SKETCH OF LEO LESQUEREUX. 8 35 



untouched they were as well-behaved remnants of mortality as could 

 be desired, but if meddled with, and the cupboard seems to have been 

 always unlocked, they instantly resented the affront with knockings, 

 rustlings, banging of doors, steps on the staircase, and other manifes- 

 tations of outraged spirits. All this was alarming enough, and there 

 was for a long time considerable difficulty in finding a care-taker, the 

 simple expedient of burying the bones or of locking them securely 

 away never apparently having occurred to any one. At last an old 

 family gamekeeper (whom it was supposed the family ghost might 

 tolerate), with his wife and a mischievous boy of about ten, were in- 

 stalled in charge. Gamekeepers are not as a rule much troubled with 

 nerves. Familiarity in this instance, as in most others, bred contempt, 

 till in a year or two the only notice the old man took of a violent out- 

 break on the part of his spiritual associates was to remark, " There's 

 that dratted boy been a-playing wV they bones again" as if the youth 

 were surreptitiously preparing to join an Ethiopian troupe ! 



Rain seldom fails us in England, and very rarely do we suffer 

 from anything approaching to drought. The ordinary wells, pits, and 

 springs suffice for the farmers' needs, and they can dispense with re- 

 sort to magic arts in search of water. Yet in the provinces would a 

 man be deemed worse than profane who should express doubt in the 

 virtue of the divining-rod. It is true that search for hidden treasure 

 is not as general a pursuit as it was before the days of the rural police ; 

 but when Dousterswivel makes his appearance, as he still does from 

 time to time in quiet country towns, he can reckon upon many believ- 

 ers and a fair supply of victims. 



Can we fail to join " Wide-oh " — Mr. Hardy's rural wizard — in his 

 astonishment "that men could profess so little and believe so much at 

 his house, when at church they professed so much and believed so lit- 

 tle "? — Saturday Review. 



SKETCH OF LEO LESQUEREUX. 



Br L. E. McCABE. 



AMERICAN science owes an incalculable debt to the Geneva 

 Revolutionary Council of 1848, that suppressed the Academy 

 of Neufchatel and sent to our shores Agassiz, Guyot, and Lesque- 

 reux. In the heart of Switzerland's mountain grandeur this illustri- 

 ous trio first saw the light and drank of that love of Nature which, 

 deepening with the years, peculiarly linked their lives. Agassiz had 

 been in America two years, when he was joined by Guyot and Les- 

 quereux, whose friendship had been formed while they were collabo- 

 rators in the quaint Swiss town. Humboldt and Cuvier had showered 

 their encomiums upon the great naturalist, and Continental Europe 

 was heralding his praises, when the political changes of his native 



