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NE of the rights of woman, as everyone knows, is that of tending the sick and smoothing the pillow of the dying. It is an occupation which to every gentle mind brings a great reward; but it is not often that it exalts a woman into a heroine, and makes her name a household word over a whole continent. Such, however, has happened in our day, and we have here to tell how it came about.

The subject of the following sketch is the younger of the two daughters and co-heiresses of William Edward Shore Nightingale, of Hembley Park, Hampshire, and Lea Hurst, Derbyshire. She was born in 1820, during the stay of her parents in Florence, that lovely city, "where earth and sky are both picture and poetry." The name of the place was given to her, and she was called Florence Nightingale.

She received a careful education under the superintendence of her father. It extended even to mathematics and the dead languages, whilst more feminine accomplishments, such as music and drawing, were not neglected. Of modern languages, she learned French, German, and Italian; German literature especially was early familiar to the youthful Florence. But the cultivation of the heart is of more importance than the mere acquiring of knowledge; and our admiration of her is increased when we find that she early exhibited a yearning affection for her fellowmen. The sweetness and tenderness of her disposition were daily shown in her desire to help the weak, the suffering, and the distressed.

The greater part of Florence Nightingale's early life was passed at Lea Hurst, one of the most picturesque and lovely spots in Derbyshire. The mansion owned there by her father is a building in the Elizabethan style, most enchantingly situated on an expansive sloping lawn on the outer edge of an extensive park, and surrounded and overhung with luxuriant trees. The whole place is charming and poetical, and well suited to be the house of a pure and holy character.

Her happy youth blossomed into womanhood, and then Florence Nightingale's intense interest in the relief of suffering made her resolve to turn her attention systematically to the subject. To wage war successfully against disease and wretchedness, became the great ambition of her life. In pursuit of this noble design, she visited the principal hospitals, reformatory institutions and schools of London, Edinburgh, and other cities and towns of the kingdom, gathering information and diffusing good wherever she went.

In 1851, she travelled over a considerable portion of the Continent, and at last took up her abode in the hospital at Kaiserwerth, on the Rhine, where Protestant

sisters of mercy are trained as nurses for the sick. Here she remained for three months, making herself thoroughly acquainted with all the rules and regulations required in the management of an hospital, and spending, she her self has acknowledged, some of the happiest days of her life. It will always be one of the glories of Kaiserwërth that it was the training school of Florence Nightingale.

In 1851, after many years of preparation, and with the hearty approbation of her friends, she assumed the active and entire superintendence of the Hospital for Sick Governesses, established in Harley Street, London. It had been far from well managed, and soon would have had to close its doors had not Miss Nightingale, like a good angel, come, and, by her generosity, her indefatigable activity, and her talents for organization, saved the failing institution.

This work was scarcely accomplished, and Miss Nightingale had scarcely had time to recover her overtaxed strength, when new demands were made upon her spirit of self-sacrifice. We have now arrived at the spring of 1854, ever remarkable for the declaration of war against Russia. A British army of 25,000 men had been sent to the East. Some months passed; and then came news of the rout of the Russians at the battle of Alma. The wounded men were sent down from the battle-field to the hospitals prepared for their reception at Scutari, on the banks of the Bosphorus. Their country owed these poor fellows her kindest care: instead of that, the military hospitals exhibited a lamentable picture of inefficiency and mismanagement. Their unhealthy condition was soon shown by a rate of mortality to which the casualties of the fiercest battle were as nothing. When this state of things became known at home, it excited the severest condemnation. Many plans were suggested for the relief of the suffering soldiers; the most popular of these being the formation of a select band of lady superintendents and of nurses, to direct and minister in the hospital wards.

At this juncture Florence Nightingale volunteered her services; and the "Times" of October 23rd, contained the announcement that she had been appointed by Government to the office of Superintendent of Nurses at Scutari. No time was lost; a day after the appearance of that announcement, she set sail on her mission of mercy. Inspired by a like enthusiasm, many ladies belonging to the highest ranks of English society accompanied her. They thought nothing of themselves, but turned their backs on the comforts of home, and their faces towards the grim fields of war, full of undying sympathy, and eager to prove how much good devoted women can do

without going beyond their proper sphere. Ministering angels such as they are the pride of humanity.

On the 4th of November Florence Nightingale reached Constantinople. It was the eve of the bloody engagement of Inkermann; the hospital at Scutari, already crowded with two thousand three hundred patients, was soon to be filled to overflowing with additional sufferers in every ghastly stage of mutilation, many with legs and arms shattered to pieces, and some deprived of both legs and arms. Behold our Florence Nightingale now entered upon the scene of her noblest exertions.

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Wherever," says one, writing from the hospital, "there is disease in its most dangerous form, and the hand of the spoiler distressingly nigh, there is that incomparable woman sure to be seen. Her benignant presence is an influence for good comfort, even amid the struggle of expiring nature. She is a 'ministering angel,' without any exaggeration, in these hospitals; and as her slender form glides quietly along each corridor, every poor fellow's face softens with gratitude at the sight of her. When all the medical officers have retired for the night, and silence and darkness have settled down upon those miles of prostrate sick, she may be observed alone, with a small lamp in her hand, making her solitary rounds."

Merely to see her pass along was an inexpressible comfort to the men. "She would speak to one," said a wounded soldier, writing home, "and nod and smile to many more; but she couldn't do it to all, you know. We lay there by hundreds, but we could kiss her shadow as it fell, and lay our heads on the pillow again content." Her influence was so great, that when men, frenzied by their wounds and disease, had worked themselves into a passionate refusal to submit to necessary operations, a few calm sentences of hers seemed at once to allay the storm; and the men would submit willingly to the painful ordeal they had to undergo.

What can devotion to one's work and a high sense of duty not accomplish? Florence Nightingale has been known to stand twenty hours at a stretch, whilst attending to the accommodation and relief of the patients under her care. With a fragile figure and delicate health, she executed an amount of work of which we can hardly form any conception.

It seems convenient here to introduce a sketch of our heroine's personal appearance and demeanour. We are indebted for it to the author of "Scutari and its Hospitals," who had frequent opportunities of observing her, as with sublime courage she pursued her mission. "Miss Nightingale," he says, "is just what you would expect in any other well-bred woman, who may have seen, perhaps, rather more than thirty years of life; her manner and countenance are prepossessing, and this without the possession of positive beauty. It is a face not easily forgotten, pleasing in its smile, with an eye betokening great self-possession, and giving, when she wishes, a quiet look of firm determination to every feature. Her general demeanour is quiet, and rather reserved; still, I

am much mistaken if she is not gifted with a very lively sense of the ridiculous. In conversation, she speaks on matters of business with a grave earnestness I would not expect from her appearance. She has evidently a mind disciplined to restrain, under the principles of the action of the moment, every feeling which would interfere with it. She has trained herself to command, and learned the value of conciliation towards others, and constraint over herself. She seems to understand business thoroughly. Her nerve is wonderful. I have been with her at very severe operations; she was more than equal to the trial." She is also possessed of a great fund of common sense, for which, above all things, there is need in nursing.

She met at first with many obstacles on the part of the army surgeons, and even on that of her own subordinates. The state of the hospital, too, on her arrival was enough to drive a sanitary reformer distracted. Miss Nightingale counted no fewer than six dead dogs in a state of decomposition under the windows; the cooking within doors was detestable; necessary articles of clothing were unobtainable-it was, in short, a scene reflecting dire disgrace upon a great nation. But a woman's orderly directing hand gradually made itself felt, and before long the Barrack Hospital was so comfortable that convalescents displayed decided reluctance at leaving it.

The jealous and suspicious were not slow to attack one whose character and motives should have been above suspicion. The circumstance of her having accepted the aid of some Sisters of Charity, drew down upon her in December, 1854, so invidious an attack from a clergyman of the Church of England, that the Hon. Mrs. Sidney Herbert was forced to step forward and defend her absent friend, and show "how cruel and unjust" were the aspersions thrown upon her. "Ever since she went to Scutari," says Mrs. Herbert, "her religious opinions and character have been assailed on all points:- one person writes to upbraid me for having sent her, 'understanding that she is a Unitarian; another 'that she is a Roman Catholic; and so on. It is a cruel charge to make towards one to whom England owes so much." Mrs. Herbert adds, that Miss Nightingale is a member of the Established Church of England, and what is called rather Low Church. How contemptible such differences are in the face of a great work for the benefit of humanity. An excellent answer was once given by an Irish clergyman when asked to what sect Miss Nightingale belonged. "She is one," he said, "of a sect which unfortunately is a very rare one-the sect of the good Samaritans."

Whilst Florence Nightingale was thus struggling against all the difficulties of her position, she was cheered and encouraged by a letter full of true English warmth and sympathy, written by Queen Victoria. It was a letter, it has been remarked, not stiff with gold thread and glittering with gems, but womanly and queen-like, with nothing of the ermine about it, but its softness and purity.

"Would you tell Mrs. Herbert," her Majesty wrote to Mr. Sidney Herbert, "that I beg she would let me see frequently the accounts she receives from Miss Nightingale or Mrs. Bracebridge, as I hear no details of the wounded, though I see so many from officers, etc., about the battle-field, and naturally the former must interest me more than any one. Let Mrs. Herbert also know that I wish Miss Nightingale and the ladies would tell these poor, noble, wounded and sick men, that no one takes a warmer interest, or feels more for their sufferings, or admires their courage and heroism more than their Queen. Day and night she thinks of her beloved troops. So does the Prince. Beg Mrs. Herbert to communicate these my words to those ladies, as I know that our sympathy is much valued by these noble fellows." We can easily imagine that this kind and gracious letter must have greatly strengthened the heart of Florence Nightingale in her arduous work.

Worn out at last by ceaseless toil and anxiety, she was seized by fever in May, 1855, when in the Crimea, organizing the nursing department of the camp hospitals. The malignant disease brought her very near death's door, and many anxious thoughts were directed to the pine-hut on the Genoese heights, on which she lay sheltered. But it was ordered by a kind Providence that she should recover. When sufficiently restored, she returned to her post at Scutari, and remained there till Turkey was evacuated by the British in July, 1856.

On her return to England, in August, it was proposed to give her a public welcome, but her womanly nature shrank from such a recognition. She quietly arrived at Lea Hurst on the 15th of the month. Her services had not, however, been allowed to pass without recognition by a grateful public. A testimonial fund, amounting to £50,000, had been, in 1857, subscribed, and at Florence Nightingale's special request, it was devoted to the formation and maintenance of an institution for the training and employment of nurses. Under the auspices of the Committee of the Nightingale Fund, a school for training nurses was opened at St. Thomas's Hospital in 1860. The conditions of the training are easy, and the instruction good.

Her Majesty also, to show how much she appreciated Miss Nightingale's devoted zeal, presented her with a costly jewelled ornament, to be worn as a decoration, accompanied by an autograph letter, in which her enduring labours were fully, gracefully, and gratefully acknowledged. The design of the jewel was said to have been from the pencil of the Prince Consort. It was in exquisite taste, and bore the words: "Blessed are the merciful." The letters V. R., surmounted by a crown in diamonds, were impressed upon the centre of the St. George's Cross, from which emanated rays of gold. Wide-spreading branches of palm, in bright green enamel, tipped with gold, formed a framework for the shield, their stems being banded by a riband of blue enamel, bearing the word "Crimea." At the top, three brilliant stars

of diamonds gave expression to the idea of the light of heaven shed upon labours of Mercy, Peace, and Charity.

The inscription borne by the reverse, was a noble expression of the royal feelings "To Miss Florence Nightingale, as a mark of esteem and gratitude for her devotion towards the Queen's brave soldiers. From Victoria R., 1855." We may add that the Sultan also presented Miss Nightingale with a superb bracelet, set in brilliants, as 66 a mark of his estimation of her devotion."

In October, 1856, the Queen invited her to visit the royal residence at Balmoral. During her stay, a ball was given, at which Florence Nightingale was seated with the royal family and the court circle at one end of the hall. It was remarked on this occasion that her hair, which had been cut off during her severe attack of illness in the Crimea, was "quite short;" but a charming little cap made a very graceful head-dress.

The severe labours which she underwent at Scutari severely tried the health of Florence Nightingale. In her anxiety to preserve life to the wounded soldier she subjected herself to so severe a strain that her own health was seriously impaired. For many years she has been an invalid. We find her writing in a popular periodical in June, 1868, "I have been a prisoner to my room from illness for years." Her sick room, however, has been no scene of illness: quite the 'contrary. Long and painful suffering have not weakened her mental energy, or prevented her recording the results of her experience, and making the practical knowledge which she has accumulated profitable to others.

When commissioners were appointed to inquire into the regulations affecting the sanitary condition of the British Army, Florence Nightingale, in 1857, furnished them with a paper of written evidence. In this, she laid down with singular force the great lesson of the Crimean War, which, from her point of view, was but a sanitary experiment on a colossal scale.

Not long afterwards she gave her "Notes on Hospitals" to the world. To the architect, the engineer, and the medical officer, these Notes are of inestimable value. They were widely read, but their circulation was not to be compared with that of "Notes on Nursing," which appeared in 1858; a hundred thousand copies of this work had been sold before 1872.

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Without doubt, "Notes on Nursing" is Miss Nightingale's most valuable contribution to the literature of the subject with which her name is identified. It is a book which should have a corner in every household library. Every woman," says the authoress, or at least almost every woman in England, has at one time or another of her life, charge of the personal health of somebody, whether child or invalid; in other words, every woman is a nurse." The work is intended to give hints to all such, and assist them in their labour of love. But, says some one, every woman instinctively makes a good nurse; that fact has been put in print scores of times and

must be true. "I believe the contrary," says Florence Nightingale; "the very elements of nursing are all but unknown." As one would expect, the Notes are characterized by great common sense, and unbounded enthusiasm for a nurse's calling, nursing being made out to be one of the Fine Arts; almost "the finest of the Fine Arts." "Notes on Nursing" has been translated into several languages, and an edition, it may be mentioned, was brought out a low price in 1867 for the use of the labouring classes.

In 1863 Miss Nightingale came again before the public. In that year the Report of the Committee on the Sanitary Condition of the Army in India was issued, a huge production of about two thousand folio pages. One of the volumes contains Miss Nightingale's observations on the immense mass of evidence. "In these observations," says one who is competent to judge, “the facts are brought together in an order and with an incisive force of statement which render it one of the most remarkable public papers ever penned."

The last appearance of Miss Nightingale as a writer excited considerable attention. In May of 1873 she published in one of our contemporaries a remarkable production, exhibiting strong independence of thought and marked dissatisfaction with the reigning school of theology. It was entitled "A Note of Interrogation ;" and as a "note" we shall leave it.

We have now come to the end of Florence Nightingale's public career. She entreats her correspondents to wait till she is no more, before they write her life: we have therefore refrained from following her into her private circle, or doing anything but simply setting

down in an orderly way facts which are patent to all the world.

It has been an instructive biography. "In Florence Nightingale," says a recent writer, "we have an example of a lady bred in the lap of luxury, and educated in the school of wealth and exclusiveness, breaking down the barriers of custom, and proving to the world that true usefulness belongs to no particular rank, age, or station, but is the attribute of all Eve's daughters; and that any employment sanctified by devotion, and fervour, and earnest desire to do good, is essentially womanly and graceful, and fitting alike to the inheritors of wealth and poverty." Her life has been no easy success, but a victory at the price of a long and painful struggle against misrepresentation, apathy, ignorance, and even ridicule.

Let us part from her by quoting what she herself says of the profession to which she has devoted the best part of her days. "I give a quarter of a century's experience," says Miss Nightingale, "when I say that the happiest people, the proudest of their occupation, the most thankful for their lives, are, in my opinion, those engaged in sick-nursing. In my opinion, it is a mere abuse of words to represent the life-as is done by some -as a sacrifice and a martyrdom. But there have been martyrs in it. The founders and pioneers of almost everything that is best must be martyrs. But they are the last ever to think themselves so. And for all there must be constant self-sacrifices for the good of all. But the distinction is this-the life is not a sacrifice: it is the engaging in an occupation the happiest of any." These are noble words; and to her who has uttered them let us pay our humble tribute of esteem.

SPAIN has once more a king; not Don Carlos, who,

with the aid of his young and pretty wife, has been doing his best for some months past, in the northern provinces, to make good his claim to the throne, as the lineal representative of the elder Bourbon branch-but Don Alfonso, the young Prince of the Asturias, the son and heir of the ex-Queen Isabella. Although the deter mination of the military leaders was suddenly announced, there can be no doubt that they have been preparing for some time past for the restoration of the royal family. For many reasons, an invitation to the ex-Queen to resume the throne would not have been acceptable either to the nation or to foreign powers-the latter a matter of very considerable importance to Spain in its present transitional and, indeed, precarious position; but the young Prince, only just seventeen years of age, has every claim to the loyalty and affection of the best class of Spaniards. Until set aside by the revolution which drove his mother from Spain, he was the acknowledged heir to the crown; the Duke de Montpensier-Louis Philippe's

son, who married the Queen's sister, and in whose favour as candidate for the vacant crown, there have been many political intrigues-has apparently offered a cordial support to the young Prince; he is personally amiable, and has recently studied hard to remedy the defects of his early training; and he promises-with evidently a full understanding of the meaning of his promise-to do his best to be a liberal and enlightened king.

So Spain may emerge from the clouds, and again shine forth bravely in the European firmament. The intelligent classes are apparently weary of the anarchy which has prevailed during the past few years. There is as yet no note of opposition, and Madrid prepared a magnificent reception for Alfonso XII. The many-balconied houses of the fashionable parts of the beautiful city, flashed into a glory of decorations, velvet hangings, heraldic ornaments and flowers, to welcome the young King, and the scene, when he took his place on the throne in the superb Hall of the Ambassadors, was worthy of the most magnificent period of Spanish history.

The Spaniards have lately made some serious mistakes, as when they wanted a Prince of Savoy, alien in blood and nationality, to wear the crown, and experience for once the proverbial anxieties of the possessor of such a magnificent heirloom. We hope that this time the choice of a monarch will have more fortunate results, and that the shouts of welcome uttered by the excited Madrilenos are representative of the general feeling of the country.

Just as we are saying, "Long live the King!" we hear of the death of one who, though not exactly a King, was the next thing to it, having been once the independent ruler of a small German state, exercising the powers and claiming the homage due to royalty. Before the King of Prussia and his great minister, Bismarck, dispossessed the small potentates of Germany, and incorporated the territories into the great Empire, the Elector Frederick William of Hesse Cassel was a great personage within the limits of his rather confined territory. He was almost as comical as one of the monarchs or grand dukes of burlesque or opera bouffe. He kicked his footmen, and, it was hinted, his ministers too, was occasionally kicked again, and pocketed the affront; and scandal -on somewhat better proof than scandal is always able to produce-averred that he thrashed his wife, and that once, when amusing himself in that manner, an attendant, who must instinctively have remembered that he was a man as well as a footman, interfered to protect the poor Electress, and by so doing, himself received chastisement from the angry potentate, who, however, like the Mynheer in the "Wooden Leg" ballad, "in kicking him out, why, he broke his own leg." He was a sore trouble to the old Germanic Confederation, the members of which were anxious to make their associate behave queer himself better; but he treated them in very cavalier fashion, and went on his way kicking and curveting, till Bismarck took him in hand, and there was speedily an end to the independent existence of the burlesque Elector, who lived in obscurity, forgotten, till we were told that he died at Prague on the 6th of January. He contrived, however, to leave behind him nearly three quarters of a million of money.

Ladies are warned against a new development of activity on the part of street thieves. A correspondent of a daily paper informs us that the seal skin and other fur jackets and fur trimmings generally are in peril. The thieves, he says, employ a sharp knife, with which they make a deep slash across the fur, and then, giving a quick pull, succeed in tearing away a considerable portion of the fur. Such an act may have been committed once or twice, but it is too clumsy and hazardous to be very frequent. Street thieves are an ingenious race, and would, we should think, not run the almost certain risk of detection, which would follow such an open act of violence. But it is unpleasant for a lady even to suppose it possible that she may walk down Regent Street, unconscious that she is wearing a ragged three-fourths of her cherished seal skin.

The opening of the new Opera House at Paris is indeed a splendid inauguration. An actual President, the newly-chosen King, an ex-King, an ex-Queen, and an exHeir-apparent to a throne, were among the goodly company, and the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs of London were among the invited and most highly-honoured guests. The connection between music and municipalities is not very apparent, and it is just probable that the civic dignitary of London was uncomfortable that there was no lovingcup to pass round, and that there was no toast-master standing behind his chair to shout, "Your Majesties, my Lords and Gentlemen, attention, if you please, for a selection from La Juive!" If representatives of the highest English musical talent had been invited, there would have been a better raison d'être; but perhaps the French authorities remembered the late Lord Mayor's splendid entertainment at the Mansion House to a representative gathering of musical, artistic, and literary celebrities. He ought to have been in Paris, "an ex-Mayor" among so many "ex's." The company assembled in the salle, and who, between the selections promenaded the foyer, one of the most superb saloons in the world, must have afforded splendid spectacle. Even in Paris, some time has elapsed since there has been such a display of marvels of costume.

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Writing in chilly January, it is almost unseasonably premature to write "A Whisper of the Spring," but the words are before us in a little book of poems, by a young man of real genius, who died "too soon for friendship, not for fame," William Leighton, a member of a poetic family, who gave a rare promise of eminence in literature. A selection from his poems has just been issued in anticipation of a complete edition preparing for publication. There runs throughout these selected poems a vein of thought tinged, unconsciously, perhaps, with a feeling of presentiment of his untimely fate. Like Keats, he seems to I have been half in love with easeful death." The title of the first poem in the selection gives the keynote to nearly all the rest-" Baby Died To-day;" but the verses which first attracted our notice are free from the melancholy tinge, and are exquisite in feeling and versification. The poet's ear caught the measure of Hood's wonderful "Haunted House," but employed that very striking and ear-catching metre to express very opposite thoughts. Hood looked back to an antique mystery of crime, Leighton to the coming beauty of the spring:

"And in a moment I was borne away

From the great Babel's mighty din and bustle,

To where, through woodland glades, the soft winds play,
Making the young leaves rustle.

"I saw the daisies gemming all the green;

The hawthorn blossom peeping from the hedges;
The lazy brooklet purling on between
Long lines of sleepy sedges.

"The dew-drops glistened in the sun-glints fair ;
The blear-eyed cattle browsed in grassy hollows;
The sheep-bells tinkled clear, and all the air
Was jubilant with swallows."

This powerful and striking metre has not found much favour with poets; but readers of Tennyson and Long