The Duc de Laval has the character of being a perfect fool.  It is said that on one occasion he talked of having received an anonymous letter, signed by all the officers of his regiment; that on another, he ordered ottomans to be placed in the four corners of his octagon saloon!—­Josephine’s Memoirs.

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CAUSE AND EFFECT.

Infinite are the consequences which follow from a single, and often apparently a very insignificant circumstance.  Paley himself narrowly escaped being a baker; here was a decision upon which hung in one scale, perhaps, the immortal interests of thousands, and, in the other, the gratification of the taste of the good people of Giggleswick for hot rolls.  Cromwell was near being strangled in his cradle by a monkey; here was this wretched ape wielding in his paws the destinies of nations.  Then, again, how different in their kind, as well as in their magnitude, are these consequences from anything that might have been a priori expected.  Henry VIII. is smitten with the beauty of a girl of eighteen; and ere long,

  “The Reformation beams from Bullen’s eyes.”

Charles Wesley refuses to go with his wealthy namesake to Ireland, and the inheritance, which would have been his, goes to build up the fortunes of a Wellesley instead of a Wesley; and to this decision of a schoolboy (as Mr. Southey observes) Methodism may owe its existence, and England its military—­and, we trust we may now add, its civil and political—­glory—­Quarterly Rev.

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SERVANTS.

A fund has lately been established at Stockholm, from which it is intended to reward good and faithful servants.  The king has contributed to it 1,000 crowns; the prince royal 500; and the princess royal 300.  This has been suggested as an example worthy of our imitation; many legacies, &c. have from time to time been bequeathed for the encouragement of faithful servants in England; some are claimed, but the majority are shamefully misapplied by those to whom their distribution has been entrusted.

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LONDON LUXURIES.

A capital like London is a Maelstrom—­an immense whirlpool—­whose gyrations sweep in whatever is peculiarly desirable from the most distant regions of the empire—­so active becomes the love of gain when set in motion by the love of luxury.  We recollect once being on shipboard to the north of Duncan’s Bay Head, and out of sight of land, the nearest being the Feroe Islands:—­we were walking the deck, watching a whale which was gamboling at some distance, throwing up his huge side to the sun, and sending ever and anon a sheet of water and foam from his nostrils.  Our thoughts were on Hecla and on the icebergs of the Pole, on the Scalds