ANCESTRY.

It may not be generally known that there is a small town in France which
no one can enter without interest, from the consideration that Demetrius
Commene once lived there, a man boasting a pedigree that traced him from
the line of the Roman emperor Trajan. He was living in the time of
Voltaire, and was a captain in the French army. His pedigree was the
noblest of any man then living, or that has since lived, for he had
twenty-six kings for his ancestors, and eighteen emperors. Of these, six
were emperors of Constantinople, ten of Trebizond, and two of Heracleus
Pontus; eighteen kings of Colchi, and eight of Lazi.

RAMBLER.

* * * * *


A LITERARY KISS.

Alian Chartier was esteemed the father of French eloquence; he spoke
as well as he wrote. He flourished about the year 1430. Margaret of
Scotland, first wife to the dauphin, afterwards Louis XI, as she passed
through the Louvre, observed Alian asleep, and went and kissed him. When
her attendants expressed their surprise that she should thus distinguish
a man remarkable for his ugliness, she replied--"I do not kiss the man,
but the mouth that has uttered so many charming things."

P.T.W.