GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.
                Vol. XXI.      August, 1842      No. 2.


                                Contents

                   Fiction, Literature and Articles

          The Bud and Blossom
          De Pontis
          Harry Cavendish
          The Sisters
          Shakspeare
          Error
          Tousky Wousky
          The Johnsons
          Review of New Books
          Editor’s Table

                            Poetry and Music

          The Maiden’s Sorrow
          Song
          The Watchers
          Elizabeth
          To My Sisters
          The Last Leap of Uncas
          Sonnet
          “Hath Not Thy Rose a Canker.”
          To a Swallow That Dropped on Deck During a Storm
            at Sea
          Farewell to a Fashionable Acquaintance
          Song
          The Student’s Dream of Fame
          The Zanoni Gallop

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

                 *        *        *        *        *

[Illustration: _The Bud and the Blossom_,
Engraved by Welch & Walter, from a drawing by W. C. Ross, A.R.A.]




                           GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

           Vol. XXI.    PHILADELPHIA: AUGUST, 1842.    No. 2.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                          THE BUD AND BLOSSOM.


                       A REASON FOR BACHELORISM.


                          BY MRS. SEBA SMITH.


“You have told me, Mr. Hunter, at least a dozen times, you would reveal
to me the secret of your bachelorism; now we have no visiters, and no
prospect of any; the quiet patter of the rain has tempted you to cigar
and slippers; and that dim burning of the coal in the grate, the drowsy
fire of June, just enough to dispel the damp, and not enough to rouse
one uneasy nerve, is of itself a pledge for a long, tranquil evening.
And yet—by no means, my dear sir, don’t toss aside your cigar, and as
to sighing, it is out of the question—you are too stout for sentiment,
have a well-to-do air, a sort of tell-tale good-dinner aspect, that
don’t accord well with the sentimental.”

Mr. Hunter drew from his bosom a small miniature, the portraits of two
sisters, the one a girl of seventeen, the other a child of seven or
eight—a bud and a blossom of female loveliness. Even I forgot the
well-to-do air, and found myself unconsciously sympathizing as his
smooth, unmarked face settled into an expression of melancholy. To be
sure it was unnatural, and, just as it was about to reassume its
habitual look of easy content, and the cigar was quietly restored to the
lips, he caught a glimpse of my eyes, and they might have looked
mischievous, for he flung the cigar aside, and declared he would never,
no never, satisfy my curiosity. “Women were all alike heartless,
untruthful, and full of whim. A man never knew where to find them—one
thing to-day, another to-morrow. A book that is all preface—the reader
never gets beyond the first page. No wonder married men are lean and
cadaverous. That same lean Cassius must have been a married man.
Othello’s occupation was done when he became a married man. Witness the
spleen of Iago—it is that of a married man. Macbeth was a married
murderer—it makes me desperate—”

“Yes, desperate to be married. I won’t enter into a defence, because, my
dear sir, I do so much want that same story. I forgive this little
ebullition of bachelor spleen, believing it may be of service to you.
But, Mr. Hunter, here is the secret of all the bachelorism in the
world—Inconstancy—remember the old ballad that saith,

    ‘Sigh no more, ladye, sigh no more,
      Men were deceivers ever—
    One foot on sea and one on shore,
      To one thing constant never.’

“Now do tell me the story of these pretty girls, and I promise not to
annoy you.”

Mr. Hunter was too good-natured to refuse—bachelors _are_ good natured.

“This is a painting from a sketch I made of the two girls, shortly
before we embarked upon that fatal voyage. They were standing as you now
see; Ellen with the same tranquil, gentle demeanor, and the roguish Anne
in this very attitude indeed, but a thousand changeful meanings flitting
over her face.

“I was but twenty-two—full of life, health, and the enthusiasm of early
manhood. Ellen was the realization of my dreams, the one pure and
blessed being forever floating about the fancies of the imagination, the
impersonation of my ideal of womanhood at that time; meek, trusting,
dependent, and loving with a singleness and purity of soul that
sanctified every emotion. I need not say that the most restless dream of
ambition, the most alluring incitements to pleasure, were as nothing to
me when weighed by the wealth of her guileless tones of affection, the
earnest and touching accents of tenderness that fell from her sweet
lips.

“I was about to return to one of our southern cities, there to prosecute
my profession, and Mrs. Lacey, a widow of some fortune, and long an
invalid, determined to arrange her affairs and remove thither also, in
company with her two daughters, my sweet Ellen and Anne.

“The first evening of our voyage Ellen joined me for a promenade on the
deck, and as she confidingly put her arm within mine, I shall never
forget the renewed sense of manhood I experienced at that moment, nor
the exquisite delight arising from a consciousness that a creature of
such grace and tenderness relied on me, and me only, for protection.
Believe me, too, a woman can realize but once, I mean only in the one
individual who engrosses her whole heart, that sweet sense of
dependence, that delight in appealing to the manliness of a being, to
whom alone she is not ashamed to confess her weakness.

“You smile, but we bachelors know more of your woman hearts than you do
yourselves. For instance, you admire strength, because you are
physically inferior. You admire intellect, because however intellectual
you may be, you delight still more in the affections. Beauty is nothing
to you, but self-sustaining manliness is every thing. You admire
nobleness and generosity of sentiment, because they are not your own
characteristics—courage because you are cowards—”

“Oh! Mr. Hunter, Mr. Hunter, I _do_ protest—”

“Yet hear me through. Love with a woman must be commingled with
reverence. She cannot love deeply, fervently; she cannot feel that the
whole of her own exhaustless and beautiful sympathies are welling up to
the light, like a pure fountain gushing up to the sunshine, only as love
has become an idolatry, a holiness, a religion; and wo unto her when
such is its nature! Earth has set its seal against it; the very stars
look down sadly upon it; everywhere an altar arises to the living God,
on which the incense that may not, cannot find a worthy censor here, is
transferred to that of the Eternal. Thus it is that women are more
religious than men—and thus it is that one of the most gifted of their
number has said,

    “‘Oh, hope not, ask thou not too much
      Of sympathy below—
    Few are the hearts, whence one same touch
      Bids the sweet waters flow—
    Few, and by still conflicting powers
      Forbidden here to meet—
    Such ties would make this world of ours
      Too fair for aught so fleet.’

“But to my story. We had been out three or four days, with favorable
winds, and the sea and sky had revealed to us each day their varied
aspect of beauty. A change had been threatening through the day, and as
the night approached the dense settling of the vapors seemed to hem us
in, and that strange utterance of the elements, where they call from
point to point, holding as they do undivided empire over the world of
waters, was sublime, not to say appalling. Mrs. Lacey was a timid woman,
and though the thread of life seemed every moment ready to sunder, she
still clung to it with a wild tenacity. Ellen thought not of herself,
and I believe she would have shrunk from witnessing the fearful uproar
about us, as the vessel plunged onward, bravely onward, yet helpless
even in her strength. I was leaning against the companion-way, alive to
an almost painful sense of sublimity, when the light form of Anne rushed
into my arms, and clasping hers about me she buried her face in my
bosom.

“‘Oh! Charles, dear brother Charles, don’t send me back—let me stay
with you and I shall fear nothing.’

“I gathered the sweet child to my bosom, and by a strange instinct
approached the tafferel of the ship. I became aware of a sudden and
terrible tumult—of a blackness even more dense than the thick clouds
about us. Anne clung convulsively to my neck, and I instinctively put
out my hands for support, for there was a fearful crash, a wild reeling
beneath me, and I felt myself lifted from my feet and borne onward in
the thick darkness. I was clinging to the chains of a larger ship that
had crossed our track in that fearful storm, and had passed over her
gallant souls, leaving all to perish, save us two so wondrously
preserved.

“When afflictions come singly upon ourselves we are overpowered with a
sense of desolation; we tread the wine-press alone, and the burden is
often too much for human endurance; but when the calamity is general the
individual is merged in the many, and the selfishness of grief is
forgotten. I scarcely wept for the gentle and beautiful Ellen. I was
conscious of a dull aching weight of bereavement; but then I felt as an
atom, a quivering, vital one indeed, but yet only as an atom in the
great mass of human suffering. The ocean, too, pure and deep, seemed a
fit resting place for the good and lovely.

“When Anne awoke to consciousness, she called frantically for her mother
and sister. Slowly and gently I revealed the sad reality. She stood with
her little hands clasped, her wet hair streaming over her shoulders, and
those deep earnest eyes gazing into mine with an intensity that pained
me to the very heart. When all had become clear to her, she dropped her
hands slowly and the tears gathered into her eyes; then, as by a new
impulse, she drew herself to my bosom, and nestled there, like a dove,
weary and desolate.

“Tender and beautiful sufferer! she gathered her duty only from my eyes,
and assented to the slightest intimation of my will. I was her only
friend on the earth, and her gentle nature, now doubly gentle in her
sorrow, lavished all its tenderness on me.

“Gradually she awoke from the listlessness induced by newness to
suffering, and the wonderful elasticity of her character revealed a
thousand glowing and impassioned traits, that had hitherto escaped my
observation. Frank and courageous, she regarded things as they were in
themselves, and not as they might appear to others. Challenging the
opinions of none, with an intuitive feminine tact, her conclusions were
always what one would desire.

“Nature is, after all, the best teacher—would women but yield
themselves to the promptings of a simple and womanly nature, they would
be far more effective than they at present are. Our sex are worshippers
of truth—you smile—but it is true nevertheless; and might you, dared
you preserve your primitive truthfulness of heart, we should fall down
and worship you.

“But I digress, and am describing Anne rather as she appeared when, like
Spenser’s Amoret, she ‘reclined in the lap of womanhood,’ than while she
sat upon my knee, a tender and simple child.

“I would scarcely assert that Anne was endowed with genius; and yet I
know not—at any rate it was thoroughly a woman’s genius—earnest,
truthful, affectionate, dependent, and yet nobly
self-sustained—impassioned and yet never mistaking or perverting her
emotions—embodying every quality of her sex, and yet elevating all—gay
as a bird, simple as a child; her own bright nature investing all things
with an ideal halo, and yet with a singular clearness of perception and
soundness of judgment correcting all such illusions; a creature of
contradictions, and yet grand in her consistency; a true woman; the
life-study of a man, aye, and were he the wisest of his sex, he might
never exhaust the sweet subject; just not an angel, but all a woman—

    ‘A creature not too bright nor good,
    For human nature’s daily food;
    For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
    Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles.’

“The ship that had wrecked our own good barque was bound on a three
years cruise, and all that time Anne was the only one of her sex on
board. She never seemed to feel the peculiarity of her situation, all
she said or did was feminine and becoming, and her little state room
worthy of Goethe’s Margery, ‘it is not every maiden keeps her room so
chary,’ might have been said of her.

“Never shall I forget the wild delight with which she hailed our
approach to land, nor the care with which she nurtured the plants that
were to relieve the monotony of the voyage—the touching gratitude with
which she received the gift of a bird or animal that was to be her
especial pet. And then to mark her many little expedients to preserve
the order and taste of her poor garments: true, nothing could be more
picturesque than her half oriental costume, the loose trowsers and robe
confined by a girdle that every sailor vied in keeping tasteful. Her
dark, changeful eyes and luxuriant hair might well afford to meet a skin
embrowned by exposure, but rich with the brightest hue of health. The
sailors called her the little queen, from her proud air, and the
officers applied a thousand aristocratic epithets, all indicating a
playful reverence. She was a child in heart, but a woman in manner.

“I need not recount her studies, nor that pretty reserve that made her
apply to me, and to me only, for aid. Alas! I knew not the poison I thus
imbibed. I dreamed not that that sweet child could ever be aught to me
but a sister.

“At length, after an absence of four years, I placed the dear girl under
the protection of my mother. I was an only child, and she received Anne
as the gift of God, a new object of attachment.

“But why dwell upon these things? Why tell how the child ripened into
womanhood—beautiful, most beautiful, not in feature merely, though even
there few of her sex were her equals; but beautiful in thought, in
voice, and motion—that combination of parts, that wondrous result of
grace, even where shades may be defective yet producing an harmonious
whole? Why tell how her confiding, sisterly attachment remained
unshaken, while I learned to love her with all the fervor of manhood? I
felt it was hopeless, and became an exile from home, that I might not
inflict a pang upon her trusting heart. After a long absence, in which
time, which had only softened, I fondly trusted had cured me of my
passion, I returned to find Anne but more lovely and attaching, and now
doubly lost to me. When she pressed her maidenly lips to my cheek, and
again called me brother, I rebelled at the term and madly revealed the
truth.

“Poor Anne! she recoiled from me trembling and in tears. At length she
put her arms about my neck, and with the same gentle accent, the same
confiding tenderness that I remembered upon that fearful night at sea,
she uttered—

“‘Dear, dear brother Charles, am I not your sister? You do love me, you
will not cast me from you, though—though I have dared to love another.’

“I raised her head, and her calm eyes met mine, though her cheek and
bosom were dyed with blushes.

“‘Never, dear Anne, you shall be my sister; God help me to regard you as
such only.’

“I kept my promise. Oh, God! did I not, through years of agony that
tongue might never utter!

“Anne became the wife of another, and never, never, can I enough admire
her refined womanly deportment. Her whole soul, with all its unutterable
wealth of loving, was now his; and yet in my presence all was chastened
to a tranquil content, as if she, truthful as she was, dreaded I should
know her deep fount of feeling, lest it might enhance my own sense of
solitude. ‘Most excellent wretch,’ Othello would have said; every where
I traced the evidences of her benevolence, and every where was she
mindful of my happiness.

“Holy and generous woman! the earnest, the true-hearted—earth was no
place for thee. Enough, she died—died ere a shadow had fallen upon her
bright nature—ere the thought had assumed shape that the creature of
her idolatry had brought a desecrated gift to the altar.”

                 *        *        *        *        *

How many of that class—deemed by the throng so cold and
passionless—have for their solitary life some such cause as that which
made my friend a bachelor! Surely there lives not man or woman who has
not at some period loved; and thousands, like the heroes of fiction,
make but one cast of the heart.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                          THE MAIDEN’S SORROW.


                           BY WM. C. BRYANT.


    Seven long years has the desert rain
      Dropped on the clods that hide thy face;
    Seven long years of sorrow and pain
      I have thought of thy burial place.

    Far on the prairies of the west,
      None who loved thee beheld thee die;
    They who heaped the earth on thy breast
      Turned from the spot without a sigh.

    There, I think, on that lonely grave,
      Violets spring in the soft May shower;
    There, in the summer breezes wave
      Crimson phlox and moccasin flower.

    There the turtles alight, and there
      Feeds with the spotted fawn the doe;
    There, when the winter woods are bare,
      Walks the wolf on the crackling snow.

    Soon wilt thou wipe away my tears;
      Yesterday the earth was laid
    Over my father, full of years,
      Him whose steps I have watched and stayed.

    All my work is finished here;
      Every slumber, that shuts my eye,
    Brings the forms of the lost and dear,
      Shows me the world of spirits nigh.

    This deep wound that bleeds and aches,
      This long pain, a sleepless pain—
    When the Father my spirit takes
      I shall feel it no more again.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                                 SONG.


  BY C. F. HOFFMAN, AUTHOR OF “GREYSLAKE,” “THE VIGIL OF FAITH,” ETC.


    Why should I murmur lest she may forget me?
      Why should I grieve to be by her forgot?
    Better, then, wish that she had never met me,
      Better, oh, far, she should remember not!

    Yet that sad wish—oh, would it not come o’er her
      Knew she the heart on which she now relies?
    Strong it is only in beating to adore her—
      Faint in the moment her lov’d image flies!

    Why should I murmur lest she may forget me?
      Would I not rather be remembered not
    Ere have her grieve that she had ever met me?
      _I_ only suffer if I am forgot!

    _May 183-._

                 *        *        *        *        *

[Illustration:
_PAINTED BY DRUMMOND., ENGRAVED BY SARTAIN._
_The Watchers_
_Engraved Expressly for Graham’s Magazine._]

                 *        *        *        *        *




                             THE WATCHERS.


                       ILLUSTRATION OF A PICTURE.


    Sultana! Sultana! thy watch is in vain—
    With the sun that is setting in gloom o’er the main
    The empire from Selim is passing away:
    Ho! up with Mustapha! Death waits on delay!

    The morning that broke on the spires of Salles
    Saw his ships ride triumphant upon the blue sea;
    But the foam of the waves, ere the noon, was made red
    With the blood of the wounded, the dying and dead.

    They came from the mountains, as sand on the gale
    That sweeps o’er Zahara, his throne to assail;
    The fierce Otazi and the stern Almohade
    Were kind, to the war-bands that follow El Said.

    The courser of Selim flies wild o’er the plain,
    His flag on the seas shall ne’er flutter again;
    The reign of the son of Mohammed is o’er,
    And thine eyes shall delight in his presence no more!

    Then bind up thy tresses and dash from thine eyes
    The tear that betokens distrust of the skies;
    Nor deem that around thee one spirit’s so poor
    As to bend to a sceptre not swayed by a Moor.

    Away with thy watching! the son of thy lord
    Of the chiefs of Morocco is monarch and ward!
    Give him into their hands! bid them think of his sire,
    And his safety, their triumph—shall crown each desire!

                 *        *        *        *        *




                               DE PONTIS.


                          A TALE OF RICHELIEU.


      BY THE AUTHOR OF “HENRI QUATRE; OR THE DAYS OF THE LEAGUE.”


                               CHAPTER I.

Beneath the vast superstructure of the _Palais de Justice_, a pile of
buildings erected under various dynasties, now appropriated to the
sittings of the several justiciary courts, and situate in the most
unwholesome and dirtiest quarter of the city of Paris, is a low, narrow
door—it may be seen on the right-hand of the grand staircase. This is
the entrance to the _Conciergerie du Palais_, a prison famous in the
annals of the French monarchy.

In May, of the year of grace, one thousand six hundred and forty,
waiting with the same intent, yet standing apart from the crowd, was
observable a maiden attended by an aged female domestic. At the hour of
eight in the morning, knelled by the old palace-clock, the portal was
opened to the admission, under heavy and inconvenient restrictions, of
the friends and legal advisers of prisoners. The group of visiters
entered the narrow threshold one by one, the maiden last, after
exchanging an affectionate adieu with her attendant. Such had been her
wonted custom the past week. Little curiosity existed among those who,
like herself, were seeking admission within the dreaded walls, else they
might have distinguished, what the mantle drawn close round the throat
could not wholly conceal—a fair face subdued by recent sorrow. Last was
she ever of the throng, for she shrank from the observation and contact
of those as unhappy as herself. Let us pass the threshold with the
maiden.

The narrow passage opened into a large, sombre vestibule, the walls of
rough masonry, and on which were affixed lamps affording a dim, feeble
light. At the entrance the damsel each day submitted a written order to
a pair of ruffianly jailers, whose unwashed faces and long matted hair
bespoke utter aversion to cleanliness. Holding the document to a lamp
above his head, the light fell on the seamed face, begrimed with dirt,
of the principal jailer. Hands of the same texture, and in the same
state, had in the course of a week so soiled the pass that it appeared
no longer the same document. The maiden who, whilst waiting in the
outer-bureau of the minister of state, had witnessed the carefulness of
the delicate hand, peeping from the lace-ruffle, which traced the
characters on fair royal paper, sealed it with green office-wax, and
bore it with all care in an envelop to Monseigneur, shrouded in his
closet, would not have dared to show the secretary his bespoiled
handiwork, and almost loathed receiving it from the grimed hand of the
cerberus—but it was impolitic to exhibit the disgust she felt, and so,
depositing the paper in its cleaner envelop, she walked through a long
gallery, lighted, like the vestibule, by lamps, the whole day long. The
gallery terminated in the prison-parlor, an apartment where the inmates
held interviews with relatives and friends. And a strange parlor it
appeared even to the maiden, though seen for the seventh time. Of the
same confined width as the gallery, there were interposed on each side
and at the extremity, strong iron rails; and between the bars of what
might be compared to a bird-cage on a gigantic scale, conversed the
prisoners and their visiters. Beyond the inmates’ side of the railing,
was seen another row of iron-bars, and between the interstices of the
latter, a scanty green whose blades of grass, few and far between, might
easily be counted. Flanking this lawn were open-staircases leading to
the apartments of prisoners treated with less rigor than others
condemned to the noisome cells of the old structure.

The maiden paused not on reaching the parlor—she appeared to know, as
it were intuitively, that the party she sought would not be found with
the herd—but proceeding to the extremity of the cage, awaited the slow
movement of the jailer’s assistant, who, seated on a bench, kept a sharp
eye on what was passing around. Rising reluctantly, he unfastened the
lock of the cage-door, admitting the fair visiter. She was about
producing, as usual, the order which afforded her the exclusive
privilege, but he motioned her to proceed.

“_Jour de Dieu!_ Mademoiselle,” said the lazy official, “I am glad such
commands are scarce, or I should have a fine life of it!”

Glad to escape further parley, she tripped forward to the gate which
opened on the green—shook it—but the chain which passed between the
bars of the gate and intertwined with the corresponding shafts of the
iron inclosure, was fastened by a padlock. She turned round, but the
jailer was at hand—and with something between a smile and a contortion
of the muscles, he said, “Mademoiselle’s sentiments, no doubt,
correspond with mine—there is no necessity for this vexation.”

The vexation complained of, was the being obliged to keep the gate
locked and the key on his person, which placed the functionary at the
mercy of every prisoner anxious to retire to the meditation of his cell,
when there might happen to be an equal anxiety on the part of the warder
to doze indolently with twinkling, half-opened eye on the comfortable
bench.

Forcing a smile in reply to the remark, she walked quickly across the
lawn—scant as the hairs on head of octogenarian—flew up one of the
staircases, and entering a narrow passage, was about to knock at the
chamber door, when it opened, and an elderly man, with a martial cast of
countenance, stood before her, smiling.

“As punctual as the clock, my good Marguerite,” said the prisoner in a
tone of gaiety, perhaps not wholly sincere.

Marguerite burst into tears and threw herself into his arms. The old
man—he was her surviving parent—chid the damsel, and leading her to a
chair—there were but two in the little chamber—bade her reassume the
courage becoming the daughter of an old _militaire_.

“Father! my news is not good—there is no hope yet!” exclaimed
Marguerite, drying her tears. She looked in his face, dreading the
impression which the intelligence would produce.

“No hope, Marguerite?” exclaimed her father, “that cannot be—fortune
indeed was never kind, but hope never forsakes me—she is as kind—as
kind as Marguerite. And I see,” (looking at a basket which she brought
under her mantle) “that you have not forgotten to cater for our
breakfast.”

It was the Sieur De Pontis, whose wants were thus carefully administered
to by an affectionate daughter. Of an ancient family in Limousin, and of
moderate estate, he had in early life followed the profession of arms,
serving in succession, and faithfully, the third and fourth Henry, and
the reigning monarch, Louis, thirteenth of that name. With a fondness
for the profession, rather than any ambition or abstract love of glory,
he had arrived at a fair rank in the armies of France, and been
personally noticed by the kings and princes whom he served. It were
reasonable to suppose of such a man, that without objection on the score
of family or descent, of fair estate, character and temper formed to
make friends rather than provoke enmity, and whose career had been
hitherto free from charge of neglect or error in military duties, that
he should have found himself in old age, at least as rich as when he
commenced life. Far from it! and the only way it could be accounted for
by himself or friends, was conveyed in the remark that he was singularly
unfortunate. Farm after farm had melted away, and there remained only
one _terre_ or estate—a barren place—in his native province, Limousin.
Was he prudent or did he indulge in the excesses of a campaigning life?
De Pontis, as we have said, had a fondness for the profession. He was,
moreover, a strict disciplinarian, frugal, saving, and free from the
prevailing vices of gaming and debauchery.

In endeavoring to account for the poverty of the old _militaire_, we are
thus driven back to his own assertion, that he was unfortunate. Such a
condition was perhaps satisfactory to De Pontis himself, who was merely
a philosopher practically—as his biographer, it becomes us to look
beneath the surface, and, if possible, pluck out the heart of the
mystery. Let us in a few words, with a view to elucidation, examine the
military system of the period.

De Pontis at the first start (and the mode was general) sold a portion
of his land to equip himself honorably—in a way befitting name and
lineage, as one anxious to maintain the standing of a French gentleman.
Horses for himself and servants, military baggage and accoutrements,
arms—and a few rouleaus of gold to lose with good grace and temper on
introduction to the general’s table—required a considerable amount of
money. In time of war, princes are needy. He who brought to the camp men
and horses was a good, dutiful subject; but he who could, in addition,
assist a distressed sovereign with a subsidy proportioned to his means,
was a welcome friend. On the other hand, the governments of conquered
towns and fortresses, the plunder of the enemy’s camp and country, and,
above all, the ransom of prisoners taken in battle, were the means by
which the French gentleman recruited his finances, and indemnified
himself for the charges of military outlay.

A fair share of these windfalls had been the lot of De Pontis, and his
excellent discipline and perfect knowledge of military tactics had
extorted, on several occasions, from the French monarchs, presents of
rare value. Still every year saw him grow poorer. And how happened it?

Returning once from a campaign in Germany, laden with gold, and a dozen
fine horses, the spoil of the Austrian archduke’s stud, he was swindled
out of the whole between Strasburg and Paris, by a youngster travelling
the same route in grand style, calling himself Baron De Champoleon—but
who was really only son of a poor minister of Nismes. Already an adept
in roguery, he was on the road to Paris, intent on villanous practices,
when he fell in with the unfortunate De Pontis.

Our _militaire_ bore the loss philosophically, only exclaiming, “If he
had but left me my favorite hack, _Millefleurs_, I should have been
content!”

Twice he had been taken prisoner, losing horses and personal property,
and obliged to instruct relatives at home to sell more paternal acres to
pay ransom—the alternative being to submit to a dreary _parole_
confinement in a remote town in Germany, and await the dubious and
uncertain chance of an exchange of prisoners. On the last occasion that
this calamity occurred, the distress was greatly aggravated by the
dishonesty of the party through whom the funds raised for his ransom
were conveyed—making necessary a second sale of land.

But without adding to the catalogue of untoward events, let it suffice
to say, that circumstances which to most people, and on most occasions,
proved instances of good fortune, were to the old soldier harbingers of
ill-luck and misfortune.

“My poor De Pontis never prospers!” exclaimed the good-natured Louis one
day, on hearing that the veteran had lost a diamond-ring, a late royal
gift.

His wife dead, there remained only for the solace of old age, his fair
daughter, Marguerite. Deeply as she felt her father’s distresses, fondly
as she endeavored to hide her grief, and contribute by every art to his
comfort, it proved that the damsel herself oftener stood in need of
consolation than the veteran sufferer. He possessed such a fund of
resignation, flow of strong animal spirits, and a heart void of high
ambitious views, aiming only at duty and loyalty, that the shafts of
misfortune lost much of their power.

Not so with Marguerite; though her father bore up manfully against
adversity, yet she had witnessed one parent droop, pine and fall beneath
the successive strokes of ill fortune, and despondency and gloom
gathered around her young heart.

Even now, as she arranged the little breakfast service, stepping to and
fro with an innate grace which quite dispelled the idea of the dread
walls which enclosed her, it was evident how much her repulse of
yesterday, of which she had barely hinted to her father, weighed on her
spirits. Marguerite was now nineteen. The promise of youthful beauty had
not disappointed expectation; each year of budding loveliness added to
her charms; and the little sylph had expanded almost to womanhood. The
roses smiled but languidly on her cheek; but the pale, delicate
complexion, regular features, and jetty-black eyes with long fringes—so
piquant in the drooping glance of a devotee—atoned for the departed
bloom. But the devotee with eyes “loving the ground” is oft but an
artifice of coquetry and affectation—whilst the timid, reserved glance
of Marguerite breathed a spiritual essence. She had been early touched
with the wand of sorrow, and the chastened spirits lent an impress of
melancholy grace to her looks, her actions, even her walk. Strange
contrast to the scarcely repining, ever sanguine, old soldier; and there
were times, when the daughter, dwelling perhaps on the memory of her
broken-hearted mother, looked up reproachfully in the calm face of the
veteran.

But why was De Pontis mewed so closely in the _Conciergerie du
Palais_—he, the favorite of three successive monarchs, and a master
whom he had served faithfully, still reigning? That same master’s royal
munificence was the unintentional cause! Let us, while Mademoiselle and
her father are breakfasting, make the paradox clear.

It was the custom in France, when an alien died—and there were no
immediate heirs to pray the throne’s mercy for permission—not always
granted—to take possession of the effects—that the estate, after
satisfaction to the just creditors of the deceased, became the property
of his most Christian Majesty. The law, or rather usage, was called _le
droit d’aubaine_. The king seldom availed of these royal waifs for the
advantage of his private exchequer or privy purse, but usually made them
over, in form of donation, to favorites. Courtiers were therefore on the
lookout, and there often ensued a competition or race between parties
anxious to gain prior audience of his majesty, and extort the royal
word, ere more powerful rivals were apprized of the windfall.

It so happened that Monsieur De Pontis and his daughter lodged in the
house of a rich upholsterer, a native of Spain. The man suddenly dying,
and being without wife or children, our _militaire_ had no scruple—as
it would beggar no orphans—of proceeding direct to the Tuileries, and
claiming audience of his master.

No man had less control over his own actions, or power over his own
proscribed rights and privileges, than Louis. He was a well-intentioned,
weak man, but an iron-handed, iron-hearted minister of state, the
Cardinal Richelieu, was so effectually dominant, that even Anne, consort
of royalty, could not select or dismiss a maid of honor without his
permission.

De Pontis, a favorite with Louis, was not patronized by the minister.
His petition was favorably received—but then there was the dreaded
cardinal! If he should wish to bestow _le droit_ elsewhere, he would
have but little scruple in overruling the veteran’s pretensions. Majesty
itself—in this matter on a par with the humblest follower of the
court—was obliged to manœuvre to gain its ends when the Cardinal Duke
De Richelieu was in question.

Louis had arrived at that stage of subjection to the master-intellect
which governed him, that it was useless longer attempting concealment of
the fact. He knew and confessed the infirmity—often seeking to make
league against the tyrant—and ever ready to jest on his weakness. He
resolved to serve De Pontis, and knew no other way of making the gift
sure and irrevocable than executing on the spot, without aid of
secretary, a warrant signed and sealed in due form.

“There, Monsieur!” exclaimed Louis, handing the document, “the cardinal
cannot undo that without making ourself less than a gentleman; and we
will hold to our pledged faith as a Bourbon.”

Kissing the royal hand, the old soldier departed, sighing at the
condition to which he saw the son of the illustrious and high-spirited
Henry the Fourth reduced.

With the royal warrant for authority, he took possession of the
extensive ware-rooms of the deceased, and selecting a bed with hangings,
an article of rare cost designed for a palace, curtains of silk and
coverlet of velvet embroidered, masses of rich ostrich plumes waving on
the summit of each of the four exquisitely carved columns, he sent it to
the Tuileries a present to the Queen Anne.

The court was in a ferment, and more than one favorite of Richelieu flew
off to Ruel to acquaint his eminence with the presumption of De Pontis
in asking for such a wealthy _droit d’aubaine_. To hear them address the
great patron, it might be supposed that each dependent had been deprived
of promised right, and that the cardinal, by the act of his majesty, had
been defrauded of the undoubted patronage of office.

A mandate from Richelieu came to De Pontis, prohibiting further exercise
of ownership over the property, till the circumstances of the deceased
had been made the subject of inquiry. What should the old man do? If he
resisted the order, the Bastille stared him in the face, despite the
sovereign’s protection. He repaired to the Tuileries, and, knowing the
situation of affairs, contrived to gain the ear of majesty without its
being known to whom the monarch gave audience. But royalty was at a loss
how to advise—he must temporize, go visit the cardinal, plead his
services to the State, and endeavor to mollify his eminence—meanwhile
relying on the pledged Bourbon word.

“Monsieur perceives,” said Louis, with a faint smile, “that our minister
expresses, ‘_till the circumstances of the deceased had been made the
subject of inquiry_.’ He does not dispute our prerogative.”

De Pontis returned home, took horse and rode to Ruel, a country-seat of
the cardinal, a few miles from Paris, and where he spent much time. His
eminence is descried walking on a verdant, close-shaven lawn, alone and
buried in meditation; friends and train have apparently received a hint
to leave the great man to himself; they are scattered over the park and
gardens.

The veteran would rather have marched a battalion of choice infantry
against a line of artillery, than attack the solitary and stately
priest. He ventured, nevertheless, into the presence, cap in hand and
bowing lowly.

“Ah! my friend, Monsieur de Pontis,” said the cardinal, glancing one
moment at the old soldier and continuing his walk.

Our _militaire_ walked by his side, or rather a little to the rearward,
cap still in hand, and asking permission to plead his suit. The cardinal
made a sign that he should replace his cap, which De Pontis construing
into a hint that he had liberty of speech, commenced a peroration of
services, alluding to the misfortunes of his career, the necessity of
making provision for a daughter, and the gracious wishes of his royal
master.

Still, as he talked, the minister paced the turf, inclining his head
occasionally without once looking the veteran in the face. De Pontis’
speech at length came to an end, and he awaited the illustrious man’s
reply.

“_Serviteur très-humble!_” said the cardinal, with a low bow, intended
for dismissal. The habits and peculiarities of his eminence were well
known, and his auditor was aware that these were the words used when it
was intended to negative the request of a petitioner; but De Pontis had
a more than ordinary interest at stake, and he faltered out, “If
Monseigneur would listen—”

“_Serviteur très-humble!_” thundered the haughty cardinal, striding with
a quicker pace over the green-sward.

The unlucky De Pontis started as though he had received a musket shot.
He turned from his eminence and rode back to Paris, fancying in each
echo of his horse’s hoofs that he heard the words “_Serviteur
très-humble!”_ of the cardinal duke.

                                                  [_To be continued._

                 *        *        *        *        *




                         THE EXILE’S FAREWELL.


                            BY W. H. RACEY.


    My own, my native land, my happy home,
      Where lie inurned the ashes of my sires,
    Mournfully from your sacred scenes I roam,
      While, in my heart, the light of joy expires!
    Far from your broad lakes, and your sunlit bays,
      Your forests vast and boundless flowery plains,
    Stern fate commands, and scarce its power delays
      Till this rude harp has closed its dying strains.

    The wanderer leaves: but if perchance he sees,
      When far away, a fairer face or form,
    Or if at eve, far floating o’er the breeze,
      Some swelling melody is sweetly borne,
    The sight will bring the loved and distant near,
      And he will deem the soil he treads his own;
    The music falling on his wearied ear
      Will waken thoughts of home in every tone.

    The wanderer leaves: but if a closing day
      Departs with brighter glories in the west,
    If e’en a cloud in evening shades away,
      Stainèd with brighter hues than all the rest,
    Then will he pause, where’er his steps may be,
      Oh father-land! and, as he heaves a sigh,
    Dream that, far o’er a thousand leagues of sea,
      He treads your soil, he views your twilight die.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                               ELIZABETH.


                         BY J. T. S. SULLIVAN.


    Oh, were I a bird that could sing all the day,
    I would fly to her bower to carol my lay!
    Or were I a breath of the soft scented air,
    I would waft all my sweets to her bower so fair!
    Or were I a thought could awaken a smile,
    I would rest on her lip all her woes to beguile;
    I would make my bright throne in her sorrowing heart,
    And each impulse that grew should its pleasure impart!

    Oh, were I a strain of some melody sweet,
    I would steal to her chamber her slumbers to greet!
    Or were I a dream could recall to her mind
    The pleasures and joys she has long left behind,
    I would hover around in the stillness of night,
    And her visions of sleep should be joyously bright!
    I would kiss from her cheek ev’ry envious tear,
    And guard her fond bosom from sorrow and fear!

                 *        *        *        *        *




                            HARRY CAVENDISH.


 BY THE AUTHOR OF “CRUISING IN THE LAST WAR,” THE “REEFER OF ’76,” ETC.


                             THE LEE SHORE.

“All hands ahoy!” rang through the ship, as the shrill whistle of the
boatswain awoke me from a pleasant dream. I started, hastily threw on my
monkey-jacket, and in a minute was on deck.

The winter sun had set clear, without a cloud to fleck the heavens, and
when I went below at midnight, leaving the starboard watch in possession
of the deck, the cold, bright stars were out, twinkling in the frosty
sky; while a capful of wind was sending us merrily along. Six bells had
just struck as I sprang up the gangway, and the night was still clear
above, but, casting my eye hurriedly around, I saw a bank of mist, close
on the starboard bow, driving rapidly for us, and covering sea and sky
in that quarter, in a shadowy veil. The men were already at their posts,
and as my watch came tumbling on deck each member of it sprang to aid
his messmates, so that in less time than I have taken to describe it, we
had got the light sails in, had kept away the schooner a few points, and
were ready to let every thing go by the run, if necessary, as soon as
the squall struck us. Nor did we wait long for the unwelcome visiter.
Scarcely had our craft been made snug before the squall burst on us in a
whirlwind of snow, hail, rain, and wind, against whose fury it was, for
the moment, impossible to stand. As the gale struck the schooner, she
heeled over until her decks were fearfully inclined, while the tall
masts bent like rushes in the tempest, and the spars strained and
cracked as if they were unequal to the torture. For a moment I thought
that all was over, and clutching a rope I made ready to spring to
windward as soon as she should capsize; but after a second of breathless
uncertainty she slightly recovered herself, and dashed forward as if she
had been shot like an arrow from the bow, her whole forward part buried
in the foam that boiled around her bows, and flew high up the mast in
showers. All this time the wind was shrieking through the hamper with an
intonation like that of a tortured fiend; while the hail and snow
driving horizontally against the men fairly pinned them to their
stations. The ropes soon became coated with ice; while the cold grew
intense, so that it was with difficulty we could get the fore and main
sails reefed. At length, however, we stripped her to the fight, when she
rose until nearly level, bearing gallantly up against the gale.
Meantime, the snow fell thick and fast, covering the decks with its
white carpeting, and dressing the shrouds, booms, and the weather side
of the masts in the garments of the grave.

“Whew! what a flurry! Old Davy himself has laid hold of the bellows
to-night,” said the captain of the starboard watch, stooping before the
gale and turning his back to windward; “why it blows as if it would
whiff our little craft away, like a feather, before it. By the gods, but
that bucket full of hail that has just rattled on my shoulders was
enough to have felled an ox! It must be as black as the ace of spades to
windward—hark! how the infernal sleet sings in the rigging.”

“How long was the squall coming up?” said I, as soon as the roar of the
elements suffered me to speak, for it was only in the occasional pauses
in the gale, that I could hope to be heard.

“It came up like a pet in a woman—one moment her face is all smiles,
the next black as a thunder cloud. When five bells struck the sky was as
clear as a kitten’s eye, and now you can’t see a fathom over the
starboard bow; while we are driving along here like a chip in a
mill-race, or a land-bird caught by a nor’wester. Whistle,
whistle—howl, howl, why it blows as if the devil himself was working
the bellows up to windward.”

I could not help smiling at my messmate’s energy, and as he closed I
looked thoughtlessly over the starboard quarter, when a wild dash of
sleet right in my face, stinging as if ten thousand nettles had struck
me, forced me to turn my back on the storm more rapidly than I had faced
it.

“It is as sharp as a razor,” I ejaculated, when I recovered my breath,
“and cuts to the bone. But let me see, Mr. Merrivale,” said I,
approaching the binnacle, “this squall must be from the northeast. Aye!
not a point either way. It’s a lucky thing we have a good offing; I
wouldn’t be on the coast now for a year’s pay.”

“It would be an ugly berth,” said Merrivale, shaking the sleet from his
hair, “I’ve no notion of being jammed up like a rat in a corner, with a
lee-shore on one side, and a wind blowing great guns on the other, while
one’s only chance is to hug the gale under a crowd of canvass that
threatens to snap your masts off as I could snap a pipe-stem. No! thank
God, we’re far at sea!”

The words had scarcely left his mouth, and I was as yet unable to
answer, when a strange, booming sound, over the larboard bow, smote on
my ear, thrilling through every nerve; while, at the same instant, the
look-out shouted, in sharp, quick tones,

“Breakers ahead!”

For an instant there was an ominous silence, while even the tempest
seemed to die momently away. No one who has not heard that fearful cry
on a lee shore, when surrounded by darkness, can have any notion of our
feelings. Each man held his breath, and turned his ear anxiously to
leeward. In that awful second what varied emotions rushed through our
minds, as we heard, rising distinctly over the partial lull of the
tempest, the hoarse roar of the surf, apparently close under our lee.

“Port—a-port—jam her close to the wind,” almost shrieked Merrivale,
the energy of his character, in the moment of peril, divesting him of
his usual prolixity.

“Port it is,” answered the man at the helm, as the sheets came rattling
in and the schooner flew to windward, shivering the opposing wave to
atoms, and sending the foam crackling in showers over the forecastle. As
she answered to her helm, we caught sight, through the shadowy tempest,
of the white breakers boiling under our lee; and an ejaculation of
heartfelt gratitude broke involuntarily from my lips when, a moment
after, I saw the ghastly line of foam glancing astern.

“Thank God!” echoed Merrivale; “another instant of delay and we should
have struck. But how could we have made such a mistake in our reckoning?
Where are we?”

“We are off the Jersey coast, somewhere between Egg Harbor and
Barnegat,” I answered, “but I thought we were at least twenty leagues at
sea. How gallantly the old craft staggers to windward—she will yet
weather the danger.”

The exertions of the schooner were indeed noble. With her nose close
down to the tempest, and her masts bending before the fierce hurricane
that whistled along her canvass, she threshed her way to windward, now
doggedly climbing up an opposing billowy and now thumping through the
head sea, scattering the foam on either side her path, her timbers
quivering and groaning, in the desperate encounter. One moment the
parted wave whizzed along the side, glittering with spectral brilliancy;
and again, the wild spray went hissing by in the air, drenching the
decks with water. Now, a huge billow striking on her bows, with the
force of a dozen forge hammers, staggered her momently in her course;
and now, shaking the water proudly from her, she addressed herself again
to her task and struggled up the wave. Thus battling against sea, storm,
and hurricane, she held on her way, like a strong man fighting through a
host.

Every officer as well as man was now on deck, and each one, fully
sensible of our danger, watched with eager eyes through the gloom to
distinguish whether we gained ground in our desperate encounter. For an
instant, perhaps, as the darkness hid the breakers from sight, or their
roar came fainter to the ear in the increasing fury of the gale, we
would fancy that our distance from the surf was slowly increasing; but
as often, when the gale lulled, or the darkness on our lee broke
partially away, our hearts sank within us at the conviction that our
peril still continued as imminent as ever, and that the struggles of our
gallant craft had been in vain. Meantime, the hurricane grew wilder and
fiercer, and at length we saw that we were losing ground. The schooner
still battled with a spirit as undaunted as before against her combined
enemies, but she labored more and more at every opposing wave, as if
fast wearing out in the conflict.

“We must crowd the canvass on her,” said the skipper, after a long and
anxious gaze on the shore under our lee, “if we strike out here, a mile
at least from land, we shall all be lost. Better then jerk the mast out
of her in clawing off.”

The order was accordingly given to take a reef out of the fore and
mainsail, and, after a desperate struggle with the canvass, the men
succeeded in executing their duty. When our craft felt the increased
sail, she started nervously forward, burying herself so deeply in the
head sea that I feared she would never emerge, while every rope, shroud
and timber in her cracked in the strain. At length, however, she rose
from the surge, and rolled heavily to windward, slowly shaking from her
the tons of water that had pressed on her decks and buried every thing
forward in the deluge. With another partial check, and another
desperate, but successful struggle, we breathed more freely. Yet there
still came to our ears the sullen roar of the breakers on our lee,
warning us that peril was yet imminent.

“Hark!” suddenly said Merrivale, “surely I heard a cannon. There is some
craft nigh, even more dangerously situated than ourselves.”

“And there goes the flash,” I exclaimed, pointing ahead, while
simultaneously the boom of a signal gun rose on the night. “God help
them, they are driving on the breakers,” I added, as another flash lit
up, for a moment, the scene before us, revealing a dismantled ship
flying wildly before the tempest.

“They are whirling down to us with the speed of a racer—we shall
strike,” ejaculated Merrivale.

As he spoke, the shadowy ship emerged from the tempest of snow and
sleet, not a pistol shot from our bow. Never shall I forget the
appearance of that spectral craft. She had no mast remaining, except the
stump of the mizzen. From her size we knew her to be a sloop-of-war. So
far as we could see through the obscurity, her decks were crowded with
human beings, some apparently stupefied, some in the attitude of
supplication, and some giving way to uncontrollable frenzy. As all power
over her had been lost, she was driving directly before the tempest. The
time that was consumed in these observations occupied but an instant,
for the darkness of the storm was so dense that the eye could not
penetrate the gloom more than a few fathoms; and a period scarcely
sufficient for a breath elapsed from the first discovery of the ship
before we saw that ere another instant she would come in contact with
us. Already she was in fearful proximity to our bows. The danger was
perceived by us and by the crew of the dismantled ship at the same
moment, and a wild cry rose up which drowned even the frenzied tempest.
Escape seemed impossible. We were between two dangers, to one of which
we must fall a prey. Our only chance of avoiding the breakers was to
keep our craft close to the wind, while, by so doing, a collision with
the stranger appeared inevitable. Yet a single chance remained.

“Jam her up,” shouted the skipper, catching at the only hope, “aye! hard
down till she shivers.”

We held our breath for the second that ensued. So close had the ship
approached that I could have pitched a biscuit on her decks. Her
bowsprit already threatened to come into collision with our bows, and
involuntarily I grasped a rope, expecting the next instant to be at the
mercy of the waves. On—on—she came, her huge hull, as it rose on the
wave, fearfully overtopping our own, and threatening, at the first
shock, to crush us. A second and wilder cry of agony burst from every
lip, but, at that instant, she swerved, what seemed a hair’s breadth, to
one side, her bowsprit grazed ours in passing, and she whirled by like a
bird on the wing.

The scene did not occupy a minute. So sudden had been the appearance of
the ship, so imminent had been our peril, and so rapidly had the moment
of danger come and gone, that the whole occurrence seemed to me like a
dream; and when, after a second’s delay, the ill-fated ship passed away
into the darkness under our lee, and the shrieks of her crew were lost
in the uproar of the gale, I almost doubted whether what we had just
beheld had been real. But a glance at the faces of my messmates
dissipated my incredulity, for on every countenance was written the
history of the few last moments of agonizing suspense. A profound
silence, meanwhile, reigned on our decks, every eye being strained after
the drowning man-of-war. At length Merrivale spoke.

“It is a miracle how we escaped,” and then in a sadder tone he added,
“the Lord have mercy on all on board yonder ship. But hark!” he suddenly
exclaimed, and a wild, thrilling cry, as if a hundred voices had united
in a shriek of agony, struggled up from leeward. Years have passed since
then, and the hair that was once fair has now turned to gray, but that
awful sound yet rings in my ears; and often since have I started from my
sleep, fancying that I saw again that spectral ship flitting by through
the gloom, or heard that cry of agony drowning, for the moment, the
raging tempest. Our blood curdled at the sound, and we gazed into each
other’s faces with horror on every line of countenance. More than a
minute elapsed before a word was said; and, during the interval, we
sought to catch a repetition of the cry, however faint; but only the
singing of the sleet through the hamper, the whistle of the hurricane
overhead, and the wild roar of the breakers under our lee, came to our
ears. No further token of that ill-fated ship ever reached us. Not a
living soul, of the hundreds who had crowded her deck when she whirled
across our course, landed on that coast. With all their sins on their
heads, afar from those they loved and by whom they were loved in return,
her crew went down into the deep, “unknelled, uncoffined and unknown.”
When that wintry storm had passed away, the timbers of a wreck were
found strewing the inhospitable shore, with here and there a dead body
clinging to a fragment of a spar, but neither man nor child survived to
tell how agonizingly they struggled against their fate, to practise the
reformation which they had promised in their hour of bitter need. And
when the summer sun came forth, kissing the bright waters of the
Atlantic, and children laughingly gathered shells along shore, who would
have thought that, a few months before, the heavens had looked down, in
that very spot, on the wild struggles of the dying? But I pass on.

At length that weary night wore away, and when morning dawned, we saw
the full extent of the danger we had escaped. All along the coast, at a
distance of more than a mile from the shore, stretched a narrow shoal,
over which the breakers were now boiling as in a maelstrom. It needed no
prophet to foretell our fate, had we struck amid this surf. No boat
could have lived in that raging sea, and our frail craft would have been
racked to pieces in less than half an hour. Nothing but the energy of
the skipper in crowding the canvass on the schooner, though at the
imminent hazard of carrying away the masts and thus ensuring certain
destruction, enabled us to escape the doom which befell the ill-fated
man-of-war.

In a few days we made Block Island, and hauled up for Newport, where we
expected to meet The Arrow. It was a beautiful day in winter when we
entered the outer harbor, and the waves which a light frosty breeze just
rippled, glittered in the sunlight as if the surface of the water had
been strewed with diamonds. The church bells were merrily ringing in
honor of the intelligence, which had been just received, of the alliance
with France. We came to anchor amid a salvo from the batteries of the
fort, and of our consort who was already at anchor in the inner harbor.

Merry was our meeting with the ward-room and cock-pit of The Arrow, and
many a gay sally bore witness to the hilarity with which we greeted each
other after our mutual adventures. For a week, the town rung with our
mirth. At the end of that time, I managed to obtain leave of absence,
and remembering my promise to Mr. St. Clair, started for Pomfret Hall.
As I lay back in the coach, and was whirled over the road behind two
fast hackneys, I indulged in many a recollection of the past, in not a
few reveries over the future. But most of all I wondered how Annette
would receive me. The thoughts of our last parting were fresh in my
memory, but months of changes had since elapsed, and might not
corresponding changes have occurred in her feelings towards me? Would
she meet me with the delightful frankness of our childhood, or with the
trembling embarrassment of our few last interviews? Or might she not,
perhaps, as too many before had done, welcome me with a cold politeness,
that would be more dreadful to me than even scorn? The longer I thought
of the subject, the more uncertainty I felt as to my reception. At first
I had pictured to myself Annette, standing blushing and embarrassed on
the steps, to greet me as soon as I alighted; but when I came to reflect
I felt that, like all lovers, I had dreamed impossibilities; and I
almost laughed at my wild vision when I recalled to mind that I stood in
no other light to Annette than as an acquaintance, at most as a friend.
My feelings then took a sudden revulsion, and I asked myself, might not
she love another? What had I ever said to induce her to believe that I
loved her? Could she be expected to give her affections, unasked, to any
one, but especially to a poor adventurer, whose only fortune was his
sword, when the proudest of the land would consider her hand as a boon?
What madness to think that, surrounded as she doubtless had been by
suitors, her heart before this had not been given to another! As I
thought this, I fancied that I was going only to behold the triumph of
some more fortunate rival, and I cursed myself for having come on such
an errand. At one moment I was almost resolved to turn back. But again
hope dawned in my bosom. I felt that Annette must have seen my love, and
I recalled to mind how tremblingly alive she had been, during our last
interview, to my attentions. Surely then she had not forgotten me. I was
doing her injustice, and with this conviction, I leaned out of the
carriage window, and ordered the postillion to drive faster.

The second day brought me in sight of the gates of Pomfret Hall, and as
I dashed up to them, and felt that my suspense would soon be terminated,
my heart fluttered wildly. As the carriage whirled into the avenue, I
saw a procession of the neighboring village girls proceeding to the
hall. They were dressed in white, and bore flowers, as if going to some
festival. At that instant I recollected that the church bells had been
ringing merrily ever since I came within hearing of them, and, with a
sudden thrill of agony, I stopped the coach as the village girls stepped
aside to let it pass, and inquired the meaning of their procession. My
voice was so husky that, at first, it was undistinguishable; and I was
forced to repeat the question.

“Oh! it’s the meaning of our going to the hall, the gentleman would
know,” said a female at the head of the procession; then turning to me
she said, with a curtsey, “The young mistress was married this morning,
and we are going to the hall to present her with flowers. This is her
school, sir, and I am the mistress.”

I sank back in the carriage with a groan. At first I thought of ordering
the postillion to return, but then I resolved to go forward, and,
concealing my sufferings, appear the gayest of the gay.

“Yes!” I exclaimed in bitter agony, “never shall she know the misery she
has inflicted. And yet, oh, God! that Annette should thus have deserted
me—” and, with these words, I sternly bid the postillion drive on. But
I felt like a criminal bound to his execution.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                             TO MY SISTERS.


               WRITTEN AFTER THEIR DEPARTURE FOR EUROPE.


                          BY ANNA CORA MOWATT.


    Sweet sisters! have I on your lips
      The farewell kiss imprest!
    And are you sadly sundered now
      From all who loved you best!
    Must years roll on ere I again
      Shall spring your kiss to meet?
    Ere fondly clasped to yours this heart
      Once more shall wildly beat?

    Ye ocean waves that round them dash,
      Oh, bear them on your breast,
    E’en as the mother’s bears the babe
      That sinks on hers to rest!
    Oh! swell their sails, ye prosperous winds!
      And waft them gently on,
    And tell them with their smiles, alas!
      Our sweetest joys are gone.

    Though wide that ocean is, and deep,
      Not all its waters blue
    Could from my memory raze one hour,
      Dear sisters! spent with you.
    And though the wild wind’s angry roar
      Might fill my soul with fear,
    It could not drown the tones—your tones
      Still sounding in mine ear.

    It may be I no more shall list
      That cherished music here;
    Yet shall I greet it where ’twill sound
      More softly sweet, more dear.
    And though our lips must first be cold,
      Our next kiss may be given,
    Where angels smile upon the pledge,
      When we are met in heaven!

                 *        *        *        *        *




                              THE SISTERS.


                   A TALE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.


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


                       (Continued from page 30.)


                                PART II.

The morning after Marian’s arrival at the Manor was one of those bright
lovely dawns, sure harbingers of sweet and sunny days, that often
interrupt the melancholy progress of an English autumn, fairer and
softer as the season waxes older, and more enchanting from the contrast,
which they cannot fail to suggest, between their balmy mildness and the
chill winds and gloomy fogs of the approaching winter. The sky was
altogether cloudless, yet it had nothing of the deep azure hue which it
presents in summer, resembling in its tints and its transparency a
canopy, if such a thing could be, of living aqua-marine, and kindled by
a flood of pure, pale yellow lustre. None of the trees were wholly
leafless, though none, perhaps, unless it were a few old oaks, but had
lost something of their summer foliage; and their changed colors,
varying from the deepest green through all the shades of yellow down to
the darkest umber, although prophetic of their coming doom, and
therefore saddening, with a sort of chastened spiritual sorrow, the
heart of the observer, added a solemn beauty to the scenery that well
accorded with its grand and romantic character. The vast round-headed
hills, seen through the filmy haze which floated over them, filling up
all their dells and hollows, showed every intermediate hue from the red
russet of their heathery foreground to the rich purple of their farthest
peaks. The grass, which had not yet begun to lose its verdant freshness,
was thickly meshed with gossamer, which, sprinkled by the pure and
plenteous dews, flashed like a net of diamonds upon a ground of emerald
velvet to the early sunbeams. It had been summer, late indeed in that
lovely season, but still full summer with all her garniture of green,
her pomp of full blown flowers—the glorious mature womanhood of the
year!—when Marian left her home; not a trace of decay or change was
visible on its bright brow, not a leaf of its embroideries was altered,
not a bud in its garland was blighted. She had returned, and every
thing, though beautiful and glowing, bore the plain stamp of
dissolution. The west wind blew as softly as in June through the tall
sycamores, but after every breath, while all was lulled and peaceful,
the broad sere leaves came whirling down from the shaken branches, on
which their hold was now so slight that but the whisper of a sigh was
needed to detach them—the skies, the waters, were as pure as ever, as
beautifully clear and lucid; but in their brightness there was a chill
and glassy glitter as different from their warm sheen under a July sun,
as is the keen unnatural radiance of a blue eye in the consumptive girl
from its rich lustrous light in a mature and healthy woman. Was it the
contemplation of this change that brought so sad a cloud on the brow of
lovely Marian Hawkwood, so dull a gloom into her speaking eye, so dead a
paleness on the ripe damask of her cheek? Sad indeed always is such
contemplation—sorrowful and grave thoughts must it awake in the minds
of those who think the least, to revisit a fair well-known scene which
they have quitted in the festal flush of summer, when all the loveliness
they dwelt on so fondly is flown or flying. It brings a chill upon the
spirit like that which touches the last guest

                “who treads alone
    Some banquet hall deserted,
      Whose lights are fled,
      Whose garlands dead,
    And all save he departed.”

It wakes a passing anguish like that which thrills to the heart’s core
of him who, after years of wandering in a foreign clime, returns to find
the father whom he left still in the prime of vigorous and active
manhood, bowed, bent, gray-haired and paralytic; the mother, whom he saw
at their last parting glorious in summer beauty, withered and wrinkled,
and bereft of every trace of former comeliness. All this it does, at
times to all, to the reflective always—the solitary contemplation of
the decaying year. Yet it was not this alone, it was not this _at all_,
that blanched the cheek and dimmed the glance of Marian, as, at a very
early hour of the morning, she was sauntering alone, with downcast eyes,
and slow uncertain gait, beside the margin of the stream in the warm,
sheltered garden; for she did not, in truth, seem to contemplate at all
the face of external nature, or so much as to note the changes which had
taken place during her absence; yet were those changes very great, and
nowhere probably so strongly marked as on the very spot where she was
wandering; for when she stood there last, to cull a nosegay ere she
parted, the whole of that fair nook was glowing with the brightest
colors, and redolent with the most fragrant perfumes, while hundreds of
feathered songsters were filling every brake and thicket with bursts of
joyous melody; and now only a few, the hardiest of the late autumnal
flowers, displayed their scattered blossoms, and those, too, crisp and
faded among sere leaves and withered branches; while for the mellow
warblings of the thrush and blackbird nothing was heard except the
feeble piping of a solitary robin, mixed with the wailing rush of the
swollen streamlet. For nearly an hour she walked to and fro buried in
deep and melancholy silence, and thinking, as it seemed from her air and
gestures, most profoundly—occasionally she paused for a few seconds in
her walk to and fro, and stood still gazing abstractedly on some spot in
the withered herbage, on some pool of the brooklet, with her mind
evidently far away; and once or twice she clasped her hands and wrung
them passionately, and sighed very deeply. While she was yielding thus
to some deep inward sorrow—for it could be no trivial passing grief
that could so suddenly and so completely change so quick and gay a
spirit—a gentle footstep sounded upon the gravel walk behind a cluster
of thick leafy lilacs, and in a moment Annabel stepped from their screen
upon the mossy greensward; her pale and pensive features were even paler
and more thoughtful than was common, and her eyes showed as if she had
been weeping, yet her step was as light and elastic as a young fawn’s,
and a bright smile dimpled her cheek as she addressed her sister.

“Dear Marian, why so early? And why did you not call me to share your
morning walk? What ails you, dearest, tell me? For I have seen you from
my window walking here up and down so sorrowful and sad—”

“Oh! can you ask me—can you ask me, Annabel,” exclaimed the lovely girl
in a wild, earnest burst of passion—“can you not see that my heart is
breaking?”—and with the words she flung her arms about her sister’s
neck, and burying her face in her bosom fell into an agony of tears.

Annabel clasped Marian to her heart and held her there for many moments,
kissing away the big drops from her cheeks, and soothing her with many a
kind and soft caress, before she replied to her incoherent and wild
words; but when her violent sobbing had subsided,

“Dearest,” she said, “I do not understand at all, nor can I even guess
what should so grievously affect you—but if you fancy that we shall be
parted, that our lives will hereafter be divided, and weep for that fond
fancy, it is but a false apprehension that distresses you. I go not
hence at all, dear sister, until these fearful wars be over; and then I
go not till the course of time shall place De Vaux in his good father’s
station, which—I pray Heaven—shall not fall out for years. And when I
do go—when I do go away from this dear happy spot, you cannot, no you
_did_ not dream, my sister, that you should not go with me. Oh, if you
did dream that, it would be very hard for me to pardon you.”

“Oh no—no! no! dear Annabel,” replied the other, not lifting up her
eyes at all from the fond bosom on which she hung so heavily, and
speaking in a thick husky voice, “it is not that at all—but I am so
unhappy—so miserable—so despairing! Oh, would to God—oh, would to
God! that I had never gone hence—or that Ernest De Vaux, at least, had
not come hither!”

“Nay! now, I must know what you mean,” Annabel answered mildly, but at
the same time very firmly—“I must, indeed, dear Marian—for either such
words have a meaning, in which case it is absolutely right that I,
_your_ sister and _his_ affianced wife, should know it—or, if they have
not any, are cruel equally and foolish. So tell me—tell me, dear one,
if there be aught that I should know; and in all cases let me share your
sorrow—”

“Oh! do not—do not ask me, Annabel—oh! oh! to think that we two who
have been so happy should be so wretched now.”

“I know not what you would say, Marian, but your strange words awake
strange thoughts within me! We have, indeed, been happy! fond, happy,
innocent, dear sister—and I can see no cause why we should now be
otherwise—I, at least, am still happy, Marian, unless it be to witness
your wild sorrow; and, if I know myself, no earthly sorrow would ever
make me wretched, much less repining or despairing.”

“Yes, you—yes, you, indeed, may yet be happy—blessed with a cheerful
home, a noble, gallant husband, and, it may be, sweet prattlers at your
knee—but I, oh God!” and she again burst into a fierce agony of tears
and sobbing. Her sister for a time strove to console her, but she soon
found not only that her efforts were in vain, but that, so far as she
could judge, Marian’s tears only flowed the faster, her sobs became more
suffocating, the more she would have soothed them; when she became aware
of this, then, she withdrew gradually her arms from her waist, and spoke
to her in a calm melancholy voice, full at the same time of deep
sadness, and firm decided resolution.

“Marian,” she said, “I see, and how I am grieved to see it no words can
possibly express, that you look not to me for sympathy or
consolation—nay, more, that you shrink back from my caresses as if they
were insincere or hateful. Your words, too, are so wild and whirling
that for my life I cannot guess what is their meaning or their cause. I
only can suspect, or, I should rather say, can only _dread_ that you
have either suffered some very grievous wrong, or done some very
grievous sin, and as I must believe the last impossible, my fears must
centre on the first dark apprehension. Could you confide in me, I might
advise, might aid, and could, at least, most certainly console you. Why
you cannot, or will not trust me, _you_ can know only. Side by side have
we grown up since we were little tottering things, guiding our weak
steps hand in hand in mutual dependence, seldom apart, I might say
_never_—for, now since you have been away, I have thought of you half
the day, and dreamed of you all night, my earliest comrade, my best
friend, my own, my only sister. And now we are two grown up maidens,
with none exactly fit to counsel or console us, except ourselves
alone—since it has pleased our Heavenly Father in his wisdom for so
long to deprive us of our dear mother’s blessed guidance. We are two
lone girls, Marian; and never yet, so far as I know or can recollect,
have we had aught to be ashamed of, or that one should not have
communicated to the other. And now there is not one thought in my mind,
one feeling or affection in my heart, which I would hide from you, my
sister. What, then, can be this heavy sin or sorrow which you are now
ashamed or fearful to relate to one who surely loves you as no one else
can do beneath the canopy of heaven? Marian, you must reply to me in
full, or I must leave you till better thoughts shall be awakened in your
soul, and till you judge more truly of those who most esteem you!”

“Too true!—it is too true!” Marian replied, “no one has ever loved me
as you have done, sweet Annabel—and now no one will love me any
more—no one—no one forever. But you are wrong, quite wrong, when you
suppose that any one has injured me, or that as yet I have _done_ any
wrong—alas! alas! that I should even have _thought_ sin! Oh no—no
Annabel, dear Annabel, I will bear all my woes myself, and God will give
me grace to conquer all temptations. Pardon me, sister dear, pardon me;
for it is not that I am ashamed, or that I fear to tell you, but that,
to save my own life, I would plant no thorn in your calm bosom. No! I
will see you happy, and will resist the evil one that he shall flee from
me, and God will give me strength, and you will pray for me, and we
shall _all_ be blessed.” As she spoke thus, the wildness and the
strangeness of her manner passed away, and a calm smile flickered across
her features, and she looked her sister steadfastly in the eye, and cast
her arms about her neck and kissed her tenderly as she finished
speaking.

But it was plain to see that Annabel was by no means satisfied; whether
it was that she was anxious merely, and uneasy about the discomposure of
her sister’s mind, or whether something of suspicion had disturbed the
even tenor of her own, but her color came and went more quickly than was
usual to her, and the glance of her gentle blue eye dwelt with a
doubting and irresolute expression on Marian’s face as she made answer—

“Very glad am I that, as you tell me, Marian, you have not suffered
aught or done aught evil—and I trust that you tell me truly. Beyond
this I cannot, I confess it, sympathize with you at all; for in order to
sympathize one must understand, and that you know I do not. What sin you
should have thought of I cannot so much as conceive—but as you say you
have resisted your temptations hitherto—but, oh! what possible
temptations to aught evil can have beset you in this dear, peaceful
home?—I doubt not that you will be strengthened to resist them farther.
You tell me, Marian, that you would not plant a thorn in my calm
bosom—it is true that my bosom was calm yester morn, and very
happy—but now I should speak falsely were I to say it is so. What
_thorn_ you could plant in my heart I know not—nor how you could
suppose it—but this I _do know_, Marian, that you have set distrust,
and dark suspicion, and deep sorrow in my soul this morning. Distrust of
yourself, dear Marian—for what can these half confidences breed except
distrust—suspicion of I know not, wish not to know, dare not to fancy
what—deep sorrow that already, even from one short separation, a great
gulf is spread out between us. I will not press you _now_ to tell me any
more, but this I must impress upon you, that you have laid a burthen
upon me which, save you only, no earthly being can remove, which nothing
can alleviate except its prompt removal. Nay! Marian, nay! answer me
nothing now, nothing in this strong heat of passionate emotion; think of
it at your calmer leisure, and if you can, in duty to yourself and
others, give me your ample confidence, I pray you, Marian, do so. In the
mean time, go to your chamber, dearest, and wipe away these traces of
your tears, and rearrange your hair. Our guests will be assembled before
this, to break their fasts in the south oriel chamber, and I have
promised Ernest that we will all ride out and see his falcons fly this
beautiful morning.”

Marian made no reply at all but following her sister into the house,
hurried up to her chamber to readjust her garments, and remove from her
bright face the signs of her late disorder. Meanwhile, sad and
suspicious of she knew not what, and only by a violent effort concealing
her heartfelt anxiety, Annabel joined her guests in the fair summer
parlor. All were assembled when she entered, and all the preparations
for the morning meal duly arranged upon the hospitable board—the
morning meal, how widely different from that of modern days, how
characteristic of those strong, stirring times, when every gentleman
was, from his boyhood, half a soldier; when every lady was prepared for
deeds of heroism—there were no luxuries, effeminate and childish, of
tea and chocolate, or coffee, although the latter articles were just
beginning to be known, no dry toast, nor hot muffins, nor aught else of
those things which we now consider the indispensables of the first
meal—but silver flagons mantling with mighty ale, and flasks of
Bordeaux wine, and stoups of rich Canary, crowned the huge board, which
groaned beneath sirloins of beef, and hams, and heads of the wild boar,
and venison pasties, and many kinds of game and wild fowl. Ernest De
Vaux arose, as Annabel came in, from the seat which he had occupied by
the good vicar’s lady, whom he had been regaling with a thousand
anecdotes of the court, and as many gay descriptions of the last modes,
till she had quite made up her mind that he was absolute perfection, and
hastened forward to offer her his morning salutation; but there was
something of embarrassment in his demeanor, something of coldness in her
manner, which was perceived for a moment by all her relatives and
friends, but it passed away as it were in a moment, for by an effort he
recovered almost instantly his self-possession, and began talking with
light careless pleasantry that raised a smile upon the lips of all who
heard him, and had the effect immediately of chasing the cloud from the
brow of Annabel, who, after a few minutes, as if she had done some
injustice to her lover in her heart and was desirous of effacing its
remembrance, both from herself and him, gave free rein to her feelings,
and was the same sweet joyous creature that she had been since his
arrival had wakened new sensations and new dreams in her young guileless
heart. Then before half an hour had elapsed, more beautiful perhaps than
ever, Marian made her appearance; her rich profusion of brown curls,
clustering on her cheeks and flowing down her neck from beneath a
slashed Spanish hat of velvet, with a long ostrich feather, and her
unrivalled figure set off to more than usual advantage by the long waist
and flowing draperies of her green velvet riding dress. Her face was
perhaps somewhat paler than its ordinary hue when she first entered, but
as she met the eye of Ernest, brow, cheeks, and neck were crimsoned with
a burning flush, which passed away, however, instantly, leaving her not
the least embarrassed or confused, but perfectly collected, and, as it
seemed, full of a quiet innocent mirthfulness. Nothing could be more
perfect than was her manner, during the long protracted meal, towards
her sister’s lover. She seemed to feel towards him already as if he were
a tried friend and a brother; her air was perfectly familiar as she
addressed him, yet free from the least touch of forwardness, the
slightest levity or coquettishness; she met his admiring gaze—for he
did at times gaze on her with visible admiration—yet admiration of so
quiet and unpassionate a kind as a fond brother might bestow upon a
sister’s beauty—with calm unconsciousness, or with a girlish mirth that
defied misconstruction. And Annabel looked on—alas for Annabel!—and
felt her doubts and her suspicions vanishing away at every moment; the
vague distrust that had crept into her heart melted away like mist
wreaths from the sunbeam; she only wondered now what the anxiety, what
the distrust could possibly have been which for a moment had half
maddened her. Then she began to marvel what could the sorrow be which,
scarce an hour before, had weighed so heavily on Marian, and which had
in so brief space so utterly departed. It must be, she thought as she
gazed on her pure, speaking features and the clear sparkle of her bright
blue eye, that she too loves, loves possibly in vain, that she has lost
her young heart during her absence from her home, and now has
overmastered her despair, her soul-consuming anguish, to sympathize in
her sister’s happiness—and then she fancied how she would win from her
her secret sorrow, and soothe it till she should forget the faithless
one, and tend her with a mother’s love, a mother’s fond anxiety. Alas!
alas! for Annabel!

The morning meal was ended, the sun was already high in the clear
heavens, and the thin mist wreaths were dispersing from the broad valley
and the bright river, and now a merry cavalcade swept round the lawn
from the stables, a dozen foresters and grooms well mounted, with led
horses, two of the latter decked with the velvet side-saddles which were
then used by ladies, and seven or eight serving-men on foot, with hounds
and spaniels in their leashes, and among them, conspicuous above the
rest, the falconer with his attendants, one bearing a large frame
whereon were _cast_, such was the technical jargon used in the mystery
of rivers, eight or ten long-winged falcons, gosshawks, and jerfalcons,
and peregrines, with all their gay paraphernalia of hoods, and bells,
and jesses. A little longer and the fair girls came out; Annabel, now
attired like her sister in velvet side robe and the slashed graceful
hat, and were assisted to their saddles by the young lover; then he too
bounded to his noble charger’s back, and others of the company in their
turn mounted, and the whole party rode off merrily to the green meadows
by the fair river’s side. Away! away! the spaniels are uncoupled and
questing far and wide, among the long green flags, and water bryony, and
mallows that fringe the banks of many a creek and inlet, over the russet
stubbles, up the thick alder coppices that fringe the steep ravines.
Away! away! the smooth, soft turf, the slight and brushy hedges invite
the free and easy gallop, invite the fearless leap! Away! with hawk
unhooded on the wrist and ready with graceful seat, light hand, and
bounding heart. See how the busy spaniels snuff the hot scent and ply
their feathery tails among the dry fern on the bank of that old sunny
ditch—there has the game been lately—hold hard, bold cavaliers—hold
hard, my gentle ladies—hurry not now the dogs. Hush! hark! the black
King Charles is whimpering already; that beautiful long-eared and silky
Blenheim joins in the subdued chorus—how they thread in and out the
withered fern stalks, how they rush through the crackling brambles!
Yaff! yaff!—now they give tongue aloud, yaff! yaff! yaff! yaff!—and
whir-r-r upsprings the well grown covey—now give your hearts to the
loud whoop!—now fling your hawks aloft!—now gather well your bridles
in your hand, now spur your gallant horses—on! on! sweep over the low
fence, skirt the green meadow, dash at the rapid brook—ladies and
cavaliers pell-mell—all riding for themselves, and careless of the
rest, forgetful of all fear, all thought, in the fierce, fast career, as
with eyes all turned heavenward to mark the soaring contest of the
birds, trusting their good steeds only to bear them swift and safely,
they drive in giddy rout down the broad valley. And now the flight is
over—each gallant hawk has struck his cowering quarry—the lures are
shaken in the air, the falconer’s whoop and whistle recall the hovering
falcon, and on they go at slower pace to beat for fresh game—and lo!
flip-flap, there rises the first woodcock of the season. Ho! mark
him—mark him down, good forester—we must not miss that fellow—the
very prince of game—the king he would be, save that gray heronshaw of
right has old claim to the throne of falconrie. Lo! there, my masters,
he is down—down in that gulley’s bank where the broom and the brachens
feather the sunny slope, and the small streamlet hardly murmurs among
the long rank grasses that seem almost to choke its mossy runnel. Quick!
quick! unhood the lanner—the young and speckle-breasted lanner!—cast
off the old gray-headed jerfalcon—soh, Diamond, my brave bird! mark his
quick glancing eye and his proud crest, soh! cast him off and he will
wheel around our heads nor leave us till we flush the woodcock. No! no!
hold the young lanner hard, let him not fly, he is too mettlesome and
proud of wing to trust to—and couple all the dogs up, except the stanch
red setter. Now we will steal on him up wind and give him every
chance—best cross the gully here, fair dames, for it is something deep
and boggy, and if ye were to brave it in the fury of the gallop you
might be mired for your pains. That bird will show you sport, be sure of
it, for lo! the field beyond is thickly set with stunted thorns and
tufts of alder bushes, if your hawks be not keen of sight, and quick of
wing too, be sure that he will dodge them, and if he reach yon hill-side
only, all covered as it is with evergreen, dense holly brakes, and thick
oak saplings, he is as safe there in that covert as though he were a
thousand leagues away, in some deep glen of the wild Atlas mountains.
Lo! there he goes, the gray hawk after him—by heaven! in fair speed he
outstrips the jerfalcon, he does not condescend even to dodge or double,
but flies wild and high toward the purple moorland, and there _we_
cannot follow him. Ride, De Vaux; gallop for your life—cut in, cut in
between the bird and that near ridge—soh! bravely done, black
charger—now cast the lanner loose! so! that will turn him. See! he has
turned and now he must work for it—the angle he has made has brought
old Diamond up against his weather wing—now! he will strike—now! now!
but lo! the wary bird has dodged, and the hawk, who had soared and was
in act of pouncing, checked his fleet pinion and turned after him—how
swift he flies dead in the wind’s eye—and the wind is rising, he cannot
face it now—tack and tack, how he twists—how cleverly he beats to
windward, but now the odds are terribly against him, the cunning falcons
have divided, and are now flying sharply to cut him off, one at each
termination of his tacks—the lanner has outstripped him. Whoop! Robin,
whoop!—Soh! call him up the wind—up the wind, falconer, or he will
miss his stroke. There! there he towers up! up! in airy circles—he
poises his broad wing—he swoops—alack, poor woodcock! but no! he
has—by Pan the god of hunters—he has missed his cast—no swallow ever
winged it swifter than the wild bird of passage—not now does he fly
high among the clouds, but skims the very surface of the lawn, twisting
round every tree, and baffling the keen falcons. Now he is scarce ten
paces from his covert, the old bird, Diamond, flying like lightning,
struggles in vain to weather him—in vain—the game dashes behind the
bole of a tall upright oak, darts down among the hollies and is
lost—well flown, brave quarry—well flown, noble—ha! the hawk—the
brave old hawk, set only on retrieving his lost flight, his eye set too
steadily upon the bird which he so fiercely struggled to outfly, has
dashed with the full impetus of his arrowy flight against the gnarled
stem of the oak, he rebounds from it like a ball from the iron
target—never so much as once flaps his fleet pinions, tears not the
ground with beak or single—Diamond, brave Diamond, is dead—and pitying
eyes look down on him, and gentle tears are shed, and the soft hands
that were wont to fondle his high crest and smooth his ruffled wings,
compose his shattered pinions and sleek his blood-stained plumage—alas,
brave Diamond!—but fate—it is the fate of war. Another flight—another
glowing gallop, to make the blood dance blythely in our veins—to drive
dull care from our hearts. But no, the sylvan meal is spread—down by
that leafy nook, under the still green canopy of that gigantic oak,
where the pure spring wells out so clear and crystal from the bright
yellow gravel under its gnarled and tortuous roots—there is the
snow-white linen spread on the mossy greensward, there the cold pasty
and the larded capon tempt the keen appetite of the jolly sportsman,
there, plunged in the glassy waters, the tall flasks of champagne are
cooling. Who knows not the delicious zest with which we banquet on the
greensward, the merry, joyous ease which, all restraint and ceremonial
banished, renders the sylvan meal, in the cool shadow by the rippling
brook, so indescribably delightful? And all that were collected there
were for the moment happy—oh, how happy!—and many, in sad after days,
remembered that gay feast, and dwelt upon the young hopes which were so
flattering then, hopes which so soon decayed, and lingered on the
contemplation of that soon perished bliss, as if the great Italian had
erred, when he declared so wisely that to the aims of men

              “nessum maggior dolore
    Che ricordarsi del tiempo felice
    Nella miseria.”

The bright wine sparkled in the goblet, but brighter flashed the azure
eyes of Marian, for her whole face was radiant with her wild starry
beauty. Was it the thrilling rapture of the gallop that sent her blood
boiling with strange excitement “through every petty artery of her
body,” was it the spirit stirring chase alone, or did the rich blood of
the Gallic grape, sparingly tasted though it was, lend something of
unnatural fervor? hark to the silvery tones of that sweet, ringing
laugh—and now how deep a blush mantles her brow, her neck, her bosom,
when, in receiving her glass from the hand of Ernest, their fingers
mingled for a moment. But Ernest is unmoved and calm, and seemingly
unconscious—and Annabel, fond Annabel, rejoices to mark her sister’s
spirits so happily, so fully, as it seems, recovered from that
overmastering sorrow. She saw not the hot blush, she noted not its
cause—and yet, can it be—can it be that casual pressure was the
cause—can it be love—love for a sister’s bridegroom, that kindles so
the eye—that flushes so the cheek—that thrills so the life blood of
lovely Marian? Away! away with contemplation. Ernest reflects not, for
his brow is smooth and all unruffled by a thought, his lips are smiling,
his pulse calm and temperate—and Marian pauses not—and Annabel
suspects—Hush! they are singing. Lo! how the sweet and flute-like tones
of the fair girls are blended with the rich and deep contralto of De
Vaux. Lo! they are singing—singing the wood notes wild of the great
master of the soul—

    “Heigho! sing heigho! under the green holly!
    Most friendship is feigning
    Most loving mere folly!”

Alas! for trusting Annabel!—soon shall she wake from her fond dream,
soon wake to wo, to anguish. Again they mount their steeds, again they
sweep the meadows down to the very brink of the broad deep transparent
Wharfe—and now the heronshaw is sprung—he flaps his dark gray vans,
the hermit bird of the waters, and slowly soars away, till the
falconer’s shrill whoop and the sharp whistling flutter of the fleet
pinions in his rear arouse him to his danger—up! up! he soars—up! up!
scaling to the very sky in small but swift gyrations, while side by side
the well matched falcons wheel circling around him still, and still
outtopping till all the three are lost in the gray fleecy clouds—the
clouds!—no one has seen—no one has even dreamed, engrossed in the wild
fervor of the sport, that all the sky was overclouded, and the thick
blackness of the thunder-storm driving up wind, and settling down in
terrible proximity to the earth. Away! away! what heed they the dark
storm-clouds—the increasing blast?—these equestrians. Heavens! what a
flash—how keen! how close! how livid! the whole horizon showed for a
moment’s space the broad blue glare of fearful living light—and
simultaneously the thunder bursts above them—a crash as of ten thousand
pieces of earth’s heaviest ordnance shot off in one wild clatter. The
horses of the party were all careering at their speed, their maddest
speed, across a broad green pasture, bordered on the right hand by the
broad channel of the Wharfe, and on the left by an impracticable fence
of tall old thorn, with a deep ditch on either side, and a stout timber
railing. The two fair sisters were in front, leading the joyous
cavalcade, with their eyes in the clouds, their hearts full of the fire
of the chase, when that broad dazzling glare burst full into their
faces. Terrified by the livid glare, and the appalling crash of the
reverberated thunder, the horses of the sisters bolted diverse,
Annabel’s toward the broad and rapid Wharfe, between which and the
meadow through which they had been so joyously careering there was no
fence or barrier at that spot—Marian’s toward the dangerous ox-fence
which has been mentioned. The charger of De Vaux, who rode the next
behind them, started indeed and whirled about, but was almost
immediately controlled by the strong arm and skilful horsemanship of his
bold rider, but of the grooms, who followed, several were instantly
dismounted, and there were only three or four who, mastering their
terrified and fractious beasts, galloped off to the aid of their young
mistresses—they were both good equestrians and ordinarily fearless, but
in such peril what woman could preserve her wonted intrepidity
unshaken—the sky as black as night, with ever and anon a sharp clear
stream of the electric fluid dividing the dark storm clouds, and the
continuous thunders rolling and crashing overhead—their horses mad with
terror, and gifted by that very madness with tenfold speed and
strength—Annabel, whose clear head and calm though resolute temper gave
her no small advantage over her volatile, impetuous sister, sat, it is
true, as firmly in her saddle as though she had been practising her
manège in the riding school, and held her fiery jennet with a firm,
steady hand; but naturally her strength was insufficient to control its
fierce and headlong speed, so that she saw upon the instant that she
must be carried into the whirling waters of the swift river—for a
moment she thought of casting herself to the ground, but it scarcely
required one moment of reflection to show her that such course could
lead but to destruction—soon she drove erect and steady in her seat,
guiding her horse well and keeping its head straight to the river bank,
and hoping every instant to hear the tramp of De Vaux’s charger
overtaking her, and bringing succor—alas! for Annabel!—the first sound
that distinctly reached her ears was a wild piercing
shriek—“Ernest—great God!—_my_ Ernest—help me!—save me!—” It was
the voice of Marian, the voice of her own cherished sister calling on
her betrothed—and he?—Even in that dread peril, when life was on a
cast, her woman heart prevailed above her woman fears—she turned and
saw the steed of Marian rushing, the bit between his teeth, toward the
dangerous fence, which lay, however, far more distant than the river to
which her own horse was in terrible proximity, and he, her promised
husband, the lord of her very soul, he, for whom _she_ would have
perished—oh how willingly!—perished with but the one regret of that
separation, he had overlooked entirely, or heeded not at least _her_
peril to whom his faith was sworn, and even before that wild appealing
cry, had started in pursuit, and was, as she looked round, in the act of
whirling Marian from her saddle with one hand, while with the other he
controlled his own strong war-horse. When she first heard that cry her
spirit sank within her, but when she saw herself deserted, when the
drear consciousness that she was not beloved broke on her, it seemed as
if an ice-bolt had pierced her heart of hearts, her eyes grew dim, there
was a sound of rushing waters in her ear—not the sound of the rushing
river, although her horse was straining now up the last slight ascent
that banked it—her pulse stood still—had Annabel then died, the
bitterness of death was over—before, however, she had so much as
wavered in her saddle, much less lost rein or stirrup, a wild plunge,
and the shock which ran through every nerve, as her horse leaped into
the brimful river, awoke her for the moment to her present
situation—unconsciously she had retained her seat—her horse was
swimming boldly—a loud plunge sounded from behind!—another, and
another! and the next instant her steed’s head was seized by the
stalwart arm of a young falconer toward the shore she had just quitted,
her brain reeled round and she again was senseless—thus was she borne
to land without the aid or intervention of him who should have been the
first to venture all, to lose all, for her safety.

                                                  [_To be continued._

                 *        *        *        *        *




                        THE LAST LEAP OF UNCAS.


                           BY PARK BENJAMIN.


    In the vicinity of the picturesque town of N——, in New
    England, there is a wild chasm through which tumbles a cascade,
    now not so formidable as when the stream above it was not dammed
    up for manufactories. About this cascade an Indian legend is
    told—and the verses I have here written are an attempt to
    embody it in such a manner as to give the reader an idea of the
    scope it would afford to a more imaginative poet.

    On a high precipice of rock,
      ’Tis said, an Indian hunter stood;
    Behind him was the following foe,
      Before the opposing flood.
    Chased, like the dun deer, to his death,
    He turned, and paused, and gasped for breath:
    Big on his brow, like drops of rain,
    The sweat rolled from each swollen vein—
    Yet sank he not, but bold and stern
    He stood, as if with strength to spurn
    A hundred foes. But soon there came
    A shudder o’er his mighty frame;
    For one dry branch that near him hung,
    And to a stunted pine-tree clung,
    Cracked like the sound of frost and fell
    Down in the cataract’s boiling well,
    He watched it as the foam and spray
    Dash’d up and bore it far away.

    Though lithe and agile as the hound,
    He cannot leap that chasm’s bound,
    And though his feet are shod with speed,
    ’Twere vain to try the daring deed.
    He will not—no! the Indian knows
    That he must die by flood or foes—
    For now on his quick ear there falls
    The echo of approaching calls.
    His belt, his hatchet, bow and gun,
      All that encumbered him in flight,
    The bloody trophies he had won
      In many a field of fight,
    He casts where on the rocks below
    The waves break up in showers of snow—
    He is resolved to stand at bay,
      And meet his foemen, face to face—
    For there red Uncas lived that day
      The last of all his race!

    Hark! from the covert now they spring,
      They see him as he towers alone
    And many arrows round him ring,
      Yet still he seems like stone!
    Unstirred, with folded arms he views
    Each warrior that his life pursues,
    Unscathed beneath the sudden wrath
    Of all that shouted on his path
    And tracked him to the cataract’s lair,
    He hurls defiance on the air.

    What purpose moves him? Will he try,
    Thus met on every side, to fly?
    Wonder has struck his foemen dumb;
    For, toward their ranks, behold him come!
    ’Tis but a single step, for swift
    As lightning leaps from cloudy rift
    He backward bounds. Great God! ’tis o’er,
    His death-shriek sinks amid the roar
    Of waves that bear his mangled form
    Beyond the battle storm.

    So plunged he in the dashing tide—
    So fronting his fierce foes he died—
    And now, though peaceful years have past,
      And change has marred the rude, wild place,
    Not unremembered is the last
      And bravest of his race.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                                SONNET.


                            BY W. W. STORY.


    The human voice!—oh, instrument divine,
    That with a subtle and mysterious art
    Rangest the diapason of the heart—
    The mighty scale of passion all is thine—
    Thine air-spun net around the soul doth twine,
    Whether the heart of thousands lifts, as one,
    The wild, deep anthem of its monotone,
    Or the soft voice of Love its silver line
    Threads through the spirit’s innermost recess.
    Thou mouldest the blank air, that round thee lies
    To a rare tissue of fine mysteries;
    Thou canst lift up the soul and canst depress—
    And upon Music’s balanced wings canst fly
    Straight through the gates of Hope and Memory.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                              SHAKSPEARE.


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


                            NO. VI.—MACBETH.

Macbeth is a great moral and religious lesson. Its application is as
wide as Christendom, and I think may be justly regarded as an exposition
of Christianity. It is applicable to all men, and is not by any means
limited to kings or usurpers. Nearly every one has some strong desire,
or passion, or plan. The “golden round” for which men, nowadays, file
their minds, put rancors in the vessels of their peace, and give their
eternal jewel to the common enemy of man, is not a crown, but it is not
wanting. On a large or a small scale, the principle is the same. Whoever
undertakes, by immoral, unlawful means, to effect a favorite
object—whoever lives without habits of frequently appealing to
God—whoever listens for an instant to the delusive promises of
passion—is liable to be drawn on, like him, far beyond their intention,
and involved at length in sin and ruin. The Scottish usurper—the
individual, is dead. But the class, to which he belonged, survives.
Macbeths are to be met with every day in the world—men who listen to
the promises of the fiends, who build up a hope of safety and impunity
upon as hollow a foundation as the charm of not being born of a
woman—or of not being destroyed till the advancing against them of a
forest. Many a man—many a woman—many a young girl becomes thus
entangled from forgetting their Maker and clinging to the “weird
sisters” of the world, till shame, vice and despair overwhelm them.

Read aright, this tragedy is a mighty lesson to the young. They are
starting in life inexperienced, thoughtless, and ready to believe the
brilliant promises of every wandering and dangerous hope. They are ready
also to “jump the life to come,” if they can secure impunity in their
present career. Let them read Macbeth with care, and get from its
wondrous page a terrific glimpse of the world. Let them look on poor,
weak, deluded human nature when trusting in _itself_. Let them see the
highest earthly rank, when unblessed by Heaven—the haughtiest,
loftiest, steadiest mind, when turned from God to follow, with its own
rash steps, the mazes of life. Let them, while they are pure and
innocent, remain so. Let them keep the quiet conscience of the
gentlewoman, even if, to do so, they are obliged to remain in her lowly
position. Let them never, for “the dignity of the body,” poison the
quiet of the soul. Let them tread the darkest, weariest paths of common
life, rather than file their minds with any delusive and hollow hope of
worldly advantage. Put no rancors in the vessel of your peace, whatever
be the temptation. Cling to him whose promises alone are fulfilled.
Commit no act, great or small, which can prey on your imagination and
poison the good which may be in store for you. Put no “damned spot” upon
your hand. Once there, it is ineffacable by all the washing of the
ocean—by all the perfumes of Arabia; and however great may appear the
temptation, keep the eternal jewel, Innocence, from “the common enemy of
man.”

I have said, in a former paragraph, that Macbeth had been guilty before,
in _deeds_ as well as _thoughts_. Let any one read the scene between him
and the two murderers and he will feel at once the conviction that
Macbeth himself has been guilty of those oppressive cruelties which he
there lays upon Banquo.

                                “know
    That it was _he_, in the times past, _which held you_
    _So under fortune; which you thought had been_
    _Our innocent self_: this I made good to you
    In our last conference, past in probation with you;
    How _you were borne in hand_; how crost,” _etc._

And again,

                              “are you so gospell’d
    To pray for this good man, and for his issue,
    Whose _heavy hand hath bowed you to the grave_,
    And _beggared yours forever_?”

What dark tale of oppression is connected with these vague disclosures
we cannot tell; but the character of Banquo acquits him of having been
the tyrant. These men have been, in some way or other, so trampled on
that they are both rendered desperate, and Macbeth, who _knows it so
well_, and whom, it seems, they had always considered the cause of their
misfortunes, is most likely so in reality.

As to what I have said at the commencement of these papers respecting
the want of a just appreciation of the poet on the part of his
commentators—take Dr. Johnson, for example, on Macbeth. He begins with
_a defence_ of the introduction of supernatural machinery into the
tragedy. This proves _distrust_ of Shakspeare, as the transcendent
genius he is now annually becoming in the estimation of every one. Hear
the learned essayist descanting upon the dramatist as if he knew more of
the art than the master. It is like the old Hungarian officer’s
celebrated critique on Napoleon’s manœuvres.

“In order,” says Johnson, “to make a true estimate of the abilities and
merit of a writer, it is always necessary to examine the genius of his
age and the opinions of his cotemporaries. A poet who should now make
the whole action of his tragedy depend upon enchantment and produce the
chief events by the assistance of supernatural agents, would be censured
as transgressing the bounds of probability, be _banished from the
theatre to the nursery_, and condemned to write _fairy tales_ instead of
tragedies.”

In other words, had Shakspeare written Macbeth in the time of Dr.
Johnson, that play would be considered unworthy to be performed, except
before an audience of children, and the critic would advise the mistaken
young author to adopt a profession in which he might hope for more
success, than in literature. I can fancy some wiseacre in a London
weekly, with the smartness and knack at severity which daily practice
confers, taking to pieces “the tragedy of Macbeth, by a Mr. William
Shakspeare, said to be a subordinate at Astley’s”—and serving the
ambitious young gentleman up such a dressing for his witches, ghosts and
murders, as would be enough to extinguish a better educated and more
promising litterateur; showing how impossible it must be for witches to
mingle in human affairs, in this enlightened age of hebdomadals, and
banishing to the nursery a blunderer unworthy to cater for such sensible
critics.

The denunciation, however, would embrace other literary works besides
the puerile attempt of Mr. Shakspeare. Manfred, Cain, the Faust, and
other trifles of the same description, in which the poet has made the
action of his tragedy depend upon enchantment. Virgil or Homer might be
equally censured. It is quite true that the witches may not be
considered probable characters, but how can any one overlook their
fearful and magnificent meaning _allegorically_?

Johnson goes on, however, in his defence.

“But a survey of the notions that prevailed at the time when this play
was written, will prove that Shakspeare was in no danger of such
censures, since _he only_ turned the system that was then universally
admitted to his advantage, and was _far from overburthening the
credulity_ of his audience.”

The doctor then goes on to a learned and interesting dissertation on the
_gross darkness of ignorance_—on the credulity of the common people—on
the diabolical opposition supposed to have been offered to the
Christians in the crusades—quotes Olympidorus, St. Chrysostom, and a
law of King James I. against conjurors, and shows much sagacious wisdom
and learning, which have about as much to do with the real living beauty
of Macbeth as they have with the Temple of Jerusalem.

“Upon this general infatuation,” continues the doctor, “Shakspeare
_might be easily allowed to found a play_, especially as he has
followed, with great exactness, such histories as were then thought to
be true: nor can it be doubted that the scenes of enchantment, _however
they may now be ridiculed_, were both by _himself and his audience_
thought awful and affecting.”

No one can doubt the moral greatness of Dr. Johnson, but it was not of a
kind which enabled him to enter fully into the living principle of
beauty which inspires the Shakspeare plays.

He speaks of Macbeth with a sort of indifference which betrays his
blindness to its highest merits. He praises the propriety of its
fiction, and the solemnity, grandeur and variety of its actions. He
adds, “_but_ it has no nice discrimination of character. The events are
too great to admit the influence of particular dispositions, etc. The
danger of ambition _is well described_; and I know not whether it may
not be said _in defence_ of some parts which now seem _improbable_,
that, in Shakspeare’s time, it was necessary to warn credulity against
vain and illusive predictions.”

And in our _own time_, what leads every criminal astray, but some “vain
and illusive prediction,” not uttered by three weird sisters, by an
armed head, or the “apparition of a child crowned, with a tree in his
hand,” but by the temptations of the world and the treacherous passions
of the human heart? What was it which told Napoleon—

    “Be lion-mettled, proud; and take no care,
    Who chafes, who frets, and where conspirers are?”

Who told Robespierre—

    “Be bloody, bold and resolute, laugh to scorn,
    The power of man,” etc.?

It was not the spectres, in the witches’ case—nor the express
conditions added.

    “Macbeth shall never vanquished be, until
    Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill
    Shall come against him.”

Or,

    “None of woman born shall harm Macbeth.”

But who can doubt that the principle of evil, had held forth, before
both their minds, some illusive hope which led them to ruin?

As another instance of the careless errors committed by the
commentators, and Johnson among the rest, take the following. The note
occurs in Cawthorn’s (successor to Bell) edition, London, 1801, and
although without Johnson’s name, is found between two notes of his, (p.
41,) and is, I believe, from his pen.

The passage referred to is in the second act of the Tempest, where the
King of Naples, after the shipwreck, is wandering about the island with
some of his suite. The reader will remember that the storm raised by
Prospero overtakes them as the King Alonso is coming to Naples from
Tunis, where he had been to marry his daughter Claribel. Great regret
has been expressed that this marriage should have ever been thought of,
since it is the cause of their present misfortune. The king himself is
sorry and the rest are some of them angry and satirical.

Sebastian says,

    “’Twas a _sweet marriage_, and we _prosper well_ in our
    return.”

The match is thought absurd by most of them, and when, in answer to
Antonio’s question, “Who’s the next heir to Naples?” Sebastian replies,
“Claribel,” Antonio rejoins the following passage;

    “She that is Queen of Tunis; she that dwells
    Ten leagues beyond man’s life; she that from Naples
    Can have no note, unless the sun were post,
    (The man in the moon’s too slow) till new born urchins
    Be rough and razorable,”

On this there is the following note:

    “Shakspeare’s _great ignorance_ of geography is not more
    conspicuous in any instance than in this, where he supposes
    Tunis and Naples to have been at such an immeasurable distance
    from each other.”

It does not seem to me that the passage warrants the supposition of such
an opinion on the part of Shakspeare. It is obviously a mere hyperbole
in jest. It is not credible that such a writer could be so ignorant, and
where other evidences of it appear in the course of his works, it is
more rational (when they cannot be explained away as in the present
instance) to ascribe them to typographical confusion, or the liberties
of ignorant copyists, &c.

To the passage complained of, Sebastian himself answers,

    “What stuff is this? How say you?
    ’Tis true, my brother’s daughter’s Queen of Tunis;
    So is she heir of Naples; ’twixt which regions
    There is some space.”

                 *        *        *        *        *




                     “HATH NOT THY ROSE A CANKER.”


                         BY MRS. LOIS B. ADAMS.


    Pressed with the weight of morning dews,
      Its slender stalk the rose was bending,
    And red and white in changing hues
      Upon its cheek were sweetly blending:
        But underneath the leaflets bright,
        By blushing beauty hid from sight,
        Enamored with its fragrance rare,
        The canker worm was feasting there.

    O! thou who in thy youthful days
      Ambition’s wreaths art proudly twining,
    And fondly hoping worldly praise
      Will cheer thine after years declining,
        Beware, lest every tempting rose
        That in Ambition’s pathway grows,
        Conceal beneath its semblance fair
        The lurking canker of despair.

    And thou who in thine early morn
      For sin the paths of truth art leaving,
    Remember, though no pointed thorn
      May pierce the garland thou art weaving,
        Yet every bud whence flowrets bloom
        Shall its own living sweets entomb;
        For deep the canker worm of care
        Is feasting on its vitals there.

    Thou too, the beautiful and bright,
      At Pleasure’s shrine devoutly kneeling,
    Dost thou not see the fatal blight
      Across thy roseate chaplet stealing?
        Time hath not touched with fingers cold
        Those glossy leaves of beauty’s mould,
        And yet each bud and blossom gay
        Is marked for slow but sure decay.

    O! ye who sigh for flowers that bloom
      In one eternal spring of gladness,
    Where beauty finds no darkened tomb,
      And joy hath never dreamed of sadness;
        Elysian fields are yours to roam
        Where groves of fadeless pleasures bloom
        O! linger not where sorrow’s tears
        May blight the cherished hopes of years.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                              TO A SWALLOW


              THAT DROPPED ON DECK DURING A STORM AT SEA.


                          BY WILLIAM FALCONER.


    Spent are thy wings, poor wanderer on the deep,
      Minion of spring, frail wrestler with the breeze,
      Led by young hope o’er ever-spreading seas
    Where the wing’d storms their prowling vigils keep,
    Mayhap ’twas thou that built thy clayey nest
      Last springtide at my lattice arched with flowers—
      Thy tiny wing that beat the morning hours
    And woke my fair girl from her dewy rest.
    But no! for ’mid a thousand, were I blind,
      Methinks I’d know that bird, by instinct rare;
    Yet fear not, heaven’s dark brow looks now more kind.
      Repose—then flutter through the brightening air,
    But when thou meet’st the sharers of my heart
    Thy benefactor’s grief by mystic spell impart!

                 *        *        *        *        *




                                 ERROR.


      BY MRS. EMMA C. EMBURY, AUTHOR OF “CONSTANCE LATIMER,” ETC.


           “Pause, heedless mortal, and reflect—this day,
           This very hour—nay, yesterday, mayhap,
           Thou mayst have done what cannot be recalled,
           And steeped thy future years in darkest night.
           Some trivial act or word, now quite forgot,
           May have impelled the iron wheels of fate,
           Which onward roll to crush thee in their course.”


One of the most beautiful of the many lovely villages which lie within
the foldings of the Connecticut river is Elmsdale. Occupying a small
peninsula, round which the stream winds so closely that at the first
view it seems entirely separated from the main land, and lying aside
from the highroad which traverses the valley of the Connecticut,
Elmsdale is one of the most quiet and sequestered spots to be found in
New England. Like most places which offer no inducement to the spirit of
speculation, the village is inhabited chiefly by the descendants of
those who had first settled there. The old men have been companions in
boyhood, and have sported in the same fields which now echo to the merry
shouts of their grandchildren. The most of them still cultivate the
farms which belonged to their forefathers, and even the adventurous few,
who have been tempted to go out into the world beyond, usually return to
finish their days on their native soil.

The arrival of a stranger in a retired village is always a subject of
curiosity and interest, but in a place like Elmsdale, where every body
knew his neighbor, such an unusual event excited special attention.
When, therefore, it was known throughout the hamlet that a strange lady
had come to pass the summer with old farmer Moody, all the gossips were
on the alert to find out who she could be. But they derived little
satisfaction from their skilful questioning of the farmer; all he knew
was soon told. The lady was travelling for health, and having been
pleased with the situation of his comfortable abode, had applied to be
received as a boarder during the summer months, offering to pay
liberally in advance. Her evident ill-health, her gentle manners, and
the temptation of her ready gold prevailed on the thrifty farmer to
assent, and the stranger took possession of a neat chamber in his
pleasant cottage.

Close to the bank of the river, on a little eminence commanding a view
of the country around Elmsdale, stood a singularly constructed stone
building which had long been unoccupied and deserted. Its original owner
and projector was a man of singular habits, whose eccentricity had been
universally regarded as a species of harmless insanity. Rich and
childless, he had erected this mansion according to his own ideas of
gothic architecture, and nothing could be more grotesque than its whole
appearance. It soon obtained the appellation of Hopeton’s Folly, and
though he whose name it bore had long since occupied a narrower house in
the silent land, and the property had passed into other hands, the
deserted mansion was still known by the same title. Great was the
surprise of the villagers when it was known that the strange lady had
become the purchaser of Hopeton’s Folly, and that in future she would
reside permanently in Elmsdale. Curiosity was newly awakened, and every
body was desirous to know something about one who seemed so unprotected
and solitary. But there was a quiet dignity in her manners which rebuked
and disconcerted impertinent inquiry, while all efforts to draw some
information from her single attendant—an elderly sedate woman, who
seemed to hold a middle rank between companion and servant—were equally
unsuccessful.

“Has Mrs. Norwood been long a widow?” asked a pertinacious newsmonger,
who kept the only thread and needle shop in the place, and therefore had
a fine opportunity of gratifying her gossipping propensities.

“It is now nearly two years since she lost her husband,” was the reply
of the discreet servant, who was busily employed in selecting some tape
and pins.

“Only two years, and she has already laid aside her mourning!” exclaimed
the shopkeeper; “but I suppose that is an English fashion.”

The woman made no reply, and, consequently, the next day, all the
village was given to understand that Mrs. Norwood’s _help_ had told Miss
Debby Tattle that Mrs. Norwood was a very rich widow who had just
arrived from England. This was all that Miss Debby’s ingenuity could
make out of the scanty materials which she had been able to obtain, and
with this meagre account people were obliged to be satisfied.

Mrs. Norwood was one of those quiet, gentle beings who, though little
calculated to excite a sudden prepossession, always awakened a deep and
lasting interest. Her age might have been about eight and twenty, but
the ravages of illness, and, perhaps, the touch of a still more cruel
destroyer, had given a melancholy expression to her countenance, and a
degree of gravity to her manners which made her seem much older. Her
features, still classically beautiful, were attenuated and sharpened,
her complexion was pale almost to ghastliness, and her thin, flexible
lips were perfectly colorless. But she possessed one charm which neither
time nor disease could spoil. Her eyes—those dark, soft, lustrous eyes,
with their veined and fringed lids, beautiful alike when the full orbs
were veiled beneath their shadowy lashes, or when their beaming light
turned full upon an object of regard—were the most distinguishing trait
in Mrs. Norwood’s countenance. No one dreamed of calling her beautiful,
but all noticed the grace of her tall and slightly bending figure, her
courteous and ladylike manners, her low, sweet voice, and the touching
air of melancholy which seemed to characterize her every movement.

Under the direction of its new mistress, Hopeton’s Folly was now fitted
up with a degree of neatness and comfort which it had seemed scarcely
capable of assuming. Furniture, plain but costly, was brought from a
distant town, the grounds were laid out with a view to elegance rather
than mere usefulness, and, in short, money and good taste soon converted
the desolate spot into a little paradise of beauty. The neighbors, who,
with the kindness which generally prevails in every place where fashion
has not destroyed social feeling, had been ready to afford Mrs. Norwood
every assistance in the completion of her plans, became now equally
ready to share her hospitality, and, for a time, the newly arranged
mansion was always full of well-disposed but ill-judging visiters. But
Mrs. Norwood’s health was soon made the plea for discountenancing all
such attentions on the part of the village gossips. Always courteous and
hospitable, she yet declined all visitations to the frequent “_hot water
conventions_” or “tea drinkings” which constituted the chief amusement
of the place, while she managed to keep alive the good feelings of her
new associates by many acts of unostentatious charity. Simple in her
daily habits, benevolent in her impulses, yet retiring and reserved in
her manners, Mrs. Norwood made her faithful old servant the almoner of
her bounties, while the poor, the sick and the sorrowful were never
refused admission to her presence. Her regular attendance on the public
duties of religion, in the only church which Elmsdale could then boast,
had tended to establish her character for respectability in a community
so eminently moral and pious; and when it was known that the pastor,
whose rigid ideas of propriety were no secret, had become a frequent
visiter at Hopeton’s Folly, no doubt remained as to Mrs. Norwood’s
virtues and claims upon general sympathy.

Mr. Allston, who for some ten years had presided over the single church
in a place which had fortunately escaped the curse of sectarianism, was
a man as remarkable in character as he was peculiar in habit. A close
and unwearied student, ascetic in his daily life, and an enthusiast in
his profession, he was almost idolized by his people, who regarded him
as a being of the most saint-like character. Indeed, if self-denial
could afford a title to canonization, he was fully competent to sustain
the claim; but such is the inconsistency of human judgment, that Mr.
Allston owed his high reputation to a belief in his stoical indifference
to earthly temptations, and much of his influence would have been
diminished if it had been suspected that resistance to evil ever cost
him a single effort. The truth was that nature had made Allston a
voluptuary, but religion had transformed him into an ascetic. He had set
out in life with an eager thirst after all its pleasures, but he had
been stayed in the very outset of his career by the reproaches of an
awakened conscience. Violent in all his impulses, and ever in extremes,
he had devoted himself to the gospel ministry because the keen goadings
of repentance urged him to offer the greatest sacrifice in his power as
atonement for past sins. But he had experienced all the trials which
await those who, when gathering the manna from heaven, still remember
the savory fleshpots of Egypt. His life was a perpetual conflict between
passion and principle, and though his earthly nature rarely obtained the
mastery, yet the necessity for such unwearied watchfulness had given a
peculiar tone of severity to his manners. Like many persons of similar
zeal, Allston had committed the error of confounding the _affections_
with the _passions_ of human nature, and believing all earthly ties to
be but fetters on the wings of the soul, he carefully avoided all
temptation to assume such bonds. His religion was one of fear rather
than of love, and forgetting that He who placed man in a world of beauty
and delight has said, “I will have mercy and not sacrifice,” he made
existence only a protracted scene of self-devotion and privation. A
superstitious dread of yielding even to the most innocent impulses had
induced him to suppress every feeling of his ardent and excitable
nature. He had turned from the face of beauty and the voice of love with
the same dread as would have induced him to eschew the temptation of the
gaming-table and the wine-cup, and his thirtieth summer found him still
a solitary student by the fireside of his widowed mother. His fine
talents as a preacher, his powers of persuasion, his thrilling
eloquence, aided by the example of his own habits of life, had produced
a great effect in the community where he had been called to minister in
holy things. The church was in a most flourishing condition; numbers had
been united to it, and the influence of the pastor over the minds of
all, but especially those of the young, was almost unbounded. Is it
strange, therefore, that spiritual pride should have grown up in the
heart of the isolated student, and twined its parasitic foliage around
many a hardy plant of grace and goodness? Is it to be wondered at if
Charles Allston at length indulged the fancy that he had been set apart
as one chosen for a high and holy work—that he was destined to be one
of the “vessels of honor,” of whom St. Paul has spoken—and that nothing
now could sully the spotless garments in which his self-denial had
clothed him.

Mrs. Allston had been among the first to welcome the sick stranger to
Elmsdale, and, pleased with the gentle grace which characterized her
manners, had lavished upon her every kindness. Mrs. Norwood was grateful
for her attentions, and seemed happy to find a friend whose mature age
and experience could afford her counsel and sympathy. This feeling of
childlike dependence, on the one hand, and matronly affection on the
other, was growing up between them, and served to establish a closer
intimacy than at first might have appeared natural to persons so
entirely unlike in character. Mrs. Allston was a woman of unpretending
good sense, and plain education, whose rustic habits and utter
indifference to etiquette made her appear very different from the
languid invalid whose elegant manners and refined language marked her
cultivation rather than her strength of mind. But “accident,” and “the
strong necessity of loving,” may often account for friendships as well
as loves, and this world would be a sad desert of lonely hearts if we
could only attach ourselves to our own counterparts. No one could know
Mrs. Norwood intimately, without being irresistibly attracted towards a
character of such singular sensitiveness and amiability. She seemed like
one in whom the elements of strength had been slowly and gradually
evolved by circumstances, for, though her disposition was by nature
yielding and dependent, yet her habits of thought and action were full
of decision and firmness. Gentle and feminine in her feelings, reserved
and quiet in her demeanor, she appeared to a careless observer merely as
the dignified and discreet, because unprotected woman. But one who
looked beneath the calm surface, might have found a deep strong
under-current of feeling. Heart-sickness, rather than bodily disease,
had been at work with her, and the blight which had passed over her
young beauty, was but a type of that which had checked the growth of her
warm affections.

Whatever might have been Mrs. Norwood’s feelings when she first took
possession of her new abode, she certainly seemed both healthier and
happier after a year’s sojourn in Elmsdale. A faint color returned to
her thin cheek, a smile, bright and transient as an April sunbeam, often
lit up her fine face, her features lost much of their sharpness of
outline, and gradually, almost imperceptibly, the feeble, drooping
invalid was transformed by the renovating touch of health into the
lovely and elegant woman. Yet the same pensiveness characterized her
usual manner—the same reluctance to mingle in society was evident in
her daily intercourse with her neighbors, and to a stranger she might
still seem to be mourning over the memory of a buried affection. But
Mrs. Allston and her son alone knew better. They alone knew that
affection had been crushed in its very bud by unkindness and
neglect—they alone believed that the widow had found death one of the
best of friends, when he relieved her from the intolerable bondage of
domestic tyranny. Not that Mrs. Norwood had ever confided to them her
former history; for the slightest question which had reference to the
past always seemed to give her exquisite pain, but a casual remark, a
trifling hint, a passing allusion, uttered in the confidence of
friendship, had led them to form such conclusions.

Allston had at first regarded the stranger merely as another member
added to his flock—another soul for which he must hereafter be
responsible. But a closer acquaintance with her awakened a much stronger
interest in his mind. He fancied that her character bore a wonderful
resemblance to his own. He thought he beheld in her the same secret
control over strong emotions, the same silent devotion to deep-felt
duties, the same earnest enthusiasm in religion, the same abstraction
from worldly pleasures, as had long been the leading traits in his
character. He believed that the difference of sex and her early sorrow
might account for the diversities which existed between them, and
actuated by the belief that he was an instrument in the hands of a
higher Power, who had destined him for some great and glorious work, he
persuaded himself that Providence had placed her in his path and pointed
her out to him, by a mysterious sympathy, as his companion and
fellow-laborer in his future duties. Had he not been blinded by the
self-reliance which had taken the place of his wonted watchfulness, the
very strength of his feelings would have led him to distrust their
propriety. But habit had rendered all his ordinary practice of
self-denial so easy to him that he fancied himself quite superior to
mere earthly temptation, and therefore he was disposed to regard his
present excitement, rather as a manifestation of the will of Heaven than
as an impulse of natural affection. It cost him much thought and many
severe conflicts with his doubts and his zeal ere he could decide upon
the course he should pursue. Determined not to listen to the voice of
passion but to be governed entirely by a sense of duty, he condemned
himself to a rigorous fast of three days in the firm belief that he
should receive some expression of the Divine Will. In the deep sleep of
exhaustion which fell upon him during the third night, Mrs. Norwood
appeared before him in a dream, wearing shining garments and smiling
with an expression of perfect beatitude. This was enough for the wild
enthusiast. From that moment he placed no restraint upon the promptings
of his heart, but considering her as one peculiarly marked out for the
same high destiny as himself, he poured out all the fulness of his long
hoarded affections at her feet.

Lonely, desolate and sorrowful, Mrs. Norwood was almost bewildered by
the sudden light which seemed to break in upon her when she thus found
herself the object of true tenderness. She had long admired the genius
of Mr. Allston, and her romantic temperament peculiarly fitted her to
appreciate the peculiarities of his enthusiastic zeal. She had looked up
to him as one as far above her in his unworldly sanctity, as in his
gifted intellect, and thus to find herself the chosen of a heart which
had heretofore rejected earth’s sweetest gifts of tenderness, was most
unlooked-for happiness. She soon learned to love him with a depth and
fervor which surprised even herself, yet she had suffered so much in
early life that the presence of hope was now welcomed with tearful
distrust. She dreaded rather than anticipated the future, and while
listening to the wrapt eloquence of her lover, who seemed to
spiritualize the impassioned language of affection, she could not but
tremble to think what a blank life would be if this new-found bliss were
suddenly extinguished. The peculiar tone of Allston’s mind was never
more distinctly displayed than in his courtship. Of love he never spoke,
but he dwelt on the high and mystical dreams which had charmed his
solitude, he pictured passion under the garb of pure devotion, and
attired human affections in the robes of immaculate purity until he had
completely bewildered himself in the mazes of his own labyrinth of
fancies. At length the decisive moment came, and, in a manner equally
characteristic and unusual, Allston asked Mrs. Norwood to become his
wife. He was scarcely prepared for her excessive agitation, and still
less for her indefinite reply.

“It shall be for you to decide, Mr. Allston,” said the gentle widow, as
she struggled with her tears, “I will not pretend to have misunderstood
your feelings towards me, nor will I attempt to conceal the fact that to
your proffered affection I owe the first gleam of happiness which has
visited my weary heart since the days of childhood. But I have deceived
you, and I cannot accept your hand while you remain ignorant of the
events of my early life. Some months since, I wrote what I cannot bring
my lips to utter, and you will find in this manuscript all you ought to
know. Judge not too hardly of my concealment—my only error has been
silence on a subject with which the world had naught to do, and this I
trust your heart will not visit with too severe a punishment.”

Allston took the papers, and silent and dismayed hurried to the
seclusion of his study. Dreading some evil, though he knew not what
shape it might assume, he broke the seal and read as follows:

“Left an orphan at a very early age, my first recollections are those of
school life. My parents, who were residents though not natives of the
island of Jamaica, sent me to England for my education, and, dying soon
after my departure, I became the ward of my mother’s cousin, a gay and
dissipated bachelor, whose house offered not a proper home to a young
girl. I was the heiress to great wealth, but was, at the same time, a
homeless and desolate child, who might well have envied the privileges
of domestic affection which are enjoyed by the offspring of poverty. My
wealth procured me respect and consideration among my teachers and a few
interested school-fellows, while it purchased for me exemption from much
of the discipline of the school, as well as from many of the studies
which I wished to avoid. I was, therefore, little likely to profit by
the advantages of my position in life, while its disadvantages were in
my case greatly multiplied. I was a wayward, wilful, warm-hearted child,
full of impulsive affections, but irritable in temper, and, though
perfectly docile to the law of kindness, utterly beyond the subjugation
of severity. Frank and confiding in my disposition, I was easily led to
place confidence in those who treated me with a semblance of affection,
and the sense of loneliness which oppressed my heart, even in childhood,
led me rather to seek for the friendship of those by whom I was
surrounded, while the romance, which shows itself in a greater or less
degree in the developing character of every school girl, assumed in me
the form of a morbid desire to inspire affection in those whom
Providence had placed around me, to fill the places of parents, and
brothers and sisters to my desolate life.

“I was in my fifteenth year, full of exaggerated sensibility, and just
beginning to model my dreams of future happiness after the standard
afforded by my favorite novels, when a circumstance, apparently of
trivial moment, occurred to shadow my whole life with sorrow. The only
accomplishment in which I made any decided progress was that of drawing,
and in this I had early exhibited both taste and skill. Our
drawing-master, an old and wily Italian, requested permission to
introduce his nephew, who could materially aid him in instructing us to
sketch from nature; and, as it involved our school-mistress in no
additional expense, she readily assented. Our new teacher was
accordingly introduced to us under the name of Signior Baldini, but it
needed scarcely one look to make us doubt his relationship to the old
man, for his florid complexion, blond hair, and blue eyes bore little
resemblance to the dark countenance and classical features of the fine
Italian face. Those of us who were novel readers immediately fancied
that we could detect beneath this humble disguise some noble heir or
enamored youth who sought to obtain access to a ladye-love immured
within the walls of our school. Our young and glowing hearts, full of
passions which had been prematurely developed by the mischievous tenor
of our stolen reading, and ready to welcome any thing which might give
occupation to their restlessness, were quickly excited in favor of the
new comer. Our sketching from nature required us to take many walks in
the vicinity, and, though we were never unaccompanied by one of the
female teachers, yet a thousand opportunities for forming an imprudent
intimacy occurred during these excursions. I soon found, however, that
the attentions of Signior Baldini were especially directed to me, and
the vanity of my sex, as well as my own excited fancy, led me to
encourage rather than repulse his proffered advances. I cannot recall
all the details of the vile conspiracy to which I fell a victim. Imagine
a child of fifteen summers subjected to the arts of a man more than
twice her age—a man who had studied human nature in its worst forms,
and therefore well knew how to take advantage of its slightest tendency
to errors—a man whose talents enabled him to conceal the heart of a
demon beneath the features of a demigod. Imagine the effect of these
arts upon a sensitive and romantic girl, a lonely and orphaned creature
who was yearning for the voice of affection, and weaving many a
beautiful fancy of future happiness, to be found only in reciprocal
affection, and you will anticipate the result.

“A well invented story of high birth, unmerited misfortunes, and a long
cherished passion for me, awakened my sympathy, and I soon imagined that
nothing could repay my lover’s tenderness but the bestowal of my hand
and fortune. I fancied myself deeply and devotedly attached to one who
had submitted to the degradation of disguise for my sake, and, on the
day when I attained my sixteenth year, I eloped with my lover, who now
dropped his assumed title and adopted his true name of Wallingford. As
my guardian was at that time in Paris, we met with no molestation, and
were privately married in London, where we had decided to take up our
abode. I afterwards learned that those of my teachers who had been
parties to the plot were well paid for their services, while the only
real sufferer was the principal of the establishment, who had been kept
in total ignorance of the scheme, and whose dignified sense of propriety
was shocked at having such a stigma affixed to her school. When my
guardian returned he read me a lecture on my imprudence, and tried to
satisfy his conscience for past neglect, by refusing to allow me more
than a mere maintenance until I should attain my majority. To this,
however, I refused submission, and the matter was finally compromised in
a manner quite satisfactory to both parties. Mr. Wallingford immediately
engaged elegant lodgings, and we commenced living in a style better
suited to my future fortune than to my actual income.

“My heart sickens when I look back to the weary years which succeeded my
imprudent marriage. As time matured my judgment I was pained by the
discovery of many weaknesses and faults in my husband, to which I would
willingly have remained blind. Yet the discovery of these did not impair
the simple, child-like affection with which I regarded the only being on
earth to whom I was bound by any ties. I clung to him as the only one in
the wide world whom I was permitted to love, and it required but little
effort on his part to have strengthened my girlish fondness into the
lasting fervor of womanly tenderness. While yet I remained in my
minority Mr. Wallingford treated me with some show of consideration.
Fitful gleams of kindness, transient visitings of former fondness,
glimpses of the better nature which had been so perverted by evil
habits, and endearments still bestowed in moments of persuasion, linked
my heart to the ideal which I had enshrined in his image. But no sooner
was I put in possession of my fortune than he threw off the mask
entirely. I was too much in his power to render any further concealment
necessary, and he now appeared before me in all the true deformity of
his character. Dissipated in his habits, coarse in his feelings, low in
his pursuits and pleasures, he had only sought me for the wealth which
could minister to his depravity.

“I will not pain you by a detail of the petty tyranny to which I was now
subjected. My impetuous temper was at first aroused, but, alas! it was
soon subdued by frightful severity. Indifference, neglect, intemperance,
infidelity, nay, even personal ill treatment, which left the discolored
badge of slavery upon my flesh for days and weeks, were now my only
portion. Broken in health and in spirit, I prayed for death to release
me from my sufferings, and I verily believe my husband sought to aid my
wishes by his cruel conduct. But the crushed worm was at length
compelled to turn upon the foot which trampled it. I was driven from my
home—a home which my wealth had furnished with all the appliances of
taste and elegance—and placed in a farm-house at some distance from
London, while a vile woman, whose name was but another word for
pollution, ruled over my house. To increase the horrors of my situation,
I learned that Wallingford was taking measures to prove me insane, and
thus rid himself of my presence while he secured the guardianship of my
person and property. This last injury aroused all the latent strength of
my nature. Hitherto I had been like a child brought up in servitude and
crouching beneath the master’s blow, but I was now suddenly transformed
into the indignant and energetic woman.

“Alone and unaided I determined to appeal to the laws of the land for
redress, and prudence directed me to men as wise as they were virtuous,
who readily undertook my cause. Wallingford was startled at my sudden
rebellion, but he was never unprepared for deeds of evil. My servants
were suborned, papers were forged, falsehoods were blazoned abroad, all
the idle gossip which had floated for its passing moment on the breath
of scandal like the winged seed of some noxious plant on the summer
breeze, was carefully treasured, and every thing that power could effect
was tried to make me appear degraded in character and imbecile in mind.
The circumstances attending my marriage—my first fatal error, committed
at the suggestion and under the influence of him who now adduced it as
proof of my weakness—was one of the evidences of my unworthiness, while
the utterings of a goaded spirit and the wild anguish of a breaking
heart were repeated as the language of insanity. But for once justice
and equity triumphed over the quibbles of the law. The decree of the
highest court in the realm released me from my heavy bondage. A
conditional divorce which allowed me full power to marry again, but
restrained my husband from such a privilege, in consequence of his
well-attested cruelty and ill treatment, was the result of our
protracted and painful lawsuit. My fortune, sadly wasted and diminished,
was placed in the hands of trustees for my sole benefit, and I
immediately settled upon Wallingford a sum sufficient to place him far
above want, upon the sole condition that he never intruded himself into
my presence.

“After these arrangements were completed I determined to put the ocean
between me and my persecutor. On my twenty-sixth birthday—just ten
years from the day which saw me a bride—I landed in America. Alas! how
changed were all my prospects, how altered all my feelings! I was still
in the prime of life, but hope and joy and all the sweet influences of
affection were lost to me forever, and after wandering from place to
place I finally took up my abode in Elmsdale, rather from a sense of
utter weariness than from any anticipation of peace. I little knew that
Providence had prepared for me so sweet a rest after all my sufferings.
I little knew that peace and hope, aye, and even happiness, were yet in
store for me. Resigning a name to which I had no longer any claim, I
resumed my family name of Norwood, and sought to appear in society as
the widowed rather than as the divorced wife. I have thus avoided
painful remarks and impertinent questionings, while I was enabled to
secure for myself a quiet retreat from the turmoil of the world. Perhaps
to you, Charles Allston, I ought to have been more frank, but surely you
cannot blame me for shrinking from the disclosure of such bitter and
degrading memories. You have now learned all my early history—you have
seen my error and you have traced its punishment—let me now unfold the
page which can reveal the present.

“A fancy, light as the gossamer which the wind drives on its wing, first
led to my marriage. I was a child in heart and mind and person, when I
became the victim of arts which might have misled a wiser head and a
less susceptible heart. Left to myself I should probably have forgotten
my first love fancy even as one of the thousand dreams which haunt the
brain of youth. But if, after my marriage, I had experienced kindness
and tenderness from my husband, the feeling would have deepened into
earnest and life-long affection, instead of curdling into hatred and
contempt within my bosom. The love of my girlhood was blighted even as a
flower which blossoms out of time, and loneliness has hitherto been my
lot through life. Will you deem me too bold, my friend, if I tell you
that from you I have learned my first lesson in womanly duty? Till I
knew you I dreamed not of the power of a fervent and true passion—till
I beheld you I believed my heart was cold and dead to all such gentle
impulses. You have taught me that happiness may yet be found even for
me. In loving you I am but doing homage to virtue and wisdom and
piety—in bowing down before your image I am but worshipping the noblest
attributes of human nature enshrined within your heart. I dared not pour
out the fullness of my joy until I had told you my sad tale, but now
that you know all—now that no shadow of distrust can fall upon the
sunshine of the future, come to me, and assure me with your own dear
voice that my troubled dream is now forever past, and that the dawn of
happiness is breaking upon my weary heart!”

To comprehend the full effect of this letter on Charles Allston, the
peculiarity of his character—his strict ideas of duty—his devotion to
his holy calling—his shrinking dread of any thing which could, by any
possibility, tend to diminish his influence over the consciences of his
flock—and his long cherished dread of self-indulgence—must ever be
borne in mind. He had loved Eleanor Norwood with a fervor startling even
to himself, and according to his usual distrustful habits of thought, he
had feared lest the very intensity of his feelings was a proof of their
sinfulness. Accustomed to consider every thing as wrong which was
peculiarly gratifying to himself—measuring by the amount of every
enjoyment the extent of its wickedness—restraining the most innocent
impulses because he conceived heaven could only be won by continual
sacrifices—he had shrunk in fear and trembling at his own temerity when
his overmastering passion led him to pour forth his feelings to the
object of his love. He had retired to his apartment in a state of
pitiable agitation, and while he awaited Mrs. Norwood’s reply with hope,
he yet half repented of his proffered suit, lest there should have been
too much of the leaven of mere earthly tenderness in the bosom which had
vowed to forsake all its idols. This letter therefore produced a
terrible revulsion in his feelings. His rigid sense of duty, and his
adherence to divine rather than human laws, compelled him to behold in
Eleanor Norwood only the wife of another. Vile and unworthy as
Wallingford might be, he was to Allston’s view still the husband, and
though the tie might be loosened by the hand of man it could only be
entirely severed by the will of God. All the sternness of that long
practised asceticism, which had given Allston such a twofold character,
was called forth by the thought of the sin he had so nearly committed.
The wild enthusiasm of his nature led him to regard Mrs. Norwood as a
temptress sent to try the strength of his self-denying piety. He
remembered the tale of the hermit, who for forty years abode in the
wilderness, sinless in thought and in deed, while he kept his eye ever
fixed upon the cross; but the moment of wavering came—the holy eremite
turned his gaze for one single instant from the symbol, and Satan, who
had long watched in vain, obtained the mastery over him whose life-long
piety had not availed against a moment’s weakness. Allston shuddered as
his busy fancy suggested the parallel between the monkish legend and his
own present feelings. The thought of the disgrace which would attend him
who, while reproving sin in others, could be accused of cherishing it in
his own household—of the judgment which would fall upon him who should
dare to minister to the people in holy things, while he bore the marks
of a deadly leprosy within his own bosom—until at length the spiritual
pride, which was in truth his besetting sin, subdued all lighter
emotions.

That evening Mrs. Norwood sat in her quiet room, with the light of a
shaded lamp falling upon the gentle beauty of a face now lighted up with
hope, and which, but for the restless and hurried glance which was
occasionally turned upon the quaintly fashioned clock, might have seemed
the picture of placid happiness. A soft glow flushed her cheek, her eyes
were full of radiance, and, as she raised her head in the attitude of a
listener, a smile of almost childlike joyousness parted her flexible
lips. A step resounded on the gravel walk without. Her first impulse led
her to spring forward to welcome the expected visitant, but womanly
pride checked her in mid career, and she yet stood in half uncertainty
when the door opened to admit a servant who handed her a small parcel.
Her cheek grew ashy pale as she broke the seal. A paper dropped from the
envelop—it was her own letter to Allston; and she sank into a chair as
she unfolded the note which accompanied it. Written in Allston’s hand,
yet so blotted, and traced in such irregular characters, that the
agitation of the writer might well be divined, were these words:

“I will not express the agony of mind with which I have perused the
enclosed papers. I have been tried almost beyond my strength, but I have
been mercifully spared the commission of a crime at which my soul
shudders. I will not upbraid you, madam, for your cruel concealment;
your own conscience will be your accuser, and it will not fail to remind
you that your deception has nearly hurled me from an eminence which it
has been the labor of my life to reach. But you have been only an
instrument in the hands of a higher power. I fancied myself superior to
temptation, and God has sent you to teach me the necessity of closer
watchfulness over my still frail nature. Eleanor Norwood, I have loved
you as I never loved earthly creature before, but sooner would I suffer
the keenest pangs of that chronic heartbreak, to which the martyrdom of
the pile and fagot is but pastime, than take to my arms the wife of a
living husband. You have made me wretched but you cannot make me
criminal. Henceforth we meet no more on earth, for I have vowed to tear
your image from my heart, though, even now, every fibre bleeds at the
rude sundering of such close knit ties. Receive my forgiveness and my
farewell.”

When Mrs. Norwood’s faithful old servant entered the room, about an hour
after the receipt of this letter, she found her mistress lying senseless
on the floor. Suspecting something like the truth, the woman prudently
gathered up the papers from view, and then summoned assistance. Mrs.
Norwood was carried to her apartment and medical aid was immediately
procured. The physician pronounced her to be suffering from strong
nervous excitement, and, after giving her a sleeping draught, prescribed
perfect quiet for the next few days. But ere morning she was in a state
of delirium, and fears were entertained for her intellect if not for her
life. Several days passed in great uncertainty, but at length hope
revived and Mrs. Norwood once more awoke to consciousness. Feeble as an
infant, however, she required great care to raise her from the brink of
the grave, and the springs of life, so sadly shattered by long continued
sorrow, were now in danger of being broken by a single stroke. Disease
seemed undetermined in its final attack, and at length assumed the form
under which it most frequently assists the insidious labors of secret
sorrow. A hectic cough now racked her feeble frame, and it was evident
that consumption would soon claim another victim. Just at this time a
letter, sealed with black, was forwarded to Mrs. Norwood’s address, and
after being withheld from her several weeks, by advice of her physician,
was finally given to her because all hope of prolonging her life was at
an end. The perusal of this letter seemed rather to soothe than to
excite the sinking invalid. “It comes too late,” was her only
exclamation as she deposited it in a little cabinet which stood beside
her bed, and from that moment she made no allusion to its contents.

It was remarked in the village that Mr. Allston had become excessively
severe in his denunciations of error, while his habits had become more
rigid and reserved than ever. His former persuasive eloquence had given
place to violent and bitter revilings of sin, while those who applied to
him for religious consolation were terrified rather than attracted by
the threatenings of the fiery zealot. Once only did he seem moved by
gentler feelings. An aged clergyman, who occasionally visited him from a
distant town, was summoned to the bedside of Mrs. Norwood, and when he
returned to Mr. Allston’s study he feelingly described the bodily pangs
and angelic patience of the gentle sufferer. The frame of the stern man
shook as he listened, and tears—such tears as sear rather than relieve
the heart—fell from his eyes. It was one of the last struggles of human
feeling in the breast of one who vainly fancied himself marked out for a
higher than human destiny—one more was yet to come, and then earth held
no claim upon his heart.

It was not long delayed, for the time soon arrived when the bell tolled
for her whose sorrowful life and early death had been the penalty of a
single error. Allston stood beside the coffin and saw within its deep
shadow the pale and stony features of the being whom he had loved; and
even while his heart smote him as the shortener of her brief and
melancholy span of life, he yet nerved himself with the high, stern
resolve of one who suffers in the cause of duty. With that cold brow
beneath his gaze, he poured forth, from the depths of an agonized heart,
a prayer whose solemn eloquence thrilled every listener like a voice
from the grave. No sound escaped his lips as the clods of the valley
fell rattling on the coffin-lid which shrouded the heart so sorely tried
in life, but, in the deep midnight, groans and bitter cries, which rived
his stern bosom, were heard issuing from the pastor’s lonely closet.

Mrs. Norwood’s old servant inherited the property in Elmsdale, and one
of her first duties was to place in Mr. Allston’s hands the cabinet
which she said her mistress had requested might be given him after her
death. It contained only Mrs. Norwood’s letter and her lover’s reply,
together with a _third_, in an unknown hand, bearing a black seal. This
last was dated _some months earlier_ than the others, and contained the
tidings of Mr. Wallingford’s death. He had fallen a victim to his own
misdeeds in Italy, and at the moment when Allston had considered himself
the subject of a temptation intended to try his strength, the divorced
wife was in reality free from every shadow of a tie.

Why had she not disclosed these tidings to her scrupulous lover? Ask
rather why she who had twice suffered from man’s wayward nature, and who
had escaped from the _vices_ of one only to perish by the too rigid
_virtues_ of another, should place trust in any earthly affection? Sick
of life, hopeless of future peace, sinking under a fatal disease, she
had taken a lesson from the inferior creation:

                                  “mute
    The camel labors with the heaviest load,
    And the wolf dies in silence.”

                 *        *        *        *        *




                             TOUSKY WOUSKY.


                            BY EPES SARGENT.


    “O, manners! that this age should bring forth such creatures!
    that nature should be at leisure to make them!”

                                                      Ben Jonson.

I became acquainted with Count Tousky Wousky in Paris somewhere in the
year 1836. For some reason or other, which I did not at first
understand, he devoted himself chiefly to the society of strangers, and,
of all strangers, most affected the company of Americans. At that time
there were several fair daughters of the Pilgrims in the gay metropolis,
a few Knickerbockers, and at least one descendant of the Huguenot race
in the person of Miss P . . . . . of Charleston. In this circle Tousky
Wousky aspired to figure. He was a tall, handsome fellow, who had seen
perhaps eight and twenty summers, with fine long and dark locks, to say
nothing of the most unexceptionable whiskers and imperial. He smiled
enchantingly, and the glimpses of his ivory-white teeth between their
cushions of well-dyed bristles were quite “killing.” Altogether he was a
most personable individual—waltzed charmingly—attitudinized beyond any
dancer at the opera-house—and, though he said nothing except in a sort
of mute challenge to man and woman to “look and admire,” he carried away
more captive hearts than any man of his day.

In French society the count was very generally eschewed. Having no
apparent means of livelihood, and being well understood to carry as
little in his pocket if possible as in his head, the young men about
town were somewhat shy of him, and he was considered not much better
than a professed gambler. This would of course never have been known,
had it not been that his familiarity was such with the few Americans of
wealth who visited Paris during the winter of 1836, that he had made
fourteen distinct matrimonial proposals. So susceptible was he, that he
fell desperately in love with no less than fourteen of the sex in the
same season—compassed fourteen courtships by his languishing and silent
adoration—was fourteen times on his knees to fourteen fair creatures
varying in age from fourteen to forty—fourteen times was referred to
_Monsieur_, _mon père_, or to _Monsieur_, _mon frère_—had his character
submitted to fourteen inquisitions, and was fourteen times politely
informed that “his addresses must be discontinued.”

I left Paris, and thought nothing more of Count Tousky Wousky till I was
walking some months afterward in Broadway. My friend Lieutenant P
. . . . of the army, whom Commodore Elliot will probably recollect, if
he recollects having been in the Mediterranean, was my guide-book and
index on the occasion, for having been absent some years, the faces of
my townsmen and townswomen were quite strange to me.

“P . . . .,” said I; “indicate the individual we have just passed. I
have seen him a thousand times, but for the life of me I cannot
recollect where or when.”

“That!” exclaimed P . . . .; “I should know from your question, that you
were just off the salt water. But how very odd! That man is Count Tousky
Wousky. How the deuce did it happen that you, who were so long in Paris,
did not know Tousky Wousky?”

“Tousky Wousky!” I rejoined. “That’s his name sure enough—but what is
Tousky Wousky doing here?”

“That’s neither your business nor mine. He is the handsomest man on the
_pavé_, and has the entire run of the city, from the eight shilling
balls at Tammany to the most brilliant routes in Bond street or Waverley
Place.”

“Quite a range, P . . . . But does he patronize Tammany?”

“To be sure he does; and why not? It’s all one to him; and he has got
the idea that there is good picking in the Bowery. He has heard of
butchers’ families, where good _ribs_ were to be had, and is not sure
that he might not get pretty well suited at some wealthy tailor’s. In
short, he is in search of a rich wife, and he is not over particular who
or what she may be as long as she can plank the pewter.”

“That is to say, P . . . ., he is a penniless adventurer, who cannot
find a wife in his own country, and proposes to confer the honor on us.
Is that the arrangement?”

“You are not far out of the way in your guess.”

“But how is the individual received?”

“O, with open arms, to be sure. He gave out on his passage, that he was
coming to this country to marry a fortune; that he should do it in about
six months, and return to Paris.”

“How excessively condescending! And what credentials did he bring with
him?”

“O, he carries his credentials on his face. The only necessary passports
now to society are whiskers—moustache—imperial! They are the _open
sesame_ to the hearts of the ladies.”

“But what says papa?”

“I understand there was a general meeting of all our millionaires, and
that they voted him forthwith the freedom of the city, and suggested
that he should do the country the honor to marry some one of their
daughters.”

“And what said the count?”

“Why, the count said that he would quarter on ’em a while before
pitching his tent; that he would dine about with the old prigs, and
drink their good wine, and that as soon as he became well assured in
regard to the respective fortunes of the young ladies, he would just
fling his handkerchief at one of them, and she is expected to drop
forthwith into his arms.”

Not long after this conversation, it was my lot to meet Tousky Wousky on
several occasions in society. It seemed to be the prevailing belief
among those upon whom he condescended to shed the light of his smiles,
that he was the sole remaining representative of a noble and ancient
family, and that he was visiting the United States solely in pursuit of
relaxation from arduous military duties in Algiers. Such was his own
story, and such was the story which his defenders believed.

I must plead guilty to never having been able to discover the peculiar
charm of the count’s manners and appearance. I had heard much of the
_air noble_, which was said to be his distinguishing trait, but could
see nothing but the air _puppyish_, if I may so characterize a manner of
supreme indifference to the comfort and convenience of those around him.
In a ball-room, I have seen him extend himself at full length upon a
sofa, after a quadrille, and fan himself with his perfumed handkerchief,
while dozens of ladies were near in want of a seat. At other times he
would place himself astride of a chair, with his face to the back, and
his long legs protruded so as to endanger the necks of those, who might
venture to step over them. These little liberties were regarded merely
as the elegant _abandon_ of one accustomed to the first society of
Europe; and instances were cited of a similar aristocratic disregard of
conventional decency among certain English noblemen, who had visited the
country.

But what seemed to certify the count’s claims to nobility was the
erudition he displayed in all that related to gastronomy. Did you ever
notice the air of sagacity with which a chicken sips water, cocking her
head after every bill full, and apparently passing judgment upon its
quality? Of such an act would Tousky Wousky remind you when he took
soup. Occasionally his criticisms would be given with a vivacity and
_esprit_, which would excite general surprise. He could tell at a glance
the name of the most recondite Parisian _pâté_. His decisions in regard
to _entremets_, _hors d’œuvres_, and _vol au vents_ were unimpeachable;
and he would discourse upon _sole en matelotte Normande_ with tears in
his eyes. There was something earnest and affecting in the count’s
manner when he touched upon these topics; whereas when questioned
concerning events having relation to his military career, his answers
were confused, imperfect and unsatisfactory.

After some months of investigation and hesitation, Tousky Wousky fixed
his eyes upon the daughter of a retired tailor of the name of Remnant.
Mature deliberation and inquiry convinced him that she was the most
_eligible_ of the candidates that had yet been presented to his notice.
Old Remnant had commenced life as a journeyman—sat cross-legged upon
the counter from his fourteenth to his twenty-first year—then opened a
sort of slop-shop somewhere in Maiden Lane—married his master’s only
daughter—succeeded to his business and wealth—and accumulated a large
fortune.

Heaven forbid that I should breathe a flippant word against a vocation,
in which I have encountered more than one ornament to humanity—men, in
whom the Christian virtues of patience and forbearance were signally
developed; of whose capacities for long suffering I could relate the
most affecting instances. But I blame Remnant, not for having been a
tailor, but for his foolish ambition in after life to sink all memorials
of the shop, and launch into fashionable life. We all remember the story
of the English member of Parliament, who, on being twitted by some sprig
of nobility with having been bred a tailor, retorted, “if the gentleman
himself had been so bred he would have been a tailor still.” The reply
was as just as it was spirited, and showed a noble pride on the part of
the speaker, in comparing his past with his present position. Remnant
began by discontinuing his annual tribute to the Tailors’ Charitable
Fund. Then he neglected to attend their annual ball at Tammany; and
finally he _cut_ his old associates in trade when he met them in
Broadway—visited Europe, returned, built an elegant house—and set up a
carriage with a liveried driver and footman. In all these procedures I
have reason to believe that he was mainly influenced by his wife, whose
fashionable _furor_ was inextinguishable.

Through his endorsements for certain “genteel” speculators, Remnant
contrived to get introduced with his family into what they believed to
be the “fashionable circles.” The daughter, Sophia Ann, was a pretty,
good-natured, frank, and unpretending girl, who, having received a fair
education, bore her part extremely well in gay life, and betrayed few
symptoms of the character of her parentage. Rumor whispered that she
entertained a secret penchant for young Allen, a clerk in Flash,
Fleetwood & Co.'s, establishment in Broadway. It was noticed that she
always made her purchases at that shop, and frequently she remained much
longer in conversation than was absolutely necessary for the closing of
her bargains. Where was the propriety too of negotiating for a pair of
gloves or a skein of silk in so very low and mysterious a tone of voice?
It was suspicious, to say the least of it.

The ecstasy of Mrs. Remnant when Tousky Wousky condescended to ask an
introduction to herself and daughter was beyond all reasonable bounds;
and when, the next morning, he honored them with a call, it was as if
she and all her family had received a brevet of nobility.

“Who knows, Sophia Ann,” said she after the count had taken his
departure, “who knows but the count has been struck with your
appearance, and intends making proposals?”

“And if he does, mamma,” replied Sophy, “you may be very sure he will
propose in vain, so far as I am concerned. A vulgar, coarse,
ill-mannered fop! Did you notice the crumbs of bread upon his odious
moustaches?”

“A very good proof of his gentility, my dear. It shows that he has just
breakfasted. I am amazed at your language, Sophia Ann.”

“Indeed I thoroughly detest the fellow. I hope you will not invite him
to the house.”

“Indeed and indeed I shall, Miss Pert. I see the drift of your
objections. You have taken a fancy to that low-bred fellow, Allen, and
would disgrace your family by an unequal match. But let me advise you to
beware how you encourage any such presumption. Your father is as
determined as I am to cut you off with a shilling should you ever marry
without our consent.”

Here Sophia rose, and, with her handkerchief to her eyes, left the room,
while Mrs. Remnant sat down and penned a note to Tousky Wousky, asking
the honor of his company at dinner the next day.

In less than two weeks after the count’s introduction he proposed for
Sophia Ann. The mother was as propitious as could have been desired, and
the father, who was swayed in all things by the superior energy of his
wife, acquiesced on this occasion. Tousky Wousky supposed that all the
essential preliminaries were now settled, and that it only remained to
fix a day for the marriage ceremony. He had omitted, however, one little
form. He had not yet asked the young lady herself whether she had any
objection to becoming his bride. Dire was his dismay when, on popping
the question, she rejected him point blank, without hesitation,
reservation or equivocation. He twirled his moustaches, and showed his
teeth in what was meant for a smile irresistible. Strange to say, Sophia
Ann did not rush into his arms. He knelt and rolled up his eyes after
the most approved Parisian fashion. The obdurate, intractable girl
laughed in his face. He rose and attempted to clasp her waist and kiss
her. Sophia upset a heavy piano-stool upon his shins, and, with a face
burning with indignant blushes, left the room.

Tousky Wousky was completely nonplussed. The idea of being rejected by a
“native,” one, too, who had never visited Paris, had not entered into
his calculations. He looked in the glass—surveyed his incomparable
whiskers, and glanced at his blameless legs.

“_Sacrè!_ The girl must be crazy!” muttered Tousky Wousky, as he
finished his examination of his person.

He laid his case immediately before the parents of the refractory young
lady; alluded very pointedly to the numerous countesses and baronesses
who were perishing for him in France, Germany, and Italy—swore that he
had never known what love was till he had met Sophia Ann—and concluded
by avowing the romantic determination to depart instantly for Niagara,
jump into a skiff just above the rapids, loosen it from the shore, and,
with folded arms, glide down over the cataract into the “peaceful arms
of oblivion.”

The parents of Sophia Ann were much shocked at this tragic menace; and
the mother declared that the cruel girl should be brought to her
senses—it wasn’t probable she would ever have such another chance of
becoming a countess—and marry Tousky Wousky _she should_! And off the
old lady started to enforce her commands in person. Sophia Ann was not
to be found. The fact was, she had just discovered that she was in want
of a quantity of muslin, and knowing of no place in the city where she
could procure it of a quality more to her satisfaction, she hastened to
the store of Flash, Fleetwood & Co., and had a long consultation with
the handsome clerk.

“Never mind, Sophy dear,” said Allen, after he had heard the story of
her persecutions, “I have a plan for unmasking him. Do not suppose that
I have been idle since you told me of your mother’s designs.”

And Sophy tripped home and listened very resignedly to a long lecture
from her mother, upon the impropriety of young ladies presuming to
decide for themselves upon matrimonial questions.

One of the consequences of Allen’s plan ensued the very day after these
events.

Tousky Wousky was parading Broadway in all his magnificence. The African
king, whose principal escape from nudity consisted in a gold-edged
_chapeau bras_, never moved among his fellows with a more complacent
feeling of superiority than Tousky Wousky experienced as he strutted
across Chambers street toward the Astor House. His forehead was
contracted in a superb and scornful frown—his whiskers and moustaches
looked black as night—and his half-closed eyes seemed as if they deemed
it an act of condescension on their part to open upon the works of the
Creator. Tousky Wousky swung his cane, and looked neither to the right
nor to the left, except when he bowed to some envied female
acquaintance. As for that highly respectable portion of the human race,
the males, the count rarely condescended to recognize their existence.
He passed them by with supreme indifference. Had he known how many
consultations there had been as to the propriety of knocking him down,
perhaps he would have amended his conduct in this respect.

On the occasion, at which my narrative had now arrived, the count was
interrupted in his promenade by an individual, gaily but not
fastidiously dressed, who accosted him in the most familiar manner.

“Well met, Philippe!” cried the stranger, holding out his hand.

“You are mistaken in the person, sir,” said Tousky Wousky, drawing
himself up, and attempting to look magnificently dignified.

“None of your nonsense, Philippe,” returned the stranger; “don’t you
remember your old fellow-artist, Alphonse? Of course you do. Come—”

“Out of the way, fellow, or I will demolish you with my cane.”

“Be civil, Philippe, and acknowledge me, or I will pull off your
whiskers here in Broadway.”

This threat seemed to operate forcibly upon the count, for, extending
his hand and striking an attitude, he exclaimed, “Alphonse! why how the
devil did you get here?”

“Hush! don’t call me Alphonse. I am Count Deflamzi.”

“The deuce you are! Why, I am a count, too.”

“So I supposed. How do you get on?”

“Brilliantly—and you? When did you arrive?”

“By the last Cunard steamer. Is it possible you haven’t seen me
announced in the newspapers?”

“I never read them. I consider newspapers a bore.”

“Ha! I understand. Beau Shatterly thought the same of parish
registers—‘a d—d impertinent invention!’ So they are—as thus; _Beware
of imposition_: A scoundrel calling himself Count Tousky Wousky, but
whose real name is—”

“Hush! Are you mad?”

“Ah! Philippe! Philippe! The chief cook at Vevay’s always used to say
you would come to the gallows—eh?”

As he revived the recollection of this pleasant vaticination, Count
Deflamzi poked the end of his cane at one of Tousky Wousky’s ribs, in a
manner which partook more of the familiar than the dignified. Poor
Tousky Wousky bent his body to escape the blow, while he looked the
picture of despair—the more so as at that moment old Remnant’s carriage
drew up near the curb-stone, and Sophy’s mother put her head out of the
window to speak to her intended son-in-law.

“Good-bye, Alphonse; I will see you again soon,” said Tousky Wousky,
endeavoring to shake off his unwelcome friend, and darting towards the
carriage.

Deflamzi followed him, and after permitting him to greet Mrs. Remnant,
and receive from her some intelligence in regard to Sophia Ann, he
pulled Tousky Wousky by the skirt, and said; “My dear fellow, this is
really embarrassing. Why don’t you introduce me to the lady?”

“Ahem! Blast the—Oh, yes—certainly—Mrs. Remnant, Count
Deflamzi—Count Deflamzi, Mrs. Remnant.”

“Glad to see you, old lady,” said Deflamzi; and then, at a loss for a
remark to show his quality, he added—“What a devilish vulgar country
this is of yours!”

“An eccentric devil!” whispered Tousky Wousky in Mrs. Remnant’s ear;
“who has a plenty of money and thinks he has a right to abuse every
thing and every body.”

“I am most happy, count, to make your acquaintance,” said Mrs. Remnant,
quite overlooking the puppy’s impertinence in her delight at being seen
conversing with a couple of counts in Broadway.

“The pleasure of meeting Mrs. Remnant to-day is as unexpected as it is
gratifying,” said Deflamzi. “I had intended asking my old friend Rufsky
Fusky here, long since to introduce me, but—”

“Rufsky Fusky!”

“A nick-name, by which he used to call me when we were boys,” said poor
Tousky Wousky hastily, and then, in an _aside_, he muttered to Deflamzi;
“Curse you, Alphonse! I wish you would call me by my right name.”

“What is it?”

“Tousky Wousky.”

“Ah, yes! pardon me,” said Deflamzi; and then, turning to the old lady
in the coach, he continued; “as I was saying, Madam, I had intended
asking my old friend, Whisky Frisky, to introduce me before, but the
good fortune of—”

“Whisky Frisky!”

“You see he will have his joke, Madam,” said Tousky Wousky, making a
painful effort to smile.

“Ha, yes! A wag, I see. Well, I like pleasantry.”

“What I was about to say,” resumed Deflamzi, “simply was, that the
felicitous accident which has made me acquainted with Mrs. Remnant,
enables me to extend in person an invitation, which I had intended
sending through our excellent friend Rowdy Powdy. Shall I have the honor
of seeing you and your charming daughter, with Mr. Remnant of course, at
a small dinner party, which I give at the Globe to-morrow to our
distinguished friend here, Count Hoaxy Folksy?”

Mrs. Remnant was too much fluttered and flattered by this mark of
respect to pay any attention to Deflamzi’s eccentric perversions of his
friend’s name. She eagerly accepted the invitation; and Deflamzi took
his leave of her and Tousky Wousky, with a significant hint to the
latter, that if he did not come too he should be exposed.

“Dinner will be on the table at six. _Au revoir!_” said Deflamzi, bowing
grotesquely, and strutting down Broadway.

“How vastly genteel!” thought Mrs. Remnant.

The next day, at the appointed hour, a select party, consisting of the
two _counts_, the Remnant family, Mr. Allen, and half a dozen
fashionable young men, whom Tousky Wousky remembered to have seen
frequently in society, met in one of Blancard’s pleasant parlors. Mrs.
Remnant was a little puzzled at encountering Allen; but, remembering
that Deflamzi was an “eccentric devil,” she concluded it was all right.
The good lady was placed at one end of the table, and Deflamzi took his
seat at the other. Tousky Wousky and Sophia Ann sat opposite to each
other, near the centre. Soup was handed round in the midst of an
animated conversation, in which Deflamzi, however, did not join. His
manner toward all but Tousky Wousky seemed singularly constrained and
respectful.

As the soup was being passed round, a keen eye might have detected a
piece of legerdemain practised by one of the waiters, in serving Tousky
Wousky. Instead of giving him the plate, which Deflamzi had filled from
the tureen, another was placed before him, which seemed to have been
whisked in a mysterious manner from a side-table, unnoticed of course by
the unsuspecting count.

The minute Tousky Wousky tasted his soup, he dropped his spoon with a
face expressive of the deepest disgust.

“What is the matter, count?” asked Sophia Ann, while a mischievous
twinkle was swimming in her dark eyes.

“Is it possible you can relish that soup?” inquired Tousky Wousky,
regarding her with amazement as she swallowed spoonful after spoonful.

“It is very good, is it not?” said Sophy, looking the very picture of
sweet simplicity.

Tousky Wousky took another spoonful, then suddenly seized a tumbler of
iced water to drown the recollection of the nauseous compound. Turning
to Deflamzi, he said, “What do you call this—stuff, my dear count?”

“It is Soup _à la Julien_ to be sure, and very good.”

“Soup _à la Julien_!” exclaimed Tousky Wousky, “I should call it soup à
la swill-pail. I never tasted anything half so bad. Here, _garçon_! take
this plate away, and tell the cook I shall have him indicted for an
attempt to poison.”

“Oui, monsieur.”

The dinner was a good dinner, and Tousky Wousky was suffered to finish
the remainder of it in peace. Just before the dessert was introduced,
Count Deflamzi was called out by a servant, and begging to be excused
for a few minutes, quitted the apartment. He had not been gone long when
the same servant re-entered and informed Tousky Wousky, that the cook,
to whom he had sent the message touching the soup, desired to speak with
him.

“Show him in! show him in!” exclaimed several voices. “Ten to one, he
means to challenge you, Tousky Wousky, for abusing his soup. Ha! ha!
ha!”

Tousky Wousky began to look pale, but tried to laugh it off, and said,
“Nonsense! I can’t see the fellow now. Tell him to call on me at my
hotel.”

“That won’t do. Show him in, _garçon_, show him in!” cried Tom Cawley,
who was Allen’s principal ally in the plot.

Here the cook burst into the room. He had on a white cap and a white
apron. A white apron was thrown over his shoulder, and his hands were
white with flour.

“Alphonse!” exclaimed Tousky Wousky, starting up with dismay, as he
gazed on the once familiar apparition.

“Count Deflamzi!” ejaculated Mrs. Remnant. “This is indeed eccentric.”

“No more Count Deflamzi, madame, than this is Count Tousky, but plain
Alphonse Fricandeau, gastronomical artist, or in vulgar language, cook,
from Paris.”

“What! isn’t he a count?”

“No, madame; he is a cook!”

“A cook! my salts, Mr. Remnant! Quick, you stupid man!”

“I appeal to the company,” said Tousky Wousky, recovering himself,
“Madame, this is a conspiracy. I can produce letters from the first
noblemen in London—”

“The company shall soon be satisfied on that point,” said Monsieur
Fricandeau. “Eugene, request the attendance of Lord Morvale.”

At the sound of this name, Tousky Wousky sank into his chair quite
unmanned. Lord Morvale soon entered, and after bowing to the rest of the
company, turned to Tousky Wousky, and said, “At your old tricks,
Philippe! Rogue! Have I found you at last?”

“Count Tousky Wousky a rogue! What does it all mean?” asked old Mr.
Remnant, who could not well comprehend what was going on.

Lord Morvale turned to the company, and said, “This fellow, ladies and
gentlemen, who calls himself Count Tousky Wousky, was for two years
chief cook in my establishment, and I will do him the justice to say
that his talents in that vocation are truly respectable. But it seems
that he had a soul above pans and _pâtés_, and one day I found that he
had broken open my desk, taken from it some money and letters, and
decamped. I afterwards met him in Paris, but he was so skilfully
disguised that I did not recognize him; and it was not till Monsieur
Fricandeau apprised me that Count Tousky Wousky was my old cook in a new
character, that I suspected the fact.”

This revelation was listened to without surprise by all except Mr. and
Mrs. Remnant. No better proof of its truth was needed than Tousky
Wousky’s abject appearance. Tom Cawley took Lord Morvale aside and
whispered a few words in his ear, after which his Lordship came forward,
and addressed Mr. and Mrs. Remnant as follows; “Any legal process
against this fellow would from recent events be calculated to make
public certain domestic occurrences in your family, the discussion of
which might prove annoying. I will, therefore, consent to refrain from
molesting him so you will consent to secure your daughter’s happiness by
giving her to the man of her choice, and one who appears to be every way
worthy of her preference. I allude to Mr. Allen, and I take this
opportunity of inviting myself to his wedding.”

The idea of having a live lord present at the nuptials of her daughter,
amply consoled Mrs. Remnant for the loss of Tousky Wousky as a
son-in-law. It was not long before her visions were fulfilled. Lord
Morvale gave away the bride; and a proud day it was for the race of the
Remnants when that memorable event took place.

As for Count Tousky Wousky, I take this opportunity of cautioning the
public against him. He is still prowling about the country under assumed
names, and intends figuring at our principal watering places before the
summer is over. He is quite confident that he will ultimately succeed in
picking up a Yankee heiress, and I should not be surprised any day to
hear of the fulfilment of his designs. The recent example of Captain
S—— has inspired him with new hopes.

It is Tousky Wousky’s intention to visit Portland while the warm weather
lasts. To my certain knowledge he carries letters from his near kinsman,
General Count Bratish Eliovitch, to my gifted and open-hearted friend,
John Neal. Before Mr. Neal lends him his pocket-book and his protection,
I beg that he will peruse a letter in regard to the character of the
count’s endorser, from our minister at Paris, Mr. Cass, to Mr.
Fairfield, Governor of Maine.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                FAREWELL TO A FASHIONABLE ACQUAINTANCE.


                           BY S. G. GOODRICH.


    There is a smile which beams with light,
      When all around is flush and fair,
    Yet turns to scorn when Sorrow’s night
      Wraps its lorn victim in despair.

    That smile is like the illusive ray
      The false, fictitious diamond gives;
    Reflecting back the beams of day;
      In borrowed light it only lives.

    That smile is like the rifled rose,
      That on a syren’s breast doth shine;
    Oh! who would weep to part with those
      Whose smiles are such as this of thine!

    And these are friends who call one “dear,”
      When Fortune favors all one’s wishes;
    Yet when the goddess changes—sneer,
      And pick one’s character to pieces.

    Poor moths that round the taper wheel—
      Addled in light—in darkness fled—
    Too poor to crush—too false to feel—
      Beneath our scorn—to memory dead!

    Yet they may teach a lesson stern—
      In the deep caverns of the mind,
    To build our castle home, and spurn
      The heartless things we leave behind.

    Unwept the false, unwept the fair—
      To fashion, folly, falsehood, tied—
    With truth and love, we now may share
      The bliss that flattery denied.

                    ——

    Lady, farewell! no more we meet,
      My cream, my strawberries, all are banished;
    Thy flatteries too are fled, thy sweet,
      Fond speeches with my ices vanished.

                    ——

    Forgive me if I mourn thee not,
      For at a price I know thee willing;
    Such souls as thine, fair dame, are bought,
      Like cakes and custards, by the shilling.

    ’Tis thus with thee, ’tis thus with all,
      That throng gay Fashion’s trickish mart;
    Each has his price, and, great or small,
      Cash is the measure of the heart.

    Seest thou yon proud and peerless belle,
      That saunters through the gay cotillion,
    With eyes that speak of heaven? Well—
      She’s just knocked down at half a million.

    There is the purchaser—a poor,
      Mean, craven thing—whose merit lies
    In this, his father left him store
      Of stocks; and he hath bought those eyes!

    Yon maiden, whirling in the waltz—
      A salamander that doth live
    Unscathed in fire—hath too her faults,
      But yet her price is—what you’ll give.

    And this is Fashion’s magic ring
      So envied, sought—where yet the heart,
    Stript of its guises, is a thing
      That makes poor, simple Virtue start.

    So false within, without so fair.
      ’Twas here, sweet dame, that first I met thee,
    ’Tis meet that I should leave thee where
      Thou art at home—and thus, forget thee!

                 *        *        *        *        *




                                 SONG.


                        BY THE HON. MRS. NORTON.


    When poor in all but troth and love,
      I clasped thee to this beating heart
    And vowed for wealth and fame to rove,
      That we might meet no more to part.
    Years have gone by—long weary years—
      Of toil to win the comfort now,
    Of ardent hopes—of sick’ning fears—
      And Wealth is mine! but where art thou?

    Fame’s dazzling dream for thy dear sake
      Rose brighter than before to me;
    I clung to all I deem’d could make
      This burning heart more worthy thee!
    Years have gone by—the laurel droops
      In mock’ry o’er my cheerless brow;
    A conquer’d world before me stoops,
      And Fame is mine! but where art thou?

    In life’s first hours, despised and lone,
      I wander’d through the busy crowd,
    But now that life’s best hopes are gone,
      They greet with smiles and murmurs loud.
    Oh! for thy voice—that happy voice—
      To breathe its joyous welcome now!
    Wealth, Fame, and all that should rejoice,
      To me are vain, for where art thou?

                 *        *        *        *        *




                             THE JOHNSONS.


                          BY ANN S. STEPHENS.


It was a deceitful thing, but my day of trouble dawned with a promise of
uncommon enjoyment. It was our weekly holiday, and I looked from my
bed-chamber window—merry as a bird, and peculiarly alive to the
beauties of a bright June morning. The sky was warm, blue and cloudless,
the flowers full of sweetness and lying with the dew upon them in its
utmost abundance. The birds were all brimful of melody and the very
gravel walk looked cool and clean with a shower that had swept over it
during the night.

The sun was just up and we were ready with our bonnets on—my
school-mate and I—for Colonel M. had promised us a ride and his phaeton
was at the door.

“Come—come, are you ready,” exclaimed Maria, bounding into my room with
her hat on one side—for she had been taking a run after her mamma’s
dog, Pink, in the garden, and Pink had led her a race through a
raspberry thicket which made a change of slippers necessary, and had
displaced her bonnet as I have said.

“Come, Sophy, come, Tom has driven to the door—papa is in the hall and
the horses are as restless as two wild eagles—nonsense, don’t take that
great red shawl, the morning is beautiful—Come—”

Before Maria finished speaking she had run down stairs, through the
hall, and stood on the door step looking back impatiently for myself and
her father, who was very tranquilly drawing on his gloves as he chatted
to his wife through a door of the parlor where she still lingered by the
breakfast table.

There is no enjoyment like riding, whether on horseback or in a
carriage, providing your equipage be in good taste, your companions
agreeable and the day fine. We were fortunate in all these. There was
not a lighter or more beautiful phaeton in New Haven than that of
Colonel M., and his horses—you never saw such animals in
harness!—their jetty coats, arched necks and gazelle-like eyes were the
very perfection of brute beauty. Never were creatures more perfectly
trained. The play of their delicate hoofs was like the dancing of a fine
girl, and they obeyed the slightest motion of the rein to a marvel.

As to my companions, they were unexceptionable, as the old ladies say;
Maria was a lovely creature, not decidedly handsome, but good and
delicate, with an eye like a wet violet. Her father was just the kind of
man to give consequence to a brace of happy girls in their teens—not
young enough to be mistaken for a brother or lover, nor old enough to
check our mirth with wise saws and sharp reprimands—he was a careless,
good-hearted man, as the world goes, in the prime of his good looks,
with his black hair just beginning to be threaded with silver and the
calm dignity of a gentleman fitting him like a garment. He always
preferred the society of persons younger than himself, and encouraged us
in an outbreak of mirth or mischief which made him one of the most
pleasant protectors in the world, though, if the truth must be told, a
serenade or so by two very interesting students of the Sophomore class,
who played the guitar and flute with exceeding sweetness, and who had
tortured those instruments a full hour the previous night, while looking
unutterable things at our chamber windows, had just given us a first
idea that gray hairs might be dispensed with, and the companion of a
ride quite as agreeable. Nay, we had that very morning, before Pink
deluded Maria into the garden, consulted about the possibility of
dislodging the colonel from his seat in the phaeton in favor of the
flute amateur, for my friend very thoughtfully observed that she was
certain the interesting youth would be delighted to drive us out—if
_we_ could find the carriage, for, poor fellows, they never had much
credit at the livery stables—but Colonel M. had something of Lady Gay
Spanker’s disposition, he liked to “keep the ribbons,” and Maria, with
all her boldness, had not courage to desire him to resign them to
younger hands. I must say that the colonel—though her father—was a
noble looking figure in an open carriage. There was not a better dressed
man about town—his black coat, of the finest cloth, satin vest and
plaited ruffles, were the perfection of good taste, and his driving
would have made the aforesaid Lady Gay half crazy with envy; he would
have scorned a horse that could not take his ten miles an hour, and
without a quickened breath, too. Colonel M. had his imperfections and
was a little overbearing and aristocratic in his habits, but he was a
kind man and loved his wife, child, and horses—or rather his horses,
child and wife, with a degree of affection which overbalanced a thousand
such faults; he was proud of his house, of his gardens and hot-houses,
but prouder of his stables, and would have been inclined to fox hunting
if such a thing had ever been heard of in dear old Connecticut. He was
very kind also to a certain wayward, idle, teasing young school girl,
who shall be nameless, but who has many a pleasant and grateful memory
connected with his residence.

I had forgotten—we were seated and the horses pawing the ground,
impatient to be off. Black Tom, who had been patting their necks,
withdrew his hold on the bits and away we went. It was like riding in a
railroad car, so swiftly the splendid animals cleared the ground, with
the sun glistening on their black coats and over the silver studded
harness as they dashed onward. It was indeed a glorious morning, and to
ride through the streets of New Haven at sunrise is like dashing through
the gravel walks of a garden, for there is scarcely a dwelling which is
not surrounded by a little wilderness of trees and shrubbery. The breath
of a thousand flowering thickets was abroad, the sun lay twinkling amid
their foliage, and the dewy grass with the shadows sleeping upon it
looked so cool and silent, one longed to take a volume of Wordsworth and
dream away the morning there—we dashed forward to the college grounds,
by the Tontine and into Elm street, where we drove at a foot pace to
enjoy the shade of the tall elms where they interlace, canopying the
whole street with the stirring foliage, and weaving a magnificent arch
through which the sunshine came flickering with broken and unsteady
light. How deliciously cool it was with the dew still bathing the bright
leaves and the long branches waving like green banners over us!

The colleges, too, with their extensive common formed a beautiful
picture, the noble buildings threw their deep shadows on the grass,
while here and there a group of young men—poets and statesmen of the
future—were grouped picturesquely beneath the old trees—some chatting
and laughing merrily, with neglected books lying at their feet, and
others sitting apart poring over some open volume, while the pure breath
of morning came and softly turned the leaves for them. As we drove by a
party sitting beneath a tree close by the paling, Maria stole her hand
round to mine, and with a nod toward the group and a roguish dimple in
her cheek, gave me to understand that our serenaders were of the party.
They saw us, and instantly there was a sly flourishing of white cambric
handkerchiefs and—it was not our fault, we tried to look the other
way—a superlative waste of kisses wafted toward us from hands which had
discoursed such sweet music beneath our windows the night before. When
we looked back on turning the corner—for of course we were anxious that
the young gentlemen should not be too demonstrative—they had moved to
another side of the tree and stood leaning against it in very graceful
attitudes, gazing after our phaeton from the shadows of their Leghorn
hats. The hats were lifted, the white cambric began to flutter
again—our horses sprang forward, and on we dashed over the
Hotchkisstown road. We stopped at that gem of a village, a pretty
cluster of houses nestled under the shelving cliffs of East Rock. We
clambered up the mountain, searched over its broken and picturesque
features, and gazed down on the Arcadian scenery below with a delight
which I can never forget; the town lying amid its forest of trees, the
glittering Sound, the line of Long Island stretching along the horizon,
and the green meadows and pretty village at our feet, lay within our
glance, and human eye never dwelt upon a scene more lovely.

It was late in the morning when we drove through the town again—our
horses in a foam—our cheeks glowing with exercise and our laps full of
wild blossoms.

“Oh, mamma, we have had a delightful drive,” exclaimed Maria, as she
sprang upon the door step, scattering a shower of wild lilies over the
pavement in her haste to leave the phaeton. “Take care, Sophia, take
care, or you will tread on my flowers,” and with this careless speech
she ran up the steps happy and cheerful as a summer bird. I was about to
follow her when Mrs. M. detained me long enough to say that some persons
from S——, the town which contained my own loved home, were waiting for
me in the hall.

For the first time in my life I had spent three months from my father’s
hearth-stone, and could have welcomed the dog who had once passed the
threshold of my home, been patted by my sisters, or who had looked into
the face of my mother—as an old friend. Without staying to inquire who
my visiters could be, I went eagerly forward, my hand half extended in
welcome, and with all the dear feelings of home stirring about my heart.
It certainly was a damper—the sight of that lean gossiping little man,
our town miller—with the marks of his occupation whitening his hatband,
lying in the seams of his coat, and marking the wrinkles in his boots—a
personage who had ground some fifty bushels of wheat for my father,
during his lifetime, but with whom I had never known the honor of
exchanging a dozen consecutive words on that or any other subject. There
he sat, very diminutive and exceedingly perpendicular on one of the hall
chairs, with his feet drawn under him, and his large bell-crowned hat
standing on the carpet by his side. Planted against the wall, and on a
direct file with himself, sat his better half, one of the most
superlatively silly and talkative patterns of humanity that I have ever
been in contact with. In order to be a little genteel—as she called
it—Mrs. Johnson had honored the visit with her best gown, a blazing
calico with an immense pattern running over it, which, with a Leghorn
bonnet lined with pink and trimmed with blue, white silk gloves much too
small for her hands, and morocco shoes ready to burst with the wealth of
feet they contained, composed the _tout ensemble_, which few persons
could have looked upon once without feeling particularly desirous for a
second survey. The appearance of Mr. Johnson and Mrs. Johnson was vulgar
enough in all conscience without the aid of their hopeful progeny, in
the shape of two little Johnsons, with freckled faces and sun-burnt
locks, who sat by the side of their respectable mamma, in jackets of
blue cotton, striped trowsers much too short, and with their dear little
feet perched on the chair-rounds squeezing their two unfortunate wool
hats between their knees and gazing with open mouths through the
drawing-room door. It certainly was an exquisite group for the halls of
an aristocratic and fastidious man like Colonel M.; I dared not look
toward him as he stood giving some directions to Tom, but went forward
with an uncomfortable suspicion that the negro was exhibiting rather
more of his teeth than was exactly necessary in his master’s presence.

The fear of ridicule was strong in my heart, but other and more powerful
feelings were beating there. My visiters were vulgar but honest people,
and I could not treat them coldly while the sweet impulses and
affectionate associations their coming had given rise to were swarming
in my bosom. They might be rude, but had they not lately trod the places
of my childhood? Their faces were coarse and inanimate, but they were
familiar ones, and as such I welcomed them; for they brought to my heart
sweet thoughts of a happy home. I went forward and shook hands with them
all, notwithstanding a glimpse I caught of Maria as she paused on the
stairs, her roguish eyes absolutely laughing with merriment as she
witnessed the scene.

An hour went by, and the Johnsons were still sitting in Colonel M.’s
hall. I had gained all the information regarding my friends which they
could communicate. It was drawing near the dinner hour, and, in truth, I
had become exceedingly anxious for my visiters to depart. But there sat
Mrs. Johnson emitting a continued current of very small talk about her
currant bushes, her luck in making soap, and the very distressing
mortality that had existed among her chickens—she became pathetic on
this subject—six of her most promising fledglings had perished under an
old cart during a thunder-storm, and as many goslings had been dragged
lifeless from her husband’s mill-dam, where they had insisted upon
swimming before they were sufficiently fledged. The account was very
touching; peculiarly so from a solemn moral which Mrs. J. contrived to
deduct from the sad and untimely fate of her poultry—which moral,
according to the best of my memory, was, that if the chickens had obeyed
their mother and kept under the parent wing, the rain had not killed
them, and if the goslings had not put forth their swimming propensities
too early, they might, that blessed moment, have been enjoying the
coolness of the mill-dam in all the downy majesty of half-grown geese.
Mrs. Johnson stopped the hundredth part of a second to take breath and
branched off into a dissertation on the evils of disobedience in
general, and the forwardness and docility of her two boys in particular.
Then, drawing all her interesting topics to a focus, she took boys,
geese, chickens, currant bushes, &c., &c., and bore them rapidly onward
in the stream of her inveterate loquacity. One might as well have
attempted to pour back the waters rushing from her husband’s mill-dam,
when the flood-gates were up, as to check the motion of her unmanageable
tongue. The clatter of his whole flour establishment must have been a
poetical sound compared to the incessant din of meaningless words that
rolled from it. Another good hour passed away, and the volubility of
that tongue was increasing, while my politeness and patience, it must be
owned, were decreasing in an exact ratio.

Maria had dressed for dinner, and I caught a glimpse of her bright face
peeping roguishly over the banisters. Mrs. M. came into the hall, looked
gravely toward us, and walked into the garden with a step rather more
dignified than usual.

“Dear me, is that the lady you are staying with?” said Mrs. Johnson,
cutting short the thread of her discourse, “how sorry I am that I didn’t
ask her how she did, she must think we country people hav’n’t got no
bringing up.”

Without replying to Mrs. Johnson, I seized the opportunity to inquire at
what house they stayed, and innocently proposed calling on them after
dinner.

“Oh,” said the little man, with a most insinuating smile, “we calculate
to put up with you. Didn’t think we were the kind o’ people to slight
old friends—ha?”

“With me—old friends!” I was thunderstruck, and replied, I fear with
some lack of politeness, that Colonel M. did not keep a hotel.

“Wal, I guess I knowd that afore, but I’d jist as lives pay him my money
as any body else.”

This was too much—I cast a furtive look at the banister; Maria’s
handkerchief was at her mouth, and her face sparkled all over with
suppressed mirth. Before I could answer Mr. Johnson’s proposition,
Colonel M. came into the ball, and the modest little gentleman very
coolly informed him of the high honor intended his house.

Colonel M. glanced at my burning face—made his most solemnly polite
bow, and informed my tormentor that he should entertain any visiter of
mine with great pleasure.

I was about to disclaim all Mr. Johnson’s pretensions to hospitality,
backed by an acquaintance with myself, when he interrupted me with—

“Wal, that’s jest what I was a saying to my woman here as we came along.
Wife, says I, never put up to a tavern when you can go any where else.
I’d jest as lives pay my money to a private as to a tavern-keeper;
they’re expensive fellers and allers grumble if one brings his own horse
provender.”

The colonel stared at him a moment, then coldly saying “he was very
welcome,” passed on.

“What a polite gentleman the colonel is!” ejaculated the little miller,
rubbing his hands together as if he had been kneading a batch of his own
flour, and turning triumphantly to his wife, who looked as pleased as if
she had just heard of the resuscitation of her six lamented goslings,
chickens inclusive.

“Come now,” she said, jumping up and tying the strings of her bonnet,
“let’s go down to the salt water and eat our dinner on the grass. Run up
and get your things, Miss Sophy—now come to think on it, I s’pose it
wouldn’t be the genteel thing if we didn’t ask the colonel and his wife
and that young girl that just come in with you—but the wagon is not
large enough to hold us all without husband there can find a board to
put along the front for an extra seat.”

I heard a sound of smothered laughter from the stairs, and hastened to
relieve Mrs. Johnson from her dilemma, by declining her invitation for
myself, while I informed her that Colonel M. expected company, and I was
certain could not benefit by her politeness.

“Wal, then,” said Mr. Johnson, setting down his bell-crowned hat—“It
don’t make much difference whether we eat our dinner here or on the
sea-side. So, if Miss Sophy and the rest on ’em can’t go, s’posing we
give it up and go to the museum.”

This plan was less endurable than the other. I knew that company would
drop in after dinner, and the very thought of introducing Mr. Johnson
and Mrs. Johnson, with both the little Johnsons, to my friends was
enough to drive me into the salt water, as they called it, if those
interesting persons had given me no other alternative. And then to be
dragged to the museum with them! I accepted the sea-side dinner in a fit
of desperation, and ran up stairs to get ready, half angry with the
droll face which Maria made up for my benefit as I passed her in the
upper hall.

I put on a calash, folded a large shawl about me, and, with a parasol in
my hand, was descending the stairs when I heard Mr. J. observe to his
wife that he had felt pretty sure of managing affairs all the time, and
that he was ready to bet any thing Colonel M. wouldn’t charge for what
little trouble they should be. Mrs. Johnson pinched his arm unmercifully
when I appeared in sight, which gentle admonition broke off his
calculation of expenses and sent him in search of his equipage. He
returned with a rickety one-horse wagon—a rusty harness, tied by pieces
of rope in sundry places, which covered an old chesnut horse, whose
organs of starvation were most astonishingly developed over his whole
body. Into this crazy vehicle Mr. Johnson handed us, with a ludicrous
attempt at gallantry which made the old horse turn his head with a
rueful look to see what his master could be about. The wagon contained
but one springless seat, and where we should find accommodations for
five persons was a subject of mystery to me. I however quietly took my
portion of the seat; Mrs. Johnson, whose dimensions required rather more
than half, placed herself by my side, her husband grasped the reins and
crowded his diminutive proportions between us, while the dear little
boys stood up behind and held by the back of our seat. Mr. Johnson gave
his reins a jerk and flourished a whip—with a very short and white
hickory handle, a long lash, and a thong of twisted leather fastened on
for a snapper—with peculiar grace over the drooping head of our steed.
The poor animal gathered up his limbs and walked down the street,
dragging us after him, with great majesty and decorum. We must have been
a magnificent exhibition to the pedestrians as we passed down State
street, Mr. Johnson shaking the reins and cheruping the poor horse
along—his wife exclaiming at every thing she saw, and those interesting
boys standing behind us very upright, with their wool hats set far back
on their heads, and they pointing and staring about as only very young
gentlemen from the country can stare and point, while I, poor victim,
sat crouching behind Mr. J., my calash drawn to its utmost extension
over my face, and my parasol directed with a reference to the side-walk
rather than to the sun. I was young, sensitive, and perhaps a little too
keenly alive to the ridiculous, and if I did not feel exactly like a
criminal going to execution, I did feel as if some old lady’s fruit
stall had been robbed and I was the suspected person.

When about three miles from town, we left our equipage, whose rattle had
given me a headache, and, after walking along the shore awhile, Mrs. J.
selected a spot of fresh grass, shaded by a clump of junipers, where she
commenced preparations for dinner. First, with the assistance of her two
boys, she dragged forth a basket that had been stowed away under the
wagon seat—then a table-cloth, white as a snow drift, was spread on the
grass—next appeared sundry bottles of cider and currant wine, with
cakes of various kinds and dimensions, but mostly spiced with caraway
seed. To these were added a cold tongue, a loaf of exquisite bread, a
piece of cheese, a cup of butter covered with a cool cabbage leaf, and,
last of all, a large chicken-pie, its edge pinched into regular scollops
by Mrs. Johnson’s two thumbs, and the centre ornamented by the striking
resemblance of a broken leaf, cut by the same ingenious artist in the
original paste.

Truly a day is like a human life, seldom all clouds or entire sunshine.
The most gloomy is not all darkness, nor the most happy all light. When
the remembrance of that sea-side dinner, under the juniper bushes, comes
over me, I must acknowledge that my day of tribulation—with all its
provoking incidents and petty vexations—had its hour of respite, if not
of enjoyment. There we sat upon the grass in a refreshing shade, with
nobody to look on as we cut the tender crust of that pie, while the
cider and the currant wine sparkled in the two glasses which we
circulated very promiscuously from lip to lip, while the cool wind came
sweeping over us from the water, and the sunshine, that else had been
too powerful, played and glittered every where about. A few yards from
our feet the foam-crested waves swept the beach with their dash of
perpetual music. The Sound, studded by a hundred snowy sails, lay
out-stretched before us. Far on our right spread an extensive plain,
with cattle grazing peacefully over it, and here and there a dwelling or
a cluster of trees flinging their shadows on the grass. On our left was
the town, with its houses rising, like palaces of snow, among the
overhanging trees; its taper steeples pencilled in regular lines against
the sky, and a picturesque extremity of the Green Mountains looming in
the distance.

It cannot be denied that I rather enjoyed that dinner under the juniper
bushes, and was not half so much shocked by the jocund conversation and
merry laughter of my companions as became the dignity of a young lady
whose “Lines to a Rose-bud” had been extensively copied through several
remote papers of the Union, and who had been twice serenaded by her own
words, set to most excruciating music, but I hope the refined reader
will excuse my fault. It happened several years ago, and I am to this
day a little inclined to be social with good-natured people, even those
who are not particularly literary or intelligent. They do not expect you
to talk books because you write them—never torment you with a
discussion of “woman’s rights,” equality of the sexes, and like popular
absurdities—or force you into a detestation of all books with
quotations, which you would rejoice to think were “unwritten music.”

The clocks were striking four when we drove into town again, much as we
had left it except the basket of fragments under our seat. When we
reached Colonel M’s. door there was a sound of voices in the
drawing-room, and I knew that company was there. I entered the hall, and
with a palpitating heart persuaded Mrs. Johnson to accompany me to my
chamber, leaving her husband to take care of himself, and devoutly
hoping that he would find his way into the garden, or stables, or any
where except the drawing-room.

I entered my chamber resolved to entertain Mrs. Johnson so pleasantly
that she would be content to remain there. I opened the window and
pointed out one of the most lovely prospects that eye ever dwelt upon,
but she was busy with the pink bows and cotton lace border of her cap,
and preferred the reflection of her own stout figure in the
looking-glass to any the open sash could afford. When her toilet was
finished, I was even preposterous enough to offer a book, but, after
satisfying herself that it contained no pictures, she laid it down and
walked toward the door. As a last resource, I flung open my wardrobe, as
if by accident, and that had its effect; she came back with the avidity
of a great child, handled every article, and was very particular to
inquire the price of each garment, and the number of yards it contained.
How I wished that Queen Elizabeth had but left me heiress to her nine
hundred dresses. Had she been so thoughtful, it is highly probable that
Mrs. Johnson would have contented herself in my room till morning; but,
alas! my wardrobe was only extensive enough to detain her half an hour,
and when that failed she grew stubborn and insisted on going down.

I followed Mrs. J. down stairs and into the drawing-room with the
resolution of a martyr. She paused at the door, dropped three sublime
curtsies, put on one of her superlatively silly smiles, and entered,
with a little mincing step and her cap ribands all in a flutter. Had I
been called upon to select the five persons whom I should have been most
unwilling to meet in my irksome predicament, it would have been the two
beautiful girls and three highly bred students of the law-school whom I
found in a group near the centre table. Maria was with them, but looking
almost ill-tempered with annoyance. When she saw Mrs. Johnson, the
crimson that burned on her usually pale cheek spread over her face and
neck, while, spite of shame and anger, her mouth dimpled almost to a
laugh as that lady performed her curtsies at the door. Maria gave one
glance of comic distress at my face, which was burning till it pained
me, and another toward the farther extremity of the room. There was Mr.
Johnson perched on a music stool, and fingering the keys of a piana, as
he called Maria’s superb rose-wood instrument, and the feet of those
little Johnsons dangled from two of the chairs near by: there, at my
right hand, was Mrs. Johnson, radiant as a sunflower, and disposed to
make herself peculiarly fascinating and agreeable to our visiters. She
informed the law students that her husband was a great musicianer, that
he led the singing in the Methodist meeting-house at home, every other
Sunday, when the ministers came to preach, and that her two boys gave
strong indications of musical genius which had almost induced Mr.
Johnson to patronize their village singing-school. While in the midst of
this eloquence, her eye was caught by a rich scarf worn by one of our
lady visiters, so changing the subject she began to express her
admiration, and, after taking an end of the scarf in her hands and
minutely examining the pattern, she inquired the price of its fair
owner, and called her husband to say if he could not afford one like it
for her.

There was a roguish look in the lady’s eye, but she politely informed
Mrs. J. where the scarf was purchased, and, being too well bred to laugh
in our faces, the party took their leave. We breathed freely once more;
but Maria and I had scarcely exchanged glances of congratulation for
their absence, when another party was announced. To be mortified thus a
second time was beyond endurance, and while Maria stepped forward to
close the folding doors on Mr. Johnson and his musical performance, I
turned in very desperation to his better half and proposed to accompany
her in a walk about the city. Most earnestly did I entreat her to
exchange that fine bonnet and orange-colored silk shawl for a cottage
and merino of my own; but no, Mrs. J. clung to her tri-colors
tenaciously as a Frenchman, so investing myself in the rejected articles
we sallied forth.

As we were turning a corner into Chapel-street, I looked back and lo,
the two boys walking behind us, lovingly as the Siamese twins. This
reminded Mrs. Johnson that she had promised them some candy, so I was
forced into a confectioner’s shop that the young gentlemen might be
gratified. The candy was purchased and a pound of raisins called for.
While the man was weighing them, she called out,

“Stop a minute, while I see if I’ve got change enough for ’em,” and
sitting down on a keg she took out a large green worsted purse with
deliberate ostentation, and untied a quantity of silver and copper cents
into her lap. Being satisfied with this display of her wealth, she gave
the man permission to proceed. I had suffered so much that day that the
jeering smile of that candy-man went for nothing.

On leaving the candy shop I allowed my tormentor to choose her own
direction, which, as my evil stars would have it, led directly before
the Tontine, and there, upon the steps, stood the two young gentlemen
who had serenaded Maria and myself only the night before, and whom we
had seen that morning on the college grounds. They recognized me and
bowed, Mrs. Johnson instantly appropriated the compliment, paused, faced
about and returned their salutations with a curtsey for each, while she
scolded the boys for not having “manners enough to make their bows when
gentlemen noticed them.” The urchins took off their wool hats and did
make their bows. My serenaders of the Sophomore class could not
withstand this, and though their faces were turned away, I had a
delightful consciousness that they were ready to die with suppressed
laughter as I urged my companion down the street.

A short distance below the Tontine stands a most splendid mansion,
perhaps, at that time, the most costly one in the city. Two of my school
mates resided there and I was very anxious to pass without being
observed, but just as we came opposite the front windows which opened to
the ground, Mrs. Johnson made a dead halt, and pointing to the house,
called out, “Come here, boys, and see what a sight o’ windows this ere
house has got.”

The little Johnsons had lingered behind, but they ran up and obeyed
their mother’s summons, by planting themselves directly before us, and
the whole group took another survey of the building. I looked up, the
blinds of a chamber were gently parted and I caught a glimpse of two
sweet, familiar faces looking down upon our interesting party. “They are
staring at us, do walk on!” I whispered in a perfect agony.

Mrs. Johnson paid no attention, she was looking earnestly down the
street, I apprehensively followed the direction of her gaze. The two
Sophomore students were coming up the opposite side walk laughing
immoderately, a piece of ill breeding which they endeavored to check
when their eyes met mine, but all in vain. Their eyes laughed in spite
of the violence put upon the lips. I could endure it no longer but tore
my arm from the tenacious grasp of my tormentor, turned the first corner
and hastened home.

When Mrs. Johnson returned she had forgotten my rudeness in her delight
at the attentions paid her by the students. “They had talked and laughed
together a full half hour,” she said, “and were so perlite.”

“What did you talk about?” I inquired with uncomfortable foreboding.

“Why, I believe it was purty much about you, after all.”

“Me?” said I, faintly.

“Yes, they asked how long we’d been acquainted, so, of course, I told
them what old friends we were—kind of relations.”

The last drop was flung in the bowl—and it overflowed—I said I was
ill—had a headache—and running to my room, locked myself in.

I never had courage to ask Maria what occurred after my exit. But the
next morning I arose very early, threw open the blinds and looked out.
The day was breaking, like an angel’s smile, in the east, dividing the
gray mist with a line of radiance, and embroidering the horizon with its
delicate golden threads. The fresh air came up from an opposite garden
rich with fragrance. The flowers bent their wet heads as it came with a
gentle breath and charmed the odor from their cups; the grass had not
yet flung off its night jewelry, and all around was still and silent as
the heart of a wilderness—no, there was one sound not so musical as it
might have been, but still the most welcome that ever fell on my ear. It
was the rattle of Mr. Johnson’s wagon as it came lumbering up to the
front door. And the most gratifying sight of that lovely morning was the
old chesnut horse stalking down the street, and dragging behind him Mr.
Johnson, Mrs. Johnson, and both the little Johnsons.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                      THE STUDENT’S DREAM OF FAME.


                           BY ROBERT MORRIS.


    ’Tis midnight’s solemn hour! And mark—yon room
    Narrow, and dimly lit. The thicken’d gloom
    Of deepest night is scarcely chased away,
    The lamp so small—so thin its feeble ray!
    Alas! poor student! What a fate is thine!
    Within thy bosom burns a ray divine,
    A fire has to thy spirit’s cell been given,
    Alive with flame caught from the founts of Heaven!
    Genius is thine, and like a worshipper
    Of some far world, or glory beaming star.
    Night after night, thou toilest slowly on,
    Each thought refining—each comparison,
    And phrase, and figure, weighing well and long,
    And thus thy life-blood pouring with thy song!

    How little reck we of the toil of mind!
    The inward strain some sparkling thought to find—
    The hollow cheek—the fever-thrilling brain—
    And worse than all, when venal is the strain,
    And the poor author toils alone for gain!
    Not such, pale wooer of the solemn night,
    Not such thy fate. The far and dazzling light
    That leads thee on, is that which Death nor Time
    Can wholly quench—the towering light sublime,
    That burns in Fame’s high temple—the strong fire
    That flashed when Milton struck his mighty lyre!
    The radiant Future dawns upon thy sight,
    And all thy being maddens with delight—
    The dust that forms thy fragile body now,
    May shrink and fade, as melts the early snow—
    And where the blue veins course throughout thy form,
    The things of death may revel with the worm—
    But oh! wild vision—thought o’er mastering death,
    Thy name shall brighten with thy parting breath—
    Beings as yet unborn shall give thee praise—
    And Glory’s hand shall bind thy brow with bays!
    For this—for this—thine hours are given to toil,
    For this alone thou burn’st the midnight oil—
    Thou see’st the Future radiant with thy name,
    And yield’st thy life in sacrifice for Fame!

                 *        *        *        *        *




                           THE ZANONI GALLOP.


                    COMPOSED FOR GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.


[Illustration: musical score]

                 *        *        *        *        *




                          REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.


    _The Fountain and other Poems. By William C. Bryant. One vol.
    12mo. New York: Wiley & Putnam, 1842._

It will give pleasure to the lovers of elegant literature to learn that
Mr. Bryant has prepared a second volume of poems. Many, if not all of
them, have before appeared in the magazines; but the book will not be
welcomed the less warmly for that reason. Indeed, no one reads a poem by
this author without desiring to possess it in the most agreeable and
permanent form. His admirers will be gratified, therefore, that he has
so far overcome his singular feeling of modesty as to make a collection
of his scattered gems, and present them in a casket to the public.

So much has been said of the character of Bryant’s genius that we have
no disposition to enter upon that subject now; his various and high
excellencies have been pretty generally recognized; indeed, more
universally than those of any other living poet; and he himself—even if
his literary vanity is a thousand times as great as we believe it to
be—and his most ardent admirers, must be satisfied with the feeling
entertained by the public toward him. They must be satisfied, because
that feeling is in the highest degree friendly. As to ourselves, we are
conscious that our estimation of him has been constantly undergoing a
change. We have been deepening and enlarging the grounds of our
admiration. The more we have read, the more we have reflected upon his
poems, the stronger have grown our convictions of his preëminent merit.
Nor are we alone in this experience. We remember well the remark of a
friend, in whose critical discernment we are accustomed to place
considerable reliance, and who, being a foreigner, is not likely to have
been led away by that fondness for over praise which is said to mark the
literary criticisms of the Americans—“I have been,” said he, “again
reading your poet; and must confess that, as deeply as I felt his
excellence before, I have never until now formed an adequate idea of the
extent of his genius. Although I thought I had exhausted his depth, I
find that new views of the most exalted and touching thought are
continually opening upon me. I know not when I shall have done
admiring.” We replied, and the observation is worth repeating, that this
only showed the perfection of the poet’s art; for true art, like
nature—indeed, being nature itself—is inexhaustible, and the more it
is studied the greater and the richer are the resources which it
discovers. A creation, whether it be of a world, a poem, or a picture,
is an infinite work, and can be profitably contemplated year after
year—each look revealing some new and remarkable trait.

There could be no better proof of the singular merits of Mr. Bryant’s
poetry than the fact that men of every school of art, and of every
variety of taste, agree in the acknowledgment of its claims. The
disciples of Pope and of Wordsworth—those who profess to find the
excellence of the poetic art only in its external forms, and those who
look into the body of its thought and meaning—the lover of graceful
rhythm and expression, and the admirer of profound reflection or
passion—alike concur in the sentiment of admiration and respect for
Bryant. We do not mean that it shall be inferred from this that no one
is a poet who does not awaken this unanimity of feeling, for some of the
greatest poets of the last century—Shelley for instance—are not even
yet appreciated; but we mean that when this unanimity does exist it is a
most unquestionable proof of merit. It is true, it does not always
demonstrate the highest merit; yet it shows, more conclusively perhaps
than anything, that the beauties of the author are of that unequivocal,
obvious kind, which the child and the savage, the illiterate man and the
philosopher, are alike capable of recognizing. It is an easy task, then,
to point out the characteristics which have given the poet his general
celebrity. One of the most striking is the complete mastery of language
that he every where displays. If there were not many higher traits to be
discovered, we should think he spent his whole time in casting his
thoughts in the most beautiful form of expression. Precision,
compactness, purity, elegance, and force, mark every line in an almost
equal degree. It is this nice perception of the proprieties of language
that gives such exquisite finish to his versification. Its melody is
perfect.[1] Line follows line in liquid and beautiful harmony—yet all
is as simple as the utterance of a child. There is no where swelling
pomp or straining for effect. The terms, no less than the style and
manner arise naturally out of the thought. When the subject is grave and
imposing, the movement is slow and solemn; but when the theme is
lighter, the measure becomes airy, elastic, and playful. Compare, as a
proof of this, the impressive tread of “The Ages,” or “Thanatopsis,” in
which the long line of buried nations and men file before us in all
their silent majesty, with the graceful motion of “The Gladness of
Nature” or the wild dance of “The Song of the Stars.”

Two things, however, above all others, distinguish the poetry of Mr.
Bryant. The first is the fidelity with which it paints natural scenery,
and the second, the pensive and profound, yet Christian philosophy which
pervades its spirit. As we have remarked in another place, no man ever
lived whose sensibility was more susceptible than Mr. Bryant’s. Not only
is his eye open to Nature, but every fibre of his being seems to be
tremblingly alive to its presence. His nerves, like the Æolian harp, the
faintest breath of wind can make vibrate musically. The shapes and hues
of natural objects, in all their infinite diversity, seem to be the
constant companions of his thoughts. Hardly a leaf or a flower exists
with which he is not familiar. From the spire of grass by the wayside to
the huge oak in the mountains, from the violet in its secluded bed to
the bright and boundless firmament, from the shy bird brooding in his
silent nooks to the stars that weave their everlasting web of motion
through the sky, all things of nature claim his loving friendship and
care. Streams, and woods, and meadows, and rocks, and lakes mingle in
his musings, and are the very staple of his imagination. They are

    “His haunt, and main region of his song.”

If we turn over his title-pages, we shall find that about two thirds of
his subjects are drawn from the various aspects or phenomena of external
nature; while, by consulting the poems themselves, we shall see that so
delicate is his eye, so perfect his command of language, and so
exquisite his taste, that his descriptions have all the effect of a
faithful but warmly colored picture. We say warmly colored, for with all
his minuteness and accuracy in the delineation of nature, he possesses a
wonderful power of imagination.

But it is not so much the graces of language or style, or the
appropriateness or beauty of imagery, as the pensive but deep and manly
philosophy, that incites our admiration of Mr. Bryant’s genius. It must
strike every one, upon the most slight and cursory perusal of his poems,
that he is a man of the most unquestionable good sense. The silent
meditation of nature, in her more genial and subduing aspects, seems to
have imparted to him the gentleness, truth, simplicity, and calmness
that ever await upon her teachings. In the spirit of his own “Forest
Hymn,” he seems often to have returned to the solitudes, to reassure his
virtue, and thus, while meditating in “God’s first temples,” His milder
majesty,

          “to the beautiful order of His works
    Seemed to conform the action of his life.”

Sweet affections, tenderness, patience, love, and, above all, trust in
Nature and God, are the virtues that chiefly inspire his song. It is for
this reason, that amidst his most striking and picturesque descriptions
there is always something to soften and improve. Not the tempest, the
earth-quake, or the torrent move him, but nature, in her gladness and
smiles. With every phase of the external world he has connected some
noble moral, or some beautiful religious or philosophical sentiment.
Indeed, these are so many and so touching that it is equally a matter of
amusement and instruction to trace them. Thus, in the deep slumber of
the woodlands he finds an emblem of the inward peace that marks the life
of virtue, twilight hues, “lingering after the bright sun has set,” are
like the memory of good men gone; the perishing flowers of autumn recall
those who “in their youthful beauty died;” the golden sunlight that
follows the tempest anticipates the day when “the voice of war shall
cease, and married nations dwell in harmony;” the unconscious flow of
the rivulet shows how changeless nature is amid all her change; the
flight of the lone bird amid the air tells of that power that in “the
long way that we must tread alone, will guide our steps aright;” while
“morn and eve, whose glimmerings almost meet,” indicate the spread of
the light of that knowledge and justice which is destined to

    “Crowd back to narrow bounds the ancient night.”

It must be confessed, however, speaking of the spirit of Mr. Bryant’s
poetry, that many of his readers feel the absence of a deep and fervid
interest in humanity. They have complained, and we think in some degree
justly, that he exhibits too little of human passion. His mind, to use a
distinction of the Germans, has been too objective, and not enough
subjective; the forms and appearance of the outward world have absorbed
his attention almost to the exclusion of the feelings and sentiments of
the inward being. Not that he has been wholly wanting in sympathy for
his race, for in the “Ages,” the “Old Man’s Funeral,” the “Living Lost,”
the “Fairest of the Rural Maids,” and other of his poems, there are to
be found passages of the most touching and subduing pathos; but that the
truths of man’s existence; his experience on earth; the mysteries of his
condition; the trials of his life; his deathless affections; his sublime
hopes of a future state; and other topics of that character, have been
neglected. They have wished that one who could discourse so truthfully
and genially of stars, and skies, and flowers, and forests, should speak
to them, out of the depths of his own nature, of that quickening
principle which is more lovely in itself, of higher worth, and more
lasting, than the whole outward world—the human soul. They have wished
that he who has been able to interpret in such beautiful meaning the
language of nature, would apply the same noble and accomplished skill to
the interpretation of the heart. They would have him, like Wordsworth,
to whom he is in this respect only second, sing more

    “Of Truth, of Grandeur, Beauty, Love and Hope—
    And melancholy Fear subdued by Faith;
    Of blessed consolations in distress;
    Of moral strength and intellectual power;
    Of joy in widest commonalty spread;
    Of the individual Mind that keeps her own
    Inviolate retirement, subject them
    To conscience only, and the law supreme
    Of that Intelligence which governs all.”

We say that they would have him treat more frequently of such themes;
let us add that their wishes are in a fair way of being gratified. We
find, on comparing the present volume with Mr. Bryant’s former one, that
his thoughts have already taken the direction to which we refer. Indeed,
we have before remarked, that of late years his mind had been coming
into closer contact with human sympathies. The last poem of his first
volume—The Battle Field—so full of the highest truth, so inspiring and
consolatory, may be ranked with the best lyrics of the language. In the
volume before us, the larger number of poems are of a similar character.
Where is there a finer or a loftier hymn than the following?

               THE FUTURE LIFE.

    How shall I know thee in the sphere which keeps
      The disembodied spirits of the dead,
    When all of thee that time could wither sleeps
      And perishes among the dust we tread?

    For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless pain
      If there I meet thy gentle presence not;
    Nor hear the voice I love, nor read again
      In thy serenest eyes the tender thought.

    Will not thy own meek heart demand me there?
      That heart whose fondest throbs to me were given?
    My name on earth was ever in thy prayer,
      Shall it be banished from thy tongue in heaven?

    In meadows fanned by heaven’s life-breathing wind,
      In the resplendence of that glorious sphere,
    And larger movements of the unfettered mind,
      Wilt thou forget the love that joined us here?

    The love that lived through all the stormy past
      And meekly with my harsher nature bore
    And deeper grew, and tenderer to the last,
      Shall it expire with life, and be no more?

    A happier lot than mine, and larger light,
      Await thee there; for thou hast bowed thy will
    In cheerful homage to the rule of right,
      And lovest all, and renderest good for ill.

    For me, the sordid cares in which I dwell,
      Shrink and consume the heart, as heat the scroll;
    And wrath hath left its scar—that fire of hell
      Has left its frightful scar upon my soul.

    Yet, though thou wear’st the glory of the sky,
      Wilt thou not keep the same beloved name,
    The same fair thoughtful brow, and gentle eye,
      Lovelier in heaven’s sweet climate, yet the same?

    Shalt thou not teach me, in that calmer home,
      The wisdom that I learned so ill in this—
    The wisdom which is love—till I become
      Thy fit companion in that land of bliss?

Whoever can read this without feeling his affections expand, or his
whole nature grow better, has less than the sensibility of humanity. We
should be glad to present other pieces to our readers, of the same
character;[2] and particularly to quote the noble poem entitled “The
Antiquity of Freedom,” in which liberty is so nobly impersonated, but we
have not room for further extracts, and can only indulge in one or two
closing remarks. It appears to be a common regret with those who speak
or write of Mr. Bryant, that he has not, as they express it, written a
“great” poem. Be it observed, that by a _great_ poem is here meant a
_long_ poem—a poem that in print will form a quarto! This kind of
critic measures poems as the Dutch are said formerly to have gauged the
merits of books—by their size. Perhaps of no author is there less
reason for the lamentation that he has not written a great poem; for, in
truth, he has written not only one, but nearly two dozen works of this
description. He has written a series of lyrics, each perfect in itself,
manifesting the highest excellence of that department of art, and
destined to an existence as indestructible as the richest treasures of
the English tongue. Indeed, we may safely say of him, that he has
written a larger number of excellent poems than any other English
author. So uniform is this excellence that it is difficult to make a
selection between his various compositions. As some one has said of
Shakspeare’s plays, the best one is that which you read last. The cause
of this is, that Mr. Bryant writes as an _artist_. He does not, with the
multitude of our poetasters, throw off lines as a patent printing press
does newspapers, five thousand an hour. He feels like a true artist, and
composes with the labor and spirit of one who is confident that his
works will live.

-----

[1] We should, perhaps, except in the “Green Mountain Boys” the badly
sounding line near the close—

    “The _towers_ and the lake are _ours_.”

[2] The touching poem entitled _The Maiden’s Sorrow_, on another page of
this number, illustrates what we have said above of Mr. Bryant’s most
recent effusions. It was written by him for this Magazine since the
preparation of his volume.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _The Official and other Papers of the late Maj. Gen. Alexander
    Hamilton: Compiled chiefly from the Originals in the possession
    of Mrs. Hamilton. Vol. I. 8vo. Pp. 496. New York and London:
    Wiley & Putnam. Philadelphia: Carey & Hart._

Every year, we believe, the name of Alexander Hamilton is becoming
dearer to the American People. The prejudices occasioned by some of his
unpopular and perhaps erroneous political opinions are passing away, and
all men are beginning to look upon his great qualities and important
services with candor, and consequent admiration and gratitude. The
volume of his official and other papers before us was edited by the Rev.
Francis L. Hawks, D. D. whose known familiarity with early American
history fitted him well for the duty. It commences with some letters
written while Hamilton was a clerk in a merchant’s counting-house in the
island of St. Croix, in 1769. He was then but _thirteen years old_, and
his correspondence at this early period is chiefly remarkable as showing
that strong reliance on his own resources which was so well vindicated
by the after fortunes of the man. The remainder of the book is made up
of controversial essays in defence of the measures of the continental
Congress and of the steps preparatory to the Revolution, and of his
military and private correspondence down to the close of the year 1780.
A few of the letters have before been published. Almost every one has
read the admirable account of the arrest and fate of Andre, which he
addressed to his friend Laurens. It is not surpassed in interest or
pathos by any narrative of the circumstances, in prose or verse, by
historian or novelist, that has appeared. General Hamilton was an
accomplished gentleman and a brave soldier, but his fame, as “the second
man of the republic,” rests on his achievements as a statesman, and the
succeeding volume of these papers, to embrace the period from 1780 to
1793, will contain matters of far more general and profound interest
than the one before us. The task of Dr. Hawks has been little more than
that of compilation; he but arranged the papers in chronological order
and added occasionally a note; thinking that the recently published life
of General Hamilton by his son, John C. Hamilton, rendered a
biographical notice unnecessary. We think he erred: there are among us
but few such _character-writers_ as the historian of the Church in
America, and an extended introduction to the work, from his pen, would
have added much to its value.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _The Book of the Poets: The Poets of the Nineteenth Century.
    London, Scott, Webster, & Co. Philadelphia, Carey & Hart._

This is a splendid octavo volume, in the style of S. C. Hall’s “Book of
Gems,” published in London, in 1838, but is larger and more profusely
illustrated. It contains an elaborate and well written essay on the
English poetry of the present age, and selections from the works of the
following authors, with brief biographical and critical notices. William
Gifford, Joanna Baillie, Hannah Moore, Robert Bloomfield, George Crabbe,
William Sotheby, Samuel Rogers, William Lisle Bowles, William
Wordsworth, James Montgomery, Charles Dibdin, Thomas Haynes Bayley, Sir
Walter Scott, S. T. Coleridge, Mary Tighe, James Hogg, Walter Savage
Landor, Robert Southey, Charles Lamb, Thomas Campbell, Ebenezer Elliott,
Reginald Heber, Thomas Moore, Leigh Hunt, Henry Kirke White, Lord Byron,
Barry Cornwall, Professor Wilson, Henry Hart Milman, Charles Wolfe,
Allan Cunningham, P. B. Shelley, John Clare, Mrs. Hemans, John Keats,
George Croly, Robert Pollok, Mary Russel Mitford, Letitia Elizabeth
Landon, James Sheridan Knowles, Mrs. Norton, and others. We have not had
leisure to examine the selections generally, but presume they are
judiciously made. Doubtless the work will be in great demand during the
holiday season.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _The Life of Peter Van Schaack, LL. D. Embracing selections from
    his Correspondence, and other writings during the American
    Revolution, and his Exile in England. By his son, Henry C. Van
    Schaack. One vol. 8vo. pp. 500. New York: D. Appleton & Co.
    Philadelphia: Carey & Hart._

This is a novel and interesting contribution to our historical
literature, Mr. Van Schaack was an eminent young lawyer in the city of
New York during the period immediately preceding the Revolution, and was
on terms of intimacy with John Jay, Richard Harrison, Gouverneur Morris,
and other master-spirits of that time. He was opposed to the declaration
of independence in the colonies, and to the resort to arms in its
defence, and for his opinions was banished to England. While abroad he
was placed in situations to see and to learn much in regard to the
movements of both parties, and his strictures on the policy of the
British, notices of public characters, etc., throw additional light upon
the most important era in our history. He was a pious and well educated
man, with strong powers of observation, classical taste and much skill
in the use of language; and his son has done the country an acceptable
service by publishing his memoirs and writings. A fine portrait by
Gimbrede, from a painting by Colonel Trumbull, adds to the beauty and
value of the volume.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _An Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of
    England, by Bishop Burnet. With an Appendix, containing the
    Augsburg Confession, Creed of Pope Pius IV., &c. Revised and
    Corrected, with copious Notes and additional References, by the
    Rev. James R. Paige, A.M., of Queen’s College, Cambridge. One
    volume, 8vo. New York: D. Appleton & Co._

The valuable notes from the most distinguished theological writers of
the sixteenth century, biographical sketches of celebrated divines and
controvertists, indices, etc. which the learned editor has added to the
great work of Bishop Burnet, must cause this edition to supersede every
other as a manual for students. It is printed in Messrs. Appleton and
Company’s usual style of elegance and _correctness_.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _The Writings of Rev. William Bradford Homer, with a Memoir, by
    Edwards A. Park. One vol. 12mo. Pp. 420. Boston: Tappan &
    Dennet. Philadelphia: H. Perkins._

From the interesting memoir by Professor Park we learn that Mr. Homer
was a native of Boston; that he was educated at Amherst College and the
Theological School at Andover; and that he died in 1841, at South
Berwick, in Maine, where he was settled as minister over a
Congregational Church. His literary remains consist of addresses,
religious discourses, and notes on the classics, all of which are
distinguished for elegance of taste and correct and appropriate thought.
It is hardly necessary so to speak of a volume from the Boston press, as
well printed.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _History of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign
    Missions. Compiled chiefly from the published and unpublished
    documents of the Board. By Joseph Tracy. Second edition,
    carefully revised and enlarged. One vol. 8vo. New York: M. W.
    Dodd, 1842._

The American Missionary Society has doubtless done more for the
promotion of religion and civilization than any other association in the
world. Its progress, condition, and prospects must, therefore, be deeply
interesting to the better classes of men in every country. The work
before as is written with great care and ability, and brings the history
of the society’s operations down to the commencement of the present
year. It is compactly printed and illustrated by several engravings.

                 *        *        *        *        *

    _The Poetical Remains of the late Lucy Hooper, with a Memoir, by
    John Keese. One vol. 12mo. Philadelphia, Carey & Hart. New York,
    Samuel Colman._

Lucy Hooper died last year in the city of Brooklyn, near New York, at
the early age of twenty-four years. She had previously become widely
known by her contributions, in prose and verse, to the periodicals,
distinguished alike for their elegant diction, purity of thought, and
womanly feeling. The Memoir, by Mr. Keese, is an admirable specimen of
character-writing, and the work altogether is one of the most
interesting of its kind published in this country. We regret our
inability to give a more extended notice of it in this number of our
magazine.

                 *        *        *        *        *




                            EDITOR’S TABLE.


To Readers And Correspondents.—It affords us great pleasure to state
that the publisher of this magazine has entered into engagements with
James Fenimore Cooper, the most popular of our country’s authors, by
which we shall be enabled to present in every number, after that for
September, an article from his pen. Mr. Cooper has never before been
connected with any periodical. His works are so familiar to every reader
in the old or the new world, that it is unnecessary to speak at length
of the increase in interest and value our magazine will derive from his
contributions.

Of Professor Longfellow’s poems several have already appeared in this
magazine. He has recently completed a drama, in three acts, entitled
“_The Spanish Student_,” the MS. of which is in our possession. It is
the most elaborate, and will unquestionably prove to be the most popular
of his poetical works. It will appear, entirely or in part, in our next
number. Professor Longfellow is now abroad, in quest of health. From an
exquisite poem addressed to him on the day of his departure, by his
friend George S. Hillard, we quote the following stanza, joining
heartily in the invocation—

    Ye gales that breathe, ye founts that gush,
      With renovating power,
    Upon that loved and laurelled head,
      Your gifts of healing shower:
    And jocund Health that loves to climb
      The breezy mountain side;
    Wake with your touch, to bounding life,
      His pulse’s languid tide!

The name of William Cullen Bryant—dear to the lovers of elegant
literature wherever the English tongue is spoken—appears now, for the
first time, on our pages. We have elsewhere given some opinions on his
character as a poet, in which we doubt not every reader will concur.

“Henri Quatre, or the Days of the League” was republished in this
country immediately after its appearance in London, and universally
pronounced one of the best romances in the language. It has since passed
through several editions, and is now incorporated with the standard
works of fiction. The author, it will be perceived, has become a writer
for this magazine, and the admirable story entitled “_De Pontis_,” of
which the first part is given in the preceding pages, will sustain his
high reputation.

Charles Fenno Hoffman, the accomplished author of “A Winter in the
West,” “Wild Scenes in the Forest and the Prairie,” “Greyslaer,” “The
Vigil of Faith,” etc., has also become a regular contributor, and our
next number will contain a tale in his best manner.

Theodore S. Fay, author of “Norman Leslie,” “Reveries of a Quiet Man,”
“The Countess Ida,” etc., and now United States Secretary of Legation at
Berlin, will continue to write for our pages.

Henry T. Tuckerman, author of “Isabelle, or Sicily,” “The Italian Sketch
Book,” “Rambles and Reveries,” etc., has likewise been engaged, and an
article from his pen will appear in September.

Alfred B. Street, one of the best descriptive poets now living, has
forwarded to us a beautiful poem which will also be published in the
number for the next month.

One more part will complete Mr. Herbert’s spirited tale, “The Sisters.”
We have received another article by this popular writer, which will soon
be laid before our readers.

Niagara Falls.—This number of our magazine appears in the midst of “the
hot season,” while the warmest aspirations of its readers are for “the
cool retreats, the woodlands, and the waves.” In August no place is more
attractive than _Niagara_—as our friend Schoolcraft, who understands
better than any one else the Indian tongues, says the name should be
pronounced—and the following letter from the _Cataract House_ will
therefore be read with interest, especially by those who intend to visit
the scenes it so admirably describes.

                            CATARACT HOUSE, Niagara Falls, July, 1842.

_Friend Griswold_:—Years, though not many, have weighed upon me since
first, in boyhood, I gazed from the deck of a canal-boat upon the
distant cloud of white vapor which marked the position of the world’s
great cataract, and listened to catch the rumbling of its deep thunders.
Circumstances did not then permit me to gratify my strong desire of
visiting it; and now, when I am tempted to wonder at the stolidity of
those who live within a day’s journey, yet live on through half a
century without one glance at the mighty torrent, I am checked by the
reflection that I myself passed within a dozen miles of it no less than
five times before I was able to enjoy its magnificence. The propitious
hour came at last, however; and, after a disappointed gaze from the
upper terrace on the British side, (in which I half feared that the
sheet of broken and boiling water above was all the cataract that
existed,) and a rapid tortuous descent by the woody declivity, I stood
at length on Table Rock, and the whole immensity of the tremendous
avalanche of waters burst at once on my arrested vision, while Awe
struggled with Amazement for the mastery of my soul.

This was late in October; I have twice revisited the scene amid the
freshness and beauty of June; but I think the later Autumn is by far the
better season. There is then a sternness in the sky, a plaintive
melancholy in the sighing of the wind through the mottled forest
foliage, which harmonizes better with the spirit of the scene. For the
Genius of Niagára, O friend! is never a laughter-loving spirit. For the
gaudy vanities, the petty pomps, the light follies of the hour, he has
small sympathy. Let not the giddy heir bring here his ingots, the
selfish aspirant his ambition, the libertine his victim, and hope to
find enjoyment and gaiety in the presence. Let none come here to nurse
his pride, or avarice, or any low desire. God and His handiwork here
stand forth in lone sublimity; and all the petty doings and darings of
the ants at the base of the pyramid appear in their proper
insignificance. Few can have visited Niagára and left it no humbler, no
graver than they came.

The common fault of visiters here, as of sight-seers elsewhere, is that
of haste. Two hours are devoted to a scene which requires days, if not
weeks, for its proper appreciation. Niagára, like St. Peter’s at Rome,
enlarges on the vision; the mind must have time to expand ere it can
grasp all its giant proportions. The first view always deludes and
disappoints the gazer with regard to the height of the perpendicular
fall; the vast scale on which Nature has fashioned her wonder-work
deceives; the depth, and breadth, and volume, detract from the altitude;
and I doubt if the larger number of new comers would not estimate the
height at less than one half the one hundred and sixty feet which the
line gives from surface above to surface below. Observation, however,
soon corrects the error; if not, a walk down the interminable stairway,
and a gaze upward at the ocean which seems to be poured from a window of
heaven, will do it at once.

The giant masonry of Nature, which has so long interposed a barrier
against the draining of Lake Erie into Ontario at a rush, and the
consequent overwhelming of all the dwellers upon the latter and the St.
Lawrence by a deluge, is evidently wearing away; I can perceive a
decided change since I first stood here, seven years ago. The main or
British fall is receding near the middle, and thus exchanging its
original (or recent) form of a horseshoe for that of an irregular wedge.
By this process the beauty and grandeur of the cataract are sensibly
diminished. I understand that the recession here, under the pressure of
so vast a body of water, has been so rapid as essentially to diminish
the amount of water flowing on the American side of Goat Island, even
within twenty years. Five hundred will probably suffice to dry this
channel altogether; five thousand may or may not suffice to bring on the
great convulsion which will destroy the falls entirely, change Lake Erie
into a sandy valley divided by a rapid river, leave one half the Erie
Canal without water, and change the whole face of Nature from Detroit to
the Ocean, And why from Detroit only? It _may_ be that a barrier of rock
equally firm prevents the immediate occurrence of a similar convulsion
at the mouths of the Huron and Michigan, and thus the cataract will but
be transferred to a point much nearer the Superior; yet I should deem it
quite as likely that the final submersion of Niagara, if instantaneous,
as it very probably will be, when the rocky barrier has been sapped and
broken down so nearly through as no longer to afford adequate resistance
to the intense pressure of Lake Erie, will be the signal for a
convulsion so mighty as to change the whole topography of Central North
America.

Since I wrote the foregoing, I have slept to the music of the great
cataract, my window looking out on the foaming and hurrying waters of
the American current, just before it is precipitated over the ledge. It
has rained through a good part of the night, though the roar of the
waters drowned completely the noise of the storm, and the morning is wet
and forbidding, while a heavy fog or cloud detracts much from the
grandeur of the scene. My morning walk along the American shore has been
less satisfactory than any previous observation, the water suspended in
vapor somewhat shrouding the spectacle, while that falling or fallen
detracts likewise from the comfort of all but web-footed travellers. No
matter—I did not meditate any precise description of the Fall, and
shall not attempt it. The readers of your Magazine, I presume, are
mainly of the class who have either been here or intend to see for
themselves at a fitting season. And beside, description avails very
little in such a case. It is only by its comparisons and assimilations
of the unknown with the known that description enlightens—and what has
the world to compare with Niagara?

A few hints to visiters must close this hasty epistle. They tell you,
good friends, that the best view of the Cataract is that from the Canada
side; and so it is; but it is far from being the _only_ good or even
necessary view. The details are essential to the completeness and
fulness of your impression, and those are only gleaned from hours of
intent observation from all positions. The very best view is probably
that from Table Rock; the next best perhaps that from under the same, on
the point just before passing behind the grand curtain, when having
descended the winding stairway and scrambled over some rods of shale
between the beetling cliff and the whirling basin, forcing your way
through an eternal tempest of wind and rain such as upper earth endures
but once in many years, you stand at length directly face to face with
the mighty torrent, and put your hands, if you please, into the edge of
its very self. You look up, and the columnar sea seems pouring from the
very sky overhead; you now learn to appreciate more justly the vast
height of the Fall; as you gaze, the impending water seems to advance
upon, and the next moment likely to dash over and whelm you.

But these are not alone as points of deepest interest; and I think some
of the many views from Goat Island scarcely inferior in impressiveness,
while superior in softness and beauty. The noble forest, the velvet
turf, the glowing sun-beams, the unconstrained stillness of all things
save the Great Cataract itself, fitly blend with and modify the first
sensations of unapproachable grandeur and power. The stern severity, the
austere majesty of the scene is softened down; and we return to our
primal knowledge of Nature under no stepmother aspect, but as a
sympathizing confidant and friend. I must break off.

                                                               Yours,

                                                                 H. G.

                 *        *        *        *        *

John Fitch.—Our readers will be pleased to learn that Miss Leslie is
preparing for the press a Memoir of this remarkable man, to whom the
world is really indebted for the most important of modern discoveries.
While Fitch was in London Miss Leslie’s father was one of his warmest
friends, and the papers of her family enable her to give many
particulars of his history unknown to other biographers. A year or two
since, we wrote a brief account of the eccentric and unfortunate
inventor, which led to an interesting correspondence with several
eminent persons who had been acquainted with him. Among the letters
which we received was the following, from the venerable Noah Webster,
LL. D., of New Haven.

    _Dear Sir_:—In your notice of John Fitch you justly remark that
    his biography is still a desideratum. The facts related of him
    by Mr. St. John to Mr. Stone, and published in the New York
    Commercial Advertiser, are new to me; and never before had I
    heard of Mr. Fitch at _Sharon_, in Connecticut; but I know Mr.
    St. John very well, and cannot discredit his testimony any more
    than I can Mr. Stone’s memory. The substance of the account
    given of Mr. Fitch by the indefatigable J. W. Barber, in his
    Connecticut Historical Collections, is as follows: John Fitch
    was born in East Windsor, in Connecticut, and apprenticed to Mr.
    Cheney, a watch and clock-maker of East Hartford, now
    Manchester, a new town separated from East Hartford. He married,
    but did not live happily with his wife, and he left her and went
    to New Brunswick, in New Jersey, where he set up the business of
    clock-making, engraving, and repairing muskets, before the
    revolution. When New Jersey was invaded by the British troops,
    Mr. Fitch removed into the interior of Pennsylvania, where he
    employed his time in repairing arms for the army.

    Mr. Fitch conceived the project of steam navigation in 1785, as
    appears by his advertisement. He built his boat in 1787. In my
    Diary I have noted that I visited the boat, lying at the wharf
    in the Delaware, on the ninth day of February, 1787. The
    Governor and Council were so much gratified with the success of
    the boat that they presented Mr. Fitch with a superb flag. About
    that time the company aiding Mr. Fitch sent him to France, at
    the request of Mr. Vail, our Consul at L’Orient, who was one of
    the company. But this was when France began to be agitated by
    the revolution, and nothing in favor of Mr. Fitch was
    accomplished; he therefore returned. Mr. Vail afterwards
    _presented to Mr. Fulton for examination the papers of Mr.
    Fitch_, containing his scheme of steam navigation. After Mr.
    Fitch returned to this country, he addressed a letter to Mr.
    Rittenhouse, in which he predicted that in time the _Atlantic
    would be crossed by steam power_; he complained of his poverty,
    and urged Mr. Rittenhouse to buy his land in Kentucky, for
    raising funds to complete his scheme. But he obtained no
    efficient aid. Disappointed in his efforts to obtain funds, he
    resorted to indulgence in drink; he retired to Pittsburgh, and
    finally ended his life by plunging into the Alleghany. His books
    and papers he bequeathed to the Philadelphia Library, with the
    injunction that they were to remain closed for thirty years. At
    the end of that period, the papers were opened, and found to
    contain a minute account of his perplexities and
    disappointments. Thus far the narration of Mr. Barber, who
    refers for authority to the American edition of the Edinburgh
    Encyclopedia. It may be worth while for some gentleman to
    attempt to find these papers.

                                                      N. WEBSTER.

    Rufus W. Griswold.

The papers to which Dr. Webster alludes in the above letter have been
examined by Miss Leslie, and the curious details they contain of Fitch’s
early life, his courtship, unfortunate marriage, captivity among the
Indians, experiments, etc. will be embraced in her work, which will
undoubtedly be one of the most interesting biographies in our language.

                 *        *        *        *        *

William L. Stone, author of “The Life of Brant,” “Life and Eloquence of
Red Jacket,” “History of Wyoming,” etc., is now engaged on another
important historical work to be called “The Life and Times of Sir
William Johnson.” It will embrace accounts of the French wars in America
from 1743 to 1849, and from 1754 to 1761, which resulted in the conquest
of Canada. With this interesting period no writer is more familiar than
Mr. Stone, and he will unquestionably produce a volume of great value.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Segur’s Life of Charles VIII.—Among the new works soon to appear is the
Memoir of Charles VIII., King of France, by Count Philip De Segur,
author of the “History of Napoleon’s Campaigns in Russia,” etc.,
translated by Richard R. Montgomery, of this city. It is one of the most
interesting books ever written. In its style it resembles the Chronicles
of Philip de Comines.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Mr. Stevens, the Traveller.—Mr. Stevens, with Mr. Catherwood who
accompanied him as draughtsman, has returned a second time from Central
America, and is now busily engaged on a new work in regard to the
curious antiquities of that country. It will be published by the
Harpers, during the autumn.

                 *        *        *        *        *

William Gilmore Simms.—Mr. Simms has become editor of “The Magnolia,” a
monthly literary magazine, recently established at Charleston. No man in
the South is so well qualified for the office. We give him joyfully the
right hand of fellowship.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Mr. Cooper.—“La Few Follet, or Wing-and-Wing, a Nautical Tale,” by the
author of the “Spy,” will appear in a few weeks. The scene of the story
is the Mediterranean, in 1799. It will be published simultaneously in
Philadelphia and London.

                 *        *        *        *        *

John Augustus Shea.—This gentleman has in press a collection of his
poetical writings, of which we shall take due notice on its appearance.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Transcriber’s Notes:

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

[End of _Graham’s Magazine, Vol. XXI, No. 2, August 1842_, George R.
Graham, Editor]