Knickerbocker Gallery:

THE KNICKERBOCKER MAGAZINE has been established for nearly a quarter of a century, and it is the oldest monthly of its class now or ever in America. It has been conducted with uniform ability and industry, and among its contributors have been a large proportion of our best contemporary writers. Our periodical literature has not been eminently successful, and the friends of the veteran and popular editor of the KNICKERBOCKER have known without surprise, but with regret, that his pecuniary recompense has been altogether disproportioned to his long-continued labors, so that only a loving devotion to the work, which he has led from its infancy up to a famous maturity, could have induced him to persevere in those toils which, otherwise applied, would have brought a suitable reward of fortune.

The popular actor on the stage receives from the public substantial "benefits," and the painter or sculptor whose productions have been more celebrated than profitable, not unfrequently collects them in an exhibition which the lovers of art gladly support for his sake as well as for its attractive merits; but the editor has no such resort, as a test of the popular good-will for him, nor any extraordinary means of making up the deficits of a season in which what the world owes him has been withheld.

It seemed appropriate, in the case of Mr. LOUIS GAYLORD CLARK, to disregard precedents of neglect, and to offer him a testimonial of the esteem in which he is held by his collaborateurs that should be both pleasing as a compliment and valuable as a contribution to his means of happiness. It was proposed that the surviving writers for the KNICKERBOCKER should each furnish, gratuitously, an article, and that the collection should be issued in a volume of tasteful elegance, of which the entire avails should be appropriated in building, on the margin of the Hudson, a cottage, suitable for the home of a man of letters, who, like Mr. CLARK, is also a lover of nature and of rural life.

The editorial preparation of this volume was undertaken by JOHN W. FRANCIS, GEORGE P. MORRIS, RUFUS W. GRISWOLD, RICHARD B. KIMBALL, and FREDERICK W. SHELTON; their circular to the old contributors of the Magazine was met, in all cases, by a ready and generous response; and they submit the result in confidence that a literary miscellany of its kind has rarely, if ever, been published of which the contents are more various or uniformly excellent.

NEW-YORK, November 7, 1854.

PARIS, April 25, 1821.—Made a call with a friend, this morning, to be introduced to Talma, the great French tragedian. He has a suite of apartments in a hotel in the Rue Des Petites Augustines, but is about to build a town residence. He has also a country retreat a few miles from Paris, of which he is extremely fond, and is continually altering and improving it. He had just arrived from the country, and his apartment was rather in confusion, the furniture out of place, and books lying about. In a conspicuous part of the saloon was a colored engraving of John Philip Kemble, for whom he expresses great admiration and regard.

Talma is about five feet seven or eight inches, English, in height, and somewhat robust. There is no very tragic or poetic expression in his countenance; his eyes are of a bluish gray, with, at times, a peculiar cast; his face is rather fleshy, yet flexible; and he has a short thick neck. His manners are open, animated, and natural. He speaks English well, and is prompt, unreserved, and copious in conversation.

He received me in a very cordial manner, and asked if this was my first visit to Paris. I told him I had been here once before, about fourteen years since.

"Ah! that was the time of the Emperor!" cried he, with a sudden gleam of the eye.

"Yes—just after his coronation as King of Italy."

"Ah! those were the heroic days of Paris—every day some new victory! The real chivalry of France rallied round the Emperor; the youth, and talent, and bravery of the nation. Now you see the courts of the Tuileries crowded by priests, and an old, worn-out nobility brought back by foreign bayonets."

He consoled himself by observing, that the national character had improved under its reverses. Its checks and humiliations had made the nation more thoughtful. "Look at the young men from the colleges," said he, "how serious they are in their demeanor. They walk together in the public promenades, conversing always on political subjects, but discussing politics philosophically and scientifically. In fact, the nation is becoming as grave as the English."

He thinks, too, that there is likely to be a great change in the French drama. "The public," said he, "feel greater interest in scenes that come home to common life, and in the fortunes of every-day people, than in the distresses of the heroic personages of classic antiquity. Hence, they never come to the Théâtre Français, excepting to see a few great actors, while they crowd to the minor theatres to witness representations of scenes in ordinary life. The revolution," added he, "has caused such vivid and affecting scenes to pass before their eyes, that they can no longer be charmed by fine periods and declamation. They require character, incident, passion, life."

He seems to apprehend another revolution, and that it will be a bloody one. "The nation," said he, "that is to say, the younger part of it, the children of the revolution, have such a hatred of the priests and the noblesse, that they would fly upon them like wolves upon sheep."

On coming away, he accompanied us to the door. In passing through the ante-chamber, I pointed to children's swords and soldiers' caps lying on a table. "Ah!" cried he, with animation, "the amusements of the children now-a-days are all military. They will have nothing to play with but swords, guns, drums, and trumpets."

Such are the few brief notes of my first interview with Talma. Some time afterward I dined in company with him at Beauvillier's restaurant. He was in fine spirits: gay and earnest by turns, and always perfectly natural and unreserved.

He spoke with pleasure of his residence in England. He liked the English. They were a noble people; but he thought the French more amiable and agreeable to live among. "The intelligent and cultivated English," he said, "are disposed to do generous actions, but the common people are not so liberal as the same class among the French: they have bitter national prejudices." If a French prisoner escaped in England, the common people would be against him. In France it was otherwise. "When the fight was going on around Paris," said he, "and Austrian and other prisoners were brought in wounded, and conducted along the Boulevards, the Parisian populace showed great compassion for them, and gave them money, bread, and wine."

Of the liberality of the cultivated class of English he gave an anecdote. Two French prisoners had escaped from confinement, and made their way to a sea-port, intending to get over in a boat to France. All their money, however, was exhausted, and they had not wherewithal to hire a boat. Seeing a banker's name on a door, they went in, stated their case frankly, and asked for pecuniary assistance, promising to repay it faithfully. The banker at once gave them one hundred pounds. They offered a bill, or receipt, but he declined it. "If you are not men of honor," said he "such paper would be of no value; and if you are men of honor, there is no need of it," This circumstance was related to Talma by one of the parties thus obliged.

In the course of conversation, we talked of the theatre. Talma had been a close observer of the British stage, and was alive to many of its merits. He spoke of his efforts to introduce into French acting the familiar style occasionally used by the best English tragedians; and of the difficulties he encountered in the stately declamation and constantly-recurring rhymes of French tragedy. Still he found, he said, every familiar touch of nature immediately appreciated and applauded by the French audiences. Of Shakspeare he expressed the most exalted opinion, and said he should like to attempt some of his principal characters in English, could he be sure of being able to render the text without a foreign accent. He had represented his character of Hamlet, translated into French, in the Théâtre Français with great success; but he felt how much more powerful it would be if given as Shakspeare had written it. He spoke with admiration of the individuality of Shakspeare's characters, and the varied play of his language, giving such a scope for familiar touches of pathos and tenderness and natural outbreaks of emotion and passion. "All this," he observed, "requires quite a different style of acting from the well-balanced verse, flowing periods, and recurring rhymes of the French drama; and it would, doubtless, require much study and practice to catch the spirit of it; and after all," added he, laughing, "I should probably fail. Each stage has its own peculiarities which belong to the nation, and can not be thoroughly caught, nor perhaps thoroughly appreciated by strangers."

[To the foregoing scanty notes were appended some desultory observations made at the time, and suggested by my conversations with Talma. They were intended to form the basis of some speculations on the French literature of the day, which were never carried out. They are now given very much in the rough style in which they were jotted down, with some omissions and abbreviations, but no heightenings nor additions.]

The success of a translation of Hamlet in the Théâtre Français appears to me an era in the French drama. It is true, the play has been sadly mutilated and stripped of some of its most characteristic beauties in the attempt to reduce it to the naked stateliness of the pseudo-classic drama; but it retains enough of the wild magnificence of Shakspeare's imagination to give it an individual character on the French stage. Though the ghost of Hamlet's father does not actually tread the boards, yet it is supposed to hover about his son, unseen by other eyes; and the admirable acting of Talma conveys to the audience a more awful and mysterious idea of this portentous visitation than could be produced by any visible spectre. I have seen a lady carried fainting from the boxes, overcome by its effect upon her imagination. In this translation and modification of the original play, Hamlet's mother stabs herself before the audience, a catastrophe hitherto unknown on the grand theatre, and repugnant to the French idea of classic rule.

The popularity of this play is astonishing. On the evenings of its representation the doors of the theatre are besieged at an early hour. Long before the curtain rises, the house is crowded to overflowing; and throughout the performance the audience passes from intervals of breathless attention to bursts of ungovernable applause.

The success of this tragedy may be considered one of the triumphs of what is denominated the romantic school; and another has been furnished by the overwhelming reception of Marie Stuart, a modification of the German tragedy of Schiller. The critics of the old school are sadly alarmed at these foreign innovations, and tremble for the ancient decorum and pompous proprieties of their stage. It is true, both Hamlet and Marie Stuart have been put in the strait waistcoat of Aristotle; yet they are terribly afraid they will do mischief, and set others madding. They exclaim against the apostasy of their countrymen in bowing to foreign idols, and against the degeneracy of their taste, after being accustomed from infancy to the touching beauties and harmonious numbers of Athalie, Polyeucte, and Merope, in relishing these English and German monstrosities, and that through the medium of translation. All in vain! The nightly receipts at the doors outweigh, with managers, all the invectives of the critics, and Hamlet and Marie Stuart maintain triumphant possession of the boards.

Talma assures me that it begins to be quite the fashion in France to admire Shakspeare; and those who can not read him in English enjoy him diluted in French translations.

It may at first create a smile of incredulity that foreigners should pretend to feel and appreciate the merits of an author, so recondite at times as to require commentaries and explanations, even to his own countrymen; yet it is precisely writers like Shakspeare, so full of thought, of character, and passion, that are most likely to be relished, even when but partially understood. Authors whose popularity arises from beauty of diction and harmony of numbers are ruined by translation; a beautiful turn of expression, a happy combination of words and phrases, and all the graces of perfect euphony, are limited to the language in which they are written. Style can not be translated. The most that can be done is to furnish a parallel, and render grace for grace. Who can form an idea of the exquisite beauties of Racine, when translated into a foreign tongue? But Shakspeare triumphs over translation. His scenes are so exuberant in original and striking thoughts, and masterly strokes of nature, that he can afford to be stripped of all the magic of his style. His volumes are like the magician's cave in Aladdin, so full of jewels and precious things, that he who does but penetrate for a moment may bring away enough to enrich himself.

The relish for Shakspeare, however, which, according to Talma, is daily increasing in France, is, I apprehend, but one indication of a general revolution which is taking place in the national taste. The French character, as Talma well, observes, has materially changed during the last thirty years. The present generation, (the "children of the revolution," as Talma terms them,) who are just growing into the full exercise of talent, are a different people from the French of the old régime. They have grown up in rougher times, and among more adventurous and romantic habitudes. They are less delicate in tact, but stronger in their feelings, and require more stimulating aliment. The Frenchman of the camp, who has bivouacked on the Danube and the Volga; who has brought back into peaceful life the habits of the soldier; who wears fierce moustaches, swaggers in his gait, and smokes tobacco, is, of course, a different being in his literary tastes from the Frenchman of former times, who was refined, but finical in dress and manners, wore powder, and delighted in perfumes and polished versification.

The whole nation, in fact, has been accustomed for years to the glitter of arms and the parade of soldiery; to tales of battles, sieges, and victories. The feverish drama of the revolution, and the rise and fall of Napoleon, have passed before their eyes like a tale of Arabian enchantment. Though these realities have passed away, the remembrances of them remain, with a craving for the strong emotions which they excited.

This may account in some measure for that taste for the romantic which is growing upon the French nation—a taste vehemently but vainly reprobated by their critics. You see evidence of it in every thing: in their paintings; in the engravings which fill their print-shops; in their songs, their spectacles, and their works of fiction. For several years it has been making its advances without exciting the jealousy of the critics; its advances being apparently confined to the lower regions of literature and the arts. The circulating libraries have been filled with translations of English and German romances, and tales of ghosts and robbers, and the theatres of the Boulevards occupied by representations of melo-dramas. Still the higher regions of literature remained unaffected, and the national theatre retained its classic stateliness and severity. The critics consoled themselves with the idea that the romances were only read by women and children, and the melo-dramas admired by the ignorant and vulgar. But the children have grown up to be men and women; and the tinge given to their imaginations in early life is now to have an effect on the forthcoming literature of the country. As yet, they depend for their romantic aliment upon the literature of other nations, especially the English and Germans; and it is astonishing with what promptness the Scottish novels, notwithstanding their dialects, are translated into French, and how universally and eagerly they are sought after.

In poetry, Lord Byron is the vogue: his verses are translated into a kind of stilted prose, and devoured with ecstasy, they are si sombre! His likeness is in every print-shop. The Parisians envelop him with melancholy and mystery, and believe him to be the hero of his own poems, or something of the vampyre order. A French poem has lately appeared in imitation of him,* the author of which has caught, in a great degree, his glowing style, and deep and troubled emotions. The great success of this production insures an inundation of the same kind of poetry from inferior hands. In a little while we shall see the petty poets of France, like those of England, affecting to be moody and melancholy, each wrapping himself in a little mantle of mystery and misanthropy, vaguely accusing himself of heinous crimes, and affecting to despise the world.

[*The Missennienes.]

That this taste for the romantic will have its way, and give a decided tone to French literature, I am strongly inclined to believe. The human mind delights in variety, and abhors monotony even in excellence. Nations, like individuals, grow sated with artificial refinements, and their pampered palates require a change of diet, even though it be for the worse. I should not be surprised, therefore, to see the French breaking away from rigid rule; from polished verse, easy narrative, the classic drama, and all the ancient delights of elegant literature, and rioting in direful romances, melo-dramatic plays, turgid prose, and glowing rough-written poetry.

PARIS, 1821.

COME, spread your wings as I spread mine,
And leave the crowded hall
For where the eyes of twilight shine
O'er evening's western wall.

These are the pleasant Berkshire hills,
Each with its leafy crown;
Hark! from their sides a thousand rills
Come singing sweetly down.

A thousand rills; they leap and shine,
Strained through the mossy nooks,
Till, clasped in many a gathering twine,
They swell a hundred brooks.

A hundred brooks; and still they run
With ripple, shade, and gleam,
Till, clustering all their braids in one,
They flow a single stream.

A bracelet, spun from mountain mist,
A silvery sash unwound,
With ox-bow curve and sinuous twist,
It writhes to reach the Sound.

This is my bark; a pigmy's ship;
Beneath a child it rolls;
Fear not; one body makes it dip,
But not a thousand souls.

Float we the grassy banks between;
Without an oar we glide;
The meadows, sheets of living green,
Unroll on either side.

Come, take the book we love so well,
And let us read and dream
We see whate'er its pages tell,
And sail an English stream.

Up to the clouds the lark has sprung,
Still trilling as he flies;
The linnet sings as there he sung;
The unseen cuckoo cries:

And daisies strew the banks along,
And yellow kingcups shine,
With cowslips, and a primrose throng,
And humble celandine.

Ah foolish dream! when Nature nursed
Her daughter in the West,
Europe had drained one fountain first;
She bared her other breast.

On the young planet's orient shore
Her morning hand she tried,
Then turned the broad medallion o'er
And stamped the sunset side.

Take what she gives; her pine's tall stem;
Her elm with drooping spray;
She wears her mountain diadem
Still in her own proud way.

Look on the forest's ancient kings,
The hemlock's towering pride;
Yon trunk had thrice a hundred rings,
And fell before it died.

Nor think that Nature saves her bloom
And slights her new domain;
For us she wears her court costume;
Look on its queenly train!

The lily with the sprinkled dots,
Brands of the noontide beam;
The cardinal, and the blood-red spots,
Its double in the stream,

As if some wounded eagle's breast.
Slow throbbing o'er the plain,
Had left its airy path impressed
In drops of scarlet rain.

And hark! and hark! the woodland rings;
There thrilled the thrush's soul:
And look! and look I those lightning wings
The fire-plumed oriole!

Above, the hen-hawk swims and swoops,
Flung from the bright blue sky;
Below, the robin hops and whoops
His little Indian cry.

The beetle on the wave has brought
A pattern all his own,
Shaped like the razor-breasted yacht
To England not unknown!

Beauty runs virgin in the woods,
Robed in her rustic green,
And oft a longing thought intrudes,
As if we might have seen

Her every finger's every joint
Ringed with some golden line;
Poet whom Nature did anoint!
Had our young home been thine.

Yet think not so; old England's blood
Runs warm in English veins,
But wafted o'er the icy flood
Its better life remains;

Our children know each wild-wood smell,
The bayberry and the fern,
The man who does not know them well
Is all too old to learn.

Be patient; Love has long been grown;
Ambition waxes strong,
And Heaven is asking time alone
To mould a child of song.

When Fate draws forth the mystic lot
The chosen bard that calls,
No eye will be upon the spot
Where the bright token falls,

Perchance the blue Atlantic's brink,
The broad Ohio's gleam,
Or where the panther stoops to drink
Of wild Missouri's stream:

Where winter clasps with glittering ice
Katahdin's silver chains,
Or Georgia's flowery paradise
Unfolds its blushing plains:

But know that none of ancient earth
Can bring the sacred fire;
He drinks the wave of Western birth
That rules the Western lyre!

EVERY profession or business has its own peculiar experiences, and it has often seemed to me that the world of readers would be wiser, and they who make books for them would be far more interesting and instructive, if every writer would describe things from his own actual point of view, trying honestly to hold the mirror up to nature and life with his own hand from his own position. The genuine diary of a physician, or lawyer, or clergyman, or merchant, or banker, if recording his own impressions during his years of activity, would be as interesting as any fictitious sketches, and far more instructive, whether to the old who are always glad to fight their battles over again, or to the young whose battles have not yet begun. I do not make this remark by way of preface to any ambitious portraitures of professional scenes and labors, but merely to introduce a few slight sketches of professional travel that seem quite as well fitted for the present purpose as any more elaborate essay.

I have just returned from a visit to Kentucky after an absence of seventeen years. I was at the city of L—— at various times in the years 1836-37, and have never forgotten the impression left by the place and the people. The first years of a minister's professional life are far more significant than those of any other profession; for usually he takes upon himself the full burden of his cares, and in most cases he has as much labor and anxiety at twenty-five as at fifty. In one respect, indeed, he has more care at the outset of his career; for he is obliged to depend each week upon the fresh coinage of his own brain, instead of falling back upon the large literary capital accumulated by a veteran sermon-writer. The consequence is that the first two or three years of a preacher's life are quite likely to decide his destiny, and if he does not break down within this period after his settlement, he is pretty well seasoned and stocked for subsequent needs. It is advisable, therefore, on many accounts, that he should take what the Germans call his "Wanderjahre," and travel a year or two before pitching his tent for permanence. Travel merely for pleasure, or for general information, is dangerous to a young man's habits of study and sobriety of purpose, whilst travel with professional aims, for periods of service for a few weeks or months in different places, gives him a wide field of observation, and prepares him for his parish duties alike as a man of practical experience and of literary resources. I remember very well the events of the two years passed in this way, and have been inclined to ascribe the good health and constant labor of the long time since to the influence of those years of wandering. I visited, in some way, almost every State in the Union, and in various cities and towns remained several weeks, and in a few cases several months. No place lingers more fondly in memory than the city of L——, Kentucky.

Contrast is one of the laws of sympathy, and there is something in the electric beat of the Southern pulse quite fascinating to a young man educated under the sedate discipline of New-England, and taught to depend upon cool reasoning as the only sure path to the convictions of his audience. Most of our young theological students of the more ambitious kind, put study and thought enough into their first sermon to expand into a whole volume, forgetful of the fact that it is the emotional life that gives the sermon its power, and that, without this, the gun "ecclesiastic," however crammed with balls or shot, has no powder, and can not be fired. A Southern audience is sure to teach a young man this fact, and, whilst fond of clear reasoning, it is so greedy for fervor in feeling and utterance, as to have little patience with the speaker who does not meet this want. The tone of social life is somewhat in the same spirit, and nothing can more successfully take the stiffness out of the manners and conversation of our Northern scholastics than a few months sojourn in hearty Southern society. I remember very well the first impression of Kentucky life. Faults there were in abundance to note, deficiencies of culture, radical errors in the political and domestic order, yet the sternest censor could not but be captivated by the cordiality of the people, and even soften his censure into sympathy, when he found that they were quite as ready to perceive and lament their failings as he could be. From the first hearty shake of the hand from a Kentuckian on the crowded landing to the hearty farewells that speeded the parting guest upon his homeward way months afterward, the same genial pulse seemed to beat. It would be quite as wrong to regard this impulsive warmth of manner as mere affectation of generosity, as it would be wrong to regard the colder temper of Northern men as proof of habitual selfishness. The climate has much to do with the temperament, and it is undoubtedly the union of Southern impulsiveness with the daring self-reliance incident to a border life that has given the Kentuckian his peculiar air and tone.

So far as I could see, the same electric temper appeared in every sphere of life, certainly in the serious as well as in the festive sphere. If in the conduct of business, especially of agricultural business, there were some tokens of the easy gait so characteristic of people accustomed to be served by slaves, no trace of languor showed itself when ever men met together upon any interesting occasion, whether grave or gay. A revival preacher, or a stump orator, could have no occasion to complain of dull listeners. The chat of an evening party had none of the stately reserve so affected by English mannerists nearer home, but seemed downright earnest, as if society were a genuine business, and very pleasant business, too. I remember the perfect furore that prevailed during one of those semi-barbarous races which are a kind of relic of the ancient tournament, with this difference, that the man is but a spectator, and leaves the honors and the pains of the struggle to his horse. The whole city was in commotion, and the rage of betting infected the servants and slaves. The little fellow that brushed our clothes at the boarding-house, swelled into the consequence of a gentleman of the turf, as he staked his half-dollar with a comrade of like hue and stature, whilst the august head of Henry Clay, then in his prime, towered up among the sporting magnates on the stand erected for the judges of the course. All Kentucky and all Tennessee seemed to be embodied in those rival racers, and every Kentuckian felt an inch taller when his own pet came in the winner. Absurd as this excitement seemed to a Northern man, so cruel to the horses, and so little profitable to the spectators, it was not difficult to read it as a text from the old book of human nature. From the very beginning, the rivalries of men and nations have turned more upon the pride of conquest than the prize contested, and whether for an oaken crown or a silver cup, whether upon the race-course or the battle-field, it is the name more than the game that is played tor. He that would moralize largely and wisely about a horse-race would come to some very sweeping conclusions regarding the whole system of competition that rules over society, and strike hard at the habits of many very grave people.

The social elements that presented themselves to a stranger's observation in various circles, were in many respects of the most heterogeneous kind, yet seemed all pervaded by the same stirring leaven. The New-Englander and the Englishman, with their cool temperament, caught much of the prevailing tone of geniality, without losing their characteristic calculation. One of the most delightful and hearty men in the social walk was an English gentleman who had come out to seek his fortune with a young wife and slender patrimony in that then far country. The brother of one of our most ideal and gifted poets, he did not lose sight of the ideal world in the prosaic business of a lumber-merchant, He was always ready for a literary conversation, and took delight, at any time, in turning from his ledger to his library, and from numbers arithmetical to numbers poetical. I never meet with the portrait of John Keats now, without tracing in his features and expression a memento of this emigrant brother, who never ceased to prove that he was of kindred blood to the author of "Endymion" and "The Eve of St. Agnes." He is not living now, but his image stands in my memory among the cherished forms that can not be forgotten. I might add many other names to the list of notables, but it is enough to specify one person more whose acquaintance enlarged my knowledge of human character.

Judge S—— was a noble specimen of a gentleman of the old school—of the most transparent simplicity, thorough honesty in deed and word, and unswerving independence. I remember well the first time of meeting him. His quaint old carriage drove up to the door of our lodgings, and the vehicle and the occupant looked like specimens of the good old days gone by. It was worth a thousand miles' travel to receive such a shake of the hand, and such an invitation to visit him at his plantation. His eye had an almost feminine mildness, yet in its affectionate expression there was a latent manliness as in the mild blue sky. above whose transparent depths the Sun-God has his throne, and can thence at will launch his arrows at their mark. It was quite a new phase of life that the days spent on his plantation disclosed. Never have I seen more affection between the various members of a family; never a more earnest purpose to be just and kind in every social relation. The Judge was no admirer of slavery, and if the counsels of such men as he had prevailed, the curse of bondage would, ere this, have been erased from the statute-book of Kentucky. He aimed, so far as the laws allowed him, to abolish slavery in his own domain, by exchanging servitude for service, and treating his dependents as servants to be protected. They looked upon him with great affection, and could honestly pray that he might live a thousand years. When an absent son returned, it was a rare sight to see the welcome of him by the slaves the morning after his arrival. They seemed all to claim kindred with him, and their cordial greeting to Master Josh was a better commentary than any antiquarian notes upon the redeeming features of the old patriarchal times. In becoming acquainted with the slaves, one marks quite as wide differences of character as among their prouder lords. I found in the two who took charge of the horses, genuine representatives of characters that have stamped their mark upon the world's history. The coachman was a thorough-going mystic, a believer in visions and trances, which he interpreted to auditors, who listened with open ears and distended eyes. He was a preacher, as he and his admirers thought, of heaven's own ordaining; and, although occasionally somewhat given to excessive potations, his hearers, with an acuteness equal to that of many pious white people under similar circumstances, carefully distinguished between the infirmities of the man and the inspirations of the saint. The hostler, Cato, was of sterner school, and not at all addicted to mysticism, or any kind of faith or devotion. He was the skeptic of the plantation, and might have astonished the author of the "Vestiges of Creation" by his constant reference of remarkable phenomena to natural causes. When Morocco, the coachman, would discourse of the falling stars as sure signs that the world was coming to an end, Cato would contemptuously shrug his shoulders, and say that it was "nothing but the brimstone in the air." The mystic seemed to have more followers than the skeptic, and when the Judge tried to entertain his guests by excavating an Indian mound upon his plantation, and evening shut in before the close of the labor, the sable excavators evidently inclined to Morocco's opinion that the wizard-hour had come, when the spirits of the dead Indians haunted their graves, and it was time to stop working there.

Many scenes stand associated with that kindly home. One fairy little form that graced the house and garden walks I can never forget; the bright child who cheered us by her naive prattle and her sylph-like dance. Her form lingered like a benediction upon the memory; and when word of her death came to me, years afterward, it was as if one of the lights of our own household had been quenched. When, in the March of 1837, I left Kentucky, and parted with so many cherished friends, of the whole circle none gave more brightness to the hope of a return, ere long, than the kindly group who dwelt under the tall trees of that plantation, and day by day received the good judge's blessing. My course was homeward to New-England by the circuitous Southern route; and in the five days after the departure, every variety of climate between winter and summer presented itself, until in New-Orleans I found fruits and flowers in abundance, under a sky as sultry as when our dog-star rages. In due season I returned to New-England to find its forests leafless, its gardens still waiting the footsteps of the golden summer that I had left at the South. Years passed, and with them passed many schemes for visiting old friends at the West and South. Only after seventeen years' absence the opportunity came, and I have just returned from Kentucky and the kindly city of L——, which I saw for the first time eighteen years ago.

Every man who has any sort of affection or sentiment is glad to re-visit familiar scenes; yet, there is something startling in the return after long absence. We think of all that we have done and endured during the interval, and our own daily life, with its constant yet almost unnoticed changes, rises up before us in its united experience; so that a man sometimes needs to go away from home to see himself as he is and has been in his own home. There are few men who can look upon the form and feature of a score of years thus consolidated by distance without some grave thoughts upon life and its changes. We tremble, moreover, as we draw near the places and friends so long unvisited. We fear that we have been shaping an ideal world out of the materials stored up by our memory, and that things and persons will seem wholly strange to us. We fear that more friends than we have heard of have passed away, and that they who remain will not remember us as we remember them.

When our steamer drew near the city of L——, the spires of some of the churches were familiar to my eye, and the whole face of the country seemed to answer the absentee's grateful recognition. The city had more than doubled its population, and stretched itself out on either side of its domain; yet it had only grown in stature, without having essentially changed its features. The landing was crowded by the same motley throng as of old, and it is only when the stranger sees the new squares of stately houses in the remoter streets that he appreciates the growth and prosperity of the place. But what avails a familiar scene if there is no welcome from a familiar friend? It was somewhat remarkable that the first face that I recognized was that of the son of my kind host of former years, the good Judge; and it was cheering to learn, from our ready and mutual recognition, that Father Time had not so set his marks upon our features as to hide the familiar lineaments. In a half-hour, the hearty welcome from his sisters, two of whom kept house together in the city, was ample assurance that the light of other days had not died out, and that the father's kind heart still animated the children, even as when he was with them in the body. The welcome was not limited to the parlor, but came also from the tenants of the kitchen. The old farm-servants were not indeed there, and Morocco and Cato, with many of their associates, had gone to the land where the law of color and caste does not rule, but the smart serving-maid, who had grown from a child to a stout woman during the interval, seemed to have some remembrance of the ancient guest at the old plantation; and the little boy, Bob, who presided at the brush, grinned with all his might when I talked to him of his Uncle Morocco, as if we were friends and kindred at once by that tie of association.

Our stay in the city was a succession of delightful recognitions, deepened yet not wholly saddened by remembrances of those who had passed away. Our religious services renewed all the best associations of former years, and for five days the hours were too few for the discourses, devotions, and discussions which engaged the conference of worshippers, met together from so many States. It is not the place to describe the theological aspects of the occasion, and I will only give a description or two of social experiences.

An observing man could write a good treatise upon the chronology of the human features or the traces of time left upon the human countenance by various periods of years. This visit has given a far milder idea of the ravages of this ruthless power. My friends who were in early manhood eighteen years ago are now in their prime; their look is the same as then, nay, even more decidedly pronounced, and, like Pat's portrait, "more like than the original." They who were in the meridian then are now of more venerable mien, yet not one such face had any trait that did not seem familiar and agreeable. The feminine complexion is indeed a more delicate chronicle of times and experiences; yet the many buxom mothers in whom I recognized the sprightly girls of eighteen years ago were but the same flowers in fuller bloom; and I more than once, in view of a worthy mother with a group of a half-dozen children about her, was reminded of the favorite theory, that even personal beauty is more a moral than a physical attribute, and ripens, instead of dying, with years of faithful service to life's true ideal. What Dante said of Beatrice in Paradise is true of every woman who does her work nobly and keeps her soul unspotted from the world. There is a "second beauty," even fairer than the first—a beauty radiating from a life beyond that of youthful bloom. The angels are calling on every fair woman in this world, as upon Beatrice in the spiritual world:

TURN, BEATRICE! was their song: 'Oh! turn
Thy saintly sight on this thy faithful one.
Gracious at our prayer, vouchsafe
Unveil to him thy cheeks; that he may mark
Thy second beauty, now concealed.'"

Setting all merely poetic sentiment aside, is it not true that the beauty that most transforms the character, and refines and softens the husband and subdues and educates the child, is that which beams from a face in which girlish bloom has ripened into womanly fidelity and benignity? Whilst contesting thus the boasted empire of Time over the countenance, it must be confessed that, in one respect, his transforming power was most startling. In seventeen years, the infant of the cradle grows to full stature, and the absentee felt, on his return, somewhat of a Nestor in age as he was greeted by two fair girls who were babies at his previous visit, and who, for their honored and lamented father's sake, were ready to receive him with something of filial deference.

One scene more only can be noted—a re-visit to the plantation of our old friend already so affectionately named. We rode out—a goodly company of guests—to that house so memorable for its unstinted hospitality. The Judge was not there to welcome us with his hearty grasp and benign eye. His daughter, however, fitly honored her name and breeding as she welcomed her father's friends. Many changes had taken place in the grounds on account of the division of the property and the encroachments of the city upon the country; but the house, with its lofty rooms, was the same, and the gateway and broad green-sward of the great avenue were as of old. The most conspicuous change was presented by the family burial-place, now inclosed by a massive wall. We all went reverently to that hallowed ground. I stood over the grave of the noble father and the dear child, the pet of the former visit, who gave such light to that home, and blessed GOD for the treasure of such a remembrance and such a hope. The myrtle covered those graves with its rich and aromatic growth, and birds of many hues and notes sang in the branches of the trees. A venerable clergyman, who had known and honored the good Judge, spoke words of consolation to the large company of children, grand-children and friends, and, leaning upon his staff, lifted his voice in prayer. But even this touching ministration added little to the pathos of that scene. The place, with those tomb-stones, was enough and more than enough. I could hardly listen to language touching and spiritual as that which sought so fitly to consecrate that sun-set hour among the dead. Those buried ones spoke to me with a living voice that rose above the sad dirges chanted by the shades of all those intervening years. From the midst of that garden of graves, where blooming life sprang from the decaying dust, a voice from the unseen world repeated the great prophet's saying:

"THE grass withereth, the flower fadeth:
But the word of our GOD shall stand for ever."

The years that had gone since meeting those cherished friends seemed to rise before me, and to chant a requiem which mingled the solemnity of memory with the cheerfulness of hope.

WHEN Greece, in arts and arms supreme,
Rose sovereign o'er her darkened age,
And lent its old, immortal theme
To grateful History's burning page:

When words, like arrows winged with fire,
Touched hearts that kindled at the flame,
And Song, reëchoing to her lyre,
Heard the far voice of coming Fame:

Then Freedom kept, a guarded mound,
That fortressed rock, where Athens sate,
And Wisdom's soul, divinely crowned,
Its sheltering genius, held the STATE.

Resistless Thought its vital beam
To bard and sage and hero gave,
That long has lit Time's upward stream,
And shines eternal on the wave.

This was her boast, and is her pride,
The old Republic's stern behest:
That mind to answering mind replied,
And they who swayed her were her BEST.

This wrote her story with the stars.
She perished! how, her annals tell;
Hate, envy, meanness, all that mars;
And Folly ruled, as Greatness fell.

Then Force, and Fraud's barbarian will
Rose o'er the nobler mind's decay,
And sank on tower and templed hill
The twilight shades, that closed her day.

This golden moral Eld unrolls,
proud Republic! to thine eyes;
Bids thee love most thy noblest souls,
For Freedom sinks, when Honor dies!

THERE is not a prettier valley in Switzerland than that of Lauterbrunnen. Whoever has seen it upon a fine day of summer, when the meadows were green, the streams full, and the sun shining upon the crystal glaciers which lie, from the beginning to the end of the year, at the head of the valley, can never forget it.

I do not think it can be more than a half-mile broad; and in many places, I am sure, it is much less. On one side, the rocks, brown and jagged, and tufted with straggling shrubs, rise almost perpendicularly; and a stream of water which comes from higher slopes, far out of sight, leaps over the edge of the precipice. At first, it is a solid column of water; then it breaks and spreads and wavers with the wind; and finally, in a rich white veil of spray, reaches the surface of the vale of Lauterbrunnen, a thousand feet below. They call it the Dust-Fall.

The opposite side of the valley does not change so suddenly into mountain. There are slopes, green or yellow, as the seasons may be, with the little harvests which the mountain-people raise; there are cliffs with wide niches in them, where you may see kids or sheep cropping the short herbage which grows in the shadow of the rocks; and there is a path, zig-zagging up from the road below, I scarce know how. It would be very tiresome, were it not for the views it gives you at every turning. Sometimes, from under a thicket of trees, you look sheer down upon the little bridge you have traversed in the bottom of the valley; seeming so near, that you could toss your Alpinstock into the brook. Sometimes the green of the meadow, and the sparkle of its stream are shut out; and you look straight across upon the Dust-Fall, where it leaps from the cliff abreast of you; and see it shiver, and grow white, and hear it afterward go murmuring away through its valley-bed.

At other times, as you pass farther up, the waterfall seems only a bit of gauze, which is lost over the edge of the cliff; and the heights above, from which the stream comes, break into sight and tower aloft in a way that quite dwarfs the poor valley beneath, and makes it seem a mere nook in the hills.

But by far the grandest sight of all those which belong to this mountain neighborhood, is that of the glacier which shuts up the head of the valley. It is not, indeed, larger or whiter than many others of Switzerland; but like the crown of a monarch, its green, lustrous crystals rise over the forehead of Lauterbrunnen, and charm you by such contrast of the fierce glory of winter, with the soft smile of summer, as can be seen nowhere else.

My first visit to this spot, many years ago, was on a midsummer's afternoon. The mountains were clear of clouds; and their snow-tops, and the green spurs of the glacier in the distance, seemed to wear the same warm glow of sunlight which fell upon the slopes around me, and upon the meadows beneath. I could see the brook trailing white in the bed of the valley; and the Dust-Fall gushing from the cliff into feathery, cloud-like vapor; and the peasants in the meadows, gathering their July crop of hay—yet so far below me, that no murmur of their toil came to my ear; but, in place of it, a mountain girl, from a cottage upon the heights, was singing, in the hope of a few pennies, a plaintive Swiss song, which floated pleasantly on the air, and mingled gracefully with the tinkle of the scattered bells, which the kids wore upon the cliffs above. Except these sounds, a silence haunted the whole region. As I lay under the shadow of a broad-limbed walnut, whose leaves scarce stirred in the summer air, the song, and the tinkle of the bells, and the glow of light upon the distant snow-cliffs, and the delicious haze that lingered over the Arcadian valley beneath me, seemed to belong each to each, and to make up a scene in which a life-time might be dreamed away, without a thought of labor or of duty.

It was different when I went there last. It was not in summer, but in autumn. The green of the meadows had given place to the brown tint which betokens the coming-on of winter. The trees on the slopes, as I toiled up the ascent toward the Wengern-Alp, were stripped of half their leaves; and the yellow and tattered remnants were sighing in a cool wind of October. The clouds hung low, and dashed fitfully across the heights. From hour to hour, great fragments of the glacier, loosened by the heavy rains of the previous night, fell thundering into distant mountain abysses. No sunlight rested upon the valley or upon the ice.

It hardly seemed to me the same spot of country which had so caught my fancy, and bewildered me with its quiet beauty years before. And yet there was a sublimity hanging about the landscape and the sky of which I had no sense on the former visit. At that time, the mountains, and the air, and even the lustrous glacier were subdued into quiet harmony with the valley and the valley-brook below. Even the song of the cottage-girl was an according symphony with the tone of nature.

Now, however, the gray landscape, unlighted by any ray of sun light, wore a sober and solemn hue, that lifted even the meadow into grand companionship with the mountains and the glaciers; and the crash of falling icebergs quickened and gave force to the impressions of awe, which crept over me like a chill.

I began to understand, for the first time, that strange and savage reverence which the peasants feel for their mountains. And as the thunder of the falling glaciers echoed among the peaks, I grew insensibly into a fear of the great POWER which lived and reigned in those regions of ice. It seemed to me that darkness would be only needed to drive away all rational estimate of the strange sounds which crashed, and the silence which brooded among the sombre cliffs. I entertained, with a willingness that almost frighted me, the old stories of ice-gods ruling and thundering among the glaciers.

The active, practical, reasoning world, with its throngs and talk, was far below. Greater things were around me, and challenged my fancy.

All the forces which man boasts of were little, compared with those which made their voice heard among the cliffs. It seemed not only possible, but probable, that some great special Intelligence reigned over the giant forces which stirred around me. The old legends of ice-gods took shadow and form. I strode on to the little shelter-place, which lies under the Jungfrau, with the fearful step of one encroaching upon the domain of some august and splendid monarch. I did not once seek to combat the imaginative humors which lent a tone and a consistency to this feeling. I would not, if I could, have resisted the weird impressions of the place.

A terrific storm burst over the mountains, shortly after I had gained shelter in the little châlet of the Ober-Alp. The only company I found was the host, and a flax-haired German student. This last abandoned his pipe as the storm rose, and listened with me silently, and, I thought, with the same measure of awe, to the crash of the avalanches which were loosened by the falling torrents of rain.

"The Ice-King is angry to-night," said our host.

I could not smile at the superstition of the man; a sense of awe was too strong upon me; there was a feeling born of the mountain presence, and of the terrific crash of the glaciers, which forbade my smiling—a feeling as if an Ice-King might be really there to avenge a slight.

Presently there was a louder shock than usual, and the echoes of the report thundered for several minutes among the cliffs. The mountain host went to the door, which looked out toward the Jungfrau; and soon he called us hurriedly to see, as he called it, the Maid of the Glacier.

The bald wall of rock we could see looming dark through the tempest, and the immense caps of glacier, which lay at the top. The host directed our attention to a white speck half-way up the face of the precipice which appeared to rise slowly in a wavy line, and presently to disappear over the edge of the glacier.

"You saw her? said the host excitedly; "you never see her, except after some terrible avalanche."

"What is it?" said I.

"We call her the Bride of the Ice-King," said our host; and he appealed to the German student, who, I found, had been frequently in the Alps, and was familiar with all the legends. And when we were seated again around the fire, which the host had replenished with a fagot of crackling fire-wood, the German re-lighted his pipe, and told us this story of the Bride of the Ice-King. If it should appear tame in the reading, beside a Christmas blaze, it must be remembered, that I listened to it first in a storm at midnight, upon the wild heights of the Scheideck.

MANY, many years ago, (it was thus his story began,) there lived upon the edge of the valley of Lauterbrunnen a peasant, who had a beautiful daughter, by the name of Clothilde. Her hair was golden, and flowed in ringlets upon a neck which would have rivalled that of the fairest statue of antiquity. Her eye was hazel and bright, but with a pensive air, which, if the young herdsmen of the valley looked on only once, they never forgot in their lives.

The mother of Clothilde, who had died when she was young, came, it was said, from some foreign land; none knew of her lineage; and the people of the valley had learned only that the peasant, whose wife she became, had found her lost upon the mountains.

The peasant was an honest man, and mourned for the mother of Clothilde, because she had shared his labors, and had lighted pleasantly the solitary path of his life. But Clothilde, though the mother died when she was young, clung ever tenderly to her memory, and persisted always that she would find her again where her father had found her—upon the mountains. It was in vain they showed her the grave where her mother lay buried, in the village church-yard.

"No, no," she would say, "my mother is not there;" and her eyes lifted to the mountains.

Yet no one thought Clothilde was crazed; not a maiden of all the village of Lauterbrunnen performed better her household cares than the beautiful Clothilde. Not one could so swiftly ply the distaff; not one who could show such store of white cloth, woven from the mountain flax. She planted flowers by the door of her father's cottage; she watched over all his comforts; she joined with the rest in the village balls; but, unlike all the maidens of the village, she would accept no lover.

There were those who said that her smiles were all cold smiles, and that her heart was icy. But these were disappointed ones; and had never known of the tears she shed when she thought of her mother, who was gone.

The father, plain peasant that he was, mourned in his heart when he thought how Clothilde was the only maiden of the village who had no lover; and he feared greatly, as the years flew swiftly over him, for the days that were to come, when Clothilde would have none to watch over her, and none to share her cottage home.

But the pensive-eyed Clothilde put on gaiety when she found this mood creeping over her father's thought, and cheered him with the light songs she had learned from the village girls.

Yet her heart was not in the light songs; for she loved to revel in the wild and mysterious tales belonging to the mountain life. Deeper things, and things more dread than came near to the talk or to the thought of the fellow-villagers, wakened the fancy of the pensive-eyed Clothilde. Whether it was some dreamy memory of the lost mother, or daily companionship with the mountains and the glaciers, which she saw from her father's door, certain it was, that her thought went farther and wider than the thoughts of those around her.

Even the doctrines she learned from the humble curé of the village, blended with the wilder action of her fancy; and though she kneeled, as did the father and the good curé, before the image at the altar of the village church, she seemed to see HIM plainer in the mountains: and there was a sacredness in the pine woods upon the slope of the hill, and in the voice of the avalanches which fell in the time of spring, which called to her mind a quicker sense of the Divine presence and power, than the church chalices or the rosary.

Now, the father of Clothilde had large flocks, for a village peasant. Fifty of his kids fed upon the herbage which grew on the mountain ledges; and half a score of dun cows came every night to his châlet, from the pasture-grounds which were watered by the spray of the Dust-Fall.

Many of the young villagers would have gladly won Clothilde to some token of love; but ever her quiet, pale face, as she knelt in the village church, awed them to silence; and ever her gentle manner, as she clung to the arm of the old herdsman, her father, made them vow new vows to capture the village beauty.

In times of danger, or in times when sickness came to the châlets of the valley, Clothilde passed hither and thither on errands of mercy; and when storms threatened those who watched the kids upon the mountain slopes, she sent them food and wine, and fresh store of blankets.

So the years passed; and the maidens said that Clothilde was losing the freshness that belonged to her young days; but these were jealous ones, and, like other maidens than Swiss maidens, knew not how to forgive her who bore away the palm of goodness and of beauty.

And the father, growing always older, grew sadder at thought of the desolate condition which would soon belong to his daughter Clothilde.

"Who," said the old man, "will take care of the flocks, my daughter? who will look after the dun cows? who will bring the winter's store of fir-wood from the mountains?"

Now, Clothilde could answer for these things; for even the curé of the village would not see the pretty and the pious Clothilde left destitute. But it pained her heart to witness the care that lay upon her father's thought, and she was willing to bestow quiet upon his parting years. Therefore, on a day when she came back with the old herdsman from a village-wedding, she told him that she, too, if he wished, would become a bride.

"And whom will you marry, Clothilde?" said the old man.

"Whom you choose," said Clothilde; but she added, "he must be good, else how can I be good? And he must be brave, for the dangers of the mountain life are many."

So the father and the village curé consulted together, while Clothilde sang as before at her household cares; and lingered, as was her wont at evening, by the chapel of Our Lady of the Snow, in view of the glaciers which rose in the front of the valley.

But the father and the curé could decide upon none who was wholly worthy to be the bridegroom of Clothilde. The people of the valley were honest, and not a young villager of them all but would have made for her a watchful husband, and cared well for the flocks which belonged to her father's fold.

In that day, as now, village fêtes were held in every time of spring, at which the young mountaineers contended with each other in wrestling, and in the cast of heavy boulder-stones, and in other mountain sports, which tried their manliness, and which called down the plaudits of all the village dames. The spring and the spring fêtes were now approaching, and it was agreed between the father and the curé, that where all were so brave and honest, the victor in the village games should receive, for reward, the hand of Clothilde.

The villagers were all eager for the day which was to decide the fortunes of their valley heiress. Clothilde herself wore no cloud upon her brow; but ever, with the same serene look, she busied her hands with her old house-cares, and sang the songs which cheered her old father's heart.

The youth of the village—they were mostly the weaker ones—eyed her askance, and said, "She can have no heart worth the winning, who is won only by a stout arm." And others said still, "She is icy cold, and can have no heart at all."

But the good curé said, "Nay;" and many a one from sick-beds called down blessings on her.

There were mothers, too, of the village, thinking, perhaps, as mothers will, of the fifty kids and of the half-score of dun cows, which would make her dowry, who said, with a wise shake of the head, "She who is so good a daughter will make also a good wife."

Among those who would gladly, long ago, have sought Clothilde in marriage, was a young villager of Lauterbrunnen, whose name was Conrad Friedland.

He was a hunter as well as a herdsman, and he knew the haunts of the chamois upon the upper heights as well as he knew the pasturage-ground where fed the kids which belonged to the father of Clothilde. He had nut-brown hair, and dark blue eyes; and there was not a maiden of the valley, save only the pensive Clothilde, but watched admiringly the proud step of the hunter Friedland.

Many a time her father had spoken of the daring deeds of Conrad, and had told to Clothilde, with an old man's ardor, the tale of the wild mountain-hunts which Conrad could reckon up; and how, once upon a time, when a child was lost, they had lowered the young huntsman with ropes into the deep crevasses of the glacier; and how, in the depths of the icy cavern, he had bound the young child to his shoulder, and been dragged, bruised and half-dead, to the light again.

To all this Clothilde had listened with a sparkle in her eye; yet she felt not her heart warming toward Conrad, as the heart of a maiden should warm toward an accepted lover.

Many and many a time Conrad had gazed on Clothilde as she kneeled in the village church. Many and many a time he had watched her crimson kirtle, as she disappeared among the walnut-trees that grew by her father's door. Many and many a time he had looked longingly upon the ten dun cows which made up her father's flock, and upon the green pasturage ground, where his kids counted by fifty.

Brave enough he was to climb the crags, even when the ice was smooth on the narrow foot-way, and a slip would hurl him to destruction; he had no fear of the crevasses which gape frightfully on the paths that lead over the glaciers; he did not shudder at the thunders which the avalanches sent howling among the heights around him; and yet Conrad had never dared to approach, as a lover might approach, the pensive-eyed Clothilde.

With other maidens of the village he danced and sang, even as the other young herdsmen, who were his mates in the village games, danced and sang. Once or twice, indeed, he had borne a gift—a hunter's gift of tender chamois-flesh—to the old man, her father. And Clothilde, with her own low voice, had said, "My father thanks you, Conrad."

And the brave hunter, in her presence, was like a sparrow within the swoop of a falcon!

If she sang, he listened—as though he dreamed that leaves were fluttering, and birds were singing over him. If she was silent, he gazed on her—as he had gazed on cool mountain-pools when the sun smote fiercely.

The idle raillery of the village he could not talk to her; of love she would not listen; of things higher, with his peasant's voice and mind, he knew not how to talk. And the mother of Conrad Friedland, a lone widow, living only in the love of her son, upon the first lift of the hills, chid him for his silence, and said, "He who has no tongue to tell of love, can have no heart to win it!"

Yet Conrad, for very lack of speech, felt his slumberous passion grow strong. The mountain springs which are locked longest with ice, run fiercest in summer.

And Conrad rejoiced in the trial that was to come, where he could speak his love in his own mountain way, and conquer the heart of Clothilde with his good right arm.

Howbeit, there was many another herdsman of the valley who prepared himself joyously for a strife, where the winner should receive the fifty kids, and the ten dun cows, and the hand of the beautiful Clothilde. Many a mother, whose eye had rested lovingly on these, one and all, bade their sons "Be ready!"

Clothilde alone seemed careless of those, who, on the festal day, were to become her champions; and ever she passed undisturbed through her daily round of cares, kneeling in the village church, singing the songs that gladdened her father's heart, and lingering at the sunset hour, by the chapel of Our Lady of the Snow, whence she saw the glaciers and the mountain-tops glowing with the rich red light from the west.

Upon the night which was before the day of the village fête, it happened that she met the brave young hunter, Conrad, returning from the hills, with a chamois upon his shoulder. He saluted her, as was his wont, and would have followed at respectful distance; but Clothilde beckoned his approach.

"Conrad," said she, "you will contend with the others at the fête to-morrow?"

"I will be there," said Conrad; "and, please the blessed Virgin, I will win such prize as was never won before!"

"Conrad Friedland, I know that you are brave, and that you are strong. Will you not be generous also? Swear to me that if you are the winner in to-morrow's sports, you will not claim the reward which my father has promised to the bravest, for a year and a day."

"You ask what is hard," said Conrad. "When the chamois is near, I draw my bow; and when my arrow is on the string, how can I stay the shaft?"

"It is well for your mountain prizes, Conrad; but bethink you the heart of a virgin is to be won like a gazelle of the mountains?"

"Clothilde will deny me, then?" said Conrad reproachfully.

"Until a year and a day are passed, I must deny," said the maiden. "But when the snows of another spring are melted, and the fête has returned again, if you, Conrad Friedland, are of the same heart and will, I promise to be yours."

And Conrad touched his lips to the hand she lent him, and swore, "by Our Lady of the Snow," that, for a year and a day, he would make no claim to the hand of Clothilde, though he were twice the winner.

The morning was beautiful which ushered in the day of the fêtes. The maidens of the village were arrayed in their gayest dresses, and the young herdsmen of the valley had put on their choicest finery. The sports were held upon a soft bit of meadow-land at the foot of the great glacier which rises in the front of Lauterbrunnen. A barrier of earth and rocks, clothed with fir-trees, separated the green meadow from the crystal mountain which gleamed above. And ever, when the sun smote hotly, the glacier streams, which murmured upon either side of the meadow, made cool the air.

All the people of the village were assembled, and many a young hunter or herdsman beside, from the plains of Interlacken, or from the borders of the Brienzer-See, or from the farther vale of Grindelwald.

But Conrad had no fear of these; for already on many a day of fête, he had measured forces with them, and had borne off the prizes, whether in wrestling or in the cast of the granite boulders. This day he had given great care to his dress; a jerkin of neatly tanned chamois-leather set off his muscular figure, and it was dressed upon the throat and upon the front with those rare furs of the mountains, which betokened his huntsman's craft.

Many a village maiden wished that day she held the place of Clothilde, and that she, too, might have such champion as the brown-haired Conrad.

A rich cap of lace, worked by the village hands, was round the forehead of Clothilde; and, to humor the pride of the old man, her father, she had added the fairest flowers which grew by the cottage-door. But, fair as the flowers were, the face of Clothilde was fairer.

She sat between the old herdsman and the curé, upon one of the rustic benches which circled the plateau of green, where the village sports were held. Tall poles of hemlock or of fir, dressed with garlands of mountain laurel, stood at the end of the little arena, where the valley champions were to contend. Among these were some whose strong arms and lithe figures promised a hard struggle to the hopeful Conrad; and there were jealous ones who would have been glad to humble the pretensions of one so favored by the village maidens, as the blue-eyed hunter, Friedland.

Many looks turned curiously toward the bench, where sat the village belle, whose fortunes seemed to hang upon the fate of the day; but her brow was calm; and there, as ever, she was watchful of the comfort of the old man, her father.

Half of the games had passed over, indeed, before she turned a, curious look upon the strife. Conrad, though second in some of the lesser sports, had generally kept the first rank; and the more vigorous trials to come would test his rivals more seriously, and would, it was thought, give him a more decided triumph.

When the wrestlers were called, there appeared a stout herdsman from the valley of Grindelwald, who was the pride of his village, and who challenged boldly the hunter, Conrad. He was taller and seemed far stronger than Conrad; and there were those—the old herdsman among them—who feared greatly that a stranger would carry off the prize.

But the heart of the brave hunter was fired by the sight of Clothilde, now bending an eager look upon the sports. He accepted the challenge of the stout herdsman, and they grappled each other in the mountain way. The stranger was the stronger; but Conrad, the more active. For a long time they struggled vainly, and the villagers were doubting how the strife might end, when the foot of Conrad, striking a soft bit of turf, failed him, and he fell. There was a low murmur of disappointment; but in an instant, Conrad, by a vigorous effort, freed himself from his rival and was again upon his feet.

They grappled once more, but the heavy herdsman was weary; Conrad pressed him closely; and soon the valley rang with shouts, and the champion of Grindelwald was fairly vanquished.

After this came the cast of the boulders. One after another, the younger men made their trial, and the limit of each cast was marked by a willow wand, and in the cleft of each wand was a fragment of ribbon, bestowed by well-wishing maidens.

Conrad, taking breath after his wrestling-match, advanced composedly to his place at the head of the arena, where stood the fir-saplings with the laurel wreaths. He lifted the boulder with ease, and, giving it a vigorous cast, retired unconcerned. The little blue strip of ribbon which presently marked its fall, was far in advance of the rest.

Again there was a joyous shout. But the men of Grindelwald cried out loudly to their champion, and he came forward; but his arm was tired, and his cast was scarce even with the second of the men of Lauterbrunnen.

Again the shout rose louder than before, and Conrad Friedland was declared by the village umpires of the fête to be the victor, and, by will of the old herdsman, to be the accepted lover of the beautiful Clothilde. They led him forward to the stand where sat the curé, between the old herdsman and the herdsman's daughter.

Clothilde grew suddenly pale. Would Conrad keep his oath?

Fear may have confused him, or fatigue may have forbid his utterance; but he reached forth his hand for the guerdon of the day, and the token of betrothal.

Just then an Alpine horn sounded long and clear, and the echoes lingered among the cliffs and in the spray of the Dust-Fall. It was the call of a new challenger. By the laws of the fête, the games were open until sunset, and the new-comer could not be denied.

None had seen him before. His frame was slight, but firmly knit; his habit was of the finest white wool, closed at the throat with rich white furs, and caught together with latchets of silver. His hair and beard were of a light flaxen color, and his chamois boots were clamped and spiked with polished steel, as if he had crossed the glacier. It was said by those near whom he passed, that a cold current of air followed him, and that his breath was frosted on his beard, even under the mild sun of May.

He said no word to any; but, advancing with a stately air to the little plateau where the fir spars stood crowned with their laurel garlands, he seized upon a boulder larger than any had yet thrown, and cast it far beyond the mark where the blue pennant of Conrad still fluttered in the wind.

There was a stifled cry of amazement, and the wonder grew greater still, when the stranger, in place of putting a willow wand to mark his throw, seized upon one of the fir saplings, and hurled it through the air with such precision and force, that it fixed itself in the sod within a foot of the half-embedded boulder, and rested quivering with its laurel wreath waving from the top.

The victor waited for no conductor; but, marching straight to the benches where sat the bewildered maiden, and her wonder-stricken father, bespoke them thus:

"Fair lady, the prize is won; but if, within a year and a day, Conrad Friedland can do better than this, I will yield him the palm; until then I go to my home in the mountains."

The villagers looked on amazed; Clothilde alone was calm, but silent. None had before seen the stranger; none had noticed his approach, and his departure was as secret as his coming.

The curé muttered his prayers; the village maidens recalled by timid whispers his fine figure, and the rich furs that he wore. And Conrad, recovering from his stupor, said never a word; but paced back and forth musingly, the length of the boulder-cast which the white-clad stranger had made.

The old man swore it was some spirit, and bade Clothilde accept Conrad at once as a protector against the temptations of the Evil One. But the maiden, more than ever wedded to her visionary life by this strange apparition, dwelt upon the words of the stranger, and repeating them, said to her father, "Let Conrad wait for a twelvemonth, and if he passes the throw of the Unknown, I will be his bride."

The sun sank beyond the hills of the Ober-Alp, and with the twilight came a mystic awe over the minds of the villagers. The thoughtful Clothilde fancied the stranger some spiritual guardian: most of all, when she recalled the vow which Conrad had made and had broken. She remarked, moreover, as they went toward their home, that an eagle of the Alps, long after its wonted time of day, hovered over their path, and only when the cottage-door was closed, soared away to the cliffs that lifted above the glaciers of Lauterbrunnen.

The old herdsman began now to regard his daughter with a strange kind of awe. He consulted long and anxiously with the good curé of the village. Could it be that the maid, so near to his heart, was leagued with the spirit-world? He recalled the time when he had met first her mother, wandering upon the mountains. Whence had she come? And was the stranger of the festal day, of some far kindred, who now sought his own? It was remembered how the mother had loved her child, and had borne her in her arms often to the very edge of the glacier, and lulled Clothilde to sleep with the murmur of the deep falls of water, which, in the heats of summer, make mysterious music in the heart of the ice-mountains.

It was remembered how, in girlhood, Clothilde had often wandered thither to pluck Alpine roses, and was heedless always of the icy breath which came from the blue glacier-caverns. Always, too, she hung her votive garlands on the altar of "Our Lady of the Snow," and prayed for the pilgrims, who, in winter, traversed the rude passes of the Ober-Alp. Did the mother belong to the Genius of the Mountain? and was the daughter pledged to the Ice-King again?

The poor old herdsman bowed his head in prayer; the good curé whispered words of comfort; Clothilde sang as she had sung in the days that were gone, but the old man trembled at her low tones, which thrilled now in his ear like the syren sounds, which they say in the Alps, go always before the roar of some great avalanche.

Yet the father's heart twined more and more round the strange spirit-being of Clothilde. It seemed to him, more and more, that the mother's image was before him, and that the mother's soul looked out from the pensive eyes of Clothilde. He said now no word of marriage, but waited with resignation for the dread twelvemonth to pass away. And he looked with pity upon the strong-hearted Conrad, who, fiercer and more daring than before—as if some quick despair had given courage—scaled the steepest cliffs, and brought back stores of chamois-flesh, of which he laid always a portion at the door of the father of Clothilde.

It was said, too, that the young huntsman was heard at night, casting boulder-stones in the valley, and nerving his arm for the trial of the twelvemonth to come.

The maidens of the village eyed askance the tripping figure of the valley belle; the mothers of the young herdsmen spoke less often of the ten dun cows which fed upon her father's pasture-grounds, and counted less often the fifty kids which trooped at night into her father's folds upon the mountain.

Yet ever Clothilde made her sunset walks to the chapel of Our Lady of the Snow, and ever, in her place in the village church, she prayed, as reverently as before, for HEAVEN to bless the years of the life of the old man, her father.

If she lived in a spirit-world, it seemed a good spirit-world; and the crystal glory of the glacier, where no foot could go, and where her gaze loved to linger, imaged to her thought the stainless purity of angels. If the curé talked with Clothilde of the heaven where her mother had gone, and where all the good will follow, Clothilde pointed to the mountains.

Did he talk of worship and the anthems which men sang in the cathedrals of cities?

Clothilde said, "Hark to the avalanche!"

Did he talk of a good spirit, which hovers always near the faithful?

Clothilde pointed upward, where an eagle soared over the glacier, a speck upon the sky.

As the year passed away, mysterious rumors were spread among the villagers; and there were those who said they had seen at eventide, Clothilde talking with a stranger in white, who was like the challenger of the year before. And when the winter had covered the lower hills with white, it was said that traces of strange feet were seen about the little chapel of Our Lady of the Snow.

Howbeit, Clothilde neglected not one of the duties which belonged to her in the household of her father, and her willing heart and hand forbade that either the kind old herdsman or the curé should speak aught ill to her, or forbid her the mountain rambles.

The old mother of Conrad grew frighted, indeed, by the stories of the villagers, and prayed her son to give up all thought of the strange Clothilde, and to marry a maiden whose heart was of warmer blood, and who kept no league with the Evil One. But Conrad only the more resolutely followed the bent of his will, and schooled himself for the coming trial. If they talked to him of the stranger, he vowed with a fearful oath, that, be he who he might, he would dare him to sharper conflict than that of the year before.

So, at length, the month and the day drew near again. It was early spring-time. The wasting snows still whitened the edges of the fields which hung upon the slopes of the mountain. The meadow of the fête had lost the last traces of winter, and a fresh green sod, with sprinkled daisies, glittered under the dew and the sunlight.

Clothilde again was robed with care, and when the old herdsman looked on her, under the wreath she had woven out by his cottage flowers, he forgave her all he had thought of her tie to the spirit-world, and clasped her to his heart—"his own, his good Clothilde!"

On the day before the fête, there had been heavy rain; and the herdsmen from the heights reported that the winter snows were loosening, and would soon come down, after which would be broad summer and the ripening of the crops.

Scarce a villager was away from the wrestling-ground; for all had heard of Clothilde, and of the new and strange comer who had challenged the pride of the valley, and had disappeared—none knew whither.

Was Conrad Friedland to lose again his guerdon?

The games went on, with the old man, the father of Clothilde, looking on timidly, and the good curé holding his accustomed place beside him. There were young herdsmen who appeared this year, for the first time, among the wrestlers, and whom the past twelve month had ripened into sturdy manhood. But the firm and the tried sinews of the hunter Conrad placed him before all these, as he was before all the others. Not so many, however, as on the year before, envied him his spirit-bride. Yet none could gainsay her beauty; for this day her face was radiant with a rich glow, and her clear complexion, relieved by the green garland she wore, made her seem a princess.

As the day's sports went on, a cool, damp wind blew up the valley, and clouds drifted over the summits of the mountains. Conrad had made himself the victor in every trial. To make his triumph still more brilliant, he had even surpassed the throw of his unknown rival of the year before. At sight of this, the villagers raised one loud shout of greeting, which echoed from end to end of the valley. And the brave huntsman, flushed with victory, dared boldly the stranger of the white jerkin and the silver latchets to appear and maintain his claims to the queen of the valley—the beautiful Clothilde.

There was a momentary hush, broken only by the distant murmur of the Dust-Fall. The thickening clouds drifted fast athwart the mountains.

Clothilde grew suddenly pale, though the old herdsman, her father, was wild with joy. The curé watched the growing paleness of Clothilde, and saw her eye lift toward the head of the glacier.

"Bear away my father!" said she, in a quick tone of authority. In a moment the reason was apparent. A roar, as of thunder, filled the valley; a vast mass of the glacier above had given way, and its crash upon the first range of cliffs now reached the ear. The fragments of ice and rock were moving with frightful volume down toward the plateau.

The villagers fled screaming; the father of Clothilde was borne away by the curé; Clothilde herself was, for the time, lost sight of. The eye of Conrad was keen, and his judgment rare. He saw the avalanche approaching, but he did not fly like the others. An upper plateau and a thicket of pine-trees were in the path of the avalanche; he trusted to these to avert or to stay the ruin.

As he watched, while others shouted him a warning, he caught sight of the figure of Clothilde, in the arms of a stranger flying toward the face of the mountain. He rushed wildly after.

A fearful crash succeeded; the avalanche had crossed the plateau, and swept down the fir-trees; the trunks splintered before it, like summer brambles; the detached rocks were hurled down in showers; immense masses of ice followed quickly after, roaring over the débris of the forest, and, with a crash that shook the whole valley, reached the meadow below. Swift as lightning, whole acres of the green sod were torn up by the wreck of the forest-trees and rocks, and huge, gleaming masses of ice; and then, more slowly, with a low murmur, like a requiem, came the flow of lesser snowy fragments, covering the great ruin with a mantle of white.

Poor Conrad Friedland was buried beneath!

The villagers had all fled in safety; but the green meadow of the fêtes was a meadow no longer.

Those who were hindermost in the flight said they saw the stranger in white bearing Clothilde, in her white robes, up the face of the mountain. It is certain that she was never seen in the valley again; and the poor old herdsman, her father, died shortly after, leaving his stock of dun cows and his fifty kids to the village curé, to buy masses for the rest of his daughter's soul.

"THIS," said the German, "is the story of the Bride of the Ice-King;" and he re-lighted his pipe.

The storm had now passed over, and the stars were out. Before us was the giant wall of the Jungfrau, with a little rattle of glacier artillery occasionally breaking the silence of the night. To the left was the tall peak of the Wetterhorn, gleaming white in the starlight; and, far away to the right, we could see the shining glaciers at the head of the Lauterbrunnen valley.

If I ever pass that way again, I shall ask the guides to show me the avalanche under which poor Conrad, the hunter, lies buried.

NOI leggeramo un giorno per diletto
Di LANCILLOTTO, come Amor lo strinse.
Soli eravamo, e senza alcun sospetto."
—DANTE.

SCENE.—A garden of the palace in Rimini. FRANCESCA and PAOLO.

PAOLO.
BUT now for the romance. Where left we off?

FRANCESCA.
Where LANCELOT and Queen GUENEVRA strayed
Along the forest, in the youth of May.
You marked the figure of the birds that sang
Their melancholy farewell to the sun,
Rich in his loss, their sorrow glorified,
Like humble mourners o'er a great man's grave.
Was it not there? No, no; 'twas where they sat
Down on the bank, by one impulsive wish
Which neither uttered.

PAOLO. (Turning over the book.)
Here it is. (Reads.) "So sat
GUENEVRA and Sir LANCELOT." 'Twere well
To follow them in that. (They sit upon a bank.)

FRANCESCA.
I listen: read!
Nay, do not: I can wait, if you desire.

PAOLO. Draw closer: I am weak in voice to-day. (Reads.)

"So sat GUENEVRA and Sir LANCELOT
Under the blaze of the descending sun,
But all his cloudy splendors were forgot.
Each bore a thought—the only secret one
Which each had hidden from the other's heart—
That with sweet mystery well nigh overrun.
Anon, Sir LANCELOT, with gentle start
Put by the ripples of her golden hair,
Gazing upon her with his lips apart.
He marvelled human thing could be so fair;
Essayed to speak; but in the very deed
His words expired of self-betrayed despair.
Little she helped him, at his direst need,
Roving her eyes o'er hill, and wood, and sky,
Peering intently at the meanest weed,
Ay, doing aught but look in LANCELOT'S eye.
Then, with the small pique of her velvet shoe,
Uprooted she each herb that blossomed nigh;
Or strange, wild figures in the dust she drew,
Until she felt Sir LANCELOT'S arm around
Her waist, upon her cheek his breath like dew:
While through his fingers timidly he wound
Her shining locks; and, haply, when he brushed
Her ivory skin, GUENEVRA nearly swooned;
For where he touched, the quivering surface blushed,
Firing her blood with most contagious heat,
Till brow, cheek, neck, and bosom, all were flushed.
Each heart was listening to the other beat.
As twin-born lilies on one golden stalk,
Drooping with summer, in warm languor meet,
So met their faces. Down the forest-walk
Sir LANCELOT looked; he looked, east, west, north, south:
No soul was nigh, his dearest wish to balk;
She smiled; he kissed her full upon the mouth."

He kisses FRANCESCA.

I'll read no more! (Starts up, dashing down the book.)

FRANCESCA.
Paolo!

PAOLO.
I am mad!
The torture of unnumbered hours is o'er,
The straining cord has broken, and my heart
Riots in free delirium! O HEAVEN!
I struggled with it, but it mastered me;
I fought against it, but it beat me down;
I prayed, I wept, but heaven was deaf to me,
And every tear rolled backward on my heart,
To blight and poison!

FRANCESCA.
And dost thou regret?

PAOLO.
The love? no, no! I'd dare it all again,
Its direst agonies and meanest fears,
For that one kiss. Away with fond remorse!
Here, on the brink of ruin, we two stand:
Lock hands with me, and brave the fearful plunge.
Thou canst not name a terror so profound
That I will look or falter from. Be bold!
I know thy love: I knew it long ago;
Trembled and fled from it: but now I clasp
The peril to my breast, and ask of thee
A kindred desperation!

"QUEL giorno piu non vi leggemmo avante."

LONG, long ago, on the banks of the Upper Mississippi, among the tribes of the warlike Sacs, lived a young woman, who for the endearing gentleness of her nature, was called Nit-o-me-ma, or Gentle Dove. The savages in the wilderness acknowledged her power, though revealed only in the majesty of her motions and in the music of her voice. She controlled their avenging passions by her glance of pity, and disarmed them with a woman's tears. The doctrines of the cross accorded well with a spirit so meek and loving, and she became a Christian. The good missionary Marquette came from a distant land, crossed the stormy deep, and pursuing his journey through a trackless country, bore in his hands the Gospel of Peace. Self-sacrificing and devoted, he went upon his errand, proclaiming to the benighted children of the forest the glad tidings of salvation with a resolution which despised all dangers and which knew no fatigue. How sublime is the life of such a follower of CHRIST! But alas! the disciple was treated as his master. His benevolent designs were soon mistaken, and ascribed to motives base and mercenary. Escaping from his pursuers, he went into a solitary place to pray. When they came up with him he was discovered on his knees. It is said that they drew their bows, but, observing that he did not move, they approached and found him dead.

Soon after this, Gentle Dove was married to Omaint-si-ar-nah, son of the nation's chief. Beautiful and manly in person, tall and athletic, with features regular and handsome, skillful and adroit in the use of the bow and in casting the javelin, in battle bold and daring, like his sire, he was, moreover, the faithful friend, the kind husband, the generous host; but he was in temper sanguine, credulous, and jealous.

Scarcely had Gentle Dove become his bride, even with the first waning moon which made her his, when a sudden war-whoop broke upon this dream of bliss. No more the lovers walked within the silent forest or shot the rapids in their light canoe. Tender and impassioned was their early parting; and should they never see each other more upon the transitory earth, they vowed to meet unchanged in love upon the shadowy confines of the spirit-land. Omaint-si-ar-nah smoothed the tresses of his Gentle Dove, held her hand in momentary silence, then turned his back, and walked erect to meet his warriors in the grove. Towering above the naked and be-painted group, he waved his arm, and with a bold untutored eloquence, he recounted insults and kindled up the passion of revenge. Wild gestures, and a yell more dreadful than the beasts make in concert, attested that his words had taken effect. Calling Que-la-wah, "Faithful Friend," he walked aside, and bade him save his scalping-knife and unstring his supple bow. He could have no part in the present foray, although he was a warrior of approved renown. Que-la-wah must remain behind, and to his good protection during her lord's absence he committed Gentle Dove. Then, having received assurance, the chief once more called his band around him, and marched without delay to take revenge upon the distant tribes.

The art of writing was unknown; but every month he sent a trusty courier from his camp with a verbal message to his wife, and received her missives in return. Loitering and tedious was this method for the impatience of affection, but dearer than volumes were the true words when they arrived. Omaint-si-ar-nah sometimes drank them into his ear as he reclined by the camp-fires at midnight, and the music of water-falls was not so sweet. They nerved his arm for a score of battles, though but the plaining of a dove. How welcome the surprises when he heard the dry leaves crackling, and seized his bow and stole without the tent, expecting an enemy in ambush, and lo! a messenger from his love! Thus to and fro, like shining arrows shot and returned, were reciprocated these missives of two faithful hearts, until they suddenly ceased. Omaint-si-ar-nah walked in gloom. He thought his courier had fallen a victim to the foe.

Que-la-wah, "Faithful Friend," had become enamored of Gentle Dove, and sought by every means to win her from her rightful lord. She spurned his offers with indignation, but he did not cease to torment her with his appeals. The old and the very young were all who remained in the tribe, and she needed protection from her protector. Meantime, being much perplexed in spirit, she had a dream. An awful form stood before her, and told her that the Virgin loved her, and promised to reveal the future to her eyes. What she had suffered from Que-la-wah was but a beginning of greater woes to come; for he in whom her soul delighted should be deceived, forsake his faithful wife, and she should narrowly escape with life. Moreover, there should be a strife for empire, and a race of white men who had gained a footing near the rising sun, from small beginnings should sweep over and subdue the entire land. Still her own nation should not be without renown, for lo! a chief should arise who should bear sway over many tribes, and lead his warriors to successful battles; and when at last his limbs should be bound in fetters, his soul would be unsubdued: his name should never perish, and the Holy Virgin would vouchsafe protection to Gentle Dove.

Omaint-si-ar-nah dispatched another messenger. Meantime, Que-la-wah, finding that his proffers were rejected, vowed revenge. He bribed the courier whom the chieftain sent with tidings to his wife, so that she received them not, and returned no answer; but he bore back word that he had delivered them, and that Gentle Dove had treated them with marked contempt; that she was inconstant and abandoned, and had violated her pledge. On the receipt of these cruel tidings, the chief went into a paroxysm of rage. He commanded those who stood near him to draw their bows and shoot him. As none obeyed, he was about to drive a dart into his own breast, but the weapon was wrested from his hand. Then the flame of love being quite extinguished, a violent hate reigned in its place, and he resolved that the base woman who had betrayed his hopes should speedily die. He dispatched an emissary, to whom he gave secret orders to entice his wife into the forest, under pretence that he bore tidings from her lord, when he should slay her, and immediately return to the camp, bringing with him a lock of her hair as a pledge that his errand had been accomplished.

The round orb of the setting sun was just visible above the waves of the yellow Mississippi. Nito-me-ma stood in the door of her tent, weeping and dejected, pressing to her bosom her new-born child, and sometimes, according to the faith which she had imbibed, appealing to the protection of the Virgin, sobbing out in short ejaculations, "O sweet Mary, holy Mary, Mother of GOD, pray for me!" Thus engaged in devotion, her eyes were uplifted to heaven; but when again they were cast downward, a strange form stood before her. So stealthily had he glided through the thickets, that his presence was like that of a spirit. For a moment he stood erect in silence, as if spell-bound by her charms.

The expression of maternal love added a new grace to the pale face of the poor child of sorrow, and her bright yet tender eyes were brimming over with tears. Her hair, as if unloosed on purpose to be rifled for the sacrificial token, fell upon her glossy shoulders and almost touched the ground, and, like a mute and unoffending victim, ready for the altar, she stood as if to wait the mandate of the avenging priest.

The stranger stretched his naked arm, and pointed with his finger to the sun. "See!" he said, in a low voice like a whisper, "he is departing; the day is almost dead. The winds cease to move the tree-leaves; the waves cease to murmur. But it is not dark; it is not silent. Go with me to the deepest thicket at a distance from the curling smoke of tents. Over the mountains I have come, through the rivers. A message sent so far for one beloved is not for common ears. Fear not, Gentle Dove!"

Trembling and agitated, still pressing her babe to her breast and praying as she went, she followed his footsteps, which were rapid, so that she could scarce keep pace with them, with her burden in her arms. It was nearly dark when, arriving at a most secluded spot, her guide suddenly turned, and without the delay of a moment, as if he feared that pity might gain the mastery over him in the sight of so much beauty, assumed a stern aspect, and commanded her to lay down her child.

"Nito-me-ma!" he exclaimed, "prepare to die instantly, as the penalty of unfaithfulness. I am the avenging messenger of your husband, and I dare not disobey his bidding. That the blow may be surer and less painful, do not resist a fate which is inevitable. Kneel!"

He snatched his tomahawk from his girdle, and raised it on high. Gentle Dove, who, for her own sake, would have gladly died, looked on her innocent child; then, with a wild, impassioned eloquence, begged a few moments respite to send up a prayer to GOD. Her request was granted, and she poured forth her soul for heavenly aid in such a strain as well might make the angels weep. The GREAT SPIRIT heard it. The delay which had been allowed by Omaint-si-ar-nah's messenger was fatal to his resolution. Three times he whirled his hatchet round his head, then struck it deep into the trunk of the nearest tree, and yielded to compassion. In truth, his savage soul had first been melted when he stood before the tent.

He spared the life of Nito-me-ma on one condition: that she would retire into the thickest forest, and never more be seen among her tribe. Having exacted such a promise, he shore a long lock of her raven hair, gazed at her in a long, admiring silence, replaced his hatchet in his girdle, and then, as loth to go, he turned upon his heel and stalked away. "I have disobeyed my chieftain," he wailed aloud when at a little distance; then he beat his breast and exclaimed, "The GREAT SPIRIT is my chieftain, and HE spoke to me from here." He was inclined to turn again and shield the unprotected wanderer; but when he reached the river's brink he flung himself into his bark canoe, and waiting for the moon to rise, he slept upon the murky tide.

Gentle Dove, when left alone to perish, as might be supposed, by a more cruel, lingering death, moved slowly onward through the dark, she knew not where. Entering a deep hollow, she found it filled with dry leaves, and, lying down with her child, the breeze of the night came along, and with a sudden gust, covered them lightly with the same, so that the chilling dews should not benumb them. More useful thus the perished twigs than when upon the oaken crowns they shone in glossy verdure, and were vital in the spring-time of the year. The wolves howling for their evening repast might be heard in the distance, but Nito-me-ma slept sweetly on her sylvan couch, and feared no evil. On the morrow she rose up refreshed, and went away into her woody exile far from her husband's tent. She would return no more, but GOD would be her sole protector. For three days she travelled in the forest, till, arriving at a very secret place, where she perceived no trails had been, she kneeled upon the sod, and, by a short act of private devotion, consecrated it as her future home. It was a narrow vale, sheltered by a gigantic growth, and without brambles or under wood. The soft green sod was a carpet for her bare feet, and a pure fountain gushed up hard by from a bed of little white pebbles. A snail's shell served as a water-cup, and searching in the neighborhood for a place to build her tent, a vast tree, hollowed out at the base, was revealed to her, quite ample in accommodation for herself and child. She now sought the means of life, that the fount which flowed in her bosom might not be dry. Roots and berries would not supply its rich life-stream, but Nito-me-ma had not lived in the forest in vain. Wandering beyond the limits of her domain, she came upon an open place in the wilderness where the sun shone down, and her eyes were delighted by the sight of a field of wild maize. Day by day she transported the treasure to her habitation, until it was all housed and her bread was sure. From the white husks she wove a matting for her habitation, and the sweet stalks she stored away elsewhere, and she beat the grain in a rude mortar; but as she sat in the door-way, Nito-me-ma reflected that she had no fire to bake the crisp-cakes withal. But the same GOD who gave her daily bread struck a dry pine-tree in one of his glorious storms, and enkindled its bark as if with the very sparks of His pity. From that time the flame died not on the domestic hearth; and when the shades of night came down, it shone with soft effulgence on the mother and her child. Nito-me-ma found a sharp-edged stone in the brook, with which she hewed down a lithe sapling, and having woven a strong cord for her bow, and selected some reeds for arrows, she shot the little birds and dressed them for food, and she entrapped the mountain trout in their fastnesses, and preserved them in the waters of a salt spring which she discovered about a league off from her home. She laid away great store of dried fruits and berries, and pleasant herbs and flowers, and sassafras and birch, and sweet barks. In one moon before the hoar frosts had whitened the ground, her store-house was so well furnished that she could have no dread of famine, and might even entertain a pilgrim in distress. The furniture of her abode accorded also with her wants: a bed made of dry husks, with a covering of the same, a chair woven of the wild willow, and a slight table of the same; for cups, gourds and snail-shells, and vessels of rude pottery made by her own hands. At morning, noon, and night, she offered prayers to GOD, and invoked the Virgin.

Gentle Dove seemed to live within a charmed circle. Wild beasts and venomous serpents did not find their way therein, and the more dreaded foot of man intruded not; but myriads of birds flew into the inclosures, both those of gorgeous plumage and of dulcet song—the bobolink and the oriole, and the pure white doves. The humming-birds came in quest of honeysuckles and the Missouri rose-buds, which clustered around the poor child's door. Moreover, the fawns skipped on the grass before the hollow tree, but she could not find it in her heart to pierce them with her arrows. They were the delight of her eyes, and at last approached and ate out of her hand. While her child slumbered on the bed of husks, Gentle Dove sat without, singing in a low sweet voice the hymns Marquette had taught her; nor were these moments spent in idleness: she wove willow baskets, or made sandals from the bark of trees, blankets, and garments for her little one. Oh! how sweetly it slumbered!—it seemed to thrive more and more every day, and in features more and more resembled its mother. "Morning-Glory" was its name, and every morning Nito-me-ma took it to the spring, and poured the cold crystal waters upon it, so that it became hardy, and its olive complexion glowed with health. She had already baptized it, but not in the waves of the fountain. When she first came into the wilderness, perceiving that the child's face was wet with tears which had dropped from her own eyes, she signed the cross upon its forehead, and in those holy drops which welled up from a broken heart, christened it in the name of the undivided TRINITY. Swung upon her shoulders, Morning-Glory was the constant attendant of all her walks, no matter how great the distance, or what additional burden she expected to bear.

A mother with her child, can feel no solitude. Every place is a desert without it; with it, there are people enough in the unpeopled waste. It is music where there is no voice, and speech where there is no language, and a host of friends where all have departed, a blue sky where there is nothing but clouds, and a flower in the unwatered wilderness. But this little wood-nymph, in its hollow tree, made the whole ground enchanted. The winds sighing in the branches seemed to Gentle Dove like angels of heaven which whispered its lullaby. Alas! it was only when she thought that her child was without a father, that this dream of bliss was doomed to be interrupted. But never had her love for her husband become abated, nor had such cruel treatment stirred one feeling of resentment in her soul. In truth, she hardly learned to love him till she was forced to pity and forgive!

How different from this peaceful sanctuary the scenes where Omaint-si-ar-nah walked in gloom! With desperate rage he rushed into the thick of battle. He raged and ravened like a wolf upon the bloody field, and scalped his foes and brought off many trophies; but most of all, he sought to terminate a life which was no longer to be desired. The very sun was hateful to his sight, and so irascible became his temper, that his own friends would scarce approach him in his fits of moody melancholy, lest in a moment he should strike them dead. He had been deceived by the wife of his bosom, in whom he trusted, and he now suspected all of being traitors. In fact, he was betrayed and blinded; but she who was so grossly injured did not cease to pray for his preservation, and that the scales might be removed from her husband's eyes.

One day, with bow and arrows, and a basket on her arm and with Morning-Glory on her back, Gentle Dove went forth to search for eggs of pheasants and the prairie-hen. She wandered far, and was just stooping to complete her store, when her quick ear detected the approaching sound of steps. Gliding into a thicket, she moved not and dared scarcely breathe. In a moment, Que-la-wah, detested traitor, appeared in sight. Low stooping, with his eyes fastened on the ground, he examined footsteps in the sand. Then he laid down his bow and game, and first looking upward, stood with his back against a tree.

"GOD of Justice!" exclaimed Gentle Dove, "nerve thy weak creature's arm!"

She placed her child upon the ground, chose from her quiver a Well-sharpened arrow and fitted it to the string. Fixing her keen eye for the moment on the mark she aimed at, she drew the weapon to its flinty head and let it speed. The whizzing shaft just grazed the ear of the false savage, and quivered in the bark.

"Lost!" said Gentle Dove, but did not remove her gaze, and fitted another arrow to the string.

Que-la-wah leaped aloft and uttered a terrific yell, and leaving after him his bow and game, fled quickly to the thickest woods. Then Nito-me-ma inscribed a cross upon the tree in token of deliverance, and gathering at its foot the small wild flowers, she bore them home and wove a votive chaplet for her shrine.

The autumn passed away; the falling leaves and sombre skies announced that winter was at hand. Nito-me-ma laid up a great store of brushwood, and dry turf and pitchy bark, and prepared a wadded curtain for the opening in the hollow tree, and made thick brooms of twigs wherewith to sweep away the snows, and little lamps of clay to be used in the long winter evenings, and garments of the furs of rabbits, and a soft couch for her child from the down of the prairie-hen, and treasured up eggs in the waters taken from the salt spring. Thus having done all for safety which her knowledge prompted, she waited without apprehension for the cutting blasts and for thick-falling snows. Beautiful and like a conqueror came on October in the distant west, with gorgeous plumes and purple hues, like hectic flushes of the dying. A thin blue vapor floated over vale and mountain-top; the air was fragrant with the scent of straw berry-leaves, while the still genial sun encouraged vegetation and wooed the prairie-rose to bloom. The wild grapes hung in tempting clusters from the high trees of the forest, as if the produce of the elm and vine. Then often at the hour of sunset, when the birds hid their heads beneath their wings, and all the labors of the day were finished, would Nito-me-ma sing an evening hymn, or with a low and plaintive melody, strike into a little voluntary of her own:

"My MORNING-GLORY is the pride of the forest:
Nothing so sweet beneath the stars:
Opens its blue eyes in the morning and closes its lids at night:
It has but a slender support to lean on,
For its strong prop has been taken away.
It climbs o'er a sorrowful ruin,
And its cup, it is filled with briny tears.
Wind round me, sweet MORNING-GLORY,
And bind up the stem which holds up thee."

At last the snows descended and lay in pyramidal layers on the pines and evergreens, and the air was nipping cold, but it entered not the barken inclosure, nor touched the little nymph at the foot of the oak. Gentle Dove was happy in those dark days. The snow-birds hopped about her abode, to receive crumbs from her humble table, and left their footprints all around. She had no book to read from, nor had she learned the art of reading, but Morning-Glory was an opening and expanding revelation, full of poetry and irradiated with hope. At night, when the winds howled, and, in sympathy with the uplifted head, the sides of the living house in which she dwelt were contorted and sent forth groans as if in pain, she made moccasins by the dim light of her lamp, with her feet near the hot embers, and so beguiled the weary time. She dared not wander during the wintry months, for the wolves were hungry, and their howlings could be heard for miles on the air. Beyond the forests the illimitable prairies were covered with a white mantle, and the Father of Waters was frozen-up.

When the natal day of the LORD came, Gentle Dove adorned her sanctuary with laurel and with green twigs, and out of doors built an altar of pure white snows, and wreathed it round with running vines, and placed thereon the dried-up votive chaplet, and she called it the Altar of Deliverance. It was not destitute of other offerings, for the trees dropped icicles, and covered it with crystal gems. At last the thaws began, and the green blades of grass peeped forth upon the sunny knolls, and the blue violets appeared, first heralds of the spring, and the fragrant buds swelled out, and tender leaves appeared. Another ordeal had been safely passed, while new hope and confidence animated the grateful heart of Nito-me-ma. She came forth from her retreat, and erected a summer bower more ample in accommodations than the one which she left, working at it during the intervals in which her child reposed. She bent the crowns of tall young saplings, and fastening them together at the top with strong cords, she interwove the intervals with pliant boughs, and having completed it in a short time moved thither her domestic goods. So sweetly stole the hours away, and never was one more happy in unhappiness, or more supported when support appeared to be withdrawn.

The arrival of the lovely month of May awakened a feeling of ecstasy in the heart of Gentle Dove. In that month she was born and married, and in that her child was born; nay, more, at that season she had been converted to the religion of the Cross, and every fortunate circumstance of her life was connected with it, and it was associated with a thousand happy memories. Its balmy breath infused new life into her system, for she was somewhat pale and wan with watching and confinement, and again she hurried forth with Morning-Glory on her shoulders, to gather flowers in the distant vale. Her provision of maize was still far from exhausted, but she had been obliged to mix the cakes with water, and long ago the bread had become poor to the taste. Her unpampered palate required still the luxury of milk. She was just thinking of this, although by no means murmuring, when, in a grassy nook, she suddenly encountered a female buffalo quietly grazing, with her young by her side. It was as tame as if brought up among the haunts of men. She fed it with hand's-full of green and tender grass, and, unmolested, placed her tiny palms upon its forehead. When she retreated, the cow followed her, and never ceased to track her footsteps until she arrived before her bower. From that time she drained its milk day by day in the hollow of a wild gourd, and it gave sustenance to herself and to her child.

Nito-me-ma used to rise at day-break, and, after washing herself in the cool brook, and offering up her devotions, she walked within sight of her home until the time of her morning meal. In one of these excursions she was clambering up a ledge of rocks when she dipped her hands into some wild honeycomb filled with sweets, and made of the earliest flowers of spring. Thoughtlessly she broke it into fragments, and piled the delicious masses into an apron made of leaves, while all around her head the bees buzzed busily without the infliction of a sting. Although in faith a Christian, Gentle Dove adhered religiously to many customs of her ancestors, so far as they did not conflict with her Christian faith. She loved her tribe and people, and her own dear home, from which she was banished, and she longed to dwell again among her kindred, to assuage their ferocious spirit, and to teach them the offices of kindness and of love. Day after day passed away in her hopeless solitude, and brought no tidings from her distant lord. Yet she had the most manifest proofs of the Divine protection in the little miracles which diversified her lonely career. The courier had taken that lock of hair from her devoted head, and carried it to Omaint-si-ar-nah at his encampment, who supposed that his cruel mandate had been obeyed. Hence he continued to be reckless of life, and did not make haste to return to the homes of his fathers.

In the mean time Morning-Glory increased in stature, and was straight and slender as a reed. So soon as she could be made to comprehend, she was instructed in the first principles of the Christian faith. In the cathedral-like and solemn gloom of primitive woods, each day her little hands were clasped in prayer, and the whole place was rendered consecrate. There was a music in her lisping voice, which rose to heaven with a more buoyant ease than sound of organs and of jubilant anthems in the temple-naves. In the pure waters of the spring, which gushed up hard by, might sometimes be seen a wild little picture, the image of Morning-Glory—her face stained with berries, her hair stuck full of the feathers of gay birds, and her waist wound around with a cincture of flowers. She was already skillful in the use of the bow and in casting a small javelin; she was no longer swung upon her mother's back, nay, in case of danger and attack, Morning-Glory might have been an efficient auxiliary, because she could direct a deadly arrow, and did not know the sentiment of fear. But her mother did not permit her out of sight for a moment. Deprived of her sweet child, her sole companion, the spirits of Gentle Dove would have sunk beyond recovery. One morning, having slept soundly, on awaking, she found that Morning Glory had risen before her, and gone out of the house. In dread alarm, she rushed into the wood, and lifted up her voice, and shrieked aloud; but no answer was returned, save the mocking echo, "Morning-Glory! Morning-Glory!" She ran hither and thither, she knew not where, and peered into the thickets with a keen eye, and tried to track her by the footprints of her tiny feet, and kept continually calling her by name, weeping and beating her breast the while, but no Morning-Glory! Exhausted by exertion, and overpowered with grief, Gentle Dove came and cast her self upon her cot in an agony bordering on despair. But as the day declined, and she had given up all for lost, the clear and ringing laughter of the little rover was heard without, and she approached with two young turtle-doves, which she had only slightly wounded. Nito-me-ma clasped her to her bosom, and her convulsions of joy were almost fatal. When a little recovered, she thought to punish her for so wild and disobedient an act, but she could not find in her heart to lay a finger upon her, and she did nothing but weep upon the head of Morning-Glory a shower of sparkling tears.

The child had, perhaps, attained her sixth year, and the life in the grove was but little varied, when Omaint-si-ar-nah, tired of roaming, returned with his warriors to the place whence they had set out. His wigwam was burned to the ground, his old mother was dead, his Gentle Dove (as he thought) was murdered. He walked apart and spent his days in gloom, while his warriors dared not approach him, for he was more ferocious and hostile in spirit than before. One day he was wandering listlessly on the bank of a stream, waiting for a deer which was swimming with its current, when his attention was attracted by some hieroglyphics on a tree, understood by Nito-me-ma and him self. They were the emblems of true love; and, on close inspection, he discovered that some of them had been freshly made, and signified affection which has changed not, and which is unchangeable. Their time of being made was posterior surely to that when she whom he suspected had been accounted false. Then the sad truth flashed in on his benighted soul; he struck his brow with violence, and groaned aloud. He took the raven tresses from his bosom, sole relic of his once-loved wife, and, sitting down upon a fallen trunk, spake to himself in mournful accents, and in the figurative language of the Indian tribes: "O Nito-me-ma, Dove of the Forest, Beautiful Pride of the Prairie, torn away by cruel fate. Her breath was sweeter than the mountain balm; her eyes were like the wild fawn's eyes; and her teeth, white as the snow-flakes newly fallen. Where wanders my love by the crystal rivers of the Spirit-Land? Omaint-si-ar-nah's heart is gloomy as the cypress-grove at midnight when the moon goes down. His arm has lost its strength, and his feet cease from running. O Gentle Dove, come to me from the land of ghosts!"

"The chief walks alone," said a voice almost at Omaint-si-ar-nah's ear. He turned, and Gray-Eagle stood before him, the commissioner of blood.

"Ha!" said the former, clutching in his hand the lock of hair, "you have executed your errand well, and have shed innocent blood." He restored the lock to his bosom, placed his left hand on the hatchet in his girdle, and raising his right arm to heaven, "By the GREAT SPIRIT!" he added, "we shall both die, and that before yon sun goes down."

Gray-Eagle stood erect and smiled a moment without reply. He walked slowly down to the margin of the brook, dipped a shell in water, and poured it over his hands.

"Thou art not exonerated," said Omaint-si-ar-nah.

"I am, Chief," replied the Gray-Eagle.

Omaint-si-ar-nah grasped his tomahawk, and made a threatening motion as if to strike him dead.

Gray-Eagle smiled again, and did not move.

"Hear me," he said; "I have disobeyed my chieftain, but these hands have not been stained with blood. The Gentle Dove still lives."

"Lives!" said the other, and he clasped his hands and stood a long time rooted to the soil—"lives!" he exclaimed in ecstasy; "then I live; then the sun shines; then the grass grows. Speak on."

"I never slew her. I brought you but the token of unchanged affection, and not the stain of blood. I have not made your house desolate, nor your child motherless."

The chieftain struck his javelin in the earth. "My child?" he shrieked in a voice which made the woods ring again, a combination of ecstasy and agony and surprise—"my child?"

"Your child!" replied the Gray-Eagle.

"Whither gone?" said Omaint-si-ar-nah.

"You ask too much of me," answered the Gray-Eagle. "If I did not take away their lives, could I keep them from dying? A man can kill, but the GREAT SPIRIT keeps alive, and HE only. I know not where they are."

"Enough," said Omaint-si-ar-nah. "All will be well. Gray-Eagle soars aloft and stoops not low." With the end of his spear he described a circle on the ground, and, placing the end of it in the centre, he drew many radii. "To-night," he said, "we sleep as if the sleep of death. When the sun dawns, each man, yea, every woman of the tribe, will start from here, and travel toward the rising and the setting sun, and every point, until she is found whom my soul loveth."

"Stay!" said Gray-Eagle, "you will go too early in the search. Punish traitors first before you haste to seek for the betrayed. Your Faithful Friend is at the bottom of this mischief. Que-la-wah strove to win the Gentle Dove. She drove him off with fierce rebuke, and hence he vowed revenge."

Omaint-si-ar-nah grasped the hand of the Gray-Eagle, and while a fierce vindictive look flashed over him, he said, "To-morrow! yes, to-morrow!" then pressed the lock of hair unto his lips, wrapped his blanket round him, and sank upon the ground, even on the very spot where he had stood and slept.

Soon as the first beams of day appeared, the chief went forth alone to punish a man who had betrayed his trust. He found Que-la-wah gathering sticks to make his morning meal. "Base villain," he exclaimed, "thou shalt die." And with that he beat him to the earth, and left his body for the crows and vultures of the air to prey upon. Thus did the spirit of implacable revenge find place in the same heart which was just opening anew to the genial influences of affection. Que-la-wah suffered not beyond his just deserts. The ruthless invader of the domestic sanctuary is held a savage among savages, and unworthy to enjoy the boon of life.

Omaint-si-ar-nah dispatched his warriors and chosen men, while he and Gray-Eagle set their faces due north to hunt up the nest of Gentle Dove. A secret voice assured him that she still lived. For three days they travelled to no purpose, calling loudly, wherever they went, the name of Nito-me-ma.

"A cruel husband," said the chief, sorrowfully, "who banishes his wife, puts her, indeed, afar off. Great is the interval betwixt them. Moons wax and wane. Rivers flow. Time and distance interpose their great gulfs. There is no straight line; we wander uncertain, for the ways of the ungrateful are crooked."

On the fourth day, Omaint-si-ar-nah found an arrow sticking in an oak, and beneath it were hieroglyphic symbols lately cut, for the wounded bark had not long healed over them. Here was the spot where the lurking traitor stood who had since met his doom. The chief examined the inscription carefully, then clapped his hands and uttered a slight yell. Gray-Eagle made a signal from a distance. On the margin of a brook he had discovered the tiny foot-prints of a child, and near by were pebbles and smooth stones arranged upon the sands, while a critical scrutiny of the surrounding places showed that the twigs had been slightly bent aside or broken. Following these indications for several hours, and often losing the faint trail toward sun-down, Omaint-si-ar-nah paused suddenly.

"I smell the smell of smoke," said he. "Wigwams are not far off." He put his ear close to the ground, then rose up, tightened his girdle, and called Gray-Eagle to his side. "Advance," said he, moving with rapidity, "let not the grass grow in the path." As the day declined, they came upon the certain signs of a habitation. The earth was well tracked and beaten in diverging foot-paths, the sound of voices began to be heard, and the low chaunting of an Indian song. At last the bower of Gentle Dove appeared in sight. She sat without it in the shade, engaged in painting and in decorating barken sandals, and busily intent upon her work. Morning-Glory was feeding the tame buffalo with handfuls of the wild clover. Omaint-si-ar-nah remained unobserved for a few moments; then he commanded Gray-Eagle to stand at a distance, and, silently approaching, stood before his wife. Confounded at his sudden presence, she rose up, and was deprived of speech. A sudden pallor diffused itself over her features, and she trembled like an aspen leaf in the breeze. The chief lifted her in his arms; he pressed her to his bosom; he kissed her cold brow again and again, and as he smoothed down her glossy locks with his hand, and spoke in the accents of tenderness, big tears rolled down his scarred and furrowed countenance. Nito-me-ma dropped her head upon his shoulder and wept, then beckoning to Morning-Glory, lightly and gracefully the child came leaping to her mother. Omaint-si-ar-nah burst into a loud yell of extreme delight. He caught her in his arms, adorned her neck with tinkling ornaments, and called her Dancing Fawn, and Rippling Rill, and Waving Feather, and all the endearing titles which he knew, but she said her name was Morning-Glory. She did not fear the warrior's savage aspect, and with her earliest speech she had been taught the name of father. Omaint-si-ar-nah beckoned to Gray-Eagle, who still kept aloof, and told him to approach. Then Nito-me-ma prepared a sumptuous entertainment for her guests; smoked meats, and cakes of Indian maize, and snow-white milk, and honey-comb, and dainties long laid up. Pleasantly the time passed in mutual narrative, and on the morrow they prepared to hurry back to the deserted camp. Great was the joy of the whole tribe on the return of Gentle Dove and Morning-Glory. Three whole days were spent in rejoicing. Feasts were spread in profusion while the young amused themselves with dances and wrestling and ball-play, and the sports adapted to their age.

The second nuptials were never marred by bitterness or grief. Moon followed moon, and plenty blessed the tribe, which laid aside the hatchet as if a peaceful angel came into their midst. A Christian church now stands upon the spot where the poor pilgrim raised her cross within the hollow of the tree, and the sweet sound of Sunday chimes invites the worshippers of GOD. Omaint-si-ar-nah lost his savage nature, though he did not openly profess the faith of CHRIST; but when the evening of his days came on, and she who had been true to him till death slept with her fathers in the quiet grave, to children grouped around in listening attitudes, the old man loved to call up memories of the past, and tell the story of his long-lost GENTLE DOVE.

NOTE.—For many of the facts contained in the above legend, the author is indebted to a poem called "BLACK HAWK," written by ELBERT H. SMITH.

STAND here by my side and turn, I pray,
On the lake below thy gentle eyes;
The clouds hang over it, heavy and gray,
And dark and silent the water lies;
And out of that frozen mist the snow
In wavering flakes begins to flow;
Flake after flake,
They sink in the dark and silent lake.

See how in a living swarm they come
From the chambers beyond that misty veil.
Some hover awhile in air, and some
Rush prone from the sky like summer hail.
All, dropping swiftly or settling slow,
Meet and are still in the depth below;
Flake after flake,
Dissolved in the dark and silent lake.

Here delicate snow-stars, out of the cloud
Come floating downward in airy play,
Like spangles dropped from the glistening crowd
That whiten by night the milky way;
There broader and burlier masses fall;
The sullen water buries them all;
Flake after flake,
All drowned in the dark and silent lake.

And some, as on tender wings they glide
From their chilly birth-cloud, dim and gray,
Are joined in their fall, and, side by side,
Come clinging along their unsteady way;
As friend with friend or husband with wife
Makes hand in hand the passage of life;
Each mated flake
Soon sinks in the dark and silent lake.

Lo! while we are gazing, in swifter haste
Stream down the snows, till the air is white,
As, myriads by myriads madly chased,
They fling themselves from their shadowy height.
The fair frail creatures of middle sky,
What speed they make with their grave so nigh;
Flake after flake,
To lie in the dark and silent lake!

I see in thy gentle eyes a tear;
They turn to me in sorrowful thought;
Thou thinkest of friends, the good and dear,
Who were for a time and now are not;
Like these fair children of cloud and frost,
That glisten a moment, and then are lost,
Flake after flake,
All lost in the dark and silent lake.

Yet look again, for the clouds divide;
A gleam of blue on the water lies;
And far away, on the mountain side,
A sunbeam falls from the opening skies.
But the hurrying host that flew between
The cloud and the water no more is seen;
Flake after flake,
At rest in the dark and silent lake.

THE three passengers on board of the clipper-ship Sea-Serpent, bound from Whampoa to New-York, were greatly delighted to learn from Capt. Howland, on the day when they crossed the tropic of Capricorn, that the water was getting short, and he had therefore decided to touch at St. Helena for a fresh supply. We had already been more than sixty days on board, and the sea, with all its wonderful fascination, was growing monotonous. Here was an event which, in addition to its positive interest, would give us at least five days of anticipation and a week of active remembrance, virtually shortening our voyage to that extent; for at sea we measure time less by the calendar than by our individual sense of its duration. I have spent several months on shipboard, when, according to the almanac, barely a fortnight had elapsed.

The trade-wind bore us slowly northward, and when I went on deck at sunrise, four days afterward, St. Helena was in sight, about twenty-five miles distant. It was a dark-blue mass, filling about twenty degrees of the horizon, and of nearly uniform elevation above the sea, but gradually resolved itself into sharper and more broken outlines as we approached. Except upon a lofty terrace on the southern side, where there was a tinge of green and some traces of fields, the coast presented a frightfully rocky and inhospitable appearance. Nevertheless it displayed some grand effects of coloring. The walls of naked rock, several hundred feet high, which rose boldly from the sea, in some places overhanging their base, were tinted as by

"the deep-blue gloom
Of thunder-shower,"

the hollow chasms between them being filled with gorgeous masses of purple-black shadow, under the sultry clouds which hung over the island. At the south-eastern extremity were two pointed, isolated rocks, probably a hundred feet high. We stood around the opposite extremity of the island, making for the port of Jamestown, which faces the north-west. The coast on this side rises into two bold heads, one of which projects outward like a gigantic capstan, while the other runs slantingly up to a pointed top, which is crowned with a signal station. The rock has a dark bluish-slate color, with streaks of a warm reddish-brown, and the strata, burst apart in the centre, yet slanting upward toward each other like the sides of a volcano, tell of upheaval by some tremendous subterranean agency. The structure of the island is purely volcanic, and, except the rock of Aden, on the coast of Arabia, I never saw a more forbidding spot.

The breeze increased as we drew near the island, but when we ran under the lee of the great cliffs, fell away almost entirely, so that we drifted lazily along within half a mile of them. At length a battery hove in sight, quarried in the face of the precipice, and anchored vessels, one by one, came out behind the point. We stood off a little, urged along by occasional flaws of wind, and in a short time the shallow bight which forms the roadstead of St. Helena lay before us. There was another battery near at hand, at the foot of a deep, barren glen, called Rupert's Valley, from which a road, notched in the rock, leads around the intervening cliffs to the gorge, at the bottom of which Jamestown is built. A sea-wall across the mouth of this gorge, a row of ragged trees, weather-beaten by the gales of the Atlantic, and the spire of a church, were all that appeared of the town. The walls of the fort crowned the lofty cliff above, and high behind them towered the signal station, on the top of a conical peak, the loftiest in the island. The stone ladder which leads from the tower to the fort was marked on the face of the cliff like a white ribbon unrolled from its top. Inland, a summit covered with dark pine-trees, from the midst of which glimmered the white front of a country mansion, rose above the naked heights of the shore. This was the only gleam of fertility which enlivened the terrible sterility of the view.

Further in-shore a few gun-boats and water-boats lay at anchor, and some fishing-skiffs were pulling about. As we forged slowly along to a good anchoring ground, the American consul came off, followed by a boarding-officer, and we at once received permission to go ashore and make the most of our short stay. The consul's boat speedily conveyed us to the landing-place, at the eastern extremity of the town. Every thing had a dreary and deserted air. There were half-a-dozen men and boys, with Portuguese features and uncertain complexions, about the steps, a red-coated soldier at a sentry-box, and two or three lonely-looking individuals under the weather-beaten trees. Passing a row of mean houses built against the overhanging rock, a draw-bridge over a narrow moat admitted us within the walls. A second wall and gate, a short distance further, ushered us into the public square of Jamestown. Even at its outlet, the valley is not more than a hundred and fifty yards wide, and the little town is crowded, or rather jammed, deep in its bottom, between nearly perpendicular cliffs, seven or eight hundred feet in height. At the top of the square is the church, a plain yellowish structure, with a tall, square, pointed spire, and beyond it Market street, the main thoroughfare of the little place, opens up the valley.

A carriage—almost the only one in Jamestown—was procured for Mrs. H——; my fellow-passenger, P——, provided himself with a saddle-horse, and we set out for Longwood. We had a mounted Portuguese postillion and rattled up the steep and stony main street in a style which drew upon us the eyes of all Jamestown. The road soon left the town, ascending the right side of the ravine by a very long and steep grade. Behind the town are the barracks of the soldiery and their parade-ground—all on a cramped and contracted scale; then some dreary burial-grounds, the graves in which resembled heaps of cinders; then a few private mansions, and green garden-patches, winding upward for a mile or more. The depth and narrowness of the gorge completely shut out the air; the heat was radiated powerfully from its walls of black volcanic rock, and the bristling cacti and yuccas by the roadside, with full-crowned cocoa palms below, gave it a fiery, savage, tropical character. The peak of the signal-station loomed high above us from the opposite side, and now the head of the ravine—a precipice several hundred feet high, over which fell a silver thread of water—came into sight. This water supplies the town and shipping, beside fertilizing the gardens in the bed of the ravine. It is clear as crystal, and of the sweetest and freshest quality. Looking backward, we saw the spire of the little church at the bottom projected against the blue plain of ocean, the pigmy hulls of the vessels in the roads, and a great triangular slice of sea, which grew wider and longer as we ascended, until the horizon was full fifty miles distant.

Near the top of the ravine there is a natural terrace about a quarter of a mile in length, lying opposite to the cascade. It contains a few small fields, divided by scrubby hedges, and, near the further end, two pleasant dwelling-houses, surrounded by a garden in which I saw some fine orange-trees. This is "The Briars," memorable from having been Napoleon's first residence on the island. The Balcombe family occupied the larger of the two dwellings, which is flanked by tall Italian cypresses, while the other building, which was then a summer pavilion, but was afterward enlarged to accommodate the Emperor and his suite, received him on the very night of his landing from the Bellerophon. It stands on a little knoll, overlooking a deep glen, which debouches into the main valley just below. The place is cheerful though solitary; it has a sheltered, sunny aspect, compared with the bleak heights of Longwood, and I do not wonder that the great exile left it with regret. Miss Balcombe's account of Napoleon's sojourn at "The Briars" is among the most striking reminiscences of his life on the island.

Just above the terrace the road turned, and, after a shorter ascent, gained the crest of the ridge, where the grade became easier, and the cool south-east trade-wind, blowing over the height, refreshed us after the breathless heat of the ravine. The road was bordered with pine-trees, and patches of soft green turf took the place of the volcanic dust and cinders. The flower-stems of the aloe-plants, ten feet in height, had already begun to wither, but the purple buds of the cactus were opening, and thick clusters of a watery, succulent plant were starred with white, pink, and golden blossoms. We had now attained the central upland of the island, which slopes downward in all directions to the summit of the sea-wall of cliffs. On emerging again from the wood, a landscape of a very different character met our view. Over a deep valley, the sides of which were alternately green with turf and golden with patches of blossoming broom, we looked upon a ridge of table-land three or four miles long, near the extremity of which, surrounded by a few straggling trees, we saw the houses of Longwood. In order to reach them, it was necessary to pass around the head of the intervening valley. In this direction the landscape was green and fresh, dotted with groves of pine and white country houses. Flocks of sheep grazed on the turfy hill-sides, and a few cows and horses ruminated among the clumps of broom. Down in the bottom of the valley, I noticed a small inclosure, planted with Italian cypresses, and with a square white object in the centre. It did not need the postillion's words to assure me that I looked upon the Grave of Napoleon.

Looking eastward toward the sea, the hills became bare and red, gashed with chasms and falling off in tremendous precipices, the height of which we could only guess from the dim blue of the great sphere of sea, whose far-off horizon was drawn above their summits, so that we seemed to stand in the centre of a vast concavity. In color, form, and magnificent desolation, these hills called to my mind the mountain region surrounding the Dead Sea. Clouds rested upon the high, pine-wooded summits to the west of us, and the broad, sloping valley, on the other side of the ridge of Longwood, was as green as a dell of Switzerland. The view of those fresh pasture-slopes, with their flocks of sheep, their groves and cottages, was all the more delightful from its being wholly unexpected. Where the ridge joins the hills, and one can look into both valleys at the same time, there is a small tavern, with the familiar English sign of the "Crown and Rose." Our road now led eastward along the top of the ridge, over a waste tract covered with clumps of broom, for another mile and a half, when we reached the gate of the Longwood Farm. A broad avenue of trees, which all lean inland from the stress of the trade-wind, conducts to the group of buildings, on a bleak spot, over looking the sea, and exposed to the full force of the wind. Our wheels rolled over a thick, green turf, the freshness of which showed how unfrequent must be the visits of strangers.

On reaching the gate a small and very dirty boy, with a milk-and-molasses complexion, brought out to us a notice pasted on a board, intimating that those who wished to see the residence of the Emperor Napoleon must pay two shillings a-piece, in advance; children half-price. A neat little Englishwoman, of that uncertain age which made me hesitate to ask her whether she had ever seen the Emperor, was in attendance, to receive the fees and act as cicerone. We alighted at a small green verandah, facing a wooden wing which projects from the eastern front of the building. The first room we entered was whitewashed, and covered all over with the names of visitors, in charcoal, pencil, and red chalk. The greater part of them were French. "This," said the little woman, "was the Emperor's billiard-room, built after he came to live at Longwood. The walls have three or four times been covered with names, and whitewashed over." A door at the further end admitted us into the drawing-room, in which Napoleon died. The ceiling was broken away, and dust and cobwebs covered the bare rafters. The floor was half-decayed, almost invisible through the dirt which covered it, and the plastering, falling off, disclosed in many places the rough stone walls. A winnowing-mill and two or three other farming utensils stood in the corners. The window looked into a barn-yard filled with mud and dung. Stretched on a sofa, with his head beside this window, the great conqueror, the "modern Sesostris," breathed his last, amid the delirium of fancied battle and the howlings of a storm which shook the island. The corner-stone of the jamb, nearest which his head lay, has been quarried out of the wall, and taken to France.

Beyond this was the dining-room, now a dark, dirty barn-floor, filled to the rafters with straw and refuse timbers. We passed out into a cattle-yard, and entered the Emperor's bed-room. A horse and three cows were comfortably stalled therein, and the floor of mud and loose stones was covered with dung and litter. "Here," said the guide, pointing to an unusually filthy stall in one corner, "was the Emperor's bath-room. Mr. Solomon (a Jew in Jamestown) has the marble bathing-tub he used. Yonder was his dressing-room"—a big brinded calf was munching some grass in the very spot "—and here" (pointing to an old cow in the nearest corner) "his attendant slept." So miserable, so mournfully wretched was the condition of the place, that I regretted not having been content with an outside view of Longwood. On the other side of the cattle-yard stand the houses which were inhabited by Count Montholon, Las Casas, and Dr. O'Meara; but at present they are shabby, tumble-down sheds, whose stone walls alone have preserved their existence to this day. On the side facing the sea, there are a few pine-trees, under which is a small crescent-shaped fish-pond, dry and nearly filled with earth and weeds. Here the Emperor used to sit and feed his tame fish. The sky, overcast with clouds, and the cold wind which blew steadily from the sea, added to the desolation of the place.

Passing through the garden, which is neglected, like the house, and running to waste, we walked to the new building erected by the Government for Napoleon's use, but which he never inhabited. It is a large quadrangle, one story high, plain but commodious, and with some elegance in its arrangement. It has been once or twice occupied as a residence, but is now decaying from very neglect. Standing under the brow of the hill, it is sheltered from the wind, and much more cheerful in every respect than the old mansion. We were conducted through the empty chambers, intended for billiard, dining, drawing, and bed-rooms. In the bath-room, where yet stands the wooden case which inclosed the marble tub, a flock of geese were luxuriating. The curtains which hung at the windows were dropping to pieces from rot, and in many of the rooms the plastering was cracked and mildewed by the leakage of rains through the roof. Near the building is a neat cottage, in which General Bertrand and his family formerly resided. It is now occupied by the gentleman who leases the farm of Longwood from the Government. The farm is the largest on the island, containing one thousand acres, and is rented at £315 a year. The uplands around the house are devoted to the raising of oats and barley, but grazing is the principal source of profit.

I plucked some branches of geranium and fragrant heliotrope from the garden, and we set out on our return. I prevailed upon Mr. P—— to take my place in the carriage, and give me his horse as far as the "Crown and Rose," thereby securing an inspiring gallop of nearly two miles. Two Englishmen, of the lower order, had charge of the tavern, and while I was taking a glass of ale, one of them touched his hat very respectfully, and said: "Axin' your pardon, Sir, are you from the States?" I answered in the affirmative. "There!" said he, turning to the other and clapping his hands, "I knew it; I've won the bet." "What were your reasons for thinking me an American?" I asked. "Why," said he, "the gentlemen from the States are always so mild! I knowed you was one before you got off the horse."

We sent the carriage on by the road, to await us on the other side of the glen, and proceeded on foot to the Grave. The path led downward through a garden filled with roses and heliotropes. The peach-trees were in blossom, and the tropical loquàt, which I had seen growing in India and China, hung full of ripe yellow fruit. As we approached the little inclosure at the bottom of the glen, I, who was in advance, was hailed by a voice crying out, "This way, Sir, this way!" and, looking down, saw at the gate a diminutive, wrinkled, old, grizzly-headed, semi-negro, semi-Portuguese woman, whom I at once recognized as the custodienne of the tomb, from descriptions which the officers of the Mississippi had given me. "Ah! there you are!" said I; "I knew it must be you." "Why, Captain!" she exclaimed; "is that you? How you been this long while? I did n't know you was a-comin', or I would ha' put on a better dress, for, you see, I was a-washin' to-day. Dickey!"—addressing a great, fat, white youth of twenty-two or twenty-three, with a particularly stupid and vacant face—"run up to the garden and git two or three of the finest bokys as ever you can, for the Captain and the ladies!"

At the gate of the inclosure hung a placard, calling upon all visitors to pay, in advance, the sum of one shilling and sixpence each, before approaching the tomb. This touching testimony of respect having been complied with, we were allowed to draw near to the empty vault, which, for twenty years, enshrined the corpse of Napoleon. It is merely an oblong shaft of masonry, about twelve feet deep, and with a rude roof thrown over the mouth, to prevent it being filled by the rains. A little railing surrounds it, and the space between is planted with geraniums and scarlet salvias. Two willows—one of which has been so stripped by travellers that nothing but the trunk is left—shade the spot, and half-a-dozen monumental cypresses lift their tall obelisks around. A flight of steps leads to the bottom of the vault, where the bed of masonry which inclosed the coffin still remains. I descended to the lowest step, and there found, hanging against the damp wall, a written tablet stating that the old woman, then waiting for me at the top, told an admirable and excellent story about the burial of Napoleon, which travellers would do well to extract from her, and that one shilling was but a fair compensation for the pleasure she would afford them. Appended to the announcement were the following lines, which I transcribed on the spot:

"FIRMLY strike my bounding lyre,
Poet's muse can never tire,
Nosegays gay and flowers so wild,
Climate good and breezes mild,
Humbly ask a shilling, please,
Before the stranger sails the seas.
NAPOLEON was in love with a lady so true,
He gave her a gold ring set with diamonds and pearls,
Which was worthy the honors of many brave earls.
But she died, it is said, in her bloom and her beauty,
So his love broken-hearted
For ever was parted.
He drank of the spring and its water so clear,
Which was reserved for his use, and he held it most dear.
So he died, so he died,
In the bloom of his pride,
Like the victor of worlds in the tomb to abide,
Though he conquered to conquer another beside.
In his life he sat under yon lone willow-tree,
And studied the air, the earth, and the sea;
His arms were akimbo, his thoughts far away.
He lived six months at the house on the hill, at his
friend's, the brave General BERTRAND by name, and
from thence he would come
To visit the spot,
And stand in deep thought,
Forgotten or not."

If I had been saddened by the neglect of Longwood, I was disgusted by the profanation of the tomb. Is there not enough reverence in St. Helena, to prevent the grave which a great name has hallowed, from being defiled with such abominable doggerel? And there was the old woman, who, having seen me read the notice, immediately commenced her admirable and interesting story in this wise: "Six years he lived upon the island. He came here in 1815, and he died in 1821. Six years he lived upon the island. He was buried with his head to the east. This is the east. His feet was to the west. This is the west. Where you see that brown dirt, there was his head. He wanted to be buried beside his wife, Josephine; but, as that could n't be done, he was put here. They put him here because he used to come down here with a silver mug in his pocket, and take a drink out of that spring. That's the reason he was buried here. There was a guard of a sargeant and six men up there on the hill, all the time he was down here a-drinkin out of the spring with his silver mug. This was the way he walked." Here the old woman folded her arms, tossed back her grizzly head, and strode to and fro with so ludicrous an attempt at dignity, that, in spite of myself, I was forced into laughter. "Did you ever see him?" I asked. "Yes, Captain," said she; "I seed him a many a time, and I always said, 'Good mornin', Sir,' but he never had no conversation with me." A draught of the cool and delicious lymph of Napoleon's Spring completed the farce. I broke a sprig from one of the cypresses, wrote my name in the visitor's book, took the "boky" of gillyflowers and marigolds, which Dickey had collected, and slowly remounted the opposite side of the glen. My thoughts involuntarily turned from the desecrated grave to that fitting sepulchre where he now rests, under the banners of a hundred victorious battle-fields, and guarded by the time-worn remnant of his faithful Old Guard. Let Longwood be levelled to the earth, and the empty grave be filled up and turfed over! Better that these memorials of England's treachery should be seen no more!

We hastened back to Jamestown, as it was near sunset. The long shadows already filled the ravine, and the miniature gardens and streets below were more animated than during the still heat of the afternoon. Capt. Howland was waiting for us, as the ship was ready to sail. Before it was quite dark, we had weighed anchor, and were slowly drifting away from the desolate crags of the island. The next morning, we saw again the old unbroken ring of the sea.

WELL, I have wrought in many ways,
A humble workman, day and night;
My wages, partly it was praise,
And part was metal round and bright.

Whate'er I got of yellow gains,
'Tis gone—all spent! and I am poor:
But what I earned of praise remains,
And of one loving heart I'm sure.

This is the sum of all my toil:
A name—a pleasing shape of sound—
While thou art rich in stocks and soil,
Fat acres of unmeasured ground.

Yet, DIVES! think not I would change
This poverty and soul of mine
For all the lands where widely range
Thy herds of unrecorded kine.

Since all thy fortune could not buy
My spirits, or thy footman's health,
Or bribe thy lowly tenant nigh
To bid GOD'S blessing on thy wealth.

And I, blithe beggar as I seem,
Am rich in friendships, though but few;
Nor comes there to disturb my dream
The nightly fiend that troubles you.

THE excursion of June, 1854, up the Northern Mississippi, in honor of the completion of the Rock-Island and Chicago Railroad, and by invitation of the contractors of that road, was on a scale quite unparalleled in the history of similar celebrations. Some seven hundred guests, chiefly from the Atlantic States, were freely transported an immense distance to view the last railroad link between the Atlantic and the Mississippi, and to enjoy an excursion by steamboat from the point of termination on the river up to the new and wondrous city of St. Paul, in Minnesota, and thence to Fort Snelling, and by land to the Falls of St. Anthony.

The river trip was accomplished between Monday evening and the next Saturday morning; the boats stopping at Galena and Dubuque on the upward passage. Above Dubuque the scenery begins to open upon the voyager in forms of singular beauty. The bluffs grow higher and more precipitous; and the remarkable sand-stone protrusions, so characteristic of the banks of the Upper Mississippi, begin to appear.

At one point it requires no exaggeration of fancy to trace the out lines of a ruined castle; while, at another, you see a solitary tower, and then the serrated embrasures of a deserted battlement. The boat glides on, and now from the steep slope of a bluff, clothed in richest verdure, as if it had been kept under careful cultivation, you see the sand-stone bare in a single central spot, and taking the form of an ancient cenotaph, as if there reposed the ashes of some ante-diluvian monarch. A mile or two farther on, and the broken entablature of a Grecian temple, with architrave, frieze, and cornice, and resting on two or three dismembered columns, seems set in a wall of verdure, as if it were a piece of subterranean architecture, exposed by the washing away of the earth, which had then been sloped and terraced about it by the hand of art, and planted with the finest grasses, while the trees were so distributed as to impart the most picturesque effect. Indeed, the orchard-like appearance of these slopes, sweeping in curves of enchanting beauty to the water's edge, is the most surprising feature in the landscape. For scores of miles you may see no sign of population, and yet many of these hills appear like the outskirts of a nobleman's park, carefully kept free from under-brush and matted vegetation, and rounded by some landscape gardener to gratify the eye of taste. Here and there a sort of dimple is scooped in the hill; or you see two noble hills nearly meet at their bases, leaving a hollow between, like a lap, to receive the treasures of fertility which the land is ready to pour down. The charm of vegetation, which a luxuriant soil imparts, is spread like a mantle over these bluffs. You look in vain for a bleak or barren point. When the bluffs sink on one side of the river, they reäppear on the other; and this peculiarity continues, with a few exceptions, (as at Lake Pepin,) till you reach the pine region above the mouth of the St. Croix.

A hundred miles from the Falls of St. Anthony, you pass through Lake Pepin, which is merely an expansion of the Mississippi, about twenty-four miles long, and from two to four miles wide. It is rightly named a lake, however; as the characteristics of the river are here greatly modified. There is no perceptible current. The low islands, covered with rank vegetation, and annually overflowed and abraded by the brimming river, here entirely disappear. There is not an island in Lake Pepin. There are bluffs on both sides, which slope down cleanly to the water's edge, leaving a narrow rim of sand, but no marshy bottom-land between.

At one point, on the Wisconsin shore, the bluffs recede, and a beautiful platform of land extends before them, dotted with trees. On the Minnesota shore the line of bluffs is at one place thrown back to make way for a prairie, on the back-ground of which Nature has lavished all that can be imagined of the picturesque in the scenery of hill and dale. Here and there along the summit-line of majestic bluffs you see a single row of trees at a distance of several feet from one another, like warriors in Indian file.

The amenity of the landscape lends to it an indescribable charm. On Lake George you see bold and beautiful hills, wooded to the water's edge, and interspersed with rocks and rugged declivities that contrast with the pervading verdure. But on Lake Pepin you see grandeur putting on all forms of beauty, and wearing, under all aspects, a smile. Even its ravines are so hollowed and smoothed that every rugged feature has been softened down. Its charming hill sides are such as the imagination of Watteau used to select for the pastoral pic-nics and concerts he delighted to paint. The charm of variety is not wanting to these slopes. The curves and undulations of verdure assume every fanciful and delightful form; now sweeping so as to create a regular amphitheatre between two high bluffs; now sinking into basins; now sparsely dotted with trees; now entirely bare of trees, and richly carpeted with grass; now crowned with noble forests; and now rising into a perpendicular and precipitous wall of sand-stone.

On our northward trip, we passed through Lake Pepin in the night-time; so that we could not see much of its scenery. Three of our boats were lashed together, and thus proceeded along the whole length of the lake, exhibiting to any stray occupant of the shore a startling and fiery spectacle. On our return we were more fortunate. We entered upon Lake Pepin at the dawn of a beautiful day. Toward the southern extremity of the lake we saw the high bluff, with its sand-stone pinnacle, known as the Maiden's Rock. It was my fortune to be standing on the hurricane-deck, with my foot upon a life-preserving stool, and my elbow leaned upon my knee, when some of my lady acquaintances of the excursion broke in upon my contemplations.

"We have come to you," said one, "for the authentic version of the legend which gives to that rock its name. Please to sit down, and tell it like a faithful chronicler."

"Authorities differ," said another, "as to whether the maiden, who threw herself from the rock, had a lover; now I insist upon it that she had."

"Please to be seated, ladies, and you shall hear the whole story; although it is many years since I received it from a Sister of Charity at Montreal."

"But I insist upon it that a lover must be introduced," said lady number two.

"We can not promise," said I; "for the story will come to my recollection only by degrees, as I go along. What shall we call it?"

"Call it," said the first lady, hesitatingly, "call it

"WE-NO-NA'S ROCK it shall be."

Know, then, that many years ago, shortly before the indefatigable Jesuit missionaries had penetrated this country, or given to this beautiful lake the name of that old king of the Franks, which it bears, the Dahcotahs or Sioux Indians occupied the region now partly included within the limits of Minnesota and Wisconsin.

The Dahcotahs were confederated bands, sub-divided into clans, and they differed from the Indians east of the Mississippi in relying more exclusively for their support upon hunting the bison. They were a fierce, aggressive people, and so improvident, that periods of famine among them were quite common. On such occasions they would suddenly break up their settlements and move to distant hunting-grounds, leaving their infirm old men, who were unable to travel, behind to perish.

On a cold day in January, on the edge of the clump of trees which you see a short distance back from the Maiden's Rock, an old Indian might have been seen cowering about a fire. Ish-te-nah had been left to die. His people, driven by hunger, had gone west in search of the bison. A small pile of wood, some morsels of food, a hatchet, a birchen vessel, filled with water, and a bow and arrows, were by his side; and a few stakes, covered with deer-skins, disposed in a cone-like shape, formed the wigwam for his shelter and repose. The ground was covered with snow, and the wind blew keenly from the north-west.

"Go, my children," the old man had said, when some seemed to hesitate in their act of desertion; "go where you can get food. Leave me to the GREAT SPIRIT'S care. At the best I have but a brief while to live. I should be a burthen and a delay to you if you attempted to take me with you. Your women and young people must be provided for. Go!"

And Ish-te-nah was left alone. Although he had made a virtue of necessity, and exhibited the characteristic stoicism of his race, in insisting upon thus being deserted, he could not repress the bitter thoughts that visited him as the last lingerers disappeared from his feeble gaze. He recalled the times when he had rallied his people to a victorious onset, or saved them from a well-laid ambush, or brought them off safely from the assault of superior numbers. He recalled his achievements in the chase, and the occasions when, by foresight and energy, he had averted calamities like the present. And after all his benefits to his tribe, here was his reward.

As he was indulging in these repining retrospections, he was startled by the sound of crackling snow, and the next moment an Indian girl stood panting before him.

"We-no-na! What brings you here?" said the old man. "Do not linger, or you will miss your people's track. Already the drifting snow may have covered it."

"I do not care. I stay here," said We-no-na, throwing some dry boughs on the fire.

"Would the young fawn perish like the old, disabled buck? What moves We-no-na to this desperate resolve?"

"Father, they would wed me to the chief Ha-o-kah; and I detest him."

"In other words, you love some younger man of the tribe."

"I love no man, young or old; unless it be you, father, from whom I have always had kindness."

"Go, foolish fawn! Ha-o-kah is as good as most husbands."

"I would sooner die than have a husband, if all are like those of the Dahcotahs," exclaimed We-no-na energetically. "How much better is a wife treated than a dog? Look at my mother! See her staggering under heavy burthens, while her husband carries no more than will keep him warm. The wife must cut the tree, peel the bark, build the hut, sew the skins, paddle the canoe, and cook the food. She must do every menial thing, while the husband looks on in idleness. All this I could bear, if she had good treatment after it. But then, when her drudgery is over, she must be beaten, or have a stick of wood thrown at her head. Yesterday my mother was beaten for not beating me hard enough, because I said I would die sooner than marry, and so I would!"

"The Indian's is a bad life," said the old man. "What you say is true. Indian women are slaves; and Indian old men are abandoned, as I am, to die."

"Father, you shall not die if I can help it. I will build your fire, peel bark to improve your shelter, and break holes in the ice to catch fish."

For a moment the old man's Indian apathy was melted, and a strange, unwonted feeling, which, a little more indulged, would have brought tears to his eyes, stole through his breast.

"We-no-na deserves a better husband than any Dahcotah would make," said the old man. "It is hard to speak against one's own nation; but what I have seen, I have seen. We-no-na does not desire to be a slave, and so she will go unwedded."

"Father, I would willingly toil like a slave, if there were loving words and looks to repay me; but the angry threat, the blow, the contempt of a man is more than I can submit to. I think the GREAT SPIRIT has made me different from other Dahcotah women."

Saying this, We-no-na seized the hatchet, and treading lightly and fleetly over the snow toward that grove of oak which you see in the direction of the north-west, cut a bundle of dry boughs, and brought them to the fire. The old man and maiden then partook of a frugal meal of dried venison; and when the night came on, one of them watched the fire while the other slept.

The next morning We-no-na crossed the lake on the ice to that bluff with the bowl-like hollow on its front, to reconnoitre. What was her joy on discovering traces of deer! She had brought the old man's bow and arrows with her, and she resolved to lie in wait for the game on which not only her own life, but another's, seemed now to depend. Her vigilance was soon repaid. A noble deer came bounding by toward an oak opening which lies just back of the bluff. With beating heart We-no-na fixed the arrow in the string, and without pausing, shot it at the animal. Leaping high in the air, he fell, and crimsoned the snow with his life-blood. "Surely," thought We-no-na, "the good spirit who dwells in woods has befriended me;" for this was the first deer she had ever killed. With great labor she dragged the carcase to the edge of the bluff, and rolled it down over the icy crust to the frozen lake. It would have been hard work for a strong man to pull it over the ice, and up to the little encampment back of We-no-na's rock. But this she did, greatly fearing the while lest the wolves should interrupt her in the task.

Old Ish-te-nah's eyes sparkled when he saw what the maiden had accomplished.

"Here is enough," he said, "to keep you from starving till the spring."

"To keep us both, father," rejoined We-no-na.

The old man shook his head, but said nothing.

"What would my father say?" asked We-no-na, after a long pause.

"Should I leave you, my child, trust in the GREAT SPIRIT, and be brave. Wait here through the winter as long as you can get food and warmth; but do not tarry after you have plucked the first ripe strawberry in the summer. Remember."

We-no-na promised obedience.

"And go east, beyond the great lakes, to the country of the Algonquins, where you will find the pale-faces of whom you have heard, and who will teach you much that will do your people good, should you ever return to them."

We-no-na bowed her head in acknowledgment that she had stored up in her memory all that the old man had enjoined. She then cooked some venison, but he partook sparingly, and bade her sleep, while he watched. The command was not unwelcome; for she had been much fatigued by her day's work. She slept profoundly for some hours, then started up suddenly, waked by the cold, and found that the fire was decaying fast. She heaped upon it some more wood, then turning to Ish-te-nah, said: "Father, you shall now take your turn to sleep." No answer came from him. We-no-na seized him by the arm: it was cold and stiff. The soul of the old warrior had departed.

The maiden sat in mute, overpowering affliction for many hours. The anguish of utter bereavement and desolation seemed to deprive her even of the relief of tears. At length she recalled her promises to the old man. She found a place under a high snow-drift, where the ground was yet unfrozen; and here she dug a grave, and deposited his mortal body. And it was not till all this was done, and the snow had been replaced over the spot of interment, and the fire had been heaped anew with wood, that tears and lamentations found vent with We-no-na.

But the grief of the young and healthy is like a flesh-wound that befalls them: it soon heals. Left entirely to her own resources, We-no-na found hourly occupation for her hands and thoughts, and at night slept so profoundly that, on waking, she often could not remember that she had even dreamed. She enlarged the little wigwam so as to make quite a neat apartment, well roofed, and with a floor of bark, on which was spread the skin of a bison. By laying large strips of bark sloping against the trees to which her wigwam was bound, she made a safe place for the deposit of the venison and other provisions. She constructed a canoe in anticipation of the river's melting in the spring; and out of the deer-skin she made moccasins and belts. And then a good part of the day was occupied in cutting and bringing in wood; so that We-no-na had little time for idle or desponding fancies. Occasionally, when the wind howled, and the snow whirled in wild eddies over the bluff, she would sit and feed the fire for hours, and then strange thoughts would visit her; and the consciousness of her lonely situation would press upon her heavily. But she was naturally cheerful and hopeful; and her day-dreams were oftener bright than gloomy. She was saddest when she thought of a little sister, who had died the winter before. But one night she dreamed that little We-har-ka came to her lonely wigwam, and promised to lead her in good time to a land more beautiful than any she had yet seen, where there were birds and fruits all the year round, and where no violence was done, and no harsh words were spoken. After this, We-no-na was more content, and she loved to recall all the particulars of her dream. There were little brothers whom she had been obliged to leave in deserting her people. And did not We-no-na grieve for them? Alas! like all Indian boys, they had been bred up to treat their sisters with contempt and ignominy; and the effects of a vile education had been such as to blunt their natural affections, and to make them regard the fraternal sentiment as a weakness which no boy who hoped to become a great warrior ought to entertain.

The winter months had never seemed to We-no-na less tedious. March, with its cold blasts, and April, with its torrents of rain, had passed; and the south wind unlocked the fettered Mississippi, and the blue waters of Lake Pepin again sparkled in the sunshine, and the verdure began to creep over bluff and prairie, and the delicate foliage to fringe the trees, and bright flowers to open amid the springing grass and by the border of the groves. We-no-na's winter experiences had given her a feeling of independence and self-reliance, which was in itself a great source of happiness. Never before had she known the true luxury of freedom. If heretofore she had roamed the prairie, or paddled the canoe, it was but to anticipate her degradation the moment she should enter the filthy hovels where her people were herded. She had a womanly sense of neatness, which now she could indulge unchecked. She delighted in nature, and her delight was now unmarred by embittering associations. She grew in stature and in beauty, and in strength and fleetness; and as she snuffed the pure morning breeze, and saw the sun crimsoning the eastern clouds, or as she looked up to the starry heavens, or to the coruscations of the Aurora by night, she would exclaim: "Yes, the GREAT SPIRIT is generous and good; it is man only who is bad, and who spoils the gifts that are lavished on his race!"

It was one of the last days of May, when, as We-no-na was descending to that beautiful prairie, where the little house now stands, she saw a red strawberry amid the grass, and plucked it. She then remembered Ish-te-nah's injunction, and walked musingly back to her wigwam. It was almost with a pang of regret that she prepared to leave this beautiful region. All the means of subsistence seemed so abundant around her; earth, air, and water seemed so kind in rendering up their stores; and then, as summer came on, the whole landscape was clothed in such affluent beauty; the verdant bluffs swept in such graceful curves to the water's edge; and the distant prairie began to heave its sparkling waves of green so luxuriantly! But might there not be fair spots eastward of the lake 1 She would go, as Ish-te-nah had recommended; but first she would collect, as a memorial, some of the beautiful stones scattered along the shore.

These stones, as you are aware, are agates and cornelians; and Lake Pepin has yielded them in abundance for many years.

We-no-na descended and ran along the shore as far as the point we are now skirting. She would stop here and there to pick up a handful of agates, and then, as she saw others more beautiful, she would throw aside those she had gathered, and replace them with new treasures. She was thus lured on to wander several miles; and the evening twilight was far advanced before she regained her wigwam. It was now too late to start upon her pilgrimage. No matter; she would commence it early the next morning.

When morning came, there were many preparations to make; and the sun had been up a couple of hours before she had set forth on her journey. She carried her canoe fastened by a strap to her back, her hatchet and arrows in her belt, and provision for several days in a pouch of deer-skin that hung at her side. What was her dismay, after descending the hill and passing through yonder little belt of woodland, on coming suddenly upon an Indian encampment! She paused, hoping to retreat unseen; but this was now impossible. Several Indians started up and approached her, and a second glance was not needed to assure her that among them she saw her father and mother and her hated suitor, Ha-o-kah. This worthy chief had made the lives of the old people somewhat uncomfortable from his repeatedly twitting them with the fact that he had bought their daughter of them twice over, and been cheated out of the purchase. As Ha-o-kah had no small degree of influence in the tribe, the old couple felt very uneasy at their daughter's dereliction, it having placed them in the position of debtors to one who evidently, by his frequent taunts and dunning, was not disposed to let them sleep over the debt they had incurred.

There was, consequently, an exclamation of general surprise and satisfaction at the appearance of We-no-na. Her first act was to disencumber herself of her canoe, and every thing that could impede her flight. She then placed an arrow in the string of her bow, and, retreating a few steps, called upon the approaching party to stop. There was something so imperious in her tone that they instantly obeyed. She then briefly told them that she had withdrawn from her tribe; that she looked to none of them for support; and that she wished to be alone. To this her father replied in violent language, ordering her to come to him. She refused by a significant gesture. He ran forward to meet her, but she soon doubled the distance between them. With true Indian craft, he then changed his policy, and asked We-no-na whiningly if she would not come to her dear, affectionate parents? At the same time, We-no-na could see him threaten her mother with his hatchet, bidding her to join in his entreaties and lamentations. This the old woman readily did. But We-no-na was inexorable. Then the amiable Ha-o-kah approached; but as We-no-na aimed, or pretended to aim, an arrow at him, he dodged behind a bush, and begged her to hear him. This, she assured him, she would do if he would stay where he was. Ha-o-kah then informed her that he had bought her in fair trade of her parents, and that in common honesty she ought to come and be his wife; he told her that he had but three wives, all of whom were happy women; he had been very successful in hunting, and had collected a good number of skins, beside a quantity of bear's-grease; he had also taken the scalp of a Pawnee, and stolen a horse; in short, there was not a young woman in the tribe who would not be proud of the position he now offered to the disdainful We-no-na.

We-no-na, leaning scornfully on her bow, replied: "Thief of a Dahcotah, your wife I will never be! You say you have but three: there was a fourth, who died of a blow from her husband. What a brave he must be! There is another, who is blind of an eye. How did she lose it, O great warrior, with your one scalp, and that, I will venture to say, a woman's? Never will I be your wife! never will I be one of your people again! Go vent your anger upon the poor slaves who are left to you, and be content!"

By this time the rage of Ha-o-kah was at its height; and, regardless of danger, he rushed forth with a howl to seize her who had dared to give utterance to such unwelcome truths. But We-no-na, vigilant as a wild-cat and swifter than the deer, gained an elevation from which she again aimed an arrow at her pursuer. He threw himself on the ground, and the arrow lodged in the trunk of a tree some distance behind. With a yell, he rose to his feet, and strained every sinew to overtake We-no-na; but, with the ease and grace of an antelope, she outran him. All the young men of the encampment were by this time in full chase; for they knew that they need expect no grace from Ha-o-kah unless they were officious in assisting him. We-no-na ran to the top of the bluff, where her wigwam stood, and threw herself panting upon a bed of dry, fragrant grass, that she had prepared some days before. She had rested there hardly a minute, when the sound of voices and footsteps roused her, and, springing to her feet, she saw Ha-o-kah, with three or four followers, ascending the hill-slope from the south, and but a few rods distant. In a frenzy of indignation, she again set an arrow in the string, and exclaiming, " This. Ha-o-kah, for the benefit of your three wives!" shot it at him before he had time to turn aside. It lodged in his right arm above the elbow, disabling it materially for the active purposes of chastising his wives or scalping his foes.

The pursuers paused, quite confounded at this audacious shot; but Ha-o-kah, with a scream of mingled rage and pain, bade them proceed, and they dashed on toward the summit of the bluff. As they mounted it, they beheld We-no-na at the very edge of the fearful precipice, looking back upon them with a determined glance. "Brave woman-chasers!" she exclaimed, "let me see you follow!"

And, with the words, she sprang from the cliff, some sixty feet far out among the trees that slope from the base of the wall of rock toward the water; and before her pursuers could reach the edge of the precipice, she had swung herself from bough to bough into the river.

There was an exclamation of horror and surprise from Ha-o-kah and his young men as they witnessed this intrepid leap. No one cared to risk his neck by imitating it. They separated, and ran round each side of the bluff toward the base; but to their amazement could see no trace of We-no-na, Was it possible that she had leaped so far as to fall into the water? Incredible as this seemed, it was the conclusion to which they came.

Poor Ha-o-kah was a good deal crest-fallen, as, with his wounded arm in a sling, he rejoined the encampment. His three wives at first exhibited much concern on seeing him wounded, and approached him with the servility he habitually exacted; but, on discovering that his arm was so shattered as to be unfit for any future service, they taunted him with his misfortune, and manifested a wonderful indifference to his sufferings. He looked about for a hatchet to throw at one of them, but a slight motion of his arm reminded him of his impotence, and he changed his rough tone to a pleading treble. As his influence with his tribe was derived chiefly from his physical strength and skill, and not from his wisdom in council, he at once fell into insignificance, and soon found himself restricted to a single wife, whom he never spoke to but in terms of profound respect.

The pursuers all reported that We-no-na was drowned: it would have been a poor compliment to their speed and sagacity to suppose otherwise. Almost every version of the tradition of "We-no-na's Rock" adopts their story. But it does not follow that, because they could not find her, she was drowned. On the contrary, there is in the very fact a presumption that she escaped. The truth is, that We-no-na, who was a most adroit swimmer, did escape. Swimming across the river, she concealed herself awhile, and then took up her journey toward the east. She crossed the territory which now constitutes the width of the State of Wisconsin, and arrived at Green Bay early in August. Here, at the point where Fort La Baye was subsequently erected, she found a French exploring party, under the conduct of several Jesuit missionaries. She attached herself to it, and soon made herself useful.

A young Parisian of education and refinement, and a devout Catholic withal, named La Crosse, was seriously ill of a fever; and We-no-na was appointed to watch and nurse him. This she did with so much patience and fidelity, that La Crosse was seriously impressed; and no sooner was he restored to health than he informed Father Duhesme of his desire of espousing We-no-na. The worthy father said that this could not be done until the maiden was made a good Catholic; and they both forthwith applied themselves to her conversion. This was a longer process than they anticipated. It was some time before We-no-na acquired sufficient French to understand their purpose; and then she had so many posing questions to ask, that the learned missionary frequently thought she must be especially instigated by Satan in the unlooked-for difficulties she raised.

At length the maiden's intelligence seemed to pierce to the pith of the matter, relieved of all its bewildering husks, forms, and wrappings. The beauty and holiness of Christian morality dawned upon her benighted soul, and reconciled her fully and cordially to the Christian religion. It was to her, in truth, a revelation, and was received in earnestness and faith. She was baptized and married.

The party returned soon after to Montreal. La Crosse became the chief man of one of the beautiful villages on the St. Lawrence. We-no-na adapted herself eagerly to the habits and tastes of civilized life. Sometimes, as the happy pair sat on their broad piazza amid roses and honeysuckle, with their little half-breeds playing before them, La Crosse, to make his wife's eyes flash with their old barbarian fire, would express a pretended preference for the freedom of savage-life, and, sighing, wish that they were among the Dahcotahs; a wish which never failed to call forth an indignant rebuke from We-no-na. On one occasion her husband, to please some wandering Iroquois, daubed his face with ochre, grease, and charcoal, threw a blanket over his shoulders, decorated his head with feathers, took a scalping-knife in one hand and a tomahawk in the other, and, with genuine French versatility, joined in a war-dance. But when he found that his disguise disturbed We-no-na, so that she wept passionately, he threw it aside, never to resume it.

A proud woman was she, when, with her two boys and a little girl, La Crosse first drove her up, in a painted sledge, to the little Catholic church where Sunday service was held. No wonder that the emotion of gratitude surpassed all others as she knelt in prayer. A still prouder woman was she, when her children could read and write, and one of her boys attained such proficiency on the bass-viol that he was employed by the priest to lead the choir in church. They grew up a bright intelligent race, and We-no-na lived to see them all happily settled upon adjoining farms.

And this is the end of "We-no-na's Rock."

"MANESQUE adiit Regemque tremendum."—VIRGIL.

Is this awful presence real?
This grim PLUTO'S dread domain?
Or not, rather, some ideal
Phantom of a troubled brain?
Nay, it is no mocking vision
Born of frenzied hope or fear,
And my heart with calm decision,
Whispers, Minstrel, be of cheer!

Lo! the first of living mortals
That e'er crossed the Stygian wave!
Do not spurn me from your portals,
Hold not back the boon I crave!
By that queenly form beside thee,
Rapt from Enna's flowery fold,
King of Hades, do not chide me
If I seem unseemly bold!

Rocks and woods my footsteps follow,
Wildest streams in silence stand,
When thy golden gift, APOLLO,
Melts in music to my hand
Shall its tones prove less enchanting
Here, than in yon world above,
When its master, pale and panting,
Pleads the cause of life and love?

Let me try what magic slumbers,
Lyre, in thy melodious chords,
When to music's sweetest numbers
Sorrow lends still sweeter words:
See! the Furies lean to listen,
ATROPOS relenting hears;
Nay, e'en PLUTO'S stern eyes glisten;
PROSERPINE'S are drowned in tears!

Oh! how sweet your answer falleth
On my spirit, rapt and still!
"Fate thy loved one's doom recalleth,
Mortal, thou shalt have thy will:
She for whom thy soul is yearning,
Sunward shall thy steps retrace;
But beware, the while, of turning
Once to gaze upon her face!"

Shall I, then, again behold her,
As in days so fondly blest?
Shall these widowed arms enfold her,
These lorn lips to hers be prest?
Oh! the sad yet sweet confession
Of a rapture so intense!
Silence were its best expression,
Tears its truest eloquence!

See, yon golden gate discloses
Glimpses of the blissful bowers,
Where immortal youth reposes,
Crowned with amaranthine flowers;
And as SHE the threshold crosses,
From the fields of asphodel
Comes a swell of spirit-voices,
Softly murmuring, Fare thee well!

Kindly ones, your parting blessing
Fate shall tenderly fulfill!
In my arms, caressed, caressing,
She shall find Elysium still;
For wherever truth and duty
Link the loving, heart to heart,
Your fair world in all its beauty
Sees its perfect counterpart.

Grieve not, dearest, that thy lover
Leads thee with averted face;
Once the Stygian bourne well over,
How he'll fly to thy embrace!
But till that dear consummation,
Let the thought bring mutual cheer,
That in deepest obscuration
Each to each is ever near.

Lo! already, faintly gleaming,
Far Avernus dawns to sight!
Down whose dusky caverns streaming
Glance the golden shafts of light:
As they brighter fall around thee,
Fainter pleads my hapless vow;
Nay, though thousand oaths had bound me,
I must see thee, here and now!

Fairest of all fairest faces,
Oh! the rapture, once, once more,
To behold those dimpled graces
Lovelier than e'er before!
But, alas, the hopes they waken
Vanish like a frighted bird,
Ah! so soon to be forsaken
By a bliss so long deferred!

Back, ye Gorgons, grimly glaring
Where the rosy vision fled;
All your banded fury daring,
I again will seek the dead!
Vain, vain boast! for ever vanished
Is thy dream the loved to free;
By thine own blind passion vanished,
Justest Fates, too, banish thee.

Yet ye have not all bereft me,
Parcæ, spurned from Lethe's shore;
This dear solace still is left me,
That I've seen her face once more!
And whatever hence betide me,
That fair vision, day and night,
Like a cynosure shall guide me
To her own blest Land of Light!

NEW-YORK, 1854

IT is not long since that Hamilton County, with the whole region lying between the fertile slopes of the Mohawk and Lake Champlain, was known but as a vast, mountainous, cold tract, presenting the extreme contrast of a primeval forest, traversed only by the hunter of the deer, the bear, and the moose. Here and there an agricultural settler along its borders snatched a scanty harvest from the brief summer, and on the eastern side the lumberman pursued his wintry toil; but, once past the log-cabin of the one or the shanty of the other, it was literally a howling wilderness, where the yell of the wolf, the scream of the panther, and the laughter of the owl mingled with the roar of floods and the moanings of the winds through the tall hemlocks. Now the marvellous beauty of its scenery, more wildly grand than any other in North-America, diversified by many lakes of crystal purity and their foaming outlets, have been so often eloquently described by adventurous littérateurs in search of the picturesque, trout, and copy-money, that a tour through Racquette and the Saranac is getting to be well-nigh as readily undertaken as a trip to the Upper Nile. Even ladies have ventured a day or two within the shadows, and before long the solitary Indian, who lingers in the hunting-grounds of his fathers, or the moccasined woodsman, paddling his "birch," will be startled by flotillas gay with fashionable drapery, and listen, in wondering delight, to the songs of Verdi and Auber among the echoes of Blue Mountain. Lines of rival railways have already been traced through the gorges and along the streams; speculation has been busy with the timber-lots, and soon the glory of the forest, unbroken since time began until now, will be floating down the St. Lawrence and the Hudson, or whirled at the tail of the locomotive to the sea side. The most zealous utilitarian might sadden over the coming change, were it not that a century must go by before the industry of man, though that man be a Yankee, can strip the rocky heights of their ever-green luxuriance.

Following from the Mohawk side, and after crossing the hill which bounds that valley, the bank of the noble Sacondaga (beau-ideal of a trout river to an angler who is content to wade deeply for a free cast under the elms on pool or rapid) to the neat little inn of Francisco, and then crossing a spur of the mountain-range by a road rough as the bed of a torrent, the traveller will find himself gazing on the placid waters and rich shores of Lake Pleasant, named by no flattering tongue, for a more lovely scene has seldom greeted the eye of poet or artist; and, yet farther on, connected with it by a short strait, Round Lake sparkles like a bowl of silver wreathed with verdant garland. Here several dwellings, with one or two flourishing farms, are clustered about the county buildings, and a well-kept hotel opens its doors in welcome to a table spread with luxuries unknown among the dwellers on the plain. At the time when the incidents happened of which I am about to write, the explorer, if not accustomed to wood-craft, or bent upon adventure, tempted the difficulties of the way no farther; nor was he indisposed to linger, where, with comfort at night and plenty by day, he could win rich trophies for both rod and gun, or enjoy the beauty around him varying with dawn and evening, sunlight and cloud. But perseverance for two or three hours would bring him to another lake, the Piseco, far more lovely, at least in the judgment of one rendered perhaps partial by memories of happy days of many an early summer spent in contemplating its virgin charms, traversing its pure bosom and enjoying the society of a half-dozen kindred spirits, far from the dust of cities, the turmoil of trade, and the frivolities of artificial life.

In this country, especially, the extreme heats that alternate with our cold winters, and, still more, the suicidal intensity with which the American follows his calling, render some relief necessary to mind, body, and heart; nor can any of us who live in towns pass from the exhaustions of one season to those of the next without some interval of change, and not suffer loss of physical vigor, intellectual force, and moral health. HE who, in HIS wise goodness, has made us so "fearfully and wonderfully," never intended our material or spiritual structure for such constant excess. The birth-place of man was amidst trees, and herbage, and flowing waters. There are the works of GOD, and there, as to our early home, should we at times turn to freshen our being, and listen to the voice of HIM who talked in Paradise with HIS children. It is not relaxation that we need. Our straining of nerve and thought, to say nothing of worse habits incident to our perverted modes of life, has already too much relaxed our faculties by recoil from the tension. What our nature demands is invigoration, a bracing of the frame, a quickening of the mind, an uplifting of the heart, an inhalation of fresh life from its original sources, that will enable us to grapple more strenuously with care, and duty, and temptation. This can not be gained in the crowded saloons of watering-places, or at the lordly country-seat, to which have been transferred the appliances of courtly gratification, or by rushing over the rapid rail, or on packed steamers, to haunts of hackneyed resorts, merely to say that we have made the fashionable tour. These give us no opportunity to think, no motive to repent and resolve anew. We are still fettered by conventionalities. The wearisome monotony of whirling excitements still sickens our aching brain. We must break away from the crowd. We must reach a spot where distance will give soberness to our view of our usual occupations, scenes where we can gather ideas, sentiments, and emotions, not from worldly dictation or even the page covered with other men's thoughts; where we can hold intercourse with our fellow-men who spend their days more simply; but, above all, where we can be alone with GOD among the works of HIS hands, and hear, answering to our own, the pulses of the INFINITE HEART which fills the universe with truth and love.

The student, long shut up within his library, and the servant of his race in religious or philanthropic offices, need such a change quite as much as men of business or pleasure. Books, precious as they are for enlargement of knowledge and instruction from the past, may be abused beyond their proper function. Classical, scholastic, and (in its general sense) sectarian forms, constrict and distort both the judgment and the feeling. What we proudly term analysis and system are too often but an arbitrary classification, under whose heads we, Procrustes-like, compress or stretch out truths which were never meant to take such exact or fixed shapes, but should be allowed confluence and commixture, losing, like the hues of nature, all rigidness of outline in harmony and kindred. What a world of labor have metaphysicians wasted, by forgetting that they are not mathematicians, and endeavoring to hew the "lively stones" into such shape as may be fixed in a building of their architecture! How near the materialist has the self-styled idealist come by such affectations! Too much learning, (the scoffer was right,) or, rather, learning too much by itself, will make a wise man mad. We may hide our souls from our own view by our parchments, and look out upon the world of humanity through obstinate hypotheses as false as gnarled window-panes. Critics have done laughing at Wordsworth's early puerilities, but every close student feels the force of the Laker's exhortation:

"UP! up! my friend, and clear your looks!
Why all this toil and trouble?
Up! up! my friend, and quit your books,
Or surely you'll grow double!"

Double indeed! deformed in mind as well as body.

Nor will it answer to attempt such recuperation by force of will alone. Accustomed to earnest occupation, we can not change the habit which has become a law to us. Though we leave office, counting-room, or library behind us, our calling will pursue us, and force our thoughts into their ordinary ruts. The man of business will be calculating his risks; the studious man working out his theories.

"POST equitem sedet atra cura."

We can not shake the tormentor from the crupper, but must dismount from our hobby. We can rid ourselves of one pursuit only by adopting another another—lighter, less imperious; amusing, but not engrossing; releasing the mind, but not binding it again. We must have play instead of work; yet play that will be occupation. Hence the value which those sturdy, sober, untranscendental, unmediæval thinkers, the Scotch writers, have set upon field-sports and exercises which carry them out among the heather, over the mountain, and along the stream. Christopher North, (green be the turf above him!) "under canvas," was worth more as a philosopher, aye, as a philosopher, than any cobweb-spinning German, or backward-looking Oxonian that ever ignored common humanity and its every-day experience. Dyspepsia never soured his moral sentiments, and, content with the cheerful sun, he left twilight to owls and bats.

Views like these led the little band of friends already spoken of to the Piseco, on whose romantic bank they had built a simple lodge, and whose waters abounded with several varieties of that aquatic family, whose charms inspired Davy, not less admirable as a moralist than an illustrator of natural science, to write his Salmonia. Some of them were shrewd and successful in business; some of them more given to books; one of them a preacher of Good News, who loved his work, called Chaplain, not without warrant, for his office was no sinecure; and all of them "honest, civil, and temperate," as all anglers should be, and as (according to Izaak Walton's infallible authority) all true anglers are. The lake is about seven miles long, and nearly a mile and a half wide. Several bays are curved out of the shore, the deepest, at the lower end, called from an Indian, the stories told of whose life might make the whole tradition apocryphal, had he not left his name, Girondicut (the spelling is uncertain) to the most exquisite part of the water. Some buildings, most of them abandoned to decay, show like a peaceful hamlet at the upper end, but are hidden by a wooded promontory from the lodge, before whose humble porch a cleared field, flourishing with corn and grass, slopes gently toward the lake. Everywhere else Nature is in her wildest grace or most sublime magnificence.

Up in the morning with the thrush, (the lark Piseco knows not, but the thrush is as early,) each in his well-trimmed boat, rowed by a sinewy woodsman, with a rod out over each side, the friends parted to troll in various directions, never so intent on their game as not to enjoy the shadows deep in the clear waters, or watch the mists, as rolling away they revealed the mountains piled in grand clusters, or stretching farther and farther, ridge over ridge, until their undulating lines were lost in the blue sky. Nay, if truth be told, many a finny prowler escaped the fate due to his murderous appetite, because the thoughts of the angler were wandering in delicious day-dreams, or aspiring gratefully to GOD, who has made our way to heaven lie through a world so beautiful. The sultry noon found them under the shadow of spreading birch trees, near a spring of icy coldness, where, after a rude but welcome meal, they were wont to recline on a bank carpeted by blossoming strawberry-vines, with the low dash of the rippling wave in their ear. Then it was that stories of the morning sport, innocuous jests, and, not seldom, grave yet pleasant discourse, sped the moments to the cooler hours when the boats were manned again, and they parted until the shadows fell: then another chat over the fragrant "cup that cheers, but not inebriates," and to sleep soundly and sweetly till the sun roused them to renewed gratifications. News of political strife, pressures in the money-market, or foreign wars, never penetrated those pure, peaceful solitudes. The nearest post-office was many miles away across the mountains, and tidings only of the beloved ones at home were allowed to come.

Those days are gone by, and the cheer of those friends will never be heard over those waters again. One, the most revered of all, sleeps in a holy grave, and his memory fades not in the hearts of his comrades; in other haunts of wild nature they greet each other with unabated affection; but for them Piseco is a word of memory, not of hope.

The Sabbath there had peculiar charms. No church-going bell rang through the woods, no decorated temple lifted its spire; but the hush of divine rest was upon all around, a sense of the HOLY ONE rested on the spirit, the birds sang more sweetly, the dews of the morning shimmered more brightly, and the sounds of the forest were like the voice of psalms. As the day went on toward noon, the inhabitants, whose dwellings were scattered for miles around, some down the rocky paths, others in boats on the lake, singly or in companies, men, women, and little ones, might be seen drawing near to the lodge, where, when all assembled, they formed a respectful and willing congregation of perhaps fifty worshippers, and listened to the words of the preacher, who sought to lead them by the Gospel of the Cross through nature up to the GOD of grace. Such opportunities were rare for them; never, indeed, was a sermon heard there except on these occasions. The devout (for GOD the Saviour had a "few names" among them) "received the word with gladness;" all were attentive, and their visitors found, when joining with them in the primitive service, a religious power seldom felt in more ceremonious homage.

On one of those sacred days there came among the rest two young, graceful women, whose air and dress marked them as of a superior cultivation. Their modest voices enriched the trembling psalmody, and their countenances showed strong sympathy with the preacher's utterances. At the close of the worship, they made, through one of their neighbors, a request that the minister would pay a visit to their mother, who had been a long time ill, and was near death. A promise was readily given that he would do so the same day; but their home lay four miles distant, and a sudden storm forbade the attempt. The Monday morning shone brightly, though a heavy cloud at the west suggested precautions against a thunder-shower. The friends parted from the landing, each bent upon his purpose; but the chaplain's prow was turned on his mission of comfort to the sick. Had any prim amateurs of ecclesiastical conventionalities seen him with his broad-brimmed hat, necessary for shelter from the sun, a green veil thrown around it as defense from the mosquitoes near the shores, his heavy water-boots, and his whole garb chosen for aquatic exigences, (for, like Peter, he had girt his fisher's coat about him,) they would hardly have recognized his errand. But the associations of the scene with the MAN OF NAZARETH and the Apostles by the Sea of Galilee, were in his soul, carrying him back to the primitive Christianity, and lifting him above the forms with which men have overlaid its simplicity. The boat flew over the placid waters in which lay mirrored the whole amphitheatre of the mountain-shores, green as an emerald. The wooded point hid the lodge on the one side, a swelling island the hamlet on the other. No trace of man was visible. The carol of birds came off from the land; now and then the exulting merriment of a loon rang out of the distance, and soon a soft, southern breeze, redolent of the spicy hemlock and cedar, rippled the surface. The Sabbath had transcended its ordinary hours, and shed its sweet blessing on the following day. His rods lay idly over the stern as the chaplain thought of the duty before him, and asked counsel of the MASTER, who "HIMSELF bare our sicknesses and carried our sorrows." He remembered the disciples who said, "LORD, he whom thou lovest is sick;" and the gracious answer, "This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of GOD, that the SON OF MAN might be glorified thereby."

It is not imagination merely that gives such power to the living oracles, when they come to us where the testimony of nature unites with the inspiration. It is the blessing of JESUS, who sought the wilderness, the shore, and the mountain-side to gain strength from communion with his FATHER. It was in such solitudes that our EXAMPLE and FORERUNNER found courage for his trial and suffering. Religion is eminently social, but its seat is the heart of the individual believer, and, whatever be the advantage of Christian fellowship, the flame must be fed in private, personal converse with the FATHER of our spirits. He who has not been alone with GOD, can seldom find him in the crowded church.

A brief hour, briefer for these meditations, brought the keel of the boat to a gravelly nook, where the mouth of the inlet formed a little harbor. There, awaiting the chaplain's arrival, stood a tall, upright man, past the prime of life, who, with a style of courtesy evidently foreign, bared his gray head, and greeted his visitor by name as a friend.

"You have kindly come, sir, to see my poor wife; I thank you for it. She is now expecting you, for we heard the sound of your oars as you turned the island."

A rough stone house, built by a speculator of former days, stood on a knoll a little way from the stream, and the garden around it was trimmed with some taste. As they entered, the owner said:

"Welcome to the mountain dwelling of an old soldier! He (pointing to an engraved portrait of Blucher, wreathed with laurel leaves,) was my general, whose praise I once received as I lay wounded on the field of battle. I am a Prussian, Sir, and came to this country when my father-land had no farther use for my sword. I have not been successful in my peaceful life, and misfortune after misfortune drove me here, hoping to gather about us a few of my countrymen, and make a German home; but in that I was disappointed. The severe winters chilled their resolution, and now we are by ourselves. The few neighbors about us are not of our class, but they are kind and honest; and the world has nothing to tempt me back to it. I have one brave son at sea. My two daughters you saw yesterday. We had another, but she sleeps yonder."

He turned abruptly from the room. The chaplain, left to himself, observed about the apartment various articles of refinement and faded luxury, telling the story of more prosperous days. His subsequent acquaintance with the family confirmed his first impressions. Though not of high rank, they were educated, of gentle manners, and, though for years remote from cultivated society, preserved the amenities which now distinguished them. Only the father seemed to have suffered for want of occupation, and, not unlikely, from habits formed in camp, but now doubly dangerous in seclusion.

At a signal from another room, one of the daughters led the chaplain to the bedside of the sufferer. The father sat with his face averted, near an open window, through which came the laughing prattle of a child, and a half-idiot serving-woman looked in wonderingly across the threshold of an outer kitchen. The daughters, having raised their mother's head on a higher pillow, and affectionately smoothed her thin gray hair under the snow-white cap, withdrew to the other side of the bed. The chaplain placed his broad hat, with its green veil, on the little table, and sat silent for a while, not knowing how to begin, since, as yet, nothing had given him a clue to the woman's state of mind. She lay still and stone-like; her eyes were dry, with little "speculation" in them; her lips moved, but uttered no sound; and her hand, feebly stretched out, was cold and stiff. Her whole frame was worn to extreme thinness, and the color of her skin told that the seat of her disease was the liver.

At length the chaplain, seeing that her soul was near its dread passage into the eternal future, said:

"I am sorry, my friend, to find you so very ill. You are soon to die."

"Yes."

"It is a fearful thing to die; are you not afraid?"

"No."

"But to go into the presence of GOD, our Judge, is a most solemn change."

"Yes."

"And are you not afraid?"

"No."

The preacher was confounded. The short answers, almost cold, without emotion, the glazed eye, the rigid countenance, caused him to doubt whether he had to contend with ignorance or insensibility. Anxious to rouse some feeling, if possible, to startle into some attention, as a physician applies the probe, he pushed severe declarations of certain judgment and the danger of impenitence, reminded her that CHRIST, the Saviour of the believing, will be the Avenger of sin, and that "there is no work or device in the grave," but "as the tree falls, so it must lie." The tearless eye unwinkingly gazed on him, and no shrinking followed his keen surgery.

"Madam, you are going before GOD, and do you not fear?"

A faint smile stole struggling through her thin features, and a light, like a star twinkling under a deep shadow, was seen far within her eye, and pointing with her finger upward, she said, in a firm, low tone:

"Though HE slay me, yet will I trust in HIM."

The chaplain bowed his head on the pillow and wept thanks. Here was no ignorant or callous soul, but a child of GOD, whose perfect love had cast out fear.

"Yes, Christian soul, you are not afraid of evil tidings; your heart is fixed, trusting in HIM who went this way before you. Fear no evil; HIS rod and HIS staff, they will comfort you."

"Amen! blessed be HIS name," replied the dying believer. "It is true. I know in whom I have believed, and that HE is able to keep what I have committed to HIM. Because HE hath been my Help, therefore under HIS wings do I rejoice."

It seemed now as if the fountain of her speech was unsealed, and, though no moisture was in her eyes, and the few drops which started out on her forehead were cold and clammy, and the worn lineaments had lost the power to smile, and she lay still as marble, yet, with a voice clear and unfaltering, she went on to testify her faith in CHRIST, and of the peace that filled her soul. A strength denied to her body came from within.

"Oh! sir, I thank you for coming; I thank GOD for sending you to me, like the angel to Hagar in the wilderness. I prayed for it. It is four long years since I heard the voice of a Christian minister, and all that time I prayed for one to hold the water of life to my lips once more. Now I know that HE has heard me; blessed be HIS name!"

The preacher interrupted her to say that she had not been left alone by her GOD, who needed not man's lips to comfort his people.

"Alone! no, never alone! I have seen HIM in HIS mighty works. I have heard HIM in the storms of winter and in the summer winds. I had my Bible, HIS own holy word. His SPIRIT has been with me. But I thank HIM for the voice of HIS commissioned servant, whose duty is to comfort HIS people." . . . . . . .

The reader of this imperfect sketch can have little idea of the eloquence, almost supernatural, pervaded by Scriptural language and imagery, with which she spoke. It was the soul triumphing over the fainting flesh; truth in its own energy, unaided by human expression; a voice of the dead, not sepulchral, but of one near the gate of heaven.

The chaplain knelt beside the bed and all the rest knelt with him; but there was more of thanks than petition in his prayer. The clouds that hung about the borders of eternity were so bright with the glory beyond, that sorrow and pain were forgotten as he gave utterance to the dying woman's memories and hopes, the memories of grace and the hopes of immortality that met together in her faithful heart. Nor need I add that his own gratitude was strong to the GOOD SHEPHERD, who had sent him to find this sheep among the mountains, not lost nor forgotten, but longing for a token of her SAVIOUR'S care.

When he rose from his knees, she thanked him again, but with more visible emotion than before, said:

"Sir, I doubt not GOD directed you here; and there is one favor more I have asked of HIM and now ask through you. Three years ago my eldest daughter died in my arms, assured of rest, but leaving behind her a babe not two weeks old. 'Mother,' she said, just as she was dying, 'I leave my child with you to bring her to me in heaven. You will do it for CHRIST'S sake, and mine, and hers, mother. And, mother, HE has told us to give little children to HIM in baptism. Dear mother, promise that my child shall be baptized.' I promised, and her spirit departed. Ever since, I have been praying and waiting for some minister to find his way to us, but in vain. More than once I heard of some who had come as far as Lake Pleasant, but none reached Piseco, and I almost feared that I should die and not be able to tell my child in heaven that the blessed water had been on her baby's face. Yet, even in this, GOD has been good to me. You will baptize my little one?"

How gladly the chaplain assented, may be readily imagined. The child was called in from her play on the grass-plat; her rosy, wondering face was gently washed, and her light brown hair parted on her forehead, and she stood, with her bare white feet, on a low bench by her grandmother's pillow. The grandfather filled an antique silver bowl with water, freshly dipped from a spring near the door. An old brass-clasped folio of Luther's Bible was laid open at the family record beside the water, the chaplain's broad hat on the other side. He thought not, and none thought of his coarse gray coat or his heavy boots. He was full of his sacred office, and the presence of the INVISIBLE was upon him. The feeble woman, strengthened by love and faith, raised herself higher on the bed and put her wasted arm over the plump shoulders of the fair, blue-eyed child. The old man and his daughters, and the dull-witted servant at the kitchen-door, reverently standing, sobbed aloud; and, amidst the tears of all except her whose source of tears was dried up for ever, the chaplain recited the touching prayer of the Reformed Churches before the baptism of infants, and with the name of the departed mother breathed over her orphan, in the name of the FATHER, and of the SON, and of the HOLY GHOST, she was dedicated to GOD by water sprinkled three times on her sweet grave face. The grandfather handed a pen to the chaplain, but it was lightly pressed to trace the inscription, for the page was wet with the big drops that fell from the old man's eyes.

Many moments elapsed before the thanksgiving could be uttered, and then the happy saint joyfully exclaimed:

"Bless you, Sir! I bless GOD that HE has granted me this grace before I die. Now I am ready to go to my child in heaven."

"My dear madam," answered the preacher, "it is, indeed, a blessed ordinance; but the child of prayers for two generations would not have missed the promise because of an impossibility on your part."

"No, no! the spirit is better than the form. She had the promise. I knew that she was in the covenant, but I wanted her in the fold."

The chaplain entered his boat. Never did lake, and mountain, and green shore look so beautiful, for they seemed all bathed with holy light; and that noon, when, with his friends reclining on the sward, he told the story of the baptism in the wilderness, their moistened eyes expressed their sympathy with his joy.

Heaven opened for the grandmother a few days afterward. The next year her SAVIOUR took up her child's child in his arms, and the three were together among the angels. The grandfather lived but a short time. One of the daughters having married a farmer, moved, with her sister, down into the open country, where she also died in her young beauty. Of the two other members of the family, I have heard nothing since.

The old stone house still stands near the rushing inlet, but the storms beat through its broken windows. Rank weeds have over-run the garden, and brambles hide the spring near the kitchen door. Yet the path from the landing-place can be followed; and should any of my readers ever visit Piseco, now more accessible, but charming as ever, they can easily recognize the scene of my story. It is ever fresh and hallowed in my memory; for there I learned, by precious experience, that the good GOD never forgets those who trust in HIM, and that, go where we will, we may carry HIS blessing with us to some heart thirsting for HIS word.

ALL of divine in poetry we lose
When wayward Genius prostitutes the muse,
Lured by the fatal gleam of golden showers,
And aims to make available his powers,
By pandering to vitiated Taste,
While runs the garden of his heart to waste.

DRYDEN was ruined when he tuned his string
To gain the guerdon of a heartless king,
Amuse a gay, licentious court with lays
Mocking at virtue, and indecent plays.
Alone the mere available he sought,
At honor's price a wretched stipend bought;
The hill-tops of the Beautiful forsook,
On scenes of hollow revelry to look;
Bow at the footstool of anointed Sin,
Less sure of royal favor than NELL GWYNN.
Oh! what a loss to letters when withdrawn
From high, heroic theme was 'glorious JOHN,'
Led by Romance to her old haunted shore,
Pluming his wing for epic flight no more!

Eternal praise is deathless MILTON'S due,
To an exalted calling ever true;
Although his books the common hangman burned
When, triumphing, the Second CHARLES returned,
Still his great heart a love of freedom fired,
While Want and Woe to crush his soul conspired.
The wretched tool of Party trimmed his sail
To catch the current of a prosperous gale,
And pliant chiefs, with king-craft long at strife,
On bended knees begged piteously for life;
But one there was, unawed by sceptred Power,
Firm as the rock-foundation of a tower,
Whom threat could not corrupt, nor bribe seduce,
To live one hour with Guilt on terms of truce;
Whose breast, the fortress of an iron will,
Harbored a hatred of Oppression still.
Blind were his orbs, but, eloquent, the lips
Gave proof of mind undarkened by eclipse,
Midsummer-noon outshining with its rays
Though gone the bloom and bliss of younger days.
Wit reaped the harvest of a venal pen
Selling his conscience for the praise of men;
Apostates hailed the STUART line restored,
Mocking the creed that edged a HAMPDEN'S sword,
But reigning Fashion could not cramp with laws
An author deaf to popular applause,
Whose spirit, bathing in celestial light,
Conversed with shapes unknown to mortal sight,
Though foolish scribe and lying pamphleteer
More gold amassed with each returning year.
Ah! little thought the dunces who maligned
The Bard of Eden, old, infirm, and blind,
That gladly reading thousands in our day,
More for his careless autograph would pay
Than all the lumber, now of little worth,
To which his scribbling enemies gave birth.

Out on the coward who adapts his page
To the base craving of a selfish age,
And finds the silver in his itching palms
A sudden cure for conscientious qualms!
Not long from judgment can the wretch be screened
Whose soul is mortgaged to a torturing fiend;
Remorse will follow misdirected power
When gone the clap-trap of the passing hour:
Through mocking paint will soon or late appear
The pallid shade of more than mortal fear,
And on the wind, while hurrying to the goal,
The funeral-bell of murdered Hope will toll.
Out upon authors who conform in style
To manners that are prevalent though vile,
The gifts of GOD abusing for a price
Paid by the gilded devotees of Vice!
Their works survive as beacon-lights to warn,
Not precious scrolls the language to adorn,
And when their names offend the startled ear
We feel as if an adder's brood were near.
Not such the band, from Labor's field withdrawn,
Whose lingering foot-prints match in glow the dawn;
The gulf of ages can not swallow up
These meek partakers of a bitter cup;
Their records were not written in the sand,
But treasured lie in Memory's holy land.
Despised of men, they toiled with fervent zeal,
Through good and ill report, for human weal;
Bravely the burthen of their sorrows bore,
And household-words will live for evermore.
Their names, a precious legacy, impart
Balm to the pilgrim growing faint of heart,
And, snatching up the staff, he journeys on,
The mournful gloom that wrapped his spirit gone.

EVERY body who knows Dr. T——, in a friendly way, knows that his darling study is Psychology; and this has always interested me exceedingly, as I suppose it interests every artist. Lately, in our conversations, we have been devoted, he as master and I as scholar, to the observation of characters formed by the development of a single passion, as avarice, ambition, love, etc. His close, analytical mind finds great pleasure in following and noting accurately the course of such a development, from its first exterior manifestation to its result; and he holds that when the soul is once fairly delivered up to the dominance of a single passion, the principle of life itself becomes involved, and that the end of the passion is only at the end of mortal existence.

His anecdotes, thoroughly illustrative of his theory, are many and of absorbing interest; and I only endeavor to repeat one here because the general reader is never likely to learn it from him. At the same time, I am convinced of my own incapacity to analyze like him. I will tell one story, however, that haunted me for a long time, and, as I am not a physician, but only a story-teller, I shall tell it in my own way.

There is a young, beautiful woman, sitting among pillows and cushions in an arm-chair, by an open window. The still atmosphere is heavy with the scent of tube-roses, jessamines, heliotropes, and other flowers of like powerful odor, which have always been her favorites. Filled as the air is with these rich fragrances, she adds to them that of pastiles, burning on the chimney-piece, and her handkerchief is wet with extracts of violets. Her skin is white, but not transparent; it reminds you most of cream-laid note paper. The eyes are lazy, full, and the color of the double English violets. The hair is blond, an ashy blond, and has scarcely a wave in it; it could not be made to curl, but lies in rich, heavy, almost damp bands, about the face. Her form, though delicate, is thoroughly developed; the flesh firm, the outlines as if chiseled, growing thin now, except the throat and bust, and the hands and feet, which are very small, but rounded and plump, with dimples at the joints. She wears a pale blue silk robe de chambre, opening in front to show an under-dress of white watered silk. On the table beside her is a bottle and glass of heavy, rich Portugal wine, pure juice, which leaves a spoonful of sediment in every glass.

Except to taste this, or to inhale the odors, as the light air throws them occasionally through the window, or to respire the violet from the handkerchief, she seldom raises her head from where it reclines, thrown back upon the cushions, in which position she looks passionately and dreamily at her husband's portrait, which hangs upon the wall before her.

The portrait exhibits a man of twenty-six or seven, somewhat sallow, thin, with heavy, wavy, chestnut hair, and large brown eyes, not without some fierceness in them. There is nothing remarkable about the face except the intense redness of the lips—the lady has that also—so red that you fancy the painter a bad chooser of colors; yet they say the likeness is perfect.

These are all the accessories which need be mentioned. Let the lady tell her own story:

MY father died before my birth; my mother perished in bringing me, her only child, into the world. They left me a large fortune, and my guardians were well-bred, very ordinary, every-day, well-to-do people.

The first thing I ever loved, except strong perfumes and flowers, was a bird, an English bulfinch, which seemed to be very fond of me, until one day, when I was about twelve or thirteen, it flew to a young girl who was visiting me, and refused to come back when I called it. When it did come, at last, I killed it in my hand.

I remember my nurse very well, and a pretty French maid who attended me afterward; but I do n't think I cared much about either.

I do n't think that I loved any thing much except the bird that I crushed in my hand; at least, until I got to be eighteen.

I was, of course, as is the case generally in New-York, taken into society quite young—at sixteen, I think—and I saw a good deal of it. I was rich, and I may say it now, beautiful, so that I did not lack suitors who professed the profoundest devotion for me. Some of them were pleasant, one or two handsome and fascinating men, and I often wondered at the existence of my utter indifference for them all. By-and-by I won the reputation of a cold, unaffectionate girl, and those who were really worthy began to leave me to myself, and none remained but those who thought only of my fortune. Cold and unaffectionate! Ah! if they could have seen the ceaseless agonies of tears into which I burst in my own room; if they could have seen my arms trying to wind themselves round my own body, or felt the thrills and yearnings of the unknown passion that convulsed me with its power, that was consuming my heart!

There was a large party given on my eighteenth birth-day, and it took its usual course. I have forgotten all about it until, about the middle of it, I saw a young man standing in a corner looking at me. As I met his look an indescribable thrill passed through me, and I felt faint for a moment. My impulse was to rise and clasp him in my arms. He haunted me and frightened me, yet I felt a strange desire to get near him. When he came, at last, introduced by my guardian as Mr. Mark Winston, I had scarcely strength or self-possession to bow. He asked me to dance and I refused, I know not why; I never cared for that amusement, yet I had never refused any one before. Then he sat down and talked to me a little while, but the shrinking still remained, and I answered I know not how or what. But he dropped a glove beside me, and when he had gone, I picked it up, and put it into my bosom; and when I was alone, I knew that I loved him, and that that love was my life.

Mark Winston was a Carolinian, and had brought no letters to the North, except to my guardian, so that our house was almost his only visiting-place. There was a pleasant, lively girl, niece to my guardian, staying with us then, and our party commonly consisted of the old people, Mark, Mary Lee, and myself. The spring came on and passed away, and in the latter part of it, we went to a country-seat at New-Rochelle.

Every hour my passion grew stronger; every hour it destroyed some minor characteristic of my nature, and advanced toward its end, the absorption of all my nature into itself. Still I shunned him, inexplicably to myself; I craved to be near him, to hear him, to watch him, to touch him with my dress in passing; but when he came to me, a positive fear would take hold on me, and I would feel almost ill. I stole from him; stole his gloves, his handkerchief; I would have done any act of meanness; I have picked the pockets of his coat when it hung in the hall. Once, noticing that the ribbon of his watch was worn out, Mary Lee gave him another, which he put on; and in doing so, he broke the crystal of his watch, and carried it up to his room. But for this, I would have fainted, or else sprung upon her; but this gave me a gleam of light. When he returned to the drawing-room, I went up stairs, procured another ribbon, and went into his room. I took her ribbon and tore it to pieces with my hands and teeth, and carried it out and stamped it into the black soil of the garden; but that which he had worn I had already in my bosom, and I treasured that and the gloves and the handkerchief, and whatever else of him I had, and kissed them, and sat looking at them in my lap, and slept with them in my bosom through the long nights. Yet for all this I could get no nearer to him.

At last I thought that he began to pay his addresses to Mary Lee, and then I recognized that love had not eaten up all my nature, for hate and rage still existed. Oh! what weary, weary weeks I spent in watching them! How softly I crawled down stairs! How stealthily I stole behind them in their walks! How I watched them conversing in the drawing-room.

On Thursday, the seventh of June—I had bought an almanac, and I used to mark the days on which I saw him—on Thursday, the seventh of June, I saw him come up the avenue, and heard him enter the house. He did not mount the stairs, but passed into the drawing-room, and I knew that Mary Lee was there alone. I went to my dressing-table, and swallowed from a flaçon a glass of Cologne-water. Then, when the shudder and tremor had passed over, I went gently down, and saw the door half open. The door was in the middle of the room; when partially open, you saw a huge mirror, which reflected every thing in the room: they sat behind it. Half-way down the stairs, I heard his voice, soft, low, pleading, tender: GOD! how long had this been going on? My satin slippers made no noise, and I reached the half-open door and saw them in the glass; he with her hand in his; I watched them there for a thousand centuries; and I heard him say, "Do, dear Mary; do promise for to-morrow;" and I heard her answer, in a timid, gentle voice, which seemed to me full of love, "No, Mark, I dare not,"

Again he plead to her, and then—my eyes upon the mirror—then he took her hand and kissed it. I saw him do it.

I struck the door open my hand was black for two weeks and went in to where he still held her hand, and stood before them, and struck my foot upon the ground.

Mary Lee ran out of the room.

"So," I said to Mark Winston, "you come here for that, do you?"

He looked at me amazedly.

"You even must be base and dishonorable, you even can not respect the sanctity of a friend's house; and you call yourself gentleman."

He grew white, a kind of ashy white; and his eyes grew three shades darker, and burnt like living coals with rage. I feared him not, and said:

"And to love a thing like Mary Lee!"

Then the fierceness passed instantly from his eyes; and a flood of unutterable passion flowed—I saw it flow—into them, and he said:

"I was begging her to intercede with you, Louise, I never loved any but you. But you are so cold, so unaffectionate, so incapable of loving, so——"

I sank down upon the floor, and clasped his knees, and said, "Mark, I love you, and have loved you, and will love you to eternity."

I remember my sitting upon his knees, with his strong arms, like mighty cords, binding my bosom upon his. And then came that wild rain of kisses, of consuming, devouring kisses, on my hair and eyes and forehead, and quicker and faster on my lips and neck. I fainted in his arms, on his convulsed bosom and impassioned, throbbing heart. At least I suppose I fainted, for I remember nothing until I found myself upon a sofa, with Mark kneeling at my feet, holding my hands in his, and his tears raining hotly upon them, faster and hotter than his kisses.

We were married on the fifteenth of September, and went to our home immediately—a nice country-house on the north shore of Long-Island—that was our home.

I do n't remember that we ever read, or drew, or had any music, or any thing else of that kind. I remember the walks in the forest or on the shore, and the flowers that he was fond of, and the perfumes he liked best, and the love that both of us had for the heavy lamp shades, ground simply and lined with rose-colored tissue paper.

I remember that I never before had taken particular care of my person, except what is natural to any gentlewoman, but that now I bathed twice every day, and studied every toilette, chiefly the morning and the night-dress, and used no perfume but tube-rose, heliotrope, and violet, which were his favorites, and lived as in a dream—a long, may-be a bad, wicked, cruel, passionate dream.

All that I know is, that I was separated from him, and the physicians said he was going to die; and when I asked to see him, they said, "No; any body but you." He grew worse and worse.

They had forbidden me to go near him. My presence alone, they said, was injurious to him. They would not answer for his life, if I were to insist on seeing him. So I kept away in my own chamber while people were stirring in the house; but, in the early morning, when all was still, I used to creep to the door of his room, and crouch down there and think of him.

By-and-by this became unendurable, and I began to question whether that cold-browed, scientific, quiet man had a right to keep a wife from her husband. I had heard so often, that, for a point of medical interest, any point new or curious in their science, they would not hesitate to destroy fifty lives to procure an elucidation, I determined at least to see. So I questioned Mark's nurse.

"Does he suffer much, nurse?"

"No, Ma'am; or, at least, he makes no complaint. Only just lies there, still and dreaming-like, and putting out his arms, and then folding them back round him again."

"Is he out of his mind at all?"

"GOD bless you! no. His eyes have no sparkle in them, and his voice is as little as a child's, only deeper, like the church-organ, you know, Ma'am, before they come to the loud part."

"But does he forget all his friends?"

"He never speaks about them, Ma'am, although the doctor is always a-mentioning them to him; but while they talk about them, he just lies there."

"About whom, then, does he talk?"

"O Ma'am, he hardly talks at all; only lies still, except his arms, and looks always like he was thinking of somewhat; and when he does speak, he never says but just only, 'Louise, Louise.'"

"Does he say 'Louise?' That is my name."

"Why, bless you, Ma'am, he never speaks nor thinks of any body but you. He calls always for you, and then, after he calls awhile, he seems to think as you have come, and he folds his arms in so—" here the nurse imitated the motion; "not folding them up as the gentlemen do, but kind of looking as if he were folding something else up into them; and then he keeps a-saying 'Louise, Louise,' in a little, low, soft voice, and by-and-by he falls asleep."

A new idea flashed upon me. Said I:

"Nurse, dear, they, the doctors, won't allow me to see him; are they cross with you? Let me see: how long have you been watching him?"

"Three nights now, Ma'am, on a stretch; but if I was ever so tired, Ma'am, I could n't let you go in."

"Oh! yes, I know that; but I want him well watched, and I am afraid that they don't take care of you."

"Oh! yes, Ma'am, I get plenty to eat, but, to tell you the truth, Ma'am, I have always been used to a little drop of wine, and I haven't had none."

"Well, nurse, I will bring you some into the little dining-room, and will call you when he gets asleep. Now go in and watch him."

She went into Mark's room, and I went to the sideboard, where I found several decanters full. I chose a small one, in order that she might drink it all. But first, I took it up to my own room, and put some laudanum in it; and then I got some dry biscuit and anchovy sauce to increase her thirst, and took it into the little dining-room.

It was nearly eleven then, and I undressed myself, but did not go to bed. I thought constantly of Mark, and I put on the pale-blue dressing-gown, in which he used to admire me, and I let the bands of my hair, which were very thick and heavy, fall down about my neck; and then I sat down before the clock, and thought about him and of the day when he first told me how he loved me, and of the day on which we were married.

When the clock struck one, I went down, peeped in, and saw the nurse moving about the chimney-piece. Then I went back to my room, sat down, and thought of Mark until two. Then I went down again, and, as I slightly opened Mark's door, I saw the nurse dozing in her arm-chair. I could not see Mark, for the door, half-opened, only showed the foot of his bed; but I heard him move and say "Louise;" and I shivered as I heard him. Meantime his movement or mine awakened the nurse, and she saw me.

I beckoned to her, and, after a glance at her charge, she came out. I saw that she was cold, for they allowed no fire in Mark's room; and I took her to the little dining-room, where a grate-full of coals was blazing, and made her take an arm-chair near the fire. Then I began to talk to her; but I made my remarks at long intervals, so that, after a few moments, she fell back upon the cushions, and slept.

When I was assured of her slumber, I rose, and, woman that I am, walked to the mirror. I saw that I was pale, and wondered what he would think of me. Then I went into his room, and stood beside him. I had never before thought him handsome, but the pallor of his skin made his eyes dark and full of languor; the moisture upon his hair gave it a gloss which it never had worn in health, and his lips were full and crimson. To me, at that moment, he looked surpassingly beautiful.

He saw me at once, and after we had gazed at each other for a, few moments, he put out his arms and said, "Louise, Louise;" and I sank down into his arms.

The lights in the room had burned out, and the first gray tints of morning began to appear, when I felt a fearful shudder pass over Mark's form, and he writhed himself free from my embrace. Then he asked hoarsely for water.

I sprang up, gave him a drink, and then stood at his bedside.

His eyes were on fire; his cheeks were covered with a burning flush, and his hands trembled as he used them in gesticulation.

"Louise," he said, "I am dying."

Then an indefinable terror seized me, and I crouched down beside the bed, but my eyes were fascinatedly fixed upon his.

"Louise, they told me, the doctors told me, that you were my death; they told me that your love had killed me; and they wanted me to quit you, Louise."

He put out his arms toward me, but I shrank from him with my blood curdled.

"Louise, I mocked at them. I said you could not kill me, for you had my life and soul in you as well as your own. GOD! what a pain!"

His form was thrown up from the bed in his agony, and then fell down again.

"Mark, what can I do for you, darling?"

"Did you speak, Louise?" he said with a wild stare. "I saw your lips move, but only heard your low, sweet voice saying, 'Mark, Mark, I love you.' I hear it always. I feel your breath upon my lips now. Come here, Louise. Quick!"

I bent toward him. His arms caught me in a fierce embrace, and so he held me as if he would have pressed my very life into his bosom, and he fastened his red lips on mine.

And there, in that clasp, the fires faded from his eyes, and his lips froze there upon mine.

I CARE not for what the doctors tell me. Mark is dead, and I am dying also; but slowly, too slowly!

MY days pass pleasantly away,
My nights are blest with sweetest sleep,
I feel no symptoms of decay,
I have no cause to mourn nor weep.
My foes are impotent and shy,
My friends are neither false nor cold:
And yet, of late, I often sigh,
I'm growing old!

My growing talk of olden times,
My growing thirst for early news,
My growing apathy to rhymes,
My growing love of easy shoes,
My growing hate of crowds and noise,
My growing fear of taking cold,
All whisper in the plainest voice,
I'm growing old!

I'm growing fonder of my staff,
I'm growing dimmer in the eyes,
I'm growing fainter in my laugh,
I'm growing deeper in my sighs,
I'm growing careless of my dress,
I'm growing frugal of my gold,
I'm growing wise. I'm growing—yes—
I'm growing old!

IN 1820, Missouri was the "far West," and Independence the boundary of civilization. Now, in 1854, there is no "far West." It has been crowded overboard into the Pacific Ocean.

Formerly, the hardy pioneer, impatient of the restraints of society, and fired with the spirit of adventure, plunged into the wilds of the West in search of happiness on his own hook. He had no fear of a civilization which was travelling at a snail's pace to elbow him out of his quiet home; neither did he recognize in himself its champion, bearing the standard of empire westward. But now that rampant spirit of go-ahead-ativeness which is knocking at the doors of Congress for an appropriation to have our gold-diggers rode on a rail is daily gaining strength, and will soon make itself heard. The settlements which, under the present hot haste to make fortunes, are to spring up and bridge over our vast western domain will wear a new and widely different aspect. Pioneer life and pioneer progress must soon pass away for ever, to be remembered only in story.

If the traveller of the present day takes no note of the changes, leaves no foot-prints upon the sands of time, future generations will utterly fail to appreciate from what beginnings and under what auspices the great western cities have sprung into existence. They may even imagine that, like Minerva, they sprang from the front of those grand prairies, and from the banks of those mighty rivers, ready paved with cubical blocks of granite and brilliantly lighted with gas.

Perhaps no era in American history has been more fruitful in the birth of what are destined to become genuine cities, or so prolific in spurious abortions, as that period of which, as Captain Cuttle would say, I am about "to make a note." In the year 1837 the spirit of speculation in "town sites" along the banks of the western rivers, and in the large prairies of Illinois and Missouri was running riot throughout the United States. Golden harvests of profit were mathematically demonstrated on well-drawn and highly-colored maps, and enticingly offered to those who wanted to turn a quick and safe penny. Cautious and plodding citizens were tempted out of their ordinary occupations and six per cent investments into the whirlpool of chance. Even worthy pastors were known to dabble in "town sites," doubtless with the hope of eking out their scanty salaries by a large advance upon a small investment. The East was in a state of fermentation, and the West was teeming with land speculators, plotting and counterplotting to establish eligible localities. Well would it have been for many who ventured into such speculations had they been blessed with bumps of caution sufficiently large to suggest the propriety of a personal visit to that land of milk and honey. For seldom, if ever, has there been a more nefarious scheme set on foot to rob the credulous and unwary of their hard earnings than the sale of town lots in embryo cities, made attractive on well-painted plots. Often must the traveller on those western rivers sigh over the many disappointed hopes indicated by the skeleton frames of houses imported from the East, dropped here and there on "corner lots" and left deserted in their glory to commemorate the folly of their deeply-deceived owners.

A sadder picture could scarcely be imagined than one of those "town sites," in the centre of which might be seen a miserable hut, giving the only presumptive evidence that a human being had ever dwelt there. Looking deeper into the middle-ground in search of him who called it home, anxious to find whether he was an object of pity, as all around indicated, the weary eye finally rested upon a few overgrown mounds and a freshly-made grave, the silent yet speaking interpreters of the landscape. The damp chills of the night and the poisonous miasma of the swamps had engendered fevers, and life, unaided by comforts and unsupported by sympathy, had yielded its spirit a victim to misplaced confidence.

In imagination I could perceive these squatter ghosts waiting in solemn silence for the darkness of night to assemble together to howl away its gloom in deep lamentations over the loss of their money; or, like a tribe of witches, to stir up their boiling cauldron with direful incantations, ever and anon sending forth horrific nightmares to drive away sweet and balmy slumber from the eyelids of the "land speculators" who had seduced them from their peaceful and happy homes in the East, to try their fortunes in the West.

It was during the height of this town-making mania that I chanced to be making a tour throughout the West. To one who is fond of the study of humanity in all its various phases, such an era and such a field of observation affords an infinite variety of amusement and instruction. I not only obtained an insight into pioneer life, and the modus operandi of land-speculators, but also had the rare good fortune to make the discovery that a weasel can be caught asleep.

But while I enter my protest against that nefarious scheme of town-making, I most cheerfully give my testimony in favor of the local advantages and flourishing prospects of the town of Glasgow, in the State of Missouri. I came in sight of this embryo city just as the last rays of the setting sun were illuminating the slope of the hill on which it is located. Although but three months old, it had its tavern, its store, its blacksmith-shop, and many other signs of prosperity. Onward was written on its first page; and to sum up my impressions in a sentence, I mentally admitted it must flourish.

I have said Glasgow had its house of entertainment. This was true. But it was not to be recognized by any of those outward signs which ordinarily hang dangling before the door, doling out some favorite ditty of the passing breeze. Looking around me as I entered the town by the main road, and riding into the centre of an open square which was marked out by the houses on the four corners, I saluted a good-natured, broad-mouthed, honest-looking old darkie with

"How dy, uncle: is this the town of Glasgow?"

"Yes, Massa, dis am he."

"Thank you, uncle; which is the best hotel?"

"Yah! yah! yah! what dat you say, Massa? Which am de best hotel?"

"Yes, where would you recommend me to stop?"

"Why, see here, Massa, just take a correspontal view of dem primsis, and den ax dis niggar which am de best hotel? We do n't got no hotel in dis town. You call dat house a hotel! Yah! yah! yah!"

"Well, but uncle, you do n't mean to say you have no hotel?"

"Yes, I does mean to make dat statement for a solemn fac'. Massa, do you tink I do n't know what am a hotel? I do n't come from old Ferginy for nothin'. White folks can't fool dis child. Whar's de Gen'l Washington? Whar's de Gen'l Jackson? Talk about a hotel whar you do n't see none ob dem great gemmen hangin' up fore de door!"

I soon discovered that my old colored friend was somewhat facetious, and prided himself upon once having lived in Old Virginia, where the "Mansion House" was honored by the "Father of his Country," or the "Hero of New-Orleans" to watch over it in all kinds of weather. Returning to the charge with,

"Well, uncle, I see you were not brought up among 'poor white folks,' so here is a picayune for you to drink the health of

'OLD Virginia never tire
Eat parch corn and lie by the fire.'

Now tell me where can I get accommodations for the night?"

Unluckily for me, this last speech touched a chord deep down in the old man's heart, and instead of giving me an answer, his memory was wandering back to happier days. He seemed determined to overwhelm me with questions in turn.

"O lossey Massa, I'aint hearn dem delishus words since dese twenty years. Oh! where did you come from? Did you ever see my boy, Jim Sampson? O Jim! Jim! you could wait on de gemmen! You could make de boots shine like two puter dollars stuck in a mud-hole! O Jim! if de old man could just see him once more fore he dies!

I was loth to break the old man's soliloquy. It was so natural, unaffected, deep, and touching—and, alas! what a comment upon the human affections! But it was now night; and cold, and hungry, I could not wait for his assistance. I therefore rode up to a house on the brow of the hill and inquired of a woman standing at the door:

"Madam, will you please direct me to a house of entertainment?"

"We take in strangers," was her ominous reply.

"Thanks, madam, thanks! I am very tired and hungry, and would like an early supper."

I soon dismounted and took the first opportunity to survey the premises. It was a log cabin, built two stories high, with but two rooms, one above and one below. It stood on the slope of the hill, with the lower side to the street. On the upper side was a small addition, made by driving four posts in the ground and fastening thereto, by means of wooden pins, huge slabs of boards sawed out from butts of trees, and placed at such a distance apart as to admit air and light. This addition was the great convenience of the premises. It served for kitchen, smoke-house, larder, pantry, wash-house; in fact for every thing but the entertainment of strangers. The first floor of the main building was filled quite full of chairs, tables, and cupboards, in which the nicely-wiped crockery was tastefully displayed. In one corner of the room was a bed, which, from its cozy, home look, I took to be the resting-place of the master and mistress of the premises. The darkness of the room prevented my making any further observations as to the upper story, except to see that those bound upward had to climb a small, narrow, rickety ladder that stood in one corner.

There was nothing peculiar about the host and hostess except a glaring disparity in their ages, the lady looking as if she might be more readily taken for daughter than wife. Still there was a robust vigor about the man which might readily encourage a widower in a new country to venture a second wife rather than undergo the ills of solitude. Beside, some how or other, in all new countries, the male animal being in reality a kind of monarch of all he surveys, has a wonderful propensity to be waited upon, and the last act of benevolence he would be likely to be guilty of would be to allow any young lady to live without a master while he could officiate in that capacity. The old man and I chatted, while the young wife prepared the supper, which, in the West, especially with travellers, is a hearty meal, the rule being to eat but twice a day. Consequently, the preparation for supper was no small affair. There was evidently, however, a shyness and reserve about him, which I did not at first exactly comprehend. Subsequent experience would have enlightened me on that subject at once, but it was some time before I discovered that he had a great dread of "land speculators," and suspected me for being one of those much-dreaded animals, so unpopular in all new countries. I was not ignorant of the great curiosity of all mankind, and particularly of those removed from much society, and I might have adopted Franklin's plan of telling him my name, business, and residence if I had not taken peculiar pleasure in watching his plan of attack to unravel the mystery of my appearance in "those parts." Beside, it was as pleasant a way as any to beguile the time before supper.

"Well, stranger," said he, "if I may make so bold, what might your name be?"

"Not bold at all," replied I, "but a very natural question indeed, Sir. My opinion is that Glasgow will some day become a very large and flourishing city. By the way, can you tell me, Sir, is there much land about here to be had at government price?"

"Why you see," continued he, "my business of intertainin' travellers is not very agreeable. I git many a customer that do n't look fit to be trusted with a night's lodgin;" and, glancing above the door with a sort of blood-or-money expression to see that his never-failing rifle was there, continued; "but you see I keep a close watch on 'em, and if any 'scapes me they're welcome to all they git."

"Indeed," said I, "I should think from your phrenological developments that you were a very benevolent man, and I have no doubt that as you have lived in this country for many years, and know all about the lands, that you would take great pleasure in pointing out to a stranger such as are vacant."

"Well," rejoined he, "I should think you came from Kentuck. There's a great many land-hunters from Kentuck and Virginy looking about Howard county, and I do n't see what for, nuther. There's many counties just above this where land is much better and plentier.

A slight interruption to our game of dodge and gammon occurred here, by the entrance of the wife to ask the old man whether the stranger would have tea or coffee. To which I volunteered an answer:

"Thank you, Madam; you are very kind. I will take tea."

Looking somewhat confused, she stammered out:

"I am sorry we have no tea in the house; it's just out."

"No matter," said I; "either will do."

But, as if a new thought had struck her, she continued:

"O Sir, if you would like tea, John can get some down at the store. We are very well fixed now; we can get sugar, and coffee, and tea, and molasses, and nails, and spades, and axes, and almost any of the luxuries of life."

I replied:

"Madam, I dislike to give your good husband any trouble, but if he could procure me a cup of tea, it would really be a very great favor, I so seldom meet with such good society where one can get a nice cup of tea."

This last compliment was irresistible, and nolens volens, John Williams was despatched for tea. This afforded me a few moments' conversation with the kind-hearted wife, who confidingly told me that her husband, Mr. John Williams, was a very clever man. It was true he had some strange ways about him, but after all, when he was n't crossed in his humor he was very kind. A pause in the conversation gave me an opportunity to observe her more closely, and I saw clearly that there was something on her mind which she would like to communicate, and I frankly said:

"Madam, excuse the liberty, but if I am not mistaken you have some question to ask me, and it will afford me great pleasure to serve you if in my power. Is it not so?"

"Yes, Sir," she replied, "but I am sure you will excuse me when I tell you that my husband is a poor man, and is saving up money to buy a piece of land just across the river, which he is afraid every day will be entered by some of those 'land-hunters,' and he has no peace of his life. Now, Sir, I hope you do n't intend to enter it. Do you, Sir?"

"Give yourself no more uneasiness on that account, my dear Madam; I assure you I am not a land-hunter, and have not the slightest intention of buying a foot of ground in the country."

No one but a married man can appreciate the sunny smile of triumph which this good woman could not conceal as she thought of the pleasure she had in store for the old man. Just as he returned with the tea, in stalked another stranger, who seated himself con amore. The old man and I did not resume our game of attack and defense. It was easy to see that his wife had whispered something in his ear, and that his suspicions were transferred from me to the new-comer. The stranger was "the observed of all observers." I acknowledge to some slight curiosity to see who was to be my companion for the night, not doubting that if any number short of a dozen were to arrive, they would all be bundled together in the same bed. The good wife had a very proper curiosity to scan his dimensions with a view to ascertain how much additional provender to prepare; and the old man, ever ready to discover his mortal foe—a land-hunter—in every traveller, came down upon him with a fixed stare that would have disconcerted any body but an Irishman or a Yankee pedlar.

The object of our scrutiny was a tall, round-shouldered, hatchet-faced individual, with that lignum-vitæ complexion which would keep one guessing till doomsday, whether he was just thirty-five years old last thanksgiving day, or would be fifty the next. At a glance you would feel in doubt whether he was a rough son of West-Tennessee, or a 'cute one in disguise from the land of pumpkin-pies and steady habits; but one word uttered, and the doubt was at once dispelled. However, let him speak for himself.

"Wall, I reckon as how I'm just in the nick of time, and no mistake. Them are pork stakes a-fryin out there wake up one's innards at such a 'tarnal rate that I'm almighty skeared least the old woman should do up a short allowance. I say, landlord, I've a notion this is a-growin up to be a smart sort of a town. How would a lot of notions take among ye? I'm not partic'lar. I'll swap for any thing. Would n't mind locatin' somewhere in these parts."

And so he might have run on until his mouth was filled with a piece of the fat pork which he had scented out so sagaciously, if the old man had not given him very strong indications of displeasure and astonishment at his nonchalance. When it is remembered that our new-comer had brought with him no visible responsibilities in the shape of a horse, wagon, or pair of saddle-bags, and that his garments had seen many rent-days, the old man's indignation may be readily conceived and appreciated, as he asked in a sharp tone:

"Have you any business with me, Sir?"

The Yankee replied:

"Wall, now, I rather guess I have. I hope I hain't made no mistake nor nothin'. I inquired of that woolly-headed chap what set me over the river a spell ago, where I'd find a night's lodgin', and he p'inted right straight here, old dad, and no mistake, and I walked right in and made myself to hum."

"Yes," said the old man; "I think you do make yourself at home with a vengeance."

The Yankee rejoined:

"Now, old gentleman, I just begin to see how it is. I'm all the way from down-east, and I'm rather green out here, but not quite so green as a drake's neck. If you've any notion that I can't fork down the dust, I rather guess you're a little bit out of your latitude."

The old man looked at me, and I could see he felt that he had gone rather too far, and, in judging too much by appearances, had not manifested his usual discretion. I answered his inquiring glance by an indication that I thought our Yankee was all right, and the old man was greatly relieved by a summons "to walk up to the supper-table, and be seated."

Who that has ever been really hungry from exposure and violent exercise, can fail in his imagination to see the warm fumes rise up from a large pewter platter of fried pork, and as he scents the delicious odor, congratulate our small party on the bounties before them? Down we sat and fell to work in right good earnest. For a few moments there was a truce to conversation—to the etiquette of asking your next neighbor if you might have the pleasure of helping him to this nice bit of lean, or that laughing potato. Even our Yankee was metamorphosed into a man of deeds, and not of words, he having hardly waited for the common announcement by the landlady, "Now all turn to and help yourselves."

How lamentable has been his lot who has been reared in the lap of luxury, and never known the ecstasy of appeasing an honest, healthy appetite! Now would I give a guinea if Miss Bremer had been present to see our Yankee eat. Reader, how many times do you think he would have asked her to take "pickles?" Thanks to the good landlady, she had a whole hog to cater from; and as fast as a platter-full was demolished, another rose up piping hot in its place, until I began to doubt whether my friend, the Yankee, had ever eaten a meal before in his life, or whether he might not have the faculty, among his other thrifty habits, of imitating the Pelican in stowing away provisions for a rainy day.

But as all sublunary things must have an end, so it was with our supper. After a hearty meal over the warm fire, the traveller is soon wandering in the land of Nod, and seldom adds much to the stock of information, as the family group sit chatting around the huge fire place where whole trees are made food for the devouring flames.

It was evidently the desire of the old man to extract the Yankee's history in a social chat after tea; but either the Yankee was mum, when no more was to be made, or he was holding an indignation meeting within himself on account of his previous treatment. Certain it was, that, with the question of "Where am I to lay to-night?" he left us to enjoy ourselves as we best could without even a passing good-night. Well do I remember how he dragged himself up the rickety ladder in the corner; and as he went, I mentally exclaimed: "Well, my good fellow, peace be to the manes of the fat porker who sleeps with you to-night! May you dwell in harmony together!"

The old man pressed me for my opinion of his lodger, intimating that he did not half like his looks, and would n't wonder if he was in search of land, adding that he had always made it a point to know all about his guests before they passed a night under his roof, but this fellow would give him no satisfaction. The more he thought of it, the more indignant he grew, and, but for me, would have gone up after him to demand an explanation.

But I told him I had no doubt he would turn out a good-enough fellow in his way, and after a good night's rest would grow more communicative. The old man shook his head, expressive of his great doubts, and by this time the good wife had put every thing to rights for the night. Sleep soon began to wait upon me, and, bidding them good-night, I clambered up the ladder with a small tin saucer, half-filled with lard, in which a bit of wick, lighted at one end, floated quite cozily.

On reaching the upper room, I could discern, by this dull light, that it was the same size as the one below, and had a bed in each corner. To have a whole bed to myself was a most unexpected luxury. My worthy friend, the Yankee, had, by accident, taken possession of the bed in the corner immediately over the one in the lower room, which was occupied by the landlord and his wife, and was sound asleep, giving evidence that my orisons for his good night's rest were being realized. I must here explain, that, owing to a scarcity of flooring plank, the floor upon which we were sleeping was not entirely laid. The legs of the four bed-posts next to the walls were left to rest upon one single plank, leaving all the space under the beds open and communicating with the room below. The inner legs of the bed-posts rested upon other planks, and that portion of the floor which was in sight between the beds was all properly laid, except that they were not nailed down, and made an ominous creaking as I walked over them to choose my lodging-place, which I instinctively took as far from the Yankee as possible. Now, this vacuum under our beds was not known to either of us when we went to bed, and we laid down in our respective places, unconscious of any lurking danger beneath us. Fatigue is a great promoter of sound sleep; and I should, doubtless, have remained quietly in the arms of Morpheus until morning, had I not been aroused by the sound of a human voice, apparently in great agony. Having gone to bed, fully impressed with the idea of a catastrophe in that quarter, I asked, half-asleep and half-awake:

"Who is making that noise? Is it the Yankee, or the pig?"

To which I received no other answer than another groan. Rising up upon my elbow, I listened and soon discovered that the noise proceeded from the bed of the Yankee, and immediately sung out:

"My dear fellow, what's the matter?"

But my question seemed to have no other effect than to increase the rapidity of the Yankee's utterance, as he continued soliloquizing his nightmare:

"O Jerusalem! Jerusalem! this beats all natur'. Aunt Jemima, what shall I do?"

Jumping up in my bed, I cried out loud enough to alarm the house:

"Hello there! are you mad or dreaming? What's all that infernal noise about? Are you going to die with the cramp-colic, and have me hung for murder?"

By this time I was getting furious, really not knowing whether the fellow was shamming or crazy, as I could not get a word out of him. But to my last appeal he appeared to understand that a friend was near, and groaned out:

"Them darned pork-steaks have given me the 'Minerva Jane.'"

At this announcement, I was almost convulsed with laughter; but his continued groans soon awakened a sympathy for his sufferings, and I replied:

"Why do n't you see if the landlord has any brandy?"

No quicker suggested than attempted; but what was my horror when, as he bounded out of bed, and was feeling in the dark for his boots, I heard one long agonizing yell of, "Murder! murder!" as he went head-foremost through the aperture down into the bed on the lower floor. Before his voice had died away, the sound was reëchoed by the old man, upon whom he had fallen, and who, being stunned by the shock, and awakened out of a dream about land-hunters, redoubled the shouts until the whole house rang with the startling cry. Springing out of bed, and hurrying on my clothes, I ran down the ladder, and reached the group, just as the wife had struck a light, and the old man had discovered the cause of the disturbance in the form of the suspicious Yankee. The terror of the shock and the monstrosity of the act, added the strength of Hercules to the old man's muscles, and he fell to belaboring the poor horrified Yankee most soundly. No asseverations of innocence could reach the reason of the "green-eyed monster;" and, but for the timely aid of the Madam and myself, who dragged the old tiger off, the Yankee's peddling-days would have been numbered. Nothing could have pacified the old man but my relation of the accident, and the Yankee's Bible-oath that he was no land-hunter.

Months afterward, I met this same Yankee on the Levee in New-Orleans, and he declared to me that when he had closed out his venture of notions—which did n't take in them parts—he would go home to Varmount, and never, as long as he lived, would he eat fat pork for supper, or go to sleep in a strange garret without first looking under the bed.

B——Y, the publisher, one day
Thus to a friend did say:
"SMITH, I intend to start a Magazine,
The name of which will be
'The Wit's Miscellany.'"
Quo' SMITH, "I think the title rather green;
It has too much pretension
And not enough invention.
You'd better change the name." The other did
(At least so he supposed) as he was bid,
And called it "B——Y'S," thinking that as good
But, though this name had cost him some reflection,
It failed to obviate his friend's objection,
Who said, "I fear I was misunderstood.
The title 'Wit's Miscellany' you know
I did not quite appropriate deem;
But then I never meant that you should go
To the opposite extreme."

IN one of those villages peculiar to our Eastern coast, whose long lines of pepper-and-salt stone-fences indicate laborious if not profitable farming, and the saline breath of the ocean has the effect of making fruit-trees more picturesque than productive, in a stone chunk of a house, whose aspect is quite as interesting to the geologist as to the architect, lives Captain Belgrave.

The Captain, as he says himself, "is American clean through, on the father's side, up to Plymouth Rock, and knows little, and cares less, of what is beyond that." To hear him talk, you would suppose Adam and Eve had landed there from the May-Flower, and the Garden of Eden was located within rifle distance of that celebrated land-mark. His genealogical table, however, stands upon unequal legs; for, on his mother's side he is part German and part Irishman. I mention this for the benefit of those who believe that certain qualities in men are hereditary. Of course it will be easy for them to assign those of Captain Belgrave to their proper source.

The house is square, and not remarkable except for its stone turret on one corner. This, rising from the ground some forty feet, embroidered with ivy, and pierced with arrow-slits, has rather a feudal look. It stands in a by-lane, apart from the congregated village. On the right side of the road is a plashy spring, somewhat redolent of mint in the summer. Opposite to this, in a clump of oaks, surrounded with a picket-fence, is the open porch, with broad wooden benches, and within is an ample hall, looking out upon well-cultivated fields, and beyond—blue water! This is the "Oakery," as Captain Belgrave calls it. Here he lives with his brother Adolphus—bachelors both.

His title is a mystery. There is a legend in the village, that in the last war Belgrave was enrolled in the militia on some frontier. One night he was pacing as sentinel on a long wooden piazza in front of the General's quarters. It was midnight; the camp was asleep, and the moon was just sinking in a bank of clouds. Belgrave heard a footstep on the stairs at the end of the piazza. "Who goes there?" No answer. Another step. "Who goes there?" he repeated, and his heart began to fail him. No answer—but another step. He cocked his musket. Step, step, step, and then between him and the sinking moon appeared an enormous head decorated with diabolical horns. Belgrave drew a long breath and fired. The next instant the spectre was upon him; he was knocked down; the drums beat to arms; the guard turned out, and found the sentinel stretched upon the floor, with an old he-goat, full of defiance and odor, standing on him. From that time he was called "Captain."

No place, though it be a paradise, is perfect without one of the gentler sex. There is a lady at the Oakery. Miss Augusta Belgrave is a maiden of about—let me see; her age was formerly inscribed on the fly-leaf of the family Bible between the Old and New Testaments; but the page was torn out, and now it is somewhere in the Apocrypha. No matter what it may be; if you were to see her, you would say she was safe over the breakers. Two unmarried brothers, with a spinster sister, living alone: it is not unfrequent in old families. The rest of the household may be embraced in Hannah, the help, who is also "a maiden all forlorn," and Jim, the stable-boy. Jim is a unit, as well as the rest. Jim has been a stable-boy all his life, and now, at the age of sixty, is only a boy ripened. His chief pride and glory is to drive a pair of bob-tailed bay trotters that are (traditionally) fast! Adolphus, who has a turn for literature, christened the off-horse "Spectator;" but the near horse came from a bankrupt wine-broker, who named him "Chateau Margaux." This the Captain reduced to "Shatto," and the village people corrupted to "Shatter!"

There was something bold and jaunty in the way the Captain used to drive old Shatter on a dog-trot through the village, (Spectator rarely went with his mate except to church on Sundays,) with squared elbows, and whip depending at a just angle over the dash-board. "Talk of your fast horses!" he would say. "Why, if I would only let him out," pointing his whip, like a marshal's baton, toward Shatter, "you would see time!" But he never lets him out.

The square turret rises considerably above the house-roof. Every night, at bed-time, the villagers see a light shining through its narrow loop-holes. There are loop-holes in the room below, and strong casements of ordinary size in the rooms adjoining. In the one next to it Miss Augusta sleeps, as all the village knows, for she is seen at times looking out of the window. Next to that is another room, in which Adolphus sleeps. He is often seen looking out of that window. Next, again, to that is the vestal chamber of Hannah, on the southwest corner of the house. She is sometimes seen looking out of the window on either side. Next to that again is the dormitory of Jim, the stable-boy. Jim always smells like a menagerie, and so does his room, no doubt. He never looks out of the window except upon the Fourth of July, when there is too much noise in the village to risk driving Spec and Shat. No living person but the occupants has ever been in that story of the house. No living person understands the mystery of the tower. The light appears at night through the loop-holes in the second story, then flashes upward, shines again through the slits in the lofty part of the turret, burns steadily half an hour or so, and then vanishes. Who occupies that lonely turret?

Let us take the author-privilege and ascend the stairs. First we come to Jim's room; we pass through that into Hannah's apartment. There is a bolt on the inside of her door; we pass on into the room of Adolphus; it, too, has a bolt on the inside. Now all the virtues guide and protect us, for we are in the sleeping-apartment of the spinster sister! It, too, has a bolt on the inside; and here we are in the tower: the door, like the rest, is bolted. There is nothing in the room but the carpet on the floor; no stair-case, but a trap-door in the ceiling. It is but a short flight for fancy to reach the upper story. The trap is bolted in the floor; there is a ladder standing beside it; here are chairs, a bureau, a table, with an extinguished candle, and the moonlight falls in a narrow strip across the features of Captain Belgrave, fast asleep, and beside him a Bible, and an enormous horse-pistol, loaded.

Nowhere but in the household of some old bachelor could such discipline exist as in the Oakery. At night the Captain is the first to retire; Miss Augusta follows with a pair of candlesticks and candles; then metaphysical Adolphus with his mind in painful state of fermentation; then Hannah, the help, with a small brass candlestick; then Jim, the stable-boy, who usually waits until the company is on the top-stair, when he makes a false start, breaks, pulls himself up, and gets into a square trot just in time to save being distanced at the landing. Adolphus and Jim are not trusted with candles. Miss Augusta is rigorous on that point. She permits the Captain to have one because he is careful with it; beside, he owns the house and every thing in it; the land and every thing on it; and supports the family; therefore his sister indulges him. We now understand the internal arrangement of the Oakery. It is a fort, a castle, a citadel, of which Augusta is the scarp, Jim the glacis, Hannah the counter-scarp, and Adolphus the ditch. The Captain studied the science of fortification after his return from the wars.

The Belgraves are intimate only with one family in the village, and they are new acquaintances—the Mewkers. There is Mr. Mewker, Mrs. Mewker, Mrs. Lasciver, formerly Miss Mewker, and six or seven little Mewkers. Mewker has the reputation of being a good man, but unfortunately his appearance is not prepossessing. He has large bunchy feet, with very ineffectual legs, low shoulders, a sunken chest, a hollow cavity under the waistcoat, little, weak, eyes that seem set in bladders, straggling hair, rusty whiskers, black, and yellow teeth, and long, skinny, disagreeable fingers; beside, he is knock-kneed, shuffling in gait, and always leans on one side when he walks. Uncharitable people say he leans on the side where his interests lie, but Captain Belgrave will not believe a word of it. Oh! no; Mewker is a different man from that. He is a member of the church, and sings in the choir. He is executor of several estates, and of course takes care of the orphans and widows. He holds the church money in trust, and of course handles it solely to promote its interests. And then he is so deferential, so polite, so charitable. "Never," says the Captain, "did I hear him speak ill of any body, but he lets me into the worst points of my neighbors by jest teching on 'em, and then he excuses their fibles, as if he was kind o' sorry for 'em; but I keeps my eye onto 'em after the hints he give me, and he ca n't blind me to them."

Harriet Lasciver, formerly Miss Mewker, is a widow, perfectly delicious in dimples and dimity, fond of high life and low-necked dresses, music, birds, and camelias. Captain Belgrave has a great fancy for the charming widow. This is a secret, however. You and I know it, and so does Mewker.

It is Sunday in Little-Crampton—a summer Sunday. The old-fashioned flowers are blooming in the old-fashioned gardens, and the last vibration of the old rusty bell in the century-old belfry seems dying off, and melting away in fragrance. Outside, the village is quiet, but within the church there is an incessant plying of fans and rustling of dresses. The Belgraves are landed at the porch, and Spec and Shat whirl the family carriage into the grave-yard. The Mewkers enter with due decorum. Adolphus drops his hymn-book into the pew in front, as he always does. The little flatulent organ works through the voluntary. The sleek head of the Rev. Mr. Spat is projected toward the audience out of the folds of his cambric handkerchief; and after doing as much damage to the simple and beautiful service as he can by reading it, flourishes through the regular old Spatsonian sermon; its tiresome repetitions and plagiarisms, with the same old rising and falling inflections, the same old tremulous tone toward the end, as if he were crying; the same old recuperative method by which he recovers his lost voice in the last sentence, when it was all but gone; and the same old gesture by which the audience understand that his labors (and theirs) are over for the morning. Then the congregation departs with the usual accompaniments of dresses rustling, and pew-doors slamming; and Mr. Meeker descends from the choir and sidles up the aisle, nursing his knobs of elbows in his skinny fingers, and congratulates the Rev. Mr. Spat upon the excellent discourse he had delivered, and receives the customary quid pro quo in the shape of a compliment upon the excellent singing in the choir. This account adjusted, Mr. Mewker shuffles home beside the lovely widow; and Mrs. Mewker and the small fry of members follow in their wake.

"I have looked into the records in the county clerk's office," Mewker says, in a whisper, to his sister, "and the property is all right. That old Thing, (unconscious Augusta Belgrave, rolling home behind Spec and Shat, do you hear this?) that old Thing, and that fool of a book-worm (Adolphus) can be packed off after the wedding, and then we can arrange matters between us. Spat understands me in this, and intends to be hand and glove with Belgrave, so as to work upon him. He will, he must do it, for he knows that his remaining in this church depends upon me." Here Mr. Mewker was interrupted by one of the young Mewkers, who came running up, hat in hand. "Oh! pa, look there! see those beautiful climbing roses growing all over that old tree!" "Jacob," said Mewker, catching him by the hair, and rapping his head with his bony knuckles until the tears came, "have n't I told you not to speak of such trivial things on the Sabbath? How dare you (with a repetition of raps) think of climbing roses so soon after church? Go; (with a fresh clutch in the scalp of Mewker, Junior,) go to your mother, and when I get home I will punish you." Mr. Mewker resumed the whispered conversation. "Belgrave is ruled entirely by his sister, but between Spat and I, she can be blinded, I think. If she should suspect, now, she would interfere, of course, and Belgrave would not dare to disobey her. But if we can get him committed once in some way, he is such a coward that he would be entirely in my power. Dear," he said aloud to Mrs. M., "how did you like the sermon?" "Angelic," replies Mrs. Mewker. "That's my opinion, too," responds Mewker. "Angelic, angelic. Spat is a lovely man, my dear. What is there for dinner?"

If there were some feminine meter by which Harriet Lasciver's soul could be measured, it would indicate "good" pretty high up on the scale. Yet she had listened to this after-church discourse of her brother not only with complacency, but with a full and unequivocal assent to all he had proposed. So she would have listened, so assented to any thing, no matter what, proposed by him; and all things considered, it was not surprising. Even as continued attrition wears the angles of the flint until it is moulded into the perfect pebble, so had her nature been moulded by her brother. He had bullied her in her childhood and in her womanhood, except when there was a purpose in view which he could better accomplish by fawning; and her natural good disposition, so indurated by these opposed modes of treatment, had become as insensible to finer emotions as her heart was callous to its own impulses. There was one element in his composition which at all times had cast a gloss upon his actions. It was his piety! GOD help us! that any one should allude to that but with reverence and love! Nor do I here speak of it but as a profession, an art, or specious showing forth of some thing that is not real, but professed, in order to accomplish other ends. What profited her own experience, when Harriet Lasciver was so far imposed upon as to believe her brother's professions sincere? What though all his life he had been a crooked contriver and plotter, malicious in his enmity, and false in his friendship; and she knew it? Yet, as she could not reconcile it with his affected sanctity, she could not believe it. That wonderful power which men seldom, and women never analyze—hypocrisy, held her entangled in its meshes, and she was his instrument to be guided as he chose. Every noble trait true woman possesses—pity, tenderness, love, and high honor—were commanded by an influence she could not resist. Her reason, nay, her feelings were dormant, but her faith slept securely upon her brother's religion!

In this instance there was another consideration—a minor one, it is true, but in justice to the widow, it must be added. She really admired the Captain; but that makes no great difference. A widow must love some body. Those delicate tendrils of affection which put forth, with the experiences of the young wife die not in the widow, but survive, and must have some support. Even if the object be unworthy or unsightly, as it happens sometimes, still will they bind, and bloom, and cling, and blossom around it, like honey-suckles around a post.

The windows at the Oakery are open, and the warm air of a Sunday summer evening pours in, as Augusta pours out the tea. The Captain burns his mouth with the first cup, turns the tea into the saucer, blows it to cool it, drinks it off hastily, takes a snap at the thin, white slice of bread on his plate, takes another snap at a radish somewhat overcharged with salt, wipes his mouth, goes to the window and calls out "Jim!" Jim appears at the stable-door with a wisp of straw and a curry-comb. "Put in the hosses!" Jim telegraphs with the curry-comb, "All right, Sir!" Augusta stares at Adolphus, and Adolphus brushes the metaphysical films from his eyes, and, for once, seems wide awake. The Captain takes his seat and a fresh snap at the bread. Augusta looks at him steadily. "Why, brother, where are you going with the horses on Sunday afternoon?" The Captain squints at the bread, and answers, "To Mewker's." "Mewker's!" repeats Augusta; "Mewker's! why, brother, you're crazy; they never receive company on Sunday. You know how strictly pious Mr. Mewker is, and he would look at you with amazement. To see you riding, too! why—I—never!"

The Captain, however, said nothing, but waited, with some impatience, until Spec and Shat turned out with the carriage from the stable. Then he took the ribbons, stopped, threw them down, went up into the tower, came back with a clean shirt on, climbed into the seat, and drove off.

"He'll come back from there in a hurry, I guess," said Augusta to the wondering Adolphus.

But the Captain did not return until eleven that night, and then somewhat elevated with wine. "Augushta," said he, as the procession formed as usual on the stairs, "that Mucous 'sha clever feller, heesha clever feller, heesha dev'lish clever feller; heesh fond of talking on church matters, and sho 'mi. His shister, sheesha another clever feller, she's a chump! I asked em to come to-morrow to tea, and shaid they would."

"Why, brother, to-morrow is Monday, washing-day!" replied the astonished spinster.

"Tha 's a fack, Gushta, fack," answered the Captain, as he took the candle from his sister at the tower-door; "but, wash or no wash, musht come. When I ask 'em to come, musht come. Good night!"

The bolts are closed on the several doors, scarp and counterscarp, ditch and glacis are wrapped in slumber; but the Captain lies wide awake, looking through the slits in the tower casement at the Great Bear in the sky, and thinking rapturously of the lovely Lasciver.

Never did the old family carriage have such a polishing as on that Monday morning. Never did Jim so bestir himself with the harness as on that day under the eye of Belgrave. The Captain neglects to take his accustomed ride to the village in the morning, that Spec and Shat may be in condition for the afternoon. At last the carriage rolls up the road from the Oakery, with Jim on the box, and the Captain retires to dress for company. In due course the carriage returns with Spec and Shat somewhat blown with an over-load; for all the young Mewkers are piled up inside, on the laps of Mrs. Mewker and the lovely Lasciver. Then Augusta hurries into the kitchen to tell Hannah, the help, to cut more bread for the brats, and Adolphus is hurried out into the garden to pull more radishes, and the young Mewker tribe get into his little library, and revel in his choice books, and quarrel over them, and scatter some leaves and covers on the floor as trophies of the fight. Then the tea is brought on, and the lovely Lasciver tries in vain to soften the asperity of Augusta; and then Mewker takes her in hand, and does succeed, and in a remarkable degree, too. Meanwhile the ciphers of the party, Mrs. Mewker and Adolphus, drink and eat in silence. Then they adjourn to the porch, and Mewker sits beside Augusta, and entertains her with an account of the missions in Surinam, to which she turns an attentive ear. Then Mrs. Mewker says it is time to go, "on account of the children," at which Mewker darts a petrifying look at her, and turns with a smile to Augusta, who, in the honesty of her heart, says "she, too, thinks it is best for the young ones to go to bed early." Then Jim is summoned from the stable, and Spec and Shat; and the Mewkers take leave, and whirl along the road again toward home.

It was long before the horses returned, for Jim drove back slowly. There was not a tenderer heart in the world than the one which beat in the bosom of that small old boy of sixty. He sat perched upon the box, calling out, "Gently, soho!" to Spec and Shat, when they advanced beyond a walk, and held a talk with himself in this wise: "I do n't want to carry that old carcase agin. He gits in and praises up the Cap'n so as I can hear him, and then asks me if I wo n't lay the whip on the bosses. Says I, 'Mr. Mewker, them bosses has been druv.' Says he, 'Yes, James, but you can give 'em a good rubbin' down when you get to hum, and that will fetch 'em all right.' Now, I want to know if you take a man, and lay a whip onto him, and make him travel till he's sore, whether rubbin down is a-goin' to make him all right? No, Sir. Then he calls me James. I do n't want no man to call me James; my name's Jim. There was old Midgely; he called me James; did n't he coax out of me all I'd saved up for more 'n twenty years, and then busted? There was Deacon Cotton; did n't he come in over the Captain with that pork? He called me James, too. And there was that psalm-singin peddler that got Miss Augusty to lend him the colt; he called me James. Did he bring the colt back? No, Sir; at least not yit, and it's more 'n three years ago. When a man calls me James, I take my eye and places it onto him. I hearn him when he tells Miss Mewker not to give beggars nothin'. I hearn him. He sez they may be impostors! Well, 'spose they be? When a feller-creatur' gits so low as to beg, have n't they got low enough? Aint they ragged, dirty, despised? Do n't they run a chance of starvin', impostors or not, if every body drives em off? And what great is it if they do get a-head of you, for a crumb or a cent? When I see a feller-creatur in rags, beggin, I say human natur has got low enough; it's in rags! it begs! it's 'way down, and it do n't make much difference if it's actin' or not. Them aint impostors that will do much harm. Them aint impostors like old Midgely, and Deacon Cotton, and that psalm-singin peddler that borrowed the colt; at least they do n't cut it so fat. But 'spose they don't happin to be impostors, arter all? Whar's that account to be squared? I guess I'd rayther be the beggar than the other man when that account is squared. I guess when that account is squared, it will kind a-look as if the impostor was n't the one that asked for the stale bread, but the one that would n't give it. Seems as if I've heard 'em tell about a similar case somewhere."

A good rubbing down, indeed, for Spec and Shat that night, and a well-filled manger, too. When Jim picked up his stable-lantern, he gave each horse a pat on the head and a parting hug, and then backed out, with his eyes still on them. "Spec!" said he at the door. Spec gave a whinny in reply. "Shat!" Shat responded also. "Good night, old boys! Old Jim aint a-goin' to lay no whip onto you. If old Jim wants to lay a whip onto something, it wo n't be onto you, that's been spavined and had the bots, and he's cured 'em, and they know it, hey! No, Sir. His 'tipathy works outside into another quarter. Is my name James? Well, it aint. It's Jim, is n't it? Yes, Sir!"

Old Jim's remarks being ended, and the stable-door locked, nothing remained for him to do but to form the glacis before the Belgrave citadel.

From that night, however, the halcyon days of Spec and Shat were at an end. The Mewkers loved to ride, but they had no horses: the only living thing standing upon four legs belonging to Mr. Mewker was an ugly, half-starved, cross-grained, suspicious-looking dog, that had the mange and a bad reputation. Of course, the Captain's horses were at their service, for rides to the beach, for pic-nics in the woods, for shopping in the village, or, perchance, to take Mr. Mewker to some distant church-meeting. And not only were the horses absent at unusual times; there seemed to be a growing fondness in the Captain for late hours. The old-style regularity of the Oakery, the time-honored habits of early hours to bed, the usual procession up the stairs, formal but cheerful, were, in some measure, broken into; not but what these were observed as formerly; not but what every member of the family waited and watched until the Captain returned, no matter how late; but that sympathetic feeling which all had felt when the hour of bed-time came, had ceased to be, and in its place was the dreary languor, the tiresome, tedious feeling that those experience who sit up and wait and wait, for an absent one, waiting and asking, "Why tarry the wheels of his chariot?" There was an increasing presentiment, a gloomy foreshadowing of evil, in Miss Augusta's mind at these doings of the Captain; and this feeling was heightened by something, trifling in itself, yet still mysterious and unaccountable. Some body, almost every day, cut off a tolerably large piece from the beef or mutton, or whatever kind of meat there chanced to be in the cellar. And no body knew any thing about it. Hannah was fidelity itself; Jim was beyond suspicion; Adolphus never went into the cellar, scarcely out of the library, in fact. The Captain! could it be her brother? Miss Augusta watched. She saw him do it. She saw him covertly draw his jack-knife from his pocket, and purloin a piece of beautiful rump-steak, then wrap it up in paper, put it in his pocket, and walk off whistling, as if nothing had happened. "The widow is at the bottom of this!" was the thought that flashed through the mind of Augusta. She was indirectly correct. The widow was at the bottom of the theft, and I will tell you how. I have mentioned a large, mangy dog, of disreputable character, Mr. Mewker's property, and "Bose" by name. Whenever the Captain drove up the path to the house of his friend, there, beside the step of the wagon, from the time it passed the gate until it reached the porch, was this dog, with a tail short as pie-crust, that never wagged; thick, wicked eyes, and a face that did not suggest fidelity and sagacity, but treachery and rapine, dead sheep, and larceny great or small. And although the Captain was a stout, active, well-framed man, with a rosy cheek, a bright eye, and a sprightly head of hair, yet he was afraid of that dog. And therefore, the Captain, to conciliate Bose, brought him every day some choice morsel from his own kitchen; and as he did not dare to tell Augusta, the same was abstracted in the manner already described.

Here I must mention a peculiarity in Captain Belgrave's character. He never saw a dog without thinking of hydrophobia; he never bathed on the beautiful beach in the rear of his house without imagining every chip in the water, or ripple on the wave, to be the dorsal fin of some voracious shark. When he drove home at night, it was with fear and trembling, for an assassin might be lurking in the bushes; and if he passed a sick neighbor, he walked off with smallpox, measles, typhoid, and whooping-cough trundling at his heels. In a word, he was the most consummate coward in Little-Crampton. It was for this reason he had built and slept in the tower; and what with reading of pirates, buccaneers, Captain Kidd, and Black Beard, his mind was so infected that no sleeping-place seemed secure and safe, but his own turret and trap-door, scarp, counterscarp, ditch, and glacis, through which all invaders had to pass before they encountered him with his tremendous horse-pistol.

It was not the discovery of the theft alone that had opened the eyes of Augusta in regard to her brother's motions. Although he had told her, again and again, that he merely went to Mewkers to talk over church matters, yet she knew intuitively, as every woman would, that a widow so lovely as Harriet Lasciver could not but have great attractions for such an old bachelor as her brother. In fact, she knew, if the widow, as the phrase is, "set her cap for him," the Captain was a lost man. But to whom could she apply for counsel and assistance? Adolphus? Adolphus had no more sense than a kitten. Hannah? There was something of the grand old spinster-spirit about Augusta that would not bend to the level of Hannah, the help. Jim? She would go to Jim. She would see that small boy of sixty, and ask his advice. And she did. She walked over to the stable in the evening, while her brother was making his toilet for the customary visit to the Mewkery, and, without beating around the bush at all, reached the point at once. "Jim," said she, "the Captain is getting too thick with the Mewkers, and we must put a stop to it. How is that to be done?"

Jim paused for a moment, and then held up his forefinger. "I know one way to stop him a-goin' there; and, if you say so, Miss Augusta, then old Jim is the boy to do it."

Augusta assented in a grand, old, towering nod. Jim, with a mere motion of his forefinger, seemed to reiterate, "If you say so, I'll do it."

"Yes."

"Then, by Golly!" responded Jim joyfully, "arter this night he'll never go there ag'in."

Augusta walked toward the house with a smile, and Jim proceeded to embellish Shatter.

By-and-by the Captain drove off in the wagon, and old Jim busied himself with Spectator, fitting a mouldy saddle on his back, and getting him ready for action.

There was a thin cloud, like lace, over the moon that night; just enough to make objects painfully distinct, as Captain Belgrave turned out from Mewker's gate, and took the high road toward home. He jogged along, however, quite comfortably, and had just reached the end of Mewker's fence, when he saw a figure on horseback, emerging from the little lane that ran down behind the garden to the pond at the back of the house. The apparition had a sort of red cape around its shoulders; a soldier-cap, with a tall plume, (very like the one the Captain used to wear on parade,) was upon its head; in its hand was a long, formidable-looking staff; and the horse of the spectre was enveloped in a white saddle-cloth, that hung down almost to the ground. What was remarkable, Old Shatter, as if possessed with the devil, actually drew out of the road toward the stranger, and gave a whinny, which was instantly responded to in the most frightful tones by the horse of the spectre. Almost paralyzed, the Captain suffered the apparition to approach him. What a face it had! Long masses of hair, like tow, waved around features that seemed to have neither shape nor color. Its face seemed like a face of brown paper, so formless and flat was it, with great hideous eyes and a mouth of intolerable width. As it approached, the figure seemed to have a convulsion it rolled so in the saddle; but, recovering, it drew up beside the shaft, and, whirling its long staff, brought such a whack upon Shatter's flank, that the old horse almost jumped out of his harness. Away went the wagon and the Captain, and away went the spectre close behind; fences, trees, bushes, dust, whirled in and out of sight; bridges, sedges, trout-brooks, mills, willows, copses, plains, in moon light and shadow, rolled on and on; but not an inch was lost or won; there, behind the wagon, was the goblin with his long plume bending, and waving, and dancing, and his staff whirling with terrible menaces. On, and on, and on, and ever and anon the goblin steed gave one of those frightful whinnies that seemed to tear the very air with its dissonance. On, and on, and on! The Captain drove with his head turned back over his shoulder, but Shat knew the road. On, and on, and on! A thought flashes like inspiration through the mind of the Captain, "The horse-pistol!" It is under the cushions. He seizes it nervously, cocks it, and—bang! goes the plume of the goblin. "By gosh!" said a voice under the soldier-cap, "I did n't cal'late on that;" and then, "I vum ef old Shat haint run away!" Sure enough, Shatto has run away; the wagon is out of sight in a turn of the road; the next instant, it brings up against a post; off goes Shat, with shafts and dislocated fore-wheels; and old Jim soon after finds the remains of the wagon, and the senseless body of his master, in a ditch, under the moon, and a willow. To take the red blanket from his shoulders, which he had worn like a Mexican poncho by putting his head through a hole in the middle, is done in an instant; and then, with big tears rolling down his cheeks, the old boy brings water from a spring, in the crown of the soldier-cap, to bathe the face of the Captain. The report of the pistol has alarmed a neighbor; and the two, with the assistance of the hind-wheels and the body of the wagon, carry poor Belgrave through the moon-lit streets of Little-Crampton, to the Oakery.

When the Captain opened his eye, (for the other was under the tuition of a large patch of brown paper, steeped in vinegar,) he found himself safe at home, surrounded and fortified, as usual, by Augusta, Adolphus, Hannah, the help, and Jim, in picturesque attitudes. How he came there, was a mystery. Stay; he begins to take up the thread: Mewkers, fence, the figure, the race for life, and the pistol! What else? Nothing—blank—oblivion. So he falls into a tranquil state of comfort, and feels that he does not care about it. No getting up that steep ladder to-night! Never mind. It is a labor to think, so he relapses into thoughtlessness, and finally falls asleep. There was a stranger in the room behind the bed's head, a tall, astringent-looking man, Dr. Butternuts, by whom the Captain had been let blood. If Belgrave had seen him, he would have fainted. "No injuries of any consequence," says the doctor, departing and waving his brown hand. "Terribly skart, though," Augusta responds in a whisper. "Yes, he will get over that; to-morrow he will be better;" and the doctor waves himself out. Adolphus retires, and then Hannah, the help; but Augusta and Jim watch by the bedside until morning. The Captain, every now and then, among the snowy sheets and coverlet, turns up a side of face that looks like a large, purple egg-plant, at which Jim sighs heavily; but Augusta whispers soothingly, "Never mind, Jim, it's for his good; I'm glad you skart him; you skart him a leetle too much this time, that's all; next time you'll be more careful, wo n't you, and not skear him so bad?"

That Captain Belgrave had been thrown from his wagon, and badly hurt, was known all over Little-Crampton, next morning. Some said he had been shot at by a highwayman; some, he had shot at a highwayman. The story took a hundred shapes, and finally was rolled up at the door of the Rev. Melchior Spat, who at once took his wagon, and drove off to the Mewkery. There the rumor was unfolded to Mr. Mewker, who, enjoying it immensely, made so many funny remarks thereon, that the Rev. Melchior Spat was convulsed with laughter, and then the two drove down to the Oakery to condole with the sufferer. On the way there, the Rev. Melchior was so wonderfully facetious, that Mewker, who never enjoyed any person's jokes but his own, was actually stimulated into mirth, and had it not been for happily catching a distant sight of the tower, would have so forgotten himself as to drive up to the door with a pleasant expression of countenance. As it was, they both entered grave as owls, and inquired, in faint and broken voices, how the Captain was, and whether he was able to see friends. Augusta, who received them, led them up to the room, where the Captain, with his face like the globe in the equinox, sitting propped up in bed, shook both feebly by the hands, and then the Rev. Melchior proposed prayer, to which Mewker promptly responded by dropping on his knees, and burying his face in the bottom of an easy chair. This was a signal for Adolphus to do likewise; and the Captain, not to be behind, struggling up into a sitting posture, leaned forward in the middle of the coverlet, with his toes and the end of his shirt deployed upon the pillows. Then the Rev. Melchior, in a crying voice, proceeded according to the homœopathic practice—that is, making it short and sweet as possible—touching upon the excellent qualities of the sufferer, the distress of his beloved friends, and especially of the anxiety which would be awakened in the bosom of one now absent, "whose heart was only the heart of a woman, a heart not strong and able to bear up against calamity, but weak, and fragile, and loving, and pitiful, and tender; a heart that was so weak, and loving, and pitiful, and tender, and fragile, that it could not bear up against calamity; no, it could not; no, it could not; it was weak, it was pitiful, it was loving, it was tender, it was fragile like a flower, and against calamity it could not bear up."

So great was the effect of the Rev. Melchior Spat's eloquence, that the Captain fairly cried, so as to leave a round wet spot in the middle of the coverlet, and Mr. Mewker wiped his eyes frequently with his handkerchief, as he rose from the chair. And although the voice of the Reverend Melchior had been heard distinctly, word for word, by Jim, in the far-off stable, yet it sank to the faintest whisper when he proceeded to inquire of the Captain how he felt, and what was this dreadful story. And then the Captain, in a voice still fainter, told how he was attacked by a man of immense size, mounted on a horse of proportionate dimensions, and how he had defended himself, and did battle bravely until, in the fight, "Shatto got skeared, and overset the wagon, and then the man got onto him, and pounded the life out of him, while he was entangled with reins." Then Mr. Mewker and the Rev. Mr. Spat took leave with sorrowful faces, and as they drove home again, renewed the jocularity which had been interrupted some what by the visit to the Oakery.

To say that Mr. Mewker neglected his friend, the Captain, during his misfortunes, would be doing a great injustice to that excellent man. Every day he was at the Oakery, to inquire after his health; and rarely did he come without some little present, a pot of sweet-meats, a bouquet, or something of the kind, from the lovely Lasciver. How good it was of him to buy jelly at two shillings a pound at the store, and bring it to the Captain, saying, "This little offering is from Harriet, who thought some delicacy of the kind would be good for you." Was it not disinterested? Hiding his own modest virtues in a pot of jelly, and presenting it in the name of another! The truth is, Mewker's superior tactics were too profound for Augusta to contend against; she felt, as it were, the sand sliding from under her feet. Nor was Mewker without a powerful auxiliary in the Reverend Melchior Spat, who, by his prerogative, had free access to the house at all times, and made the most of it, too. Skillfully turning to common topics when Augusta was present, and as skillfully returning to the old subject when she retired, he animated the Captain with such desire for the lovely widow, that, had it not been for his black eye, he would assuredly have gone off and proposed on the spot. This feeling, however, subsided when the Rev. Melchior was gone; the Captain did not think of marrying; he was a true old bachelor, contented with his lot, and not disposed to change it even for a better; beside, he was timid.

At last our hero was able once more to go about, and Jim drove him down slowly to the Mewkery. Such a noise as Bose made when he saw the carriage approaching! But there was no present from the hand of his friend this time; so Bose contented himself with growling and snapping angrily at his own tail, which was not longer than half a cucumber. What a blush spread over the face of the Captain when he saw the widow, all dimples and dimity, advancing to meet him in the familiar back-parlor! How the sweet roses breathed through the shaded blinds as he breathed out his thanks to the widow for many precious favors during his confinement. They were alone; the Captain sat beside her on the sofa; one of her round, plump, white, dimpled hands was not far from him, resting upon the black hair-cloth of the sofa bottom. He looked right and left; there was no one near; so he took the hand respectfully, and raised it to his lips, intending to replace it, of course. To his dismay, she uttered a tender "O!" and leaned her head upon his shoulder. What to do, he did not know; but he put his arm around her bewitching waist, to support her. Her eyes were closed, and the long, radiant lashes heightened, by contrast, the delicious color that bloomed in her cheeks. The Captain looked right and left again; no one was near; if he could venture to kiss her! He had never kissed a pretty woman in all his life! The desire to do so increased; it seemed to grow upon him, in fact; drawn toward her by an influence he could not resist, he leaned over and touched those beautiful lips, and then—in walked Mr. Mewker.

Had Mewker not been a genius, he might have compromised every thing by still playing the humble, deferential, conscientious part; but hypocrisy on a low key was not his cue now; he knew his man too well for that, and besides, familiar as this branch of art had been, there was another still more natural to him; he was wonderful in the sycophant, but matchless in the bully! Those little, weak, bladdery eyes seemed almost to distil venom, as wrapping his knobby arms in a knot, he strode up to the astonished Belgrave, and asked him "how he dared invade the privacy of his house, the home of his wife and children, and the sanctuary of his sister? How he dared trespass upon the hospitality that had been extended toward, nay, that had been lavished upon him? Was not the respectability of the Mewker family, a family related to the wealthy Balgangles of Little-Crampton, and connected by marriage with the Shellbarques of Boston, a sufficient protection against his nefarious designs? And did he undertake, under the mask of friendship," and Mewker drew up his fore head into a complication of lines like an indignant web, "to come, as a hypocrite, a member of the church (O Mewker!) with the covert intention of destroying the peace and happiness of his only sister?"

Belgrave was a man who never swore; but on this occasion he uttered an exclamation: "My grief!" said he, "I never had no such idee."

"What, then, are your intentions?" said Mewker, fiercely.

"T' make it all straight," replied the Captain.

"How?"

Belgrave paused, and Mewker shuffled rapidly to and fro, muttering to himself. At last he broke out again:

"How, I say?"

"On that p'int I 'm codjitatin'."

"Do—you—mean—" said Mewker, with a remarkable smile, placing his hand calmly on the Captain's shoulder, "to trifle with me?"

"No," replied poor Belgrave, surrendering up, as it were, what was left of him; "I 'm ready to be married, if that will make it all straight, provided," he added with natural courtesy, turning to the lovely widow, "provided this lady does not think me unworthy of her."

Mewker drew forth a tolerably clean handkerchief, and applied it to his eyes: a white handkerchief held to the eyes of a figure in threadbare black is very effective. The lovely Lasciver remained entirely passive; such is discipline.

Here, at last, was an opportunity to beat a retreat. The Captain rose, and shaking Mewker's unemployed hand, which, he said after ward, "felt like a bunch of radishes," left the room without so much as a word to the future Mrs. Belgrave. So soon as the door closed upon him, Mr. Mewker raised his eyes from the handkerchief, and smiled sweetly upon his sister. The thing is accomplished.

As some old bear, who had enjoyed freedom from cubhood, feels, at the bottom of a pit dug by the skillful hunter, so feels Captain Belgrave, as he rides home sorrowfully. His citadel, after all, is not a protection. Into its penetralia a subtle spirit has at last found entrance. The air grows closer and heavier around him, the shadows broader, the bridges less secure, the trout-brooks blacker and deeper. How shall he break the matter to Augusta? "No hurry, though; the day has n't been app'inted yit;" and at this suggestion the clouds begin to break and lighten. Then he sees Mewker, threadbare and vindictive; his sky again is overcast, but filaments of light stream through as he conjures up the image of the lovely widow, the dimpled hand, the closed eyes, the long radiate lashes, cheeks, lips, and the temptation which had so unexpected a conclusion. Home at last; and, with some complaint of fatigue, the Captain retires to his high tower to ruminate over the past and the future.

The future! yes, the future! A long perspective stretched before his eyes; and, at the end of the vista, was a bride in white, and a wedding. It would take some months to gradually break the subject to his sister. Then temperately and moderately, the courtship would go on, year by year, waxing by degrees to the end.

Mr. Mewker altered the focus of Belgrave's optics next morning, by a short note, in which he himself fixed the wedding-day at two weeks from the Captain's declarations of intentions. This intelligence confined the Captain two days in the tower, "codjitating," during which time every body in Little-Crampton was informed that Widow Lasciver and he were engaged to be married. The news came from the best authority—the Rev. Melchior Spat. On the evening of the second day, a pair of lead-colored stockings, a fustian petticoat, a drab short-gown, and a bright bunch of keys, descended the steep step-ladder from the trap in the tower, and walked into the room adjoining. Then two hands commenced wringing themselves, by which we may understand that Augusta was in great tribulation. The rumor, rife in Little-Crampton, had reached her ears, and her brother had confirmed its truth. The very means employed to keep him out of danger had only assisted the other party to carry him off. This should be a warning to those who interfere with affairs of the heart. But what was her own future? Certainly her reign was at an end; a new queen-bee was to take possession of the hive; and then—what then? kings and kaisers, even, are not free from the exquisite anguish which, in that hour, oppressed the heart of Augusta Belgrave. It was but a step; but what a step? from mistress to menial, from ruler to subordinate. She knelt down heavily by the bedside, and there prayed; but—oh! the goodness of woman's heart!—it was a prayer, earnest, sincere, truthful, and humble; not for herself, but for her brothers. Then her heart was lightened and strengthened; and as she rose, she smiled with a bitter sweetness, that, considering every thing, was beautiful.

Great preparations now in Little-Crampton for the wedding. Invitations were out, and needles, scissors, flowers, laces, ribbons, and mantua-makers at a premium. The Captain took heart of grace, and called upon his lovely bride, but always managed to get past that lane before night-fall. Hood & Wessup, the fashionable tailors of Little-Crampton, were suborned to lay themselves out night and day upon his wedding-suit. He had set his heart upon having Adolphus dressed precisely like himself on the occasion. Two brothers dressed alike, groom and groomsman, look remarkably well at a wedding. But to his surprise, Adolphus refused to be dressed, and would not go to the wedding—"positively." Neither would Augusta. Brother and sister set to work packing up, and when the expected night arrived there was all their little stock in two, blue, wooden trunks, locked, and corded, and ready for moving, in the hall of the Oakery.

It was a gloomy night outside and in, for the rain had been falling all day, and a cold rain-storm in summer is dreary enough. But cheerful bars of light streamed across the darkness from the tower windows, lighting up a green strip on a tree here and there, a picket or two in the fence, and banding with an illuminated ribbon the side and roof of the dripping barn. The Captain was making his toilet. White ruffled shirt, with a black mourning pin containing a lock of his mother's hair; white marseilles waistcoat, set off with an inner vest of blue satin, (suggested by Hood & Wessup;) trowsers of bright mustard color, fitting as tight as if his legs had been melted and poured into them; blue coat, cut brass buttons, end of handkercher' sticking out of the pocket behind; black silk stockings and pumps; red check-silk neck-cloth, and flying-jib collars. Down he came, and there sat brother and sister on their corded trunks in the hall, portentous as the Egyptian statues that overlook the Nile from their high stone chairs. Not a word was said; but the Captain opened the door and looked out. "Why, it rains like fury. Jim!"

Jim, who was unseen in the darkness, and yet within three feet of the door, answered cheerily, "Aye, aye, Sir!"

"All ready, Jim?"

"All ready, Capt'in."

"Wait till I get my cloak;" and as the Captain wrapped himself up, his sister silently and carefully assisted him; not on account of his plumage, but to keep him from catching cold.

Off goes Shatter, Jim, and the Captain; off through the whistling rain and the darkness. The mud whirled up from the wheels and covered the cloak of the bridegroom, so he told Jim "to drive keerful, as he wanted to keep nice." It was a long and dreary road, but at last they saw the bright lights from Mewker's windows, and with a palpitating heart the Captain alighted at the porch.

Old Bose, who had been scouring the grounds and barking at every guest, started up with a fearful growl, but the Captain threw off his travel-stained cloak, and exhibited himself to the old dog in all his glory. The instant Bose recognized his friend and benefactor he leaped upon him with such a multitude of caresses that the white marseilles vest and mustard-colored trowsers were covered with proofs of his fidelity and attachment, "Hey, there! hey! down, Bose!" said Mewker at the door: "Why, my dear brother!"

The Captain, with great gravity, was snapping with his thumb and finger the superfluous mud with which Bose had embellished his trowsers.

"Come in here," said Mewker, chuckling and scratching his chin. "I'll get you a brush. No hurry. Time enough before the ceremony."

The Captain walked after him through the hall, and caught a glimpse of the parlors, radiant with wax-lights, and crowded with such a display of company as was rarely seen in Little-Crampton.

"Come in here," said Mewker, still chuckling, as he opened the door. "This is your room;" and he winked, and gave the bride groom such a nudge with his knobby elbow as almost tumbled him over the bed. "Your room—understand? The bridal-chamber! Wait here, now; wait here till I get a brush."

"Jim," he says, in a hoarse whisper, "take me hum. I aint a-goin' to sleep in such a room as that, no how."

The old boy quietly unbuckled the hitching-strap, and when Mewker got back with the brush, Shatter was flying through the mud toward the Oakery, at a three-minute gait. Two or three quick knocks at his own door, and it is opened by Augusta, who, with her brother, had kept watch and ward on their corded trunks. The Captain took the candle from the table, without saying a word, ascended the stairs, passed through scarp, counterscarp, glacis, and ditch, mounted his ladder, drew it up after him bolted the trap in the floor, and cocked his pistol.

"Now," said he, "let 'em come on! They 'aint got me married this time any how!"

THE warm, wide hills are muffled thick with green,
And fluttering swallows fill the air with song.
Come to our cottage-home. . . Lowly it stands,
Set in a vale of flowers, deep fringed with grass.
The sweet-brier (noiseless herald of the place)
Flies with its odor, meeting all who roam
With welcome footsteps to our small abode.
No splendid cares live here—no barren shows.
The bee makes harbor at our perfumed door,
And hums all day his breezy note of joy.
Come, O my friend! and share our festal month,
And while the west wind walks the leafy woods,
While orchard-blooms are white in all the lanes,
And brooks make music in the deep, cool dells,
Enjoy the golden moments as they pass,
And gain new strength for days that are to come.

How precious a boon is memory; how prolific of disquisition in the writings of the psychologist; how rich in associations when treated by the poet; how full of pleasures and of pains in him who has cherished this function of the mind by a proper observance of the laws of organic health, without which soundness of intellect is impaired, and our mental impressions resolved in a state of cloudiness, or lost in oblivion. As this great quality of the mind furnishes our most accurate knowledge; as by it we retain our power of recalling the various and numerous incidents of by-gone days, it summons our associations, as the occasion may demand, and yields gratification or suffering, according as life has been appropriated in furtherance of the proper destiny of our race. As retrospective reflections possess within themselves a permanence of impression denied to prospective views, and as time seems gradually to absorb the intensity of painful associations, the poet Rogers inculcates the belief, that as we advance in existence, past associations become less and less blended with sorrows, and unmixed gratification crowns the issue. It were well, indeed, could we be entirely confident of the truth of this theory of the mind. We must, however, leave it to the school-men to descant on, and to old heads to enjoy the fruition.

He who has passed a period of some three-score years and upward, some faithful Knickerbocker, for instance, native born, and ever a resident among us, whose tenacious memory enables him to meditate upon the thirty thousand inhabitants at the time of his birth with the almost oppressive population of some seven hundred thousand which the city at present contains; who contrasts the cheap and humble dwellings of that earlier date with the costly and magnificent edifices which now beautify the metropolis; who studies the sluggish state of the mechanic arts at the dawn of the Republic, and the mighty demonstrations of skill which our Fulton, and our Stevens, our Douglass, our Hoe, our Morse, have produced; who remembers the few and humble water-craft conveyances of days past, and now beholds the majestic leviathans of the ocean which crowd our harbors; who contemplates the partial and trifling commercial transactions of the Confederacy with the countless millions of commercial business which engross the people of the present day in our Union; who estimates the offspring of the press, and the achievements of the telegraph; he who has been the spectator of all this may be justly said to have lived the period of many generations, and to have stored within his reminiscences the progress of an era the most remarkable in the history of his species.

If he awakens his attention to a consideration of the progress of intellectual and ethical pursuits, if he advert to the prolific demonstrations which surround him for the advancement of knowledge, literary and scientific, moral and religious, the indomitable spirit of the times strikes him with more than logical conviction. The beneficence and humanity of his countrymen may be pointed out by contemplating her noble free schools, her vast hospitals and asylums for the alleviation of physical distress and mental infirmities; with the reflection that all these are the triumphs of a self-governed people, accomplished within the limited memory of an ordinary life. Should reading enlarge the scope of his knowledge, let him study the times of the old Dutch governors, when the Ogdens erected the first church in the fort of New-Amsterdam, in 1642, and then survey the vast panoramic view around him of the two hundred and fifty and more edifices now consecrated to the solemnities of religious devotion. It imparts gratification to know that the old Bible which was used in that primary church of Van Twiller is still preserved by a descendant of the builder, a precious relic of the property of the older period, and of the devotional impulse of those early progenitors.*

[*The Bible, that is, the Holy Scriptures contained in the Old and New Testaments. Quarto. Imprinted at London, by Robert Barker, Printer to the King, 1615, followed by Sternhold & Hopkins' Psalms. This volume is now in the possession of Dr. Ogden, of New-York.]

To crown the whole, time in its course has recognized the supremacy of political and religious toleration, and established constitutional freedom on the basis of equal rights and even and exact justice to all men. That New-York has given her full measure of toil, expenditure, and talent in furtherance of these vast results, by her patriots and statesmen, is proclaimed in grateful accents by the myriad voice of the nation at large.

But however gratifying to national feeling our cogitations on themes of this nature might prove, they fall not within the scope of our present intentions. A special and much more definite object on this occasion is a reference to individuality. While we ponder at our leisure on those great issues already hinted at, we feel that specific justice has not been awarded to individual merit; and that in our general glorification of acts and principles, we have proved laggard in our encomiums on the authors and the actors of the very deeds which invoke our panegyric. The most amiable tendency of the human heart is the intrinsic appreciation of the noble spirits of a land, whose services have conferred benefits of wide and lasting duration; wisdom no less than gratitude cherishes their memories, and the example of their life is the most powerful stimulus to future efforts on the part of their successors. A people who cherish this reverence must naturally possess that delicious frame of mind whose most effective powers are manifested in the results of a philanthropic spirit, and whose joys are most in harmony with the diviner essence of our nature.

Duly to estimate the career of duty, which has marked the lives of the men who thus by individual or confederated toil reared up the nation to a commanding and an exemplary attitude, it becomes obligatory on us to scrutinize in distinctive cases the circumstances which checked or advanced their praiseworthy impulses for the public weal. It is only by such investigations and inquiries that we become proper umpires of their merits, can truthfully award the just meed of praise, or hold in reverence their claims to regard. As at the juridical tribunal circumstantial evidence is demanded, in order to arrive at a proper conclusion and pronounce an honest verdict in the premises, so in the various occupations and transactions of men, we associate the immediate and contingent relationship of affairs in order to arrive at just conclusions.

A striking example to illustrate this opinion of life and its attendant struggles is to be found in the auto-biography of Franklin. His honest chronicle of all his thoughts and doings enables us to recognize his extraordinary intellect, and his mighty services for the age in which he flourished and for all posterity, with a truthfulness we could never otherwise have obtained; and his renown is only rendered more enduring when we contemplate the extremes of his existence—the destitute journeyman printer, and the noble statesman and philosopher: the self-taught sage is vested with still brighter renown when we find him at one time at the compositor's case, and, after successive changes, in the parliamentary arena, convicting the haughty Wedderburn of ignorance and insolence, to the admiration of a whole senate, and the approval of a Burke and a Priestley. He betrayed the lofty aspiration of his nature, when, even a stripling in years, he was solicitous of being introduced to Sir Isaac Newton, the philosopher whose glories his own were destined afterward to outshine. The cognomen of the penniless youth became a national name—the appellation of the land of his birth—and American citizen, and a countryman of Franklin, were synonymous terms.

Like remarks, and of a like tendency might be made in the case of Fulton. The extraordinary trials of his early life, the provocations he endured for years in his investigations and experimental essays, ere he accomplished navigation by steam, endear the man to us in a ten-fold view. I had the honor of a personal acquaintance with him. His liberal nature, his frank utterance, his chivalric bearing, all pronounced him one of Nature's noblest gifts. Neither the jeers of the vulgar nor the scoffs of the sciolist ever disturbed his equanimity or lessened the confidence he cherished in the ultimate results of his bold project. After his successful toils on the Hudson, it was affirmed it would be impossible to navigate in the East River, or cross the ferry to Brooklyn, because of the force of the currents. The folly of the declaration was soon demonstrated, and his floating dock, the subject of laughter by the unwise, completed the work he had long cogitated. When, soon after it was ascertained that this last labor of his had been adopted at Liverpool, and elsewhere abroad, the skeptics disappeared. European approval had been secured, and his sagacity and talent proclaimed even in the plaudits of his own countrymen. But this was at a time when an American printed book sold best with the imprint of—London: John Jones, Piccadilly.

If we view the early life of Fulton, and hold in memory his achievements—at first the humble watch-maker, and finally the man who, by his individual prowess, changed the relationships of remotest people, and brought the old and the new worlds as neighbors together; who, with pecuniary resources as nothing, save in the liberality of Chancellor Livingston, has established the comity of nations, and effected an annual profit to his country of more than one hundred millions of dollars, our estimate of his brilliant career becomes higher and higher by a proper study of his biography. Colden has given his interesting story, and Tuckerman, in his American Portraits, has drawn him to the life.

Another instance may be cited of profitable influence, in the case of De Witt Clinton. We need not advert to the early portions of his career. He was always a student, and it is sufficiently known to all that he identified himself with the great interests of public education and humanity. He was a naturalist of no mean pretensions, and mineralogy, geology, and botany were the pursuits of his pastime. To judge of his merits in the organization of the canal policy of the State of New-York, it behooves the inquirer after truth to become acquainted with the financial career and condition of the State, the history of its political leaders and factions, the force of public opinion, the persecuting vindictiveness of party strife, and the poison of a hireling press. No measure of such magnitude as the Erie and Hudson Canal was ever accomplished under such disheartening embarrassments. In the great city most to be benefited by its completion the opposition to it was strongest; and many of those who cherished feelings favorable to the undertaking were luke-warm in the project: the river counties were to be ruined by it, and a general bankruptcy of the State was to follow. It was affirmed that it was premature to be involved in such a mighty if not preposterous work. Clinton had early written to Jefferson on the subject, and pointed out the practicability and advantages of the design. Mr. Jefferson writes in answer that he thinks the time for such a vast work too early by a century. Upon its completion, Clinton informs him that all doubts of the practicability of the measure must now cease. Jefferson, in reply, congratulates him, and adds, in substance, "My opinion only shows that I have lived one hundred years too soon." The indomitable mind of Clinton rose superior to all obstacles. Under the guidance of his counsels, and his inflexible perseverance, the mighty undertaking was brought to a successful issue. His eulogist, Charles King, thus eloquently speaks of him: "In the great work of internal improvement he persevered through good report and through evil report with a steadiness of purpose that no obstacle could divert; and when all the elements were in commotion against him, and even his chosen associates were appalled, he alone, like Columbus on the wide waste of waters, in his frail bark, with a disheartened and unbelieving crew, remained firm, self-possessed, and unshaken."

The distinctive merits of individuals, such, for example, as those we have now mentioned, whose renown must endure for ages, are only to be fittingly awarded by thoroughly understanding the circumstances inherent in their very position of life, their habitat, so to speak, in the language of botany, when discoursing on the properties of plants. This rule observed, how preëminently do they increase in our estimate of their virtues, emphatic as their works proclaim their noble powers! Were the writers of American biography more attentive to considerations of this kind; were we furnished with more of what is termed ana, in the sketches and accounts of our illustrious men; were the novelty of situation, the condition of a new people, and that pioneer effort, so arduous, yet so inseparable from our country, dwelt upon, we would love with a greater devotion the character of the men who wrought for us such blessings, while our patriotism for the land of our birth, and the heritage bequeathed us, would be cherished with a loftier estimate of their intellectual worth.

A glance at the advanced state of education at the present time, compared with that of a former period, when instruction in the new republic was sparsely provided, when competent teachers were rarely found, and school discipline depended upon the arbitrary decision of a vain-glorious and ignorant pedagogue, would lessen our surprise that so few well-armed scholars have been reared among us. But even this state of education has not wholly suppressed the reputation we may claim for distinguished examples of scholarship. In these days, of more critical acumen, the science of mind seems better comprehended, and studies apter for diversities of intellect, are selected with better judgment and urged with greater fidelity. I tax memory for a case in point under the older régime. I was a youngster at the same school in New-York with Washington Irving. Every thing, I believe, was professed to be taught by the Principal. I remember how rigid was his law in enforcing public speaking; every scholar was assuredly to be made a Cicero. The selections assigned to each speaker were according to the master's deeper knowledge of the temperament and physical qualities of the scholar. "Pity the sorrows of a poor old man!" was given me. To young Irving, who had the advantage of more years, capacity, and strength, was assigned the heroic speech, "My voice is still for war." That my own exhibition was a sorry affair may be readily admitted; but what are we to think of the sedate, the peaceful and benignant Irving, whose bellicose propensities have never yet been developed, and whose organ of combativeness no phrenologist has yet discovered, selected to appear before a large assemblage to display the heroic impulses of a son of Mars! Time, however, has proved the futility of the instruction and the folly of the instructor; and Mr. Irving, while he smiles in secret at the discipline of his school-boy days, may rest satisfied that he wears a chaplet of greater lustre and more lasting glory than ever adorned the warrior's brow.

Life, physical and mental, is the result of association; we are portions of all around us. The harmony of the physiological organization preserves the one; the intellectual stores received by perception sustain the other. By association, the cerebral faculties become more capacious and of wider grasp, and judgment enlarges her sphere and acts with greater wisdom and justice. I would that truths founded on such a basis were more generally recognized, and that opinions and decisions were made on such organic principles. Association, not segregation, is the ladder we ascend, the better to have a true view of what we take cognizance of. The rule applies equally to things, to acts, and to individuals. I know my man, I make a right estimate, when I comprehend not merely what he accomplished, but the circumstances in which he moved and acted, the obstacles overcome, the incidents which favored his designs. Every body knows that there never flourished, within our precincts, a more beautiful wood than that which ornamented Hoboken and Weehawken. It has been famous in prose and in song; but when we are told that within that forest, in its best estate, Kalm, the botanist of Abo, enriched the species plantarum of Lannæus: that here the enthusiastic Masson discovered new plants of interesting character and properties; that Volney here at times luxuriated while in philosophical contemplation; that here, amidst these beautiful and majestic trees, Michaux the younger composed some portions of his American Flora; that Pursh added to his great botanical treasures from these woods, as did also the unfortunate Douglass; that in these walks Irving and Paulding and Verplanck, in their earlier days, cherished those sympathies with nature which give vitality to their descriptive powers; that here the ornithologist, Wilson, and his successor, Audubon, passed many of the choicest hours of their pilgrimage of life; that here Cooke, the tragedian, after undue excitement, found alleviation of sorrow, and Matthews, the comedian, a solace for grievous melancholy; that the soil of Hoboken yielded to Bruce the magnesian lime-stone, a product most precious in a mineralogical cabinet; that here the elder Stevens made experiments, the first in either hemisphere, in demonstration of the practicability of railroad communication; and more, when we find that our congenial Halleck has enlisted his poetic gifts in laudation of this captivating spot, our gratification swells, every tree seems clothed with richer verdure, and becomes sacred to our feelings. I walk through these shady groves with emotions enhanced an hundred-fold by such associations, and consider how many rich minds have surveyed them, and what treasures they have yielded to the philosophical and rational pursuits of the disciples of knowledge.

But, passing from these general reflections on the prolific subject of the acquisition of knowledge under extreme difficulties, and the accomplishment of great deeds under adverse circumstances, I hasten to notice, though briefly, an individual who long bore a conspicuous part in the affairs of our active population, and whose life and trials may be set forth as an instructive instance of personal warfare against conflicting elements. I allude to

There must still be among us some few old Knickerbockers, whose recollections of some thirty-five years ago may bring him before them. The young men of the present day may have heard their fathers talk of the little weather-beaten old man, small in stature, and attenuated in frame, of weight some one hundred and ten pounds avoirdupois, who existed by his telegraph on the Government-House at the Bowling-Green, and his telescope in the Park.

Colles was by birth an Irishman, and, losing his parents when quite young, accident placed him under the care of the renowned Richard Pococke, the oriental traveller, and afterward Bishop of Ossory. The pursuits of Pococke led the mind of his adopted student to physical investigation, and, it would appear, that to considerable attainments in languages he added a fair acquaintance with mathematics, mineralogy, climate, antiquities, and geographical science. Shortly after the death of his patron, in 1765, inspired with the travelling propensities of his instructor, he set out a wanderer from his native land, and we find him about the year 1772 engaged here in delivering a series of lectures on the subject of lock navigation. He was the first person who suggested canals, and improvements on the Ontario route. In November, 1784, according to the records of the Assembly, he presented a memorial on the subject, and, in April following, a favorable report was had thereon. Colles visited the country, and took an actual survey of the principal obstructions upon the Mohawk river as far as Wood Creek. He published the results of his tour in a pamphlet from the press of S. Loudon. 1785. "The amazing extent of the five great lakes," says Colles, "to which the proposed navigation will communicate, will be found to have five times as much coast as all England: and the countries watered by the numerous rivers which fall into these lakes, full seven or eight times as great as that valuable island."

In an article on the "Water Chronology of the City of New-York," published in that valuable repository, the Corporation Manual of Mr. Valentine for 1854, the services of Mr. Colles are duly noticed by the writer, Theodore R. De Forest. Colles, in 1774, proposed the construction of a reservoir and other works, between Pearl and White streets, in this city, and to answer that end, the expense was to be defrayed by issuing redeemable paper money. The war of the revolution arrested the undertaking, yet in 1778 the people petitioned that Colles plan might be carried out. In 1797, we find his name among the applicants for a contract to convey water through the city by means of pipes. This was about the time that Dr. Brown associated himself with the Manhattan Company, in order to procure for the city a proper supply of pure and wholesome water. Dr. Brown recommended to the Common Council the Bronx river for that purpose; and this, it is affirmed, is the first indication on record that a supply from without the city was to be looked for. I believe that Colles made the original suggestion to Brown.

Through the kindness of a Knickerbocker friend, G. B. Rapelye, I have before me an elaborate pamphlet written by Colles, and published in New-York in 1808, on the interests of the United States of America, extending to all conditions of men, by means of inland navigable communications. He calls his plan, the Timber Canal, readier and more feasible to make, and far cheaper. These several tracts show the devotion and abilities of Colles, at a time when, in our country, few indeed were qualified to enter as competitors in his design.

These several projects of public improvement gave to Colles occupation congenial to his habits of study, though they resulted in but trifling pecuniary returns. His modesty and unassuming character were little calculated to force him within the channels of profitable occupation; yet he filled up what leisure he had with mathematics, hydraulics, and kindred studies. He was among the first, if not the very first individual who commenced itinerant public instruction. He practised land-surveying, and taught it in lectures in different parts of this State and elsewhere. He lectured on electricity, though I do not know that, like Franklin, he made his own electrical machine, in this city.* Mineralogy and manures, mesmerism and mathematics were also topics of his public discourses. The expositions of the orrery of Rittenhouse doubtless often aided to enlarge his audiences in those days. My old friend, President King, might have said more of him in his Memoir on the Croton Aqueduct.

[*Colden Correspondence, when I examined it in 1810.]

As there were periods when he could not study, and hours when he could not lecture, the propensities of his old master roused him to new efforts as a traveller. He wandered through divers parts of Pennsylvania and this State, until he, by personal examinations and calculations, prepared a Book of Roads for New-York, which he published in 1789. I never heard from his lips any lamentations on his travels, or his gastric sufferings, such as old Mrs. Knight has recorded in her Tour through the Wilderness from Hartford to New-York, made some time before. Colles was a genuine philosopher; he had studied the Salernian precepts, and could practically declare that a bit in the morning was better than nothing all day.

Upon his final settlement in New-York, he at first lived by making band-boxes: whether his mathematics gave them more symmetry and grace, there is no one left to tell us. His support from this source was precarious, and other appliances were at work, in the manufacture of Prussian blue and other pigments. George Baron commenced the Mathematical Correspondent, the first publication of that sort in the Union, and similar in its intentions to the work of Dr. Hutton. Baron was an English radical; and Colles, with a spice of democracy in him, must have found politics and mathematics and the social habits of Baron an occasional relief from his weightier cares. The almanac-makers at fault, Colles supplied their deficiencies in astronomical calculations; and he added to these avocations the collecting and arranging of opossum and beaver-skins, Indian vases and tomahawks, and other objects of curiosity with which he became familiar during his extensive western tours through the Mohawk country, and his interviews with the chiefs of Oneida Castle. He found a congenial friend in Gardiner Baker, who was then engaged in fitting up a cabinet of native curiosities for the Tammany Society, recently organized for the promotion of natural science and American antiquities, the Grand Sachem of which was William Pitt Smith, M.D., the author of the Letters of Amyntor.

A windfall seems to occur once in the life of every individual, and so it happened to Colles. The Constitution of the United States being adopted, and the duties on spirits established by Congress, both the hydrostatics and chemistry of Colles were called into requisition, and he was appointed to test the specific gravity of imported liquors. From the scarcity of the article, he turned his artistic skill to the making of proof-glasses—another source of profit to him. But this period of advantageous business had its end; and, in his study of new things, he projected his telegraph, which enabled him to meet his most pressing wants, in his again straitened condition. The American Academy of Fine Arts was now instituted, with Edward Livingston as its president; and, enriched with the Napoleon presents and Chancellor Livingston's rich gifts, needed a superintendent to watch over the beautiful sculptures which it possessed. John Pintard, his ever-constant friend, secured the trust for Colles, and we now find our ubiquitous philosopher in good quarters and in wholesome employment. The fondest mother never regarded with greater care her first-born than Colles watched over the Venus of the Bath. He had leisure now to drive another business, and perhaps the luckiest of his scientific hits was the application he made of his telescope and microscope. The casual pittance of a six-penny piece for a look at Venus, or the circulation, through the web of a frog's foot, with his exegetical remarks, proved adequate to his now fullest desires. What a contrast of condition in life was Colles in New-York, with his old master, the affluent Dolland, of London, with whom he had worked at achromatic lenses! It was not always a clear atmosphere for Colles apparatus, but a brilliant night or a cloudless day added to his receipts; and the fuller contents of his basket, and the larger size of his head of cabbage, as he returned from market, were diagnostic of the results of the preceding twenty-four hours.

While Colles was thus striving for the means of his daily existence, he was aided by a residence in the Government-House, whither the Academy of Arts had been removed. Nor was he wholly over looked by prominent characters. His acquisitions were known by many, to be extensive if not profound; his industry through a long life knew no idle hour; his talents were admitted to be above the ordinary standard; his plans were sometimes pronounced visionary, but his conversation was instructive, and his genius in mechanics sufficiently original to command approbation. His nature was benevolent: his morals void of offence toward GOD and man. He was the advocate of an enlarged toleration in political as well as in religious opinion; and cordially as well as practically adopted the sentiment of Jeremy Taylor, "The way to judge of religion is by doing our duty; and theology is rather a divine life than a divine knowledge." It was Iris constant aim to be useful. If his occupation was not always elevated, he was too frequently the victim of controlling circumstances. He knew Poor Richard by heart, yet he overlooked his aphorism, "Three removes are as bad as a fire," and was wont to substitute, in justification of his numerous transitions in life, the maxim, "A nimble sixpence is better than a sluggish shilling." Many paid deference to him amid all his disappointments. De Witt Clinton included him among the prominent promoters of internal improvement, and with philosophical liberality, uttered this noble sentiment in reference to Colles as well as others: "For the good which has been done by individuals or communities in relation to the work, let each have a due share of credit." Dr. Mitchill often visited him and lauded his services in the advancement of public works. Jarvis, the painter, pronounced him a genius, and painted his portrait with great fidelity. "My pencil," said Jarvis, "will render you hereafter better known: you have done too much good to be forgotten." The picture is, or ought to be, in the Historical Society. Dr. Hosack commemorated him, in his Life of Clinton, as an early pioneer in behalf of the canal policy of New-York, and caused an engraving of his portrait to occupy a niche on the column of his canal worthies. Senator Seward has not overlooked him in his elaborate introduction to the Natural History of New-York. Trumbull, the historical painter, often cheered him onward, and bid him hope, for on that article he himself had long lived. Nor was that genuine Knickerbocker, G. C. Verplanck, indifferent to his condition, nor backward in suggestions. In the great celebration which took place in this city in November, 1825, when the waters of Erie united with the Atlantic, the effigy of Colles was borne with appropriate dignity among the emblems of that vast procession. But to John Pintard was Colles most indebted, many years, for numerous acts of beneficence and for his bounty in greatest need. As through his whole life of four-score years he had always more ideas in his brain than pennies in his pocket, he must have proved something more than an occasional customer.

As Colles was an instructive representative of much of that peculiarity in the condition and affairs of New-York at the time in which he may be said to have flourished, I shall trespass a moment, by a brief exhibit of the circumstances which marked the period in which he was upon the whole a prominent character. Every body seemed to know him; no one spoke disparagingly of him. His enthusiasm, his restlessness were familiar to the citizens at large. He, in short, was a part of our domestic history, and an extra word or two may be tolerated the better to give him his fair proportions. Had I encountered Colles in any land, I would have been willing to have naturalized him to our soil and institutions. He had virtues, the exercise of which must prove profitable to any people. The biographer of Chaucer has seen fit, inasmuch as his hero was born in London, to give us a history and description of that city at the time of Chaucer's birth, as a suitable introduction to his work. I shall attempt no such task, nor shall I endeavor to make Colles a hero, much as I desire to swell his dimensions. I shall circumscribe him to a chap-book; he might be distended to a quarto. Yet the ardent and untiring man was so connected with divers affairs, even after he had domesticated himself among us, that the every movement in which he took a part must have had a salutary influence on the masses of those days. He was a lover of nature, and our village city of that time gave him a fair opportunity of recreation among the lordly plane, and elm, and catalpa trees of Wall-street, Broadway, Pearl-street, and the Bowery. The beautiful groves about Richmond Hill and Lispenard Meadows, and old Vauxhall, mitigated the dullness incident to his continuous toil. A trip to the scattered residences of Brooklyn awakened rural associations; a sail to Communipaw gave him the opportunity of studying marls and the bivalves. That divine principle of celestial origin, religious toleration, seems to have had a strong hold on the people of that day; and the persecuted Priestley, shortly after he reached our shores, held forth in the old Presbyterian Church in Wall-street, doubtless favored in a measure by the friendship of old Dr. Rodgers, a convert to Whitefield, and a pupil of Witherspoon. This fact I received from John Pintard. Livingston and Rodgers, Moore and Provoost supplied the best Christian dietetics his panting desires needed; while in the persons of Bayley and Kissam, and Hosack and Post he felt secure from the misery of dislocations and fractures, and that alarming pest, the yellow fever. He saw the bar occupied with such advocates as Hamilton and Burr, Hoffmann and Colden, and he dreaded neither the assaults of the lawless, nor the chicanery of contractors. The old Tontine gave him more daily news than he had time to digest, and the Argus and Minerva, Freneau's Time-Piece and Sword's New-York Magazine inspired him with increased zeal for liberty and a fondness for belles-letters. The City Library had, even at that early day, the same tenacity of purpose which marks its career at the present hour. There were literary warehouses in abundance. Judah had decorated his with the portrait of Paine, and here Colles might study Common Sense and the Rights of Man, or he might stroll to the store of Duyckinck, the patron of books of piety, works on education, and Noah Webster; or join tête-a-tête with old Hugh Gaine or James Rivington and Philip Freneau; now all in harmony, notwithstanding the withering satire against those accommodating old tories by the great bard of the revolutionary crisis.

[*WE have books without end concerning the origin of nations and races, while these mental instructors of a people have been favored with scarcely a pamphlet in vindication of their claims to our consideration. I have inserted below the two best Latin versions descriptive of their trials and mishaps. They have been too long the schoolmasters of early thought to be longer overlooked. Why do not our scholars ferret out their birth-place, whether High Dutch or Low Dutch, with more satisfaction, instead of referring us to the drama of the sixteenth century and the Bodleian Library? Would the task prove unworthy of the learning of the distinguished teacher of German, Professor SCHMIDT, of Columbia College? He might find in the inquiry a pastime from the cares of his collegiate life. Notwithstanding Porson's labors, "What's Hecuba to me or I to Hecuba?" is the exclamation of many a youth whose formative development sprung from Humpius Dumpius.

HUMTIUS in muro requievit Dumtius alto;
Humtius e muro Dumtius heu cecidit!
Sed non regis equi, reginæ exercitus omnis,
Humti, te, Dumti, restituere loco!

——

HEI didulum! atque iterum didulum! felisque fidesque,
Vacca super lunæ cornua prosiluit:
Nescio qua catulus risit dulcedine ludi;
Alstulit et turpi lanx cochleare fuga.

A like obscurity hangs over JACKEY HORNER. After all that has been said, we know not more accurately of his nativity than we do of the site of that ancient city, old Troy.]

There existed in New-York, about these times, a war of opinion which seized even the medical faculty. The Bastile had been taken. French speculations looked captivating, and Genet's movements won admiration, even with grave men. In common with others, our school masters partook of the prevailing mania: the tricolored cockade was worn by numerous school-boys, as well as by their seniors. The yellow fever was wasting the population; but the patriotic fervor, either for French or English politics, glowed with ardor. With other boys I united in the enthusiasm. The Carminole was heard everywhere. I give a verse of a popular song echoed throughout the streets of our city, and heard at the Belvidere at that period:

"AMERICA, that lovely nation,
Once was bound, but now is free;
She broke her chain, for to maintain
The rights and cause of liberty."

Strains like this of the Columbian bards in those days of party virulence emancipated the feelings of many a throbbing breast, even as now the songs, of pregnant simplicity and affluent tenderness, by Morris, afford delight to a community pervaded by a calmer spirit, and controlled by a loftier refinement. Moreover, we are to remember that in that early age of the Republic an author, and above all a poet, was not an every-day article. True, old Dr. Smith, once a chemical professor in King's College, surcharged with learning and love, who found Delias and Daphnes everywhere, might be seen in the public ways, with his madrigals for the beautiful women of his select acquaintance; but the buds of promise of the younger Low (of a poetic family) were blighted by an ornithological error:

"'T is morn, and the landscape is lovely to view,
The nightingale warbles her song in the grove."

Weems had not yet appeared in the market, with his Court of Hymen; Clifton was pulmonary; Wardell's declaration

"To the tuneful APOLLO I now mean to hollow!"

was annunciatory and nothing more; and Searson, exotic by birth, yet domesticated with us, having made vast struggles in his perilous in the erection of that immense undertaking, the Croton Aqueduct, a demonstration worthy of the talents and renown of Major Douglass.

There was something very engaging in the physiognomy of Colles. He was naturally cheerful and buoyant; at times pensive, yet free from any corrosive melancholy. His ample front, his sparse white locks, his cavernous gray eyes, with that weakness which often marks old age, betokened a resigned spirit. To see him on an early morning visit, seated at his small pine table, with his bowl of milk, his dry bread and potato, offering up grace for the bounties he was favored with, was a lesson to the ungrateful epicure, of edifying influence. The cheerfulness and mellowness of his life are well expressed in the words of Dyer, on another occasion:

"——THERE is a mood,
(I sing not to the vacant or the young,)
There is a kindly mood of melancholy
That wings the soul and points her to the skies."

If to his great and varied attainments Colles had added the practical functions of a school-master, or had he been more fortunate in his fiscal relations, he might have been honored with the highest academic distinction by some of our venerable collegiate institutions.

JEANNIE MARSH of Cherry Valley,
At whose call the muses rally;
Of all the nine none so divine
As JEANNIE MARSH of Cherry Valley.
She 'minds me of her native scenes,
Where she was born among the cherries;
Of peaches, plums, and nectarines,
Pears, apricots, and ripe strawberries!
JEANNIE MARSH of Cherry Valley.

JEANNIE MARSH of Cherry Valley,
In whose name the muses rally;
Of all the nine none so divine
As JEANNIE MARSH of Cherry Valley.
A sylvan nymph with queenly grace,
An angel she in every feature;
The sweet expression of the place,
A dimple in the smile of nature!
JEANNIE MARSH of Cherry Valley.

THE finest moral trait in Kean was a certain spirit, tenacity of purpose, and lofty confidence in himself, which differed widely from presumption or conceit: a kind of instinctive faith, that no force of circumstances or prescription ever quenched. This quality, more easily felt than described, seems the prerogative of genius in all departments of life, and is often the only explicable inspiration that sustains it amid discomfiture and privation. It runs, like a thread of gold, through the dark and tangled web of Kean's career—lends something of dignity to the most abject moment of his life, and redeems from absolute degradation his moments of most entire self-abandonment. Thus, when an obscure and provincial actor, performing Alexander the Great, he replied indignantly to the sarcasm of an auditor in the stage-box, who called him Alexander the Little: "Yes, Sir, with a great soul!" and exultingly told his wife, after his first great success in London, in reply to her anxious inquiry what Lord Essex thought of him: "D—n Lord Essex, the pit rose to me;" he felt that the appeal of genius was universal, and that which stirred in his blood demanded the response of humanity. This consciousness of natural gifts made him spurn the least encroachment upon his self-respect, however poverty weighed him down, and long before fame justified to the world his claims. He rushed for ever away from the house of his earliest protector, because of a careless remark of one of the company that disavowed his equality with the children of the family. Whenever an inferior part was allotted him, he fled to avoid the compromise of his feelings; and after his triumph was achieved, poured a bowl of punch over the stage-manager's head at Drury Lane, to punish his impertinent criticisms at the first rehearsal. The same proud independence led him to avoid the social honors of rank. He liked professional and literary men because he thought they truly relished and understood his art. The restraints, the cold uniformity, and the absence of vivid interest in the circles of the nobility, either oppressed or irritated him, and he chafed until free to give vent to his humor, passion, and convivial tastes among boon companions.

A fine audacity and that abhorrence of the conventional we find in hunters, poets, and artists—the instinctive self-assertion of a nature assured that its own resources are its best and only reliable means of success and enjoyment—thus underlaid Kean's wayward and extravagant moods; and while it essentially interfered with his popularity as a man, it was a primary cause of his triumph as an actor; for no histrionic genius more clearly owed his success to the will. In this regard he was a species of Alfieri. The style he adopted, the method he pursued, and the aim he cherished, were neither understood nor encouraged until their own intrinsic and overwhelming superiority won both the critics and the multitude. The taste in England had been formed by Kemble and his school: dignity, correctness, grave emphasis, and highly-finished elocution had become the standard characteristics. Kean was a bold innovator upon this system; he trusted to nature more than to art, or rather endeavored to fuse the two. Thus, while carefully giving the very shades of meaning to the words of Shakspeare, he endeavored to personify the character—not according to an eloquent ideal, but with human reality, as if the very life-blood of Othello and Lear, their temperaments as well as their experience, had been vitally transferred to his frame and brain. He seemed possessed with the character he represented; and, throwing mere technical rules to the winds, identified himself through passional sympathy, regulated by studious contemplation, with the idiosyncrasies of those whose very natures and being he aspired to embody and develop.

Kean obeyed the instinct of genius, when, in opposition to the management at Drury Lane, arranging his débût, he exclaimed, "Shylock or nothing!" In that part there was scope for his intellectual energy, opportunity to give those magical shades of intensity and throw into those dark, acute features the infinite power of expression for which he was distinguished. A few weeks before that memorable evening, his first-born son had died in a provincial town, and in all the agony of his bereavement he had been obliged to act, to gain money to defray the funeral expenses. Thence he had gone up to town, and, owing to a misunderstanding of the contract, for months endured the pressure of actual want and the heart-sickness of hope deferred. The season was unpropitious, his spirits and energy were depressed by fasting, affliction, and neglect. While he was at rehearsal, his wife sold one of her few remaining articles of apparel to obtain him a dinner, fortified by which he trudged through the snow to the theatre. The series of triumphs succeeding this memorable night are well known. The overpowering reality of his personation gave Lord Byron a convulsive fit, caused an actress to faint on the stage, and an old comedian to weep, replenished the treasury of Drury Lane, electrified the United Kingdom, ushered in a new theatrical era, and crowned him with sudden prosperity and fame. His star, however, set in clouds; his last appearance in London was as melancholy as his first was brilliant; alienated from his family, the victim of excess—proud, sensitive, and turbulent—his domestic troubles were only reconciled just before his death, which came as a relief to himself and those with whom he was connected.

While the histrionic achievements of Kean identify his name with the progress of dramatic art, his actual life and habits pertain rather to a sphere without the limits of civilization. A wild vein belonged to his very nature, and seemed indicative of gipsy or savage blood. It gleamed sometimes from his extraordinary eyes, when acting, so as to appal, startle, and impress every class of observers. A man once cried out in the pit at the demoniacal glare of his optics, as Shylock meditating revenge on his creditor, "It is the devil!" His poet-biographer compares him to the van-winged hero of Paradise Lost; and West, the painter, declared he had never been so haunted by the look of a human face as by that of Kean. Something of this peculiar trait also exhibited itself in his action and tones, and made his audience thrill with the fierce energy of his soul. But while it thus subserved the purposes of art, and was, in fact, an element of his genius, it infected his private life with a reckless and half-maniacal extravagance that was fostered by his addiction to stimulants, an unprotected infancy, and the precarious and baffled tenor of his youth and early manhood.

When we bring home to ourselves this erratic behavior, combined with extreme vicissitudes of fortune, the career of Kean, as a man, seems almost as remarkable as it was as an actor. A stage-Cupid at two years of age, a circus-rider and harlequin, then an infant prodigy reciting Rolla; his very origin disputed; now the slave of a capricious, ignorant, and selfish woman; and now the wayward protege of a benevolent lady; arranging Mother Goose for one manager, and taking the part of a supernumerary for another; reduced to such poverty as to travel on foot, his wife trudging wearily at his side, and his boy clinging to his back; at one time swimming a river with his theatrical wardrobe in a bundle held by the teeth, and, at another, for whole days, half-famished, and his wife praying at her lonely vigils for a speedy release by death from hopeless suffering; to-day dancing attendance, for the hundredth time, at Drury Lane, to gain the ear of the director, and known among the bystanders only as "the little man with the capes;" and to-morrow, the idol of the town, his dressing-room besieged by lords—few chronicles in real life display more vivid and sudden contrasts than the life of Kean. The mercurial temper that belonged to him was liable, at any moment, to be excited by drink, sympathy, an idea, or an incident. One night it induced him to disturb the quiet household where he lodged, by jumping through a glass door; another, to seize the heads of the leaders attached to his majesty's mail-coach and attempt a wrestling-match. In Dublin, it winged his flight for hours through the dusky streets, with a mob of screaming constables at his heels. It inspired him to engage in midnight races on horseback. In more quiet manifestations, it induced him to make a pet of a lion, and a sacred relic of the finger-bone of Cook; and prompted him, to his wife's extreme annoyance, to retire to bed in the costume of a monkey. At one time it led him to muse for hours in a church-yard; and, at another, to try country-life on his estate at Bute, or haunt the "Red Lion" and the "Coal-Hole." In England it made him a volunteer jockey at a race; in Italy, a fascinating story-teller and mimic to the monks of road-side convents; and in America, caused him to be duly inaugurated chief of a tribe of Indians.

There is no actor of whom such instances of arrogance toward the public and individuals are related; but it is to be observed that they generally originated in exasperated feeling, caused by undeserved neglect or gross misappreciation; and charity will ever make allowance for the inevitable results of an incongruous and homeless childhood. Kean's father nearly ruined his son's physique by employing him, at a tender age, to figure in pantomime; timely surgical aid having only saved his limbs from utter deformity. The redeeming influences of his early years were the benevolent intervention of Dr. Drury, who, recognizing his promise, sent him to Eton; and the patient teachings of Miss Tidswell, an actress of Drury Lane. That he was born with a genius for the stage is evinced by the fact that at the age of thirteen his Cato and Hamlet satisfied provincial audiences; and his recitation of Satan's Address to the Sun, from Paradise Lost, won royal approbation at Windsor. His talent for feigning served him occasionally more practical benefit than that derived from its entertaining quality; as, when he was released from a rash engagement on board ship, as cabin-boy, for pretended deafness, and escaped the indignation of a London audience he wantonly disappointed, by a well-acted dislocation of the shoulder.

If Kean's early circumstances were adverse to his moral, they were, in many respects, highly favorable to his professional development. The long apprenticeship he served to the stage, embracing every grade of character and almost all functions of a player, made him thoroughly at home on the boards, and induced much of his ease, tact, and facility; his circus experiences and habits of active life gave both vigor and suppleness to his frame; while the vagrant career he led, brought him in view of all kinds of character and phases of life, by which he observantly profited to a degree that only those intimate with him fully realized. While in this country, his genius excited the intelligent admiration, and his recklessness the benevolent care, of a professional gentleman, who became his constant associate and friend. From him I learn that the versatility of Kean's accomplishments was quite as remarkable as the intensity of his acting and the extravagance of his moods. He would often enchain an intellectual circle at a fashionable party, by his exquisite vocalism, the effect of which was inexplicable to those who listened to his limited, and unmusical voice; or by the rich anecdotes or shrewd comments of his table-talk; and when released from this to him intolerable social thraldom, work off the nervous reaction induced by so many hours of restraint, by throwing half-a-dozen summersets with the celerity and grace of a practised harlequin. He was, indeed, a compact embodiment of muscles and nerves; his agility and strength were such that his frame instantly obeyed his will from the bound of a gladiator to the expressive restlessness of quivering fingers. His voice ranged through every note and cadence of power and sensibility; now by a whisper of tenderness bringing tears from callous men, and the next moment, chilling their very hearts with the fierce tones of an imprecation. But these remarkable physical endowments would have merely subserved the narrow purposes of the athlete or the mimic, had they not been united to a mind of extraordinary sagacity and a face of unequalled expression; by virtue of these he rendered them the instruments of efficient art. The professors at Edinburgh were disappointed, after seeing him perform and hearing him converse, to find that he had no original theory of elocution to broach, and no striking principles of oratory to advocate. His touches were a composite and individual result, no more to be formally imparted than the glow of poetry or the zest of wit; they grew out of profound observation fused into a practical issue by the inspiration of genius.

Coleridge said that to see Kean act was like reading Shakspeare by lightning. The spell of his penetrating eyes and half-Jewish physiognomy was not more individual than his style of personation; and the attempt to transfer some of his points to another has almost invariably produced an incongruous effect. His excitable temperament was another secret of his magnetism and his foibles; while it enabled him wonderfully to engage the sympathies of an audience, it rendered him liable to be overcome by the least moral or physical excitement, and made him the slave of impulse. Regularly in New-York, every afternoon, he seized the copy of an evening journal inimical to him, with the tongs, rang for a servant, and sent it away in this manner; while, at the same time, he scrupulously laid aside a guinea a week, during the whole of his sojourn, to reward the faithful services of a poor servant: often drawn by his kind guardian from a haunt of debauchery, just in time to appear on the stage, he would, at others, attire himself like a finished gentleman, mix in the most refined society, and manifest a noble scorn of money, and an absolute reverence for mental superiority, that excited involuntary respect. Kean, the dissolute man, the inebriated boon companion, quoting Latin, the generous and loyal friend, the funny mimic, and the great impersonator of Shakspeare, seemed like so many different beings, with some thing identical in the eyes, voice, and stature: and as marvellous a disparity marked his fortunes—it being scarcely credible that the same man whose appearance brought a solitary sixpence to the Dumfries theatre, is he who, glittering with the ornaments of Garrick, filled Drury Lane to suffocation for entire seasons; or that the luxurious apartments, crowded with men of note, are tenanted by him whose wife for years kept vigils of penury. It is creditable to Kean's magnanimity under these bewildering transitions, that he never played the tyrant; that he was uniformly kind to poor and inferior actors, and manifested a spirit above envy. After seeing old Garcia perform Othello in New-York, he sent him a costly gift in token of his admiration; he candidly acknowledged the superiority of Talma, and labored, with genuine zeal, to commemorate the histrionic fame of Cooke.

It is common to speak of great acting or vocalism as indescribable; and, to a certain extent, this is doubtless true; but distinctness of style is characteristic of genius in all things, and an intellectual observer can adequately report even the evanescent charms of dramatic personation when harmoniously conceived and efficiently embodied. Accordingly, we derive from the criticisms and reminiscences of Kean's intelligent admirers, a very clear idea of his general merits. It is obvious that these consisted of simplicity and earnestness; that, endowed with fiery passions and a sagacious intellect, he boldly under took to represent Shakspeare, not according to any prescriptive model or rules of art, but through his individual reflection and sympathy. Like the great master of the written drama, he followed closely the intimations of nature; cast, as it were, self-consciousness away, and assimilated the actual elements of human life with his own action and expression. Hence the truth of his violent contrasts the light and shade of art. Hence the frequency and effect of his brief, suggestive, and thrilling exclamations, that made a single word or interjection reveal infinite woe, joy, surprise, or madness. It is for the same reason, that, upon refined minds and earnest hearts, his acting unfolded ever new beauty and truth, as described by Dana, whose criticism, when Kean read, he exclaimed, "This man understands me." By this firm, and, if we may so say, subtle yet instinctive adherence to nature, a certain grandeur and effect, only yielded her genuine votaries, seemed to invest and glorify the actor, so that his most incidental attitudes and by-play wore a reality undiscoverable in the most elaborate efforts of inferior performers. To the same principle we ascribe his versatility. Each character was a distinct study. Where his consciousness was at fault in suggesting the most authentic manner, tone, or expression, he had recourse to observation; he reflected deeply, and appeared to identify himself, by the process, with the being he was to enact, until his very soul became imbued with the melancholy of Hamlet, the insanity of Lear, and the mental agony of Othello.

LULLED in the arms of my "too easy-chair,"
Whose soft embrace composes every care;
No coming toil for thought to brood upon;
Even the fond task of dinner fitly done,
I lounged luxurious, and beguiled the time
With GRISWOLD'S garnered hoard of native rhyme.
HEAVEN, sure, the land with favoring eye regards—
Two hundred genuine and immortal bards!
Time was when Genius' weary growth was slow,
A century-plant, that once an age would blow,
A shooting orb, that as it rushed and blazed,
Drew eyes of millions, and their senses crazed:
And nations hushed as if the thunder spoke,
Then in one wide and general pæan broke!
How few enshrined and classic gods of rhyme,
Embalmed by fame, survive the rust of time!
Less than the muses that inspired their strain—
Still less—of Europe's modern boast remain.
Though myriad twinklers, struggling for our gaze,
Just stain the zenith with their general haze;
Apart and rare the lights of surer ray
Emerge like planets from that milky way.
But in our sphere what numbers claim the eye!
Two hundred lights contending for the sky!
Two hundred wits of one ripe age the birth!
Whence this profusion? Does the teeming earth
Of our prolific clime, so fatly rife
With the rank waste of vegetative life,
That plant a stake, at once it sprouts a tree,
Spawn genius, too, as well? How oft we see
Wit's sapless twig, that had but drooped elsewhere,
Here planted, shoot, and laurel honors bear!
Great god of Song! and canst thou thus inspire
At once such numbers with thy precious fire?
Of the two hundred, grant but only two
Of ancient stamp, and take the residue!

Thus musing, whether with the weight oppressed,
Of dinner, or my book, I sank to rest;
And my soul hovered with unplying wing
In that rare midway realm where visions spring.
When lo! along the horizon's brim afar
Rose on my sight great PHŒEBUS' golden car!
Harnessed to coursers, mettled, fleet, and proud,
Trampling the noiseless and unyielding cloud:
The linked Hours around the chariot flew,
Fair as the forms that GUIDO'S pencil drew.
AURORA, leading the fair band of Hours,
Rained from her hand a shower of dropping flowers:
Seemed the whole vision, as it swam the sky,
An iridescent bubble floating by;
Which, as it neared Parnassus' sacred hill,
Lighted, re-bounded, quivered, and stood still!
At once dismounting there, the radiant god,
Gracious with smiles, the hallowed mountain trod.
His showering locks of amber, all unbound,
Shook the gold dust of shivered sunbeams round.
To greet him circling stood, with lesser stars,
MINERVA, VENUS, DIAN, doughty MARS,
BACCHUS, and HERMES: while the welkin rang
With hymning welcome, as the muses sang:
To whom APOLLO: "Mighty deities!
And sisters fair! thanks for your courtesies!
Upon our circuit, through this nether sphere,
We begged your presence and your counsel here,
To grace our sessions, held to reprimand
Our laggard subjects of far Gotham-land
From which disloyal province of our state
No verbal incense have we snuffed of late.
Rarely a verse from their dull ranks appearing;
Rarest of all, a song that's worth the hearing.
And, king of medicine, as well as song,
'Tis ours to physic the disordered throng.
Hence have we summoned such delinquents, then,
To rap the knuckles that refuse the pen.
Good HERMES deigns our right-hand man to be—
Our crier, clerk, and eke factotum he.

"Present the calendar! first on the page
Call BRYANT!" Promptly to the lyric sage
Wings the swift god, and soon to sight is lost.
The bard he startles, busy at his "Post,"
Craving indulgence, just to sharpen still
One "leader" more on that "Nebraska Bill."
But gods are strong, and men must needs obey,
So HERMES shows him up the heavenly way.
Sensation stirred the court as he appeared,
And Muses trembled at that "eastern beard."
"Sir!" spake APOLLO, "much it grieves our heart
That thou, a chosen priest of heavenly art,
Chartered to preach our faith and mysteries,
In that benighted land where Gotham lies,
Heaping, or wasting, still on gain intent,
Unwisely gotten, more unwisely spent:
Where Learning withers 'neath the golden glare,
And men are measured by the purse they wear:
And bards, cold-shouldered, passed without compassion;
And song itself 'cui-bonoed' out of fashion:
Deeply it grieves us such as thou to find,
Sowing the golden harvest of thy mind
Not on the muses' gardens of the rose,
But that most sterile waste—(excuse me)—prose."
Replied the poet, somewhat nettled, "Sire!
My lord, and master of the matchless lyre!
True, prose for bread I bartered, I confess:
But I am toiling for the freest press
And freest party in a land most free:
In short, your grace, my theme is liberty;
Unbounded liberty my aims embrace,
Without regard to nation, hue, or race:
And little boots it, when that goal we'd make,
With all respect, what vehicle we take."
"Hold!" quoth the god, "Thou dost defame the art
That knows the readiest access to the heart.
The blows of prose, like those by fists applied,
Do service in close contest, side to side;
While song throws arrows, feathered and sublime,
That range through widest space and farthest time!
Yet wouldst thou match them as of equal might;
And this from thee—the muses favorite?
And this from one that wears the laurel crown?
With thy own weapons will I put thee down.
One lyric more from thy all-moving pen;
Another song like that of 'MARION'S Men'
Would course the land, and wake in every part
More zealous freedom in the nation's heart
Than all the articles, unplumed of rhyme,
The press has littered since the birth of time!"

The court is moved; the muses shout applause
At this warm tribute to the sacred cause.
The bard is fairly gagged—'t is worthy note—
By cramming his own laurels down his throat.
"Retire!" bowed PHŒBUS! "this your warning be:
Stand by your order, and remember me!
And now, good MERCURY!" the monarch cried,
"Go summon silent HALLECK to our side!"

'T was long before the bard, prone on the ground,
Beneath a bay-tree, fast asleep, was found:
Nor would he wake, though HERMES tweaked his ear,
And MARS, less tender, pricked him with his spear.
"What! no response!" broke PHŒBUS. "Cut him short!
Fine the delinquent for contempt of court!"
"Pardon!" craves PALLAS, while the muses weep.
"How few who can so well afford to sleep."
At length MELPOMENE, a frolic miss
Among the muses, woke him with a kiss.
Yawning, and stretching to the bar, he shies:
The Judge looks dangerous from his wrathful eyes;
But soon relenting at that genial glance,
He, softening, opens thus his charge: "Advance!
We should example make of one so rude:
But 'mid our peers and gentle sisterhood
So many friends make interest in thy cause
That rigorous Justice deigns to list, and pause."
Replied the bard: "For lack of courtesy,
In presence such as this, none more than I
Could mourn his own short-comings: good my lord!
Thanks to all friends that lent me favoring word."
"Enough!" said PHŒBUS, as he waved his hand,
"On graver charge we've called thee to the stand.
Where is the lyre, by our too partial love
Confided, when thy earliest songs were wove,
To thy twin-brother (now no more) and thee?
Dead DRAKE! is HALLECK, then, less dead than he?
Unstrung, abandoned to the dust, that lyre
No more awakes us with its living fire.
Thy precious gifts all flung ignobly by,
When wings should give the energy to fly;
With voice, lyre, skill, and favoring gods, O shame!
That HALLECK loiters at the heels of Fame!"

Quailed the poor bard: but more he felt the smart
Of self-reproach, that stung his troubled heart.
"Great Judge and Sovereign, thou hast justly spoke;
Without excuse, save what would smiles provoke.
I can but hint that, PEGASUS, grown old,
Prefers to graze him in the quiet fold;
And marks the caperings, with solemn eye,
Of reckless colts careering through the sky;
And hard the task, in this poor spavined state,
To prick the veteran to a decent gait.
When bards advanced would float, and dream again
In that rare half-way heaven, the muses reign,
They're prone, o'erbalanced by the drowsy god,
To topple over in the land of Nod.
And't were not wise, with rusty lyre, again
To claim your ears with my old-fashioned strain."
"By Jove! we fear not," shouts the god of day;
"For use will quickly wear the rust away:
And by the fame thy youth so richly won,
By thy land's hopes of her rare-gifted son.
By that posterity which looms before,
We charge you, strike that injured lyre once more!
Strike home! and fear not it will sound in vain;
'Strike! for your altars and your fires' again;
'Strike! for the green graves of your sires,' with hand
Of thrilling sweep: 'strike for your native land!'"

Here general plaudits thundered widely round,
That all Parnassus echoed with the sound.
When BACCHUS rose amid the general roar,
"Order!" cried PHŒBUS: "give the god the floor!"
"Our worthy host! your judgments are most sound
But let me hint, 't is time the cup went round;
'T is hot, near you, with other reasons why,
The law is so proverbially dry."
"Ho! GANYMEDE; a stoup of nectar fill:
Or something stronger, as their graces will!

"Call General MORRIS!" From behind a tree
The woodman spared, where snugly hid was he,
Waiting for orders, not without some fears,
"En grande tenue" the warrior bard appears:
Salutes his great commander, and his lord;
But trips, embarrassed by his own good sword.
Tittered the muses, strange to warrior's gear,
Save MARS scant uniform of helm and spear.
Muttered the war-god with impatient stamp:
"Some carpet-knight this; drum him from the camp!"
"Order! sweet friends!" APOLLO soothed the bard:
"Thou'lt have fair hearing, and a just reward
For trophies won of every lyric sort
To claim the favor of this noble court.
Thy casual tripping should no jest afford;
'T is hard to climb Parnassus with a sword."
"Thanks for your grace, my chief!" the minstrel sighed;
"As for my deeds, from earliest youth I've plied
The poet's shuttle, not without success,
As songs, translated in all tongues, confess.
My Croton Ode, sung by three hundred men,
You must have heard it! made sensation then.
I've stood the fire on Independence Day,
And braved the muddy perils of Broadway."
"That needs some courage!" growled the god of war;
"In short, great king! my aim has been, so far
As strength is mine, to wield the sword and lyre.
I'm called the Western KÖRNER by my choir."
APOLLO smiled, and shook his radiant head:
"Wouldst serve two masters? better one instead;
For MARS disowns thee, and each muse above
Would spurn the proffers of divided love.
Be ruled by me, and hold to song alone,
Wherein thy genial gifts have fairest shown:
Touches of Nature wed with graceful Art
That rarely fail to move the common heart.
Nor seek with double chaplets to be crowned:
One KÖRNER only in one age is found!

"Now, from his rural mountain-home afar,
Go summon WILLIS to our royal bar!"
He comes; no sooner said than done the deed:
More swift mercurial than electric speed.
To whom bright PHŒBUS: "Can it then be true
That thou, too, shunn'st us as the laggards do?
Thou! whom thy lady-friends with zealous glow
Once dubbed 'a young APOLLO' down below?"
"Great King of Rhyme-dom! you must be aware
Nature's a feminality, most fair,
Most jealous, too, and keeps me closely tied,
With delving, sowing, reaping, at her side.
That needs my jottings be confined to prose,
And 'oats-pease-bean-dom' scarce leaves time for those."
"Plausibly argued"—hero APOLLO smiled—
"To shield from blame thy truly idle wild.
Be Nature fair—sure poets should rehearse
Such fairest charms in fairest strains—of verse;
If jealous, surely 'ballad to her brow'
Is lover's remedy for lover's woe.
Nature's no Quaker; and the drab of prose
Is not the tint to represent the rose.
No! with the mated songsters of the spring
Thy very lines should couple, shine, and sing!
What! live 'mid birds, without an answering song?
On mountain-heights, nor soar on numbers strong?
Among the flowers, nor twine one lyric wreath
Of grateful tribute for their fragrant breath?
'Mid autumn-woods, nor paint in words the glow?
By streams, nor seek in limpid verse to flow?
By cataracts sit, nor tune the clarion voice
In like harmonious echoes to rejoice?
Canst roam the dells by DIAN'S mellow blaze,
Nor weave one quiring chaplet in her praise?
Canst mark, unsung, the Pleiades? that fret
Like silver-fishes in a prisoning net?
Nor seek to hum, while choral stars are burning.
The music of their golden axles turning?
Degenerate bard! go sow your fields along
With the light-winged, far-roving seed of song!
Song such as cheered you when an unstained child,
Until fresh idyls echo through your wild!"

"Call PALMER! hold! saving too little done.
Who sings so well needs no advice. Pass on!
Next following, comes our favorite, HOFFMAN." "Stay!"
MINERVA pleads; "now, sacred from our sway,
He walks Hesperian gardens, plucking fruit;
Or groves Elysian in some flower-pursuit:
There, in rare dreams, on braver wings to soar
Than even his gallant fancy dared before."
The goddess ceased: all read, at once, that heard.
The bard's sad fate in her mysterious word:
Storm-driven, wing-broken, baffled, whirling still
Through the same heaven where he had plied at will;
And all recalled the long, o'ershadowed years
Of his waste-wanderings with unbidden tears!

"Now summon PAULDING from his snug retreat!"
He moves sedately to the judgment-seat.
"What purpose, Sire! subpœnaed from afar,
Juror or witness, bids me to thy bar?"
"No witness thou! thyself defendant art.
Attend!" cried PHŒBUS, "and I will impart:
In youth you flattered me with song and lute,
Courted my sisters with impassioned suit;
Half-won, then jilted, first for vulgar prose,
And last for thorny office, spurned the rose;
Ever earth-plodding, though full-winged for air.
Bethink you, Sir! if 't is not hard to bear?"
Replied the bard: "My lord! 't is soon confessed;
I've had my school-boy fancies, like the rest;
But riper years, and themes of deeper truth
Chased, as they should, the follies of my youth."
Here a deep murmur rose; nor only this;
Among the muses something like a hiss;
So sharp a fling to rouse the god was sure.
"Would that thy manhood's follies were as pure!
The games of wealth and power are noble joys!
While song, great gods! is well enough for boys!
Your worldly wisdom, Sir, is but half-wise.
Then, know you not that feeling, at the rise,
Like mountain-stream, flows purest from its spring?
And early loves are of Heaven's whispering?
Aye! the song-bias that the young heart cheers
Betrays its kindred to harmonious spheres."

"Pardon, my lord! I had no thought to wound
Your party-feelings here on your own ground;
Where such majorities are on your side
To take the stump were rash." the bard replied;
"I would but say—what might be left unsaid—
That by the favor of the nation's head
I rose, you know, to honors in the state;
And those who once have mated with the great
Should guard their dignity, and keep them free
From light amusements, graceful though they be.
In this, 'gainst Poesy I take no part;
Which, in its way, is quite a pretty art."

Here groans tumultuous through the court are stirred,
While over all APOLLO'S voice is heard.
Scornful, and radiant in his heavenly ire,
He stood sublime! and poured his words of fire:
"Now by the gods that high Olympus throng;
By the shrined masters of triumphant song;
By this melodious sisterhood, I swear,
This railing tongue is more than gods can bear!
'A pretty art!' the trophies of whose pride
Survive all else when states themselves have died.
'A pretty art!' The Greek's, that held all ears
Bound to his harp for thrice a thousand years;
Or his of Avon, while whose lyre was strung,
APOLLO'S own was on the willows hung
A 'light amusement' were his rapturous lays,
Who 'scorned delights', and lived laborious days.
Immortal labor! whose renown shall soar
Till blooms the Eden of his song once more!"
Paused the proud god; to whom replied, unquailed,
The stolid minstrel: "Sire! I've not assailed
The bard's renown; yet stands it not alone;
The statesman's fame is no unworthy one.
There's BACON——" "Granted!" broke the impatient god,
"Nay, more; his name most warmly would I laud,
Who serves his state in senate or in field.
The bard's supremacy I can not yield.
Though poor, though worthless in surrounding eyes,
He has the leaven that will make him rise,
Where reigning great ones vainly seek to climb,
But sink to silence with the dregs of time.
What most endure, though seeming weak, most strong,
Are words made buoyant by the wings of song;
That seem to lift them to a calmer air.
Where earth's abrading forces can not wear:
So near the stars' harmonious, glowing clime,
They catch their lustre, and perennial chime!
All that would bloom through time for ever young
Must sing as bards, or else by bards be sung;
Must in the flow of amber verse be drowned;
In web of song's embalming priest be wound.
Surest of balms! of all the precious spoils
Of spicy Araby, or tropic isles.
Mark the dim glories of the shadowy past!
So mighty once, how could they fail to last?
Where now the honors of the haughty great?
Where the strong laws that riveted the state?
Or they that made them, or that by them ruled?
How has stern Time their windy pride befooled!
Whirled them, and sunk them as he swiftly bore,
Or strewed in wrecks on his remorseless shore!
Man's works must crumble; even Art, most strong;
And naught endures but Truth and mighty Song!

"Who were High Chancellors in HOMER'S day?
What lordling's chariot brushed him by the way?
What man of power that voice of ages hired
To while a dull hour when his grace was tired?
None answer, while the minstrel's song of fire
Comes to our ears, as from a seraph-choir,
As fresh, as living as when poured the tone
From the blind harper sitting on his stone!
Think you MECÆNAS had survived the dead
Had he not linked him with the bards he fed?
Then they were great because the great man smiled,
And drew false fame from him for whom they toiled.
Now, turned the tables, 't is their buoyant lays
Have borne his honors to succeeding days.
You spoke of BACON, not because of place,
But, spite of it, he won th' immortal race.
Blending all powers, he mastered law and fact,
But 'of imagination all compact,'
To bold invention's loftiest peaks arose,
And was a poet in the garb of prose.
Great statesmen lived, not breathing air sublime,
Howe'er renowned, they perished with their time.
Laws are man's pride; and every praise we yield
The wise who frame them, or the strong who wield;
Needful, like bread, in man's imperfect state
To body politic or corporate:
The means of life; but, health and order found,
What is the end by which the whole is crowned?
The flower of this well-fed and rooted tree?
Oh! need I say it? 't is sweet Poesy!
Who takes our arm in childhood's roving hours,
To lead us wondering through fresh fairy bowers;
Admits, through sunset's golden bars, the gaze
To inner temples of imperial blaze;
Uplifts the rainbow, a triumphal arch
Sprung over hosts angelic on their march;
Throws us on clouds to bask, or softly slides,
Voluptuous rushing! down then-fleecy sides:
Whose wondrous chemistry transforms the mist
That robes the hills to veils of amethyst;
O'er common objects holds a glass of rose,
And common paths with hopeless blossoms sows;
And shading ruin with her ivy-wreath,
She crowns with amaranth the brow of Death;
Cloaking the scars of evil that we see,
To make things seem as we would have them be.
Always in season, her sweet, constant flowers,
To grace our festive or our mourning hours.
Yes! Poesy was sent to fallen earth
To wake afresh the graces of its birth.
'T is hers to gild refined gold alone,
And 'lilies paint' with hues that quench their own;
Still garlanding young beauty with her flowers;
Still dropping honey on our sweetest hours!
'Mid odors wafting us from birth to doom,
To wake, half-risen to the heaven to come!"

"How poor the power of statesmen, sages, kings!
To his whose words, abroad on mighty wings,
(Sun-drawn exhalings of t' eternal seas!)
Rush over nations with their tempest-breeze!
O'ershadowing, thundering, showering in all parts;
Watering the growing graces of all hearts!
That in all moods that range from smiles to tears,
Come humming like sweet birds about our ears;
Drowning our groans, and setting husky sighs
To tenderest music, while our dancing joys
Tread double measure when those pipes do play.
And when poor life is foundering, and gives way,
Like hovering seraphs through the breakers' roar
Pilot the spirit to the tranquil shore!

"Above, around, we find no deep recess
Their music reaches not, to rouse or bless;
Quickening the traveller's step to measure time
Unwearied, with th' imperial march of rhyme;
Cheering brown Toil, and when the day grows dim
Hallowing his musings with their evening hymn.
The infant's lullaby, the mother's prayer,
The soldier's charge, the lover's fond despair
Sweetening the moonlight with his murmuring;
All loftiest soarings from his numbers spring.
The patriot glows that feels the poet's dart
Flaming and piercing, while the pious heart
Mounts in adoring rapture, and high praise
To heavenly portals on his white-winged lays!"

The Judge, exhausted, rested from his text
Till cheered with nectar: "Summon FLACCUS next
Not great HORATIUS of immortal fame:
The modern wit that has usurped his name.
Swift HERMES flew by forest, stream, and heath,
At length returning, gasped, quite out of breath,
"I've bawled till hoarse, and vainly, Sire! 't is clear
He's so far down the hill he can not hear;
Or thinks, discreetly hiding from all eyes,
When hail-stones fall to keep within is wise."

"Who's next? MARK BENJAMIN!" "My lord! 't is PARK!"
"PARK! PARK! art sure? Well, call him! Stay! hark! hark!"
Here thunders muttered rudely overhead.
Great PHŒBUS paused; while BACCHUS rose and said:
"Your Grace must not forget we dine above
On high Olympus, at the 'quest of JOVE;
And if aright these murmurings I read,
The Thunderer grows impatient——" "True, indeed."
Quoth PHŒBUS; "MERCURY! we're pressed for time;
Call you the list. We'll score these sons of rhyme.
Nor need they wriggle, should we prick their nerves;
For spice, more sure than blandest sweet, preserves:
Safe in the pickle of our pungent line,
That longest keeps, when strongest is the brine!"

"Here's MOORE!" "Respectable." "Here's SMITH!" "Pass on!"
"RALPH HOYT!" "His spiriting is gently done."
"Here's COXE!" "Diffuse." "Here's RICHARD HAYWARDE!" "Better."
"Here's CHEEVER'S florid muse!" "I never met her."
"Next, ALDRICH!" "Humph!" "And TUCKERMAN!" "Well! well!"
"And STODDARD!" "Quaint—yet blows a dainty shell."
"CRANCH!" "Paints well." "OSBORN!" "Shows us in his line
The 'Vision,'* not the faculty divine."
"WALLACE!" "He's strong—stay HERMES! let us see—
What did he write?" "And HUNTINGTON!" "Who's he?"
"Here's TAYLOR!" "Bold." "BETHUNE!" "Make haste! my lad."
"FAY!" "Not too good." "And MATHEWS!" "Not too bad."
"She-Bards, strong-minded, big with women's wrongs
Come next." "Do n't touch them with a pair of tongs!"

[*The Vision of Rubeta.]

Here louder thunderings all the welkin shook.
"Call up the rest of Dr. GRISWOLD'S book!
At least, all minstrels that from Gotham hail."
On this, there gathered, following HERMES' trail,
A motley crew of varied power and grade.
Far down, a group of laggards shout for aid:
"Help, there! good MERCURY! 't is the toughest hill!
And we're quite blown——" "Who wake these echoes shrill?"
"Sire! these are followers of the camp of rhyme,
Swollen with the wish without the breath to climb;
Some, novelists, that give us no new thing;
Translators some, that nothing with them bring;
Some, wrights of plays; all dullest sport exceeding;
Some, lecturers, whose tasks betray no reading,
Whose fat vocation threatens to command
All unrewarded talent of the land.
All stoop to song when they can time afford;
And feed the Muse with droppings of their board.
As if their crumbs her pride could fail to spurn,
When their choice dishes would her stomach turn!
Rank borrowers these, though that is nothing rare,
For such, somewhat, their laurelled elders are,
Only more cunningly the theft concealing.
Your Grace will pass so light a fault as stealing?"
"We'll pass them wholly!" burst th' indignant god;
"Nor waste on vanity the hopeless rod.
Let groundlings bend their strength to fitlier things;
Parnassus heights are only won by wings!"
"Pass on! What hungry group now stops the way?;
"Sire! these be wights of larger wit than pay;
Some, care-worn scribblers for th' exacting press,
Booksellers hacks, reviewers, in their stress
Obliged, on hire, applause or blame to utter
At a hard master's beck, for bread and butter;
And some, too noble, 't is relief to think,
To dip their free pens in corrosive ink."
So dense a litter of prolific rhyme,
Parnassus ne'er had harbored at a time:
To whom the Judge: "Forgive unseemly haste!
Most worthy friends! but there's no time to waste.
Some have done well, though here some doubt may rise;
Some ill—this truth there's no body denies.
Hail! and farewell! we charge you, to a man,
For HEAVEN'S sake, write better, if you can!
The Court's adjourned!" At once the Muses raise
A joyous choral in APOLLO'S praise.
The god bows thanks; his dazzling car ascends,
And gives his last charge to his thronging friends:

"Bards of the West! your country claims your voice.
Mark how old Europe's hills and streams rejoice!
Happy with minstrels to announce their name
To every passing age, with proud acclaim.
Sound! sound the lyre! 't is PHŒBUS' last command:
Grand, ringing rhymes should peal around the land.
Clear the fogged heavens with new thunder-strokes!
Strike with a fire to rend all hearts like oaks!
Mountains are groaning for a lyric name;
Rivers implore the choral wreath of Fame;
Cataracts are shouting for young minstrelsy
To set their roar to music not to die.
Sound! sound the lyre! your heroes, slain too long,
Start from the field to claim new life of Song.
Your brothers' blood calls loudly from the ground.
Sound! ere the martyred ghosts confound you, sound!
Let them not die a second death, more sad,
From lapse of aught your saving art might add.
Sound! for the land's gray fathers, yet once more,
Whose mighty shadows cloud the Stygian shore;
Launch their proud names on ever-rushing rhyme!
Shrine them in niches to confront all time!
Set their bold portraits in the golden frame
Of song! and hang them on the walls of fame!"

APOLLO ceased, and waved his last adieu!
Seized on the reins, and dashed along the blue.
The crowd, dissolving, scattered down the hill.
Homeward I followed, shocked to witness still
As each, returning, went his usual round,
What poor return the god's good counsel found.
BRYAXT went scribbling "leaders" as before;
And WILLIS, prosy idyls yet once more;
While drowsy HALLECK laid him in his cloak,
To close the nap the intruding god had broke:
So must advice unrelished be put by!
Once more I turned me to the glowing sky,
Fired by the glory of APOLLO'S car,
O'er sapphire pavement spinning fast and far,
When the rude poker woke me with a clang!
The bubble burst! the coursers diverse sprang!
And through the dazzling fragments, all amazed,
On the tame glory of the grate I gazed!
Who jogged my elbow? Was it goddess fair?
Or Muse to charm me with a chaunted air?
Or GANYMEDE, with nectar held to me?
Only good spouse with cup of homely tea!

BALTUS VAN KLEECK left the world without disposing of that portion of it which he claimed to own, and when his pretty daughter Getty became, by operation of law, sole proprietress of several square miles of the terrestrial globe, without any guardian or man of business to guide or instruct her in its management, her position was one of no little embarrassment. Not that she would have so regarded it had she been left quite to herself in exercising her sovereignty, for Getty was an easy, good-natured soul, who said yes to every body's advice, and to all applications for favors.

Not a tenant but would have had his rent lowered, or his house repaired, or some privilege granted, or restriction removed, had it not been for the perpetual interference of Aunt Becky, a shrivelled, nervous old lady, who was kept in a continual state of excitement by the fear that her niece would be imposed upon.

"Don't you do it, Getty!" were the words with which she usually burst in upon these conferences, spectacles on nose, without waiting to hear the specific subject of negotiation.

I'll tell you what, Aunt," said the heiress, one day, after one of these interviews, from which the applicant had retired discomfited by the very first gleam of Madame Becky's glasses, "I must have an agent to manage these matters, for they are quite beyond my comprehension. What with firms to hire, and firms to sell, and stock to be disposed of, and rents to be collected, I shall go crazy; I know I shall. I must have an agent."

"What for, then, would you have an agent?" said the dame, in a loud key, scowling meanwhile over the black rims of her spectacles. "To cheat you out of every thing, and grow rich on your money, hey?"

"No, Aunt; some good, reliable man——"

"Good, reliable fiddlestick, Getty!"

"I say no, Aunt."

"I say yes, child. He will charge you half for taking care of your property; and he'll run away with the rest. Do n't talk to me about agents."

Getty had never divested herself of the dread with which, from childhood, she had regarded her scolding relative, and so, without fully resolving either to carry or yield the point, she sought to escape further altercation, at present, by not pressing it.

"But these repairs, aunt," she said, "which are so much needed for these poor men?"

"It is no such thing! There are no repairs wanted. Why, one would think the houses and fences had all tumbled down the moment poor Baltus was gone. It is no such thing, I say. They are well enough. I have been in every house on the estate within a fortnight, and they are well enough."

"But Mr. Jones, who has eight children, can't make his rent out of the farm."

"Let him give it up, then, to some one who can. What business has he with so many children?"

"And Mr. Smith has lost one of his best oxen."

"He must take better care of his oxen, then. He need not expect us to pay him for it; I can tell him that."

"But I gave him ten dollars, at all events," replied Getty, not without alarm.

"Ten dollars, child! Well now, did ever any body hear the like of that? Ten dollars to that idle, whimpering fellow! Why, Getty, you will be in the poor-house in a year, if that is the way you are going on; that you will. Ten dollars!"

Becky could hardly throw accent enough upon these two words to express her appreciation of the magnitude of the waste.

"I dare say it was too much," said Getty, who had always been accustomed to give way to her imperious aunt, and had not the courage to disenthral herself from her tyranny, "but he told a very pitiful story."

"Yes, yes! they'll tell pitiful stories enough, if they can only find any one silly enough to believe them. But I'll see to it that there is no more such throwing away of Baltus's money. Give me the key!"

Getty submissively took from a side-pocket a small bunch of keys, and slipping the smallest off the steel-ring which held them together, handed it to her aunt. No sooner, however, had she done so than the absurdity of the command and compliance became apparent to her, and, with rising wrath, she was about to recall her act, when her eyes met the dark scowl of the old lady, and yielding to the force of habit, she remained quiet.

Now Becky's conduct, harsh as it seemed, was altogether caused by excessive anxiety for her niece's interest; for she was, to the full extent, as honest as she was crabbed. She felt her responsibility as the only surviving adult relative of her brother, and as a sort of natural guardian both of the heiress and her estates, a position which she was by no means desirous of retaining longer than the welfare of Gertrude required it.

Her only hope of relief from her self-imposed duties was in seeing Gertrude married to some "stiddy, sober man;" but on this point she had a morbid anxiety even greater than that which related to the property; for she was in constant trepidation lest the heiress should fall a victim to some needy fortune-hunter, in which class she ranked all suitors who did not follow the plough, and wear homespun. She even went so far as to question more than one presuming beau as to his intentions; and one timid young man who had been a whole month accumulating courage enough to make a first call upon Gertrude, was so frightened by the fierce manner in which Aunt Becky asked him what he wanted, that he only stammered out something about having got into the wrong house, and retreated without ever seeing the object of his hopes.

Strangely enough too, although Getty knew her aunt's conduct in this instance, and her general asperity toward gentlemen visitors, she did not seem to resent it, or to be rendered at all unhappy by it; nay, she was even suspected of rejoicing at so easy a mode of escaping the persecution of lovers. She was unwilling, however, that the imputation of inhospitality or impoliteness should rest upon her family; and on this point she remonstrated with the duenna.

"Let the molly-yhacks stay at home, then," said Becky. "What business have they to come here 'sparking?' Let them stay at home, and when we want them we'll send for them."

How and when Harry Vrail's acquaintance with Gertrude began, it would be difficult to say; but for several preceding years his hunting excursions had seemed to extend more often through her father's forests than in any other direction; and the silvery stream which tinkled across the meadows of Mynheer Van Kleeck afforded the finest-flavored trout, in Harry's estimation, of the whole country around. It was natural enough for him, on these expeditions, to stop occasionally and chat with old Baltus on his stoop; and sometimes to leave a tribute of his game with the proprietor of the domain on which it was bagged.

If a string of finer fish than usual rewarded his afternoon's labors the larger half was sure to be left at Baltus's door, despite all resistance; and then the servant was to be instructed in the art of dressing them, and Getty was to be taught the mystery of cooking them, in the way which should best preserve their flavor.

Sometimes, too, the fatigued youth could be induced, at the close of the day, to remain and see if his instructions were properly followed, and at the bountiful board of the Dutchman, his seat chanced ever to be beside that of Getty, who saw that he received of the choicest portions of his own gifts. How she loaded his plate, too, with dainties drawn from dark closets, the key of which was seldom turned, save on such occasions as this! How the thickest cream filled the old-fashioned silver cream-pot to the brim, and was half-emptied over Harry's strawberries, or on Harry's currants, while with her own white hand, she pitched the large wheaten slices, quoit-like, around his plate, enjoining upon him in the most approved fashion of Dutch hospitality—to eat!

Nor did Harry always find himself sufficiently refreshed to start for home as soon as the evening meal was finished. From the table to the long covered stoop was a natural and easy transition, for there the air was fresh and cool; and while Baltus planted himself, puffing. in his favorite corner, and his silent vrow sat knitting and musing at his side, and pussy, unreproved, now dandled the good dame's ball of yarn in her paws, and now, tapping it fiercely, pursued it rolling far across the floor; while the swallows darted daringly inside the pillars, and skimming close to the ceiling, flew chirping out at the farthest opening, Harry and Getty chatted and laughed together, talking only on common themes, it is true, yet at times in tones which might have been mistaken, by one who had not caught the words, for tones of love.

And there was a time, when yet Harry's father was alive, and was a man of wealth, that the young man dreamed of love. It was presumptuous, he knew, in him, even then, to look up to one so fair and pure as sweet Gertrude seemed to him, and one for whom so many worthier than himself would be certain to aspire. Yet he could not refrain from hoping, though with so faint a heart that he never found courage to declare, or even most remotely to hint at, the love which consumed him. But if, while he was the prospective heir of great wealth, he felt thus unworthy of the object of his admiration, how widely, hopelessly yawned the gulf of separation between them when positive poverty became his lot! With a pang of unspeakable intensity, he dismissed the bright vision which had gilded his heart, and sought no more to recall so painful and illusive a dream.

Yet, strangely enough, while he held himself thus unworthy of Gertrude, and considered that his changed position precluded him from the right to offer her his hand, he saw no such obstacles in the way of his brilliant cousin Tom, now about to enter, with a victor's stride, upon that field which he had so ingloriously relinquished.

A very young lawyer was Tom; decidedly handsome, and possessing a moderate amount of talent, flanked by a most immoderate and inordinate vanity. But, in Harry's estimation, his merits were so many, and his fortunes so sure, that he might almost be entitled to wed a princess; and although he was incensed, he was not surprised at the very confident tone in which the young disciple of Themis had spoken of winning the beautiful Gertrude, if he chose. Harry thought so himself: he had often thought of it before, and had wondered why his cousin had never seemed to notice this sparkling jewel in his path, any more than if it were but common crystal.

But true love, even when hopeless, instinctively revolts at the idea of seeing the beloved object won by another, however worthy; and Harry, although not without some upbraidings of conscience, had carefully abstained from saying any thing which should set the current of Tom's thoughts in the direction of the great prize he had discovered. Very great, therefore, was his alarm, when his good grand-sire had made his abrupt suggestion, and when Tom so coarsely and ungraciously seemed to approve it. Yet he suppressed his great grief, and replied truthfully to his cousin's inquiry, failing, in his abundant charity, to perceive the utter selfishness which had so entirely overlooked himself, or any predilections which he might entertain.

He even acceded to his friend's request to accompany him on his first visit to Getty; not because any formal introduction was needed, for there had been a slight acquaintance existing between all the parties from childhood, but because Tom thought it would serve to put him at once on a better and more familiar footing with the heiress. And so it did. Getty was delighted to see the cousins, for the lonely child had few visitors, and she appreciated the kindness which remembered her bereavement and her isolation. So very amiable and cheerful did she appear, so naturally graceful and winning, especially when conversing with Harry, with whom she was best acquainted, that Tom was positively delighted with her, and on his return homeward, he announced his fixed determination to offer himself within a week.

"Won't she be astonished?" he said.

"It will be rather abrupt," replied Harry. "She will hardly expect it so soon."

"Very probable; but when a thing is to be done, the sooner it is accomplished the better. Beside, it would be scarcely fair to keep her in suspense."

"Perhaps you are right."

"I shall not hurry her to fix the day, you know, but I abhor long courtships; and these things can be as well settled in a week as in a year."

"But if——"

"No, no; a 'but' and an 'if' are quite too much in one sentence. I tell you I have no fears. She may possibly be engaged to some boor; but even then, Harry, I think it could be managed; do n't you?"

"I do not think she is engaged; certainly not to any one unworthy of her."

"Then we are on safe ground," said Tom, with hilarity. "She seems a nice girl, and I have no doubt we shall get on capitally together. She shall soon lead a different sort of life from her present one, cooped up in an old brown farm-house, with a dragon to guard her. Won't she open her eyes when we go to the city, and when she gets into New-York society?"

Harry began to open his eyes a little, a very little, to his cousins' character; but the force of education was strong, and he had been taught to believe Tom almost perfect: so his invincible good nature was busy in meliorating the harsh views which he was at first disposed to take of his conduct, and in inventing excuses for him. Beside, he had a strong affection for Tom, which he believed to be fully reciprocated, and he did not doubt that Getty would inspire him with the same fervent love which his own heart had once felt, and even now with difficulty suppressed.

He did not pursue the subject, nor return to it again, excepting when compelled to do so by the other, whose exuberant spirits ran wild in contemplation of the fortunate change which he was about to make in his affairs, and who could not cease to wonder that he had never before discovered such an obvious opportunity for his personal advancement. The more he thought of his project, the more deeply his heart was set upon it, and so bountifully was he supplied with that quality of mind which Harry most lacked, self-esteem, that he had no misgivings as to success.

"WHAT has come over you, then, Getty, that you have been sing-singing all the time, up stairs and down, for these two days—hey?" said Becky to her niece, on the afternoon of the second day after the visit of the cousins Vrail.

"Oh! nothing, aunty," said Gertrude, hesitating. "I often sing like that; do not I?"

"Not often, I hope. I have counted these stitches three times, and every time your ring-te-iddlety has made me forget how many there are."

The dame's tone was severe; and as Getty spied the old scowl taking shape on her forehead, she retreated to her own room to sing away the remainder of the evening by herself. On the morrow, also, her heart seemed equally light, and snatches of old songs were escaping all day from her lips, making every room and closet vocal with melody, as she flitted through them on various household duties. Now and then a growl responded to some of these chirpings, silencing them for a while only to break forth in some other quarter of the house, more cheerily than ever. As evening drew nigh, her merriment gradually subsided, and she withdrew to her own apartment in a more thoughtful and pensive mood not long, however, to remain unsought. Her heart beat quickly, when, listening, she heard the voice of a visitor below, and far quicker, when a servant-girl came up and informed her that Mr. Vrail was in the parlor, and wished to see her.

Startled but not surprised, with a fluttering heart and a flushed face, she flew to the glass to add the last touch to the simple adornments of her person, and, although far from being vain, she could not forbear contemplating a moment, with complacency, the sweet picture reflected by the faithful mirror.

She waited a little while for her agitation to subside; for, with that rapid breath and heightened color, and with something very like a tear glistening in her eye, she was unwilling to meet her visitor; but, while she waited, she received another and a more urgent summons.

"You had better come down, Miss Gertrude," said the girl, who seemed to guess that her young mistress was expecting a not unwelcome visitor; "you had better come down, for your aunt Becky is getting ready to go in and see the gentleman."

This announcement did not have a tendency to allay Miss Van Kleeck's excitement, but it hastened her movements, and in a few moments she was at the parlor-door, which she entered tremblingly, and not the less beautiful for her fright. Her step had been agile, but she stopped as if spell-bound just within the door-way, seemingly unable to comprehend or reply to the very civil "Good evening" with which she was addressed by Mr. Thomas Vrail.

The changed expression of her countenance, so radiant on entering, so amazed and saddened now, did not fail to attract the notice of that young gentleman, who, sagely attributing it to the awe inspired by his presence, at once condescendingly resolved to reässure the heart of his charmer by his suavity. But, although Getty recovered herself so far as to say "Good evening," and, after another considerable pause, to ask her visitor to sit down, and then to sit down herself on the farthest edge of the chair most remote from her companion, she did not seem easily reässured.

Tom said it was a pleasant evening; and Getty said "Yes," very, very faintly.

Then Tom said it was a beautiful walk from his house to Miss Van Kleeck's, and Getty again answered with a monosyllable, but this time a little more distinctly.

"A very delightful walk," reiterated the suitor, "and one which I hope I shall have the pleasure of taking frequently."

Miss Van Kleeck, thinking it necessary to say something in reply, and, entirely failing to comprehend the drift of the remark, "hoped so, too."

Tom now felt himself to be getting along fast, nay, with very railroad speed; so he ventured to draw his seat a little nearer to Getty, to her manifest trepidation, for her eyes turned quickly toward the door, and she seemed to be contemplating flight.

But it was one of Tom's maxims to strike while the iron is hot, and if he had been so well convinced of having made a favorable impression on the evening of his first visit, he felt doubly sure now, after the new encouragement he had received.

"I may be a little hasty, Miss Van Kleeck," he said, again slightly lessening his distance from her, "but I have had the presumption to imagine that I—that you—that I——"

"Please not to come any nearer," said Getty, hastily, as her suitor's chair exhibited still further signs of locomotion.

"Ah! certainly not, if you wish it," replied the lover very blandly; "I mean, not; at present; but allow me to hope that the time will come, when you—when I—that is to say, when both of us——"

Tom stopped, for Gertrude had risen, and had taken a step toward the door, with much appearance of agitation.

"I fear you do not understand me," he said hastily.

"I fear I do," she replied quickly and sensibly, "although it is rather your manner than your words which express your meaning."

"Stay, then, and be assured that I am quite in earnest."

"I do not question your sincerity, Mr. Vrail——"

"That I have come here to offer you this hand," he continued, extending certainly a very clean one, which bore evident marks of recent scrubbing for its present service, but which the heiress exhibited no haste to accept.

She had attained sufficient proximity to the door to feel certain that her retreat could not be cut off, and her self-possession having in some degree returned, she listened respectfully, and replied politely, although with a tone of sadness.

"I will spare you any further avowal of your feelings, Mr. Vrail," she began.

"Do not think of such a thing, dear Gertrude," he replied, still unawakened from his hallucination, "I am proud to make profession of my love for you."

"Will you listen to me a moment before I go?"

"An hour! a week! nay, for ever!"

"I shall not detain you a minute."

"I assure you I am in no hurry!"

"I am. You are laboring under a mistake. We are nearly strangers to each other, and you have scarcely the right to address me in the way you have done; but if it were otherwise I have only to answer by declining your offer," she said, glancing at the hand and arm which had remained projecting like a pump-handle all this while, with the evident expectation on the part of Thomas, whose whole attitude was quite theatrical, that it was speedily to be seized and clung to.

He now began to look astonished and alarmed, but he immediately rallied.

"Oh! I see how it is!" he said; "I have been rather abrupt, I dare say; but we will become better acquainted. I will call often to see you, and then—why, Miss Van Kleeck—do n't go!"

Getty had now become angry. She left the room and her astonished lover, but paused a moment outside the door, and said, with a very pretty flush on her cheek, and a very bright sparkling in her eye:

"Call as often as you choose, Mr. Vrail, but I shall never see you. You do not seem to understand the plainest words, but I assure you we shall never be better acquainted with each other than we are now. Good evening."

So saying, Getty almost ran out of the outer room, shutting the door after her with a haste which gave it quite the character of a slam, and hurried up to her own apartment.

Tom's panoply of conceit, which was almost invulnerable, and had withstood so much, only now gave way.

"I really believe she means to refuse me," he said, soliloquising. "It is certainly very ridiculous; but perhaps she may come back. I will wait a little."

He did wait some minutes, listening earnestly, and was at length gratified by the sound of approaching steps, which he advanced to meet with great alacrity; but what was his consternation on encountering at the door the wrinkled and vinegary countenance of Dame Becky, whose huge spectacles, as she stood confronting him a moment in silence, glowered upon him like the eyes of the great horned owl.

The lover retreated a step before this apparition.

"Do you want Getty?" she said, at length, in a voice amazingly shrill and sharp.

"I—yes, I should be happy to see her a few minutes if—if you please."

"But do you want her? Do you want to marry her?" she asked, in still more of a scolding tone.

"Oh! ah! yes, madam," said Tom, attempting to win the old woman by a fine speech; "I am exceedingly proud to call myself an admirer of your beautiful niece; and I have indulged the hope that we might find our tastes congenial to each other, and our hearts sympathetic. May I count, dear madam, on your influence with Miss Gertrude?"

"No, you can 't; and more than that, you can 't have her. So, no more of that. You are the third this week!"

"Good gracious! the third what, ma'am?"

"No matter what; you can 't have her. You understand, do n't you?"

"Y—yes," said Tom, "I suppose I do."

"Very well, then—no offense meant," said Aunt Becky, now trying to modify what might seem harsh in her language, by a touch of politeness, but who still spoke in the same high key. "Wo n't you sit down?"

"No, I thank you," muttered Tom, now decidedly crest-fallen; "I rather think it is time for me to go."

"Good night, then," said Becky, following him to the door, as closely as if he had been a burglar. "Take care of the dog!"

"The deuce!" said Tom to himself, clutching his cane as he walked off the stoop. "Is there a dog to be escaped too? I should n't wonder if they should set him on me!" and he quickened his step down the lane that led to the highway, and was soon out of sight of the old farm-house, without even turning to take a last look at the solitary light which gleamed like a beacon from Getty's room. Alas! alas! no beacon of hope for him!

ONCE the Emperor CHARLES of Spain,
With his swarthy, grave commanders,
I forget in what campaign,
Long besieged in mud and rain
Some old frontier town of Flanders.

Up and down the dreary camp,
In great boots of Spanish leather,
Striding with a measured tramp,
These Hidalgos, dull and damp,
Cursed the Frenchmen, cursed the weather.

Thus, as to and fro they went,
Over upland and through hollow,
Giving their impatience vent,
Perched upon the Emperor's tent,
In her nest they spied a swallow.

Yes, it was a swallow's nest,
Built of clay and hair of horses'
Mane or tail, or dragon's crest,
Found on hedge-rows, east or west,
After skirmish of the forces.

Then an old Hidalgo said,
As he twirled his gray mustachio,
"Sure this swallow over-head
Thinks our Emperor's tent a shed,
And our Emperor but a Macho!'*

[*MACHO, the Spanish for mule.]

Hearing his imperial name
Coupled with these words of malice,
Half in anger, half in shame,
Forth the great campaigner came,
Slowly from his canvas palace.

"Let no hand the bird molest,"
Said he, solemnly, "nor hurt her!"
Adding then, by way of jest,
"GOLONDRINA is my guest;
'T is the wife of some deserter!"*

[*GOLONTDRINO, in Spanish, means a swallow and a deserter.]

Swift as bow-string speeds a shaft,
Through the camp was spread the rumor;
And the soldiers, as they quaffed
Flemish beer at dinner, laughed
At the Emperor's pleasant humor.

So, unharmed and unafraid,
There the swallow sat and brooded.
Till the constant cannonade
Through the walls a breach had made,
And the siege was thus concluded.

Then the army, elsewhere bent,
Struck its tents as if disbanding;
Only not the Emperor's tent,
For he ordered ere he went,
Very curtly, "Leave it standing!"

And it stood there all alone,
Loosely flapping, torn and tattered,
Till the brood was fledged and flown,
Singing o'er those walls of stone,
That the cannon-shot had shattered.

PART of the house, or hall, as it was called, was very old, and the other portion was comparatively new. Its newness would have been considered very old in this country; and the old part would have been thought almost eternal anywhere.

This hall was situated on a rising knoll of ground, and overlooked a meadow, through which ran a glittering stream, and the widest spreading beeches waved in the almost perpetual breeze that leisurely and happily came up the ravine. What the owner had built of fortifications in the time of Bothwell, and Murray, and Mary Stuart, could, with some aid of the feudal imagination, be traced from the eastern wing—that was the oldest—down to the river's bank. Ivy had crept, with its deep green family of leaves and tendrils, over the vague line of conflict wall, and it was not difficult to picture a rather hard fight along the barrier, between the old chief and some implacable clan whose remotest ancestor had had his toes trod upon by the remotest ancestor of the knight of the castle, in the remotest era of Scotch-hatred tradition.

This old hall was approachable from every point of the compass, by winding avenues, and all these avenues seemed to have been constructed with the leading thought that they were to show the enemy at all points of his approach.

The hall was of red granite, and had its turrets, whence some retainer, too lazy to work in the fields, could espy the banner of an advancing Highland foray, and could quickly, in most unmistakable Scotch, arouse the not unwilling chief and his vassals to a skull-cracking and throat-cutting difficulty.

When I was there, some few years past, peace reigned over this old Scotch residence, and beauty, throughout the year, hovered over the mingled colors of the time-stained walls, and over the most profuse and luxuriant combinations of foliage that I have ever seen.

The weather-tinted turrets rose in the still and beautiful gray air incident to the climate of that inspiring land, and a solemn repose pervaded the entire circuit of the scene.

I was an inmate of this dwelling for many years, and my hostess was one of a peculiarly distinguished name in Scotland. My hostess, for her husband had died a few weeks before my arrival, was far advanced in her pathway to the tomb, and grief had bowed the tenderest heart, the most noble head, that ever decked the divine form of woman.

Her apartments were in the old wing, and there she loved to sit and muse over the legends that, in their traditionary popularity and close connection with general and more enlarged events, positively made the history of her family an adjunct to the history of the country.

I had been sitting by the bed-side of my venerable friend, one evening, and as the shadows came from the western sun we mutually sank into a state of listless repose.

She lay upon her bed, old and feeble, but full of wonderful memories. Her dark bright eye—so bright then, at eighty, and in her picture, painted when she was but eighteen, and which I fondly keep, bright as a star, and soft as the sweet air that floats it in the heavens—kept its gaze fixed steadily upon me, while her hand firmly held a bunch of antique keys, about whose history she had been all the evening talking.

The shades deepened with the hours, and the silence of the room was only broken by the occasional jingle of those queer old keys, held in the withered hand of the withering invalid. Now and then I turned from my gaze upon the purpling mountains that barriered toward the west the famous lake-region of Scotland, and glanced toward the bed. Those eyes, so dark, so wonderfully intelligent, met me with such a strange expression that I involuntarily rose from my seat and moved toward the deep window, to relieve myself of a growing sentiment of almost superstitious anxiety.

"Will you be so kind as to ring the bell for me?" I rang it, and soon after her maid entered the room: a prim, gaunt-looking woman, with long black hair, pressed upward from her temples, and crowded under a very white and close-fitting cap.

This maid, though almost speechless from respect, in that old dwelling, and in that solemn servitude, though apparently gentle and devoted to the singular mistress it had been her duty to serve for years, was an object always of peculiar aversion to me. Her quiet footfall, cat-like, through the long corridors, that I heard at night when all the rest of the domestics were a-bed, often sent a small shiver through my nervous system, and made me wish that she and the rest of the ghosts would go to sleep.

Upon the entrance of this servant the lady rose, supporting herself by both her arms, extended backward in her bed. Her long white hair fell from her sculptured head upon her shoulders, and as she lifted her hand, those old keys rattling, she said:

"Lift the carpet from the hearth-stone, and hold a light for Mr. ——." I was standing by the window, and the red light from distant iron furnaces gleamed over the gloomy landscape, and sent an unnatural color into the room, deepening the gloom, and bringing forward the rolls of the old damask curtains, that hung, as they had hung for years, in almost funereal majesty, around the bed of the invalid. The maid, after some moments of silent work, drew back the carpet, and then, lighting a candle, beckoned me to approach. The mistress placed herself in such a position that she could see me and also the hearth. I came near, without uttering a syllable of inquiry, to the spot that had been uncovered, and stood, with no little anxiety, waiting farther direction.

"Stoop down and see if you can not find, upon that part of the old hearth-stone nearest to the fire-place, the mark of a black ring." I examined the stone, and there was, in truth, the mark of a ring upon it. The ring was about as large as the bottom of an ordinary table-bowl, and was brown and distinct. After I had examined it for some short space of time, I rose and awaited some explanation of this demi-pantomime.

"I will ring when I want you," said the sick lady, and the maid, placing the candle upon an old brass-bound oaken box, that stood in a remote corner of the room behind a screen, withdrew.

"That is the sign of murder!" were the first words spoken by her after the door had been closed. She pointed at the brown stain upon the hearth.

"Yes, that is the stain upon the stone; but there is a deeper stain upon many hereabout than that. That stain was made when a young girl died, and that stain can never be washed out. They had better have burned this old wing to ashes than have burned that ring there; better have burned all their fortunes, and all their liveries, and coats of arms, and coronets, and coronation-robes, and themselves, than have burned that little ring upon that long-lasting piece of stone. It was many years ago when that ring was put there. I have only seen it once before to-night, and I wanted you to see it too. It shall never be uncovered after this until I die, and then I hope they will bury this stone near where the young girl is buried. She is forgotten long ago, but not so long that I do not remember her, as the sweetest and gentlest girl in all the broad fields of Scotland. She was the heiress, through her mother's right, to several of the finest estates in this section of the country. She was to be their owner when she should reach her sixteenth year. This property was to have been hers. Here she lived. She was to be the mistress of the great property of ——, where you have been." (I had spent some days there.) "Her mother was dead, but her father lived here with her, he not having any right to the property—not even a life-estate in it—but he managed it for her. She was the only child, and a rich one she was to be; the richest and the fairest of the land. But she stood in the path of others. Should she die, the vast wealth that was to be centered in her, at legal maturity, under the will, would revert to several poorer relations. The laws of Scotland with regard to property are strange, and bring about a great deal of trouble, and so it turned out in this case. I was not a young person by any means when this affair happened; and I remember well how much was feared always about this heiress. It seemed to be looked upon as a matter of course, that her life was surrounded with danger. Her father watched her life with the vigilance of a sentinel. He was a young man—young in years—but old in the calmness and the apparent coldness of his disposition. He was like a sentinel. He knew, for he was Scotch, how deep the love of property is in the Scottish character, and he felt that his daughter was not safe.

He never left his home—scarcely ever left her. A head-ache, some little malady, she had, and it went on for a few days, and turned to fever. The approach of the disorder, its consummation in fever, the father watched. He sent for the surgeon from H——; he came; felt her pulse, and went away. Next day, he returned; still the same symptoms of fever; but she was not ill. Again he came. She had passed a pleasant night, free from pain, with a regular pulse. She was better, and she and her father were brighter and more cheerful. The father had watched her all the time. The news of her indisposition had got abroad; the people talked of it. When her fever was at its height, property changed hands, and the poor but titled relations clutched the big money-bags, and rode over the broad acres, and had their land laid out for new tenants, and built up the decayed turrets of their thriftless castles. That evening, when the surgeon came, she was better, but there was a dread of a return of fever. Some warm and soothing draught had better be administered. He felt her pulse. Would that she could have felt his! He took a common bowl from the table, and made the servant pour some hot water into it. He stirred his soothing draft in the boiling water. The father looked on, and then tasted the medicine. The surgeon watched him in his mind, but looked away and felt the pulse of the sweet girl, who sat in her easy chair, looking out at those woods through that window. He gave the cup to the father, and the father gave it to the daughter, and the surgeon took the cup from his hand. In drinking it, a portion had run over the brim, and down the sides of the vessel. Upon that hearth-stone the surgeon placed the cup, and left. He was not heard of for some time afterward, but it is strange what happened to him. That night, as he rode home, his horse, it seemed, had stumbled in a hole that had been made by a fallen tree, and he had been pitched over the precipice, where the yew-tree is—your favorite seat—and his body was swept away by the river. It was picked up a month afterward at the Broomielaw, in Glasgow. That cup was a cup of poison; but though all the force of law was brought to bear upon the investigation; though there existed no doubt as to the parties who had paid, or had promised to pay, the murderous surgeon, still they avoided a conviction. Whether it was wealth, the vast wealth, at stake, and that could only go to them, that prevented detection, or staid the avenging arm of Justice, I do not know; but her death was called a death produced by the malady under which it was known she had been for some days suffering. I never saw her father afterward, for he left the country, and it was said that he removed to America. I think it very likely. I heard that he never spoke to any one of his plans, but kept all his sorrow, and his agony, and his intentions, locked in his own breast. I heard, also, that he married again in the New World. He was never liked in the neighborhood, although no one knew why he was unpopular. I always thought him a very intense man where his daughter's interest was concerned; but otherwise he was cold and secluded, almost forbidding. Whether it was that none of the succeeders to her property liked to live here or not, I can not say, but so it was. This estate was offered for sale, and my mother bought it. It was beautiful then, and you know how much we have improved it. But, my dear H——, while we have made the roses bloom all around the house, and built additions to it, and have made the fields green, and got the trees in the park to be finer than any in Scotland, we have never been able to wash away the poison-mark of murder from our favorite room. Good night! I will try and sleep."

I took her hand and kissed her saintly forehead. She gave me the bunch of keys, to put away in her desk, and having rung the bell for her maid, I left her.

"HE is a rich man, but he is a cold man; he is cold as marble. He never smiles. He does nothing but sit in his library, they say and look out upon the sky. His son is at sea, and his wife is dead; and he might as well be dead as alive, for all the good he does. He never attends public meetings, never votes, never was seen at a public dinner or at a private one; and all that he does do is to sit in his room and look at the sky."

Thus spoke one of a small circle of gossips in the sitting-room of an inn in one of the Canadian cities.

"They tell me," said another gossip, "that he is a queer man, but that he does something else beside sit in his room and look at the sky. They say he goes round among prisoners in jail, from curiosity, I suppose, and that he reads to men condemned to die for murder. His face looks as dark and as grim as if he had bagged with Burke, in his native Edinboro'."

"How do you know that he came from Edinboro' in particular?" inquired another of the group.

"Because his servant-man says he told him yesterday that he was going back to Edinboro' in a few days, and that he was going to break up here, for good; and that's news that won't grieve any body but the jail-birds."

Up and down the room, up and down another room, back and forth, now looking at the sky, through the windows, now on the floor, never stopping for a moment, restless, anxious, sorrowful, sorrowful, with tears upon his cheek, tears in old channels, worn when the night was down, dug when he was alone, all alone, poor fellow!

How white his face, how white his hands, and how his hair is getting white, too! Up and down, with ceaseless step, all alone! How perfectly all alone! He mutters to himself, he prays, and now at last he stops and looks at his watch. It seems to be the moment for some expected guest to arrive. Yes, it must be so, for he goes to the door and opens it, and looks out into the passage.

The hall-door is opened, and the expected guest approaches the room, and enters. The eyes of the restless host are no longer wet with tears: they are dry and hard and cold.

"Have you brought me that trinket, Captain, and the hat and walking-stick, you spoke about yesterday?"

"I have, and they must have reached here before this, as I sent them up by one of the sailors before I left the ship."

The master of the house rang the bell. A servant entered, to whom he gave orders to have whatever things had been brought from the vessel carried up stairs, to his son's apartment. The servant looked for a moment at his master's face, and then withdrew.

"Is it necessary for you to remain long in port?"

"Not over two days; and then I sail for Liverpool. My cargo is nearly all stored, and I wait but your orders to name the day when we shall leave."

"Then in two days we will sail. I will send for you to-morrow, as I shall have to make arrangements with you regarding some private matters. Good evening!"

The visitor bowed himself from the room, and closed the door.

In an instant, all was changed in the manner of the man whom he had left alone in the chamber. The cold and frigid muscles relaxed. The step, a few moments before so formal, became quick and nervous. The eyes that had so suddenly dried, were wet again. The brows were no longer knit together in forbidding gloom, but expressed the wrinkled workings of some great internal agony. Up and down the apartment he paced for a few moments, with that same tread, whose sound seemed to syllable the sentiment of grief. Only for a few moments, for he quitted the room, and mounted the stairway. How slowly now he mounts the stairs: how slowly he places his foot upon the landing; and how wearily, as if weak, exhausted totally, he approaches a door that fronts him on his right! His hand is upon the knob. He turns it and enters. Could that marble face have been seen then, what a spectacle would it have presented!

"Utterly, hopelessly liveth that man," we would have said. "Keep from him laudanum, the loaded pistol, and the razor! Keep him from himself, for the love of GOD and his angels!" He is in the room; a trimly-finished room, with a single bed in it, and many comforts; a small library, foils hung upon the walls, old boxing-gloves placed carefully upon the table, an ink-stand, with a pen lying by its side, a book of travels open upon the desk, that stood by the favorite window, the chains and collars of dogs, a portrait of the man who had just entered the room, and a female portrait, too, both hung so that the owner of the room could see them when he first wakened in the morning. On the dressing-table was a golden locket, a plain straw hat, with a broad black ribbon round it; and, leaning against a chair, was a fragile cane, capped with some fancy head. Down into that chair this gloomy man threw himself. He reached out his hand, and grasped the hat, and then he held it to his lips; and while the tears fell rapidly, he kissed it over and over again. The cane he kissed, and then he sat moodily, with his eyes fixed upon the wall, where hung the boxing-gloves and the foils. No one entered that room after him, but there he sat until the sun, bathing the whole west, sent its farewell glory into the apartment, and seemed, as it were, to summon him. He rose and knelt by the bed, and then, with features fixed as the everlasting granite, he left the room and descended the steps.

"WHEN I took him those things, he was just as cold as a piece of ice. I wonder if he has any feeling. I wonder what he is going to do with those things. Most men would have asked me some further questions about that affair. GOD knows he can't blame me, though I believe he hates me, and I am afraid to be left alone with him. I do n't understand him. He does not deal as other men would in such matters; but whenever I see him, he talks about his business matters; what the cargo will bring him; when his other vessels will reach port; what the price of goods is in every section of the world, as if he was going to send his ships to the Arctic ocean, to trade in icebergs."

Thus spoke one of two sea-faring men, in a small back-parlor in an inn in the Canadian city which I have alluded to before. The speaker was a man of rough exterior, blunt, and in all points a complete old sea-clog. The tempests had tanned his cheeks like sheets of parchment, or something more tough, and there were evident indications, throughout the whole man, that marked him as a stern and unflinching performer of his peculiar range of duties. His companion was the captain of another ship, owned by the individual with whom the former had just held the short interview, already described.

"Well, he is the strangest man." said the second, "that ever crossed my bows. Not one word of inquiry after the health of the crews, or how they are fed and treated, but down he must go himself to the ship, and in and through every place about he dives; and, though he docs not seem to notice any thing, I am sure nothing escapes him. He is close-fisted, but, I will say, just; and if there is wrong anywhere, he will correct it if he can, and with his own property he generally can and does. But you promised to tell me about that affair of your last cruise. Go on with your yarn, and let's have another glass of whisky hot."

When the whisky was brought in, the sea-captain lit a segar, and between his smoking and his sipping, told a story in effect like this:

"We had as good a ship as ever floated on the sea, and we had as good a cargo as ever was borne over the sea by a ship. Part of the cargo was a large supply of flour, about which I had particular directions. I was to deliver it to a certain house at Greenock, and I was to tell the head partner of the house that this flour was not for sale; that was all I knew about it, though I think now, as I thought then, it was intended to be distributed among the suffering poor of some district of the Highlands. He has never said a word to me about the cargo.

"Well, we sailed out of Quebec, and had fair winds for three days, when, all at once, the sky lowered down with heavy clouds, and every thing seemed to indicate an approaching and a severe blow: and it did come, and for two days we bore up against it, though almost every hour found us in a worse condition to fight out the next.

"I had several passengers with me, and among them was the son of the owner. He was a tall, handsome youth, nothing in him like his father, except some slight resemblance of manner. I loved the boy, and the boy loved me, and every body seemed to take to him. He mixed freely among the men; most of them he had known a long time, as sailors, sailing his father's ship, and whom he had met on the wharves whenever the vessels returned to port.

"His father had intrusted him to me, with special instructions to be careful of him, and to see that he was safely left at one of the universities in England. He was going abroad to finish his education.

"Well, the storm kept on, and, instead of diminishing, it increased. Squall after squall struck her, and though every thing was done to relieve the ship, I found that things were getting worse, and finally a leak was discovered away down in the hold. The water poured in faster than we could pump it out, and indeed we could with difficulty work the pumps at all, owing to the constant pitching of the almost ungovernable vessel. To make a long yarn short, we were floundering away, with the pumps going, the winds blowing big guns, and the waves pitching like mountains of solid granite put into motion, when the helmsman was washed from the wheel; and before another could take his place, the vessel fell into the trough of the sea, and all was wild confusion and horror.

"I maintained sufficient command, at that terrible moment, to have some of my orders obeyed. The boats were ordered to be lowered, and when one had touched the water, the crazy sailors and passengers rushed to it, and for an instant, when it was filled, it floated on the back of a huge billow, and then was swept away into the foam, and was seen no more. It had filled with water, and down it went, with its cargo of screaming and blaspheming souls.

"The next boat fared better, and I had only time to get the remainder of the passengers, two only beside the boy, and some of the sailors, into it, when the ship went down into the deep sea, with a plunge like a wild horse when he is shot.

"We escaped the pool made by the ship's going down, and, with the greatest difficulty, we got the boat properly trimmed, and though surrounded by a perfect seething of broken waves, we managed to keep upon the surface.

"We had not a mouthful of any thing to eat on board, for we had no time to secure a morsel from the stores, so sudden was the necessity to take to the boats, and so short the time to accomplish our rescue.

"Two days and two nights wore away, and we drifted about the ocean without a compass and without a sail. Another day passed over our heads and we began to be afraid to look at one another. Thirst and hunger were turning us into tigers. The owner's son sat up my side at the helm, and leaned his head upon my knee. He slept most of the time, except at intervals, when he would waken up and look, with a bright eager eye, far over the waste of the inhospitable sea, and then he would gaze upon the miniature of his father that he wore around his neck. I saw what was coming. We were dying of thirst and hunger, and there was no hope. A few hours might delay the catastrophe; and a few hours only did delay it. It began with low whisperings and mutterings among the sailors, and then it broke out into loud oaths and fierce gestures. Each man seized what way nearest to him as a means of defense. The oars were raised from the water, and held in the air like war-clubs, and the boat drifted about, heedless of the helm, which I still held in my almost powerless hand. I had placed a couple of loaded pistols in my coat-pocket before we left the ship, and when I feared that I would have to prevent some mutinous spirit at a moment when disobedience would have been destruction to all; and these I guarded with a feverish care, lest they might be seized upon by some wretch in his extreme despair, and used as the means by which food could be obtained in that awful hour of our starvation. I saw that a crisis in our lives was at hand, for the low murmurs had grown into unmistakable expressions, and at last a demand was made for human flesh. One must be killed to feed the rest.

"It was inevitable! one man among the gaunt and starving crew must die; but who was to be that man 1 That was a question which might possibly be determined on the instant where one man was stronger than the other, and only two were in our lorn condition; but when there were many, and none stronger than the rest, the matter became one of terrible difficulty.

"I determined to act on this hideous emergency, knowing full well that sailors are subject to the spirit of authority from long subjection to its practical exercise, and seeing that there was no escape from the result, for I swept the horizon in vain for some signal of approaching succor, I prepared to draw lots. Then arose the other startling and thrilling question, Who shall arrange the lots? There was not much time for argument, and so they agreed, after a moment's pause, that I, their captain, should hold the fates in my hand. I tore a piece of paper into as many strips as there were men to draw, and held them in my hand. All drew, and the owner's son drew the fatal lot. He was perfectly calm, although the youngest and the brightest-hoped of the whole party, and seemed to yield at once, without a murmur, to the horrid fate that in an instant awaited him. Then there sprang up a discussion among the starving crew, and they declared that the lots should be drawn over again: they would not have their favorite slaughtered. I arranged the pieces again, and to my horror and surprise, the youth again drew the fatal slip. Once more the crew, now doubly excited, with their grim, famished faces staring at me, swore in perfect madness that the youth should not die, and ordered me, with savage gestures of insane fury, to draw again. I saw that I was to do a duty beyond their wishes. I felt the terrific responsibility that rested upon me, and it required but a few seconds to make up my mind what Course to pursue. All was despair around me; all was hopeless, utterly, and, I thought, eternally hopeless; and I felt that I would not die with the crime of human partiality and injustice upon my soul.

"I agreed to hold the lots again; and when I had arranged them, I said that the youth must be excluded from the drawing, and for that purpose told him to step forward to the bow. He rose to obey me. I remember his thin figure standing between me and the bright line left by the departed sun against the horizon of the heaving sea. One instant, and one instant only, did he stand thus elevated like a living cross, with his arms outstretched to balance his tottering steps, when he fell forward into the arms of the excited sailors. I had shot him, as he stood thus, determined to end the conflict for blood that was raging around me, and satisfy the generous and noble-hearted sailors, whose lives were not dearer to them, in that hour of supernatural honor and supernatural horror, than the gentle sentiments of love toward the boy they had known so long.

A few days afterward, a vessel picked out of the trough of the sea a boat with three men, lying, half-drowned, upon its bottom. I was one of the three who had survived the bloody feats by which several were killed, and only we had survived.

"I had taken the miniature from the neck of the boy, and the cane, his father's parting-gifts, and his straw-hat I also preserved, for I felt they would be dear to the unhappy man at home. When I took them to him, he ordered them to be carried to his son's room; and not even then, or before, when I first arrived, did he say one word to me of censure or approval. I do not feel that I have done wrong, for GOD knows it was a hard and unheard-of condition we were all in."

After the captain had finished his story, he rose from his chair and left the room. We may be sure there was no more whisky-punch drank by the other captain, who was left, half-bewildered, standing alone in the apartment.

SEVERAL years had passed away. My relative had died, and I had been living some time in Paris, when business-letters reached me from the lawyer in Edinburgh who had charge of her estate, that compelled me to relinquish my studies, and hasten over to Scotland.

When I reached Edinburgh I went directly to Mr. ——'s office, and after going through some necessary forms of law, placed the affairs of the property, so far as I was concerned, in a way of settlement. As I was rising to return to my hotel, Mr. —— begged me, instead of taking my dinner at the solitary little table in the coffee-room of the inn, to come and dine with him at six o'clock. I readily accepted his invitation.

I was sitting in the public-room of the Royal Hotel, gazing with untiring admiration at the various points of view from the window; the old Castle of Edinburgh, upon its rocky eyrie, overlooking a glorious panorama of mountain, ocean, frith, and far-extended fields, waving up toward the regions of the lakes. Like a gallant soldier, wounded in battle, his head crowned with laurels, his limbs shattered, lay this beautiful and wonderful city before me; for part of it is fresh and new, and the rest ruined and withered by time and the elements. I could linger in description, forgetful of my story, but I did not undertake to describe the outward characteristics of Scotch scenery, but to delineate the not uncommon qualities of the people of that country.

My attention was somewhat distracted by the entrance of a man into the room. He threw himself into a chair; and it struck me, though at the moment I was not observing him strictly, that he sighed as he took his seat. I was not so hardened by the usages of the world, or so indifferent to the phenomena of human idiosyncrasy, as to let such a thing escape my reflection, and I turned more fully to observe the stranger. He was, I should think, about sixty years of age, tall and meagre. I felt no farther curiosity to examine his person or his dress, after I had once seen his face. There, stamped indelibly, were marks that time had had nothing to do with. Age has its wrinkles by right; its furrows are made as if it were to let the streams of life have passage to the great ocean of eternal rest. Youth has its furrows too, by wrong; planted there by premature crime, by premature suffering, by unhappy love, or morbid hope. The face before me had doubtless been, in its youth, eminently beautiful; but of that description of beauty to be found in the bust of Brutus the Tribune, and seldom seen on Scotch shoulders. The hair was black, but thickly sprinkled with gray. There was an undying look of valor in the whole expression of the countenance. It was not the look of the bully, or such as we would suppose belonged to the soldier; but it expressed a moral courage, such as martyrs wear when they die for truth, or suffer for the right.

While I was engaged looking at him, he took a letter from his pocket, and, after hastily reading it, he rose and advanced to the window through which I had been looking prior to his entrance. I could well imagine how that earnest soul might be affected by such a scene as met his view. He stood for several minutes at the window, and I could observe, by that intuitive faculty common to all men, but not always recognized at the moment, that a deep gloom constituted the chief element of his meditations, as he looked out upon the scene. Looking at my watch, and finding it approaching the time that I should be at Mr. ——'s, I ascended to my room to dress for dinner, as I had some distance to go to reach my friend's house, he living in the country. I told the waiter to have a carriage at the door when I should get through with my toilette. When I descended, the stranger was standing at the front door. I simply gave directions to the waiter to tell the coachman where to take me. The stranger turned upon me abruptly upon hearing the name of my friend, and I thought he was upon the point of addressing me. If that had been his intention, he relinquished it upon the instant, and without farther delay I entered the carriage and drove off. After I had been seated with my friend some moments in his parlor, and the usual inquiries and answers had passed between us, he smiled and said, "I have some thing curious to show you to-day—an old friend; not that old friends are curious; but really, a man whose history and whose character will amuse and puzzle you. I want you to see him before I tell you who he is, and what he is. You are a little in advance of the dinner-hour, like all your countrymen, but he will be here exactly to the moment, for all Scotchmen and Scotch watches are wound up to go and stop at the same moment."

As my friend had predicted, the door-bell rang at the instant, and the stranger of the coffee-room entered. There was a mutual look of recognition between us, and a positive sensation passed through my mind—a dim and mysterious thought which informed me that I had heard the whole history of this man before. So much so that I arose, upon the gestures of introduction, with warm and growing sympathies at my heart for him.

My friend's family consisted of his wife, a daughter, some sixteen or seventeen years of age, and a son, who was just down from one of the universities to spend the vacation at home. It is not necessary to enter into the details of the dinner, which came on and went off with the usual incidents of such gastronomic events. The conversation turned, and was continued throughout the repast, upon the very recent revolution in Paris, which I, a foreigner, had had the singular good fortune to witness. Though my recitals of the daily scenes of that chronic phase of French politics, seemed to interest my host and his family, they appeared to have little effect upon the other guest. Interested as I was in the circumstances I was relating, I was mysteriously, and, despite myself, more interested in that consolidated embodiment of moral and physical revolution that sat directly opposite me. There seemed to be a tacit understanding with all the parties present, myself included, though I knew not why, that nothing should be said that was not general in its character. Though I knew, from a slight incidental remark, that my host and his friend had only met that day after a separation of years, I was not surprised at their making me and my experiences topics of unflagging conversation.

In due season the dishes and the dessert were removed, and then, the ladies retiring, left us to our wine and ourselves. There was an uneasy pause after the ladies had left us—an almost embarrassing silence. My topics were exhausted. It seemed as if they mutually agreed that I could no longer, by any miscellaneous gossip, keep them from some positive allusion to the past. Our host filled his glass with claret and passed the decanter to me.

After I had filled my glass, I naturally pushed the wine across the table to the stranger, when the attention of my host and my own was riveted upon him. His head was bent upon the table. We could not see his face, but we saw that his muscular hands were clenched together, and his shoulders heaved up and down with convulsive motion. Where his temple was exposed to our view, I saw a rapid movement as of blood coursing to his brain. This lasted but a moment. The face of the host, too, had undergone a change as suddenly; tears stood in his hitherto happy and jovial eyes; his lips quivered, and he arose from his seat, and, approaching his friend, placed his hand upon his head. There sat that stern, apparently unsympathizing man, his whole system heaving with some long-suppressed and all-overmastering emotion; and over him the lawyer, accustomed in chamber and in court-room to scenes of suffering arising from outraged justice, or terror from detected guilt, now quivering, weeping, at his own table, at the mere spectacle of a depressed head and a convulsed frame! I have described the features of the stranger, when in their calm; but when he raised his head from the table, a change the most singular had taken place. That undying valor, almost stubborn in its expression before, had died away; the beauty of his youth had returned to him, with almost feminine loveliness. Looking up at his friend, he said:

"I can endure it no longer: for years and years, James, I have kept this to myself, but now I must yield. To-day has brought back to me scenes that I have only remembered at midnight in tears. I could not bear to make my sorrows common. I could have borne it to-day, if I had not come here to this house. I bore it when I first met you, my oldest and my dearest friend. I bore it when the world cried murder, and she perished unavenged; when her assassins took possession of their blood-stained gains; when I left the land of my birth, and the home of my youth, and went among strangers to live and toil, toil for my boy, to give him wealth and station such as his sister would have had. I bore it, and took a pride in keeping my sacred agony to myself, when I heard that to appease the famine of some of my shipwrecked sailors, my son was shot. I bore it when I looked again upon the land I had so long left, but never had forgotten; but I could not bear it longer when I saw your wife sitting happily by your side, as my wife used to sit by mine—your daughter smiling, as my poor child used to smile, and your son, just from the college to which mine was going—all there were too much. I have been called an iron man—a man almost dead to human feeling; but you, who have known me, must have known it would come to this at last,"

He finished speaking, and after a short interval, we returned to the parlor. The iron armor, once thrown aside, seemed as it never could be resumed, in the presence of his old friend's family. Long-smothered emotions of his heart appeared to well up from him as if his nature had received an invocation. Although that remarkable countenance still wore the traces of long suffering, there beamed over it a pervading recognition of long-sought but just-discovered sympathy. I will not attempt to analyze in the exact crucible of philosophical chemistry the various dispositions that characterized this man. There are few persons who have not met with similar individuals, whose conduct in their human out-door walks has been at total variance with their human in-door feelings. The only thing that I esteem strange in all that I have related, is the singular train of coïncidental events, beginning with the small ring upon the hearth-stone of my relation's bed-room, that had expanded into larger circumferences, embracing years and distant countries; and then, after having encircled, by so many extraordinary events, the destinies of people differing so totally in pursuits and purposes, finding its concluding movement near the same spot where it had commenced. It is ill-becoming in us, with our limited knowledge, to set ourselves up as judges of human character; for here, in an especial manner, was a man entirely misjudged, since it was not long before I was informed by my friend the lawyer, that he had been the agent of the most bounteous charities imposed upon him by this Iron Man.

The ignorant traveller, entirely uninstructed in the truths of natural history, upon first beholding the peaks of the Alps, shrouded in their everlasting mantles of snow, would little dream that in the vales beneath ran musical streams of summer water, and emerald meadows spread their velvet cloaks, dappled with the clustering rose-bush, and the sun-loving flowers of the gardens of the tropics.

[THE following fragment is the concluding canto of the second unpublished part of a poem written in 1846 and 47. The first part appeared under the name of "Ulric; or, the Voices." There is a period of ten years between the two parts. EMMELINE'S son, FRITZ, has grown into a youth of nineteen. In rather a strong contrast to the present state of the eastern continent, where a new crusade appears being organized, not against, but in favor of Islamism, the Ottoman government, after possessing itself of the most beautiful and celebrated countries of the ancient oriental world, conceived the ambitious design of subjugating Europe to the faith of the Prophet. Weakened and distracted by civil wars, the Christian princes might well tremble to behold Constantinople the seat of the Sultan, and the Crescent advancing to Venice, Vienna, and Bavaria. SOLYMAN II., furious at his defeat by the knights of St. JOHN, in the island of Malta, had invaded Hungary with a powerful army, and laid siege to Sigeth, the bulwark of Styria against the Turk.

ULRIC had promised to join his standard to that of the noble Count ZERRINI (according to a custom of those days) whenever the Turkish forces should again threaten Europe. He reached Sigeth with his forces just before the formidable army had approached its walls. Both ULRIC and ZERRINI believed that the European MAXIMILIAN II., who lay in the neighborhood with an army not inferior to that of the besiegers, would at least attempt its relief; and on the supposition that so noble an enterprise would be almost certainly victorious, and would open a brilliant career to the son of EMMELINE, he had taken him as one of his aides. Arrived at Sigeth, it transpired that the Emperor had resolved not to aid the city; and death now stared in the face of every one within the fatal walls of Sigeth. The canto opens at the moment when ZERRINI and ULRIC had adopted the desperate expedient of cutting their way out. This celebrated action of ZERRINI is a well-known historical incident. The Turks left 30,000 dead on the field. SOLYMAN died during the siege. His successor granted MAXIMILIAN a twelve years' truce. ZERRINI, as the poem relates, fell while cutting his way out of the fortress.]

HARK! hark! the thunder! not of Heaven,
But that which Hell to earth has given.
Hark! peal on peal resound!
Where the hot battle fiercely burns,
The cannon's fiery fury turns
On Sigeth's gate. Hark! madly tear
Each crash along the broken air.
Death and destruction madly glare,
And shake the affrighted ground.

And 'mid their solemn anthem rise,
Troubling the soft astonished skies,
Deep howls of hate, and yells of pain,
And shrieks of death that pierce the brain,
And fiends discordant glee,
And clashing steel and oaths of rage,
Vain prayers beneath the sabre's edge,
And shouts of victory.
Amid the rout Hell's master stood,
And saw his work, that it was good.

Ha! will the wreaths, slow-rolling by,
Of heavy smoke, for ever lie
Upon that group, and veil its fate,
Which issues from the castle gate?
Now wafts the breeze the rising cloud:
On! on! their foes around them crowd.
Hark! ULRIC'S voice, like trumpet loud,
His lagging men to chide.
Forward his sable courser springs,
And his dread sword, which terror wings,
As 'gainst each flashing blade it rings,
Drips with the crimson tide.

With him, what warrior, fiercely bright,
Cuts his way onward through the fight?
It is ZERRINI, and between,
Half 'mid the battle's fury seen
That bold boy-hero! How would start,
O EMMELINE! thy mother's heart,
If, with unhelmed brow,
'Mid cannon crash and gory stream,
And whistling ball and sabre gleam,
As in some dark delirious dream,
Thou couldst behold him now;
Couldst mark how near each hot ball hissed
That cheek thy lips so oft have kissed;
And how each sabre's deadly blow
Would deep have cleft that laughing brow,
But for one arm whose watchful blade
Ever like lightning round him played,
Intent from harm to shield.
If once, amid that iron rain,
Yon broken bridge their steeds can gain,
They're safe—yet no! They strive in vain,
'T is their last battle-field.

But look! hurrah! new shouts resound!
Their foes give way, and bite the ground,
And like some strong uprooted oak,
Contending with the blast,
Slow yielding to the tempest stroke,
Now wavering 'mid the billowy smoke,
That torn and flaunting Crescent look!
Stoops to the dust at last.

There, 'mid the battle's wildest storm,
Erect, ZERRINI'S glorious form
Uptowers like a god.
With shout, resounding wild and far
Above the mad discordant war,
He cheers his men, "On! on! hurrah!"
But, now, St. STEVEN! to the ground,
Borne, like the stag, by fierce blood-hound,
Overwhelmed with many a mortal wound
He falls, our eyes no more to greet,
Crushed 'mid wild horses' iron feet,
A trampled, broken clod.

On! on! mid shout and dying groan,
Now ULRIC and the boy are down!
But no! they rise: o'er heaps of slain
Forward their snorting chargers strain;
The masses break apart again.
Their foes, they reel; they fly!
With their sharp swords they cut their way,
Uninjured, through the reckless fray.
The bridge! the bridge! they gain the day!
"On! death or victory!"

Oh, gallant FRITZ! not yet, not yet!
Beware that furious, hot onset,
With flaming eyes, together four
Against thee rush. One struggle more!
Thrice the sharp sabre to thy brow!
Thrice ULRIC'S swift hand wards the blow—
Wards and avenges well—for low
They lie who struck. Each recreant dies!

The last survivor, panting, flies;
But e'er his Arab steed he pressed
He turned to aim at FRITZ'S breast
One winged ball of hate.
Now, ULRIC! speed! In Sultan's flank,
Deep, deep the spur, encrimsoned, sank,
Alas! too late! too late!
He sees his sword, so swift and keen,
All useless now, but rides between,
With one convulsive bound;
And then the flash, the smoke, the shout,
The clear report rang sharply out,
The deadly messenger he feels;
Starts sudden, in his saddle reels,
Then sinks upon the ground!

FRITZ springs to save him! sees, oh DEATH!
Thy heavy hand! Thy failing breath,
Thy smothered groan of pain!
To stanch, he strives, the bubbling blood,
Outgushing in a swollen flood,
A dreadful task, and vain.

"Oh, general! Oh, fatal strife!
For mine thou gavest thy precious life!
The ball was meant for me!"
"That flying fellow sent it home,
His aim was good; my hour hath come—
My hour of victory."

And now from FRITZ'S white cheek flowed
The hue, that all the battle stood;
And dropped his blinded eyes.
"Oh, fatal, fatal day!" he said,
As o'er that brow the death-damp spread;
And still streamed forth the purple tide;
"So late, aloft, I saw him ride,
In all life's grandeur and its pride;
Now, here he lies."

Yes, yes, in death the warrior lay,
Each moment ebbed his life away,
The helm unloosed, the forehead bare,
Upraised to HEAVEN in silent prayer.
Then gently spoke: "Dear FRITZ, no, no,
'T is vain, 't is vain; let—let it flow!
Weep not for me. Death is no theme
For weeping. It most sweet doth seem
To yield my breath.
Oh! nothing in this world hath been
So slandered, with thy friendly mien,
Thy face, so hopeful, so serene,
As thou, oh DEATH!"
"Sweet, pitying HEAVEN! my heart will break!

"My breath, it fails; poor Sultan take
My parting gift, and for my sake
Be gentle with him, FRITZ; and when
Thou reachest Rudolstadt again,
And ridest him, all joyous, on
Through wood and vale, o'er hill and lawn,
Each sylvan path I see!
The mossy steep, the silent wood,
Look! how the yellow golden flood,
The very spot on which we stood,
Bid her remember me."

"Oh, dearest friend! oh, gracious HEAVEN!
His senses wander——"
"I have striven,
Not all in vain, and now the spell
I break at last. Sweet boy, farewell!
Thy hand! I die—all cold—all dark!
My blessing to thy m——. Hark! hark!
They call! what bright forms round me gather!
Ha! yes; my blessing to thy father!"

Oh DEATH! how beautiful, how still!
As if some sculptor's wondrous skill,
Out of the cold and lifeless stone
That noble warrior form had hewn.
Over the marble features stole
A light, as rose the parting soul,
And then, descending o'er the plain,
Floats softly an angelic strain
Of voices airy sweet, that seem
A loving thought, a tender dream.
It lingers not, that passing choir,
But slow recedes, and rises higher,
Fainter and fainter; now it dies,
Uncertain, in the farthest skies.

ULRIC, farewell! Thy painful task is done,
Thy battle with the Prince of Hell is won.
Faith's narrow path thy child-like soul hath trod,
Thou hast believed, obeyed, and worshipped GOD.

And thus a Christian spirit, free at last,
Beyond the reach of wearying sin hath passed,
From its hard warfare with Hell's potent might;
Good against evil; darkness against light.
Victorious o'er the world, its sorrows ended,
And through Death's gates by angel forms attended.

And thus, oh reader! whatsoe'er thou art,
Or high or low, or rich or poor, thy part,
Thus, in its hour, thy spirit, too, may rise
From earth's short sufferings to the happy skies,
If thou but care to choose aright between
The curse and blessing of this lower scene;
If thou but mark, as by GOD'S help we may,
Hell's filthy laughter, as thou go'st astray,
And the clear voices calling thee again,
With many a secret tone and thrilling strain,
Voices, perchance, now floating, faint and far,
From some light cloud or quiet gazing star.
While now, with trumpet tones, they burst and roll
Up from the depths of thy eternal soul,
Oh mortal! listen to them. Learn to know
Those earnest voices, whencesoe'er they flow.
Watch for them! Listen! Mark them and obey!
Follow not thou the Evil One's soft way,
For all his art can give. When, at thy side,
He stands and whispers thoughts of lust and pride,
From his vile spells, by prayer thy spirit free,
And break away, how sweet soe'er they be.
For sweet, oh GOD! they are, and his old throne
Too firmly set for thee to move alone.
Oh, sorcerer! full many a wondrous charm
He knows to banish doubt and hush alarm,
Thy eyes to veil, and so to sway thy thought,
Clasped in his arms, thou still believest not.
All bright things of the earth, oh! mystery!
Are sometimes lent, his instruments to be;
Nature's fair visions, music, moonlight, love;
All that they will may captivate and move,
Soft vales and mountains, summer-days and flowers.
And golden hopes that wing youth's airy hours,
Science and taste and intellect refined,
The noble heart and the aspiring mind,
The fatal trust in conscious innocence
Whatever wakes the soul, or wins the sense,
There lies the dark foe mid the roses curled,
But ONE alone can overcome the world.

KASKASKIA, (properly written Cascasquia,) founded, according to the best authorities, about 1688, by the good Father Allouez, is probably the oldest settlement on the waters of the Mississippi. For a long time the head-quarters of the French in the Great Valley: successively a military post of some importance, and the capital of the growing State of Illinois, it possessed, for many years, the distinction of a frontier metropolis; but its site was chosen without regard to that geography which ultimately develops its own foci; and every new farm opened in the country hastened the decay of its factitious prosperity. A few miles in any direction from the true focus are sufficient to seal the obscurity of the most promising town; and he who fortunately pitches his cabin upon the converging point of the lines of commerce may safely await the lapse of time, secure that his corn-fields will eventually become city-lots, and his modest dwelling give place to palaces of trade.

In accordance with this geographical principle, as the country to the northward was settled and improved Kaskaskia decreased in importance; and, as St. Louis began to emerge into the light, the shadow of her wings deepened the growing twilight around her elder sister. The removal of the seat of government withdrew the only remaining element of prosperity; and, in 182—, the period of our produce, before a light footstep and a silvery voice announced the entrance of Marie herself.

A gleam of the yellow sunlight which bathed the street in front, would not more suddenly or cheerfully have illumined the room. The sweet songsters who occupied the cage above her mother's head enriched the air with no mellower or clearer notes; no foot in Monsieur Maillefert's dancing-school was lighter, no figure more graceful, no eyes brighter, no face more beautiful. Light auburn hair, clear, dark-blue eyes, a nose of Grecian truth, and a mouth combining all the attractions of pearl and ruby; a throat as full, and neck as flexible as the dream of a sculptor; shoulders white and round, with a bust as faultless as the statue of the "Slave," completed the beauty of a face and form as perfect as ever wore the youthful graces of sweet seventeen.

She was arrayed in a loose though neatly-fitting morning-dress of cross-barred muslin, white as the lily. This was confined at the waist by a silken cord of pale pink hue; around her neck was tied a narrow velvet ribbon, of the same becoming color; and her hair was simply dressed in the fashion of the time, with a band and flowers.

Her appearance was the signal for the recommencement of the little Monsieur's universal salutations, elaborate and profound, as if given to a whole ball-room, marshaled for the dance; and in his twinkling black eye there was a ray of light which showed that age, though now approaching his fiftieth year, had not deprived him of the Frenchman's greatest pleasure—admiration of female beauty.

"Souhaits le bon jour, Ma'm'selle!" he exclaimed with all the artist's grace, as she came to the window, and received his salutation with a smile which would have revived one of his nation, though he were in the article of death.

"Monsieur Maillefert has called to inquire whether you will attend his fête this evening, Marie," said her mother, "and I have placed you under his protection."

"I am sure no better chaperon could be chosen," said Marie, smiling in reply to the repeated bows of her whimsical protector; "but how is my father this morning?"

"He is sleeping," her mother answered, glancing at the door at which she had listened, "and, though he passed a somewhat restless night, he now seems much better."

"What time will you call for me, then, Monsieur?" she asked.

"At seven, Ma'm'selle, exactement;" and, gallantly touching his lips with his fingers, with another flourish of his beaver, he took his leave, and went on tip-toe up the street, by far the happiest man in all Kaskaskia.

"Sit down here for a few moments, Marie," said Madame Lefrette, pointing to a seat beside her own. Marie obeyed without speaking; and while the daughter leaned upon her mother's lap, and the mother placed her arm caressingly across the daughter's shoulders, both gazed in silence for some minutes at the cheerful scene before them. The elder was the first to speak.

"Marie," she said, drawing the girlish form nearer to her bosom, as if to compensate the harshness of a duty with increased affection, "if you go to Monsieur Maillefert's fête this evening, I must warn you against an error that I fear you are falling into."

Marie looked up in surprise.

Do n't alarm yourself," her mother continued with a smile; "I do not apprehend any great danger—to you, my dear; but you are young and impulsive, and may thus unconsciously do a very great injury to another."

"I? Why, mother mine, what can you mean?"

"I mean, my daughter," said her parent, gravely, "that at M. Maillefert's you will probably meet Coron de Cheville."

Marie's eyes fell as if a blow had been threatened her, and the blood mantled in a deep blush to her very temples, while her frame trembled as the young alder in a wandering wind.

"I do not wish to give you pain, Marie," her mother continued, placing her arms about her neck; "but the circumstances of your position render it necessary that I should guard you against an error of manner which may be fraught with evil to yourself—and others."

"What would you have me do, mother?" she asked, without raising her eyes, which were now ready to overflow.

"Nothing but what your own good sense will teach you. Receive him courteously and kindly, but not warmly. Let your father's faith be kept, by showing him that you are willing to accept his friendship, but will not encourage one step that leads toward the forfeiture of any obligation."

"I am sure, mother," she said, hastily lifting her head, "if he knew it he would not take such a step, however much encouragement I might give him."

"Is it possible you have left him in ignorance, Marie?"

Again she dropped her eyes, and was silent.

"Well, well, my daughter," she resumed, replacing the arm, which for a moment she had withdrawn, "I will not reproach you. It is not too late, I hope. Let him know your position without delay. It will be better for all parties. And now, I must go to your father. You will have some preparations to make, and"—after a pause—" I hope we may never have occasion to return to this subject."

She turned away as she spoke, and entered, the sick-chamber of her husband, leaving her daughter occupied with reflections the most unhappy her young life had yet known.

The "circumstances" referred to by the mother are essential to our story.

Among the French customs which the shifting of population and consequent change of social manners had not entirely abrogated, was that of affiancing children in their infancy—a blind, pernicious system of anticipation, which mortgages the Future to the mercenary wants or conveniences of the Present, and plants the seeds of superfluous immorality, whereof spontaneous growth is sure to yield a sufficient harvest. In accordance with this custom, Marie had been, in her sixth year, affianced to young Napoleon Le Vert, then a youth of ten summers, the son of M. Lefrette's partner in business. During the eleven years which had since elapsed, each had been reared and taught to look upon the other as the companion of the future; and though, after reaching those years which gave them a place in society, neither had shown much attachment to the other, the only effect of this indifference had been to conceal the knowledge of their fiançailles from their acquaintance, or to let it die to their remembrance; for the parents of both still viewed the contract as irrevocable.

This arrangement had been ratified—perhaps suggested—by Marie's grandfather, who, although at this period some years dead, must figure modestly in our narrative. He was a Virginian, who had emigrated to Kentucky with some of the foremost pioneers, when that country belonged to the venerable "Old Dominion." Having made a settlement, and, by proper charters, secured the territorial rights which accrued upon the act, his roving spirit had led him to Kaskaskia. Here he became enamored of, and soon married Josephine Le Vert, a young Frenchwoman, the sister of the elder M. Le Vert, of our story. Lingering for some months, attracted by the primitive simplicity of the people among whom he found himself domesticated, a daughter was born to him; and this daughter was the mother of Marie Lefrette. As soon after this event as his wife could endure the journey, he returned to Kentucky. But, upon searching for his land, he found that the man whom he had left in possession had sold the most valuable portion of it, under a claim which he had set up by virtue of actual residence! To add to his discomfiture, on examining his papers to find the original grant to himself, he discovered that that was lost or destroyed! The books of records, which might have supplied its place, had been either burnt or carried away by the Indians in some murderous foray; and all muniments of title were thus obliterated.

He resorted, however, to the desperate expedient of a suit at law, endeavoring to show that the grantor under whom the occupants claimed, was a tenant, and could not be allowed to deny his landlord's title. But no lease could be produced; indeed, he had for gotten whether a lease was ever made; and, in the absence of any paper to support it, his suit failed, and his land was lost. Soured and disgusted, he returned to Kaskaskia, where, at the age of fifteen, his daughter was married to Monsieur Lefrette. Of this marriage, the only issue was our Marie, whose grandfather lived just long enough to confirm her fiançailles with the son of his brother-in-law, claiming the Episcopal right of confirmation in virtue of his will, which made her sole heir to the lands he had lost!

By these possessions, which might just as well have been "castles in Spain," no body save the poor old man set very great store; and the fact that Marie's father was a large stockholder in various land-companies, and was accounted rich, (prospectively,) probably had more influence in inducing the elder Le Vert, who was supposed to value good lands higher than good hearts, to seek the betrothing of his son with his partner's daughter.

One other character noticed, and the story may march on.

Coron de Cheville, a young man two or three years the senior of Marie's fiancé, was a descendant of M. Rocheblave,* the last French governor of Kaskaskia. Having inherited a moderate fortune, he had, to some extent, enjoyed the advantages of travel, and of an education which this country did not then afford. At the age of twenty-four he had returned to his native town, and now divided his time about equally between Kaskaskia and St. Louis.

[*WHOSE wife, on the taking of the place in 1778, by Gen. George R. Clarke, concealed or destroyed all his public papers; and by the loss of many grants and charters, was the cause of infinite confusion in land-titles.]

Mingling freely in the unconstrained society of the former place, he could not fail to meet Marie Lefrette; and, just at that age, when all such impressions are more vivid and definite than at any other, he was at once attracted by her beauty, grace, and simple refinement of manner. Ignorant of her engagement, he prosecuted a series of delicate but unconcealed attentions, which, in a circle more thoroughly organized, would have been at once set down as indications of a desire to make her his wife. Even here, observations had been made upon his assiduity, in so much as to excite the jealousy of Napoleon Le Vert, Marie's intended husband—a young man of morose and haughty temper, who, although incapable of loving any thing very deeply, was yet, of all men, most likely to resent what he superciliously deemed a trespass. Nothing but Coron's self-control, and the manly contempt he felt for the other's boyish demonstrations, prevented a collision; for, we are bound to say, the conduct of Marie, guided only by her feelings, and tempered by no respect for Napoleon's half-formed character, was not calculated to avert it. She took little pains to conceal her preference for the free and open bearing of the former to the arrogant and sullen manner of the latter; probably reflecting, if she ever thought seriously of the matter, that she would have quite enough of his vapors after her marriage, and willing, while she was yet free, to obey an impulse, of whose whole force she was ignorant. It was this imprudence against which her mother warned her.

M. MAILLEFERT'S house was situated almost in the heart of the town, but was surrounded by a garden carefully and elegantly cultivated, and containing, perhaps, two acres of land. Overlooking this on three sides was a broad, wooden corridor, which contained more space than lay within the walls; though the omnipresent vine, which hung in masses from the eaves, and clambered, richly laden with the choicest flowers, up every column, and along the balustrade, inclosed it from the sun and rain almost as effectually as the rude carpentry which marked its inner limit. The whole edifice looked as we might imagine a Chinese pagoda, which had been crushed toward the earth by a steady pressure from above; not falling into ruin, but expanding horizontally in proportion as it subsided vertically. Its peaked gables and projecting eaves; its triangular attic windows, and broad, low doors; its "sway-backed" roof and narrow flights of steps, all encouraged the illusion. But the presence of an elegant and ornate taste, everywhere visible in the arrangement of flowers and the training of a thousand creepers, fenced out the idea of decay; while the merry notes of the little Monsieur's fiddle, heard from within, or the cheerful tones of his bird-like voice, banished all gloom, and peopled the rooms with gayety.

In those old days, when a morose and mistaken puritanism had not given dancing to the devil, and then denounced it for belonging to him, the dancing-master was no unimportant personage, at the worst; and on this great occasion—the closing fête until the cooler weather of the autumn—the moral stature of the character was not diminished. When M. Maillefert, proud of his charge, as a young emperor of the conquest of a capital, marched up with Marie to the gate, the little crowd assembled there respectfully gave way for him to pass, but affectionately closed in upon his heels, and followed him within the house.

A narrow hall ran through from front to rear, dividing a large saloon and a suite of rooms; and these, notwithstanding their low ceilings, unlevel floors, and bare walls, presented an appearance quite elegant and imposing. The planks had either been diligently rubbed smooth for the purpose, or worn so by the friction of many feet. Garlands of evergreens, and wreaths of flowers, and quaint devices made of various leaves, adorned the window-frames, or drooped gracefully between; while bouquets and choice single flowers were scattered on the unobtrusive little tables, or strewed along the divans. Green branches of the delicate pine were fixed against the wall, as brackets to support the numerous lights; and the radiance of these was a-tempered, not diminished, by the veil through which it was filtered.

As the company entered, little negro girls, with their wide mouths full of ivory and fun, attended to receive the hoods and mantles, while two boys of the same shining sable were already "tuning up" their fiddles. These were the Monsieur's musicians; pupils of his own, whose proficiency reflected as much honor on his musical ability as the graceful dancing of the active 'demoiselles, upon his standing as a master of the "art of motion."

One long, complaining cry from both instruments, to try their tone, and then a sudden shifting to the rapid notes of a dancing tune, "put life and mettle" in the expectant company. The little Monsieur led his partner, Marie, to the head of the saloon, and at his signal the figures were speedily filled up. His shrill voice was now heard from end to end, and, as if instantly affected by some volatile gas, the whole array began to move with as much agility as art, and more grace than either. Round and round, to and fro, up and down, the dancers went; the flashing of light drapery, the wreathed smiles of pleasure, the flitting of fair forms through mazy order, and the changing lights and shadows, furnished forth a scene of animation far more common then than now. The tripping of light feet, the exhilarating music, the hurried chat and merry laughter, pervaded with a careless gayety the perfumed air; while the hurried alto of the maître shot, like a sunbeam, through the mazes of the figure, and illumined all with the light of discipline and order.

The rooms gradually filled up with old and young; and many a fat little dame danced with her eyes, though she might not with her feet, and gazed in envy on the figures, remembering her own gay days of youth. The fathers of the village, too, were gathered in; and boys and girls, who now impatiently awaited the coming of that time, whose passage they were destined to regret. After the first "set," the master, having given the example, consigned Marie to another partner, and devoted himself to the comfort and enjoyment of others. Cool, light beverages and delicate spicy-cakes, were passed about from time to time by the little negroes; and, at eleven, a supply of strong hot coffee, accompanied by viands more substantial, was served to every guest.

While the dancers were standing in their places, to do honor to this favorite stimulant, two gentlemen advanced from the line of spectators, and approached the spot where Marie was chatting with her partner. The younger of these, who was a rather handsome man of perhaps five-and-twenty, with an air of quiet grace and thorough good breeding, pressed the hand which Marie timidly extended him, glanced for a moment at the rapidly-changing color in her face, and then introduced his companion a tall, middle-aged man, with the keen look of an attorney.

"Mr. Beman," said De Cheville, "informs me that he knew your grandfather, in Kentucky, and——"

"And," interrupted the elder, with a somewhat elaborate bow, "desired this introduction as much on account of his grand-daughter's own attractions, as of her relation to his old friend."

Marie inclined her head rather coldly; for she was somewhat shocked at the breadth of the opening compliment; but hastened to say, as if conscious of the ungraciousness of her manner:

"I am always glad to meet any one from Kentucky; and my mother will be happy to see you at our house."

"He was just asking me to take him thither," said De Cheville, "when I told him you were here."

"And justified his ardent praises," added Beman, with a laugh, "by pointing you out."

De Cheville glanced at Marie with a conscious blush; but she turned away her face, to cover a confusion, which, however, gave him more pleasure than a look of frank directness. At the same moment, the tap of the bow upon the fiddle announced the re-commencement of the dance. Coron had only time to make a hurried engagement for the next figure, and retire with his companion from the floor, when the master's voice again set all in motion.

At the same moment, Napoleon Le Vert—a young man who might have been called well-looking but for a certain fullness about the corners of the mouth, which invariably indicates a hot but selfish temper—pushed rudely through the crowd, and forced Marie to pause in the movement.

"Shall we dance the next figure together, Marie?" he asked in a tone which sounded more like command than request.

"I am engaged to Monsieur de Cheville for the next," said Marie, timidly; "but the following one——"

"I am engaged for that, myself," he interrupted, and abruptly turned away. A flush of anger rose to her face; but, without otherwise noticing his rudeness, she recommenced the dance.

It so happened, that she had been arrested very near the place where De Cheville and his companion had taken their stand among the spectators; and, though the former did not overhear the words of the brief conversation, he comprehended the pantomime sufficiently to see that Napoleon was uncivil and offensive, and that Marie was distressed. His blood boiled with indignation. He was about to intercept and accost Le Vert, when the latter pushed past, and roughly jostled him, evidently on purpose. Coron put out his hand and stopped him.

"What do you mean by pushing me thus?" he asked, in as calm a voice as he could command.

"If you are so dull as not to understand it," answered the other, "perhaps you will know what this means!" And he struck him on the cheek with his open hand.

The insult was scarcely complete, when De Cheville seized him by the throat, and, jerking him from his feet, pitched him headlong through the open window upon the corridor. Beman grasped his arm, and the crowd rushed forward to interfere; but, shaking them off, he sprang through the casement, almost upon the prostrate Le Vert. Two or three of the men hurriedly followed him; but, before they could interpose, Le Vert had risen, bruised and bleeding, and, with the spring of a cat, buried a knife in De Cheville's side! The latter reeled for a moment, but recovered himself; and, as the blow was about to be repeated, grasped his assailant's arm, and, wresting the knife from his hand, would have sheathed it in his bosom. But now came a rush of men, accompanied by the clamor of many voices; and, at the same moment, Coron's hand dropped, his eyes closed, and he sank lifeless into the arms of his friend Beman.

"He is dead!" shouted the latter. "Seize the murderer!"

The crowd swayed to and fro, and, in the obscurity, several persons were arrested; but Le Vert was nowhere to be found. Marie, with several other ladies, without knowing the cause, were involved in the confusion, unable to ascertain what had happened, until she heard Beman's exclamation.

"What is the matter? Who is dead?" she asked, but without eliciting an answer, until some one clambered into the window, and, after looking out upon the corridor, turned to announce

"It is Coron de Cheville!"

A scream rang through the saloon, of such intense and sudden agony, as to silence the clamors of the crowd; and, dashing both hands against her temples, Marie reeled, fainting, to the floor! Monsieur Maillefert raised her, placed her tenderly upon a divan, and called frantically for water. While it was being brought, he stood disconsolately wringing his hands, and repeating, in a voice of ruin and despair:

"Ah! Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! Mi fête is spoil! mi fête is spoil!"

The women clustered about the prostrate girl, and, dashing water into her face, soon brought her back to partial consciousness. She sat up and looked, bewildered, about her, unable to recall the meaning of the scene. But, when some one came in from the room where De Cheville had been carried, and said that the doctor pronounced the wound dangerous, but not mortal, she threw herself into the arms of the woman who knelt beside her, and burst into tears, exclaiming:

"Thank GOD! Oh! thank GOD!"

Monsieur Maillefert now bustled forward, as if suddenly recollecting himself, and said:

"Ma'm'selle, votre mère have send un messenger in ver' mosh hurry—I take you, then?"

"A messenger!" exclaimed Marie, lifting her tearful face. "For what?" "Ma'm'selle, I know nothing," the master replied, with a shake of the head, which, however, contradicted his words.

"My father! My father!" she cried; and, springing to her feet, hastily put on her mantle, and, taking the master's arm, hurried eagerly homeward.

Her fears had been but too well founded. Her father, whose illness had been considered serious by no one but his wife, had grown suddenly worse. The physician had been called, and, by his direction, Marie was sent for at once. It was impossible, he said, that Monsieur Lefrette could survive the following day; and, though he made no such admission in words, it was plain that the sudden turn in the disease took him as much by surprise as it did Marie herself. He was not mistaken now, however. His patient lingered, free from pain, until near noon on the morrow; when, without a struggle, he passed from life.

Two days afterward, the kind-hearted people of the good old ville attended his remains to their last resting-place; and, having done him this final service, turned away toward home, speculating upon the extent of his widow's dower, and the amount of his daughter's inheritance. The prevailing opinion was that Lefrette had died wealthy; and if the supposition was based rather too exclusively upon his part-ownership of certain company land-grants, whose value lay chiefly in the future, this fact only served to rebut one argument against the hypothesis, by accounting for the plain manner in which the deceased had lived.

Mr. Beman, who walked homeward with a knot of gossips, listened to the discussion in silence; but, on learning that all these castles were founded upon stock in the "—— Land and Emigration Company," incontinently broke into a loud laugh, which not a little scandalized his grave companions. He gave no reason for his mirth, but, turning aside, down a quiet road, drew a bundle of papers from his ample pocket. Of these he selected three, and opening the first, as if to assure himself that he had not laughed too soon, glanced with a recurring inward chuckle, down the ample folio pages.

Folding this carefully, he opened in succession the other two, and read them gravely from end to end. Replacing the whole in his pocket, he turned upon his steps, and walked slowly back into the quiet town.

The first and most amusing of these papers was a full and complete assignment of all the effects, "goods and chattels, lands and tenements, rights and credits," of the aforesaid "—— Land and Emigration Company;" setting forth, in elaborate legal verbiage, that their title to certain tracts, upon which their speculations were based, had been declared invalid by the courts, and providing as effectually as possible for the safety of certain creditors, by declaring a trust in their favor, and appointing Beman assignee. Then followed a short inventory of property, and a long list of creditors; and the footings showed a very large balance on the side of insolvency! A ruin more complete and irretrievable never overtook a company or individual! No whisper, however, of the failure had ever reached Kaskaskia; and among all who had curiously speculated upon Beman's business there, none had ever approached the truth. The lawyer, himself, had as yet kept his own counsel.

The nature of the other papers, which he perused with such grave interest, we shall see in the sequel.

SEVERAL weeks passed away, bringing little that is essential to be told. Marie and her mother remained in the homestead, mourning, as a mother and daughter only can mourn, for the departed. Monsieur Lefrette had not been a very domestic husband or demonstrative father; yet the hand which had snatched him away had touched his memory with gold; and his death seemed more a loss than his return would have seemed a gain. They did not yield weakly to lamentation, however; for each was a support to the other. And had it not been for the unutterable sense of loneliness and the constant impulse to wait for some one's arrival, before engaging in any thing, they might, after the first burst of grief, have at once regained their cheerfulness.

Many of their friends and neighbors came to the house with such condolence as occurred to them; and kindness to the widow and orphan was far more delicate and genuine among the simple villagers than often it is among the more artificial denizens of cities. Had their loss not been irreparable, the fountains of sympathy and affection which were now opened for the first time, might well have renewed the greenness that was withered; and, as it was, the repeated and unprompted offers of kind service did much to assuage the sense of desolation which always accompanies the sudden death of a long-trusted protector.

Among those who called with these and other motives was the elder Le Vert—a man whose delicacy was in an inverse ratio to his business capacity, and who, therefore, in proportion as he over-valued money, under-valued kindness and affection. No one would have suspected him of attempting to console a mourner, or of sympathizing with a sorrow; and Madame Lefrette was, accordingly, not mistaken, when, upon his entrance, she concluded that she owed the visit to some matter of business.

"It will be necessary, Madame," he commenced almost as soon as he had deposited his heavy person in the chair offered him, "that letters of administration on your late husband's estate be taken out as soon as convenient——"

True; she had not thought of that, as yet.

"And," he continued, wiping his damp forehead, and speaking in the tone of a man who had already settled the affair in his own mind, "I have determined that, as his partner in trade, the duty will most properly devolve upon me."

It was precisely what she would have requested, she said.

"You perceive," he went on, graciously affording a reason, when the arrangement had been sanctioned without it, "I shall be allowed by the law, a certain time in which to settle up the partnership business——"

"Can you tell me what the state of the business is likely to be?" she asked, with some interest. "I ask because, from the anxiety he expressed, I was led to apprehend some embarrassment."

"Well," said the man of business, "he is somewhat in debt to the concern, for funds drawn out in his land speculations; but that is well invested; and, as I was about to observe, since Napoleon and Marie are to be married, that will make no difference."

"Ah!" she said, "that reminds me: is Monsieur de Cheville out of danger?"

"I am not advised," Le Vert replied drily; "but Doctor Lutin has notified Napoleon that he need not keep out of the way any longer; so I suppose the fellow is considered convalescent."

Madame Lefrette made no articulate reply; though the aspiration with which she acknowledged the information was probably quite as much an exclamation of surprise that Coron de Cheville should be classed as a "fellow."

The heavy gentleman rose after a pause, and, making a ceremonious bow, took his leave, graciously informing the widow, that his son Napoleon would do her and Marie the honor to call in the evening. A curl of scorn bent her lip for a moment, and it was her only acknowledgment of the condescending announcement; but it was softened immediately by the reflection, that loyalty to the memory of her departed husband required her to keep the faith he had pledged, and for this purpose, if necessary, even submit to be "patronized" by a pompous blockhead. She therefore faintly smiled a pleasure which she faintly felt, and the dull man's shadow was removed.

Marie entered by another door, as the first closed upon her intended father-in-law. Her step was not so light as when we saw her at the fête, nor her face so blooming; but the pensiveness of sorrow but added an element of interest to her beauty, and quietness of bearing detracted nothing from her grace.

"Monsieur Le Vert has been here?" she said inquiringly.

"Yes," her mother answered, "and left word that Napoleon will call this evening."

"Is Napoleon, like his namesake, a great sovereign," she asked with a faint smile, "that his progresses must be announced by so dignified an avant-courier?"

"Neither he nor his father, Marie," said her mother, somewhat severely, "is the proper subject of a jest—from you."

Marie smiled again, as if the qualification "from you" implied only a special prohibition. But the rebuke was too sadly true to afford amusement; and without replying, she walked to the window, with her lip quivering from far different emotions. Her mother watched her for some moments, as if waiting for her to speak, but at last broke the silence herself.

"You do not ask," said she. "how it is that Napoleon can reäppear openly, without risk?"

"I suppose he has been tried," Marie answered, with a curl of the lip, "and acquitted on the usual plea of self-defense."

"No," her mother replied, glancing keenly at her; "it is because Monsieur de Cheville is out of danger."

"Scarcely, I should suppose," returned Marie, "so long as the man lives whose hatred could prompt such an assault!"

"It does not become you to say so, Marie!"

Again the daughter's head drooped in acknowledgment of the just rebuke. Napoleon Le Vert was her affianced husband; and whatever would have been her feelings toward Coron de Cheville, had she given them sway, she was under a bond, whose penalty was her dead father's faith, to justify, or at least not to condemn, the acts of him to whom the solemn compact had assigned her. We will not undertake to inquire how her heart rebelled against this hard necessity, nor how much Le Vert's offense was increased in enormity to her view, by the fact that it had been committed against De Cheville. Let it be sufficient that, in spite of all her mother's exhortations, and the severe schooling of her own best reason, it was thus increased; and that, before the effort to repress her indignation was required, she could never have conceived its difficulty.

The shadows were lengthening when she went to the window; and while she stood, buried in thought of no pleasant nature, the sun dropped below the horizon, and the shades of evening gathered on the street before her. The day had been intensely warm, but now a gentle breeze sprang up, and laughing groups assembled on piazzas, or in front of open doors; strolled leisurely among flower beds, and gayly promenaded on the walks. The hum of business was suspended, but the hum of pleasure filled the air instead; for the light-hearted people of the place were almost all without their doors. As the sun-light faded out, the moon rose on the scene; the shadows which had pointed toward the east were now turned westward; and the sheen lay on the quaint old town like a silvery mantle. Sweet music floated on the wind, and perfumes from a hundred gardens, exhaled by the sun, now settled toward the earth, and mingled with the coolness of the closing night.

Marie stood at the window until the gathering darkness made her figure but a shadow. Her mother had left the room, and she was alone with her thoughts. A knock at the front door startled her from reverie; and had there been an observer present, even the moonlight would have revealed the flush that overspread her face on suddenly recalling the promised visit of Le Vert. It must be, she thought, Napoleon's knock; and its alarum had scattered from her mind a crowd of images, among which the figure of her future husband had filled a place. She reproached herself with this; but it augured ill for time to come, that it was only sense of duty that prompted the censure.

She had scarcely time to gain a seat, and still the fluttering of her heart, when the door was opened, and, instead of Napoleon, Mr. Beman was shown in. A sigh of relief, still less promising for future happiness, escaped her, as she rose and welcomed the lawyer.

"I fear I am liable to the charge of intrusion," said the latter, courteously, as he took the seat offered him; "but as my time in Kaskaskia is somewhat limited, and I could not think of going away without seeing my old friend's daughter, I determined to take the risk,"

"We should be more unsociable than grief ought to make us," said Marie, warmly, "if we were not glad to see you; and I am sure my mother will say the same."

"She is well, I hope?" he said, in a tone of interest.

"She has not recovered from the shock of my father's death," Marie answered, sadly, "and I am fearful——"

The sentence was arrested by the entrance of Madame Lefrette herself, whose feeble step and pale face gave but too evident ground for the fear her daughter was about to express. She received Mr. Beman, of whom Marie had spoken as a friend of her father, with a grace which always marked her manner; and as that gentleman, referring to events which had taken place in her girlhood, mentioned names and recalled circumstances about which she had not thought since her father's death, a conversation ensued, which Marie was delighted to see gave her great pleasure. He seemed to have been intimately acquainted with all the difficulties, law-suits, arbitrations, and controversies, whose result had been the return of her parents to Kaskaskia; and from these, as from a common center, his recollections radiated in all directions, returning from time to time, until the contributions of the two presented a clear summary of the whole disastrous business.

"My uncle," said he, "was your father's counsel in these affairs; and having been a junior partner in the office at the time, I well recollect the zeal and industry with which he endeavored to unravel the complicated transaction. But, if my memory serve me well, he was met at every point by the loss of certain papers, and the disappearance of a witness, named, I think, Miller McAllen."

"I have heard something of the kind," said Madam Lefrette. "And up to the very day of his death my father clung to the hope, which I suppose was desperate, that these papers might finally be found. Indeed," she added, sadly, "the thought went with him to the grave; for in his will he made my daughter heir to these same lost estates."

This information seemed rather to take Mr. Beman by surprise; and from the momentary working of his expressive features, one would have supposed it of more importance than he had apparently attached to the subject.

"Pardon me," he said, "may I ask whether that will has ever been regularly proven?"

"I think no legal steps were ever taken in the matter," said Madam Lefrette. "The will itself was preserved as a testimony of my father's affection for Marie, and not for any pecuniary value it was ever presumed to have."

"Nevertheless," returned the lawyer, "even as such testimonial it was worth placing upon record; and if you will pardon the officiousness, I would advise that it be done yet."

"If I thought it could be of advantage to Marie——" she commenced.

"I do not know that it would," Mr. Beman interposed; "but my experience as a lawyer has taught me the wisdom of allowing no paper, which on its face conveys a right, to remain imperfect for want of legal authentication."

"I am sure, mother," said Marie, "the gentlemen of the law understand these things better than we can."

"Of course," the widow said; "and I have often thought that something ought to have been done in the affair, out of respect for your grandfather's memory, if for no other reason."

"If you will allow me to do you this service, then," said Mr. Breman, "I will undertake to make the probate immediately."

By her mother's direction, Marie brought the will and gave it to Mr. Beman, who opened and perused it carefully from beginning to end. After ascertaining that it was all in due form, and learning that the subscribing witnesses, one of whom was the elder Le Vert, were still resident in Kaskaskia, he placed the paper in his pocket and resumed the conversation.

"I met this M. Le Vert awhile ago, he said, "and shall have occasion to call on him again to-morrow, if, indeed, the communication I made to him do not bring him to me first; so there need be no delay."

"The communication must have been a very important one," said Marie with a smile, "if its effect is likely to be the unbending of his dignity so far."

"It was—rather so," said the lawyer drily; and the conversation flowed in another channel.

Two or three hours passed pleasantly away. Mr. Beman was a man of varied observation, keen humor, and a kindness of heart, which had survived the assaults of years, and the hard experiences of professional life. This toned his manner, as well as tinged his thoughts, giving to both a quaint bonhommie, which kindly forbore to censure, yet could not fail to penetrate, the absurdities before it. A propriety of anecdote, and an unobtrusive cheerfulness, which gently interposed itself between his listeners and all gloomy thoughts, gave wings to moments, which condolence would have loaded. It was not until he rose to go, and she glanced out of the window, where the waning moon was tardily clearing the eastern horizon, and the still ness of the village indicated the approach of midnight, that Madame Lefrette became aware of the lapse of time.

"I ought to apologize for staying so long," said he; "but it is the nature of all apologies to be too late."

"An acknowledgment of the pleasure you have given us is in time, however," said Marie.

"And we shall always be glad to see you, Mr. Beman," said the widow, "without requiring apologies for pleasant visits."

The lawyer received the invitation as cordially as it was given; and then a pause ensued, during which he seemed debating within himself whether to go or sit down.

"Before I leave you," he said at last, as if his mind had settled upon his course, "I ought, perhaps, to say a few words on business. I would not trouble you with it at such a moment, but it is necessary you should hear the truth."

Madame Lefrette turned deadly pale. "I am sure," she said, "that you would——"

"Say nothing unpleasant," he interrupted, finishing the sentence, "except for imperative reasons: you are right. In a day or two, I shall set off for St. Louis, to be absent some weeks; and before my return you could not fail to hear what I am going to say—perhaps in a distorted form. Do n't be alarmed," he continued, with a smile to reassure her, "at my awkward way of preparing you for information, which, after all, requires no preparation."

"I suppose I know what you refer to," said the widow, faintly.

"I judged so, from some expressions you used a while ago. The 'Land and Emigration Company,' in which your husband held a large amount of stock, is, as I see you suspect, insolvent. But I am the assignee, and you may rest secure that your rights and the rights of my young friend here shall be protected."

"I would not have troubled you with this communication," he continued after a pause, "except to give you this assurance, and a little piece of advice: Let some acute and reliable friend immediately take out letters of administration upon your husband's estate; and let him, without delay, proceed to examine the accounts of the late partnership."

"Mr. Le Vert has undertaken to do so," said Madame Lefrette.

"I am aware of that," said the lawyer; "but it will be, as I told him this evening, taxing his good-will too far, to place him in circumstances of such temptation."

"Temptation!" exclaimed the widow, in surprise.

"Temptation," repeated the lawyer, decidedly. "I do not know that he would use the pen otherwise than for its legitimate purpose of rendering fair accounts; but the only means of making honesty certain, is to remove all temptation from its path."

After some further conversation, and a promise by Madame Lefrette to think seriously of his advice, Mr. Beman left them.

As the sound of his footsteps died away on the street, and his figure grew dim in the moonlight, Marie turned from the door, to which she had attended him, and approached the chair where her mother still sat, dejected and sorrowing.

"Mother, my dear," said she, placing her arms about the widow's neck, and smiling in her face, "you must not be cast down by these tidings; for I have a firm faith that this will turn out to be a blessing rather than a misfortune."

"It is not on account of the insolvency of this company, my daughter," said her mother, drawing her down upon a seat, "that I am cast down; for I have expected that result for a long time. It is only for your sake that I have ever wished to realize your father's visions; and it is now solely on your account that I regret their failure."

"If it have no worse effect than it has had to-night," said Marie, gayly, "I shall not quarrel with Fortune about it, mother. We have both spent a far more pleasant evening than we would have done otherwise; and for the future, Mr. Beman whispered two words to me at the door, which I shall adopt as a motto."

"What were they?" asked her mother.

"Courage and Patience."

The cloud floated away from her mother's brow, and she folded her daughter in her arms, with one of those caresses which express relief as well as affection.

"What communication do you suppose it was," asked Marie, after a pause, "that Mr. Beman made to M. Le Vert?"

"The same as that to us, I presume," her mother answered. "And do you think that had any thing to do with Napoleon's failure to meet his father's engagement?" said she smilingly.

"I should hope not, indeed, Marie!"

"So should I," said the daughter, "for his sake, however."

"We must not do him injustice," urged the widow.

"Of course not." And Marie walked to the window, and stood gazing, her face radiant with smiles, upon the quiet, moonlit street.

The sudden announcement of De Cheville's death, at the fête, had given her a glimpse into the depths of her own heart. But duty and the exhortations of her mother had produced an effort which she had supposed effectual. And yet, when he, for whose sake she had thus struggled, and conquered, as she thought, remained absent even after announcing his coming, and contemptuously neglected to send reason or apology, she was far more rejoiced at her exemption from the visit, than offended at the slight.

Her conquest, it would seem, was not complete.

Two days after Mr. Beman's visit to the Lefrettes, it was generally known in Kaskaskia, that the "—— Land and Emigration Company" had made an assignment; and, in the absence of definite information, the most absurd rumors were in circulation. The names of various people were confidently mentioned as involved in the failure, who never owned a dollar of the stock, nor bought an acre of the land. It was stated that Le Vert was the assignee; that he had been made so, and had, also, sued out letters of administration, in order to save a portion of his deceased partner's estate; but that, on examination, he had discovered this to be impossible, since Lefrette's property would not pay five cents in the dollar of his liabilities.

Every body agreed in crediting these latter accounts; the more especially, as Le Vert was careful not to contradict, even if he did not encourage them. A little hesitation on the part of Madame Lefrette, growing out of an unwillingness to accept the suspicion for which she saw no reason but Beman's advice, had enabled him to secure the possession of his partner's property; and when he filed his inventory, which he did without delay, its statements consisted but too well with the current rumors. It appeared, from a careful examination of the partnership-books, that Lefrette, in his land speculations, had largely overdrawn his stock; and, so far from having any assets there, was, in fact, considerably in debt to the concern. Even the homestead, which sheltered his widow and daughter, had been mortgaged for more than its value; and, to make the ruin complete, Madame Lefrette had joined in the conveyance. Poverty, unmitigated by the saving of even a plank from the wreck, stared them inexorably in the face.

When the administrator, Le Vert, made his report of the state of affairs, he did so in the cold, business-like manner, which had always distinguished him; but Madame Lefrette imagined he was even more pompous than usual, as if expecting, and prepared to repel, an imputation of having produced rather than discovered the insolvency. She made no observation, however, and the important official was fain to depart, without even guessing what effect his announcement had upon the widow. He must have been considerably over-awed, too—if the word be applicable to so dignified a gentleman—by her perfect freedom from agitation; for a declaration, which he had fully determined in his own mind to make in her actual presence, died upon his lips. On his way home, he wondered what could have possessed him. It could not have been shame for the intended meanness; for, whatever his pride or will resolved, his judgment approved, as both prudent and proper. Could it be the spiritual rebuke, which the presence of the injured always gives the wrong-doer? And was it for a wrong, not meditated, but accomplished, that his conscience now exacted tribute from his rigid manhood?

Madame Lefrette was a strong-minded woman, and was not cast down by the intelligence of her sudden reduction to poverty. She was not a masculine woman, however—one of those double-gendered animals, who, having over-ridden and disregarded all the proprieties of their station, and being, notwithstanding their hybrid nature, dimly conscious of the falsehood of their position—like the fox, who sought to have every body else's tail cut off because he had lost his own—now seek to make deformity a law, and hide their own disgrace, by degrading the whole sex; but a woman of true womanly instincts, whom affliction braced to fortitude, who recognized the Christian duty of endurance, and despised all weak repining. She calmly surveyed her position, estimated its inconveniences, accepted its necessities, and formed her resolution.

"We must leave this house immediately, Marie," said she, "and surrender it to the creditors."

"Had we not better wait," suggested Marie, "until Mr. Beman's return?"

"And be thrust out by process of law? Oh! no! And beside, I am sure it will discharge a larger debt if given up quietly, than if yielded only to vexatious litigation. We are very poor, it seems; but this must not make us dishonest."

Marie thought her mother was taking rather higher ground than the circumstances required. She was a woman; and, like all her sex, regarded dishonesty more as meanness than immorality; so that, in endeavoring to avoid it, she approached generosity more nearly than justice. Her daughter made no remark, however; and, on the following day, their preparations were begun for leaving the roof which had sheltered them for so many years. Before the end of the week the house was closed, and the mother and daughter were occupying a single small room in the modest residence of Madame Dupley—a widowed sister of the late M. Lefrette. The plump little figure of this lady was but the type of a heart well preserved; and, though like her sister-in-law, she had been left in poverty by the death of her husband, kindness and content remained. She bustled round so cheerfully to make her guests comfortable, and welcomed them so cordially to the room which she had hastily got ready for them, that it seemed that she was the obliged party, and not they to whom she was giving shelter.

"We shall live like three princesses," she said cheerily, at breakfast on the morning after the removal; "and," she added, glancing smilingly at Marie. "one of these bright mornings, some knight in rich armor will ride up to our castle-gate, and demand one of us in marriage. Which of us do you think it will be, Marie?"

"I hope he will have taste enough to ask for you, aunt," Marie answered with a laugh.

"No doubt he will," said the little woman, "if he do n't see you first. But I hope he will not come soon."

"He's not very likely to, I think," said Marie quietly; and a sudden look from her mother denoted that their thoughts were tending in the same direction.

Monsieur Lefrette had now been dead about seven weeks; and during the whole of that time Napoleon Le Vert had not once called. His father, as the reader knows, had once announced his coming. But on his way homeward, the same evening, that gentleman had met Mr. Beman, who informed him of Lefrette's insolvency, and Napoleon did not make his appearance. His absence could not be accounted for now, as it had been for a few days, by the necessity for keeping out of the way; for De Cheville was nearly recovered, and had declared his intention to give no further notice to the assault. The elder Le Vert came frequently to consult with the widow about the business of his administration; but at no time had he ever mentioned his son's name, or hinted at the engagement between him and Marie. Once, when Madame Lefrette alluded to it, he coldly changed the subject; and when he went away, the impression was left upon the widow's mind, that he had determined wholly to ignore the contract. She did not speak of this to her daughter, however; and the glance which passed between them at the breakfast-table, as we have related, was their first communication on the subject.

The insult thus evidently meditated was the more offensive because the affray between Le Vert and De Cheville had made the marriage-contract public talk; and while the meanness of the slight was thus made more conspicuous, the affront became more decided. As yet no observation had been made upon it; and judging from Marie's increasing cheerfulness, as week after week passed away without her seeing her future husband, it seemed that the person most interested was in truth the most indifferent. After the first shock of grief for her father, her spirits rose, as it appeared, in an inverse ratio to her reverses of fortune; and on the morning of which we are writing, when she left the table and went, singing, into the garden, it was with a joyousness which suggested, if it did not fully justify, the reflection of her mother, "She rejoices in our poverty, because it seems to have freed her from an irksome bond." She might lament the want of pride which thus quietly accepted the affront; but the mother's heart could not but feel happy in the happiness of her daughter.

Time passed more rapidly with the afflicted in their humble abode, and brought more speedily its healing influences than they had ever hoped. Their reduction to poverty had been so complete and irretrievable, that not even the usual effort to save a portion of the wreck harassed them with its sordid and recurring struggles. All was given up, without a murmur or a day's delay; and having thus severed their bonds with what was past, they were free, with energy and composure, to address themselves to that which was still before them.

The means of procuring at least the necessaries of life were soon furnished; for offers of service, which, however, they declined, except in the shape of such work as they were able to do, poured in from many, whose friendship thus took the course in which only it could benefit them. A few of their former friends had forgotten them; but of this they took no thought; and every succeeding day produced new proof that those who worthily deport themselves in prosperity will not be deserted in adversity.

Among the first who called upon them in their new home, and afterward the most frequent visitor, was our friend Monsieur Maillefert. It was he who first gave employment to their needles. But it subsequently transpired, through the garrulous and simple-minded Madam Dupley, who seemed to take great pleasure in descanting upon the Monsieur's kindness, that he had taken this step only after an ineffectual attempt to convey assistance to them, by placing money in her hands under an injunction of strict secresy. Madam Lefrette blushed with offended pride when this came to her knowledge; but her attention was forcibly attracted by the warm praises bestowed upon the Frenchman by her enthusiastic sister-in-law; and it was remarked by both Marie and herself that these had more general reference to the little Master's character than to the generosity of this particular act. They observed also, that, although he never failed toward them in that delicate politeness which was his by the three-fold propriety of national, individual, and professional character, toward her his manner was far more impressive and devoted; and the fact that they had several times seen him leave the house when his entrance had not been notified to them, led them silently to suspect that the brisk little widow's commendations were as much the expression of a personal interest in him as of gratitude for friendly offices to them. This suspicion they never intruded upon their kind-hearted relative, however; and thus the quiet household went on for nearly two months.

Mr. Beman was still absent in St. Louis, or, at all events, not in Kaskaskia; although his proceedings, in the matters of his trust, were yet in progress, in both places. He had once written to De Cheville, who was now entirely recovered, in regard to some business, requesting at the same time that the young man would call upon the Lefrettes, before answering, and give him reliable information of their circumstances. But the latter had heard of Marie's engagement to young Le Vert; and being thus able to account for the assault upon him, believed that his visit could not be viewed otherwise than as an intrusion. He therefore contented himself with making minute inquiries of Monsieur Maillefert, on whose shady premises he spent much of his time, and communicating the result to his correspondent.

Notwithstanding this well-considered delicacy, however, De Cheville could not help haunting the neighborhood of her whom he loved; and this attraction might not only account for his remaining in Kaskaskia, but also for the singular intimacy which had grown up between him and the little maître; for that polite gentleman's house was almost directly opposite to that of Madam Dupley. During the slow weeks of his convalescence the shaded garden-walks and airy corridors had given him a pleasant retreat; and now that he no longer needed such, habit and the nameless attraction stronger than habit, led him as constantly as ever to seek the tempered air and quiet precinct.

The subject of his conversations with M. Maillefert was far more frequently the widow and her daughter than comported with the prudence which had forbidden his calling, as Beman had requested. His friend needed little prompting on the theme; and had De Cheville been in daily intercourse with the household he could not have been better informed of every circumstance surrounding them.

Among all these, nothing disquieted him so much, and yet gave him so much unconscious pleasure, as the fact that, since her father's death Marie had not once seen her promised husband! As day after day and week after week passed by, and the indignant Monsieur still repeated that the absence was not yet broken, the impulse to seek her and offer a more faithful heart, which he had formed on first hearing of the young man's neglect, gained strength, and had now almost become a settled purpose. He still hesitated, however; and his resolution was but half-formed more than a month after his health was fully restored.

One afternoon toward the end of August, the friends were sitting on the eastern corridor, sheltered by vines and flowers from the glare of the summer day, and enjoying that most unalloyed of luxuries, a genuine Habana cigar, in a cool and balmy atmosphere. They had been speaking of Marie Lefrette, and the Monsieur was wondering, in his peculiar mosaic of English and French, how she could tamely and even cheerfully endure a neglect which had grown marked and offensive. He had, indeed, just come to a conclusion which made him start from his chair, and walk hastily from one end of the corridor to the other, as if the revelation of his own logic had been a startling communication.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, folding his arms and nodding his head, as if to some invisible interlocutor, "Oui! certainement! Of co'rse! Pourquoi, what for I not see, eh? d'avance?"

"See what, Monsieur? What is it you have not seen before?" asked his companion, smiling at his excitement.

"Dat she not love; she, Marie love Napoleon; non!"

"Do you really think so?" exclaimed De Cheville, almost rising to his feet, as if the thought had suddenly occurred to him also.

"Re'ly! assurément! Ah! what you call? certainly!" he answered with great vehemence, striding rapidly toward the end of the corridor, and still nodding his head in growing conviction, as one circumstance after another arose to his memory. De Cheville sank back into his seat, and covered his face with his hands, while visions of happiness, which he had schooled himself to reject and discourage came thronging through his excited imagination.

He was recalled by the sound of a strange voice; and on looking up, perceived a middle-aged gentleman, wearing the unmistakable air and dress of a clergyman, who stepped upon the corridor and inquired for Monsieur Maillefert.

"Je suis l'homme, Monsieur," said that gentleman, halting before him with a courtly bow.

"My name is McAllen, Sir," the stranger said, returning his salutation. "I have some business with a Madame Lefrette, who lived near here, and have been referred to you, as a person probably willing to accompany me to her. I knew her father," he added, apologetically, "in my boyhood, but am not personally acquainted with her."

"I go with mosh plaisure, Sare," said M. Maillefert. "You stay mon ami?" he added, to De Cheville. "I return—what you call?—forthwith! Allons, Monsieur!"

The two walked away toward Madame Dupley's, leaving De Cheville pacing, with an unquiet step and perplexed face, up and down the half covered corridor. He paused from time to time at the end next the street, and once stepped down upon the walk, as if to follow Monsieur Maillefert and the stranger; but the next moment a shade of irresolution crossed his brow, and he reluctantly and slowly retraced his steps. He felt as if drawn by an almost irresistible attraction toward the house just entered by his friend; yet the timidity of strong affection, and the delicacy of his character, restrained the impulse.

The stranger bowed low as he entered the presence of Madame Lefrette; and as M. Maillefert introduced him, the name awakened recollections, vague, however, and indefinite. She received him with quiet politeness; but was somewhat disturbed when the little monsieur declined the seat offered him, and left them evidently under the impression that there was something in the visit which required privacy.

"I believe, Madam," said the clergyman, "that you are the daughter of the late Lee Farrington, formerly of B—— county, in Kentucky?"

"I am, Sir," she said, inclining her head.

"I have heard the name frequently," said she, "but was too young when I was in Kentucky to remember him, if I had seen him, which I did not."

"He was my father," resumed the stranger. "He died a few months ago, in New-Orleans, where he had been residing since my boyhood. With almost his last breath," he continued, drawing a paper from his pocket, "he directed me to place this dying declaration in your father's hands, and to ask his forgiveness for a grievous wrong done many years ago. It now belongs to you."

She took the paper, and without opening it waited for explanation. It was evidently an unpleasant duty to the stranger; and this rendered his narrative somewhat rambling and involved. We had better, therefore, simply state the contents of the paper.

It set out that the declarant, Miller McAllen, had been many years before a trusted agent of Mr. Farrington, a young man of fortune, from Virginia, who had emigrated to Kentucky, and become the owner of a large amount of property there, consisting chiefly of a very extensive grant of land. Farrington was careless and roving, easily disgusted with the details of business, and trusting his affairs implicitly to agents. About the year 179—, he had gone on a visit to the Western frontier settlements, leaving his affairs in great confusion. Before going, he had executed a lease for the term of five years, conveying about two-thirds of his land to one Robert Crabell, and placing him in possession. This lease had been executed in duplicate, one copy being given to Crabell, and the other retained, as Farrington's agent, by the declarant, who was the only witness. With this, was also left in McAllen's possession the original grant, upon which Farrington's title rested.

The proprietor himself remained so long in the West that a rumor gained credence that he had been killed by the Indians; and the rapid influx of emigration enhanced the value of the land so much as to present a strong temptation to those in whose power it thus seemed, to possess themselves of the legal title. The accidental destruction of the public records of the district strengthened the purpose, and rendered it safe. The two papers in McAllen's keeping were the only existing muniments of title.

Crabell and his two brothers-in-law, who were in possession, were aware of this state of things, and immediately opened a negotiation with McAllen to secure the papers. He declined to part with them on any terms; but, after several weeks of hesitation, finally agreed, for a bribe of ten thousand dollars, to destroy them. Crabell and his confrères had not so much money; and it thus became necessary to take into their counsel other persons, willing to furnish the cash. It was these other persons with whom Farrington afterward carried on his ineffectual and ruinous legal controversies.

The iniquitous bargain was concluded; but in the very moment of its execution, one of those sudden and unaccountable "accesses of conscience" which sometimes come to the greatest villains, arrested McAllen's hand. Instead of burning the papers, as he assured his conspirators he had done, he placed them securely in his own strong box. Subsequently, disturbed by their possession, and pressed by conscience, he disposed of them in a way which quieted him with the fallacious hope that they might one day fall into the proper hands, but which, it seemed, had resulted in a loss as total as if they had been burnt. He had them built into the chimney of a house, then being erected for an office, and thus effectually concealed.

"This house," the declaration went on to say, "is the one now occupied by Mr. Beman as an office, in P——, Kentucky; and the papers will be found in the chimney, on the south side, five courses of brick from the floor."

"But," said the clergyman, at this point, "I have been to P——, according to my father's direction, and found that the old building has been torn away for more than six months, and a new house is now in process of erection on the same site."

"If I am not mistaken," said Madame Lefrette, "I hear the voice of this same Mr. Beman." And a moment afterward that gentleman was ushered into the room.

MONSIEUR MAILLEFERT, as we have said, declined the seat offered him, and went in search of the brisk little widow Dupley. He found her without difficulty; and, in view of his age and well-accredited character for steadiness, I grieve to relate that his first movement was to throw his arm, with a graceful flourish, around her plump figure, and sans cérémonie, snatch two or three kisses from her full red lips. The robbery was, however, not very fiercely resisted; and an observer might even have suspected that it was not the first depredation. A merry laugh and a volley of French raillery, discharged as only a Frenchwoman can manage such a fusillade, were his only punishment. She did not remove the hand which grasped her waist until, after half an hour spent in walking, like two younger lovers, up and down the floor, they were interrupted by the knock of Mr. Beman. A little vexed, even then, at the interruption, she ran to the door, and having shown the lawyer to Madame Lefrette's room, came hastily back to her youthful swain.

The brief interlude, however, had given him time to recollect himself; and he was about to take his leave, excusing himself upon the ground that he had left De Cheville waiting for him, when she suggested that he call the latter over, declaring that she had not seen him for an age, and always did love him infiniment!

It needed but this to overcome De Cheville's wavering resolution; and when the pair came to the gate and beckoned him across, the alacrity with which he obeyed the summons but faintly evinced his pleasure. He might not see Marie; but even to stand at the threshold of her residence was a happiness not to be foregone.

His foot had hardly passed the gateway when the little widow almost overwhelmed him with voluble questions and congratulations upon his recovery.

"Blood-letting must agree with me," he said, with a smile, "if your compliments are as true as they would be addressed to yourself."

Monsieur Maillefert grasped his hand cordially.

"Mon ami" he cried, "you speak true—vary—Eh? Madame is my vife, sare—dat is—vary soon!"

"Why! listen to the crazy little man!" exclaimed the merry widow, with a twinkle in her bright black eye, which contradicted her denial. "I assure you I have just rejected him tout de bon!"

"Call me as a witness against her!" suddenly cried Marie Lefrette, springing, with a laugh, from the shelter of some shrubbery, toward which De Cheville's back had been turned. She had mistaken him for some one else, through the leafy screen; and was now advancing with a quick step and smiling face, when he suddenly turned toward her. An exclamation of surprise, and a blush to the very temples, accompanied the recognition. She hastily paused, and seemed about to fly, when De Cheville advanced, and, with an eager, though respectful gesture, took her hand.

"You seem surprised to see me," said he, in a low tone, "and perhaps I ought to apologize for the intrusion; but——"

"Oh! no, indeed!" she interrupted, eagerly.

"Oh! no, indeed!" repeated her aunt, laughing; "she is only a little vexed because you did not come sooner!"

"Aunt Dupley," said Marie, recovering her self-possession, and shaking her finger playfully at the merry little bride-expectant, "would you like to have me tell what I saw in the parlor half an hour ago?"

"We will not stay to hear it," she answered, with an affectation of disdain, which, however, did not conceal the blush that covered her rosy cheek. "Come, Monsieur," she continued, taking his arm, "I have never shown you my new flower-beds; will you go to see them now?"

The Monsieur bowed a courtly acquiescence, and the pair set off toward the garden.

"Will you not let us admire them too, aunt?" said Marie, hastily, as if afraid of being left alone.

"Oh! yes," she answered; "you may come along, if Monsieur De Cheville will pledge himself for your good behavior."

"I'll give you a bond if you wish it," said De Cheville, offering Marie his arm. This, however, she declined, and walked on by his side, talking rapidly, and with some excitement in her manner, as if fearful of the introduction of some unpleasant subject. De Cheville observed this, but, with a sigh, endeavored to reply to her in her own strain. They followed her aunt and the Monsieur, pausing from time to time, as the former directed their attention to various improvements in her tasteful plats and beds, until they had nearly reached the lower end of the garden. Here two or three native trees of the forest had been surrounded by a circle of exotic shrubs and plants; these had reared their luxuriant heads to the lower branches, and formed within a cool pavilion of green foliage. A narrow entrance had been left on the southern side, and within were erected several rustic benches. At this point Madame Dupley and her cavalier suddenly disappeared; and Marie and De Cheville, supposing they had entered, passed in and found themselves secluded and alone!

"Why! where can they have gone?" she exclaimed, calling loudly, but tremulously, her aunt's name.

No answer was returned, save the echoes of her own voice, coming back from the surrounding solitude.

"They are somewhere near," she said, trembling in every limb; "let us search for them." And she approached the entrance.

"Marie," said De Cheville, all his resolutions melting away before the temptation of opportunity, "will you not remain here with me for a few moments?"

He took her hand as he spoke, and gently drew her, yielding reluctantly, to a seat. Then, without premeditation, he dropped upon one knee before her, and poured forth that eloquence which gushes from a full and loving heart. She covered her face with her hands as he proceeded, and tears of mingled happiness and sorrow evinced the conflict of her emotions.

In the mean time Mr. Beman had been introduced to McAllen, and had listened attentively to his story, and carefully read the declaration.

"You say," said he, "that you have carefully examined the place of deposit indicated here, which, singularly enough, seems to have been my office?"

"Yes, sir," McAllen answered; "and the workmen said they had seen nothing of any papers in taking down the chimney. I even had the floors lifted, and a strict search made; but was reluctantly forced to the conclusion that the papers had been destroyed."

"If we had those documents," said Beman, musingly, "this declaration would be, though not strictly legal evidence, of great service. By establishing the fact of your father's death we might be permitted to prove his hand-writing. But, as it is, this seems only to ascertain that a great wrong has been done, without giving the means of righting it."

He was interrupted by the entrance of the elder Le Vert, who accompanied his announcement with a stately bow first to Madame Lefrette, and then to the two gentlemen, and, declining the seat offered him, at once addressed the former.

"I have but a few moments to spare," he said, in that tone which seemed to declare his time more valuable and his business more important than those of any one else; "will you allow me to speak with you in private, Madam?"

Madame Lefrette rose, and without replying, led the way into another room. Here he again declined a seat, and without preface, with the rashness which always indicates the trepidation of fear or of conscious meanness, declared his business.

"My son, Napoleon," he commenced, "informed me to-day that he has not seen your daughter for several weeks."

"He informed you truly, Sir," said Madame Lefrette, calmly; "he has not seen her since her father's death disclosed her poverty."

Le Vert had the grace almost to blush, but went on:

"I had for some time suspected something of the sort——"

Madame Lefrette smiled quietly in his face; she knew he had been fully aware of it.

"——and," he continued, more rapidly, "what Napoleon told me, only confirmed my apprehension, that his engagement with Marie had become somewhat irksome to both parties; and that, in short——"

"In short," she interposed, calmly, "it were better broken off. Is not that what you mean?"

"Well—that is——" he began.

"I quite agree with you," she interrupted. "And now let it be considered ended, expressly, as it has been tacitly, for some time."

"Nay," said the old gentleman, "its end must date from this moment as a mutual agreement neither party being liable to the charge of bad faith."

"Let it be so, then," she said with a scornful smile; for she divined his thoughts. "Legal proceedings, in such matters, are not to my taste."

"It is settled, then," he returned, unbending his dignity a little, "and I hope without unkind feeling?"

"With heartfelt rejoicing, rather," she replied, accepting his hand for a moment, and returning his profound salutation, as he bade her a stately adieu.

Madame Dupley and M. Maillefert entered the room as he left it.

"Can you tell me where Marie is?" asked Madame Lefrette.

"We have just left her in the garden," the little widow replied, with a glance of merry intelligence toward Monsieur Maillefert, which that gentleman returned with a twinkle of his laughing eye. Madame Lefrette did not observe this telegraphing, but went immediately in search of her daughter. Passing along the main walk, a few moments brought her near the natural summer-house, where we left De Cheville and Marie. Here the tones of his voice, not loud, but impassioned and trembling, came, softened by the leafy screen, but still distinctly audible. The mother paused to listen; and, as she recognized the voice, a flush of surprise and pleasure crossed her handsome face.

"But I must speak now" De Cheville said, apparently in reply to her imploring for delay. "I have been, silent until the words will no longer be restrained; my heart is too full, and I must speak now. You know how I have loved you—how long, and how well. I will not believe—nay, I can not believe—that you have been indifferent to that love. Let me, at least, hear you say that I have not built my hopes altogether upon the sand; that, whatever your feelings may be to-day, in times past you have known, and felt, and appreciated, the devotion I have given you!"

"But, De Cheville," she sobbed, "you know I am not free; you know I am——"

"Engaged to another. I know it; I do know it!" he exclaimed impetuously. "But I know, also, that you have not seen him during all the afflictions through which you have passed. I know that he shuns you like a stranger, leaving you to bear your burden alone! This engagement no longer binds you! You can not—I am sure, you can not—give up the devotion I offer you, for a hand which, if ever given at all, will be as cold as ice!"

Marie's convulsive sobbing could no longer be restrained; it became audible even where her mother stood, and seemed the very bursting of her heart. A tear of maternal sympathy filled the eye of the latter; a tear of sympathy, yet, also, of happiness. "This is too great a trial for her," she thought; and, advancing toward the arbor, called her daughter's name. Marie sprang to her feet, and was hastily drying her tears when her mother appeared at the door.

"You need not wipe them away, Marie," said she, smiling with an expression which made De Cheville's heart spring to his throat. "I have overheard enough to satisfy me that you had better let them flow; for I am sure they are as much tears of joy as of sorrow."

Marie threw herself in her mother's arms, and gave way to "her weeping. Madame Lefrette placed her hand tenderly upon her head, and looked at De Cheville.

"You love her, then?" she said.

"I do," he replied fervently, "better than life!"

"And wish to make her yours?" she continued.

"I do," he again replied. "She has told me——"

"I heard what she said," interrupted the mother. "And now I must have some conversation with her. Will you continue in the same mind till to-morrow, think you?"

De Cheville smiled faintly. "I fear I shall," said he.

"Very well, then," Madame Lefrette continued; "come to us at three to-morrow, and Marie shall give you your answer. Can you curb your impatience so long?"

"I will try," he said, and with a bow, left the mother and daughter alone together.

IN justices' courts, it is always two o'clock till the third hour is complete; but among the suitors in the courts of Cupid, the "practice" is reversed; and no lover ever had an appointment which he did not meet before the time. De Cheville was no exception to the remark.

At least half an hour before three o clock, on the following day, his patience was exhausted, and his nervous eagerness beyond resistance. He walked resolutely to the house where the great question of his life was to be solved, and was archly shown into the parlor by Madame Dupley. Marie's mother sat near the window, alone. It was with a sinking heart that he took the seat to which she directed him. His voice was hardly sufficient to reply to her grave observation upon the fineness of the weather.

Other common-places followed, solemn as a funeral. A quarter of an hour passed, and De Cheville believed himself older by, at least, a twelve-month. He was about to rise and retire—deeming this only a delicate way of conveying a negative—when the voice of Marie was heard upon the corridor, and Madame Lefrette suddenly turned toward him.

"Your mind has not changed, Monsieur?" she asked hastily.

De Cheville began awkwardly to protest his undying fidelity, when Marie's entrance interrupted him.

"Enough, I understand," said Madame Lefrette; and, rising, she approached her daughter, who had paused suddenly, in surprise at seeing him already present. Her mother took her hand, and placed it in his.

"This is her answer," she said, and glided from the room, leaving the pair, with joined hands, gazing bewildered into each other's eyes. De Cheville was the first to recover himself; with a sudden and passionate gesture, he caught her to his bosom. Madame Lefrette closed the door.

To her infinite surprise, almost at the threshold, she met Monsieur Le Vert and Mr. Beman! To the latter she gave her hand; to the former, a salutation as stately, though not so eager, as his own.

"Walk into this room, gentlemen," said she, leading them away from the parlor, which she deemed already sufficiently tenanted.

"I have called to-day," M. Le Vert commenced, as soon as they were seated, "to correct a mistake into which I unfortunately fell yesterday; and I do so at the request of Napoleon, who is very much distressed——"

"Indeed!" said Madame Lefrette, in surprise.

"He is, indeed, Madame: Mr. Beman will confirm it."

"I believe what he says is quite true," said that gentleman, with, however, an equivocal smile.

"I asked him to accompany me," continued Le Vert, "in order to avouch the distress of my son——"

"And to be a witness of your conversation," interpolated Beman.

"And—yes—to hear me acknowledge how much mistaken I have been," the anxious father continued, "and to propose, for the happiness of my son, and, I trust, of your daughter, that the engagement between them may be reïnstated on its former footing. Napoleon would have come in person; but he insisted that I should first undo the evil I alone had done."

"Is there any thing behind all this, Mr. Beman?" asked the widow, appealing to him as if at a loss what to say.

"Only half-a-million of dollars," drily answered the lawyer.

"Villain!" exclaimed Le Vert, springing to his feet as if to strike him.

"Keep cool, Monsieur," calmly remonstrated Beman, "until I explain. You are aware, Madame," he continued, turning quietly to the widow, "that the recovery of your father's estates would have been easy, but for the loss of two papers and the disappearance of one witness. Those two papers I have for some time had in my possession. I did not mention the fact to you, because the witness was still to be found, and I did not wish to raise hopes that might be disappointed. The grant, or warrant, alone, was not sufficient; for the 'Statute of Limitations'—which enacts that if you can continue a wrong for a certain number of years, the law will perpetuate it by pronouncing it a right—would have cut us off; and the rules applying to the lease—a part of whose meaning is, that no wrong can be righted until you have first proven that no wrong has been committed*—would have enabled the other party to put us upon the proof of the signatures. But for the opportune appearance of Mr. McAllen, this would have been impossible. Now, we shall be able to account for the witness, and for the custody of the papers; and shall, also, be able to introduce other testimony, which would otherwise have been excluded.

[*Id est, before you can avoid the operation of the "Statute" named in the text, (in matters of ejectment) you must prove that there has been no "adverse," or wrongful, "possession."]

"All this, you will say," continued the lawyer, "does not explain the sudden revolution disclosed in the sentiments of Napoleon Le Vert and his father. But listen a few moments. About two thousand dollars will be necessary in order to prosecute the affair to a successful issue. I knew you could not raise this; but I had heard that the young man and Marie were to be married, and I therefore, this morning, told him the whole story. I must do him and his father the justice to say, that they promptly offered to furnish the money informing me, at the same time, of the mistake of yesterday, and exacting a promise that I would accompany Monsieur Le Vert hither, and throw my weight into the scale."

"Your weight will hardly be sufficient, Sir," said Madame Lefrette, waving her hand to silence Le Vert, who was about to speak.

"I am aware of that," said Beman calmly, "and rejoice that it is so. Since this morning, I have had a conversation with Monsieur Maillefert, who made no scruple to tell me of Marie's preference for De Cheville. He, also, at once furnished the requisite money, for which I gave him a receipt, as your attorney; but not until he had established his right to do this kindness, by informing me that he is about to become your brother-in-law!"

"Is this true, Madame?" exclaimed Le Vert, purple with passion, and hardly able to wait for Beman to conclude. "Is my son jilted for this upstart?"

"I can not permit this language here, Sir," said she, with eyes flashing the ire of insulted pride.

"Let me represent you," said Beman quietly. "Monsieur, I think your negotiation has failed, and you had better let me escort you to the door. And," he added in a low tone, as the discomfited old gentleman allowed himself to be gently ejected, "you may consider yourself well off, if I do not too closely scan your accounts as administrator!"

A look of consternation was his only reply; at least, if he intended any other, Beman did not wait for it, but closed the door and returned to the window.

ABOUT the middle of October—when the "Indian summer" had veiled the prairies, and the distant woods wore a hazy blue, and the sky seemed charged with rain that never fell—one pleasant evening, when the winds were low, and the moon rose dusky red, and the stars shone faintly through the gauzy screen—after sunset, when the darkness had come in, yet the daylight lingered still, when the gay Kaskaskians were all upon the street, and care was driven out by laughter—a stream of guests, of every age and sex, began to pour into the house of Monsieur Maillefert. The master and mistress, who had been married a month, at the close of the carnival-honeymoon, were celebrating a sort of "Pancake Tuesday;" but the brightness of their faces, and their unaffected joyousness of manner, gave no token of the matrimonial Lent, which the world supposes invariably to follow that festival. Ash Wednesday never came in the nuptial calendar of that simple pair.

The Monsieur's closing fête, but for the sad affray between De Cheville and Le Vert, had been a grand affair; but this occasion quite eclipsed its grandeur. Female hands had now been busied with the preparations; female taste had twined the wreaths, and arranged the flowers, and decorated the rooms; and not a guest, of all that company, came in without admiring the proofs of female presence.

Before eight o'clock the house was full; and yet, although the buzz of animated conversation and the ring of merry laughter filled the air, the stated pleasures of the evening had not yet commenced. Monsieur Maillefert and his joyous little wife had quietly slipped away for half an hour or more, but no body was surprised at their absence. They had crossed the street to witness the marriage ceremony between Marie Lafrette and De Cheville, and all knew that they would soon return, bringing with them the happy pair, in whose honor the company was assembled.

Their absence seemed protracted to the waiting throng; but at length the word was passed that they were coming, and a little procession of about a dozen persons, all decked with wreaths and flowers, and in bridal and holiday attire, came marching, in a shadowy though shining train, across the moonlit street. Gay groups of friends assembled at the gate, and welcomed the bride and bridegroom, who led the little cortège. Then came the mother, cheerful and calm, leaning upon the arm of Mr. Beman. The active aunt, with her springing step, kept even pace with her laughing husband. Kisses and congratulations were showered on them all, and jest and laugh went round the groups, as if each were striving to be merrier than all others.

The host's clear voice was now heard calling them within, and—a summons quite as moving—notes of preparation from the fiddles came mellowed through the windows. The company in the large saloon retired to the walls; the Monsieur led De Cheville and his bride, with a grace unrivalled, to the head of the room; the dancers took their places. At a signal from the master, the fiddlers drew their bows with a vigor known only to those primitive days. De Cheville took Marie's hand, and all admired the lithe and bending figures, as they floated down the room. Close after them came Monsieur Maillefert and his active bride, with rapid feet and cloudless faces; and then such crossing in and out, such swinging right and left, such airy harmony of movement, such natural grace and deep enjoyment have not been seen in Kaskaskia since the Monsieur's school was closed.

With a delicate, though healthy, bloom upon her cheeks, with eyes sparkling happiness and love, the young bride seemed wafted through the figure; and when, with one bright glance into his eyes, she placed her arm within De Cheville's, and retired from the floor, a murmur of unenvying admiration passed along the ranks of pleased spectators.

As they approached the window, and stood leaning there, a passing figure, muffled in a cloak, paused for a moment, and looked in. Could they have seen the fierce hatred of that look, so happy as they were, they could but have pitied him from whose heart such bitterness could rise. They saw him not, however; and, with that devilish glance, he gathered up his cloak, and passed on. It was Napoleon Le Vert, who thus gazed on what his mercenary soul had lost him.

After midnight the fête broke up; but the memory of that evening did not pass away with the night; for many an old Kaskaskian can recall this brilliant commencement of the happy married life of De Cheville and his peerless bride.

AND so to conclude.

Soon after his marriage, De Cheville discovered that he had acquired, unawares, one of the greatest fortunes then in the West; but, as the prospect had not influenced, the possession did not injure, him. Both he and his yet lovely wife have borne themselves meekly in their prosperity; and if an austere economist might carp at the style of their living, he could, at least, never reproach them with vulgar ostentation, of reckless profusion in unworthy pursuits or for unworthy objects, nor instance any refusal of assistance to the needy and deserving. De Cheville occupies a high federal station; and his wife, in the very bloom of her matronly beauty, is still one of the fairest ornaments of her brilliant circle.

A year after Marie's nuptials, the attachment which had quietly grown up between her mother and Mr. Beman, but which had never been expressed, was spoken and acknowledged; and when she had given a few more months to her weeds, in the beginning of the Christmas feasts, she exchanged them for new bridal ornaments.

The light-hearted and amiable Monsieur Maillefert and his kind and active spouse have both gone to their rest; but a son and a daughter faithfully bring down their memories, and honor them by blameless lives.

But two of our dramatis personæ remain to be accounted for; the elder and younger Le Vert.

The former settled up the business of his administration, without interference from any quarter, and, it is to be hoped, to his own satisfaction. His trade was rapidly increased, and streams of affluence poured in upon him for several years, precisely as if his capital had been honestly acquired. But the evil propensities of his son, developed by enlarged means of dissipation, were a fountain of bitterness in his later years; and the consequences of a brawl, in which the latter had committed a homicide, during one of his annual visits to New-Orleans, gave a blow to both the health and fortune of the former, from which he never recovered. Napoleon escaped the penalty of his crime; but it was at the cost of nearly all his father's hard-earned and ill-gotten gains; and as, after this, the elder sank rapidly into poverty and imbecility, the younger speedily reached the depths to which gambling and drunkenness drag their votaries. He finally died in a disgraceful rencontre in the streets of the same city where he had so narrowly escaped a death but little different.

The quaint old town of Kaskaskia still holds a place upon the map; and light hearts and simple lives are as numerous there as ever. She has long been overshadowed by her neighbors; but if, in her quiet streets, she miss the active bustle of the marts of commerce, and lose something of the exhilaration of enterprise, she gains far more in amiable cheerfulness, whose calm is not broken by the heated passions, and sordid schemes of more engrossing pursuits.

"WE shall drink beer in heaven
From the skulls of our enemies."
—REGNER LODBROG.

THE lightning grew pale,
And the thunder was dumb.
As if the old devil
In person had come,
When in vengeance and fury
The Death-raven black,
The Vikingir ALVAR
Came sweeping the track.
"Great ODIN, thou storm-god!
Crack on with our ship!
We are off on a batter,
Hurrah! let her rip!"
So the wild pirate shouted
In madness and scorn,
While down went the liquor
And round went the horn.
So all hands, as you see, kept
a good head of steam on!

By the sea, by the mountain,
On Norway's strand,
BRENHILDA, the peerless,
Sat high on the sand;
When, smack! o'er the water
In time double quick,
Great ALVAR came down,
Like a thousand of brick.
Splash! into the ocean
The Vikingir sprung,
And pick-back the princess
O'er shoulders he flung:
Like an arrow he darted
The wild billows through,
And into the "Dragon,"
BRENHILDA he threw,
While all hands gave a
yell and took drinks on the strength of it!

By the Gods of VALHALLA!
I'm done for!" she cried.
"By THOR and by thunder!
You are!" he replied.
No more spake the maiden,
No more spake her lord,
But he stamped on the short deck
And brandished his sword.
"There's a sail to the leeward!
A sail in our path!
Do you hear! blood and brimstone!
Lok! blazes! and wrath!
The bier-sucker madness
Is boiling me through!"
Then he took a "long drink,"
And right into it flew,
While the Ravens all
round took a horn and went at it.

Oh! then on the helmets
The death-biters rang,
While ALVAR, the Raven,
Swore, murdered, and sang:
"The deck is blood-painted—
A wound, all the bay—
While round rage the sea-wolves
And fight for their prey.
BRENUILDA! land-maiden!
Look up, and you'll find
How the Raven can 'go it,'
When once he's inclined.
See these skulls! how I split 'em!
These throats how I slice;
And all for thy sake, love!
Thou pearl beyond price!"
So the fight being over
they all went and liquored.

"The VALKYRIES scream
For the souls of the dead,
While BALDER, the Sun-God,
Shines down on our head!"
So, like good, pious fellows,
They knelt on the deck,
And thanked the great gods
That their foe was a wreck.
For on points of religion
Great ALVAR was "strict,"
And always "held prayers"
When a ship had been licked.
On a prisoner they found,
By unanimous vote,
They first carved the eagle,
And then cut his throat;
Then, church being over,
adjourned for refreshment.

And over the ocean
And over the foam,
Like a shot from a shovel
The YIKINGIRS come.
Loud roared the wild tempest,
Loud roared the mad sea,
But louder great ALVAR
Sang forth in his glee:
"Grim spectres sweep o'er us
In lightning or gloom,
I see their eyes gleaming
Like fire round a tomb:
The Runes of the valiant
Dead heroes obey,
Let's pitch into Naples
And plunder and prey!"
So they gave him three cheers,
and then emptied a barrel.

"Set fire to the churches!
Set fire to the town!
Grab, murder, and plunder.
Drag out and knock down!
Go it strong, ye brave Northmen.
Crush, tumble, and slash!"
Roared the JARL, as with each hand
He held a mustache,
And glared on the town.
Like a wild devil grim:
An AESIR in fury,
A JOTUN in limb.
Now the blue shields are crimson.
The spires are in flame,
But on pitch the Ravens,
All grit and all game:
Only stopping to bolt
down the wine on the altar.

Like fiends winged for murder
The arrows flew forth,
While red swords were ringing
The knell from the North,
And maces, deep mashing,
Laid saints in the mud;
While the black crow and eagle
Went wading in blood.
But where flames were loud roaring
With Death by his side,
Rose the giant Jarl Alvar,
In glory and pride.
"We have thrashed them to flinders
And knocked 'em from time!
BRENHILDA, thou white one
Say—is n't it prime?"
While the Northmen
all round took a drink from their helmets.

"The men are all murdered,
The town all aflame;
And we've bagged all the pewter;
Let's slope whence we came!
And under a full head
Of glory we go:
No scald now, thank BRAGA!
Can chalk us as 'slow.'
To our Death Dragon hasten:
How stately and light
She rides the bright Belt
Of the Daughter of Night!
And be glad! for our voyage
Full plainly hath shown
That the gods, when we're pious,
Look after their own."
So they took one good
horn, and went off in the Dragon

"So, I shall find out some snug corner
Under a hedge, like ORSON the wood-knight,
Turn myself round and bid the world good night;
And sleep a sound sleep till the trumpet's blowing
Wakes me (unless priests cheat us laymen)
To a world whereas to be no further throwing
Pearls before swine that can't value them. Amen!"
—ROBERT BROWNING'S "FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS."

THE Marquis di Sangrido owns the grim old palace that fronts the public square in Rieti. He is not a favorite with the peasants. Even the children of that little Italian town pass the great door or portone of the palace hurriedly, and their prattle sinks into a whisper "beneath those gloomy windows. No guests ever come from Rome and pass into the palace with festal welcome to visit the Marquis di Sangrido. Those heavily-framed, gloomy windows never flash with the brilliancy of revels within. They are like dead-lights—like the staring eyes of a corpse.

When the summer-storms burst among the hills, and the gleaming lightning and rattling thunders appal the superstitious peasants, while the church-bell rings solemnly in the storm, and kneeling, with muttered prayers, the poor people of Rieti shudder and make the sign of the cross, the yellow palace of the Marquis di Sangrido stands sullen in the tempest, sardonic with a sickly glare, against the heavy black cloud that rises behind it.

On the holy feast-days, when the sun lies lazily in the great square of Rieti all the long Italian morning, and the peasants, in gay costume, dance the Tarantella and the Saltarella, and with music and flowers go into the church to hang votive pictures to the Madonna, one suspending the shoe which he wore when Our Blessed Lady saved him from drowning; and another, the cap of the child whom the Holy Virgin raised from sickness; and another, the necklace which her lover gave her when he went to the wars, from which he returned safely; the Marquis di Sangrido does not come, nor look out of those gloomy windows, nor send wine and money. But often in the midst of the festival a fear falls upon the peasants, like a cloud-shadow upon a waving, glittering rye-field; they look furtively at the sullen yellow palace, which watches them in malicious silence; a sudden horror seizes them all, as if they expected the great gates to swing open, creaking upon rusty hinges, and a black procession of death and despair to issue forth and chill the summer day.

It is in vain that the servants of the Marquis di Sangrido endeavor to be friendly and sociable with the people of Rieti. They are regarded as parts of that gloom and mystery which envelop the palace and its master. Their most cheerful smile is suspected; their jokes make the people shudder, for they believe them to be magic spells in grinning masks. They move in a circle of solitude, for every inhabitant of the town instinctively withdraws, until the servants, too, gradually grow sardonic and gloomy; and when they appear it is as if the yellow old palace were taking a walk, and sullenly cursing the little cowering town of Rieti, that hides upon the plain beyond the Campagna.

Twice a year the great gate of the palace opens. Then the people shrink into their houses and peer through the windows and doors; for the heavy lumbering state-carriage of the Marquis di Sangrido rolls clumsily out, with a flaring chasseur riding before, and a dozen servants on horseback grouped behind and around like a body-guard. The doors are closed; the blinds are drawn up; nothing is seen within the carriage; but the people of Rieti know that the Marquis is sitting there, alone, in the shadow; and their terrified and bewitched imaginations enter and sit beside him, and try to see the expression of that face, and to conceive the grimness of his smile, and the demoniacal horror of his frown. But not even their imaginations can figure him. The Marquis di Sangrido sits inscrutable, wrapped in a cloud, and the lumbering state-carriage thunders out of the staring, wondering town, and rolls across the Campagna toward Rome, where the Marquis has another palace. Rieti is then very cheerful, for the Marquis di Sangrido has gone to Rome.

Once again during the year the grim gates open, and the heavy carriage, and the little group of servants, and the flaring chasseur leading the way, are absorbed within the mysterious yellow walls; and the little town of Rieti is chilled and trembles because the Marquis di Sangrido has returned from Rome.

It was a pleasant summer-day when I came to Rieti, and after eating the frittata and prosciutto crudo at the albergo, I looked idly out of the window into the great square of the town. The sun blazed upon the open place, and there was perfect silence in the air. My eyes were dazzled, as I gazed, by the yellow wall of the palace; and I called the landlord and asked the name of the owner.

"The Marquis di Sangrido," replied the padrone, with a shudder.

"Is he here?" I inquired.

"Excellency, no," returned the host as he moved away.

"But tell me, can I get into the house? there may be pictures—or into the grounds?"

"Excellency, GOD forgive us our sins! I know nothing," answered the padrone, with such undisguised fear that I pressed him no farther, and he withdrew.

Of course I sauntered out immediately toward the Sangrido palace. I was sure that I had struck the trail of a romance; for what are anguish, doubts, despairs, years of life lost in misery, all the acutest forms of human woe, but romances to the traveller who saunters out on warm summer mornings, when they are the tears and the woes of other people and other years?

I paused before the great gate, sheltered from the sun by the shade of the heavily-projecting mouldings, and almost feared to rattle with my stick upon the massive panels. After a few moments the slide was slipped, and a curious restless glance danced over my face and figure, while a sharp low female voice inquired my business. I answered that I was a stranger passing through Rieti, and wished to see the pictures in the palace, and also the garden, if it were possible.

After some sharp questioning, which I answered very simply and directly, the gate was opened, and I entered the court. The garden rose behind the palace in broad terraces upon the hill-side, and I went directly toward it. The custode, who told me she was the only servant left in the house, the Marquis being in Rome, disappeared, and I passed up the broken, crumbling steps of the terrace in entire solitude.

The garden was fallen into decay. Weeds grew and glittered in the walks. The long, narrow avenues of cypress and ilex were not smooth and clipped, but untrimmed boughs and shoots leaned out beyond the line and towered in slim, swaying twigs above. In the misshapen niches of this green wall stood broken statues of discolored marble; fauns holding to their mouths hands whence the pipes had fallen; and nymphs who held vases and flowers no longer. In carrefours, where the paths crossed, were huge globular vases, broken and stained, but overflowing with the leathery leaves of the aloe, like jagged green flame flaring and falling. The great plants burst out luxuriantly from the crevices of the walls, and lay sprawled over them, lazily sucking the sun, while the lizards darted among them, half-loathsome miniatures of crocodiles; and high over all, the dome-topped stone-pines lay like heavy bars of cloud in the glittering air. In the universal sunshine and ruin, there were only silence, sadness, and decay.

I passed along, perplexed with a strange and nameless sorrow, and sat down upon the crumbling stone margin of a fountain, long since dry, and in whose basin lay pebbles and twigs. A reverie in a decayed garden naturally decks the trees again with the splendor of long-vanished summers, trims them as they had once been trimmed, and throngs the paths and the arbors with that host of the young and beautiful which the imagination accords to all gardens, and palaces, and happy haunts. But as I sat and dreamed, I felt my self seized with the spell of mysterious horror which I had perceived in the padrone at the inn, and saying with him, "GOD forgive us all our sins!" I arose and strolled along the melancholy avenues, and descending the terraces, entered the house.

I saw no custode. The old woman, I fancied, sure that I was no thief, did not intend to disturb her siesta to look farther after me. So I walked slowly on, and passing up the grand stone-staircase in the cold hall, I entered the suite of state apartments. They were lofty and spacious. The ceilings were painted in fresco, and there was an unnatural freshness in the color, as if it was not the work of many years before. The windows were heavily and richly draped. The furniture was stately and costly, and the walls were tapestried. There was an oppressive air of cold regal magnificence in each apartment. There was nothing domestic; no pleasant disorder; no gentle confusion, as if children had just fled from the rooms; nothing that indicated a home; every thing that bespoke a ceremonial palace. Some of the walls were not tapestried, and upon them hung pictures—mainly portraits—soldiers in uniforms, and noblemen in robes, or dignified Italian ladies in the stiff fashions of dead centuries. At length I reached the state bed-chamber. In the centre of the room stood the bed, ascended by steps, and muffled in thick clustering draperies, covered with the crest of Sangrido. There was an oratory adjoining, with a massive silver crucifix and a carved priedieu. But my eyes clung with a painful curiosity to the solemnly-draped bed. The curtains were black, and folded over it like a heavy cloud; and as I gazed, the whole seemed to me to form a funeral catafalque. Through the thick glass of the windows, rimed with the gathered dust of years, and through the plain white muslin curtains that hung over them like shrouds, the light came sickly and thin, and the funeral drapery apparently thickened the air of the room. Instinctively I stepped to the window, but I could not open it, and it was so coated with obscurity that I could not look down into the sunny square. I listened for a sound, but there was nothing to hear. My own respiration was as audible as at midnight, and I turned back into the solemn chamber. Almost involuntarily, and as if drawn by an irresistible fascination, I climbed the steps that ascended to the bed, and laying hold of the heavy black curtains, pulled them aside and looked within them. There was nothing to be seen but a bed fairly made; the linen yellow, as with time. But as I looked up I saw something black hanging from the ring in the ceiling which held the drapery, so that the curtains made a funeral tabernacle for it. It was beyond my reach, but I could see that it was a frame shrouded in a black bag. It was evidently a picture: it must be a portrait. Why shrouded in black? Why there?

As I stood upon the steps, still holding back the curtains, still staring upward and wondering, I felt my foot forcibly seized, and looking down, saw a shrivelled, bony hand grasping it. It was the hand of the old custode, whose withered face, white and terrified, was turned beseechingly toward me. The forefinger of one hand was pressed over the mouth in sign of silence, while the other grasped my foot. I descended the steps, and the old woman seized both my hands with frenzied earnestness, and glared into my eyes, while her frame trembled, and upon her wan lips quivered the words:

"For the love of GOD, signor! For the love of GOD, signor!"

I waited patiently for her to speak, which she did at length, in a low, hurried, and appalled tone, begging me to leave the palace upon the moment, and if I had the slightest regard for the life of a miserable sinner, never to betray that I had penetrated so far as to see the bed and the shrouded portrait.

"I fell asleep, signor, and did not hear you when you came in from the garden. O Dio! O Dio!"

I left the yellow palace, and left Rieti, but not until I had learned the secret of that picture.

Ten years before, the Marquis di Sangrido concluded to marry. He was then sixty years old, a man of high family, of large fortune, of good person. He ordered the state carriage and drove to Rome. He was known everywhere, and was especially intimate with the Countess Ondella, who was the guardian of her orphan niece, Maddalena. The girl had grown up in a Venetian convent. She had seen no man but Padre Giuseppe, who wore long clothes like the women, and droned all the morning, and dozed all the afternoon, and did not seem to be a man. To him she confessed regularly every week. The old man usually went to sleep before the tale was over, for there were no very startling sins to confess, but occasionally strange thoughts and emotions, which Maddalena did not understand, nor the good Giuseppe either. On the whole, it was pleasant childish tattle, which soothed him to sleep, in which he dreamed of other times and other children, among whom was one child early habited in a solemn separate robe and divorced from life. In the face of that dream-child Padre Giuseppe seemed to see his own features, but delicate and youthful, without wrinkles and snuff-stains. And so the placid confessor dreamed until dinner-time, and feared, as he arose and found that he must wipe the moisture from his eyes, that he was getting old and rheumy.

Maddalena was taught the duty of all good children—to confess and pray, and guard her mind from thoughts of men; never to tell lies, and always to obey her elders. She listened and learned. In the silent old convent-garden she read and mused, and vague hopes and yearnings fluttered sometimes across her mind as she saw birds floating in the sky, or bright leaves whirling and whirling, and then dropping, dropping, until they were lost upon the ground. Sixteen eventless years thus passed, and Maddalena Ondella was a woman.

One day, after having confessed to Padre Giuseppe, she went into the garden at sunset, and sat upon a pedestal whence a statue had long ago fallen. The vesper bell had ceased ringing; there was no wind to stir the leaves, and the darkening twilight touched her beauty with more exquisite grace as she sat motionless, gazing at the West, longing and hoping, with all the passionate possibilities of life glimmering in her luscious lips. That moment she was summoned by the superior, and informed that she was to go to Rome immediately.

"Thank the Holy Virgin, Maddalena," said the abbess, "that you are to be married to a noble and worthy man. In all things, my child, remember our instructions, and obey your husband."

Padre Guiseppe's soft soul was touched. He shed tears as Maddalena bade him farewell. The good Padre did not know how beautiful she was, but the Marquis di Sangrido had accompanied the Countess Ondella to Venice, three years before, and had then seen her niece. Three years being past, he considered that he was sixty, and concluded to marry. He came to Rome in the state-carriage, and proposed to the Countess for Maddalena.

The aunt apprised the niece, and the day for the nuptials was appointed. The Marquis di Sangrido had returned to his country-palace at Rieti after his proposals were accepted, and carried with him workmen to decorate his house. Rieti was gay in the prospect of a bride who would bring youth, beauty, and society to cheer its loneliness. No one was permitted to see the work going on in the yellow palace, but it did not lose in splendor by the eager gossip of the town. One morning the workmen did not come. The work was finished. The next morning the old state-carriage, newly burnished, and drawn by the old horses in new and glittering harness, passed out of the gates. The servants wore bridal-favors. The blinds were drawn down, and the hard face of the Marquis di Sangrido returned the gratulations of the town.

A few days afterward a courier came dashing into Rieti, and disappeared in the palazzo Sangrido. It was rumored that the bride would arrive before night, and at sunset the bridal cortége appeared. A face more radiantly beautiful than they had ever seen beamed gratitude upon the peasants, who threw flowers before the bride's carriage, and the Marchioness Maddalena di Sangrido went into her palace. There were money and wine distributed in the square of Rieti that night, and prayers were uttered for the bride in the church next morning by those she never saw.

From an old convent in Venice to an old palace in Rieti the change was not great. But the change was entire in all the habits of life; and sometimes, when Maddalena stole away to a lonely corner of the garden, which had been trimmed and beautified in her honor, she looked wistfully at the long range of hills undulating into the blue distance; and, longing for a richer experience, shuddered as she reflected that, while dreaming in the convent-garden, everything was possible; but that, sitting in the garden of the palace, her future was an endless iteration of the present. She grew sad and silent in the rural splendors of Rieti.

The Marquis di Sangrido watched his wife with an intentness that seemed ferocity. If she went alone into the garden he presently appeared, and taking her arm led her back to the house, or paced solemnly and silently at her side, along the stately green avenues.

He was of high family, and great fortune, and of good person. The girls at the convent in Venice sauntered in the sunny garden, and talked, by stealth, of the happy Maddalena, and envied her splendid fortune and career. Maddalena, in the sunny garden of Rieti, longed for Venice, for companions, for life, for any thing. She grew pale, like a flower in the dark.

The time came to go to Rome. Before ordering the carriage the Marquis di Sangrido warned the Marchioness of the dangers of society, and the duties of wives. Her eyes flashed alternate scorn and longing as he spoke, and with a heart yearning and bursting, she leaped into the carriage, while her brain swam with the sudden and gorgeous hope of a new life. They reached Rome, and took possession of the palace. Fête followed fête. Everywhere Maddalena was the idol of admiration. The elastic Italian tongue was compelled into new forms of compliment; and she, like a thirst-stricken victim, plunged into the stream of life and madly revelled. She tasted new and wild experience, and quaffed it fiercely like burning wine. She had scarcely reached Rome when she saw Giulio. Their eyes met, then their hands. A week had not passed before they were ardent lovers. The whole restrained passion of her nature rose at once to flood-tide. The arrears of years were paid in moments. There was imperial splendor in her beauty. At home, at church, at the opera, upon the promenade, she was radiant, and wherever she was, Giulio was by her side and in her heart. She did not try to disguise it. The dames of high society thought her audacious, shook their fans, and recommended prudence. Maddalena scoffed at their suggestions, laughed prudence to scorn, and gloried in the tumult of her new life.

Before the shrewdest dame had even suspected, however, the Marquis di Sangrido was sure. His eye grew like a serpent's eye, and women shuddered as its livid glare fell upon them. His movements became sinuous and stealthy. Like a reptile, he chilled the sunshine as he slipped along the street to the Casino or the Café. To see him was like being smitten with disease. At the opera, in church, upon the promenade, he watched the young Giulio with his wife. Flowers were not fair enough, nor the sun bright enough, nor the day long enough for them.

The Marquis di Sangrido came home quietly one day an hour before the time he had mentioned. He entered softly, and glided through the apartments, with spectral stillness, toward his wife's room. His hard, cold face had a glacial intensity that froze with horror the valet who saw him pass. Reaching the door of his wife's room, he entered without knocking.

The Marchioness was not at the opera in the evening, nor at the ball afterward, nor was she seen during the next day. The Marquis and Marchioness di Sangrido had returned to Kieti. As the carriage thundered into the town, the blinds were closed; there was no beaming bridal face at the window; there were hurry and stern command, and the great gate closed behind the carriage in sullen gloom.

In was a solemn and melancholy supper that the Marquis and his wife eat that night. From his cold, hard face the snake had vanished, but its frigid ferocity was more terrible; and the pale marble rigidity of his wife was sadder to see. She rose from the table and passed alone through the vast, cold, silent apartments toward her chamber. Her heart was stony with the fixed resolve not to be baulked of life, and love, and happiness, but at some time, by some means, to escape the imprisonment of that palace, and dare the worst for Giulio. She reached her room and dismissed her maid, who withdrew, leaving her alone. Through the lofty windows the full moonlight streamed, and flooded that young beautiful woman who stood with her hands clasped before her, and her head leaning against the window-frame. She was entirely abandoned to the glowing remembrance of the last few weeks. One image, one memory, one hope, one thought, possessed her. She was a child in knowledge and in power, but a woman in passionate emotion. Like a stormy sea ebbing and flowing fiercely in a cavern, her feelings, and wishes, and vows, fluctuated through her mind, and she stood confounded by the greatness and glory of the passion that agitated her whole being. She was its slave, but knew not how to obey it. The night waned, and she stood musing, her hands still clasped, her head leaning, when suddenly she heard a chorus of late revellers, artists returning from a festa:

"Ah! senza amare,
Andare sul mare,
Col sposo del mare,
Non puo consolare!"

The song was very distant and passed slowly out of hearing. Yet it lingered and lingered. It haunted the moonlight; beseeching, yearning, wailing; a whole history singing and sighing in its measures; a whole history, at least, when a heart listened in which all passionate powers thrilled and throbbed in answer.

Maddalena turned from her window, and walked slowly up and down the chamber. She paused and loosened her dress. It fell away from her like a cloud, and around her in the dark of the chamber, the dim outline of the furniture was not more still than the statuesque repose of her form. A faint, heavy odor from a vase of flowers filled the room. She moved slowly away, and slowly seated herself upon the edge of the bed, resting her head upon her hand, and murmuring almost inaudibly, as if dreaming:

"Ah! senza amare!"

The Marquis di Sangrido waited until he supposed that his wife had reached her chamber. Then he passed quietly through another door to a farther part of the palace, and entering a room which he unlocked with a key that he took from his pocket, he closed and locked it carefully behind him; then opening the small door of a cupboard in the wall, he took from a shelf a large glass jar, full of a green liquor, which he carefully examined; then closed and locked the cupboard-door, and left the room. When he reached the dining-hall, he summoned his valet, and ordered him to assemble all the servants, who instantly came thronging in. After looking at them sternly for a few moments, the Marquis said:

"I wish you all to return to Rome at an early hour in the morning. I shall follow you two days hence. Vincenzo," he said to his valet, "you will remain."

As the servants were leaving the room, he said to them with a kind of hiss,

"If any man remains behind after to-morrow morning, he will never see Rome again."

And with a shudder of fear the servants withdrew.

By dawn the next morning, they had all left the palazzo, and at sunrise were crossing the Campagna toward Home. As the Marquis was finishing his breakfast, he ordered his valet to tell the maid of the Marchioness that he wished to know when her mistress was awake. As he arose from table, he gave the valet a letter for the Countess Ondella, sealed with black, which he charged him to deliver as soon as possible, and to make no delay in mounting and taking the road to Rome. The valet bowed, took the letter, and in ten minutes was galloping out of the town.

A little before noon, the maid appeared to say that her mistress was awake. The Marquis bade her remain for a moment. He went toward his wife's room, but immediately returning, told the maid that her mistress preferred to dress alone, and wished her to go with the custode to visit her sick child among the mountains.

"Stop and ask Padre Luigi to come instantly to the palace," said he, "and return by evening, but not before, or you will take the fever in the sun."

The maid and the old custode instantly departed. The suggestions of the Marquis di Sangrido were the sternest commands to his dependents.

He sat quietly for some time, until he heard a tap at the gate, and, descending, he opened to the Padre Luigi. The priest muttered a blessing as he entered, and followed the Marquis up the staircase. They advanced together through the rooms until they reached the chamber of the Marchioness. The priest paused a moment while the Marquis passed in.

"Maddalena," said he to his wife, who was kneeling at her Prie-Dieu, "Padre Luigi is here to receive your confession."

"I have none to make," returned she in a whisper, as a deathly pallor settled upon her cheek.

The Marquis did not respond, but, opening the door, he beckoned to the priest, who entered, and the Marquis retired.

"Why are you here?" demanded Maddalena, suddenly springing up.

"Signora, to hear your confession," replied the priest quietly.

"Go!" she said with a startled horror in her eyes, and pointing toward the door.

In vain the priest expostulated and besought her to confide to him the grief that weighed upon her conscience, and to receive his consolation. She said nothing but "Go!" and waved him away.

Padre Luigi passed out of the chamber. The Marquis waited in the adjoining room, and, without speaking, led the way toward the grand staircase. Still without speaking, they descended. The host opened the gate; the priest murmured a benedicite, and departed. Then the Marquis fastened the bolts and bars, locked the world out from himself and his wife, and slowly ascended the staircase. He went to the secret cupboard, where he had seen, on the previous evening, that the jar full of a green liquid was safe, and taking it in his hands, glided through the vast, silent rooms as spectrally still as when in Rome he had entered his wife's chamber suddenly.

The Marchioness Maddalena was still kneeling at her Prieu-Dieu.

"You have, made your peace with God?" demanded the Marquis, as he closed the door, and stood before her, holding the jar.

She rose slowly, with her eyes fastened upon his; and tottering across the room, fell at his feet, and still staring in his face, gasped in a piteous whisper:

"What do you mean?"

He did not reply; but placing the jar upon the ground, he raised his wife from the floor, and leading her toward a huge, carved, oaken chair, he placed her upon it, and said in a voice cold and hard as his rigid face:

"Maddalena, you must die!"

With silken cords which he drew from his pocket, he bound her with inconceivable rapidity and firmness to the chair. She moaned like a dying child. The suddenness and hopelessness of her fate crushed her at once.

Tapestries and curtains hung about the chamber, and the summer light streamed golden through the windows. But it was spectral and dim to those young eyes. Upon the cypress terraces of the garden fountains were plashing in the sunshine, and in the deep shade of the trees cicadas sang. She thought of them all; she knew it well; but not a sound reached her ears.

Her whole short life lay clearly before her: the Venetian garden, the dream, the marriage, the blight, the new hope, the love, Giulio.

The Marquis raised the jar. The green liquor was vitriol. He stood over her, behind, where he did not see her face. The first drop fell upon her head.

In startled Rieti there was constant and terrified surmise all the day after the return of the Marquis and his wife. It was one of the breathless, glaring days of midsummer; a day of preternatural silence, when the sultry glare is a spell of terror, and men instinctively talk in whispers. Not a wind sighed; not a bird sang. Only at intervals a solitary cicada stung the ear with its dry, sad tone. There was no dancing at the Osteria; the cattle and the dogs lay listless in the shade; and as the awful heats deepened to noon, the inhabitants were stretched in the shadow of the houses uneasily dozing, or, starting suddenly from hot sleep, glanced with vague apprehension about the sky, as if a fearful tempest were gathering.

Suddenly a sharp, agonized, muffled scream pierced the very heart of that silence, and curdled the blood in the veins of the awe-stricken peasants. They stared at each other speechlessly, sat transfixed as if awaiting another sound; then, after long, breathless minutes, turned their pale faces and whispered stealthily together—not quite sure if that shriek were earthly; but muttering Ave Marias, and making the sign of the cross, their eyes gradually turned, as by tacit conviction, toward the grim palazzo Sangrido, standing sullen in the sun.

Vincenzo, the valet, upon his arrival in Rome, delivered to the Countess Ondella the letter of the Marquis sealed with a black seal, and informing her of the death of her niece, the Marchioness Maddalena. The next evening, Padre Luigi and his brother monks celebrated a funeral mass in the little church of Rieti.

I heard this history after I had left the little town, but I was glad of an opportunity of returning two years afterward. I found the same padrone at the Osteria, and endeavored to learn from him and from the peasants something farther about the Marquis di Sangrido. He was an old man, they said hideously ugly. They believed, evidently, that he had horns and hoofs. But no one confessed that he had ever seen him.

The day after my arrival, I went again to the palazzo. The same old woman examined and admitted me, evidently without recognizing me as the audacious stranger who had penetrated to the black and solemn chamber. She told me that I could not go into the palace, because the Marquis was living there, and would not go to Rome for several weeks; but I had her permission to stroll in the garden.

It was even more ruinous than before. Everywhere reigned the same desolation and sadness—doubly sad and desolate now that I knew the story. Yet everywhere in Italy you feel the possibility of such tragedies. Robert Browning's poem of "My Last Duchess" and Beckford's tale of the old woman near Naples are simple studies from life. The old villas and gardens crumbling in that hot southern sun are like memorials of the fierce excesses of hot southern passion. Love, hate, enthusiasm, revenge, despair, dark eyes, black hair, the stiletto, ignorance and mystery, ambition and superstition—these are the quick-glancing threads of which that life is spun. Venice explains Venice. The Council of Ten, the Bridge of Sighs, the Piombi, Marino Faliero, as well as Titian and Don Juan, are all bred of that silence, splendor, and isolation.

Suddenly, as I turned into a neglected ilex-path, I met an old man. He might have been seventy years of age; he was still erect, and long white hairs clustered around his cold, hard face. He paused courteously, saluted me with dignity, and bade me good day. Perceiving from my reply that I was a foreigner, he stopped and fell into conversation. In all that he said the shrewd observation of the man of the world was evident. He was familiar with the current gossip, spoke of society in Rome, of the belles and the beauties. Passing to pictures and the subjects that most interest strangers, he showed himself a judicious critic and connoisseur. Of certain pictures he spoke with a kind of cold ardor that was very singular, and as I mentioned one that I had seen in the palazzo Mazzo in Rome, he discovered that his friend, the Cardinal Mazzo, was also a friend of mine, and immediately invited me to dine with him on the following day; but I hastily declined upon plea of my early departure.

After a little more conversation, he bowed and wished me good morning.

"I am sorry that my pictures are all in Rome," said he, as he turned away. "There are none in the house yonder," he continued, pointing toward it through the cypresses, "of any interest to those out of the family."

So saying, the Marquis di Sangrido disappeared down the terraces.

But I remained in the solitary, sunny garden, remembering the black-shrouded picture, looking along the paths that Maddalena had paced. The tragedy of Maddalena was wringing my heart, but the sun shone bright, the nightingales sang, the wind blew gently, and the courteous tones of the Marquis were ringing in my ears.

"GOD forgive us all our sins!" I said as I recalled the words of the padrone; and I passed swiftly and for ever out of the garden and the gate of the Palazzo Sangrido.

BEAUTIFUL girl! I have wandered far
Toward the rising sun and the evening star;
I have roamed 'mid the northern wastes of snow,
And strayed where the soft magnolias blow,
But I never gazed on a face so bright
As thine, sweet spirit of young delight.

Beautiful girl! thou art bright and fair
As an angel shape in the moonlight air;
No shadow rests on thy brow of snow,
Save that of thy tresses drooping low.
Love's own dear light is wandering oft
O'er thy gentle lip of carmine soft.
Thy lovely cheek, where the rich, red glow
Of the warm blood melts through the virgin snow,
Is sweetly blending in one bright dye,
The woven beauties of earth and sky.
Truth, holy truth, in its freshness dwells
Deep, deep in thy dark eyes shaded wells,
And fancies wild from their clear depths gleam,
Like shadows of stars from a trembling stream;
And thy thoughts are a dream of Eden's bowers,
And thy words are garlands of flowers, bright flowers.

Beautiful girl! I have seen thee move,
A floating creature of joy and love,
As light as a mist on the sunrise gale,
Or the buoyant sway of a bridal vail,
Till I almost looked to see thee rise
Like a soaring thought to the free blue skies,
Or melt away in the thin, blue air,
Like a vision of fancy painted there.
Thy low sweet voice, as it thrills around,
Seems less a sound than a dream of sound;
Softly and wildly its clear notes swell,
Like the spirit-tones of a silver bell;
And the lips whence the fairy music flows
Is to Fancy's eye like a speaking rose.

Beautiful, beautiful girl! thou art
A vision of joy to the throbbing heart;
A star sent down from the world of bliss,
And all undimmed by the shades of this;
A rainbow pictured by LOVE'S own son
On the clouds of being, beautiful one!

Beautiful girl! 't is a weary year
Since thy sweet voice fell on my ravished ear;
'T is a long, long year of light and gloom
Since I gazed on thy young cheeks' lovely bloom:
Yet thy gentle tones of music still
Through the holiest depths of memory thrill
Like tones of a fount, or breeze, or bird,
In the long-gone years of childhood heard.
And oft in my dark and lonely moods,
When a demon wing o'er my spirit broods,
Thine image seems on my soul to break
Like the sweet young moon o'er a gloomy lake,
Filling its depths, as the shadows flee,
With beauty and love and melody.

Beautiful girl! thou art far away,
And I know not where thy steps now stray;
But oh! 't is sweet, it is very sweet,
In the fairy realms of dreams to greet
Thy cheek of rose, thy brow of pearl,
And thy voice of music, beautiful girl!

CORYDON AND THYRSIS no longer pipe to Phyllis, and Phyllis goes no more about with a wreath on her crook. This we all know—and those among us who are poets, with the down of youth upon our cheeks, remember with a sigh—and look to find in our summer rambles in the country, not shepherdesses to whom we may pay sentimental court, and with whom breathe air redolent of thyme and goat's-milk, but pensionnaires from Madame Mére de Treubleu's famous school, and scented rather too lavishly, as country belles are apt to be, with the last fashionable perfume of Mons. Lubin's laboratory. Unless one travel quite beyond the circle of the city's influence, into the purely rustic regions, where two-pronged forks at table, and sun-bonnets still hold their own, but where Corydon and Phyllis, alas! are not more recognized, it is vain to imagine the gauds and vanities of the metropolis left behind. Haughty Georgiana of last winter's balls, who, forgetting her pedigree—old McKrell having begun life a fishmonger—suffered you to lead her to the floor by the tips of her white kids, as any other queen might a subject, finds a parallel, for example, in the persons of the two Misses Snack, co-heiresses of the little fortune accumulated by the country-practice of the late Dr. Snack, their papa; both tall, both dressy, and perfectly conscious of their superior attainments and momentary position. They differ, it is true, on most points, but are united in this that their country admirers, the most constant of whom are Jenkins, who wears such preposterous collars, and is a clerk down the street, and Stump, the short attorney, can be tolerated only so long as there are no arrivals from the city; precisely as Miss Georgiana gave the cold shoulder to your pleasantries and bon mots the very evening that young ape, Prunelle, exhibited his waxed moustache and French graces within her circle. In like manner, chaperoning Mrs. Van Waddlevurst, all embonpoint, turban, and pomp, who carries that bashful blonde, her niece, to every Rout and At Home, under her wing, as it were, and brings it about that every young fellow of ton in the room shall be presented to her, in the vain hope of eclipsing sparkling Celeste, who sways all hearts this season, is she not re-produced in sanguine Mrs. Brown—slim though she be, and with her hair put up in a rather sparse knot on the summit of her head, and the same everlasting smile upon her face, most unlike dowager Van Waddlevurst's fat dignity of chin, who has not ceased to indulge in various secret dreams of distinction, founded on her Amelia Ann's accomplishments, ever since the return of that young lady from finishing-school. Mrs. Brown, indeed, is a woman of more energy than the dowager, having been compelled, for many years, (since Brown's demise,) to battle for herself; but she drags about and placards the attractiveness of her Amelia Ann, a shame-faced girl, who seldom answers except in monosyllables, with much the same good taste that Mrs. Van W. does her Amelia.

It is only you, O sweet Mary Jones, who have not been spoiled by living in a city. It is only you who go about singing or humming one of the songs you learned long before you came to be taught those grand symphonies from the opera of the Don, which the Miss Snacks performing together draw a chorus of bravas from the throats of moustached visitors, when the season for moustached visitors has arrived. Yes, it is certainly you, pretty, lovable Mary Jones, swinging your cottage bonnet about by its blue ribbons, and glancing here and there with eyes quite as blue, and a great deal pleasanter to behold, even were a man-milliner the arbiter, who, for the first time, perceives the young gentleman seated yonder by his fish-basket on the bank, who has been looking at you all this while with so much attention, not to say pleasure, that a perch has actually, after many delightful bobs, drawn his float under the surface and become entangled among the roots and weeds at the bottom, without his captor being any the wiser for it.

Miss Mary Jones—to assume a past tense, for these events have long gone by—halted then in her walk and in the song she was singing, in the pleasantest of voices, half aloud, and a little natural color came up into her face, partly, perhaps, because she found herself an object of attention, when she imagined the trees and birds only composed her audience; and partly, because the observation which she had courted seemed unlikely to be speedily withdrawn. The young gentleman, with his back to the trunk of a beech, and his eyes diverted from their proper occupation of watching his float, seemed to relish the effect of his curiosity, it must be admitted, and surveyed the nymph with a smile which would have appeared impertinent but for a challenge at recognition in it when his glance encountered the momentary surprise in those blue orbs of sweet Mary Jones. It did not please the nymph, however, to accept the acquaintance so proffered, and with the slightest possible moue in rejoinder, she turned into a path branching off opportunely from that by which she had approached, and would soon have left the scene of her interrupted solitude, and perhaps the memory of it, behind her. But the first comer entertained other views, it seemed. He promptly rose when about to be deserted, and finding his line tangled, as shown above, without ado snapped it in twain. Had it been too strong for him, he would have thrown the rod and all into the stream rather than be baffled, for it was part of the character of this young gentleman to take the shortest means at hand for ridding himself of the last pleasure in anticipation of the next in order. This done, he presented himself before our heroine, who, to say the truth, had not advanced far, nor seemed in much haste to go. She had stopped to pull a wild violet, but then she had dropped it again; and when she stooped to recover it, Mr. Clarence Van Trump, who was the angler, had it already in possession, and presently protested he could part with it on no terms, and would set it in water when he got home; though I believe he really put it in his vest pocket, and there forgot it, nor beheld it again for many months after all the events in this tale had transpired. This was not all either; Miss Mary Jones carried her bonnet—a pretty little bonnet with blue lining and ribbons, which must have made it become her exceedingly when on—slung over her arm for the occasion, and filled with flowers, which last, in the flutter incidental to the loss of the violet, were liberally scattered over the ground.

Her companion gathered them again, with a slight laugh: "Then you really have forgotten me?" he said, while so employed. "I who once fished and hunted for your especial benefit, and have never been in love since! Suppose I had been on the opposite side of this mill-race, and so unable to reveal myself, and you had gone away as you were doing a minute ago without recognizing me? I know I should have fallen into a state of low melancholy. Oh! by Jove! I recollect," the young gentleman added, rising in a sudden and stroking the ornament in question, "'t is this moustache—this grisly moustache which makes the difference—and come now! I lay an even wager—this violet against your bonnet of flowers—that who the present speaker really may be is a question this moment in your—a, well—lovely head."

The lovely head was shaken half-pettishly, half in denial. "I knew you very well, Mr. Clarence," the owner of it said, "but I—"

"Well?" said Mr. Clarence.

"I—am not to be treated like a school-girl."

"No?" said Clarence, laughing.

"No. And as for your moustache disguising you"—here the blue eyes of Miss Jones glanced at the downy indication of a beard which the owner thereof had termed grisly, and whether that a moustache is always fascinating in female eyes, or that it was not in the power of such celestial orbs to long display anger toward any one, all appearance of vexation quickly vanished, and her companion held out his hand, from which he had drawn his glove. Yes, this young Brummel had been actually angling in gloves, the identical white kids in which, perhaps, he had handed Miss Georgiana McKrell, or the lively Mrs. Tomtit to supper, two weeks before, at Newport!

Indeed, if Miss Mary Jones had failed to remember in Mr. Clarence Van Trump the little boy in corduroy pantaloons who had been her assiduous "sweetheart" once upon a time years before, when he had come down to spend the vacation with his uncle, the patroon, and slept in the identical bed-room, with the chintz curtains and patchwork quilt of faded satins, manufactured by the fingers of his great grandmother, which he occupied on the occasion of his present visit to that distinguished relative from whom his expectations were so great; if Miss Mary had failed to recall the shame-faced little lover in this smart young fellow, whose costume must have astonished the fishes, and was certainly not of a kind with that they had been used to regard upon the persons of the anglers of that region, there would have been no just cause for wonder. Had he not been abroad meanwhile, and mingled, as all our countrymen do, in the best foreign society? Were not his manners now so far from being distrait as almost to fall into the opposite extreme of too great assurance? and was he not esteemed by all the young ladies of his set in the city, a love of a man? and finally, was not his present nose as unlike that through which, as a boy, he had had that ugly habit of sniffling; and his face as dissimilar from the beardless and freckled cheek of that period, as time, nature, and a careful employment of art could make them?

But after all, there was no merit really in Miss Jones' recognition. She had quite forgotten the lover of three feet six, when one day, walking with Madame Treubleu's pensionnaires through Lafayette Place, two youngsters dashed by in a trotting wagon, not so fast but that Miss Simmons, who, being the chum of Miss Jones, was then, as ever, linked arm in arm with our heroine, had time to recognize a cousin, of whom she was naturally proud, and his friend.

"Why, lor!" Miss Simmons exclaimed, "if there ain't Prunelle and Mr. Van Trump. O my! such lovely eyes as Mr. Van Trump has, you can't think! I saw him at my aunt's soirée the other night, though no body introduced him to me. They say he is going to see his great uncle, who lives in our village, you know. Won't it be funny if he waits till we go home ourselves, and pays attention to a certain some body and makes some body else jealous? You know you would fall in love with him," Miss Columbia Simmons says to her friend, giggling behind her fan; "he is so handsome, and he said he was your sweetheart when you were no bigger than Nanny Fogg there."

"Poh! what nonsense!" her friend replies, and changes the topic. But she did not dismiss it from her mind, for that very evening she wrote a name in the fly-leaf of her Italian grammar which, when her chum looked over her shoulder, she hid, or attempted to hide, with quite a show of color, and some confusion. But Miss Columbia having pulled away the hand, in school-girl fashion, read it and laughed.

"Ah! you naughty, funny thing!" said she, "'Mrs. Clarence Van Trump!" Ah, won't some body be jealous!"

Now, although tender-hearted little Mary Jones repented on that occasion, and actually shed tears upon her pillow after her chum was asleep, and called herself I don't know how many hard names for her hard-heartedness in forgetting, for an instant, all the good qualities of one Thomas Elkhart, and how devoted to her, and what a genius he was, and a great deal more; it was not in the nature of a young lady on the point of leaving boarding-school, and whose patronym was merely Jones, to despise the probability, or shun at all times the thought, of being one day received into the distinguished connection of the great Van Trump family. Was not that family the most aristocratic in America, and possessed of estates and tenantry which made them almost resemble the dear old romantic barons of feudal times? Had not old Van Trump, the major-general, pounded over and over again upon the floor or ground, as the case might be, with his splendid gold-headed cane, the better to enforce his views, and averred that—"A Van Trump, Sir, is fit to marry a princess, Sir, and ought, by right, to hold the position of perpetual chief magistrate of this country, Sir, without the fiddle-faddle of the ballot-box!" And was not the old patroon who lived in her (Mary Jones') own village, but had very little to do with any body there, so dreadfully proud that people said he ate with nothing less than gold spoons? gold spoons—think of that! The idea of one of this distinguished family paying court to so undistinguished a maiden as Miss Mary Jones was perhaps enough to turn the head of a school-girl who had devoured any quantity of romances during the past eighteen months, and was not wiser or more experienced than girls in their teens usually are.

But crotchets such as these are not the offspring of young heads only; and it might be that Mrs. Jones herself entertained some vague wishes, not to say anticipations, when, looking from her door step on the afternoon with which this tale commences, in search of Miss Mary, for whom their early country tea waited and gave out such an odor of Bohea and fresh cakes from the back-parlor, whom should she behold but that truant, accompanied by Mr. Clarence Van Trump, elegantly flourishing his fishing-rod, now reduced to the size of a stout cane, and wonderfully resembling the paternal gold-headed one. Perhaps he was taking off that swagger of the brigadier-general, the better to illustrate an incident in which they two had had a share on the sands of Newport, at which Miss Mary and himself were now laughing. At all events, the pair of young people were as sociable as if Mr. Clarence had never lived elsewhere than with his great uncle, the patroon, and as Mrs. Jones thought, with pride in her heart, on their coming up.

That estimable lady, after the first glimpse she had obtained of her daughter's escort, had slipped into her chamber, hard by, and donned, a new and famously be-bowed cap, the pretty handiwork of Mary herself, before you could say Jack Robinson; and reappeared as if she had not been guilty of that sly manœuvre. She even affected for a moment to overlook the presence of the heir of the patroon.

"Mr. Clarence Van Trump," Miss Mary said, smilingly presenting that young gentleman, who bowed elegantly, as his wont is. Mrs. Jones also dropped a courtsey in the manner of a lady's maid on the boards, which she believed to have a stylish effect, and to show her familiarity with good society. "Columbia is here," Mrs. J. remarks to her Mary, inclining her head in the direction of the parlor, "and Mr. Tom. He has something wrapped in a cloth which he will not let us see. You do n't know Mr. Thomas Elkhart, do you, sir?" says Mrs. J. to Clarence.

"I really haven't the pleasure," Mr. Clarence returns, glancing at our heroine, who does not look at him, but colors, a little, perhaps. "Is tea ready?" she asks mamma, and mamma takes the hint.

"I trust you will give us the pleasure of your company at our humble board," the dear soul says, with much urbanity and state; and when our young gentleman, after pretending to hesitate on the score of the solitary condition of his uncle, whom the rogue knew to be at that hour, namely, candle-light, on the eve of getting into bed, allows himself to be entreated, and declares taking tea in that house reminds him of the happy days of his boyhood. Mrs. Jones, I am bound to say, being of a sanguine turn of mind, began to speculate in earnest upon the probability of a certain desirable event.

It has just been disclosed that the elder Van Trump—not the brigadier-general, but the patroon—retired with the sun, or a little later, partly because his constitution and senile infirmities required, and partly because, having few associates among his immediate neighbors, the best way of disposing of the tedium of the evenings was to cut it short altogether. During the occasional visits of his grand-nephew and heir, it is true, the last-named motive could not be said to exist, but it was scarce worth his while, the old man thought, to break in upon a habit of years growth for a satisfaction of ten days standing; so Mr. Clarence, had he staid at home on the night in question, would have had a dull time of it in the library, yawning or dozing over a few dusty gazetteers or odd volumes of magazines, containing such tales as delighted our grandmothers a half century back. To own the truth, however, it was not the habit of our young gentleman to spend many hours of the evening within the recesses of the dismal pile known among the villagers as the 'Squirery, on the occasions of his visits; and occasionally he was absent—looking at the moon, perhaps—at least, that was what he told the ancient housekeeper—most of the night. But at breakfast-table, next morning, Mr. Clarence was sure to present himself, whence-ever he might last come, and make himself agreeable to the great proprietor sitting opposite, sipping his weak tea, and wagging his revered head at the sallies and gossip of his youthful kinsman. The morning after the evening spent in Miss Mary Jones's society, the Joneses were, of course, the text.

"You ought to have seen Mother Jones, Sir!" Mr. Clarence said. That was the scarcely respectful way in which he chose to designate that worthy lady. "Such attention as she paid me! By Jove! if I had eaten half the sweet-meats, only, she put upon my plate at supper, you would have had to send for Snack's successor before morning. I was obliged to take refuge from her in the conversation of her lovely daughter, who plays the deuce-knows-what, all upon a piano that has a distinct jingle in most of the chords, as if a handful of silver were dancing a jig upon them. And then there was a sandy-haired young lady present—a hand-and-glove friend of little Mary Jones, I presume, who could not help casting admiring glances at your humble servant all the evening, and would have fallen in love at a moment's notice if I had given her half a chance. As it was, she told me she had seen me at a crush at one of Prunelle's confounded low relatives', where I went to please him, and also somewhere in the streets, I believe. What do you think they call her, Sir? by Jove! you could never guess: 'Columbia;' patriotic, ain't it? Columbia Brown, or Smith, or something."

"Simmons, Columbia Simmons, I know," the old gentleman says, nodding and chuckling. It quite rejuvenates him to listen to the prattle of his nephew. "Ah! ah! you young rogue," the senior adds presently, while the young rogue sips his coffee, and smirks a little complacently behind his old-fashioned mug; "I see how it was; you had it all your own way. If there had been some other youngster present, you would not have thought widow Jones and the rest of them setting their caps for you, aha!"

"Why, for the matter of that," says Mr. Clarence, no ways abashed, "I was not precisely cavalier-seul, you know. There was one Buckhart, or Elkhart, or something of the sort there—a not ill-looking fellow for his station, which I take to be that of a mechanic. But his style of costume; by the lord Harry! Sir. I looked at him with as much curiosity as if he had been a South Sea Islander, and, to say the truth, he regarded me rather cavalierly in turn. He had something wrapped in a handkerchief, which might have been the remains of his dinner for any thing I know, though he had better have left it, in that case, in the passage, instead of on the centre-table in the parlor. Who is he?" Mr. Clarence asks with a short laugh. "Does he do jobs for you in brick and mortar? I fancied his hands looked rather gritty, Sir."

"No, no; not he, but his grandfather did," the great-uncle returns. "Elkhart, the potter; that water-jug was made at his pottery. And that's where he made the money this young fellow is to have directly, they say. We old fellows stand in you youngsters' shoes unreasonably long; hey, Clary, my boy?"

"Not in mine, Sir; HEAVEN forbid!" Mr. Clary says piously and hypocritically.

"Well, well, what were we talking about? Elkhart, the potter. No, young Elkhart—Tom, I think they call him. Instead of making jugs and pots, his turn is for modelling little figures in clay, and very pretty figures, too, if Bridget here is to be credited. Bridget was in their house awhile, were n't you, Bridget?" And Bridget, who, broom in hand, chanced to be slipping through to arrive at a neighboring chamber, stops, nothing loth, and drops a low courtsey. "Sure an' he does," she says, "the beautifullest things iver was seen, Sir. Sure an' did n't he make the Blissed Virgin, Holy Mother of Hiven, out of as much mud—thrue as I'm standing here, Sir—as might go in your tay-cup! And more than that, though not wishing to be mintioned in the same breath, me and my ould blind mother, Sir, the first time we came to the old gintleman's house, my mother houlding me by the hand, and groping with her staff like, and me a-wearing the tore bonnet which the mistress Hannagan gave me in the ould country, sure, and set us up on the mantel-shelf where any body can see us to this blissed day for the asking. An agin, my own pathron Saint Bridget, which," says Bridget, suddenly dropping a curtsey and her broom, and disappearing to return again presently and take up her sentence where interrupted, "will your honors be pleased to igxamine?"

Now, Mr. Clarence Van Trump, though at the time a fop, and, I am afraid, a little of a roué, was neither a blockhead nor so ignorant of art as most of his compeers. He had not spent all, if he had the greater part, of his time, in Paris in the cafes and hells, or places worse yet, and by mere occasional contact with artists and connoisseurs, had picked up some slight acquaintance with the subject under consideration. Neither was he ill-natured or apt to bear malice, though his self-love had been slightly wounded the evening previous by the young sculptor, or modeller, if you will, having failed to do him homage, I believe. On that occasion he had planned to avenge himself by flirting with little Mary Jones, and making her lover, as he more than suspected him to be, miserable during his (Van Trump's) stay in the vicinity. But Bridget's patron saint caused him to forget his resolve the moment he had taken the figure into his hand.

"By Jove!" said he ingenuously, "it is wonderful! by Jove, it is! and as good as What-d'ye-call-em, the great modeller's, in Paris. I can guess now what was in the cloth on the table: something pretty for Miss Mary Jones, I'll be bound. I'll ask her to show it to me, and I'll get him to let me see his Madonna, and Bridget's likeness, and the rest. I'll make friends with him, I will, by Jove!" cried our young dilletanti, and meant all he said.

Even pretty Mary Jones had not seen what the thick cloth concealed the night before, until Miss Simmons had been duly escorted home, over the way, and young Van Trump, believing the enemy to have abandoned the field, went away himself. That young gentleman, however, would have smoked his cigar with less gusto on his way to bed, had he surmised that, however his whispered flatteries had fluttered the little heart of our heroine, and for the matter of that of castle-building mamma also, not one pang of jealousy had he yet created in the breast of his single-minded rival. Why should he (Elkhart) have been miserable? He had formed his own estimate of the worth of elegant Mr. Clarence, and scarce troubled himself, save in one instance, to enter the lists into which that accomplished cavalier desired to lure him, sure of victory in the end. While Mr. Clarence was turning the music, and singing second, and otherwise manifesting his interest and admiration, though secretly amused and purposing to take it all off to a few of his friends in the city some day after dinner, Elkhart stood by with an ear only for the one voice out of three, which to him always discoursed melody. For him there were no jingling keys in the whole ricketty piano-forte, no false note in Miss Columbia's singing, even when she dropped her handkerchief and picked it up tittering, (Mr. Clarence feigning blindness on the occasion,) and fell again into her place in the concert. For him "Mary Jones" was a name interchangeable with "angel," and where she dwelt by no means the humble residence the widow's house in reality was, and such as Mr. Clarence unmistakably perceived it. All through his art, like a vein of gold in the clay he modelled, the thought of her beauty, her sweetness, her excellences ran: "If I could but model her as she appears to me!" he thought over and over; but, then, what artist who is a lover can? "With wings upon her shoulders and the softly flowing white dress she wears on midsummer afternoons, I think all the world would stop and hold its breath for reverence and love of a figure and face so celestial!" And so, though the task seemed impossible, he had set about it in earnest, and labored on in secret and patiently, until there stood your prototype, prettier, perhaps, than yourself, but still yourself and none other, O gentle Mary Jones! A charming figure it was, too; not a copy of an antique, or modelled after rules of ancient art; but possessing a maiden-like purity of outline which made equally consistent the muslin skirt or the wings which were not at first sight visible; they were budding wings, rather than matured, and so, perhaps, helped to embody his ideal of a person he believed to be mortally perfect.

When Senator Macænas saw the statuette—it was nearly life-size, and the most ambitious our hero had modelled—he had much ado to persuade the young sculptor to send it to a neighboring city; but that he did so, and found himself famous, and that Senator Macænas subsequently obtained for him the order for the great national work in marble upon which he is now engaged, we all know; for it is not a part of the policy of that great man to keep secret the good deeds he perpetrates, but rather to let both hands know what either may be doing. But let us all hope, for our hero's sake, that this great work may not resemble the wonderful pantomime in marble of COLUMBUS perpetually performing on the steps of the national Capitol, which does so much credit to the taste of the committee who accepted it, and is so much more laughable than any pantomime that was ever acted before.

Before it went, however, young Elkhart made a copy of his earth-angel in piccolo, and this it was that he brought for a gift to the fair original. She only, of all the village, had seen and praised the statuette; and with her pretty dimpled chin resting in her hand, watching the unwrapping of its lesser fac-simile, was it that she was reminded of the blissful occasion, when they two, standing before his best work, she had conceived herself honored in the love of this young artist, moustacheless though he were, and by no means so elegantly winning in address as our friend Van? But, O Mary Jones! of whom as a heroine nothing but good should be predicated, how can I bring myself to declare what really occupied your thoughts? "Did they really and truly use a service of gold up in the 'Squirery yonder? and how fine it must be to dine off plate!" were the initial words of your reverie. And when young Elkhart had unswathed the graceful copy of your own unworthy self, and asked, with a slight dash of disappointment in his voice, perhaps, Was it not like the other, and Did n't you like it? it was not a flush of pleasure that rose to your cheek, so much as a blush for your own faithlessness.

"It is beautiful! How good you are to me!" she exclaimed, awaking with a start, and, as has been said, a blush; and leaning over the statuette, half concealed both her face and it in a cloud of curls; and be sure Elkhart repeated to himself many times on his way home those simple words, and built as many castles in Spain (though of different materials) as Mrs. Jones herself was doing about the same time.

That excellent lady, though no strategist, was as fond as her sex—and for the matter of that, ours, too—of having her own quiet way, and so the next forenoon, when our friend Van T., having yawned and bored himself to the extent of his capacity at home, bethought himself of paying the Joneses a morning visit, but in the end changed his mind, and sent a note instead, soliciting the pleasure of driving out Miss Jones in the cool of the afternoon; and when the fair recipient of the note remembered the trotting wagon in which Mr. Clarence and his friend had dashed by in Lafayette Place, and how delightful it must be, but recalled also a promise given to some body else the past evening, and sent a polite excuse, the widow, who took the message to the door in person, added a protocol to the effect that if Mary could not, Miss Columbia might: a message which amused Mr. Clarence, and of which, on cross-questioning the servant who brought it, he sagaciously divined the latent purport.

Therefore it was that without the least intention of honoring the last-named young lady, and to whom, though she had spent the major part of that very forenoon in her house, mamma Jones had not, in truth, communicated one word of the supposed treat in store for her, Mr. Clarence Van Trump presented himself at quite an early hour at the widow's door, not in the rather rickety chaise upon leathern springs, in which the patroon made his manorial progresses, but in a light wagon, which our young gentleman, knowing the style of equipage in use where he was about to go in pursuance of duty, had caused to be forwarded all the way from the city. Was it the showy elegance of the carriage, or the high-spirited horse which had brought it to the door with such marvellous celerity, and stood pawing the dust, impatient to be gone again; or the subtle charm of Mr. Clarence's moustache and pleading manner, which made the invitation now irresistible? No; Mrs. Jones, be it said, aided by good-natured and unsuspecting Miss Simmons, had carried the day beforehand. The arguments that had been used were not very strong of their kind, and were chiefly confined to truisms. They said a ride in a nice wagon with so pleasant a companion, was not to be picked up in the streets; that she, Mary Jones, could of course walk at any time; that Thomas Elkhart would not, of course, be so unreasonable as to be offended, even if she had promised to walk with him this afternoon, and much more of the sort. After all, it has not been said that Miss Mary Jones was perfect, but only that Elkhart believed her so. She was very pretty and amiable, and not naturally coquettish; but who could resist the fascinating influences concentred in Mr. Clarence Van Trump? And what was it, Mr. Clarence, that you said in the course of your drive, which so turned, for a time, the not over-strong little head beside you? And what was there in the face of young Elkhart, when you two met him taking his perforce solitary walk, which stung you into forgetting your late resolve to patronize this native artist, and caused you to commence that methodical flirtation which ended somewhat otherwise than you anticipated?

Mr. Thomas Elkhart had, in the meanwhile, indeed, enjoyed a tête-a-tête interview with the mother of the young lady in lieu of her absent self, and may not have been the better in temper for a rather odd conversation, in which Mrs. J. had been chief speaker. He had learned with surprise, and perhaps, for the first time, something approaching jealousy, that he had been unjustifiably slighted; that Mamma Jones thought Clarence a most desirable match for her Mary, and was disposed to believe his (Thomas') love for the same young lady, and their tacit engagement, and all that, mere child's play, which they would both have forgotten when he (Elkhart) had been a year in Italy. He was going there soon, was n't he? Now that he was of age and had come into the property, of course he could travel and improve his mind, and perhaps would marry some foreign lady and settle abroad, who knows?

Elkhart knew, if Mrs. Jones did not, there was only one woman in the wide world who would ever be his wife. He looked at the castle-building lady in the fine cap (donned not to do him, but Mr. Clarence, honor) without resentment, but with a hitherto unknown weight at heart. He quite understood the latent meaning in what he had just heard, and the not unkind motive in which it may have originated; there was no balm in that. He went home and chipped away at a block of marble without purpose, then threw down his tools, and walking out at random, encountered our heroine, who, however, did not see him as they flew by, her face being addressed elsewhere. But Mr. Clarence, whose eyes were just then engaged in peering admiringly under the bonnet with the fluttering blue streamers, naturally caught the rather fierce glance which proceeded from the same direction a little beyond, and involuntarily bit his lip and frowned. "Confound his impudence!" he growled, below his breath, "does the fellow remember who I am, and what he is? By Jove! I suppose he is jealous, and waylaid us to frighten this little girl, who is a deuced deal too pretty for him to think of, by the bye; and I'm glad his purpose miscarried, and my stare was all he got in return for his ill-looks."

"Why, dear! how cross you look," cried Miss Mary, in great astonishment, who saw no cause for the change of countenance.

"Cross! what, to you! Did I look so? Surely not," was what Mr. Clarence replied, with a very different expression of face. "By the Lord Harry!" he added, mentally, he had been looking, while he spoke, so earnestly at his companion that she was blushing a little, and looking prettier for it, "how charming she is! and I will flirt with her to my heart's content, if only to spite what's his name, the potter."

Perhaps it was in virtue of this resolution that he was so amiable and pleased with every thing on the widow's supper-table. What bread, and what delicious butter! and did Miss Mary really and truly make that cake? He had tasted nothing like it in New-York, nor in Paris either. And this must be caravan tea; it could be no other.

The tea was some Mrs. J.'s brother, Captain Bluff, in the East-Indian trade, had brought home for her; and so was the preserved ginger. He must try some; it was the best thing in the world for a——

"O ma!" cried Miss Mary here. Indeed the old lady valued it as a stomachic, and never brought it to table even when her best friends supped with her; but who, let it again be asked, could resist the blandishments of so delightful a guest? It almost brought tears to her eyes to see how he ate out of their plated spoons as if they had been the gold ones he was accustomed to, and which she began to think her Mary would one day have the charge of counting. She longed to tell him he had her consent and blessing beforehand, and took great credit, in secret, for the adroit conversation with poor Thomas Elkhart, which no doubt caused that young gentleman's seat at table to be vacant, the first evening for weeks past. To do her justice, our heroine noticed the empty place too, and with some expressions of regret, at first, which annoyed Mr. Clarence more than he would have chosen to confess; but as the field was his for the evening, and he exerted himself to fascinate, perhaps Elkhart was in the thoughts of none of them long. Mrs. J., who, for the past hour, had been rocking herself in her state mahogany-and-mohair chair, smiling perpetually, listening and castle-building, declared him, when he was gone, to be the most talented young man she had ever laid eyes on; meaning young Van Trump! What beautiful compliments he paid! Who was that he said she was like—the Duchess who? Sweet Mary Jones did not remember the name, but she did the substance of the compliment, and of many others, and wished in her heart Elkhart were as elegant in address. Thomas Elkhart seemed to think her better than she was, she knew, but then why did n't he say so sometimes, even if she were not to believe it all? What a pity he had not been present to see how such things were done by the best society; he was so diffident of his own attainments, and so willing always to learn, that she was sure he would have been able to pick up a grace or two while looking on. Perhaps he might have been even persuaded into wearing a moustache in future, when he heard how it improved a bass voice. With a moustache now, and his large eyes to help, he would look almost like a foreigner; more so than Mr. Van Trump even, though of course not so good-looking. But then he was so good; yes, if not handsome, he was certainly good, very good to her, Miss Mary thought, before falling asleep.

If Elkhart had not had some good in him, as Mary Jones had admitted; and more than that, if he had not been so much in love with our pretty heroine, that even the self-respect which lies at the bottom of all worth had no opportunity to assert its claim to consideration, perhaps the hints thrown out by Mrs. J., in person, would have been received for the daughter's own aspirations at second-hand, and his chair at the widow's supper-table and accustomed place in her little parlor, have remained thenceforward forever untenanted. But although such was really the state of things at first, the lapse of twenty-four hours brought a change in his views. He even began to judge himself unreasonable, and to be contrite accordingly. Why should she not ride with a friend on occasion? The fact of her doing so, under the circumstances, showed a familiar confidence in his affection which he was sorry to feel himself unworthy of. Could he have seemed more a Bluebeard if he had been indeed her husband, and she anything but the angel she was? What did it matter if he should be occasionally compelled to listen, in common with sweet Mary Jones, to this Van Trump's flippancies? they both would understand the true value of the coin in which he dealt, and not be deluded by its glitter, as Mrs. Jones was. He could afford to smile now when he recalled that lady's hints and inuendoes. At least, however, he would make amends for his late ill-humor, this true lover thought, by leaving his angel free to fly about with whom she would, to ride when she willed, and be as happy as the day was long. For himself, he would look on and enjoy her happiness, which would be the best means of securing his own. And full of this fine resolve, young Elkhart, the following evening, took his usual place at table, and by the piano afterward, at which last Mr. Clarence did not fail to join them a little later. The ricketty little instrument over which the glances of these rivals occasionally met, threateningly, during subsequent evenings, became, from the first, a battle-ground for both. If Clarence sang and laughed, and was gay and audacious in his flatteries, and affected to overlook our hero's presence, for the most part, the last-named young gentleman was not likely to beat a retreat after the first instinctive recoil before Mother Jones's fusilade, unless by order expressed or implied of bewitching Mary Jones herself. For such a sign, indeed, he watched incessantly, but without jealousy, and with nothing like a scowl upon his face or perdue in the depth of his heart. He did not think to console himself with the trite proverb of "as good fish as she being to find," but in his simplicity believed all perfections met in this little girl with blue eyes, and blue ribbons to her bonnet, and set his hopes upon her accordingly. What delightful conversations those were when Mr. Clarence was absent, or had not yet arrived, and how much more pleasing, because more in keeping with the place and performer, were Miss Mary's bird-like songs, than the fine operatic performances with which she delighted the refined and travelled ear of Mr. Van Trump. Elkhart sometimes talked of art and of his aspirations, of books, of nature, of whatever he loved, and thought this élève of Madame Treubleu loved equally. It is always so with your lovers. Does not young Cuticle, whose talk is chiefly of the hospitals which he has been lately walking in Paris, believe Miss Tompkins (who had resolved to accept him long before he proposed) to be intended by nature for a surgeon's wife, because she would actually—if you are polite enough to take her word for it—prefer a walk of the above kind to even one about the Palais Royal or on the Boulevards. The fault lies a little on both sides, but in Mary Jones's case there was at least no deception; she liked nature very well, and art, and books, and so on, very well too, and so she did music and admiration, and perhaps equally every thing agreeable you could name. I believe she had the capacity to love earnestly, as afterward appeared, but in mere matters of liking, the present object was perhaps the best liked, because more in mind. Mrs. J. would fidget a little during these confidential talks between the young people in the dusk of the afternoon, or when Elkhart, leaning over her Mary's shoulder to turn the music of some favorite air, would catch the kindly glance of those cerulean eyes, and be incited straightway to feel himself, as of old, the accepted suitor of so much loveliness. But when that exquisite Clarence arrived the tables were quickly turned. I verily believe he laid out his plan of the evening campaign during the mornings, when he had nothing better to do, and went to the extent of committing to heart daily a page or two out of an old copy of Joe Miller, one of the few books in the library our young dandy cared to kill time by reading. Whence else did he pour out such a flood of slipshod anecdote, sometimes audaciously told for his own adventures, that Miss Columbia Simmons, who was frequently present, gnawed through I do n't know how many handkerchiefs, in attempts to stifle her laughter, and Mrs. Jones came to think the narrator incomparably more talented than our hero, who, for his part, commonly sat and listened, with more philosophy and forbearance than gratification, be it said. However much his conclusions may have differed from Mrs. Jones's, he kept them to himself, and took part here and there in these conversations, on which occasions Mr. Van Trump, to show his superior station, perhaps, rather than his better breeding, usually fell to talking with some one else. In truth—and the truth will out at some time in a history such as this—a great change had been undergone since the beginning of this pastoral in the views and feelings of the young gentleman last named. He had ceased to make fun of "Mother Jones," as he had at first called her, for the entertainment of the grinning old patroon, at the breakfast-table, and some how had lost perception of the false notes in the performances upon the veteran instrument in Mrs. J.'s parlor. He did not now forget the flowers he took from Miss Mary's scarcely resisting fingers, and suffer them to perish, for want of care, in the button-hole of his coat; the glass on his bureau at home always contained one or two. He had her album to write some verses in, and was laboring with touching energy to collate some "original stanzas" which might put to shame the not ungraceful verses preceding them, signed T. He drove her almost every afternoon in his love of a wagon, he attended her to church, where she played the organ in lieu of a professional, and where he and Elkhart sang bass on either side of the fair musician. He considered with himself the probability of being disinherited in a certain event, and was so much in love that he gave it little heed. He had chanced to step in twice or thrice during those familiar chats by the open window, between Elkhart and our heroine, already recorded, and had been stung to jealousy in no usual degree.

Elkhart himself had not been without his trials of this sort; and it was about this time, one evening, that Miss Mary's handkerchief—a very pretty little embroidered handkerchief—having fallen to the floor, Mr. Van Trump hastened to possess himself of it, but instead of restoring the estray first pressed it, half-jestingly, to his moustached lips, and finally deposited it under his vest on the left side. He caught his rival's eye while doing so, and there was a fierce wrath in its blaze which caused Mr. Clarence to quake a little, it must be admitted; perhaps he discerned, by some curious instinct, what was passing just then in the other's mind. As for Miss Jones, she smiled, I am sure, when she turned her head aside. It is certain she affected to see nothing of the impertinence; yet, when Van Trump took his leave, a little later, and our hero, following suite, overtook the latter in the street, close to the door, and there intimated, in a tone more imperious than was his wont, or in truth, than members of that distinguished family are accustomed to be addressed, a purpose to speak with Clarence as they walked, Miss Mary Jones suddenly appeared on the door-step they had just quitted, and called out "Mr. Elkhart!" in her most persuasive manner. Then, as he only looked back and nodded, with a somewhat sardonic smile, she called him a second time, by his Christian name, and what lover could resist that? Tom, as has been noticed, is not an harmonious syllable in itself, but in Miss Mary Jones's pretty mouth it became quite irresistible; and the owner came, as would any well-trained dog—Mr. Clarence sauntering slowly on.

"Do n't ask him for it; please do n't ask him?" the young lady supplicated; meaning, of course, the handkerchief, which she could not have seen Mr. Clarence Van Trump slip under his vest. Elkhart saw the inconsistency, and paused in what he was about to say.

"Yes, yes; thank you: I know," Miss Jones ran on; "but I will send for it in the morning. I can send a note to ask if he took it by mistake, or mamma can, if that will be more proper. He would never return it to you, I am almost sure."

"No?" said Elkhart.

"No; and how cross you are! Why you can have another handkerchief just like it to keep as long as he keeps that. Come in, please, or promise me to remain there, and I will fetch you one."

"No," our hero said a second time, perhaps a little scornfully, but with wonderful coolness, the number of emotions by which his mind had been agitated during this short debate, being considered, "Mr. Van Trump has nothing to fear under your protection," he added, and held out his hand. "Good night; good bye!" poor Thomas Elkhart ended by saying, somewhat less steadily, and walked away from the woman he loved, with a resolution never to see her more. "If she ever loved me, as I once thought, she certainly does not now, and my presence encumbers her. I know I am not worthy of her. Who is? I will at least be in Italy before the sacrifice is complete, and may never hear that she is the unhappy wife of this man," were the meditations which went with our hero to his pillow that night. They had been less orderly upon his first arrival home, two hours earlier, or those bitter tears, which had forced themselves between the fingers of the hands in which his face was so long buried upon the bed-side, would not have been to chronicle. Afterward he dreamed that he was engaged upon a colossal statue of some great personage; and when it was done, lo! there stood the exact resemblance of Mr. Clarence Van Trump, in marble, even to his favorite short cutaway coat and light fancy trousers. But when, in a fit of ungovernable rage, he had seized a mighty sledge to demolish the figure, which was, oddly enough, grinning at him, and stroking a finely-chiselled moustache, on a sudden the likeness of sweet Mary Jones, as he had carved her, occupied the pedestal instead; then the hammer, checked in mid career, alighted on his own head, and he awoke to find it broad day, and his temples throbbing as fiercely as if the blow had fallen where he had dreamed. Indeed, a fever had set in, which not only induced numberless greater vagaries than that of a colossal statue to Van Trump, during the succeeding ten days, but postponed, for a much longer time, the voyage to Italy, which our unhappy young friend had previously arranged should commence the next day but one.

Mr. Clarence Van Trump woke about the same hour, but with widely different sensations, and, to argue from his countenance, none of an unpleasant kind. lie had leisurely pursued his homeward course undisturbed the previous night, and had triumphantly brought off the little perfumed handkerchief, which had so nearly proved a casus belli.

What could there have been in the retention of that trifle which had caused our young gentleman, on retiring to his chamber, to regard it with such complacency, when produced and laid upon his dressing-table? Had he feared any opposition to the laudable purpose of elevating one of the Joneses to be a Van any thing? None, certainly, from Mrs. Jones herself, who would have lost a finger rather than such a son-in-law, and was, perhaps, more open in that respect than the other ladies in the village who had marriageable daughters, judged becoming. The old sea-captain in the India trade, Mary's uncle, had paid them a short visit, too, and had expressed his bluff concurrence, but not until his sister had clearly manifested that Elkhart could never have thought of marrying her Mary; how could he, when he certainly was not a lover, and had not paid Mary a compliment, such as Mr. Van Trump was always doing, once in his whole life-time, she believed? As for Miss Columbia Simmons, let it suffice to know that she had already arranged what dress she would wear on a certain grand occasion, as likewise during the first subsequent visit to her friend's palatial mansion in the city.

The personage chiefly interested in this pleasing little drama, how ever, did not at first give in her acquiescence. It is true, she rode and walked with the sous-hero of this tale, and was not a little carried away by his delightfully fashionable conversation. But was it not enough to flatter Miss Jones into a passion—meaning la grande passion—that the man who had waltzed with and made love to Countesses and High-Mightinesses at the German spas, to say nothing of his home position, should run after her in the way he did? Had he not given her flowers? then a book—a Book of Beauty, of course—then a ring, and finally a perfumed pink paper note, an answer to which was to be conveyed in the tacit gift of the handkerchief? There would have been no want of opportunity to have given either a verbal or written response, it may be remarked, in a more usual manner; but the worth of a romantic incident with the more youthful of your sex, ladies, was not unknown to this young Alcibiades. Beside, he entertained other views—views which I shall take great pains to avoid the mention of here. Indeed, they were not expressed in the pink billet, nor even hinted at, nor were they directly referred to in any of the pink perfumed notes which followed this forerunner. But in each and all there was thenceforward a more open avowal of his passionate affection, and much reïteration of the unbounded sacrifices he would make for her, sweet Mary Jones's, sake. This, too, was the burden of most of his conversations. To do him justice, he spoke the truth here, so far as it went. It has been incidentally shown in the first pages of this history, that a gratification of any sort would be purchased by this patrician off-shoot at the cost of the whole future, if necessary; and in the present instance he certainly would not have scrupled to risk the paternal and avuncular favor and inheritance at once, rather than forego his wishes.

Perhaps, though, there might be some safer means for attaining his end. If he were so disposed to risk every thing, should not she make some sacrifice? It would be safer to delay their marriage until, at least, his uncle, the patroon, should have left him his heir—in a year, possibly, or at the end of a few months or weeks. Meanwhile, should greater delay be required by after events, or should either weary of the other—— But let us not record the musings, held in private with his segar, of this delightful young roué, whose moustache and cane, or lorgnette, we are always secretly flattered to see promenading, or at the opera, with our sisters and daughters. He was crazy with love at times, kissing over and over again a likeness of Mary he had taken from the parlor table, and he was content to be the sacrifice in the event of her refusing to be. On the whole, it is not saying too much, that there are honester and more honorable men wearing the striped uniform of Sing-Sing at the present day, than Mr. Clarence was in heart at this juncture.

If the poor child had fallen into the snare, who would have been to blame? Not you, of course, most excellent and moral Mrs. Jones; nor would it have been the fault of her education, of course. We Americans are intolerant of an hereditary nobility, but consent to worship any pretender. We brag of our republicanism, and cringe to self-assumed superiority. In what was this son of a patroon better than the son of a potter? and in how much and how immeasurably inferior? Observe, gentle reader, the present writer is far from believing all men equal; but let superiority be purchased by some thing more than lawful dollars or the counterfeit coin of assurance.

How could Elkhart contend alone against this social ill, or hope to uproot it? While he stood looking on, vexed at heart and conscious of the wrong, the love of the woman he would have given his life for was cajoled out of his keeping. She had been flattered into believing Elkhart's to be friendship, and Van Trump's true love; how could both be love which were so different? The descent to Avernus is so proverbially easy, that in the end who can say she may not have fallen, as natures as sweet and good have fallen before? But "when the tale of bricks is double, Moses comes."

Moses came now in the person of one Miss Keziah, the maiden aunt who had kept Elkhart's house for him since his falling heir to it. She came straight from his bedside, from hearing him raving of Mary Jones, and believing him on the verge of death. Mrs. Jones, from some feminine instinct not easily definable, had settled it in her own mind, that upon this especial forenoon young Van Trump would propose; and, taking her work with her somewhere, had left a clear field to these two lovers. There was no one else in the house, and when Miss Keziah, with her cap-strings undone, rushed unannounced into the parlor, Clarence was down upon his knees, protesting, imploring, almost crying, and poor frightened Mary Jones weeping for very bewilderment and helplessness.

But Miss Keziah cared for none of these things. It is doubtful if she even saw Clarence at all; but sat upon the sofa, with her face buried in her apron, and rocked herself to and fro.

"Oh! he's dying, I feel he is!" she sobbed aloud; "he that promised to be such a great man, and would have been, I know. And all for love of you, Mary Jones; he raves of nothing but you, day and night. He's dying for love of you, cruel, cruel Mary Jones! and you will have his life to answer for one of these days. Come, come and see him before it is too late."

"Dying—dying for love of me!" Mary Jones cried, standing up, pale and wild, the tears running fast down her cheeks.

What a frightful past was that she had just escaped! It made her shudder. Was there time to make peace with the man she had so injured, and now knew that she loved so with the whole depth and strength of her nature? Like Margaret, she breathed one prayer aloud; and was that Faust hurriedly groping for his hat, and cursing his fate, in the entry? Then she flung her arms about the neck of Miss Keziah, and sobbed upon her breast.

"Save me, save me, O Keziah!" she said, "and take me with you. I will never leave his bedside while he lives, until he is my husband."

Elkhart lived—of course he did—under such careful nursing. Mrs. Jones plead, and half the village held up their hands, but Mary Jones was not to be moved. She became Mrs. Elkhart in time, and what sweeter face or better wife was there known to artists in all Rome? We all saw and admired lately the greatest work, thus far, of Elkhart's chisel; but what that work is I am not going to say, for then every one would know the true and proper name of our sculptor, and, perhaps, next Sunday in church, would be staring at still pretty Mrs. Elkhart, and, by inference, condemning young Van Trump, in place of attending to the Collect for the day, or crying—as every one of us has occasion to do, not less than Mr. Clarence, per haps—"GOD be merciful to me a sinner!"

"NOTHING in his life
Became him like the leaving it."
—SHAKSPEARE.

WHAT woe is this that hath cast o'er the land
Such a shade of sorrow? What star hath fled
From the heavens above us? and why do men stand
Aghast, looking earthward, as if Earth were dead?
Go look in yon coffin; the answer is there.
Written plain in that white and immovable face;
And it darkens the sunlight and thickens the air.
And robs the bright world of its manifold grace.

The fire is gone out in those cavernous eyes,
Which flashed like a coal at the blast of his thought;
And those closed lips will part nevermore, though the world
For ages will ring with the lessons they taught.
Ay, well may'st thou mourn, like a RACHEL, to-day,
Dear goddess of Freedom, and weep by his grave;
On thy altar he laid the first-fruits of his life;
To thee the best toil of his manhood he gave.

He looks not now as when, proudly erect,
On the rock of the stern old Pilgrim race,
He summoned up the ghost of the Past,
And talked with the Future face to face!
The words that fell from his lips were like drops
Of a thunder-cloud—large, heavy, and clear;
And they purged men's minds as the genial shower
Purges the misty atmosphere.

From the soil of his own loved New-England he sprang
When her acres were drenched with the blood of the brave;
And back to her bosom returning to-day,
With his honors full-blossomed, he sinks to the grave.
Never greater than when (as the sun of his life,
Sloping westward, grew large) humbly kissing the rod,
On the arms of the Angel of Faith and of Hope
He leaned for support, and went home to his GOD.

OF all our Indian tribes, none were more interesting or more rudely destroyed than the Natchez. What is remembered of them is calculated to make a deep impression upon the imagination, and to cause regret that some historian had not preserved a truthful history of this singular people. In the early traditions of the Mexicans, preserved to us in their hieroglyphical paintings, there is presented the wonderful spectacle of families and nations, from innate impulses, moving from "the North," and, ever restless, wandering over an unoccupied continent in search of homes. It is evident that the same wisdom that confounded the primitive language at Babel, and scattered the swarming millions of Asia, impelled the early occupants of our continent to move onward like advancing waves of the sea.

In these strange migrations, some chief must have separated from the parent multitude, and turned his face with his followers toward the South-west; and finally reaching the delectable lands of all the valley of the lower Mississippi, there established what was afterwards known as the tribe of the Natchez.

The country selected is of surpassing loveliness; for, from the precipitous bluff that so unexpectedly frowns down upon the Mississippi, inland, to where the nation erected its great mound, is one continuous undulation of picturesque scenery, originally enriched with groves of live oaks and magnolias. It was really a fairy land, and enough of the primitive forest still remains to give the sanction of truth to the most florid description of it preserved in legendary lore.

There can not be a doubt, that it the time these nomadics took possession of their adopted homes, that the surrounding country was comparatively without inhabitants; for the savage and warlike nations which lived in the neighborhood never would have permitted the Natchez, when in their infancy, to occupy lands, which afterward even they defended more by moral than by physical force.

As fire-worshippers, the Natchez displayed their Oriental origin, and they were more sincere in this most poetic of all idolatries than the magi of the East. They possessed a tradition which, unlike the traditions of any other nation, gallantly ascribed the salvation of their race to a woman. This was, that after the destruction of all the inhabitants of the earth, save a single family, which family was about to die because of the continued darkness of the heavens, a young girl, inspired with the wish to save her race, threw herself into the fire which was used as a light; and that no sooner was her body consumed, than she arose in the East, surrounded with such surpassing glory that her form could not be looked upon: thus enshrined, she became the chief, her nearest female relation being elected her successor. Hence was established the worship of the sun, and the living sacrifice of the sacred fire, together with the belief, that so long as it blazed upon their altars, the Natchez would be powerful and happy.

The Sun, a female sovereign, was absolute in power. The rewards of the chase, and of the cultivation of the soil, were placed under her charge, implying, that they were the results of her genial rays, and through her, as if direct from the hands of Providence, they were distributed among the people.

The Natchez must have rapidly increased after their establishment on the banks of the Mississippi; for their tradition was, that in the first century of their settlement, they erected those monuments of industry on which to erect their temples and bury their dead, the remains of which are so much admired to this day. Their great work was built upon a hill, where they believed fire fell from the sun, indicating that their wanderings were at an end. This series of mounds, the most remarkable in the valley of the Mississippi, have been almost entirely overlooked by the curious in such relics of ancient days.

A natural hillock was levelled upon the top, and used as the foundations of the mounds, the only example known. Upon a base thus prepared was raised the grand elevation for the great temple of the Sun, and the inferior works used for defence, and the graves of the nobles. In examining these singular ruins, now covered with trees of a century's growth, it is not difficult to conceive them rising in their perfection from the open plain, their summits smoking with sacrificial fires, and covered with priests and people. It was only upon the great mound, and at the festival of fruits, that the Sun showed herself to the multitude. Attired in robes of white cotton, adorned with feathers, and her breast glistening with various brilliant stones, she assisted in the early greeting of her supposed ancestor, and as the god of day ascended in the East, and shot his bright rays across the land scape, they first of all fell upon the sacred priestess, and were reflected back in ten thousand rays, which were regarded by the worshippers, as a recognition of sympathy and acknowledged relationship.

According to the belief of the Natchez, the extinction of the fires of the temple would be the signal for their destruction; thus having, it would seem, with some other nations mentioned in history, a foreboding of their extermination. A brief period before the French invaded their homes, by some accident this fearful catastrophe happened, and the nation was consequently suffering from superstitious depression. It was therefore that they fell a comparatively easy prey to the superior arms and discipline of the European invader.

In their struggle for existence, after an obstinate defence, they were first driven from the banks of the river, but again rallying, they gathered for their final struggle at the base of the great mound. As soon as the tribe thought themselves sufficiently prepared, they provoked attack, and their last great battle took place. The Sun-Chief was killed, and the survivors, believing that the dark prophecy that rested upon the Natchez had been fulfilled, as a crowd of flying fugitives retreated west of the Mississippi, and after various misfortunes, were lost, or became absorbed among the Oumas, the Tensas, and other friendly tribes.

The enlightened mind, in speaking of the Natchez, explains their destruction upon philosophical reasons. It was the weak giving way to the strong; but their fate appealed to more sympathising and more imaginative hearts, who have softened the story of their ruin, stripped it of its harsher features, and left it so interwoven with golden light, that we half forget the unwelcome truth, and think hopefully of the departed. The Southern Indians of our day, when sitting beside their "council fires," and speaking of the times that are past, tell us:

That a young Natchez chief, famed for his virtue and bravery, became enamored of a beautiful maiden, and that his passion was returned. His interviews were stolen ones, and few and far between. On one occasion, when the young chief was keeping his night-watch over the sacred fire of the temple, he heard the plaintive song of a day-bird; and flying to the neighboring groves, there met his mistress, and exchanged the solemn vows of eternal love. Returning to the temple, the young chief, to his horror, discovered that the flame had expired in his, unconsciously to him long absence, and the altars, which had ever glowed with living fire, were cold.

Alarm filled the young warrior's breast; despair was impressed upon his features; and as the sun illumined the hills, and made the homes of the Natchez glisten in its refreshing, and to them sacred radiance, there was no response of ascending sacrifice, and the chief priests rushed with precipitation to the temple, to learn the cause.

Terrible indeed were the wailings that ascended from the soul-stricken worshippers. It was deemed that a curse had fallen upon the nation; that its speedy extinction was shadowed forth; and amidst the excitement, by order of the great Sun, the young maiden was sacrificed, not only as a propitiation, but that her surpassing beauty should no longer tempt the guardians of the sacred altars to neglect their vigils.

The young chief was doomed to make expiation in fastings and prayers; and after due ceremonies, he was imprisoned in the centre of the great mound, there to remain until he wooed back the lost fire from heaven. It was in vain that he essayed the comparatively easy task of lighting the proper combustibles by rapid friction. Over whelmed by religious fear, his strength of arm appeared to have departed; and even when, from long and patient labor, the fire was about to descend, a tear of regret for the memory of his mistress would fall upon the just-igniting wood, and leave his interminable task to be again renewed.

Although years, yea, centuries, have passed away; although the entrance to the great mound has crumbled undistinguishably into the surrounding mass, and huge trees have usurped the places of the ascents and the altars, yet the old Indians, in their day-dreams, visit the young chief, who is still in the centre of the mound, perseveringly engaged in his labor—and confidently assert, that when he recovers the sacred fire, he will again appear at the altar, and that the Natchez, in all their former glory, will take possession of their now desolated homes.

HE came to Florence long ago,
And painted here these walls, which shone
For RAPHAEL and for ANGELO
With secrets deeper than his own;
Then shrank into the dark again,
And died, we know not how or when.

The shadows deepened, and I turned
Half-sadly from the fresco grand;
And is this, mused I, all ye earned,
High-vaunted brain and cunning hand,
That we who wonder here should know
This single word—MASACCIO?

And who were they, I mused, that wrought
Through pathless wilds, through hate and wrong,
The highways of our daily thought?
Who built those towers of eldest song
That lift us o'er the world to peace,
Remote, 'mid starry silences?

Out clanged the Ave-MARY bells,
And to my heart this message came:
"Each clamorous throat among us tells
What strong-souled martyrs died in flame
To make it possible that thou
Shouldst here with brother-shiners bow.

"Thoughts that great hearts once brake for, ye
Breathe painless now as common air;
The dust ye trample heedlessly
Is that of saints and heroes rare
Who perished, opening for their race
Paths now so tame and common-place."

Henceforth, when rings the health to those
Who live in story and in song,
O nameless dead, that now repose
Safe in Oblivion's chambers strong,
One cup of recognition true
Shall silently be drained to you!

OUR young traveller—we have no means of ascertaining his name, or who he was, possibly the author of "Views Afoot"—had safely crossed the last torrent, which, the bridge having been swept away a few days previous, was even now not altogether free from danger. He had passed the boundary of the Valais, and, in fact, stood upon the soil of Italy. To be sure, he did not at once behold the deep blue of the sky, nor breathe the mild atmosphere, nor witness the exuberance of foliage and of flower, which belong under an Italian sun. Nevertheless, the presence of the luxuriant chestnut, the softer green of the grass, and the frequent appearance of the vine itself, proved to our pedestrian, as he entered the little village of Isella, that he was fast bidding adieu to the desolate majesty of the mountain, and would soon enjoy a prospect of the loveliness of the plain.

There was nothing inviting about the place which the youth had reached, save its romantic situation. At the present time it was filled with travellers in great variety, who had been detained by the overflowing of the "gallery" beyond, which rendered an advance impossible. The sole house of entertainment was a miserable and dirty inn, now literally without provisions, if we may except a quantity of onions and some fat bacon. It could, of course, afford no accommodation for the hourly increasing additions to the company. The only building of decent appearance was the custom-house; for Isella, being the frontier town and on the Simplon route, the number of travellers was large at certain seasons, and at this spot every species of luggage underwent a close examination. Finding he could obtain nothing whatever at the tavern, the youth, without delaying to exchange courtesies with any of his fellow voyageurs whom he encountered there, turned suddenly away, and with the promptness and alacrity of an old soldier, entered one of the meanly-built cottages which compose the town, and soon procured half a loaf of black bread, some very poor cheese, and a bottle of wine, so exceeding sour that, thirsty as he was, it was not till he had been nearly choked by the coarse crumbs he could bring himself to swallow it. He left the hut, making a series of wry faces, but, after all, feeling much refreshed and quite ready for adventure. The "gallery" was still filled with water; yet to a pedestrian, this might not prove an insurmountable obstacle; so he resolved, after reclaiming his knapsack at the custom-house, and with another glance at the surrounding scenery, to hasten on his way. Who will blame our hero? What to him—young, eager, and enthusiastic—was the crowd which pressed around the inn? What to him was the look of interest displayed by many a fair girl, as he passed, this way and that, unconscious? He was entering Italy for the first time. But he did not hasten on his way; he staid more than one good hour at this unpromising, wretched place. Notwithstanding the sun began to decline, and kept sinking and sinking toward the west, still he remained quietly on the same spot where he stopped—as he thought but for a moment—just after leaving the officers of the customs, with his knapsack in his hand.

It was before a sun-dial: a dial not remarkable in its appearance, an ordinary dial, but having some letters engraved on it, which attracted his attention, and he paused to read them. The lines made such an impression on him that he put down his knapsack, drew out his memorandum-book, and seated himself a few steps aside to copy the inscription. It was as follows:

"TORNA tornando il sol, l'ombra smarritta;
Ma non più rètorna l'età fuggita."

The vanished shadow returns when returns the sun;
But fugitive Life returns never again.

WHILE the youth sat for a moment, engrossed with reflections which the words suggested, two persons approached the dial, and stopped before it. They were husband and wife, refined in appearance, and considerably past the prime of life. They stood quite still for two or three minutes, their eyes fixed on the inscription. The woman was the first to speak. Turning her face full on her husband, though still retaining his arm, she exclaimed: "Now I know why you left the young people at Martigny to follow us in the morning; I have not forgotten this spot; I have not forgotten that thirty years ago this day"—and tears started to her eyes as she spoke—"you and I were here, in this very place, reading these same lines: impulsive, vivacious, and very happy; we were just married; these lines struck me as full of sentiment, but it never occurred to me that they conveyed a moral lesson, for a moral lesson just then seemed quite out of place. So I thought, at least, when, with serious, almost solemn, look, you said to me, 'No, it returns no more again! Let us live so that we shall never have one regret that it does not return; let us live so that, growing wiser and happier each day, to go back to yesterday would only be a lessening of our joys.' But I did not forget what you said, Walter," she added, after a moment's pause.

"You did not, Maude," replied her husband gently; "and here we stand, before this mute monitor, to thank GOD that we did not pass it unheeded. Thirty years seem compressed into a day," he continued in a less serious tone; "indeed I do not feel one hour older."

"Neither do I," responded the wife; "and as for you, your heart positively seems younger than on the morning you spoke so seriously." There was an interchange of affectionate looks, when she said to him, "And yet, Walter, how insensibly events steal upon us! What agency is at work, unseen, unfelt, and unperceived, till we are taken by surprise by what is accomplished? Do you not think"——

"HOLLOA, there! is there any thing worth seeing up yonder?" echoed from a coarse voice below, so startlingly that our youth lost the remainder of the sentence. At the same moment, from another direction, appeared a party of young fellows, evidently students; and the lovers walked quietly away.

The young men came up in great glee. One read the inscription aloud, two or three gesticulating vigorously to his emphasis. Vociferous plaudits followed the performance. "Bravo!" cried one, "those lines are worthy of the old 'Many-Sided' himself; not unlike"—— "Our subject, gentlemen, is Time" broke in another with an oratorical tone; "a very important one, when you consider how long we may be kept here, subjected to such entertainment as is served up for us at the Inferno over the way. Nevertheless it is my duty to caution you. Beware of impatience. Do well and wait. Let it be your consolation that time flies swiftly; for what says Horatius Flaccus?

"'Eheu, fugaces, Posthume, Posthume, labuntur anni!'

'To-morrow will be one day after to-day,
and
One more day carries us a day farther on.'

That shall be the inscription on my sun-dial, when I erect one. But I am growing tedious; I perceive it myself; I beg pardon for interrupting some body, who was about to say something. Pray, proceed." "Good people," harangued another of the group, mounting a large stone for a rostrum, "permit me to arouse you to a sense of your unhappy condition. You are neglecters of the present; while you spend your precious moments here, Alfieri Fieralfi is cooking his last onion. Carpe diem. You doubt, you gainsay, you deny absolutely, you don't budge, one of you, after that onion. You are thinking of Godot's soups and Stein's fricandeaus. What a mistake! what a fatal error! Listen to me. Look not behind; the past is monumental salt; 'a living dog is better than a dead lion;' so the present living and breathing onion is worth more than a kitchen-full of have-beens, whether roasted, stewed, or fried! All which Master Schiller (catching the thought from me) indifferently well paraphrases as follows:

"'FRIENDS, fairer times have been,
Who can deny, than we ourselves have seen,
And an old race of more majestic worth?
Were History silent on the Past, in sooth,
A thousand stones would witness of the truth,
Which men disbury from the womb of earth
But yet that race, if more endowed than ours,
Is past! No joy to death can glory give;
But we, we are, to us the breathing hours;
They have the best who live!"

Immense applause succeeded the recitative, and with a general shout of

"Huzza for the omnipotent Now!"

the party went frolicking on their way.

THESE had scarcely left before another company appeared, composed of tourists, who had evidently made each other's acquaintance en route, and their plans coïnciding, were going on together. There was a handsome girl among them, with a stylish figure, black hair, and dark eyes, who was particularly demonstrative in praise of the inscription.

"Italian!" she exclaimed; "we are really, then, in Italy—in Italy!"

"You are, Mademoiselle," said a young man, with as much admiration in his look as he dared to manifest; "this is the frontier."

"Indeed! oh! how happy I am! in Italy at last! My dreams so soon to be realized! I can scarcely contain myself with delight! And these lines: I must have a new title in my common-place book; here it is; your pencil a moment: Sun-Dial"—and the inscription was copied. "How admirable! how appropriate! Time, the runaway. Ah! yes! he is a runaway; and how he keeps us chasing after him!"

While the fair one, in the exuberance of life and health, was giving play to her elastic spirits, a young girl, very pale, with hollow cheeks, attenuated form, and weak step, leaning on the arm of her father, came up and stood behind the group—a victim of consumption doubtless, on her way to a more genial climate, and—a grave. The eye of the invalid rested on the dial. Word by word she seemed to take in what was written. She did not speak, but with a gentle sigh, and a look mournful yet placid, she turned aside, and parent and child proceeded.

Meanwhile the other young lady was running on as vivaciously as ever.

"Well," she continued, "now that I have one inscription, I wish I could find another."

"Allow me to furnish one," said the young man before named; "I took it from the dial at Ununa:

"'VULNERANT omnes, ultima necat';
All wound, the last slays."

He pronounced these words in a tone so pointed that the hand some girl, although evidently used to compliment, blushed, and asked, hastily, "Where is Ununa? My geography at this instant fails me."

"It is on the Spanish frontier," replied the other.

"You have been in Spain, then?" said the handsome girl, fixing her eyes on her admirer with a glance of deeper interest than she had hitherto manifested. "Oh! how I want to go to Spain! I must go to Spain, before we return—the country of"—— The company were walking on, and the rest of the conversation was lost.

"WHAT can it be yon party were gazing at?" said one of two very solemn personages who now drew near, in charge of a courier.

"A sun-dial, Messieurs—a very famous one—erected by Charles the Great when he conquered the Alps; to show, as you perceive, the hour of the day, and also to indicate when the weather is cloudy."

"Indeed! is it possible? You will please render the lines for us?"

"With pleasure, Messieurs; very famous lines they are—written by the poet Alpheus. It's Italian—Italian, Messieurs." And the courier proceeded to translate them thus:

"WHEN you see the sun, you see the shadow;
But Time goes along, and no body is the wiser!"

"Exceedingly impressive," said one of the solemn faces.

"Exceedingly," echoed the other.

AT this moment the president of the —— Bank in —— street, a little in advance of his family, to show his leading position, reached the spot.

"Strange," he exclaimed, "that in these old countries they should have introduced so few modern improvements!" Turning to his daughter, he demanded "The English of those words?" It was given pretty correctly, for the young lady had "attended" to the modern languages.

"Now, then," said the bank president, "this is absolutely untrue. Any body knows that the sun comes round every day; and any body ought to know, too, that in cloudy weather the shadow do n't come. Ridiculous! Preposterous! All stuff! This machine may do well enough here, but I hardly think it would answer for a rainy day at the bank. Our notary would not know when to protest."

"But, father," said the daughter, timidly, "how do we ascertain when we have the true time except by the sun? and how else can we correct our time?"

"Child!" replied the financier, in an authoritative tone, "I am astonished at this display of your ignorance after such an education as you have received. How do we correct our time? By the chronometer, to be sure!" And the president of the —— Bank in —— street strode on.

THE next comer was a pragmatical old gentleman, having in his charge, as pupils, two young scions, who appeared particularly to disrelish the restraint which their senior attempted to impose, and the instruction with which he was continually endeavoring to cram them.

"Ha! a sun-dial," said the old fellow; "an excellent opportunity for investigating the subject of dials! They are of great antiquity—very great antiquity. The first we have any account of is the dial of Ahaz, of which we read in the Second of Kings, and on which the shadow went ten degrees backward, as a sign to King Hezekiah; and in this connection I deem it proper to observe that the miracle was probably effected by means of refraction, performed on the atmosphere by the agency of clouds or vapors rather than by an interruption of the course of the earth or any of the heavenly bodies. I will remark about the dial, first, as to its antiquity. Ahaz began his reign just four hundred years before Alexander, and twelve after the foundation of Rome. How long the dial was in use before the time of Ahaz, we know not; without doubt a considerable period. Some writers insist that Anaximenes, the Milesian, four hundred years be fore CHRIST, was the first who made a sun-dial. Others bestow this honor on his countryman, Thales, who lived two hundred years earlier. I will not now speak of Aristarchus, nor of Papyrius Cursor, and others named in history as having made dials; for the moderns have brought dialling to much greater perfection. Opportunity, however, is wanting, else I would give you a lecture on this rigidly mathematical science. Nevertheless, if you will lend me your crayon, I will teach you how to construct the common dial, referring you, at the same time, for more special scientific information, to the works of Rivard, De Parcieux, Dom. Bedos de Celles, Joseph Blaise Gamier, Gravesande, Emerson, Martin, and Leadbeater. Now for a gnomonic figure. Let A, B, C represent"——

"Tom! I say, Tom! what the deuce are you loitering there for? We are having lots of fun up this way."

Whereat the two youths, in the most abrupt manner, took to their heels, leaving pencil and paper in the hand of the astonished preceptor, who, slowly shaking his head, but without a word of comment, walked reluctantly forward.

ALMOST immediately after, the author of —— passed the spot. His person was known to our youth, who watched the movements of the man of celebrity with considerable interest. A glance was given at the dial, the lines were rapidly transferred to his note-book, while he muttered, half aloud, "A good motto for the heading of a chapter. It may do for an article. Strange, often as I have been here, this should have escaped me." It seemed to our young traveller, as the author walked away, as if his heart had been taken out, and an artificial one put in its place.

A SOLITARY and sad-looking figure paused before the dial, and raising his eyes to heaven, said something about "a day's march nearer home," and pursued his course.

THE young pedestrian fell into a reverie. "It is even so," he said to himself; "the world is a mirror which reflects one's own thoughts, and feelings, and hopes, and fears, and character, and disposition. Hence the great truth: 'Seek and ye shall find.' No matter what one seeks, a supply always follows the demand."

The youth was startled from his day-dream by the vigorous and healthful voice of a man, in the prime of life, who, with a companion, had approached the dial unobserved, and was in his turn reading the inscription.

"Very neat," he exclaimed; "the Italians have a most delicate way of expressing a sentiment; but after all, this does not compare with our straightforward and forcible English proverb:

"'TIME and tide wait for no man!'"

So it seems, thought the youth; for, starting hastily to his feet, he threw his knapsack over his shoulder, and was presently hid from sight by an abrupt bend in the road just below the village.

IT was the month, the saddest one
Of all the varied year;
The slant beams of the setting sun
Touched the long vapors, thick and dun,
Like hope that brightens fear.
And far and near, with dash and moan,
The waves, like prisoners, dungeon-pent,
Beat on the rocky bars;
When forth upon my voyage I went,
Companioned, yet alone!
Friends made I of the stars;
For, ere the day had slowly rolled,
The mists were all bedecked with gold,
And when dark shadows grew,
Those lustrous children of the Night
Looked with their tender eyes of light
Serenely from the blue.
I was no sage astrologer,
Yet in their pure and brilliant lore,
Without one cloud the page to blur,
As gently, smoothly, softly o'er
Now sparkling waves our vessel flowed,
Could I a radiant story see
Of that not far futurity,
That longed-for, sighed-for, dear abode,
From which, forlorn, I had departed,
To drink awhile the healing airs,
To taste the effluence, which imparted,
In answer to unfaltering prayers.

Joy to the storm-tost mariner,
When, dimly far, COLUMBUS spied
The blue line of San Salvador
Lift o'er the golden tide!
Yes, hopes and wishes fell like rays
Upon me from that starry blaze;
And well I knew that I should turn
Safely my homeward prow once more,
And once more view their glory burn,
Silvering the billows toward the shore
Of Northern climes, to which my soul
Still pointed with magnetic power;
Though soft the scene and fair the hour,
And though the billows murmuring roll
Lulled every sense in deep repose,
And winds, that seemed to waft the rose,
Came to me through the Tropic night,
Suggesting visions of delight,
And rapturous dreams of beauty bright,
In Southern chambers, never known
To dwellers in the Temperate zone.

And so we sailed—on—on—while smiles
Dimpled each billow's azure cheek,
And then we hailed those happy isles
That Nature's fond enthusiasts seek,
Because perpetual Summer dwells
In all their flower-besprinkled dells,
And lifts his banners green above
Their hills and woods, and hangs his wreaths
In all their bowers—where lasting love
The incense of fruition breathes.

It is, in truth, a fairy clime,
With all its beauty spared by Time.
Though Cultivation o'er the land
Hath sown its seeds with liberal hand;
Though, in the lapse of many a year
The Spirit of the Storm appear,
And hurl destruction far and near,
So rapidly is life regained
By tree and herbage, that the field
Where the swift deluge fiercest rained,
Will all its vegetation yield,
With more luxuriance than the first
New morn the faithful soil was nursed.

Long graceful lines of coast were seen,
Fringed with the deepest tints of green;
The waves ran up and kissed the shore,
As if inspired with child-like glee,
Then, laughing at the robbery, bore
Leaves, buds, and blossoms out to sea.
It was a heartfelt joy to hear
Their merry voices; to behold
Gleaming upon their foreheads clear,
Circlets of silver, wreaths of gold;
To deem them living creatures, blest
With the soft airs and genial glow
Of this Elysium of the West,
Unchanging ever in their flow,
Save with the changes of their queen—
The Moon—subdued by whose sweet face,
They rolled away and left between
Their boundary and the shore a space—
A glittering belt of sand and shells,
Tossed from the ocean's treasure-cells.

Alas! how many years I've told
On my life's rosary, since the time,
When, jingling little bells of rhyme,
I voyaged to shun the mist and cold
Of Winter in a Northern town;
I voyaged to lands of small renown—
Lands where no war was ever waged,
Where none but lovers were engaged;
Where old Association finds
No records of illustrious minds;
No ruined temple, broken bust,
Nor urn nor venerated dust;
But where, a Matron-Bride arrayed
In all the pomp of light and shade,
In flowers that blush in earth, in air,
In fruitage, luscious, rich and rare,
Sits Nature with her belt unbound,
Garments loose-flowing to the ground,
Looks, gesture, motion warm and free,
And all the charms of liberty.

IT is an anachronism to date the connection of "OLD KNICK" with literature from the establishment of the Magazine, which is thus playfully personified by its familiar readers. Long before the brothers Clark rescued "Old Knick" from his bad fame, and gave him credit and character, there were intimate relations existing between the genius of type and the genius of "Knick."

Our votive offering upon the shrine where so many flowers, so much fruitage, and such grateful incense has been so often offered before, and malgré the terrors of the name, offered by such good and genial souls, shall be an examination into this relationship between the aforesaid genii. Before we have finished our analysis, it will be found that "Old Knick" has had more to do with human literature than we are apt to imagine, and that without him much of its mirth and more of its tragedy would be wanting.

If we are to believe the authentic records of the past, we shall find him, in the earliest times, inaugurating the typographical art. "He is in league with the devil," said the learned Sorbonne at Paris, of Dr. Faust, who had, under pretence of copying the Bible, sold the first printed edition to the Parisians at sixty crowns a volume; while those "slow coaches," the clerks, sold manuscript copies at five hundred! And the astonished professors, not dreaming of printing, and not considering the inconsistency of the devil becoming a pioneer colporteur, examined the quickly-produced copies, all minutely alike, and declared, "Surely the devil is in this marvellous matter!" And when Faust lowered his price, and multiplied his volumes, and as his red ink was observed to be peculiarly sanguine, they thought it best to inform the magistrate against him, as a magician, who, with his own blood, and by Satanic help, had multiplied Bibles beyond the power of human handicraft. And the magistrate, with the profundity of Justice Shallow, found that he was in league with the devil, and ordered that he be made a public bonfire. Faust saved himself by revealing his art to the Parisian parliament. The decision of Justice Shallow was not wholly in error. There is much beside his judgment to confirm the tradition. At this day there is none to deny that the devil has much to do with printed thought; if not with its form and type, certainly with its essence and spirit.

This must be so necessarily. So long as the drama of life alternates between good and evil, will the devil be a star among the actors. Being the principle of evil, he will have more or less to do with human nature, until that principle loses its place in the heart and its power over the head. It is a restless principle; ever busy at the loom of life, weaving into the tissue its sombre strands, and unrolling to the gaze its fantastic figures, which in letters become the mirror of human vicissitude.

As our imperfect nature has no exemption from its temptations, so every department of literature bears evidence of its influence. Is it the lyric gush? The principle of evil sparkles in the ruby wine, and melts with the amorous eye. Is it the stately drama? It plays the prompter, and puts on the mask. Is it the grandeur of the epic? It gives unity to the action, of which it is the hero!

To analyze this element, it may be necessary—

First, to define what is meant by the Satanic element;

Secondly, to trace it to its source and display its greatest examples in literature;

And lastly, to discuss the good taste of their appearance in so notorious a form.

I. It is hardly necessary that I should give a formal introduction to a personage so well known as the subject of my paper. Most of my readers are acquainted with him, at least by reputation. It may not be necessary to search books to define him. He can be found when and where you are disposed to look for him. Paracelsus stiffly maintains that the air in summer is not so full of flies as it is with his presence. The odium which hangs most heavily upon him is the odium theologicum. We do not propose to take this view of him, except so far as it may throw light upon his literary uses. A theological view might include his abuses rather than his uses.

It may be more original, if not so interesting, to consider the devil as of some use in the world. That his unprepossessing features have often inoculated the young with wholesome fear will even yet be stoutly maintained. Ever since the days of Luther, the catechisms of Germany have been adorned with a frontispiece, representing him with the appendages of horn, hoof, and forked tail; and this was one of the modes employed for teaching youth correct theological notions. But the march of intellect, which is said to lick all the world into shape, has licked the devil out. His horns are no longer a dilemma to the sinner; his claws no longer reach out after the wicked; and his tail is no longer unfolded to harrow up the soul! Our intellectual age has acted upon him as the crowing of the cock is said to act upon ghosts—the visible presence vanishes before daylight. But it is unphilosophical to affirm that he is not, because his visible form has vanished. He may make his tracks in other people's shoes, and in the multiplicity of his engagements he does not always cover them. We may tell, from the slime he leaves behind, that a serpent went that way, and not less certainly that the devil has been about by certain actions in human society. His horns are hid under many a judge's wig; his hoof is pinched by many a patent-leather boot; and his tail concealed by costliest broadcloth. And, my fine lady, he does not disdain to hide in your dimpled smile, to wanton with your ringlets, glitter in your ear-drops, nestle in your muff, and shoot his darts in your glances.

He has no particular profession or trade, though he can lend a hand to all. He preaches, though he has never taken orders. He is no lawyer, but who can sophisticate like him? He is no doctor, but he often kills. He is no mechanic, but he glories in a glowing forge, where implements of manifold deviltry are turned out. He is no broker, but none of your old, sleek, plump cent-per-cents has such razors for so close a shave. He is no editor, but every one has heard of the Satanic press. He is no tailor, but ever since he sat cross-legged over the first suit of fig-leaves, he has had a remarkable run in furnishing the disguises in which cant, humbug, duplicity, and villainy appear. He is not in the mercantile line, strictly, but yet he is

——"a merchant, too,
Who sells by the shortened yard;
Who keeps his accounts in a way of his own.
When he sells two ounces, he sets three down,
And charges two shillings as half-a-crown,
And proves by his clerk 't is true!"

In fact, he attends to no body's business, only because no body's business is every body's business. The whirr of his unseen wings, as he goes skurrying through the air, may be heard at any time by any one who chooses to listen! Any one who is after the devil will find the devil after him.

To define this ubiquitous personage is as difficult as to "paint chaos, to take a portrait of Proteus, or to catch the figure of the fleeting air," which is his principality.

But that would be a poor transcript of human thought in which this element of evil were omitted.

Whether its introduction into literature has been of any benefit to our race, we do not now consider. Even in poetry and fiction, familiarity with its presence is by no means to be coveted. If the devil is truly represented, he must be shown as a fiend of tact and talent; and then he is as certain to excite admiration as he is to blaspheme; and if, as an amiable devil, why the better devil he is made the worse devil he is; for his character then would be altogether mistaken. If the bad passions are sought to be represented in him, if he is portrayed as one seeking whom he may delude and devour, there are enough of his clan in the human mould, which the varied pen of literature has delineated, and may yet delineate.

The spirit of evil may as well be illustrated indirectly in the human character as in the direct Satanic character, for the reason that the old rogue appears more at home when abroad, more easy in a counterfeit than in his genuine shape. But whether in the one or the other; whether in his own dim hide the devil plays his part before the "bacon-brained" boors of the middle ages, in the "Mysteries;" or whether, as Appolyon, he wrestles with Bunyan; or, as Astorath, assaults Saint Anthony; or plays the mischief with Faustus in Marlowe; or fills Dante's Inferno with his form; or sits at the dreaming ear of our first mother with Milton, whispering his wily wickedness; or hovers over Madrid on the mantle of Asmodeus; or wings his way with Byron's Cain to the nethermost abysses to look upon pre-Adamite phantoms and the chaos of death; or, with Goethe, dances through the Walpurgis Night among the witches of the Brocken; or blurts out crazed blasphemy with Bailey's Festus; or lures Beauty to a noble sacrifice in Longfellow's Golden Legend; he is not more certainly the principle of evil, and the antagonist of good, than when he plays the hypocrite with Joseph Surface, murders noble natures with the honesty of Iago, harps on his humility with Heep, or embodies the intense badness of Jeffrey Puncheons, or lubricates the downward way with Oily Gammon, or teases and cheats simplicity with Becky Sharp, or dishes out to poor school-boys molasses and brimstone with the ladle of Mrs. Squeers!

But my subject is large enough when limited to the analysis of the Satanic element in literature, where Satan appears in person, and not by proxy. The consideration of the use made of him by Dante, Marlowe, Milton, Goethe, Byron, Southey, and Bailey, will afford theme enough. Its discussion will imply an examination into the original suggestions which these authors profited by in the delineation of their several devils.

The Mosaic history of the evil spirit, his form in Eden, and the consequences of his temptations are familiar. They are the germ out of which nearly all diabolic literature has grown. Wherever introduced, the arch-rebel tempts man to his fall by the alluring fruits of pleasure and knowledge. Another Biblical account, nearly contemporaneous with that of Moses, is that in which Satan is represented as asking of GOD the privilege to tempt Job. It represents Satan, not as a fallen rebel, but as a tempter; the more potent because authorized by JEHOVAH; or, as Bailey expresses it, as the shadow of GOD himself. "There was a day when the sons of GOD came to present themselves "before the LORD, and Satan came also." He had been walking to and fro upon the earth, and having scoffed at Job's integrity, the LORD said unto Satan, "Behold, he is in thy hand." This relation of Job has been made the scape-goat for the bold blasphemy of Byron, the insane licentiousness of Bailey, and the scoffing jeers of Goethe.

The unwritten literature of the earliest ages and rudest nations has contained traditions as to the evil spirit. He takes various forms and characteristics, according to the physical environment or condition of the people. In the Indian mythology, the dominion of the Universe was divided, and even the powers of darkness had their castes. The Indian Trinity consisted of Brahma, the Creator; Vishnu, the Preserver; and Sheva, the Destroyer. Sheva was represented as a black figure, with a terrible countenance. He is the only devil whom literature has united in the holy bands of matrimony. If he is such a monster devil, what must his wife be? Her name was Goorga. She was quite as black as her amiable husband, with forehead and eyebrows dripping blood. The feminine taste is displayed by a necklace of skulls, and ear-rings of human bodies. At her zone hang the hands of the giants whom she had slain. Quite an eligible match for Sheva, and not unsuitable for any devil!

The tropical sun of Africa daguerreotyped him in blackest shades as a divine devil, whose worship even yet holds the swart Ethiop in thrall. In Scandinavia the grim spectres of the misty North were servitors of the Great Evil One, whom to propitiate was accounted wise devotion. The power of evil was very naturally feared by the savage, and his religious instincts led him to give hostages and pay homage to an enemy more formidable than the lion of the jungle and more insidious than the serpent of the fens.

This profane idea of the devil is not unlike that of the more refined nations of antiquity, of which it is the prototype.

The Greek classics might as well be without their heroes as their Hades. Homer led Ulysses into the realms of Pluto. Thither Euripides, in the Alcestis, and Hercules Furens, represents his heroes as descending. Sophocles has shown the son of Jupiter and Alcemene carrying off the three-headed dog of hell. Similar marvellous narratives formed the subject of two of the lost plays of Æschylus, and the soul of his grand tragedy, the sublimest effort of the Grecian tragic muse, is the man-loving and Jove-despising Prometheus, with his will of adamant, unmoved amidst the thunders and lightnings of ALMIGHTY wrath!

We find the prototype of Milton's Satan in this sullen and implacable hater of heaven. Æschylus had a genius for painting with a terrible grace. He delighted to represent those old demi-gods—those dark powers of primitive nature, who, warring against the divine order, had been driven into Tartarus, beneath a better-regulated world. The emperor among Titans, even as Satan among the fallen angels, was Prometheus, half-fiend, yet benefactor of the creature, though invincible in his endless hatred of the CREATOR. The Titan suffers, with what a hopeless agony! yet proud above all pain—chained to the naked rock on the shore of the encircling ocean, conscious that he holds the secret on which rests the ALMIGHTY'S throne; and whether silent in the energy of his will, or giving it expression to the condoling sea-nymphs and the wandering Io; and at last, when still braving the threats of Jove, and amidst the storms of his unappeasable vengeance, he is swallowed up in the chaotic abyss, still defiant, still exultant!

Some have found in this demi-Satan a prototype of the sacrifice of the SAVIOUR. Prometheus suffered to give man perfection; in this he was like our SAVIOUR. But he did this contrary to the will of the OMNIPOTENT; and here the comparison fails. In one case the throes of nature were sympathetic with the sacrifice of DEITY. In the other, they were HEAVEN'S implements of torture! The resemblance between the chained Titan and the fallen son of the morning is so striking that Milton must have taken it as his model of Satanic intellectual energy.

The spirit of the Prometheus may be found lurking in nearly every mythology and religion.

Although the province of the devil was well defined and limited in the Christian dispensation, yet even in its earlier literature we find a sect, who, having taken Prometheus as a type, erected a throne on earth for the power of hell. The Gnostics of the second century held the doctrine of two principles, from which proceeded all things; one a wise and benevolent DEITY; and the other, a principle essentially evil. Elxai and Saturninus propagated these doctrines in Syria, and in the Greek language, and instituted an order whose tenets utterly degraded the religion of CHRIST. Valentine of Egypt formed them into a system, and evoked out of it, by some fanciful angelic marriages, a Superior Power, called Demiurgus, from whose forming hand our globe and our race issued, and to whom men were enslaved by their evil passions. CHRIST came to this world to redeem it from Demiurgus, and the contest was to rage until Demiurgus was dethroned.

But another Gnostic branch held that the serpent by which our first parents were deceived was either CHRIST himself or Sophia, the perfect wisdom concealed under the serpent's form; and serpents became with them objects of Christian worship! The sophistry of Greece was thus renewed; the distinctions between good and evil were brushed away, and an admirable hint given to the nineteenth-century lawyer, Bailey, of the Inner Temple, for his Festus, in which he beatifies the Gnostic vision, and makes the DEITY and the devil to be one!

In the dark ages the devil assimilated himself to the gross imagination of the ignorant, and walked forth in all the material deformity of hoof, horns, claws, and tail. The medium by which he was exhibited was the theologic drama called the Mysteries. The pilgrims from the Holy Land were the actors. In later times, and even up to the Reformation, a higher form of these mysteries obtained, and greater attention was given to their composition. In these plays the devil was a favorite, for he always raised the laugh. This theologic stage usually consisted of three platforms, and the devil had the lowest, the angels the next, and GOD the highest. On one side of the lower platform was a yawning cave, from which the devil ascended to delight and instruct the spectators. Never a king or a baron gave to his subjects or retainers a gala where this rude representation was omitted. Indeed, the devil became so common that men ceased to regard him as other than a jolly good fellow; and the actor who could growl his part most demoniacally won the applause of the men and the smiles of the women.

The relics of this age are yet to be seen in Europe. Many an ancient minster or chapel has its images over the door-way carved in stone, bedaubed in canvas, or illuminated in missal, representing the laughing prince of perdition. I remember one in Fribourg, Switzerland, where the devil appears with the head of a hog, and a basketful of sinners at his back. He weighs them in the scales, and while good angels in vain strive to make the beam kick in favor of heaven, the satellites of sin strive on the other side, and that successfully. When weighed, they are shovelled into a seething caldron, where grinning imps stir them into a hotch-potch of slab hell-broth, with an industry worthy of a better cause, and an indelicacy which would shock a Parisian cuisine.

The coarseness of the dark ages disappeared, and with it this ribald devil. But in cultivated minds there still lingered a terrible form of evil. It was a reality even as late as Luther—a reality at which the burly reformer hurled his ink-stand in the Wartburg. In the fourteenth century, hell and purgatory were realities, ever present to the eye of the Christian. The vices and follies of men had run riot with a prodigality which called for a retribution; and the stern justice of Dante's intellect created an Inferno, where, with dreadful distinctness, grim and gibbering fiends should add terror to the torments of the damned. At this time learning was just opening its way out of the cloister to the sun-shine; statuary began its mission by carving a Madonna or a crucifix; painting colored a missal, as initiatory to the frescoes which now glorify the domes of the Italian basilicas; eloquence, waiting its Luther and Erasmus, spake in panegyric of some favorite saint; and history toyed at legends preparatory to her more serious duties: then arose Dante, and with the same power with which he dared to scale a heaven of bliss, descended to the abodes of despair.

Yet even his retributive morality, elevated for his age, partakes somewhat of its coarseness. In his description of Satan he seems to have been stricken dumb by the dread apparition, so that his pen trembles in view of its awful office. The few etchings of Satan which he gives, might have been then considered as sublime at the Florentine court, and would be now, had not Milton far outstretched him in the grandeur and boldness of the vision, and had not some of the features been so grotesque as to be laughable. The first observes Satan standing mid-breast in the icy lake of hell, his black banners before him, and a cloud of night around him. Dante is in stature more like a giant than the giants are his arms!

"IF he were beautiful
As he is hideous now, and yet did dare
To scowl upon his MAKER—well from him
May all our misery flow—"

He has three faces; one of vermilion, representing anger; one between wan and yellow, representing envy; the third black, representing gloom. Vast wings shoot forth under his shoulders, made, like those of bats, without plumes, yet larger than any sails upon the sea! He flaps them, and three cold winds come forth, freezing Cocytus to its depth. His six eyes weep tears of bloody foam. At every mouth he champs a sinner, bruising them as with ponderous engine. One of these victims, honored as a special mouthful, is Judas Iscariot, the skin of whose back is stripped up occasionally, by way of variety. No dead Judas either, but extremely vital, for we are told that while his head is in the Satanic jaw he plies his feet without! The last view which Dante has, places his lordship upside down to his vision, which position certainly takes nothing from the terrible grotesqueness of the scene!

But as without the rude Mysteries we would have had no Dante, so without Dante we should have had no Miltonic Satan. The seed of one age becomes the blossom and fruit of another; for the black art of the middle ages gave Goethe the seminal idea of his great drama.

The revival of learning found Europe full of legends of devilish tricks with witches, wizards, warlocks, conjurers, magicians, astrologers, and others of that ilk. How men and women walked invisibly, rode in the air on broomsticks, gibbered a universal language, raised winds, disturbed the dead, and tormented the living—are they not written in the black-letter folios of the Magi, seldom to "be conned seriously in this matter-of-fact age? It may now be thought very undignified in Satan to condescend to such hocus-pocus whimsies as the evil eye, magic circles, tipping tables, cabalistic words, changing a truss of hay into a horse, producing the phantom of a deer-hunt in a banqueting hall, saying the LORD'S Prayer backward, and the like. That credulous age has gone by, and we, vaunting our science, sneer at it; yes, we, in this age of table-tapping spiritualism! Our learned judges who ridicule Lord Hale for his faith in witchcraft; our savans who smile at the idea of the protective horse-shoe, who can not see the peculiar virtue in hanging a witch with a green withe, instead of a rope, swallow whole tomes of gibberish revelations from silly and lieing spirits, rapping out their ridiculous fanfaronade on varnished mahogany! There was something horribly definite in the shapes which peopled the medieval imagination. After beating around literature for dim intimations of spiritual devils, it is refreshing to come upon the devil in fact and in form. Those two great eyes stare at you; the flame which breathes from mouth and nostril glares upon you. There is the snaky hair and hardened horn, the dim hide and shaggy back, the divided hoof and double vibrating tongue, the brim stone smell and candles burning blue, as they wink and flicker. The air grows hot, the heart beats as it burns, and the hair of the flesh stands up, while in icy rills sensation chills to the bone! Oh! there was in this a sturdy belief, unruffled by science, quite ravishing to transcendental souls. There was then a happy propensity, especially among the ignorant, to resolve every thing strange and wonderful into devilism. A solution so convenient will commend itself to our rapping circles, as well for its simplicity as for its agreement with the maxim, that where the marvel is unaccountable, the devil is in it. Beside, if not true, it is as good a solution as any yet submitted. This is the way the ignorant people of the fifteenth century resolved all the wonders of magic and the results of alchemy. The wooden pigeon of Architus, the brazen serpent of Bœtius, which hissed, the golden birds of Leo, which sang, and the brazen head of Friar Bacon, which spoke, were evidences of Satanic connection. The scholars and chemists of that time did not feel indignant, either, at the alliance; for many of them, bedevilled by the madness which vanity, seclusion, and the fumes of an indigestible learning created, gave out in speeches that, in their transmutation of metals, and in their search after the elixir and the philosopher's stone, the assistance of his nether majesty had been politely tendered.

It was out of this credulity that Dr. Faustus, the sorcerer, became so intimate with the devil. Marlowe, one of Shakspeare's contemporaries, first fixed this legend in the drama. But his Faust was a vulgar sorcerer, tempted by a poor devil to sell his soul for the ordinary price of sensual pleasure and earthly glory; and who, when the forfeit comes to be exacted, shrinks with very unheroic whining.

Many German writers have attempted the same legend: they failed. It was reserved for the great leader of the German choir, to inspire, with perpetual life, this thrilling tradition. Goethe seized upon it, not to gratify the curious, but to establish a truce between the ideal of his soul and the actual of his life, which elements had long warred in his bosom with no determinate purpose or goodly end! He travels with his devil along the dusty pathways of life, penetrates into its purlieus of vice, even becomes licentious, blasphemous, and vulgar in holding the mirror up to its changeful scenes, revels in the wine-cups of the Rhine, and runs the whole round of human pleasure and knowledge; but at last, guided by the gentle spirit of Margaret, whose excellence, innocence, Christian faith, and sensitive purity could not bear even the disguised presence of evil, seeks in her an ideal so ethereally pure and consolingly serene, even amid the prisons and tortures of earth, that the seraphs of GOD welcome her with transporting minstrelsy on the golden lyres, as if she were the very essence of GODhood and grace! This ideal is the object of the devil's hate. Faust would woo her to himself; but HEAVEN at last divides them; for Faust hath sold himself to the devil, and the sweet presence of Margaret could never dwell, save in unrest, near the dark companion of her love.

The story of Faust is every one's own experience. We burn for more pleasure, knowledge, and power. The fiend promises them if we will sell to him our souls, and then the strife begins.

Solomon has been called the Faust of Scripture. He found the vanity of pleasure, knowledge, and power, when he had become their bondman. "A genuine and generous attachment might have placed happiness by means of the affections once more within reach of the oriental monarch. But the presence of three hundred wives and seven hundred concubines deprived him of even that contingency." Mephistopheles, the caustic and cynical voluptuary, could have wished for no better subject. "If an overgrown library can produce a surfeit of knowledge, an overstocked seraglio will more certainly bring an atrophy of the affections. When reason, feeling, and conscience are ill at ease, to fall back upon sensual indulgence for a remedy is to take a roll in the gutter by way of a medicated mud-bath!"

To this recreation the sated scholar, Faust, is invited by Mephistopheles, and in the course of their companionship, the character of Mephistopheles, as "the best and only genuine devil of modern times," is revealed. It is this character we now propose to discuss.

Mephistopheles is not the devil of horn and hoof; for he expressly repudiates the use of such signs of his calling. He says of these appendages, that they would prejudice him in society; shrewdly implying that he could get into many a man's graces in a fashionable doublet who would cut his acquaintance if he swished a tail! Carlyle has said, "Goethe's devil is a cultivated personage, acquainted with modern sciences; he sneers at witchcraft and the black art while employing them." He has the manners of your modern gentleman; can swagger and debate, drink and poetize, swear and pray, smoke and philosophize. He is a diplomatist, and can lie with "distinguished consideration." He is a politician, and can talk and trim in a bar-room with as easy a tact as in the study of the scholar. He is a sneering, scoffing devil, sharp at sarcasm, quick to the ridiculous, appreciative of the rascally, loves a lie as an Englishman does beef, or a Spaniard a bull-fight; and has altogether the coolest inventive malignity, mingled with the most infernal meanness ever embodied in literature. He is perfectly at home in a pew, can say most gracefully his grace, and dusts his knees after devotion with great demureness. He believes in himself, and is true to no one else but himself, which makes him consistently false to all.

His first appearance when he asks the LORD, with great self-complacency, leave to guide Faust in his own way, and offers to bet with the ALMIGHTY that he will win, is about as frigid a piece of blasphemous mockery as can be found. Obtaining and expressing great thankfulness for the privilege, he goes off from the presence of the ALMIGHTY and his angels with the remark, "I like to see the ancient one" (or old gentleman) "occasionally. It's quite civil in so great a LORD to talk with the devil himself." It is this ultimate, impudent depravity, "logical life with moral death," which makes him so fascinating to the skeptics of Germany. Yet, if need be, he can hide this repulsiveness. You may keep him company for weeks and never have a hint of hell or a sniff of brimstone. He may be with you without your knowledge, seeing without being seen, hearing without being heard, coming in without leave, and leaving without noise; can be shut neither in nor out; is seen when he is not known, and is known when he is not seen: so that he is the more potent in his allurements and dangerous in his designs, because he is so complete in his duplicity. As Spenser was called the poet's poet, so may Mephistopheles be called the devil's devil. He assumes the form of a poodle or a gentleman at will; goes off in thin air, or takes substantial form; sings songs with the jovial; talks like an institution with a "we;" argues philosophy with the pedantic, and plays the Satanic all the time.

One of his many sides is the comical. He has his fun, but it is a diabolical fun. In the wine-cellar, at Leipzig, is a drinking party, loud in carousal and deep in their cups. The devil would show Faust with what little wit and much content life may fly away; and in the guise of travellers they join the party. He sings a song, furnishes liquor by boring a hole in the edge of the table, draws from it wine, some of which, spilt by an awkward reveller, turns to flame. Then, indeed, is dismay; then ensues a fight, in which, of course, the devil gets the best; after which he transports, by his necromancy, the carousing company into a paradise of beauty, where, amid flowers and fruit they revel, plucking luscious grapes with avidity, which, as the illusion is dispelled, they find, for grapes, each other's noses.

It is said that the devil has a hand in all the fun and frolic of life. There is some reason for the assertion. The confession may not be creditable; but an analysis of the most comical characters of Shakespeare or Dickens will reveal a large alloy of deviltry. Mischief is first cousin to Momus. "Old Knick" always has fun at his "table." There is an infirmity in our nature which likes this flavor of sin in the wine of life; it may be because it prefers the joking to the earnest devil. Many never think of him without a chuckle, or talk of him without a joke. The majority will enjoy the Devil's Drive of Byron better than his Lucifer, and the Devil's Thoughts with Coleridge much better than Satan's speeches to his fallen comrades. Coleridge has happily seen the laughing side, and catches this view of him when he sings,

"FROM his brimstone bed at break of day
A-walking the devil is gone,
To visit his snug little farm, the earth,
And see how his stock goes on.

"Over the hill and over the dale,
And he went over the plain,
And backward and forward he switched his long tail,
As a gentleman switches his cane.

"He saw a lawyer killing a viper
On a dung-hill hard by his own stable;
And the devil smiled, for it put him in mind
Of CAIN and his brother ABEL.

"He saw an apothecary on a white horse
Ride by on his vocations,
And the devil thought of his old friend,
DEATH in the Revelations.

"He saw a cottage with a double coach-house,
A cottage of gentility,
And the devil did grin, for his darling sin
Is pride which apes humility.

"He peeped into a rich bookseller's shop,
Quoth he, 'We are both of one college;
For I sate myself, like a cormorant, once
Hard by the tree of knowledge.'"

Byron took up this strain, and tried to handle it similarly, but he had less humor than spleen. His devil drove with him into London, visited the booksellers, the Lords and Commons, and found so much geniality, that he went back delighted to his meal of homicides done in ragoût, and a rebel or two in an Irish stew, and sausages made of a self-slain Jew.

But no author has combined, in this jolly devil, such a variety of diabolic attributes as Goethe. It was necessary that life be exhibited in all its phases, and to omit laughter would have been a sad deprivation. Having bound Faust in a contract signed with his own blood, he runs with him the round of transient joy, takes him through the racking experiences of love, hampers his mind with denial, harrows it with doubt, proves to him the emptiness of pleasure, and drives him to despair, and would drive us also, but for the heavenly vision of Margaret, whose life, like the prayers of Dante's Beatrice, buoy the soul upward to the SOURCE of Love and Light! whose life leaps from the dark drama like a silver cascade from a gloomy Alpine gorge, white in purity, spanned by the iris of Hope, and singing like a seraph of Joy.

The Satan of Milton is so familiar that it needs no analysis in order to compare him with this sneering skeptic of Goethe. The former is epical, the latter dramatic. The former is a higher reach of genius. It is transcendental. The Satan of Milton, like the witches of Macbeth or the Tempest, is supernatural. The scenery and conduct belongs not to our sphere, the earth. Mephistopheles is entirely at home among men. The Satan of Milton is vast, vague, uncertain. "floating many a rood;" a conception, not a form of matter; a shadowy phantom towering sublime like Teneriffe, with features scarred with the thunder of GOD'S vengeance. Mephistopheles is a worldling, a changeling, a schemer, with no very determinate means, but takes any to a bad end.

"So monarchs, when their politics grow stale,
Change measures, and by novelty prevail."

The Satan of Milton in intellectual massiveness is only equalled by his moral obliquity. He embodies a will more than Promethean. Mephistopheles seems to say, "I would," or "I may;" Satan, "I WILL!"

Napoleon coped with destiny, and read in the stars his horoscope; and he moved on to its fulfillment as the cannon-ball which he sped, regardless of the ruin it made. Talleyrand played with men and associated with women, and, like the Vicar of Bray, by a mobility in duplicity, retained his place under every form of government. Bonaparte was more like Satan; Talleyrand, Mephistopheles. Mephistopheles copes with man, and laughs over his success in human weakness; Satan copes with GOD, and energizes, by his nervous oratory, the myriads of hell to rise against the OMNIPRESENT in arms. The one shirks and dodges through life; the other rises above life, defies Death and conquers Despair.

In Mephistopheles we have a dove in gentleness, if need be; a serpent in cunning at all times; but he never rises to that lofty daring in which the heroic element consists. "But Satan's might intellectual is victorious over all extremities of pain; amid agonies unutterable, he delineates, resolves, and even exults. Against the sword of Michael, the thunder of JEHOVAH, the naming lake, and the marl burning with solid fire; against the prospect of an eternity of unintermittent misery, his spirit bears up unbroken, resting on its own innate energies, requiring no support from any thing external, nor even from hope itself!"

Satan and Mephistopheles are neither old wives' devils, such as those of Tasso and Klopstock; they are not vast, well-defined machines, munching Iscariots, like Dante's Satan; not allegorico-mystico-sophistico-metaphysical devils, like Bailey's Lucifer, hungering and thirsting after unrighteousness, and striving to reconcile good with evil, and to educe purity out of pollution.

There is a fascination both in Satan and in Mephistopheles, which belongs not to the heroes of Byron and Bailey. Byron reflects in his Lucifer his own morbid doublings, and reviles GOD with a bitterness of spirit which deserves the reprobation of the good. Bailey, in his Festus, loses all regard for the properties of the diabolic. His devil falls in love in one place; in another, scolds the damned like a fish-woman, reproves his under-fiends for laziness, telling them that they do not earn enough to pay for the caloric that burns them; mingles love and lust; loses sight of the distinctions between the moral and the intellectual, and ends his medley with the triumph of sensibility over reason and the endevilment of GOD ALMIGHTY.

Suppose proclamation were made for a great congress in Pandemonium. The infernal palace of Dis is lighted with the lurid flames; the hissing of the serpents, the wail of the lost, and the surging of the liquid lake ceases for the occasion. Suddenly the smoke of the pit clears away, the seats of the Satanic senators are revealed, and the roll is called. Sheva, the black destroyer of Ind, answers for himself and queen; Prometheus, the Titanic heaven-hater, and Demiurgus, the gnostic world-king of evil, are there! The arch-fiend of the Mysteries exalts his horn, and stamps with his iron hoof! The three-faced Emperor of Dante, with his mouthful of sinners, sends a tempest from his mighty wings to announce his presence! The leering Mephistopheles swaggers to his seat with a devil-may-care air! And Lucifer, Moloch, and Belial, and Beelzebub, and all the devils of romance, tradition, and history, fill the hall. But the great leader appears not yet! Suspense reigns in the abyss! Far off his coming shines! And Satan, the self-elected king of all, strides proudly to the highest seat! Then go up the shouts which shake hell's concave!

No caucus for speaker is needed now. No wrangle for the premiership; for no voice is heard till the ruined archangel has first spoken and commanded. He overtops them all, even as Jove the gods of Olympus, "in mien and gesture proudly eminent!"

Other languages have had worse specimens of depravity in their literature than ours. France, in her licentiousness, Germany, in her skepticism, Italy, in her abandonment, have more of the elements of positive evil; but it was reserved for the English muse to produce this unrivalled genius of evil; and while we deplore that industry intellect, and will are associated with so much badness, yet, thanks to John Milton, the freeman of English intellect, at once heroic and holy, he has created an impassable gulf between evil and good, and testing human action by these most radical distinctions, sings a "Paradise Regained" from the thraldom of Satan!

Thus much for our analysis of the Satanic element of literature. There is much only hinted, more unsaid. My limits allow no excursions into the fields of theology. Nor have I introspected the human heart, to find its legions of devils, who harbor along its sinuous avenues, and revel in its chambers of imagery. We may feel bold at the idea that the material devil has disappeared; may draw a relieving sigh that all these creations we have considered are but the figments of the imagination; but this one fact remains as palpable as granite, that there is a devil, all the more real because viewless, all the more subtle because concealed, all the more dangerous because he hides in our hearts, befools our senses, and makes his hell in our own unhappiness. His is a spiritual existence, and therefore a more terrible reality!

Is, then, the "Paradise Regained" but a song? And shall the fact ever be a Paradise Lost—lost—lost for ever! Shall those mysterious relations of the soul to evil, emblemed in these creations of literature, continue? Shall the soul for ever "lacerate itself with sin and misery, like a captive bird against the iron limits which necessity has drawn around it?" We answer fearfully, Yes; yet hopefully, No!

Fearfully, Yes; for while the human intellect is prostituted through print, there is the most enduring of wrongs, the most irrevocable of evils. It is the angel of light, fallen, and eclipsed of his glory, and dragging other angels with him. Wit, fancy, talent, humor, judgment, and genius join in some gifted mind with the cunning craft of deviltry, and an influence like that of a leprous spot enters and defiles the soul for ever.

Hopefully, No; for as the age grows brighter and warmer, a kindlier philosophy bedews the lip of song, and a holier spirit enkindles the fire of enthusiasm. The works of those who refuse consecration at the font of purity, who would wanton with licentiousness and error, will be thrown aside among the rubbish of dullness and duncery. The splendors of genius will not save them from the eclipses of neglect. This idolatry of the Satanic will pass away, and the prince of the power of the air will in vain seek for his old alliance with the genius of print, so long as virtue is regarded as better than ability, and godliness than gain. Shall the evil one for ever haunt humanity? Hopefully, no! no! no!

I have an Italian painting which is emblematic of this contest between evil and good on the earth. It is a night scene on the shores of Sicily. The artist stands amidst the broken columns and disjointed arches of a villa, beautiful in its ruin, even as man in his fall. He overlooks the blue sea. There is an unwonted blending of light and shadow on earth, wave and sky. Light and shadow? Rather lights and shadow; for two lights reveal a scene of loveliness and terror. Yon red and lurid light bursts from the top of Ætna in eruption. Yon white and tranquil light gleams from the moon, through rolling clouds of smoke—gleams in broken silver on the wave, on the ruin, against the lining of the cloud, and mingling with the lurid blaze, bepaints the mountain sides, the half-hid villages by the shore, and interpenetrates the moving masses of smoke, which the sea-breeze bears away from the peak to the inland. The chaste light of heaven thus blends with the impure fires of earth, as the good struggles with the evil.

Lo! ships skim the sea, full-rigged and swift; for interchange goes on amidst the elemental strife. In the light which fills the rents of the ruin, in the foreground, sits a rustic maiden in picturesque white boddice and scarlet kirtle, blushing at the tale of love whispered by the shepherd at her side; for love survives, though polluted Pompeiis perish! The fire-mount rises from the sea, whose waves. moonlit and musical, spring to kiss its throbbing feet and cool its raging fire; for joy is not wholly hushed by the earthquake which "smacks its rumbling lips," eager to devour. The lights reveal, amidst the villages and through the smoke, many a spire of GOD'S church, pointing with silent emphasis upward.

But a pall overhangs the picture; yet through it the allegory shines. The shadow of evil beclouds human destiny, yet through it we see commerce knitting man to man by the amenities of intercourse; love blending heart to heart by her solaces of sweetness; joy making music on the sands of time; and religion pointing out the path of aspiration to a better home, where throes of earth and the temptations of Satan come nevermore! Through it shines the queen of heaven, serene as faith, and beautiful as hope.

Ætna's fires grow dim before the rising day, but that queen of heaven, untainted by its impurity, sails away to smile on other lands. The morning shows but the ashes of the wasted energies of the night of boding. Wasted? Oh! no; for even its ashes may fructify the earth; and it is well said, that in the ploughing of the earthquake, even as in the ploughing of grief, wrought by temptations, is the agriculture of GOD. Without it no rich immortal vintage can be gathered. And trials and temptations of the evil spirit, and the literature which enshrines it, may last, like Ætna's fire, for a night; but hopefully the heart yearns for the joy which cometh in the morning!

"REACH with your whiter hands to me
The crystal of the spring," etc. —HERRICK.

O LATICE ex illâ si jam mihi virgine, lympha
Candida tendatur candidiore manu!
Protinus, hoc facto, pateram circumque superque
Lilia conspiciam florida vere suo.

Aut tandem hoc, Nymphæ, mihi cedite sæpe precanti
Pocula tam dulci tangite clara labro;
Et, simul ac vestris aqua sit conjuncta labellis,
Flumine mutato rebor adesse merum.

——"WHY, he but sleeps:
If he be gone, he'll make his grave a bed."

THOU art gone to thy rest!—like the wind of the ocean,
That dies on the breast of the blue heaving wave,
So with thee life hath passed with its stormy commotion,
And the last beams of sunset are bright on thy grave.

Sweet sunset! how oft with thy radiant ringers
Thou shalt touch the sweet blossoms we strew on his tomb,
While the red-breast near by in the forest-top lingers,
And warbles his dirge in the soft evening gloom!

Yet it is not unmeet that thou com'st near his dwelling,
O'erarch'd by the sweet sod, so fresh and so green,
While the mild evening wind from the valley is swelling,
And the haze-mantled forests look down on the scene.

Nor unwelcome thy song, little bird in the willow!
Who sing'st here so sweetly at night-fall and dawn;
For a fair head below lieth cold on its pillow,
And one half of life's glory and beauty is gone!

Sing on, happy bird!—while the night, fast descending.
Shuts in on the forest, and deepens its gloom:
The sigh of the breeze with thy sweet warble blending
Shall make me still linger and muse at his tomb.

Oh! what in my heart do these voices awaken,
That bids me look up from life's toil and unrest
To that home where the weary, and sad, and forsaken,
Are glad in the beautiful land of the blest?

And why, when each day brings a darker to-morrow,
Doth the path seem so bright that my darling hath trod,
If it be not that we, in life's moments of sorrow,
Learn to humble the spirit and lean upon GOD?

1. IN the year 1776 of the LORD's advent, the people rebelled against England, and against all her lords and counsellors, and the LORD prospered it, and caused it to be successful, seeing that it would be for the benefit of the people on each side of the great waters, even of the Atlantic sea, which divides the Old from the New World; and for the advancement of the cause of truth; and for the good of mankind. In this great war, George led the armies of the thirteen tribes, and the war lasted seven years.

2. And the people, when they had accomplished the rebellion, and made it sure, formed a league and set up a government, saying, We will be united henceforth for ever, and will help each other in peace and war. And after twelve years of the league had passed, they made a firmer and a broader league, and wrote a new frame of government, and set up a great commonwealth. And when they had finished it, and put their names to it, they chose George to rule over them in peace, for he had led them wisely and prudently in war. And he ruled over them eight years; doing, at all times, that which was well-pleasing, just, and right. And he sought peace of days in his own house, where he died, saying, Stand fast in these things, and let them not slip, and remember the LORD who hath helped us. And all the people mourned with sincere mourning; and they respected his memory, as they had respected him, while living, and while leading their armies in battle, and in governing their councils in peace. Thirteen tribes were there when George began the government, and Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee were added in his days.

3. And they raised a monument of hewn stones to his memory, because he had been a just and wise man, and a leader of his people in troublesome times. And the people of all the tribes, who had greatly multiplied in the land, contributed stones to this monument; and they engraved on the stones, "GEORGE, first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen." So was he gathered to his fathers.

4. Now when George had finished his reign, and laid down the sword of power, the people called John to be their leader. He was a bold man, who had raised his voice for the rebellion, and stood by it, and he had spoken good and firm words of truth therein, to encourage the people, and to lead them to go forward. Neither did threats appal him, or cause his heart to flag, and he stood close by George, and was one of his chief elders and counsellors. Nevertheless he had some misgivings of the wild murmurings of the people of the Old World, which he heard, as a gathering tempest, across the great waters. And he sought to sustain and strengthen himself, in holding up firmly the sceptre of the government. Yet did he nothing that it forbid, being a patriot all his days. But the people took umbrage at his acts, after he had ruled four years. And he passed the days of his declining years in peace and serenity, amid the vineyards of his fathers, respected by all, and beholding, with a calm brow, the spreading and growth of the league of the people.

5. Then called the people Thomas, who had been the chief scribe of John, to rule over them, and he ruled eight years; and it became a saying from that time that eight years was the term of approbation of a faithful ruler. His rule was pleasing to those who had caused the rebellion, and to all the tribes and nations of people, who desired that no heavier burthens should be laid on one man's shoulders than another. For he had written sound and true words on this subject, and the thirteen tribes had made a notable declaration of them to the world.

6. Thomas trusted in the principles of the frame of government, and in the people to maintain it. Yet not by wars, for he was a man of peace, and sought to multiply knowledge. In his days the nations of the old world rose up against their rulers, and overturned thrones not a few; raging with the violence of a storm. He mingled not in these wars, as George had counselled, and kept his ships from the seas, though many of his people wished to lade them with bread, and carry it into the gates of foreign cities. In his reign was Louisiana purchased, and Ohio added to our circle of States.

7. When Thomas had finished his course, and the eight years were ended, the people called James the civilian; and he found a time of trouble. In his days the Lion of England spoke proud, swelling words, haling men by the hair of the head from the ships that carried bread over the ocean. James and his scribes and elders then stamped on the ground, and he ordered the sword of George to be drawn from its scabbard.

8. Then war raged for the space of two years and six months; for the Lion again asserted his right to the land and to the government which had been wrested away by rebellion; and he sent ships and armies to burn our cities with fire, and lay waste the land. For he had not forgotten the great and terrible rebellion; and he roared out loud and unjust words in council; and by them placed, as it were, chains of iron in the seas.

9. He also spoke to the sons of Shem, who stood with bows and spears in their hands, in the forests, and they fell with fury on the borders, and wrenched off the bloody scalps of men and women, raising horrible cries to please the Lion.

10. These were the days of trial, and of searchings, and of blood; army fighting against army, and navy against navy. And it fell out that a man named Isaac, in a stout ship, mastered one of the Lion's ships, and shot cannon-balls through her sides, and sunk her; and other ship-masters of the commonwealth did the same, and the mistress of the ocean was shaken.

11. In these days also rose another great ruler among the nations on the other side of the water, called Napoleon, who executed the wrath of GOD upon unjust kings and potentates, whom he seized by the neck and stamped on, and overthrew their governments, and entered their cities with banners, and exercised authority exceedingly between seas and seas. He reigned about twelve years, more or less, till he had accomplished his end, when GOD began to loosen his hold on the nations, by covering him and his large armies in snows; and he afterward shut him up on an island in the sea, and then loosed him a little to fight the Lion and the down-trodden kings; when he again shut him up on another island, in another far-off sea, where he died. Now, this man had also spoken proud words against James the civilian, and against Thomas, his predecessor, at Berlin and at Milan; and he cast proud glances across the water at Thomas and at James the civilian, and their government, albeit he sold to Thomas, for a possession, Louisiana, and took the value thereof in silver, weighed in the scales.

12. So died the great disturber of nations, who had been a rod in the hands of the ALMIGHTY, and a leveller and a preparer of ways for the chariot of events, albeit the nations acknowledged it not. And after his fall there prevailed peace in the world—a great and notable peace—as it is at this day. And the Lion of England made peace with James the civilian, and left him his borders to the utmost, and all his forests, which were filled with the sons of Shem; nor would James admit these into the writing of a treaty which he made at Ghent, though strongly urged by the Lion; for James said, With a cruel and bloody hand have they wielded the arrow, and the club, and knife against me, and have unjustly sided with the Lion; and to me only shall they bow, and with me make the peace. And my name and the name of my land is the Eagle, and with my strong wings will I cover the land, and all the seas and mountains thereof; and with my claws and my beak will I defend it against the Lion. and against the sons of Shem, and against all nations.

13. Eight years had James the civilian ruled, and his days were called the days of vindication, for he had conquered the country anew, and established its liberties; and his ships and armies had gained credit, which gave him a name over the nation. And Louisiana assumed its manhood and became a State, and Indiana did like wise, and the Union grew.

14. Then the people assembled together again and chose James the soldier to govern them. And his reign was the reign of peace. In it the nation began to grow and to extend its borders into the lands of the sons of Shem, and into the valley of the mighty river, even the river whose outflow and course the ocean can not arrest, pouring out thick floods of water, mixed with earth, and trees, and drowned beasts. Then, also, knowledge was increased, and plenty rewarded the labors of men. The axe was lifted against the thick trees, and the ploughshare driven through valleys. And the sons of Shem were advised to do the same labors, and to drop the bow, and to dwell in fixed houses, and forsake evil spirits and worship JEHOVAH. And to this end peace was made with them, and a place was assigned to them, even a colony.

15. Eight years ruled James the soldier. In his days Mississippi, and Illinois, and Missouri, and Alabama were added to our borders; and it was a time of rest, and of ceasing from strifes and divisions of men, and the people greatly multiplied and prospered.

16. After this the people called John the son of John to rule over them; and Harry of the West was his scribe. Now John had been the chief scribe of James the soldier, and he was a ready writer, and understood the method of the government. He ruled four years; and in his days peace continued, and the nation increased in wealth and strength. His ships went to every part of the world, and they returned loaded with the products of foreign lands. And he sent ambassadors to Panama, for Harry had advocated the cause of those lands and peoples, for they would be free.

17. And when John the son of John, had finished his course, the people chose Andrew to the government. Andrew was a man of a stout will and a strong mind, ruling men with vigor and with fear. He governed the land eight years, and they were years of great excitements and overturnings of opinion, but of great prosperity. The enlargement of the cultivated borders, under the hands of art and industry, which had been commenced under James and under John the son of John, continued and increased, and the treasury overflowed. Money became as plenty as iron, and the people were surfeited with prospects of wealth.

18. And the people liked Andrew. He knocked shackles from commerce, and made it free. He also overthrew the treasuries of paper-money, and gathered the silver and gold into separate treasuries, and put faithful men over them, to see that there was no waste. He made the land of Napoleon pay for the proud words spoken by that proud man, at Berlin and at Milan, holding up the truncheon of his power with great authority. He caused one of the tribes of the Eagle family, which had faltered in a certain particular, to walk up and tighten her hold on the national chain.

19. In Andrew's days large spaces of the wilderness were possessed, and ploughed with the plough; Michigan and Arkansas arising and saying, We, too, will join the league, and they joined it; and the sons of Shem, whom James had kindly and wisely advised, gathered he together, from their wayfaring positions, and sent them to a territory and a colony, west of the great river, where they might till the land and become followers of the plough and dressers of vines, and keep cattle. And Andrew died after he had gone home to his own house, even the Hermitage, praising GOD, and telling his household and servants of HIS goodness.

20. Then called the people Martin to rule over them, and he ruled four years. Martin was a civilian of great foresight and knowledge, and subtlety in affairs. He had been the chief scribe of Andrew, and had served him at the court of the Lion, and he carried out the principles of Andrew respecting the method of the government. He continued the treasuries of hard money, and left the ships of the merchants free to sail, and fetch and carry whatsoever they would. And the people traded exceedingly, and they also put high values on all lands and houses, and every thing whatsoever, insomuch that there was a great reäction, and revulsion, and outcry among the merchants and the artizans, for much money had made the people mad.

21. In Martin's days, the provinces of the Lion toward the North rebelled, and there were battles, and there was bloodshed, men being hanged, and a ship pitched over the great Falls; and they sought to entangle him and his government in this rebellion. But he stoutly resisted it, and sent Winfield, the captain of the host, to keep peace on the borders, and to restrain the violence; and it was restrained. And our borders were enlarged by Iowa, one of the growing tribes of the Eagle.

22. And the people laid the sins of Andrew at the door of Martin, saying, that both these had too much slackened the cords that bind men in the traces; and there was a vast commotion of opinions, which heaved like a tempest of the sea, and parties were broken up, and the people marched with drums, and banners, and songs, and shoutings; and the shoutings prevailed, and they chose William Henry to the government.

23. Now William Henry was an aged man and feeble of body, but the people clave to him because he had fought well, in former years, against the Lion, and against the sons of Shem, whom he had overthrown in a great battle, and killed their great chief (Tecumseh) with the sword. And when he had set his feet in the White House, which is the "Shushan" of the people, they thronged greatly upon him and pressed him sorely for places in the treasure-houses and in all posts of power and influence, so that his frame shook with the continuous appeals and graspings of hands, and he fell sick and died.

24. Thirty days only had William Henry ruled when he died. And the custom of the government called John, the Tilite who sat near William, to step in his place, and to exercise the powers thereof, during the rest of the time for which the people had called William Henry.

25. Now John the Tilite was a man of words without stability; and the tempest of opinion which had brought him up raged yet more and more. It drew, as it were from the depths of the sea, mud and slime, and all manner of creeping things, and John crowned them with power, saying, "Be rulers of ten, and twenty," and they ruled. And the land was vexed, and troubled sore, for the remaining space of three years and eleven months that remained of William Henry. And he stood aghast all his days, saying, What shall I do with this great people, and how shall I get bread to satisfy the hunger of so many? And he fed them, sometimes with crumbs, and sometimes with loaves, and he satisfied them not. He also continued Daniel, the scribe, whom William had called, and afterward, when Daniel went to his own house to abide there, he chose Caldwell, a wise man from the South, to fill his place. Through Caldwell's influence much good was done. In his day Texas was added to the land, and he gave continually wise counsel to maintain the treasury of silver and gold, and to keep the seas open, and leave every State its just rights, and every man his reserved privileges. For he was not a time-server and zealous of the rights of States, and they called him the "Nullifier." And in his days joined Florida, and Wisconsin, and Texas the league.

26. Then gave the people out lots between Harry of the West and James the Third; and the lot fell on James the Third, a civilian from the country where Andrew had risen, even Tennessee; and James ruled four years. In his days sought the Lion to curtail our borders, on the west, along the great sea, even in Oregon; and the waves of opinion heaved heavily, with the people saying, "We will have a great line, even 54° 40';" but in the end James accepted a small line, as Daniel the scribe had done aforetime, in the days of John the Tilite, on the north-east border; and the writing of a treaty was also made with the Lion, touching the extreme western border, and that border was fixed and established. Yet had the land no rest, for there arose a great cloud in the South, and trouble on the southern border, where the sons of Shem had had a great kingdom, and offered idolatrous sacrifices to the sun and to the great god of war, Huitzelapochtli. And Lopez rose up, saying, "Thou hast stolen away my vineyards and fields, even Texas, and I will smite thee with armies." And Lopez was a cruel man, shooting prisoners in cold blood, and vaunting vehemently.

27. And the armies of Shem and of the south country, led by Lopez and by vain persons, crossed the borders and vaunted themselves; and they were met by the armies of Samuel of Texas, and by the armies of James, led by two valiant captains of the host, even Zachary and Winfield, and they were utterly discomfited and over thrown, battle on battle, with a heavy slaughter, and driven back even to their chief city, which was taken and conquered, and the whole land subdued. Then made the chief of that land terms of a treaty, and ran the lines of it from the riv-er to the great hinder sea, and it was made sure to James and his people, so that the rule of James was very prosperous, and the country grew, and the people were multiplied exceedingly, and our borders were greatly enlarged on the south and west.

28. And in his days was gold discovered in the country of one of the tribes, even in California; and it was found in great abundance, and continually, so that Ophir itself could not exceed it. And gold became as plenty as iron, and they shipped it as they ship bread, and the country grew and prospered in all things, and the fame of it went abroad into all nations. So brought James the period of his rule to a close with great gladness and rejoicings. And he went home and died at peace with GOD.

29. Then spake they of Lewis of Michigan. Now Lewis was a man brought up among the people, and he was wise and prudent, having used both pen and sword for the land, wherefore the people demanded him. And there was a man named Zachary, who was brave and undaunted, one who laughed at fear. Now, the people ever loved a man who had fought battles, and Zachary was a soldier, rough and ready, who had led the armies of James in the field, and conquered the enemy both on the plains and in fenced cities, and mastered them mightily.

30. And when they had given out lots between Lewis and Zachary, the lot fell to Zachary; and to quit himself of the duties of the civilian, he chose men for scribes, of every sort, who understood the manner of the government. Still pressed these duties heavily on him, for in his days rose a great question of the sons of Ham, whom Japhet held in bondage, and whom certain of the tribes said, Why keep ye them in bonds? let them go free. And when a year and six months had passed, Zachary fell sick and died. For GOD took him away from a dreadful tumult to come, and from civil war.

31. Then called they, for so was the custom of deaths, Millard, his right-hand man, who sat near the chief ruler, as John the Tylite had, and he served the remainder of the time of Zachary, even two years and six months. In his time was the question of the sons of Ham made great, and the people had a mind to settle it, and they settled it after great and angry debate; and so it was that nothing was diminished from every man's right, leaving the sons of Ham in a mild bondage, where aforetime they were in bondage, and free where aforetime they were free, saying, Let the new territories decide for themselves, for the people could not otherwise agree, and it was a question which threatened the stability of the government. In his days was California added to the league, and the people grew.

32. During the rule of Millard was the seventh numbering of the people, and they were found to be three and twenty millions, not counting smaller sums. And there were counted three millions of the sons of Ham, but the descendants of Shem numbered they not, for they were wild men, and dwelt in the forests with bows in their hands. Albeit the third James had said to a man named Henry, Go number them, and return their number so that we may know it. In the days of Millard answered the said Henry, there are four hundred thousand of the sons of Shem, and the numbering is not finished, and they possess a wide country between sea and sea, even millions of squares, with mountains and fastnesses and plains, and they are a fierce people; and Millard said, Go on, number them, and make an end of it, and write the account.

33. Then the people, when Millard's time drew near, assembled together in great numbers, abiding in one place for many days, and there were great searchings to find a man to be put in the government. And the most part were for Lewis, and others for James the Pennite, and for William of York, and for Stephen, and for Daniel of York, and for Samuel. Also were there great canvassings for Winfield the captain of the host, and for Millard, who still ruled, and for Daniel the Scribe. But they chose Franklin of the Granite State, whose father had fought in the Rebellion; for they said, He is both a civilian and a soldier, who understandeth the manner of the government, and he will firmly stand by the Compromise which is made respecting the sons of Ham.

34. And Franklin called William of York to be his chief scribe, and the country prospered and grew. His ships went freely to every land, and gold, which had been found in the time of James the Third, continued to be dug up, as stones and iron are dug, and it was sent across the waters to foreign nations as bread. And no country hath ever prospered in this manner, since the Lord established Israel in the promised land. For the name of JEHOVAH and the MESSIAH of GOD is called on in all the length and breadth of the land. There is no land that has prospered like this land, and no people who have multiplied and prospered like this people; for the LORD hath a favor unto them, because they serve and praise him. This is the history of eight and seventy years, and they have been years of increase. Thirteen tribes have multiplied into one and thirty, and three millions of souls into three and twenty millions. And they retain their integrity still, as when they came over the sea, when they fled from the symbolic Babylon, singing praises to GOD, and trusting in HIM while they laid their hands on the plough, and scattered the seed in the ground. Every man here standeth on his own legs and his own feet, with none to lay unequal burdens on his shoulders or make him afraid, but he truly liveth by his own vine and fig-tree. Every man also lifteth up his soul and his voice to GOD, without any name or power standing between him and his MAKER, but the Great MESSIAH of GOD, who is CHRIST, whom HE hath predestined for this very office. It is no longer necessary to go to Gerazim or Jerusalem to worship, for the veil of the temple is rent asunder indeed, and the Gerazim and the Jerusalem of GOD is, in these latter days, in every believer's heart. Tell me, where hath there been such a people and such a country, and what is the name of it?

"THOU shalt not kill."

HOLY is human life; a mystery
Beyond the surgeon's ken, the sage's thought
Whence comes it? Why and whither doth it flee?
Science in vain its secret haunt hath sought;
Its mystic errand Nature never taught;
Man knows not even what bids those heart-springs move
By which life's current through his frame is wrought;
Yet, guiltily presumptuous, looks above,
And dares GOD'S heart to search, GOD'S attributes to prove!

Can the white hand of pure and holy Right
Be in the hue of human slaughter dyed?
Can Piety a pretext find to smite,
Making libation of the gashed heart's tide?
What right to quench that flame to HEAVEN allied,
Which earth can ne'er relume? Could human deed
Have driven our Saviour to a homicide?
Dread should the danger be, and dire the need
That asks one sacred life, or bids a nation bleed.

Accurst the miscreant, whose spider care
Weaves o'er a people's fate the web of war!
Too cold to pity, and too base to dare,
He gloats o'er Murder's revel from afar:
Selfish, impassive, 't is his part to tar
Men's passions on to crime; till, axle-deep
In human gore, they drive the conqueror's car,
And call it Glory! Can the monster sleep?
Mads he not, as hot waves of blood his couch o'erleap?

Still guiltier, baser, see the Duel ape
The strife of realms I With ceremony due,
His friends—his friends!—the formal folly shape,
And give it murder's form and murder's hue:
They phrase it honor! Honor never knew
The idiot crime; but, wise and pure and brave,
Is ever unto GOD and duty true:
'Tis Fashion's law—the breath of sot and knave;*
Fashion, the fool's God, frowns; he dies, its coward slave!

[*THE Law of Honor is constructed by, and for the use of, people of fashion.—Dr. Paley's Moral Philosophy.]

'T is guiltiest, for Self-murder adds its guilt;
And Time and Thought and Sleep against it plead;
The gentle sleep whose dreams, ere blood is spilt,
Hear angels whisper, Dare not do this deed!
For 't is not Passion bids the victim bleed;
And oft the murderer slays when loth to kill.
Not erring Nature, Hate, nor Rage, nor Need,
His wretched plea: he goes, in conscious ill,
Defying GOD and man, a felon's grave to fill.

'T is basest, for not willingly he goes,
That whipped and trembling thrall of sordid fear;
(Save when the dark life-gamester deftly throws
The loaded dice of death; whose life's a sneer,
Whose wine is blood, whose banquet-board the bier:
The licensed bravo, with his heart of hate,
And eye of snake, who kills with jocund jeer,
And lives to kill: fiends on his triumphs wait,
And own, abashed, their lord and master, not their mate!)

'T is basest, for not willingly he goes,
But lashed by fears that wisdom would deride;
Not fears of life nor law, of friends nor foes,
Of conscience outraged, nor of virtuous pride.
What then? What can the driveller dread beside?
A sneer! From whom? Fools with nor heart nor brain,
Whose praise, as unto infamy allied,
Ev'n he would shrink from with a just disdain;
And yet the craven bows, and basely wears their chain!

The voluntary madman dares not think;
From that dread gulf he turns, appalled, away;
He dares not, standing on the dark grave's brink,
And self-divorced from heaven, he dares not pray.
He asks no good man's blessing on that day;
But to the field, with guilty stealth, he hies;
Brute nerves suffice his brutal part to play.
As the fool dieth, should he fall, he dies;
Or, victor (honor all!) he, like a felon, flies!

How hath the mighty fallen!* His country's love,
A blissful home, ev'n Virtue's honest scorn;
All could not lift the hero's soul above
A false and fatal shame. Well might he mourn
His bride and babes, left stricken and forlorn;
His cause deserted, and his country: still
He left the fame so nobly won and worn,
Conscious and sad, the duellist's grave to fill:
False honor's loud call drowned the voice—Thou shall not kill!

[*ALEXANDER HAMILTON.]

Thus sank the star that from our country's brow
Beamed with immortal radiance! And the gain,
What was it, of his cold, man-hating foe?
He fled from infamy, a wandering CAIN;
His life a torture, and his name a stain!
When will true Honor's sons to teach unite
That coward Wrong alone incurs disdain;
That only deeds which HEAVEN approves are bright:
That courage bides with Truth, and Honor lives in Right!

PHILADELPHIA, September, 1854.

A MISERABLE set of scoundrels! What a thin veil to cover over the hook this is! Alas!

"THE age of virtuous politics is past,
And we are deep in that of mere pretence;
Patriots are grown too old to be sincere,
And we too wise to trust them."

What a beautiful night it is! What a jingling of sleigh-bells, and what a scene of gladness in the streets! And here I am, an old bachelor, confined by rheumatism, solitary and alone. That was a most miserable mistake I made twenty years ago, not to have secured the love of some loving heart, whose presence would have poured a flood of light into the depths of my darkened soul; and here I am at the disposal of that young gal of mine, neglectful of me because her head is full of some body else. Sophy! Sophy! What can have become of the gal? [Looks out at window.] Ah! there she is, standing on the door-step, bare-headed, looking up and down for that harum-scarum lover of hers. [Raps on the window]

Why is my dinner delayed? I have been waiting for two hours for my dinner. What am I to have?

SOPHY. You are to have no dinner; the doctor said you must diet yourself upon tea and toast.

Mr. C. The doctor be hanged! I won't starve to please him. Bring me up that cold turkey and canvas-back duck; roast me some potatoes; make me some toast and a cup of strong coffee.

SOPHY. It can't be. The doctor must be obeyed.

Mr. CRUSTY. Say to Doctor Hall I've changed my physician, and have called in Doctor Green. I want something to eat, and I will have it. If Allopathy won't give me food, Homeopathy will.

SOPHY. You must be content for to-night with tea and toast, for I've nothing better for you.

Mr. CRUSTY. Nothing for me! Where's the turkey roasted yesterday! Where's that canvas-back duck the widow Simpkins sent over to me? I hate to receive her gifts, but for this time I will thank her heartily. Go! bring up my dinner. Do n't delay a moment, [putting his hand on her shoulder, and hurrying her toward the door.]

You can't have the turkey, nor the duck. You must diet for to-night, any how.

Mr. CRUSTY. I will have it!

SOPHY. You can't have it!

Mr. CRUSTY. Who says 'can't' to me?

SOPHY, [with a low curtsey] I say it; and for sufficient reasons. Old Tom came in and ate up the turkey for his dinner; and I ate the canvas-back duck for mine; and there's nothing left for you but what the doctor ordered—tea and toast, [Aside.] Master's mad as a March hare!

Mr. CRUSTY. Is not this beyond all endurance? And yet this wild girl is the most kindly-disposed servant I have had for the last two years; who plunders me least, and sometimes has a heart of sympathy. That Dick Driver takes up too much of her time. I must marry her off; I see that clearly.

Mrs. Simpkins has called over to see Mr. Crusty. What shall I say, Sir?

Mr. CRUSTY. Tell her I am lying down before the fire, in great misery, and can't see her; and when she goes out, bolt the door. Thank her for the duck you eat for rne, you minx.

Mad still!

Mr. CRUSTY, [solus.] Was ever such a wretched man as I? Left by my nieces for their new-found homes and husbands, I sit here for hours alone, with no body to care for me but this gal, who comes between me and all the nice things my lady friends send me day by day; all because I did not marry at twenty-five. A most miserable mistake I have made of it. Alas! 'tis now too late.

And is this all? This is prisoner's fare!

SOPHY. And are you not a prisoner? Have n't you said so, a hundred times this very day?

Mr. CRUSTY. What sort of bread is this? [taking up the loaf and looking at it angrily.]

SOPHY. It is wheat bread, Sir. I bought it at Mr. Havennus' for wheat.

Mr. CRUSTY, [rising in a rage.] I tell you it is rye bread.

SOPHY. I say it is not rye.

Mr. CRUSTY. Get you gone, you huzzy, and take your rye bread with you.

It is not rye, if I die for't. [Aside.] Is n't he mad?

DICK. My pretty Sophy, you know you love me, and why do you deny it?

SOPHY. I love you! Who told you so?

DICK. You told me so with your own sweet lips.

SOPHY. Are you crazy? I never told you so.

DICK. Do you deny it? Do you forget who brought you home last Sunday night, from meeting? and after I had eaten supper with you, do you not remember that you went with me to the back-door, and just before you unhasped the door, that I put my arms round your waist, and—you kissed me, Sophy?

SOPHY. And how dare you remind me of it, if I did? It was unmaidenly in me to do so, and it is most impertinent in you to tell me of it.

DICK. Well, Sophy, I did n't suppose you played at fast-and-loose with any one, or that you ever gave a kiss where you had not before given your love. I hate a flirt!

SOPHY. What did you come here for? to pick a quarrel with me?

DICK. No, indeed, I did not. But it is so nice a night, that I thought you would like to take a sleigh-ride with me, and it was to ask you I came; but no matter!

SOPHY. And why did n't you say so at first, and so have saved me all this bother?

DICK. And will you go?

SOPHY. If Mr. Crusty will give me leave.

DICK. And you do love me, Sophy?

SOPHY. I love to go a-sleigh-riding with you, Dick.

DICK. And to kiss me at the back-door in the dark, but not in the parlor; that won't do for me.

SOPHY. It will do for you. You shall never have it in your power to remind me of what, if I am willing to do, I am not willing ever to be told of doing. Hush now! Mr. Crusty's coming. If you want me to go a-sleigh-riding, ask his leave.

Mr. CRUSTY. How now, Dick? What are you doing here?

DICK, [bows.] I came to ask your permission for Sophy to go. out on a sleigh-ride with me.

Mr. CRUSTY. And what have you to say to it, my young gal?

SOPHY. Please do n't call me gal, Sir. Call me Sophy.

Mr. CRUSTY. That's no answer to my question. Tell me, gal, is this young man your lover?

SOPHY. He says he is.

Mr. CRUSTY. And what do you say?

SOPHY. I say nothing.

Mr. CRUSTY. Nothing! What right has he to ask me this permission in your presence without your leave?

SOPHY. He does many things without asking my leave.

Mr. CRUSTY. He does! A pretty gal you! Have I warned you to keep yourself away from these young chaps, and here comes one and asks to take you out a-sleigh-riding? I am ready to give my consent when I know he has sought yours as his wife, and has obtained it. What say you, Sir?

DICK. I am ready to marry Sophy on sight.

Mr. CRUSTY, [to SOPHY.] What does Sophy say? a sleigh-ride and a husband, or no husband and no sleigh-ride?

SOPHY. If you want to get rid of me, Mr. Crusty, I am only too happy that Dick is ready to take me off your hands.

Mr. CRUSTY. You baggage! You know I marry you to Dick, that I may be better attended to when you shall have no one to look out for who does not reside under my roof with you. Go! and be happy. I will see that all things are ready for the tieing of the knot, by the time you shall return.

Mr. CRUSTY, [solus.] I think I shall be happier to know Dick and Sophy are married, and, too, I believe it is the best way to secure my own happiness. I shall enjoy, in a quiet way, the honeymoon below stairs. They can't keep all their gladness of heart to themselves, and I shall fare better beyond all question.

Mr. CRUSTY. That gal has let in that anxious spinster, Mrs. Penelope Toler, upon me—the huzzy!

Mr. CRUSTY. Come in!

Mrs. LOVELY. All alone, Mr. Crusty?

Mr. CRUSTY. Certainly; always alone!

Mrs. LOVELY. Oh! it is so hard to be all alone!

Mr. CRUSTY. Pray, what do you know about solitude? You are a young lady still; a widow of a year's growth; young, quite young; and what do you know of being all alone?

Mrs. LOVELY. And have n't I had a world-wide experience? Have I not loved, and can I ever cease to feel the want of my Henry's presence, and his voice to soothe and encourage me? Oh! how can I cease to be wretched, when, with a woman's heart, I am alone?

Mr. CRUSTY. Why in the world do n't you marry? There is Ned Dashall, who has been following you like a shadow; why not make him happy, as you know how?

Mrs. LOVELY. Do you think it would be wise in me to marry a man whose only recommendation is his youth? Dear Mr. Crusty, you do n't know the heart of a loving woman! It is truth, talent, and virtue I love; and I do wish I had such a heart to love me!

Mr. CRUSTY. You are very candid. Why do n't you advertise for a husband?

Mrs. LOVELY. O, Mr. Crusty, enough of this badinage. I did n't come here to talk about marrying. But here's a paper Lawyer Sparrowhawk has sent me by his man, and says I must return it to him signed, and there's no time for delay. It is something about the cotton lands in Alabama. And here's a letter from the Auditor of the State, saying, unless taxes are paid up at once on these lands, they will be sold. Now, I never heard of these lands before. I would not sign this paper till you had seen it, for I can trust no one but you. I am a poor widow, with no one to advise me.

Mr. CRUSTY. How can you say so? Not a day has passed since the death of your heels-over-head husband, that I have not been at work to save you from the net-work of embarrassments in which he has involved all your property and his own.

Mrs. LOVELY. Do n't, do n't! I can't hear one word said to the disparagement of dear Henry. He was always a loving husband to me.

Mr. CRUSTY. Let me see that paper. [Reads the paper; lays it down with emotion.] That lawyer is a nice nut for the devil to crack one of these days. My poor child! there's no saving you from rascality, but by marrying you myself.

Mrs. LOVELY. You, you, my dear Mr. Crusty? Oh! you do n't mean what you say!

Mr. CRUSTY. I do, from the very bottom of my soul!

Mrs. LOVELY. And are you indeed, indeed serious?

Mr. CRUSTY. Never more so in my life. You need a husband to take care of your affairs; I need a wife to take care of me. The exchange is most unequal on your part, to marry an old man like me. Ah! I made a mistake twenty years ago, and I have been finding it out for ten years past; but I feared it was too late to confess it to any lady, and I do now tell it to you, my lady.

Mrs. LOVELY. Oh! it is great joy to me to hear it; to know it is now told to me by yourself. To me!

Mr. CRUSTY. You are an angel, and I shall clip your wings before you fly away. Now, then, will you marry me?

Mrs. LOVELY. I will, six months hence; for, you know, I must have time to make all suitable preparations for such an event. I must first lay aside my weeds.

Mr. CRUSTY. Not an hour! In matters of this sort, especially, there's danger in delay. Do n't you reflect that your "dear five hundred fashionable friends" will all do their best to put me out of your head. They will tell you, and tell you truly, I am too old for you. They will count every gray hair in my head, and tell you the exact number.

Mrs. LOVELY. If all the world were to unite, it would not move me. No, never!

Mr. CRUSTY. Ah! well. It may be true of a woman; but, I fear, if the outcry of all the Mr. and Mrs. Grundys of our town should not move you, they would move me.

Mrs. LOVELY. O Mr. Crusty, do n't say so.

Mr. CRUSTY. Yes, but I do say so; and upon my soul, I believe they will be in the right, and I, for the first time in my life, will be all in the wrong. They will tell me what a fool I am, on the shady side of forty-five, to marry a young widow, who will be made miserable for life by her folly and mine; and upon my soul, I think they will have the right of it.

Mrs. LOVELY. Oh! no! I do n't care a pin what people may say; they always will talk, and let them. I will marry you.

Mr. CRUSTY. Now or never, then, my sweet lady; at once. If I am to do a foolish act, let it be done now. If it be an act of folly, we shall find it out, all in good time, and save our friends the trouble of doing so in advance.

Mrs. LOVELY. Yes, it will be best; for though they never could change my mind, they might make us feel, for a time, unhappy.

Mr. CRUSTY. We won't give 'em a chance.

Mr. CRUSTY. I hope you have enjoyed your ride, and now, Mister Dick, I want the use of the sleigh for myself. Sophy, bring me my hat and cloak.

SOPHY. Are you mad, Mr. Crusty, to be going out; and, pray, what for?

Mr. CRUSTY. Mrs. Lovely and myself are going down, with you and Dick, to Doctor Butler's, to see you safely married.

SOPHY. Bless me, Sir! I am not ready to be married, nor Dick either.

Mr. CRUSTY. Well, if you are not, Mrs. Lovely and I are; so bring me my hat and cloak, and you and Dick may follow our example, if you choose.

SOPHY. Is it so, Mrs. Lovely?

Mrs. LOVELY. Yes, it is all true.

SOPHY, [to DICK, aside.] I fear master is mad as a March hare.

DICK, [aside.] Mad! to marry so sweet a lady!

SOPHY, [aside.] If she comes here, my nose will be put all awry.

DICK, [aside.] Marry me, my dear gal!

DICK, [aside.] Let me call you wife, then.

Mr. CRUSTY, [who, while this has been going on, has had his hat and cloak put on by Mrs. LOVELY, who has put her own scarf around his neck with utmost care and regard.] What is all that whispering about?

DICK. Sophy consents to follow the example of her kind master, and we will all be happy together.

Mr. CRUSTY. Happy! I had thought that word could never be mine. We will be happy together. I will write my own Epithalamium, and we will sing our madrigals with merry hearts together. Let us now go to the parson.

SOPHY. What makes you so glum?

DICK. I do n't like the way we were married.

SOPHY. Do you dare tell me you are so soon sorry you have made me your wife?

DICK. I am not sorry for that, Sophy; but I do n't like what the minister said.

SOPHY. What did he say?

DICK. Why, when he had got through almost, he pronounced us "man and wife." I wonder if I was n't a man before!

SOPHY. No, indeed. You were no body; and, let me tell you, you are not the first no body who has been made some body by marrying a wife.

DICK, [muses a little, and then speaks.] I've a great notion to go back and have it done over again.

SOPHY. For why?

DICK. I'll tell you for why. The parson made us all stand up together, with Mr. Crusty and Mrs. Lovely, so as to save time.

SOPHY. Well, what then?

DICK. It seems to me too much like saying grace over a barrel of pork.

SOPHY. If Doctor Butler had married us separately, what is the difference.

DICK. Ah! then I would have stopped the parson until you said, out loud, "I will," and not made a bow and said in your heart, "I won't."

SOPHY. How do you know I said, "I won't?"

DICK. Do n't I read you like a book? When he said, "Wilt thou obey him and serve him?" and all that, you brought your lips to a pinch, and said to yourself, "I won't." Did n't you now?

SOPHY. Yes, I did; and I mean what I said then, and say now. I won't obey you when I think my way is the best; and now I may as well tell you once for all—I make a fair bargain with you—I will take charge of the inside of the house, and you shall take the outside. If you are industrious, honest, and cheerful, outside, you shall find the inside of the house as warm and as snug as a dove's nest; but if you do n't, you will find yourself lying on a bed of thorns.

Mrs. CRUSTY. Why! quarrelling with your new husband, Sophy!

SOPHY. Oh! no, Madam; I was only telling Dick what I expected of him, and what he might expect of me.

Mr. CRUSTY, [to DICK.] She has promised you, as I heard just now, a bed of thorns. Do n't you wish yourself unmarried, Dick?

DICK. I have no fears for Sophy. Love shall never be wanting on my part; and it is love, and not duty, on which I rely to control any waywardness of my young wife.

Mr. CRUSTY. Bravo! Dick, and now let us sing our MADRIGAL, and then good-night!

COME live with me, and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, and hills and fields,
The woods or steepy mountains yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses,
And a thousand fragrant posies;
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered o'er with leaves of myrtle.

A gown made of finest wool,
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair-lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold.

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs;
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my love.

My shepherd swains shall dance and sing,
For thy delight, each May morning;
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.*

[*BY CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE. 1593.]

AND I look up to Heaven in supplication;
With passionate prayers along the pathway starred
I send my soul to CHRIST for an oblation,
But find the entrance to his presence barred.
To Love Supreme, upon their pearly hinges
The golden gates of Paradise unfold,
As after night and storm their blazing fringes
The clouds lift up, and glory is unrolled,
So beautiful and grand, upon the mountains,
That we see not the valleys, nearer lying,
Nor even hear the musical play of fountains,
Nor the earthlife that gives it glad replying.
To Love Supreme! but ah! my heart is buried
There in her coffin; and the prayer I'm breathing
Is for her smile, on flowers I there have carried,
Her gentle smile, on flowers I there was wreathing—
With more of fear than love, as to a teacher
Comes the young child to ask his mate for playing,
And, as he speaks, lets go his soul to reach her
Ere he has heard the voice of his own praying.

You can not come, you can not even hear me,
The gates are closed while I without am calling.
I look around, no more I see you near me,
Upon my lifted face are arrows falling.
Because I love you more than I love Heaven
Heaven has no mercy. All my heart's fond caring
Was for your eyes' sweet light, that now is riven,
And I grope on in darkness and despairing.
Hear me, oh GOD! if there await no morrow,
If, for our severed hearts, there is no meeting,
If still must fall in tempests all this sorrow,
(No sorrow whiles I held you from its beating!)
Then let the hills, in avalanches turning,
Engulf me in their centres; with her features,
Dear, though so cold, on mine, into that burning
I would go down, with all the meaner creatures,
Calmly into extinction; but desiring
That as I bore what was her form, in blindness,
She would in it relive, for my expiring,
And thrill my panting, sinking soul, with kindness.

Ah! I from that verge of Death's dark boundless ocean,
As I the cliffs from life and hope descended,
Could I look back and know that your devotion
Not with your glory or my gloom is ended—
Hear the old tones, see in the eyes old feelings,
While, for one moment, on my own the pressing
Of your dear lips: O HEAVEN! those wild revealings
Should turn this blast to an immortal blessing.
Then, O ye surges, that are now entombing
The ever-dying in your caverns dreary,
Then I could hear all unappalled your booming,
Nor of your crowding horrors ever weary—
With the last effort of each sense receiving
The truth that should be foil against your powers,
Brave your strange boiling, roaring, and upheaving,
Leap to your horrors as to seas of flowers!

[THE contribution to our volume which was promised by Mr. WILLIS has been interrupted by the state of his health; but the letter which he writes to Mr. CLARK, explanatory of his delay, at the same time that it is expressive of his kind wishes, is of a tone and quality so suited to the general reader that we will venture to place it in the vacant niche.]

IDLEWILD, October 8, 1854.

MY DEAR CLARK:

I REGRET exceedingly to say that I must be the delinquent among your troop of friends. The time is up, and I have no "article" to send you. My long and tedious illness would be an excuse if I could explain to your public why I can go on writing as freely as ever for myself, and yet be too much of an invalid to write for a friend. But so it is. The mind of an ailing editor will go on with its weakly iteration when, for the production of any thing in an unaccustomed form, it will not come to the scratch. I assure you I have tried—for two patient days I have subjected my "promise of an article" to conscientious incubation. In vain—the ugly customer will not chip shell. I rejoice that the "Turkey extra" which your Prospectus offers to subscribers does not depend upon my hatching.

But who wrote that same Prospectus? And what does he mean by your labors being "ill-requited"? Come, come, my dear fellow! The forty leading authors of the country rushing up with pick-axe and shovel to stop the first break in your mill-dam, and yet no complaint as to the popularity of your grists! What fortune that was ever made in trade would buy the equivalent of this honor? How are you an object of sympathy, I should like to know? Money (beyond victuals and clothes) is no necessity to you! Other people want it to put them on the first round of the ladder you are thus proved to be at the top of. The Fates have regulated these things ever since fame was a commodity. One man is not to have every thing. If you want to know what you weigh, see what Destiny has put into the opposite scale.

No, my dear CLARK! You are far off yet from the only point where the world can be fairly called upon for sympathy with a literary life. There is such a point: its old age is apt to be bitter. You are in the prime of manhood; in the full exercise of vigor and resource; likely, for many a year, to hold the willing attention of your tributary thousands. But there comes a time when the pen falters—the brain faints—the hand that was reluctantly paid, even for its fulness, comes empty or poorly laden—a time when it would be wiser for the pen to stop, but it dare not—when sickness and weariness enfeeble the mind upon which necessity still calls for brilliancy and strength. Then comes what might well ask for sympathy. The old age of literary men seems to be a Lethean unavoidable gulf of oblivion which they must needs cross to their immortality. The world which is to honor them when dead forgets them when old. Willing gold for your monument, but reluctant pennies to keep you from starving on your way to it!

It has been often enough said that nations will not be just to their glory-furnishers till they look kindly on the improvidence of genius, giving to literary men who have run their career and won their laurels either means to resist poverty or an honorable asylum out of its reach. The latter would be the better thing; but there is likely to be no such Vallambrosa. John Bull would have thought of it for Hood and Campbell, if for any body; and Uncle Sam thinks it quite enough to "put the train through" for immortality, without building a waiting-room for passengers.

Well, success to you!—only do n't be so prosperous as to stagger our faith in your other deservings—and among those who will "take stock" in you, (as long as you continue "ill-requited,") put me down for a share or two, and believe me

Yours truly,

N. P. WILLIS.

"'So,' muttered the dark and musing prince, unconscious of the throng, 'so perishes the Race of Iron. Low lies the last Baron that could control and command the people. The Age of Force expires with knighthood and deeds of arms. And over this dead great man I see the new cycle dawns. Happy, henceforth, he who can plot, and scheme, and fawn, and smile.'"
"LAST OF THE BARONS."

AND so the Race of Iron passed—
So Burnet's bloody field
Saw, cold and still, its lion heart
Lie crushed with WARWICK'S shield;
And when the victor's trumpet rang
Above his fallen head,
The age of knightly deeds had passed—
The Baron-power was dead.

Lord of a hundred baronies,
Chief of a mighty race,
His lightest word the people's law,
The throne his knotted mace;
Girt by his more than royal host,
He heard his war-trump ring,
And towered among his barons bold,
Too proud to be a king.

But Time was working wondrous change,
And from his native realm
Were passing fast the Barons' rule,
The haubert and the helm.
The land was dealt to nobles new,
And men of foreign birth,
And London loons were swarming round
The broad old Norman hearth.

His Age had perished, and the Race
That gave the Age renown
Fell with it, and the Castle bowed
In silence to the Town.
Low lay its great and mighty Chief,
Its last and noblest man,
And dawning o'er his broken brand
The Age of Trade began:

The Age when Barter sneered at Birth,
And parchment pedigrees
Outweighed the names the Normans bore
Across the stormy seas;
When shone no more the honest brow
Beneath the burgonot,
And men began to fawn, and smile,
And cheat, and lie, and plot:

When knaves trod on the knightly heel,
And Avarice, like a rust,
Eat out the brave old chivalry,
And swords grew thick with dust;
When churls and serfs grew fat with gain,
And villains bought the land,
And scorned the iron men of yore,
The battle-axe and brand.

The pen usurped the sword; the loom,
The mace; the plough, the spear;
And Agriculture cut the grain
Where rang the battle cheer;
And men began to feel the rule
Of Trade, more potent grown
Than baron grim, or iron earl,
Or monarch on his throne.

'T was best, perhaps: yet from the Age
When trick and traffic came;
When knights turned knaves, and ladies fair
Grew false to woman's fame;
The Age in mincing merchant-kings
And London tailors great;
When craft and cunning, fawn and fraud,
Began to rule the state:

We turn, great Baron! to the men
That crowned thy regal times,
Admire their rude, gigantic strength,
And half forget their crimes.
The castle nursed a mighty race—
A race of Nature's mould;
And worth meant something more than wealth,
And grandeur, more than gold.

Those monarch earls and lion lords,
And barons stout and brave,
Despised the crawling sycophant,
The sleek and cringing knave;
Their grim baronial banners told
Of battles they had fought;
Of honors passed from sire to son,
And not of titles bought.;

But trade and traffic, stock and steam,
The platter and the plough,
The mallet and the milliner
Are lord and lady now.
The Castle crowns the mousing mart,
The Palace sails the deep,
Ambition mounts to bantam hens.
And chivalry to sheep.

The Earl discusses curly blues,
The Baron runs to seed,
And Fame combines a purgative, And Skill invents a mead;
Nobility is stock and starch,
And greatness fat sirloin;
And worth and quality are found
In calico and coin.

WHETHER pluming the mountain, edging the lake, eye-lashing the stream, roofing the waterfall, sprinkling the meadow, burying the homestead, or darkening leagues of hill, plain, and valley, trees have always "haunted me like a passion." Let me summon a few of them, prime favorites, and familiar to the American forest.

The aspen—what soft, silver-gray tints on its leaves, how smooth its mottled bark, its whole shape how delicate and sensitive! You may be sitting on the homestead lawn some summer noon, the trees all motionless, and the hot air trembling over the surface of the unstirred grass. Suddenly you will hear a fluttering like the unloosing of a rapid brook, and looking whence comes the sound, you will see the aspen shaking as if falling to pieces, or the leaves were little wings each striving to fly off. All this time the broad leaf of the maple close by, does not even lift its pointed edges. This soft murmur really sends a coolness through the sultry atmosphere; but while your ear is drinking the music and your eye filled with the tumultuous dancing, instantly both cease as if the tree were stricken with a palsy, and the quiet leaves flash back the sunshine like so many fairy mirrors.

Next the elm. How noble the lift and droop of its branches! With such graceful downward curves on either side, it has the shape of the Greek vase. Such lavish foliage also, running down the trunk to the very roots, as if a rich vine were wreathed around it! And what frame-works those branches shape, breaking the landscape beyond into half-oval scenes which look through the chiaroscuro as if beheld through slightly shaded glass. And how finely the elm leans over the brook—its native place—turning the water into ebony, and forming a shelter for the cattle from the heat. It is scattered, too, over the meadow, making shady nooks for the mowers at their noontide meal, shadowing also the farmer's gate and mantling his homestead in an affluence of green.

Then the maple. What a splendid cupola of leaves it builds up into the sky—an almost complete canopy from the summer shower. It reddens brilliantly when the blue-bird tells us spring has come, and, a few days later, its dropped fringes gleam in the fresh grass like flakes of fire. And in autumn, too, its crimson is so rich, one might term it the blush of the wood.

And the beech. How cheerfully its snow-spotted trunk looks in the deep woods—how fresh the green of its regularly-scalloped leaves! At spring-tide the tips of its sprays feather out in the glossiest and most delicate cream-satin, amid which the young leaf glows like a speck of emerald. And in the fall what rich clusters of fruit burthen the boughs! The pattering of the brown three-cornered beech-nut upon the dead leaves is constant in the hazy, purple days of our Indian summer, and makes a sweet music, almost continuous as the dripping of a rill, in the mournful forest.

The birch is a great favorite of mine. It reminds me of the whistles of my boyhood. Its fragrant bark—what delight it was to wrench it from the silvery wood for the shrill music I delighted in, particularly by the hearth-stone of my home!

"Conscience!" my aunt Katy used to ejaculate, holding her ears; "is that whistling coming again? John, (John is my name—John Smith,) do, do stop!"

And when came a shriller blast,

"John, you little torment! if you do n't stop, I'll box your ears!"

What splendid tassels the birch hangs out at the bidding of April!—tassels that Indian sachems were proud to wear at the most honored feasts of their nation.

And into such rich gold is it transmuted by October, a light is almost shed of its own within the sylvan recesses. The speckled bark of the black birch is glossy and bright, but give me the beauty of the white birch's coat. How like a shaft of ivory it gleams in the daylight woods—how the flame of moonlight kindles it into columned pearl!

Did you ever, while wandering in the forest about the first of June, have your eyes dazzled at a distance with what you supposed to be a tree laden with snow? It was the dogwood. Glittering in its white blossoms, each one spread over a broad leaf of the brightest verdure, pointed gauze upon emerald, there stands the pretty tree like a bride. The shadbush and cherry have dropped their white honors a month before, but the dogwood keeps company with the basswood and locust in brightening the last days of spring with its floral beauty. Up in the soft blue it lifts its wreathed crown, for it gathers its richest glow of blossom at its head, and makes the forest bright as with silver chandeliers.

While admiring the dogwood, an odor of exquisite sweetness may salute you; and if at all conversant in tree-knowledge you will know the censer dispensing this fragrance. But you will have to travel some distance, and you will do it as the hound tracks the deer, by scent, for the perfume fills the forest long before the tree catches the eye. At length you see it—the basswood—clustered with yellow blossoms, golden bells pouring out such strong, delicious fragrance, you realize the idea of Shelley:

"AND the hyacinth, purple, and white, and blue,
Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew
Of music so delicate, soft, and intense,
It was felt like an odor within the sense."

And the deep hum, too, about it—an atmosphere of sound—the festival of the bees surrounding the chalices so rich with honey.

I have mentioned the flowers of the locust and chestnut in conjunction with the basswood. Delicate pearl does the former hang out amid the vivid green of its beautiful leaves, and sweet is that pearl as the lips of the maiden you love.

And the chestnut—scattered thickly among its long, dark-green leaves are strings of pale gold blossoms—haunts also of the revelling bee. Does the school-boy ever forget "the days that he went" truanting after the auburn fruit embedded in velvet within, but without protected by porcupines of husks? With what delight did the young good-for-nothings pelt down those yellow husks to be crushed open by indefatigable heels! Ah! the aurora of life—how bright, how merry it is!

For ever linked in the minds of these truants with the chestnut is the walnut. How the green, smooth globes that insphere the fruit make the eyes of the young vagabonds dance, and how eagerly they mount to shake down those globes, each fracturing at the fall, and letting out the round ivories that in turn imprison the dark gold meats!

And now the oak, "the brave old oak," and so forth. Suppose yourself in a wood! Do you see that little brown vegetable cup with a braided cover—there by the dead maple leaf and tuft of crimson-headed moss? Yon robin just planted his foot upon and covered it. And then do you see that towering tree whose head seems nearly to touch the white cloud above it? Look! upon its very apex there is a bird, seemingly the size of this wild pigeon on the beech-tree, but in reality an eagle. A great many years have intervened between the two objects, it is true, but you think twice ere realizing that yon seamed, stern, sturdy oak once nestled in this acorn. So of all trees, you say, from the seed. True again, but none strikes you so forcibly in this contrast as the oak. And what a tree it is! First piercing the mould, a tiny needle that the ground- squirrel would destroy with a nibble, and then rearing grandly toward the sun a wreath of green to endure for ages. Does the wild wind dash upon it? Its shakes its proud head, but no more bends its whole shape than yon crag. Doth the arrowy sleet strike it? Its leaves only make clicking music; and as for the early snow, it bears it up easily as a deer would fragments of kalmia-blossoms on his antlers. How finely its dark green stands out from the lighter hues of the beeches, birches, and maples! And then how it keeps old Time at a distance! Why. decades are nothing to it. The child gathers the violet at its foot; as a boy, he pockets its dropped acorns; a man, he looks at its height, towering up, towering up, and makes it the emblem of his ambition. Years after, with white hairs and palsied limbs, he totters at noontide to lie within its shade and slumber, "perchance to dream" of that last sleep which can not be distant, and which "knows no waking." But has the oak changed? Mocker of the storm, stern darer of the lightning, there he stands, the same, and seemingly for ever. Challenger of Time, defier of earth's changes, there he stands the pride of the forest, satirizing, in his mute language, alike the variations of fortune and evanescence of man.

And he does all things in a grand, slow way, unlike other trees. In spring-time, when the aspen has showed for a month its young leaves of silver gray, when the beech has thrust forth its beautiful feathers, when the maple has made a red rain of its glowing blossoms upon the forest floor, the oak still looks as he did when January was frowning upon his branches. When the aspen has elaborated its small leaves into thick foliage, when the beech has spangled itself over with emerald, when the maple has hung upon its slender stems its broad pearl-lined verdure, no tint of green upon the oak. He stands yet in dark disdain, as if mourning the perished winter. But at last, when the woodland is smiling in its fully-developed glory, when the tardy blossoms of the locust and tulip-tree are drenching the air with delicious sweetness, then stirs the oak. Little brown things are scattered over his great boughs, which in due time become long, deep-veined leaves; and lo! the regal oak has donned his splendid robe. The summer passes, and the autumn comes. What stands at the corner of yon wood, swathed in a mantle of the true imperial? Crimsons, and yellows, and golden-browns are flashing all around him, as though there were a carnival among the trees, but no hue is brighter than that of the brave old oak in his robe of royal purple. And he is in no more haste to let that robe of his go than in putting it on. When the shrieking blasts have torn its mantle from every other tree, the oak still clings to his, as if he said to those shrieking blasts, "I defy your fury!" When the snow-bird comes twittering among the woods to tell them the snow will shortly be showering loose pearl all through their gaunt domains, the oak yet holds to his mantle, blanched and tattered though it be. High amid the snow-drifts, firm amid the blasts, the pale crackling leaves still cling, with nothing in the wide, bleak forests to keep them company save here and there a shivering lingerer upon the beech-tree. Often it is only when their successors come "to push them from their stools" that the old leaves quit the gallant oak and lie down to perish. So a health to the oak!

We will merely touch, in passing, upon the horse-chestnut, with its great glistening spring-buds bursting into cones of pearly, redspotted blossoms that almost cover its noble dome of foliage; upon the hemlock, with its masses of evergreen needles, and the cedar, with its misty blue berries; upon those tree-like shrubs—the hopple, with its gigantic leaves serving as sylvan goblets at pic-nics; the sumac, with its clusters of splendid crimson; the sassafras, diffusing from its thick leaf a most delicious breath; the laurel, arching above the brooks a roof radiant with immense bouquets of rose-touched snow, and even garlanding the apex of the water-beech with its superb chalices, while its younger sister, the ivy, crouches at the foot of the tamarack and spruce, rich in red-streaked urns of blossoms; and the witch-hazel, smiling at winter, with its curled, sharp-cut flowers of golden velvet.

We come now to the pine, of all my greatest favorite.

Ho! ho! the burly pine! Hurrah! hurrah for the pine! The oak may be king of the lowlands, but the pine is the king of the hills—aye, and mountains too.

Ho! ho! the burly pine! how he strikes his clubbed foot deep into the cleft of the rock, or grasps its span with conscious power! There he lifts his haughty front like the warrior-monarch that he is. No flinching about the pine, let the time be ever so stormy. His throne is the crag, and his crown is a good way up in the heavens, and as for the clouds he tears them asunder sometimes, and uses them for robes. Then hurrah again for the pine! say I. Reader, did you ever hear him shout 1 Did you ever hear thunder?—for there is a pine mountain on the upper Delaware that out-roars, in a winter storm, all the thunder you ever heard! Stern, deep, awfully deep, that roar makes the heart quiver. It is an airquake of tremendous power. And his single voice is by no means silvery when he is "in a breeze." When the stern warrior-king has aroused his energies to meet the onslaught of the storm, the battle-cry he sends down the wind is heard above all the voices of the greenwood. His robe streams out like a banner, and so wild does he look, you would think he was about to dash himself from his throne of rock upon the valley beneath. But no; his great foot grasps more closely the crag, and when, after a while, the tempest leaves him, how quietly he settles to his repose! He adorns his crown with a rich wreath caught from the sunset, and an hour after, he wears the orbed moon as a splendid jewel upon his haughty brow. The scented breeze of the soft evening breathes upon him, and the grim warrior-king wakes his murmuring lute, and oh! such sounds—so sweet, so soothing! Years that have passed live again in the music; tones long since hushed echo once more in the heart; faces that have turned to dust—but how loved in the old time!—glimmer among the dusky boughs; eyes that years ago closed on earth to open in heaven smile kindly upon us. We lie down in the dark shadow upon the mossy roots and are happy—happy in a sad, sweet, tender tranquillity that purifies the soul, and while it makes us content with earth, fills us with love for heaven.

WE are bent with age and cares,
In the last of our gray hairs,
And we lean upon our staffs,
Looking for the epitaphs;
For we are the last, the last,
In the ruins of the Past!

When our youth was in its prime,
Then it was a merry time;
Suns were golden, stars were bright,
And the moon was a delight!
And we wandered in its beams,
In the sweetest, sweetest dreams!
Now our dreams are fled,
For the happy Past is dead,
And we feel it lived in vain,
And will never come again!
No! 't is gone! and gone each trace
Of its once familiar face:
Even the dust to which we yearn
Lost, and lost its very urn!
Nothing remains except its tomb;
(The earth, and heaven so draped with clouds!)
And we who wander in its gloom,
And soon will need our shrouds,
So pale are we, and so aghast,
At the absence of the Past!

We had friends when we were young,
And we shared their smiles and tears;
But they are for ever flown;
We can only weep alone
In the shadow of the years!
Roses come again with spring;
(We are standing on the tomb,
But beneath our feet they bloom!)
And the summer birds do sing!
But the dead, who loved them so,
They are in the winter snow;
Far from birds, and far from flowers,
And this weary life of ours!
All is over! Naught remains,
Save the memory of our pains,
And the years that bear us fast
To the silence of the Past!

THERE's a door in your chamber, lady mine;
I, the king, have the key;
There's a walk in our garden's deepest shade,
For you, sweet, and me!

We are royal and distant by day,
When the world is in sight;
But at night we have hearts, and we love,
And are happy at night!

Not a lamp now remains, lady mine!
All is still: let us rise:
I can track you by the beat of your heart.
And the light of your eyes!

Through the dusk of the lindens we'll glide
To that alley of ours,
And walk in the light of the moon,
And the odor of flowers!

NATIONS are intelligent, moral persons, existing for the ends of their own happiness and the improvement of mankind. They grow, mature, and decline. Their physical development, being most obvious, always attracts our attention first. Certainly we can not too well understand the material condition of our own country. "I think," said Burke, sadly, addressing the British House of Commons, just after the American war; "I think I can trace all the calamities of this country to the single source of not, having had steadily before our eyes a general, comprehensive, well-connected, and well-proportioned view of the whole of our dominions, and a just sense of their bearings and relations."

Trace on a map the early boundaries of the United States, as they were defined by the treaty of Versailles, in 1783. See with what jealousy Great Britain abridged their enjoyment of the fisheries on the north-east coast, and how tenaciously she locked up against them the St. Lawrence, the only possible channel between their inland regions and the Atlantic ocean. Observe how Spain, while retaining the vast and varied solitudes which spread out westward from the Mississippi river to the Pacific ocean, at the same time assigned the thirty-first parallel of latitude as the southern boundary of the United States, and thus shut them out from access by that river or otherwise to the Gulf of Mexico. See now how the massive and unpassable Alleghany Mountains traversed the new Republic from north to south, dividing it into two regions: the inner one rich in agricultural resources, but without markets; and the outer one adapted to defence and markets, but wanting the materials for commerce. Were not the Europeans astute in thus confining the United States within limits which would probably render an early separation of them inevitable, and would also prevent equally the whole and each of the future parts from ever becoming a formidable or even a really independent Atlantic power? They had cause for their jealousies. They were monarchies, and they largely divided the western hemisphere between them. The United States aimed to become a maritime nation, and their success would tend to make that hemisphere not only republican, but also independent of Europe. That success was foreseen. A British statesman, in describing the American Colonies just before the peace, had said to his countrymen: "Your children do not grow faster from infancy to manhood than they spread from families to communities, and from villages to nations."

The United States, thus confined landward, betook themselves at once to the sea, whose broad realm lay unappropriated; and, having furnished themselves with shipping and seamen equal to the adventurous pursuit of the whale fishery under the poles, they presented themselves in European ports as a maritime people. Afterward, their well-chosen attitude of neutrality, in a season of general war, enabled them to become carriers for the world. But they never forgot, for a moment, the importance of improving their position on the coast. France was now the owner of the province of Louisiana, which stretched all along the western bank of the Mississippi. She wisely sold a possession, which she was unable to defend, to the United States, who thus, only twenty years after the treaty of Versailles, secured the exclusive navigation of the great river; and, descending from their inland frontier, established themselves on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Spain soon saw that her colonies on that coast, east of the Mississippi, now virtually surrounded by the United States, were untenable. She, therefore, for an equivalent, ceded the Floridas, and retired behind the Sabine; and so the sea-coast of the United States was now seen to begin at that river, and passing along the gulf, and around the peninsula, and beyond the capes, to terminate at the St. Croix, in the Bay of Fundy.

The course of the European war showed that Spain was exhausted. Nearly all her American colonies, inspired by the example of the United States, and sustained by their sympathy, struck for independence, established republican systems, and entered into treaties of amity and commerce with the republic of the North.

But the United States yet needed a northern passage from their western valleys to the Atlantic ocean. The new channel to be opened must necessarily have connections, natural or artificial, with the inland rivers and lakes. An internal trade ramifying the country was a necessary basis for commerce, and it would constitute the firmest possible national union. Practically, there was in the country neither a canal to serve for a model, nor an engineer competent to project one. The railroad invention had not yet been perfected in Europe, nor even conceived in the United States. The Federal Government alone had adequate resources, but, after long consideration and some unprofitable experiments, it not only disavowed the policy, but also disclaimed the power of making internal improvements. Private capital was unavailable for great national enterprises. The States were not convinced of the wisdom of undertaking singly works within their own borders which would be wholly or in part useless, unless extended beyond them by other States, and which, even although they should be useful to themselves, would be equally or more beneficial to States which refused or neglected to join in their construction. Moreover, the only source of revenue in the States was direct taxation—always unreliable in a popular government—and they had no established credits, at home or abroad. Nevertheless, the people comprehended the exigency, and their will opened a way through all these embarrassments. The State of New-York began, and she has hitherto, although sometimes faltering, prosecuted this great enterprise with unsurpassed fidelity. The other States, according to their respective abilities and convictions of interest and duty, have coöperated. By canals we have extended the navigation of Chesapeake Bay to the coal-fields of Maryland at Cumberland, and also by the way of Columbia to the coal-fields of Pennsylvania. By canals, also, we have united Chesapeake Bay with the Delaware river, and have, with alternating railroads, connected that river with the Ohio river and with Lake Erie. By canals we have opened a navigation between Philadelphia and New-York, mingling the waters of the Delaware with those of the Raritan. By canals we have given access from two several ports on the Hudson to two different coal-fields in Pennsylvania. By canals we have also extended the navigation of the Hudson, through Lake Champlain and its outlet, to the St. Lawrence near Montreal. We are just opening a channel from the Hudson to Lake Ontario, at Cape Vincent, near its eastern termination, while we long since opened one from the same river to a central harbor on that lake at Oswego. A corresponding improvement, made by the Canadian authorities on the opposite shore, prolongs our navigation from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie. We have also connected the Hudson river with the eastern branch of the Susquehanna, through the valley of the Chenango, and again with its western tributaries through the Seneca Lake. We are also uniting the Hudson with the Alleghany, a tributary of the Mississippi, through the valley of the Genesee. One long trunk of canal receives the trade gathered by most of these tributary channels, while it directly unites the Hudson with Lake Erie at Buffalo. The shores of that great lake are the basis of a second part of the same system. Canals connect the Alleghany, in the State of Pennsylvania, with Lake Erie at Erie; the Ohio river, at Portage and at Cincinnati, with Lake Erie, at Cleveland and at Toledo; and again the Ohio river, in the State of Indiana, with Lake Erie, through the valley of the Wabash. Lake Superior, hitherto secluded from even internal commerce, is now being connected with the other great lakes by the canal of the Falls of St. Mary; and, to complete the whole, the Illinois canal unites the lakes and all the extensive system I have described, with the Mississippi. Thus, by substituting works purely artificial, we have not only dispensed with the navigation of the St. Lawrence, but have also opened a complete circuit of inland navigation and traffic between New-Orleans, on the Gulf, and New-York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, on the Atlantic. The aggregate length of these canals is five thousand miles, and that of the inland coasts thus washed by natural and artificial channels exceeds twenty thousand miles.

Railroads constitute an auxiliary system of improvements, at once more complex and more comprehensive. By railroads we have connected, or are in the act of connecting, together all the principal sea ports on the Atlantic coast and on the coasts of the Gulf of Mexico, namely: Portland, Boston, New-York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Norfolk, Charleston, Mobile, and New-Orleans. Again, railroads from each or most of these ports proceed inland through important towns, to great depots on the St. Lawrence, the lakes, the Ohio, and the Mississippi, namely: Quebec, Montreal, Ogdensburgh, Oswego, Rochester, Buffalo, Erie, Cleveland, Sandusky, Toledo, Monroe, Detroit, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis, Cairo, and Memphis. Again, there are tributaries which search out agricultural and mineral productions and fabrics, accumulated at less notable points; and so a complete system is perfected, which leaves no inhabited region unexplored, while it has for its base the long line of seaboard. The aggregate length of these railroads is sixteen thousand miles, and the total cost is six hundred millions of dollars.

Immediately after the purchase of Louisiana, President Jefferson having conceived the idea of a national establishment on the Pacific coast, an exploration of the intervening wastes was made. An American navigator about the same time visited the coast itself, and thus laid the foundation of a title by discovery. A commercial settlement, afterward planted on the Columbia river by the late John Jacob Astor, perished in the war of 1812. Ten years ago, the great thought of Pacific colonization revived, under the influences of the commercial activity resulting from the successful progress of the system of Internal Improvements. Oregon was settled. Two years afterward, its boundaries were defined, and it was politically organized; and now it constitutes two prosperous Territories.

The social, military, and ecclesiastical institutions of Mexico proved unfavorable to an immediate success of the republican system. Revolution became a chronic disease there. Texas separated, and practically became independent, although Mexico refused to recognize her separation. After some years, Texas was admitted as a State into our Federal Union. A war which ensued, resulted not only in the relinquishment of Mexican claims upon Texas, but in the extension of her coast-frontier to the Rio Grande, and also in the annexation of New-Mexico and Upper California to the United States. Thus, in sixty-five years after the peace of Versailles, the United States advanced from the Mississippi, and occupied a line stretching through eighteen degrees of latitude on the Pacific coast, overlooking the Sandwich Islands and Japan, and confronting China, (the Cathay for which Columbus was in search when he encountered the bewildering vision of San Domingo.) The new possession was divided into two Territories and the State of California. The simultaneous discovery of native gold in the sands and rocks of that State resulted in the instantaneous establishment of an active commerce, not only with our Atlantic cities, but also with the ports of South-America and with the maritime countries of Europe, with the Sandwich Islands, and even with China. Thus the United States ceased to be a mere Atlantic nation, and assumed the attitude of a great Continental Power, enjoying ocean navigation on either side, and bearing equal and similar relations to the eastern and to the western coast of the old world. The natural connections between the Atlantic and the Pacific regions are yet incomplete; but the same spirit which has brought them into political union is at work still, and no matter what the Government may do or may leave undone, the necessary routes of commerce, altogether within and across our own domain, will be established.

The number of States has increased, since this aggrandizement began, from seventeen to thirty-one; the population, from five millions to twenty-four millions; the tonnage employed in commerce, from one million to four and a half millions; and the national revenue, from ten millions to sixty millions of dollars. Within that period, Spain has retired altogether from the continent, and two considerable islands in the Antilles are all that remain of the New World which, hardly four centuries ago, the generous and pious Genoese navigator, under the patronage of Isabella, gave to the kingdoms of Castile and Leon. Great Britain tenders us now the freedom of the fisheries and of the St. Lawrence, on conditions of favor to the commerce of her colonies, and even deliberates on the policy of releasing them from their allegiance. The influences of the United States on the American continent have resulted already in the establishment of the republican system everywhere except in Brazil, and even there in limiting imperial power. In Europe they have awakened a war of opinion that, after spreading desolation into the steppes of Russia and to the base of the Carpathian Mountains, has only been suppressed for a time by combinations of the capital and of the political forces of that continent. In Africa those influences, aided by the benevolent efforts of our citizens, have produced the establishment of a republic which, beginning with the abolition of the traffic in slaves, is going steadily on toward the moral regeneration of its savage races. In the Sandwich Islands those influences have already effected, not only such a regeneration of the natives, but also a political organization which is bringing that important commercial station directly under our protection. Those influences have opened the ports of Japan, and secured an intercourse of commerce and friendship with its extraordinary people numbering forty millions thus overcoming a policy of isolation which they had practised for the period of an hundred and fifty years. The same influences have not only procured for us access to the five principal ports of China, but have also generated a revolution there which promises to bring the three hundred millions living within that vast empire into the society of the western nations.

How magnificent is the scene which the rising curtain discloses to us here! and how sublime the pacific part assigned to us!

"THE Eastern nations sink, their glory ends,
And Empire rises where the sun descends."

But, restraining the imagination from its desire to follow the influences of the United States in their future progress through the Manillas and along the Indian coast, and beyond the Persian Gulf to the far-off, Mozambique, let us dwell for a moment on the visible results of the national aggrandizement at home. Wealth has everywhere increased, and has been equalized with much success in all the States, new as well as old. Industry has been persevering in opening newly-discovered resources and bringing forth their treasures, as well as in the establishment of the productive arts. The Capitol, which at first seemed too pretentious, is extending itself northward and southward upon its noble terrace, to receive the representatives of new in-coming States. The departments of executive administration continually expand under their lofty arches and behind their lengthening colonnades. The Federal City, so recently ridiculed for its ambitious solitudes, is extending its broad avenues in all directions, and, under the hands of native artists, is taking on the graces, as well as the fullness, of a capital. Where else will you find authority so august as in a council composed of the representatives of thirty States, attended by ambassadors from every free city, every republic, and every court in the civilized world? In near proximity and in intimate connection with that capital, a metropolis has arisen which gathers, by the agency of canals, of railroads, and of coast-wise navigation, the products of industry in every form throughout the North-American States, as well those under foreign jurisdiction as those which constitute the Union, and distributes them in exchange over the globe—a city whose wealth and credit supply or procure the capital employed in all the great financial movements within the Republic, and whose press, in all its departments of science, literature, religion, philanthropy, and politics is a national one. Thus expansion and aggrandizement, whose natural tendency is to produce debility and dissolution, have operated here to create, what before was wanting, a social, political, and commercial centre.

In considering the causes of this material growth, allowance must be made liberally for great advantages of space, climate, and resources, as well as for the weakness of outward resistance, for the vices of foreign governments, and for the disturbed and painful condition of society under them—causes which have created and sustained a tide of emigration toward the United States unparalleled, at least in modern times. But when all this allowance shall have been made, we shall still find that the phenomenon is chiefly due to the operation here of some great ideas, either unknown before or not before rendered so effective. These ideas are, first, the equality of men in a State, that is to say, the equality of men constituting a State; secondly, the equality of States in combination, or, in other words, the equality of States constituting a nation. By the Constitution of every State in the American Union, each citizen is guaranteed his natural rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and he, at the same time, is guaranteed a share of the sovereign power equal to that which can be assumed by any other citizen. This is the equality of men in the State. By the Constitution of the United States, there are no subjects. Every citizen of any one State is a free and equal citizen of the United States. Again, by the Constitution of the United States, there are no provinces, no dependencies. The Union is constituted by States, and all of them stand upon the same level of political rights.

The reduction of the two abstractions which I have mentioned into the concrete, in the Constitutions of the United States, was, like most other inventions, mainly due to accident. There were thirteen several States, in each of which, owing to fortunate circumstances attending their original colonization, each citizen was not only free but also practically equal, in his exercise of political power, to every other citizen of that State. The freedom and equality of the citizen, and the inalienability of his natural rights, were solemnly reaffirmed in the Declaration of Independence. These thirteen States were severally free and independent of each other. They therefore were equal States. Each was a sovereign. They needed free and mutual commerce among themselves, and some regulations securing to each equal facilities of commerce with foreign countries. A union was necessary to the attainment of these ends. But the citizens of each State were unwilling to surrender either their natural and inalienable rights or the guardianship of them to a common government over them all, even to attain the union which they needed so much. So a Federal Central Government was established, which was sovereign only in commerce, at home and abroad, and in the communications with other nations; that is to say, sovereign only in regard to the mutual internal relations of the States themselves, and in regard to foreign affairs. In this government the States were practically equal constituents, although that equality was modified by some limitations found necessary to secure the assent of some of the States. The States were not dissolved nor disorganized, but they remained really States, just as before, existing independently of each other and of the Union, and exercising sovereignty in all the municipal departments of society. The citizen of each State also retained all his natural rights equally in the Union and in the State to which he belonged, and the United States were constituted by the whole mass of such citizens throughout all the several States. There was an unoccupied common domain which the several States surrendered to the Federal authorities, to the end that it might be settled, colonized, and divided into other States, to be organized and to become members of the Union on an equal footing with the original States. When additions to this domain were made from foreign countries, the same principles seemed to be the only ones upon which the government could be extended over them, and so, with some qualifications unimportant on the present occasion, they became universal in their application.

No other nation, pursuing a career of aggrandizement, has adopted the great ideas thus developed in the United States. The Macedonian conquered kingdoms for the mere gratification of conquest, and they threw off the sway he had established over them as soon as the sword dropped from his hand. The Roman conquered because the alien was a barbarian rival and enemy, and because Rome must fill the world alone. The empire, thus extended, fell under the blows of enemies, subjugated but not subdued, as soon as the central power had lost its vigor. The Ottoman, although he conquered with the sword, conciliated the subjected tribes by admitting them to the rites of a new and attractive religion. The religion, however, was of this world, and sensual, and therefore it debased its votaries. France attempted to conquer Europe in retaliation for wrongs committed against herself, but the bow broke in her hands just as it was bent to discharge the last shaft. Spain has planted many colonies and conquered many States, but the Castilian was proud and haughty—he enslaved the native and oppressed the Creole. The Czar wins his way amid kindred races as a parent, extending protection in the enjoyment of a common religion. But the paternal relation in politics is a fiction of despotism which extinguishes all individual energy and all social ambition. Great Britain has been distinguished from all these vulgar conquerors. She is a civilizer and a missionary. She has planted many Colonies in the West, and conquered many and vast countries in the East, and has carried English laws and the English language around the world. But Great Britain at home is an aristocracy. Her Colonies can neither be equal to her nor yet independent. Her subjects in those countries may be free, but they can not be Britons. Consequently, her dependencies are always discontented, and insomuch as they are possessed or swayed by freemen, they are only retained in their connection with the British throne by the presence of military and naval force. You identify an American State or Colony by the absence of the Federal power. Everywhere, on the contrary, you identify a British Colony, whether in British America, or on the Pacific coast, or on its islands, or in Bombay, or in India, or at St. Helena, or at Gibraltar, or on the Ionian isles, by the music of the imperial drum-beat and the frown of royal battlements. Great Britain always inspires fear, and often commands respect, but she has no friends in the wide family of nations. So it has happened that heretofore nations have either repelled, or exhausted, or disgusted the Colonies they planted and the countries they conquered.

The United States, on the contrary, expand by force, not of arms, but of attraction. The native colonist no sooner reaches a new and distant home, whether in a cleft of the Rocky Mountains or on the sea-shore, than he proceeds to found a State in which his natural and inviolate rights shall be secure, and which shall become an equal member of the Federal Union, enjoying its protection and sharing its growing greatness and renown. Adjacent States, though of foreign habits, religion, and descent, especially if they are defenceless, look with favor upon the approach of a power that will leave them in the full enjoyment of the rights of nature, and at the same time that it may absorb them, will spare their corporate existence and individuality. The attraction increases as commerce widens the circle of the national influence.

If these positions seem to require modification at all, the very modifications will, nevertheless, serve to illustrate and sustain the general principles involved. The people of Mexico resist annexation because they fear it would result in their being outnumbered by Americans, and so lead to the restoration of African slavery, which they have abolished. The natives of the Sandwich Islands take alarm lest by annexation they may themselves be reduced to slavery. The people of the Canadas hesitate because they disapprove the modifications of the principles of equality of men and equality of States in favor of slaveholding States, which were admitted in the Federal Constitution.

What is the moral to be drawn from the physical progress of the United States? It is, that the strongest bonds of cohesion in society are commerce and gratitude for protected freedom.

SOFTLY blows the southern breeze
Beneath my window-blind,
And plumes its winnowing wings for one
It never more may find.
The birdling that you seek, wind,
In your Æolian play,
Some wandering seraph, stooping, saw,
And bore to Heaven away.

You took your flight, O southern breeze,
When Summer's sheaves were bent,
And there was sorrowing round my hearth,
When your sweet joyance went:
But little did I know how much
Of happiness was left,
Until of that young love of ours
My sad home was bereft.

He went when Autumn's golden light
The glowing world o'erspread;
And left behind a night of gloom
And rayless dark instead.
Life was not life to me, unless
His presence formed a part,
For he was the irradiate light
And day-spring of my heart.

At sound of my familiar step,
How brightened all his looks;
Down went the play-things, and away
Went all his pictured books:
His little hands, like fluttering wings,
Were tremulous with joy,
And, happy in each other's arms,
The father clasped his boy.

We lived and loved—a blessed life—
As we shall live no more,
For angel-pinions bore him off
From this despairing shore:
The cloud that shut him from my sight
Cast back a fearful spell,
And made my quailing spirit shrink
Where its dark shadow fell.

Blow softly, gently, southern breeze,
Amind the buds and bloom,
And let your odor-laden airs
Search all the quiet room:
You can not find his sweeter breath,
Nor his red lips restore,
And though you gladden other hearts,
You wring my own the more.

I read aright the moaning sigh
Beneath my window-blind,
It is the loving sprite who seeks
For one it can not find:
For one whose bright and starry eyes
Are distant now, and dim,
While Memory fills its vacant halls
And corridors with him.

O GOD! that such a world as this,
So beautiful and brave,
Should be of all our fondest loves
And dearest hopes the grave:
That in one bitter hour a blight
Should change its glorious hue,
And wither beauties, which no showers
Nor spring-time can renew!

A LITTLE EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF A GENTLEMAN WHO WAS AMBITIOUS OF DISTINCTION: COMPILED FROM PAPERS WHICH WERE DISCOVERED IN HIS DESK, AFTER HE HAD LEFT HOME ON A TOUR THROUGH EUROPE.

THE subject of this brief memoir, which must be restricted to twelve pages of the present volume, was the son of wealthy but honest parents; at least they had never been convicted of larceny, nor of any other crime. We mention the fact of their honesty for the reason that there is a prevalent opinion among a certain class, that in this country, where wealth is so rarely inherited, it can not be honestly obtained; honesty and fair dealing not being supposed to be favorable to large gains. Though the father was engaged in the most respectable business of importing German dolls and other useful articles, and was one of the safest men down-town, he had enlarged views for his son, and determined to give him what he had always felt the need of himself—a thorough education; that he might have a capital to start with, which no adverse circumstances could deprive him of. Bonds and stocks might prove worthless, banks might fail, and merchandise depreciate in value; but no changes in the market could affect Latin and Greek; and with a good stock of these commodities, the father had no fears for his son. His reasons for attaching so much importance to these valuable languages, could not have been the wealth and importance which they have usually conferred upon those who possessed them in the greatest quantities; but, whatever the reasons were, they were all-sufficient in his opinion. After leaving college with the degree of A.B., and as much knowledge as young men usually take from the halls of learning where they graduate, the subject of our memoir very sensibly took a wife, to aid him in combatting and overcoming whatever obstacles he might encounter in his way through the world. Having no leaning toward any particular profession, and feeling quite indifferent whether he earned his living by preaching the Gospel, practising medicine, or promoting litigation, provided he could distinguish himself, he hesitated a long time before he could prevail upon himself what to do, and perhaps he would never have come to any decision upon this important point, had not his father intimated to him, at last, that he should shut off the supplies, unless his son showed a disposition to do something for himself. Marvin, for that happened to be his Christian name, suggested to his father that a year or two spent in Europe might enable him to determine what profession would be best adapted to the bent of his genius. But the father did not see the force of the suggestion, whereupon the son was suddenly illuminated by a brilliant thought, which put an end to discussion and satisfied all parties. He would start a magazine, and distinguish himself as Jeffrey, Brougham, Campbell, Sydney Smith, Kit North, and other illustrious men had done before him, in the same way, and make lots of money beside. Any of the learned professions would require years of patient drudgery to gain respectability even, but here was a plan, now, by which reputation and wealth could be attained at a bound.

"Where there is a will there is a way," is an excellent maxim when there is money to back it up, which happened to be the case in this instance. Paper-makers, printers, binders, and all the operatives whose aid is necessary to further a literary enterprise, are the most amiable, obedient, and manageable of slaves, and always hail, with encouraging cheerfulness, every new attempt to establish a literary undertaking, when they are sure of their pay. Authors, too, forget their caprices, suddenly grow industrious and obliging, genius brightens up, and a thousand friends come forward with manuscripts and advice, under similar circumstances, and with a similar contingency. So the subject of this brief history found, and chuckled with inward delight over the opening glories of his career, as he made his preparations for issuing his first number. There were drawbacks to the business, to be sure a back side to the canvas, which, it was consoling to him to remember, none would see but himself. He would become so prominent an object of popular esteem and curiosity, that he foresaw many annoyances and inconveniences, from being so continually invited to dine with this and that great man, to be compelled to attend the déjeuners of renowned prima donnas, to join literary coteries, being bothered for his autograph, and to accept conciliatory and grateful offerings, from authors, artists, and actors; all these things, to a gentleman of his quiet and unostentatious habits, would prove annoying; but he heroically straightened his back for the burthen which was to descend upon his shoulders, and resolved to take the bitter with the sweet of his new employment without grumbling. His consolation and reward would be the consciousness of having elevated the tone of popular sentiment, of enlarging the bounds of human enjoyment, and of assisting in the development of American genius, and rewarding native talent. Very likely other men may have entertained some such feelings in embarking in similar enterprises, and they will readily comprehend the emotions of Mr. Smilax, at this momentous period of his career.

Our twelve pages will not allow us the pleasure of giving the world an account of the reception of the first number of the magazine, nor permit us to chronicle the gradual change which took place in the feelings of its proprietor and editor, as he day by day discovered he had so wonderfully over-estimated the delights and profits of his enterprise, and so ridiculously under-estimated its troubles and annoyances. How could he have so deluded himself! Manuscripts poured in upon him by the cart-load, and he was required to read every thing he received, and give a critical opinion upon it the next day. If he accepted an article, he did not thereby make a grateful friend; but if he refused one, he created an implacable enemy. Illustrious authors did not manifest any of that feverish anxiety for his company to dinner that he had anticipated, unless he acted the part of Amphitryon himself; and as for his autograph, the only applications he received for it were from certain gentlemen who were anxious to have it on the backs of notes, which they wished to part with.

One day, as he sat in the little apartment, which was most absurdly called his "sanctum," for it was as open to the inroads of impertinent people as an intelligence office, looking over a heap of manuscripts with aching head and weary eyes, and thinking to himself that the business of enlarging the boundaries of human enjoyment was not half so agreeable an occupation as that of importing German dolls would be, when he was diverted from his desponding thoughts by the sudden apparition of a lady, accompanied by a small boy, who carried a large roll under his arm.

"You are the editor, I presume?" said the lady; and, having been assured of the correctness of her supposition, she seated herself in the only chair which was vacant in the sanctum—all the other seats being filled with bundles of manuscripts, which were waiting to be returned to their authors, or consigned to the balaam-box. The lady then lifted her veil, and taking the roll from the boy, pleasantly informed the dismayed editor, for whom such visitors had long since lost all novelty, that she wished to occupy a few minutes of his time in reading a manuscript novel, which she desired his opinion of.

The editor declined the favor she intended him, as courteously as his temper would permit him to do; but she insisted that he would be charmed with the work, and she would permit him to publish it in his magazine. He pointed to the heaps of manuscripts lying all about him, on the shelves, on the tables, in baskets, on the floor, and in the chairs, beside two or three green boxes, which were filled full of accepted articles, waiting their turns to be published, and told her they had all prior claims, which must first be attended to.

But ladies who have a point to carry are deaf to all arguments which do not tend to further their purposes, and the strange authoress only smiled more pleasantly than before, and tossing her ringlets from her pale cheeks, said, in her persuasive voice, "Allow me to read you one chapter? I am sure it will interest you."

"Madam," replied the beleaguered editor, "I have no doubt of it; but what's the use? I could not use the story if it pleased me never so much. And then I should only feel the greater regret in being compelled to reject it."

"Ah! now," said the lady, "there is the most delightful character in it, and a ghost, and a most mysterious personage. It would make your magazine sell wonderfully. It is just the kind of story which every body says your magazine needs. Let me read you but one chapter?"

A pitcher of water and a tumbler were standing upon the table, and the editor, taking up the pitcher, filled the tumbler full.

"There, Madam," said he, "you see that when a vessel is full it will hold no more; see, another drop and it overflows. I am full, my room is full, desks, drawers, baskets, boxes, magazine, and all are full. I can receive no more."

"Just one more will make no great difference, I am sure," said the authoress, paying no other heed to the forcible illustration of the editor, than to smile most benignly and patiently while he demonstrated the simple fact. "Come, let me read my introductory chapter, and I am sure you will want to read the rest yourself."

"Madam, I have been compelled to deny thousands of such requests," said he, biting his lips.

"But a lady!" said she. "You might refuse to hear a gentleman, but you would not refuse a lady?"

The editor paused a moment, and he was ruined. He was naturally tender-hearted, and he thought of his wife and his mother; what if either of them should ever be compelled to solicit a favor from an editor? and how would he feel to hear they had been refused?

"Madam," said he, with a softened tone, "it is quite impossible for me to hear you read your novel now; but leave it with me, and I will read it through at my earliest leisure."

"I may depend upon you?" she said half-doubtingly, as she deposited the roll on his table.

"I pledge you my word as a gentleman," he said.

"I will call again soon," said the lady, who courtsied and smiled, and then retired, followed by her page.

But she had scarcely left the sanctum when the wretched man, as he took up the roll of manuscript, and tossed it upon a shelf, where lay heaps of similar bundles, repented of what he had done.

"What a fool I was!" he exclaimed, as he glanced around him, "to make that rash promise! There is O'Mulligan, who will challenge me if I do not read his essay on the Round Towers; there is the Reverend Doctor Slospoken, who will denounce me to his congregation, if I neglect his essay on Human Responsibilities; Professor Verdigriss will speak sneeringly of me to his class, if I am not prepared with an opinion of his article about the Retrocession of Solar Paradoxes; and Mrs. Winkle's Blighted Buds must be reviewed for my next number. How am I to do all these things, and read that woman's tremendous manuscript! I was a madman to make such a promise! The deuce take her! But I will not be so caught again."

He gave strict orders that no woman, under any circumstances whatever, should ever again be permitted to enter his sanctum; and after spending a few more hours at his dreary employment, he went home to his wife, solacing himself with the recollection of his domestic happiness, and repeating to himself a quatrain from some verses which he had addressed to his Maria Jane before their marriage:

"MARIA, on thy peaceful breast
The weary worker seeks repose,
And in thy fond affections blest
He finds a cure for all his woes."

"A cure for all his woes!" he repeated to himself, as he put his night-key in the door, and bounding up-stairs into the boudoir of his Maria, was suddenly arrested by discovering her in tears.

Maria Jane in tears! The heart of Smilax was smitten by the sight, and his anxiety to learn the cause of her first sorrow may readily be imagined by husbands who have had a similar experience—and what husband has not?

But he then learned that when a wife is most afflicted, there is nothing the matter with her. Mrs. Smilax continued to weep, and at every appeal of her husband, to enlighten him as to the cause of her grief, she would only reply, "Nothing!"

But Smilax knew perfectly well that "nothing," in this case, meant something dire and calamitous to his domestic peace. After a while, the torrent of his wife's grief subsided into a sullen and reproachful melancholy, more hard to endure than the most terrifying outbursts of grief and passion.

Maria Jane was not one of the Queen Catharine style of wives; she calmly subsided into the injured innocence state, and personated most effectively the character of a resigned saint, persevering in her sad declaration that nothing had happened—nothing! She had no complaints to make. It would all be over soon; and what was her happiness, if he were only happy!

Smilax went to his office the next day, a thoroughly wretched man; but his duties were too engrossing to permit him to dwell on his domestic troubles. He had tried in vain to imagine the cause of his wife's griefs, but he could not call to mind any circumstance which could, in any manner, have awakened her jealousy, or given her reason to shed a tear. What added to his distress was his inability to consult with any of his friends in regard to the matter, or ask advice as to the proper mode of procedure in such cases. The spirit of discontent had entered his paradise, and he was unhappy, and that was all he knew about it.

The mail had brought him heaps of letters and manuscripts, all of them requiring immediate attention; the printer had sent him bundles of proofs, which must be read and returned at once; and O'Mulligan had threatened him with a scorching, in a rival magazine, for not deciding on his manuscript sooner; and two clergymen, a lady, a Polish lecturer, and half-a-dozen suspicious-looking men of a very miscellaneous character, were waiting in his ante-room, some to learn his decision in regard to communications already sent, and some to offer him essays and poems. It was a melting hot day; all the rest of the world had gone to the country or the sea-side; but he was forced to remain to make up his next number. The perspiration rolled from his clouded brow, as he seated himself at his overburdened desk, and thought of his duties. With a kind of grim desperation, he took up the roll of manuscript which the lady had left him the day before, and smiled scornfully, as he read the title, "A Pledge of Affection. By Pattie Passionflower."

"Another vegetable name in literature!" he said to himself; "Poppyflower would be better. I thought, when I received a poem from Carry Cauliflower, that that particular form of literary disease had come to an end; but here is another." He ran his eye rapidly over a few leaves of the manuscript—for he had learned the art of judging of the character of a literary performance without reading it all through—and remorselessly writing a mystical word upon it, tied up the bundle and threw it into the balaam-box, with a large heap of other rejected offerings to be returned to their owners.

This was, at first, a most painful thing for him to do; for he had himself once been a contributor to a magazine, and he well knew the irritating anxiety which a young author feels for the fate of his manuscript; and he used to write soothing letters to the poor adventurers whose bantlings he was compelled to reject; but he had long since become hardened to his duty, and rather felt himself the aggrieved and injured party, when a manuscript was offered to him, which, after being at the cost of reading, he was compelled to reject. "It is not my fault," would Smilax say to himself; "if they can't write better; why should I be unhappy about it?"

Ah! little did the public think or care, that, to obtain the one tolerably good essay, which they would find fault with for not being more brilliant, he had been obliged to read through four or five hundred much worse ones. "What does the world care about the troubles or sufferings of any of its servants, who wear their lives out in trying to give pleasure or instruction to others? Not a straw! Yet we will be martyrs for the chance smile of approbation which the world now and then bestows upon us—slaves of its whims," said Smilax to himself, as he wended his way home that night, wearied with his day's work, and half-dreading to meet Maria Jane. The truth was that she had neglected to give him the customary parting kiss, which she had never forgotten to do before. "Forgotten!" exclaimed Smilax bitterly in his thoughts; "she did not forget it she did it on purpose; she had her handkerchief to her eyes, and she would not allow me to kiss her. I have broken my wife's heart; but how I did it I have not the ghost of an idea. I hope she has got over it by this time, though."

But the faint hope was soon withered; for, as he opened the door, he heard a stifled sobbing, which he knew at once proceeded from Maria Jane; and worse and more ominous than all, the severe visage of his mother-in-law frowned freezingly upon him, as he entered the room where the wife of his young affections lay sobbing hysterically upon the sofa. Maria Jane had sent for her mother, and Smilax knew that she would not say that "nothing was the matter," for that is not the way in which mothers-in-law vent their reproaches. It was a comfort to the distressed husband and editor to feel sure that he would now know the worst, let it be what it might. And he was perfectly correct in his assumptions; for, as he mildly asked what was the matter, the word "Monster!" fell upon his ear with a clearness and distinctness of utterance that made him hop.

"Do n't, mother!" sobbed out Maria Jane; "I can die, but I will never reproach him."

What Smilax would have said, or might have said, if he had not been rendered speechless by the strangeness of these proceedings, we must leave the public to imagine.

"I do n't wonder at your silence," said his mother-in-law. "You have killed this suffering angel, and made me childless."

Maria Jane, we may observe, was an only daughter, from which the tender manner of her bringing up may be inferred.

"If I have killed her," said Smilax, meekly, "I am——"

"I can't bear hypocrisy," said his mother in-law; "I should think much better of you if you confessed your villainy openly. Read that letter, and save yourself the trouble of further dissimulation."

As the word "letter" was named, the suffering angel on the sofa broke out in a fresh agony of hysterical sobs.

Smilax took the letter, and with a puzzled expression examined the direction, which was to his wife; the hand had a very familiar look to him; but, accustomed as he was to examining so many specimens of handwriting daily, he had but a confused idea of its individual character. He opened the letter with a trembling hand, and had read but a few lines when, to the horror of his mother-in-law, he broke out in a fit of the most obstreperous mirth. Unable to restrain his laughter, he threw himself upon the floor and fairly roared, holding on to his sides with both hands, and kicking his heels as though he were in convulsions.

Maria Jane started up wildly, and her mother tried to look very indignant, but felt that she must look very foolish. She knew she had made a mistake; and to be compelled to confess it to her son-in-law, in whose eyes she had ever striven to appear immaculate, and not liable to any mistakes whatever, was enough to make her feel and look very foolish.

It was a good while before Smilax could command himself long enough to speak, but the moment he did, his wife leaped from the sofa, threw her arms around his neck, and, if there had been a piano in the room, she would have gone off with "Ah! non giunge!" in a manner that any prima donna might have envied.

To save the trouble of an explanation, we will give our readers a copy of the letter which caused this domestic emeute, and leave it to their own imaginations to do the rest.

"DEAR MADAM:

"Though a stranger to you, I am not to your husband; and I do not flatter myself that he would confide to you the kind of transactions which such as I have with him; and I would not now intrude upon you, were it not for the peculiar circumstances in which I am placed. I am a mother; I believe that you are not, and you may not understand my feelings. But my offspring must be provided for. I am not mercenary, yet I can not afford to part with the 'Pledge of Affection' which I left with him yesterday, without pay. This I wish you to say to him. After a long and most satisfactory interview which I had with him, when I returned to say this much, and 'nothing more,' I was denied all access to him, and have ventured to request you to act as my mediator with him. If my presence is disagreeable to him, he has my address, and may drop me a line informing me of his decision. The 'Pledge' may be sent back if he declines to pay.

"Most truly yours,

"PATTIE PASSIONFLOWER.

"To MRS. SMILAX."

This little affair proved the straw which broke the camel's back. Smilax concluded the next morning that his martyrdom in the cause of literature had been endured long enough. The delusive idea of distinguishing himself by acting as a monthly nurse to other people's literary bantlings, and of elevating popular taste by any such means, was entirely dissipated. He sold out to some body as deluded as he had been; and soon after, the following advertisement in the morning papers told the catastrophe of his literary career, and the total eclipse of all his ambitious aspirations for distinction:

"PARTNERSHIP NOTICE.—Mr. M. Smilax. Jr., having been admitted a partner of our house, the business of importing German dolls will be conducted under the name of M. Smilax, Son & Co.

"SMILAX & Co."

"After all," said Smilax to me, one day, as I met him coming out of his broker's, where he had been looking over the stock list, with the view of making a safe investment of his spare capital, "what a precious delusion this love of distinction is! What more should sensible men like ourselves aspire to, than to be distinguished in their own families as good husbands and fathers, and to have the satisfaction of knowing they owe no man a dollar, which they can not pay on demand? That's the only distinction worth striving for."

I am afraid there was a shade of sarcasm in the smile which passed over my features in reply to these grovelling sentiments of my friend; for he immediately added with a slight blush:

"It is true that importing German dolls is not the noblest occupation in which a reasoning creature can engage; but children must be amused with dolls, as well as men with magazines, and why not choose the business which affords the best returns?"

I could only smile again, for arguments of this nature have but one side to them; and Smilax, feeling his triumph, changed the subject by inviting me to a family dinner, with Maria Jane and the children.

NOT far from the great throbbing city of New-York, and on the borders of a beautifully indented bay, called Hempstead Harbor, there stood about half-a-century since, a little sleepy town, named Mosquito Cove, which, being very materially protected from invasion by its name, was a kind of terra incognita to the rest of the world. In its immediate neighborhood were the villages of Wolver Hollow, Cedar Swamp, Duck Pond, Buckram, and Matinicock—all sturdy towns of great repute among their own inhabitants, and of strong tenacity of name; for, although Mosquito Cove in after-times became Glen Cove, the others still vaunted their ancient titles with vain-glorious obstinacy. Not far from Mosquito Cove was a retired road, about a mile in length, in some parts running through open woodland, and in others so completely embowered in trees, that twilight reigned there even at mid-day. There was a dreamy stillness about the place, which was apt to conjure up odd fancies in the mind of the loiterer, and he might have fancied himself in some old abbey, as he looked among the columned tree-trunks and the green arches overhead, until startled from his reverie by the shrill cry of the blue jay, or the workmanlike tap of the wood-pecker, as he scrambled around a tree-trunk. Here and there a ray of sunlight, straggling through the overhanging branches, or the matted grape-vines which clambered over them, would stream across the road, or lie in golden flecks upon the dead leaves which strewed the ground.

Such at that time was Dosoris lane; and, even at the present day, it retains much of its primitive character. The tide of travel, which has found its way to these regions, filling them with the hum of life, seems, in a great measure, to have spared this lane. In earlier times, however, quiet and dream-like as it seemed in the day-time, no spot was more astir than this after night-fall. Elves and spirits, and goblins of all denominations, made it their haunt, and tales of unearthly doings, which had taken place there were rife through the country round. At one time the ghost of a hard-drinking miller was seen galloping up and down the lane, astride of a huge demijohn, which he was spurring like a fiery charger—no doubt, a retaliation for the spur which it had so often applied to him in his life-time—always disappearing at a great oak-tree, at the foot of which he had drank himself to death, and which, in commemoration of that event, is called the drinking-tree to this day. At another time, the ghost of one Billy Cowles, who had died long before of asthma, and was buried in a small graveyard at the head of the lane, was seen patrolling the place. It was generally rumored that he was in search of breath, as he wheezed as he hurried along, and was always seen with his coat open, his shirt-collar thrown back, and an old cravat in his hand. These, and a number of other characters of the same kidney, made this vicinity their rendezvous, and many a weird prank and gambol were carried on there, until the place gained an evil name; wayfarers began to take a wide circuit to avoid its fated neighborhood; the grass began to grow in its wagon-track, and bold, indeed, was he who would venture to brave its perils after night-fall.

Just about this time, the place fell under the domination of one Parson Woolsey, a stern old clergyman and a large landholder, who looked narrowly after his own interests, and kept the whole country round in wholesome subjection. Neither ghost nor man was permitted to cross his path; loud prayer exorcised the former, and a strong arm, a long purse, and a rigid determination to enforce his own rights, kept the latter in his place.

The resolute old clergyman carried matters with a high hand until he died. He was buried under the shade of his own forests, where his grave-stone still stands, half-eaten away by time, and over-run by weeds and briars, with a figure of the sturdy parson in full canonicals carved on the top, scowling from the midst of a bag wig, and apparently keeping a grim watch over the precincts.

After his death, his lands passed into the hands of a more degenerate race, and once more the powers of the air were rampant.

Not a great while after this, there dwelt in this neighborhood a person of no small repute, named Zadoc Town. He had come there a few years previous, from parts unknown. He was a thin, keen man, with sharp features, and a pair of restless black eyes, placed so close to his nose, that they seemed intended to look straight forward, and in no other direction. Mosquito Cove had been a quiet place enough before his arrival, dozing away under the weight of its own antiquity, believing in nothing, and looking upon all greatness as departed from the earth when Parson Woolsey was buried, and somewhat disposed to think, as all shrewd towns are apt to do, that what Mosquito Cove did not know was not worth knowing, and what Mosquito Cove did not possess was not worth possessing, unless it might be the money of other people. But when Zadoc came, he stirred them up, he removed the veil from their eyes, and soon had the town in a turmoil. He took up his abode on a narrow by-road, at a short distance from the village, in a precise-looking house with green shutters, in which two holes were cut like eyes, giving the house as keen and wide-awake a look as its owner.

Here he dwelt under the shadow of two poplar-trees, and of a sister as keen and straight-forward in aspect as himself, and for whose energetic spirit and sharp tongue, it was said, he had a very wary deference. Be that as it may, any restraint that he suffered at home only rendered him more restless abroad. He was here and there, up to his eyes in every man's matters, except his own. He called public meetings; he demonstrated to them the size of the world outside of the village; he denounced Quakerdom, then the prevailing epidemic of the place; he talked of establishing schools, newspapers, periodicals, and banks. He failed in all! but succeeded in forming a fire-insurance company, of which he was the president, and had all the honor, while a tight-fisted old former was made treasurer, and kept the funds in a stone pot, buried in his cellar, whence he dug them up and counted them every night, after saying his prayers, and just before going to bed.

It chanced that shortly after Zadoc had been installed in his new office, that he had been passing an afternoon with an old friend named Tommy Croft, who lived at Buckram. Tommy was a sturdy, weather-beaten veteran, resembling, in strength and toughness, one of the oaks of his own woods. In his youth he had been a double-jointed, hard-fisted fellow, who could cudgel it with any man of his inches. He was noted for believing in no law but what he carried in his own arm, and for doubting every one's opinion but his own; and, although a Quaker, and, of course, a hater of broils, it was whispered that he and his cudgel were sometimes at variance, and that his cudgel did not always carry out the precepts which he advocated. Be that as it may, he was a favorite with all; for he was frank, open-hearted, and never stubborn, except when he could not have his own way; and as Zadoc, though restless and persevering, was pliant, there was no collision between them—they were fast friends.

As I said before, Zadoc had been passing the afternoon with his friend, and, being tempted by Tommy's home-brewed ale, to linger longer than was his wont, the two sat gossiping at the door of the house, until the setting sun warned Zadoc that it was time to turn his face homeward. So, taking his leave, he set out, and Tommy, with his cudgel under his arm, accompanied him several miles on his way. But at last the darkness, which increased as they went, rendering the road obscure, indicated to him that it was time to return, and bidding Zadoc "GOD speed!" he left him just as he was approaching the perilous regions of Dosoris.

Zadoc was pot-valiant just then; for at least a quart of Tommy's ale was buttoned under his jacket, distending his stomach and humming through his head, until he felt himself a match for the largest ghost that had ever made Dosoris its haunt.

The principal scourge of this lane, of late years, had been the apparition of one Derrick Wilkinson, a hard-riding horse-jockey, who had broken his neck about twenty years before, and was said to patrol the lane from one end to the other, and even to waylay wayfarers, and at times to cudgel them soundly, and at others to lead them into all sorts of wild adventures.

Among others, there was a tale current of his having beset a hard-headed old negro, named Knot, as he was reeling homeward from a husking frolic, somewhat the worse for his potations, and had led him a helter-skelter chase, all night long, through bush and brier; at one time dragging him through the swamp at the head of a small stream called Flag Brook, and at another, ducking him in the Dosoris mill-pond, paying no regard to his entreaties for rest, but, as he became weary, plying him with a fiery liquor of such potency as to keep up his strength and courage, and make him as reckless as the goblin himself; and that the negro had been banged about in this rakehelly manner until the distant crow of a cock gave warning of the approach of day. The ghost then dashed at a tremendous rate into the fastnesses of Boggy Swamp, and, with a loud yell, disappeared, not forgetting to bestow a hearty thwack on the head of Knot, which left him senseless.

The story was laughed at by the young and incredulous; but the older inhabitants, who had grown gray and wise with their years, placed implicit faith in the tale. They had lived long in the world, and had amassed a great fund of experience; and the most of them recollected that when they were boys, ghosts and hobgoblins were plenty. Moreover, it was certain that Knot was found on the morning after the adventure, lying at the foot of a large tree in Boggy Swamp, very drunk no doubt, from the effects of the miraculous liquor, and very much stupefied doubtless, from the effects of the blow.

From this time, Knot became a standard authority on all subjects relating to the unseen world. From that date, too, Dosoris became more of a wizard lane than ever.

Zadoc Town had been one of Knot's most virulent opponents, and had once or twice, in broad daylight, and under the wing of his sister, openly avowed his utter disbelief of the whole story, and had even said, that he would like to catch Derrick stopping him, "that was all!"

Returning Tommy's salutation in a tone as valiant as his own, he strode boldly into the lane. It was not long, however, before the fumes of the ale began to evaporate, and as they disappeared, certain vague apprehensions took the place of the false courage which had so far supported him. All the tales which he had heard came crowding into his mind. He remembered, too, his own vaporings about ghosts and hobgoblins, and particularly about Derrick, and was not a little cowed at the recollection of the rash courage which he had showed in daylight. He kept a stealthy watch on the dim hedges at the road side, and, several times, fancied that he saw a dusky figure flitting before him, but it always proved to be a bush or a rock. There was no sound to break the echo of his own footfall, except the creaking noise of the thousand insects which darkness had awakened into life. He cleared his throat loudly, and looked up toward the sky, but the interlaced branches shut out the stars, and overhead it looked as black as midnight. The sides of the road, too, were completely shut in by trees over-run by scrambling vines. He began to doubt whether it would not be better to retrace his steps, and spend the night under the hospitable roof of Tommy Croft; but he recollected the shrill-tongued sister at home, who had set her face against vagabondizing and rantipoling of all kinds, under both of which heads she particularly classed all indulgences which conduced to irregularity or lateness of hours. Zadoc thought of this. If he braved the dark lane, he might escape its perils; if he did not, a warm reception at home was certain. "Egad!" thought he, "if I but had Betsey Town here to back me, I'd like to see Derrick tackle her! He'd catch a Tartar!"

Had he been elsewhere, he would have chuckled at the idea of such an encounter; but it was no time nor place for laughing, for he was at the very spot where the ghost was said to make its appearance, and he was debating in his mind as to the propriety of taking to his heels when he was arrested by a voice at the road-side calling out, "Mr. Town, I'm waiting for you!"

Zadoc's knees shook under him, but before he could rouse himself he was jerked off his feet, and whisked over the fence by a power which he could not resist.

"Follow!" said the voice.

Zadoc saw, in front of him, the dim outline of a figure gliding swiftly through bush and brier, stopping at no impediment, and also felt himself impelled to follow. As they glided along through an opening in the wood, he obtained a better view of his guide, and, to his horror, recognized the small jockey-cap, the lank, straight hair, and gray, glittering eyes of Derrick Wilkinson.

The cold perspiration stood on his forehead, and his terror was not a little increased by hearing a heavy step following them. He cast a stealthy glance over his shoulder, and caught a glimpse of a figure as far behind as the other was before him. All hope of retreat was cut off, and muttering a kind of rambling prayer, Zadoc followed the spectre until they came to a large tree at the head of Flag Brook. Here the ghost stopped, and turning short round, glided up to Zadoc, and said, in a very respectful tone:

"Mr. Town, in starlight and storm, many a weary night I've waited for you. I'm Derrick Wilkinson! Be seated, Sir!"

This confirmation of his previous knowledge was by no means consolatory. Derrick had always been a harum-scarum dare-devil during his life-time, and Zadoc had strong misgivings that death might not have improved his character. He recollected, too, Knot's adventure, and his heart died within him. He, however, slid to the ground, as directed, and at the same time attempted to express some satisfaction at the desire evinced for his acquaintance, but the words stuck in his throat, and he could only move his lips without speaking.

"I'm told you've got up in the world since I left it," said Derrick, by way of opening the conversation, and of putting his companion at his ease.

Zadoc was wary, and as he did not understand the purport of the remark, he made a very non-committal answer.

"You've been a very busy man in the village," said the apparition; "you've made great changes."

"I've tried to do my duty," replied Zadoc, deprecatingly, at the same time endeavoring to change his position in such a way as to catch sight of the other figure, which had followed at his heels, and which he now observed under a tree close by, apparently ready to back his fellow-goblin in any unearthly project which he might have on foot.

"You have, Mr. Town; and I honor you for it," replied Goblin with strong emphasis. "I take a strong interest in the Cove, even yet. There were the Cowles, and the Crofts, and the Dyhers, and the Blarcoms, and the Smiths, and the Howlets, and dozens of others: they were rare boys in my day."

"They are all dead and gone," said Zadoc, as, beginning to feel less nervous, he grew more loquacious.

"I see most of them every day," replied Goblin; "one or two of them have gone elsewhere, but I meet nearly all of them constantly: in fact, they sent me to see you."

Zadoc's hair began to bristle, for he had not imagined that this visitation was a concerted project of all the defunct worthies of the town. He made no reply, but sat with every sense on the alert; for he observed the attendant goblin drawing still nearer, and was apprehensive lest he might represent another of the departed worthies.

"Rumors of the great good that you have done have reached even us," continued the ghost in a tone which was intended to be insinuating, but which, owing to the flimsy texture of its owner, was rather asthmatic.

Zadoc remained taciturn.

"We've heard, among other things, that you've formed a company to insure against fire. A fire is a dreadful calamity, Mr. Town."

"Very!" replied Zadoc.

"Fires are very prevalent where we are," said the ghost; "in fact, they are the greatest drawback to the place. We all suffer from them."

Zadoc moved uneasily in his seat.

"I think you insure against fire, Mr. Town, do n't you?"

For a brief moment he felt that he was president of the insurance company, and that here was a chance of turning an honest penny. He replied in the affirmative with some alacrity, and began to recapitulate the terms.

"Do you think, Mr. Town," said the goblin, assuming a winning tone, and endeavoring to coax up a smile on his sinister features, "you could insure us?"

"You?"

"Yes, me," replied the goblin, "and your other friends."

"Against what?" inquired Zadoc.

"Fire. It's very warm where we live," replied he; "and I've leave of absence till cock-crow. We thought if we could get insured during the night, we would snap our fingers when I go back. We do n't mind money, and it would be a praiseworthy act on your part to out-wit 'Old Scratch.' It tells greatly in a man's favor to annoy the old gentleman, and that would, I can assure you. I know him well."

Here was a dilemma, and Zadoc felt that his present position required adroit management.

"You do n't mean to say," said he, evasively, "that all those very respectable people—very respectable people—have gone to the dev——"

"Whist!" said the goblin, "do n't be uncivil, Sir. Wherever they are, I mean to say that the climate does n't agree with them—being rather too tropical. I mean, too, that they want to be insured against fire. Do I make myself understood?"

There was something too positive to permit of farther equivocation. Zadoc muttered something about his being unable to insure out of the county without consulting the stockholders, and that he feared the risk was "extra hazardous."

The goblin's eyes fairly glowed with fury as he said, "Refuse, if you dare! You are mine till cock-crow! Will you insure?"

Zadoc closed his eyes, and muttered a prayer. The idea of getting the ill-will of the "Old Boy" by interfering between him and his property was not to be thought of for an instant, and he shook his head.

"Ha!" exclaimed the goblin, gnashing his teeth, "then here's at you!"

"And here's at thee!" exclaimed a voice behind him. "Ghost or devil, take that!" At the same time, a heavy cudgel was flourished in the air; it descended on what appeared to be the very head of the goblin, and cleaving through head and body, rang hard against the ground. There was a bright flash, a puff of sulphurous smoke, a loud discordant scream in the tree-tops, and Zadoc found himself alone in the presence of his deliverer, Tommy Croft.

"Thee was hard bested, Zadoc," said Tommy, "and thee was wrong in saying goblins were ag'in natur, but thee withstood that fellow as thee should. I'm very sorry, however, to hear that so many of our respected friends have got into such unpleasant quarters. Thee won't laugh at old Knot again. It's very sartain I never saw so unsubstantial a thing as that goblin; the stick went clean through him, as if he was smoke. Pah! he smells like burnt gunpowder. Come, Zadoc, let's be moving."

Taking Zadoc under one arm, and his trusty cudgel under the other, Tommy tramped through the woods and across the fields; nor did he relinquish the guardianship of his friend until he had seen him fairly housed beneath his own roof, and under the vinegar eye of Sister Betsey, where he felt certain that neither hobgoblin, nor Old Nick himself, would be hardy enough to disturb him.

I'VE greeted many a bonny bride
On many a bridal day,
In homes serene and summer-skied,
Where Love's spring-buds, with joy and pride,
Had blossomed into May:
But ne'er on lovelier bride than thine
Looked these delighted eyes of mine,
And ne'er, in happier bridal bower
Than hers, smiled rose and orange flower
Through green leaves glad and gay,
When bridesmaids, grouped around her room,
In youth's, in truth's, in beauty's bloom,
Entwined, with merry fingers fair,
Their garlands in her sunny hair;
Or bosomed them, with graceful art,
Above the beatings of her heart.

I well remember, as I stood
Among that pleasant multitude,
A stranger, mateless and forlorn,
Pledged bachelor, and hermit sworn,
That, when the holy voice had given,
In consecrated words of power,
The sanction of approving Heaven
To marriage-ring, and roof, and dower;
When she, a Wife, in matron pride,
Stood, life-devoted, at thy side:
When happy lips had pressed her cheek,
And happiest lips her "bonny mou',"
And she had smiled, with blushes meek,
On my congratulary bow,
A sunbeam, balmy with delight,
Entranced, subdued me, till I quite
Forgot my anti-nuptial vow,
And almost asked, with serious brow,
And voice of true and earnest tone,
The bridesmaid with the prettiest face
To take me, heart and hand, and grace
A wedding of my own.

Time's years, it suits me not to say
How many, since that joyous day,
Have watched, and cheered thee on thy way
O'er Duty's chosen path severe,
And seen thee, heart and thought full grown,
Tread manhood's thorns and tempters down.
And win, like Pythian charioteer,
The wreaths and race-cups of renown—
Seen thee, thy name and deeds, enshrined
Within the peerage-book of mind— And seen my morning prophecy
Truth-blazoned on a noon-day sky,
That he, whose worth could win a wife
Lovely as thine, at Life's beginning,
Would always wield the power, through life,
Of winning all things worth the winning.

Hark! there are songs on Summer's breeze,
And dance and song in Summer's trees,
And choruses of birds and bees
In Air, their world of happy wings;
What far-off minstrelsy, whose tone
And words are sweeter than their own,
Has waked these cordial welcomings?
'Tis nearer now, and now more near,
And now rings out like clarion clear.
They come—the merry bells of Fame!
They come—to glad me with thy name.
And, borne upon their music's sea,
From wave to wave, melodiously,
Glad tidings bring of thine and thee.
They tell me that, Life's tasks well done,
Ere shadows mark thy westering sun,
Thy Bark has reached a quiet shore,
And rests, with slumbering sail and oar,
Fast anchored near a Cottage door,
Thy home of pleasantness and peace.
Of Love, with eyes of Heaven's blue,
And Health, with cheek of rose's hue,
And Riches, with "the Golden Fleece:"
Where she, the Bride, a Mother now,
Encircled round with sons and daughters,
Waits my congratulary bow
To greet her Cottage woods and waters;
And thou art proving, as in youth,
By daily kindnesses, the truth
And wisdom of the Scottish rhyme—
To make a happy fireside clime
For children and for wife,
Is the true pathos and sublime,"
And green and gold of Life.

From long-neglected garden-bowers
Come these, my songs' memorial flowers,
With greetings from my heart, they come
To seek the shelter of thy home;
Though faint their hues, and brief their bloom,
And all unmeet for gorgeous room
Of "honor, love, obedience,
"And troops of friends," like thine,
I hope thou wilt not banish thence
These few and fading flowers of mine,
But let their theme be their defense,
The love, the joy, the frankincense,
And fragrance o' LANG SYNE.

FORT-LEE, N. J., July, 1854.