Costume.—A high dress of black satin, the body fitting perfectly tight; has a small jacket cut on the biais, with row of black velvet laid on a little distance from the edge; the sleeves are rather large, and have a broad cuff turned back, which is trimmed to correspond with the jacket; the skirt is long and full; the dress is ornamented up the front in its whole length by rich fancy silk trimmings, graduating in size from the bottom of the skirt to the waist, and again increasing to the throat. Capote of plum-colored satin; sometimes plain, sometimes with a bunch of hearts-ease, intermixed with ribbon, placed low on the left side, the same flowers, but somewhat smaller, ornamenting the interior.

Evening Dress of white tulle, worn over a jape of rich pink satin; the waist and point of a moderate length; the sleeves and front of the corsage covered with fullings of tulle, clasped at equal distances by narrow bands of green satin; the skirt extremely full, and looped up on each side; the trimming, which reaches from the waist on each side the point to the bottom of the skirt, composed of loops of green satin ribbon edged with gold. Magnificent ribbons or beautiful flowers accompany the light trimmings which ornament the lighter evening dresses. A young lady is never more beautiful than when dressed in one of those robes, so rich in their simplicity, and distinguished by their embroideries, form, and trimmings. A robe of tarlatane, trimmed with seven flounces, deeply scalloped and worked with straw colored silk, is much in vogue. The same trimming, proportionably narrow, covers the berthe and sleeves. When worked with white silk, this dress is still more stylish. White or black lace canezous, worn with low-bodied silk dresses, are very much admired. They are open over the chest, and more or less worn with basques or straight trimmings round the waist, with half long sleeves, fastened up on the front, for the arm, by a ribbon bow.

Dress Hats are principally made of tulle or gauze lisse—those of the latter texture, made in white, of folds with rows of white gauze ribbon.

THE END