*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 65180 ***

                           GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.
              Vol. XIX.      September, 1841.      No. 3.


                                Contents

                   Fiction, Literature and Articles

          The Fireside
          Shakspeare
          The Reefer of ’76
          Flirtation
          The Saxon’s Bridal
          Misfortunes of a Timid Gentleman
          Never Bet Your Head
          Lame For Life, or Leslie Pierpoint
          Leaves from a Lawyer’s Port-Folio
          Cottage Piety
          Sports and Pastimes.—The Fowling-Piece
          Review of New Books

                       Poetry, Music and Fashion

          Fragment: Written on the First Coming of Spring
          The Wildwood Home
          Reproof of a Bird
          Oh! A Merry Life Does a Hunter Lead
          The Widow’s Wealth
          Death
          Why Should I Love Thee?
          A Belle at a Ball
          To Helen
          The First Kiss of Love.
          My Bonnie Blue-Eyed Lassie, O!
          Latest Fashions, September, 1841

       Transcriber’s Notes can be found at the end of this eBook.

                 *        *        *        *        *

[Illustration: W. Drummond., Rawdon, Wright, Hatch & Smillie.

_The Cottage Fire-Side._

Engraved expressly for Graham’s Magazine.]




[Illustration: Eng.^d by H. S. Sadd N.Y.

_Cottage Piety._

Engraved for Graham’s Magazine from a Picture by E. Prentice.]

                 *        *        *        *        *

                           GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

         Vol. XIX.    PHILADELPHIA: SEPTEMBER, 1841.    No. 3.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                             THE FIRESIDE.


                It’s rare to see the morning bleeze
                  Like a bon-fire frae the sea—
                It’s fair to see the burnie kiss
                  The lip o’ the flowery lea—
                An’ fine it is on green hill-side,
                  Where hums the bonny bee—
                But rarer, fairer, finer far
                  Is the _Ingle-Side_ for me.

                Glens may be gilt wi’ gowans rare,
                  The birds may fill the tree,
                An’ haughs hae a’ the scented ware
                  That simmer growth can gie—
                But the canty hearth where cronies meet,
                  An’ the darling o’ our e’e—
                That makes to us a warl complete—
                  O the _Ingle-Side_ for me!
                                             _Old Song._

Who does not remember this glorious old song, with its simple melody,
and well-managed accompaniments that seem to chime in with every word
uttered by the singer, not only upholding him in his sentiment, and
illustrating his positions by all kinds of impressive flourishes, but
absolutely chuckling and caracoling over the unanswerable nature of the
argument? If ever accompaniment expressed a positive certainty that the
words of a song were the truest words in the world, it is this very
accompaniment. It takes it for granted that nobody will dispute its
opinion. It is as dogmatic as Aristotle, or Bob Hobbes, but yet, unlike
them in some respects, it seems always to know pretty well what it is
talking about. The truth is, that there are few persons who can remain
altogether unconvinced by its illustrations, or at least who can remain
unpersuaded by its ingenious manner of setting them forth. We say _its_
illustrations, for any one with half an eye can perceive that the “music
is married to the immortal verse,” and that the twain are one. We speak
of them conjointly when we maintain the force of the song’s
illustrations. What indeed can be more forcibly “put,” as the lawyers
say, (and sometimes the rhetoricians,) than the points of its thesis?
What can be more slyly seducing—what can be more apt to take a body
unawares than allusions to “canty hearths where cronies meet, an’ the
darlins o’ our e’e?” To be sure, the case might have been better made
out if the “morning bleeze” had been kept out of sight, or slurred over
as a thing of no moment. Neither was it judicious to dwell upon the
“flowery lea,” or the “bonny bee,” or the little “birds in the tree,”
and that sort of thing. The song might have taken a hint, too, from our
engraving, and said a word about a girl with blue eyes (we presume they
are blue,) and auburn hair, (we _know_ it is auburn,) and another little
girl and a little boy, both with clean faces, and a dog looking wise at
one side of the ingle, with a tabby cat at the other, watching chesnuts
in the act of being roasted, and congratulating herself that no fabulous
monkey is present to make use of her fair hand as a cat’s paw. All this
the song might have forcibly introduced—but we presume it did its best,
and we are obliged to it.

Still, we are not convinced. We were never convinced of anything in our
lives, and never intend to be convinced, for excellent reasons. It is
said there were once seven wise men—a matter which may be very well
doubted. But, admitting this point, it was of course one of the seven
who first promulgated the fact that every question has two sides. Late
discoveries have assured us that it would be no question at all if it
had not. Some questions, indeed, are trigonal, or quadrigonal, or
pentagonal, or sexagonal, or septagonal, or octagonal, or nonagonal.
Some even are polygonal, while others have an infinity of sides like the
mathematical circle, and thus there is found to be no end to them at
all, as is the case with the ordinary circle which every body
understands. These latter are questions about Tariffs, and Boundary
Lines, and National Banks, questions of privilege and drivel-ege, and
Congressional questions of order and disorder, with other matters of
that kind. Most queries, however, appear at first glance to have no more
than two sides; and it is only when we get hard and fast in the middle
of an argument respecting them, so that it is as wrong to go back as it
is preposterous to go forward, that we perceive each of the two sides
which had appeared to a cursory view so staid and so definite, branching
off, like gamblers at _Vingt Un_, into an infinitesimal series of little
divisions, each as distinct and each as perverse as the original ones.
For this reason and others (reasons _are_ as plenty as blackberries,
John Falstaff to the contrary notwithstanding) for this reason and a
thousand others, we keep clear of all argumentative discourses, as it is
impossible to say when or where they may end. By keeping clear of them,
we mean to say that we never indulge in them ourselves. Yet we like them
very well in other people. Nothing amuses us more, for instance, than a
young man who fancies himself a genius in the logical line, and who will
take it upon himself, at a moment’s warning, to demonstrate that two and
three blue beans do not make five. We could listen to him by the hour;
and when at length he comes to find out that the blue-bean question,
pretty much like all other questions, is one of the polygonal species
with infinitesimal sides, we hardly know a more interesting object than
he becomes, especially if you have not been so impolite as to interrupt
him, and he has had all the discourse to himself.

Our retiring habits, in this particular, being thus understood, it will
be seen at once that we have no design of arguing the point with the Old
Song which we have quoted at the head of this paper. We cannot undertake
to support the pretensions of the “flowery lea” against those of the
“chimney corner.” In the case of hill-side versus ingle-side we beg
leave to keep aloof. We do not say with the blue-bean gentlemen that
there is much to be said on _both_ sides of the question; for the truth
is we perceive at a glance that the subject has a wonderful variety of
aspects, each highly important and interesting, and upon every one of
which we could preach a very excellent sermon if occasion required. At a
first view there is only the ordinary double-sided question, whether the
ingle-side be preferable to the hill-side, or the hill-side to the
ingle. But then we have at once in continuation, the concomitant
sub-queries whether the hill-side be a hill-side of donkey-thistle or of
purple heather—whether there be sheep on it or snakes—whether it be
winter or summer—whether it be a rainy day or a sun-shiny one—whether
the ingle be smoky or not smoky—whether, in the latter case, we choose
to be cured like bacon or be left uncured—whether wood or coal be
burnt, and whether, if coal, you have any tendency to what Dr.
Blunderbuzzard calls pulmonary phthisis.

Now each of these sub-queries involves a point of especial importance,
and each of these points must be definitely settled, before we begin to
make up our minds on the main one, and the worst of it is that each of
these points, too, may be subdivided into I cannot tell how many others,
all equally momentous, if not more so, and every one of them to be fully
discussed and permanently decided upon, before we can do anything at all
towards drawing a judicious conclusion. So that in the end we lose both
our way, and our labor, and are forced, in respect to the matter of this
song, to fall back upon one of those very rare questions which have
really but two sides, and base our final decision upon that. This
question is simply whether the lady who sings the song, be pretty or
ugly. The only difficulty about this mode of forming an opinion is that
the opinion itself is apt to have something of a variable character—but
then it would be no fashionable opinion if it had not.

At present we decide against the lea and give judgment for “The
Fireside.”

                 *        *        *        *        *




            FRAGMENT: WRITTEN ON THE FIRST COMING OF SPRING.


                           BY PARK BENJAMIN.


    At length has come the Spring! welcome to me
    Art thou, oh! wind, that journeyest to the sea!—
    The south-west wind, whose warm, health-bringing plume,
    Wafts odor from a wilderness of bloom;
    From groves that bend with blossoms, from broad plains
    Clothed in rich garments of a thousand stains—
    Blue, crimson, gold, green, azure, purple flowers,
    Given in profusion by the beauteous showers.
    I have heard stories of thy place of birth,—
    Oh! wind, that sheddest beauty on the earth!—
    Which make me sad, to think my life must glide
    Slowly and coldly by the Atlantic’s side.
    Thine are the “happy valleys” of our land,
    Shut in by mountains, and the South-sea strand;
    They never feel the tyranny of frost;
    Nor hail, nor snow is on their green laps tost;
    For nursed by thee successive verdures spring,
    And melts the sceptre of the Winter-king!

                 *        *        *        *        *




                              SHAKSPEARE.


BY THEODORE S. FAY, AUTHOR OF “NORMAN LESLIE,” “THE COUNTESS IDA,” ETC.


In the Edinburgh Review for July, 1840, there is an article entitled
“Recent Shakspearian Literature,” very interesting to the students of
the poet. It purports to be a review of about fourteen works from
_Tieck’s Dramaturgische Blätter_, published in Breslau, 1826, to _De
Quincey’s Life of Shakspeare_, in the Encyclopædia Britannica, 1840.

As is generally the case with similar papers in this class of the
quarterlies, the article is less a _review_ of the works enumerated in
the rubric than a pouring forth of the opulence of the reviewer’s own
mind, on the occasion of a brief allusion to the productions criticized.
The author of it, in his estimate of Shakspeare, approaches nearer the
views which posterity will probably entertain of the poet, than those
which have till now characterized even the most rapturous of his
admirers. The mightiest bard, not only of modern times, but by far the
mightiest bard that has appeared among uninspired mortals, here begins
to assume a yet higher apotheosised splendor; and, if not to rank among
the constellations and the gods, like the half fabulous immortalities of
the ancient world, at least to take his place in the history of mankind,
as the mind which has reached the point farthest removed from brute
matter.

I hope the article will be widely reprinted in our own country. Its
tendency is most beneficial. We are, from necessity, in the present
point of our developement, a hard working, practical, matter-of-fact
people—full—too full of mere worldly occupation and excitement.
Subjects in no way connected with the higher exercise of the intellect
absorb the public mind. Commercial and political questions unavoidably
monopolize the national sympathies. We are compelled at present to
strain every nerve to _make money_, that the ravages of the monetary
tempest which has swept like a tornado or an earthquake, or an oriental
plague over our land, may be repaired. There is danger in this state of
things that we entirely forego the contemplation of those subjects,
which, however without temporal pecuniary profit, repay the laborer with
moral purity and elevation, which soften the asperity of the passions,
infuse gentleness and liberality into opinion, strengthen the spiritual
part of our nature, and ennoble and dignify life—at the same time that
they cheer, guide, protect and sweeten it.

There is no repose, no patient leisure and calm tranquillity in our
young and rapidly growing country. There is the same difference, I mean
in respect to literary and scientific pursuits, between us and some of
the European communities, Germany for instance, that there was between
the Israelites travelling through the desert and the same people when
gathered around the temple in the holy city. I believe we, too, are
undergoing a kind of forty years’ penance, in order to shake off such of
the habits and opinions of our European ancestors as are wrong—six
thousand years of bloody prejudices and political errors. There will
come a day of prosperity, when institutions shall be no longer doubtful,
national character no longer unsettled, when we shall have a fixed
standard of political morals far different from any that has hitherto
prevailed in the world; and when the human mind, under these more
favorable circumstances, will develop itself in a new manner.

But this depends upon ourselves. Nations, like individuals, are free
agents. We can go upwards or downwards; we can hail our Messiah or we
can reject him; and in order that we may mount not sink in the scale of
moral being, it is desirable that we should not permit ourselves to be
bound down too closely and too continually to the local and temporary
but exciting exigencies of the present hour, that pecuniary and
political subjects should not engross too much of our attention, lest we
become altogether “of the earth, earthy.” Music, poetry, painting,
sculpture, eloquence and science, the fine performances of a Forrest or
a Kean, have a tendency to mingle with our daily and (when too
exclusively persisted in) narrowing and degrading occupations; something
that turns the spirit another way, and fills, refreshes and
intellectualizes the character. Such articles as that alluded to on the
wonderful and still scarcely appreciated excellences of Shakspeare, will
be as softening and reviving in their effects upon thousands of minds,
parched and hot under the influence of merely mechanical employments, or
interested and selfish impressions, as a plentiful summer shower is to
nature, when burnt and withered with a long drought.

The reading of this article has turned me again for a few evenings to my
most favorite author, and raised many new ideas in my mind, which is
always the case when I open those fascinating pages. I propose to
furnish, in several papers, some of the thoughts which crowd upon me
while reading him. I cannot bear to read him alone. It is like listening
to an oration from the fiery lips of Cicero in an empty hall, or hearing
Channing address deserted aisles. I want a circle to share those streams
of light; I want to feel that the music-waves roll to the hearts of
others beside myself. It almost seems selfish to brood over delights so
ethereal, to gaze on vistas so resplendent, to enter a temple so
gorgeous and so vast without some one at my side to call on in the
moment of rapture.

There is, moreover, in the article of the Edinburgh Review, the
following extraordinary annunciation.

“But the work which we should have most pleasure in believing to
represent the state of German opinions, is Dr. Ulrici’s ‘Essay on
Shakspeare’s Dramatic Art, and his relation to Calderon and Goethe.’
This book seems to us to be not only one of the most solidly
philosophical pieces of criticism which have issued from the Teutonic
school, but on its own absolute merits, an unusually valuable
contribution to the literature of Shakspeare’s works. The theory upon
which the treatise rests is assuredly partial and imperfect; and also,
so far as it goes beyond opinions already received, palpably unsound;
but the aspect in which it presents the poet of all nations is one which
has been too often overlooked among ourselves, and grossly misunderstood
by some of the most celebrated of Ulrici’s countrymen. The general
discussions, which make up a considerable part of the volume, we must be
allowed to waive. We cannot, especially in the way of commentary on a
German text-book, attempt to investigate either the essence of the drama
in general, or the essential differences between the views of life
suggested respectively by Christianity and Grecian Paganism. The
religious test thus indicated is that to which the critic subjects both
Shakspeare and the poets with whom he compares him. ‘_Shakspeare’s
peculiar character_,’ says he, ‘_consists in the greater purity and
clearness, decision and completeness, with which the Christian view of
life is represented in his dramas. It consists especially in this, that
every where the two great elements of human life, and of the history of
the world, the divine guidance and the freedom of man, stand out in
their legitimate authority, in organic connexion and reciprocal action,
and thus in the whole fulness of their truth and reality._’ He insists,
emphatically, that he recognizes in Shakspeare’s dramas, not indeed
formally taught, either theologically or ethically, but embodied in the
genuine form of poetical representation, the doctrines of the universal
sinfulness of man, and of divine grace in his salvation; doctrines
which, as he truly adds, are altogether left out of sight in Goethe’s
view of life, and by Calderon either misunderstood or unpoetically used.
All this must be to many of us not a little startling; _but there lies
at the bottom of it a mighty truth_, not merely important in itself, but
bearing a _close relation to the great dramatist’s cast of thought_; a
truth which, in one sense or other, _does_ furnish _the clue to some of
the most perplexing riddles in the poet’s works_. In following out his
own system, Ulrici, as was to have been expected from its one-sidedness,
has been led to many conclusions which cannot possibly be admitted; but
_fewer of these are to be attributed to the essential parts of his
theory_, than to the peculiar way in which he has worked it out. In
several instances he has literally resolved the leading idea, in which
he represents the unity of each drama to consist, in a substantive
enunciation of a moral precept, an error against which he himself
protests. He has erred still further in acknowledging, as he seems to do
almost invariably, the principle of what has been called poetical
justice—a principle not involved in his own system upon any right
interpretation of it, and assuredly quite alien to the far-reaching
speculations of Shakspeare. But a man who thinks of poetry as Ulrici
thinks, can never write of it altogether unworthily: one who is willing
to consider Shakspeare as coming up to so lofty a standard, cannot fail
to entertain that reverence for genius, and truth, and goodness, which
is the source of all pleasure as well as soundness in criticism; and the
admirable analysis of the poet’s works which constitute the latter half
of the volume, shows the writer to be fully qualified for expounding
such a creed.”

Startling, indeed! but, if true, this is one of the most singular
discoveries ever made in literature. We have been accustomed to hear
Shakspeare praised for everything but Christianity, or, indeed, any
sense of religion. He has been sometimes represented even as a kind of
_neutral principle_, from whom flow all opinions, all creeds, all
virtues, all crimes, with a facility equally indifferent to the source
which sends them forth. He has been attacked sometimes as a bigot, and
sometimes as an infidel; sometimes as a whig, sometimes as a democrat;
but no one before, that I am aware of, ever undertook to show him forth
as a great prophet of Christianity.

I have not seen the work of Dr. Ulrici, nor are the following papers
devoted exclusively to a consideration of our author in this point of
view, but, in several parts of them, I have so considered him. They are
not written systematically. They were commenced with the intention of
saying all I had to say in a single article, but the subject is so
large, and grew so under my hand, that I was obliged to let my
observations run into several papers, and I soon found myself, moreover,
compelled not only to confine my attention principally to one tragedy,
but to leave many considerations respecting that tragedy untouched.

I wish to repeat that I am by no means _thoroughly_ acquainted with
Shakspeare, and do not dream of offering any more than the mere
momentary impressions which the perusal of such parts of him as I happen
to read make upon me. After the great students of his works, the
laborious and learned critics of different nations who have devoted
years to the understanding of him, it would be presuming to attempt to
throw light on him. I have only endeavored to express what I feel and
see and think while reading him, and to venture here and there an
examination of him upon the idea suggested by Dr. Ulrici, as it may
strike a reader like myself, unacquainted with other arguments
concerning it than those probabilities existing in the plays. The theory
of Ulrici is so beautiful and so consonant to the lofty rank which our
poet occupies, that one cannot help wishing, and scarcely believing,
that it may be true. It has the force and convincingness which
characterize the solution of an enigma. And, in this view, it possesses
something of the solemnity of the creation itself. The creation is an
enigma of which Christianity is the solution. Without that, all is
vague, contradictory, dark; an existing impossibility—powerless
omnipotence—fiendish generosity and love—the omnipresence of a
Divinity everywhere absent—a mockery—a paradox. Christianity makes all
clear and simple. It scarcely requires _proof_ more than the solution of
any other enigma. When the Divine secret is revealed, it is
self-evident.

With all reverence be it advanced, the suggestion of this theory, in
reference to the works of Shakspeare, has something of the same fitness.
The _creation_ of the poet was, before, in many places, dark and
inexplicable; but the light shed upon him by the word Christianity makes
many things clear and intelligible. It raises him to something of the
magnitude of a prophet, and the most stupendous fabric of profane
literature acquires a more solemn grandeur by this connection with the
sacred work of God.

During Shakspeare’s life, he was, it is well known, celebrated beyond
his expectations, and many of those acquainted with him and his
productions thought quite beyond his merits. He was one of the
fashionable poets of England; his verses were familiar to the lips of
kings and queens, and himself, besides having acquired a pecuniary
independence by his pen, received the highest honors, as he thought,
which could be bestowed on him. He was, in short, a successful writer,
and he passed away from the earth with the agreeable consciousness of
having procured for himself a niche in the temple of Fame.

It is pretty certain, however that no person on the globe, at the period
of his life, had any _just_ appreciation of him. Notwithstanding the
triumphant success of his career, and the high honor and opulence he
attained, his real character, as such a mighty patriarch of literature,
was not dreamed of either by himself or any of his contemporaries. As a
mind impregnated with a fire nearly beyond the mortal sphere—as one
whose birth was an event in which mankind were personally
interested—who was to give a name to his age—who, at that point of his
posthumous celebrity where other great men begin to recede into the
shadows of the past, was to start up anew, in more living distinctness
and intellectual splendor—was to pass in this apotheoside grandeur over
the usually impenetrable barriers of nations and languages, and to
become (like some of the universal and ever-enduring elements of
nature—like light, fire or air) a constant pleasure and nutriment to
the human mind—as this extraordinary, and, I may say, _mysterious_
being—no one knew him. His _full_ brightness was veiled not only from
his contemporary friends and admirers, but, as is now universally
acknowledged, from many of his most distinguished subsequent editors and
commentators. The rapturous eulogies, the commendatory verses, the
folios on folios written upon him—extravagant as they are—fall short
of his _true_ value. Even Johnson, Warburton, Theobald, Pope, and the
rest of his commentators of the same rank, appear to have meted out to
him less than the deserved measure of praise. It appears that the
_comparative_ smallness of their minds (I mean comparative with
Shakspeare’s) did not permit them to comprehend the complete dimensions
of the subject they had undertaken. They have all too much the air of
critics, instead of humble followers and pupils. They assume a
familiarity with him which their relative nature did not warrant. There
is a greater difference between him and any one who has lived with him
or subsequent to him, considered as two _minds_, than is always
understood by those who even confine themselves to panegyric.

My idea of this wonderful prophet of poetry is that his intellectual
dimensions are too great for any _one man_ who ever lived to explore
them by himself. He could but discover a portion of the vastness of his
intelligence and contemplate one or two aspects of it. No one age could
completely seize all the meaning that lies in him. It has required two
centuries to place within the reach even of superior and well cultivated
minds a just idea of him. He died in 1616, and he is beginning to be
understood in 1840. Although aided by the accumulated Shakspearian lore
of the two preceding centuries—although the most learned and greatest
geniuses of the two ages have contributed the beams of their science and
literature to shed light on him—although innumerable theatres in so
many lands have given his plays to the world—still even yet, greatly as
he is admired and studied, he is not fully appreciated. There are
thousands and millions who often read his works with delight yet without
understanding half their profound depth and celestial beauty—and even
they who have studied him the most—who have fitted themselves for that
study by their previous pursuits—who have written books upon classes of
his characters, do not yet completely comprehend him. To-morrow,
perhaps, the wisest among them will take up one of his plays and
discover some resplendent meaning—some new beam reflected from the
human heart, never known to them before. For myself I frankly confess I
have never understood him. Every day I make new discoveries, and have no
doubt I shall continue to do so as long as I live.

The advance of Shakspeare upon the world has been as broad, deep and
steady as the on-flow of civilization itself. So much has been said and
written of him that, it may be, some will turn from the title of these
papers as from a thing of which there has been enough. They will mutter
with Hamlet, “Something too much of this.” But I may assure them that
the mere idea that they know enough of Shakspeare—that they have seen
him enough and that his praise has got to be only a fashion, is
sufficient to prove that they know nothing of him.

The true pupil kindles at the sound of his name—at the rustle of his
robe, at the sight of his foot-mark. Whoever comes with a new idea
concerning him or to speak in his praise is welcome; and so convinced is
he that a part of him as yet is _terra incognita_ that he is always on
the watch for some discovery in him.

To my eye, Shakspeare is a world. I do not understand by this a mere
phrase expressive of the variety and beauty of the plays, but I mean
those works are morally invested with attributes resembling the physical
globe. This planet is given by Providence as the abode of man’s body. A
vast extent of variegated surface, when he first began to move upon it,
he knew nothing about it. The dawn of it upon the human mind was that of
a bright scene—a circle of land—a verdant plain. The more it was
studied the more it grew in variety and size. It was found divided into
wonderful compartments and the first dazzled wanderers beheld with joy
and wonder the huge-rolling sea arrest their steps on one side, the
ice-topped mountains towering above them on the other,—broad and
winding rivers—silver lakes—fathomless caverns—and awful, sombre
forests. Each age since, the adventurous step of man has wandered
farther and farther, has climbed the mountain—crossed the
sea—circumnavigated the globe—and found out what it is—how it hangs
in the air—how it revolves around the sun and many of the secrets of
its bosom. Each age since, man has occupied himself studying its nature
and forming theories concerning it.

To me, Shakspeare—although they who have not closely and habitually
studied him, may smile at such a hyperbolical comparison—yet to me,
Shakspeare lies like this solid and wonderful globe we inhabit. He is a
second nature—a new creation—a more amazing production of the
inscrutable Deity who formed the shoreless sea—and built the cloud
cleaving Alps and Andes. He is a significant illustration of the degree
of intellectual perfection to which the human mind—so destined—so
worthy to be immortal—may reach even in this sublunary sphere.

The theory of Ulrici accords exactly with my impressions of Shakspeare.
Such an event as his coming—such superhuman powers of mind—such a
mixture of all that is grand, terrible and profound with all that is
tender—sweet, and aerial—in one brain, seems fit to be linked with a
great purpose. The idea of an ever superintending Providence being in my
mind, I cannot join those philosophers who find in our poet merely a
colossal diamond or a chance giant—as if the same hazard which gives to
the farmer an overgrown cucumber or pumpkin had dropped the rare soul of
this first of human geniuses among men. To me—I repeat, he resembles
the globe. I see in him always, as when I travel over any country, sweet
and striking scenes. I enter him as I do a landscape or an island;
looking around, above, and beneath me, and sure to find wonders and
beauties. Here, the bending rose—there—the silver brook—yonder the
swelling hill—and again the shadowy forest. I stop sometimes to examine
the hues of a violet half withdrawn from sight by the road-side—and
then I am struck at the majestic grandeur of the oak at whose root it
grows. Suddenly a storm which awes and startles my soul sweeps over
me—and then the broad sunshine breaks upon the glittering face of
nature. These are in the _foreground_ of Shakspeare, but this is not
_Shakspeare_. He has far remote wonders and beauties. If I choose to
_travel_ into him, I shall come upon things new and strange. He has
foreign countries and distant wonders like Rome or Jerusalem. There are
even in him tracts yet untravelled, and secrets—like the Pyramids and
hieroglyphics of Egypt, like the Polar seas and the central wastes of
Africa—which future time will perhaps unravel, but which we do not yet
understand.

The meaning of _Othello_ has always been locked from me. I have not yet
been a reader of commentators and, perhaps, some of the crowd of
distinguished writers who, ever since his death, have been endeavoring
to throw light on him, may have accounted for the till now inexplicable
mystery of it. But I could never conceive it. Why a perfectly noble
mind, should be so cruelly tortured without guilt on its own part; why a
scene of innocent happiness should be thus wantonly destroyed was always
an unanswerable question I asked myself on seeing or reading this, one
of the greatest of his five great tragedies. The reader will find the
mystery solved, by an extract, in the course of these papers.

_Hamlet_ is yet full of unexplained mystery. Why he does not kill the
bloody usurper? Why he ill treats Ophelia? Was he mad? etc. etc. etc.,
are long standing themes of debate.

In the _Tempest_, Act I. Scene 2, when Prospero is telling his history
to Miranda, there is one of these little enigmas which lie in our poet
like the veil sometimes thrown over the intentions of nature, known only
to those who study her habitually.

    Prospero. Thy false uncle—
  _Dost thou attend me?_
    Miranda. Sir, most heedfully.
    Pro. Being once perfected how to grant suits,
  How to deny them; whom to advance, and whom
  To trash for over-topping: new created
  The creatures that were mine, _I say_, or chang’d ’em,
  Or else new form’d ’em: having both the key
  Of officer and office, set all hearts i’ the state
  To what tune pleas’d his ear; that now he was
  The ivy, which had hid my princely trunk,
  And suck’d my verdure out on’t.—_Thou attend’st not._
    Mira. O, good sir, I do.
    Pro. _I pray thee, mark me._
  I thus, neglecting worldly ends, all dedicate
  To closeness, and the bettering of my mind,
  With that, which, but by being so retired,
  O’er-priz’d all popular rate, in my false brother
  Awak’d an evil nature: and my trust,
  Like a good parent, did beget of him
  A falsehood, in its contrary as great
  As my trust was; which had, indeed, no limit,
  A confidence sans bound. He being thus lorded,
  Not only with what my revenue yielded,
  But what my power might else exact,—like one,
  Who having unto truth, by telling of it,
  Made such a sinner of his memory,
  To credit his own lie,—he did believe
  He was indeed the duke; out of the substitution,
  And executing the outward face of royalty,
  With all prerogative:—Hence his ambition
  Growing—_Dost hear?_


Now, what means the inattention of the young girl? Why does her mind
wander from a history—one would suppose the most interesting revelation
which could be made to her—so that her father cannot, apparently, keep
her attention to the end of it? Thousands of people read and see this
play without knowing that she is under the operation of a
_sleeping-spell_, administered by her father.

Again, why is Prospero so harsh and coarse to Ariel? The most delicate
creature that ever man had to do with—all gentleness—all submission,
yet hear how the great and good magician uses him.

    Pro. “Thou dost forget,” etc.
    Ariel. I do not, sir.
    Pro. “Thou liest, malignant thing,” etc.


Again of Sycorax—

    Pro. This damn’d witch Sycorax,
  For mischiefs manifold, and sorceries terrible
  To enter human hearing, from Argier,
  Thou know’st was banished; _for one thing she did
  They would not take her life_.


Now what _was_ that _one thing_?

                 *        *        *        *        *




                           THE WILDWOOD HOME.


                         BY LYDIA JANE PIERSON.


    Oh! show a place like the wildwood home,
      Where the air is fragrant and free,
    And the first pure breathings of morning come
      In a gush of melody,
    As she lifts the soft fringe from her dark blue eye,
      With a radiant smile of love,
    And the diamonds that over her bosom lie,
      Are bright as the gems above.

    Where noon lies down in the breezy shade
      Of the glorious forest bowers,
    And the beautiful birds from the sunny glade,
      Sit nodding amongst the flowers.
    While the holy child of the mountain spring,
      Steals past with a murmur’d song,
    And the wild bee sleeps in the bells that swing
      Its garlanded banks along.

    And spotted fawns, where the vines are twin’d,
      Are dancing away the hours,
    With feet as light as the summer wind
      That hardly bends the flowers.
    Where day steals away with a young bride’s blush,
      To the soft, green couch of night,
    And the moon throws o’er with a holy hush,
      Her curtains of gossamer light.

    The seraph that hides in the hemlock dell,
      Oh! sweetest of birds is she,
    Fills the dewy breeze with a trancing swell
      Of melody rich and free.
    Where Nature still gambols in maiden pride
      By valley and pine-plumed hill,
    Hangs glorious wreaths on each mountain side,
      And dances in every rill.

    There are glittering mansions with marble walls,
      Surmounted by mighty towers,
    Where fountains play in the perfumed halls,
      Amongst exotic flowers,
    They are fitting homes for the haughty minds,
      Yet a wildwood home for me,
    Where the pure, bright waters, the mountain winds,
      And the bounding hearts are free.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                           REPROOF OF A BIRD.


                       BY JOSEPH EVANS SNODGRASS.


    “Look forth on Nature’s face and see
      What smiles play on her blissful cheek!
    In voice of love she speaks thro’ me,
      When I thy homestead, daily seek!

    “Canst thou be sad while trees and flowers
      Wear looks of goodness—while each spear
    Of herbage which adorns thy bowers,
      Its head so gladsomely, doth rear?

    “Behold those dew-drops on each leaf,
      But think not they of sorrow tell;
    They’re tears of gladness, not of grief,
      That God-ward from each petal swell.

    “O’er fears of hunger brood’st thou? See
      How fare we of the wing, and those
    Of floral life! Nor yet toil we
      Nor spin—and still none hunger knows.

    “Raise, then, thy head! Dream not of woe,
      Who human bosoms loves to sway!
    Again I bid thee look—for lo!
      All else but thee wear smiles to-day!”

    Sweet bird! reprove no more;—thy song
      Shames these sad feelings in my breast,
    Which it hath cherished far too long,
      As if some welcome angel-guest.

    I own, if cherish’d, they too soon,
      Like fabled serpent in the breast,
    Would venom only leave as boon,
      For being by a fool carest!

    Of gladness speak thy notes alone—
      Of calmest self-content—and say
    Plainly to hearts of sadden’d tone—
      _’Tis best to cast sad thoughts away_.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                           THE REEFER OF ’76.


              BY THE AUTHOR OF “CRUIZING IN THE LAST WAR.”


                         SCOURING THE CHANNEL.

“How is the night overhead?” asked Westbrook, as I came down into the
mess-room, and, pushing the jug toward me, he added, “you see, we’re
going to make a night of it; take a pull at the Jamaica—it’s rare
stuff.”

“Misty, with a light breeze; we’ll make the land, if we keep on this
course, before morning. We’ve harried the enemy’s shipping enough in the
chops of the channel—I can’t see what the skipper means by running in
so close to the English coast.”

“Faith! he’s after some harum-scarum prank—blowing a stray merchantman
out of water in sight of land, or throwing a shot into Portsmouth by way
of bravado to the fleet. Well, what need we care? A short life and a
merry one—cut away at the junk, my good fellow; cut deeper—ay! that’s
it, a slice like we lawyers take of our client’s money, the better half
of the whole.”

“A lawyer!—what do you know of the profession?” said I.

“I was once a lawyer myself,” said he, as he transferred a huge slice of
the beef into his mouth.

“A lawyer!—a land shark!—you a lawyer!” were the exclamations of
astonishment which burst from every lip.

“Ay! am I the first jolly fellow who gave up a bad trade for a good one?
I beg your pardon, Parker—I believe you come from a race of lawyers;
but if so, it is no more than happened to myself. My friends made a land
shark of me, but as nature intended me for something better, the
experiment failed. My first case was enough for me, and I cut the
profession, or, rather, it cut me. The court asked me to repeat an
authority I had quoted, but I was so taken aback by something that had
happened to me just before, and which I’ll tell you by and bye, that,
for the life of me, I couldn’t call to mind a single point decided. I
grew embarrassed, stammered, looked down, came to a dead halt; and at
length, when I heard the spectators tittering around me, I grasped my
hat, shot from the court-house, and have never entered one since without
an anguish shiver. The judge said I was a fool; my client agreed with
him; I never got a cent; everybody laughed at me; and so I kicked Coke
and Plowden into the fire, cursed the law to my heart’s content, and
took to the service in a fortnight, thinking it better to thrive on
biscuit and salt junk, than to work for nothing and starve for my
pains.”

“Shure, and a dacent gentleman”—said O’Shaughnessy—“would have been
spoilt in making a black-gown of you, Westbrook. But it was a great
mistake, that breaking down in your spache; you should have served them
like my old chum, Terence McBalawhangle, thricked the tutors of
Trinity.”

“How was that?” asked the mess, in a breath.

“Fath, pour us out a brimmer, and I’ll tell you the same. A nate, dacent
lad, and a witty, was Terence; and many’s the time he’s made my sides
ache for a week, by raison of laughing at his droll sayings, the sinner.
And I thought I should have died when the tutor tould him to recite the
task from the essay on the human understanding—a crusty, metaphysical
work, bad cess to it. Divil a bit did Terence know of the same—he
hadn’t a turn, he said, for the dry bones of Ezakiel—but he put a good
face on the matter, and ran on, like a petrel over the waves, never
halting even to breathe, until the tutor stopped him, and tould him
there was nothing in the text-book like what he was saying. ‘Shure, and
I know that,’ says Terence, without moving a muscle of his face, ‘but,
you see, I didn’t agree with Mr. Locke, so I thought I’d just give ye my
own sentiments.’”

“Your friend Terence,” said Westbrook, filling a bumper, after the roars
of laughter which followed this anecdote had subsided, “ought to have
had a New Jersey justice, instead of a fellow of Trinity, to mystify. He
might have succeeded better.”

“Maybe they’re like old Sir Peter Beverly, of the county of Clare, one
of the quorum, and never right but by mistake. Many’s the poor fellow
he’s had transported becase the man was brought up before dinner, when
the justice was out of humor. Shure and didn’t he send off Teague
O’Daly, the brightest lad at a wake or a fair within thirty miles
around, just for no other raison than becase Teague made love to his
daughter’s maid?—and didn’t he refuse the testimony of Teague’s cousin,
only ten removes off, becase he said the lad was suspected of staling a
watch?—and when they all shwore at his injustice—the gouty
porpoise—he said, with a big oath that made my hair stand on end—I was
younger then ye know—‘Constable, stop that noise; here I’ve had to
commit three fellows without being able to hear a word of their
defence.’”

“Well, I can’t say I ever saw an Irish justice, O’Shaughnessy, at least
not one like Sir Peter; but the justice court of New Jersey is almost a
match for him.”

“How’s that?”

“Why, you see, each township has its justice, and when the county court
is held, all the justices come up to the county town to preside at the
trials. The court-house, however, at Skanamuctum—shove us up the
jug—was always too small, and the bench especially wouldn’t hold a
quarter of the judges, so that the man who got into court first secured
the best seat. Sometimes, however, on a hot day, the old fellows
couldn’t hold out, or else they saw a crony in the crowd whom they
thought likely to treat, so that, one by one, they would drop off the
bench; but as there were always a dozen or two awaiting to get on, the
judges’ seats were never empty. As for knowing anything about the
case—ah! this is prime!—they never pretended to it. Indeed, I’ve often
seen not a single judge on the bench, when the verdict was rendered, who
had been there when the trial began.”

“That beats you, O’Shaughnessy,” roared a reefer, almost suffocated with
laughter, from the foot of the table.

“Bravo!” said I; “you made a good escape, Westbrook, when you gave up
pleading before such Shallows—but you haven’t yet told us what happened
to you to embarrass you so at your _début_.”

“Oh, no! I had forgot. I was just admitted, you must know, and all my
friends advised me to make my maiden speech on one of the cases coming
up at the next Oyer and Terminer. I looked around for some burglar,
horse-thief, or other sort of rascal, for a client, but not a sinner of
a one could I find willing to trust himself in my hands. I began to
despair, thinking I should never have the chance to figure so again, for
the celebrated Judge Traskey himself had come down special, to try a
desperate case of murder, and the whole bar were itching to show off
before him. He was said to be as sharp as a north-easter, and every
other word was either an opinion, a growl, or a witticism. You may judge
my joy, when, on walking down to the court-house, and looking very
imposing in my own opinion, but scarcely daring to hope for such a
God-send as a client, I heard the sheriff tell me that there was a
poverty-struck sheep-stealer in the dock, who was in want of a lawyer,
and would be glad to get a brisk hand for a trifle of a fee. Such a
chance of making a speech wasn’t to be lost, and, thinking all the time
what a sensation I should create, I asked to see the prisoner. As the
sheriff couldn’t bring him out into the bar, I went into the dock. Well,
I heard through the poor rascal’s story—and a long one it was—and I
was just about to leave him, when I found that the sheriff had gone, in
the mean time, to bring in the judge in procession, and, forgetting all
about me, had left me locked in. Here was a scrape with a vengeance. To
wait till the judge entered, and then sneak out of the dock, the
laughing stock of the bar, was not to be thought of. What was to be
done? The railing around the dock was high, and guarded by iron spikes,
but over it was my only outlet, and springing up at once, I began to
clamber out of the hole. At that very instant his honor entered the
court-room, and the first thing that caught his eye was a man leaping
the dock. ‘Sheriff, look to your prisoner,’ said he. ‘May it please your
honor,’ said I, attempting to explain, and essaying to leap down, in
which endeavor the spikes caught in the skirts of my coat, and I hung
fast—‘may it please your honor—’ ‘It doesn’t please me, you rascal,’
said the judge, waxing angry, ‘to be bearded by a prisoner.’ ‘It’s all a
mistake,’ said I, struggling to get loose, while the perspiration rolled
off me, and I heard the suppressed tittering around. ‘So says every
thief,’ retorted the judge, in a towering passion. ‘But I’m an
attorney!’ I answered. ‘All the worse for you,’ roared his honor. ‘I’m
counsel in the case!’ said I, ‘Then, if you defend yourself, you have a
fool for a client,’ said the judge, beside himself with rage. At this
point the mirth of the spectators could no longer be controlled, but
burst forth in roars of laughter which effectually silenced my further
explanations. At length the mistake was made clear to the bench, and I
was suffered to be taken down. I tried to brave it out, by delivering my
speech afterwards, but an unlucky mention of the word ‘mistake’ set the
bar in a roar, and so completely confounded me that I talked nonsense at
random, until I broke down as I told you, and, since then, I never think
of a law-point without a cold sweat all over.”

“By the staff of St. Patrick! and you’re right,” said O’Shaughnessy.
“Here’s confusion to lawyers, and a bumper for the girls!”

“The girls—hurrah!” sang the mess in one voice. “No heel-taps!” and it
was drank enthusiastically.

“Ah! and Parker has a song on the sweet angels,” said Westbrook; “we’ll
all join in the chorus.”

“The song—the song!” roared the mess.

Thus pressed, I had no escape, and taking a pull at the beaker to clear
my throat, I sang the following stanzas:

        THE GIRLS WE LOVE.

         Air—_Nancy Dawson_.

    Our country’s girls have azure eyes,
    And tresses like the sunset skies,
    And hearts to seek, nor need disguise—
      As pure as heav’n above, sir;
    With voices like a seraph’s light,
    And forms that swim before the sight,
    And waists to tempt an anchorite—
      They are the girls to love, sir.

    Though France may boast her dark brunette,
    And Spain her eyes of flashing jet,
    And Greece her tones you ne’er forget—
      So like the song of dove, sir—
    Columbia’s maids have tones as sweet,
    And cheeks where snow and roses meet:
    Such lips, and then, egad! such feet!
      They are the girls to love, sir.

    Oh! we are reefers bold and gay;
    We brave the storm and court the fray,
    Yet ne’er forget the girls away,
      However far we rove, sir.
    I sometimes fancy they’re decoys
    To lure us on to fancied joys;
    They’ll be our ruin yet, my boys!—
      Here’s to the girls we love, sir.

The deafening chorus of the last three lines of this song, repeated by
the whole mess in full voice, had scarcely died away, when the
quarter-master knocked at the door, and told us that we had given chase
to a strange sail, and that there would soon be hot work on deck. Before
he had well finished the room was empty, and we had all sprung up the
gangway.

As I stepped upon the deck, I cast my eyes naturally upwards, and, for a
moment, was almost staggered at the press of sail we were carrying. My
astonishment was, however, of short duration, for when I saw on our bow
the distant lights of the English coast, glimmering like stars on the
horizon, I knew at once that we must overtake the chase directly, or
abandon her altogether. We were already in dangerous proximity to the
enemy’s shores, and every minute lessened the distance betwixt them and
the Fire-Fly. Yet the skipper maintained his course. The chase was a
large brig, running in towards the land with every rag of her canvass
strained to the utmost; while we were endeavoring to get to windward of
her, and thus force her out to sea. It soon became evident that we were
succeeding in our aim. Indeed I had rarely seen the little Fire-Fly do
better. Before fifteen minutes, we were well in on the land side of the
chase, and had every apparent chance of capturing her without the firing
of a shot. Hitherto she had been doggedly silent. But finding now that
we had beat her on the tack she had chosen, and seeing no chance of
escape but in going off dead before the wind, and spreading the pyramid
of light sails in which a brig has always the advantage of a schooner,
she put her helm suddenly down, and, throwing out rag after rag, was
soon seen speeding away through the twilight like a frightened bird upon
the wing. At the same instant she began firing from her signal guns, to
warn the coasters, if any there were, in her vicinity.

“By my faith,” said Westbrook, “she makes noise and flutter enough; one
would think her a wounded gull, screaming as she flew. But her alarm
guns won’t save her. See how our old growler will pick off her fancy
yards—there goes one now!” and, as he spoke, a shot from our long gun
cut away the maintopmast of the brig just by the cap. She fell behind at
once. Another ball or two, sent with unerring aim, was attended with
like success, and before twenty minutes we were ranging alongside of the
chase, with our ports up, our lanterns lighted, the men at the guns, and
everything, in short, prepared to pour in a broadside if the Englishman
did not surrender. We saw her ensign come down as we drew alongside, but
a jack was still left flying at the fore.

“Have you surrendered?” asked the skipper, leaping into the
main-rigging, as we ranged up by the quarter of the foe.

There was a dogged silence of a minute, and the skipper was about waving
his hand as a signal to open our fire, when a voice from the
quarter-deck of the brig answered—

“We’ve hauled down our flag.”

We took possession of the chase, and found her indeed a prize. She was
deeply laden with silks, but we were most pleased with a booty of specie
to the amount of several hundred thousands of dollars. I never saw a
more cowardly set of men than her crew. They had run below hatches, in
spite of all the master could do, almost as soon as we opened our fire
on them; and when we boarded her, there was no one on deck except her
skipper, a surly, obstinate old Englishman, who was doggedly biting off
a piece of pigtail as long as the tiller by which he stood. He told us
that he had spoken, but the day before, several outward bound vessels,
and that nothing was talked of along shore but the Yankee schooner that
was scouring the channel, a craft that, it was whispered, was sailed on
account of Davy Jones, and which it would be as impossible to escape
from as from a _pampero_ off Buenos Ayres. We could not but smile at
this flattering picture of ourselves and craft. The old skipper told us,
in conclusion, that no less than two men-of-war, besides the usual
channel cruisers, had been despatched in pursuit of us, and he even
hinted, coolly turning his quid, that he had little fear of a long
imprisonment, for we would be sure to be caught before twenty-four hours
should elapse.

As it would be impossible to carry off the prize, and as the conflict
had doubtless been heard on shore, the skipper determined to end the
adventure as boldly as he had begun it, and, accordingly, he ordered the
brig to be set on fire, when we should have removed whatever of the
cargo was most valuable and portable. It was accordingly done. When we
filled away to leave the chase, the smoke could just be seen, curling in
light wreaths up her hatchways, but she presented no other evidence of
the ruin that was so soon to overtake her. Her forward sails had been
left standing, and her helm lashed down, and she now lay to beautifully,
drifting bodily off to leeward like a line-of-battle ship. The utter
desertion of her decks, her slow, majestic movements as she rose and
fell, the twilight into which she was gradually fading, and the
glittering line of lights behind her, along the hostile coast,
associated inseparably in our minds with ideas of danger to ourselves,
contributed to form a scene as imposing as it was beautiful, and one
that raised a feeling of interest in our bosoms, tinged in no slight
degree with that awe which always accompanies a sensation of peril.
While we gazed breathlessly, however, on the fast receding brig, dark
clouds of smoke began to puff up her hatchways, and rolling heavily to
leeward, settle on the face of the waters. Directly a forked tongue of
flame shot up into the air, licked around her mast, and then went out as
suddenly as it had appeared. Soon, however, darker masses of smoke
rolled, volume on volume, up the hatchways, and directly, like a flash
of lightning, the fire shot clear and high up from the hold, and
catching to the shrouds, stays, and every portion of the hamper, ran
swiftly across the ship, mounted up the rigging, and licking and
wreathing around the spars, soon enveloped the chase in a pyramid of
flame, which eddied in the breeze, and streamed like a signal banner far
away to leeward. How wild and fantastic, like spirits dancing on the
air, were the attitudes and shapes the fire assumed! Now the flames
would blaze steadily up for a minute; now they would blow apart like
whiffs of smoke; and now they would leap bodily away, in huge and riven
masses, into the dense canopy of smoke to leeward. At times they would
wind spirally around the hamper; again they would taper off far up into
the unfathomable night. On every hand the waves had assumed the hue of
fire. The heavens above were lurid. The crackling and hissing of the
flames could be heard even at our distance from the brig. Millions of
sparks, sent up from the blazing ship, whirled off on the wind, and
showered down to leeward. Occasionally a stray spar fell simmering into
the water. At length the brig fell off from her course, and drifting
broadside on before the wind, came down towards us, rolling so
frightfully as to jerk the flames, as it were, bodily out of her. I was
still gazing spell-bound on the magnificent spectacle, when I heard an
exclamation of surprise over my shoulder, and turning quickly around, I
saw the skipper gazing intently over the burning ship, as if he watched
for something hidden behind her. He saw my movement, and asked,

“Do you not detect a sail to windward, just in the rear of the brig?
Wait till the wind whirls away the fire—there!”

There was no mistaking it. A large man-of-war, to judge by her size and
rig, partially concealed by the brig, was coming down to us, with
studding-sails all spread, and the English cross flying at her main.

“We are already under a press of sail—as much as we can conveniently
spread,” said the skipper, as if musingly, looking aloft; “and the
Englishman will have to give the brig somewhat of a berth. Ah! there
comes the enemy—a frigate, as I live!”

Every one on board had by this time had their attention turned to the
approaching stranger, and now, as she bore away to leave the wreck to
starboard, every eye was fixed on her form. She came gallantly out from
behind her fiery veil, riding gracefully on the long surges, and
seeming, as her white sails reflected back the flames, more like a
spectral than a mortal ship. The momentary admiration with which we
gazed on her, as she emerged into view, soon, however, faded before the
anxious feelings arising out of the extremity of our peril. But there
was nothing to be gained by idle forebodings. The frigate was evidently
gaining on us, and it became necessary to spread every inch of canvass
we had, in order to escape her. Men also were sent aloft, and buckets
whipped up to them, in order that our sails might be kept constantly
wet; the masts were eased, the water started, every useless thing thrown
overboard, and all the exertions which desperate men resort to were
adopted to ensure our escape. After an agitating suspense of five
minutes, we found that we were slowly drawing ahead of the frigate, and
our hopes were still further raised, in a short space afterwards, by the
growing thickness of the fog.

“We are not caught this time yet,” said I to Westbrook, “and now for _la
belle France_.”

“Ay! the skipper’s had enough of such hot quarters as these, I fancy; at
least, after such a haul of specie, he’ll not run any more risks if he
can help it. Depend upon it, we shall be making love to the fair
Parisian _grisettes_ before a fortnight rolls overhead.”

“Not so fast, Mr. Westbrook,” said the old quarter-master, who overheard
us by chance—“do you see that?” and he pointed to a rocket which that
instant shot up from the deck of the frigate, and then arching over in
the sky, broke into a thousand sparkles, which fell shivering to the
water. “If I know anything of such sky-lighters, that bloody Englishman
has a consort somewhere hereabouts—and there he is on our lee-bow, the
varmint.”

We both turned around hastily as he spoke, and, sure enough, a rocket
was seen streaming, comet-like, through the heavens, apparently sent up
from a ship well on our lee-bow.

“By the true cross!” sung out O’Shaughnessy, at this instant, “here’s
another fellow wasting his fire-works to windward. Shure, and, as the
thief said to the hangman when he saw the crowd, we’re beset—ohone!”

I could scarcely contain my laughter, although by this time rockets were
rising into the air on our three sides, with a rapidity which showed
that we had got somewhere into the midst of the channel fleet, and that
the frigate astern was telegraphing to her consorts of our whereabouts.
Our situation was alarming in the extreme. Beset on all sides, we had
scarcely the slightest chance of escape, our only hope, in fact,
consisting in the darkness of the night, and the ignorance of our
position on the part of the men-of-war ahead. For a moment—and it was
the only one of the kind in his life—our skipper seemed to be at fault;
and he stood near the starboard railing, with his teeth firmly clenched
and his brow contracted, gazing vacantly ahead. Suddenly, however, he
turned to the man at the wheel, and ordered him to bear up towards the
sail on our weather bow. He then sent down into his cabin for a
catalogue of the English navy, which we had taken in a prize but a few
days before.

Meanwhile the frigate astern had vanished in the gathering gloom, while
the man-of-war on our lee-bow was yet unseen. The enemy, however, off
our weather cat-head, began to loom faint and shadowy through the fog,
and just as he became distinctly defined against the horizon, we heard
the roll of the drum beating to quarters, and directly beheld in our foe
a heavy frigate, with her ports open and lighted, and a formidable
battery frowning across the gloom. We had by this time edged away so as
to bring the Englishman a point or two on our lee-bow, and now, running
up the British ensign, we bore boldly towards the foe. Every one saw
that a _ruse_ was intended, though in what manner it was to be executed
we were yet in doubt, and more than one of us trembled for the event. A
few moments of breathless suspense brought us up to the Englishman, and
as we passed on opposite tacks, and looked up at his enormous hull, and
his vast batteries overshadowing us, even the stoutest heart felt a
momentary flutter. The captain of the frigate stood in the mizzen
rigging, looking down on our little craft, while our own skipper, with
hat off, gazed up at his enemy from the quarter-deck larboard gun. It
was luckily too dark to see our uniforms from the frigate’s deck.

“What craft is that?” thundered the English captain.

“The Alert, of his Britannic Majesty’s navy—Captain Sasheby,” answered
the skipper. “What frigate have we had the honor of telegraphing?”

“The Achilles—Captain Norton. Come to under our lee. You were in chase;
at least so we understood the lights. What has become of the enemy?—he
was the same one, we suppose, who fired the vessel whose light we saw up
to windward.”

“Ay! the scoundrel was the Yankee schooner, whom the admiralty has sent
us down specially to overhaul. We lost her in the fog, but thought she
had gone down towards you.”

“You’d better keep less away,” said the English captain. “Fill on your
course again. We shall beat up on your late track, lest the Yankee may
have lain to, as the safest way to get off in this fog. If we throw up
three rockets successively, we shall want you to come up towards us. If
we fire two guns, the rascal will be to windward; if one, to leeward.”

“Ay, ay, sir!—fill away again!” and, with a courteous wave of the hand,
the two captains parted company.

During the whole of this colloquy, we had lain to at but a short
distance from the quarter of the foe, and, at any moment, if our
disguise had been penetrated, we could have been sunk by a single
broadside. Accustomed though we were to peril, our hearts beat at this
dangerous proximity, and when at length we filled away on our course,
and gradually lost sight of the frigate, the relief we experienced was
indescribable. We kept away, cracking on every thing we could, and for
nearly an hour our cheat remained undiscovered. At the end of that time,
to judge by the rockets on the windward horizon, the three frigates
learned that they had been outwitted. They doubtless gave us chase, but
we were now clear of the fleet, and, moreover, had some leagues start of
them. Before daylight we had made the French coast, and we were safely
moored, before forty-eight hours, in the harbor of Brest.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                  OH! A MERRY LIFE DOES A HUNTER LEAD.


                          BY GEORGE P. MORRIS.


    Oh! a merry life does a hunter lead!
      He wakes with the dawn of day!
    He whistles his dog and mounts his steed,
      And scuds to the woods away!
    The lightsome tramp of the deer he’ll mark,
      As they troop in herds along;
    And his rifle startles the tuneful lark
      As he warbles his morning song!

    Oh! a hunter’s life is the life for me!
      That is the life for a man!
    Let others sing of the swelling sea;
      But match the woods if you can!
    Then give me my gun—I’ve an eye to mark
      The deer as they bound along!
    My steed and my dog, and the cheerful lark
      To warble my morning song.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                          THE WIDOW’S WEALTH.


                       BY E. CLEMENTINE STEDMAN.


Addressed to my little boy, who, on seeing me weep at pecuniary
misfortunes, brought a silver piece which had been presented to him, and
with tears in his eyes, said—“_Mother, will this do you any good?_”

    Nay, keep thy gift my precious boy!
      It but a drop would be
    From the wide ocean of the wants
      That are oppressing me.

    But blessings on the tender heart
      From whence the offering rose—
    Which fain would give its ‘little all,’
      To soothe a mother’s woes!

    Ah! when I gaze on _thee_ my child,
      I feel that wealth is mine;
    For gems of the “first water,” are
      Those guileless tears of thine.

    ’Tis thy caress, my blessed one!
      The hopes in thee bound up,
    That bid my thanks ascend to Heaven
      O’er sorrow’s bitter cup.

    And shall thy noble soul expand
      To manhood’s ripened years?
    And will a mother’s sorrow _then_,
      Have power to move thy tears?

    Then come——and whilst I fold thee here,
      My widowed heart is blest;
    Nor would I for a fortune sell
      The “jewel” on my breast.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                              FLIRTATION.


                           BY EMMA C. EMBURY.


              “Thy words, whate’er their flattering spell,
                Could scarce have thus deceived,
              But eyes that acted truth so well,
                Were sure to be believed.
              ’Tis only on thy changeful heart
                The blame of falsehood lies.
              Love lives in every other part,
                But there, alas! he dies.”


“My dear Rosa, how could you be so imprudent as to waltz with young
Sabretash last night?—Colonel Middleton looked excessively annoyed:”
said Mrs. Crafts to her beautiful daughter, as they sat together over
their late breakfast.

“I acknowledge the imprudence of the act, mamma; but, really, I could
not help it. I am heartily wearied of this perpetual restraint,” was the
reply.

“I thought you were too well practised in flirtation, Rosa, to find any
character too difficult for you to play.”

“Oh, it is easy enough to suit the taste of everybody, but terribly
fatiguing to be obliged to play propriety and prudery so long. However,
seven thousand a year is worth some trouble.”

“So, then, you count the lover as nothing?”

“I beg your pardon, mamma; the Colonel is handsome and gentlemanly—_un
peu passé_, it is true, but still a very good-looking appendage to a
fine house and a rich equipage.”

“Well, make the most of your time, Rosa; I told you I could only afford
three winters in town, and this is the last, you know.”

“Don’t be alarmed, mamma; I will never return to our dull country
village again. I will marry anybody before I will bury myself for life
in a stupid country place, and I think Colonel Middleton is rapidly
approaching _Proposition Point_.”

“He may steer another course, if you are not more cautious than you were
last evening. I saw him in close conversation with your cousin Grace
while you were dancing.”

“And so you want to make me jealous of poor cousin Grace! Ha, ha, ha!
that would be too ridiculous—a little pale-faced thing, too timid to
speak above her breath, and with manners as unformed as a school-girl’s!
No, no, mamma, the Colonel is welcome to talk to her as much as he
likes; I am not afraid.”

“But you know his taste for poetry and painting—suppose he should
discover her talents for both?”

“Never fear, mamma; she is too bashful to develop the few attractions
which she possesses. He dotes on music and beauty and graceful manners;
is rather particular in his ideas of elegance in dress, and has many of
those _finikin_ fancies which cousin Grace could never satisfy. Indeed I
mean to make use of her to forward my own views.”

“Well, well, Rosa, I dare say you can manage your own affairs; but, at
the same time, I would advise you to avoid Captain Sabretash.”

“I suppose you think he has never forgiven me for my share in the affair
of his sister; but I can assure you he has quite forgotten it. He is one
of those butterflies of fashion who have no sting.”

“You are mistaken, Rosa; he has as much skill as yourself in acting a
part, and I tell you that he never has and never will forgive you.”

“Why, then, does he haunt me so perpetually in society? Why does he seek
to be my partner in the dance, and my companion on all occasions?”

“I cannot answer that question, Rosa; but I have watched him very
closely, and I believe he means you no good.”

“I am not afraid of him, mamma; he is a charming beau, and his gay wit
is a great relief to me after listening to the grave and somewhat heavy
wisdom of the gallant Colonel.”

Possessed of great beauty, a fine figure, a graceful address, and a host
of superficial accomplishments, Rosa Crafts had always managed to be the
belle of every circle in which she mingled. How this _éclat_ was
obtained may be readily divined, for where there is no real dignity of
character, no sincerity of heart, no firmness of principle, all tastes
may be studied and adopted. But Rosa’s love of admiration had carried
her beyond the limits of prudence. She pleased so _generally_ that she
never became attractive _individually_, and she had attained her
twenty-fifth year without receiving any eligible offer of marriage. The
straitened circumstances in which her widowed mother had been left,
rendered a wealthy alliance necessary to the support of the style of
living which Rosa had insisted upon adopting, and Mrs. Crafts began to
lose patience when she found her money diminishing, her debts
increasing, and her daughter verging towards an _uncertain age_, without
any prospect of bringing their schemes to a successful issue. It was
just at this juncture that Colonel Middleton came within the sphere of
her attractions, and was marked as a victim destined to fulfil her
matrimonial speculations. The Colonel was a man whom almost any woman
might have admired, even if he had not possessed the talisman of wealth.
In his youth he had been eminently handsome, and time had dealt
leniently with him, for the weight of forty years had fallen so lightly
upon him that it would have puzzled the wisest physiognomist to count
their number on his brow. His cheek wore the rich bloom of health, his
well-formed mouth still displayed the glittering pearls which had been a
distinguishing beauty in his boyhood, the thick wavy masses of his dark
hair fell on temples but faintly tracked by the “foot of the crow,” and
his tall figure still retained its symmetry, notwithstanding a slight
tendency to _embonpoint_. He could scarcely be ignorant of his personal
advantages, but he was by no means a vain man. In his youth, he had been
mortified by the belief that his handsome face was more valued than his
gifted mind; and the consciousness that, whatever might be his physical
merits, his intellectual gifts were of far more value, tended to make
him but little sensible to the impulses of vanity. But though possessing
so many spells to awaken love, and endowed with a heart singularly alive
to affection, he had been destined to disappointment. His fastidious
taste had never been fully satisfied, and he had reached his thirtieth
year before he found a woman who could excite a deep interest in his
heart. While in Europe, he met with an English gentleman who was
travelling with his invalid daughter, and the beauty, the delicacy of
feeling, and the gentle reserve of Laura Pendleton’s character, soon won
his warmest regard. Her melancholy, the consequence, as it seemed, of
fragile health, was so touching, her style of beauty was so ethereal,
her manners were so full of timid gentleness, that he became deeply
attached to her. Knowing the prejudices of her father, he did not
venture _first_ to avow his love to the shrinking girl, but taking
advantage of her absence, he made known his wishes to Mr. Pendleton, and
begged his acquiescence in his suit. He received a most flattering reply
from the gratified father, and only wanted to be assured by Laura
herself of his felicity, when she was suddenly taken seriously ill. He
was of course denied all access to her, but her father treated him as
her accepted lover, and even went so far as to decide that the marriage
should take place immediately upon her recovery. When Colonel Middleton
was admitted to the presence of Laura, she was still confined to her
apartment, and never, from the time of his proposal to the hour when
they stood before the altar to be wedded, did he see his affianced bride
except in the company of her father or mother. He did not then know that
there was a design in this vexatious restraint. Laura’s timidity and
melancholy had evidently increased, but the sudden threatening of death
at the moment of betrothment might easily account for this, and in the
mean time she received her lover with her usual quiet kindness,
passively suffering all his fondness, and offering no opposition when
her father urged a speedy union. They were married at the house of the
British Consul, and while her parents returned to their native land, the
Colonel and his bride continued their sojourn in sunny Italy. It was not
until months afterwards that he learned the whole truth. She had loved
another—she had plighted her faith—but the authority of her parents
had compelled her to break her troth, and the offer of Colonel Middleton
had been made at the moment when the certainty of entire separation from
the object of her affection had made her utterly regardless of her
future fate. She neither accepted nor rejected him; her father managed
the whole matter, and she had culpably sacrificed the peace of both by
thus weakly yielding to despair. Some months after her marriage, the
news of her lover’s death threw her into a paroxysm of grief and
self-reproach, and taught the husband that he had won the hand only,
while the heart was still another’s. Her feelings were too pure, and her
mind too deeply imbued with truth, to be satisfied with the deception
which her silence had practised upon her husband; and as her inert and
timid temper had been the cause of her error, she determined to devote
her life to its expiation. But she mistook penance for expiation.
Instead of resolutely stifling her regrets for the past, and applying
herself to the fulfilment of her duties—instead of remembering that
duty to her husband required the oblivion of former affections—she
vainly fancied that by giving herself up to sorrow, she should make a
proper atonement for her fault; and she therefore sought not to check
the ravages which grief was making in her health. For seven long years
did the Colonel watch over the failing strength and minister to the
daily comforts of her whose heart was buried in the grave of another.
She esteemed him, she was grateful to him, she loved him with sisterly
affection; but she remembered the thrill which a dearer voice had once
sent to her heart, and because her husband could awaken none of those
fervent feelings of youthful passion, she rejected the peace which might
yet have grown up in the calm atmosphere of domestic life, and cherished
her unhappiness like a bosom friend. She died at length in her husband’s
arms, lamenting, when too late, the weakness and morbid sensibility
which had led her to waste her life in pining after unsubstantial bliss,
when true contentment might have been the daily companion of her
existence.

It was after this sad termination of his first attachment that Colonel
Middleton met with the beautiful Rosa Crafts. Younger in feelings than
in years, he had never drank from the pure fount of reciprocal
affection; he had been loved where he could offer no return; he had
loved where no answering fondness became his reward; and though past the
age of romance, he yet thirsted for the sweet waters of mutual
tenderness. But with all his genius, his tact and his experience, he was
a mere tyro in his knowledge of woman. No man has ever deeply understood
the peculiarities of woman’s nature until the intimate communion of
wedded life has given him an insight into its mysteries; no man has ever
been qualified to portray the many-colored varieties of female
character, unless an intelligent and amiable wife has been the mirror
that reflected, or, at least, the telescope which brought near to his
view the minute traits which alone can give _truthfulness_ to the
picture. The beauty of the stately Rosa had fascinated Colonel
Middleton, and having ascertained, to his satisfaction, that no one
occupied a prior place in her affections, he never thought of the
possibility that she was incapable of loving; it never occurred to him
that the temple might be unoccupied only because the portals were too
narrow to admit an object of worship.

Aided by her mother, whose skill in reading character was very great,
Rosa adapted herself with inimitable skill to the fancies of the rich
Colonel Middleton. The little personal vanity which had lurked
unsuspected in his bosom, was fanned into a gentle flame by her adroit
flatteries, and could not fail to throw additional light upon the lovely
woman who seemed to forget the homage due to her own charms in her
admiration of her new friend. Though timid almost to nervousness when on
horseback, she was ready every morning for a ride with him; though far
too indolent to love walking, she never declined a ramble with the
enthusiastic lover of nature; though delighting in gorgeous colors and
an _outré_ style of dress, she affected almost quaker-like simplicity as
soon as she learned his taste in this respect; passionately fond of
waltzing, she became a perfect prude after she heard his opinion of it;
and even her habits of coquetry, which had become almost a second nature
to her, were exchanged for gentle reserve and modest self-possession
when his eye was upon her. But the master-stroke of policy was that
which induced him to believe her endowed with intellectual gifts.

Cousin Grace, of whom Rosa had spoken so contemptuously, was the orphan
daughter of Mrs. Crafts’ only sister, and for several years she had been
the inmate of her aunt’s family. A small income, which she derived from
her patrimony, rendered her independent, and she resided with her aunt
simply because she could claim no other eligible home. But her early
education had made her very unlike her present companions. Truth and
piety were the leading traits of her character; industry, contentment
and kindliness were the daily practice of her life. Without making any
ostentatious display of her religion, she made it the rule of her
conduct, and therefore it was that, though she occasionally mingled in
the gay scenes in which Rosa delighted, she never allowed herself to
become involved in any of the schemes of her beautiful cousin. Her
kindness of heart led her to feel sincerely attached to Rosa, in spite
of her faults, and her humility prevented her from dreaming of
rivalship, although, if seen any where else than at the side of so
brilliant a beauty, Grace might have charmed by the placid and
child-like sweetness of her countenance. Her retiring manners and timid
reserve in society prevented many from learning the full value of her
mental gifts, but to the few who knew her intimately, she appeared a
creature of rare endowments. Grace had not been blind to the arts which
were practised to attract Colonel Middleton, but, looking upon him as
fully qualified, both by age and experience, to take care of himself,
she felt some little amusement at the manœuvres of her aunt and cousin,
until a knowledge of his past history, together with the discovery of
his high-toned feelings, excited a deeper interest in his welfare.
Henceforth she watched the plans of her cousin with something like
regret; but regret unmingled with any selfish feeling, for Grace, with
all her gentleness, had a proper sense of the dignity of her sex, and
did not think that _marriage_ was absolutely essential to a woman’s
respectability. The affair was still in suspense when Grace received a
summons to attend a sick friend in her native village, and departed for
an absence of some weeks, while Rosa remained to complete the conquest
of the amiable Colonel.

One morning, on entering the parlor at his accustomed hour for their
ride, Colonel Middleton found neither Mrs. nor Miss Crafts visible, and
throwing himself on a sofa, he awaited their appearance. As he took his
seat, he observed a book peeping from under one of the cushions. It was
most _judiciously_ placed, for had it been lying on a table, he never
would have thought of opening a volume whose form and binding bore such
a marvellous resemblance to an _album_. But the slight mystery connected
with it—the fact of its being _half hidden_—excited his curiosity, and
he busied himself in inspecting its varied pages. He found it to contain
some very beautiful pencil drawings, a few exquisitely colored miniature
likenesses, and various short poems. There was no name in the
volume—nothing by which he could identify the owner—but he soon found
that the drawings were all by one person, and he began to suspect that
so delicate a pencil had been held only by a _poet’s_ hand. He
remembered some expressions which had fallen from the lips of the lovely
Rosa only on the previous day; he took from his pocket-book a little
note, beautifully written on rose-tinted paper, which he had received
from her a short time before; he compared it with the poems; the round,
clear Italian characters were the same in both, and, with a thrill of
delight, the Colonel at once admitted the belief that the beautiful
object of his regard was as gifted as she was lovely. Forgetting the
prolonged delay of her appearance—a delay designed to afford him ample
opportunity of satisfying his curiosity—his eyes wandered eagerly over
the volume. He was still more charmed, however, when, on one of the last
pages in the book, he met with a pencil sketch of himself. There was no
mistaking the likeness; it was a most spirited head, and the features
were his own. For a moment the Colonel was elated to almost boyish glee,
and could scarcely refrain from pressing to his lips this precious proof
of Rosa’s feelings.

At that critical moment, Mrs. Crafts and her daughter entered the room.
A slight blush—a modest dropping of her fringed eyelids, betrayed the
surprise of the _artless_ Rosa as she observed the Colonel’s occupation.

“Pray, who is the author of these beautiful sketches?” he asked, as soon
as he had paid his respects to the ladies.

A look of maternal pride on the one side, and of girlish diffidence on
the other, was exchanged between mother and daughter, but no reply was
made.

“Are the poems by the same hand as the drawings?” said he, still
retaining his hold of the volume, which Rosa gently strove to take from
him.

A timid “yes” was uttered by the beautiful girl, while her mother,
pretending to hear a summons from an _invisible_ servant, _judiciously_
left the room. Colonel Middleton drew Rosa to a seat beside him, and, as
he clasped her hand in his, exclaimed—

“Dear, dear Rosa, do you mean to monopolize all the choicest gifts of
Heaven? Look here,” pointing, as he spoke, to his own portrait in the
volume, “and tell me if I may dare to hope that your own heart was the
mirror which reflected these features?”

Rosa uttered a faint cry, and, overpowered with shame, hid her face on
the arm of the sofa, while her white neck was suffused with a deep red
hue that might easily have been mistaken for a blush. The Colonel was
overpowered; his foible was a desire to be the first and only object of
affection to a woman’s heart, and he could not doubt that he had now
attained his hopes. A passionate expression of his feelings and a
proffer of his heart and hand were the only evidences of gratitude which
he could bestow on the gentle girl. What a fine piece of acting was
Rosa’s gradual return to self-possession! The blushing timidity with
which she listened to his passionate tenderness, her delicate dread lest
his discovery of her _secretly cherished_ attachment should be the
motive of his present offer, and, finally, the modest yet fervent
abandonment of feeling with which she allowed her head to rest on his
shoulder, while his arm encircled her slender form and his lip imprinted
a lover’s kiss on her fair brow, would have made the fortune of a
theatrical _débutante_. It was all settled; the album decided the
affair, and Rosa Crafts was certainly destined to become Mrs. Colonel
Middleton.

But, once sure of her lover, Rosa had no desire to become a wife sooner
than prudence required. She could not give up old habits without an
effort, and she determined to enjoy her liberty as long as possible, by
deferring the period of her marriage. Colonel Middleton busied himself
in refitting his beautiful villa on the banks of the Hudson, and during
his temporary absences, Rosa obtained many a moment of freedom from
restraint. Fortune seemed to favor the wishes of the heartless woman of
the world, for ere the time fixed for their marriage had arrived,
Colonel Middleton was ordered to take command of his regiment in
Florida. He was too good a soldier to hesitate, whatever might have been
his disappointment, and the day which should have witnessed his union
with his beautiful bride, dawned upon him amid the everglades of that
wild and perilous district. Rosa felt his absence as a positive relief.
Nothing was easier than to write tender and beautiful letters to her
distant lover—nothing more pleasant than to return to society as an
affianced bride, certain of a future establishment, and privileged to
seek present enjoyment.

“How can you be so attentive to that consummate flirt?” asked a friend,
as Captain Sabretash returned from leading Miss Crafts to her carriage
after a gay party.

“I have good reason for my conduct, Harry,” was the reply; “she has not
a more devoted attendant in society than myself.”

“I know it, and therefore it is that I am surprised at your
inconsistency.”

“Inconsistency, Harry! You don’t know me, or you would not think me
inconsistent. Can nothing but admiration and love render one watchful? I
tell you that never had that woman a lover half so devoted and so
observant as myself; but it is with the keen eye of hatred that I watch
her every movement; it is the spirit of vengeance which actuates my
every attention.”

“It is a queer way of showing hatred. Do you mean to continue such
devotion after her marriage with Colonel Middleton?”

“That marriage will never take place, Harry. Think you the noble-minded
Colonel would wed her if he knew all that I could tell him? I will not
oppose idle words to a lover’s passion, but I will bring him proof such
as he cannot doubt of her unworthiness, and thus will I fulfil my
revenge.”

Among the admirers whom Rosa drew around her during the Colonel’s
absence, was one who excited her peculiar interest. The Baron de
Stutenhoff was a Russian, with clear blue eyes, a profusion of long
light hair, and also _presumed_ to be in possession of a _mouth_,
although his bushy fox-colored mustachios and untrimmed beard rendered
the fact somewhat difficult of proof to those who had never seen the
gentleman expand his jaws at a supper-table. He was no impostor—no
Spanish barber, no French cook, no Italian mountebank disguised _en
marquis_. The Baron de Stutenhoff was actually a Baron, privileged to
wear the crosses and ribbons of several orders at his buttonhole, and
bearing on his cheek a broad and not very seemly scar of a sabre-cut
received in honorable combat. He had been captivated with the charms of
the beautiful coquette, and she was by no means displeased with the
opportunity of flirting with so distinguished a man. He became her
constant attendant in society; his habits and tastes assimilated to her
own far better than did those of the sensitive and gifted Colonel
Middleton, and when he talked, in bad French, of his fine estates, of
the rich pomp of Russian life, of the droskas, with their silver bells
and lining of costly furs, Rosa could not help wishing that she had not
been quite so precipitate in her acceptance of the Colonel’s proposal.
Nothing would have suited her vain humor so well as becoming the wonder
of some foreign capital—_la belle Americaine_ of some distant land,
where Americans were looked upon as savages. She fancied she could
behold her resplendent beauty clad in the picturesque attire of a
foreign clime, and winning the admiration of kings and princes in the
semi-barbaric court of Russia. Her vanity led her into the same
labyrinth where she had so often bewildered others, and, without
confiding her feelings to her more prudent mother, she determined to
mould circumstances to suit her new views of ambition. The Baron de
Stutenhoff was a vain man, and of course easily led away by flattery.
His title was derived from his long service in the Russian army, since,
by a custom of that country, every freeman who has been in active
military service during a certain term of years, receives the title of
Baron _by courtesy_, whatever be his birth. His villages, of which he
boasted so largely, consisted of a few miserable huts, occupied by some
twenty or thirty serfs, which had been his patrimony, but which had long
since gone out of his possession to pay gambling debts. He was a weak
and ignorant man, passionately addicted to play, and, since he had been
among the untitled Americans, he had learned to look upon himself as so
great a man, that he doubted whether he should honor Miss Crafts with
the offer of his hand, or wait for some more distinguished woman to
throw herself at his feet. But Rosa was an overmatch for him in
acuteness. She managed to give him an idea that she was very wealthy,
and then, after bringing him as near to an absolute proposal as suited
her views, she determined to take her own time to make a decision. But
she was doomed to have her plans developed rather prematurely.

Some one (could it be Captain Sabretash?) informed Colonel Middleton of
all that had passed since his departure, and the consequence was that
the gallant soldier obtained leave of absence, and unexpectedly
returned, having met on the road a most tender and devoted letter from
his “ladye love.” On the evening of his arrival in New York, there was a
splendid fancy ball, and, without informing any one but Captain
Sabretash of his return, the Colonel determined to judge for himself of
Rosa’s conduct. Accompanied by the Captain, he entered the ball-room
early in the evening, and, by dint of a bribe, obtained the privilege of
occupying a nook in the orchestra, from whence he could see without
being seen. Almost the first person that met his eyes was his delicate
and modest Rosa, whirling through the giddy waltz in the arms of the
tall Russian. His auburn beard mingled with her dark tresses, as her
head almost rested on his breast, and his eyes were bent with a most
insulting expression upon the graceful form which reclined in his
embrace. Rosa little dreamed of the fierce glance which watched her
every movement as she practised her fascinating arts upon the delighted
Baron. She little knew that the quick ear of another had caught the
offensive and libertine words to which she had listened in silence, and
excused as “only the freedom of foreign manners”—as if true _gentlemen_
of _every_ land did not always respect the _modesty_ of women. She
little suspected that he whom she believed to be exposed to the bullet
of the lurking Indian was suffering a wound scarcely less severe in the
crowded and glittering ball-room.

It was at this moment, when the proud and sensitive Colonel Middleton
was fully convinced of her levity of conduct, that Captain Sabretash
determined to make known to him her utter heartlessness.

“I have _that_ to tell to which you must listen now, Colonel Middleton,”
said he, when the betrayed lover would fain have deferred his
communication; “now, while your eye is darting fire upon the false woman
who has made you the tool of her mercenary schemes. Listen to me now,
ere the voice of the syren charm you into forgetfulness of what you
behold. Five years ago I had a sister—my only one—a gentle, loving
creature, with little beauty, but a heart filled with every good
feeling. She was wooed by one whom I esteemed and approved; she loved
him, and they were betrothed to each other. But Adeline went into the
country on account of my mother’s ill health, and during her absence,
her lover fell into the way of Rosa Crafts. They met at a fashionable
watering-place, and, though struck with her beauty, he remained proof
against all her ordinary fascinations, until her pride became piqued,
and she determined to make him sensible of her attractions. Some fool
among her danglers offered a wager that she would not succeed; she
accepted the wager, and though she knew of his engagement to another,
she deliberately set herself to the task of robbing his affianced bride
of his affections. When did an unprincipled woman ever will any thing
which she did not accomplish if she scrupled not the means? She
succeeded. Adeline was neglected, and, for a time, forgotten. She pined
in solitude for the accustomed tenderness which had become the nutriment
of life to her young heart, but she received it not. At length came a
letter; her lover, overcome with shame and remorse, but led away by his
fatal passion, wrote her a wild, incoherent letter, full of penitence
and sorrow, but still designed as a renunciation of his plighted faith.
He broke his engagement with Adeline, and then offered his hand to his
new mistress. Need I say that Rosa Crafts rejected his love and won her
wager? I was absent at the time, and when I returned Adeline was dying
of consumption. I watched beside her till I saw her laid within the
tomb, and then I sought for vengeance on her perjured lover. He refused
to fight me. I disgraced him in the public street by personal
chastisement, and then he was obliged to meet me. We fought with pistols
at twelve paces—I shot him through the body.”

Captain Sabretash paused, overcome by his emotion. “Five years have
passed since then,” he resumed, “and I have haunted the steps of that
woman in hopes of yet seeing her humbled to the dust. Talk of _harmless
flirtation_! My buried sister, my murdered friend, my own blood-stained
hand, can bear witness to the innocence of what the world calls
_harmless_ flirtation!”

Colonel Middleton listened in silence. He felt that the Captain had
uttered nothing but truth; yet when he thought of her intellectual
gifts, her exquisite beauty, her inimitable grace, his heart sunk within
him, for how could falsehood dwell with so much perfection?

“Ask Grace Leydon!” continued Captain Sabretash; “ask Grace Leydon if I
have told you a word more than the simple, unvarnished truth.”

“How may I believe the one when thus compelled to doubt the other?”
asked the Colonel.

“Doubt Grace Leydon!” exclaimed his companion, “why you might as well
doubt the existence of the sun in heaven. She is all truth—all purity.
Surely you must have seen enough of her vestal-like life to know that if
ever there was a true-hearted woman upon earth, it is she. If Rosa
Crafts had but half the mental graces and moral virtues of her cousin
Grace, she would be an angel.”

Colonel Middleton _did_ ask Grace Leydon; but not till long afterwards.
His decision of character forbade him to grieve over an unworthy object,
and the moment Rosa ceased to be the noble-minded being he had imagined
her, he ceased to cherish his affection for her. An interview,
characterized on his part by grave earnestness and sad remonstrance, and
on hers by flippancy and heartlessness, terminated all intercourse
between the beautiful Rosa and her high-minded lover. In less than three
weeks after the rupture between them, Baron de Stutenhoff had the
satisfaction of leading to the altar the “belle of the season;” but long
ere the honey-moon was over, he learned, to his great chagrin, that the
anticipated riches of his bride were to be found somewhere in the
vicinity of his own large estates in dream-land. A quarrel was the
immediate result of the discovery, and while the noble Baron betook him
to the life of a “Chevalier d’Industrie,” travelling from city to city,
the brilliant Rosa was compelled to return to her mother’s dull country
residence in the character of a deserted wife.

Colonel Middleton _did_ ask Grace Leydon; after he had learned that she
was the _true_ author and owner of the gifted volume which Rosa had
falsely claimed, after he had awakened from his dream of beauty to a
sense of purity and sincerity, after he had learned the value of a
truthful spirit and a loving heart, he asked Grace Leydon to share his
future lot in life, and she became his wife—his happy and noble-minded
wife—carrying into the home of her husband the talents and the virtues
which had been the solace and resources of her hours of loneliness.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                                 DEATH.


                        BY MRS. C. H. W. ESLING.


    Death came to a beautiful boy at play,
      As he sat ’mong the summer flowers,
    But they seem’d to wither and die away
      In their very sunniest hours.

    “I have come,” in a hollow voice, said Death,
      “To play on the grass with thee;”
    But the boy look’d frighten’d, and held his breath,
      In the midst of his childish glee.

    “Away, away from my flowers,” he said,
      “For I know, and love thee not”—
    Death look’d at the boy, and shook his head:
      Then slowly he left the spot.

    He met a maiden in girlhood’s bloom,
      And the rose on her cheek was bright,
    And she shuddered, as tho’ a ghost from the tomb
      Had risen before her sight.

    She stood by the brink of a fountain clear—
      In its waters her beauty view’d,
    When Death, with his haggard face, drew near,
      And before the maiden stood.

    “Fair damsel,” he said, with a courtly pride,
      “To thee I this goblet quaff,”
    But she turned with a buoyant step aside,
      And fled with a ringing laugh.

    He journey’d on, where an old man sat
      On the trunk of a worn-out tree—
    A poor old man—for his held-out hat
      Was a symbol of beggary.

    Death drew quite near, till the old man’s eyes
      Were raised to his wrinkled face;
    With a frighten’d look of wild surprise,
      He rose from his resting-place.

    “I come to succor,” Death mildly said,
      But the old man would depart—
    Again he look’d, and shook his head,
      For he knew full well his mart.

    “They all of them, shuddering, turn away—
      The boy in his childish glee,
    The maiden young, and the old man gray:
      Yet they all shall come to me.”

    And he gather’d them all, for the boy was weak—
      The old man yielded his breath—
    And the rose grew pale on the maiden’s cheek,
      As she sank in the arms of Death.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                          THE SAXON’S BRIDAL.


BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE BROTHERS,” “CROMWELL,” “RINGWOOD THE ROVER,” ETC.


There are times in England, when the merry month of May is not, as it
would now appear, merely a poet’s fiction; when the air is indeed mild
and balmy, and the more conspicuously so, that it succeeds the furious
gusts and driving hail-storms of the boisterous March, the fickle
sunshine and capricious rains of April. One of these singular epochs in
the history of weather it was, in which events occurred which remained
unforgotten for many a day in the green wilds of Charnwood Forest. It
was upon a soft, sweet morning, toward the latter end of the month, and
surely nothing more delicious could have been conceived by the fancy of
the poet. The low west wind was fanning itself among the tender leaves
of the new-budded trees, and stealing over the deep meadows, all
redolent with dewy wild flowers, waving them with a gentle motion, and
borrowing a thousand perfumes from their bosoms; the hedgerows were as
white with the dense blossoms of the hawthorn, as though they had been
powdered over by an untimely snow-storm, while everywhere along the
wooded banks, the saffron primrose and its sweet sister of the spring,
the violet, were sunning their unnumbered blossoms in the calm warmth of
the vernal sunshine. The heavens, of a pure transparent blue, were
laughing with a genial lustre, not flooded by the dazzling glare of
midsummer, but pouring over all beneath their influence a lovely, gentle
light, in perfect keeping with the style of the young scenery, and all
the air was literally vocal with the notes of innumerable birds, from
the proud lark, “rejoicing at heaven’s gate,” to the thrush and
blackbird, trilling their full, rich chants from every dingle, and the
poor linnet, piping on the spray. Nothing—no, nothing—can be imagined
that so delights the fancy with sweet visions, that so enthrals the
senses, shedding its influences even upon the secret heart, as a soft
old-fashioned May morning. Apart from the mere beauties of the scenery,
from the mere enjoyment of the bright skies, the dewy perfumes that
float on every breeze, the mild, unscorching warmth—apart from all
these, there is something of a deeper and a higher nature in the
thoughts called forth by the spirit of the time—a looking forward of
the soul to fairer things to come, an excitement of a quiet hope within,
not very definite perhaps, nor easily explained, but one which almost
every man has felt, and contrasted with the languid and pallid satiety
produced by the full heat of summer, and yet more with the sober and
reflective sadness that steals upon the mind as we survey the russet
hues and the sere leaves of autumn. It is as if the newness, the fresh
youth of the season, gave birth to a corresponding youth of the soul.
Such are the sentiments which many men feel now-a-days, besides the
painter and the poet and the soul-rapt enthusiast of nature; but those
were iron days of which we write, and men spared little time to thought
from action or from strife, nor often paused to note their own
sensations, much less to ponder on their origin or to investigate their
causes. The morning was such as we have described—the scene a spot of
singular beauty within the precincts of the then royal forest of
Charnwood, in Leicestershire. A deep, but narrow stream, wound in a
hundred graceful turns through the rich meadow-land that formed the
bottom of a small sloping vale, which had been partially reclaimed, even
at that day, from the waste, though many a willow bush fringing its
margin, and many a waving ash, fluttering its delicate tresses in the
air, betrayed the woodland origin of the soft meadow. A narrow road
swept down the hill, with a course little less serpentine than that of
the river below, and crossed it by a small one-arched stone bridge,
overshadowed by a gigantic oak tree, and scaled the opposite acclivity
in two or three sharp sandy zigzags. Both the hill sides were clothed
with forest, but still the nature of the soil or some accidental causes
had rendered the wood as different as possible, for on the further side
of the stream, the ground was everywhere visible covered by a short
mossy turf, softer and more elastic to the foot than the most exquisite
carpet that ever issued from the looms of Persia, and overshadowed by
huge and scattered oaks, growing so far apart that the eye could range
far between their shadowy vistas; while on the nearer slope—the
foreground, as it might be called, of the picture—all was a dense and
confused mass of tangled shrubbery and verdure. Thickets of old gnarled
thorn-bushes, completely overrun and matted with woodbines; coppices of
young ash, with hazel interspersed, and eglantine and dog-roses thick
set between; clumps of the prickly gorse and plume-like broom, all
starry with their golden flowrets, and fern so wildly luxuriant that in
many places it would have concealed the head of the tallest man, covered
the ground for many a mile through which the narrow road meandered.
There was one object more in view—one which spoke of man even in that
solitude, and man in his better aspect—it was the slated roof and
belfry, all overgrown with moss and stonecrop, of a small wayside
chapel, in the old Saxon architecture, peering out from the shadows of
the tall oaks which overhung it in the far distance. It was, as we have
said, very small, in the old Saxon architecture, consisting, in fact,
merely of a vaulted roof supported upon four squat massy columns, whence
sprung the four groined ribs which met in the centre of the arch. Three
sides alone of this primitive place of worship, which would have
contained with difficulty forty persons, were walled in, the front
presenting one wide open arch, richly and quaintly sculptured with the
indented wolf’s teeth of the first Saxon style. Small as it was,
however, the little chapel had its high altar, with the crucifix and
candle, its reading desk of old black oak, its font and pix and
chalices, and all the adjuncts of the Roman ritual. A little way to the
left might be discovered the low thatched eaves of a rustic cottage,
framed of the unbarked stems of forest trees, the abode, probably, of
the officiating priest, and close beside the walls of the little church
a consecrated well, protected from the sun by a stone vault, of
architecture corresponding to the chapel.

Upon the nearer slope, not far from the road-side, but entirely
concealed from passers by the nature of the ground and the dense
thickets, there were collected, at an early hour of the morning, five
men with as many horses, who seemed to be awaiting, in a sort of ambush,
some persons whom they would attack at unawares. The leader of the
party, as he might be considered, as much from his appearance as from
the deference shown to him by the others, was a tall, active, powerful
man, of thirty-eight or forty years, with a bold and expressive
countenance—expressive, however, of no good quality, unless it were the
fiery, reckless daring which blazed from his broad dark eye, and that
was almost obscured by the cloud of insufferable pride which lowered
upon his frowning brow, and by the deep scar-like lines of lust and
cruelty and scorn which ploughed his weather-beaten features. His dress
was a complete suit of linked chain-mail, hauberk and sleeves and hose,
with shoes of plaited steel and gauntlets wrought in scale, covering his
person from his neck downward in impenetrable armor. He had large gilded
spurs buckled upon his heels, and a long two-edged dagger, with a rich
hilt and scabbard, in his belt; but neither sword nor lance, nor any
other weapon of offence except a huge steel mace, heavy enough to fell
an ox at a single blow, which he grasped in his right hand, while from
his left hung the bridle of a tall coal-black Norman charger, which was
cropping the grass quietly beside him. His head was covered by a conical
steel cap, with neither crest nor plume nor visor, and mail hood falling
down from it to protect the neck and shoulders of the wearer. The other
four were men-at-arms, clad all in suits of armor, but less completely
than their lord; thus they had steel shirts only, with stout buff
breeches and heavy boots to guard their lower limbs, and iron scull caps
only, without the hood, upon their heads, and leather gauntlets upon
their hands; but, as if to make up for this deficiency, they were
positively loaded with offensive weapons—they had the long two-handed
sword of the period belted across their persons, three or four knives
and daggers of various size and strength at their girdles, great
battle-axes in their hands, and maces hanging at their saddle-bows. They
had been tarrying there already several hours, their leader raising his
eyes occasionally to mark the progress of the sun as he climbed up the
azure vault, and muttering a brief and bitter curse as hour passed after
hour, and those came not whom he expected.

“Danian,” he said at length, turning to the principal of his followers,
who stood nearer to his person and a little way apart from the
others—“Danian, art sure this was the place and day? How the dog Saxons
tarry—can they have learnt our purpose?”

“Surely not—surely not, fair sir,” returned the squire, “seeing that I
have mentioned it to no one, not even to Raoul, or Americ, or Guy, who
know no more than their own battle-axes the object of their ambush. And
it was pitch dark when we left the castle, and not a soul has seen us
here; so it is quite impossible they should suspect—and hark! there
goes the bell; and see, sir, see—there they come trooping through the
oak trees down the hill!”

And indeed, as he spoke, the single bell of the small chapel began to
chime with the merry notes that proclaim a bridal, and a gay train of
harmless, happy villagers might be seen, as they flocked along,
following the footsteps of the gray-headed Saxon monk, who, in his frock
and cowl, with corded waist and sandalled feet, led the procession. Six
young girls followed close behind him, dressed in blue skirts and russet
jerkins, but crowned with garlands of white May flowers, and May wreaths
wound like scarfs across their swelling bosoms, and hawthorn branches in
their hands, singing the bridal carol in the old Saxon tongue, in honor
of the pride of the village, the young and lovely Marian. She was indeed
the very personification of all the poet’s dreams of youthful beauty;
tall and slender in her figure, yet exquisitely, voluptuously rounded in
every perfect outline, with a waist of a span’s circumference, wide
sloping shoulders, and a bust that, for its matchless swell, as it
struggled and throbbed with a thousand soft emotions, threatening to
burst from the confinement of her tight-fitting jacket, would have put
to shame the bosom of the Medicean Venus. Her complexion, wherever the
sun had not too warmly kissed her beauties, was pure as the driven snow,
while her large, bright blue eyes, red laughing lip, and the luxuriant
flood of sunny golden hair, which streamed down in wild, artless
ringlets to her waist, made her a creature for a prince’s, or more, a
poet’s adoration. But neither prince nor poet was the god of that fair
girl’s idolatry; but one of her own class, a Saxon youth, a
peasant—nay, a serf—from his very cradle upward the born thrall of
Hugh de Mortemar, lord of the castle and the hamlet at its foot, named,
from its situation in the depths of Charnwood, Ashby in the Forest. But
there was now no graven collar about the sturdy neck of the young Saxon,
telling of a suffering servitude; no dark shade of gloom in his full
glancing eye; no sullen doggedness upon his lip, for he was that day,
that glad day, a freeman—a slave no longer—but free, free, by the gift
of his noble master—free as the wild bird that sung so loudly in the
forest—free as the liberal air that bore the carol to his ears. His
frock of forest green and buskins of the untanned deer-hide set off his
muscular, symmetrical proportions, and his close-curled short auburn
hair showed a well turned and shapely head. Behind this gay and happy
pair came several maids and young men, two and two, and after these an
old gray-headed man, the father of the bride, and leaning on his arm an
aged matron, the widowed mother of the enfranchised bridegroom.

Merrily rung the gay, glad bells, and blithely swelled up the bridal
chorus as they collected on the little green before the ancient arch,
and slowly filed into the precincts of the forest shrine; but very
speedily their merriment was changed into dismay and terror and despair,
for scarcely had they passed into the sacred building, before the
knight, with his dark followers, leaped into their saddles, and
thundering down the hill at a tremendous gallop, surrounded the chapel
before the inmates had even time to think of any danger. It was a
strange, wild contrast, the venerable priest within pronouncing even
then the nuptial blessing, and proclaiming over the bright young pair
the union made by God, which thenceforth no man should dissever—the
tearful happiness of the blushing bride, the serious gladness of the
stalwart husband, the kneeling peasantry, the wreaths of innocent
flowers; and at the gate the stern, dark men-at-arms, with their scarred
savage features, and their gold-gleaming harness and raised weapons. A
loud shriek burst from the lips of the sweet girl, as, lifting her eyes
to the sudden clang and clatter that harbingered those dread intruders,
she saw and recognized upon the instant the fiercest of the Norman
tyrants—dreaded by all his neighbors far and near, but most by the most
virtuous and young and lovely—the bold, bad Baron of Maltravers. He
bounded to the earth as he reached the door, and three of his followers
leaped from their horses likewise, one sitting motionless in his
war-saddle, and holding the four chargers. “Hold, priest!” he shouted,
as he entered, “forbear this mummery; and thou, dog Saxon, think not
that charms like these are destined to be clasped in rapture by any arms
of thy low slavish race!” and with these words he strode up to the
altar, seemingly fearless of the least resistance, while his men kept
the door with brandished weapons. Mute terror seized on all, paralyzed
utterly by the dread interruption—on all but the bold priest and the
stout bridegroom.

“Nay, rather forbear thou, Alberic de Maltravers! These two are one
forever—wo be to those who part them!”

“Tush, priest—tush, fool!” sneered the fierce Baron, as he seized him
by the arm, and swinging him back rudely, advanced upon the terrified
and weeping girl, who was now clinging to the very rails of the high
altar, trusting, poor wretch, that some respect for that sanctity of
place which in old times had awed even heathens, might now prevail with
one whom no respect for anything divine or human had ever yet deterred
from doing his unholy will.

“Ha! dog!” cried he, in fiercer tones, that filled the chapel as it were
a trumpet, seeing the Saxon bridegroom lift up a heavy quarter-staff
which lay beside him, and step in quietly but very resolutely in defence
of his lovely wife—“Ha! dog and slave, dare you resist a Norman and a
noble?—back, serf, or die the death!” and he raised his huge mace to
strike him.

“No serf, sir, nor slave either,” returned the Saxon, firmly, “but a
freeman, by my good master’s gift, and a landholder.”

“Well, master freeman and landholder,” replied the other, with a bitter
sneer, “if such names please you better, stand back—for Marian lies on
no bed but mine this night—stand back, before worse come of it!”

“I will die rather”—was the answer—“Then die! fool! die!” shouted the
furious Norman, and with the words he struck full at the bare brow of
the dauntless Saxon with his tremendous mace—it fell, and with dint
that would have crushed the strongest helmet into a thousand
splinters—it fell, but by a dexterous sleight the yeoman swung his
quarter-staff across the blow, and parried its direction, although the
tough ash pole burst into fifty shivers—it fell upon the carved rails
of the altar and smashed them into atoms; but while the knight who had
been somewhat staggered by the impetus of his own misdirected blow, was
striving to recover himself, the young man sprang upon him, and
grappling him by the throat, gained a short-lived advantage. Short-lived
it was indeed, and perilous to him that gained—for although there were
men enough in the chapel, all armed with quarter-staves, and one or two
with the genuine brown bill, to have overpowered the four Normans,
despite their war array—yet so completely were they overcome by
consternation, that not one moved a step to aid him; the priest, who had
alone showed any spark of courage, being impeded by the shrieking women,
who, clinging to the hem of his vestments, implored him for the love of
God to save them.

In an instant that fierce grapple was at an end, for in the twinkling of
an eye, two of the men-at-arms had rushed upon him and dragged him off
their lord.

“Now by the splendor of God’s brow,” shouted the enraged knight, “thou
art a sweet dog thus to brave thy masters. Nay! harm him not.
Raoul,”—he went on—“harm not the poor dog,”—as his follower had
raised his battle axe to brain him,—“harm him not, else we should raise
the ire of that fool, Mortemar! Drag him out—tie him to the nearest
tree, and this good priest beside him—before his eyes we will console
this fair one.” And with these words he seized the trembling girl,
forcing her from the altar, and encircling her slender waist in the foul
clasp of his licentious arms. “And ye,” he went on, lashing himself into
fury as he continued,—“and ye churl Saxons, hence!—hence dogs and
harlots to your kennels!”

No further words were needed, for his orders were obeyed by his own men
with the speed of light, and the Saxons overjoyed to escape on any
terms, rushed in a confused mass out of the desecrated shrine, and fled
in all directions, fearful of further outrage.—Meanwhile, despite the
struggles of the youth, and the excommunicating anathemas which the
priest showered upon their heads, the men-at-arms bound them securely to
the oak trees, and then mounting their horses, sat laughing at their
impotent resistance, while with a refinement of brutality worthy of
actual fiends, Alberic de Maltravers bore the sweet wife clasped to his
iron breast, up to the very face of her outraged, helpless husband, and
tearing open all her jerkin, displayed to the broad light the whole of
her white, panting bosom, and poured from his foul, fiery lips a flood
of lustful kisses on her mouth, neck, and bosom, under the very eyes of
his tortured victim. To what new outrage he might have next proceeded,
must remain ever doubtful, for at this very instant the long and mellow
blast of a clearly winded bugle came swelling through the forest
succeeded by the bay of several bloodhounds, and the loud, ringing
gallop of many fast approaching.

“Ha!” shouted he, “ten thousand curses on him; here comes de Mortemar.
Quick—quick—away! Here, Raoul, take the girl, buckle her tight to your
back with the sword-belt, and give me your two-handed blade; I lost my
mace in the chapel!—That’s right! quick! man—that’s right—now, then,
be off—ride for your life—straight to the castle; we will stop all
pursuit. Fare thee well, sweet one, for a while—we will conclude
hereafter what we have now commenced so fairly!”

And as he spoke, he also mounted his strong charger, and while the man,
Raoul, dashed his spurs rowel-deep into his horse’s flanks, and went off
at a thundering gallop, the other four followed him at a slower pace,
leaving the Saxons in redoubled anguish—redoubled by the near hope of
rescue.

But for once villany was not permitted to escape due retribution, for
ere the men-at-arms, who led the flight, had crossed the little bridge,
a gallant train came up at a light canter from the wood, twenty or
thirty archers, all with their long bows bent, and their arrows notched
and ready, with twice as many foresters on foot, with hounds of every
kind, in slips and leashes, and at their head a man of as noble presence
as ever graced a court or reined a charger. He was clad in a plain
hunting frock of forest green, with a black velvet bonnet and a heron’s
plume, and wore no other weapon but a light hunting sword—but close
behind him rode two pages, bearing his knightly lance with its long
pennon, his blazoned shield, and his two-handed broadsword. It was that
brave and noble Norman, Sir Hugh de Mortemar. His quick eye in an
instant took in the whole of the confused scene before him, and
understood it on the instant.

“Alberic de Maltravers!” he cried, in a voice clear and loud as the call
of a silver trumpet, “before God he shall rue it,” and with the words he
snatched his lance from the page, and dashing spurs into his splendid
Spanish charger, thundered his orders out with the rapid rush of a
winter’s torrent. “Bend your bows, archers,—draw home your arrows to
the head! stand, thou foul ravisher, dishonored Norman, false gentleman,
and recreant knight! Stand on the instant, or we shoot! Cut loose the
yeoman from the tree, ye varlets, and the good priest. Randal, cast
loose the bloodhounds down to the bridge across yon knoll, and lay them
on the track of that flying scoundrel. Ha! they will meet us.”

And so in truth they did, for seeing that he could not escape the deadly
archery, Alberic de Maltravers wheeled short on his pursuers, and
shouted his war-cry—“Saint Paul for Alberic!—false knight and liar in
your throat. Saint Paul! Saint Paul! charge home,”—and with the words
the steel-clad men-at-arms drove on, expecting by the weight of their
harness to ride down and scatter the light archery like chaff. Unarmed
although he was, De Mortemar paused not—not for a moment!—but galloped
in his green doublet as gallantly upon his foe as though he had been
sheathed in steel. He had but one advantage—but one hope!—to bear his
iron-clad opponent down at the lance point, without closing—on! they
came, on!—Maltravers swinging his two-handed sword aloft, and trusting
in his mail to turn the lance’s point—de Mortemar with his long spear
in rest—“Saint Paul! Saint Paul!”—they met! the dust surged up in a
dense cloud! the very earth appeared to shake beneath their feet!—but
not a moment was the conflict doubtful.—Deep! deep! through his linked
mail, and through his leathern jerkin, and through his writhing flesh,
the grinded spear head shove into his bosom, and came out at his back,
the ash staff breaking in the wound. Down he went, horse and man!—and
down, at one close volley of the grey goose shafts, down went his three
companions!—one shot clear through the brain by an unerring shaft—the
others stunned and bruised, their horses both slain under them. “Secure
them,” shouted Hugh, “bind them both hand and foot, and follow,”—and he
paused not to look upon his slain assailant, but galloped down the hill,
followed by half his train, the bloodhounds giving tongue fiercely, and
already gaining on the fugitive. It was a fearful race, but quickly
over!—for though the man-at-arms spurred desperately on, his heavy
Norman horse, oppressed, moreover, by his double load, had not a chance
in competing with the proud Andalusian of de Mortemar. Desperately he
spurred on—but now the savage hounds were up with him—they rushed full
at the horse’s throat and bore him to the earth—another moment, Raoul
was a bound captive, and Marian, rescued by her liege lord, and wrapt in
his own mantle, was clasped in the fond arms of her husband!

“How now, good priest,” exclaimed sir Hugh, “are these two now fast
wedded?”

“As fast, fair sire, as the holy rites may wed them.”

“Then ring me, thou knave, Ringan, a death peal! Thou, Gilbert, and
thou, Launcelot, make me three halters, quick—nay! four—the dead
knight shall swing, as his villainy well merits, beside the living
knaves!—Sing me a death chant, priest, for these are judged to death,
unhouselled and unshriven!”

Not a word did the ruffians answer, they knew that prayer was useless,
and with dark frowning brows, and dauntless bearing, they met their
fate, impenitent and fearless. For Marian begged their lives in vain. De
Mortemar was pitiless in his just wrath! And the spurs were hacked from
the heels of the dead knight, and the base halter twisted round his cold
neck, and his dishonored corpse hung up upon the very tree to which he
had bade bind the Saxon bridegroom. And the death peals were sung, and
the death hymn was chanted; and ere the sounds of either had died away
in the forest echoes, the three marauders writhed out their villain
souls in the mild air, and swung three grim and ghastly monuments of a
foul crime and fearful retribution—and this dread rite consummated the
Saxon’s bridal!

                 *        *        *        *        *




                        WHY SHOULD I LOVE THEE?


                          BY JOHN S. DU SOLLE.


    Why should I love thee? Thou so altered!
      So cold! so passionless! The hand
    Which erst so much at parting faltered—
      The cheek which blushed at meeting—and
    The eyes whose eloquent depths of jet,
      So much of silence could redeem—
    They haunt me with their sweetness yet,
      But, oh! how changed they seem!

    Why should I love thee, thou false-hearted?
      Thou smil’st, but smil’st no more for me!
    The bloom hath not thy lip departed,
      Thy voice hath still its witchery.
    But looks and words, though they bewitch me,
      Can paint no love, where love is not;
    Thy very kindnesses but teach me
      How much I am forgot!

    Why should I love thee? Why repine?
      Thy lip some other fond lip presses;
    Thine arm some other’s arms entwine;
      Thy cheek some other cheek caresses;
    And though to part with thee be sadness,
      Oh! God! how difficult to bear,
    To hope to win thee now were madness!
      To love thee were despair!

                 *        *        *        *        *




                           A BELLE AT A BALL.


           BY F. W. THOMAS, AUTHOR OF “HOWARD PINCKNEY,” ETC.


    Miss Merry vale is dressed with taste—
      With taste she always dresses—
    A zone is round her virgin waist,
      And flowers in her tresses;
    That full-blown fellow, in her curl,
    Bobs with an everlasting twirl,
    As, with an air like Juno’s, she
    Nods to the goodly companie.
    Prouder it looks than when on high
    It flouted at a flaming sky;
    For now, no more on thorny stem,
    It graces beauty’s diadem.

    Her neck is bare—her shoulders too,
      And with the cold they had been blue,
    But for the flakes of mealy hue—
      The powder of the pearl—
    Which, like the frost on frozen shore,
    Or web of gossamer, was o’er
      The fascinating girl.
    Deepest the drift in hollow places.
    Thus maids forsaken by the graces,
      And thin with hope deferred—
      (I only speak from what I’ve heard;

    So little of the sex I’ve seen,
    I hold each one a fairy _quean_—)
    Appear in such a garb of flour,
    And talk with such continuous power,
      And try to look so dapper,
    That one might think the miller’s maid
    Had come, most naturally arrayed,
      And bore away the clapper.

    That powder is a great transgression
      Against the rosy cheek;
    It buries up the whole expression;
      It makes the eye look weak,
    Unnatural the tress;
      And throws upon the brow a blight,
      As though it had grown gray with fright
    At single blessedness.
    Pray who would such a woman toast?
      Unless he meant to drink to one
      Long, long since with the buried gone,
    And now an awful ghost?
    Which, like all ghosts that earthward rove,
    Must horrify the hues of love.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                   MISFORTUNES OF A TIMID GENTLEMAN.


                           BY J. ROSS BROWNE.


                                Book I.

No excuse is necessary for giving my autobiography to the public. It is
true I am but a timid gentleman—a quiet, inoffensive sort of person,
too diffident of my own powers to be celebrated, and too much averse to
the bustle of the world to figure as a politician or public character of
any sort; yet I cannot help thinking there are some passages in my life
which will be read with profit.

I attained my eighteenth year without more reverses of fortune than
usually attend a youth of romantic aspirations and of a poetic and
visionary turn of mind. I was a curious mixture of boldness and
timidity. My parents formerly lived in a very mountainous part of the
country; and while most of my days were spent in daring exploits amidst
crags and precipices, at night I trembled to meet, in the social circle
of neighbors, a bright eye or a dimpled cheek. The extreme bashfulness
with which I approached the other sex of my own age subjected me to a
good deal of ridicule, and finally caused me, in self-defence, to
ascribe my repugnance to their society to what was anything but the true
cause—an intuitive hatred of womankind. And truly my conduct supported
the assertion. Never was there a greater mope or a more decided
book-worm. I pretended society had no charms for me. I affected to look
with indifference on the most fascinating beauty. I shunned all
intercourse with the daughters of the neighboring gentry. All this
arose, in fact, from my excessive timidity. I never could look upon a
young female, however common-place her attractions, without the utmost
agitation. When I attempted to speak, I invariably blushed, and my heart
beat violently. Thus unfortunately organized, I reached, as I observed
before, my eighteenth year. Until this time I had kept almost entirely
aloof from female society, and, as a matter of course, my heart was
still my own.

For several years past I had lived in town. City life had no charms for
me, but circumstances compelled me to make a virtue of necessity; and in
studiously avoiding contact with the beautiful and accomplished beings
who beset me on all sides, I found my leisure hours very well occupied.
My parents urged upon me the necessity of mingling more in society. They
assured me my awkwardness would soon give way to ease and grace if I did
so, and spared no pains to show me how much depended on polished manners
and a graceful demeanor. I had two sisters, accomplished and elegant.
Every opportunity afforded by their extensive acquaintance and
flattering popularity was at my disposal; but I could not overcome that
diffidence which nature had implanted in me, and in spite of the
solicitations of my family, I remained what I had always been—a timid,
visionary youth.

Before the summer of my eighteenth year had passed away, I accidentally
acquired the friendship of a middle aged gentleman, who had passed most
of his life in the boudoir and drawing-room. Mr. Desmond was a
warm-hearted, agreeable sort of person, deeply versed in books, but too
good-natured to be pedantic, and too diffident to pique himself on the
extent of his knowledge, which, in reality, was what prompted me to
cultivate his acquaintance. At first our conversation was purely
literary. I was charmed with the wonderful taste he displayed in
criticising the literature of the day; but I soon found that his
discrimination was not confined to topics of this nature. He discoursed
fluently on scientific subjects, while with equal ease he could touch
upon the tritest gossip afloat. Insensibly I found myself, a few
evenings after our first meeting, listening with great delight to an
exordium on the sex. I had never found any one whose sentiments
respecting matters of this kind were so judicious and so happy. I felt
the full force of every word he advanced in favor of cultivating the
society of the amiable—the beautiful. My feelings, naturally ardent,
were wrought to the highest pitch of excitement, and I fervently hoped
my unfortunate temperament would not forever exclude me from the charms
he so eloquently eulogised. Mr. Desmond, unlike the generality of my
acquaintances, did not ridicule me. Indeed he kindly remarked, instead
of regarding my excessive bashfulness as anything to my discredit, that
he looked upon it as an evidence of a good heart and an amiable
disposition, and trusted I would never stifle the best traits which
nature had given me—a modest mien and a feeling mind. I felt
exceedingly grateful for the interest he seemed to take in my welfare,
and for the charitable opinion he expressed of my failings. At the same
time he earnestly advised me to avoid as much as possible being too
sensitive, and assured me that by pondering less, and mingling more in
society, I would be not only happier, but better adapted to meet the
cares of the world. Deeply impressed with the truth of this remark, I
resolved to follow his advice, whatever might be the sacrifice on my
part. An opportunity soon occurred. Like an unskilled skater beginning
his career, I conceived it extremely fortunate that my _début_ was to be
gradual. I was invited by Mr. Desmond to spend an evening with a few of
his female acquaintances. I had heard him speak of the two Miss
Melvilles as very amiable girls—angelic beings—modest, witty and
intelligent; but I confess these exordiums, however warm and sincere
from the mouth of Mr. Desmond, did not prepossess me in favor of the
young ladies so enthusiastically described. There was something,
however, in one of the names that struck my fancy. Virginia—a soft,
pretty name, full of love and euphony—Virginia Melville! I really
thought it extremely beautiful. And Emily, too—an exquisite name, but
not so charming as Virginia. Virginia Melville, I fancied, could not but
be pretty—interesting, at least. With a fluttering heart, I followed my
friend into the drawing-room of Mrs. Melville’s residence, where I was
introduced to the young sisters. My bashfulness was entirely overcome by
the admiration which their charms and conversation excited. My most
extravagant anticipations relative to the beauty of Virginia Melville
were fully realized. I had never seen, had never conceived, a being so
perfect—so angelic. She had not reached her sixteenth year, and nothing
save her intelligent mind and fine intellectual eye bespoke a more
matured age. Her figure was slight—almost ethereal—yet sufficiently
developed to convey the idea of a budding rose. It left an impression on
the mind of the beholder, that, while nothing could then add to its
captivating gracefulness—nothing make it more perfect—time, by its
mellowing influence, would increase the softness of the contour, and
render that which seemed unrivalled still more exquisitely,
transcendently beautiful. Timidly I raised my eyes to a countenance
which I shall never forget. It was characterized by all the graces of
physical and intellectual beauty combined; yet ineffable as the former
were, they were truly eclipsed by the superior brilliancy of the latter.
I had never dreamed of features so faultless, eyes so expressive, lips
so sweet, and complexion so fair and ethereal. A high, pale forehead, a
beautifully formed head, long silken hair of a dark brown, falling
gracefully over a damask cheek and a swan-like neck, and finely
pencilled eyebrows, under which were lashes and eyes of equal
brilliancy, gave the whole countenance that intellectual cast so
supremely, irresistibly fascinating, when combined

          “with all youth’s sweet desires,
    Mingling the meek and vestal fires
    Of other worlds with all the bliss,
    The fond, weak tenderness of this!”

I felt, deeply, passionately, the full influence of those charms I have
so feebly attempted to describe. I felt, too—and oh! if ever that fair
enchantress to whose power I have bowed—if ever she read these lines, I
trust she will pardon my vanity—I felt that the being before me was
formed for my happiness; that my fate depended on her; that my future
career would be presided over by her image! Of all my fantasies, this
may prove the most visionary; but before I moralize on future events, I
must not omit a description of Emily Melville, the sister of my charmer.

Though both were extremely beautiful, no just comparison can be made
between the attractions of Emily and Virginia Melville. Emily was nearly
two years older than her sister, and doubtless that short space of time
contributed to effect the difference which, while the family likeness
was preserved, was so obvious in their style of beauty. Her figure was
taller and fuller than her sister’s, and her features were characterized
by an expression of serenity and loveliness truly bewitching. A
superficial observer would pronounce her cold, but what appeared
coldness was really mildness; and mildness was her ruling trait. There
was a languid softness in her eye that contrasted beautifully with the
bright, laughing eye of her sister. Hers was the eye of a
Dudu—Virginia’s that of a Haidee; the one a fawn’s—the other a
gazelle’s. I was not sorry to see that my friend seemed deeply
interested in Miss Emily Melville. It is certainly not strange, if there
is love at first sight, that there is also jealousy. I felt quite happy
when I learned that, though surrounded by admirers, Virginia’s heart was
untouched; and on this frail foundation I was foolish enough to build a
castle. I imagined a thousand extravagant things, fully as romantic as
impracticable. I fancied how happy I would be if I lived near a lonely
little glen, in a charming little cottage, covered with nice little
woodbines; how I would marry this lovely little maiden, and how she
would be all my own, and how I would love her and be with her forever,
and never say an ill-natured word to her; how we would spend our long
summer evenings in rambling about a picturesque little park, which I
intended to adorn with shrubs and deer; and, in short, how very, very
happy we would be! how exceedingly pleasant would be our journey down
the hill of life, and how we would both die together from sheer joy and
old age! Oh, youth! child of fantasy, why lead’st thou into error?—why
buoy us with visions which cannot be realized?

The evening passed away, and I am not quite sure that I was sorry when
the hour of departure had arrived. The strange and overwhelming passion
which had taken possession of my soul filled me with embarrassment, and
aware that I acted ridiculously, it afforded much relief to escape. With
Desmond I was abrupt, or silent and moody. I could not define my
sensations, and chose rather to keep them to myself than to subject
myself to any experimental advice, even from my bosom friend. Taking the
earliest opportunity to get rid of him, I hurried to my room; but I
could not sleep; I could not lie down. I sprang from my bed, and paced
the chamber in a kind of ecstacy, absorbing but indescribable. I rushed
to the window, bathed my brow in the cold moon-beams, and gazed
rapturously on the spangled canopy above me. Everything looked
beautiful. My breast expanded. I inhaled with delight the lucid night
air, and fancied there never was a being so foolish and so happy. What
an hour—what a theme for poetry! I had never written anything in verse,
but what with moonshine and love, I could not fail to succeed. I opened
my desk, carefully locked the door, and examined the room to be certain
that none should witness my indiscretion. I then drew forth the writing
instruments, and prepared to lose not a passing thought. After much
difficulty I indited a line; but not another could I wrest from my
distracted brain. I threw down my pen in despair, pushed my desk away,
and heartily bemoaning my poetic barrenness, retired somewhat calmed to
my bed. A gradual dormancy, entrancing, delightful, stole over my
senses. I thought of Virginia Melville. I recalled every feature of her
beautiful countenance; not a smile, not a word that had charmed me, were
lost. I saw all, heard all again. Then the whole became confused. I
roamed in a garden, where the hyacinth bloomed and the honeysuckle and
woodbine gracefully twined round the oak, and the rose unfolded its
young buds. The place was lonely—far from the haunts of man; yet the
song of the linnet and the thrush enlivened its solitude, and I felt
that I was not alone. And while I roamed in this Elysian garden, I
espied a beautiful rose, a fairy-like rose, young and tender and
blooming. And I approached it and gazed upon it, and methought it moved.
I paused in wonder. I knelt me down on the green sward, and my eyes were
fixed upon the rose. And I fancied it expanded to my view, and wore a
beauteous form. In rapture I feasted on this fairy vision. I was silent.
I felt the inadequacy of language to express my admiration; and I gazed,
and my heart was full. The fairy-rose, with down-cast looks, smiled upon
me. That smile betrayed it; I recognised in the disguise the features of
her I loved. I was wild—enchanted. I snatched a leaf from a weeping
willow, and inscribed thereon a verse. I flung it on the breeze, and it
was borne to the hand of the beauteous vision. And whilst she read I
trembled. A mystic veil now obscured my sight. Full of doubt, I rushed
wildly from the spot. I bitterly deprecated my boldness. I imagined my
love was offended. I strove to banish thought. I was unhappy. I could
think of naught but the vision. Overcome with emotion, I returned to the
garden. I sought the white rose. Again I gazed upon it, and again it
assumed its magic form. The celestial countenance of the beauty was
placid and pensive. I passionately implored forgiveness. A smile, a
bewitching smile, played upon her lips, and her sparkling eyes beamed
with tenderness. I rushed forward to clasp her to my bosom. The vision
was no more—I held but a rose! I looked upon it and sighed. I bore it
away, and cherished it as an emblem of my love. A long time seemed to
elapse. I wore the rose next my heart, and thought of her I adored.
“Oh!” I exclaimed, “why must this be?” I yearn to look once more upon
the object of my thoughts. I can think of naught but her as I roam
through life’s weary desert. Forever I think of her—forever my memory
clings to the past:—

    “I strive to call the vision back;
      I strive in vain, but still
    The bosom chords so sweetly touched
      In plaintive tumult thrill.”

And I ask myself what is this? and my heart tells me it is love—yea!
the voices of a thousand angels proclaim, It is Love!

My dream ended. With the imaginary words still ringing in my ears, I
awoke. I scarcely knew whether to think myself the most happy or most
miserable creature on earth. Full of conflicting emotions, I rushed out
into the clear morning air. It was now early spring. The weather was
cool, bracing, delightful. A delicious fragrance was wafted from the
neighboring woods and fields, and I breathed freely, and felt all the
vigor—the majesty of manhood. My heart was full to overflowing. I
fancied the heavens, the rising sunbeams, the bustling pedestrians, all
smiled upon me; and I was enchanted with the beauty of nature, the
benevolence and affection of mankind. I wondered if ever such a thing as
a misanthrope really existed, and my joyous heart and buoyant mind
answered, no! Oh, heaven-born flame!—lit by angels, fanned into
existence by the Divine hand—what art thou—

    “Most sacred fyre, that burliest mightily
    In living brests, ykindled first above,
    Emongst th’ eternall spheres and lamping sky,
    And thence poured into men, which men call Love?”

In a state of the most delightful beatitude, I rambled about during the
day, my countenance irradiated with smiles, my heart bursting with the
kindest feelings of humanity. Unconsciously I wandered near the dwelling
of her I loved. I watched with eagerness for a glimpse of the fairy
form, the bright vision of my dreams. A graceful figure glided from the
door. That undulating, musical walk, those fairy-like feet, those
sparkling eyes, shining like diamonds beneath a sweeping veil—oh! it
could be no other—it was Virginia Melville! With intense, rapturous
interest, I gazed upon her till she vanished in the distant throng.
Then, indeed, I felt the bitterness of my lot. Days, mayhap weeks, were
to pass before I could again feast my eyes on her charms. If the interim
were to be a blank in my existence, I could bear it; but I felt that it
was to be a desert. And, indeed, a most sterile one it proved. When,
after a lapse of months, I look back upon the time, how slowly,
painfully it wore away, I cannot conceive how I endured all the misery I
suffered.

Once more I found myself in _her_ presence. Was it a dream? Did I really
behold her again? How very, very beautiful she looked! Her sparkling
eyes were full of mirth and intelligence, her lips were wreathed in the
most fascinating smiles; she seemed the beau-ideal of all that is
graceful, elegant and spiritual, and I felt—I keenly felt—how utterly
unworthy I was of one so purely angelic.

After the usual compliments of the evening, Mr. Desmond prevailed on
Virginia to try her skill on the piano. With the kindest smile
imaginable, she acceded to the request; and gliding gracefully into the
seat, she swept her fairy fingers over notes which had never been
touched by any more fair or delicate. A light, pretty air was the
subject of her muse. I listened with rapture to the flowing sounds,
persuaded that if I had heard more brilliant musicians perform, I had
never so thoroughly enjoyed the power of music. There was a soul,
combined with a precision of time and facility of execution, in Miss
Melville’s playing, that thrilled upon the finest chords of my heart,
like the evening zephyr on the strings of an Æolian harp.

That night I wended my way home, so completely enchanted as to act like
one in a delirium. I was overwhelmed with the most delightful
sensations. For hours I could not sleep, and when, at length, an
ecstatic trance stole over my senses, I had dreams so heavenly, so
joyous, so full of love and hope and happiness, that I fancied Paradise
had no joys to equal them—no angels so bright and beautiful as
Virginia. To describe my varied sensations for the next week would
require volumes—volumes which, when written, would breathe nothing but
passion, wild, fervent and confused.

Accompanied by my friend Desmond, I continued constantly to visit the
Miss Melvilles. In the presence of Virginia I now became silent. I could
not speak. My heart was too full. Words appeared weak and inexpressive;
and, with my eyes forever riveted on those charms that thrilled my soul,
the hours flew past—hours the most delightful that I had ever
spent—hours which will ever remain a bright, sunny spot in my past
career.

Nothing had yet transpired illustrative of the title I have chosen for
my autobiography. All went on to my satisfaction—though I had not the
slightest cause to imagine that my passion was reciprocated—and I
flattered myself with the belief that for once the course of true love
ran smooth. Vanity of vanities! When has the philosophy of the Bard been
in error?

If the reader will be kind enough to suppose that a few months have
elapsed since my introduction to the Miss Melvilles, I shall introduce
him to a social group, assembled at Mrs. Melville’s residence one fine
evening in the early part of summer.

First in order, both by reason of their beauty and accomplishments, were
the fair members of the circle, the two Miss Melvilles, Mrs. Annah,
their amiable and elegant sister, and Miss Azile, an intimate friend. As
a connection existed between the latter young lady and the Miss
Melvilles, which I may find it necessary to revert to on some future
occasion, I shall briefly sketch her portraiture.

Miss Azile was one of those persons who, once seen, are never forgotten.
Seldom did there exist a being more highly gifted in mind and person. In
her form and features there was symmetry, delicacy, elegance and
expression; in her mind, acuteness, power and refinement. Her eye was
one through which the rays of a lofty soul brilliantly beamed; her teeth
were chiselled Parian, enshrined in ruby; and her dimpled cheek and
glowing complexion were bowers for grace and love. She had a mind
characterized by unusual vigor. Her wit was genuine, and when she
indulged in satire, all felt the keenness of a weapon which, though
mercifully wielded, was, in her hands, sanguinary, irresistible.

The ungentle portion of the company comprised Mr. Martagon, Mr. Pratt,
Mr. Desmond and myself. As the two former have not been mentioned
before, I shall expend a few lines in their illustration.

Mr. Martagon was a gentleman who, having, during his days of juvenile
indiscretion, suffered his heart to be torn and pierced by various cruel
young ladies, was somewhat afflicted with the _cacöethes scribendi_—a
disease inseparable, I believe, from blighted affection. In person he
was large, rawboned—perhaps a little unwieldy; but these
characteristics were made up for by a countenance unusually
prepossessing. Mr. Martagon was withal a wag among the ladies, and his
wit was really quite pungent and original.

Mr. Pratt was of a different cast. Being closely related to the Miss
Melvilles, there was an obvious resemblance, in features and mind,
between him and those young ladies. A handsome person, a countenance
mild but decisive, and a highly intelligent mind, stored with much
useful knowledge, formed some of those recommendations which endeared
him to the one sex and caused him to be admired and esteemed by the
other.

Having now, assisted by the courtesy of the reader, delineated
imperfectly the chief objects of my little scene, I shall take a short
respite, leaving behind me the assurance that, in my second book, much
rare and amusing matter may be expected.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                               TO HELEN.


                            BY EDGAR A. POE.


    Helen, thy beauty is to me
      Like those Nicéan barks of yore
    That gently, o’er a perfumed sea,
      The weary, wayworn wanderer bore
      To his own native shore.

    On desperate seas long wont to roam,
      Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
    Thy Naiad airs, have brought me home
      To the glory that was Greece—
      To the grandeur that was Rome.

    Lo! in that shadowy window-niche
      How statue-like I see thee stand,
      The folded scroll within thy hand—
    Ah! Psyche, from the regions which
      Are Holy-Land!

                 *        *        *        *        *




                          NEVER BET YOUR HEAD.


                             A MORAL TALE.


                            BY EDGAR A. POE.


“_Con tal que las costumbres de un autor_,” says Don Tomas De Las
Torres, in the Preface to his Amatory Poems, “_sean puras y castas,
importo muy poco que no sean igualmente severas sus obras_”—meaning, in
plain English, that, provided the morals of an author are pure,
personally, it signifies nothing what are the morals of his books. We
presume that Don Torres is now in Purgatory for so heterodox an
assertion. It would be a clever thing, too, in the way of poetical
justice, to keep him there until his “Amatory Poems” get out of print,
or are laid definitively upon the shelf through lack of readers. Every
fiction _should have_ its moral; and, what is more to the purpose, our
modern critics have discovered that every fiction _has_. These ingenious
fellows demonstrate a hidden meaning in the “Antediluvians,” a parable
in “Powhatan,” new views in “Cock Robin,” and transcendentalism in “Hop
O’ My Thumb.” It has been proved that no man can sit down to write
without a very profound design. Thus to authors in general much trouble
is spared. A novelist, for example, need have no care of his moral. It
is there—that is to say it is somewhere—and the moral and the critics
can take care of themselves. When the proper time arrives, all that the
gentleman intended, and all that he did not intend, will be brought to
light, in the “Dial,” or the “Down-Easter,” together with all that he
ought to have intended, and the rest that he clearly meant to
intend:—so that it will all come very straight in the end.

There is no just ground, therefore, for the charge brought against me by
certain ignoramuses—that I have never written a moral tale, or, in more
precise words, a tale with a moral. They are not the critics predestined
to bring me out, and _develop_ my morals:—that is the secret. By and
bye the “North American Quarterly Humdrum” will make them ashamed of
their stupidity. In the meantime, by way of staying execution, by way of
mitigating the accusations against me, I offer the sad history
appended—a history about whose obvious moral there can be no question
whatever, since he who runs may read it in the large capitals which form
the title of the tale. I should have credit for this arrangement—a far
wiser one than that of La Fontaine and others, who reserve the
impression to be conveyed until the last moment, and thus sneak it in at
the fag end of their fables.

_De mortuis nil nisi bonum_ is an excellent injunction—even if the dead
in question be nothing but dead small beer. It is not my design,
therefore, to vituperate my deceased friend, Toby Dammit. He was a sad
dog, it is true, and a dog’s death it was that he died; but he himself
was not to blame for his vices. They grew out of a personal defect in
his mother. She did her best in the way of flogging him while an
infant—for duties to her well-regulated mind were always pleasures, and
babies, like tough steaks, are invariably the better for beating—but,
poor woman! she had the misfortune to be left-handed, and a child
flogged left-handedly had better be left unflogged. The world revolves
from right to left. It will not do to whip a baby from left to right. If
each blow in the proper direction drives an evil propensity out, it
follows that every thump in an opposite one knocks its quota of
wickedness in. I was often present at Toby’s chastisements, and, even by
the way in which he kicked, I could perceive he was getting worse and
worse every day. At last I saw, through the tears in my eyes, that there
was no hope of the villain at all, and one day when he had been cuffed
until he grew so black in the face that one might have mistaken him for
a little African, and no effect had been produced beyond that of making
him wriggle himself into a fit, I could stand it no longer, but went
down upon my knees forthwith, and, uplifting my voice, made prophecy of
his ruin.

The fact is that his precocity in vice was awful. At five months of age
he used to get into such passions that he was unable to articulate. At
six I caught him gnawing a pack of cards. At seven he was in the
constant habit of catching and kissing the female babies. At eight he
peremptorily refused to put his signature to the Temperance pledge. Thus
he went on increasing in iniquity, month after month, until, at the
close of his first year, he not only insisted upon wearing Melnotte
frocks, but had contracted a propensity for cursing and swearing, and
for backing his assertions by bets.

Through this latter most ungentlemanly practice, the ruin which I had
predicted to Toby Dammit overtook him at last. The fashion had “grown
with his growth and strengthened with his strength,” so that when he
came to be a man he could scarcely utter a sentence without interlarding
it with a proposition to gamble. Not that he actually _laid_ wagers—no.
I will do my friend the justice to say that he would as soon have laid
eggs. With him the thing was a mere formula—nothing more. His
expressions on this head had no meaning attached to them whatever. They
were simple, if not altogether innocent expletives—imaginative phrases
wherewith to round off a sentence. When he said “I’ll bet you so and
so,” nobody ever thought of taking him up; but still I could not help
thinking it my duty to put him down. The habit was an immoral one, and
so I told him. It was a vulgar one—this I begged him to believe. It was
discountenanced by society—here I said nothing but the truth. It was
forbidden by act of Congress—here I had not the slightest intention of
telling a lie. I remonstrated—but to no purpose. I demonstrated—but in
vain. I entreated—he smiled. I implored—he laughed. I preached—he
sneered. I threatened—he swore. I kicked him, and he called for the
police. I pulled his nose, and he bet me that I dared not do it again.

Poverty was another vice which the peculiar physical deficiency of
Dammit’s mother had entailed upon her son. He was detestably poor; and
this was the reason, no doubt, that his expletive expressions about
betting seldom took a pecuniary turn. I will not be bound to say that I
ever heard him make use of such figures of speech as “I’ll bet you a
dollar.” It was usually “I’ll bet you what you please,” or “I’ll bet you
what you dare,” or “I’ll bet you a trifle,” or else, more significantly
still, “_I’ll bet you my head_.”

This latter form seemed to please him the best:—perhaps because it
involved less risk; for Dammit had become excessively parsimonious. Had
any one taken him up, his head was small, and thus his loss would be
small too. But these are my own reflections, and I am by no means sure
that I am right in attributing them to him. At all events, the phrase in
question grew daily in favor, notwithstanding the gross impropriety of a
man’s betting his brains like bank-notes:—but this was a point which my
friend’s perversity of disposition would not permit him to comprehend.
In the end, he abandoned all other forms of wager, and gave himself up
to “_I’ll bet you my head_,” with a pertinacity and exclusiveness of
devotion that displeased not less than it surprised me. I am always
displeased by circumstances for which I cannot account. Mysteries force
a man to think, and so injure his health. The truth is, there was
something in _the air_ with which Mr. Dammit was wont to give utterance
to his offensive expression—something in his _manner_ of
enunciation—which at first interested, and afterwards made me very
uneasy—something which, for want of a more definite term at present, I
must be permitted to call _queer_; but which Mr. Coleridge would have
called mystical, Mr. Kant pantheistical, Mr. Carlisle twistical, and Mr.
Emerson hyper-fizzitistical. I began not to like it at all. Mr. Dammit’s
soul was in a perilous state. I resolved to bring all my eloquence into
play to save it. I vowed to serve him as Saint Patrick, in the Irish
chronicle, is said to have served the snakes and toads when he “awakened
them to a sense of their situation.” I addressed myself to the task
forthwith. Once more I betook myself to remonstrance. Again I collected
my energies for a final attempt at expostulation.

When I had made an end of my lecture Mr. Dammit indulged himself in some
very equivocal behavior. For some moments he remained silent, merely
looking me inquisitively in the face. But presently he threw his head to
one side, and elevated his eyebrows to great extent. Then he spread out
the palms of his hands and shrugged up his shoulders. Then he winked
with the right eye. Then he repeated the operation with his left. Then
he shut them both up very tight, as if he was trying to crack nuts
between the lids. Then he opened them both so very wide that I became
seriously alarmed for the consequences. Then, applying his thumb to his
nose, he thought proper to make an indescribable movement with the rest
of his fingers. Finally, setting his arms a-kimbo, he condescended to
reply.

I can call to mind only the heads of his discourse. He would be obliged
to me if I would keep my opinions within my own bosom. He wished none of
my advice. He despised all my insinuations. He was old enough to take
care of himself. Did I mean to say anything against his character? Did I
intend to insult him? Did I take him for an idiot? Did I still think him
baby Dammit? Was I a fool?—or was I not? Was I mad?—or was I drunk?
Was my maternal parent aware, in a word, of my absence from the
domiciliary residence? He would put this latter question to me as to a
man of veracity, and he would bind himself to abide by my reply. Once
more he would demand explicitly if my mother knew that I was out. My
confusion, he said, betrayed me, and he would be willing to bet his head
that she did not.

Mr. Dammit did not pause for my rejoinder. Turning upon his heel, he
left my presence with undignified precipitation. It was well for him
that he did so. My feelings had been wounded. Even my anger had been
aroused. For once I would have taken him up upon his insulting wager. I
would have won his little head. My maternal parent was _very_ well aware
of my temporary absence from home.

_Khoda shefa midêhed_—Heaven gives relief—as the Musselmen say when
you tread upon their toes. It was in pursuance of my duty that I had
been insulted, and I bore the insult like a man. It now seemed to me,
however, that I had done all that could be required of me, in the case
of this miserable individual, and I resolved to trouble him no longer
with my counsel, but to leave him to his conscience and to himself. But
although I forbore to intrude with my advice, I could not bring myself
to give up his society altogether. I even went so far as to humor some
of his less reprehensible propensities, and there were times when I
found myself lauding his wicked jokes, as epicures do mustard, with
tears in my eyes:—so profoundly did it grieve me to hear his evil talk.

One fine day, having strolled out together arm in arm, our route led us
in the direction of a river. There was a bridge, and we resolved to
cross it. It was roofed over, by way of protection from the weather, and
the arch-way, having but few windows, was thus very uncomfortably dark.
As we entered the passage, the contrast between the external glare, and
the interior gloom, struck heavily upon my spirits. Not so upon those of
the unhappy Dammit, who offered to bet me his head that I was hipped. He
seemed to be in an extravagantly good humor. He was excessively
lively—so much so that I entertained I know not what of uneasy
suspicion. It is not impossible that he was affected with the
transcendentals. I am not well enough versed, however, in the diagnosis
of this disease to speak with decision upon the point; and unhappily
there were none of my friends of “The Dial” present. I suggest the idea,
nevertheless, because of a certain austere species of Merry-Andrewism
which seemed to beset my poor friend, and caused him to make quite a
Tom-Fool of himself. Nothing would serve him but wriggling and skipping
about under and over everything that came in his way, now shouting out,
and now lisping out, all manner of odd little and big words, yet
preserving the gravest face in the world all the time. I really could
not make up my mind whether to kick or to pity him. At length, having
passed nearly across the bridge, we approached the termination of the
foot-way, when our progress was impeded by a turnstile of some height.
Through this I made my way quietly, pushing it around as is usual. But
this turn would not serve the turn of Mr. Dammit. He insisted upon
leaping the stile, and said he could cut a pigeon-wing over it while in
the air. Now this, conscientiously speaking, I did not think he could
do. The best pigeon-winger over all kinds of style, was my friend Mr.
Carlyle, and as I knew he could not do it, I would not believe it could
be done by Toby Dammit. I therefore told him, in so many words, that he
was a braggadocio, and could not do what he said. For this I had reason
to be sorry afterwards—for he straightway _bet me his head_ that he
could.

I was about to reply, notwithstanding my previous resolutions, with some
remonstrance against his impiety, when I heard, close at my elbow, a
slight cough, which sounded very much like the ejaculation “_ahem!_” I
started, and looked about me in surprise. My glance at length fell into
a nook of the frame-work of the bridge, and upon the figure of a little
lame old gentleman of venerable aspect. Nothing could be more reverend
than his whole appearance; for, he not only had on a full suit of black,
but his shirt was perfectly clean and the collar turned neatly down over
a white cravat, while his hair was parted in front like a girl’s, his
hands were clasped pensively together over his stomach, and his two eyes
carefully rolled up into the top of his head.

Upon observing him more closely, I perceived that he wore a black silk
apron over his small-clothes; and this was a thing which I thought very
odd. Before I had time to make any remark, however, upon so singular a
circumstance, he interrupted me with a second “_ahem!_”

To this observation of his I was not immediately prepared to reply. The
fact is, remarks of this nature are nearly unanswerable. I have known a
profound Quarterly Review stumped by the word “_Fudge!_” I am not
ashamed to say that I turned to Mr. Dammit for assistance.

“Dammit,” said I, “what are you about! don’t you hear?—the gentleman
says ‘_ahem!_’” I looked sternly at my friend while I thus addressed
him; for, to say the truth, I felt particularly puzzled, and when a man
is puzzled, he must knit his brows and look savage, or else he is pretty
sure to look like a fool.

“Dammit,” observed I—although this sounded very much like an oath, than
which nothing was farther from my thoughts—“Dammit,” I suggested—“the
gentleman says ‘_ahem!_’” I do not attempt to defend my remark on the
score of profundity; I did not think it profound myself; but I have
noticed that the effect of our speeches is not always proportionate with
their importance in our own eyes; and if I had shot Mr. D. through and
through with a Paixhan bomb, or knocked him in the head with one of
Doctor McHenry’s epics, he could hardly have been more discomfited than
when I addressed him with those simple words—“Dammit, what are you
about?—don’t you hear?—the gentleman says ‘_ahem!_’”

“You don’t say so?” gasped he at length, after turning more colors than
a pirate runs up one after the other when chased by a man-of-war. “Are
you quite sure that he said _that_? Well, at all events I am in for it
now, and may as well put a bold face upon the matter. Here goes,
then—_ahem!_”

At this the little old gentleman seemed pleased—God only knows why. He
left his station in the nook of the bridge, limped forward with a
gracious air, took Dammit by the hand and shook it cordially, looking
all the while straight up in his face with a countenance of the most
unadulterated benignity which it is possible for the mind of man to
imagine.

“I am quite sure you’ll win it, Dammit,” said he with the frankest of
all smiles, “but we are obliged to have a trial, you know, for the sake
of mere form.”

“Ahem!” replied my friend, taking off his coat with a deep sigh, tying a
pocket-handkerchief around his waist, and producing an unaccountable
alteration in his countenance by twisting up his eyes, and bringing down
the corners of his mouth—“ahem!” And “ahem,” said he again, after a
pause; and devil the word more than “ahem!” did I ever know him to say
after that. “Aha!” thought I, without expressing myself aloud—“This is
quite a remarkable silence on the part of my friend, Toby Dammit, and is
no doubt a consequence of his great verbosity upon a previous occasion.
One extreme induces another. I wonder if he has forgotten the many
unanswerable questions which he propounded to me so fluently on the day
when I gave him my last lecture? At all events he is cured of the
transcendentals.”

“Ahem!” here replied Toby, just as if he had been reading my thoughts,
and looking like a very old sheep in a reverie.

The old gentleman now took him by the arm, and led him more into the
shade of the bridge—a few paces back from the turnstile. “My good
fellow,” said he, “I make it a point of conscience to allow you this
much run. Wait here till I take my place by the stile, so that I may see
whether you go over it handsomely, and transcendentally, and don’t omit
any flourishes of the pigeon-wing. A mere form, you know. I will say
‘one, two, three, and away.’ Mind you start at the word ‘away.’” Here he
took his position by the stile, paused a moment as if in profound
reflection, then looked down, then _looked up_, and, I thought, smiled
very slightly, then tightened the strings of his apron, then took a long
look at Dammit, then put his fore-finger to the side of his nose, and
finally gave the word as agreed upon—

                       _One—two—three—and away!_

Punctually, at the word “away,” my poor friend set off in a strong
gallop. The style was not very high, like Mr. Pue’s—nor yet to say very
low like that of Mr. Pue’s reviewers, but upon the whole I made sure
that he would clear it. And then what if he did not?—ah, that was the
question—what if he did not? “What right,” said I, “had the old
gentleman to make any other gentleman jump? The little old
dot-and-carry-one! who is _he_? If he asks me to jump, I won’t do it,
that’s flat, and I don’t care who _the devil he is_.” The bridge, as I
say, was arched and covered in, in a very ridiculous manner, and there
was a most uncomfortable echo about it at all times—an echo which I
never before so particularly observed as when I uttered the four last
words of my remark.

But what I said, or what I thought, or what I heard, occupied only an
instant of time. In less than five seconds from his starting my poor
Toby had taken the leap. I saw him run nimbly, and spring grandly from
the floor of the bridge, cutting the most awful flourishes with his legs
as he went up. I saw him high in the air, pigeon-winging it to
admiration just over the top of the stile; and of course I thought it an
unusually singular thing that he did not _continue_ to go over. But the
whole leap was the affair of a moment, as they always say in the crack
historical novels, and before I had a chance to make any profound
reflections, down came Mr. Dammit on the flat of his back on the same
side of the stile from which he had started. In the same instant I saw
the old gentleman limping off at the top of his speed, having caught and
wrapped up in his apron something that fell heavily into it from the
darkness of the arch just over the turnstile. At all this I was much
astonished; but I had no leisure to think, for Mr. Dammit lay
particularly still, and I concluded that his feelings had been hurt, and
that he stood in need of my assistance. I hurried up to him and found
that he had received what might be termed a serious injury. The truth
is, he had been deprived of his head, which after a close search I could
not find anywhere—so I determined to take him home, and send for the
homœopathics. In the meantime a thought struck me, and I threw open an
adjacent window of the bridge, when the sad truth flashed upon me at
once. About five feet just above the top of the turnstile, and crossing
the arch of the foot-path so as to constitute a brace, there extended a
flat and sharp iron bar, lying with its breadth horizontally, and
forming one of a series that served to strengthen the structure
throughout its extent. With the edge of this brace it appeared evident
that the neck of my unfortunate friend had come precisely in contact.

He did not long survive his terrible loss. The homœopathics did not give
him little enough physic, and what little they did give him he hesitated
to take. So in the end he grew worse, and at length died, a lesson to
all riotous livers. I bedewed his grave with my tears, worked a _bar_
sinister on his family escutcheon, and for the general expenses of his
funeral, sent in my very moderate bill to the transcendentalists. The
scoundrels refused to pay it, so I had Mr. Dammit dug up at once, and
sold him for dog’s meat.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                        THE FIRST KISS OF LOVE.


                           BY G. A. RAYBOLD.


    The first kiss of love, when the favor is won,
    Fills the heart with pure bliss, if ’tis modestly done,
    For ’tis like a brief glance from the sun’s clouded eye
    Which just touches the earth and flies back to the sky.

    Ah! the bliss of that moment; ’twill ever remain,
    While my heart in its depths can feel pleasure or pain;
    For that kiss, to my heart was like rain to the flower,
    Just ready to die, till refresh’d by a shower.

    The soft touch of _her_ hand, the bright glance of her eye;
    The whisper’d word spoken, the half suppress’d sigh,
    May be proofs of true love, but the _kiss_ is the token,
    And pledge of a faith which may _never_ be broken.

    How fondly does memory dwell on it yet!
    The scene and the hour, who can ever forget,
    When reclin’d on your bosom, sustained in your arms,
    You breathed out the heart long subdued by her charms?

    Her _kiss_ was the answer; so slight yet so sweet,
    ’Twas enough; and that moment your bliss was complete;
    From the lips to each heart went a holier thrill,
    Delighting and binding those hearts closer still.

    That first kiss of love, when no mortal was near,
    Was a _sign_ that dispersed the last vestige of fear;
    She is mine, she is mine; mine now and forever;
    By those holiest ties that death only can sever.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                  LAME FOR LIFE, OR LESLIE PIERPOINT.


                         A TALE, IN TWO PARTS.


BY PROFESSOR J. H. INGRAHAM, AUTHOR OF “LAFITTE,” “KYD,” “THE QUADROONE,”
                                  ETC.


              “Is health returnless? Never more may I
                Throw by the staff on which, alas! I lean?
              Is the woof woven of my destiny?
                Shall I be ne’er again what I have been?
              And must the bodily anguish be combined
              With the intenseness of the anxious mind?”
                                             F. W. Thomas.

If the reader will take the trouble to look in the revised edition of
the Philadelphia Directory for the year 1838, he will find recorded the
name of

    “Leslie Pierpoint, Gent. House No. 2-7 South Sixth St.”

At the period of which we write this was the residence of this
distinguished party to our story, and still would have been but for the
simple incident that has led us to write it.

It was on a cold, bleak evening, late in the autumn of that year, that
Major Pierpoint (for he had once borne a commission in the National
Guards—so he loved proudly to designate the militia) was seated before
his cheerful grate, with the crimson curtains warmly drawn over the
closed shutters. The room was partly library and partly sitting room.
Rich cases filled with costly volumes adorned two of its sides, while
lounges and one or two luxurious patent easy-chairs occupied the other.
The floor was covered with a thick Wilton carpet that returned no sound
to the foot-fall, and a hearth rug of Turkish fabric lay before the fire
in the rich fleece of which the slippered feet of Mr. Leslie Pierpoint
were half buried. The whole apartment wore an air of comfort and elegant
ease, combined with that cheerful warmth and inviting repose which are
so delightful of a wintery night. There was a large round table near the
centre of the room, strewed with books, magazines, pamphlets, opened
letters, &c., &c. In the midst of it stood a tall bronzed lamp that shed
a soft, clear light over all. The table turned upon a pivot so that Mr.
Pierpoint, without moving from the comfortable arm-chair in which he was
reposing, wrapped in his brilliant Chinese _robe de chambre_ (a present
from his particular friend, Mr. Dunn), could revolve it by the slightest
touch and bring within his reach any book or paper lying on the side
opposite to his chair. Mr. Pierpoint was a wealthy bachelor, and,
therefore, was an epicure in luxuries of this description. Bachelors,
having nothing else to do but to make themselves comfortable, can carry
these little personal conveniences to their perfection. Having said that
Mr. Leslie Pierpoint was a bachelor, it becomes us to explain how he
came to be a bachelor. He possessed a handsome person and an ample
fortune—was not only well born, but a gentleman by education and
cultivated tastes—and even at this period of his life, when forty-one
years had passed over his head, a child might have numbered the gray
hairs mingled with the fine brown locks that shaded his noble forehead.
Why, then, was Leslie Pierpoint a bachelor? Let us go back twenty-years,
and inquire of by-gone days.

It is the year 1808. One of the most stately mansions in Third street,
then one of the most aristocratic portions of Philadelphia, is
brilliantly lighted. Its gorgeous rooms are thronged by the beauty and
chivalry of the city. We mingle with them also, dazzled by the flash of
jewelled brows, bewildered by the beauty of the wearers, confounded by
the music and moving forms, entranced, intoxicated by the whole scene of
enchantment! Let us retire a little to the silence and shade of this
verandah, where the moon finds its way to the marble floor through
trellised vines, and where the music and the sound of dancers’ feet
reach but faintly the ear. There are others here besides us who have
quitted the gay scene to seek refreshment of spirits in the quiet night
breeze and in the calm light of the moon. Hither approach us, leaning on
each other, arm fondly linked in arm, a noble pair. How stately _his_
carriage, yet how tenderly he bends till his lips breathe upon the cheek
of the fair creature he whispers to! They pause in the shadow of the
thick vines! Her eyes meet his upturned and swimming with
tenderness,—his arm glides around her waist—she is pressed to his
manly breast, and their lips meet! It is but for an instant—a footstep
is heard! and they move on again arm in arm. His lips bend over her
willing ear as they slowly promenade the verandah. She suddenly starts,
and with her face receding a little from his, says, in an earnest
manner:

“Indeed, Leslie, you wrong me. Nothing could change my love for you!”

“But, yet, there are circumstances which _might_ transpire, and which
might lead you to withdraw your affection, dear Clara.”

“No, no! nothing on earth. I feel I shall love you while I have a heart
to love. Dear, _dearest_ Leslie, how can you doubt me?”

“I do not doubt you, dear Clara,” he said laughing and lifting her hand
to his lips. “God knows,” he earnestly added, “I should be miserable to
doubt where all my hopes of happiness are centered.”

“Indeed, you should not—you ought not! What should I gain, Leslie, by
transferring my love to another? Certainly not a nobler person, a finer
face, a better fortune (if I may name this), a kindlier heart, or better
temper. Believe me, dear Leslie, when I say you are the handsomest man I
ever beheld, so that no higher degree of personal beauty could lead me
from you!”

“You are a silly flatterer, child, and I half believe, fell in love with
me because you thought me the ‘handsomest man you ever beheld!’”

“Now you are mocking me, Leslie. But I will confess that the first time
I saw you promenading the ball rooms at the —— Assemblies with Miss
P—— on your arm, I was struck with your stately and elegant walk. I
had not seen your face, but followed you with my eye till you turned
and, and—”

“Met your gaze full fixed upon mine! That was not the first time _you_
had attracted my attention that evening, Clara. I had observed you on my
first entrance, and my heart from that instant became yours.”

Leslie Pierpoint pressed her to his heart as he spoke.

“It shall ever be yours, dearest Leslie,” was the softly whispered
response of the blushing girl; “nothing would turn my love from you.”

“Thank you for the pledge, dearest—I believe you. Come let us return
into the rooms—our absence will be remarked.”

After Leslie had plucked a “Forget me not” and placed it in her hair,
the lovers slowly returned from the verandah.

                 *        *        *        *        *

A few weeks passed, and Leslie Pierpoint had prevailed on the blushing
Clara to name the day when she would redeem her pledge given in the
verandah, and become wholly and irrevocably his own. It was now at hand,
and Leslie counted the hours which envious Time thrust between him and
his anticipated bliss. Leslie loved the chosen bride of his bosom with
the most impassioned ardor. His whole heart was involved in his
affection, and he had so given himself up to his passion that any
revulsion promised to make him miserable. The beautiful Clara Clayton,
on her part, was deeply enamored of Leslie, but it was rather with his
handsome person than with his mind; for of his fortune she thought
little, being equally wealthy. She was a gay, haughty, spoiled beauty,
with not half heart enough to measure Leslie’s broad love, nor half mind
enough to penetrate the superior powers of his intellect. But if they
married, they were both likely to be happy so long as one retained her
loveliness and the bewitching smile and flashing dark eyes that had
captured Leslie, and the other the elegant form, air and gait which had
first inspired Clara with an interest in him.

The week preceding his wedding day Leslie was commissioned a Major of
Militia, and the following day he turned out for review with the
battalion to which his regiment was attached. He had purchased a high
spirited horse for this occasion, and had but twice mounted him previous
to his appearance on parade; and though the animal evinced an
indomitable spirit, and had once proven nearly unmanageable, yet these
traits were regarded by the youthful officer rather as recommendations
for the military service for which he destined him than as serious
objections. He was, moreover, a finished horseman and well knew he could
so control the fiery animal’s impatient action as to render it
subservient to a more masterly display of his own horsemanship.

On the day of parade, therefore, Leslie Pierpoint made his appearance on
the field, the best mounted officer in the battalion. His steed, as he
pranced along, seemed to beat the air rather than the earth, so lightly
he moved over the ground, so daintily he bent his slight yielding
fetlocks to his rider’s weight.

“Ah, Major, a beautiful creature you have there,” said General ——,
whose aide-de-camp Leslie was that day; “you outshine us all. What an
eye! Will he stand fire?”

“I have not tried him, General. But a horse of his blood has no fear in
him. He can never be taken by surprise.”

“Do not trust him! See!” and the General suddenly flashed his sword
before his eyes.

The animal moved not from the statue-like attitude in which Leslie had
reined him up beside the General.

“Very well. He may do; but I advise you, Major Leslie, to be upon your
guard during the day, I don’t much like the beast’s eye. It looks
devilish.”

“I have no fears, General; let him do his worst,” answered Leslie
laughing, and in a moment afterwards he galloped along the line to
execute an order.

During the parade the beautiful steed behaved admirably, and elicited,
by the grace and swiftness of his movements, the universal admiration of
every eye. At length the firing by platoon commenced. At the first
discharge, he leaped bodily into the air with his rider and lit upon the
ground twenty feet distant; and Leslie’s superior horsemanship only
saved him from being thrown to the earth. He now sat more firmly and
watched him with hand and eye. But the successive discharges of
musketry, even by companies, had no further effect upon the animal, save
that there was a wider dilation of the pupil of the eye and a quick
erect movement of his delicately shaped ears. This favorable change not
only put Leslie off his guard but made him so self confident that he
resolved to ride up to a park of artillery about to be discharged, gaily
betting with General ——, as he triumphantly rode past this officer,
that he would not flinch even at that.

“_Nous verrons_, Leslie,” said the General smiling. “Do not be too
confident.”

With the reckless impetuosity of youth, and desirous of defending the
character of his favorite horse from his military friend’s aspersions,
Leslie spurred onward to the point. He drew up in the rear, within a few
paces of the ordnance, and awaited the signal for their discharge. There
were eight pieces of cannon and they were to be fired in rapid
succession. At the first loud, sharp report, the animal sprung, with a
mad leap, directly among the echoing artillery. Maddened by the
reiterated peals, he dashed, with the most terrific bounds, across the
line of fire and within a few feet of the muzzles of the pieces. At the
discharge of the last piece he became so terrified that he threw himself
headlong upon the earth and bit and pawed the ground with fury. Major
Leslie, who had maintained his seat with perfect skill and coolness,
fell beneath him and received his whole weight upon one of his legs and
his left side. Instantly the animal ceased his struggles, and when those
who hastened to Major Leslie’s assistance arrived on the spot, they
discovered that the horse had broken a blood vessel and was fast
bleeding to death. Leslie himself, though silent, was pale from
suffering.

On extricating him, it was painfully apparent that his leg was not only
broken but that his knee was crushed. He was immediately removed to his
mother’s residence and the most distinguished surgical skill called in
to his relief. But for many days he lay upon a bed of anguish during
which, Clara, joyfully embracing the sweet privileges of a betrothed
bride, watched over him like some angelic messenger of health and peace.
At length he was able to change his recumbent posture for an easy-chair;
but it was many weeks before he left it to attempt to walk about the
chamber. The first time he did so it was with Dr. M—— on one side and
Clara on the other. It was a painful effort, but two or three turns
about the room were accomplished with less difficulty than had been
apprehended. He walked very, very lame it is true, but that was to be
expected.

“He will soon get to his feet again as well as ever, won’t he, Doctor?”
asked Clara, partly to assure her own anxiety and partly to relieve the
foreboding of poor Leslie, who, by the expression of his face, she saw,
believed he should be lame for life.

Dr. M—— looked at Leslie, shook his head sadly and said,

“He will no doubt walk well enough in a few weeks, Miss Clayton. But
then that won’t make much difference,” he added, smiling, “since he has
no more conquests to make. If you should be lame, Major, you must regard
it a fortunate thing to have secured so fair a bride while possessing
all your natural attractions of person.”

“My God, Doctor! you talk as if you thought there was some possibility
that I might be lame for life. Do tell me if this lameness I now have
proceeds from physical weakness or from imperfection in the limb?”

“It is cruel to deceive you, my dear Major, though painful to tell the
truth,” answered Dr. M——, after a pause that did honor to his heart;
“your leg was broken in several places, producing an exceedingly
difficult compound fracture. It is improbable though not impossible that
the parts should ever perfectly re-unite. I fear, therefore, you must
bring both religion and philosophy to your aid, and try to endure it
cheerfully. This fair being who has so assiduously nursed by your pillow
will help you to bear it.”

Leslie did not look up in the Doctor’s face while he spoke. His head had
fallen upon the arm of his chair, and there, with his face buried in his
hands, he lay still several minutes after he had ceased to speak. His
chest heaved with suppressed emotion, some deep o’er-mastering feeling.
At length he groaned heavily and looked up with a faint attempt to
smile.

“This is a hard lot, Doctor, but I must attempt to bear it as well as I
can. I am not unprepared for this announcement. I have apprehended it
myself from the severe character of the injury I received.”

“You will not find it difficult, Major Leslie,” said the physician, with
sympathy in his tone, “to endure even lameness. Your mind, by several
weeks’ previous illness, is prepared to submit to still greater
suffering if necessary. In illness we bear things, and take things we
could not do in health. Nature prepares the body and Heaven the mind for
all it meets with on earth. Even death is met quietly and calmly by the
invalid exhausted by a lingering illness. The idea of lameness if
presented to you in full health would have shocked you. I dare say you
would have unhesitatingly said you preferred death to it.”

“I should have said so and thought so,” answered Leslie, earnestly.

“But you do not now. On the contrary, you have just expressed a cheerful
submission to your fate. The same spirit will enable you to endure it
with equanimity. Good morning! I will call in and see you once a day
till you can ride out.”

The kind medical adviser then took his leave, and for a few moments
after his departure the lovers remained silent. At length Leslie looked
up to seek Clara’s face with a smile as if to tell her that he had
schooled his spirit to submission, with a smile as if to assure her that
so long as he was blessed with her love he cared not for any misfortune
that Providence should see fit, in its infinite wisdom, to send. But
Clara saw not the smile nor the beautiful submission expressed on his
pale features. Her face was buried in her hands and turned away from
him, while the heaving of her form and the sobs that broke from her
surcharged heart told how deeply Leslie’s misfortune sunk into it. He
was touched by her violent grief, and would have risen to approach her,
but was unable to move.

“Clara,” he said, in a low, soothing tone. She made no reply but
continued to be wholly absorbed in her affliction.

“Dearest Clara,” he again repeated still more tenderly, “come hither,
and do not give way to grief in this manner. I care not for it; so, if
these tears are shed for me, dry them and come sit by me. I assure you,
that I would prefer lameness with your love to fulness and perfection of
limb without it. Come and sit by me and let us converse calmly upon this
subject. It will tranquilize both our minds and give us strength and
patience to bear, as we should do, an ill seemingly so grievous. In the
end it may prove a blessing. _You_ ought not to mourn, for it will
ensure to you, as my wife, all my society. I can name two or three
brides,” he added, playfully, “that would thank Heaven for any accident
that would break their husbands’ legs so that it would confine them at
home with them. Come, Clara, cheer up!”

To this address from Leslie the lady made no reply save by increased
weeping; and his mother entering the chamber at the moment, she embraced
the opportunity to excuse herself and hurried from the room without
taking her kerchief from her face, or even giving her lover look or
reply.

“Poor Clara,” he sighed looking after her, “she feels this affliction
most deeply. For myself I could endure it. Books, friends, and, above
all, Clara’s dear society will make the time pass cheerfully. She will
yet be resigned to it. How strong must be that love which shows itself
by such profound and unextinguishable sorrow! Ah, mother! have you seen
the Doctor?”

“Yes, dear Leslie,” she answered with emotion.

“And he has told you I shall be lame for life?”

“Alas, my dear child, alas! may Heaven give you strength and patience to
bear this affliction!”

“It has, dear mother. I am perfectly resigned,” he answered calmly.

“God bless you—God be blessed!” and the mother wept in gratitude upon
her son’s neck.

There was a few moments’ silence which the invalid at length broke.

“I could bear this affliction, dearest mother, without a murmur if I
stood alone. But, dear Clara! She weeps as if her heart was breaking. I
fear it will be the death of her—she feels so much for me. I wish you
could convince her that I care nothing about it if she will not.”

Mrs. Pierpoint did not reply but shook her head gravely and sighed very
heavily.

“What means that sigh, mother?” asked Leslie with surprise and a
misgiving of he knew not what.

“Nothing, son. But I fear Clara’s tears are devoted rather to the shrine
of her own vanity than shed upon the altar of her love.”

“How mean you, mother?” demanded Leslie, with heightened color.

“Clara Clayton, dear boy, loves herself more than she loves any body
else. I have known Clara from a child. I should never have chosen her as
your wife; but you loved her and there was no alternative but
acquiescence. Though I approved not, I spoke not, knowing how vain a
parent’s words are with children in affairs of the heart. Clara is proud
that she has captivated the handsomest young man in the town whom all
the young ladies were sighing for; but she loves you not, Leslie, as a
true woman should love.”

“My dear mother, how you wrong the angelic girl! Has she not watched
over my sick bed like a sister, yea, like a beloved and loving wife? Has
she not sympathized in all my afflictions? Did she not just now quit the
chamber overcome by the intensity of her grief? You wrong her, dear
mother, indeed you wrong her!”

“I hope I do. Time will determine, my son.”

“But why this suspicion? What has Clara done?”

“Nothing. I judge from my knowledge of her character.”

“Then you do not know her, and have built your judgment upon a false
foundation. Clara is every thing I wish her to be. Send for her, mother;
I would see her. I will convince you that you are in error respecting
her. But should you be right, _I_ love _her_ and after we are married,
as I mean to be in a few weeks, we shall live very happy together, and
in time I shall teach her to love _me_ better than she loves _herself_.”

Mrs. Pierpoint made no answer and left the room to seek the fair subject
of their conversation. In a few seconds she returned with a grave look
and said that, leaving word with the footman to say to Mr. Leslie that
she did not feel well, Miss Clayton had ordered the carriage and driven
home.

“Poor Clara,” said Leslie with sympathy; “she is herself sick and needs
quiet and repose. The painful announcement of this morning has shocked
her nerves. Mother, why do you look so grave and sad—so incredulous?”

“I hope Miss Clayton had no other motive in so suddenly departing than
indisposition. But, my dear Leslie, I hope she will prove herself all
you hope and desire.”

“Of that I am sure, dear mother,” he answered warmly. “I only grieve
that you should have conceived a prejudice against one who is so soon to
become my wife and your daughter.”

“Let us speak no more upon this subject now, Leslie. You need repose.”

Mrs. Pierpoint then drew the curtains and darkened the room. The invalid
threw himself back in his easy-chair and soon, yielding to the soothing
influence of the soft twilight in his chamber, sunk into a refreshing
sleep.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Clara Clayton sprung from the carriage as it drew up at her own door,
and, without entering the parlor, hurriedly ascended to her own chamber.
Closing the door, she turned the key in the lock, and then with a hand
each firmly holding a string of her unloosed hair, and her mantle awry,
she paced the room several minutes with a quick, nervous tread. Her brow
was set and her face much flushed, and the expression it wore was grief
mingled with mortified pride. Yes, Clara Clayton’s pride was humbled.
She had loved Leslie Pierpoint for his personal beauty—the elegance of
his figure, his high-bred air and carriage, his manly tread and
distinguished appearance in the street. These first captivated her
fancy, and when at length chance threw them together, his admiration of
her, combined with the excellent qualities of his head and heart,
inspired her with love—love such as so selfish a person was capable of
feeling. She also felt flattered in the attentions of the handsomest man
of the day; and it was with the triumphant reflection of how envious
some score of her female rivals would feel that she surrendered her
heart (as much as she had, at least,) to the blinded Leslie. So their
ill-fared love went on, he loving her with the devotion of idolatry, she
loving herself with no whit less self-adoration. The handsome Leslie
administered to her vanity! It might all have gone on very well,
however, even to matrimony, as thousands of other similar attachments
have done, _similar_ save that the cases are more frequently reversed,
and the lover is, instead, the one whose vanity is administered to by
the beauty of the lady! But the untoward accident that befel Leslie
removed the veil! and often has he blessed his stars for it. A broken
leg is, doubtless, a much less affair than a broken manly heart!

Clara Clayton continued to pace her room in vexed and troubled thought.
From what has been said above, the reader will readily divine its
complexion! Suddenly she stopped and clenched her jewelled fingers
together and wrung them with a look of pitiable and painful despair.

“Oh, God! lame for life! A _cripple_! Miserable! miserable that I am!
How can I love him now? How can I marry a cripple? Walk Chesnut Street
leaning on a lame husband’s arm—or, no—worse still, perhaps, he
leaning on mine! Think of this morning as he walked the room! I never
saw any body go lamer! It is absolutely shocking! Then how can I dance
as he cannot! He will never give nor go to parties! A lame husband! The
idea is absolutely horrid!”

With this praiseworthy and very sensible utterance of her peculiar
feelings on the subject, Miss Clara Clayton threw her bonnet upon the
bed, her shawl upon the floor and herself into a chair. For a few
seconds she remained silent; at length her thoughts found their proper
language.

“Yes, it must be! I will address him a note this very morning, stating
plainly my reasons why I wish to withdraw from my engagement with him!
He is too generous to refuse me! He will see at once how it would break
a high-spirited woman full of youth and beauty to be tied down for life
to a sofa and arm-chair—a mere machine to hand him his crutches and
night-cap! He is too generous to wish it! I do wish he had not met with
this awkward accident. I don’t think I could have found a better husband
than poor Leslie! But then it is no use to dwell on this now. I cannot
think of marrying him after what has happened, and he can’t expect—no
one can expect it. I am decided. I will write to him frankly and request
him to release me from my engagement.”

With this determination, this sweet young lady sat herself down to her
escritoire to write poor Leslie’s sentence of death—death to confidence
in woman! She bent her graceful head over the gilt-edged note paper, and
nibbled her pen several seconds. At length she began to write:—

             “_Thursday morning, 11 o’clock._
                “_No. 2— Chesnut Street._

    “To Major Leslie Pierpoint:—
       “Sir:——”

Here she paused and blushed with something like shame.

“No, this is too cold. I will not offend him.” And she then took a fair
sheet and wrote as follows:

    “To Leslie Pierpoint, Esq.:—
       “Dear Sir:——”

This address did not suit her. After a few moments’ deliberation she
laid a fresh sheet before her and thus commenced, in a free, decided
way, as if she had fully determined on the mode in which she should
communicate her resolutions to him:—

      “Dear Leslie:

    “You must have been surprised, doubtless, at my sudden departure
    this morning without seeing you. To speak frankly and deal truly
    with you, Dr. M——’s shocking communication, being so wholly
    unexpected and unprepared for, nearly deprived me of my senses.
    You are a witness how I was overwhelmed at the horrid
    announcement! Unable to endure the shock, I hastened home
    without again seeing you. Since I have been in my own chamber I
    have been reflecting upon this fearful destiny in store for you.
    Believe me, Leslie, that I would willingly share it with you if
    you wished it; but I feel that you are too generous, too noble
    to desire to involve in your own misery the happiness of any one
    over whose fate previous circumstances may have given you the
    right to exercise a certain kind of control! Your own knowledge
    of the world, of society, will teach you that your recent
    unhappy misfortune has placed our relation to each other in a
    new light. My happiness now hangs upon your decision. If you are
    _really_ desirous of urging the ultimate issue of our betrothal,
    and are willing for your own selfish ends to wreck the happiness
    of one so young as I am, I must _submit_; but if, as I feel you
    will be, you are, on the other hand, influenced by those high
    and generous feelings that distinguish you above all men, and
    will freely release me from a union which it will henceforward
    be a species of bondage for me to endure, you will relieve my
    mind from a painful weight of anxiety and suspense and forever
    secure the _friendship_ of

                                               Yours, sincerely,
                                                   Clara Clayton.”

The young lady read the letter over carefully once, sealed, directed,
and despatched it without giving herself time for thought. The street
door closed upon the footman who bore it.

“It is gone! Leslie! alas, poor Leslie! alas, that Fortune should have
driven me to this step! But there was no alternative. No time for delay.
If I had still visited him I should have been a hypocrite, and my
prolonged absence would have required an explanation. It was necessary
that I should write as I have. How will Leslie receive it?”

While she is fancying how the invalid received it, let us, dear reader,
really know how he received it.

He had slept not quite an hour when his sleep was disturbed by the
ringing of the street-door bell. Opening his eyes he looked round the
chamber and called in a faint gentle voice—

“Clara!”

There was no reply and after waiting an instant he roused himself: “Ah,
yes, I had forgotten! She has returned home. Poor girl! I sympathise
with her in her overwhelming sympathy for me. So I am to be lame for
life! ’Tis a sad, a heavy misfortune! Ah, mother, I am glad you have
come in. Please draw aside the curtains and let in the light. It is so
gloomy. I have slept well and feel refreshed. Have you heard from
Clara?”

“Her footman has just left this note for you, Leslie,” said Mrs.
Pierpoint, putting aside the curtains.

“Give it me, mother.”

Leslie hastily broke the seal, opened it, and ere he began to read
pressed his lips to her name at the close. Have the kindness to turn
back and re-read the letter, dear reader, with him, that you may enter
into Leslie’s feelings as he perused it. He read to its close without
betraying the least emotion in his expressive face. But when he had come
to the end he slowly crushed the letter up in his left hand till the
nails of the fingers met through it into the flesh. His teeth became set
and his whole face stern and as rigid as marble. His alarmed mother
caught the fearful expression of his fixed eyes and flew to him. He
waived her away with a quiet movement of the hand.

“No, no, do not touch me, mother! I am well, very well;” he said
hoarsely.

“No, dearest child, you are very ill. I will ring for assistance.”

“No—give me a pen—ink—paper too! I would write.”

“The Doctors have forbidden it.”

“But one—one line, dear mother!”

Mrs. Pierpoint looked at him a moment with hesitation and then silently
obeyed. Not a muscle of Leslie’s face moved, but it was pale, very pale,
as he took the pen in his fingers. His hand was steady while he wrote
the following brief reply:—

    “_Mr. Leslie Pierpoint’s compliments to Miss Clayton—he assures
    her it is far, far from his wish, to place an obstacle in the
    way of her happiness._

       “_Thursday morning,_

    “_No. 27— South Sixth St._”

He directed and despatched it without a word or look of emotion; and
when the servant had left the room he calmly turned to his surprised
mother, whose looks were fixed upon him full of anxious inquiry, smiled
faintly upon her and said, at the same time offering her Clara’s crushed
letter,

“Dearest mother, you would ask me what this means? Read this—it will
explain—_it is eloquent!_ Read it and be so good as never to mention
the subject of it to me again.”

Mrs. Pierpoint perused it in silence and with tears of sorrow and
sympathy for him whose manly heart Clara Clayton had crushed as he had
crushed the letter. The mother and the son exchanged glances and the
letter was folded up and laid aside. From that hour Leslie Pierpoint
never breathed the name of Clara, never looked upon a woman but with
secret dislike and contempt.

From that day also he began to mend. On a temper such as his, treachery,
like Clara Clayton’s, must either be fatally effectual or perfectly
harmless. His haughty and contemptuous spirit did the service of coat
armor in the protection of his heart. It broke not! It remained whole
and manly as ever—but it strengthened itself in its strength against
all future approaches of love.

Whether the soundness of Leslie’s heart extended itself to his limb or
the energy of his proud spirit exerted a commanding influence over the
physical body cannot be ascertained; but the fact is clear that he began
rapidly to convalesce from the day he so cavalierly gave Clara her
freedom. At the end of three months thereafter, after having gone
through the regular course of, first, two crutches, then a crutch and a
cane, and then a single crutch alone, he made his appearance with Dr.
M—— on one side and his only support on the other an ordinary walking
stick! Every where he received the congratulations of his friends and
rejoiced in them; for he had all along felt a triumphant pride in
getting well—a sort of cherished spirit of revenge, though he confessed
it not to himself, upon Clara—false, heartless Clara. It is true he
walked lame with his cane and the doctor, but every day he grew better,
and at length his physicians, contrary to their previous decision,
pronounced that the bones of the leg were properly reunited and that
strength in the limb was only necessary to restore it to its original
sound condition. Tenderly and most gingerly did Leslie nurse his leg and
humor its kindly temper towards health. Time at length rewarded his
care, and at the end of fourteen months from the time he received
Clara’s letter he walked Chesnut street sound in limb and with “the
lofty carriage, distinguished air and noble step” that had captivated
the fancy and won the shallow heart of Clara Clayton.

Leslie, however, never again looked kindly upon woman. He believed the
sex to be instinctively false-hearted and selfish; he acknowledged no
love in her but love of herself, and religiously believed that she
married only for self-interest and that she looked upon men only as
instruments for the gratification of her vanity. No, he never trusted
woman from that time up to the period we have introduced him to the
reader seated in his arm-chair in his library with the gentle snows of
forty-one winters upon his head.

But time aided by circumstances achieves apparent impossibilities.
Leslie Pierpoint possessed a heart that would be a treasure to any
woman; and because one had proved traitorous to its noble confidence,
Love had resolved that it should not always be locked in the ice of
winter—that its summer should come to it again, its seed time and
harvest should return, and fruits and flowers once more bear witness to
the moisture and richness of the long barren soil.

But this change, its progress and extraordinary results, will form the
theme of a Second Tale.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                   LEAVES FROM A LAWYER’S PORT-FOLIO.


                            THE STEP-MOTHER.


When I first knew the family of the Wentworths, it was composed of a
husband in the prime of life, a beautiful being his bride, and a sweet
little babe whom they doted on, not only for its beauty, but as the heir
of his father’s large estates. The family was noble, or rather its
ancestors had been so in England, and the estates, now in its
possession, had come down from father to son for several generations,
increasing in value with the prosperity of the country, until they now
afforded almost the revenue of a prince. With the pride of birth,
something of its injustice had attached to the family, for, to maintain
the importance of the name, it had been the custom, ever since the
abolition of primogeniture, to keep the estate entailed on the eldest
son, providing, however, respectable portions for the other children.
The Wentworth lands had thus descended from the present proprietor’s
father, and were intended to go down in the same manner to his eldest
son. I knew little of Mr. Wentworth himself, for he was a proud,
reserved man—but his meek wife had early won on my heart, and from the
hour when I was first called on, as a professional adviser, to give my
opinion respecting some property which she held to her sole and separate
use, under her marriage settlements, up to the latest moment of her
life, my feelings for this singularly amiable woman, were like those of
a parent to a daughter.

Wentworth Hall, where the family resided, was a large, antique, imposing
structure, situated in the centre of an extensive park, and approached
by a long avenue, terminating at one end in the hall door, and at the
other, at the distance of almost a mile, in a massy gateway, guarded by
a porter’s lodge. The house, when I first knew it, was as lordly a
mansion as one would wish to see. I passed it the other day, and it was
in ruins. No human being has slept within its walls since the
development of the dreadful tragedy I am about to relate. God knows I
shudder at the task!

I never saw a sweeter child than the young heir of Wentworth: I think
now I see his little hands, his silken hair, or his soft blue eyes, so
like those of his mother. All loved him. How could they help it? for in
everything he resembled her who gave him birth, and she was one who
insensibly won every heart, and deserved to win them too. But in nothing
was this similarity so striking as in the dispositions of the mother and
child. I do not believe either would knowingly have hurt a fly.
Certainly no traces of the proud irascible temper of the father could be
discovered in the son.

Well has it been said that the good die young. They are exhaled, as it
were, like dew, back to their native sky, just at the very time when we
begin fully to appreciate their worth. The young heir was scarcely three
years old when his mother died. There was grief, and, I believe,
heart-felt grief, up at the old hall for a while,—and then came the
intelligence that Mr. Wentworth had determined to travel, and that,
meanwhile, the young heir was to be left at home with a nurse, and
suitable attendants.

Two years passed away. At length rumors reached the servants that their
master would soon return, accompanied by a new bride. Before long these
reports were confirmed, and then, after a few days’ delay, the newly
wedded pair dashed up to the hall door behind a chariot and four,
decorated with bride favors.

The new comer was certainly a magnificent woman, but oh! what a contrast
to the sweet angel who had formerly filled her place. The first wife was
rather _petite_, with soft blue eyes, and an expression of countenance
almost seraphic; her successor was a tall, splendid looking woman, with
dark flashing orbs, and a face whose haughty beauty was the very
impersonation of a Juno. I know not why, but with all her majesty, I
never liked the second Mrs. Wentworth.

In due time a son was the fruit of this marriage. The babe, like the
mother, was beautiful, and it seemed to me—it may have been only
fancy—that, in the rejoicings at its birth, the elder son, and
undoubted heir, was totally forgotten.

It soon became evident that the new wife was paramount in her influence
over her husband; but, in one thing she was foiled; she could not
alienate his affections from his elder son. She dared not openly speak
against the young heir, but it was evident that she hated him, because
he would exclude her own child from the estate; and though the fortune
of a younger son of the Wentworths would have been an independence to
any one else, yet this grasping woman coveted all for her own darling.
On this point, however, she knew that her husband would prove
inflexible, and that his family pride would be too strong even for his
wife’s persuasions. She did not, therefore, make the attempt. But in
every possible way, especially when her husband was absent, she
contrived to make the life of her step-son irksome and intolerable. A
thousand petty vexations, such as are easier felt than described, and
which no one knows so well how to inflict as a second wife, soured the
early life of the young heir, and, despite his amiable disposition, made
him the most unhappy of beings. The sum of his misery was filled up,
when, his father having been chosen a member of Congress, left the
family at Wentworth Hall, while he proceeded to Washington. From that
hour, whether at his estate or at the capitol of the nation, Mr.
Wentworth was so occupied by ambition that he found no time to unravel
the domestic transactions of his household; so that, deprived of the
check heretofore existing on her conduct in the presence of her husband,
the new wife commenced a more open and oppressive series of petty
persecutions on the young heir, which effectually broke the spirits of
one so delicately constituted. I never saw a greater change in any one
than took place in Herbert Wentworth between his fifth and eleventh
years. From being used to constant exercise in the open air, he was
restricted to the school-room, the library, and the garden. In a short
time his health gave way, and he became pale, weakly, and melancholy.
And this was the once gay and happy boy, with a heart as light as the
carol of a bird! Oh! could his sainted mother have foreseen, on her
death-bed, the destiny that was to overtake her child, how bitter would
have been her parting hour.

Meanwhile the younger son—the darling of the mother—was indulged in
every thing. His slightest wish was anticipated. He was taught every
manly accomplishment of the day, and, at twelve, was already nearly as
large as his delicate brother. He was a skilful horseman, and the best
sportsman on the estates. But he was wilful, passionate and imperious.

So matters went on, until the young heir was nearly eighteen years of
age, when his father took him to Washington with him during the session
of Congress. For the first time emancipated from the thraldom of his
step-mother, Herbert began to be aware of the importance of his
situation, and to become more than ever averse to the tyranny of his
home. He returned to Wentworth Hall an altered being. When his father,
about this time, received an appointment to an embassy to one of the
South American States, he solicited to accompany his parent, but the
request could not be granted, and the young heir was left at home with
Mrs. Wentworth and her son.

The change in the character of Herbert soon became evident to the
step-mother. But, in nothing was it more perceptible than in the
resistance the young heir made to the restraints attempted to be imposed
on him, but from which his brother was exempt. Privileges which Herbert
felt were his, equally with his brother, or to which he, if either, had
the better right, were no longer surrendered without expostulation, or
in some cases without a struggle. One of the great causes of difference
arose from the determination, expressed by the young heir, to shoot on
the estate—a privilege no rational being would have dreamed he was not
entitled to—but which, his pampered brother, habituated to seeing
himself indulged, and Herbert restrained, in everything, took on himself
one day, in a fit of passion, to dispute. Had Mrs. Wentworth been
present, even she would have seen the folly of her son and would have
checked him; but, unaccustomed to be opposed, the wilful boy, when he
saw his brother with a resolution as unusual as it was irritating,
determined to insist on the right, flew into a rage, and, in a moment of
phrenzy, presented his gun at Herbert. A scuffle ensued, in which the
piece went off, whether accidentally or not was never known, and the
young heir fell to the ground weltering in his blood. His life, for some
time, was despaired of, during which time the brother maintained a
sullen silence—but at length Herbert was declared out of danger, and,
in a few weeks more, was completely restored. During this time the
mother did not hesitate to give that version of the story which would,
by throwing all the blame on Herbert, exculpate her darling, so that,
when the young heir left his sick chamber, he found that, except among a
few who knew his disposition better, he was received as an arrogant, and
quarrelsome young man.

This incident, however, had exercised a powerful influence on Mrs.
Wentworth. The very fact that Herbert, whom she and her son had so long
ruled with a rod of iron, should attempt to break loose from the
thraldom, inflamed her almost to madness. From envying, she began to
hate the young heir, and that too with a deadliness of which one would
have thought her incapable. And every day, as Herbert broke some new
mesh of the net in which she had involved him, she learned to hate him
more passionately than before. Indeed, to a woman of her disposition,
nothing could be more galling than to see one, over whom she had been
used to tyrannize at her pleasure, asserting his rights, even, in some
cases, in direct contradiction to her commands, as, for instance, when
Herbert refused, as heir to the estate, to allow some wood to be cut
down which she had ordered to be felled and sold. I solemnly believe
that the haughty step-mother never forgave this act—that the
remembrance of it haunted her night and day—and that it filled up the
cup of hatred, which before was well nigh full, and led to the dreadful
catastrophe which ensued.

I have said the young heir recovered from his wound, but he remained in
an exceedingly delicate state of health, so that the least exposure of
his person was sure to bring on a cold, attended with pains in his side,
at the seat of the wound. However, by clothing carefully according to
the weather, he succeeded, in the course of some six months, in firmly,
as he thought, re-establishing his health, though, it is my firm
conviction, that, from the hour of his wound, his constitution was
effectually undermined. Certain it is, that when Herbert, thinking
himself perfectly restored, ventured one day on a little more exposure
than usual, he was seized with a violent cold, which soon resulted in a
fever of the most desperate character. So fatal were the ravages of the
disease that his life was soon despaired of, and for several days we
hourly expected to hear of his death.

During this crisis, what were the feelings of the haughty step-mother?
She could not be expected to wish for the recovery of the being whom she
hated with such intensity, and, although she was forced to appear
concerned for him, and the best medical attendance was, by her orders,
procured, yet I have not the least doubt that the one burning wish of
her heart, during all that terrible time, was that the young heir might
never recover. His death, indeed, would be the consummation of all her
hopes. It would, at once, place her darling son in possession of the
vast estates of his father—a position at which she could not look
without a momentary bewilderment. As day after day elapsed, and the
young heir grew weaker and weaker, her hopes rose in proportion, and the
prize on which, at first, she had scarcely ventured to look, she now
regarded as almost in the possession of her child. How her heart
leaped—we will not attempt to disguise it—at the prospect before her.
She would be removed from all fear of the interference of Herbert—she
would be saved from the shame of being thwarted as she had been—she
would no longer have a right to remain at the Hall only as long as her
husband lived; and though, under other circumstances, she felt she might
have continued in it to her dying day, yet she knew that Herbert, after
what had passed, would, on his father’s death, cut off all communication
with her. Besides her pride revolted from accepting a favor at the hands
of the young heir. Her own child too! brought up as he had been, with
habits of such lavish expenditure, how would he ever be able to live on
the fortune, handsome though it was, reserved for the younger son of the
house of Wentworth. He had been used to every indulgence; he had been
taught to regard everybody and everything as subservient to his wishes;
in short, he had been educated as the heir rather than as the younger
son of the family—and now, when the vast estates of his father were
almost within his grasp, when only the life of a sickly boy was in his
way, could his mother be expected to look on the death of the real heir
with any thing but complacency? But she dissembled her feelings: the
world gave her credit for the most poignant anguish of mind during the
vacillations of the disease.

“And how is the patient to-night, doctor,” said she, following the
physician out of the sick chamber, and affecting to place her
handkerchief to her eyes; “do you not think he is a little, a very
little improved?”

“I do not wish, unnecessarily, to alarm you,” was the answer; “indeed,
you must have seen the ravages of the disease; but so far from thinking
your son”—oh! how the word grated on her feelings—“any better, I fear
he cannot survive until morning. He is not naturally of a strong
constitution, and this fever would have brought the stoutest man to the
grave. I wonder how young Mr. Wentworth has withstood it so long.”

“Then you cannot give us any hope. Oh! cannot you let us have some, even
the slightest, expectation of his recovery? Do, dear Doctor, only say a
word like it.”

The physician shook his head sadly, for he had become attached to his
patient, and knew nothing of the secret of his companion’s heart—and
departed. The unnatural woman turned to her chamber, and, with a joy we
will not attempt to picture, paced up and down the room. At length, she
thought her wishes were about to be fulfilled; her boy, her darling boy,
would inherit the broad lands she saw from her casement; and she!—she
paused, and muttered—“ah! there will be a vast difference betwixt the
mere widow of the proprietor of Wentworth Hall, and the mother of that
personage.”

In a short time she calmed her transports, and, returning to the
bed-side of the now insensible sufferer, watched there until late at
night, when she retired, with apparent reluctance, leaving orders,
however, to be called should any change be perceptible in the patient.

She had fallen into an uneasy sleep, in which a thousand wild dreams
flitted through her mind, and the clock had just struck the second hour
after her retirement, when a maid-servant knocked at her chamber door,
and saying, that her young master had suddenly awoke sane, and had
conversed rationally with the nurse, departed.

“He is going, then,” muttered the unnatural woman, in a delirium of joy;
“they always are so just before death;” and hastily throwing on a loose
dress, she hurried to the room of the sufferer.

The curtains were closed when she entered, and the nurse held up her
finger, whispering—

“He has just fallen asleep. Praise to God, the crisis is past, and the
dear youth will recover! His fever has left him—his skin is no longer
hot—he is free from delirium.”

The words of the faithful old creature almost took away Mrs. Wentworth’s
breath; she felt herself turning pale, and her brain swam around.
Happily, the room was imperfectly lighted, so that the nurse could not
detect the changes in the countenance of her mistress.

“_And is there any fear of a relapse?_” said Mrs. Wentworth, forcing
herself to assume feelings, outwardly, far different from those really
raging in her bosom. “Is the _dear boy_ safe?”

“The chances are infinitely in his favor; yet there is a possibility of
a relapse. I pray God no such evil may overtake Master Herbert.”

Her mistress nodded, and feeling that she could not much longer maintain
her composure, she said that she would return to her room for a moment
to procure her slippers, when she would aid her in watching by the sick
bed, as she was _too overjoyed to sleep_.

What pen can paint her feelings when she reached her chamber? Here were
all her bright visions dissipated. The prospect before her was darker
than ever. What would become of herself after her husband’s
death?—what, indeed, would that husband say when he returned and heard
Herbert’s version of his brother’s and her conduct? What would become of
her darling son, subject, perhaps, to his father’s displeasure, and, at
most, left with nothing but a younger son’s fortune, with which to
support his expensive habits? She paused in the centre of her room. A
thousand furies seemed agitating her countenance. Pride, fear, hate, all
chased each other, by turns, through her bosom. Suddenly her face
assumed a look of comparative calmness. She walked to a neighboring
closet, took from its wall a small phial, and then, gazing a moment at
her face in the glass, she placed her slippers on her feet, and sought
the room of the invalid. Motioning to the nurse to keep her seat, this
fearful woman crossed to the other side of the bed, and sat down by the
little table on which stood the medicine for the sufferer. The cup
already contained the dose which was to be given him at the expiration
of the hour. She looked at the watch—but a few minutes remained to the
time. She looked around the room—no one was in it but the nurse, who
was concealed by the curtains of the bed. She hastily uncorked the
phial, and, with a trembling hand, let fall a few drops of the liquid it
contained into the cup. The phial was then secreted, and, with a face as
ashy as the dead, she heard, the next instant, the clock strike the
hour. The patient awoke at the noise, and, almost on the instant, the
nurse came around and took the cup in her hand. My pen trembles so I can
scarcely proceed—but I must. Suffice it to say the cup was drained, and
the invalid, as if exhausted, sank back on his pillow. When next the
attendant drew aside the curtain, she gazed on the face of the dead.

Let me escape from this terrible tragedy. The young heir was buried in
lordly state, and no suspicion ever arose that he died otherwise than by
a sudden relapse. But was Mrs. Wentworth happy? She saw her son the
acknowledged heir of the estate, and for this she had labored her whole
life—but was she happy? I will answer, in the words of Scripture, when
speaking of the wicked—“Terrors take hold on him as waters; the tempest
swalloweth him up in the night. . . . _For God shall cast upon him and
not spare._”

Time passed. Even Mrs. Wentworth began to find, in the lapse of years,
and in gazing on her son, now near eighteen, some alleviation for her
tortured mind. But God, whose inscrutable Providence had hitherto seemed
to forget the unholy deed we have just narrated, was now preparing for
its author a fearful retribution.

It was just five years from the day of Herbert’s death, when the doating
mother was standing in the door of her house, surrounded by a party of
visitors of her own age, waiting for the approach of a gay cavalcade of
young people, coming up the avenue. The sky was gloomy and threatened a
storm, and the riders were evidently returning in haste. But the tempest
was quicker than even their fleet steeds, and the group, with young
Wentworth at its head, was yet some distance from the door, when the
storm burst on the riders. Each put spurs to his horse, and the young
heir, as wilful as ever, instead of awaiting his companions, dashed
forward as fast as his steed—the fleetest of them all—could carry him.
He was already several rods in advance of his companions, when the wind,
suddenly bursting out into a hurricane, swept across the avenue, taking
in its course a huge, but somewhat decayed tree, whose trunk, after
swaying forwards a moment, was seen to yield to the gale just as young
Wentworth came underneath it.

“Look out!” shouted those who saw the danger.

“Save him!—oh! save him!” shrieked the mother.

It was too late. Down, with a crash like thunder, came the gigantic
tree, the trunk striking the unhappy youth right on the head, and
bearing him to the earth as if he was a mere twig. There was a wild cry,
and all that remained of the victim was one quivering hand, extended, as
if in supplication, beyond the trunk of the tree.

The spectators stood aghast, transfixed with speechless horror, at the
fearful sight. A deathlike stillness of a moment, and only of a moment,
followed. It was broken by a long, wild, harrowing shriek of anguish, at
the remembrance of which, even now, my blood runs cold. They all turned
instinctively in the same direction—towards the mother of the
victim—for that shriek could have come from no one else. They saw her
fall like marble to the earth. They sprang to her side. Her eyes were
wide open, glaring fearfully on vacancy—the foam had gathered, thick
and white, on her bloodless lips—her whole frame was quivering in an
agony such as—thank God!—mortal man has rarely seen. There she lay,
struck by the hand of God, writhing in convulsions. Tell me not there is
no retribution! Oh! fearfully was that murdered boy avenged.

They took her up, bore her into her stately chamber, and despatched
messengers on every hand for medical aid. All that the skill of the
profession could do to restore her was exerted, but for a long time
unsuccessfully. At length, however, Mrs. Wentworth showed signs of
recovery. Slowly, consciousness appeared to return to her; but just when
her attendants were beginning to hope that the danger had passed, she
sprang up in her bed, and, placing her hands before her eyes, shrieked,
“save him—save him—oh, God! have mercy—I am the murderer—he is
innocent,” and with other ejaculations, equally as terrific, she sank
down on the couch, in a paroxysm of madness. _She was a maniac._ It was
not many days before nature gave way beneath the struggle, but, during
the ravings of her phrenzy, she recapitulated the whole of the dreadful
tragedy, and in words too that made her listeners tremble to hear. It
has often occurred to me, that, if the death-bed revelations of but one
year could be made public, they would make us avoid our fellow-men as
beings of a darker world.

One word and this melancholy leaf is ended. Mr. Wentworth never returned
from his mission, but fell a victim to the climate of South America. His
estate having been entailed to the issue of his own body, of course,
failing such issue, passed in the regular course of succession; and
descending to nearly a score of collateral heirs, who divided the
property betwixt them, was soon broken into fragments. The old Hall was
shunned with superstitious fear, and is now in ruins. So pass away the
things of this world.

                                                                   D.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                     MY BONNIE BLUE-EYED LASSIE, O!


                           A SCOTTISH BALLAD.


                                SUNG BY
                             MR. DEMPSTER.
          _Philadelphia_: John F. Nunns, _184 Chesnut Street_.


[Illustration: musical score]

    I sing the bonnie E’e of her,
    My bonnie, bonnie Lassie O!
    I

[Illustration: musical score]

    sing the praise of ane I luve,
    My bonnie, bonnie Lassie, O!
    I sing of monie a time and aft,
    We’ve gane thegither cheerly, O!
    And bless the E’e that welcomes me,
    My bonnie blue-eyed Lassie, O!

    Her face sae fair, her winning air,
      Sure nane is like my lassie, O!
    When e’r we meet, she smiles so sweet,
      My bonnie blue-eyed lassie, O!
    And monie a time at fair or green,
      We’ve prattled aft and dearly, O!
    I press’d my suit, she pleaded youth,
      My bonnie blue-eyed lassie, O!

    Yes, woo I still, yes, woo I will,
      My bonnie, bonnie lassie, O!
    The world can ne’er ha’e charms for me,
      Without my blue-eyed lassie, O!
    When last we met, I saw her e’e
      Half turn’d aside so winning, O!
    I named the kirk, she gied consent,
      My ain dear blue-eyed lassie, O!

                 *        *        *        *        *




                             COTTAGE PIETY.


                         BY JEREMY SHORT, ESQ.


                            “Early had they learned
                To reverence the volume that displays
                The mystery, the life which cannot die.”
                                           _Wordsworth._

There is no piety like that in our cottages. Go through the land from
one end to the other,—enter, if you will, at every door you pass,—seek
out the dying in lordly hall, and lowly dwelling,—and you will find
that the humble tenants of the humblest roof, are often the most
acceptable in the eyes of their Maker, and that in the words of Holy
Writ, “not many wise, not many noble are called,” but “God hath chosen
the weak things of this world to confound the mighty.” And there is a
philosophy in this. The rich have wherewithal to enjoy themselves in
this life, and what care they for the one to come? but the poor find no
peace from toil on earth, and gladly hail the message which bids them to
a better and a brighter world, where “the weary are at rest.” Then, too,
the Sabbath of the cottager! They who live in cities, or dwell in
stately palaces in the country, have no idea of the soothing calm, of
this day, to the poor man. All through the weary week, in summer or in
winter, amid cold and rain and heat, he is compelled to toil for the
scanty pittance which barely keeps his wife and little ones alive—and
when the Sabbath morning comes, and he sees all so tidy about him, while
the sun smiles pleasantly through the casement, and there is an eloquent
stillness on all without, a feeling of freedom and of untold peace,
comes stealing over his soul, such as those who have never shared his
toils cannot imagine. If he has a heart it is melted into gratitude. If
he is a godly man—and do not these very things purify his heart
insensibly?—he will call his little ones around him, and, together,
they will lift up their thanksgivings for the blessings of another week.
Oh! how often—in some old country house, far, far away from the crimes
and cares of the town—have we listened to the morning hymn, sweetly
rising on the air, and seeming to go up to heaven all the sweeter for
the songs of birds and the murmurs of the stream, with which it mingled.
Yes! we love

                        “The sound of hymns
    On some bright Sabbath morning, on the moor
    _Where all is still save praise_; and where hard by
    The ripe grain shakes its bright beard in the sun;
    The fresh green grass, the sun, and sunny brook—
    All look as if they knew the day, the hour,
    And felt with man the need of joy and thanks.”

Yonder is a cottage, down in the glen. If you will come and stand with
us beside the casement, you can just see the white walls of that humble
home, smiling through the embowering foliage. There live a daughter and
her parents, and if you would see piety, go into that cottage. Shall I
tell you how their Sunday is spent? It will be a lesson to us all.

When breakfast is over, the little family, attired in their best, set
forth to church, the daughter walking betwixt her aged parents, and
kindly supporting their steps, while every thing around them soothes
their hearts for the duties of the day. It is a September morning, and
all Nature is filled with harmony. Not a leaf that rustles on the air,
nor a brook that babbles by, nor a bird that whistles in the wood, nor
the voice of a child singing from the overflowing gladness of its heart,
but is sweeter to their ear, and more soothing to their souls, than the
music of a Garcia. And when they reach the old church how every one will
make room for them! And so, after service, will they return home.

And in the afternoon, they will gather around the little table, beneath
the open casement, through which float gently the hum of bees and the
fragrance of flowers, and there they will sit, listening to the word of
God, as their daughter reads it aloud. There is such a quiet, a soft
dreamy quiet around, that it soothes them insensibly to a holy calm. The
very clock seems to tick less audibly; the cat sits purring in her
lowest tone; the bird, from his cage, looks silently down; the sunbeams
fall hushed on the clean, bright floor; and the rose-leaves by the
window, that now and then float to the ground, strike with a faint low
sound on the earth, like the foot-fall of a fairy at moonlight.

Every word of that sacred volume the listeners drink in eagerly, for are
they not “athirst for the waters of life?” Aye! they drink it in the
more eagerly because read by her, whose voice, to them, is softer than
that of a cherub.

And such is Cottage Piety. The proud may sneer at it—the rich may
regard it as a fiction—the dwellers in town may look on it as an
enthusiast’s picture; but the great God who made us all, and who notes
every deed, beholds thousands of such scenes, every Sabbath of the year.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                Sports and Pastimes.—THE FOWLING-PIECE.


Before making choice of a gun, the sportsman should determine what
weight he can conveniently carry. The heaviest gun, as regards shooting,
will be most effective; but he should recollect, that unless he be a
very robust person, a light gun will on the whole bring him more game,
as a few pounds in the weight makes a deal of difference in the distance
the person can carry it with ease, and few persons can shoot well when
fatigued.

The most approved guns under the system which prescribes a heavy charge
of powder and a light one of shot, are double-barrels, bearing the
following relative proportions of length to calibre:[1]—fourteen gauge,
thirty-four inches long; seventeen gauge, thirty-two inches long; twenty
gauge, thirty inches long. For the shooter who never uses shot larger
than No. 6 or 7, these are proper proportions; and did the guns weigh
nine or ten pounds each, they would shoot No. 6 or 7 shot well. But when
under seven pounds and a half, which is the heaviest gun we should think
of using in hot weather, or for a long day’s woodcock shooting, they do
not throw small shot as effectively as a short gun throws large shot.

Barrels twenty-eight inches long, and fourteen, sixteen, or eighteen
gauge, are of convenient size for a gun not exceeding seven pounds and a
half. Those of eighteen gauge shoot shot well; but those of fourteen
throw a cartridge more satisfactorily. Sixteen is a desirable medium.
These barrels are as efficient as long ones for short distances, viz.
under thirty yards; and nine tenths of game brought to the bag is killed
within that distance. And for making long shots, the wire cartridge has
obviated the necessity of using long guns. A short gun, of the same
weight as a long one, is much less tiresome to carry. A pound additional
weight at the breech is not so fatiguing to the arm as half that weight
added to the end of the barrel; it is the top-heavy gun that distresses
the shooter.

Taking the season throughout, we are convinced that the most effective
gun is a short light one, for which our standard charge is 1-5/8 drachm,
or the tenth part of an ounce of powder, and 2 oz. of No. 2 shot,
containing 220 pellets.[2] But when game is wild, we would charge the
reserve barrel, and on some occasions both barrels, with nearly double
the above quantity of powder, and a No. 5 cartridge for winter partridge
shooting in an open country, or with a No. 4 or 5 cartridge for grouse
shooting. No. 7 is best for snipe shooting. Small shot may be used for
partridge shooting in September, though we do not see any reason for not
adhering to No. 2, except that birds very near the gun are liable to be
more disfigured by it.

All guns of the same weight require nearly the same weight and
proportions of powder and shot. Unless they are bored with an unusual
degree of relief or friction, a difference in size of the bore, or in
the length of the barrel, renders less variation in charging necessary
than is generally supposed.

The different proportions of powder and shot must be regulated chiefly
by the weight of the gun and the size of the shot used. The following
may be about the proper proportions for the generality of guns not
exceeding seven pounds and a half.[3]

                        _Size_   _Weight_  _Weight_
                         _of_      _of_      _of_
                        _Shot._  _Shot._   _Powder._
                          No.     Ounces   Drachms.
                           2        2        1-5/8
                           3        1¾        1¾
                           4        1½         2
                           5      1-3/8       2¼
                           6        1¼        2½
                           7      1-1/8      2¾[4]

These proportions cannot be materially deviated from without destroying
the effect. If the powder is decreased, the discharge is weakened; if
the powder is increased, the shot spreads; if the weight of the charge
of shot is decreased, there will not be a sufficient number of pellets
for effective shooting; if the weight of the charge of shot is
increased, the discharge is weakened.

The usual objection to large shot is, that after it has travelled thirty
yards it becomes dispersed; but let the powder be reduced to 1½ drachm,
and that objection fails. If it is not overcharged with powder, a light
gun will shoot No. 2 shot close enough to bring down game with more
certainty, at thirty or forty yards’ distance, than if charged with
small shot and two or three drachms of powder.

As few sportsmen ever tried so small a charge of powder as 1½ drachm
with so heavy a charge of shot as 2 oz., or as large size as No. 2, we
invite a trial of the experiment we are about to suggest, with any gun
that may happen to be in their possession, _not weighing more than_ 7½
lb. With the above proportions of powder and shot—the shot being
oiled—let the shooter fire at forty yards, with good elevation, because
large shot droops more than small, at an unbound book nailed to a wall,
with an open newspaper (double sheet) spread in front of it. And
afterwards let him charge the _same_ gun with No. 6 or 7 shot, and any
variation of the relative proportions of powder and shot that his fancy
may suggest, and fire at a similar target. The newspaper will prove that
the large shot is carried with sufficient closeness; and the book will
show which broadside would have told the best on a grouse. On opening
the book, the large shot will be found to have penetrated farther, and
the leaves will be bulged in beyond it.

-----

[1] The size of the bore, gauge, or calibre of a gun—by which is meant
the diameter of the barrel—is distinguished by the number of leaden
balls fitting it which make a pound;—thus, eighteen leaden bullets,
each fitting an 18 gauge barrel, make a pound; sixteen fitting a 16
gauge, or fourteen fitting a 14 gauge barrel, are also equal to a pound.
The different gauges are also known by the number of thirty-seconds of
an inch the diameter consists of;—thus, the diameter of an 18 gauge
barrel is 20½-32’s of an inch; a 16 gauge 21½-32’s; and a 14 gauge
22-32’s.

[2] The powder and shot chargers may be regulated by weighing the powder
with a sixpence, and the shot with four half-crowns. The shooter must
not adopt these proportions if smaller shot is used, as they would not
only cause the gun to recoil, but would be dangerous.

[3] If the gun shoots too close, and does not recoil, the quantity of
powder may be increased.

If it shoots too close and recoils, the quantity of shot must be
reduced.

If it spreads shot too much and does not recoil, the quantity of shot
may be increased.

If it spreads shot too much and recoils, the powder must be reduced.

[4] When these proportions are used, the gun recoils least with the No.
2 and most with the No. 7 charge.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                          REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.


    _Joseph Rushbrook, or the Poacher._ By Captain Marryatt, _Author
    of Peter Simple_, _Jacob Faithful_, etc. etc. _Two Volumes.
    Philadelphia: Carey and Hart._

It has been well said that “the success of certain works may be traced
to sympathy between the author’s mediocrity of ideas, and mediocrity of
ideas on the part of the public.” In commenting on this passage, Mrs.
Gore, herself a shrewd philosopher, observes that, whether as regards
men or books, there exists an excellence too excellent for general
favor. To “make a hit”—to captivate the public eye, ear, or
understanding without a certain degree of merit—is impossible; but the
“hardest hit” is seldom made, indeed we may say _never_ made, by the
highest merit. When we wrote the word _seldom_ we were thinking of
Dickens and the “Curiosity Shop,” a work unquestionably of “the highest
merit,” and which at a first glance appears to have made the most
unequivocal of “hits”—but we suddenly remembered that the compositions
called “Harry Lorrequer” and “Charles O’Malley” had borne the palm from
“The Curiosity Shop” in point of what is properly termed _popularity_.

There can be no question, we think, that the philosophy of all this _is_
to be found in the apothegm with which we began. Marryatt is a singular
instance of its truth. He has always been a very _popular_ writer in the
most rigorous sense of the word. His books are essentially “mediocre.”
His ideas are the common property of the mob, and have been their common
property time out of mind. We look throughout his writings in vain for
the slightest indication of originality—for the faintest incentive to
thought. His plots, his language, his opinions are neither adapted nor
intended for scrutiny. We must be contented with them as sentiments,
rather than as ideas; and properly to estimate them, even in this view,
we must bring ourselves into a sort of identification with the sentiment
of the mass. Works composed in this spirit are sometimes purposely so
composed by men of superior intelligence, and here we call to mind the
_Chansons_ of Béranger. But usually they are the natural exponent of the
vulgar thought in the person of a vulgar thinker. In either case they
claim for themselves _that_ which, for want of a more definite
expression, has been called by critics _nationality_. Whether this
nationality in letters is a fit object for high-minded ambition, we
cannot here pause to inquire. If it is, then Captain Marryatt occupies a
more desirable position than, in our heart, we are willing to award him.

“Joseph Rushbrook” is not a book with which the critic should occupy
many paragraphs. It is not very dissimilar to “Poor Jack,” which latter
is, perhaps, the best specimen of its author’s cast of thought, and
_national_ manner, although inferior in interest to “Peter Simple.”

The plot can only please those who swallow the probabilities of “Sinbad
the Sailor,” or “Jack and the Bean-Stalk”—or we should have said, more
strictly, the incidents; for of plot, properly speaking, there is none
at all.

Joseph Rushbrook is an English soldier who, having long served his
country and received a wound in the head, is pensioned and discharged.
He becomes a poacher, and educates his son (the hero of the tale and
also named Joseph) to the same profession. A pedler, called Byres, is
about to betray the father, who avenges himself by shooting him. The son
takes the burden of the crime upon himself, and flees the country. A
reward is offered for his apprehension—a reward which one Furness, a
schoolmaster, is very anxious to obtain. This Furness dogs the footsteps
of our hero, much as Fagin, the Jew, dogs those of Oliver Twist, forcing
him to quit place after place, just as he begins to get comfortably
settled. In thus roaming about, little Joseph meets with all kinds of
outrageously improbable adventures; and not only this, but the reader is
bored to death with the outrageously improbable adventures of every one
with whom little Joseph comes in contact. Good fortune absolutely besets
him. Money falls at his feet wherever he goes, and he has only to stoop
and pick it up. At length he arrives at the height of prosperity, and
thinks he is entirely rid of Furness, when Furness re-appears. That
Joseph should, in the end, be brought to trial for the pedler’s murder
is so clearly the author’s design, that he who runs may read it, and we
naturally suppose that his persecutor, Furness, is to be the instrument
of this evil. We suppose also, of course, that in bringing this
misfortune upon our hero, the schoolmaster will involve himself in ruin,
in accordance with the common ideas of poetical justice. But
no;—Furness, being found in the way, is killed off, accidentally,
having lived and plotted to no ostensible purpose, through the better
half of the book. Circumstances that have nothing to do with the story
involve Joseph in his trial. He refuses to divulge the real secret of
the murder, and is sentenced to transportation. The elder Rushbrook, in
the meantime, has avoided suspicion and fallen heir to a great property.
Just as his son is about to be sent across the water, some of Joe’s
friends discover the true state of affairs, and obtain from the father,
who is now conveniently upon his death-bed, a confession of his guilt.
Thus all ends well—if the word _well_ can be applied in any sense to
trash so ineffable—the father dies, the son is released, inherits the
estate, marries his lady-love, and prospers in every possible and
impossible way.

We have mentioned the imitation of Fagin. A second plagiarism is feebly
attempted in the character of one Nancy, a trull, who is based upon the
Nancy of Oliver Twist—for Marryatt is not often at the trouble of
diversifying his thefts. This Nancy changes her name three or four
times, and so in fact do each and all of the _dramatis personæ_. This
changing of name is one of the bright ideas with which the author of
“Peter Simple” is most pertinaciously afflicted. We would not be bound
to say how many aliases are borne by the hero in this instance—some
dozen perhaps.

The novels of Marryatt—his later ones at least—are evidently written
to order, for certain considerations, and have to be delivered within
certain periods. He thus finds it his interest to _push on_. Now, for
this mode of progress, _incident_ is the sole thing which answers. One
incident begets another, and so on _ad infinitum_. There is never the
slightest necessity for pausing; especially where no plot is to be cared
for. _Comment_, in the author’s own person, upon what is transacting, is
left entirely out of question. There is thus none of that _binding_
power perceptible, which often gives a species of unity (the unity of
the writer’s individual thought) to the most random narrations. All
works composed as we have stated Marryatt’s to be composed, will be run
on, _incidentally_, in the manner described; and, notwithstanding that
it would seem at first sight to be otherwise, yet it is true that no
works are so insufferably tedious. These are the novels which we read
with a hurry exactly consonant and proportionate with that in which they
were indited. We seldom leave them unfinished, yet we labor through to
the end, and reach it with unalloyed pleasure.

The _commenting_ force can never be safely disregarded. It is far better
to have a dearth of incident, with skilful observations upon it, than
the utmost variety of event, without. In some previous review we have
observed (and our observation is borne out by analysis), that it was the
deep sense of the want of this binding and commenting power, in the old
Greek drama, which gave rise to the chorus. The chorus came at length to
supply, in some measure, a deficiency which is inseparable from dramatic
action, and represented the expression of _the public_ interest or
sympathy in the matters transacted. The successful novelist must, in the
same manner, be careful to bring into view his _private_ interest,
sympathy, and opinion, in regard to his own creations.

We have spoken of “The Poacher” at greater length than we intended; for
it deserves little more than an announcement. It has the merit of a
homely and not unnatural simplicity of style, and is not destitute of
pathos: but this is all. Its English is excessively slovenly. Its events
are monstrously improbable. There is no adaptation of parts about it.
The truth is, it is a pitiable production. There are twenty young men of
our acquaintance who make no pretension to literary ability, yet who
could produce a better book _in a week_.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _Life of Petrarch._ By Thomas Campbell, Esq., _Author of The
    Pleasures of Hope_, etc. etc. _Complete in one volume.
    Philadelphia: Carey and Hart._

We are not among those who regard the genius of Petrarch as a subject
for enthusiastic admiration. The characteristics of his poetry are not
traits of the highest, or even of a high order; and in accounting for
his fame, the discriminating critic will look rather to the
circumstances which surrounded the man, than to the literary merits of
the pertinacious sonnetteer. Grace and tenderness we grant him—but
these qualities are surely insufficient to establish his poetical
apotheosis.

In other respects he is entitled to high consideration. As a patriot,
notwithstanding some accusations which have been rather urged than
established, we can only regard him with approval. In his republican
principles; in his support of Rienzi at the risk of the displeasure of
the Colonna family; in his whole political conduct, in short, he seems
to have been nobly and disinterestedly zealous for the welfare of his
country. But Petrarch is most important when we look upon him as the
bridge by which, over the dark gulf of the middle ages, the knowledge of
the old world made its passage into the new. His influence on what is
termed the revival of letters was, perhaps, greater than that of any man
who ever lived; certainly far greater than that of any of his immediate
contemporaries. His ardent zeal in recovering and transcribing the lost
treasures of antique lore cannot be too highly appreciated. But for him,
many of our most valued classics might have been numbered with Pindar’s
hymns and dithyrambics. He devoted days and nights to this labor of
love; snatching numerous precious books from the very brink of oblivion.
His judgment in these things was strikingly correct, while his
erudition, for the age in which he lived, and for the opportunities he
enjoyed, has always been a subject of surprise.

Upon the whole, therefore, it is not so very wonderful that Petrarch has
had many biographers. Much, to be sure, of the excessive comment upon
his character may be traced to the generating influence of biography in
itself. One life as surely begets another as a sum at compound interest
doubles itself in a certain space of time. Each personal friend of the
hero is anxious to prove a stricter intimacy with him than that enjoyed
by the personal friend who wrote before. Contemporary contradictions
thus arise, which it is left for posterity to reconcile. In the private
library of the French King, at the Louvre, there exists a _Petrarchian
Library_, consisting of nine hundred volumes illustrative of the life of
the poet. It was collected by Professor Marsand of Padua, and a quarto
catalogue of it was, not many years ago, published at Milan. The _best_
biography of Petrarch, after the one which now lies before us, is no
doubt that of the Abbé de Sade. This prelate, proud of a descent from
Laura, consumed the greater part of his life in toilsome journeys,
seeking material for a life of her lover. He was unquestionably the most
accomplished foreigner who wrote on the affairs of Italy in the
fourteenth century. His account of Petrarch has been made the chief
basis of Mr. Campbell’s present work. We are sorry to see, moreover,
that the author of “The Pleasures of Hope” has followed his authority
even in the matter of wholesale vituperation of all previous writers
upon the subject. De Sade abuses the whole Italian nation, accusing it,
_en masse_, of gross ignorance in respect to our poet. Mr. Campbell
abuses the whole Italian nation and De Sade. Not only this, but he is at
great pains to be bitter upon Archdeacon Coxe, who had bequeathed to the
Library of the British Museum a MS. Life of Petrarch. Of this MS. Mr.
Colburn, it seems, caused a copy to be taken, and, intending it for
publication, requested Mr. Campbell to act as editor. Mr. C. consented,
“surrounded himself with as many books connected with the subject as he
could obtain, and applied assiduously to the study of Italian
literature, which he had neglected for many years.”

Having done all this, our editor sat down to his task of arrangement and
revision. But the Coxe-Petrarchan MSS. appear to have defied his powers.
“If any one” says he, “suspects me of dealing unfairly with the
Archdeacon, let him go to the Library of the British Museum and peruse
the work in question—his skepticism will find its reward. He will agree
with me that the Coxeian MS. is placed in a wrong part of the Museum. It
should not be in the library, but among the bottled abortions of
anatomy, or the wooden visages of the South Sea idols.” Mr. Campbell’s
kind offer of permitting any skeptic to satisfy himself by going to the
Museum and “_perusing_” a huge book which he has just declared to be
unfit for perusal, puts us much in mind of the candor of the Munchausens
and Ferdinand Mendez Pintos, who, telling incredible tales of lands at
the South Pole or mountains in the moon, confound all doubters with a
request to proceed and satisfy themselves by personal inspection.

One thing is certainly _very_ strange:—that Mr. Campbell did not think
of looking at “the Coxe-Petrarchan MS.” in the first place—in the
beginning of things—before “surrounding himself with as many books as
he could obtain,” and especially before “applying himself assiduously to
the study of Italian literature, which he had neglected for many years.”
He would have saved himself much trouble, and the Archdeacon might have
been spared some abuse.

What particularly surprises us in this volume—a large and handsomely
printed octavo—is _its slovenliness of style_. Such a charge as this
has never before been urged against the author of “Hohenlinden.” In
general he is scrupulously correct. The Archdeacon seems to have
bewildered his brains in unsettling his temper. What are we to make of
such phraseology as this, occurring in the very second sentence of the
work?—“It was known that the Rev. Archdeacon Coxe had bequeathed to the
Library of the British Museum a MS. Life of the Poet which _he_ had
written.” Here “_he_” implies the Poet, but is intended to imply the
Archdeacon. Such misconstructions are abundant. We observe, also, far
more serious defects—defects of _tone_. These sentences, for instance,
are in shockingly bad taste—“The most skilful physicians stood aghast
at this disease, (the plague.) The charlatan rejoiced at it, _unless it
attacked himself_, because it put quackery on a par with skill; and
compassionate women _assisted both physicians and quacks in doing no
good to their patients ... This was a dance of the king of terrors over
the earth, and a very rapid one._” Attempts at humor on such subjects
are always exceedingly _low_.

Nor can the general handling of the theme of the book be said to be well
done. The biographer has swallowed the philosopher. While we are
sometimes interested in personal details, we more frequently regret the
want of a comprehensive analysis of the poet’s character, and of the age
in which he lived. The book has no doubt filled, in a certain
unsatisfactory manner, a blank in our biographical literature—since the
authorities referred to can scarcely be termed accessible—but, upon the
whole, it is unworthy Thomas Campbell—still less is it worthy Petrarch.
We cannot say with Crébillon—

      —————_un dessein si funeste,_
    _S’il n’est digne d’Atrée, est digne de Thyeste._

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _The Idler in France._ By the Countess of Blessington. _Two
    Volumes. Philadelphia: Carey and Hart._

The Countess of Blessington has never risen in any of her literary
attempts above the merit of an amusing gossiper; and “The Idler in
France” is an excellent gossiping book, and no more. Still, this is
saying a good deal for it as times go.

The work is made up of adventures, reminiscences, trumpery philosophy,
criticism in a small way, scandal, and heterogeneous chit-chat—the
whole interwoven, in the most random manner conceivable, into an account
of a tour in France made many years ago by her ladyship. “Patch Work” is
a title which would have exactly suited the volumes, and it is a pity
that Captain Hall has anticipated it.

The anecdotes, _et cetera_, are by no means confined to France, but
often relate to things in general, happening in no particular place.
Throughout, there is much vivacity and no little amusement. Some of the
scandal, if not _nice_, is exceedingly piquant, and many of the humorous
points are really good.

The Countess tells an old story of the Princesse de Talleyrand, which
will better bear repetition than _some_ of the novelties of the work.
Denon was to dine at Talleyrand’s at a time when the Baron’s work on
Egypt was the common topic in Paris. The Prince wished the Princess to
read a few pages of the book, that she might be able to say some words
of compliment to the author. He consequently ordered his librarian to
send the work to her apartment on the morning of the day of the dinner;
but unfortunately also commanded that a copy of Robinson Crusoe should
be sent to a young _protégée_ of hers who resided in the hotel. Denon’s
work, by mistake, was given to Mademoiselle, and Crusoe to the Princess,
who, at dinner, expressed graciously to the Baron the delight she had
received from his publication, and propounded many anxious inquiries
after the fate of his poor man, Friday!

Upon such subjects as are embraced in the following passages, the
Countess is particularly at home:—

    “I observe a difference in the usages _de mœurs_ at Paris, and
    in those of London, of which an ignorance might lead to give
    offence. In England, a lady is expected to bow to a gentleman
    before he presumes to do so to her, thus leaving her the choice
    of acknowledging his acquaintance, or not; but in France it is
    otherwise, for a man takes off his hat to every woman whom he
    has ever met in society, although he does not address her,
    unless she encourages him to do so.

    “In Paris, if two men are walking or riding together, and one of
    them bows to a lady of his acquaintance, the other also takes
    off his hat, as a mark of respect to the lady known to his
    friend, although he is not acquainted with her. The mode of
    salutation is also much more deferential towards women in France
    than in England. The hat is held a second longer off the head,
    the bow is lower, and the smile of recognition is more
    _aimable_, by which I mean, that it is meant to display the
    pleasure experienced by the meeting.

    “It is true that the really well bred Englishmen are not to be
    surpassed in good manners by those of any other country; but all
    are not such; and I have seen instances of men in London
    acknowledging the presence of ladies, by merely touching,
    instead of taking off, their hats when bowing to them; and
    though I accounted for this solecism in good breeding by the
    belief that it proceeded from the persons practising it wearing
    wigs, I discovered that there was not even so good an excuse as
    the fear of deranging them, and that their incivility proceeded
    from ignorance or _nonchalance_, while the glum countenance of
    him who bowed betrayed rather a regret for the necessity of
    touching his beaver, than a pleasure at meeting her for whom the
    salute was intended.”

The French phrases with which the book is interspersed have not been
read, in proof, with sufficient care, and many awkward blunders occur.
At page 100, vol. I, for example, we have “_Le jeu né vaut pas la
chandelle_,” and at page 234, of the same volume, “_Que voulezvous,
sire-chacun a son vingt Mars?_”

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _The World in a Pocket-Book, or Universal Popular Statistics,
    Embracing the Commerce, Agriculture, Revenue, Government,
    Manufactures, Population, Army, Navy, Religions, Press,
    Geography, History, Remarkable Features and Events, Navigation,
    Inventions, Discoveries and Genius of every Nation on the
    Globe_, etc. etc. By W. H. Crump. _J. Dobson: Philadelphia._

Mr. Crump, the author of this little work, is sufficiently well known to
the reading public; and we need scarcely say that the “World in a
Pocket-Book” is all that it professes to be. Several years have been
occupied in its compilation. It will be found an exceedingly convenient
manual—embracing a wonderful variety of useful and entertaining
matter—the _utile_, nevertheless, prevailing very much, as is right,
over the _dulce_. The title well explains the character of the book. We
have never seen so much really useful information compressed into the
same limits. The public is indebted to Mr. Crump for this little volume,
and we hope he may be repaid for the patient research and labor bestowed
upon it.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _Lives of Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of Italy._ By Mrs.
    Shelley, Sir D. Brewster, James Montgomery, _and others. Two
    volumes: Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard._

The lives embraced in these volumes are those of Dante, Petrarch,
Boccaccio, Lorenzo de Medici, Bojardo, Berni, Ariosto, Machiavelli,
Galileo, Guicciardini, Vittoria Colonna, Guarini, Tasso, Chiabrera,
Tassoni, Marini, Filicaja, Metastasio, Goldoni, Alfieri, Monti, and Ugo
Foscolo. We have no clue to the names of the respective writers—but the
biographies are, without exception, well written—although at times
their brevity is annoying. As a whole, the work is not only interesting,
but of value.

                 *        *        *        *        *

[Illustration: LATEST FASHIONS, SEPTEMBER, 1841. FOR GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE]

                 *        *        *        *        *

Transcriber’s Notes:

Table of Contents has been added for reader convenience. Archaic
spellings and hyphenation have been retained. Obvious punctuation and
typesetting errors have been corrected without note.

[End of _Graham’s Magazine, Vol. XIX, No. 3, September 1841_, George R.
Graham, Editor]

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 65180 ***