Produced by Simon Tarlink, Juliet Sutherland and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at
http://www.pgdpcanada.net







[Illustration: handwritten inscription--your obedient servant,
Maria Brooks.]


GRAHAM'S MAGAZINE.

VOL. XXXIII.   PHILADELPHIA, AUGUST, 1848.   NO. 2.




THE LATE MARIA BROOKS.

BY RUFUS WILMOT GRISWOLD.

[WITH A PORTRAIT.]


This remarkable woman was not only one of the first writers of her
country, but she deserves to be ranked with the most celebrated
persons of her sex who have lived in any nation or age. Within the
last century woman has done more than ever before in investigation,
reflection and literary art. On the continent of Europe an Agnesi, a
Dacier and a Chastelet have commanded respect by their learning, and a
De Stael, a Dudevant and a Bremer have been admired for their genius;
in Great Britain the names of More, Burney, Barbauld, Baillie,
Somerville, Farrar, Hemans, Edgeworth, Austen, Landon, Norman and
Barrett, are familiar in the histories of literature and science; and
in our own country we turn with pride to Sedgwick, Child, Beecher,
Kirkland, Parkes Smith, Fuller, and others, who in various departments
have written so as to deserve as well as receive the general applause;
but it may be doubted whether in the long catalogue of those whose
works demonstrate and vindicate the intellectual character and
position of the sex, there are many names that will shine with a
clearer, steadier, and more enduring lustre than that of MARIA DEL
OCCIDENTE.

Maria Gowen, afterward Mrs. Brooks, upon whom this title was conferred
originally I believe by the poet Southey, was descended from a Welsh
family that settled in Charlestown, near Boston, sometime before the
Revolution. A considerable portion of the liberal fortune of her
grandfather was lost by the burning of that city in 1775, and he soon
afterward removed to Medford, across the Mystic river, where Maria
Gowen was born about the year 1795. Her father was a man of education,
and among his intimate friends were several of the professors of
Harvard College, whose occasional visits varied the pleasures of a
rural life. From this society she derived at an early period a taste
for letters and learning. Before the completion of her ninth year she
had committed to memory many passages from the best poets; and her
conversation excited special wonder by its elegance, variety and
wisdom. She grew in beauty, too, as she grew in years, and when her
father died, a bankrupt, before she had attained the age of fourteen,
she was betrothed to a merchant of Boston, who undertook the
completion of her education, and as soon as she quitted the school was
married to her. Her early womanhood was passed in commercial
affluence; but the loss of several vessels at sea in which her husband
was interested was followed by other losses on land, and years were
spent in comparitive indigence. In that remarkable book, "Idomen, or
the Vale of Yumuri," she says, referring to this period: "Our table
had been hospitable, our doors open to many; but to part with our
well-garnished dwelling had now become inevitable. We retired, with
one servant, to a remote house of meaner dimensions, and were sought
no longer by those who had come in our wealth. I looked earnestly
around me; the present was cheerless, the future dark and fearful. My
parents were dead, my few relatives in distant countries, where they
thought perhaps but little of my happiness. Burleigh I had never loved
other than as a father and protector; but he had been the benefactor
of my fallen family, and to him I owed comfort, education, and every
ray of pleasure that had glanced before me in this world. But the sun
of his energies was setting, and the faults which had balanced his
virtues increased as his fortune declined. He might live through many
years of misery, and to be devoted to him was my duty while a spark of
his life endured. I strove to nerve my heart for the worst. Still
there were moments when fortitude became faint with endurance, and
visions of happiness that might have been mine came smiling to my
imagination. I wept and prayed in agony."

In this period poetry was resorted to for amusement and consolation.
At nineteen she wrote a metrical romance, in seven cantos, but it was
never published. It was followed by many shorter lyrical pieces which
were printed anonymously; and in 1820, after favorable judgments of it
had been expressed by some literary friends, she gave to the public a
small volume entitled "Judith, Esther, and other Poems, by a Lover of
the Fine Arts." It contained many fine passages, and gave promise of
the powers of which the maturity is illustrated by "Zophiël," very
much in the style of which is this stanza:

    With even step, in mourning garb arrayed,
      Fair Judith walked, and grandeur marked her air;
    Though humble dust, in pious sprinklings laid.
      Soiled the dark tresses of her copious hair.

And this picture of a boy:

    Softly supine his rosy limbs reposed,
     His locks curled high, leaving the forehead bare:
    And o'er his eyes the light lids gently closed,
      As they had feared to hide the brilliance there.

And this description of the preparations of Esther to appear before
Ahasuerus:

    "Take ye, my maids, this mournful garb away;
      Bring all my glowing gems and garments fair;
    A nation's fate impending hangs to-day,
      But on my beauty and your duteous care."

    Prompt to obey, her ivory form they lave;
      Some comb and braid her hair of wavy gold;
    Some softly wipe away the limpid wave
      That o'er her dimply limbs in drops of fragrance rolled.

    Refreshed and faultless from their hands she came,
      Like form celestial clad in raiment bright;
    O'er all her garb rich India's treasures flame,
      In mingling beams of rainbow-colored light.

    Graceful she entered the forbidden court,
      Her bosom throbbing with her purpose high;
    Slow were her steps, and unassured her port,
      While hope just trembled in her azure eye.

    Light on the marble fell her ermine tread.
      And when the king, reclined in musing mood,
    Lifts, at the gentle sound, his stately head,
      Low at his feet the sweet intruder stood.

Among the shorter poems are several that are marked by fancy and
feeling, and a graceful versification, of one of which, an elegy,
these are the opening verses:

    Lone in the desert, drear and deep,
      Beneath the forest's whispering shade,
    Where brambles twine and mosses creep,
      The lovely Charlotte's grave is made.

    But though no breathing marble there
      Shall gleam in beauty through the gloom,
    The turf that hides her golden hair
      With sweetest desert flowers shall bloom.

    And while the moon her tender light
      Upon the hallowed scene shall fling,
    The mocking-bird shall sit all night
      Among the dewy leaves, and sing.

In 1823 Mr. Brooks died, and a paternal uncle soon after invited the
poetess to the Island of Cuba, where, two years afterward, she
completed the first canto of "Zophiël, or the Bride of Seven," which
was published in Boston in 1825. The second canto was finished in Cuba
in the opening of 1827; the third, fourth and fifth in 1828; and the
sixth in the beginning of 1829. The relative of Mrs. Brooks was now
dead, and he had left to her his coffee plantation and other property,
which afforded her a liberal income. She returned again to the United
States, and resided more than a year in the vicinity of Dartmouth
College, where her son was pursuing his studies; and in the autumn of
1830, she went to Paris, where she passed the following winter. The
curious and learned notes to "Zophiël," were written in various
places, some in Cuba, some in Hanover, some in Canada, (which she
visited during her residence at Hanover,) some at Paris, and the rest
at Keswick, in England, the home of Robert Southey, where she passed
the spring of 1831. When she quitted the hospitable home of this much
honored and much attached friend, she left with him the completed
work, which he subsequently saw through the press, correcting the
proof sheets himself, previous to its appearance in London in 1833.

The materials of this poem are universal; that is, such as may be
appropriated by every polished nation. In all the most beautiful
oriental systems of religion, including our own, may be found such
beings as its characters. The early fathers of Christianity not only
believed in them, but wrote cumbrous folios upon their nature and
attributes. It is a curious fact that they never doubted the existence
and the power of the Grecian and Roman gods, but supposed them to be
fallen angels, who had caused themselves to be worshiped under
particular forms, and for particular characteristics. To what an
extent, and to how very late a period this belief has prevailed, may
be learned from a remarkable little work of Fontenelle,[1] in which
that pleasing writer endeavors seriously to disprove that any
preternatural power was evinced in the responses of the ancient
oracles. The Christian belief in good and evil angels is too beautiful
to be laid aside. Their actual and present existence can be disproved
neither by analogy, philosophy, or theology, nor can it be questioned
without casting a doubt also upon the whole system of our religion.
This religion, by many a fanciful skeptic, has been called barren and
gloomy; but setting aside all the legends of the Jews, and confining
ourselves entirely to the generally received Scriptures, there will be
found sufficient food for an imagination warm as that of Homer,
Apelles, Phidias, or Praxiteles. It is astonishing that such rich
materials for poetry should for so many centuries have been so little
regarded, appropriated, or even perceived.

[Footnote 1: Historie des Oracles.]

The story of Zophiël, though accompanied by many notes, is simple and
easily followed. Reduced to prose, and a child, or a common novel
reader, would peruse it with satisfaction. It is in six cantos, and is
supposed to occupy the time of nine months: from the blooming of roses
at Ecbatana to the coming in of spices at Babylon. Of this time the
greater part is supposed to elapse between the second and third canto,
where Zophiël thus speaks to Egla of Phraërion:

    Yet still she bloomed--uninjured, innocent--
    Though now for seven sweet moons by Zophiël watched and wooed.

The king of Medea, introduced in the second canto, is an ideal
personage; but the history of that country, near the time of the
second captivity, is very confused, and more than one young prince
resembling Sardius, might have reigned and died without a record. So
much of the main story however as relates to human life is based upon
sacred or profane history; and we have sufficient authority for the
legend of an angel's passion for one of the fair daughters of our own
world. It was a custom in the early ages to style heroes, to raise to
the rank of demigods, men who were distinguished for great abilities,
qualities or actions. Above such men the angels who are supposed to
have visited the earth were but one grade exalted, and they were
capable of participating in human pains and pleasures. Zophiël is
described as one of those who fell with Lucifer, not from ambition or
turbulence, but from friendship and excessive admiration of the chief
disturber of the tranquillity of heaven: as he declares, when thwarted
by his betrayer, in the fourth canto:

    Though the first seraph formed, how could I tell
      The ways of guile? What marvels I believed
    When cold ambition mimicked love so well
      That half the sons of heaven looked on deceived!

During the whole interview in which this stanza occurs, the deceiver
of men and angels exhibits his alledged power of inflicting pain. He
says to Zophiël, after arresting his course:

                     "Sublime Intelligence,
      Once chosen for my friend and worthy me:
    Not so wouldst thou have labored to be hence,
      Had my emprise been crowned with victory.
    When I was bright in heaven, thy seraph eyes
      Sought only mine. But he who every power
    Beside, while hope allured him, could despise,
      Changed and forsook me, in misfortune's hour."

To which Zophiël replies:

    "Changed, and forsook thee? this from thee to me?
      Once noble spirit! Oh! had not too much
    My o'er fond heart adored thy fallacy,
      I had not, now, been here to bear thy keen reproach;
    Forsook thee in misfortune? at thy side
      I closer fought as peril thickened round,
    Watched o'er thee fallen: the light of heaven denied,
      But proved my love more fervent and profound.
    Prone as thou wert, had I been mortal-born,
      And owned as many lives as leaves there be,
    From all Hyrcania by his tempest torn
      I had lost, one by one, and given the last for thee.
    Oh! had thy plighted pact of faith been kept,
      Still unaccomplished were the curse of sin;
    'Mid all the woes thy ruined followers wept,
      Had friendship lingered, hell could not have been."

Phraërion, another fallen angel, but of a nature gentler than that of
Zophiël, is thus introduced:

    Harmless Phraërion, formed to dwell on high,
      Retained the looks that had been his above;
    And his harmonious lip, and sweet, blue eye,
      Soothed the fallen seraph's heart, and changed his scorn to love;
    No soul-creative in this being born,
      Its restless, daring, fond aspirings hid:
    Within the vortex of rebellion drawn,
      He joined the shining ranks _as others did_.
    Success but little had advanced; defeat
      He thought so little, scarce to him were worse;
    And, as he held in heaven inferior seat,
      Less was his bliss, and lighter was his curse.
    He formed no plans for happiness: content
      To curl the tendril, fold the bud; his pain
    So light, he scarcely felt his banishment.
      Zophiël, perchance, had held him in disdain;
    But, formed for friendship, from his o'erfraught soul
     'Twas such relief his burning thoughts to pour
    In other ears, that oft the strong control
      Of pride he felt them burst, and could restrain no more.
    Zophiël was soft, but yet all flame; by turns
      Love, grief, remorse, shame, pity, jealousy,
    Each boundless in his breast, impels or burns:
      His joy was bliss, his pain was agony.

Such are the principal preter-human characters in the poem. Egla, the
heroine, is a Hebress of perfect beauty, who lives with her parents
not far from the city of Ecbatana, and has been saved, by stratagem,
from a general massacre of captives, under a former king of Medea.
Being brought before the reigning monarch to answer for the supposed
murder of Meles, she exclaims,

    Sad from my birth, nay, born upon that day
      When perished all my race, my infant ears
    Were opened first with groans; and the first ray
      I saw, came dimly through my mother's tears.

Zophiël is described throughout the poem as burning with the
admiration of virtue, yet frequently betrayed into crime by the
pursuit of pleasure. Straying accidentally to the grove of Egla, he is
struck with her beauty, and finds consolation in her presence. He
appears, however, at an unfortunate moment, for the fair Judean has
just yielded to the entreaties of her mother and assented to proposals
offered by Meles, a noble of the country; but Zophiël causes his rival
to expire suddenly on entering the bridal apartment, and his previous
life at Babylon, as revealed in the fifth canto, shows that he was not
undeserving of his doom. Despite her extreme sensibility, Egla is
highly endowed with "conscience and caution;" and she regards the
advances of Zophiël with distrust and apprehension. Meles being
missed, she is brought to court to answer for his murder. Her sole
fear is for her parents, who are the only Hebrews in the kingdom, and
are suffered to live but through the clemency of Sardius, a young
prince who has lately come to the throne, and who, like many oriental
monarchs, reserves to himself the privilege of decreeing death. The
king is convinced of her innocence, and, struck with her extraordinary
beauty and character, resolves suddenly to make her his queen. We know
of nothing in its way finer than the description which follows, of her
introduction, in the simple costume of her country, to a gorgeous
banqueting hall in which he sits with his assembled chiefs:

    With unassured yet graceful step advancing,
      The light vermilion of her cheek more warm
    For doubtful modesty; while all were glancing
      Over the strange attire that well became such form
    To lend her space the admiring band gave way;
      The sandals on her silvery feet were blue;
    Of saffron tint her robe, as when young day
      Spreads softly o'er the heavens, and tints the trembling dew.
    Light was that robe as mist; and not a gem
      Or ornament impedes its wavy fold,
    Long and profuse; save that, above its hem,
      'Twas broidered with pomegranate-wreath, in gold.
    And, by a silken cincture, broad and blue,
      In shapely guise about the waste confined,
    Blent with the curls that, of a lighter hue,
      Half floated, waving in their length behind;
      The other half, in braided tresses twined,
    Was decked with rose of pearls, and sapphires azure too,
    Arranged with curious skill to imitate
      The sweet acacia's blossoms; just as live
    And droop those tender flowers in natural state;
      And so the trembling gems seemed sensitive,
    And pendent, sometimes touch her neck; and there
      Seemed shrinking from its softness as alive.
    And round her arms, flour-white and round and fair,
      Slight bandelets were twined of colors five,
    Like little rainbows seemly on those arms;
      None of that court had seen the like before,
    Soft, fragrant, bright--so much like heaven her charms,
      It scarce could seem idolatry to adore.
    He who beheld her hand forgot her face;
      Yet in that face was all beside forgot;
    And he who, as she went, beheld her pace,
      And locks profuse, had said, "nay, turn thee not."

Idaspes, the Medean vizier, or prime minister, has reflected on the
maiden's story, and is alarmed for the safety of his youthful
sovereign, who consents to some delay and experiment, but will not be
dissuaded from his design until five inmates of his palace have fallen
dead in the captive's apartment. The last of these is Altheëtor, a
favorite of the king, (whose Greek name is intended to express his
qualities,) and the circumstances of his death, and the consequent
grief of Egla and despair of Zophiël, are painted with a beauty, power
and passion scarcely surpassed.

    Touching his golden harp to prelude sweet,
      Entered the youth, so pensive, pale, and fair;
    Advanced respectful to the virgin's feet,
      And, lowly bending down, made tuneful parlance there.
    Like perfume, soft his gentle accents rose,
      And sweetly thrilled the gilded roof along;
    His warm, devoted soul no terror knows,
      And truth and love lend fervor to his song.
    She hides her face upon her couch, that there
      She may not see him die. No groan--she springs
    Frantic between a hope-beam and despair,
      And twines her long hair round him as he sings.
    Then thus: "O! being, who unseen but near,
      Art hovering now, behold and pity me!
    For love, hope, beauty, music--all that's dear,
      Look, look on me, and spare my agony!
    Spirit! in mercy make not me the cause,
      The hateful cause, of this kind being's death!
    In pity kill me first! He lives--he draws--
      Thou wilt not blast?--he draws his harmless breath!"

    Still lives Altheëtor; still unguarded strays
      One hand o'er his fallen lyre; but all his soul
    Is lost--given up. He fain would turn to gaze,
      But cannot turn, so twined. Now all that stole
    Through every vein, and thrilled each separate nerve,
      Himself could not have told--all wound and clasped
    In her white arms and hair. Ah! can they serve
      To save him? "What a sea of sweets!" he gasped,
    But 'twas delight: sound, fragrance, all were breathing.
      Still swelled the transport: "Let me look and thank:"
    He sighed (celestial smiles his lips enwreathing,)
      "I die--but ask no more," he said, and sank;
    Still by her arms supported--lower--lower--
      As by soft sleep oppressed; so calm, so fair,
    He rested on the purple tapestried floor,
      It seemed an angel lay reposing there.

And Zophiël exclaims,

    "He died of love, or the o'er-perfect joy
      Of being pitied--prayed for--pressed by thee.
    O! for the fate of that devoted boy
      I'd sell my birthright to eternity.
    I'm not the cause of this thy last distress.
      Nay! look upon thy spirit ere he flies!
    Look on me once, and learn to hate me less!"
      He said; and tears fell fast from his immortal eyes.

Beloved and admired at first, Egla becomes an object of hatred and
fear; for Zophiël being invisible to others her story is discredited,
and she is suspected of murdering by some baleful art all who have
died in her presence. She is, however, sent safely to her home, and
lives, as usual, in retirement with her parents. The visits of Zophiël
are now unimpeded. He instructs the young Jewess in music and poetry;
his admiration and affection grow with the hours; and he exerts his
immortal energies to preserve her from the least pain or sorrow, but
selfishly confines her as much as possible to solitude, and permits
for her only such amusements as he himself can minister. Her
confidence in him increases, and in her gentle society he almost
forgets his fall and banishment.

But the difference in their natures causes him continual anxiety;
knowing her mortality, he is always in fear that death or sudden
blight will deprive him of her; and he consults with Phraërion on the
best means of saving her from the perils of human existence. One
evening,

              Round Phraërion, nearer drawn,
    One beauteous arm he flung: "First to my love!
      We'll see her safe; then to our task till dawn."
    Well pleased, Phraërion answered that embrace;
      All balmy he with thousand breathing sweets,
    From thousand dewy flowers. "But to what place,"
      He said, "will Zophièl go? who danger greets
    As if 'twere peace. The palace of the gnome,
      Tahathyam, for our purpose most were meet;
    But then, the wave, so cold and fierce, the gloom,
      The whirlpools, rocks, that guard that deep retreat!
    Yet _there_ are fountains, which no sunny ray
      E'er danced upon, and drops come there at last,
    Which, for whole ages, filtering all the way,
      Through all the veins of earth, in winding maze have past.
    These take from mortal beauty every stain,
    And smooth the unseemly lines of age and pain,
      With every wondrous efficacy rife;
    Nay, once a spirit whispered of a draught,
    Of which a drop, by any mortal quaffed,
      Would save, for terms of years, his feeble, flickering life."

Tahathyam is the son of a fallen angel, and lives concealed in the
bosom of the earth, guarding in his possession a vase of the elixir of
life, bequeathed to him by a father whom he is not permitted to see.
The visit of Zophiël and Phraërion to this beautiful but unhappy
creature will remind the reader of the splendid creations of Dante.

    The soft flower-spirit shuddered, looked on high,
      And from his bolder brother would have fled;
    But then the anger kindling in that eye
      He could not bear. So to fair Egla's bed
    Followed and looked; then shuddering all with dread,
      To wondrous realms, unknown to men, he led;
    Continuing long in sunset course his flight,
      Until for flowery Sicily he bent;
    Then, where Italia smiled upon the night,
      Between their nearest shores chose midway his descent.
    The sea was calm, and the reflected moon
      Still trembled on its surface; not a breath
    Curled the broad mirror. Night had passed her noon;
      How soft the air! how cold the depths beneath!
    The spirits hover o'er that surface smooth,
      Zophiël's white arm around Phraërion's twined,
    In fond caresses, his tender cares to soothe,
      While either's nearer wing the other's crossed behind.
    Well pleased, Phraërion half forgot his dread,
      And first, with foot as white as lotus leaf,
    The sleepy surface of the waves essayed;
      But then his smile of love gave place to drops of grief.
    How could he for that fluid, dense and chill,
      Change the sweet floods of air they floated on?
    E'en at the touch his shrinking fibres thrill;
      But ardent Zophiël, panting, hurries on,
    And (catching his mild brother's tears, with lip
      That whispered courage 'twixt each glowing kiss,)
    Persuades to plunge: limbs, wings, and locks they dip;
      Whate'er the other's pains, the lover felt but bliss.
    Quickly he draws Phraërion on, his toil
      Even lighter than he hoped: some power benign
    Seems to restrain the surges, while they boil
      'Mid crags and caverns, as of his design
    Respectful. That black, bitter element,
      As if obedient to his wish, gave way;
    So, comforting Phraërion, on he went,
      And a high, craggy arch they reach at dawn of day,
    Upon the upper world; and forced them through
      That arch, the thick, cold floods, with such a roar,
    That the bold sprite receded, and would view
      The cave before he ventured to explore.
    Then, fearful lest his frighted guide might part
      And not be missed amid such strife and din,
    He strained him closer to his burning heart,
      And, trusting to his strength, rushed fiercely in.

    On, on, for many a weary mile they fare;
      Till thinner grew the floods, long, dark and dense,
    From nearness to earth's core; and now, a glare
      Of grateful light relieved their piercing sense;
    As when, above, the sun his genial streams
      Of warmth and light darts mingling with the waves,
    Whole fathoms down; while, amorous of his beams,
      Each scaly, monstrous thing leaps from its slimy caves.
    And now, Phraërion, with a tender cry,
      Far sweeter than the land-bird's note, afar
    Heard through the azure arches of the sky,
      By the long-baffled, storm-worn mariner:
    "Hold, Zophiël! rest thee now--our task is done,
      Tahathyam's realms alone can give this light!
    O! though it is not the life-awakening sun,
      How sweet to see it break upon such fearful night!"

    Clear grew the wave, and thin; a substance white,
      The wide-expanding cavern floors and flanks;
    Could one have looked from high how fair the sight!
      Like these, the dolphin, on Bahaman banks,
    Cleaves the warm fluid, in his rainbow tints,
      While even his shadow on the sands below
    Is seen; as through the wave he glides, and glints,
      Where lies the polished shell, and branching corals grow.
    No massive gate impedes; the wave, in vain,
      Might strive against the air to break or fall;
    And, at the portal of that strange domain,
      A clear, bright curtain seemed, or crystal wall.
    The spirits pass its bounds, but would not far
      Tread its slant pavement, like unbidden guest;
    The while, on either side, a bower of spar
      Gave invitation for a moment's rest.
    And, deep in either bower, a little throne
      Looked so fantastic, it were hard to know
    If busy nature fashioned it alone,
      Or found some curious artist here below.

    Soon spoke Phraërion: "Come, Tahathyam, come,
      Thou know'st me well! I saw thee once to love;
    And bring a guest to view thy sparkling dome
      Who comes full fraught with tidings from above."
    Those gentle tones, angelically clear,
      Past from his lips, in mazy depths retreating,
    (As if that bower had been the cavern's ear,)
      Full many a stadia far; and kept repeating,
    As through the perforated rock they pass,
      Echo to echo guiding them; their tone
    (As just from the sweet spirit's lip) at last
      Tahathyam heard: where, on a glittering throne he solitary sat.

Sending through the rock an answering strain, to give the spirits
welcome, the gnome prepares to meet them at his palace-door:

    He sat upon a car, (and the large pearl,
      Once cradled in it, glimmered now without,)
    Bound midway on two serpents' backs, that curl
      In silent swiftness as he glides about.
    A shell, 'twas first in liquid amber wet,
      Then ere the fragrant cement hardened round,
    All o'er with large and precious stones 'twas set
      By skillful Tsavaven, or made or found.
    The reins seemed pliant crystal (but their strength
      Had matched his earthly mother's silken band)
    And, flecked with rubies, flowed in ample length,
      Like sparkles o'er Tahathyam's beauteous hand.
    The reptiles, in their fearful beauty, drew,
      As if from love, like steeds of Araby;
    Like blood of lady's lip their scarlet hue;
      Their scales so bright and sleek, 'twas pleasure but to see,
    With open mouths, as proud to show the bit,
      They raise their heads, and arch their necks--(with eye
    As bright as if with meteor fire 'twere lit;)
      And dart their barbed tongues, 'twixt fangs of ivory.
    These, when the quick advancing sprites they saw
      Furl their swift wings, and tread with angel grace
    The smooth, fair pavement, checked their speed in awe,
      And glided far aside as if to give them space.

The errand of the angels is made known to the sovereign of this
interior and resplendent world, and upon conditions the precious
elixir is promised; but first Zophiël and Phraërion are ushered
through sparry portals to a banquet.

    High towered the palace and its massive pile,
      Made dubious if of nature or of art,
    So wild and so uncouth; yet, all the while,
      Shaped to strange grace in every varying part.
    And groves adorned it, green in hue, and bright,
      As icicles about a laurel-tree;
    And danced about their twigs a wonderous light;
      Whence came that light so far beneath the sea?
    Zophiël looked up to know, and to his view
      The vault scarce seemed less vast than that of day;
    No rocky roof was seen; a tender blue
      Appeared, as of the sky, and clouds about it play:
    And, in the midst, an orb looked as 'twere meant
      To shame the sun, it mimicked him so well.
    But ah! no quickening, grateful warmth it sent;
      Cold as the rock beneath, the paly radiance fell.
    Within, from thousand lamps the lustre strays.
      Reflected back from gems about the wall;
    And from twelve dolphin shapes a fountain plays,
      Just in the centre of a spacious hall;
    But whether in the sunbeam formed to sport,
      These shapes once lived in supleness and pride,
    And then, to decorate this wonderous court,
      Were stolen from the waves and petrified;
    Or, moulded by some imitative gnome,
      And scaled all o'er with gems, they were but stone,
    Casting their showers and rainbows 'neath the dome.
      To man or angel's eye might not be known.
    No snowy fleece in these sad realms was found,
      Nor silken ball by maiden loved so well;
    But ranged in lightest garniture around,
      In seemly folds, a shining tapestry fell.
    And fibres of asbestos, bleached in fire,
      And all with pearls and sparkling gems o'erflecked,
    Of that strange court composed the rich attire,
      And such the cold, fair form of sad Tahathyam decked.

Gifted with every pleasing endowment, in possession of an elixir of
which a drop perpetuates life and youth, surrounded by friends of his
own choice, who are all anxious to please and amuse him, the gnome
feels himself inferior in happiness to the lowest of mortals. His
sphere is confined, his high powers useless, for he is without the
"last, best gift of God to man," and there is no object on which he
can exercise his benevolence. The feast is described with the terse
beauty which marks all the canto, and at its close--

    The banquet-cups, of many a hue and shape,
      Bossed o'er with gems, were beautiful to view;
    But, for the madness of the vaunted grape,
      Their only draught was a pure limpid dew,
    The spirits while they sat in social guise,
      Pledging each goblet with an answering kiss,
    Marked many a gnome conceal his bursting sighs;
      And thought death happier than a life like this.
    But they had music; at one ample side
      Of the vast arena of that sparkling hall,
    Fringed round with gems, that all the rest outvied.
      In form of canopy, was seen to fall
    The stony tapestry, over what, at first,
      An altar to some deity appeared;
    But it had cost full many a year to adjust
      The limpid crystal tubes that 'neath upreared
    Their different lucid lengths; and so complete
      Their wondrous 'rangement, that a tuneful gnome
    Drew from them sounds more varied, clear, and sweet,
      Than ever yet had rung in any earthly dome.
    Loud, shrilly, liquid, soft; at that quick touch
      Such modulation wooed his angel ears
    That Zophiël wondered, started from his couch
      And thought upon the music of the spheres.

But Zophiël lingers with ill-dissembled impatience and Tahathyam leads
the way to where the elixir of life is to be surrendered.

    Soon through the rock they wind; the draught divine
      Was hidden by a veil the king alone might lift.
    Cephroniel's son, with half-averted face
      And faltering hand, that curtain drew, and showed,
    Of solid diamond formed, a lucid vase;
      And warm within the pure elixir glowed;
    Bright red, like flame and blood, (could they so meet,)
      Ascending, sparkling, dancing, whirling, ever
    In quick perpetual movement; and of heat
    So high, the rock was warm beneath their feet,
      (Yet heat in its intenseness hurtful never,)
    Even to the entrance of the long arcade
      Which led to that deep shrine, in the rock's breast
    As far as if the half-angel were afraid
      To know the secret he himself possessed.
    Tahathyam filled a slip of spar, with dread,
      As if stood by and frowned some power divine;
    Then trembling, as he turned to Zophiël, said,
      "But for one service shall thou call it thine:
    Bring me a wife; as I have named the way;
      (I will not risk destruction save for love!)
    Fair-haired and beauteous like my mother; say--
      Plight me this pact; so shalt thou bear above,
    For thine own purpose, what has here been kept
      Since bloomed the second age, to angels dear.
    Bursting from earth's dark womb, the fierce wave swept
      Off every form that lived and loved, while here,
    Deep hidden here, I still lived on and wept."

Great pains have evidently been taken to have every thing throughout
the work in keeping. Most of the names have been selected for their
particular meaning. Tahathyam and his retinue appear to have been
settled in their submarine dominion before the great deluge that
changed the face of the earth, as is intimated in the lines last
quoted; and as the accounts of that judgment, and of the visits and
communications of angels connected with it, are chiefly in Hebrew,
they have names from that language. It would have been better perhaps
not to have called the persons of the third canto "gnomes," as at this
word one is reminded of all the varieties of the Rosicrucian system,
of which Pope has so well availed himself in the Rape of the Lock,
which sprightly production has been said to be derived, though
remotely, from Jewish legends of fallen angels. Tahathyam can be
called gnome only on account of the retreat to which his erring father
has consigned him.

The spirits leave the cavern, and Zophiël exults a moment, as if
restored to perfect happiness. But there is no way of bearing his
prize to the earth except through the most dangerous depths of the
sea.

              Zophiël, with toil severe,
    But bliss in view, through the thrice murky night,
      Sped swiftly on. A treasure now more dear
    He had to guard, than boldest hope had dared
      To breathe for years; but rougher grew the way;
    And soft Phraërion, shrinking back and scared
      At every whirling depth, wept for his flowers and day.
    Shivered, and pained, and shrieking, as the waves
      Wildly impel them 'gainst the jutting rocks;
    Not all the care and strength of Zophiël saves
      His tender guide from half the wildering shocks
    He bore. The calm, which favored their descent,
      And bade them look upon their task as o'er,
    Was past; and now the inmost earth seemed rent
      With such fierce storms as never raged before.
    Of a long mortal life had the whole pain
      Essenced in one consummate pang, been borne,
    Known, and survived, its still would be in vain
      To try to paint the pains felt by these sprites forlorn.
    The precious drop closed in its hollow spar,
      Between his lips Zophiël in triumph bore.
    Now, earth and sea seem shaken! Dashed afar
      He feels it part;--'tis dropt;--the waters roar,
    He sees it in a sable vortex whirling,
      Formed by a cavern vast, that 'neath the sea,
    Sucks the fierce torrent in.

The furious storm has been raised by the power of his betrayer and
persecutor, and in gloomy desperation Zophiël rises with the frail
Phraërion to the upper air:

            Black clouds, in mass deform,
    Were frowning; yet a moment's calm was there,
     As it had stopped to breathe awhile the storm.
    Their white feet pressed the desert sod; they shook
      From their bright locks the briny drops; nor stayed
    Zophiël on ills, present or past, to look.

But his flight toward Medea is stayed by a renewal of the tempest--

    Loud and more loud the blast; in mingled gyre,
      Flew leaves and stones; and with a deafening crash
    Fell the uprooted trees; heaven seemed on fire--
      Not, as 'tis wont, with intermitting flash,
    But, like an ocean all of liquid flame,
      The whole broad arch gave one continuous glare,
    While through the red light from their prowling came
      The frighted beasts, and ran, but could not find a lair.

At length comes a shock, as if the earth crashed against some other
planet, and they are thrown amazed and prostrate upon the heath.
Zophiël,

      Too fierce for fear, uprose; yet ere for flight in a mood
    Served his torn wings, a form before him stood
      In gloomy majesty. Like starless night,
    A sable mantle fell in cloudy fold
      From its stupendous breast; and as it trod
    The pale and lurid light at distance rolled
      Before its princely feet, receding on the sod.

The interview between the bland spirit and the prime cause of his
guilt is full of the energy of passion, and the rhetoric of the
conversation has a masculine beauty of which Mrs. Brooks alone of all
the poets of her sex is capable.

Zophiël returns to Medea and the drama draws to a close, which is
painted with consummate art. Egla wanders alone at twilight in the
shadowy vistas of a grove, wondering and sighing at the continued
absence of the enamored angel, who approaches unseen while she sings a
strain that he had taught her.

    His wings were folded o'er his eyes; severe
      As was the pain he'd borne from wave and wind,
    The dubious warning of that being drear,
      Who met him in the lightning, to his mind
    Was torture worse; a dark presentiment
      Came o'er his soul with paralyzing chill,
    As when Fate vaguely whispers her intent
      To poison mortal joy with sense of coming ill.
    He searched about the grove with all the care
      Of trembling jealousy, as if to trace
    By track or wounded flower some rival there;
      And scarcely dared to look upon the face
    Of her he loved, lest it some tale might tell
      To make the only hope that soothed him vain:
    He hears her notes in numbers die and swell,
      But almost fears to listen to the strain
    Himself had taught her, lest some hated name
      Had been with that dear gentle air enwreathed.
    While he was far; she sighed--he nearer came,
      Oh, transport! Zophiël was the name she breathed.

He saw her--but

      Paused, ere he would advance, for very bliss.
    The joy of a whole mortal life he felt
      In that one moment. Now, too long unseen,
    He fain had shown his beauteous form, and knelt
      But while he still delayed, a mortal rushed between.

This scene is in the sixth canto. In the fifth, which is occupied
almost entirely by mortals, and bears a closer relation than the
others to the chief works in narrative and dramatic poetry, are
related the adventures of Zameia, which, with the story of her death,
following the last extract, would make a fine tragedy. Her misfortunes
are simply told by an aged attendant who had fled with her in pursuit
of Meles, whom she had seen and loved in Babylon. At the feast of
Venus Mylitta,

    Full in the midst, and taller than the rest,
      Zameia stood distinct, and not a sigh
    Disturbed the gem that sparkled on her breast;
      Her oval cheek was heightened to a dye
    That shamed the mellow vermeil of the wreath
      Which in her jetty locks became her well,
    And mingled fragrance with her sweeter breath,
      The while her haughty lips more beautifully swell
    With consciousness of every charm's excess;
      While with becoming scorn she turned her face
    From every eye that darted its caress,
      As if some god alone might hope for her embrace.

Again she is discovered, sleeping, by the rocky margin of a river:

    Pallid and worn, but beautiful and young,
      Though marked her charms by wildest passion's trace;
    Her long round arms, over a fragment flung,
      From pillow all too rude protect a face,
    Whose dark and high arched brows gave to the thought
      To deem what radiance once they towered above;
    But all its proudly beauteous outline taught
      That anger there had shared the throne of love.

It was Zameia that rushed between Zophiël and Egla, and that now with
quivering lip, disordered hair, and eye gleaming with frenzy, seized
her arm, reproached her with the murder of Meles, and attempted to
kill her. But as her dagger touches the white robe of the maiden her
arm is arrested by some unseen power, and she falls dead at Egla's
feet. Reproached by her own handmaid and by the aged attendant of the
princess, Egla feels all the horrors of despair, and, beset with evil
influences, she seeks to end her own life, but is prevented by the
timely appearance of Raphael, in the character of a traveler's guide,
leading Helon, a young man of her own nation and kindred who has been
living unknown at Babylon, protected by the same angel, and destined
to be her husband; and to the mere idea of whose existence, imparted
to her in a mysterious and vague manner by Raphael, she has remained
faithful from her childhood.

Zophiël, who by the power of Lucifer has been detained struggling in
the grove, is suffered once more to enter the presence of the object
of his affection. He sees her supported in the arms of Helon, whom he
makes one futile effort to destroy, and then is banished forever. The
emissaries of his immortal enemy pursue the baffled seraph to his
place of exile, and by their derision endeavor to augment his misery,

    And when they fled he hid him in a cave
      Strewn with the bones of some sad wretch who there,
    Apart from men, had sought a desert grave,
      And yielded to the demon of despair.
    There beauteous Zophiël, shrinking from the day,
      Envying the wretch that so his life had ended,
    Wailed his eternity;

But, at last, is visited by Raphael, who gives him hopes of
restoration to his original rank in heaven.

The concluding canto is entitled "The Bridal of Helon," and in the
following lines it contains much of the author's philosophy of life:

    The bard has sung, God never formed a soul
      Without its own peculiar mate, to meet
    Its wandering half, when ripe to crown the whole
      Bright plan of bliss, most heavenly, most complete!
    But thousand evil things there are that hate
      To look on happiness; these hurt, impede,
    And, leagued with time, space, circumstance, and fate,
      Keep kindred heart from heart, to pine and pant and bleed.
    And as the dove to far Palmyra flying,
      From where her native founts of Antioch beam,
    Weary, exhausted, longing, panting, sighing,
      Lights sadly at the desert's bitter stream;
    So many a soul, o'er life's drear desert faring,
      Love's pure, congenial spring unfound, unquaffed,
    Suffers, recoils, then, thirsty and despairing
      Of what it would, descends and sips the nearest draught.

On consulting "Zophiël," it will readily be seen that the passages
here extracted have not been chosen for their superior poetical merit.
It has simply been attempted by quotations and a running commentary to
convey a just impression of the scope and character of the work. There
is not perhaps in the English language a poem containing a greater
variety of thought, description and incident, and though the author
did not possess in an eminent degree the constructive faculty, there
are few narratives that are conducted with more regard to unities, or
with more simplicity and perspicuity.

Though characterized by force and even freedom of expression, it does
not contain an impure or irreligious sentiment. Every page is full of
passion, but passion subdued and chastened by refinement and delicacy.
Several of the characters are original and splendid creations. Zophiël
seems to us the finest fallen angel that has come from the hand of a
poet. Milton's outcasts from heaven are utterly depraved and abraded
of their glory; but Zophiël has traces of his original virtue and
beauty, and a lingering hope of restoration to the presence of the
Divinity. Deceived by the specious fallacies of an immortal like
himself, and his superior in rank, he encounters the blackest perfidy
in him for whom so much had been forfeited, and the blight of every
prospect that had lured his fancy or ambition. Egla, though one of the
most important characters in the poem, is much less interesting. She
is represented as heroically consistent, except when given over for a
moment to the malice of infernal emissaries. In her immediate
reception of Helon as a husband, she is constant to a long cherished
idea, and fulfills the design of her guardian spirit, or it would
excite some wonder that Zophiël was worsted in such competition. It
will be perceived upon a careful examination that the work is in
admirable keeping, and that the entire conduct of its several persons
bears a just relation to their characters and position.

Mrs. Brooks returned to the United States, and her son being now a
student in the military academy, she took up her residence in the
vicinity of West Point, where, with occasional intermissions in which
she visited her plantation in Cuba or traveled in the United States,
she remained until 1839. Her marked individuality, the variety, beauty
and occasional splendor of her conversation, made her house a favorite
resort of the officers of the academy, and of the most accomplished
persons who frequented that romantic neighborhood, by many of whom she
will long be remembered with mingled affection and admiration.

In 1834 she caused to be published in Boston an edition of "Zophiël,"
for the benefit of the Polish exiles who were thronging to this
country after their then recent struggle for freedom. There were at
that time too few readers among us of sufficiently cultivated and
independent taste to appreciate a work of art which time or accident
had not commended to the popular applause, and "Zophiël" scarcely
anywhere excited any interest or attracted any attention. At the end
of a month but about twenty copies had been sold, and, in a moment of
disappointment, Mrs. Brooks caused the remainder of the impression to
be withdrawn from the market. The poem has therefore been little read
in this country, and even the title of it would have remained unknown
to the common reader of elegant literature but for occasional
allusions to it by Southey and other foreign critics.[2]

In the summer of 1843, while Mrs. Brooks was residing at Fort
Columbus, in the bay of New York,--a military post at which her son,
Captain Horace Brooks, was stationed several years--she had printed
for private circulation the remarkable little work to which allusion
has already been made, entitled "Idomen, or the Vale of the Yumuri."
It is in the style of a romance, but contains little that is
fictitious except the names of the characters. The account which
Idomen gives of her own history is literally true, except in relation
to an excursion to Niagara, which occurred in a different period of
the author's life. It is impossible to read these interesting
"confessions" without feeling a profound interest in the character
which they illustrate; a character of singular strength, dignity and
delicacy, subjected to the severest tests, and exposed to the most
curious and easy analysis. "To see the inmost soul of one who bore all
the impulse and torture of self-murder without perishing, is what can
seldom be done: very few have memories strong enough to retain a
distinct impression of past suffering, and few, though possessed of
such memories, have the power of so describing their sensations as to
make them apparent to another." "Idomen" will possess an interest and
value as a psychological study, independent of that which belongs to
it as a record of the experience of so eminent a poet.

Mrs. Brooks was anxious to have published an edition of all her
writings, including "Idomen," before leaving New York, and she
authorized me to offer gratuitously her copyrights to an eminent
publishing house for that purpose. In the existing condition of the
copyright laws, which should have been entitled acts for the
discouragement of a native literature, she was not surprised that the
offer was declined, though indignant that the reason assigned should
have been that they were "of too elevated a character to sell."
Writing to me soon afterward she observed, "I do not think any thing
from my humble imagination can be 'too elevated,' or elevated enough,
for the public as it really is in these North American States.... In
the words of poor Spurzheim, (uttered to me a short time before his
death, in Boston,) I solace myself by saying, 'Stupidity! stupidity!
the knowledge of that alone has saved me from misanthropy.'"

[Footnote 2: Maria del Occidente--otherwise, we believe, Mrs.
Brooks--is styled in "The Doctor," &c. "the most impassioned and most
imaginative of all poetesses." And without taking into account _quædam
ardentiora_ scattered here and there throughout her singular poem,
there is undoubtedly ground for the first clause, and, with the more
accurate substitution of "fanciful" for "imaginative" for the whole of
the eulogy. It is altogether an extraordinary performance.--_London
Quarterly Review._]

In December, 1843, Mrs. Brooks sailed the last time from her native
country for the Island of Cuba. There, on her coffee estate, Hermita,
she renewed for a while her literary labors. The small stone building,
smoothly plastered, with a flight of steps leading to its entrance, in
which she wrote some of the cantos of "Zophiël," is described by a
recent traveler[3] as surrounded by alleys of "palms, cocoas, and
oranges, interspersed with the tamarind, the pomegranate, the mangoe,
and the rose-apple, with a back ground of coffee and plantains
covering every portion of the soil with their luxuriant verdure. I
have often passed it," he observes, "in the still night, when the moon
was shining brightly, and the leaves of the cocoa and palm threw
fringe-like shadows on the walls and the floor, and the elfin lamps of
the cocullos swept through the windows and door, casting their lurid,
mysterious light on every object, while the air was laden with mingled
perfume from the coffee and orange, and the tube-rose and
night-blooming ceres, and have thought that no fitter birth-place
could be found for the images she has created."

Her habits of composition were peculiar. With an almost unconquerable
aversion to the use of the pen, especially in her later years, it was
her custom to finish her shorter pieces, and entire cantos of longer
poems, before committing a word of them to paper. She had long
meditated, and had partly composed, an epic under the title of
"Beatriz, the Beloved of Columbus," and when transmitting to me the
MS. of "The Departed," in August, 1844, she remarked: "When I have
written out my 'Vistas del Infierno' and one other short poem, I hope
to begin the penning of the epic I have so often spoken to you of; but
when or whether it will ever be finished, Heaven alone can tell." I
have not learned whether this poem was written, but when I heard her
repeat passages of it, I thought it would be a nobler work than
"Zophiël."

Mrs. Brooks died at Patricio, in Cuba, near the close of December,
1844.

I have no room for particular criticism of her minor poems. They will
soon I trust be given to the public in a suitable edition, when it
will be discovered that they are heart-voices, distinguished for the
same fearlessness of thought and expression which is illustrated by
the work which has been considered in this brief reviewal.

The accompanying portrait is from a picture by Mr. Alexander, of
Boston, and though the engraver has very well preserved the details
and general effect of the painting, it does little justice to the fine
intellectual expression of the subject. It was a fancy of Mr.
Southey's that induced her to wear in her hair the passion-flower,
which that poet deemed the fittest emblem of her nature.

[Footnote 3: The author of "Notes on Cuba." Boston, 1844.]





THE CRUISE OF THE RAKER.

A TALE OF THE WAR OF 1812-15.

BY HENRY A. CLARK.


CHAPTER I.

_The Departure of the Privateer._


It was a dark and cloudy afternoon near the close of the war of
1812-15. A little vessel was scudding seaward before a strong
sou'wester, which lashed the bright waters of the Delaware till its
breast seemed a mimic ocean, heaving and swelling with tiny waves. As
the sky and sea grew darker and darker in the gathering shades of
twilight, the little bark rose upon the heavy swell of the ocean, and
meeting Cape May on its lee-beam, shot out upon the broad waste of
waters, alone in its daring course, seeming like the fearless bird
which spreads its long wings amid the fury of the storm and the
darkness of the cloud.

Upon the deck, near the helm, stood the captain, whom we introduce to
our readers as George Greene, captain of the American privater, Raker.
He was a weather-bronzed, red-cheeked, sturdy-built personage, with a
dark-blue eye, the same in color as the great sea over which it was
roving with an earnest and careful glance, rather as if in search of a
strange sail, than in apprehension of the approaching storm. His
countenance denoted firmness and resolution, which he truly possessed
in an extraordinary degree, and his whole appearance was that of a
hardy sailor accustomed to buffet with the storm and laugh at the
fiercest wave.

It was evident that a bad night was before them, and there were some
on board the little privateer who thought they had better have
remained inside the light-house of Cape May, than ventured out upon
the sea. The heavy masses of black clouds which were piled on the edge
of the distant horizon seemed gradually gathering nearer and nearer,
as if to surround and ingulf the gallant vessel, which sped onward
fearlessly and proudly, as if conscious of its power to survive the
tempest, and bide the storm.

Captain Greene's eye was at length attracted by the threatening aspect
of the sky, and seizing his speaking-trumpet he gave the orders of
preparation, which were the more promptly executed inasmuch as they
had been anxiously awaited.

"Lay aloft there, lads, and in with the fore to'gallant-sail and
royal--down with the main gaff top-sail!--bear a hand, lads, a norther
on the Banks is no plaything! Clear away both cables, and see them
bent to the anchors--let's have all snug--lower the flag from the
gaff-peak, and send up the storm-pennant, there--now we are ready."

A thunder-storm at sea is perhaps the sublimest sight in nature,
especially when attended with the darkness and mystery of night. The
struggling vessel plunges onward into the deep blackness, like a blind
and unbridled war-horse. All is dark--fearfully dark. Stand with me,
dear reader, here in the bow of the ship! make fast to that halliard,
and share with me in the glorious feelings engendered by the storm
which is now rioting over the waters and rending the sky. We hear the
fierce roar of the contending surges, yet we see them not. We hear the
quivering sails and strained sheets, creaking and fluttering like
imprisoned spirits, above and around us, but all is solemnly
invisible; now, see in the distant horizon the faint premonitory flush
of light, preceding the vivid lightning flash--now, for a moment,
every thing--sky--water--sheet--shroud and spar are glowing with a
brilliancy that exceedeth the brightness of day--the sky is a broad
canopy of golden radiance, and the waves are crested with a red and
fiery surge, that reminds you of your conception of the "lake of
burning fire and brimstone." We feel the dread--the vast sublimity of
the breathless moment, and while the mighty thoughts and tumultuous
conceptions are striving for form and order of utterance within our
throbbing breasts--again all is dark--sadly, solemnly dark. Is not the
scene--is not the hour, truly sublime?

There was one at least on board the little Raker, who felt as we
should have felt, dear reader--a sense of exultation, mingled with
awe. It is upon the ocean that man learns his own weakness, and his
own strength--he feels the light vessel trembling beneath him, as if
it feared dissolution--he hears the strained sheets moaning in almost
conscious agony--he sees the great waves dashing from stem to stern in
relentless glee, and he feels that he is a sport and a plaything in
the grasp of a mightier power; he learns his own insignificance. Yet
the firm deck remains--the taut sheets and twisted halliards give not
away; and he learns a proud reliance on his own skill and might, when
he finds that with but a narrow hold between him and death, he can
outride the storm, and o'ermaster the wave.

Such were the thoughts which filled the mind of Henry Morris, as he
stood by the side of Captain Greene on the quarter-deck of the Raker;
as he stood with his left arm resting on the main-boom, and his
gracefully turned little tarpaulin thrown back from a broad, high
forehead, surrounded by dark and clustering curls, and with his black,
brilliant eyes lighted up with the enthusiasm of thought, he presented
a splendid specimen of an American sailor. The epaulette upon his
shoulder denoted that he was an officer; he was indeed second in
command in the privateer. He was a native of New Jersey, and his
father had been in Revolutionary days one of the "Jarsey Blues," as
brave and gallant men as fought in that glorious struggle.

"Well, Harry," said Captain Greene, "it's a dirty night, but I'll turn
in a spell, and leave you in command."

"Ay, ay, sir."

Captain Greene threw out a huge quid of tobacco which had rested for
some time in his mouth, walked the deck a few times fore and aft,
gaped as if his jaws were about to separate forever, and then
disappeared through the cabin-door.

Henry Morris, though an universal favorite with the crew and officers
under his command, was yet a strict disciplinarian, and being left in
command of the deck at once went the rounds of the watch, to see that
all were on the look out. The night had far advanced before he saw any
remissness; at length, however, he discovered a brawny tar stowed away
in a coil of rope, snoring in melodious unison with the noise of the
wind and wave; his mouth was open, developing an amazing
circumference. Morris looked at him for some time, when, with a smile,
he addressed a sailor near him.

"I say, Jack Marlinspike!"

"Ay, ay, sir."

"Jack, get some oakum."

Jack speedily brought a fist-full.

"Now, Jack, some _slush_."

Jack dipped the oakum in the slush-bucket which hung against the
main-mast.

"Now, Jack, a little tar."

The mixture was immediately dropped into the tar-bucket.

"Now, Jack, stow it away in Pratt's mouth--don't wake him up--'tis a
delicate undertaking, but he sleeps soundly."

"Lord! a stroke of lightning wouldn't wake him--ha! ha! ha! he'll
dream he is eating his breakfast!"

With a broad grin upon his weather-beaten face, Marlinspike proceeded
to obey orders. He placed the execrable compound carefully in Pratt's
mouth, and plugged it down, as he called it, with the end of his
jack-knife, then surveying his work with a complacent laugh, he
touched his hat, and withdrew a few paces to bide the event.

Pratt breathed hard, but slept on, though the melody of his snoring
was sadly impaired in the clearness of its utterance.

Morris gazed at him quietly, and then sung out,

"Pratt--Pratt--what are you lying there wheezing like a porpoise for?
Get up, man, your watch is not out."

The sailor opened his eyes with a ludicrous expression of fright, as
he became immediately conscious of a peculiar feeling of difficulty in
breathing--thrusting his huge hand into his mouth, he hauled away upon
its contents, and at length found room for utterance.

"By heaven, just tell me who did that 'ar nasty trick--that's all."

At this moment he caught sight of Marlinspike, who was looking at him
with a grin extending from ear to ear. Without further remark, Pratt
let the substance which he had held in his hand fly at Marlinspike's
head; that individual, however, dodged very successfully, and it
disappeared to leeward.

Pratt was about to follow up his first discharge with an assault from
a pair of giant fists, but the voice of his commander restrained him.

"Ah, Pratt! somebody has been fooling you--you must look out for the
future."

Pratt immediately knew from the peculiar tone of the voice which
accompanied this remark who was the real author of the joke, and
turned to his duty with the usual philosophy of a sailor, at the same
time filling his mouth with nearly a whole hand of tobacco, to take
the taste out, as he said. He did not soon sleep upon his watch again.

As the reader will perceive, Lieut. Morris was decidedly fond of a
joke, as, indeed, is every sailor.

The storm still raged onward as day broke over the waters; the little
Raker was surrounded by immense waves which heaved their foaming spray
over the vessel from stem to stern.

Yet all on board were in good spirits; all had confidence in the
well-tried strength of their bark, and the joke and jest went round as
gayly and carelessly as if the wind were only blowing a good stiff
way.

"Here, you snow-ball," cried Jack Marlinspike, to the black cook, who
had just emptied his washings overboard, and was tumbling back to his
galley as well as the uneasy motion of the vessel would allow; "here,
snow-ball."

"Well, massa--what want?"

"Haint we all told you that you mustn't empty nothing over to windward
but hot water and ashes--all else must go to leeward?"

"Yes, Massa."

"Well, recollect it now; go and empty your ash-pot, so you'll learn
how."

"Yes, massa."

Cuffy soon appeared with his pot, which he capsized as directed, and
got his eyes full of the dust.

"O, Lord! O, Lord! I see um now; I guess you wont catch dis child that
way agin."

"Well, well, Cuffy! we must all learn by experience."

"Gorry, massa, guess I wont try de hot water!"

"Well, I wouldn't, Cuff. Now hurry up the pork--you've learnt
something this morning."

Such was the spirit of the Raker's crew, as they once more stretched
out upon the broad ocean. It was their third privateering trip, and
they felt confident of success, as they had been unusually fortunate
in their previous trips. The crew consisted of but twenty men, but all
were brave and powerful fellows, and all actuated by a true love of
country, as well as prompted by a desire for gain. A long thirty-two
lay amidships, carefully covered with canvas, which also concealed a
formidable pile of balls. Altogether, the Raker, though evidently
built entirely for speed, seemed also a vessel well able to enter
into an engagement with any vessel of its size and complement.

As the middle day approached the clouds arose and scudded away to
leeward like great flocks of wild geese, and the bright sun once more
shone upon the waters, seeming to hang a string of pearls about the
dark crest of each subsiding wave. All sail was set aboard the Raker,
which stretched out toward mid ocean, with the stars and stripes
flying at her peak, the free ocean beneath, and her band of gallant
hearts upon her decks, ready for the battle or the breeze.


CHAPTER II.

_The Merchant Brig._


Two weeks later than the period at which we left the Raker, a handsome
merchant vessel, with all sail set, was gliding down the English
channel, bound for the East Indies. The gentle breeze of a lovely
autumnal morning scarcely sufficed to fill the sails, and the vessel
made but little progress till outside the Lizard, when a freer wind
struck it, and it swept oceanward with a gallant pace, dashing aside
the waters, and careering gracefully as a swan upon the wave. Its
armament was of little weight, and it seemed evident that its voyage,
as far as any design of the owners was concerned, was to be a peaceful
one. England at that time had become the undisputed mistress of the
ocean; and even the few splendid victories obtained by the gallant
little American navy, had failed as yet to inspire in the bosoms of
her sailors, any feeling like that of fear or of caution; and Captain
Horton, of the merchantman Betsy Allen, smoked his pipe, and drank his
glass as unconcernedly as if there were no such thing as an American
privateer upon the ocean.

The passengers in the vessel, which was a small brig of not more than
a hundred and forty tons, were an honest merchant of London, Thomas
Williams by name, and his daughter, a lovely girl of seventeen. Mr.
Williams had failed in business, but through the influence of friends
had obtained an appointment from the East India Company, and was now
on his way to take his station. He was a blunt and somewhat unpolished
man, but kind in heart as he was frank in speech.

Julia Williams was a fair specimen of English beauty; she was tall,
yet so well developed, that she did not appear slight or angular, and
withal so gracefully rounded was every limb, that any less degree of
fullness would have detracted from her beauty. She was full of ardor
and enterprise, not easily appalled by danger, and properly confident
in her own resources, yet there was no unfeminine expression of
boldness in her countenance, for nothing could be softer, purer, or
more delicate, than the outlines of her charming features. There were
times when, roused by intense emotion, she seemed queen-like in her
haughty step and majestic beauty, yet in her calmer mind, her retiring
and modest demeanor partook more of a womanly dependence than of the
severity of command.

Julia was seated on the deck beside her father, in the grateful shade
of the main-mast, gazing upon the green shores which they had just
passed, now fast fading in the distance, while the chalky cliffs which
circle the whole coast of England, began to stand out in bold relief
upon the shore.

"Good-bye to dear England, father!" said the beautiful girl; "shall we
ever see it again?"

"_You_ may, dear Julia, probably _I_ never shall."

"Well, let us hope that we may."

"Yes, we will hope, it will be a proud day for me, if it ever come,
when I go back to London and pay my creditors every cent I owe them,
when no man shall have reason to curse me for the injury I have done
him, however unintentional."

"No man will do so now, dear father, no one but knows you did all you
could to avert the calamity, and when it came, surrendered all your
property to meet the demands of your creditors. You did all that an
honest man should do, father; and you can have no reason to reproach
yourself."

"True, girl, true! I do not; yet I hate to think that I, whose name
was once as good as the bank, should now owe, when I cannot
pay--that's all; a bad feeling, but a few years in India may make all
right again."

"O, yes! but, father, it is time for you to take your morning glass.
You know you wont feel well if you forget it."

"Never fear my forgetting that; my stomach always tell me, and I know
by that when it is 11 o'clock, A.M., as well as by my time-piece."

"Well, John, bring Mr. Williams his morning glass."

Julia spoke to their servant, a worthy, clever fellow, who had long
lived in their family, and would not leave it now. He had never been
upon the ocean before, and already began to be sea-sick. He however
managed to reach the cabin-door, and after a long time returned with
the glass, which he got to his master's hand, spilling half its
contents on the way.

"There, master, I haint been drinking none on't, but this plaguey ship
is so dommed uneasy, I can't walk steady, and I feels very sick, I
does; I think I be's going to die."

"You are only a little sea-sick, John."

"Not so dommed little, either."

"You are not yet used to your new situation, John; in a few days
you'll be quite a sailor."

"Will I though? Well, the way I feels now, I'd just as lief die as
not--oh!--ugh"--and John rushed to the gunwale.

"Heave yo!" sung out a jolly tar; "pitch your cargo overboard. You'll
sail better if you lighten ship."

"Dom this ere sailing--ugh--I will die."

Thus resolving, John laid himself down by the galley, and closed his
eyes with a heroic determination.

Such an event, as might be expected, was a great joke to the crew--a
land-lubber at sea being with sailors always a fair butt, and poor
John's misery was aggravated by their, as it seemed to him, unfeeling
remarks, yet he was so far gone that he could only faintly "dom them."
His master, who knew that he would soon be well, made no attempt to
relieve him; and John was for some time unmolested in his vigorous
attempt to die.

He was aroused at length by the same tar who had first noticed his
sickness,

"I say, lubber, are you sick?"

"Yes, dom sick."

"Well, I expect you've got to die, there's only one thing that'll save
you--get up and follow me to the cock-pit."

John attempted to rise, but now really unwell, he was not able to
stir. His kind physician calling a brother tar to his aid, they
assisted John below.

"There, now, you lubber, I'm going to cure you, if you'll only foller
directions."

John merely grunted.

"Here's some raw pork, and some grog, though it's a pity to waste grog
on such a lubber--now, you must eat as if you'd never ate before, if
you don't, you are a goner."

John very faintly uttered, that he couldn't "eat a dom bit."

"Then you'll die, and the fishes will eat YOU."

John shuddered, "Well, I'll try."

So saying, he downed one of the pieces of pork, which as speedily came
up again.

"Now drink, and be quick about it, or I shall drink it for you."

With much exertion they made John eat and drink heartily, after which
they left him to sleep awhile.

The following morning John appeared on deck again, exceedingly pale to
be sure, but entirely recovered from his sea-sickness, and with a
feeling of fervent gratitude toward the sailor, who, as he fancied,
had saved his valuable life.

Nothing occurred to interrupt the peaceful monotony of life aboard the
little craft for the following ten days: before a good breeze they had
made much way in their voyage, and all on board were pleased with
prosperous wind and calm sea and sky.

On the morning of the following day, however, the cry from the
mast-head of "sail ho!" aroused all on board to a feeling of interest.

"Where away?"

"Right over the lee-bow."

"What do you make of her?"

"Square to'sails, queer rig--flag, can't see it."

"O! captain," said Julia, "can't you go near enough to speak it?"

"Of course I _could_, 'cause it's right on the lee, but whether I'd
better or not is quite another thing."

"The captain knows best, my dear," said the merchant.

"Certainly, but I should so like to see some other faces besides those
which are about us every day."

"If you are tired already, my pretty lady," said Captain Horton, "I
wonder what you'll be before we get to the Indies."

"Heigh-ho," sighed the fair lady.

"Mast-head there," shouted Captain Horton.

"Ay, ay, sir."

"What do you make of her _now_?"

"Nothing yet, sir; we are overhauling her fast though."

In a short time the top-sails of the strange vessel became visible
from the deck.

"Ah! she's hove in sight, has she?" said Captain Horton. "I'll see
what I can make of her," and seizing his glass he ascended the
fore-ratlins, nearly to the cross-trees, and after a long and steady
survey of the approaching vessel, in which survey he also included the
whole horizon, he descended with a thoughtful countenance, muttering
to himself, "I was a little afraid of it."

"Well captain," inquired Julia, "is it an English vessel?"

"May be 't is--can't tell where 't was built."

"Can't you see the flag?"

"Can't make it out yet."

"Captain Horton," exclaimed the merchant, who had been watching his
countenance from the moment he had descended the ratlins, "you _do_
know something about that vessel, I am sure."

Captain Horton interrupted him by an earnest glance toward Julia,
which the fair girl herself noticed.

"O! be not afraid to say any thing before me, captain. I am not easily
frightened, and if you have to fight I will help you."

The bright eyes of the girl as she spoke grew brighter, and her little
hand was clenched as if it held a sword.

Casting a glance of admiration toward the beautiful girl, Captain
Horton leisurely filled his pipe from his waistcoat pocket, and
replied as he lit it--

"Well, I'm inclined to think it's what we call a pirate, my fair
lady."

"A pirate," sung out John, "a pirate, boo-hoo! oh dear! we shall all
be ravaged and cooked, and eaten. O dear! why didn't I marry Susan
Thompson, and go to keeping an inn--boo-hoo!"

"John," said his master, "be still, or if you must cry, go below."

The servant made a manly effort, and managed to repress his
ejaculations, but could not keep back the large tears which followed
each other down his cheeks in rapid succession.

"Can't you run from her, captain?" asked the merchant.

"Have you no guns aboard?" inquired Julia.

"I see you are for fighting the rascals, Miss Julia, and I own that
would be the pleasantest course for me; but you see, we can't do it.
The company don't allow their vessels enough fire-arms to beat off a
brig half their own size--there's no way but to run for it, and these
rascals always have a swift craft--generally a Baltimore clipper,
which is just the fastest and prettiest vessel in the world, if those
pesky Yankees do build them--but the Betsy Allen aint a slow craft,
and we'll do the best we can to show 'em a clean pair of heels."

"You are to windward of them, captain," said Julia.

"Yes, that's true; but these clippers sail right in the teeth of the
wind; see, now, how they've neared us--ahoy!--all hands ahoy!"

"Ay, ay, sir."

"'Bout ship, my boys--let go the jibs--lively, boys; now the fore
peak-halyards. There she is--that throws the strange sail right
astern; and a stern chase is a long chase."

Three or four hours of painful anxiety succeeded, when it became
evident even to the unpracticed eyes of Julia and her father, that the
strange vessel was slowly but surely overhauling them. Yet the brave
girl showed none of the usual weakness of her sex, and even encouraged
her father, who, though himself a brave man, yet trembled as he
thought of the probable fate of his daughter. As for poor John, that
unfortunate individual was so completely beside himself, that he
wandered from one part of the vessel to the other, asking each sailor
successively what his opinion of the chances of escape might be, and
what treatment they might expect from the pirates after they were
taken. As may be imagined, he received little consolation from the
hardy tars, who, although themselves well aware of their probable
fate, yet had been too long schooled in danger to show fear before the
peril was immediately around them, and were each pursuing the duties
of their several stations, very much as if only threatened with the
usual dangers of the voyage. The unmanly fears of John even induced
them to play upon his anxiety, and magnify his terror.

"Why, John," said his old friend, who had so scientifically cured him
of his sea-sickness, and toward whom John evinced a kind of filial
reverence, placing peculiar reliance upon every thing said by the
worthy tar, "why, John, they will make us all walk the plank."

"Will they--O, dear me! and what is that, does it hurt a fellow?"

"O, no! he dies easy."

"Dies! oh, lud!"

"Why, yes! you know what walking the plank is, don't yer?"

"No I don't. O, dear!"

"Well, they run a plank over the side of the ship, and ask you very
politely to walk out to the end of it."

"O, lud! and don't they let a body hold on?"

"And then when you get to the end of it, why, John, it naturally
follers that it tips up, and lets you into the sea."

"And don't they help you out?"

"No, no, John! I aint joking now, by my honor; that's the end of a
man, and that's where we shall go to if they get hold of us."

"O, dear me! what did I come to sea for? Well, but s'posin you wont go
out on the plank, wouldn't it do just to tell 'em you'd rather not,
perlitely, you know--perliteness goes a great way."

"They just blow your brains out with a pistol, that's all."

"O, lud!"

"Yes, John, that's the way they use folks."

"The bloody villains! and have we all got to walk the plank? Oh! dear
Miss Julia, and all?"

"No, no, John, not her; poor girl, it would be better if she had"--and
the kind-hearted tar brushed away a tear with his tawny hand.

"What! don't they kill the women, then?"

"No, no, John, they lets them live."

A sudden light shone in the eyes of John; it was the first happy
expression that had flitted across his countenance since the strange
sail had been discovered, and the fearful word, pirate, had fallen
upon his ears.

"I have it--I have it!"

"What, John?"

But John danced off, leaving the sailor to wonder at the sudden
metamorphosis in the feelings of the cockney.

"Well, that's a queer son of a lubber; I wonder what he's after now."

John, in the meantime, approached Julia, and in a very mysterious
manner desired a few moments private conversation with her.

"Why, John, what can you want?" She had been no woman, if, however,
her curiosity to learn the motive of so strange a request from her
servant had not induced her to listen to him.

"Miss Julia," commenced John, "I've discovered a way in which we can
all be saved alive by these bloody pirates, after they catch us; by
all, I mean you and your father, and I, and the captain, if he's a
mind to."

"Well, what is it, John?"

"I'll tell you, Miss Julia. Dick Halyard says they only kill the
men--they makes all them walk the plank, which is--"

"I know what it is," said Julia, with a slight shudder.

"Well, they saves all the women, out o' respect for the weaker sex.
Now, Miss Julia."

"Why, John!"

"But I know it's so, 'cause Dick Halyard told me all about it; now you
see if you'll only let me take one of your dresses--I wont hurt it
none; and then your father can take another, and we'll get clear of
the bloody villains--wont it be great?"

Julia could not repress a laugh even in the midst of the melancholy
thoughts which involuntarily arose in her mind during the elucidation
of John's plan of escape; she could not, however, explain the
difficulties in the way of its successful issue to the self-satisfied
expounder, and finding no other more convenient way of closing the
conversation, she told him he should have a woman's dress, with all
the necessary accompaniments.

John was delighted.

"You'll tell your father, Miss Julia, wont you? O, Lud! we'll cheat
the bloody fellows yet; I'll go and curl my hair."

Julia returned to her father's side, and silently watched the strange
sail, which was evidently drawing nearer, as her dark hull had shown
itself above the waters.

"We have but one chance of escape left," exclaimed Captain Horton; "if
we can elude them during the night, all will be well; if to-morrow's
sun find us in sight, we shall inevitably fall into their hands."

Night gradually settled over the deep, and when the twilight had
passed, and all was dark, the lights of the pirate brig were some five
miles to leeward. Her blood-red flag had been run up to the fore-peak,
as if in mockery of the prey the pirates felt sure could not escape
them--and the booming noise of a heavy gun had reached the ears of the
fugitives, as if to signal their predestined doom. Yet the calm, round
moon looked down upon the gloomy waters with the same serene
countenance that had gazed into their bosom for thousands of years,
and trod upward on her starry pathway with the same queenly pace; yet,
perchance, in her own domains contention and strife, animosity and
bloodshed were rife; perchance the sound of tumultuous war, even then,
was echoing among her mountains, and staining her streams with gore.

                                                   [_To be continued._




THE SOUL'S DREAM.

BY GEORGE H. BOKER.

    Like an army with its banners, onward marched the mighty sun,
    To his home in triumph hastening, when the hard-fought field was won;
    While the thronging clouds hung proudly o'er the victor's bright array,
    Gold and red and purple pennons, welcoming the host of day.

    Gazing on the glowing pageant, slowly fading from the air,
    Closed my mind its heavy eyelids, nodding o'er the world of care;
    And the soaring thoughts came fluttering downward to their tranquil nest,
    Folded up their wearied pinions, sinking one by one to rest.

    Till a deep, o'ermastering slumber seemed to wrap my very soul,
    And a gracious dream from Heaven, treading lightly, to me stole:
    Downward from its plumes ethereal, on my thirsting bosom flowed
    Dews which to the land of spirits all their mystic virtue owed.

    And when touched that potent essence, Time divided as a cloud,
    From the Past, the Present, Future rolled aside oblivion's shroud;
    And Life's hills and vales far-stretching full before my vision lay,
    Seeming but an isle of shadow in Eternity's broad day.

    On the Past I bent my glances, saw the gentle, guileless child
    Face to face with God conversing, and the awful Presence smiled--
    Smiled a glory on the forehead of the simple-hearted one,
    And the radiance, back reflected, cast a splendor round the throne.

    Saw the boy, by Heaven instructed through earth's mute, symbolic forms,
    Drinking wisdom with his senses, which the higher nature warms;
    Saw that purer knowledge mingled with the worldling's base alloy,
    And the passions' foul impression stamped upon his face of joy.

    O, I cried to God in anguish, is this boasted wisdom vain,
    For which I, by night and sunshine, tax my overwearied brain;
    Till, alas! grown too familiar with the thoughts that knock at Heaven,
    I would further pierce the mystery than to mortal eye is given?

    Is the learning of our childhood, is the pure and easy lore
    Speaking in a heart unsullied, better than the vaunted store
    Heaped, like ice, to chill and harden every faculty save mind,
    By the hand of haughty Science, sometimes wandering, sometimes blind?

    But no answer reached my senses; for my feeble voice was lost,
    When the Future came in darkness, like a rushing arméd host;
    Shouting cries of fear and danger, shouting words of hope and cheer,
    Racking me with threat and promise, ever coming, never here.

    Then my spirit stretched its vision, prying in the doubtful gloom,
    Half a glimpse to me was given o'er Time's boundary-stone--the tomb.
    With a shriek, like that which rises from a sinking, night-wrecked bark,
    Burst my soul the bounds of slumber, and the world and I were dark!

    While the dull and leaden Present on my palsied spirit pressed,
    Till the soaring thoughts rose upward, bounding from their earthly rest;
    Shaking down the golden dew-drops from their pinions proud and strong,
    And the cares of life fell from me, fading in the realm of Song.




THE MAID OF BOGOTA.

A TALE FROM COLOMBIAN HISTORY.

BY W. GILMORE SIMMS.


Whenever the several nations of the earth which have achieved their
deliverance from misrule and tyranny shall point, as they each may, to
the fair women who have taken active part in the cause of liberty, and
by their smiles and services have contributed in no measured degree to
the great objects of national defence and deliverance, it will be with
a becoming and just pride only that the Colombians shall point to
their virgin martyr, commonly known among them as La Pola, the Maid of
Bogota. With the history of their struggle for freedom her story will
always be intimately associated; her tragical fate, due solely to the
cause of her country, being linked with all the touching interest of
the most romantic adventure. Her spirit seemed to be woven of the
finest materials. She was gentle, exquisitively sensitive, and capable
of the most true and tender attachments. Her mind was one of rarest
endowments, touched to the finest issues of eloquence, and gifted with
all the powers of the improvisatrice, while her courage and patriotism
seem to have been cast in those heroic moulds of antiquity from which
came the Cornelias and Deborahs of famous memory. Well had it been for
her country had the glorious model which she bestowed upon her people
been held in becoming homage by the race with which her destiny was
cast--a race masculine only in exterior, and wanting wholly in that
necessary strength of soul which, rising to the due appreciation of
the blessings of national freedom, is equally prepared to make, for
its attainment, every necessary sacrifice of self; and yet our heroine
was but a child in years--a lovely, tender, feeble creature, scarcely
fifteen years of age. But the soul grows rapidly to maturity in some
countries, and in the case of women, it is always great in its youth,
if greatness is ever destined to be its possession.

Doña Apolenaria Zalabariata--better known by the name of La Pola--was
a young girl, the daughter of a good family of Bogota, who was
distinguished at an early period, as well for her great gifts of
beauty as of intellect. She was but a child when Bolivar first
commenced his struggles with the Spanish authorities, with the
ostensible object of freeing his country from their oppressive
tyrannies. It is not within our province to discuss the merits of his
pretensions as a deliverer, or of his courage and military skill as a
hero. The judgment of the world and of time has fairly set at rest
those specious and hypocritical claims, which, for a season, presumed
to place him on the pedestal with our Washington. We now know that he
was not only a very selfish, but a very ordinary man--not ordinary,
perhaps, in the sense of intellect, for that would be impossible in
the case of one who was so long able to maintain his eminent
position, and to succeed in his capricious progresses, in spite of
inferior means, and a singular deficiency of the heroic faculty. But
his ambition was the vulgar ambition, and, if possible, something
still inferior. It contemplated his personal wants alone; it lacked
all the elevation of purpose which is the great essential of
patriotism, and was wholly wanting in that magnanimity of soul which
delights in the sacrifice of self, whenever such sacrifice promises
the safety of the single great purpose which it professes to desire.
But we are not now to consider Bolivar, the deliverer, as one whose
place in the pantheon has already been determined by the unerring
judgment of posterity. We are to behold him only with those eyes in
which he was seen by the devoted followers to whom he brought, or
appeared to bring, the deliverance for which they yearned. It is with
the eyes of the passionate young girl, La Pola, the beautiful and
gifted child, whose dream of country perpetually craved the republican
condition of ancient Rome, in the days of its simplicity and virtue;
it is with her fancy and admiration that we are to crown the _ideal_
Bolivar, till we acknowledge him, as he appears to her, the Washington
of the Colombians, eager only to emulate the patriotism, and to
achieve like success with his great model of the northern confederacy.
Her feelings and opinions, with regard to the Liberator, were those of
her family. Her father was a resident of Bogota, a man of large
possessions and considerable intellectual acquirements. He gradually
passed from a secret admiration of Bolivar to a warm sympathy with his
progress, and an active support--so far as he dared, living in a city
under immediate and despotic Spanish rule--of all his objects. He
followed with eager eyes the fortunes of the chief, as they fluctuated
between defeat and victory in other provinces, waiting anxiously the
moment when the success and policy of the struggle should bring
deliverance, in turn, to the gates of Bogota. Without taking up arms
himself, he contributed secretly from his own resources to supplying
the coffers of Bolivar with treasure, even when his operations were
remote--and his daughter was the agent through whose unsuspected
ministry the money was conveyed to the several emissaries who were
commissioned to receive it. The duty was equally delicate and
dangerous, requiring great prudence and circumspection; and the skill,
address and courage with which the child succeeded in the execution of
her trusts, would furnish a frequent lesson for older heads and the
sterner and the bolder sex.

La Pola was but fourteen years old when she obtained her first glimpse
of the great man in whose cause she had already been employed, and of
whose deeds and distinctions she had heard so much. By the language
of the Spanish tyranny, which swayed with iron authority over her
native city, she heard him denounced and execrated as a rebel and
marauder, for whom an ignominious death was already decreed by the
despotic viceroy. This language, from such lips, was of itself
calculated to raise its object favorably in her enthusiastic sight. By
the patriots, whom she had been accustomed to love and venerate, she
heard the same name breathed always in whispers of hope and affection,
and fondly commended, with tearful blessings, to the watchful care of
Heaven. She was now to behold with her own eyes this individual thus
equally distinguished by hate and homage in her hearing. Bolivar
apprised his friends in Bogota that he should visit them in secret.
That province, ruled with a fearfully strong hand by Zamano, the
viceroy, had not yet ventured to declare itself for the republic. It
was necessary to operate with caution; and it was no small peril which
Bolivar necessarily incurred in penetrating to its capital, and laying
his snares, and fomenting insurrection beneath the very hearth-stones
of the tyrant. It was to La Pola's hands that the messenger of the
Liberator confided the missives that communicated this important
intelligence to her father. She little knew the contents of the billet
which she carried him in safety, nor did he confide them to the child.
He himself did not dream the precocious extent of that enthusiasm
which she felt almost equally in the common cause, and in the person
of its great advocate and champion. Her father simply praised her care
and diligence, rewarded her with his fondest caresses, and then
proceeded with all quiet despatch to make his preparations for the
secret reception of the deliverer. It was at midnight, and while a
thunder-storm was raging, that he entered the city, making his way,
agreeably to previous arrangement, and under select guidance, into the
inner apartments of the house of Zalabariata. A meeting of the
conspirators--for such they were--of head men among the patriots of
Bogota, had been contemplated for his reception. Several of them were
accordingly in attendance when he came. These were persons whose
sentiments were well known to be friendly to the cause of liberty, who
had suffered by the hands, or were pursued by the suspicions of
Zamano, and who, it was naturally supposed, would be eagerly alive to
every opportunity of shaking off the rule of the oppressor. But
patriotism, as a philosophic sentiment, to be indulged after a good
dinner, and discussed phlegmatically, if not classically, over sherry
and cigars, is a very different sort of thing from patriotism as a
principle of action, to be prosecuted as a duty, at every peril,
instantly and always, to the death, if need be. Our patriots at Bogota
were but too frequently of the contemplative, the philosophical order.
Patriotism with them was rather a subject for eloquence than use. They
could recall those Utopian histories of Greece and Rome which furnish
us with ideals rather than facts, and sigh for names like those of
Cato, and Brutus, and Aristides. But more than this did not seem to
enter their imaginations as at all necessary to assert the character
which it pleased them to profess, or maintain the reputation which
they had prospectively acquired for the very commendable virtue which
constituted their ordinary theme. Bolivar found them cold. Accustomed
to overthrow and usurpation, they were now slow to venture property
and life upon the predictions and promises of one who, however perfect
in their estimation as a patriot, had yet suffered from most
capricious fortunes. His past history, indeed, except for its
patriotism, offered but very doubtful guarantees in favor of the
enterprise to which they were invoked. Bolivar was artful and
ingenious. He had considerable powers of eloquence--was specious and
persuasive; had an oily and bewitching tongue, like Balial; and if not
altogether capable of making the worse appear the better cause, could
at least so shape the aspects of evil fortune, that, to the
unsuspicious nature, they would seem to be the very results aimed at
by the most deliberate arrangement and resolve. But Bolivar, on this
occasion, was something more than ingenious and persuasive, he was
warmly earnest, and passionately eloquent. In truth, he was excited
much beyond his wont. He was stung to indignation by a sense of
disappointment. He had calculated largely on this meeting, and it
promised now to be a failure. He had anticipated the eager enthusiasm
of a host of brave and noble spirits ready to fling out the banner of
freedom to the winds, and cast the scabbard from the sword forever.
Instead of this, he found but a little knot of cold, irresolute men,
thinking only of the perils of life which they should incur, and the
forfeiture and loss of property which might accrue from any hazardous
experiments. Bolivar spoke to them in language less artificial and
much more impassioned than was his wont. He was a man of impulse
rather than of thought or principle, and, once aroused, the intense
fire of a southern sun seemed to burn fiercely in all his words and
actions. His speech was heard by other ears than those to which it was
addressed. The shrewd mind of La Pola readily conjectured that the
meeting at her father's house, at midnight, and under peculiar
circumstances, contemplated some extraordinary object. She was aware
that a tall, mysterious stranger had passed through the court, under
the immediate conduct of her father himself. Her instinct divined in
this stranger the person of the deliverer, and her heart would not
suffer her to lose the words, or if possible to obtain, to forego the
sight of the great object of its patriotic worship. Beside, she had a
right to know and to see. She was of the party, and had done them
service. She was yet to do them more. Concealed in an adjoining
apartment--a sort of oratory, connected by a gallery with the chamber
in which the conspirators were assembled--she was able to hear the
earnest arguments and passionate remonstrances of the Liberator. They
confirmed all her previous admiration of his genius and character. She
felt with indignation the humiliating position which the men of Bogota
held in his eyes. She heard their pleas and scruples, and listened
with a bitter scorn to the thousand suggestions of prudence, the
thousand calculations of doubt and caution with which timidity seeks
to avoid precipitating a crisis. She could listen and endure no
longer. The spirit of the improvisatrice was upon her. Was it also
that of fate and a higher Providence? She seized the guitar, of which
she was the perfect mistress, and sung even as her soul counseled and
the exigency of the event demanded. Our translation of her lyrical
overflow is necessarily a cold and feeble one.

    It was a dream of freedom--
      A mocking dream, though bright--
    That showed the men of Bogota
      All arming for the fight;
    All eager for the hour that wakes
      The thunders of redeeming war,
    And rushing forth with glittering steel,
      To join the bands of Bolivar.

    My soul, I said, it cannot be
      That Bogota shall be denied
    Her Arismendi, too--her chief
      To pluck her honor up, and pride;
    The wild Llanero boasts his braves
      That, stung with patriot wrath and shame,
    Rushed redly to the realm of graves,
      And rose, through blood and death, to fame.

    How glads mine ear with other sounds,
      Of freemen worthy these, that tell!
    Ribas, who felt Caraccas' wounds,
      And for her hope and triumph fell;
    And that young hero, well beloved,
      Giraldat, still a name for song;
    Piar, Marino, dying soon,
      But, for the future, living long.

    Oh! could we stir with other names,
      The cold, deaf hearts that hear us now,
    How would it bring a thousand shames,
      In fire, to each Bogotian's brow!
    How clap in pride Grenada's hands;
      How glows Venezuela's heart;
    And how, through Cartagena's lands,
      A thousand chiefs and hero's start.

    Paez, Sodeno, lo! they rush,
      Each with his wild and Cossack rout;
    A moment feels the fearful hush,
      A moment hears the fearful shout!
    They heed no lack of arts and arms,
      But all their country's perils feel,
    And sworn for freedom, bravely break,
      The glitering legions of Castile.

    I see the gallant Roxas grasp
      The towering banner of her sway;
    And Monagas, with fearful clasp,
      Plucks down the chief that stops the way;
    The reckless Urdaneta rides,
      Where rives the earth the iron hail;
    Nor long the Spanish foeman bides,
      The stroke of old Zaraza's flail.

    Oh, generous heroes! how ye rise!
      How glow your states with equal fires!
    'Tis there Valencia's banner flies,
      And there Cumana's soul aspires;
    There, on each hand, from east to west,
      From Oronook to Panama,
    Each province bares its noble breast,
      Each hero--save in Bogota!

At the first sudden gush of the music from within, the father of the
damsel started to his feet, and with confusion in his countenance, was
about to leave the apartment. But Bolivar arrested his footsteps, and
in a whisper, commanded him to be silent and remain. The conspirators,
startled, if not alarmed, were compelled to listen. Bolivar did so
with a pleased attention. He was passionately fond of music, and this
was of a sort at once to appeal to his objects and his tastes. His eye
kindled as the song proceeded. His heart rose with an exulting
sentiment. The moment, indeed, embodied one of his greatest
triumphs--the tribute of a pure, unsophisticated soul, inspired by
Heaven with the happiest and highest endowments, and by earth with the
noblest sentiments of pride and country. When the music ceased,
Zalabariata was about to apologize, and to explain, but Bolivar again
gently and affectionately arrested his utterance.

"Fear nothing," said he. "Indeed, why should you fear? I am in the
greater danger here, if there be danger for any; and I would as soon
place my life in the keeping of that noble damsel, as in the arms of
my mother. Let her remain, my friend; let her hear and see all; and
above all, do not attempt to apologize for her. She is my ally. Would
that she could make these _men_ of Bogota feel with herself--feel as
she makes even me to feel."

The eloquence of the Liberator received a new impulse from that of the
improvisatrice. He renewed his arguments and entreaties in a different
spirit. He denounced, in yet bolder language than before, that
wretched pusillanimity which quite as much, he asserted, as the
tyranny of the Spaniard, was the cause under which the liberties of
the country groaned and suffered.

"And now, I ask," he continued, passionately, "men of Bogota, if ye
really purpose to deny yourselves all share in the glory and peril of
the effort which is for your own emancipation? Are your brethren of
the other provinces to maintain the conflict in your behalf, while,
with folded hands, you submit, doing nothing for yourselves? Will you
not lift the banner also? Will you not draw sword in your own honor,
and the defence of your fire-sides and families. Talk not to me of
secret contributions. It is your manhood, not your money, that is
needful for success. And can you withhold yourselves while you profess
to hunger after that liberty for which other men are free to peril
all--manhood, money, life, hope, every thing but honor and the sense
of freedom. But why speak of peril in this. Peril is every where. It
is the inevitable child of life, natural to all conditions--to repose
as well as action, to the obscurity which never goes abroad, as well
as to that adventure which forever seeks the field. You incur no more
peril in openly braving your tyrant, all together as one man, than you
do thus tamely sitting beneath his footstool, and trembling forever
lest his capricious will may slay as it enslaves. Be you but true to
yourselves--openly true--and the danger disappears as the night-mists
that speed from before the rising sun. There is little that deserves
the name of peril in the issue which lies before us. We are more than
a match, united, and filled with the proper spirit, for all the forces
that Spain can send against us. It is in our coldness that she
warms--in our want of unity that she finds strength. But even were we
not superior to her in numbers--even were the chances all wholly and
decidedly against us--I still cannot see how it is that you hesitate
to draw the sword in so sacred a strife--a strife which consecrates
the effort, and claims Heaven's sanction for success. Are your souls
so subdued by servitude; are you so accustomed to bonds and tortures,
that these no longer irk and vex your daily consciousness? Are you so
wedded to inaction that you cease to feel? Is it the frequency of the
punishment that has made you callous to the ignominy and the pain?
Certainly your viceroy gives you frequent occasion to grow reconciled
to any degree of hurt and degradation. Daily you behold, and I hear,
of the exactions of this tyrant--of the cruelties and the murders to
which he accustoms you in Bogota. Hundreds of your friends and
kinsmen, even now, lie rotting in the common prisons, denied equally
your sympathies and every show of justice, perishing, daily, under the
most cruel privations. Hundreds have perished by this and other modes
of torture, and the gallows and garote seem never to be unoccupied.
Was it not the bleaching skeleton of the venerable Hermano, whom I
well knew for his wisdom and patriotism, which I beheld, even as I
entered, hanging in chains over the gateway of your city? Was he not
the victim of his wealth and love of country? Who among you is secure?
He dared but to deliver himself as a man, and as he was suffered to
stand alone, he was destroyed. Had you, when he spoke, but prepared
yourselves to act, flung out the banner of resistance to the winds,
and bared the sword for the last noble struggle, Hermano had not
perished, nor were the glorious work only now to be begun. But which
of you, involved in the same peril with Hermano, will find the friend,
in the moment of his need, to take the first step for his rescue? Each
of you, in turn, having wealth to tempt the spoiler, will be sure to
need such friendship. It seems you do not look for it among one
another--where, then, do you propose to find it? Will you seek for it
among the Cartagenians--among the other provinces--to Bolivar
_without_? Vain expectation, if you are unwilling to peril any thing
for yourselves _within_! In a tyranny so suspicious and so reckless as
is yours, you must momentarily tremble lest ye suffer at the hands of
your despot. True manhood rather prefers any peril which puts an end
to this state of anxiety and fear. Thus to tremble with apprehension
ever, is ever to be dying. It is a life of death only which ye
live--and any death or peril that comes quickly at the summons, is to
be preferred before it. If, then, ye have hearts to feel, or hopes to
warm ye--a pride to suffer consciousness of shame, or an ambition that
longs for better things--affections for which to covet life, or the
courage with which to assert and to defend your affections, ye cannot,
ye will not hesitate to determine, with souls of freemen, upon what is
needful to be done. Ye have but one choice as men; and the question
which is left for ye to resolve, is that which determines, not your
possessions, not even your lives, but simply your rank and stature in
the world of humanity and man."

The Liberator paused, not so much through his own or the exhaustion of
the subject, as that his hearers should in turn be heard. But with
this latter object his forbearance was profitless. There were those
among them, indeed, who had their answers to his exhortations, but
these were not of a character to promise boldly for their patriotism
or courage. Their professions, indeed, were ample, but were confined
to unmeaning generalities. "Now is the time, now!" was the response of
Bolivar to all that was said. But they faltered and hung back at every
utterance of his spasmodically uttered "now! now!" He scanned their
faces eagerly, with a hope that gradually yielded to despondency.
Their features were blank and inexpressive, as their answers had been
meaningless or evasive. Several of them were of that class of quiet
citizens, unaccustomed to any enterprises but those of trade, who are
always slow to peril wealth by a direct issue with their despotism.
They felt the truth of Bolivar's assertions. They knew that their
treasures were only so many baits and lures to the cupidity and
exactions of the royal emissaries, but they still relied on their
habitual caution and docility to keep terms with the tyranny at which
they yet trembled. When, in the warmth of his enthusiasm, Bolivar
depicted the bloody struggles which must precede their deliverance,
they began indeed to wonder among themselves how they ever came to
fall into that mischievous philosophy of patriotism which had involved
them with such a restless rebel as Bolivar! Others of the company were
ancient hidalgos, who had been men of spirit in their day, but who had
survived the season of enterprise, which is that period only when the
heart swells and overflows with full tides of warm and impetuous
blood.

"Your error," said he, in a whisper to Señor Don Joachim de
Zalabariata, "was in not bringing young men into your counsels."

"We shall have them hereafter," was the reply, also in a whisper.

"We shall see," muttered the Liberator, who continued, though in
silence, to scan the assembly with inquisitive eyes, and an excitement
of soul, which increased duly with his efforts to subdue it. He had
found some allies in the circle. Some few generous spirits, who,
responding to his desires, were anxious to be up and doing. But it was
only too apparent that the main body of the company had been rather
disquieted than warmed. In this condition of hopeless and speechless
indecision, the emotions of the Liberator became scarcely
controllable. His whole frame trembled with the anxiety and
indignation of his spirit. He paced the room hurriedly, passing from
group to group, appealing to individuals now, where hitherto he had
spoken collectively, and suggesting detailed arguments in behalf of
hopes and objects, which it does not need that we should incorporate
with our narrative. But when he found how feeble was the influence
which he exercised, and how cold was the echo to his appeal, he became
impatient, and no longer strove to modify the expression of that scorn
and indignation which he had for some time felt. The explosion
followed in no measured language.

"Men of Bogota, you are not worthy to be free. Your chains are
merited. You deserve your insecurities, and may embrace, even as ye
please, the fates which lie before you. Acquiesce in the tyranny which
offends no longer, but be sure that acquiescence never yet has
disarmed the despot when his rapacity needs a victim. Your lives and
possessions--which ye dare not peril in the cause of freedom--lie
equally at his mercy. He will not pause, as you do, to use them at his
pleasure. To save them from him there was but one way--to employ them
against him. There is no security against power but in power; and to
check the insolence of foreign strength you must oppose to it your
own. This ye have not soul to do, and I leave you to the destiny you
have chosen. This day, this night, it was yours to resolve. I have
periled all to move you to the proper resolution. You have denied me,
and I leave you. To-morrow--unless indeed I am betrayed
to-night"--looking with a sarcastic smile around him as he spoke--"I
shall unfurl the banner of the republic even within your own province,
in behalf of Bogota, and seek, even against your own desires, to
bestow upon you those blessings of liberty which ye have not the soul
to conquer for yourselves."

Hardly had these words been spoken, when the guitar again sounded from
within. Every ear was instantly hushed as the strain ascended--a
strain, more ambitious than the preceding, of melancholy and indignant
apostrophe. The improvisatrice was no longer able to control the
passionate inspiration which took its tone from the stern eloquence of
the Liberator. She caught from him the burning sentiment of scorn
which it was no longer his policy to repress, and gave it additional
effect in the polished sarcasm of her song. Our translation will
poorly suffice to convey a proper notion of the strain.

    Then be it so, if serviles ye will be,
      When manhood's soul had broken every chain,
    'T were scarce a blessing now to make ye free,
      For such condition tutored long in vain,
    Yet may we weep the fortunes of our land,
      Though woman's tears were never known to take
    One link away from that oppressive band,
      Ye have not soul, not soul enough to break!

    Oh! there were hearts of might in other days,
      Brave chiefs, whose memory still is dear to fame;
    Alas for ours!--the gallant deeds we praise
      But show more deeply red our cheeks of shame:
    As from the midnight gloom the weary eye,
      With sense that cannot the bright dawn forget,
    Looks sadly hopeless, from the vacant sky,
      To that where late the glorious day-star set!

    Yet all's not midnight dark, if in your land
      There be some gallant hearts to brave the strife;
    One single generous blow from Freedom's hand
      May speak again our sunniest hopes to life;
    If but one blessed drop in living veins
      Be worthy those who teach us from the dead,
    Vengeance and weapons both are in your chains,
      Hurled fearlessly upon your despot's head!

    Yet, if no memory of the living past
      Can wake ye now to brave the indignant strife,
    'T were nothing wise, at least, that we should last
      When death itself might wear a look of life!
    Ay, when the oppressive arm is lifted high,
      And scourge and torture still conduct to graves,
    To strike, though hopeless still--to strike and die!
      They live not, worthy freedom, who are slaves!

As the song proceeded, Bolivar stood forward as one wrapt in ecstasy.
The exultation brightened in his eye, and his manner was that of a
soul in the realization of its highest triumph. Not so the Bogotans by
whom he was surrounded. They felt the terrible sarcasm which the
damsel's song conveyed--a sarcasm immortalized to all the future, in
the undying depths of a song to be remembered. They felt the
humiliation of such a record, and hung their heads in shame. At the
close of the ballad, Bolivar exclaimed to Joachim de Zalabariata, the
father:

"Bring the child before us. She is worthy to be a prime minister. A
prime minister? No! the hero of the forlorn hope! a spirit to raise a
fallen standard from the dust, and to tear down and trample that of
the enemy. Bring her forth, Joachim. Had you _men_ of Bogota but a
tithe of a heart so precious! Nay, could her heart be divided amongst
them--it might serve a thousand--there were no viceroy of Spain within
your city now!"

And when the father brought her forth from the little cabinet, that
girl, flashing with inspiration--pale and red by turns--slightly made,
but graceful--very lovely to look upon--wrapt in loose white garments,
with her long hair, dark and flowing, unconfined, and so long that it
was easy for her to walk upon it[4]--the admiration of the Liberator
was insuppressible.

"Bless you forever," he cried, "my fair Priestess of Freedom! You, at
least, have a free soul, and one that is certainly inspired by the
great divinity of earth. You shall be mine ally, though I find none
other in all Bogota sufficiently courageous. In you, my child, in you
and yours, there is still a redeeming spirit which shall save your
city utterly from shame!"

[Footnote 4: A frequent case among the maids of South America.]

While he spoke, the emotions of the maiden were of a sort readily to
show how easily she should be quickened with the inspiration of lyric
song. The color came and went upon her soft white cheeks. The tears
rose, big and bright, upon her eyelashes--heavy drops, incapable of
suppression, that swelled one after the other, trembled and fell,
while the light blazed, even more brightly from the shower, in the
dark and dilating orbs which harbored such capacious fountains. She
had no words at first, but, trembling like a leaf, sunk upon a cushion
at the feet of her father, as Bolivar, with a kiss upon her forehead,
released her from his clasp. Her courage came back to her a moment
after. She was a thing of impulse, whose movements were as prompt and
unexpected as the inspiration by which she sung. Bolivar had scarcely
turned from her, as if to relieve her tremor, when she recovered all
her strength and courage. Suddenly rising from the cushion, she seized
the hand of her father, and with an action equally passionate and
dignified, she led him to the Liberator, to whom, speaking for the
first time in that presence, she thus addressed herself:

"_He_ is yours--he has always been ready with his life and money.
Believe me, for I know it. Nay, more! doubt not that there are
hundreds in Bogota--though they be not here--who, like him, will be
ready whenever they hear the summons of your trumpet. Nor will the
women of Bogota be wanting. There will be many of them who will take
the weapons of those who use them not, and do as brave deeds for their
country as did the dames of Magdalena when they slew four hundred
Spaniards".[5]

"Ah! I remember! A most glorious achievement, and worthy to be writ in
characters of gold. It was at Mompox where they rose upon the garrison
of Morillo. Girl, you are worthy to have been the chief of those women
of Magdalena. You will be chief yet of the women of Bogota. I take
your assurance with regard to them; but for the men, it were better
that thou peril nothing even in thy speech."

The last sarcasm of the Liberator might have been spared. That which
his eloquence had failed to effect was suddenly accomplished by this
child of beauty. Her inspiration and presence were electrical. The old
forgot their caution and their years. The young, who needed but a
leader, had suddenly found a genius. There was now no lack of the
necessary enthusiasm. There were no more scruples. Hesitation yielded
to resolve. The required pledges were given--given more abundantly
than required; and raising the slight form of the damsel to his own
height, Bolivar again pressed his lips upon her forehead, gazing at
her with a respectful delight, while he bestowed upon her the name of
the Guardian Angel of Bogota. With a heart bounding and beating with
the most enthusiastic emotions--too full for further utterance, La
Pola disappeared from that imposing presence, which her coming had
filled with a new life and impulse.

[Footnote 5: This terrible slaughter took place on the night of the
16th June, 1816, under the advice, and with the participation of the
women of Mompox, a beautiful city on an island in the River Magdalena.
The event has enlisted the muse of many a native patriot and poet, who
grew wild when they recalled the courage of

    "Those dames of Magdalena,
      Who, in one fearful night,
    Slew full four hundred tyrants,
      Nor shrunk from blood in fright."

Such women deserve the apostrophe of Macbeth to his wife:

    "Bring forth men children only."]

It was nearly dawn when the Liberator left the city. That night the
bleaching skeleton of the venerable patriot Hermano was taken down
from the gibbet where it had hung so long, by hands that left the
revolutionary banner waving proudly in its place. This was an event to
startle the viceroy. It was followed by other events. In a few days
more and the sounds of insurrection were heard throughout the
province--the city still moving secretly--sending forth supplies and
intelligence by stealth, but unable to raise the standard of
rebellion, while Zamano, the viceroy, doubtful of its loyalty,
remained in possession of its strong places with an overawing force.
Bolivar himself, under these circumstances, was unwilling that the
patriots should throw aside the mask. Throughout the province,
however, the rising was general. They responded eagerly to the call of
the Liberator, and it was easy to foresee that their cause must
ultimately prevail. The people in conflict proved themselves equal to
their rulers. The Spaniards had been neither moderate when strong, nor
were they prudent now when the conflict found them weak. Still, the
successes were various. The Spaniards had a foothold from which it was
not easy to expel them, and were in possession of resources, in arms
and material, derived from the mother country, with which the
republicans found it no easy matter to contend. But they did contend,
and this, with the right upon their side, was the great guaranty for
success. What the Colombians wanted in the materials of warfare, was
more than supplied by their energy and patriotism; and however slow in
attaining their desired object, it was yet evident to all, except
their enemies, that the issue was certainly in their own hands.

For two years that the war had been carried on, the casual observer
could, perhaps, see but little change in the respective relations of
the combatants. The Spaniards still continued to maintain their
foothold wherever the risings of the patriots had been premature or
partial. But the resources of the former were hourly undergoing
diminution, and the great lessening of the productions of the country,
incident to its insurrectionary condition, had subtracted largely from
the temptations to the further prosecution of the war. The hopes of
the patriots naturally rose with the depression of their enemies, and
their increasing numbers and improving skill in the use of their
weapons, not a little contributed to their endurance and activity. But
for this history we must look to other volumes. The question for us is
confined to an individual. How, in all this time, had La Pola redeemed
her pledge to the Liberator--how had she whom he had described as the
"guardian genius of Bogota," adhered to the enthusiastic faith which
she had voluntarily pledged to him in behalf of herself and people?

Now, it may be supposed that a woman's promise, to participate in the
business of an insurrection, is not a thing upon which much stress is
to be laid. We are apt to assume for the sex a too humble capacity for
high performances, and a too small sympathy with the interests and
affairs of public life. In both respects we are mistaken. A proper
education for the sex would result in showing their ability to share
with man in all his toils, and to sympathize with him in all the
legitimate concerns of manhood. But what, demands the caviler, can be
expected of a child of fifteen; and should her promises be held
against her for rigid fulfillment and performance? It might be enough
to answer that we are writing a sober history. There is the record.
The fact is as we give it. But a girl of fifteen, in the warm
latitudes of South America, is quite as mature as the northern maiden
of twenty-five; with an ardor in her nature that seems to wing the
operations of the mind, making that intuitive with her, which, in the
person of a colder climate is the result only of long calculation and
deliberate thought. She is sometimes a mother at twelve, and, as in
the case of La Pola, a heroine at fifteen. We freely admit that
Bolivar, though greatly interested in the improvisatrice, was chiefly
grateful to her for the timely rebuke which she administered, through
her peculiar faculty of lyric song, to the unpatriotic inactivity of
her countrymen. As a matter of course, he might still expect that the
same muse would take fire under similar provocation hereafter. But he
certainly never calculated on other and more decided services at her
hands. He misunderstood the being whom he had somewhat contributed to
inspire. He did not appreciate her ambition, or comprehend her
resources. From the moment of his meeting with her she became a woman.
She was already a politician as she was a poet. Intrigue is natural to
the genius of the sex, and the faculty is enlivened by the possession
of a warm imagination. La Pola put all her faculties in requisition.
Her soul was now addressed to the achievement of some plan of
co-operation with the republican chief, and she succeeded where wiser
persons must have failed in compassing the desirable facilities.
Living in Bogota--the stronghold of the enemy--she exercised a policy
and address which disarmed suspicion. Her father and his family were
to be saved and shielded, while they remained under the power of the
viceroy, Zamano, a military despot who had already acquired a
reputation for cruelty scarcely inferior to that of the worst of the
Roman emperors in the latter days of the empire. The wealth of her
father, partly known, made him a desirable victim. Her beauty, her
spirit, the charm of her song and conversation, were exercised, as
well to secure favor for him, as to procure the needed intelligence
and assistance for the Liberator. She managed the twofold object with
admirable success--disarming suspicion, and under cover of the
confidence which she inspired, succeeding in effecting constant
communication with the patriots, by which she put into their
possession all the plans of the Spaniards. Her rare talents and beauty
were the chief sources of her success. She subdued her passionate and
intense nature--her wild impulse and eager heart--employing them only
to impart to her fancy a more impressive and spiritual existence. She
clothed her genius in the brightest and gayest colors, sporting above
the precipice of feeling, and making of it a background and a relief
to heighten the charm of her seemingly willful fancy. Song came at her
summons, and disarmed the serious questioner. In the eyes of her
country's enemies she was only the improvisatrice--a rarely gifted
creature, living in the clouds, and totally regardless of the things
of earth. She could thus beguile from the young officers of the
Spanish army, without provoking the slightest apprehension of any
sinister object, the secret plan and purpose--the new supply--the
contemplated enterprise--in short, a thousand things which, as an
inspired idiot, might be yielded to her with indifference, which, in
the case of one solicitous to know, would be guarded with the most
jealous vigilance. She was the princess of the tertulia--that mode of
evening entertainment so common, yet so precious, among the Spaniards.
At these parties she ministered with a grace and influence which made
the house of her father a place of general resort. The Spanish
gallants thronged about her person, watchful of her every motion, and
yielding always to the exquisite compass, and delightful spirituality
of her song. At worst, they suspected her of no greater offence than
of being totally heartless with all her charms, and of aiming at no
treachery more dangerous than that of making conquests, only to deride
them. It was the popular qualification of all her beauties and
accomplishments that she was a coquette, at once so cold, and so
insatiate. Perhaps, the woman politician never so thoroughly conceals
her game as when she masks it with the art which men are most apt to
describe as the prevailing passion of her sex.

By these arts, La Pola fulfilled most amply her pledges to the
Liberator. She was, indeed, his most admirable ally in Bogota. She
soon became thoroughly conversant with all the facts in the condition
of the Spanish army--the strength of the several armaments, their
disposition and destination--the operations in prospect, and the
opinions and merits of the officers--all of whom she knew, and from
whom she obtained no small knowledge of the worth and value of their
absent comrades. These particulars, all regularly transmitted to
Bolivar, were quite as much the secret of his success, as his own
genius and the valor of his troops. The constant disappointment and
defeat of the royalist arms, in the operations which were conducted in
the Province of Bogota, attested the closeness and correctness of her
knowledge, and its vast importance to the cause of the patriots.

Unfortunately, however, one of her communications was intercepted, and
the cowardly bearer, intimidated by the terrors of impending death,
was persuaded to betray his employer. He revealed all that he knew of
her practices, and one of his statements, namely, that she usually
drew from her shoe the paper which she gave him, served to fix
conclusively upon her the proofs of her offence. She was arrested in
the midst of an admiring throng, presiding with her usual grace at the
tertulia, to which her wit and music furnished the eminent
attractions. Forced to submit, her shoes were taken from her feet in
the presence of the crowd, and in one of them, between the sole and
the lining, was a memorandum designed for Bolivar, containing the
details, in anticipation, of one of the intended movements of the
viceroy. She was not confounded, nor did she sink beneath this
discovery. Her soul seemed to rise rather into an unusual degree of
serenity and strength. She encouraged her friends with smiles and the
sweetest seeming indifference, though she well knew that her doom was
certainly at hand. She had her consolations even under this
conviction. Her father was in safety in the camp of Bolivar. With her
counsel and assistance he would save much of his property from the
wreck of confiscation. The plot had ripened in her hands almost to
maturity, and before very long Bogota itself would speak for liberty
in a formidable _pronunciamento_. And this was mostly her work! What
more was done, by her agency and influence, may be readily conjectured
from what has been already written. Enough, that she herself felt that
in leaving life she left it when there was little more left for her to
do.

La Pola was hurried from the tertulia before a military court--martial
law then prevailing in the capital--with a rapidity corresponding with
the supposed enormity of her offences. It was her chief pang that she
was not hurried there alone. We have not hitherto mentioned that she
had a lover, one Juan de Sylva Gomero, to whom she was affianced--a
worthy and noble youth, who entertained for her the most passionate
attachment. It is a somewhat curious fact, that she kept him wholly
from any knowledge of her political alliances; and never was man more
indignant than he when she was arrested, or more confounded when the
proofs of her guilt were drawn from her person. His offence consisted
in his resistance to the authorities who seized her. There was not the
slightest reason to suppose that he knew or participated at all in her
intimacy with the patriots and Bolivar. He was tried along with her,
and both condemned--for at this time condemnation and trial were words
of synonimous import--to be shot. A respite of twelve hours from
execution was granted them for the purposes of confession. Zamano, the
viceroy, anxious for other victims, spared no means to procure a full
revelation of all the secrets of our heroine. The priest who waited
upon her was the one who attended on the viceroy himself. He held out
lures of pardon in both lives, here and hereafter, upon the one
condition only of a full declaration of her secrets and accomplices.
Well might the leading people of Bogota tremble all the while. But she
was firm in her refusal. Neither promises of present mercy, nor
threats of the future, could extort from her a single fact in relation
to her proceedings. Her lover, naturally desirous of life,
particularly in the possession of so much to make it precious, joined
in the entreaties of the priest; but she answered him with a mournful
severity that smote him like a sharp weapon,

"Gomero! did I love you for this? Beware, lest I hate you ere I die!
Is life so dear to you that you would dishonor both of us to live? Is
there no consolation in the thought that we shall die together?"

"But we shall be spared--we shall be saved," was the reply of the
lover.

"Believe it not--it is false! Zamano spares none. Our lives are
forfeit, and all that we could say would be unavailing to avert your
fate or mine. Let us not lesson the value of this sacrifice on the
altars of our country, by any unworthy fears. If you have ever loved
me, be firm. I am a woman, but I am strong. Be not less ready for the
death-shot than is she whom you have chosen for your wife."

Other arts were employed by the despot for the attainment of his
desires. Some of the native citizens of Bogota, who had been content
to become the creatures of the viceroy, were employed to work upon her
fears and affections, by alarming her with regard to persons of the
city whom she greatly esteemed and valued, and whom Zamano suspected.
But their endeavors were met wholly with scorn. When they entreated
her, among other things, "to give peace to our country," the phrase
seemed to awaken all her indignation.

"Peace! peace to our country!" she exclaimed. "What peace! the peace
of death, and shame, and the grave, forever!" And her soul again found
relief only in its wild lyrical overflows.

    What, peace for our country! when ye've made her a grave,
    A den for the tyrant, a cell for the slave;
    A pestilent plague-spot, accursing and curst,
    As vile as the vilest, and worse than the worst.

    The chain may be broken, the tyranny o'er,
    But the sweet charms that blessed her ye may not restore;
    Not your blood, though poured forth from life's ruddiest vein,
    Shall free her from sorrows, or cleanse her from stain!

    'Tis the grief that ye may not remove the disgrace,
    That brands with the blackness of hell all your race;
    'Tis the sorrow that nothing may cleanse ye of shame,
    That has wrought us to madness, and filled us with flame.

    Years may pass, but the memory deep in our souls,
    Shall make the tale darker as Time onward rolls;
    And the future that grows from our ruin shall know
    Its own, and its country's and liberty's foe.

    And still in the prayer at its altars shall rise,
    Appeal for the vengeance of earth and of skies;
    Men shall pray that the curse of all time may pursue,
    And plead for the curse of eternity too!

    Nor wantonly vengeful in spirit their prayer,
    Since the weal of the whole world forbids them to spare;
    What hope would there be for mankind if our race,
    Through the rule of the brutal, is robbed by the base?

    What hope for the future--what hope for the free?
    And where would the promise of liberty be,
    If Time had no terror, no doom for the slave,
    Who would stab his own mother, and shout o'er her grave!

Such a response as this effectually silenced all those cunning agents
of the viceroy who urged their arguments in behalf of their country.
Nothing, it was seen, could be done with a spirit so inflexible; and
in his fury Zamano ordered the couple forth to instant execution.
Bogota was in mourning. Its people covered their heads, a few only
excepted, and refused to be seen or comforted. The priests who
attended the victims received no satisfaction as concerned the secrets
of the patriots; and they retired in chagrin, and without granting
absolution to either victim. The firing party made ready. Then it
was, for the first time, that the spirit of this noble maiden seemed
to shrink from the approach of death.

"Butcher!" she exclaimed, to the viceroy, who stood in his balcony,
overlooking the scene of execution. "Butcher! you have then the heart
to kill a woman!"

These were the only words of weakness. She recovered herself
instantly, and, preparing for her fate, without looking for any effect
from her words, she proceeded to cover her face with the _saya_, or
veil, which she wore. Drawing it aside for the purpose, the words
"_Vive la Patria!_" embroidered in letters of gold, were discovered on
the _basquina_. As the signal for execution was given, a distant hum,
as of the clamors of an approaching army, was heard fitfully to rise
upon the air.

"It is he! He comes! It is Bolivar! It is the Liberator!" was her cry,
in a tone of hope and triumph, which found its echo in the bosom of
hundreds who dared not give their hearts a voice. It was, indeed, the
Liberator. Bolivar was at hand, pressing onward with all speed to the
work of deliverance; but he came too late for the rescue of the
beautiful and gifted damsel to whom he owed so much. The fatal bullets
of the executioners penetrated her heart ere the cry of her exultation
had subsided from the ear. Thus perished a woman worthy to be
remembered with the purest and proudest who have done honor to nature
and the sex; one who, with all the feelings and sensibilities of the
woman, possessed all the pride and patriotism, the courage, the
sagacity and the daring of the man.




TO THE EAGLE.

BY MRS. E. C. KINNEY.


      Imperial bird! that soarest to the sky--
    Cleaving through clouds and storms thine upward way--
      Or, fixing steadfastly that dauntless eye,
    Dost face the great, effulgent god of day!
      Proud monarch of the feathery tribes of air!
    My soul exulting marks thy bold career,
      Up, through the azure fields, to regions fair,
    Where, bathed in light, thy pinions disappear.

    Thou, with the gods, upon Olympus dwelt,
      The emblem, and the favorite bird of Jove--
    And godlike power in thy broad wings hast felt
      Since first they spread o'er land and sea to rove:
    From Ida's top the Thunderer's piercing sight
      Flashed on the hosts which Ilium did defy;
    So from thy eyrie on the beetling height
      Shoot down the lightning-glances of thine eye!

      From his Olympian throne Jove stooped to earth
    For ends inglorious in the god of gods!
      Leaving the beauty of celestial birth,
    To rob Humanity's less fair abodes:
      Oh, passion more rapacious than divine,
    That stole the peace of innocence away!
      So, when descend those tireless wings of thine,
    They stoop to make defenselessness their prey.

      Lo! where thou comest from the realms afar!
    Thy strong wings whir like some huge bellows' breath--
      Swift falls thy fiery eyeball, like a star,
    And dark thy shadow as the pall of death!
      But thou hast marked a tall and reverend tree,
    And now thy talons clinch yon leafless limb;
      Before thee stretch the sandy shore and sea,
    And sails, like ghosts, move in the distance dim.

      Fair is the scene! Yet thy voracious eye
    Drinks not its beauty; but with bloody glare
      Watches the wild-fowl idly floating by,
    Or snow-white sea-gull winnowing the air:
    Oh, pitiless is thine unerring beak!
    Quick, as the wings of thought, thy pinions fall--
      Then bear their victim to the mountain-peak
    Where clamorous eaglets flutter at thy call.

      Seaward again thou turn'st to chase the storm,
    Where winds and waters furiously roar!
      Above the doomed ship thy boding form
    Is coming Fate's dark shadow cast before!
      The billows that engulf man's sturdy frame
    As sport to thy careering pinions seem;
      And though to silence sinks the sailor's name,
    His end is told in thy relentless scream!

      Where the great cataract sends up to heaven
    Its sprayey incense in perpetual cloud,
      Thy wings in twain the sacred bow have riven,
    And onward sailed irreverently proud!
      Unflinching bird! No frigid clime congeals
    The fervid blood that riots in thy veins;
      No torrid sun thine upborne nature feels--
    The North, the South, alike are thy domains.

      Emblem of all that can endure, or dare,
    Art thou, bold eagle, in thy hardihood!
      Emblem of Freedom, when thou cleav'st the air--
    Emblem of Tyranny, when bathed in blood!
      Thou wert the genius of Rome's sanguine wars--
    Heroes have fought and freely bled for thee;
      And here, above our glorious "stripes and stars,"
    We hail thy signal wings of LIBERTY!

      The poet sees in thee a type sublime
    Of his far-reaching, high-aspiring Art!
      His fancy seeks with thee each starry clime,
    And thou art on the signet of his heart.
      Be _still_ the symbol of a spirit free,
    Imperial bird! to unborn ages given--
      And to my soul, that it may soar like thee,
    Steadfastly looking in the eye of HEAVEN.




_FIEL A LA MUERTE, OR TRUE LOVE'S DEVOTION.

A TALE OF THE TIMES OF LOUIS QUINZE.

BY HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT, AUTHOR OF "THE ROMAN TRAITOR," "MARMADUKE
WYVIL," "CROMWELL," ETC._

(_Continued from page 12._)

PART II.


The castle of St. Renan, like the dwellings of many of the nobles of
Bretagne and Gascony, was a superb old pile of solid masonry towering
above the huge cliffs which guard the whole of that iron coast with
its gigantic masses of rude masonry. So close did it stand to the
verge of these precipitous crags on its seaward face, that whenever
the wind from the westward blew angrily and in earnest, the spray of
the tremendous billows which rolled in from the wide Atlantic, and
burst in thunder at the foot of those stern ramparts, was dashed so
high by the collision that it would often fall in salt, bitter rain,
upon the esplanade above, and dim the diamond-paned casements with its
cold mists.

For leagues on either side, as the spectator stood upon the terrace
above and gazed out on the expanse of the everlasting ocean, nothing
was to be seen but the saliant angles or deep recesses formed by the
dark, gray cliffs, unrelieved by any spot of verdure, or even by that
line of silver sand at their base, which often intervenes between the
rocks of an iron coast and the sea. Here, however, there was no such
intermediate step visible; the black face of the rocks sunk sheer and
abrupt into the water, which, by its dark green hue indicated to the
practiced eye, that it was deep and scarcely fathomable to the very
shore.

In places, indeed, where huge caverns opening in front to the vast
ocean, which had probably hollowed them out of the earth-fast rock in
the course of succeeding ages, yawned in the mimicry of Gothic arches,
the entering tide would rush, as it were, into the bowels of the land,
roaring and groaning in those strange subterranean dungeons like some
strong prisoner, Typhon, Enceladus, or Ephialtes, in his immortal
agony. One of these singular vaults opened right in the base of the
rock on the summit of which stood the castle of St. Renan, and into
this the billows rushed with rapidity so tumultuous and terrible that
the fishers of that stormy coast avowed that a vortex was created in
the bay by their influx or return seaward, which could be perceived
sensibly at a league's distance; and that to be caught in it, unless
the wind blew strong and steadily off land, was sure destruction.
However that might be, it is certain that this great subterranean
tunnel extended far beneath the rocks into the interior of the land,
for at the distance of nearly two miles from the castle, directly
eastward, in the bottom of a dark, wooded glen, which runs for many
miles nearly parallel to the coast, there is a deep, rocky well, or
natural cavity, of a form nearly circular, which, when the tide is up,
is filled to over-flowing with bitter sea-water, on which the bubbles
and foam-flakes show the obstacles against which it must have striven
in its landward journey. At low water, on the contrary, "the Devil's
Drinking Cup," for so it is named by the superstitious peasantry of
the neighborhood, presents nothing to the eye but a deep, black abyss,
which the country folks, of course, assert to be bottomless. But, in
truth, its depth is immense, as can easily be perceived, if you cast a
stone into it, by the length of time during which it may be heard
thundering from side to side, until the reverberated roar of its
descent appears to die away, not because it has ceased, but because
the sound is too distant to be conveyed to human ears.

On this side of the castle every thing differs as much as it is
possible to conceive from the view to the seaward, which is grim and
desolate as any ocean scenery the world over. Few sails are ever seen
on those dangerous coasts; all vessels bound to the mouth of the
Garonne, or southward to the shores of Spain, giving as wide a berth
as possible to its frightful reefs and inaccessible crags, which to
all their other terrors add that, from the extraordinary prevalence of
the west wind on that part of the ocean, of being, during at least
three parts of the year, a _lee_ shore.

Inland, however, instead of the bleak and barren surface of the ever
stormy sea, indented into long rolling ridges and dark tempestuous
hollows, all was varied and smiling, and gratifying to every sense
given by nature for his good to man. Immediately from the brink of the
cliffs the land sloped downward southwardly and to the eastward, so
that it was bathed during all the day, except a few late evening
hours, in the fullest radiance of the sunbeams. Over this immense
sloping descent the eye could range from the castle battlements, for
miles and miles, until the rich green champaign was lost in the blue
haze of distance. And it was green and gay over the whole of that vast
expanse, here with the dense and unpruned foliage of immemorial
forests, well stocked with every species of game, from the gaunt wolf
and the tusky boar, to the fleet roebuck and the timid hare; here with
the trim and smiling verdure of rich orchards, in which nestled around
their old, gray shrines the humble hamlets of the happy peasantry; and
every where with the long intersecting curves, and sinuous irregular
lines of the old hawthorn hedges, thick set with pollard trees and
hedgerow timber, which make the whole country, when viewed from a
height, resemble a continuous tract of intermingled glades and
copices, and which have procured for an adjoining district, the well
known, and in after days, far celebrated name of the Bocage.

Immediately around the castle, on the edge as it were of this
beautiful and almost boundless slope, there lay a large and well-kept
garden in the old French style, laid out in a succession of terraces,
bordered by balustrades of marble, adorned at frequent intervals by
urns and statues, and rendered accessible each from the next below by
flights of ornamented steps of regular and easy elevation; pleached
bowery walks, and high clipped hedges of holly, yew and hornbeam, were
the usual decorations of such a garden, and here they abounded to an
extent that would have gladdened the heart of an admirer of the tastes
and habits of the olden time. In addition to these, however, there
were a profusion of flowers of the choicest kinds known or cultivated
in those days--roses and lilies without number, and honeysuckles and
the sweet-scented clematis, climbing in bountiful luxuriance over the
numberless seats and bowers which every where tempted to repose.

Below this beautiful garden a wide expanse of smooth, green turf,
dotted here and there with majestic trees, and at rarer intervals
diversified with tall groves and verdant coppices, covered the whole
descent of the first hill to the dim wooded dell which has been
mentioned as containing the singular cavity known throughout the
country as the "Devil's Drinking Cup." This dell, which was the limit
of Count de St. Renan's demesnes in that direction, was divided from
the park by a ragged paling many feet in height, and of considerable
strength, framed of rough timber from the woods, the space within
being appropriated to a singular and choice breed of deer, imported
from the East by one of the former counts, who, being of an
adventurous and roving disposition, had sojourned for some time in the
French settlements of Hindostan. Beyond this dell again, which was
defended on the outer side by a strong and lofty wall of brick, all
over-run with luxuriant ivy, the ground rose in a small rounded knoll,
or hillock of small extent, richly wooded, and crowned by the gray
turrets and steep flagged roofs of the old château d'Argenson.

This building, however, was as much inferior in size and stateliness
to the grand feudal fortalice of St. Renan, as the little round-topped
hill on which it stood, so slightly elevated above the face of the
surrounding country as to detract nothing, at least in appearance,
from its general slope to the south-eastward, was lower than the great
rock-bound ridge from which it overlooked the territories, all of
which had in distant times obeyed the rule of its almost princely
dwellers.

The sun of a lovely evening in the latter part of July had already
sunk so far down in the west that only half of its great golden disc
was visible above the well-defined, dark outline of the seaward crags,
which relieved by the glowing radiance of the whole western sky,
stood out massive and solid like a huge purple wall, and seemed so
close at hand that the spectator could almost persuade himself that he
had but to stretch out his arm, in order to touch the great barrier,
which was in truth several miles distant.

Over the crest, and through the gaps of this continuous line of
highland, the long level rays streamed down in the slope in one vast
flood of golden glory, which was checkered only by the interminable
length of shadows which were projected from every single tree, or
scattered clump, from every petty elevation of the soil, down the soft
glimmering declivity.

Three years had elapsed since the frightful fate of the unhappy Lord
of Kerguelen, and the various incidents, which in some sort took their
origin from the nature of his crime and its consequence, affecting in
the highest degree the happiness of the families of St. Renan and
D'Argenson.

Three years had elapsed--three years! That is a little space in the
annals of the world, in the life of nations, nay, in the narrow
records of humanity. Three years of careless happiness, three years of
indolent and tranquil ease, unmarked by any great event, pass over our
heads unnoted, and, save in the gray hairs which they scatter, leave
no memorial of their transit, more than the sunshine of a happy summer
day. They are, they are gone, they are forgotten.

Even three years of gloom and sorrow, of that deep anguish which at
the time the sufferer believes to be indelible and everlasting, lag on
their weary, desolate course, and when they too are over-passed, and
he looks back upon their transit, which seemed so painfully
protracted, and, lo! all is changed, and _their_ flight also is now
but as an ended minute.

And yet what strange and sudden changes altering the affairs of men,
changing the hearts of mortals, yea, revolutionizing their whole
intellects, and over-turning their very natures--more than the
devastating earthquake or the destroying lava transforms the face of
the everlasting earth--have not been wrought, and again well nigh
forgotten within that little period.

Three years had passed, I say, over the head of Raoul de Douarnez--the
three most marked and memorable years in the life of every young
man--and from the ingenuous and promising stripling, he had now become
in all respects a man, and a bold and enterprising man, moreover, who
had seen much and struggled much, and suffered somewhat--without which
there is no gain of his wisdom here below--in his transit, even thus
far, over the billows and among the reefs and quicksands of the world.

His father had kept his promise to that loved son in all things, nor
had the Sieur d'Argenson failed of his plighted faith. The autumn of
that year, the spring of which saw Kerguelen die in unutterable agony,
saw Raoul de Douarnez the contracted and affianced husband of the
lovely and beloved Melanie.

All that was wanted now to render them actually man and wife, to
create between them that bond which, alone of mortal ties, man cannot
sunder, was the ministration of the church's holiest rite, and that,
in wise consideration of their tender years, was postponed until the
termination of the third summer.

During the interval it was decided that Raoul, as was the custom of
the world in those days, especially among the nobility, and most
especially among the nobility of France, should bear arms in active
service, and see something of the world abroad, before settling down
into the easier duties of domestic life. The family of St. Renan,
since the days of that ancestor who has been already mentioned as
having sojourned in Pondicherry, had never ceased to maintain some
relations with the East Indian possessions of France, and a relation
of the house in no very remote degree was at this time military
governor of the French East Indias, which were then, previous to the
unexampled growth of the British empire in the East, important,
flourishing, and full of future promise.

Thither, then, it was determined that Raoul should go in search of
adventures, if not of fortune, in the spring following the signature
of his marriage contract with the young demoiselle d'Argenson. And,
consequently, after a winter passed in quiet domestic happiness on the
noble estates, whereon the gentry of Britanny were wont to reside in
almost patriarchal state--a winter, every day of which the young
lovers spent in company, and at every eve of which they separated more
in love than they were at meeting in the morning--Raoul set sail in a
fine frigate, carrying several companies of the line, invested with
the rank of ensign, and proud to bear the colors of his king, for the
shores of the still half fabulous oriental world.

Three years had passed, and the boy had returned a man, the ensign had
returned a colonel, so rapid was the promotion of the nobility of the
sword in the French army, under the ancient regime; and--greatest
change of all, ay, and saddest--the Viscount of Douarnez had returned
Count de St. Renan. An infectious fever, ere he had been one year
absent from the land of his birth, had cut off his noble father in the
very pride and maturity of his intellectual manhood; nor had his
mother lingered long behind him whom she had ever loved so fondly. A
low, slow fever, caught from that beloved patient whom she had so
affectionately nurtured, was as fatal to her, though not so suddenly,
as it had proved to her good lord; and when their son returned to
France full of honors achieved, and gay anticipations for the future,
he found himself an orphan, the lord in lonely and unwilling state of
the superb demesnes which had so long called his family their owners.

There never in the world was a kinder heart than that which beat in
the breast of the young soldier, and never was a family more strictly
bound together by all the kindly influences which breed love and
confidence, and domestic happiness among all the members of it, than
that of St. Renan. There had been nothing austere or rigid in the
bringing up of the gallant boy; the father who had at one hour been
the tutor and the monitor, was at the next the comrade and the
playmate, and at all times the true and trusted friend, while the
mother had been ever the idolized and adored protectress, and the
confidante of all the innocent schemes and artless joys of boyhood.

Bitter, then, was the blow stricken to the very heart of the young
soldier, when the first tidings which he received, on landing in his
loved France, was the intelligence that those--all those, with but one
exception--whom he most tenderly and truly loved, all those to whom he
looked up with affectionate trust for advice and guidance, all those
on whom he relied for support in his first trials of young manhood,
were cold and silent in the all absorbing tomb.

To him there was no hot, feverish ambition prompting him to grasp
joyously the absolute command of his great heritage. In his heart
there was none of that fierce yet sordid avarice which finds
compensation for the loss of the scarce-lamented dead in the severance
of the dearest natural bonds, in the possession of wealth, or the
promise of power. Nor was this all, for, in truth, so well had Raoul
de Douarnez been brought up, and so completely had wisdom grown up
with his growth, that when, at the age of nineteen years, he found
himself endowed with the rank and revenues of one of the highest and
wealthiest peers of France, and in all but mere name his own
master--for the Abbé de Chastellar, his mother's brother, who had been
appointed his guardian by his father's will, scarcely attempted to
exercise even a nominal jurisdiction over him--he felt himself more
than ever at a loss, deprived as he was, when he most needed it, of
his best natural counsellor; and instead of rejoicing, was more than
half inclined to lament over the almost absolute self-control with
which he found himself invested.

Young hearts are naturally true themselves, and prone to put trust in
others; and it is rarely, except in a few dark and morose and gloomy
natures, which are exceptions to the rule and standard of human
nature, that man learns to be distrustful and suspicious of his kind,
even after experience of fickleness and falsehood may have in some
sort justified suspicions, until his head has grown gray.

And this in an eminent degree was the case with Raoul de St. Renan,
for henceforth he must be called by the title which his altered state
had conferred upon him.

His natural disposition was as trustful and unsuspicious as it was
artless and ingenuous; and from his early youth all the lessons which
had been taught him by his parents tended to preserve in him
unblemished and unbroken that bright gem, which once shattered never
can be restored, confidence in the truth, the probity, the goodness of
mankind.

Some ruder schooling he had met in the course of his service in the
eastern world--he had already learned that men, and--harder knowledge
yet to gain--women also, can feign friendship, ay, and love, where
neither have the least root in the heart, for purposes the vilest,
ends the most sordid. He had learned that bosom friends can be secret
foes; that false loves can betray; and yet he was not disenchanted
with humanity, he had not even dreamed of doubting, because he had
fallen among worldly-minded flatterers and fickle-hearted coquettes,
that absolute friendship and unchangeable love may exist, even in
this evil world, stainless and incorruptible among all the changes and
chances of this mortal life.

If he had been deceived, he had attributed the failure of his hopes
hitherto to the right cause--the fallacy of his own judgment, and the
error of his own choice; and the more he had been disappointed, the
more firmly had he relied on what he felt certain could not change,
the affection of his parents, the love of his betrothed bride.

On the very instant of his landing he found himself shipwrecked in his
first hope; and on his earliest interview with his uncle, in Paris, he
had the agony--the utter and appalling agony to undergo--of hearing
that in the only promise which he had flattered himself was yet left
to him, he was destined in all probability to undergo a deeper,
deadlier disappointment.

If Melanie d'Argenson had been a lovely girl, the good abbé said, when
she was budding out of childhood into youth, so utterly had she
outstripped all the promise of her girlhood, that no words could
describe, no imagination suggest to itself the charms of the mature
yet youthful woman. There was no other beauty named, when loveliness
was the theme, throughout all France, than that of the young betrothed
of Raoul de Douarnez. And that which was so loudly and so widely
bruited abroad, could not fail to reach the ever open, ever greedy
ears of the vile and sensual tyrant who sat on the throne of France at
that time, heaping upon his people that load of suffering and anguish
which was in after times to be avenged so bitterly and bloodily upon
the innocent heads of his unhappy descendants.

Louis had, moreover, heard years before, nay, looked upon the nascent
loveliness of Melanie d'Argenson, and, with that cold-blooded
voluptuary, to look on beauty was to lust after it, to lust after it
was to devote all the powers his despotism could command to win it.

Hence, as the Abbé de Chastellar soon made his unfortunate nephew and
pupil comprehend, a settled determination had arisen on the part of
the odious despot to break off the marriage of the lovely girl with
the young soldier whom it was well known that she fondly loved, and to
have her the wife of one who would be less tender of his honor, and
less reluctant to surrender, or less difficult to be deprived of a
bride, too transcendently beautiful to bless the arms of a subject,
even if he were the noblest of the noble.

All this was easily arranged, the base father of Melanie was willing
enough to sell his exquisite and virtuous child to the splendid infamy
of becoming a king's paramour, and the yet baser Chevalier de la
Rochederrien was eager to make the shameful negotiation easy, and to
sanction it to the eyes of the willingly hoodwinked world, by giving
his name and rank to a woman, who was to be his wife but in name, and
whose charms and virtue he had precontracted to make over to another.

The infamous contract had been agreed upon by the principal actors;
nay, the wages of the iniquity had been paid in advance. The Sieur
d'Argenson had grown into the comte of the same, with the
governorship of the town of Morlaix added, by the revenues of which to
support his new dignities; while the Chevalier de la Rochederrien had
become no less a personage than the Marquis de Ploermel, with a
captaincy of the mousquetaires, and heaven knows what beside of
honorary title and highly gilded sinecure, whereby to reconcile him to
such depth of sordid infamy as the meanest galley-slave could have
scarce undertaken as the price of exchange between his fetters and his
oar, and the great noble's splendor.

Such were the tidings which greeted Raoul on his return from honorable
service to his king--service for which he was thus repaid; and, before
he had even time to reflect on the consequences, or to comprehend the
anguish thus entailed upon him, his eyes were opened instantly to
comprehension of two or three occurrences which previously he had been
unable to explain to himself, or even to guess at their meaning by any
exercise of ingenuity. The first of these was the singular ignorance
in which he had been kept of the death of his parents by the
government officials in the East, and the very evident suppression of
the letters which, as his uncle informed him, had been dispatched to
summon him with all speed homeward.

The second was the pertinacity with which he had been thrust forward,
time after time, on the most desperate and deadly duty--a pertinacity
so striking, that, eager as the young soldier was, and greedy of any
chance of winning honor, it had not failed to strike him that _he_ was
frequently _ordered_ on duty of a nature which, under ordinary
circumstances, is performed by volunteers.

Occurrences of this kind are soon remarked in armies, and it had early
become a current remark in the camp that to serve in Raoul's company
was a sure passport either to promotion or to the other world. But to
such an extent was this carried, that when time after time that
company had been decimated, even the bravest of the brave experienced
an involuntary sinking of the heart when informed that they were
transferred or even promoted into those fatal ranks.

Nor was this all, for twice it had occurred, once when he was a
captain in command of a company, and again when he had a whole
regiment under his orders as its colonel, that his superiors, after
detaching him on duty so desperate that it might almost be regarded as
a forlorn hope, had entirely neglected either to support or recall
him, but had left him exposed to almost inevitable destruction.

In the first instance, not a man whether officer or private of his
company had escaped, with the exception of himself. And he was found,
when all was supposed to be over, in the last ditch of the redoubt
which he had been ordered to defend to the uttermost, after it had
been retaken, with his colors wrapped around his breast, still
breathing a little, although so cruelly wounded that his life was long
despaired of, and was only saved at last by the vigor and purity of an
unblemished and unbroken constitution. On the second occasion, he had
been suffered to contend alone for three entire days with but a
single battalion against a whole oriental army; but then, that which
had been intended to destroy him had won him deathless fame, for by a
degree of skill in handling his little force, which had by no means
been looked for in so young an officer, although his courage and his
conduct were both well known, he had succeeded in giving a bloody
repulse to the over-whelming masses of the enemy, and when at length
he was supported--doubtless when support was deemed too late to avail
him aught--by a few hundred native horse and a few guns, he had
converted that check into a total and disastrous route.

So palpable was the case, that although Raoul suspected nothing of the
reasons which had led to that disgraceful affair, he had demanded an
inquiry into the conduct of his superior; and that unfortunate
personage being clearly convicted of unmilitary conduct, and having
failed in the end which would have justified the means in the eyes of
the voluptuous tyrant, was ruthlessly abandoned to his fate, and
actually died on the scaffold with a gag in his mouth, as did the
gallant Lally a few years afterward, to prevent his revelation of the
orders which he had received, and for obeying which he perished.

All this, though strange and even extraordinary, had failed up to this
moment to awaken any suspicion of undue or treasonable agency in the
mind of Raoul.

But now as his uncle spoke the scales fell from his eyes, and he saw
all the baseness, all the villany of the monarch and his satellites in
its true light.

"Is it so? Is it, indeed, so?" he said mournfully. And it really
appeared that grief at detecting such a dereliction on the part of his
king, had a greater share in the feelings of the noble youth than
indignation or resentment. "Is it, indeed, so?" he said, "and could
neither my father's long and glorious services, nor my poor conduct
avail aught to turn him from such infamy! But tell me," he continued,
the blood now mounting fiery red to his pale face, "tell me this,
uncle, is she true to me? Is she pure and good? Forgive me, Heaven,
that I doubt her, but in such a mass of infamy where may a man look
for faith or virtue? Is Melanie true to me, or is she, too, consenting
to this scheme of infamous and loathsome guilt?"

"She was true, my son, when I last saw her," replied the good
clergyman, "and you may well believe that I spared no argument to urge
her to hold fast to her loyalty and faith, and she vowed then by all
that was most dear and holy that nothing should induce her ever to
become the wife of Rochederrien. But they carried her off into the
province, and have immured her, I have heard men say, almost in a
dungeon, in her father's castle, for now above a twelvemonth. What has
fallen out no one as yet knows certainly; but it is whispered now that
she has yielded, and the court scandal goes that she has either wedded
him already, or is to do so now within a few days. It is said that
they are looked for ere the month is out in Paris."

"Then I will to horse, uncle," replied Raoul, "before this night is
two hours older for St. Renan."

"Great Heaven! To what end, Raoul. For the sake of all that is good!
By your father's memory! I implore you, do nothing rashly."

"To know of my own knowledge if she be true or false, uncle."

"And what matters it, Raoul? My boy, my unhappy boy! False or true she
is lost to you alike, and forever. You have that against which to
contend, which no human energy can conquer."

"I know not the thing which human energy cannot conquer, uncle. It is
years now ago that my good father taught me this--that there is no
such word as _cannot_! I have proved it before now, uncle abbé; I may,
should I find it worth the while, prove it again, and that shortly. If
so, let the guilty and the traitors look to themselves--they were
best, for they shall need it!"

Such was the state of St. Renan's affections and his hopes when he
left the gay capital of France, within a few hours after his arrival,
and hurried down at the utmost speed of man and horse into Bretagne,
whither he made his way so rapidly that the first intimation his
people received of his return from the east was his presence at the
gates of the castle.

Great, as may be imagined, was the real joy of the old true-hearted
servitors of the house, at finding their lord thus unexpectedly
restored to them, at a time when they had in fact almost abandoned
every hope of seeing him again. The same infernal policy which had
thrust him so often, as it were, into the very jaws of death, which
had intercepted all the letters sent to him from home, and taken, in
one word, every step that ingenuity could suggest to isolate him
altogether in that distant world, had taken measures as deep and
iniquitous at home to cause him to be regarded as one dead, and to
obliterate all memory of his existence.

Three different times reports so circumstantial, and accompanied by
such minute details of time and place as to render it almost
impossible for men to doubt their authenticity, had been circulated
with regard to the death of the young soldier, and as no tidings had
been received of him from any more direct source, the last news of his
fall had been generally received as true, no motive appearing why it
should be discredited.

His appearance, therefore, at the castle of St. Renan, was hailed as
that of one who had been lost and was now found, of one who had been
dead, and lo! he was alive. The bancloche of the old feudal pile rang
forth its blithest and most jovial notes of greeting, the banner with
the old armorial bearings of St. Renan was displayed upon the keep,
and a few light pieces of antique artillery, falcons and culverins and
demi-cannon, which had kept their places on the battlements since the
days of the leagues, sent forth their thunders far and wide over the
astonished country.

So generally, however, had the belief of Raoul's death been
circulated, and so absolute had been the credence given to the rumor,
that when those unwonted sounds of rejoicing were heard to proceed
from the long silent walls of St. Renan, men never suspected that the
lost heir had returned to enjoy his own again, but fancied that some
new master had established his claim to the succession, and was thus
celebrating his investiture with the rights of the Counts of St.
Renan.

Nor was this wonderful, for ocular proof was scarce enough to satisfy
the oldest retainers of the family of the young lord's identity; and
indeed ocular proof was rendered in some sort dubious by the great
alteration which had taken place in the appearance of the personage in
question.

Between the handsome stripling of sixteen and the grown man of twenty
summers there is a greater difference than the same lapse of time will
produce at any other period of human life. And this change had been
rendered even greater than usual by the burning climate to which Raoul
had been exposed, by the stout endurance of fatigues which had
prematurely enlarged and hardened his youthful frame, and above all by
the dark experience which had spread something of the thoughtful cast
of age over the smooth and gracious lineaments of boyhood.

When he left home the Viscount de Douarnez was a slight, slender,
graceful stripling, with a fair, delicate complexion, a profusion of
light hair waving in soft curls over his shoulders, a light elastic
step, and a frame, which, though it showed the promise already of
strength to be attained with maturity, was conspicuous as yet for ease
and agility and pliability rather than for power or robustness.

On his return, he had lost, it is true, no jot of his gracefulness or
ease of demeanor, but he had shot up and expanded into a tall,
broad-shouldered, round-chested, thin-flanked man, with a complexion
burned to the darkest hue of which a European skin is susceptible, and
which perhaps required the aid of the full soft blue eye to prove it
to be European--with a glance as quick, as penetrating, and at the
same time as calm and steady as that of the eagle when he gazes
undazzled at the noontide splendor.

His hair had been cut short to wear beneath the casque which was still
carried by cavaliers, and had grown so much darker that this
alteration alone would have gone far to defy the recognition of his
friends. He wore a thick dark moustache on his upper lip, and a large
_royal_, which we should nowadays call an _imperial_, on his chin.

The whole aspect and expression of face, moreover, was altered, even
in a greater degree than his complexion, or his person. All the quick,
sparkling play and mobility of feature, the sharp flash of rapidly
succeeding sentiments, and strong emotions, expressed on the ingenuous
face, as soon as they were conceived within the brain--all these had
disappeared completely--disappeared, never to return.

The grave composure of the thoughtful, self-possessed, experienced
soldier, sufficient in himself to meet every emergency, every
alternation of fortune, had succeeded the imaginative, impulsive ardor
of the impetuous, gallant boy.

There was a shadow, too, a heavy shadow of something more than
thought--for it was, in truth, deep, real, heartfelt melancholy,
which lent an added gloom to the cold fixity of eye and lip, which had
obliterated all the gay and gleeful flashes which used, from moment to
moment, to light up the countenance so speaking and so frank in its
disclosures.

Yet it would have been difficult to say whether Raoul de St. Renan,
grave, dark and sorrowful as he now showed, was not both a handsomer
and more attractive person than he had been in his earlier days, as
the gay and thoughtless Viscount de Douarnez.

There was a depth of feeling, as well as of thought, now perceptible
in the pensive brow and calm eye; and if the ordinary expression of
those fine and placid lineaments was fixed and cold, that coldness and
rigidity vanished when his face was lighted up by a smile, as quickly
as the thin ice of an April morning melts away before the first
glitter of the joyous sunbeams.

Nor were the smiles rare or forced, though not now as habitual as in
those days of youth unalloyed by calamity, and unsunned by passion,
which, once departed, never can return in this world.

The morning of the young lord's arrival passed gloomily enough; it was
the very height of summer, it is true, and the sun was shining his
brightest over field and tree and tower, and every thing appeared to
partake of the delicious influence of the charming weather, and to put
on its blithest and most radiant apparel.

Never perhaps had the fine grounds, with their soft mossy sloping
lawns, and tranquil brimful waters and shadowy groves of oak and elm,
great immemorial trees, looked lovelier than they did that day to
greet their long absent master.

But, inasmuch as nothing in this world is more delightful, nothing
more unmixed in its means of conveying pleasure, than the return,
after long wanderings in foreign climes, among vicissitudes and cares,
and sorrows, to an unchanged and happy home, where the same faces are
assembled to smile on your late return which wept at your departure,
so nothing can be imagined sadder or more depressing to the spirit
than so returning to find all things inanimate unchanged, or if
changed, more beautiful and brighter for the alteration, but all the
living, breathing, sentient creatures--the creatures whose memory has
cheered our darkest days of sorrow, whose love we desire most to find
unaltered--gone, never to return, swallowed by the cold grave, deaf,
silent, unresponsive to our fond affection.

Such was St. Renan's return to the house of his fathers. Until a few
short days before he had pictured to himself his father's moderate and
manly pleasure, his mother's holy kiss and chastened rapture at
beholding once again, at clasping to her happy bosom, the son, whom
she sent forth a boy, returned a man worthy the pride of the most
ambitious parent.

All this Raoul de St. Renan had anticipated, and bitter, bitter was
the pang when he perceived all this gay and glad anticipation thrown
to the winds irreparably.

There was not a room in the old house, not a view from a single
window, not a tree in the noble park, not a winding curve of a
trout-stream glimmering through the coppices, but was in some way
connected with his tenderest and most sacred recollections, but had a
memory of pleasant hours attached to it, but recalled the sound of the
kindliest and dearest words couched in the sweetest tones, the sight
of persons but to think of whom made his heart thrill and quiver to
its inmost core.

And for hours he had wandered through the long echoing corridors, the
stately and superb saloons, feeling their solitude as if it had been
actual presence weighing upon his soul, and peopling every apartment
with the phantoms of the loved and lost.

Thus had the day lagged onward, and as the sun stooped toward the west
darker and sadder had become the young man's fancies; and he felt as
if his last hope were about to fade out with the fading light of the
declining day-god. So gloomy, indeed, were his thoughts, so sadly had
he become inured to wo during the last few days, so certainly had the
reply to every question he had asked been the very bitterest and most
painful he could have met, that he had, in truth, lacked the courage
to assure himself of that on which he could not deny to himself that
his last hope of happiness depended. He had not ventured yet even to
ask of his own most faithful servants, whether Melanie d'Argenson, who
was, he well knew, living scarcely three bow-shots distant from the
spot where he stood, was true to him, was a maiden or a wedded wife.

And the old servitors, well aware of the earnest love which had
existed between the young people, and of the contract which had been
entered into with the consent of all parties, knew not how their young
master now stood affected toward the lady, and consequently feared to
speak on the subject.

At length when he had dined some hours, while he was sitting with the
old bailiff, who had been endeavoring to seduce him into an
examination of I know not what of rents and leases, dues and droits,
seignorial and manorial, while the bottles of ruby-colored Bordeaux
wine stood almost untouched before them, the young man made an effort,
and raising his head suddenly after a long and thoughtful silence,
asked his companion whether the Comte d'Argenson was at that time
resident at the château.

"Oh, yes, monseigneur," the old man returned immediately, "he has been
here all the summer, and the château has been full of gay company from
Paris. Never such times have been known in my days. Hawking parties
one day, and hunting matches the next, and music and balls every
night, and cavalcades of bright ladies, and cavaliers all
ostrich-plumes and cloth of gold and tissue, that you would think our
old woods here were converted into fairy land. The young lady Melanie
was wedded only three days since to the Marquis de Ploermel; but you
will not know him by that name, I trow. He was the chevalier only--the
Chevalier de la Rochederrien, when you were here before."

"Ah, they _are_ wedded, then," replied the youth, mastering his
passions by a terrible exertion, and speaking of what rent his very
heart-strings asunder as if it had been a matter which concerned him
not so much even as a thought. "I heard it was about to be so shortly,
but knew not that it had yet taken place."

"Yes, monsiegneur, three days since, and it is very strangely thought
of in the country, and very strange things are said on all sides
concerning it."

"As what, Matthieu?"

"Why the marquis is old enough to be her father, or some say her
grandfather for that matter, and little Rosalie, her fille-de-chambre,
has been telling all the neighborhood that Mademoiselle Melanie hated
him with all her heart and soul, and would far rather die than go to
the altar as his bride."

"Pshaw! is that all, good Matthieu?" answered the youth, very
bitterly--"is that all? Why there is nothing strange in that. That is
an every day event. A pretty lady changes her mind, breaks her faith,
and weds a man she hates and despises. Well! that is perfectly in
rule; that is precisely what is done every day at court. If you could
tell just the converse of the tale, that a beautiful woman had kept
her inclinations unchanged, her faith unbroken, her honor pure and
bright; that she had rejected a rich man, or a powerful man, because
he was base or bad, and wedded a poor and honorable one because she
loved him, then, indeed, my good Matthieu, you would be telling
something that would make men open their eyes wide enough, and marvel
what should follow. Is this all that you call strange?"

"You are jesting at me, monseigneur, for that I am country bred,"
replied the steward, staring at his youthful master with big eyes of
astonishment; "you cannot mean that which you say."

"I do mean precisely what I say, my good friend; and I never felt less
like jesting in the whole course of my life. I know that you good folk
down here in the quiet country judge of these things as you have
spoken; but that is entirely on account of your ignorance of court
life, and what is now termed nobility. What I tell you is strictly
true, that falsehood and intrigue, and lying, that daily sales of
honor, that adultery and infamy of all kinds are every day occurrences
in Paris, and that the wonders of the time are truth and sincerity,
and keeping faith and honor! This, I doubt not, seems strange to you,
but it is true for all that."

"At least it is not our custom down here in Bretagne," returned the
old man, "and that, I suppose, is the reason why it appears to be so
extraordinary to us here. But you will not say, I think, monsieur le
comte, that what else I shall tell you is nothing strange or new."

"What else will you tell me, Matthieu? Let us hear it, and then I
shall be better able to decide."

"Why they say, monsiegneur, that she is no more the Marquis de
Ploermel's wife than she is yours or mine, except in name alone; and
that he does not dare to kiss her hand, much less her lips; and that
they have separate apartments, and are, as it were, strangers
altogether. And that the reason of all this is that Ma'mselle Melanie
is never to be his wife at all, but that she is to go to Paris in a
few days, and to become the king's mistress. Will you tell me that
this is not strange, and more than strange, infamous, and dishonoring
to the very name of man and woman?"

"Even in this, were it true, there would be nothing, I am grieved to
say, very wondrous nowadays--for there have been several base and
terrible examples of such things, I am told, of late; for the rest, I
must sympathize with you in your disgust and horror of such doings,
even if I prove myself thereby a mere country hobereau, and no man of
the world, or of fashion. But you must not believe all these things to
be true which you hear from the country gossips," he added, desirous
still of shielding Melanie, so long as her guilt should be in the
slightest possible degree doubtful, from the reproach which seemed
already to attach to her. "I hardly can believe such things possible
of so fair and modest a demoiselle as the young lady of d'Argenson;
nor is it easy to me to believe that the count would consent to any
arrangement so disgraceful, or that the Chevalier de la Rocheder--I
beg his pardon, the Marquis de Ploermel, would marry a lady for such
an infamous object. I think, therefore, good Matthieu, that, although
there would not even in this be any thing very wonderful, it is yet
neither probable nor true."

"Oh, yes, it is true! I am well assured that it is true, monseigneur,"
replied the old man, shaking his head obstinately; "I do not believe
that there is much truth or honor in this lady either, or she would
not so easily have broken one contract, or forgotten one lover!"

"Hush, hush, Matthieu!" cried Raoul, "you forget that we were mere
children at that time; such early troth plightings are foolish
ceremonials at the best; beside, do you not see that you are
condemning me also as well as the lady?"

"Oh, that is different--that is quite different!" replied the old
steward, "gentlemen may be permitted to take some little liberties
which with ladies are not allowable. But that a young demoiselle
should break her contract in such wise is disgraceful."

"Well, well, we will not argue it to-night, Matthieu," said the young
soldier, rising and looking out of the great oriel window over the
sunshiny park; "I believe I will go and walk out for an hour or two
and refresh my recollections of old times. It is a lovely afternoon as
I ever beheld in France or elsewhere."

And with the word he took up his rapier which lay on a slab near the
table at which he had been sitting, and hung it to his belt, and then
throwing on his plumed hat carelessly, without putting on his cloak,
strolled leisurely out into the glorious summer evening.

For a little while he loitered on the esplanade, gazing out toward the
sea, the ridgy waves of which were sparkling like emeralds tipped with
diamonds in the grand glow of the setting sun. But ere long he turned
thence with a sigh, called up perhaps by some fancied similitude
between that bright and boundless ocean, desolate and unadorned even
by a single passing sail, and his own course of life so desert,
friendless and uncompanioned.

Thence he strolled listlessly through the fine garden, inhaling the
rare odors of the roses, hundreds of which bloomed on every side of
him, there in low bushes, there in trim standards, and not a few
climbing over tall trellices and bowery alcoves in one mass of living
bloom. He saw the happy swallow darting and wheeling to and fro
through the pellucid azure, in pursuit of their insect prey. He heard
the rich mellow notes of the blackbirds and thrushes, thousands and
thousands of which were warbling incessantly in the cool shadow of the
yew and holly hedges. But his diseased and unhappy spirit took no
delight in the animated sounds, or summer-teeming sights of rejoicing
nature. No, the very joy and merriment, which seemed to pervade all
nature, animate or inanimate around him, while he himself had no
present joys to elevate, no future promises to cheer him, rendered
him, if that were possible, darker and gloomier, and more mournful.

The spirits of the departed seemed to hover about him, forbidding him
ever again to admit hope or joy as an inmate to his desolate heart;
and, wrapt in these dark phantasies, with his brow bent, and his eyes
downcast, he wandered from terrace to terrace through the garden,
until he reached its farthest boundary, and then passed out into the
park, through which he strolled, almost unconscious whither, until he
came to the great deer-fence of the utmost glen, through a wicket of
which, just as the sun was setting, he entered into the shadowy
woodland.

Then a whole flood of wild and whirling thoughts rushed over his brain
at once. He had strolled without a thought into the very scene of his
happy rambles with the beloved, the faithless, the lost Melanie.
Carried away by a rush of inexplicable feelings, he walked swiftly
onward through the dim wild-wood path toward the Devil's Drinking Cup.
He came in sight of it--a woman sat by its brink, who started to her
feet at the sound of his approaching footsteps.

It was Melanie--alone--and if his eyes deceived him not, weeping
bitterly.

She gazed at him, at the first, with an earnest, half-alarmed,
half-inquiring glance, as if she did not recognize his face, and,
perhaps, apprehended rudeness, if not danger, from the approach of a
stranger.

Gradually, however, she seemed in part to recognize him. The look of
inquiry and alarm gave place to a fixed, glaring, icy stare of unmixed
dread and horror; and when he had now come to within six or eight
paces of her, still without speaking, she cried, in a wild, low voice,

"Great God! great God! has he come up from the grave to reproach me! I
am true, Raoul; true to the last, my beloved!"

And with a long, shivering, low shriek, she staggered, and would have
fallen to the earth had he not caught her in his arms.

But she had fainted in the excess of superstitious awe, and perceived
not that it was no phantom's hand, but a most stalwort arm of human
mould that clasped her to the heart of the living Raoul de St. Renan.

                                            [_Conclusion in our next._




THE BLOCKHOUSE.

BY ALFRED B. STREET.


    Upon yon hillock in this valley's midst,
    Where the low crimson sun lies sweetly now
    On corn-fields--clustered trees--and meadows wide
    Scattered with rustic homesteads, once there stood
    A blockhouse, with its loop-holes, pointed roof,
    Wide jutting stories, and high base of stone.
    A hamlet of rough log-built cabins stood
    Beside it; here a band of settlers dwelt.
    One of the number, a gray stalwort man,
    Still lingers on the crumbling shores of Time.
    Old age has made him garrulous, and oft
    I've listened to his talk of other days
    In which his youth bore part. His eye would then
    Flash lightning, and his trembling hand would clench
    His staff, as if it were a rifle grasped
    In readiness for the foe.

              "One summer's day,"
    Thus he commenced beside a crackling hearth
    Whilst the storm roared without, "a fresh bright noon,
    Us men were wending homeward from the fields,
    Where all the breezy morning we had toiled.
    I paused a moment on a grassy knoll
    And glanced around. Our scythes had been at work,
    And here and there a meadow had been shorn
    And looked like velvet; still the grain stood rich;
    The brilliant sunshine sparkled on the curves
    Of the long drooping corn-leaves, till a veil
    Of light seemed quivering o'er the furrowed green.
    The herds were grouped within the pasture-fields,
    And smokes curled lazily from the cabin-roofs.
    'T was a glad scene, and as I looked my heart
    Swelled up to Heaven in fervent gratitude.
    Ha! from the circling woods what form steals out
    Strait in my line of vision, then shrinks back!
    'The savage! haste, men, haste! away, away!
    The bloody savage!' 'T was that perilous time
    When our young country stood in arms for right
    And freedom, and, within the forests, each
    Worked with his loaded rifle at his back.
    We all unslung our weapons, and with hearts
    Nerving for trial, flew toward our homes.
    We reached them as wild whoopings filled the air,
    And dusky forms came bounding from the woods.
    We pressed toward the blockhouse, with our wives
    And children madly shrieking in our midst.
    But ere we reached it, like a torrent dashed
    Our tawny foes amongst us. Oh that scene
    Of dread and horror! Knives and tomahawks
    Darted and flashed. In vain we poured our shots
    From our long rifles; breast to breast, in vain,
    And eye to eye, we fought. My comrades dropped
    Around me, and their scalps were wrenched away
    As they lay writhing. From our midst our wives
    Were torn and brained; our shrieking infants dashed
    Upon the bloody earth, until our steps
    Were clogged with their remains. Still on we pressed
    With our clubbed rifles, sweeping blow on blow;
    But, one by one, my bleeding comrades fell,
    Until my brother and myself alone
    Remained of all our band. My wife had clung
    Close to my side throughout the horrid strife,
    I, warding off each blow, and struggling on.
    And now we three were near the blockhouse-door,
    Closed by a secret spring. My brother first
    Its succor reached; it opened at his touch.
    Just then an Indian darted to my side
    And grasped my trembling wife"--the old man paused
    And veiled his eyes, whilst shudderings shook his frame
    As the wind shakes the leaf. "I saw her, youth,
    Sink with one bitter shriek beneath the edge
    Of his red, swooping hatchet. Turned to stone
    I stood an instant, but my brother's hand
    Dragged me within the blockhouse. As the door
    Closed to the spring, and quick my brother thrust
    The heavy bars athwart, for I was sick
    With horror, piercing whoops of baffled rage
    Echoed without. Recovering from my deep,
    O'erwhelming stupor, as I heard those sounds
    My veins ran liquid flame; with iron grasp
    I clenched my rifle. From the loops we poured
    Quick shots upon the foe, who, shrinking back,
    To the low cabin-roofs applied the brand--
    Up with fierce fury flashed the greedy flames.
    Just then my brother thrust his head from out
    A loop--quick cracked a rifle, and he fell
    Dead on the planks. With yells that froze my blood,
    A score of warriors at the blockhouse-door
    Heaped a great pile of boughs. A streak of fire
    Ran like a serpent through it, and then leaped
    Broad up the sides. Through every loop-hole poured
    Deep smoke, with now and then a fiery flash.
    The air grew thick and hot, until I seemed
    To breathe but flame. I staggered to a loop.
    Dancing around with flourished tomahawks
    I saw my horrid foes. But ha! that glimpse!
    Again! oh can it be my wavering sight!
    No, no, forms break from out the forest depths,
    And hurry onward; gleaming arms I see.
    Joy, joy, 't is coming succor! Swift they come,
    Swift as the wind. The swarthy warriors gaze
    Like startled deer. Crash, crash, now peal the shots
    Amongst them, and with looks of fierce despair
    They group together, aim a scattered fire,
    Then seek to break with tomahawk and knife
    Through the advancing circle, but in vain,
    They fall beneath the stalwort blows of men
    Who long had suffered under savage hate.
    Hunters and settlers of the valley roused
    At length to vengeance. With a rapid hand
    The blockhouse-door I opened and rushed out,
    Wielding my rifle. Youth, this arm is old
    And withered now, but every blow I struck
    Then made the blood-drops spatter to my brow,
    Until I bathed in crimson. With deep joy
    I felt the iron sink within the brain
    And clatter on the bone, until the stock
    Snapped from the barrel. But the fight soon passed,
    And as the last red foe beneath my arm
    Dropped dead, I sunk exhausted at the feet
    Of my preservers. A wild, murky gloom,
    Filled with fierce eyes, fell round me, but kind Heaven
    Lifted at length the blackness; on my soul
    The keen glare fell no more, and I arose
    With the blue sky above me, and the earth
    Laughing around in all its glorious beauty."


[Illustration: The Departure
From H. C. Corbould. Drawn with alterations & engraved by Geo. B.
Ellis Engraved expressly for Graham's Magazine]




THE DEPARTURE.

BY MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS.

[Entered According to Act of Congress in the year 1848, by EDWARD
STEPHENS, in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the United
States for the Southern District of New York.]

[SEE ENGRAVING.]


CHAPTER I.

    Oh do not look so bright and blest,
      For still there comes a fear,
    When hours like thine look happiest,
      That grief is then most near.
    There lurks a dread in all delight,
      A shadow near each ray,
    That warns us thus to fear their flight,
      When most we wish their stay. MOORE.


Far down upon the Long Island shore, where the ocean heaves in wave
after wave from the "outer deep," forming coves of inimitable beauty,
promontories wooded to the brink, and broken precipices against which
the surf lashes continually, there stood, some thirty years ago, an
old mansion-house, with irregular and pointed roofs, low stoops,
gable-windows, in short, exhibiting all those architectural
eccentricities which our modern artists strive for so earnestly in
their studies of the picturesque. The dwelling stood upon the bend of
a cove; a forest of oaks spread away some distance behind the
dwelling, and feathered a point of land that formed the eastern circle
down to the water's edge.

In an opposite direction, and curving in a green sweep with the shore,
was a fine apple-orchard, and that end of the old house was completely
embowered by plum, pear and peach trees, that sheltered minor thickets
of lilac, cerenga, snow-ball and other blossoming shrubs. In their
season, the ground under this double screen of foliage was crimson
with patches of the dwarf rose, and the old-fashioned windows were
half covered with the tall graceful trees of that snow-white species
of the same queenly flower, which is only to be found in very ancient
gardens, and seldom even there at the present time. In front of the
old house was a flower-garden of considerable extent, lifted terrace
after terrace from the water, which it circled like a crescent. The
profusion of blossoms and verdure flung a sort of spring-like glory
around the old building until the autumn storms came up from the ocean
and swept the rich vesture from the trees, leaving the mansion-house
bold, unsheltered and desolate-looking enough.

The cove upon which this old house stood looked far out upon the
ocean; no other house was in sight, and it was completely sheltered
not only by a forest of trees but by the banks that, high and broken,
curved in at the mouth of the cove, narrowing the inlet, and forming
altogether a sea and land view scarcely to be surpassed.

The mansion-house was an irregular and ancient affair enough, everyway
unlike the half Grecian, half Gothic, or wholly Swiss specimens of
architecture with which Long Island is now scattered. Still, there
was a substantial appearance of comfort and wealth about it. Though
wild and of ancient growth all its trees were in good order, and
judiciously planted; well kept outhouses were sheltered by their
luxurious foliage, and to these were joined all those appliances to a
rich man's dwelling necessary to distinguish the old mansion as the
country residence of some wealthy merchant, who could afford to
inhabit it only in the pleasantest portion of the year.

It was the pleasantest portion of the year--May, bright, beautiful
May, with her world of blossoms and her dew-showers in the night. The
apple-orchard, the tall old pear-trees and the plum thickets were one
sheet of rosy or snow-white blossoms. The old oaks rose against the
sky, piled upon each other branch over branch, their rich foliage yet
blushing with a dusky red as it unfolded leaf by leaf to the air. The
flower-garden was azure and golden with violets, tulips, crocuses and
amaranths. In short, the old building, moss-covered though its roof
had become, and old-fashioned as it certainly was in all its angles,
might have been mistaken for one of the most lovely nooks in Paradise,
and the delusion never regretted.

I have said that it was spring-time--the air fragrance itself--the
birds brimful of music, soft and sweet as if they had fed only upon
the apple-blossoms that hung over them for months. Yet there was no
indication that the old house was inhabited. The windows were all
closed, the doors locked, and the greensward with the high box
borders, covered with a shower of snowy leaves that had been shaken
from the fruit-trees. Still, upon a strip of earth kept moist by the
shadows from a gable, was one or two slender footprints slightly
impressed, that seemed to have been very recently left. Again they
appeared upon a narrow-pointed stoop that ran beneath the windows of a
small room in an angle of the building, and from which there was a
door slightly ajar, with the same dewy footprint broken on the
threshold. Within this room there was a sound as of some one moving
softly, yet with impatience, to and fro--once a white hand clasped
itself on the door, and a beautiful face, flushed and agitated,
glanced through the opening and disappeared. Then followed an interval
of silence, save that the birds were making the woods ring with music,
and an old honeysuckle that climbed over the stoop shook again with
the humming-birds that dashed hither and thither among its crimson
bells.

Again the door was pushed open, and now not only the face but the
tall and beautifully proportioned figure of a young girl appeared on
the threshold. She paused a moment, hesitated, as if afraid to brave
the open air, and then stepped out upon the stoop, and bending over
the railing looked eagerly toward the grove of oaks, through which a
carriage-road wound up to the broad gravel-walk that led from the back
of the dwelling.

Nothing met her eye but the soft green of the woods, and after gazing
earnestly forth during a minute or two she turned, with an air of
disappointment, and slowly passed through the door again.

The room which she entered was richly furnished, but the upright
damask chairs, the small tables of dark mahogany, and two or three
cushions that filled the window recesses, were lightly clouded with
dust, such as accumulates even in a closed room when long unoccupied.
There was also a grand piano in the apartment, with other musical
instruments, all richly inlaid, but with their polish dimmed from a
like cause.

The lady seemed perfectly careless of all this disarray; she flung
herself on a high-backed damask sofa, and one instant buried her
flushed features in the pillows--the next, she would lift her head,
hold her breath and listen if among the gush of bird-songs and the hum
of insects she could hear the one sound that her heart was panting
for. Then she would start up, and taking a tiny watch from her bosom
snatch an impatient glance at the hands and thrust it back to its
tremulous resting-place again. Alas for thee, Florence Hurst! All this
emotion, this tremor of soul and body, this quick leaping of the blood
in thy young heart and thrilling of thy delicate nerves, in answer to
a thought, what does it all betoken? Love, love such as few women ever
experienced, such as no woman ever felt without keen misery, and
happiness oh how supreme! Happiness that crowds a heaven of love into
one exquisite moment, whose memory never departs, but like the perfume
that hangs around a broken rose, lingers with existence forever and
ever.

Florence loved passionately, wildly. Else why was she there in the
solitude of that lone dwelling? Her father's household was in the
city--no human being was in the old mansion to greet her coming, and
yet Florence was there--alone and waiting!

It was beyond the time! You could see that by the hot flush upon her
cheek, by the sparkle of her eyes--those eyes so full of pride,
passion and tenderness, over which the quick tears came flashing as
she wove her fingers together, while broken murmurs dropped from her
lips.

"Does he trifle with me--has he dared--"

How suddenly her attitude of haughty grief was changed! what a burst
of tender joy broke over those lovely features! How eagerly she dashed
aside the proud tears and sat down quivering like a leaf, and yet
striving--oh how beautiful was the strife!--to appear less impatient
than she was.

Yes, it was a footstep light and rapid, coming along the gravel-walk.
It was on the stoop--in the room--and before her stood a young man,
elegant, nay almost superb in his type of manliness, and endowed with
that indescribable air of fashion which is more pleasing than beauty,
and yet as difficult to describe as the perfume of a flower or the
misty descent of dews in the night.

The young girl up to this moment had been in a tumult of expectation,
but now the color faded from her cheek, and the breath as it rose
trembling from her bosom seemed to oppress her. It was but for a
moment. Scarcely had his hand closed upon hers when her heart was free
from the shadow that had fallen upon it, and a sweet joy possessed her
wholly. She allowed his arm to circle her waist unresisted, and when
he laid a hand caressingly on one cheek and drew the other to his
bosom, that cheek was glowing like a rose in the sunshine.

For some moments they sat together in profound silence, she trembling
with excess of happiness, he gazing upon her with a sort of sidelong
and singular expression of the eye, that had something calculating and
subtle in it, but which changed entirely when she drew back her head
and lifted the snowy lids that had closed softly over her eyes the
moment she felt the beating of his heart.

"And so you have come at last?" she said very softly, and drawing back
with a blush, as if the fond attitude she had fallen into were
something to which she had hitherto been unused. "Are you alone? I
thought--"

"I know, sweet one, I know that you will hardly forgive me," said the
young man, and his voice was of that low, rich tone that possesses
more than the power of eloquence. "But I could not persuade the
clergyman to come down hither in my company. Your father's power
terrifies him!"

"And he would not come? He refuses to unite us then--and we are
here--alone and thus!" cried Florence Hurst, withdrawing herself from
his arm.

"Not so, sweet one, your delicacy need not be startled thus. He is
coming with a friend, and will stop at the village till I send over to
say that all is quiet here. He is terribly afraid that the old
gentleman may suspect something and follow us."

"Alas, my proud old father!" cried Florence, for a moment giving way
to the thoughts of regretful tenderness that would find entrance to
her heart amid all its tumultuous feelings.

"And do you regret that you have risked his displeasure, which, loving
you as he does, must be only momentary, for one who adores you,
Florence?" replied the young man, in a tone of tender reproach that
thrilled over her heart-strings like music.

"No, no, I do not regret, I never can! but oh, how much of heaven
would be in this hour if he but approved of what we are about to do!"

"But he will approve in time, beloved, believe me he will," said the
young man, clasping both her hands in his and kissing them.

"Yes, yes, when he knows you better," cried Florence, making an effort
to cast off the shadow that lay upon her heart, "when he knows all
your goodness, all the noble qualities that have won the heart of your
Florence."

As Jameson bent his lips to the young girl's forehead they were curled
by a faint sneering smile. That smile was blended with the kiss he
imprinted there. It left no sting--the poison touched no one of the
delicate nerves that awoke and thrilled to the fanning of his breath,
and yet it would have been perceptible to an observer as the glitter
of a rattle-snake.

"I am sure you love me, Florence."

"Love you!" her breath swelled and fluttered as the words left her
lips. "Love! I fear--I know that all this is idolatry!"

"Else why are you here."

"Truly, most truly!"

"Risking all things, even reputation, for me, and I so unworthy."

"Reputation!" cried Florence, her pride suddenly stung with the venom
that lay within those honied words. "Not reputation, Jameson; I do not
risk that; I could not--it would be death!"

"And yet you are here, alone with me, beloved, in this old house."

"But I am here to become your wife--only to become your wife. I risk
my father's displeasure--I know that--I am disobedient, wicked, cruel
to him, but his good name--my own good name--no, no, nothing that I
have done should endanger that."

The proud girl was much agitated, and the dove-like fondness that had
brooded in her eyes a moment before began to kindle up to an
expression that the lover became earnest to change.

"You take me up too seriously," he said, attempting to draw her toward
him, but she resisted proudly. "I only spoke of _possible_ not
probable risk, and that because the clergyman would be persuaded to
come down here only on a promise that the marriage should be kept a
secret till some means could be found of reconciling the old
gentleman, or at any rate for a week or two."

"And you gave the promise," said Florence, while her beautiful
features settled into a grieved and dissatisfied expression. "You gave
this promise?"

"Why, Florence, what ails you? I had no choice. You had already left
home, and he would listen to no other terms."

"A week or two--our marriage kept secret so long," said Florence in a
tone of dissatisfaction. "You did well to say I was risking much for
you. My life had been little--but this--"

"And is this too much? Do you begin to regret, Florence?"

Nothing could have been more gentle, more replete with tenderness,
ardent but full of reproach, than the tone in which these words were
uttered. Florence lifted her eyes to his, tears came into them, and
then she smiled brightly once more.

"Oh! let us have done with this; I am nervous, agitated, unreasonable
I suppose; of course you have done right," she said, "but at first the
thoughts of this concealment terrified me."

"Hark! I hear wheels. It must be the clergyman and Byrne," said
Jameson, listening.

"And is a stranger coming," inquired Florence, "any one but the
clergyman? I was not prepared for that!"

"But we must have a witness. He is my friend, and one that can be
trusted. You need have no fear of Byrne."

"They are here!" said Florence, who had been listening with checked
breath, while her face waxed very pale. "It is the step of two persons
on the gravel. Let me go--let me go for an instant, this is no dress
for a bride," and she glanced hurriedly at her black silk dress,
relieved only by a frill of lace and a knot or two of rose-colored
ribbon.

"What matters it, beautiful as you always are."

"No, no, I cannot be married in black--I will not be married in
black," she cried hurriedly, and with a forced effort to be gay; "wait
ten minutes, I will but step to the chamber above and be with you
again directly."

Florence disappeared through a door leading into the main portion of
the building, while Jameson arose and went out to meet the two men,
who were now close by the stoop, and looking about as if undecided
what door to try at for admission.

"Let us take a stroll in the garden," he said, descending the steps,
"the lady is not quite ready yet; how beautiful the morning is," and
passing his arm through that of a man who seemed some years older than
himself, and who had accompanied the clergyman, he turned an angle of
the building. The clergyman followed them a pace or two, then
returning sat down upon the steps that led to the stoop and took off
his hat.

"This is a singular affair," he muttered, putting back the locks from
his forehead and bending his elbows upon his knees, with the deep sigh
of a man who finds the air deliciously refreshing, "I have half a mind
to pluck a handful of flowers, step into my chaise and go back to the
city again; but for the sweet young lady I would. There is something
about the young man that troubles me--what if my good-nature has been
imposed upon--what if old Mr. Hurst has deeper reasons than his
pride--that I would not bend to a minute--and he gives no other reason
if they tell me truly. This young man is his book-keeper, and so his
love is presumptuous. Probably old Hurst has imported a cargo of
aristocratic arrogance from Europe, and the young people tell the
truth. If so, why I will even marry them, and let the stately
gentleman make the best of it. Still, I half wish the thing had not
fallen upon me."

Meantime the bridegroom and his friend walked slowly toward the water.

"And so you have snared the bird at last," said Byrne.

"I did not think you could manage to get her down here. When did she
come?"

"Yesterday," said Jameson.

"Alone?"

"Quite alone; her father thinks her visiting a friend."

"But _you_ left the city yesterday."

"Yes."

"And not with her?"

"She came down alone--so did I."

"But directly after--ha!"

Jameson smiled, that same crafty smile that had curled his lips even
when they rested upon the forehead of Florence Hurst.

"And did she sanction this. By heavens! I would not have believed
it--so proud, so sensitive!"

"No, no, Byrne, to do Florence justice, she supposes that I came down
this morning; but the old house is large, and it was easy enough for
me to find a nook to sleep in, without her knowledge."

"But what object have you in this?"

"Why, as to my object, it is scarcely settled yet; but it struck me
that by this movement I might obtain a hold upon her father's family
pride, should his affection for Florence fail. The haughty old don
would hardly like it to be known in the city that his lovely
daughter--his only child--had spent the night alone, in an old
country-house, with her father's book-keeper."

"But how would he know this; surely you would not become the
informant?"

"Why, no!" replied Jameson, with a smile; "but I took a little pains
to inquire about the localities of this old nest up at the village.
The good people had seen Miss Hurst leave the stage an hour before and
walk over this way. It seems very natural that he may hear it from
that quarter."

Byrne looked at his companion a moment almost sternly, then dropping
his eyes to the ground, he began to dash aside the rich blossoms from
a tuft of pansies with his cane.

"You do not approve of this?" said Jameson, studying his companion's
countenance.

"No."

"Why, it can do no harm. What would the girl be to me without her
expectations. I tell you her father will pay any sum rather than allow
a shadow of disgrace to fall upon her. I will marry her at all
hazards; but it must be kept secret, and in a little time some hint of
this romantic excursion will be certain to reach head-quarters; and I
shall have the old man as eager for the marriage as any of us, and
ready to come down handsomely, too. I tell you it makes every thing
doubly sure."

"It may be so," said the other, in a dissatisfied manner.

"Well, like it or not, I can see no other way by which you will be
certain of the three thousand dollars that you won of me," replied
Jameson, coolly.

Byrne dashed his cane across the pansies, sending the broken blossoms
in a shower over the gravel-walks.

"Well, manage as you like, the affair is nothing to me, but it smacks
strongly of the scoundrel, Herbert, I can tell you that."

"Pah! this little plot of mine will probably amount to nothing. The
old gentleman may give in at once to the tears and caresses of my
sweet bride up yonder. Faith, I doubt if any man could resist her."

"More than probable--more than probable!" rejoined the other; "but I
should not like to be within the sight of that girl's eye if she ever
finds out the game you have been playing."

"Yes, it would be very likely to strike fire," replied Jameson,
carelessly; "but she loves me, and there is no slave like a woman that
loves. You will see that before the year is over, every spark that
flashes from her eyes I shall force back upon her heart till it burns
in, I can tell you. But there she is, all in bridal white, and
fluttering like a bird around the old stoop. Come, we must not keep
her waiting!"

Meantime, Florence Hurst had entered a little chamber, where, nineteen
years before, she first opened her eyes to the light of heaven. It was
at one end of the house, and across the window fell the massive boughs
of an old apple-tree, heaped with masses of the richest foliage, and
rosy with half-open blossoms. A curtain of delicate lace fluttered
before the open sash, bathed in fragrance, and through which the rough
brown of the limbs, the delicate green in which the rosy buds seemed
matted, gleamed as through a wreath of mist.

The night before Florence had left a robe of pure white muslin near
the window, exquisitely fine, but very simple, which was to be her
wedding-dress. It was strange, but a sort of faintness crept over her
heart as she saw the dress; and she sat down powerless, with both
hands falling in her lap, gazing upon it. For the moment her intellect
was clear, her heart yielded up to its new intuition. Her guardian
spirit was busy with her passionate but noble nature. She felt, for
the first time, in all its force, how wrong she was acting, how
indelicate was her situation. It seemed as if she were that moment
cast adrift from her father's love--from her own lofty
self-appreciation. The heart that had swelled and throbbed so warmly a
moment before, now lay heavy in her bosom, shrinking from the destiny
prepared for it. Just then the sound of a voice penetrated the thick
foliage of the fruit tree, and she started up once more full of
conflicting emotions. It was Jameson's voice that reached her as he
passed with his friend beneath the fruit trees. She heard no syllable
of what he was saying, but the very tone, as it came softened and low
through the perfume and sweetness that floated around her, was enough
to fling her soul into fresh tumult. How she trembled; how warm and
red came the passion-fire of that delicate cheek, as she flung the
black garment from off her superb form, and hurried on the bridal
array. It was very chaste, and utterly without pretension, that
wedding-dress, knots of snowy ribbon fastened it at the shoulders and
bosom, and the exquisite whiteness was unbroken save by the glow that
warmed her neck and bosom almost to a blush, and the purplish gloss
upon her tresses, that fell in raven masses down to her shoulders.

She took a glance in the old mirror, encompassed by its frame-work of
ebony, carved and elaborated at the top and bottom into a dark
net-work of fine filagree; she saw herself--a bride. Again the wing of
her guardian angel beat against her heart. The unbroken whiteness of
her array seemed to fold her like a shroud, and like that thing which
a shroud clings to, became the pallor which settled on her features;
for behind her own figure, and moving, as it were, in the background
of the mirror, she saw the image of her lover and his friend, talking
earnestly together. The friend stood with his back toward her, but
_his_ face she saw distinctly, and that smile was on his lips, cold,
crafty, almost contemptuous. Was it Jameson, or only something mocking
her from the mirror? She went to the window, drew aside the filmy
lace, and looked forth. Truly it was her lover; through an interstice
of the apple boughs she saw him distinctly, and he saw her--that
smile, surely the gloomy old mirror had reflected awry. How brilliant,
how full of love was the whole expression of his face. Again her heart
lighted up. She took a cluster of blossoms from the apple-tree bough,
and waving them lightly toward him, drew back. She left the room,
fastening the damp and fragrant buds in her hair as she went along,
for somehow she shrunk from looking into the old mirror again.

Now the guardian angel gave way to the passion spirit. Florence
entered the little boudoir, trembling with excitement, and warm with
blushes. The room was solitary, and she stepped out upon the
stoop--for her life she could not have composed herself to sit down
and wait a single instant. The clergyman was there sitting upon the
steps, thoughtful, and evidently yielding to the doubts that had
arisen in his kind but just nature too late. He arose as Florence came
upon the stoop, and slowly mounting the steps, took her hand and led
her back into the room.

"My dear young lady," he said very gravely, "I would hear from your
own lips what the impediments to this marriage really are. I scarce
know how to account for it. Nothing has happened to change the aspect
of affairs here; but within the last hour I have been troubled with
doubts and misgivings. Has all been done that can be to obtain your
father's consent?"

"I believe--I know that there has," replied Florence, instantly
saddened by the gravity of the clergyman.

"And his objections arose purely from pride--aristocratic pride?"

"I never heard any other reason given for withholding his consent,"
replied Florence. "To me he never gave a reason. His commands were
peremptory."

"And you have known this young man long?"

"I was but fifteen when he first came into my father's employ."

"And you love him with your whole heart?"

Florence lifted her eyes, and through the long black lashes flashed a
reply so eloquent, so beautiful, that it made even the quiet clergyman
draw a deep breath.

"Enough--I will marry them!" he said firmly. "I only wish the young
man may prove worthy of all this--"

His soliloquy was cut short by the appearance of Jameson and his
friend.

They were married--Florence Hurst, the only daughter and heiress of
the richest merchant in New York, to Jameson, the protegée and
book-keeper of her proud father.

They were married, and they were left alone in that picturesque old
country-house. And now, strange to say, Florence grew very sad; and as
Jameson sat by her, with one hand in his, and circling her waist with
his arm, she began to weep bitterly.

"Florence, Florence--how is this! why do you weep, beloved?"

"I do not know," said the bride, gently; "but since the good clergyman
has left us, my heart is heavy, and I feel alone."

"Do you not love me, Florence? Have you lost confidence in me?"

Florence lifted her eyes, shining with affection, and placed her hand
in his.

"But this secrecy troubles me. Let us tell my father at once," she
said, earnestly.

"But I have promised, shall I break a pledge, and that to the man of
God who has just given you to me forever and ever. Florence?"

"Surely his consent may be obtained. He said nothing of concealment to
me."

"And did you talk with him?" questioned Jameson, maintaining the same
tone in which his other questions had been put, but with a certain
sharpness in it.

"A little. He questioned me of the motives which induced my father to
oppose our marriage."

"And that was all?"

"Yes; you came in just then, and the rest seems like a dream."

"A blessed, sweet dream, Florence, for it made you my wife," said
Jameson.

Still Florence wept. "And now," she said, lifting her eyes timidly to
his, "let us return to the city; while this secrecy lasts I must see
you only in the presence of my father."

"Florence, is this distrust--is it dislike?" cried Jameson, startled
out of his usual self-command.

"Neither," said Florence, "you know that. You are certain of it as I
am myself. But I am your wife now, Herbert, and have both your honor
and my own to care for. My father has no power to separate us now, so
that fear which seemed to haunt you ever is at rest. But it is due to
myself, to him, and to you, that when you claim me as your wife, he
should know that I am such, though he may not approve."

Florence said all this very sweetly, but with a degree of gentle
firmness that seemed the more unassailable that it was sweet and
gentle. Before he could speak she withdrew herself from his arm, and
glided from the room. When quite alone, Jameson fell into an
unpleasant reverie, from which her return in the black silk dress,
with a bonnet and shawl on, aroused him.

"Come," she said, with a smile and a blush, "let us walk through the
oak woods, and across the meadows, we shall reach the village almost
as soon as the good clergyman and your friend. The reverend gentleman
will take care of me, I feel quite sure, and you can manage for
yourself. Here we must not remain another moment."

"Florence!"

"Nay, nay--whoever heard of a lady being thwarted on her
wedding-morning!" cried Florence--and she went out upon the stoop.
Jameson followed, and seemed to be expostulating; but she took his arm
and walked on, evidently unconvinced by all that he was saying, till
they disappeared in the oak woods.


CHAPTER II.

    Thy vows are all broken,
      And light is thy fame;
    I hear thy name spoken,
      And share in the shame.
    They will name thee before me,
      A knell to mine ear;
    A shudder comes o'er me--
      Why wert thou so dear? BYRON.


Florence was in her father's house near the Battery, and looking forth
into a large, old-fashioned garden, which was just growing dusky with
approaching twilight; near her, in a large crimson chair, sat a man of
fifty perhaps, tall and slender, with handsome but stern features,
rendered more imposing by thick hair, almost entirely gray, and a
style of dress unusually rich, and partaking of fashions that had
prevailed twenty years earlier.

Florence was pensive, and an air of painful depression hung about her.
The presence of her father, who sat gazing upon her in silence,
affected her much; the secret that lay upon her heart seemed to grow
palpable to his sight, and though she appeared only still and pensive,
the poor girl trembled from head to foot.

"Florence!" said Mr. Hurst after the lapse of half an hour, for it
seemed as if he had been waiting for the twilight to deepen around
them--"Florence, you are sad, child. You look unhappy. Do your
father's wishes press so heavily upon your spirits--do you look upon
him as harsh, unreasonable, because he will not allow his only child
to throw away her friendship, her society upon the unworthy?"

Florence did not answer, her heart was too full. There was something
tender and affectionate in her father's voice that made the tears
start, and drowned the words that she would have spoken. Seldom had he
addressed her in that tone before. How unlike was he to the reserved,
stern father whose arbitrary command to part with her lover she had
secretly disobeyed.

"Speak, Florence, your depression grieves me," continued Mr. Hurst, as
he heard the sobs she was trying in vain to suppress.

"Oh, father--father! why will you call him unworthy because he lacks
family standing and wealth? I cannot--oh I never can think with you in
this!"

"And who said that I did deem him unworthy for _these_ reasons? Who
said that I objected to Herbert Jameson as a companion for my daughter
because of his humble origin or his penniless condition? Who told you
this, Florence Hurst?"

"He, he told me--did you not say all this to him, all this and more?
Did you not drive him from your presence and employ with bitter scorn,
when two weeks ago he asked for your daughter's hand?"

"_He_ ask for my daughter's hand! he, the ingrate! the--Florence, did
you believe that he really possessed the base assurance to request
your hand of me?"

"Father! father! what does this mean? Did you not tell me on that very
evening never to see him again--never to recognize him in the street,
or even think of him! Did you not cast him forth from your home and
employ because he told you of his love for me and of mine for him?"

"Of your love for him, Florence Hurst!"

There was something terrible in the voice of mingled astonishment and
dismay with which this exclamation was made.

"Father!" cried the poor girl, half rising from her seat, and falling
back again pale and trembling, "father, why this astonishment? You
knew that I loved him!"

"Who told you that I did?"

"_He_ told me, he, Herbert Jameson. It was for this you made him an
outcast."

"It is false, Florence, I never dreamed of this degradation!" said Mr.
Hurst, in a voice that seemed like sound breaking up through cold
marble.

"Then why that command to myself--why was I never to see or hear from
him again?" cried Florence, almost gasping for breath.

"Because he is a dishonest man, a swindler--because I solemnly believe
that he has been robbing me during the last three years, and
squandering his stolen spoil at the gambling-table!"

"Father--father--father!"

The sharp anguish in which these words broke forth brought the
distressed merchant to his feet. Florence, too, stood upright, and
even through the dusk you might have seen the wild glitter of her
eyes, the fierce heave of her bosom.

"You believe, father, you only believe! should such things be said
without proof--proof broad and clear as the open sunshine when it
pours down brightest from heaven. I say to you, my father, Herbert
Jameson is an honest, honorable man!"

"It is well, Florence--it is well!" said Mr. Hurst, with stern and
bitter emphasis. "You have doubted my justice, you distrust that which
I have said. You are foolishly blind enough to think that this man
_can_ love, does love you."

"I know that he does!" said Florence with a sort of wild exultation.
"I know that he loves me."

"And would you, if I were to give my consent--could you become the
wife of Herbert Jameson?"

"Father, I could! I would!"

"Then on this point be the issue between us," said Mr. Hurst, with
calm and stern dignity. "Florence, I am about to send a note desiring
this man to come once more under my roof," and he rang a bell for
lights; "if within three hours I do not give you proof that he loves
you only for the wealth that I can give--that he is every way
despicable--I say that if within three hours I do not furnish this
proof, clear, glaring, indisputable, then will I frankly and at once
give my consent to your marriage."

"Father!" cried Florence, while a burst of wild and startling joy
broke over her face, "I will stand the issue! My life--my very soul
would I pledge on his integrity."

Mr. Hurst looked at her with mournful sternness while she was
speaking, and then proceeded to write a note which he instantly
dispatched.

While the servant was absent Mr. Hurst and his daughter remained
together, much agitated but silent and lost in thought. In the course
of half an hour the man returned with a reply to the note. Mr. Hurst
read it, and waiting till they were alone turned to his daughter and
pointed to a glass door which led from the room into a little
conservatory of plants.

"Go in yonder, from thence you can hear all that passes."

"Father, is it right--will it be honorable?" said Florence, hesitating
and weak with agitation.

"It is right--it is honorable! Go in!" His voice was stern, the
gesture with which he enforced it peremptory, and poor Florence
obeyed.

A curtain of pale green silk fell over the sash-door, and close behind
it stood a garden-chair, overhung by the blossoming tendrils of a
passion-flower. Florence sat down in the chair and her head drooped
fainting to one hand. There was something in the scent of the various
plants blossoming around that reminded her of that wedding-morning
when the air was literally burthened with like fragrance. She was
about to see her husband for the first time since that agitating day,
to see him thus, crouching as a spy among those delicate plants, her
heart beat heavily, she loathed herself for the seeming meanness that
had been forced upon her. Yet there was misgiving at her heart--a
vague, sickening apprehension that chained her to the seat.

She heard the door open and some one enter the room where her father
sat, with a lamp pouring its light over his stern and pale features
till every iron lineament was fully revealed. Scarcely conscious of
the act, Florence drew aside a fold of the curtain, and with her
forehead pressed to the cold glass looked in. Mr. Hurst had not risen,
but with an elbow resting on the table sat pale and stern, with his
eyes bent full upon her husband, who stood a few paces nearer to the
door. In one hand was his hat, in the other he held a slender
walking-stick. He did not seem fully at his ease, and yet there was
more of triumph than of embarrassment in his manner. Florence
observed, and with a sinking heart, that he did not, except with a
furtive glance, return the calm and searching look with which Mr.
Hurst regarded him.

"Mr. Jameson, sit down," began the haughty merchant, pointing to a
chair. "I did hope after our last interview never again to be
disturbed by your presence, but it seems that, serpent-like, you will
never tire of stinging the bosom that has warmed you."

"I am at a loss to understand you, Mr. Hurst," replied Jameson, taking
the chair, and Florence sickened as she saw creeping over his lips the
very same smile that had gleamed before her in the mirror. "When I
last saw you your charges were harsh, your treatment cruel. You
imputed things to me of which you have no proof, and upon the strength
of an absurd suspicion of--of--I may as well speak it out--of
dishonesty, you discharged me from your employ; I am at a loss to know
why you have sent for me, certainly you cannot expect to wring proof
of these charges from my own words."

"I have proof of them, undoubted, conclusive, and had at the time they
were first made! but you had been cherished beneath my roof, had
broken of my bread, and I was forbearing! Was not this reason enough
why I should have sent you forth as I did?"

Jameson gave a perceptible start and turned very pale as Mr. Hurst
spoke of the proofs that he possessed; but the emotion was only
momentary, and it scarcely disturbed the smile that still curled about
his mouth.

"At any rate the bare suspicion of these things was all the reason you
deigned to give," he said.

Florence heard and saw--conviction, the loathed thing, came creeping
colder and colder to her bosom.

"But since then I have other causes for pursuing your crimes with the
justice they merit, other and deeper wrongs you have done me, serpent,
fiend, household ingrate as you are!"

"And what may those other wrongs be?" was the cold and half sneering
rejoinder to this passionate outbreak.

"My daughter!" said the merchant, sweeping a hand across his forehead.
"It sickens me to mention her name here and thus, but my
daughter--even there has your venom reached."

"Perhaps I understand you," said the young man with insufferable
coolness; "but if your daughter chose to love where her father hates
how am I to blame? I am sure it has cost me a great deal of trouble to
keep the young lady's partiality a secret. If you have found it out at
last so much the better."

Mr. Hurst, with all his firmness, was struck dumb by this cool and
taunting reply, but after a moment's fierce struggle he mastered the
passion within him and spoke.

"You love"--the words absolutely choked the proud man--"you love my
daughter then--why was this never mentioned to me?"

"It was the young lady's fancy, I suppose; perhaps she shrunk from so
grim a confident; at any rate it is very certain that I did!"

Mr. Hurst shaded his face with one hand and seemed to struggle
fiercely with himself. Jameson sat playing with the tassel of his
cane, now and then casting furtive glances at his benefactor.

"Young man," said the merchant, slowly withdrawing his hand, "I have
but to denounce you to the laws, and you leave this room for a
convict's cell."

"It may be that you have this power!" replied Jameson, with
undisturbed self-possession, "I am sure I cannot say whether you have
or not!"

"I _have_ the power, what should withhold me!"

"Oh, many things. Your daughter, for instance!"

"My daughter!"

"You interrupt me, sir. I was about to say your daughter has given me
some rather unequivocal proofs of her love, and they would become
unpleasantly public, you know, if her father insisted upon dragging me
before the world. Your daughter, sir, must be my shield and buckler, I
never desire a better or fairer."

Here a noise broke from the conservatory, and the silk curtain shook
violently, but as it was spring time, and with open doors for the wind
to circulate through, this did not seem extraordinary. Still, Mr.
Hurst looked anxiously around, and Jameson cast a careless glance that
way.

It was very painful, nay withering to his proud heart, but Mr. Hurst
was determined to lay open the black nature of that man before his
child; he knew that she suffered, that it was torture that he
inflicted, but nevertheless she could be redeemed in no other way, and
he remained firm as a rock.

"So, in order to deter me from a just act, you would use my daughter's
attachment as a threat; you would drag her name before the world, that
it might be blasted with your own! Is this what I am to understand?"

"Well, something very like it, I must confess."

Mr. Hurst arose. "I have done with you, Herbert Jameson," he said,
with austere dignity. "Go, your presence is oppressive! So young and
so deep a villain, even I did not believe you so terribly base. Go, I
have done with you!"

Jameson did not move, but sat twisting the tassel of his cane between
his thumb and finger. He did not look full at Mr. Hurst, for there was
something in his eye that quelled even his audacity; but when he
spoke, it was without any outward agitation, though his miscreant
limbs shook, and the heart trembled in his bosom.

"Mr. Hurst," he said, "I do not know how far you have used past
transactions to terrify me, but I assure you that any blow aimed at me
will recoil on yourself. But this is not enough, you have told me to
leave your roof forever--and so I will; but first let my wife be
informed that I await her pleasure here. I take her with me, and that
before you can have an opportunity to poison her mind against her
husband."

"Your wife! Your wife!" Mr. Hurst could only master these words, and
they fell from his white lips in fragments. He looked wildly around
toward the door, and at the young man, who stood there smiling at his
agony.

"Yes, sir, my wife. There is the certificate of our marriage three
days ago, at your pleasant old country-house on the Long Island shore.
You see that it is regularly witnessed--the people about there will
tell you the how and when."

Mr. Hurst took up the certificate and held it before his eyes, but for
the universe he could not have read a word, for it shook in his hand
like a withered leaf in the wind.

Then softly and slowly the conservatory-door opened, and the tall
figure of Florence Hurst glided through. There was a bright red spot
upon her forehead, where it had pressed against the glass, but save
that her face, neck, and hands were colorless as Parian marble, and
almost as cold. She approached her father, took the certificate from
his hand and tearing it slowly and deliberately into shreds, set her
foot upon them.

"Father," she said, "take me away. I have sinned against heaven and in
thy sight, and am no longer worthy to be called thy daughter, but, oh,
punish me not with the presence of this bad man!"

Without a word, Mr. Hurst took the cold hand of his daughter and led
her into another room. Jameson was left alone--alone with his own
black heart and base thoughts. We would as soon dwell with a
rattle-snake in its hole, and attempt to analyze its venom, as
register the dark writhing of a nature like his. The sound of a voice,
low, earnest and pleading, now and then reached his ear. Then there
was a noise as of some one falling, followed by the tramp of several
persons moving about in haste; and, after a little, Mr. Hurst entered
the room again.

Young Jameson stood up, for reflection had warned him that he could no
longer trust to the power of Florence with her father; there had been
something in the terrible stillness of her indignation, in the pale
features, the dilated eyes, and the brows arched with ineffable scorn,
that convinced him how mistaken was the anchor which he had expected
to hold so firmly in her love. He knew Mr. Hurst, and felt that in his
lofty pride alone could rest any hope of a rescue from the penalty of
his crimes.

He stood up, then, as I have said, with more of respect in his manner
than had hitherto marked it.

Mr. Hurst resumed his chair and motioned that the young man should
follow his example. He was very pale, and a look of keen suffering lay
around his eyes, but still in his features was an expression of
relief, as if the degredation that had fallen upon him was less than
he had dreaded.

"How, may I ask, how is my--, how is Florence--she looked ill; I trust
nothing serious?" said Jameson, sinking into his chair, and goaded to
say something by the keen gaze which Mr. Hurst had turned upon him.

"Never again take that name into your lips," said the outraged
father--and his stern voice shook with concentrated passion. "If you
but breath it in a whisper to your own base heart alone, I will cast
aside all, and punish you even to the extremity of the law."

"But, Mr. Hurst--"

"Peace, sir!"

The young ingrate drew back with a start, and looked toward the door,
for the terrible passion which he had lighted in that lofty man now
broke forth in voice, look and gesture; the wretch was appalled by it.

"Sit still, sir, and hear what I have to say."

"I will--I listen, Mr. Hurst, but do be more composed. I did not mean
to offend you in asking after--"

"Young man, beware!" Mr. Hurst had in some degree mastered himself,
but the huskiness of his voice, the vivid gleam of his eyes, gave
warning that the fire within him though smothered was not quenched.

"I am silent, sir," cried the wretch, completely cowed by the strong
will of his antagonist.

"I know all--all, and have but few words to cast upon a thing so vile
as you have become. If I submit to your presence for a moment it is
because that agony must be endured in order that I may cast you from
me at once, like the viper that had stung me."

"Sir, these are hard words," faltered Jameson; but Mr. Hurst lifted
his hand sharply, and went on.

"You want money. How much did you expect to obtain from me?"

"I--I--this is too abrupt, Mr. Hurst, you impute motives--"

"I say, sir," cried the merchant, sternly interrupting the stammered
attempt at defense, "I say you have done this for money--impunity for
your crime first, and then money. You see I know you thoroughly."

The wretch shrunk from the withering smile that swept over that white
face; he looked the thing he was--a worthless, miserable coward, with
all the natural audacity of his character dashed aside by the strong
will of the man he had wronged.

"You are too much excited, Mr. Hurst, I will call some other time," he
faltered out.

"Now--now, sir, I give you impunity! I will give you money. Say, how
much will release me from the infamy of your presence; I will pay
well, sir, as I would the physician who drives a pestilence from my
hearth?"

"Mr. Hurst, what do you wish--what am I to do?"

"You are to leave this country now and forever--leave it without
speaking the name of my daughter. You are never to step your foot
again upon the land which she inhabits. Do this, and I will invest
fifty thousand dollars for your benefit, the income to be paid you in
any country that you may choose to infest, any except this."

"And what if I refuse to sell my liberty, my--" he paused, for Mr.
Hurst was keenly watching him, and he dared not mention Florence as
his wife, though the word trembled on his lip.

"What then," said the merchant, firmly, "why you pass from this door
to the presence of a magistrate--from thence to prison--after that to
trial--not on a single indictment, but on charges urged one after
another that shall keep you during half your life within the walls of
a convict's cell."

"But remember--"

"I do remember everything; and I, who never yet violated my word to
mortal man, most solemnly assure you that such is your destination,
let the consequences fall where they will."

Jameson sat down, and with his eyes fixed on the floor, fell into a
train of subtle calculation. Mr. Hurst sat watching him with stern
patience. At last Jameson spoke, but without lifting his eyes, "You
are a very wealthy man, Mr. Hurst, and fifty thousand dollars is not
exactly the portion that--"

"The bribe--the bribe, you mean, which is to rid me of an ingrate,"
cried the merchant, and a look of ineffable disgust swept over his
face. "The benefit is great, too great for mere gold to purchase, but
I have named fifty thousand--choose between that and a prison."

"But shall I have the money down?" said Jameson, still gazing upon the
floor. "Remember, sir, my affections, my--"

"Peace, once more--another word on that subject and I consign you to
justice at once. This interview has lasted too long already. You have
my terms, accept or reject them at once."

"I--I--of course I can but accept them, hard as it is to separate from
my country and friends. But did I understand you aright, sir. Is it
fifty thousand in possession, or the income that you offer?"

"The income--and that only to be paid in a foreign land, and while you
remain there."

"These are hard terms, Mr. Hurst, very hard terms, indeed," said
Jameson. "Before I reply to to them--excuse me, I intend no
offence--but I must hear from your daughter's own lips that she
desires it."

Mr. Hurst started to his feet and sat instantly down again; for a
moment he shrouded his eyes, and then he arose sternly and very pale,
but with iron composure.

"From her own lips--hear it, then. Go in," he said, casting open the
door through which he had entered the room, "go in!"

The room was large and dimly lighted; at the opposite end there was a
high, deep sofa, cushioned with purple, and so lost in the darkness
that it seemed black; what appeared in the distance to be a heap of
white drapery, lay upon the sofa, immovable and still, as if it had
been cast over a corpse.

Jameson paused and looked back, almost hoping that Mr. Hurst would
follow him into the room, for there was something in the stillness
that appalled him. But the merchant had left the door, and casting
himself into a chair, sat with his arms flung out upon the table, and
his face buried in them. For his life he could not have forced himself
to witness the meeting of that vile man with his child.

Still Florence remained immovable; Jameson closed the door, and
walking quickly across the room, like one afraid to trust his own
strength, bent over the sofa.

Florence was lying with her face to the wall, her eyes were closed,
and the whiteness of her features was rendered more deathly by the dim
light. She had evidently heard the footstep, and mistaking it for her
father's, for her eyelids began to quiver, and turning her face to the
pillow, she gasped out with a shudder,

"Oh, father, father, do not look on me!"

Jameson knelt and touched the cold hand in which she had grasped a
portion of the pillow.

"Florence!"

Florence started up, a faint exclamation broke from her lips, and she
pressed herself against the back of the sofa, in the shuddering recoil
with which she attempted to evade him.

Jameson drew back, and for the instant his countenance evinced
genuine emotion. His self-love was cruelly shocked by the evident
loathing with which she shrunk away from the arm that, only a few days
before, had brought the bright blood into her cheeks did she but rest
her hand upon it by accident.

"And do you hate me so, Florence?" he said, in a voice that was full
of keen feeling.

"Leave me--leave me, I am ill!" cried the poor girl, sitting up on the
sofa, and holding a hand to her forehead, as if she were suffering
great pain.

"_I_ come by your father's permission, Florence; will you be more
cruel than he is?"

"My father has a right to punish me, I have deserved it," she said, in
a voice of painful humility. "If he sent you I will try to bear it."

"Oh, Florence, has it come to this; I am about to leave you forever,
and yet you shrink from me as if I were a reptile," cried Jameson.

"A reptile! oh, no, they seldom sting unless trodden upon," said
Florence, lifting her large eyes to his face for the first time, but
withdrawing them instantly, and with a faint moan.

Jameson turned from her and paced the room once or twice with uneven
strides. This seemed to give Florence more strength, for the closeness
of his presence had absolutely oppressed her with a sense of
suffocation. She sat upright, and putting the hair back from her
temples, tried to collect her thoughts. Jameson broke off his walk and
turned toward her; but she prevented his nearer approach with a motion
of her hand, and spoke with some degree of calmness.

"You have sought me, but why? What more do you wish? Do I not seem
wretched enough?"

"It is your father who has made you thus miserable!" said Jameson, in
a low but bitter voice, for he feared the proud man in the next room,
and dared not speak of him aloud. Florence scarcely heeded him, she
sat gazing on the floor lost in thought, painful and harrowing. Still
there was an apparent apathy about her that reassured the bad man who
stood by suffering all the agony of a wild animal baffled in fight. He
would not believe that so short a time had deprived him of a love so
passionate, so self-sacrificing as had absorbed that young being not
three days before.

Throwing a tone of passionate tenderness into his voice, he approached
her, this time unchecked.

"Florence, dear Florence, must we part thus; will you send me from you
for ever?"

Florence, was very weak and faint, she felt by the thrill that went
through her heart like some sharp instrument, as the sound of his
passionate entreaty fell upon it, that, spite of herself, she might be
made powerless in his hands were the interview to proceed. The thought
filled her with dread. She started up, and tottering a step or two
from the sofa, cried out, "Father! father!"

Mr. Hurst lifted his head from where he had buried it in his folded
arms, as if to shield his senses from what might be passing within the
other room, and starting to his feet, was instantly by his daughter's
side.

"What is this!" he said, throwing his arm around the half fainting
girl, and turning sternly toward her tormentor, "have you dared--"

"No, no!" gasped Florence. "I was ill--I--oh, father, without you I
have no strength. Save me from myself!"

"I will," said Mr. Hurst, gently and with great tenderness drawing the
trembling young creature close to his bosom.

"I see how it is, she is influenced only by you, sir. I am promised an
interview, and left to believe that the lady shall decide for herself,
yet even the very first words I utter are broken in upon. I know that
this woman loves me."

"No, no, I love him not! I did a little hour ago, but now I am
changed--do you not see how I am changed?" cried Florence, lifting her
head wildly, and turning her pale face full upon her miscreant
husband. "Do you not know that your presence is killing me?"

"I will go," said Jameson, touched by the wild agony of her look and
voice; "I will go now, but only with your promise, Mr. Hurst, that
when she is more composed, I may see and converse with her. I will
offer no opposition to your wishes; but you will give me a week or
two."

"Do you wish to see this man again, my child?" said Mr. Hurst, "I can
trust you, Florence, decide for yourself."

Florence parted her lips to answer, but her strength utterly failed,
and with a feeble gasp she sunk powerless and fainting on her father's
bosom.

Mr. Hurst gathered her in his arms and bore her from the room, simply
pausing with his precious burden at the door while he told Jameson, in
a calm under tone, to leave the house, and wait till a message should
reach him.

But the unhappy man was in no haste to obey. For half an hour he paced
to and fro in the solitude of that large apartment, now seating
himself on the sofa which poor Florence had just left, and again
starting up with a sort of insane desire for motion. Sometimes he
would listen, with checked breath, to the footsteps moving to and fro
in the chamber over-head, and then hurry forward again, racked by
every fierce passion that can fill the heart of a human being.

"I _will_ triumph yet! I _will_ see her, and that when he is not near
to crush every loving impulse as it rises. Once mine, and he will
never put his threat into execution, earnest as he seemed. All my
strength lies in her love--and it is enough. She suffers--that is a
proof of it. She is angry--that is another proof. Yes, yes, I can
trust in her, she is all romance, all feeling!"

Jameson muttered these words again and again; it seemed as if he
thought by the sound of his voice to dispel the misgiving that lay at
his heart. He would have given much for the security that his muttered
words seemed to indicate, and as if determined not to leave the house
without some further confirmation of his wishes, he lingered in the
room till its only light flashed and went out in the socket of its
tall silver candlestick, leaving him in total darkness. Then he stole
forth and left the house, softly closing the street door after him.


CHAPTER III.

    Oh! wert thou still what once I fondly deemed,
    All that thy mien expressed, thy spirit seemed,
    My love had been devotion, till in death
    Thy name had trembled on my latest breath.

                *  *  *  *  *  *  *

    Had'st thou but died ere yet dishonor's cloud
    O'er that young heart had gathered as a shroud,
    I then had mourned thee proudly, and my grief
    In its own loftiness had found relief;
    A noble sorrow cherished to the last,
    When every meaner wo had long been past.
    Yes, let affection weep, no common tear
    She sheds when bending o'er an honored bier.
    Let nature mourn the dead--a grief like this,
    To pangs that rend _my_ bosom had been bliss.

                                      MRS. HEMANS.


Florence had been very ill, and a week after the scene in our last
chapter Mr. Hurst removed her down to his old mansion-house on the
Long Island shore. There the associations were less painful than at
his town residence, where the sweetest years of her life had been
spent in unrestrained association with the man who had so cruelly
deceived her. The old mansion-house had witnessed only one fatal scene
in the drama of her love; and here she consented to remain. Her father
divided his time between her and the unpleasant duties that called him
to town; and more than once he was forced to endure the presence of
the man whose very look was poison to him, but after the distressing
night when the error of his daughter was first made known, the noble
old merchant had regained all his usual dignified calmness. No bursts
of passion marked his interviews with the wretch who had wounded him,
but firm and resolute he proceeded, step by step, in the course that
his reason and will had at first deliberately marked out. In three
days time Jameson was to depart for Europe, and forever. It was
singular what power the merchant had obtained over his own strong
passions; always grave and courteous, his demeanor had changed in
nothing, save that toward his child there was more delicacy, more
tender solicitude than she had ever received from him before, even in
the days of her infancy. It seemed that in forgiving her fault, he had
unlocked some hidden fount of tenderness which bedewed and softened
his whole nature. Florence, who had always felt a little awe of her
father when no act of hers existed to excite it, now that she had
given him deep cause of offence, had learned to watch for his coming
as the young bird waits for the parent which is to bring him food. One
night, it was just before sunset, Mr. Hurst entered his daughter's
chamber with a handful of heliotrope, tea-roses, and cape-jesamines,
which he had just gathered. In his tender anxiety to relieve the
sadness that preyed upon her, he remembered her passion for these
particular flowers, and had spent half an hour in searching them out
from the wilderness of plants that filled a conservatory in one wing
of the building. The chamber where Florence sat was the one in which
she had put on her wedding garments scarcely three weeks before. The
old ebony mirror, with the fantastic and dark tracery of its frame,
hung directly before her, and from its depth gleamed out a face so
changed that it might well have startled one who had been proud of its
bloom and radiance one little month before.

The window was open, as it had been that day, and across it fell the
old apple-tree, with the fruit just setting along its thickly-leaved
boughs, and a few over-ripe blossoms yielding their petals to every
gush of air that came over them. These leaves, now almost snow-white,
had swept, one by one, into the chamber, settling upon the chair which
Florence occupied, upon her muslin wrapper, and flaking, as with snow,
the glossy disorder of her hair. With a sort of mournful apathy she
felt these broken blossoms falling around her, remembering, oh, how
keenly, their rosy freshness, when she had selected them as a bridal
ornament. She remembered, too, the single glimpse which that old
mirror had given of her lover--that one prophetic glimpse which had
been enough to startle, but not enough to save her.

Florence was filled with these miserable reminiscences when her father
entered the chamber. She greeted him with a wan smile, that told her
anxiety to appear less wretched than she really was in his presence.
He came close up to her where she sat, and stooping to kiss her
forehead, laid the blossoms he had brought in her lap.

Mr. Hurst little knew how powerful were the associations those
delicate flowers would excite. The moment their fragrance arose around
her Florence began to shudder, and turning her face away with an
expression of sudden pain, swept them to the floor.

"Take them away, oh take them away!" she said. "That evening their
breath was around me while I sat listening to--take them out of the
room, I cannot endure their sweetness."

Mr. Hurst strove to soothe the wild excitement which his unfortunate
flowers had occasioned. It was a touching sight--that proud man, so
cruelly wronged by his daughter, and yet bending the natural reserve
of his nature into every endearing form, in order to convince her how
deep was his love, how true his forgiveness.

"My Florence, try to conquer this keen sensitiveness. Strive, dear
child, to think of these things as if they had not been!"

"Oh, if I had the power!" cried Florence.

"And do you love this man yet?" said Mr. Hurst, almost sternly.

"Father," was the reply, and Florence met her father's gaze with
sorrowful eyes, "I am mourning for the love that has been cast away--I
pine for some action which may restore my own self-respect. The very
thought of this man as I know him makes me shudder--but the
remembrance of what I believed him to be makes me weep. Then the trial
of this meeting!"

"But you shall not see him again unless you desire it."

"True, true--but I will see him if he wishes it. He shall not think
that I am coerced or influenced. It is due to myself, to you, my
father, that he leaves this country knowing how thorough is my
self-reproach for the past, and my wish that his absence may be
eternal. I believe that I do really wish it, but see how my poor frame
is shaken! I must have more strength or my heart will be unstable
like-wise." Florence held up her clasped hands that were trembling
like leaves in the autumn wind as she spoke.

"Florence," said Mr. Hurst gently, "it is not by shrinking from
painful associations that we conquer them."

"But see how weak I am! and all from the breath of those poor
flowers!"

"There is a source from which strength may be obtained."

"My pride, oh, father, that may do to shield me from the world's
scorn, but it avails nothing with my own heart."

"But prayer, Florence, prayer to Almighty God the Infinite. I remember
how sweet it was when you were a little child kneeling by your
mother's lap with your tiny hands uplifted to Heaven. Surely you have
not forgotten to pray, my child?"

"Alas! in this wild passion I have forgotten every thing--my duty to
you--the very heaven where my mother is an angel!" cried Florence, and
for the first time in many days she began to weep.

Mr. Hurst took her hands in his, tears stood in his proud eyes, and
his firm lips trembled with tender emotions. "My child," he said,
pointing to a velvet easy-chair that stood in the chamber, "kneel down
by your mother's empty chair and pray even as when you were a little
child!"

Florence watched her father as he went out through her blinding tears.
The door closed after him, a mist swam through the room, she moved
toward the empty chair, and through the dim cloud which her tears
created its crimson cushions glowed brightly, as if tinged with gold.
A gleam of sunshine had struck them through a half open shutter, but
it seemed to her that the sudden light came directly from the throne
of Heaven.

The next moment Florence fell upon her knees before the chair, her
face was buried in the cushions, broken words and swelling sobs filled
the room; over her fell that golden sunbeam, like a flaming arrow sent
from the Throne of Mercy to pierce her heart and warm it at the same
moment.

The sun went down. Slowly and quietly that wandering beam mingled with
the thousand rays that streamed from the west, spreading around the
young suppliant like a luminous veil; there was blended with the gold
hues of rich crimson and purple, that flashed over the ebony mirror,
wove themselves in a gorgeous haze among the snow-white curtains of
the bed, and fell in drops of dusky yellow over the floor and among
the waving apple-boughs.

But Florence felt nothing of this, her heart was dark, her frame shook
with sobs, and the agony of her voice was smothered in the cushions
where her face lay buried.

It came at last, that still small voice that follows the whirlwind
and the storm. In the hush of night it came as snow-flakes fall from
the heavens. And now Florence lay upon the cushions of her mother's
chair motionless, and calm peace was in her heart, and a smile of
ineffable sweetness lay upon her lips. It might have been minutes, it
might have been hours for any thing that the young suppliant knew of
the lapse of time since she had crept to her mother's chair. When she
arose the moonlight was streaming over her through an open window.
Never did those pale beams fall upon features so changed. A
_spirituelle_ loveliness beamed over them, soft and holy as the
moonlight that revealed it.

Some time after midnight Mr. Hurst went into his daughter's chamber,
for anxiety had kept him up, and the entire stillness terrified him.
She was lying upon the bed, half veiled by the muslin curtains,
breathing tranquilly as an infant in its mother's bosom. During many
nights she had not slept, but sweet was her slumber now; the flowers
inhaling the dew beneath the window did not seem more delicate and
placid.

It was daylight when Florence awoke. A few rosy streaks were in the
sky, and lay reflected upon the water like threads of crimson broken
by the tide. Out to sea, a little beyond the opening of the cove, was
a large vessel with her sails furled, and evidently lying-to. Near a
curve of the shore she saw a boat with half a dozen men lolling
sleepily in the bow. Her heart beat quick with a presentiment of some
approaching event. She felt certain that the boat and the distant ship
were in some way connected with herself. But the thought hardly had
time to flash through her brain when a commotion in the old
apple-tree--a shaking of the limbs and tumultuous rustling of the
leaves--made her start and turn that way. The largest bough was that
instant spurned aside, and Jameson sprung through the open window. He
was out of breath and seemed greatly excited.

"Florence, my wife, come with me!" he said, casting his arms around
her shrinking form. "I will not go without you. See the vessel is
yonder--a boat is on the shore. In half an hour we can be away from
your father, alone, without hindrance to our love. Come, Florence,
come with your husband!"

Ah, but for the strength which Florence had sought from above, where
would she have been then. For a moment her heart did turn traitor; for
one single instant there came upon her cheek a crimson flush, and in
her eyes something that made Jameson's heart leap with exultation; but
it passed away, Florence broke from the arms that were cast around
her, and drew back toward the door.

"Leave me!" she said, mildly, but with firmness, "I am not your
wife--will never be!"

"You hate me, then!" exclaimed Jameson, goaded by her manner. "You
still believe what my enemies say against me."

"No, I hate no one--I could not hate you!"

"But you love me no longer."

Florence turned very pale, but still she was firm. "It matters nothing
if I love or hate now," she said, "henceforth, forever and forever,
you and I are strangers. If you have come here in hopes of taking me
from my father, go before he learns any thing of your visit; a longer
stay can only bring evil."

Again Jameson cast himself at her feet; again his masterly eloquence
was put forth to melt, to subdue, even to over-awe that fair girl; but
all that he could wring from her was bitter tears--all that he
accomplished was a renewal of anguish that prayer had hardly
conquered.

"And you will not go! You cast me off forever!" he exclaimed, starting
up with a fierce gesture and an expression of the eye that made her
shrink back.

"I cannot go--I will not go!" she said, in a low voice. "You have
already taught me how terrible a thing is remorse. Leave me in peace,
if you would not see me die!"

"And this is your final answer!" cried Jameson, and his eyes flashed
with fury.

"I can give no other!"

"Then farewell, and the curse of my ruin rest with you," he cried in
desperation, and wringing her hands fiercely in his, he cleared the
window with a bound, and letting himself down by the apple-tree,
disappeared.

The tempter was gone; Florence was left alone, her head reeling with
pain, her heart aching within her bosom. Jameson's last words had
fallen upon her heart like fire; what if this refusal to share his
fate had confirmed him in evil? What if she, by partaking of his
fortunes, might have won him to an honorable and just life. These
thoughts were agony to her, and left no room for calm reflection, or
she would have known that no _human_ influence can reclaim a base
nature; one fault may be redeemed, nay, many faults that spring from
the heat of passion or the recklessness of youth, but habitual
hypocrisy, craft, falsehood--what female heart ever opposed its love
and truth to vices like these, without being crushed in the endeavor
to save.

But Florence could not reason then. Her soul was affrighted by the
curse that had been hurled upon it. Half frantic with these new themes
of torture, she left her room, and hurried down to the cove just in
time to see the boat which contained Jameson half way to the vessel.
Actuated only by a wild desire to see him depart, she threaded her way
through the oak grove, unmindful of the dew, of her thin raiment, or
of the morning wind that tossed her curls about as she hurried on. And
now she stood upon the outer point of the shore, where it jutted
inward at the mouth of the cove and commanded a broad view of the
ocean. High trees were around her as she stood upon the shelving bank,
her white garments streaming in the breeze, her wild eyes gazing upon
the vessel as it wheeled slowly round and made for the open ocean.
Florence remained motionless where she stood so long as a shadow of
the vessel fluttered in sight. When it was lost in the horizon she
turned slowly and walked toward the house, weary as one who returns
from a toilsome pilgrimage. It was days and weeks before she came
forth again.

Years went by--many, many years, and yet that outward bound vessel was
never heard of again. How she perished, or when, no man can tell. The
last ever seen of her to mortal knowledge was when Florence Hurst
stood alone upon the sea-shore, conscious that she was right, yet
filled with bitter anguish as she watched its departure to that
far-off shore from which no traveler returns.

And Florence came forth in the world again more attractive than ever;
a spiritual loveliness, softened without diminishing the brilliancy of
her beauty, and with every feminine grace she had added that of a meek
and contrite spirit. Did she wed again? We answer, No. Many a lofty
intellect and noble heart bent in homage to hers; but Florence lived
only for her father--the great and good man, who was just as well as
proud, and nobly won his child from her error by delicate tenderness,
such as he had never lavished upon her faultless youth, when many a
man, to shield his weaker pride, would have driven her by anger and
upbraiding from his heart, and thus have kindled her warm impulses
into defiance and ruin.




SUMMER.

BY E. CURTISS HINE, U. S. N.


    She comes with soft and scented breath,
      From fragrant southern lands,
    And wakens from their trance of death
      The flowers, and breaks the hands
    Of fettered streams, that burst away
      With joyous laugh and song,
    And shout and leap like boys at play
      As home from school they throng.

    From sunny climes the breeze set free
      Comes with an angel strain
    Athwart the blue and sparkling sea
      To visit us again.
    The low of herds is on the gale,
      The leaf is on the tree,
    And cloud-winged barks in silence sail
      With stately majesty

    Along the blue and bending sky,
      Like joyous living things,
    And rainbow-tinted birds flit by
      With swiftly glancing wings:
    O summer, summer! joyful time!
      Singing a gentle strain,
    Thou comest from a warmer clime
      To visit us again!




DESCRIPTION OF A VISIT TO NIAGARA.

BY PROFESSOR JAMES MOFFAT.


      Through the dark night urging our rapid way
    We listen to a low, continued sound,
    As of a distant drum calling to arms.
    It grows with our approach; lulls with the breeze,
    And swells again into a bolder note,
    Like an Æolian harp of giant string.
      Again, the tone is changed, and a fierce roar
    Of tumult rises from the trembling earth,
    As if the imprisoned spirits of the deep
    Had found a vent for that rebellious shout,
    Which from ten thousand lips ascends to Heaven.
    Voice not to be mistaken--even he
    Upon whose ear it comes for the first time
    Claims it as known, and bringing to his heart
    The boldest fancies of his early days--
    Thy thunders, dread Niagara, day and night,
    Which vary not their ever-during peal.
      Burning impatience, not to be controlled,
    Has hurried on my steps until I stand
    Within the breath of thy descending wave.
    The night conceals thy wonders, but enrobes
    Thee with a grandeur, wild, mysterious,
    As with thy spray around me, and the wind
    Which rushes upward from thy dark abyss,
    And thy deep organ pealing in my ear,
    Thy mass is all unseen, and I behold
    Only the ghost-like whiteness of thy foam.
      The morning comes. The clouds have disappeared,
    And the clear silver of the eastern sky
    Gives promise of a glowing summer sun.
    In the fresh dawn, I hasten to the rock
    Which overhangs the ever-boiling deep,
    And all the wonders of Niagara
    Are spread before me--not the simple dash
    Of falling waters, which the fancy drew,
    But myriad forms of beautiful and grand
    Press on the senses and o'erwhelm the mind.
      Yon bright, broad waters on their channel sleep
    As if they dreamed of the most peaceful flow
    To the far-distant sea. But now their course
    Accelerates on their inclining path,
    Though still 'tis with the appearance of a calm
    And dignified reluctance, and the wave
    Remains unbroken, till the inward force
    Increasingly silently, like that which breaks
    The short laborious quiet of the insane,
    Bursts all restraint, and the wild waters, tossed
    In fiercest tumult, uncontrollable,
    Menace all life within their giant grasp;
    Leaping and raging in their frantic glee,
    Dashing their spray aloft, as on they rush
    In wild confusion to the dreadful steep.
    An instant on the verge they seem to pause,
    As if, even in their frenzy, such a gulf
    Were horrible, then slowly bending down,
    Plunge headlong where the never-ceasing roar
    Ascends, and the revolving clouds of spray,
    Forever during yet forever new.
      The sun appears. And, straightway, on the cloud
    Which veils the struggles of the fallen wave
    In everlasting secrecy, and wafts
    Away, like smoke of incense, up to Heaven,
    Beams forth the radiant diadem of light,
    Brilliant and fixed amid the moving mass;
    And beauty comes to deck the glorious scene.
    For as the horizontal sunbeams rest
    Upon the deep blue summit, or unfold
    The varying hues of green, that pass away
    Into the white of the descending foam,
    So colors of the loveliest rainbow dye
    Tinge the bright wave, nor lessen aught its pride,
      Now joyous companies of fair and young
    Come lightly forth, with voice of social glee,
    But, one by one, as they approach the brink,
    A change comes over them. The noisy laugh
    Is hushed, the step is soft and reverent,
    And the light jest is quenched in solemn thought--
    Yea, dull must be his brain and cold his heart
    To all the sacred influences that spring
    From grandeur and from beauty, who can gaze,
    For the first time, on the descending flood
    Without restraint upon the flippant tongue.
      If such the reverence Great Invisible,
    Attendant on one of thy lesser works,
    What dread must overwhelm us when the eye
    Is opened to the glories of thyself,
    Who sway'st the moving universe and holdst
    The "waters in the hollow of thy hand."




SONNET.

BY CAROLINE F. ORNE.


    There have been tones of cheer, and voices gay,
      And careless laughter ringing lightly by,
    And I have listened to wit's mirthful play,
      And sought to smile at each light fantasy.
    But ah, there was a voice more deep and clear,
      That I alone might hear of all the throng,
    In softest cadence falling on my ear
      Like a sweet undertone amid the song.
    And then I longed for this calm hour of night,
      That undisturbed by any voice or sound,
    My spirit from all meaner objects free
    Might soar unchecked in its far upward flight,
      And by no cord, no heavy fetter bound,
    Scorning all space and distance, hold commune with thee.




AUNT MABLE'S LOVE STORY.

BY SUSAN PINDAR.


"How heartily sick I am of these love stories!" exclaimed Kate Lee, as
she impatiently threw aside the last magazine; "they are all flat,
stale, and unprofitable; every one begins with a _soirée_ and ends
with a wedding. I'm sure there is not one word of truth in any of
them."

"Rather a sweeping condemnation to be given by a girl of seventeen,"
answered Aunt Mabel, looking up with a quiet smile; "when I was your
age, Kate, no romance was too extravagant, no incident too improbable
for my belief. Every young heart has its love-dream; and you too, my
merry Kate, must sooner or later yield to such an influence."

"Why, Aunt Mable, who would have ever dreamed of your advocating love
stories! You, so staid, so grave and kindly to all; your affections
seem so universally diffused among us, that I never can imagine them
to have been monopolized by one. Beside, I thought as you were
never--" Kate paused, and Aunt Mabel continued the sentence.

"I never married, you would say, Kate, and thus it follows that I
never loved. Well, perhaps not; I may be, as you think, an exception;
at least I am not going to trouble you with antiquated love passages,
that, like old faded pictures, require a good deal of varnishing to be
at all attractive. But, I confess, I like not to hear so young a girl
ridiculing what is, despite the sickly sentiment that so often
obscures it, the purest and noblest evidence of our higher nature."

"Oh, you don't understand me, Aunt Mable! I laugh at the absurdity of
the stories. Look at this, for instance, where a gentleman falls in
love with a shadow. Now I see no substantial _foundation_ for such an
extravagant passion as that. Here is another, who is equally smitten
with a pair of French gaiters. Now I don't pretend to be over
sensible, but I do not think such things at all natural, or likely to
occur; and if they did, I should look upon the parties concerned as
little less than simpletons. But a real, true-hearted love story, such
as 'Edith Pemberton,' or Mrs. Hall's 'Women's Trials,' those I _do_
like, and I sympathize so strongly with the heroines that I long to be
assured the incidents are true. If I could only hear one _true_ love
story--something that I knew had really occurred--then it would serve
as a kind of text for all the rest. Oh! how I long to hear a real
heart-story of actual life!"

Kate grew quite enthusiastic, and Aunt Mable, after pausing a few
minutes, while a troubled smile crossed her face, said, "Well, Kate,
_I_ will tell you a love story of real life, the truth of which I can
vouch for, since I knew the parties well. You will believe me, I know,
Kate, without requiring actual name and date for every occurrence.
There are no extravagant incidents in this 'owre true tale,' but it is
a story of the heart, and such a one, I believe, you want to hear."

Kate's eyes beamed with pleasure, as kissing her aunt's brow, and
gratefully ejaculating "dear, kind Aunt Mable!" she drew a low ottoman
to her aunt's side, and seated herself with her head on her hand, and
her blooming face upturned with an expression of anticipated
enjoyment. I wish you could have seen Aunt Mable, as she sat in the
soft twilight of that summer evening, smiling fondly on the young,
bright girl at her side. You would have loved her, as did every one
who came within the sphere of her gentle influence; and yet she did
not possess the wondrous charm of lingering loveliness, that, like the
fainting perfume of a withered flower, awakens mingled emotions of
tenderness and regret. No, Aunt Mabel could never have been beautiful;
and yet, as she sat in her quiet, silver-gray silk gown, and kerchief
of the sheerest muslin pinned neatly over the bosom, there was an air
of graceful, lady-like ease about her, far removed from the primness
of old-maidism. Her features were high, and finely cut, you would have
called her proud and stern, with a tinge of sarcasm lurking upon the
lip, but for her full, dark-gray eyes, so lustrous, so ineffably sweet
in their deep, soul-beaming tenderness, that they seemed scarcely to
belong to a face so worn and faded; indeed, they did not seem in
keeping with the silver-threaded hair so smoothly parted from the low,
broad brow, and put away so carefully beneath a small cap, whose
delicate lace, and rich, white satin, were the only articles of dress
in which Aunt Mabel was a little fastidious. She kept her sewing in
her hand as she commenced her story, and stitched away most
industriously at first, but gradually as she proceeded the work fell
upon her lap, and she seemed to be lost in abstracted recollections,
speaking as though impelled by some uncontrollable impulse to recall
the events long since passed away.

"Many years since," said Aunt Mable, in a calm, soft tone, without
having at all the air of one about telling a story, "many years since,
there lived in one of the smaller cities in our state, a lady named
Lynn. She was a widow, and eked out a very small income by taking a
few families to board. Mrs. Lynn had one only child, a daughter, who
was her pride and treasure, the idol of her affections. As a child
Jane Lynn was shy and timid, with little of the gayety and
thoughtlessness of childhood. She disliked rude plays, and
instinctively shrunk from the lively companions of her own age, to
seek the society of those much older and graver than herself. Her
schoolmates nicknamed her the 'little old maid;' and as she grew older
the title did not seem inappropriate. At school her superiority of
intellect was manifest, and when she entered society the timid
reserve of her manner was attributed to pride, while her acquaintance
thought she considered them her inferiors."

"This, however, was far from the truth. Jane felt that she was not
popular in society, and it grieved her, yet she strove in vain to
assimilate with those around her, to feel and act as they did, and to
be like them, admired and loved. But the narrow circle in which she
moved was not at all calculated to appreciate or draw forth her talent
or character. With a heart filled with all womanly tenderness and
gentle sympathies, a mind stored with romance, and full of restless
longings for the beautiful and true, possessed of fine tastes that
only waited cultivation to ripen into talent, Jane found herself
thrown among those who neither understood nor sympathized with her.
Her mother idolized her, but Jane felt that had she been far different
from what she was, her mother's love had been the same; and though she
returned her parent's affection with all the warmth of her nature,
there was ever within her heart a restless yearning for something
beyond. Immersed in a narrow routine of daily duties, compelled to
practice the most rigid economy, and to lend her every thought and
moment to the assistance of her mother, Jane had little time for the
gratification of those tastes that formed her sole enjoyment. 'It is
the perpetual recurrence of the little that crushes the romance of
life,' says Bulwer; and the experience of every day justifies the
truth of his remark. Jane felt herself, as year after year crept by,
becoming grave and silent. She knew that in her circumstances it was
best that the commonplaces of every-day life should be sufficient for
her, but she grieved as each day she felt the bright hues of early
enthusiasm fading out and giving place to the cold gray tint of
reality."

"With her pure sense of the beautiful, Jane felt acutely the lack of
those personal charms that seem to win a way to every heart. By those
who loved her, (and the few who knew her well did love her dearly,)
she was called at times beautiful, but a casual observer would never
dream of bestowing upon the slight, frail creature who timidly shrunk
from notice, any more flattering epithet than 'rather a pretty girl,'
while those who admired only the rosy beauty of physical perfection
pronounced her decidedly plain."

"Jane Lynn had entered her twenty-second summer when her mother's
household was increased by the arrival of a new inmate. Everard Morris
was a man of good fortune, gentlemanly, quiet, and a bachelor.
Possessed of very tender feelings and ardent temperament, he had seen
his thirty-seventh birth-day, and was still free. He had known Jane
slightly before his introduction to her home, and he soon evinced a
deep and tender interest in her welfare. Her character was a new study
for him, and he delighted in calling forth all the latent enthusiasm
of her nature. He it was who awakened the slumbering fires of
sentiment, and insisted on her cultivating tastes too lovely to be
possessed in vain; and when she frankly told him that the refinement
of taste created restless yearnings for pursuits to her unattainable,
he spoke of a happier future, when her life should be spent amid the
employments she loved. Ere many months had elapsed his feelings
deepened into passionate tenderness, and he avowed himself a lover.
Jane's emotions were mixed and tumultuous as she listened to his
fervent expressions; she reproached herself with ingratitude in not
returning his love. She felt toward him a grateful affection, for to
him she owed all the real happiness her secluded life had known; but
he did not realize her ideal, he admired and was proud of her talents,
but he did not sympathize with her tastes."

"Months sped away and seemed to bring to him an increase of passionate
tenderness. Every word and action spoke his deep devotion. Jane could
not remain insensible to such affection; the love she had sighed for
was hers at last--and it is the happiness of a loving nature to know
that it makes the happiness of another. Jane's esteem gradually
deepened in tone and character until it became a faithful, trusting
love. She felt no fear for the future, because she knew her affection
had none of the romance that she had learned to mistrust, even while
it enchanted her imagination. She saw failings and peculiarities in
her lover, but with true womanly gentleness she forbore with and
concealed them. She believed him when he said he would shield and
guard her from every ill; and her grateful heart sought innumerable
ways to express her appreciating tenderness."

"Mrs. Lynn saw what was passing, and was happy, for Mr. Morris had been
to her a friend and benefactor. And Jane was happy in the
consciousness of being beloved, yet had she much to bear. Her want of
beauty was, as I have said, a source of regret to her, and she was
made unhappy by finding that Everard Morris was dissatisfied with her
appearance. She thought, in the true spirit of romance, that the
beloved were always lovely; but Mr. Morris frequently expressed his
dissatisfaction that nature had not made her as beautiful as she was
good. I will not pause to discuss the delicacy of this and many other
observations that caused poor Jane many secret tears, and sometimes
roused even her gentle spirit to indignation; but affection always
conquered her pride, as her lover still continued to give evidence of
devotion."

"And thus years passed on, the happy future promised to Jane seemed
ever to recede; and slowly the conviction forced itself on her mind
that he whom she had trusted so implicitly was selfish and
vacillating, generous from impulse, selfish from calculation; but he
still seemed to love her, and she clung to him because having been so
long accustomed to his devotedness, she shrunk from being again alone.
In the mean season Mrs. Lynn's health became impaired, and Jane's
duties were more arduous than ever. Morris saw her cheek grow pale,
and her step languid under the pressure of mental and bodily fatigue;
he knew she suffered, and yet, while he assisted them in many ways, he
forbore to make the only proposition that could have secured happiness
to her he pretended to love. His conduct preyed upon the mind of
Jane, for she saw that the novelty of his attachment was over. He had
seen her daily for four years, and while she was really essential to
his happiness, he imagined because the uncertainty of early passion
was past, that his love was waning, and thought it would be unjust to
offer her his hand without his whole heart, forgetting the
protestations of former days, and regardless of her wasted feelings.
This is unnatural and inconsistent you will say, but it is true."

"Four years had passed since Everard Morris first became an inmate of
Mrs. Lynn's, and Jane had learned to doubt his love. 'Hope deferred
maketh the heart sick;' and she felt that the only way to acquire
peace was to crush the affection she had so carefully nourished when
she was taught to believe it essential to his happiness. She could not
turn to another; like the slender vine that has been tenderly trained
about some sturdy plant, and whose tendrils cannot readily clasp
another when its first support is removed, so her affections still
longed for him who first awoke them, and to whom they had clung so
long. But she never reproached him; her manner was gentle, but
reserved; she neither sought nor avoided him; and he flattered himself
that her affection, like his own passionate love, had nearly burnt
itself out, yet he had by no means given her entirely up; he would
look about awhile, and at some future day, perhaps, might make her his
wife."

"While affairs were in this state, business called Mr. Morris into a
distant city; he corresponded with Jane occasionally, but his letters
breathed none of the tenderness of former days; and Jane was glad they
did not, for she felt that he had wronged her, and she shrunk from
avowals that she could no longer trust."

"Everard Morris was gone six months; he returned, bringing with him a
very young and beautiful bride. He brought his wife to call on his old
friends, Mrs. Lynn and her daughter. Jane received them with composure
and gentle politeness. Mrs. Morris was delighted with her kindness and
lady-like manners. She declared they should be intimate friends; but
when they were gone, and Mrs. Lynn, turning in surprise to her
daughter, poured forth a torrent of indignant inquiries. Jane threw
herself on her mother's bosom, and with a passionate burst of weeping,
besought her never again to mention the past. And it never was alluded
to again between them; but both Jane and her mother had to parry the
inquiries of their acquaintance, all of whom believed Mr. Morris and
Jane were engaged. This was the severest trial of all, but they bore
up bravely, and none who looked on the quiet Jane ever dreamed of the
bitter ashes of wasted affection that laid heavy on her heart."

"Mr. and Mrs. Morris settled near the Lynns, and visited very
frequently; the young wife professed an ardent attachment to Jane, and
sought her society constantly, while Jane instinctively shrunk more
and more within herself. She saw with painful regret that Morris
seemed to find his happiness at their fireside rather than his own. He
had been captivated by the freshness and beauty of his young wife,
who, schooled by a designing mother, had flattered him by her evident
preference; he had, to use an old and coarse adage, 'married in haste
to repent at leisure;' and now that the first novelty of his position
had worn off, his feelings returned with renewed warmth to the earlier
object of his attachment. Delicacy toward her daughter prevented Mrs.
Lynn from treating him with the indignation she felt; and Jane, calm
and self-possessed, seemed to have overcome every feeling of the past.
The consciousness of right upheld her; she had not given her affection
unsought; he had plead for it passionately, earnestly, else had she
never lavished the hoarded tenderness of years on one so different
from her own ideal; but that tenderness once poured forth, could never
more return to her; the fountain of the heart was dried, henceforth
she lived but in the past."

"Mr. and Mrs. Morris were an ill-assorted couple; she, gay, volatile,
possessing little affection for her husband, and, what was in his eyes
even worse, no respect for his opinions, which he always considered as
infallible. As their family increased, their differences augmented.
The badly regulated household of a careless wife and mother was
intolerable to the methodical habits of the bachelor husband; and
while the wife sought for Jane to condole with her--though she
neglected her advice--the husband found his greatest enjoyment at his
old bachelor home, and once so far forgot himself as to express to
Jane his regret at the step he had taken, and declared he deserved his
punishment. Jane made no reply, but ever after avoided all opportunity
for such expressions."

"In the meantime Mrs. Lynn's health declined, and they retired to a
smaller dwelling, where Jane devoted herself to her mother, and
increased their small income by the arduous duties of daily governess.
Her cheek paled, and her eye grew dim beneath the complicated trials
of her situation; and there were moments when visions of the bright
future once promised rose up as if in mockery of the dreary present;
hope is the parent of disappointment, and the vista of happiness once
opened to her view made the succeeding gloom still deeper. But she did
not repine; upheld by her devotedness to her mother, she guarded her
tenderly until her death, which occurred five years after the marriage
of Mr. Morris."

"It is needless to detail the circumstances which ended at length in a
separation between Mr. Morris and his wife--the latter returned to her
home, and the former went abroad, having placed his children at
school, and besought Jane to watch over them. Eighteen months
subsequent to the death of Mrs. Lynn, a distant and unknown relative
died, bequeathing a handsome property to Mrs. Lynn, or her
descendants. This event relieved Jane from the necessity of toil, but
it came too late to minister to her happiness in the degree that once
it might have done. She was care-worn and spirit-broken; the every-day
trials of her life had cooled her enthusiasm and blunted her keen
enjoyment of the beautiful she had bent her mind to the minor duties
that formed her routine of existence, until it could no longer soar
toward the elevation it once desired to reach."

"Three years from his departure Everard Morris returned home to die.
And now he became fully conscious of the wrong he had done to her he
once professed to love. His mind seemed to have expanded beneath the
influence of travel, he was no longer the mere man of business with no
real taste for the beautiful save in the physical development of
animal life. He had thought of all the past, and the knowledge of what
was, and might have been, filled his soul with bitterness. He died,
and in a long and earnest appeal for forgiveness he besought Jane to
be the guardian of his children--his wife he never named. In three
months after Mrs. Morris married again, and went to the West, without
a word of inquiry or affection to her children."

"Need I say how willingly Jane Lynn accepted the charge bequeathed to
her, and how she was at last blessed in the love of those who from
infancy had regarded her as a more than mother."

There was a slight tremulousness in Aunt Mabel's voice as she paused,
and Kate, looking up with her eyes filled with tears, threw herself
upon her aunt's bosom, exclaiming,

"Dearest, best Aunt Mabel, you are loved truly, fondly by us all! Ah,
I knew you were telling your own story, and--" but Aunt Mabel gently
placed her hand upon the young girl's lips, and while she pressed a
kiss upon her brow, said, in her usual calm, soft tone,

"It is a true story, my love, be the actors who they may; there is no
exaggerated incident in it to invest it with peculiar interest; but I
want you to know that the subtle influences of affection are ever busy
about us; and however tame and commonplace the routine of life may be,
yet believe, Kate," added Aunt Mable, with a saddened smile, "each
heart has its mystery, and who may reveal it."





TO ERATO.

BY THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.


    Henceforth let Grief forget her pain,
      And Melancholy cease to sigh;
    And Hope no longer gaze in vain
      With weary, longing eye,
    Since Love, dear Love, hath made again
      A summer in this winter sky--
    Oh, may the flowers he brings to-day
    In beauty bloom, nor pass away.

    Sweet one, fond heart, thine eyes are bright,
      And full of stars as is the heaven,
    Pure pleiads of the soul, whose light
      From deepest founts of Truth is given--
    Oh let them shine upon my night,
      And though my life be tempest-driven,
    The leaping billows of its sea
    Shall clasp a thousand forms of thee.

    Thy soul in trembling tones conveyed
      Melts like the morning song of birds,
    Or like a mellow paèn played
      By angels on celestial chords;--
    And oh, thy lips were only made
      For dropping love's delicious words:--
    Then pour thy spirit into mine
    Until my soul be drowned with thine.

    The pilgrim of the desert plain
      Not more desires the spring denied,
    Not more the vexed and midnight main
      Calls for the mistress of its tide,
    Not more the burning earth for rain,
      Than I for thee, my own _soul's_ bride--
    Then pour, oh pour upon my heart
    The love that never shall depart!




THE LABORER'S COMPANIONS.

BY GEORGE S. BURLEIGH.


    While pleasant care my yielding soil receives,
      Other delights the open soul may find;
    On the high bough the daring hang-bird weaves
      Her cunning cradle, rocking in the wind;
    The arrowy swallow builds, beneath the eves,
      Her clay-walled grotto, with soft feathers lined;
    The dull-red robin, under sheltering leaves,

      Her bowl-like nest to sturdy limbs doth bind;
    And many songsters, worth a name in song,
      Plain, _homely_ birds my boy-love sanctified,
    On hedge and tree and grassy bog, prolong
      Sweet loves and cares, in carols sweetly plied;
    In such dear strains their simple natures gush
    That through my heart at once all tear-blest memories rush.




THE ENCHANTED KNIGHT.

BY J. BAYARD TAYLOR.


    In the solemn night, when the soul receives
      The dreams it has sighed for long,
    I mused o'er the charmed, romantic leaves
      Of a book of German Song.

    From stately towers, I saw the lords
      Ride out to the feudal fray;
    I heard the ring of meeting swords
      And the Minnesinger's lay!

    And, gliding ghost-like through my dream,
      Went the Erl-king, with a moan,
    Where the wizard willow o'erhung the stream,
      And the spectral moonlight shone.

    I followed the hero's path, who rode
      In harness and helmet bright,
    Through a wood where hostile elves abode,
      In the glimmering noon of night!

    Banner and bugle's call had died
      Amid the shadows far,
    And a misty stream, from the mountain-side,
      Dropped like a silver star.

    Thirsting and flushed, from the steed he leapt
      And quaffed from his helm unbound;
    Then a mystic trance o'er his spirit crept,
      And he sank to the elfin ground.

    He slept in the ceaseless midnight cold,
      By the faery spell possessed,
    His head sunk down, and his gray beard rolled
      On the rust of his arméd breast!

    When a mighty storm-wind smote the trees,
      And the thunder crashing fell,
    He raised the sword from its mould'ring ease
      And strove to burst the spell.

    And thus may the fiery soul, that rides
      Like a knight, to the field of foes,
    Drink of the chill world's tempting tides
      And sink to a charmed repose.

    The warmth of the generous heart of youth
      Will die in the frozen breast--
    The look of Love and the voice of Truth
      Be charmed to a palsied rest!

    In vain will the thunder a moment burst
      The chill of that torpor's breath;
    The slumbering soul shall be wakened first
      By the Disenchanter, Death!




KORNER'S SISTER.

BY ELIZABETH J. EAMES.

Close beside the grave of the Soldier-Poet is that of his only sister,
who died of grief for his loss, only surviving him long enough to
sketch his portrait and burial-place. Her last wish was to be laid
near him.

        Lovely and gentle girl!
    In the spring morning of thy beauty dying--
        Dust on each sunny curl,
    And on thy brow the grave's deep shadows lying.

        Thine is a lowly bed.
    But the green oak, whose spreading bough hangs o'er thee,
        Shelters the brother's head,
    Who went unto his rest a little while before thee.

        A perfect love was thine,
    Sweet sister! thou hadst made no other
        Idol for thy soul's shrine
    Save him--thy friend and guide, and only brother.

        And not for Lyre and Sword--
    His proud resplendant gifts of fame and glory--
        Oh! not for _these_ adored
    Was he, whose praise thou readst in song and story.

        But't was his presence threw,
    O'er all thy life, a deep delight and blessing;
        And with thy growth it grew,
    Strengthening each thought of thy young heart's possessing.

        Amid each dear home-scene
    That thou and he from childhood trod together,
        Thou hadst his arm to lean
    Upon, through every change of dark or sunny weather.

        And when he passed from Earth,
    The rose from thy soft cheek and bright lip faded;
        Gloom was on hall and hearth--
    A deep voice in thy soul, by sorrow over-shaded.

        Joy had gone forth with _him_;
    The green Earth lost its spell, and the blue Heaven
        Unto thine eye grew dim;
    And thou didst pray for Death, as for a rich boon given!

        _It came_!--and joy to know,
    That from _his_ resting-place _thine_ none would sever,
        And blessing God didst go,
    Where in his presence thou shouldst dwell forever.

        Thou didst but stay to trace
    The imaged likeness of the dear departed;
        To sketch his burial-place--
    Then die, O, sister! fond and faithful hearted.




THE MAN WHO WAS NEVER HUMBUGGED.

BY A. LIMNER.


It was a standing boast with Mr. Wiseacre that he had never been
humbugged in his life. He took the newspapers and read them regularly,
and thus got an inkling of the new and strange things that were ever
transpiring, or said to be transpiring, in the world. But to all he
cried "humbug!" "imposture!" "delusion!" If any one were so bold as to
affirm in his presence a belief in the phenomena of Animal Magnetism,
for instance, he would laugh outright; then expend upon it all sorts
of ridicule, or say that the whole thing was a scandalous trick; and
by way of a finale, wind off thus--

"You never humbug me with these new things. Never catch me in
gull-traps. I've seen the rise and fall of too many wonders in my
time--am too old a bird to be caught with this kind of chaff."

As for Homeopathy, it was treated in a like summary manner. All was
humbug and imposture from beginning to end. If you said--

"But, my dear sir, let me relate what I have myself seen--"

He would interrupt you with--

"Oh! as to seeing, you may see any thing, and yet see nothing after
all. I've seen the wonders of this new medical science over and over
again. There are many extraordinary cures made _in imagination_. Put a
grain of calomel in the Delaware Bay, and salivate a man with a drop
of the water! Is not it ridiculous? Doesn't it bear upon the face of
it the stamp of absurdity. It's all humbug, sir! All humbug from
beginning to end. I know! I've looked into it. I've measured the new
wonder, and know its full dimensions--it's name is 'humbug.'"

You reply.

"Men of great force of mind, and large medical knowledge and
experience, see differently. In the law, _similia similiabus
curanter_, they perceive more than a mere figment of the imagination,
and in the actual results, too well authenticated for dispute,
evidence of a mathematical correctness in medical science never before
attained, and scarcely hoped for by its most ardent devotees."

But he cries,

"Humbug! Humbug! All humbug! I know. I've looked at it. I understand
its worth, and that is--just nothing at all. Talk to me of any thing
else and I'll listen to you--but, for mercy's sake, don't expect me to
swallow at a gulp any thing of this sort, for I can't do it. I'd
rather believe in Animal Magnetism. Why, I saw one of these new lights
in medicine, who was called in to a child in the croup, actually put
two or three little white pellets upon its tongue, no larger than a
pin's head, and go away with as much coolness as if he were not
leaving the poor little sufferer to certain death. 'For Heaven's
sake!' said I, to the parents, 'aint you going to have any thing done
for that child?' 'The doctor has just given it medicine,' they
replied. 'He has done all that is required.' I was so out of patience
with them for being such consummate fools, that I put my hat on and
walked out of the house without saying a word."

"Did the child die?" you ask.

"It happened by the merest chance to escape death. Its constitution
was too strong for the grim destroyer."

"Was nothing else done?" you ask. "No medicines given but homeopathic
powders?"

"No. They persevered to the last."

"The child was well in two or three days I suppose?" you remark.

"Yes," he replies, a little coldly.

"Children are not apt to recover from an attack of croup without
medicine." He forgets himself and answers--

"But I don't believe it was a real case of croup. It couldn't have
been!"

And so Mr. Wiseacre treats almost every thing that makes its
appearance. Not because he understands all about it, but because he
knows nothing about it. It is his very ignorance of a matter that
makes him dogmatic. He knows nothing of the distinction between truth
and the appearances of truth. So fond is he of talking and showing off
his superior intelligence and acumen, that he is never a listener in
any company, unless by a kind of compulsion, and then he rarely hears
any thing in the eagerness he feels to get in his word. Usually he
keeps sensible men silent in hopeless astonishment at the very
boldness of his ignorance.

But Mr. Wiseacre was caught napping once in his life, and that
completely. He was entrapped; not taken in open day, with a fair field
before him. And it would be easy to entrap him at almost any time, and
with almost any humbug, if the game were worth the trouble; for, in
the light of his own mind, he cannot see far. His mental vision is not
particularly clear; else he would not so often cry "humbug," when
wiser men stopped to examine and reflect.

A quiet, thoughtful-looking man once brought to Mr. Wiseacre a letter
of introduction. His name was Redding. The letter mentioned that he
was the discoverer of a wonderful mechanical power, for which he was
about taking out letters patent. What it was, the introductory epistle
did not say, nor did Redding communicate any thing relative to the
nature of the discovery, although asked to do so. There was something
about this man that interested Wiseacre. He bore the marks of a
superior intellect, and his manners commanded respect. As Wiseacre
showed him particular attention, he frequently called in to see him at
his store, and sometimes spent an evening with him at his dwelling.
The more Wiseacre saw of him, and the more he heard him converse, the
higher did he rise in his opinion. At length Redding, in a moment of
confidence, imparted his secret. He had discovered perpetual motion!
This announcement was made after a long and learned disquisition on
mechanical laws, in which the balancing of and the reproduction of
forces, and all that, was opened to the wondering ears of Wiseacre,
who, although he pretended to comprehend every thing clearly, saw it
all only in a very confused light. He knew, in fact, nothing whatever
of mechanical forces. All here was, to him, an untrodden field. His
confidence in Redding, and his consciousness that he was a man of
great intellectual power, took away all doubt as to the correctness of
what he stated. For once he was sure that a great discovery had been
made--that a new truth had dawned upon the world. Of this he was more
than ever satisfied when he was shown the machine itself, in motion,
with its wonderful combinations of mechanical forces, and heard
Redding explain the principle of its action.

"Wonderful! wonderful!" was now exchanged for "Humbug! humbug!" If any
body had told him that some one had discovered perpetual motion, he
would have laughed at him, and cried "humbug!" You couldn't have hired
him even to look at it. But his natural incredulity had been gained
over by a different process. His confidence had first been won by a
specious exterior, his reason captivated by statements and arguments
that seemed like truth, and his senses deceived by appearances. Not
that there was any design to deceive him in particular--he only
happened to be the first included in a large number whose credulity
was to be taxed pretty extensively."

"You will exhibit it, of course?" he said to Redding, after he had
been admitted to a sight of the extraordinary machine.

"This is too insignificant an affair," replied Redding. "It will not
impress the public mind strongly enough. It will not give them a truly
adequate idea of the force attainable by this new motive power. No--I
shall not let the public fully into my secret yet. I expect to reap
from it the largest fortune ever made by any man in this country, and
I shall not run any risks in the outset by a false move. The results
that must follow its right presentation to the public cannot be
calculated. It will entirely supercede steam and water power in mills,
boats, and on railroads, because it will be cheaper by half. But I
need not tell you this, for you have the sagacity to comprehend it all
yourself. You have seen the machine in operation, and you fully
understand the principle upon which it acts."

"How long will it take you to construct such a machine as you think is
required?" asked Wiseacre.

"It could be done in six months if I had the means. But, like all
other great inventors, I am poor. If I could associate with me some
man of capital, I would willingly share with him the profits of my
discovery, which will be, in the end, immense."

"How much money will you need?" asked Wiseacre, already beginning to
burn with a desire for a part of the immense returns.

"Two or three thousand dollars. If I could find any one willing to
invest that moderate sum of money now, I would guarantee to return him
four fold in less than two years, and insure him a hundred thousand
dollars in ten years. But men who have money generally think a bird in
the hand worth ten in the bush; and with them, almost every thing not
actually in possession is looked upon as in the bush."

Mr. Wiseacre sat thoughtful for some moments. Then he asked,

"How much must you have immediately?"

"About five hundred dollars, and at least five hundred dollars a month
until the model is completed."

"Perhaps I might do it," said Wiseacre, after another thoughtful
pause.

"I should be most happy if you could," quickly responded Redding.
"There is no man with whom I had rather share the benefits of this
great discovery than yourself. Whosoever goes into it with me is sure
to make an immense fortune."

Wiseacre no longer hesitated. The five hundred dollars were advanced,
and the new model commenced. As to its progress, and the exact amount
it cost in construction, he was not accurately advised, but one thing
he knew--he had to draw five hundred dollars out of his business every
month; and this he found not always the most convenient operation in
the world.

At length the model was completed. When shown to Wiseacre, it did not
seem to be upon the grand scale he had expected; nor did it, to his
eyes, look as if its construction had cost two or three thousand
dollars. But Mr. Redding was such a fair man, that no serious doubts
had a chance to array themselves against him.

Two or three scientific gentlemen were first admitted to a view of the
machine. They examined it; heard Redding explained the principle upon
which it acted, and were shown the beautiful manner in which the
reproduction of forces was obtained. Some shrugged their shoulders;
some said they wouldn't believe their own eyes in regard to perpetual
motion--that the thing was a physical impossibility; while others half
doubted and half believed. With all these skeptics and half-skeptics
Wiseacre was out of all patience. Seeing, he said, was believing; and
he wouldn't give a fig for a man who couldn't rely upon the evidence
of his own senses.

At length Redding's great achievement in mechanics was announced to
the public, and his model opened for exhibition. Free tickets were
sent to editors, and liberal advertisements inserted in their papers.
The gentlemen of the press examined the machine, and pretty generally
pronounced it a very singular affair certainly, and, as far as they
could judge, all that it pretended to be. Gradually that portion of
the public interested in such matters, awoke from the indifference
felt on the first announcement of the discovery, and began to look at
and enter into warm discussions about the machine. Some believed, but
the majority either doubted or denied that it was perpetual motion. A
few boldly affirmed that there was some trick, and that it would be
discovered in the end.

Toward the lukewarm, the doubting, and the denying, Wiseacre was in
direct antagonism. He had no sort of patience with them. At all times,
and in all places, he boldly took the affirmative in regard to the
discovery of perpetual motion, and showed no quarter to any one who
was bold enough to doubt.

Among those who could not believe the evidence of his own senses, was
an eminent natural philosopher, who visited the machine almost every
day, and as often conversed with Redding about the new principle in
mechanics which he had discovered and applied. The theory was
specious, and yet opposed to it was the unalterable, ever-potent force
of gravitation, which he saw must overcome all so called self-existant
motion. The more he thought about it, and the oftener he looked at and
examined Redding's machine, and talked with the inventor, the more
confused did his mind become. At length, after obtaining the most
accurate information in regard to the construction of the machine, he
set to work and made one precisely like it; but it wouldn't go.
Satisfied, now, that there was imposture, he resolved to ferret it
out. There was some force beyond the machine he was convinced.
Communicating his suspicions to a couple of friends, he was readily
joined by them in a proposed effort to find out the true secret of the
motion imparted to the machine. He had noticed that Redding had
another room adjoining the one in which the model was exhibited, and
that upon the door was written "No admittance." Into this he
determined to penetrate--and he put this determination into practice,
accompanied by two friends, on the first favorable opportunity.
Fortunately, it happened that the door leading to this room was
without the door of the one leading into the exhibition-room. While
Redding was engaged in showing the machine to a pretty large company,
including Wiseacre, who spent a good deal of time there, the explorers
withdrew, and finding the key in the door, entered quietly the
adjoining room, which they took care to fasten on the inside. The only
suspicious object here was a large closet. This was locked; but as the
intention had been to make a pretty thorough search, a short, strong,
steel crow-bar was soon produced from beneath a cloak, and the door in
due time made to yield. Wonderful discovery! There sat a man with a
little table by his side, upon which was a dim lamp, a plate of bread
and cheese, and a mug of beer. He was engaged in turning a wheel!

The machine stopped instantly and would not go on, much to the
perplexity and alarm of the inventor. Wiseacre was deeply disturbed.
In the midst of the murmur of surprise and disapprobation that
followed, a man suddenly entered the room, and cried out in a low
voice,

"It's all humbug! We've discovered the cause of the motion! Come and
see!"

All rushed out after the man, and entered the room over the door of
which was written so conspicuously "No admittance." No, not
all--Redding passed on down stairs, and was never again heard of!

The scene that followed we need not describe. The poor laborer at the
wheel, for a dollar a day, had like to have been broken on his wheel,
but the crowd in mercy spared him. As for poor Wiseacre, who had never
been humbugged in his life, he was so completely "used up" by this
undreamed of result, that he could hardly look any body in the face
for two or three months. But he got over it some time since, and is
now a more thorough disbeliever in all new things than before.

"You don't humbug me!" is his stereotyped answer to all announcements
of new discoveries. Even in regard to the magnetic telegraph he is
still quite skeptical, and shrugs his shoulders, and elevates his
eyebrows, as much as to say, "It'll blow up one of these times, mark
my word for it." Nobody has yet been able to persuade him to go to the
Exchange and look at the operation of the batteries there and see for
himself. He doesn't really believe in the thing, and smiles inwardly,
as the rough poles and naked wires stare him in the face while passing
along the street. He looks confidently to see them converted into
poles for scaffolding before twelve months pass away.




THE SISTERS.

BY G. G. FOSTER.

[SEE ENGRAVING.]


    Nay, look not forth with those deep earnest eyes
      To catch the gleaming of your lovers' plumes;
    A dearer, surer, trustier passion lies
      In sisters' hearts than lovers' cheeks illumes.
    Man worships and forsakes; and as he flies
      From flower to flower their beauty he consumes;
    Then leaves the wasted heart and faded flower
    To die forgotten in their sunless bower.

    But sisters' love, like angels' sympathies,
      Is as the breath of Heaven and cannot change
    No earthly shudder taints its sinless kiss.
      No sorrow can your loving hearts estrange;
    No selfish pride destroy the priceless bliss
      Of loving and confiding. Oh exchange
    Not love like this, so heavenly and so true.
    For all the vows that lovers' lips e'er knew

[Illustration: W. Drummond.    A.C. Thompson
THE SISTERS
Engraved Expressly for Graham's Magazine.]




BRUTUS IN HIS TENT.

BY WM. H. C. HOSMER.

How ill this taper burns!--hah! who comes here? SHAKSPEARE.


      On wall-girt Sardis weary day hath shed
        The golden blaze of his expiring beam;
      And rings her paven walks beneath the tread
        Of guards that near the hour of battle deem--
      Whose brazen helmets in the starlight gleam;
        From tented lines no murmur loud descends,
      For martial thousands of the battle dream
        On which the fate of bleeding Rome depends
    When blushing dawn awakes and night's dark curtain rends.

      Though hushed War's couchant tigers in their lair
        The tranquil time to _one_ brings not repose--
      A voice was whispering to his soul--"Despair!
        The gods will give the triumph to thy foes."
      Can sleep, with leaden hand, our eyelids close
        When throng distempered fancies, and depart,
      And thought a shadow on the future throws?
        When shapes unearthly into being start,
    And, like a snake, Remorse uncoils within the heart?

      At midnight deep when bards avow that tombs
        Are by their cold inhabitants forsaken,
      The Roman chief his wasted lamp relumes,
        And calmly reads by mortal wo unshaken:
      His iron frame of rest had not partaken,
        And doubt--dark enemy of slumber--fills
      A breast where fear no trembling chord could waken,
        And on his ear an awful voice yet thrills
    That rose, when Cæsar fell, from Rome's old Seven Hills.

      A sound--"that earth owns not"--he hears, and starts,
        And grasps the handle of his weapon tried;
      Then, while the rustling tent-cloth slowly parts,
        A figure enters and stands by his side:
      There was an air of majesty and pride
        In the bold bearing of that spectre pale--
      The crimson on its robe was still undried,
        And dagger wounds, that tell a bloody tale
    Beyond the power of words, the opening folds unveil.

      With fearful meaning towers the phantom grim,
        On Brutus fixing its cold, beamless eye;
      The face, though that of Julius, seems to him
        Formed from the moonlight of a misty sky:
      The birds of night, affrighted, flutter by,
        And a wild sound upon the shuddering air
      Creeps as if earth were breathing out a sigh,
        And the fast-waning lamp, as if aware
    Some awful shade was nigh, emits a ghostly glare.

      Stern Brutus quails not, though his wo-worn cheeks
        Blanch with emotion, and in tone full loud
     Thus to the ghastly apparition speaks--
        "Why stand before me in that gory shroud,
      Unwelcome guest! thy purpose unavowed;
        Art thou the shaping of my wildered brain?"
      The spectre answered, with a gesture proud,
        In hollow accents--"We will meet again
    When the best blood of Rome smokes on Philippi's plain."




TO VIOLET.

BY JEROME A. MABY.


      Years--eventful years have passed
        Sweet sister! since I met thy smile;
      I'm thinking now what change they've cast
        Upon your form and mine the while;
      Thy girlhood's days with them are flown--
        A calmer light must fill thine eye;
      Thy voice have now an added tone;
        Thy tresses fall more dark and free.
      Yet, in my dreams of thee and home,
        A slight, pale girl I ever see,
      Whose smiles to her mild lip do come,
        Like stars in heaven--tremblingly!
      For with thy young heart's lovingness
        There aye seemed blent a troubled fear,
      As if it knew _all_ tenderness
        Must see its worship perish here!
      And oh, the prayers I poured to Heaven,
    That time prove not to _thee_ how golden links are riven!

      And I--oh, sister! _I_ am changed--
        You scarce would know the dreaming boy;
      For all too far his steps have ranged
        Through wildering ways of Strife and Joy
      Oh! falcon-eyed Ambition's schemes--
        The thrill that comes on mounting wings--
      Have left no love for quiet dreams,
        And learned contempt for tamer things!
      And Pleasure to my youthful cheek
        So many a hot, wild flush has won,
      That to her foils I've grown too weak--
        Some nerve must still be passion-spun!
      And if 'mid scenes all bravery--glow--
        The night has found me proud and blest,
      Stern, mournful things--that make life's wo--
        Have struck sad music from my breast!
      And when at times Thought leaves me calm,
        And boyhood's memories float by,
      _Then_ well I know how changed I am--
        And a strange weakness dims my eye!
      Oh! sister, on this heart of mine
    Weight--stain--have come, since last I met that smile of thine!




"THINK NOT THAT I LOVE THEE."

A BALLAD.

MUSIC COMPOSED AND ARRANGED FOR THE PIANO FORTE BY

J. L. MILNER,

_AND RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO HIS FRIEND, J. G. OSBOURN, ESQ._

P. DOLCE.


[Illustration: music]

[Illustration: music

SECOND VERSE.

    Think not that I love thee,
      Alluring coquette,
    The vows you have broken
      I too can forget;
    The love that I gave thee,
      Thou ne'er could'st repay,
    So affection for thee
      Has passed away.]




REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.

     _The Life of Oliver Cromwell. By J. T. Headley. New
     York: Baker & Scribner. 1 vol. 12mo_.

This volume is elegantly printed, and contains the most characteristic
portrait of Cromwell we have seen. In regard to thought and
composition it is Mr. Headley's best book. Without being deficient in
the energy and pictorial power which have given such popularity to his
other productions, it indicates an advance in respect to artistic
arrangement of matter and correctness of composition. It is needless
to say that the author has not elaborated it into a finished work, or
done full justice to his talents in its general treatment. We do not
agree with Mr. Headley in his notion of Cromwell, and think that his
marked prepossession for his hero has unconsciously led him to alter
the natural relations of the facts and principles with which he deals;
but still we feel bound to give him credit for an extensive study of
his subject, and for bringing together numerous interesting details
which can be found in no other single biography of Cromwell. Among his
authorities and guides we are sorry to see that he has not included
Hallam. The portion of the latter's Constitutional History of England
devoted to the reign of Charles I., the Commonwealth and the
Protectorate, deserves, at least, the respectful attention of every
writer on those subjects. Indeed we think Hallam so much an authority
that a deviation from him on a question of fact or principle should be
accompanied by arguments contesting his statements. Of all the
historians of the period we conceive him to be almost the only one who
loses the partisan in the judge. The questions mooted in the
controversy between Charles and his Parliament are still hotly
contested, and are so calculated to inflame the passions, that almost
every historian of the time turns advocate. Mr. Headley's passionate
sensibility should have been a little cooled by "fraternizing" with
Mr. Hallam's judicial understanding.

The leading merit of Mr. Headley's volume is his description of
Cromwell's battles; Marston Moor, Preston, Naseby, Dunbar and
Worcester, are not mere names, suggesting certain mechanical military
movements to the reader of the present book. The smoke and dust and
blood and carnage of war--the passions it excites, and the heroism it
prompts, are all brought right before the eye. Many historians have
attempted to convey in general terms a notion of the kind of men that
Cromwell brought into battle, but it is in Mr. Headley's volume that
we really obtain a distinct conception of the renowned Ironsides. He
has just enough sympathy with the soldier and the Puritan to reproduce
in imagination the religious passions which animated that band of
"braves." As a considerable portion of Cromwell's life relates to his
military character, Mr. Headley has a wide field for the exercise of
his singular power of painting battle-pieces.

As the present biography, of all the lives of Cromwell with which we
are acquainted, is calculated to be the most popular, we regret that
the author has not taken a Juster view of Cromwell's character and
actions. It is important in a republican country, that the popular
mind should have just notions of constitutional liberty, and every
attempt to convert such despots as Napoleon and Cromwell into
champions of freedom, will, in proportion to its success, prepare the
way for a brood of such men in our own country. In regard to Mr.
Headley, we think that his sympathy with Cromwell's great powers as a
warrior and ruler has vitiated his view of many transactions vitally
connected with the principles of freedom. Compared with Carlyle,
however, he may be almost considered impartial. He is frank and
fearless in presenting his opinions, and does not confuse the mind by
mixing up statements of fact with any of the trancendental Scotchman's
sentimentality.

The English Revolution of 1640 began in a defense of legal privileges
and ended in a military despotism. It commenced in withstanding
attacks on civil and religious rights and ended in the dominion of a
sect. The point, therefore, where the lover of freedom should cease to
sympathize with it is plain. It is useless for the republican to say
that every revolution of the kind must necessarily take a similar
course, for that is not an argument for Cromwell's usurpation, but an
argument against the expediency of opposing attacks by a king, on the
rights and privileges of the people. The truth is that the English
Revolution was at first a popular movement, having a clear majority of
the property, intelligence and numbers of the people on its side. The
king, in breaking the fundamental laws of the kingdom, made war on the
community, and was to be resisted just as much as if he were king of
France or Spain, and had invaded the country. It is easy to trace the
progress of this resistance, until by the action of religious bigotry
and other inflaming passions, the powers of the opposition became
concentrated in the hands of a body of military fanatics, commanded by
an imperious soldier, and representing a small minority even of the
Puritans. The king, a weak and vacillating man, made an attempt at
arbitrary power, was resisted, and after years of civil war, ended his
days on the scaffold; Cromwell, without any of those palliations which
charity might urge in extenuation of the king, on the ground of the
prejudices of his station, took advantage of the weakness of the
country, after it had been torn by civil war, usurped supreme power,
and became the most arbitrary monarch England had seen since William
the Conqueror. No one doubts his genius, and it seems strange that any
one should doubt his despotic character.

The truth is that Cromwell's natural character, even on the hypothesis
of his sincerity, was arbitrary, and the very opposite of what we look
for in the character of a champion of freedom. It seems to us
supremely ridiculous to talk of such a man as being capable of having
his conduct determined by a parliament or a council. He pretended to
look to God, not to human laws or fallible men, for the direction of
his actions. In the name of the Deity he charged at the head of his
Ironsides. In the name of the Deity he massacred the Irish garrisons.
In the name of the Deity he sent dragoons to overturn parliaments. He
believed neither in the sovereignty of the people, nor the sovereignty
of the laws, and it made little difference whether his opponent was
Charles I. or Sir Harry Vane, provided he were an opponent. In regard
to the inmost essence of tyranny, that of exalting the individual will
over every thing else, and of meeting opposition and obstacles by pure
force, Charles I. was a weakling in comparison with Cromwell. Now if,
in respect to human governments, democracy and republicanism consist
in allowing any great and strong man to assume the supreme power, on
his simple assertion that he has a commission from Heaven so to do; if
constitutional liberty is a government of will instead of a
government of laws, then the partisans of Cromwell are justified in
their eulogies. It appears to us that the only ground on which the
Protector's tyranny is more endurable than the king's, consists in the
fact that from its nature it could not be permanent, and could not
establish itself into the dignity of a precedent. It was a power
depending neither on the assent of the people, nor on laws and
institutions, but simply on the character of one man. As far as it
went, it did no good in any way to the cause of freedom, for to
Cromwell's government, and to the fanaticism which preceded it, we owe
the reaction of Charles the Second's reign, when licentiousness in
manners, and servility in politics succeeded in making virtue and
freedom synonymous with hypocrisy and cant.

In regard to Cromwell's massacres in Ireland, which even Mr. Headley
denounces as uncivilized, a great deal of nonsense has been written by
Carlyle. The fact is that Cromwell, in these matters, acted as Cortez
did in Mexico, and Pizarro in Peru, and deserves no more charity. If
he performed them from policy, as Carlyle intimates, he must be
considered a disciple of Machiavelli and the Devil; if he performed
them from religious bigotry, he may rank with St. Dominic and Charles
the Ninth. We are sick of hearing brutality and wickedness, either in
Puritan or Catholic, extenuated on the ground of bigotry. This bigotry
which prompts inhuman deeds, is not an excuse for sin, but the
greatest of spiritual sins. It indicates a condition of mind in which
the individual deifies his malignant passions.

We are sorry that Mr. Headley has written his biography with such a
marked leaning to Cromwell. We believe that a large majority of
readers will obtain their notions of the Protector from his pages, and
that they will be no better republicans thereby. The very brilliancy
and ability of his work will only make it more influential upon the
popular mind.


     _A Supplement to the Plays of William Shakspeare.
     Comprising Seven Dramas which have been ascribed to his
     Pen but are not included with his Writings in Modern
     Editions. Edited, with Notes, and an Introduction to
     each Play, by William Gilmore Simms. New York: Geo. F.
     Cooledge & Brother. 1 vol. 8vo._

The public are under obligations to Mr. Simms, not only for reprinting
a series of dramas which are objects of curiosity from their
connection with the name of Shakspeare, but for the elegant and
ingenious introductions he has furnished from his own pen. With regard
to the question whether Shakspeare did or did not write these plays,
our opinion has ever inclined to the negative, and a careful perusal
of Mr. Simms's views has rather confirmed than shaken our impression.
The internal evidence, with the exception of passages in the Two Noble
Kinsmen, is strongly against the hypothesis of Shakspeare's
authorship, and the external evidence appears to us unsatisfactory.
Mr. Simms's idea is that they were the productions of Shakspeare's
youth and apprenticeship, and on this supposition he accounts for
their obvious inferiority to the acknowledged plays. Now it seems to
us that the juvenile efforts of the world's master-mind would give
some evidence of his powers, however imperfect might be the form of
their expression; and especially that they would not resemble the
matured products of contemporary mediocrity. Of the plays in the
present volume, the only one which has the character of youthful
genius is the tragedy of Lecrine, and this is the youth of Marlowe
rather than of Shakspeare. The London Prodigal and the Puritan, Lord
Cromwell and Sir John Oldcastle, have no trace of youthful fire or
even rant. They are the offspring of sober, contented, irreclaimable,
unimprovable mediocrity, with a decided tendency to the stupid rather
than the sublime. They were probably the journey-work of some of the
legion playwrights connected with the London theatres, and cannot be
compared with the dramas of Jonson, Deckar, Middleton, Fletcher,
Marston, Tourneur, Massinger and Ford. They lack the vitality, the
_vim_, which burns and blazes even in the works of the second class
dramatists of the time. The Yorkshire Tragedy bears the stamp of
Middleton rather than Shakspeare. With regard to the Two Noble
Kinsmen, perhaps the greatest play included in the collection of
Beaumont and Fletcher, we think that the Shaksperian passages might
have been imitations of Shakspeare's manner, and we have a
sufficiently high opinion of Fletcher's genius to suppose that this
imitation was not beyond his powers. The general character of the play
shows that Shakspeare, at any rate, merely contributed to it. It is
conceived and developed in the hot and hectic style of Fletcher, and
abounds in his strained heroics and gratuitous obscenities. The
Jailor's Daughter, a coarse caricature of Ophelia, is one of the
greatest crimes against the sacredness of misery which a poet ever
perpetrated.

Schlegel said of Thomas Lord Cromwell, Sir John Oldcastle, and A
Yorkshire Tragedy, that they were not only Shakspeare's, but in his
opinion deserved to be classed among his best and maturest works. This
is the most ridiculous judgment which a great critic ever made, and
coming as it does, after the author's profound view of Shakspeare's
genius, is as singular as it is ridiculous.


     _Pilgrimage to the Holy Land. By Alphonse de Lamartine.
     New York: D. Appleton & Co. 2 vols. 12mo._

Lamartine is a man of fine genius and great courage, but both as an
author and politician is a sentimentalist. His characteristic mental
quality, that of seeing all external objects through a luminous mist
exhaling from his heart and imagination, is as prominent in the
present volume of travels as in his political speeches and state
papers. He sees nothing in clear, white light; every thing through a
personal medium. To use a distinction of an ingenious analyst, he
tells you rather of the beauty and truth of his feelings than the
beauty and truth he feels; and accordingly his sentimentality is
closely allied to vanity. This absence of clear perception is not the
result of his being a poet, but of his being a poet of the second
class. Homer, Dante, Shakspeare, even Milton, would not fail in
politics from a similar lack of seeing things as they are. We believe
that Homer and Shakspeare might have made better statesmen than
Pericles and Bacon. The great poet fails in practical life not from
seeing things through a distorting medium, but from viewing them in
relation to an ideal standard. This was the case with Milton. Now
Lamartine is in the habit of _Lamartinizing_ the whole world in his
writings. The mirror he holds up to life and nature simply reflects
himself. He cannot pass beyond his own individuality--he has no
objective insight.

We will guarantee that every reader of the present volumes will rise
from their perusal with a knowledge of the author rather than the
subject. He will obtain no information of men, scenery, or remarkable
places, such as he might receive from a common tourist, deficient
equally in sentiment and imagination; neither will he carry away such
clear pictures and representations as Scott or Goethe might stamp upon
his memory. He will simply be informed of the thoughts, fancies,
opinions, and varying moods of Lamartine, as awakened by the objects
which met his eye. These objects, which a great poet would consider
of the first importance, are with the Frenchman only secondary to the
exhibition of himself. If this mingled egotism and vanity were
affected, it would disgust the reader, but as it is the natural action
of the author's mind, and is accompanied with much eloquence and
beauty of composition, it is more likely to fascinate than to offend.
At the present moment, when the author is with the public a more
important object than Athens or Jerusalem, the present volumes will
probably be the more eagerly read on account of their leading defect.


     _The Falcon Family; or Young Ireland. By the author of
     the Bachelor of the Albany. Boston: T. Wiley, Jr._

We should judge the author of the present amusing work to be a young
lawyer, extensively read in miscellaneous literature, and disposed to
make the most of his wit, rhetoric and acquirements. His style of
thinking and composition is that of a first rate magazine writer
rather than novelist. He is a brilliant sketcher and caricaturist,
without any hold upon character, and with little power of conceiving
or telling a story. He is ever sparkling and clever, without weight or
depth. But he has many elements of popularity, and unites a good share
of shrewdness with an infinite amount of small wit. The object of the
present work is to ridicule Young Ireland in particular, and Young
Europe in general, including hits at Young England, Young Israel, (the
children of Israel,) and _La Jeune France_. All of these, Mitchell,
D'Iraeli, Moncton Milnes and the rest, are classed under the common
term of _boyocracy_, a very good phrase to denote the ridiculous
portions of the young creed. Though the author has no view of this
class of sentimental or termagant politicians except on their
ludicrous side, he exposes that side with a brilliant remorselessness
which is refreshing in this age of universal cant. Though something of
a coxcomb himself, he has no mercy on the fop turned politician and
theologian. The mistake of his satire on Young Ireland consists in
overlooking the reality of the wrongs under which that country groans,
and the depth and intensity of the passions roused. In regard to style
the author is a mannerist. The present novel reads like a continuation
or reproduction of the Bachelor of the Albany.


     _Researches on the Chemistry of Food, and the Motion of
     the Juices in the Animal Body. By Liebig, M. D. Lowell:
     Daniel Bixby & Co. 1 vol. 12 mo_.

This volume is edited by Professor Horsford, of Harvard University. It
is an acute and profound work of science, worth all the common books
on the subject put together. The author considers his investigation,
as recorded in the present volume, the most important he ever made.
His theory is this: "The surface of the body is a membrane from which
evaporation goes uninterruptedly forward. In consequence of this
evaporation, all the fluids of the body acquire, in obedience to
atmospheric pressure, motion toward the evaporating surface. This is
obviously the chief cause of the passage of the nutritious fluids from
the blood-vessels, and of their diffusion through the body. We know
now what important functions the skin (and lungs) fulfill through
evaporation. It is a condition of nourishment, and the influence of a
moist or dry air upon the health of the body, or of mechanical
agitation by walking or running, which increases the perspiration, is
self-evident." It will be readily seen that this discovery has an
important bearing upon the preservation of health.


     _The Wanderings and Fortunes of Some German Emigrants
     By Frederick Gerstacker. Translated by David Black. New
     York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 12mo._

We have often desired to see a book of this character, giving the
first views and impressions of foreigners coming to settle here, as
they made their way from the Atlantic to the West. The present volume
is curiously minute in detailing the course and incidents of the
journey, and apart from its interest as a narrative, contains not a
little matter which should attract the attention of the statesman. In
respect to the merit of composition or description the book hardly
rises above mediocrity.


     _Cæsar's Commentaries on the Gallic War. With English
     Notes, a Lexicon, Indexes, &c. By Rev. J. A. Spencer,
     A. M. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 12mo._

This is the best edition of Cæsar we have ever seen, and to the young
student it is invaluable. Every assistance is given to the complete
comprehension of the Commentaries; and few can rise from the diligent
perusal of the volume without having understood and almost exhausted
one at least of the classics.


     _Gramática Inglesa de Urcullu. Edited by Fayette
     Robinson. Grammar of the Spanish Language. By Fayette
     Robinson._

These two books, by an accomplished linguist scholar, fill a want
which has long been felt. Most of the works previously published are
too diffuse and elaborate for the purposes of schools, or too
contracted to give any thing more than a skeleton of the tongue. Mr.
Robinson has adopted a system eminently practical, and made two books
which entitle him to the thanks of pupil and teacher. As he states,
grammatical legislation is abandoned and example substituted for
rules. Extensive tables of verbs, prepositions and idioms, have been
prepared, which do away with almost all of the difficulties connected
with the study of that tongue a monarch called the language of the
gods. The paradigms of the verbs have been prepared evidently with the
greatest care, and a new form given to what grammarians call the
conditional and subjunctive moods, so as to adapt the Castilian to the
English language. Tables of dialogues are also added, which are pure
and classical in both English and Spanish.

Mr. Robinson has, in editing the English Grammar of Urcullu, made
great improvements by the addition of what he modestly calls
"_notillas_," (little notes,) but which greatly add to the perfectness
of the book. The important table of the verbs of the language by
Hernandez and the officers of the Spanish academy, and the chapter on
terms of courtesy in the United States, are most valuable additions.
This book is most valuable as a supplement to the Spanish Grammar, and
the moderate price at which the two are sold, renders it most
desirable and convenient to purchase them together.

Though we detect some typographical inaccuracies they are merely
literal accidents, and the books reflect credit on author, publishers,
and stereotyper. We most cordially recommend them.


     _History of the French Revolution of 1789. By Louis
     Blanc. Translated from the French. Phila.: Lea &
     Blanchard._

The popularity acquired by M. Blanc from his "History of Ten Years,"
as well as the fact of his having been for a time a member of the
Provisional Government of the French Republic, will doubtless cause
this book to be widely read. It is always interesting, but seldom
impartial.


Transcriber's Note:

Certain unusual instances of spelling and grammar have been retained.
Errors in punctuation and obvious printer's errors have been corrected
without remark.