Graham's Magazine, Vol. XL, No. 6, June 1852

Had it been possible for any human intellect, at the close of the eighteenth century, or the commencement of this its nineteenth successor, so to grasp and comprehend the development of science, its expansion and diffusion, and, above all, its application to the every-day wants and conveniences of ordinary human life, as to predict, only fifty years beforehand, any one of the almost incredible marvels which have long ceased to move especial wonder, as being now established facts, witnessed by all eyes, and of occurrence at all hours, the owner of that intellect would not have been merely laughed at as a crazy, crack-brained enthusiast, but would have run a very reasonable chance of being consigned to the cell of a madhouse, as an incorrigible and incurable monomaniac.

The writer of these lines, lacking several years yet of the completion of his tenth lustre, clearly remembers how, within thirty years at furthest, to assert an opinion of the feasibility of lighting streets by gas was to be sneered at for a visionary, or regarded with suspicion as a probable speculator in the fancy, even by the best informed, and most enlightened classes.

To the youngest of his readers the dictum of the then infallible Doctor Dionysius Lardner against the possibility of Ocean Steam Navigation—for, deny it now as he may, he can be clearly convicted of its utterance—is familiar as a household word.

And now, what insignificant town, to say nothing of innumerable private dwellings, innumerable factories and workshops, prison houses, as it were, and ergasteria, would it were otherwise! of plebeian labor, innumerable theatres, assembly-halls, and banquet-rooms, abodes of patrician pleasure, are not ablaze through the murkiest midnight, and light as the broadest day, with the released and radiant spirit, that lay so long enthralled and unsuspected in the hard heart of the swart coal mine?

And now, with what quarter of the world are we not in daily, if not hourly, communication by the united agencies of those two most irreconcilable powers, fire and water?

Hardly one century has elapsed since the American Franklin revealed to the admiring world the scarcely suspected fact, that the subtle spark elicited from the electrifying magazine, or from the hairs of a cat, rubbed contrariwise to their direction, is identical with the sovereign, all-pervading flash,

“Which issues from the loaded cloud,

And rives the oak asunder.”

And now, at this day, we sit quietly engaged in our study, or stand, even, as it may be, laboriously plying our trade of manual labor, and send that very lightning-flash, a tamed domestic influence, nay, but a very slave and pack-horse to our will, to speed our tidings to New Orleans, or to Newfoundland, and to bring us back the answer, before a second hour has lagged round the dial.

Time was, nor very long ago, when to receive news from Europe within thirty days, was esteemed a feat, if not a miracle, on the part of the carriers. Now, or ere a second summer shall have passed, the electric telegraph will be in operation to Cape Race, the south-easternmost point of Newfoundland, and mail steamers will be cleaving the Atlantic far to the northward, to and fro, from the green shores of Galway. Then, within seven days at the utmost, the news of farthest Europe, news from the Vistula, the Danube, and the Don; news from the Tartar and the Turk, shall be sped, more swiftly than though they “had taken the wings of the morning,” to the uttermost parts of America, shall be read almost simultaneously on the shores of the Atlantic and Pacific, and sent far aloof among the oceanic isles of the southern hemisphere, even to drowsy China and remote Taprobane, by the almost unearthly powers of steam and electricity, and last, not least, the press.

The word is out—we have said it—the press—a kindred, not antagonistic, scarcely even rival, power to the two mighty elements we have named—since it has pressed both into its service; and itself, purely human in its origin, its influence, and its importance, purely material in “its age and body, form and pressure,” derives most of its incalculable puissance from the coöperation and subservience of the two mightiest, most unearthly, most immaterial, and most spiritual of essences, existing, or which have existed, in the universe.

But we are not about to write an essay on the power, the influence, the utility of the press. These are too generally appreciated and acknowledged, to render a single paragraph necessary. In the two first particulars of power and influence, the press is incomparable—not to be equaled by any instrument or agency of humanity that ever has existed. The extent of its utility—although still unquestionable—is limited and diminished, “cribbed, coffined,” and curtailed by the weakness, the willfulness, and the wickedness of the very many men, unfit and evil-minded, who have thrust themselves forward, assuming to conduct it, and through it the public mind, with no ulterior object nobler or higher than the misapplication of the weight and moral power with which it invests them, to all sorts of immorality and wrong, to which avarice, rapacity, ambition, and the insane desire of demagogueism may impel them.

This is, however, only to admit that the press is an agency of time and mortality; and as such liable, of a necessity, to be perverted. Perhaps it is rather to be wondered, that there are few base, dishonest, licentious, and self-seeking journals in circulation, than that there are any; and it is clear, that the general tone of the reading world is so gradually and greatly improving, that few of those which now exist receive any considerable support, unless where they have the skill to introduce their false doctrines under cover of some specious sophistry, making them to wear the semblance of reforms. Even these, it may be observed, are daily becoming more and more transparent to the broad and keen eye of the public; and, in proportion as they are comprehended, lose their ill-acquired and abused popularity and power.

In one word, the utility of the press, its beneficial influences, its charities, its diffusion of knowledge and true light, and its general maintenance of the right, out-balance, as by ten thousand fold, the occasional obliquities, injustice, falsehood, and advocacy of devil’s doings here on earth, which periodically disgrace its columns.

For these the press is no more to be censured or condemned, than is the Book of Common Prayer, or the Holy Bible; because—in the middle ages—men, mad with too much, or too little learning—it matters not whether—applied their most hallowed texts, read backward, to the evocation of departed souls from Hades, or of evil spirits from the abyss of very Hell.

It is not, however, of the moral influences, but of the mere material powers of the press, as now existing in its wonderfully improved condition, with all appliances of marvelous time-saving machinery, that we would now speak—machinery born itself of machinery, self-developed from the swart, unplastic ore, with, comparatively speaking, small expense of human labor, though under the control of the all-contriving human brain, into engines of strange and mysterious potency.

It is little to say that the efficiency, and of course the utility, of the printing-press has been increased a thousand fold, that the facility and consequent cheapness, of the reproduction of books has been improved to such an extent that thousands and tens of thousands of volumes are now printed, published, and put into circulation, where there was one thirty years ago; and that too at prices, which bring it easily within the means of all—but the very idlest and poorest—to become familiar with the best thoughts of the brightest geniuses of all ages—That the whole system of journalism, and journal publishing, has passed through a complete revolution, reducing individual prices to a mere nominal fraction, and referring the question of profits, and remuneration of labor, to gross sales of tens of thousands of daily copies—the consequence of which revolution is to place the whole news of the world, including all discoveries of art or science, all arguments and disputations of the first statesmen and orators, all lectures of the most prominent literateurs and philosophers of the day, within the hand’s reach of every farmer and farm-laborer, every artisan, mechanic, clerk and shop-boy of the land, from the Aroostook to the Sacramento and Columbia.

It is little to say this—yet this is something; for it is the first step toward making those who do govern the land, fit to govern it—namely, the people—toward enabling them to judge, unlike the constituents of best European representative governments, not of men only, but, mediately, of measures; toward giving them to judge and learn for themselves, from the actual progress of recorded events, daily occuring, something of the policy of foreign nations, something of the interest of their own country; lastly, toward rendering the permanent establishment of a falsehood, or the long suppression of the truth, an impossibility.

And yet all this is to say little, as compared with what may be said—namely, that the difference between the efficiency of the modern printing-press and that of Guttenberg, Faustus and Schoffer, is almost greater than the difference between that and the manuscript system, which it superseded.

And all this is to be ascribed to the perfection of mechanics and machinery, brought by the aid of every branch of science to what we might well deem perfection, did not every coming day awake to perfectionate what was last night deemed perfect.

In all branches of human labor, in all phases of human ingenuity, for above half a century, this vast increase—both of the application and the power of machinery—has been in progress; constantly awakening the fears and jealousies, sometimes inducing the overt opposition and illegal violence of the working classes, as cheapening their labor, and about ultimately to subvert their trade and destroy their means of subsistence.

Than these fears and jealousies, nothing can be more erroneous, not to say absurd. For it is no longer a theory, but an established fact, that consumption of, and demand for, any article grows almost in arithmetical progression from the reduction of its price, to such a degree, as to render it available to all classes.

Some twenty years ago, the renewal of the English East India Company’s charter was refused by Parliament, and the tea-trade of Great Britain opened to all British bottoms ^[1]. The price of tea was reduced by above one-half, and the company exclaimed loudly, as companies ever do, against the unjust legislation, which must needs ruin them.

Mark the result, however. The price of tea fell one-half; the consumption of tea increased—we speak generally—almost ten-fold. The company never were more prosperous than now.

Again—within the same period, inland postage in Great Britain was reduced to a uniform rate of one penny sterling, not without much opposition and strenuous contest, the opponents insisting that the department must become a burden on the state, from sheer inability to do the work of transportation at prices merely nominal. The results are before the public, and not a boy but knows that they precisely reverse the prediction.

The same thing is true of the growth of the cotton trade; of the growth of agricultural productions: and last, not least, and most of all to the purpose, of the growth of the so-called penny-press of New York, and the United States in general. We use the term so-called, because though nominally penny, most, if not all, of the very paying papers of this class are really two-penny papers.

While we were considering these matters, to which consideration we were led by a visit to the extraordinary machine works of Messrs. Hoe & Co., the inventors and manufacturers of the great fast power-presses, which have effected the revolution of which we have spoken, we accidentally stumbled upon the following article from the columns of the New York Tribune; and it is so entirely germane to the matter, that we have no hesitation in quoting the former portion of it, without alteration or comment.

The latter portion we omit, because we entirely disagree with Mr. Greely in the deduction which he draws from the admitted facts, as we do with most of his socialistic and communistic notions.

It is to the increase of demand, growing out of the increase and cheapness of production, that he must look for employment and profit, not to the catching at the empty bubble of ownership, or to the ambition of governing, with none to serve under him.

“LABOR AND MACHINERY.

A thoughtful laborer—for wages—sends us an account he finds current in the journals of the rapid progress of Printing by Machinery, as illustrated by a single cheap daily newspaper. That paper now prints 48,475 sheets—or 101 reams—per day, which it is enabled by rapid machinery to do from one set of types, whereas, if obliged to use the Hand-Press of former days, it would be obliged to set up its type twenty-nine times over for each daily edition, employing 812 compositors instead of barely 28, and 116 pressmen instead of some ten or twelve only. Hereupon our correspondent comments as follows:—

Mr. Greely:—It will be seen by the above, which I quote merely as a convenient text to illustrate the matter in hand, that in one establishment a difference is made of nearly or quite nine hundred men, in consequence of the invention or improvement of machinery, which has taken place within a less time than the last 25 years, from the number it would have been necessary to have employed to prosecute the same amount of business had no such progress been made. The same is true, I suppose, to an equal extent, of The Tribune and other journals of large circulation. The same—i. e., the alarming encroachment which machinery is every day making on what has heretofore been performed by human muscles alone—is not peculiar to any one branch of employment. The restless inquiry and invention of the present is rapidly and surely intruding iron muscles, which do not become hungry, or experience the depression of low wages and consequent low fare, into every department of human industry, crowding out and setting adrift thousands of the industrious, to seek new and untried means of subsistence, from which soon again to be driven, by—what many of them have come to look upon as their greatest, most persevering and relentless enemy—machinery.

Whither, I would thoughtfully and anxiously ask, do these facts, which stare us in the face from every quarter, tend? What is their mighty significancy? The unprecedented increase of the most cunningly adapted, durable, and economical machinery—on the one hand—to perform, in great part, the work heretofore done by us—the laborers; and—on the other hand—the sure and certain increase of that most reliable portion of humanity which we represent, and whose only capital is their muscles, and whose hope of bread for themselves and children is in the performance, to a large extent, of that same labor thus snatched from us by the offspring of invention. What wonder that the honest laborer, who knows no cunning but the use of the physical force which God has given him, or the mechanic who plies his trade, should stand aghast, and feel his heart sink within him, as he is forced from his legitimate occupation, to another and still another, and at last finds his employment altogether fitful and uncertain, from the number of his fellows driven to the same condition as himself. His labor is truly “a drug in the market,” and stern necessity is fast putting him, if it has not already, wholly at the mercy of capital. I could not but sadly ponder, as one—while watching the nicely adjusted movements of a cheap engine, which had ejected him and his fellow, in like condition, from the place whence, for years, they had obtained a livelihood for themselves and families—significantly observed to me that, “the best thing that could be done with that thing would be to break it to pieces, and pitch it out of the window.” They saw wood about town now, when they can get it to do, as the machinery, which they have in such successful operation in Chicago and some other cities for that purpose, has not yet been introduced here. Their daughters, too, who have, till within a six month back, had work at $2 50 per week, in the factories, are now out of employ. This, you know, is but one of countless similar illustrations which take place every day in poor families.

We have thus allowed our friend to state his whole case—though he only submitted it that we might comment on its substance—and we now solicit his attention to some thoughts by it suggested.

Why does our friend go back only to the Hand-Press to exhibit the disastrous effects of Machinery on the interests of Labor? The hand-press itself is a labor-saving machine of immense capacity—far more so in its day than the power-press which is now extensively superseding it. It threw wholly out of employment and reduced to absolute destitution thousands upon thousands of skillful, accurate, admirable penmen, who had given the best years of their lives to acquire skill in a profession, or pursuit, which the press almost extirpated. To be at all consistent, “H.” must demand, not the destruction of the power-press only, but of all printing or copying presses whatever.

“Ah! but then there could be no newspapers?”—Nay; that does not follow. Kossuth’s first gazette was not printed, but a carefully prepared abstract of the sayings and doings of the Hungarian Diet, whereof copies were made by scribes for general diffusion. There have been many such instances of unprinted journals.

“Well; there could be no such journals as we now have.” No, nor could there be without the power-press. We could not afford such a paper as The Tribune now is for four times its present price, if we were obliged to print it on hand-presses; in fact, no such paper could be supported at all.

The subsisting truth, then, must be accepted and looked fairly in the face. The mountain will not come to Mahomet; he must go to the mountain. The existence and rapid progress of Machinery is a fact which cannot be set aside; the world will not, cannot go backward: Machinery cannot be destroyed; it cannot even be held where it is, but must move onward to further and vaster triumphs. We may deplore this, but cannot prevent it.”

The perusal of this article would have determined us, had we not been resolved beforehand, to lay before our readers an account of the very remarkable works to which we have before alluded, by the proprietors of which the machinery mentioned in the letter of “the thoughtful laborer” was of course manufactured, as by them it was invented; being no other than the great eight-cylinder, type-revolving, fast-printing press. Similar machines, though varying in the number of cylinders, are employed by the New York Herald and Tribune, the eight-cylinder being used by the Sun, the Philadelphia Ledger, and other journals in the United States, as also by the Parisian La Patrie, the quasi organ of the present Prince President, and, according to present appearances, future Emperor of the French.

These works are in truth one of the most remarkable sights, if not the most worthy of remark, of all that are shown to strangers in New York—and yet to how few are they shown. The changes to which they have already given birth are great enough, even now,

“To overcome us like a summer cloud,”

but the end of those changes is not yet, nor shall be, while we are. What they shall be, we may not even conjecture—perhaps the civilization, the christianizing of the world entire, and the reduction of all tongues and dialects to one universal English language.

To waste no more words, however, in mere speculation, but to come to facts, the history of the origin and progression of these truly wonderful works, of which more anon, is in itself by no means void of interest—even of something of romance.

In the well-known and ill-remembered yellow-fever summer of New York, an Englishman by birth, a carpenter by trade, landed in the city of the plague, a stranger, friendless, sick, and but scantily provided with what has been termed the root of all evil, which one-third of our people, however, regard as the sole object and aim of exertion and existence here and hereafter.

His good fortune, or rather—for we believe not in fortune—his good providence brought him in contact with that most singular of geniuses, Grant Thorburn. With him he boarded, with him struggled through the terrors of the prevailing pest, by him was tenderly nursed, and from his roof entered into business with Smith, the well-known machinist and inventor of the hand-press which still bears his name; nor is it yet superseded by more recent improvements. Their partnership terminated only with the decease of Mr. Smith; from which time, under the sole conduct of Mr. Hoe—for the stranger guest of Mr. Thorburn was no other than the father of the energetic, inventive and enterprising gentlemen, whose works we are about to describe—the business became permanently established, and yearly advanced in popularity and reputation, which constitute profits.

Still, greatly as he improved upon what had been before, at his death in 1834, the average annual sales of the concern did not exceed 50,000 dollars; they never now fall short of 400,000; and often amount to half a million. Such are, and will ever be, the consequences of energy, industry, probity and sobriety, joined to an earnest and sincere application of that talent, which each one of us in some sort possesses, to its true and legitimate increase and improvement—in other words, to quote a book so much out of fashion—find the more the pity!—in these piping times of progress, as the old church catechism, a quiet resolve to “do our duty in that state of life to which it hath pleased God to call us.”

Shortly after the death of Mr. Hoe, sen., his sons and successors, finding the then premises insufficient, moved to the ground now occupied by their great manufactories, occupying a hollow block four stories in height, of two hundred feet front on Broome street, by one hundred in depth on Sheriff and Columbia streets, as also a second lot on the other side of Broome street, containing their saw works, hardening furnaces, stables, and other necessary buildings. In these works, a bird’s eye view of which is pre-fixed to this paper, and the ground plan of which we here present, the Messrs. Hoe continually employ three hundred men, some of them persons of great ability as draughtsmen, pattern-makers, mechanicians, and the like—men literally of every nation, as nearly as may be, under the sun; among whom are comprised several Armenians, said to be persons of great intelligence and excellent deportment.

Besides this, their principal factory, they have another large and well built establishment, containing ware-rooms, counting-house, blacksmith’s shop, machine shop, and steam-engine room, in Gold street, nearly adjoining Fulton. This, though in fact headquarters, we shall pass over for the time being, premising only—in order to show the perfect method and system of time and labor-saving with which every thing belonging to this firm is conducted—that they have at their own expense, and for their own private use, erected an electric telegraph, carried by the permission of the proprietors over the roofs of houses, from the counting-room to the up-town factories, by which the smallest message or order is conveyed, and answered almost instantaneously. Nor are the proprietors dissatisfied with the result, having found by experience that the great original expense was very speedily compensated by the gain of time, and yet more of precision which it introduced.

Returning up-town, therefore, we will descend into the vault under the first yard, in which we shall find the moving puissance of all the vast machinery of hammers, planes, lathes, drills, grindstones, tools and devices, almost without name or number, which are constantly laboring with their iron nerves, noiseless, tireless, indefatigable, through every story of the great building—in the shape of the boilers and steam-engine, which, beside furnishing all the motive power, supply every part of the building, by a very ingenious application, with a constant stream of evenly tempered, pure, heated air, at the same time maintaining a thorough ventilation, and all without the slightest danger of fire.

The spent steam is brought into a series of coiled pipes within a trunk, through which a continual stream of pure external air flows without intermission, and is carried by wooden tubes through every story and room of the building; as is likewise an ample provision of Croton water, as well a provision against fire, as for the cleanliness and comfort of the men.

Of the engine there is nothing very special to be observed, as it is of the old construction, and, though perfectly efficient, not now to be imitated or adopted. It is a horizontal high pressure engine of about forty horse power, under the head of steam usually employed, though capable of exerting considerably more force, if called upon. There has been recently attached to it a singularly ingenious little machine, in the shape of a hydraulic regulator, of which great expectations are entertained, and which, in the very short time it has been tested, works to admiration, one week only having elapsed since its application. To attempt to describe this, or in fact any other complicated machine, in an illustrative article such as this pretends only to be, were an absurdity; for the operations of the simplest engines can be rendered thoroughly comprehensible, only—if at all—by thorough diagrams with numerical references, and then comprehensible only to scientific readers, conversant at least with the principles and working of the motive power, and the forces to be exerted by it.

Ascending from the subterranean regions, which are, by the way, so constructed under an open and little occupied court-yard that even in case of any untoward accident the least possible damage would ensue, and certainly no upheaval of whole edifices, as by the explosion of a powder magazine, would be the consequence, we arrive next in the order of production at the great foundery, occupying nearly one half of the ground floor on the Broome street front.

Of this, although it furnishes the rude material, the first degree we mean from the actual raw metal for the whole establishment, the saw manufactory alone excepted, there is little to be noted worthy of particular attention by those who are familiar with the operation of furnaces, founderies and casting on a large scale, as in fact there is nothing in it unusual or novel, unless it be what struck us as both novel and unusual, the general absence of noise, confusion, din and turmoil, not to mention ill sounds, ill savors, and oppressive heat, which seems to pervade the whole establishment. This, ministering as it does largely to the comfort and well-being of all concerned, detracts somewhat, it must be admitted from the picturesque effect of the scenery, and its adjuncts. Even the neatness and cleanliness of the orderly and well conducted moving about each his own business noiselessly, and obeying a sign or the wafture of a hand, diminished the effect which we almost expect to feel in an iron foundery, a furnace, or a machine shop.

We well remember the impression left on our mind years ago by a visit to some gigantic iron works in Sheffield, an impression which made itself felt for many a month in strange fantastic dreams and painful nightmares—such influence, not on the imagination only but on the nerves, had the dense murky gloom of the dim vaults, suddenly kindled, as by magic, into a fierce incandescent glare by the lava-like torrents of molten iron, the volumes of black smoke, the stifling heat of the oppressed and exhausted atmosphere, and then the roar of unseen waters, suggestive of those subterranean streams of Hades, Acheron and Cocytus, the whirr and hurtling of unnumbered wheels, the terrible and deafening clang of the huge trip-hammers, literally making the solid earth jar and tremble; and last and most appropriate to the scene, the swarthy, grim-visaged workmen, fit representatives of Vulcan and his Cyclops, now glancing into lurid light, now vanishing into darkness, as the fitful flashes rose and fell. Of a verity there can be no much more appropriate representation of Pandemonium than an old-fashioned English iron works on a large scale.

But there is no room for marveling or romancing after this fashion in the machine works of Messrs. Hoe & Co., for all the rooms are well aired, well lighted, and none the less adapted to their purpose for being suitable to the accommodation of men who neither are slaves, nor in anywise resemble devils.

From the foundery we proceed, across the open yard, to the smithy, a large, lofty, well proportioned apartment, containing two enormous steam-hammers, the speed and consequent impetus of which can be modulated by a very easy application of manual force, at the pleasure of the operator, so that they can be made either to rise and fall as slowly as the maces of Gog and Magog on the great bell of Saint Dunstan’s, or to impinge upon whatever is objected to their descent with a velocity which almost mocks the eye. In this apartment and its adjunct forge there are no less than eighteen stithies, the bellows of all which are worked by the ubiquitous power of the engine, with anvils of all manners and sizes in due proportion, and sturdy operatives plying them with tranquil and regulated industry, worth five times the amount of human force exerted unequally and impulsively, by fits and starts. These men, for the most part, and, in fact, always when not called off by some casual and unexpected pressure of business in some one department, are kept constantly employed at that peculiar species of work with which each is the most familiar, such method and system in the subdivision of labor being found to insure not only the greatest excellence, but the greatest celerity of workmanship.

In this shop all such portions of the engines, presses, large and small, printing and inking machines, and of the machinery by the agency of which the above machines themselves are created, as are composed of wrought metal, are forged, welded, made new from the commencement, or repaired in case of damage. For it is worthy of remark that, although many of the labor-saving machines and tools are of English make—not a few by the celebrated Whitworth, said to be the first tool-maker in the world—there is not one that cannot, on emergency, be made, mended, or altered, within the precincts of the establishment; while many of the most admirable contrivances are patents and inventions peculiar to this country and this firm.

Immediately adjoining the smithy, is the engine and machine shop, and on the same floor the large lathe-room containing four enormous surface lathes and two turning lathes, for drilling, boring, turning, and finishing both circular and horizontal surfaces.

From this point, we shall proceed to the saw works, preferring to take each separate department of work by itself, from the commencement to the end, rather than to adhere to the precise order and position of the several rooms, as situated in the building.

The first room devoted to this branch of manufacture, which is a very considerable and important item in the business of Messrs. Hoe & Co., the annual sales amounting to not less than 140,000 dollars, in circular saws, mill-saws, pit-saws, and crosscut-saws, for all parts of the country, is known as the saw shop.

Herein is performed the business of smithing, teething, and blocking the great saws; hundreds of thousands of which are at work, driven by water or by steam-power in every portion of the boundless territories of the United States, to which the enterprising foot and adventurous axe of the white settler has found access—clearing with their restless and indomitable teeth the solid and tenacious fibres of the gnarled live-oaks in the pestilent swamps of Florida, and the dank “regions far away, by Pascagoula’s sunny bay,” into the crooked knees of mighty vessels, that shall set at naught the howling billows of the wild Atlantic, and the blasts of the mad storm-wind, Euroclydon, riving into planks and beams and timbers, that shall build up the palaces of commerce, and the happy homes of our lordly cities, the white and penetrable flesh of “those captive kings so straight and tall, those lordly pines, which fell long ago in the deer-haunted forests of Maine, when deep upon mountain and plain lay the snow.”

The machinery by which these various processes are accomplished is exceedingly fine and worthy of notice, and vastly superior to that used in England; in the dock-yards of which country the circular saws were first brought into service, if we do not err; especially that for cutting the teeth, which, worked by steam-power, does its duty with great rapidity and incomparable precision.

This operation is performed by the vertical descent of a ponderous arm of iron, terminating in a cutter of the form of the notch to be made in the yet soft and smooth edge of the circular plate, which is made by the same power to revolve horizontally upon an axis placed at such distance from the impinging weight as the depth of the notch to be cut requires, and traversing at a rate so timed in unison with the descent of the cutters as to render the series of teeth perfectly continuous and equal; each blow of the cutter forming the interval between two teeth, and each full revolution of the plate completing a circular-saw. In the same way is effected the teething of the straight saws, the motion being a direct sliding action in a forward line, instead of a rotatory movement.

In the English saw works, owing to the influence of trade-unions, operative-unions, and the like, the application of steam-power to this machinery is prohibited, and the employer is restricted to the use of hand labor—the cutter being jerked down by man power, and the edge of the plate to be cut being subjected to the striker by hand, the formation of the teeth not being regulated by any absolute scale, but being executed by the calculation or guess-work of the artisan, and, of course, varying in accuracy, depth and precision of cutting according to the skillfulness or unskillfulness of the individual operator.

To the absence of these ingenious combinations, injurious alike to the true interest of operators and employers, the superiority in many respects of American to English machinery is in some degree due, and not less to the over stringency of the patent laws of Great Britain, which often prevent the application of really leading and most material improvements, of a radical nature, to principles secured for the benefit of the inventor.

We may here observe that the use of circular saws is very greatly on the increase in this country, more especially in the western portion of it. In the east, for some inexplicable reason, this admirable instrument is far less generally used; and the writer of this article, several years ago, when on a visit to the timber districts of Maine, on expressing his surprise at the non-adoption of this most excellent and labor-saving tool, could learn no adequate cause for the prejudice existing against it, unless it were some crude and absurd ideas concerning its vibration and consequent irregularity of cutting—objections not founded on facts, nor confirmed by experience.

From the saw shop the circular plates, now teethed and in the incipient stage of what Willis would call sawdom, are removed across Broome Street into the other building, and introduced to the saw hardening room, where they are converted into highly tempered steel.

This process is effected by heating the metal in charcoal furnaces to a white incandescent glow, and then cooling it by immersion in baths of oil and other drugs, the combination of which is, we believe, a secret. This done, the saws are ready for grinding which is effected in a special apartment of the main building—the flat, straight saws by hand application to a series of powerful grindstones, driven at a regular speed by gearings worked from the engine, and the circular saws by a very curious and effective patent machine, peculiar to this establishment, and invented by Mr. Hoe himself.

The old method of grinding circular saws, and that still practiced in all other works of this nature, is the application of them horizontally to the great vertically-moving grindstones by the hand; and, when it is considered that these great steel plates run up to six feet diameter and eighteen of circumference, and that they consequently entirely conceal the grindstone from the eyes of the operator who applies them, it will be evident that the process is mere guess-work, and that no certainty can be attained in regulating the thickness of the blades—in a word, that nothing was effected beyond the superficial brightening and abstersion of the surface.

The new machine causes the great circular plate to revolve vertically on its access, while a “pad” to which is applied some sharp, detergent mineral-powder, is moved forcibly over its surface with a triple action.

In the first place, the pad itself is made to revolve with great velocity against the circular plane, in a direction perpendicular to its line of motion. In the second place, it is driven forward against it horizontally with a force increasing or diminishing, in proportion as it may be desirable to render the saw-blades thicker or thinner in any particular part of the circumference. It is usual to leave them thicker at the centre, and to grind them away gradually toward the circumference. Thirdly and lastly, the pad, while it revolves vertically in a direction perpendicular to the revolving plane, and is forced horizontally against it, is also driven laterally to and fro across its surface; and the result is a degree of equability, or graduation of thickness, as well as of superficial polish, scarcely otherwise attainable. This machine is one of the special wonders and ornaments of the establishment.

It will not be amiss here to add, that with the improvements of their manufacture the demand for circular saws is continually on the increase; and that a single house is in the habit of taking regularly six of these powerful tools weekly from the Messrs. Hoes’ establishment.

Returning hence to the leading and principal feature of these works, the manufacture, namely, of all the various instruments and appliances for the art imprimatorial, we are next ushered into the iron planing and cutting engine rooms, for the cutting the cogs of engine wheels, and finishing the surfaces of whatever portions of the machinery must be brought to a smooth and polished face. This is done by the propulsion of the pieces of metal so to be planed, in a horizontal and longitudinal direction against cutting edges, which again move horizontally across the moving planes, and are pressed downward on them vertically, so as to bring the planing to the requisite depth. The abraded portions are thrown off from the surface, of cast iron in a sort of scaly dust, from wrought iron in long, curled shavings, and the planes can be wrought up to almost any desirable degree of finish and smoothness.

The cutting engine for the formation of cogged wheels, bears some relation to that for the teething of saws, the cutter impinging downward, with an action in some degree intermediate between that of sawing and filing, upon the exterior circumference of the circular wheels, which revolve on their axis under them in a rotation so regulated to the fall of the striker as to insure absolute equality in the width of the cogs or projections.

CHAPTER I.

Have you ever been, dear reader, in that sweet little village of A——, in Virginia? Well, if you have not, you certainly have yet to see, the most pleasant little Eden of this earth; where they have the purest air, the most beautiful sunsets, and the bluest skies imaginable—Italy not excepted—so I think. There lived my heroine; and such a heroine, at the time I have chosen to introduce her to you.

It was close upon sundown, on a lovely spring day, when a strikingly handsome, distingué looking young man, alighted from his buggy, at the residence of Mrs. Morton, in the above mentioned village. Charles Lennard—the young man spoken of—had been received as a boarder, for a few months, into Mrs. Morton’s quiet family, as his health was too delicate to allow him to trust to the precarious and uncertain kindness shown by the landladies, in general, of thriving village inns. Some moneyed affair had called him to A., and here he had arrived on this lovely spring evening; and the skies wore their rosiest blush to greet his coming.

“By all that’s pretty! ’tis a little Paradise,” was his muttered notice, as he passed through the flower-garden, whose clinging vines, creeping o’er the lattice supports, veiled the little bird-nest of white that peeped out amid the rich green foliage, varied in color by a thousand tinted flowers. “I hope Mrs. Morton has given me a room overlooking the garden; ’twill be delightful to read here whilst these perfumes are floating around one.”

The door was wide open, and a quiet, blue-eyed lady sat sewing in the back part of the wide hall, who raised her soft, kind eyes inquiringly to his face, as his shadow darkened the doorway.

“Mrs. Morton, I presume?” said he, as she approached him. “I am Mr. Lennard, whom you were so kind as to admit—”

“I am happy to see you, Mr. Lennard,” interrupted she, hospitably extending her hand to bid him welcome. “Walk into this room, sir. We are very plain folks here, Mr. Lennard—but you must endeavor to make yourself at home. Alec”—to a boy who entered—“take this gentleman’s buggy and horse and put them up.”

Turning to her guest, she conducted him into her cosy parlor, now filled with the golden moats of the glimmering sunbeams, that quivered through the foliage that draped the windows; whilst the atmosphere of the room itself breathed sweets unnumbered. They chatted of the weather, of his journey, of the village, etc., till Mrs. Morton, remembering her duty as hostess, begged her guest to excuse her, whilst she hurried off, “on hospitable thoughts intent.” Charles threw himself dreamily and indolently into the old-fashioned arm-chair, which stood invitingly in the shadow of the window.

A young, glad voice, a light, bounding step, broke on his reverie; and, as he glanced toward the door, whence the sound came—bang! almost in his face, fell a carpet-bag, half filled with books, and then an exclamation of surprise from a young fairy, who just stopped long enough to make him doubt whether she was mortal or angel—and then again bounded off like a young, startled fawn. ’Tis our heroine—Edith Morton—released from her duties at the village academy, wild with repressed play and mischief, who has done him this favor! She returned ere long with her mother, reluctant and blushing, to sanction by her presence the apology uttered for her.

“You will excuse Edith, Mr. Lennard, I hope, for her carelessness. She tells me that the light dazzled her eyes so much, that she was not aware of your presence; she has been in the habit of throwing her books into this room—the arm-chair which you now occupy being her morning study. Edith, speak to Mr. Lennard, and tell him how sorry you are for your rude greeting.”

“Do not trouble yourself, Miss Edith. Your apology is all-sufficient, my dear madam; I, too, must apologize, for having unknowingly taken possession of her study, which is indeed inviting. You must look upon me as belonging to the family, and act without restraint; for I assure you, the thought would be far from pleasant did I think I interfered in the slightest degree with your settled habits. Miss Edith, you did right to send me such a reminder at the outset, and I assure you I will be more careful in future.”

A gleam of light, like a lurking smile, might be detected in the arch eyes of Edith, as she received this apology from Lennard. And he thought, without, however, giving utterance to it, “What a bewitching little fairy.” Edith Morton, though she had not reached the age of sixteen, was an exquisite specimen of girlish beauty, as impossible to resist as to describe. Her charm did not lie in her regular features, golden ringlets, or beautifully moulded and sylph-like form; though each and every one of these adjuncts to female loveliness she possessed in a preëminent degree, but her expression—arch, spirituelle! ’Tis useless to endeavor to convey an idea of the impression she must have made on you with those divine eyes, lit up in their blue depths, with the sunlight of her merry heart, or the piquant expression of her rosy mouth, whose deeply-tinted portals, when wreathed with one of her infectious, heart-beaming smiles, disclosing white, even, little pearls, as Jonathan Slick says, shining like a mouthful of “chewed cocoa-nut.” Shy before strangers, from her secluded life, she was the life of the circle in which she was known, and loved. Full of mischief, and the ringleader in every school-girl frolick, her ringing, mellow laugh, often echoed through the play-ground of the village school, or singing merrily, as she was borne aloft in the swing, or dancing like a fairy on the green. Many were the boy-lovers who bowed at her shrine, with their simple, heartfull offerings; but none felt themselves signally favored—for, young as she was, she seemed to have erected a standard of excellence in her own mind, and her ideal hero was alone the loved.

Charles Lennard soon made himself perfectly at home with Mrs. Morton and Edith; and his first evening with them passed pleasantly enough to him. He felt himself much attracted by her exquisite beauty; and, as their acquaintanceship progressed, when her mother left the room on household duties, he was much amused by her piquant and original replies to his questions. He found her, too, not uneducated, and, young as she was, a reader and lover of many of his own favorite poets. At the close of the evening, Mrs. Morton requested Edith to sing, and, with a startled look toward Lennard, she left her seat to get the guitar from its case.

“Well, Edith, that is soon remedied by your will. So, my daughter, do not make any further excuse, but sing to me as usual. Mr. Lennard will excuse the faults when he sees how willing you are to oblige.”

Edith bent low over the instrument as she tuned it, and looking up into her mother’s face, as if her shyness was not yet overcome, waited for that mother to tell her to commence.

And though the young voice was trembling, and not well drilled, yet she warbled her “wood notes wild” with marvelous sweetness; and she blushed with pleasure at Lennard’s seeming enjoyment of her simple music; and her “good-night” to him was as charming as to an acquaintance of longer date, accompanied as it was by such a sweet smile.

“What a nice little wife she will make for some one, in days to come,” thought he, as standing by the window overlooking the garden, he found himself musing on the singularly graceful and beautiful child whom he had left.

Charles Lennard had no idea at that moment of ever loving Edith Morton. She was too young, too unformed in mind to comprehend him, and to follow, as a kindred spirit, through the abstruse and almost transcendental range of thought, in which he often loved to engage. Delicate in health as in organization, he contented himself for the present to be a spectator in the world rather than actor, and in his day-dreams now weaving bright pictures for the future—pictures in which he was to play a most conspicuous part. We will not say but that a vision also of dazzling eyes, dancing ringlets, and woman’s light form, constituted a part of the reveries of the listless and dreamy student.

The neat breakfast-parlor of Mrs. Morton looked as fresh as herself as Charles descended, the next morning, to that meal. And there sat Edith in the old, deeply cushioned chair, book in hand, conning her morning task most zealously, but ever and anon pushing her little foot out to a kitten on the floor, as playful as herself, who, with its eyes distended to a perfect circle, sat watching it most sagely, and then jumping quickly to catch it, in retreat—so that the young girl would laugh most merrily, and then again resume her book. Charles watched her from the hall ere he entered, for on his entrance she drew herself up most demurely, and cut the kitten’s acquaintance instanter.

“No, I thank you. I have finished studying them. Mother always insists that if I rise early I will learn twice as fast, and also be prepared to say them when the bell rings.”

“I know,” said Mrs. Morton, “she will be obliged to stop for play every now and then. Yes, truly, Edith, you are a sad idler.”

“Ah, mother! but you should only see me in school. Here there is so much to take up my attention. I mean I am obliged to kiss you, to tend the flowers, and—and play with pussy;” and here, forgetting Mr. Lennard, she caught up her little pet, and began smoothing its soft fur with her white hand.

“For shame, Edith; will you always be a child? Come, Mr. Lennard, breakfast is ready.”

CHAPTER II.

The holydays had come, and Edith was at home for the summer. How pleasant were her anticipations of her joyous freedom from dull books and the restraint of school routine for months to come. The next year she was to become a boarder in a fashionable school in Philadelphia, and her mother decided that the intervening time should be spent with her needle, in preparation for that event. Yes; how delightful! so Edith thought, to sit in that sociable room sewing, where the air was redolent with perfume, and the sunshine stole so coyly in through the vine-draped windows, making shimmering and fantastic figures on the highly polished and waxed floor of that peculiarly summer-room, as the sweet south wind waved them to and fro. Oh! for her, with her young heart of hope, the summer air was so delightful when it came through that window, where she loved to sit gazing dreamily of a lucid, still morning, coming, too, laden with sweets stolen from the dewy flowers; and then a glance at those fleecy, shifting clouds in the blue sky—why ’twas better to her than the fairy scenes of a magic lantern or gorgeous theatric spectacle.

And there, too, sat Lennard, quite domesticated by this time. Notwithstanding he thought it would be so very pleasant to study in his room overlooking the garden, he as regularly walked into the parlor every morning with his book, until quite a small library began to collect. Occasionally he would read favorite passages from them to Edith, as she sat sewing, and, child as she was, looking into her eyes for sympathy in his enthusiasm. But far oftener would he be wandering into the garden with her, selecting flowers; sometimes holding the tangled skein, and that, too, so intently, that often his dark brown locks were mingled with her golden ones. The peals of merry laughter! “How much amused they are,” repeated to herself Mrs. Morton; but on entering and inquiring what caused their merriment, ’twas too little to frame into an answer. Any thing—nothing—created a laugh or smile with them, they were so happy—so very happy. Nor was music’s soft strains neglected to gild the passing hours. There, in the witching, summer twilight, still, soundless, save the low melody gushing from Edith’s lips, as she sung to her simple accompaniment on the guitar, and with the fuller, deeper music of Charles’ voice, they sat wrapt in their happiness, unconscious—(at least one of them)—of the feelings rife within their hearts of what heightened their enjoyment.

Edith was unconscious. She was fully aware, it is true, that life was gaining every day fresh charms. To her eye the blue vault had never looked “so deeply, darkly, so intensely blue.” The birds had surely never sung so sweetly, nor the very flowers borne so bright a hue; and yet, to all appearance, as time wore on, she was not so gleeful nor so wildly frolicksome as usual. No longer would her voice be detected in the ringing laugh, but smiles were rippling and dimpling o’er her face, in her quiet heart happiness. Yes, in her heart of hearts, what a spring of deep joy was bubbling up almost to overflowing, quietly unknown to others, but thrillingly alive to herself; so intense at times, that those sweet eyes would glisten with unshed tears at the very thought that death might come and bear her off from so bright, so joyous a world, where life itself was bliss. Her unusual quietness—her fitful and radiant blushes—the soul-full glances—the manner that was stealing so softly, yet so perceptibly o’er the young girl, toning down, as it were, her high spirits, was noticed by her mother; but her conclusion was simply “that Edith is growing into a woman, and will not be such a hoyden as I dreaded.”

Edith was unconscious! But not so the dreamy student. He, though albeit as much a child in the actual business of life as Edith, was much better skilled in the heart’s lore. He had seen the flash of joy which brightened her eye—had watched the cheek kindling at his approach, and the smile of womanly sweetness, wreathing her exquisite lip at his words or glance of approval.

He had become, with Mrs. Morton’s acquiescence—having nothing to occupy him, he had informed her—Edith’s instructor in French; and he saw how any thing but wearisome was the daily task; and, in the solitude of his chamber, stole welcomely into his mind the thought that he had taught her practically to conjugate through all its inflections the verb aimer. Mrs. Morton very often complained to Edith that she neglected her sewing for her book, her guitar, her evening rambles—but she was the widow’s only child, her bright gleam of sunshine; her idleness was overlooked, and she was allowed to have her own will, and continued to be the constant companion of Charles Lennard.

It was a moonlight evening in the latter end of October. Edith, Mrs. Morton, an elderly lady-visitor, and Charles, rambled about a quarter of a mile from the village, to a place called the Coolspring, to enjoy one of the nights which October had stolen from summer, and, delighted with the beauty of the lonely, sequestered spot, where the moonbeams rested so brightly and reflectingly on the rustic spring—now bubbling up from the rich green, velvetty sward—now hiding in the thick grass, and anon revealing itself by its glitter—that the old ladies seated themselves on the rude bench for a cozy chat of “auld lang syne,” and “when we were girls, you remember.” Charles and Edith were standing some distance from them, watching “the silver tops of moon-touched trees.” Very quietly had they thus stood drinking in the quiet loveliness of this enchanting scene, and no sound was heard but the mellowed hum of the village, borne but echoingly to their ear, and the rustling of the foliage, as it was kissed by the night-breeze.

“Edith!” and his voice was low, “is this not beautiful. I swear that I could be here content forever, were you but with me. But would you, dear Edith?”

A quick, eager, flashing gaze, as her eye was for the instant raised to his own, was her answer. ’Twas the look of some wondering and awakened child, as the consciousness of her feelings toward Charles stole upon her beautifully, though strangely; and something of gladness was in the melody of the child-like, trusting, and low-toned voice with which she breathed, rather than uttered, “Oh, yes!”

“Dearest Edith!” was all that Charles said for some moments, as he held the little trembling hand in his own, then placing it within his arm, he drew her to the shade of a large tree, under whose foliage lay the fallen trunk of an oak, upon which they sat.

“Dearest Edith,” he again said, as she, with downcast eyes, blushing even in that dim light at his impassioned tones and loving words, “promise me that you will love me and think fondly of me for the next two years I am doomed to wander, and then, when I have fulfilled my guardian’s wishes, that you will be my wife? My own Edith, say?”

You could almost hear the beating of that young heart, as she thus sat listening at his side, shrinking and trembling from the arm thrown around her waist, and turning in timid modesty from the eyes looking so ardently loving into the glistening depths of her own, striving to hide her feelings from those fondly searching eyes. And Charles—with the lightning’s rapidity came into his mind the words of the poet:

“She loves me much, because she hides it.

Love teaches cunning even to innocence;

And when he gets possession, his first work

Is to dig deep within the heart, and there

Lie hid, and like a miser, in the dark

To feast alone.”

“You will forget me long ere you come back,” was her answer to his reiterated appeal. “Why need I, then, to answer?” And there was a tear almost in the liquid voice, as a vision of what her life would be, should such prove the truth, arose before her mind’s eye.

“Oh, no!” was the impulsive reply of the young maiden, as she hastily and unthoughtedly now answered him. “Oh, no indeed! But you, Mr. Lennard, are going to Europe; and you will see there so many, very many things and persons to make you forget me—a school-girl—an ignorant child. I was ashamed of myself before you, to think I knew so little—so very little, and you—why you will blush for my ignorance, and then—how could you love me?”

How sweet were those tones, so full of heart-music that he, luxuriating in them, hesitated to answer, that he might catch even their echo; but at length came his reply.

“How could I love you! Rather ask, how can—how could I help it. You are to me, Edith, more perfect than any human being I ever dreamed of or imagined; so lovely, darling, that when you burst on me first, in your young, pure loveliness, I was almost in doubt if you, indeed, belonged to our dull earth. How could I love you!”

“What a simple question; yet, how deep in its very simplicity and artlessness. Yes, Edith, I almost ask myself the same question—how I could dare to love one so like an angel. I will not suffer myself to search into my right—lest I say with truth,

‘ ’Twere as well to love some bright particular star

And think to wed it.’

But, promise that you will love me—that you will think ever of me; and that when I return you will be my wife?”

“You must ask mother, Ch—Mr. Lennard I mean—Indeed, indeed I cannot answer you for—do not laugh when I tell you—I am almost frightened when you ask me such a question; though”—and here the young head, with its clustering, silken ringlets, bent low as she whispered—“though I do love you now better than any one in the world. But, let us go to mother, now, Mr. Lennard,” she quickly added, startled as it were, by her own confession; and, springing lightly from him, as he attempted still to detain her with his loving words, and almost nestling down by her mother’s side, like a truant dove returned, and yet, her heart beating with the fullness of joy at the sweet knowledge she had thus gained—her eye lit up with the lore conned from the new page of the book in her life which she had then learnt. And Charles stood by her, even more eloquent in his silence than when he wooed her beneath the shadowy, old tree.

“But they were young; oh! what without our youth

Would love be? What would youth be, without love?

Youth lends it joy and sweetness—vigor—truth,

Heart, soul, and all that seems as from above.”

CHAPTER III.

Events mark time more than years, and this truth, so much known, serves me to tell the change wrought in Edith. A child in years, the beautiful fable of Psyche was realized; and the next morning found her soul awakened, and from her quiet, subdued manner, no longer the child but the woman—ay, and with a woman’s loving and devoted heart. Mrs. Morton had been informed—much to her surprise, of his proposal to her daughter—by Charles, and though prepossessed in his favor, yet she demurred giving her consent to their engagement on account of Edith’s extreme youth. Charles told her of his isolated condition—his fortune; and she at last, won by his earnest entreaties, and the bashful, asking look from Edith—whom she chanced to see whilst hesitating—consented to their correspondence and conditional engagement. And, now we must hurry over the subsequent time which intervened before Lennard’s departure, nor do I design to inflict the pangs of parting on any save the lovers themselves.

January found Edith at her new school, and her days glided on tranquilly and hopefully. She was assiduous at her studies, music, etc.; determined, in the depths of her loving yet ambitious little heart, to render herself worthy of her future husband.

Charles, carrying letters of introduction to persons of some consideration, and having good credit at his bankers, soon found himself admitted into circles of the élite in England, France and Italy. But every where did he carry about with him his vivid remembrance of Edith the young and the loving. Unlike most heroes, he met with no stirring adventures—no “accidents by flood or field”—no titled dames sued for his love. He traversed England—knew London and its lions—admired its gems; dwelt long enough in Paris to speak intelligently; sailed down the Rhine; crossed the Simplon, and spent some time at Florence, Naples, Venice, and at last settled down in Rome, to drag through the second winter of his probation in Europe. And most constant had he been all this time, thinking on Edith by day—dreaming of her by night, and repeatedly sending his missives of love o’er the broad Atlantic, laden with sighs sufficient to waft the bark of itself had not steam deigned to assist him.

It was in the month of March, when Lennard fell ill at Rome. Alone—recluse and dreamy still in his habits—he had made but few acquaintances, and would, I think, have fared but badly had it not been for the attention of an American family, like himself, sojourning in the “imperial city.”

Mr. Ashton, wife and daughter, were unremitting in their kindness to the invalid, the former watching him with a parent’s care, and the daughter cheering and amusing him during the listless and languid weeks of his slow convalescence. Isabel, or rather Bel Ashton, was not beautiful; but there was that nameless charm around her which often attaches more powerfully than mere beauty. Partly educated in Europe, she had passed much of her time in Paris and other cities of the continent, and possessed by des habitudes, and by nature, that

“Grace of motion and of look—the smooth

And swimming majesty of step and tread;

The symmetry of form, which set

The soul afloat, even like delicious airs

Of flute and harp.”

Above all, her wit, sparkling and effervescing like champagne, and almost as intoxicating. How swiftly and agreeably speeded on his days. Every morning found Charles in the parlor of the suite of rooms occupied by the Ashtons, and as he gained strength, their escort in rides and sight-seeing promenades. Yet, though he admired Bel Ashton much, his betrothed Edith was not forgotten. He now, however, often caught himself contrasting them together—wondering had she changed from her spirituelle, radiant, girlish beauty, into any thing of more earthy, coarser mould. With something unpleasant pulling at his heart-strings, came the recollection that Edith’s mother had a great resemblance to her daughter, but was too much embonpoint to suit his ideas of matron comeliness, and then a haunting vision would cross his fastidious mind of his worshiped Edith becoming like her mother, a Turkish beauty as to her size. Bel, with her tact, her undulating, graceful motion, her mannerism, would come in comparison to this bug-bear—we may almost call it—of his imagination; and, though when he remembered her sweet, joyous temper; her appearance, as when standing by the moonlit spring, with her graceful, girlish embarrassment—her rare and dazzling beauty, her pure young love—Bel would yield instant precedence to Edith; yet was he constantly haunted by these ever recurring comparisons, until he began—the ingrate!—to feel his engagement as a binding chain.

“I am now strong enough,” sighed Charles Lennard, one morning, “to think of my preparations to return to America. ’Tis now May, and I must reach Virginia sometime in July, on account of my then having reached my twenty-first birthday, and am recalled by letters looking business-like, in every way. When do you think of returning, Mr. Ashton?”

“I have been debating that question very often of late with my wife, and we both have arrived at the conclusion that we have already been absentees too long, and must wend our way ‘westward-ho’ also. What say you, Mrs. Ashton, and you, ma Belle, to being traveling companions with our friend Lennard?”

“With all my heart,” said Mrs. Ashton; whilst Bel, who had been seated at the piano, ran over with taper and jeweled fingers a brilliant symphony, adding to its melody that of her own rich, mellow voice, in the words, “There is no home like my own.”

And thus ’twas decided; and Charles carried his unconscious tempter from his allegiance along with him. Their intimacy, the effect—where any agreeability exists at all—of being “alone on the wide, wide sea,” did much to render him still more dissatisfied with his engagement, and though he erred not in the letter, I fear the spirit suffered in his vows of fealty to his affianced Edith. Alas! for man’s love. It is indeed

“Of man’s life a thing apart.”

Yet, one who thinks should not wish it otherwise, for it would then be most unnatural. Man has a thousand and one things to call off his thoughts from his love to passing events, glowing and changing as rapidly as the evening clouds, tinging his thoughts and feelings, chameleon-like, with all the tints and varieties of change, and calling upon him to battle with the rough necessities of life. And all this prevents him from thinking constantly o’er his dream of love, and weakens, as a matter of course, the first passionate ardor which he felt when under the influence of the smiles, bright glances, and loving words. As Miss Landon most beautifully observes—“He may turn sometimes to the flowers on the way-side, but the great business of life is still before him. The heart which a woman could utterly fill were unworthy to be her shrine. His rule over her is despotic and unmodified, but her power over him must be shared with a thousand other influences.”

Whilst, on the other hand, woman goes steadily on with her domestic, monotonous duties, till they call for no exertion of thought, becoming purely mechanical, and the imagination having no healthy exercise, runs riot in its indulgence of day-dreams. Many and many is the maiden who sits sewing most industriously with bright smiles wreathing unconsciously her lips—ask her the subject of her thoughts—her blush will tell you better than my words. She is now feasting on her imagination till her love, by constant thought, constant association with her daily routine of duties and pleasures, becomes part and parcel of her very existence.

They have all landed in New York—the home of the Ashtons—and still Charles Lennard loiters. Day after day finds him among the groups who crowd Mrs. Ashton’s parlors to welcome their return. At length Bel and her parents decide to spend the summer at Old Point Comfort, and Charles immediately finds it necessary for his health to enjoy the sea air and bathing. And so he must answer Edith’s last letter, received whilst in Europe, and announce his arrival—excuse himself, also, for not flying at once to her presence!

CHAPTER IV.

And Edith? All this while of chances and changes how is the time passing with her? See for yourself reader! Follow me gently into that well-known parlor of her mother’s dwelling. There she sits, the beautiful one! as light, as graceful, and still more lovely than when we saw her last; for we now behold her a thinking, refined, intellectual woman, with all her youthful, beaming charms, heightened into exquisite and womanly perfection. She is leaning, rather pensively, on the arm of the chair, drawn to the opened and perfume draped window, with her soft, dimpled hand holding in its rose-colored palm the rounded chin; the neat, little foot patting unconsciously the floor—her eyes bent on the flowers of her garden, seeing them in all their floating hues, like the mingled colors of a kaleidoscope, before her musing gaze. Her guitar leans against her knee, and the other hand is straying across the strings, awaking its echoes like the notes of an Eolian harp.

“Mother, I will go with cousin Frank and Sallie to Old Point. They are so anxious I should do so.”

“And suppose, Edith, Mr. Lennard arrives in your absence, what shall I tell him?” said Mrs. Morton, with a smile.

“Mother, you must forgive my first breach of confidence, for I was too unhappy, too wounded in my pride and love to speak of what I am going to tell you,” said Edith, her listless attitude now abandoned for one of energy, and the usual musical tones were rapid and more harsh—“yes, mother, my very first. Mr. Lennard will be at Old Point soon after I reach there. Yesterday I received a letter from him, and such a letter!” Edith’s voice faltered, but indignantly driving back the tears which were filling her eyes, she drew from her pocket a letter, and handing it to her mother, told her to read it. Whilst Mrs. Morton arranged her glasses, Edith sunk back into the chair with a slight frown and heightened color, and one could see from the clenched hand how determined she was to overcome the agitation which was increasing by her disclosures.

“New York, June, 1847.

“Dear Edith,—You must pardon my seeming neglect in having left unanswered so long your last. I have been very ill, and had it not been for the unexampled kindness of an American family resident in Rome, should long ere this have slept my last sleep. And though barely recovered, I feel that my strength needs recruiting ere I can be considered aught but an invalid, and will therefore set out for Old Point Comfort the last of this month. I hope I need not assure you that I feel my exile from your presence most sensibly, and I anticipate the pleasure of visiting you in A—— as soon as I am better. I know, my dear Edith, that this is but a sorry return for your long and affectionate letter to me; but I never did excel in putting my thoughts and feelings upon paper, my weakness now, must excuse even this poor attempt. I know your kind heart will make every apology for me, and you will look upon this as only the announcement, from myself, of my return to my native land, and of course, to you. Believe me, dear Edith, as ever,

Truly yours,

Charles.”

“He may be as he says, Edith, too unwell and too weak to write as he wishes.”

“Unwell!” said Edith indignantly; “were I dying I would not have written such a letter to him. Yes, I will go to Old Point, and show Mr. Lennard that I can resign him, and still live: I am determined he shall never triumph in the thought, that I, a foolish girl, would weep, and pine away, because he has forgotten me,”—here the tears ran freely from her beautiful eyes; and, with her voice broken by sobs, she continued—as she knelt before her mother, burying her tear-stained face in her lap—“and then, dear mother, I will be all your own Edith again: no parting from you, for I will never, never love any one, or believe in their love as I have done.”

Mrs. Morton suffered her to weep, knowing it was the best for that poor, grieved heart thus to find vent from its bitterness; but she showed her sympathy in her child’s first grief by her loving words, and by softly smoothing the ringlets on her hot, throbbing brow, and by many a tender kiss. And Edith, with her head resting on her mother’s lap, sat on the floor as of old, when a little child she would listen to stories from her parent; and Mrs. Morton, very judiciously, sought to impress upon poor Edith, the instability of all things earthly, and begged her to lay her griefs, in prayer, at the feet of that kind Father, who is never tired of inviting the sorrowing and weary to lay their burthens upon him, exhorting her to pray for strength, and firm faith, so as to say from her heart—“Though thou slayest me, yet will I trust in Thee!”

Some days were passed in preparation for her trip; and, at the appointed time, she accompanied her cousin Frank and his wife. The Hygeia Hotel was crowded with fashionables and invalids from every section of the Union, and our party found they had arrived in excellent time for the fancy ball, to take place the ensuing week. Edith was only eighteen; and though really grieved at Charles’ cold letter, and supposed faithlessness, yet her indignation and wounded pride made her still bear up against her sorrow, at the thought of rupturing her engagement with Lennard—whom she really loved, with all the warmth of first and trusting love, notwithstanding this rude shock it had received. But she was hopeful and buoyant in disposition, and consoled herself with the thought—as she looked into the mirror, and saw there her loveliness—that she yet would win him back to love her still more deeply: and pleased was she, very naturally, at the universal admiration she excited among the gentlemen; looking forward, too, to her first ball—thinking Charles Lennard would then see her in a dress, on which she bent all her taste to render it bewitching—that he would feel proud to be the husband-elect of one to whom so many eyes turned in ecstasy at her exquisite beauty. All these, and many more thoughts of a like nature, kept her from becoming a prey to her heart sickness, and she was really as lively and gay as she intended appearing in his eyes. I hope no one will deem my heroine heartless, because she was not as unhappy is she first expected to have been. No, very far was Edith Morton from that: on the contrary, she possessed warm and ardent feelings, but—as I said before—she was hopeful and confident—as what really beautiful woman is not?—in the power of her attractions.

CHAPTER V.

It was four o’clock, and the day of the expected fancy ball. The house, and its crowd of inmates, were in all the anxieties of preparation, and pleasing anticipation of the coming fête. The Baltimore boats have just arrived, bringing fresh accessions to the already thronged hotel; and the numerous waiters, and smartly-dressed chambermaids, might be seen hurrying here and there, busily preparing for the new comers. The long piazzas—that were in front and behind the central saloon—were full of gay groups: some sauntering to and fro, others in all the careless abandonnement of loose summer garb, were sitting with their cigars, and arguing about politics—lazily and prosily, as if even that was too much of an exertion for the warm weather. Groups of lovely women were promenading through the saloon, in tasteful dinner-dress—some laughing, flirting, some chess-playing with the officers of the garrison, in their uniforms. Nor was there wanting quite a number of sprightly “middies,” with their banded caps set jauntily on their heads, for Hampton Roads had two or three frigates, awaiting final orders, ere they put to sea.

Edith was neither in the saloon nor piazzas; but if you had searched closely, you might probably catch a glimpse of the rosy tips of her taper fingers, holding up a wee bit of the curtain, to allow her bright eyes to scan the arrivals, as they came up immediately in front of her window, amid the bustling porters, hand-barrows, and saunterers, from the wharf. Her little heart was beating wildly: and—although garbed only in her loose, white peignoir—never had she looked more lovely; for the rich flush of expectation was on her cheek, and her countenance was brightening and changing with every emotion.

Charles Lennard was expected that very evening! She left the saloon immediately after dinner, that she might be alone to watch: and here she has been stationed at the window, for the last half-hour, listening—with her heart—to every step, sounding on the gravel. At length, he comes—but not alone, as Edith had thought. No; he is one of a party, who are now approaching slowly up the walk, directly in front of Edith’s window—her room being one of those delightful ones, joining the centre saloon.

Well, as I said, here he comes, bearing several shawls, and walking slowly along with a graceful girl, in a fashionable traveling-dress, whose neatly gloved hand is resting on his arm, and whose thick veil hides features that Edith is scanning most uneasily. We will not say that a pang, very like the premonitory symptoms of the “green-eyed monster,” did not dart through her heart, playing sad havoc with her whilome hopeful feelings. Pale, and rather thinner than when she last saw him—but oh! how immeasurably superior, to her loving eyes, than all the men she had hitherto seen bowing homage to her charms. And now we must leave Edith, with feelings too excited for her evening siesta, and follow Charles and his party, who, of course, are no other than Bel Ashton, and her parents.

“A fancy ball! How provoking!” said she, as Charles announced to her what was in contemplation, as he rejoined her in one of the parlors, where they were waiting for their rooms to be prepared. “Yes, ’tis too annoying to have arrived so late, for I cannot possibly now dress in character, and I have no wish to enter the ball-room, save in costume.”

“But, my dear Bel,” expostulated Mrs. Ashton; “you have so many beautiful evening dresses: you must go indeed. After resting, I shall certainly peep in myself during the evening. And you, of course, will go, Mr. Lennard?”

“Yes, madam: I would not, if possible, miss seeing such an assemblage of my fair country-women, so soon after my return. I hope that my comparisons may not be deemed at all critical by you ladies, when I shall make them. But, Miss Bel, let me add my entreaties to those of your mother, and beg for the honor of becoming your escort for the evening.”

“I will not promise you yet,” said she, smiling; “but will let you know ere ’tis time to go. And, now, Mr. Lennard, hurry them with our rooms, if you have any compassion for me.”

Mr. Lennard again left them to execute her commands, and soon returning gave them the welcome intelligence that they were ready; and having escorted them to the door, left to betake himself to his, in order to recruit from the fatigue of three days’ travel.

He had not the smallest idea of Edith’s being an inmate of the hotel; or, indeed, of her being any where except in the quiet little village of A——. I really question if a thought had turned toward her, so absorbed had he been in his attentions to Miss Ashton, who, by the bye, though ever graceful and lady-like, was sometimes exacting in her demands.

Well, he went to sleep, and when he awoke from his refreshing nap, the room was shrouded in the dimness of twilight, and a tap at his door made him spring from the bed, and throwing on his coat, gave entrance to a servant, who brought lights, water, etc., as he had given orders, at that hour, and also a little perfumed billet, with “Miss Ashton’s compliments, and would be happy to accept of Mr. Lennard’s escort to the ball.”

At nine, he was at Mrs. Ashton’s door, where he was joined by the party, ready to enter the saloon.

Have you ever been at Old Point Comfort? If you have, ’tis needless for me to attempt to describe that spacious saloon, with its corridors on each side—large enough to contain with ease at least five hundred, without incommoding each other, by jutting elbows, or pinched feet, or by making the belle concerned about the appearance of her costume, as she mingles in the mêlée, or what would appear a crowd in any common sized room. What a coup d’œil struck our party as they entered the west door from the piazza. No garden ever gleamed more brightly with clustering flowers than did that gas-lit, lofty saloon, with its pillars, flowers and mirrors reflecting its extensive range and gay groups, making it look still larger and better filled. The splendid band from the garrison was in full play, wafting strains of delicious music over the illumined and perfumed scene. There were groups of fair forms and lovely faces, that would task the most skillful artist to depict, and match in their rich complexions and brilliant robes even Titian’s exquisite coloring. Fragments of conversations, and jets of sparkling—now murmuring—laughter would fall from their ruby lips, like snatches of delicious music. And there, in other groups, could be seen distinguished statesmen and orators—here the merchant, forgetful for the nonce of his schemes of profit, as he looked on his superbly bedecked wife or fascinating daughter; there the author, whose honeyed eloquence linked his readers’ hearts to his name with chains of gold, and caused many a pulse to throb as wildly as now beat the hearts of those young houries who grace this glad scene. Dancing had not as yet commenced.

A buzz of general admiration now follows a group who have just entered. It consisted of four persons, two ladies and their escorts, en character à la Cracoviene. Upon one, in particular, of that well dressed quartette did the eye rest in amaze at her radiant beauty of form and feature, and the exquisite grace of her undulating step reminding one of the dip of a sea-gull—so easy, so light, so gliding in its motion. Her cavalier was tall, thereby making the form which leaned on his arm almost petit by comparison. Her short, full skirt of white silk, with scarlet ribbons—tight-fitting jacket of velvet, of the same brilliant dye, with its buttons and embroidery of silver—scarlet boots, à la polka, and small velvet cap, with white marabouts, completed the costume, which exactly suited the arch look of the beautiful Edith. Her luxuriant tresses of light brown were braided in wide plaits, and tied en nœuds, with ribbons to match in color her jacket.

Charles fairly started, for—unchanged, except that added years but increased her loveliness, and that her coquettish dress and the dazzling light made her look still more ethereal and fairy-like—’twas his own Edith! Yes, the truant heart, which had been straying, like a thought of the mind, was instantly brought back to its allegiance; and the deep tone with which he uttered “Edith!” had all the fervor and tenderness of the moonlight trysting scene.

A pang, too, very much like jealousy, came to annoy him, at this crisis, when he saw her dispensing her smiles to the knot of gentlemen who almost surrounded her party, and seemed soliciting her hand for the polka quadrilles they were about forming. How inconsistent are those very same “lords of creation.”

There was Charles fuming and chafing, internally, because Edith by some magnetic attraction had not been able to single him out amid that crowd of five hundred!—and he had for a few brief hours past almost forgotten her existence. He determined to get clear of Bel as soon as politeness would allow, and claim from Edith her recognizance. At the same time, however, thoughts of writing a tiny note, and conveying it to her privately, crossed the “almost twilight of his brain;” for he was fearful that the young, untrained girl, who had never mingled in European courts, and been the admiration of mustached barons and stripling lords, might be apt to get up a scene.

He might have spared himself this harrowing thought, did he but know that Edith had actually seen him on her first entrance, and was determined on showing him that her happiness was not entirely dependent on her whilome, careless lover. The chains he had been so anxious to loose he now hugged, with anxiety and joy, the closer to him, as he, notwithstanding the brilliant remarks of Bel, (to which I am fearful he answered at random,) continued absorbed and wrapped in the contemplation of Edith’s peerless beauty, and her sprightly and lady-like manner. He now entered, con amore, into the truth of Shakspeare’s lines—

It so falls out,

That what we have we prize not to the worth,

While we enjoy it; but, being lacked and lost,

Why then we know its value: then, we find

The virtue that possession would not show us

While it was ours.

He watches her—and she, at last, suffers her eye to fall upon him. “Is it possible! Am I so changed! Or, perhaps, she has so far forgotten me that, after a lapse of three years, I am not recognized.” These were some of his now agonized thoughts; and, with murmured apology, he resigned Bel to her father, and moved toward Edith. Too late! She has taken her place in the quadrille, and he only reaches her former resting place in time to hear the murmurs of admiration from the group of gentlemen left. The graceful, willowy figure of Edith is now moving through the quadrille with a young officer, whom Lennard at once dubs in his heart as “a puppy,” from the very fact of seeing him look on his own Edith! with too impassioned an eye to suit his fancy.

As she takes her place, she allows her eyes to meet those of Charles—an electric stream seems to shoot through each heart, for the bright blush of Edith suffuses even her snowy throat.

When the quadrilles were finished, he, of course, had an opportunity of advancing and addressing Edith; and that same inconsistency! which I have before apostrophized—he would rather have the embarrassment of a scene now, than the smile, and—to his excited imagination—very cool, collected reception which Edith at this time tenders him. She welcomed him, ’tis true, but shared with him—him the loved—the betrothed—the absent—the smiles which his heart so covets with the acquaintance of a day! Could mortal man bear this? Charles felt that the iron had entered into his soul and Edith saw it!

He could not find the opportunity he sought of questioning Edith. He asked her to dance—to promenade with him. She held up to him her tablets, with its lengthy list of names, and with her musical laugh cries, “Mercy, I pray you.” Charles turned off, with a bow he vainly strives to make as careless as her manner to him, and rejoins the Ashtons. Bel will not dance. She is somewhat provoked with Charles, whom she saw addressing Edith with more empressement and diffidence of manner than he exhibited toward herself, and hence the cloud.

Their party leave early, and Lennard, restless and disquieted, wanders forth to the beach seeking company from the moaning and restless waves for his own troubled thoughts. Strains of melody are borne to him on that lonely shore from the scene of gay festivity, and he feels angry with Edith, whom his jealous imagination pictures reveling in the dance, for thus enjoying herself to his own misery. He sat down on the breakwater, watching the waves, and in his despairing mood wished for death, bethinking himself of the heartlessness of all womankind, and of Edith in particular. The stars were paling in the quiet sky when he betook himself homeward, worn out and exhausted. He passed the now deserted ball-room, “whose guests had fled,” and threw himself on his bed, to toss in dark dreams the few remaining hours that intervened between then and the time he could reasonably expect to see Edith.

CHAPTER VI.

What a glorious night! How dazzling look the shining sand, the glistening water, in the moon’s mellow rays which fall now so brightly upon them, and bathing in its effulgence those two youthful figures who are pacing to and fro on the ramparts of Fortress Monroe, nearest the bay. The lady was gazing on the ground, and he—into her lovely face. ’Twas Edith and Lennard!

Vainly had he sought the interview during the day, but he could only see her the centre of an admiring circle, for Edith was decidedly the “star of beauty” and the “belle” amid the many who thronged the crowded saloons of the Hygeia Hotel. At last she promised to walk with him; and directly after tea had she gone with Charles to the garrison, and there, ’neath that brightly shining moon, had he told her of his fault—of his love.

She like a true woman forgave him, for she loved much. At first, however, she made him writhe under her assumed inconstancy, until she saw his agony, and then, when almost in despair of regaining his lost treasure—her love—came her forgiveness, like the manna to the starving Israelites. Adding, by way of coda to her musical words, the laughing exhortation, “To be a good boy, and she would—try to love him.”

A week later finds them en route for A——, Charles Lennard accompanying them; for he is as eager to ratify his engagement now as he was before to free himself. He had told Bel Ashton, the day after the ball, of his engagement, and she did not break her heart, but was soon as gay and as graceful as ever, “winning golden opinions” from all sorts of people, for Mr. Ashton was very wealthy, and Bel was his only child!

Mrs. Morton was very much astonished to see Edith return so full of happiness, and bringing back, as “quiet as a lamb,” the recreant knight. Nor did she advert to the letter or Edith’s protestation, but once, and that was when preparing for their marriage, she exclaimed with a smile: “So, Edith, instead of coming back to love no one but your mother, you only return to fill my hands full of labor and perplexity, and my heart full of grief at the thoughts of parting with you, even for a while.”

Of all the social miseries of France, none are more fruitful in catastrophes of every kind than the idle uselessness of the well-born, and the over-education of those who are not so. France being, as one of her writers observes, the China of Europe, her habits, customs, and traditions, endure, in fact, through the organized destruction of succeeding revolutions, and whilst throne after throne lies in the dust, the prejudices of that fictitious universe called the world, are standing still, fixed, firm, and uprising in inflexible strength from roots that plunge deep into the soil. For instance, the old idea that a gentilhomme or a Grand Seigneur should not know how to spell, although obsolete as far as grammar and orthography are concerned, lives on yet in the notion that a gentleman must not work. This has hitherto proved an uneradicable opinion, and the general incapability and instinctive laziness of the upper classes in France, can, alas! amply testify to its prevalence throughout the country. It is not that the aristocracy of France are wanting in talent or intelligence; on the contrary, they have far more of what may be called native capacity than the classes beneath them—but they are unpractical, unbusiness-like, unused to any things in the shape of affairs. They are admirable if always in the first place, but rebel at the bare thought of helping on the governing machine in its hidden wheels; and whilst with us every public office counts gentlemen by the dozen, and noble names are to be found even in the most unconspicuous, though useful places; in France an ancient family would think itself degraded if one of its sons were to be discovered amongst the workers of a bureau.

The following tale, the circumstances of which are yet uneffaced from many a memory in Paris, will perhaps serve to exemplify the sad truth of what I advance, and give a slight notion of the immediate action of certain false principles upon our neighbors’ mind. The hero of the ensuing pages, Ferdinand de Candolles, was the last scion of one of the most ancient houses in France. Ferdinand’s father died whilst the boy was in early infancy, and the entire charge of her son, whom she idolized, fell upon Madame de Candolles. At eighteen, Ferdinand was a tall, handsome youth, prodigiously proud of his name, highly romantic in his notions, ready to do battle with any given number of individuals in honor of Dieu, le Roi, ou sa fame, making a terrible quantity of bad verses, but as incapable of explaining to you M. de Villèle’s last financial measure, or the probable influence of the increasing growth of beet-root sugar upon the colonial markets, as he would have been of expounding the doctrines of Confucius in Chinese.

The Revolution of 1830, fell like a thunder-bolt upon France, and the Bourbons of the elder branch allowed themselves to be driven from their post. The elements of revolution had been for the last seven or eight years fermenting far more in society, in the arts and in literature, than in the political sphere; and Ferdinand, with all his heart and soul a devoted royalist, as far as the government was concerned, was naïvely and unsuspectingly in every thing else, a determined revolutionist, overthrowing intellectual dynasties, spurning authority, mocking at control, gloating over Victor Hugo, George Sand, e tutti quanti, and fancying the whole was quite compatible with the political faith he would sooner have died than resign. Sometimes Madame de Candolles would think very seriously of what could be the future career of her son, and the word Nothing! emblazoned in gigantic ideal letters, was the only answer her imagination ever framed. In 1832, it so happened that the now prefect named in the department, was an old friend of the widow’s family—a bourgeois, it is true, still a respectable man, whose father and uncle had, in very difficult times, rendered more than one signal service to Madame de Candolles’ own parents. M. Durand and his wife drew Ferdinand and his mother as much about them as they possibly could, and whenever he found an occasion of insinuating any thing of the kind into the widow’s ear, the well-intentioned préfet would talk seriously, nay, almost paternally, of her son’s future, and the little it seemed likely to offer him. One day, after a conversation in which Madame de Candolles had more freely than usual admitted the barrenness of the lad’s prospects, M. Durand contrived to lead her insensibly toward the notion of some employment whereby a becoming existence might be insured, hinted that there were positions where political opinions need be no obstacle, to which the nomination even did not emanate directly from the government, and ended by proposing to invest Ferdinand with the dignity of head librarian to the Bibliothèque de la Ville, a place yielding some hundred and fifty pounds a year, and just left vacant by the death of Madame Durand’s nephew. Madame de Candolles’ surprise was scarcely surpassed by her indignation, and, though she managed to cover both by a slight veil of politeness, there was in her refusal a degree of haughtiness that went well-nigh to disturb the honest préfet’s equanimity. As to Ferdinand, he did not exactly know, when the offer was first made clear to him, whether he ought not to take down a certain sword worn at Marigny by his ancestor, Palamède de Candolles, and punish M. Durand with positive loss of life for his audacity; but, when what he called reason returned, he determined simply by the frigid dignity of his manners in future to make the bourgeois functionary of Louis Philippe feel the full extent of his mistake, and bring him to a proper consciousness of the wide difference between their relative positions. Nor was this all; one day, some six months after, Madame de Candolles took occasion to pay a visit to the préfecture, and leading M. Durand aside, to solicit him for the still unfilled post of librarian, in favor of Ferdinand’s foster-brother, a market-gardener’s son! He was, she said, an exceedingly clever young man, knew Latin, Greek, and all sorts of things, had just served his time in a notary’s office, and would be the very thing for the situation proposed!—(successor to Madame Durand’s own nephew!) The préfet was sufficiently master of himself to refuse politely, alleging that he had already made choice of a librarian; but when Madame Durand heard the story, she vowed undying hatred to all aristocrats, and whenever she afterward met Madame de Candolles, tossed her plumed head as though she had been a war-horse. So ended our hero’s first and only chance of official employment, rejected, we have seen with what disdain. He had then attained the age of twenty-three.

In the course of the following year General de Candolles died, leaving all he possessed to his nephew. This “all” was not much, still it was something—some twenty-odd thousand francs, or so—and if the widow had lived long enough, it might have increased; but, unfortunately, before Ferdinand had reached the age of twenty-five, his mother also died, leaving him completely—positively “alone in the world.” With what Madame de Candolles left (her chief resources had come from a small annuity) Ferdinand found himself at the head of about two thousand pounds sterling. With two thousand francs a year, which this would yield, he might have lived comfortably enough in any part of the provinces, and indulged in a quiet laugh at the préfet, who wanted to make a bibliothécaire of him. But, of course, such sensible arrangements did not enter into his head. He was (the naïf royalist and aristocrat!) wild with admiration of “Hernani” and le Roi s’amuse, and for the moment thought of little beyond the soul-stirring delights of seeing Bocage in Antony, or Madame Dorval in Marion Delorme. To Paris, of course, tended all his desires, and to Paris he accordingly went, as soon as the first months of mourning were expired, and he had put what he termed order into his affairs.

We will not dive into the details of his existence in the great capital during the first period of his residence there. Suffice it to say, that the literary mania soon possessed him entirely, and he dreamt of little short of European fame. Here, indeed, thought he, was a career into which he might throw himself with all his energy. Lamartine and De Vigny were gentlemen like himself, and there was in poetry nothing to sully his escutcheon. Unfortunately, Ferdinand mistook for talent the means afforded him by his purse for drawing flatterers about him, and for some time he bought his most fatal illusions with his positive substance. Dinners to journalists, and parties of pleasure with all the world, soon reduced his capital considerably, but what did that matter? when he should be famous, publishers would besiege him, laying thousands at his feet for a fortnight’s labor. He was already the acknowledged idol of certain salons, and when the tragedy he had written should be performed, his name would be glorious throughout the world. By dint of pecuniary sacrifices, the performance of this play at the Théâtre Français had been obtained, and what with newspaper scribblers, claqueurs, actresses, and human leeches of every sort who fastened upon his pocket, the author found himself, half an hour before the curtain drew up, on the fancied dawn of his glory, literally deprived of every farthing he possessed, except one solitary five-franc piece in his waistcoat pouch. Ferdinand smiled gayly on perceiving this, and thought what a strange thing fortune was, and fame, too, and how, on the morrow, he should be on the high road to riches!

Well, to cut the matter short, the tragedy was a dead failure, as it merited to be, and before the last act was ended, Ferdinand’s golden dreams were rudely dispelled, and he clutched the pièce de cent sous in his waistcoat-pocket as though it were to save him from going crazy. When the curtain dropped he escaped from the theatre unseen, muffled up in his cloak like some criminal flying from detection. But his fate was lying in wait for him. As he turned round the corner of the house which led into the least frequented of the surrounding streets, he perceived three or four carriages waiting for their occupants, and he stood for an instant, hesitating whether to go backward or forward. At that moment, a ray from the réverbère fell upon the face of a lady who, enveloped in mantle and hood, was waiting for the arrival of her equipage. Ferdinand had never seen that face before, but he stood riveted to the spot, for something in his heart whispered, it is she—the one! The preceding carriages received their respective charges, and whirled them off; the last one drew up, and the door was opened by the footman—the lady dropped her glove, whilst turning to bid adieu to her companion. Ferdinand, unconscious that he had sprung to her side, raised it up, and offered it to its owner. “Thank you, Armand,” said she, “what a wretched stupid play—was it not?” and then turning round—“A thousand pardons, monsieur!” she exclaimed, “I mistook you for another person;” and so, with a bow, she entered her carriage, and the door closed with a bang.

Ferdinand stood upon the spot where he had seen her stand, until a sergent de ville touched him on the arm, and told him to move on. “What a wretched stupid play!—was it not?” the sentence rang in his ear, but brought with it the echo of the tone—that magic sound that had struck upon the chords of his secret soul, and under whose vibration they were still striking their response—the honeyed voice, not the hard words, had wounded him, and he confessed that, though deadly, the poison was nectar to the taste.

Day after day, hour after hour, did Ferdinand spend in the vain attempt to discover his unknown idol, and the less he succeeded in the enterprise, the more the object of his pursuit became lovely in his eyes, and was surrounded with ideal charms. It would be useless to enter into the painful details of Ferdinand’s life during this period.

The day after the failure of his tragedy, the Marquise de Guesvillers, an ancient dowager of the Faubourg St. Germain, and his chief prôneuse, sent to beg the discomfited author would come dine with her tête-à-tête. Ferdinand had a reason now for desiring to explore to the utmost extent the upper regions of society, and he accepted the invitation. The old lady greeted him with a half-benevolent, half-mischievous smile—“My dear child,” said she, when the servant had closed the door, “now that Providence has saved you from becoming an homme de lettres, we must try to make something of you. Heaven be praised! pen and ink must have lost its charm for you at last;” (a pinch of snuff,) “it seems your play was as bad as your enemy could wish; Madame de Rouvion was there, and has just told me so—poor dear Hector de Candolles,” (another pinch of snuff,) “if he could have guessed that a great-grandson of his would write a play! But, however, that is over now, and we have only to rejoice that things were no worse: when the recollection of your aventure shall have quite subsided, we will find a wife for you, and settle you in life! Thank Heaven! you are cured of your taste for pen and ink!” and these last words the good lady repeated over and over again in the course of the evening, and each time with remarkable satisfaction. Once or twice Ferdinand was tempted to shake the monotonous little dowager to pieces, and shout in her ear—“Woman! I must live by pen and ink, or starve!” but the remembrance of the face he had seen the night before, froze the words on his tongue, and he submitted to the torture in silence.

For months in the salons, whither Madame de Guesvillers carried him, he sought out the object of his dreams, but she never appeared, and Ferdinand went on leading la vie de Bohème, until hope began almost entirely to fade away. One evening, he had, for the fiftieth time, accepted an invitation to some soirée, where his indefatigable patroness insisted upon his going; and he was, as usual, looking on whilst others amused (or fancied they amused) themselves, when the conversation of two ladies near him attracted his attention—he knew not why.

As the two talkers moved away, a certain movement might have been observed toward the middle of the room, and many and loud greetings welcomed a new comer, who seemed to have been long absent. Mysterious magnetism of the heart! Ferdinand knew what had happened, and was prepared, when he turned round, to recognize at last—standing in the midst of a group, who were pressing eagerly around her—the one, so long, so vainly sought; the vision that had risen over his ruin like a star over the tempest-torn sea, that had come and vanished in the momentous night, when it was proved to him that his sole resources, for a bare existence, must depend, in future, upon hard, ignoble, unavowed and insufficient toil!

There she stood—bright, beautiful and glad, beaming on all about her; dispensing favors in look, gesture and smile, and inflicting wound after wound on Ferdinand’s heart by the incomparably sweet voice that, do what he would, seemed to his ear always to repeat—“What a wretched, stupid play!—is it not?” It was the only link between them—the one sole sign whereby she had acknowledged his existence.

How long the soirée lasted, was what M. de Candolles never knew; he simply thought it a time—it might be one protracted moment—during which there was light; then, the light went out, and darkness spread over every thing around. He would not ask to be presented to Mademoiselle de Vouvray; he was content to watch her; and, when she was gone, he mechanically closed his eyes, locked up his vision within his inmost self, and then, re-awakening, went forth, to be once more alone with his idea!

Time passed on, and Ferdinand’s passion increased with every hour. Three or four times in the week he found means to feast his eyes upon the object of his adoration, and the remaining days and nights were spent in trying to draw poetic inspiration from what threatened to be the source of something very nearly akin to madness. Ferdinand’s actual talent, however, was of such a perfectly ordinary stamp, that it profited in no degree by the strong element love afforded it, and one fine morning—when he least expected it—a blow so stunning was dealt him that his whole fabric of existence was well-nigh shivered to the earth. The proprietor of the paper wherein, for the last year or two, M. de Candolles had published anonymously the chief productions of his pen, suddenly told him that he should in future be obliged to refuse his contributions unless signed by his own name! M. de Candolles, he urged, was known in many salons of the beau monde, and probably what he might write would be read by a good number of people, whereas the lucubrations of Jaques Bargel—Ferdinand’s pseudonyms—only occupied space, and brought neither fame nor money to the journal. M. de Candolles received the announcement, which went near to show destitution staring him in the face, with becoming fortitude. He would sooner have died than allow his name to be dragged forward into publicity; and at the thought of the elegant, aristocratical, disdainful lady of his worship discovering that he lived by writing feuilletons, he felt the very ground fail beneath his feet.

Ferdinand was, after the circumstance we have just related, reduced to a species of misery even he had as yet not suspected. Unable to pay for the lodging, small and dirty as it was, that he had hitherto inhabited, he was now reduced to rent a small attic belonging to the collection of servants’ rooms in a tolerably good-looking house. The one thought that absorbed him was fear lest Blanche de Vouvray should discover the necessities of his life. This, and this alone, combated the wild passion wherewith she had inspired him. But he reckoned without feminine instinct and feminine curiosity. Blanche de Vouvray had not been half-a-dozen times in the same salon with M. de Candolles, before she felt she was adored, and her next feeling was one of considerable anxiety to know how she should bring her slave to confess the charm. Blanche was a person of irreproachable conduct; but still, it was tiresome to be so evidently worshiped, and yet know nothing at all about it!

Poor Ferdinand! The struggle for existence was rapidly wearing him out. The want of almost every necessary of life, the constant recourse to a morsel of bread, or a little rice, and a few potatoes, for daily food, coupled with the perpetual tension of the brain, required to secure even these, miserable as they were—all this was doing its deadly work, and M. de Candolles’ health was visibly failing every day. One evening, this was so plain to all eyes that, at Madame de Guesvillers’ house, many good-natured persons told Ferdinand he really must take care, or they should hear of his going off in a galloping consumption. An hour or two later, some one opened a window behind where he was standing—

“Do not remain where you are—pray!” said a voice beside him. It was timidly yet earnestly said—the sweet voice was unsteady, and there was such an expression in the last word, “Pray!” Ferdinand turned without answering: his eyes met Blanche de Vouvray’s—she looked down, but not before she had involuntarily replied to his passionate and melancholy glance.

M. de Candolles soon left the room. His brain was on fire, and he rushed homeward like one possessed. Part of his prudence was gone. He snatched up pen and ink, and wrote—wrote to her! All that Ferdinand had never yet found, was found now—the hidden spring was reached, and the tide of eloquence gushed forth, strong, rapid, irresistible.

Such a letter as few women have ever received was put, the next morning, into Mademoiselle de Vouvray’s hands. The first effect of it was electrical—she became confused, and like one in a dream; but, almost as soon, the feminine instinct awoke, and involuntarily she admitted that her end was gained—he had spoken at last! What lay beyond was uncertain—might be dangerous, and had best be altogether set aside. She would avoid M. de Candolles in future. This was not so easy: that very night she met him in the vestibule of the Grand Opera, with little, old Madame de Guesvillers on his arm. He bowed to, but did not look at her; was cold, silent and reserved, and really did seem as though he had one foot in the tomb. He would, perhaps, not live another year—that was a shocking thought—and Blanche shivered as she rolled over the Pont Royal in her comfortable carriage. There could be no harm in answering his letter from a certain point of view she now adopted, and accordingly she did answer it, and a very virtuous, and consoling, and amiable composition her answer was. From this moment the possibility of writing tempted both; and, from time to time, they availed themselves of it, though it never degenerated into a habit. Ferdinand’s pecuniary resources growing less and less with every day, he literally starved himself, in order to cover the extravagance of his heart-expenses. For a bouquet dropped in at her carriage-window, as she drove from the Italiens—for a perfume to put upon his own handkerchief, that she should inhale, he constantly observed a four-and-twenty hours’ fast, broken only by a crust of bread and a glass of water.

There were days, it cannot be denied, when the fair Blanche de Vouvray admitted to herself that it might have been better for her never to have seen M. de Candolles. His strange adoration captivated and preoccupied her by its very strangeness, probably far more than if it had followed the ordinary method in such cases.

One day, after saving during three weeks, and Heaven only knows with what pains, the sum of fifteen francs, Ferdinand therewith secured the loan of a really handsome horse, from one of the dealers in the Champs Elysées. When the carriage came in view—than which there was no other in the world for him—he made his steed execute certain evolutions gracefully enough, for he was a remarkably good horseman, darted off upon the road to the Bois de Boulogne, crossed once or twice the path of the calèche he was pursuing, received one look of recognition, one sign from a small gloved hand, and was over-paid! That evening, they met in the same salon: a lady—who was standing by the piano whereon Blanche had just been playing a new waltz—asked Ferdinand whether she had not seen him on horseback in the Champs Elysées.

“I thought I would try how it might suit me now,” was his reply: “but I find it will not do; the exercise is too strong, and I am unequal to it.” Blanche de Vouvray grew pale, and bent down to look over some music.

“If riding is too much for his nerves,” observed—later in the evening, to his neighbor—one of the beardless lions who happened to be present, “I should imagine such a monstrous quantity of cake must be equally so!” and jumping forward to Ferdinand’s side—

“Halte là, mon vieux!” he exclaimed, with all the elegance and atticism of Mabille in his intonation. “Leave a little of that Savarin for me, will you? Que diable! why, one would swear you hadn’t eaten since yesterday!”

Ferdinand turned round suddenly upon the ill-bred youth, and in his haggard glance there was a flash of positive ferocity: it was but a flash, but to an observer it would have sufficed to testify the truth of the horrid words uttered in jest. An instant after, the impression was chased away, and a laugh was the only visible result of the incident; but any one who could have decyphered what was engraven on M. de Candolles’ countenance that night, would have seen that a convulsion so violent had passed over his whole being; that reason was almost shaken from its throne.

The constant recurrence of these violent emotions acted more and more visibly each day upon Ferdinand’s wasted frame; and, at last, a moment came when he disappeared altogether from his habitual haunts. Few marked his absence, except a few women, in whose albums he wrote bad verses, and for whom he procured autographs from great theatrical celebrities. Upward of ten days passed, and M. de Candolles had not yet been heard of. His old friend, Madame de Guesvillers, drove herself to his door, and the answer at first was—as usual—that he was “out.” Two days later, however, the porter admitted that he was in reality very ill, but that the doctor had forbidden any one from visiting him, as the slightest agitation or exertion might produce the worst effects. That very evening, whilst her circle of habitués was around her, Madame de Guesvillers received a note from Ferdinand, expressing his gratitude for her inquiries, but saying that his illness was little or nothing—a cold—and that he hoped in a few days to be able to resume his place at her tea-table. Blanche was present, heard the contents of the note, and if it had been any one’s interest—which it luckily was not—to watch her, would have betrayed by many little signs, her involuntary joy. But, on returning home, that joy was turned to dismay. There was a letter, too, for her—such a letter—it was written from a death-bed, and contained a last farewell! She dismissed her maid, and sat through the first hours of the night, with the letter lying before her. Every feeling of commiseration, of womanly sympathy was touched, and the true womanly wish to comfort and console aroused.

When she arose the next morning, it was with the determination to afford the last sad alleviation in her power to the sufferings she had caused. She accordingly, after attiring herself as modestly as possible, sallied forth, and, on foot, reached M. de Candolles’ abode. Here, for a moment, she paused, and her courage began to fail.

It was a bright, sunny morning, and it would have seemed that all the shopkeepers in the street were determined to take their part of air and light, for Blanche thought they were all congregated upon their respective thresholds to see her pass. She blushed at every step, and felt so confused, that more than once she had nearly stumbled. Before entering the porte cochere she stood an instant still, all the blood rushed to her heart, and she was ready to faint, lest she should be too late! When she had mastered this first strong emotion she began to reflect upon the means of gaining the sufferer’s presence.

Blanche commenced her ascent, but when she reached the topmost stair of the fifth flight, and saw before her the narrow, winding, dirty steps that led to the last story, she paused, and began to wonder whither she was going. How strange that M. de Candolles should live in such a place! M. de Candolles, who was “one of her set,” and whom she had pictured to herself surrounded by the same elegancies of life which, to the small number of individuals she called every body were indispensable!—what could it mean, and where was she going?

She mounted the flight of stairs, and found herself in a long, winding corridor, lighted by skylights placed at stated distances. Doors were on either hand, and they were numbered. Blanche de Vouvray drew her silk dress and her cachemire shawl closely around her, to avoid the contact of the greasy looking wall. She was hesitating whether she would not return at once, when a low moan, followed by a short, hollow cough, struck her ear—all the woman’s pitying sympathy was instantaneously re-awakened, and she advanced, her hand raised in order to knock.

But, reader, let us in a few words depict to you the scene that is yet hidden by that closed door. On a miserable bed stretched upon a paillasse of straw, lies the invalid, upon whose pallid features a ray of light falls mournfully after having filtered through a ragged piece of green calico hung up before the dim pane of the roof-window. The walls are dingy and bare; in one corner only hangs something in the form of clothing, covered by an old square of ticking. On a broken-backed straw chair at the bed-head, rests a broken tea-pot, apparently filled with tisane; whilst upon a small table near the door are crowded together papers and perfume-bottles, inkstands and soiled gloves, a wash-hand basin and a candlestick, a hair-brush and two or three books—the heterogeneous symbols of all the wretched inmate’s wants, vanities and toil!

The night had been a bad one, and the morning sun brought but small alleviation to Ferdinand’s sufferings, whilst the malady itself held him prisoner in its clutches; the want of proper sustenance so weakened his frame that it could oppose no resistance to disease. The brain, without as yet precisely wandering, still from time to time created for itself fair illusions, gentle dreams. One form ever floated before Ferdinand’s mental vision—far, far off, as in another sphere—and he would stretch forth his arms toward the image, and longing, cry to it for a look, a sign of recognition.

A knock came at his door, uncertain, timid, loud; why did they disturb him?—Another knock!—He groaned forth the word to enter, and a hand was laid upon the key.

To describe what passed in the minds of the two thus suddenly face to face to one another, is impossible. All the squalid, ugly, poverty and apparent degradation we have tried to depict, flashed like lightning over Blanche de Vouvray’s comprehension—she stood aghast, but the involuntary scream that escaped her was drowned in the violence of the exclamation that burst from M. de Candolles’ lips. With one hand drawing over him convulsively the blanket which was his only covering, and waving the other imperiously—“Depart hence, depart,” he shrieked in bitter agony, and with eyes that started with horror from their sockets.

The terror was mutual; and she who had come to console fled in dismay, and he, who would have paid with his heart’s blood a touch of her hand, drove her from him as ruthlessly as though she had been his deadliest foe!

Ferdinand de Candolles did not die then; he went raving mad, was confined at Charenton for many years, grew to be a harmless maniac, and died in the year 1848. Blanche de Vouvray is still a reigning beauty in the salons of Paris, universally respected, and only known by a very few as the heroine of this sad tale.

My Uncle Beagley, who commenced his commercial career very early in the present century as a bagman, will tell stories. Among them, he tells his Single Ghost story so often, that I am heartily tired of it. In self-defense, therefore, I publish the tale in order that when next the good, kind old gentleman offers to bore us with it, every body may say they know it. I remember every word of it.

One fine autumn evening, about forty years ago, I was traveling on horseback from Shrewsbury to Chester. I felt tolerably tired, and was beginning to look out for some snug way-side inn, where I might pass the night, when a sudden and violent thunder-storm came on. My horse, terrified by the lightning, fairly took the bridle between his teeth, and started off with me at full gallop through lanes and cross-roads, until at length I managed to pull him up just near the door of a neat-looking country inn.

“Well,” thought I, “there was wit in your madness, old boy, since it brought us to this comfortable refuge.” And alighting, I gave him in charge to the stout farmer’s boy who acted as ostler. The inn-kitchen, which was also the guest-room, was large, clean, neat and comfortable, very like the pleasant hostelry described by Izaak Walton. There were several travelers already in the room—probably, like myself, driven there for shelter—and they were all warming themselves by the blazing fire while waiting for supper. I joined the party. Presently, being summoned by the hostess, we all sat down, twelve in number, to a smoking repast of bacon and eggs, corned beef and carrots, and stewed hare.

The conversation turned naturally on the mishaps occasioned by the storm, of which every one seemed to have had his full share. One had been thrown off his horse; another, driving in a gig, had been upset into a muddy dyke; all had got a thorough wetting, and agreed unanimously that it was dreadful weather—a regular witches’ sabbath!

“Witches and ghosts prefer for their sabbath a fine moonlight night to such weather as this!”

These words were uttered in a solemn tone, and with strange emphasis, by one of the company. He was a tall, dark-looking man, and I had set him down in my own mind as a traveling merchant or pedler. My next neighbor was a gay, well-looking, fashionably-dressed young man, who, bursting into a peal of laughter, said:

“You must know the manners and customs of ghosts very well, to be able to tell that they dislike getting wet or muddy.”

The young man stood up, flushed with anger. But presently resuming his seat, he said calmly:

“A foolish one!” exclaimed the merchant, throwing on the table a heavy leathern purse. “There are fifty guineas. I am content to lose them, if, before the hour is ended, I do not succeed in showing you, who are so obstinately prejudiced, the form of any one of your deceased friends; and if, after you have recognized him, you allow him to kiss your lips.”

We all looked at each other, but my young neighbor, still in the same mocking manner, replied:

“Yes,” said the other—“I will stake these fifty guineas, on condition that you will pay a similar sum if you lose.”

“Fifty guineas, my worthy sorcerer, are more than a poor college sizar ever possessed; but here are five, which, if you are satisfied, I shall be most willing to wager.”

“I draw back!” exclaimed the student. “Well! if I had the fifty guineas, you should see whether I wish to draw back!”

No sooner had I made this proposition than the rest of the company, attracted by the singularity of the affair, came forward to lay down their money; and in a minute or two the fifty guineas were subscribed. The merchant appeared so sure of winning, that he placed all the stakes in the student’s hands, and prepared for his experiment. We selected for the purpose a small summer-house in the garden, perfectly isolated, and having no means of exit but a window and a door, which we carefully fastened, after placing the young man within. We put writing materials on a small table in the summer-house, and took away the candles. We remained outside, with the pedler amongst us. In a low, solemn voice he began to chant the following lines:

“What riseth slow from the ocean caves

And the stormy surf?

The phantom pale sets his blackened foot

On the fresh green turf.”

“You asked to see your friend, Francis Villiers, who was drowned, three years ago, off the coast of South America—what do you see?”

“I see,” replied the student, “a white light arising near the window; but it has no form; it is like an uncertain cloud.”

After a moment’s silence, the pedler stamped three times on the ground, and sang:

“And the phantom white, whose clay-cold face

Was once so fair,

Dries with his shroud his clinging vest

And his sea-tossed hair.”

“You, who would see revealed the mysteries of the tomb—what do you see now?”

The student answered in a calm voice, but like that of a man describing things as they pass before him:

“I see the cloud taking the form of a phantom; its head is covered with a long veil—it stands still!”

We looked at each other in horror-stricken silence, while the merchant, raising his arms above his head, chanted in a sepulchral voice:

“And the phantom said, as he rose from the wave,

He shall know me in sooth!

I will go to my friend, gay, smiling and fond,

As in our first youth!”

“I see the phantom advance; he lifts his veil—’tis Francis Villiers! he approaches the table—he writes!—’tis his signature!”

A fearful moment of silence ensued; then the student replied, but in an altered voice:

“And the phantom said to the mocking seer,

I come from the South;

Put thy hand on my hand—thy heart on my heart—

Thy mouth on my mouth!”

“He comes—he approaches—he pursues me—he is stretching out his arms—he will have me! Help! help! Save me!”

A piercing cry, and then a stifled groan, were the only reply to this terrible question.

“Help that rash youth!” said the merchant, bitterly. “I have, I think, won the wager; but it is sufficient for me to have given him a lesson. Let him keep his money and be wiser for the future.”

He walked rapidly away. We opened the door of the summer-house and found the student in convulsions. A paper, signed with the name “Francis Villiers,” was on the table. As soon as the student’s senses were restored, he asked vehemently where was the vile sorcerer who had subjected him to such a horrible ordeal—he would kill him! He sought him throughout the inn in vain; then, with the speed of a madman, he dashed off across the fields in pursuit of him—and we never saw either of them again.

“And how is it, good uncle, that after that, you don’t believe in ghosts?” said I, the first time I heard it.

“Because, my boy,” replied my uncle, “neither the student or the merchant ever returned; and the forty-five guineas, belonging to me and the other travelers, continued equally invisible. Those two swindlers carried them off, after having acted a farce, which we, like ninnies, believed to be real.”

The celebrated poet of the Irish Melodies—so long a member of that glorious company of British bards which, a perfect galaxy of genius, illuminated the first quarter of the present century—is no more. He saw them all run their high careers, and pass away—and now he, too, is gone. For the last couple of years, his brilliant and active mind had given way—the soul had sunk before its “dark cottage,” and his life was second childishness and mere oblivion. None of his old cotemporaries remain, at present, but the last among them—Samuel Rogers, the banker-poet, now between 80 and 90 years of age—who, seeing that his poems are not likely to descend to posterity, has, at least, resolved to go a good part of the way himself. We do not mention Montgomery—he was never ranked in the peerage of Parnassus, to which Moore belonged.

It was time for Thomas Moore to depart; he had seen star after star decay:—many a glorious head stoop to the dust, many a soaring spirit extinguished—the passionate and wayward Byron, dying in a barrack, alone, at Missolonghi—an old, worn-out man at thirty-seven; and the delicate and sensuous Keats, in the morning of his days, exhaled into the clear blue sky of Rome; and “the pard-like spirit” of Shelley, passing, ere the noon, through the portals of his familiar haunt, the sea, to mingle with the elements which he so fearfully, so fearlessly worshiped in the world; and the Cervantic and fine-hearted Sir Walter—noblest of Scottish Chiefs; and the consummate lyric poet of Hope and Poland and, “by Susquehanna’s side, fair Wyoming;” and the three kings of bardish Cumberland—the weird and metaphysical Coleridge, as magnificent as Skiddaw—and as misty, for the most part—Thalaba, Southey, the library hermit—and Wordsworth, the consecrated hermit of the Mere and the Mountain; and, along with these “dead kings of melody,” the Shepherd of Ettrick, Allan Cunningham, Motherwell, the stormy, metallurgic soul of Ebenezer Elliott, and the swan-like music of Hemans. He saw them all pass away into the world of shadows—a more goodly and powerful troop of poets than any other age of British literature could boast—and he himself was not unworthy of that splendid and memorable brotherhood.

Moore was born in May, 1779, at Aungier street in the city of Dublin, of Catholic parents. His father was a highly respectable grocer and spirit-dealer. Young Moore was sent to the school of Mr. Samuel Whyte, a man who enjoyed a high reputation as pedagogue in the metropolis. He had a very refined and dignified notion of his own vocation and literature, and was, withal, a good and kind-hearted man. He greatly encouraged the habits of public reading and elocution in his school; and the fashion of private theatricals being then very prevalent in the aristocratic families of Ireland, he was often called to superintend them at various houses. He encouraged his scholars to act scenes from plays, and was a great hand at furnishing prologues and epilogues for stage “pieces de circonstance.” Mr. Whyte was no common man; for it is, in all human probability, to his peculiar mode of training that English literature is indebted for two of its most brilliant ornaments. His encouragement of theatricals and songs, among the boys, gave Richard Brinsley Sheridan a tendency to the drama, and Moore a turn for lyrical composition and high-life; for we firmly and potently believe in the truth of the old hexameter embalmed in the Lindley Murray of our childhood—

’Tis Education forms the tender mind;

Just as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined.

About a quarter of a century before Moore entered the school, Mr. Whyte had the teaching of young Sheridan, whom, curiously enough, he pronounced “an incorrigible dunce,” after a year’s instruction of the boy! A dunce he was, perhaps, at the methodical “branches,” taught in a methodic way by Mr. Whyte; but we venture to say quick enough, when the fit was on him, at the gay work of tinkering or acting plays, or pieces of plays—thus taking unconsciously the bias which had its results in the School for Scandal and the Duenna. As for Tommy Moore, he was always a spry, vivacious, black-eyed little chap, who took at once to the business of the boards, and recited and performed to the great satisfaction of his master. The latter, whenever he went to the houses of the nobility and gentry to get up plays, would usually take with him his smart show-actor—the precocious little Catholic boy, and give him parts to sustain in the representations. In this way the plebeian youngster was introduced—greatly to his pride and satisfaction—into the highest families of Dublin and its vicinity, where the circumstances of gayety and splendor, contrasting with the exclusions generally operating against those of his class and creed, heightened the zest with which he enjoyed his privileges, and thus early created those feelings and sentiments of pleasure and brilliancy which influenced his subsequent career in the world.

From reciting and acting, the transition to writing verses was a very natural thing, and Moore showed himself as apt at rhyme as at every thing else. Indeed, like Pope and Ovid, “he lisped in numbers, for the numbers came.” He himself gives us from memory, part of a juvenile effusion on resuming school tasks after the business of the stage was over:

Our Pantaloon, who did so aged look,

Must now resume his youth, his tasks, his book,

And Harlequin, who skipped, laughed, danced and died,

Must now stand trembling at his master’s side.

And he says: “I have thus been led back, step by step, from an early date to one still earlier, with the view of ascertaining, for those who may take any interest in literary biography, at what period I first showed an aptitude for the now common craft of verse-making, and the result is—so far back in childhood lies the epoch—that I am really unable to say at what age I first began to act, sing, and rhyme.” At the age of twelve he wrote a Masque, in which he adapted verses to Haydn’s “Spirit-Song,” and this was performed by himself, his sister, and some young friends in his father’s house in Aungier street. There have been few instances of a healthy precocity of mind beyond that of Thomas Moore.

In 1793, at which time the French Revolution was suggesting to the kings of Europe a little leniency to their people, Moore was permitted by the repeal of a penal statute, to enter Trinity College Dublin—a Protestant University. Here, being always anxious to distinguish himself, he gave in a specimen of English verse at one of the examinations, and was gratified by the praise of the examiners and a copy of the Voyage of Anacharsis—a book which must have greatly helped to Orientalize the genius of Moore. His first step in regular authorship was the publication of the Translation of Anacreon the Greek poet. His sprightly facility of weaving verse had been exercised during his stay in College, on this congenial task; and in 1799, when nineteen years old, he went to London to keep his terms as a barrister at the Middle Temple, and to bring out his English Anacreontics. These last he was permitted, through the interest of some of his aristocratic Irish patrons, to dedicate to George, the Prince Regent—against whom, nevertheless, at a future period, Moore discharged some of his sharpest arrows of personal and political satire. After the publication of the lyrics, this young poet gradually gave up his idea of becoming a lawyer. Themis and her Courts were relinquished for Musa lyræ solers et cantor Apollo; law was completely driven out of his head by the gay society into which his poetical and musical qualities introduced him, and he seems to have looked more to the patronage of his titled friends and the trade of authorship than to any settled walk or profession. The Earl of Moira was his great patron, and the influence of this nobleman raised the young Irishman to a companionship with the highest and most refined societies of the land. And certainly, the son of a Dublin grocer—a Catholic, too—must have possessed, in a very wonderful degree, the accomplishments and amenities of the head and heart which could thus win the favor and friendship of a very exclusive and fastidious class. Moore’s temperament was, in fact, a happy one, and counseled as well by prudence as his love of pleasure, he exerted himself to the utmost to conciliate the partiality of the aristocracy and to live at ease among them.

About this time, 1801-2, he spent a good deal of his time at Donington Park, the seat of the Earl of Moira, “under whose princely roof,” as he says himself—(and great was the charm which these princely roofs ever had for the poet!) “I used often and long in those days find a hospitable home.” Here the young Irishman became somewhat intimate with kings and princes—members of Bourbon and Orleans families of France; for whom he was in the habit of playing and singing, and with whom he could bandy courtesies and converse. These were the Count of Provence, afterward Charles X.; Louis Philippe and his brothers Montpensier and Beaujolais—“all dismounted cavalry,” as Curran called them, in a whisper, when he first found himself sitting among them; and with these the Duke de Lorge, the Baron de Rolle, and many others of the emigrant noblesse. No wonder Moore’s ideas should be so redolent of sparkling wines, exquisite shapes of beauty, and all the perfume and rose-color of life. He lived at Donington in the happiest and most luxurious manner; and the range of a magnificent library was not wanting to complete the aristocratic charm of his existence at that period. Shut up in it for whole days he has felt, in the midst of his schemes of authorship, like Prospero in his enchanted island. How different was the fate of his old friend, Robert Emmett! At that very time the latter was plotting desperately against the English government, and preparing that rebellious uprising in which he perished.

In 1803, at the early age of 23, Moore began to reap some of the solid fruits of his connection with the English aristocracy. He got the place of Registrar of the Court of Admiralty at Bermuda, through the interest of the Earl of Moira, and went to the island to take possession of his office. But instead of doing the duties of it, he procured a deputy, and went rambling and rhyming over the islands and on the continent of America. He highly enjoyed the natural softness and beauty of the Summer Islands; but many a song and poetical epistle proved that “his heart was in Albion—his heart was not there”—that he was sighing for what he called

The flourishing Isle of the brave and the free,

the splendid hospitalities of Donington and the pays de cocagne of the British aristocracy in general.

Passing from Bermuda, he came to Norfolk in Virginia, and thence made a pretty lengthened tour through the States, by Washington, Philadelphia, Buffalo and the lakes. The young votary of the Anacreontic muses—the musical pet of the higher English circles—did not like the American Democracy at all, and has left on record about as unfavorable an opinion and prophecy concerning the republic as has been written at any time since. Every thing seemed tough and unrefined; and when he made his bow to President Thomas Jefferson, he felt a mental shock from the sight of that simple man, wearing “Connemara stockings and slippers,” at the head of a nation. To be sure the society of British officers and Federal Whigs among whom he chose his friends and acquaintances was not calculated to impress him with any favorable idea of the democratic party. But, every allowance made, Moore said enough to show that, Catholic as he was, and come of plebeian forefathers (at least in an immediate manner; for the name O’Moore is high on the old rolls of Irish peerage and rebellion) he never had any hearty sympathy with republicanism and the cause of the people. He was all for the glorious distinctions of rank and historic prestige—the pride, pomp and circumstance of lordly life; and, in fact, looked on America as a sort of moral wilderness. He had no hopes of it, indeed. He said society here was rotten to the core; and he wrote poetical prophecies of its speedy decay and disappearance from among the nations of the earth!

And yet there were many things here to conciliate the fastidiousness of the young traveler. Among the other tokens of an exceptional civilization, was one which he himself recalls with an evident feeling of gratified pride. The American master of the packet in which he crossed Ontario—knowing that the young gentleman was a poet—the author of “Anacreon Translated,” and “Juvenile Poems and Songs”—refused to accept any money for his passage—would thus show his sense of what was due to literature! We believe very few ship-masters in any of the old countries would have done so courteously magnanimous a thing as that; and Moore himself probably thought so too. The poet was, in fact, much better pleased with the natural scenery than the people of the continent; and scattered through the verses occasioned by his visit will be found many tributes to the picturesque wildernesses he passed through. Speaking of Niagara and other grand scenes he says—

Oh lady, there are miracles which man

Caged in the bounds of Europe’s narrow span

Can scarcely dream of—which his eye must see

To know how wonderful this world can be.

Moore, as well as hundreds of others, has left us his first impressions on the sight of Niagara Falls. He says, “When we arrived at length at the inn, in the neighborhood of the Falls, it was too late to think of visiting them that evening, and I lay awake almost the whole night with the sound of the cataract in my ears. The day following I consider a sort of era in my life: and the first glimpse I got of that wonderful cataract gave me a feeling which nothing in this world can ever awaken again. It was through an opening among the trees, as we approached the spot where a full view of the Falls was to burst upon us, that I caught this glimpse of the mighty mass of waters folding smoothly over the edge of the precipice, and so overwhelming was the notion it gave me of the awful spectacle I was approaching, that during the short interval that followed, imagination had far outrun the reality; and vast and wonderful as was the scene that then opened upon me my first feeling was that of disappointment. . . But in spite of the start thus got by imagination the triumph of the reality was, in the end, but the greater; for the gradual glory of the scene that opened upon me soon took possession of my whole mind, presenting from day to day, some new beauty or wonder, and like all that is most sublime in nature or art, awakening sad as well as elevating thoughts. . . I should find it difficult to say on which occasion I felt most deeply affected, when looking on the Falls of Niagara, or when standing by moonlight among the ruins of the Coliseum.”

In 1806 Moore republished his Juvenile Poems, along with the translations and those poems written at Bermuda and in America. But the Edinburgh Review came down upon the book with the sharpest force of sarcasm and severity. The first publication of his licentious love-songs, it said, might have been excused by the great youth of the poet, but the republication was atrociously prepense and unpardonable. The poor lyric butterfly was broken terribly upon the wheel; but not so much as to disable him (—we mean the poet—changing the figure) from challenging the Auld Reekie editor; and the bard and critic—Francis Jeffrey—met at Chalk Farm, to settle their differences by the duello. But the police officers were too quick for them, and arrested both; whereupon it was reported, amidst much laughter of the press and public, that there were no balls in the pistols! Moore went to the trouble of denying that he knew the state of his adversary’s engine or his own. In this violent business the poet’s feelings were sorely tried. But his publisher managed to thrive upon the business. The book had, of course, received a very unexpected advertisement. Moore’s vexations did not terminate with the foregoing. Over two years afterward, when young Lord Byron, then in his twentieth year, charged gallantly down upon all the poets, poetasters and critics of the English Parnassus, he laughed at the duel, among the other matters, and “Little’s leadless pistol.” Here was another outrage; and out came our poet once more with a challenge to the peer. But his lordship had gone off to make material for his Giaours and Childe Harolds in the East, and the letter remained unread till his return, near two years after. By this time, his “sensitive and surly” feelings had gone off, and he wrote to Moore a frank and good-natured reply. The latter, who had, in the interim, married his wife—Miss Dyke—and thus given hostages to fortune, felt how much pleasanter it would be to have the young baron’s friendship than his bullet in the body, and therefore wrote a very warm Irish letter in return, which paved the way to their mutual friendship. On this occasion Rogers got Byron, Moore and Campbell together round his mahogany, and there they became acquainted with one another, and shook hands all round, for the first time.

In 1808 and 1809 Moore published his poems, “Intolerance” and “Corruption,” satires; one on the English Constitution, and the other on the English Church. They are fluent, but want vigor, and are read no longer. In the “Skeptic” he writes like a good Catholic who prefers ignorant obedience in all matters of Faith to the philosophy of Locke. But he now prepared to sing a loftier strain. His next publication was the First and Second Numbers of the Irish Melodies—a work which will secure to him whatever immortality awaits his name. The melodies became popular, at once, in England and Ireland alike. The sparkling grace and flexibility of his verse presented an agreeable contrast to the generality of songs sung at that period. The mixture of vivacity, pathos, and epigrammatic point in their composition placed their author at the head of modern song-writers; and, if the politics of poor Ireland were doomed to be disastrous, the poetry of her beautiful music now found itself vindicated and triumphant in the halls and palaces of the British aristocracy. There was a savor of rebellion in some of these songs which wonderfully took the fashionable fancy of the English; while in Ireland the repeated allusions to the ancient glories of the land, and the graceful sorrow which seemed to weep its many misfortunes, touched the popular heart, and led the people—(we mean the reading people)—to look on Moore as the genuine poet of Erin, and to applaud him accordingly.

As for the poet himself, it would seem that his sympathy with his native land was more a matter of sentiment than of practical reality. He could excite the finest feelings of drawing-room rebellion. But he was not a Tyrtæus to rouse up that deeper and more daring sentiment which prompts people to rush into the field. He was the friend and college-mate of Emmett and other disaffected spirits; and attended the Debating and Historic Societies in which these ardent and enlightened young men, mostly Protestants, spoke of the rights of man and the liberty of Ireland. They were members of United Irish Societies; but Moore never belonged to the last. The influence of his parents and relations was exercised against the malcontent spirit of the time; and when the unhappy rebellion was crushed, the young bard went to seek his fortune in the very heart of the English aristocracy. There Moore’s patriotism was subdued and refined; and it ever afterward delighted to exhibit itself in the language of polemics and lyric poetry. The Irish sentiment of the Irish Melodies is not strong enough to nourish any sort of rebellion upon. It is remarkable that, in all Moore’s historic allusions, he seldom or never speaks of the prowess of the Irish against the English—the struggles of the Desmonds, O’Neills, O’Moores, and so forth, against the Henries, Elizabeth, or the Stuarts. He goes back into the indistinct times of Milesian sway, the palace of Tara, and the stand of Brian or Malachi against the Danes. He passes over the recent and authentic, such as would come more home to the present period, and weeps or flushes, with remarkable prudence, among the legends and the whole Irish apocrypha. But it would be too much, perhaps, to expect that the little Catholic boy, whose early impressions were formed in the midst of the aristocratic societies of Dublin, to which he was admitted on sufferance, a gratified guest, could ever grow up a democrat or a rebel.

Indeed it is not difficult to discover from the tone of Moore’s writings that he had formed a low opinion of Irish nationality—entertained a poor notion of its past glories of all sorts, and little hope that Ireland would ever do any thing to right herself. Indeed, if Ireland had not her beautiful melodies, to suggest the weaving of lyric verse, and to give it some promise of immortality, we should not probably have had so much Irish reminiscence from Moore. It is, in fact, by a sort of poetic licence, that he allows himself, in some of his songs, to sing with an air of heroism or pathos, of those ancient men and things, in which he himself, as may be gathered from the pages of his History of Ireland, and from other places, had a very slender historical faith. But, after all, the Melodies are beautiful things, and deserve the fame they have won. They are full of felicities, and the hearts have been cold indeed that have been able to resist the fascination they exercise, in congenial moments, whether spoken or sung. The charm of an exquisite phraseology sparkles everywhere, and the feelings with which we hear them sung, seem incapable of more apt and musical expression.

In the intervals of several numbers of the Melodies Moore employed himself on other things. In 1812, he began to think of his great romance—his Opus Magnum—Lalla Rookh. Moore gives us the history of this poem, manufacture, sale and all; but the sale of it (in MS.) went before the manufacture. It was sold to the Messrs. Longman for 3000 guineas—not pounds: literary payments in England having been and being still made, by respectable publishers, in the more aristocratic coin. Mr. Perry, proprietor of the Morning Chronicle, made the bargain for his friend, the bard, and we suspect that without his influence and shrewdness, Moore would not have got that sum. For poets, and people of refined feelings, are the worst hands at a bargain in the world, as everybody knows. Perry said the poet of the Melodies should have the highest price ever given for any poetic work; and that being 3000 guineas, he held out for it and got it. The Longmans bought their pig in a poke, as the saying is. They were to take whatever poem Moore was pleased to write, and also to wait till it was written. This was a very pleasant sort of trade for the poet, and he went to work with that inspiration and cheerfulness of spirit which publishers, for their own sake, should do every thing to encourage in their writers. Moore retired to Mayfield Cottage, in Derbyshire, a little way from Donington Park and its library, and began to seclude himself from mankind. Having resolved that his romance should be Oriental, he crammed himself with every thing written about the East that he could, in any way, lay hands on—its manners, customs, history, religion, languages, geography, and so forth. He then began to write a long story called the “Peri’s Daughter;” but, after going a little way in it, his Pegasus stuck fast, and the attempt was put aside. He tried other ideas; but to little purpose. At last, an Irish idea struck him—that of poor Catholics persecuted and kept down for their religion. By a happy dexterity he metamorphosed them into Guebres, and so, setting up the frame-work of the “Fire-Worshipers,” and clothing his Hibernian sentiments—half romance half religion—in all the sparkling phraseology of the East, he got on swimmingly. The monster, “Prophet of the Khorassan,” “Paradise and the Peri,” and the “Light of the Harem,” followed favorably; and in 1816, after three years’ incubation, he gave Lalla Rookh to the purchasers of the manuscript. To Moore’s honor, it must be said, that seeing the monetary and other embarrassments of that year, he offered to release the Longmans from their engagement, if they desired it. But they stuck manfully to their bargain; and it is pleasant to add, made handsomely by it.

Moore was now very famous. Lalla and the Melodies gave him a reputation only second to that of the noble young “Childe Buron” himself. His “Fire-Worshipers” was quoted with fervor in Ireland; the songs in his “Light of the Harem” had charmed all the world; a herd of imitators sprang up like mushrooms, and bulbuls, peris, roses, flashing swords, and sparkling goblets, were the general order of the day. In the meantime, Moore went with Mr. Rogers to Paris. There he gathered the materials of the Fudge Family, which he published on his return.

In 1819 he traveled again to Paris, in company with Lord John Russell; and both went thence to Italy. Lord John passed on to Genoa, and Moore proceeded to visit Lord Byron at Venice, where the noble exile lived in a very savage condition, drinking gin and water o’nights, and writing his heart out. There the poets passed some agreeable days together, riding along the Lido together, and going over the lagoons in a gondola. It was on this occasion that Byron confided to Moore his “Memoirs,” to be used as the latter should think fit. Moore afterward sold them to Murray for 2000 guineas. But when Byron died, his widow and family interfered, and induced Moore to withdraw and burn the manuscript—forfeiting the money, of course. Moore has been blamed for consenting to this sacrifice. But it is very likely he has preserved in his Life of Byron every thing of interest contained in the papers, and that very little was lost, except certain scandalous particulars, which the world would very willingly let die—though the offal-eating scandal-mongers of the day groaned horribly under the privation at the time. After leaving Venice, Moore went to Rome. He confesses that, in the midst of the ruins and splendors of past Roman civilization and art, he was painfully conscious of his own want of artistic taste and enthusiasm. He says that a sunset on the Simplon touched him with more admiration than any thing he had seen in the Italian galleries of art. This would hardly have been expected from Moore, who has been termed the poet of artificial things. After his return from this tour, he published his Rhymes on the Road and the Fables of the Holy Alliance.

But his return did not extend to England. He knew that country was no place for him, just then. He had made a blunder in his business of the Bermuda registrarship, the consequences of which had now reached him. He had taken no security of the deputy he had appointed to do the duties of that office. The latter, in the course of time and trade, fell into temptation—the easy carelessness of Moore led him, perhaps, into it—and he made way with the proceeds of some American cargoes, and then, with himself—leaving the unprophetic little bard, in the heyday of his glory, to be responsible for near six thousand pounds. The terrible Court of Admiralty now issued a law process against “the smiling bard of pleasure,” which the latter did not think it wise to confront in person, and so stopped short at Paris, where—along with his family, which had joined him—he remained till the close of 1822. His friends, in the mean time, came forward to the rescue; and if, for a moment, he wronged his better genius by hard thoughts against the honor or honesty of his fellows, he was soon brought round to the nobler and better human creed, by generous offers of gifts, loans, etc. Thus, sustained in his exile, he passed his time pleasantly enough, at La Butte Coaslin, near Paris, singing Spanish songs to the guitar in the evening, in company with Madame V——, a neighbor, and spending the mornings of the two summers he remained in France, wandering through the noble park of St. Cloud, spinning and polishing verses and jotting down new ideas in his memorandum-book. His exile was, certainly, pleasanter than that of his erotic, erratic brother, Ovid, lamenting his frost-bitten muses, long ago, on the inhospitable shores of the Black Sea. Moore had a great many visitors at Coaslin, among them our Washington Irving, “who still, I trust,” he says, “recollects his reading to me some parts of his then forthcoming work, ‘Bracebridge Hall,’ as we sat together on the grass walk that leads to the Rocher, at La Butte.” To meet his awkward liabilities, Moore had agreed with Messrs. Murray and Wilkie to write a Life of Sheridan; but finding himself too distant from documents and authorities, he went on with his customary business of verse, and projected an epistolary romance, with Egyptian characters. But this romance was postponed: and it appeared afterward, done in prose, as the “Epicurean.” He also took up the allegory of “The Loves of the Angels,” and working away with his usual octosyllabic facility, he had soon woven it into shape. For this poem he was allowed one thousand guineas by his publisher.

On Moore’s return to England, he found that his friends had negotiated the Americans down to a thousand pounds; and that the uncle of the faithless deputy had been induced, in a grumbling way, to contribute £300 of that sum. A friend had deposited the balance in the bank to Moore’s credit, for the canceling of the Bermuda claim; and the poet was happy to hand him an order on his publisher for that amount. In this connection, Moore records (without naming the giver, but with a quotation from Ovid, to the effect that “gifts are agreeable which are made precious by him who makes them,”) a present of £300, made him at that time of difficulty—the proceeds of a maiden-work—a biography—which had been just published. The donor was Lord John Russel; the firm friend of the poet to the end of his life.

Mr. Moore now went to live at Sloperton, two miles from Devizes, and not far from the country seat of the Marquis of Lansdowne. His dwelling was at first a somewhat rude cottage, in a wooded lane. But, on taking it, the new occupants made it very comfortable and pleasant, by means of enlargements and other improvements. In 1824, Moore published his “Memoirs of Captain Rock,” in which he set forth the misgovernment of England since the conquest of the island by Strongbow. In this book he never forgets the manner for the matter: he is full of point and learned illustration, and festoons his deplorable facts with many felicities of metaphor and arguments of theology. But no Irishman, how hot-headed soever, could take the Memoirs as the text-book of rebellion, or feel his blood excited by them. Mr. Moore’s learning and imagery, in fact, weakened his theme, as the accompaniment of rich, heavy baggage used to obstruct the movements of the great historic armies, long ago. The “Memoirs” are obsolete, though the Irish sufferings seem to be much the same as usual.

At Sloperton, Moore wrote, also, his History of Ireland and the Biographies of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and Lord Byron—the last the best of the three, a biography ranking with Boswell’s Life of Johnson, and Lockhart’s Life of Scott. After his “Captain Rock,” Moore published the “Irish Gentleman in search of a Religion,” in which he girds at all Protestant doctrine, with his usual power of theologic reading and pointed argument; and then gave to the world his “Epicurean;” in which he intertwines his favorite ethics of religion with the frame of a very dull story. Moore’s mind had a strong devotional tendency, and seems to revert—with a sense of its own insufficiency—to the problem of existence beyond the last scene of all that ends the strange eventful history of life. His doubtings, if he ever had any, seem to have taken ultimate refuge in Catholic orthodoxy. He was, in fact, a dutiful son of mother Church: and great was the uneasiness he exhibited, lest his friend, Lord Byron, should adopt, in all their force, the atheistical ideas of Percy Bysshe Shelley, with whom his lordship had become very intimate, in Italy. Moore earnestly expostulated with Byron on the project of the “Liberal” newspaper, got up by the restless Childe and supported by Hunt, Shelley, and Hazlitt. He told his lordship that such a conjunction, with such a radical purpose, was very far from respectable—not by any means respectable enough for an English nobleman to engage in.

The last productions of Moore were those light and satirical verses which appeared in the Morning Chronicle and other papers, up to 1837. They are the happiest things of their kind, in the world, and to those who can admire the gay dexterities of wit, woven into the tapestry work of rhyme, they possess an interest surviving the subjects of them. In the interweaving of pointed and witty things with the flow of colloquial phraseology, Moore has shown himself more skillful than any of his contemporaries, and no writer of the present day can match him.

A bright, sensuous, Celtic genius dies with Tom Moore. As a poet, he will be chiefly remembered for the undying melodies of his native land, with which his words are beautifully identified. His translations of Anacreon are clever school-boy exercises—very free versions and amplifications of the original, and contain many points and prettinesses which the old Cyclic bard never thought of. The juvenile and erotic songs which obtained for Moore the name of the modern Catullus, are very slight things—mere floating gossamers of literature—flashing a little in the light—“the purple light of love,” and then fading away from the general appreciation. But these songs were, nevertheless, greatly in vogue in their day, and the pathos or gayety of them found echoes in the hearts of ten thousand festive saloons. Never was the youth of any poet spent in the midst of greater incitements of love, friendship, and song, than those that solicited Moore on every side during the heyday of his years, in the high society of England. It was therefore morally impossible that his verse should be any thing but “brilliant and light,” full of all the levities and luxuries of sentiment. The real arduousness, effort, and pain of life find no expression at all in Moore. The poems respecting America and his West India voyage, exhibit his want of sympathy with republicanism, and his ceaseless longing after the grand associations and lordly homes of England. Nevertheless, it must not be forgotten that he found some congenial persons and things on this continent. He has recorded the enjoyment of his sojourn in our own city of “brotherly love,” where, in the society of Mr. Dennie’s family, he almost forgot he was in a republic. His recollections of Philadelphia were happy ones.

The “Canadian Boat Song,” composed on the St. Lawrence, is the most popular of the songs written at the earlier period of life—indeed, at any period of his life. It is more frequently heard in society than any thing else he has composed—the finest of the Melodies not excepted. As regards these last, it has been said they are not Irish. It is, indeed, true that Moore modified the native airs a good deal—retrenched most of the wild cadences and free modulations which indigenously belong to them. This, however, may not be such a very great loss after all, seeing that, if some of the melodies, with his arrangement, would not be intimately recognized at wakes and cow-milkings, etc., they were all the better liked, for the curtailment and polish, in the dining-rooms and drawing-rooms. Certainly no modern festive song-writer has produced the effects which usually accompanied the singing of Tom Moore’s lyrics. He was eminently the poet of the saloons. Burns was the lyrist of Love and the lowly hearts and homes of the people. But Moore’s songs were sung in the most splendid halls of English-speaking land, where he himself, of all guests or sojourners in lordly dwellings, was ever the most welcome and caressed. And when we consider the low birth, Irishism and uncompromised Catholicity of the man, we cannot possibly over-estimate those talents of graceful conviviality, good-humor and brilliant wit which could secure for him such social honors and triumphs through life. Well might Byron have called him “the poet of all circles and the idol of his own.” Moore had an exquisite musical taste, and sung some of his own melodies in the most delightful manner. His voice was rather low, and without compass, but it had great softness, and the expression with which he half-chaunted, half-recited, while accompanying himself at the piano, in “Go Where Glory Waits Thee,” “Fly Not Yet,” and others, was a thing to be enjoyed and remembered. On some occasions when he has gone to the piano, the servants of the house—Devonshire House, we believe—have been permitted to come and stand at the doors to listen, along with the delighted crowd of noble listeners. Moore’s performance was considered one of the best treats of the evening at such gay reunions; and Mr. N. P. Willis speaks of the little bard’s appearance, at Lady Blessington’s piano—for a singing-while—as if his singing in this way were an expected gratification which he was too well-bred or too good-natured to refuse to his friends. A touching instance of the effect he could produce on these occasions is given in a fact to which he himself alludes. The beautiful young daughter of Colonel Bainbridge, who was married at Ashbourne Church, in Derbyshire, in 1815, died, a few weeks afterward, of fever. During the delirium that accompanied her illness she sung several hymns from Moore’s collection of “Sacred Songs” which she had heard the poet himself sing in the course of the preceding summer. Alluding to her, he says, in the song “Weep not for Those”—

Mourn not for her, the young bride of the vale,

Our gayest and loveliest, lost to us now,

Ere life’s early lustre had time to grow pale,

And the garland of love was yet fresh on her brow.

Lalla Rookh is a splendid and elaborate romance. Hazlitt said Moore should not have written it for three thousand guineas. This was Moore’s own affair, not Hazlitt’s; and we question if the latter would have refused such a sum, under such circumstances. Nevertheless, Lalla Rookh seems below the pretensions of the poet of the Melodies. Its themes and characters are oriental and the interest they excite is feeble. There is a forced and exotic air over the whole performance which fails to win our sympathies; and, in spite of the beauty of the imagery and all the sparkling artifice of the versification, no one, we believe, was every cordially disposed to read this romance a second time. The rythmus of the “Veiled Prophet” is eloquently rhetorical, but loosely constructed, and it offends our sense of what the heroic couplet is, in the hands of Dryden, Shelley, Goldsmith and Byron. Moore’s metre, in this grave mode, is a continuous outrage against the cæsural canons, and reads with a certain prosaic effect—eloquent enough, to be sure; but prosaic, nevertheless: “The Fire-Worshipers” has been considered the best portion of Lalla Rookh. It contains a great deal of impassioned eloquence and shows great mastery and music of versification; but the impression it leaves is vague and uncongenial, and the catastrophe is painful, merely—like that of the “Veiled Prophet”—both with a melodramatic and impossible air about them. “Paradise and the Peri” has the merit of a more attractive human interest—though almost overlaid by ornament and orientalism. We think the “Light of the Harem” the most agreeable of all. It is perfectly in character—a picture of Eastern luxury from beginning to end—a feast of roses and a flow of fountains, in which we look for nothing but sighs and perfumes—and we find them in all customary Mooreish prodigality. The verse of this little poem is woven music. The portrait of Nourmahal is a piece of lyric gracefulness which aptly exemplifies the art of Moore’s sensuous and harmonic genius:

No wonder “the magnificent son of Acbar” should be set excessively beside himself on account of such a miracle of womanhood.

Moore shows himself very incapable of sustaining himself in any flights of imagination to compare at all with the soaring of Shelley or Byron. The sight of his mind is less keen and ardent than theirs, his thoughts feebler and his verse less vigorously constructed. But in his own genial sphere—on the lower sunny slopes of the mountain, he can snatch a thousand warbling graces beyond the art of these louder instruments.

Moore has happily expressed the pathetic morals, gayeties and tendernesses of sentiment. But we think he has been still more happy in those humorous, satirical, wit-elaborated performances in which it was his wont to assail the public men and things of English government and English society. His metrical onslaughts on the Tory party, the Prince Regent, the Church Establishment—individually or collectively—have been among the most genial and applauded things he has written. In the other walks of poetry he had overpowering rivals—in this he was unrivaled—“within this circle none durst walk but he.” He was well aware of the power of satire to influence the gravest argument in the world, and felt that

Much of his sarcasm was launched against the English Church Establishment. Its existence in Ireland has long been a just cause of popular complaint, and thousands of pamphlets have been written pro and con in the matter. The witty little poet took the hackneyed question, put it into his lyric mill, and having given it a few turns, brought it out in the following manner—intelligible to all comprehensions—answering as well the cause of his Catholic countrymen as the cause of simple truth and justice:

A DREAM OF HINDOSTAN.

“The longer one lives the more one learns,”

Said I, as off to sleep I went,

Bemused with thinking of tithe concerns,

And reading a book, by the Bishop of Ferns,

On the Irish Church Establishment.

But lo! in sleep not long I lay

When fancy her usual tricks began,

And I found myself bewitched away

To a goodly city in Hindostan:

A city, where he who dares to dine

On aught but rice, is deemed a sinner:

Where sheep and kine are held divine,

And, accordingly, never drest for dinner.

But how is this? I wondering cried,

As I walked that city, fair and wide,

And saw, in every marble street,

A row of beautiful butchers’ shops—

“What means, for men who can’t eat meat,

This grand display of loins and chops?”

In vain I asked—’twas plain to see

That nobody dared to answer me.

So on from street to street I strode:

And you can’t conceive how vastly odd

The butchers looked: a roseate crew,

Inshrined in stalls, with naught to do:

While some on a bench, half dozing, sat,

And the sacred cows were not more fat.

Still posed to think what all this scene

Of sinecure trade was meant to mean,

“And pray,” asked I, “by whom is paid

The expense of this strange masquerade?”

“The expense—oh, that’s of course defrayed”

(Said one of these well-fed hecatombers)

“By yonder rascally rice-consumers.”

“What! they, who mustn’t eat meat?”—“No matter:”

(And, while he spoke, his cheeks grew fatter,)

“The rogues may munch their Paddy crop,

But the rogues must still support our shop:

And depend upon it, the way to treat

Heretical stomachs that thus dissent,

Is to burden all that wont eat meat

With a costly Meat Establishment.”

On hearing these words so gravely said,

With a volley of laughter loud I shook:

And my slumber fled, and my dream was sped,

And I found myself lying snug in bed,

With my nose in the Bishop of Ferns’s book.

In spite of the prestige of Moore’s earlier poetry, the world has regarded him, and very justly, as a moral man and a good Catholic. In the domestic relations of life, as well as the social, he seems to have gone through the world blamelessly. For the last ten years or so of his life, he was in receipt of £300 a year from the British Government, procured for him by his friends the Marquis of Lansdowne and Lord John Russell.

Moore died on the 26th of last February, and was buried, according to his desire, in the church-yard of Bromham, between Devizes and Chippenham, where two of his children were buried before him—Anastasia Mary, who died in 1829 aged sixteen, and John Russell, who died in 1848 at the age of nineteen. Another son of the poet died in the French service at Algiers. He had, we believe, four children, all of whom passed away before himself. Doubly dark, indeed, was the close of a life begun so hopefully and enjoyed so much in its middle course.

If the poet had died in Ireland, he would have had a good funeral. As it was, but a single coach, containing four persons, went to the grave with the hearse which carried his remains. Byron reached Huckwell, in 1824, pretty much in the same way; but, we believe, with a somewhat larger attendance—not much, however. Moore attended his noble friend’s funeral to the bounds of London, as the slender cortège passed through, but went no farther.

Moore was of small stature. “He is a little, very little man,” says Sir Walter Scott, speaking of him in 1825. Hunt said of him in 1820: “His forehead is long and full of character, with bumps of wit large and radiant enough to transport a phrenologist: his eyes are as dark and fine as you would wish to see under a set of vine-leaves.” The poet’s face was, in fact, very plain, and only redeemed by the brightness of his eyes. Irish festivity and enjoyment formed the prevailing expression of his aspect, in his better days when he was the delight and pride of every society he appeared in—the gayest, happiest, most appreciated wit of his time. Poor Tom Moore! He was always called Tom Moore; except in cotemporary criticisms of his poems or polemics, nobody thought of calling him Mr. Moore. We cannot fancy him a man of seventy-two! There is an incongruity in the idea which we cannot get over. Old and insane. Alas for the brightest vaunt of human intellect and glory! But Tom Moore will be ever freshly remembered with the undying melodies of his native land.

[Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1852, by George Payne Rainsford James, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the District of Massachusetts.]

LONDON, FIFTY YEARS AGO.

There was a night coach to London, and I was very anxious to arrive in the great city; but Father Bonneville was now feeling strongly the effects of age, and I would not expose him to the fatigue of a long night journey. We set off therefore on the following morning, and I can hardly express the effect produced upon my mind by the first sight of the vehicle which was to convey us. It was the stage-coach in its utmost perfection, light, small, and compact, beautifully painted, newly washed, with leather harness, and four bay horses, which seemed, to my eyes, fitted for the race-course. It was so unlike any thing I had ever seen in Germany, in France, or in America, so light, so neat, so jaunty, so rapid, so perfect in all its parts and appointments, that it stood out at once from every thing else in my mind, as a pure and unadulterated bit of England—an exponent, as it were, of the habits of the country and the mind of the people. When we came to get in, indeed, and take our seats, we found ourselves a little cramped for room. The back, too, was stiff and rigid, and our legs had but little space to stretch themselves out, intertwined with those of our fellow passengers.

When at length the coachman had mounted the box—when the reins were gathered up, and the first smack of the whip given, poor Father Bonneville looked more nervous and uneasy than he had done while I was driving him down the hill over the frontier of France. On we went, however, at a pace which seemed to take away his breath, rattling in and out amongst carts and wagons, and horses and dogs, touching nothing, though seeming every moment about to be dashed to pieces against some great lumbering dray, or to kill a score or two of old people and children. The coach was heavily laden on the top: men’s legs and feet were hanging down in all quarters, and we seemed to sway from side to side with a terrible inclination to precipitate ourselves into the window of some early-risen shopkeeper in Portsmouth.

At length, much to my satisfaction, we were out of the town; and after passing over some wide and curious-looking downs, unlike any thing else I had ever seen in other lands, we entered upon a richer and better cultivated country, and the real face of England—old England—merry England, as it has been endearingly called, spread out before me like a garden. And it is a garden—the garden of the world. I know not why, but the very heaths and moors—and we passed several of them—seemed to have an air of comfort and sunny cheerfulness, superior to the cultivated fields of other lands. From time to time when we stopped to change horses, though it was done with a marvelous rapidity, which allowed but little time for questions, I asked an ostler or a waiter the names of various places we had passed; and I remarked that the English must be very fond of the devil, as they had made him god-father to every place for which they could not well find an epithet. I heard of Devil’s dykes, and Devil’s punch-bowl, and Devil’s jumps, at every step.

We paused to dine, as it was called, at a small town, beautifully situated amongst some fine sweeping hills, and on asking the name, found that it was called Godalming.

“Gott Allgemein,” I said, turning to Father Bonneville, who nodded his head. But it was an unfortunate speech; for one of our fellow-travelers, a great, fat, black-looking man, dressed in mourning, who had never opened his mouth during the day, but who had continued reading a book, let the coach rattle and roll as it would, now fixed upon me as an antiquary, and tormented me during the whole of the rest of the journey with a dissertation upon pottery, and sepulchral urns, and Roman coins, when I wished to observe the country, and gain information regarding the new land which I had just entered. He evidently took me for an Englishman; but my companion he soon found out to be an emigrant, and compensated in some degree for his tiresomeness, by giving us the names of several good inns—“Where,” as he added, with a gentle inclination of his head toward Father Bonneville, “there were waiters who could speak French.”

My good old friend was a little mortified, I believe; for he flattered himself that his English was without accent.

Night fell while we were yet some distance from London, and still we rattled on at the same velocity, till our heavy friend in the corner thought fit to inform us that we were entering London. It did not seem to be an agreeable entrance at all; for the dark streets, lighted by very dim globe lamps shining through a fog, into which we seemed to plunge, had a somewhat forbidding aspect to the eye of a stranger, and the multitude of figures hurrying along on both sides of the way, now seen, now lost, as they came under the lamps, or passed the blazing shop-fronts, looked like phantoms of the dead pursued by some evil spirit. The noise too was intolerable; for vehicles were running in every direction, making an awful clatter as we clattered by them, while through the whole was heard a dull, everlasting grumble, as if the city suffered under one continual thunder-storm.

At length, we dashed up to the door of an inn, and every one began to jump out or down, and to scramble for trunks or portmanteaus, as best he might.

I cannot say that our first night’s residence in London was peculiarly agreeable; for besides being both heated and tired, stiff and cramped, we had the delight of being half-devoured by bugs till dawn of day.

Poor Father Bonneville rose late, nearly as much fatigued with his night’s rest as with his day’s journey. But immediately after breakfast, we set out to seek for better accommodation. I proposed that we should go to one of the inns which had been mentioned; but he advised, strongly, that we should take a small lodging, adding—“London, when I recollect it, was the greatest place for lodgings in the world.”

So we still found it; for in many streets as we walked along, we saw “Furnished lodgings to let,” written on a piece of paper, and stuck up in the window of almost every other house. Some of these we passed by, as likely to be too fine and expensive for our purposes. We looked at others, and were not satisfied. In one, dirt and smoke were too evident to both eye and nose. At another, the young ladies of the mansion appeared not such as we wished to dwell amongst. In other places, again, we were not fortunate enough to give satisfaction ourselves. One stout lady, to whom Father Bonneville addressed some inquiries, stuck her large, bare, blue arms akimbo, and said she would not let her lodgings “to foriners,” adding—in not a very indistinct tone—“They’se all on um so dirty.”

The good Father, the cleanest man upon the face of earth, was deeply mortified at this insinuation, and turned away indignant. I laughed and followed; and at length we found a little place, which seemed to suit us well, in a street running from the Haymarket, westward. For a guinea and a half a week, we were to have two bed-rooms and a sitting-room. The lady of the house, or her she helot, was to cook for us for five shillings per week more, and all promised very well, when I had nearly spoiled the whole bargain by inquiring if there were any bugs.

“Bugs!” cried the indignant dame. “Bugs! If you think there are any bugs, you had better not come here, young man.”

I found afterward that no house in London is ever admitted to have bugs during the day, however potently they may make their existence known during the night. She was quieted down at length, however, and seemed quite pacified, when I paid her down the first week’s rent before hand, so as to secure her revenue whether there were bugs or not; and when she saw four or five very respectable looking trunks of American manufacture brought to the house from the inn, she became exceedingly reverential, and, to do her all justice, remained so till the end of our stay.

To finish with bugs, however, at once and for ever, I may as well add that, two days after our arrival, I found a very unpleasant looking gentleman, in a brown coat, walking over my dressing-table, and calling the landlady, I pointed it out to her.

“Good lauk-a-daisy!” she exclaimed, in a tone of sweet simplicity: “What can it be? I never saw such a thing in my life. If it’s a bug, sir, you must have brought it from the inn with your pokemantles. That would be a sad case to have the house stocked with um.”

I said, nothing more, lest I should provoke her to bring an action for damages against me; but I found that, in the course of the morning, she went over all the rooms with a curious sort of an instrument, like a tin kettle, from which she emitted jets of scalding steam into all the cracks and crevices, and I will acknowledge that boiled bugs are not half so offensive as raw.

It took us a whole day to get shaken into our new abode, and to eat some exceedingly fat mutton-chops—about the fourth part of what the lady had provided for our dinner. What became of the remainder we never discovered, and I perceived, though Father Bonneville did not, that either from the sea air which we had lately enjoyed, or from some other cause, we had become inhumanly carnivorous, consuming at least, ten times the quantity of beef and mutton in a week than we had ever consumed in our lives before, together with an enormous quantity of bread and butter, and tea enough to have poisoned a Mandarin.

On the following day, with the good Father on my arm, I set out in search of Madame de Salins, taking care to ask our landlady, in the first place, the way to Swallow street.

“If you will just strike away by the market, sir—that is, St. James’ market—I don’t mean Carnaby, that’s a great way off, and take away up toward Oxford street, you’ll come right upon the end of Swallow street—or you can turn in by Major Foubert’s passage.”

I explained to her that I knew neither of the markets she mentioned, and had not the slightest acquaintance with her military friend who kept the passage; and then she laughed, and cried—

“Good lauk-a-daisy! I forgot. What a head I have to be sure; but there are so many things always a runnin’ in it.”

She then entered more into detail, told me the streets I was to take, by the designation of right hand and left hand, and counted up the turnings on her fat fingers, with which better information we set out, and steered pretty accurately. As we went, I could not refrain from talking to my good old friend about Madame de Salins and Mariette.

“She is probably no little thing now, Louis,” replied Father Bonneville, with a smile. “You always speak of her as if she was still a child; but she must be nearly a woman now.”

I gave a sigh; for I would fain have had Mariette always a child—the same little Mariette I had loved so well. I did not think she had any right to grow older; and the idea of that sweet little creature metamorphosed into a great, raw school-girl, of between fourteen and fifteen, was almost as painful to me, as the sight of sweet Anne Page changed into a great lubberly boy to poor Slender.

I was destined to a worse disappointment, however. Of all the streets in London, Swallow street was perhaps the most dim, dingy, and unprepossessing I had as yet seen, and when we found out number three, it presented to us a chemist’s shop, of a very poor class, with the windows so dirty, and spotted with dust and rain, that the blue and red bottles within were hardly visible. Over the door was the name of the proprietor “Giraud,” which was promising as a French name, and in we dived to make inquiries. Monsieur Giraud himself, proved, as we expected, a French emigrant, but he was the most sullen, uncommunicative, repulsive Frenchman I ever met with. I suppose exile, misfortune, and a poor trade had soured him. However, he showed us nothing but brutality as long as we spoke English, and was not very civil when we began to talk to him in French.

He knew nothing of Madame de Salins, he said: there was no such person in his house. There had been a whole heap of them, he added, when he bought the place some six months before, and he believed there was a woman and her daughter amongst them, but he had turned them all out, and knew nothing more of them.

The idea of Madame de Salins and my pretty little Mariette being forced to dwell at all in such a dim and dingy den, and then being turned into the street by such an old weazle-faced animal as that, roused my indignation, and I replied sharply, that he seemed to have very little compassion for his fellows in misfortune.

“Sacre bleu! Why should I have compassion upon any men?” he asked bitterly; “they have had no compassion upon me. But I can have compassion, too. There’s that old rogue of a marquis up stairs. I let him have the room, dirt cheap, at his prayers and entreaties, although he would have turned up his nose at me in Paris. You can go and ask him if he knows any thing of the people you want—There, up that stairs.”

I mounted fast, and Father Bonneville followed me; the chemist shouting after me to go up to the third floor. There, in a wretched garret, we found one of the most miserable objects I ever beheld. Seated by a little fire, in a room hardly habitable, was an old man of upward of seventy, shrunk in body and limbs, but with his face bloated and heavy. He had got on an old, tattered dressing-gown, and a thick, black night-cap, and one of his legs was swathed in flannel. He held a little sauce-pan in his hand, over the fire, cooking a ragout for himself, and an empty plate, with a knife and fork, stood upon the table, on which also lay a broad ribbon and a star. When we entered, he started up, and seeing two well-dressed strangers, set down the sauce-pan, wrapped his gown a little closer round him, and then drawing his two heels together, made us the bow of a dancing-master. He forgot not his politesse for a moment, and besought us to be seated, with a simpering, half-fatuous smile, pointing to one whole and one half-chair, and then begged to know to what he might attribute the felicity of our visit—perhaps we were mistaken, he added, as he had not the pleasure of knowing us. We might be in search of some other person, but his poor name was Le Marquis d’ Carcassonne. I felt Father Bonneville, who was behind me, catch my arm suddenly, as if to check me for some reason; but I was anxious to obtain intelligence of Madame de Salins, and I asked the old gentleman if he could give us any news of her. He was profoundly grieved, he said in answer, that it was out or his power. He knew the family, by repute, well, and had heard of them even in London; but it was his inexpressible misfortune not to know where they were or what they were doing. He bowed as he spoke, as if he sought to signify that our audience was at its close, but before we retired, he added—

“May I inquire, monsieurs, if it be not indiscreet, whom I have the honor of seeing? I only ask, that I may tell Madame de Salins that you have done her the honor of calling upon her, in case I should meet with her in society.”

I replied briefly that my name was “Monsieur De Lacy,” but those words produced in an instant the most extraordinary effect. The bloated face of the old man, red and carbuncled as it was, turned deadly pale. He stood for a moment, and I could see him shake. I thought he was going to faint, but the next instant he walked to the chair, seated himself slowly, and waved his hand, saying—“Go, go.” At the same moment, Father Bonneville pulled me by the arm, exclaiming more vehemently than was usual with him:

I followed him down the stairs, and out into the street, and then asked—with a heart beating strangely—what was the meaning of all that had occurred, and who that old man was.

“The bitterest enemy of your family,” replied Father Bonneville; “the murderer of your father. And is this the end of all his pride, ruthless ambition and blood-thirsty persecution of the innocent! Ask me no questions, Louis, but avoid that man. The venom may be extinct, but he is a serpent still.”

BANKING MATTERS.

I walked home from the house in Swallow street exceedingly melancholy. That there was some dark mystery about my fate, was clear, and it presented itself in a more painful and tangible shape to my mind now, than it had ever done before; but, in truth, I must own that this was neither the sole nor the principal cause of the gloom that now fell upon me. I had looked forward to the meeting with Madame de Salins and Mariette, with a sort of childish, delighted expectation, which had given a relief to darker and more sorrowful thoughts. A thousand sweet memories of childhood had risen up like flowers to cover the grave of more mature affection; and now they had withered also. A sensation of despondency came upon me; an impression: a feeling that I was never to be happy in affection; and this sort of sombre prepossession seemed to connect itself somehow with the fate of my family and my race.

It must not be thought, indeed, that I gave myself up to such dreary feelings without struggling against them, and even on the way back, I strove to speak cheerfully, and to answer Father Bonneville’s hopeful assertion, that we should find Madame de Salins yet, not quite as confidently, but without any display of the doubts which had possession of my own mind. At heart, however, I had given up all hope. I had never been one of those sanguine people, who believed their fortunes to be written in the chapter of accidents; and what but accident could produce a meeting between us and those we sought for, now that all clue was lost. Where, in that vast world of London—where in that thickly-peopled country, were we ever to hear of two unknown, and probably poor, exiles, such as Madame de Salins and her daughter. The very crowds that passed us in the street, hurrying eagerly and rapidly along, each one thinking of himself with eager face, and hardly noticing the others who passed, seemed to forbid such expectations.

“No, no,” I said to myself. “They are lost to us now, probably forever.”

I would not transact any business that day, although several hours of daylight still remained, and it would have been much better probably to have plunged into dry details at once; but there is generally an apathy about disappointment, at least there was with myself, and obtaining some books from a library, I sat reading somewhat listlessly during the whole evening, for many hours after Father Bonneville had retired to rest. From time to time I laid down the book, indeed, and thought of myself and of my future, and cross-examined myself in regard to the past. The book I had been reading was a sentimental one of the day, but not without considerable power. It treated of Love, amongst other things, and painted that passion with a fire and vehemence rarely seen in the works of English writers. I tried to test my love for my poor Louise, by the sentiments there expressed, and I felt sorry and angry with myself to find that my own feelings had never come up to the standard before me. That I had loved her with a deep, sincere, and strong attachment, I knew.—I was sure; and her gentle sweetness during her last hours, and her early fate, had only endeared her to me more, and made her memory precious to me. But yet I felt disappointed, grieved that I had not experienced that strong, vehement passion which the book before me depicted. It seemed almost to me as if I wronged her—as if she had been worthy of better, more earnest love than mine.

Upon the whole, the reading of that night, and the reflections which came with it, served not at all to cheer me; and I determined the next day to do what I had better have done at once—plunge into business, arrange my affairs, and ascertain precisely what my future means were to be. My first visit, of course, was to be made to the banker who had received the remittances from Germany, and I asked Father Bonneville to go with me. He declined, however, saying that he had some little affairs to transact himself, and would meet me at dinner in the evening. At this time, by an easy transition, he and I seemed to have in some degree changed places. I was anxious about him, careful of him, and hardly fancied that in that vast strange place he was capable of taking care of himself. I made him promise, therefore, that he would take a hackney-coach, and went away, not wishing to seem inquisitive as to his errand, although I could not help believing that I had personally something to do with the business he was about to transact.

At the bankers it was soon perceived by the clerks that I was utterly ignorant of business; but on giving my name, and stating what I wanted, I was introduced into a small, dingy room at the back of the building, where candles were lighted, and were necessary. By their light I perceived a fine-looking old gentleman, with a square face, and a large bald head, glossy as a mirror. My name had been announced to him before I entered, and he rose and shook me warmly by the hand, congratulating me on my safe arrival in England.

“We have had a little trouble,” he said, “about this business, for our friends at Hamburgh have a strange way of remitting money, by mercantile bills, for all sorts of sums, and at very various dates—none of them very long, it is true, but it gives our clerks a great deal of pains in collecting; and if you had arrived a month ago, you would have found that part of the business not concluded, Count.”

“I beg your pardon,” I said, with a smile, “I believe I have no right to the title you give me, although my recollections of France do not go further back than a period when all titles had been abolished. Citizen was the ordinary name in those days, and if strangers gave me any title at all at my age, it was ‘Gamin.’ ”

The banker seemed surprised, and for a moment looked a little suspicious, as if he thought it might be a case of personation. “But you are the gentleman,” he said, “who married the daughter of Professor—Professor—”

“Ay, exactly, exactly—Professor Haas,” rejoined the banker. “But you have, of course, the letter announcing this remittance to our hands?”

“Oh, yes,” I answered, now seeing in which way his suspicions turned; “I have both the letter from Hamburgh, and the marriage contract, which I shall always keep. There is the letter;” and taking out my pocket-book, I handed it to him. The banker himself could make nothing of the contents, for it was written it German, of which he did not understand a word; but he sent for a clerk who did, and in the meanwhile pointed out something I had never remarked before in the address, which was written in a good, round, text hand. At the top was written as usual, “à monsieur,” and underneath appeared, somewhat run together, the words “Le comte,” which I had read Louis.

“You see he gives you the ‘Count’ at all events,” said the banker, rubbing his hands.

“I did not remark it before,” I answered; “and I shall certainly never take the title here.”

“By the way, by the way,” said the banker, “if I recollect right, there is a letter for you here;” and handing the one I had given him to the Clerk who had now entered, he said to him, “Be so good as to read that, and let me know what it says.”

The clerk read off fluently, and translated with ease the contents of the notary’s letter, and then said, pointing to me, “This must be the Count de Lacy, sir.”

“He wont have the count—he wont have the count,” cried the banker, laughing.

“Well, sir, I suppose that is as he pleases,” said the grave clerk; “but had I not better get the letter that is here for him?”

It was soon brought, and I found it was from my good friend the notary, containing two documents of much but very different interest. The one was an inscription for the tomb of my poor Louise, drawn up by his fellow executor, in which she was styled Countess de Lacy; and the other was a letter from London, which had been received by one of the principal authorities of Hamburgh, informing him that a rumor had reached persons in England, interested in the welfare of a young gentleman named Louis Count de Lacy, to the effect that he and his tutor Father Bonneville, having emigrated from France, and been driven out of Switzerland, were directing their steps toward the North of Germany, or to Russia; and requesting the authorities of Hamburgh, if they should appear in that city, to notify to Father Bonneville that the allowance previously made would be continued; but that the banking-house at which it was paid was changed to one which had been mentioned in a previous letter.

“This will be good news for Father Bonneville,” I said, handing the letter to the banker, who could make that out very well. He seemed now perfectly satisfied, but still inquired where Father Bonneville was to be found. I replied that he was with me in London, which seemed to satisfy him still more; and the clerk nodded his head, and said in a significant tone, “It’s all right, sir.”

Wonderful it is, how many men who transact a great deal of very important business, are mere machines, guided by their subordinates. They are but the hands of the clock, moved by wheels below them. Probably but for the clerk’s saying, “It’s all right, sir,” I should have got through very little business that day.

Now, however, every thing went on smoothly. Accounts were produced; calculations rapidly made; various particulars, which might as well have been written in Sanscrit, were explained to me in terms which might as well have been Arabic; and in the end I found myself possessed of property which the banker informed me would produce, if rightly invested, an income of about eight hundred pounds a year. As I had never been accustomed to calculate in pounds sterling, I found it somewhat difficult to get the idea thereof disconnected from that of dollars, and the banker had to explain to me, that eight hundred pounds a year made so many marks banco, before I perceived that I was what might be considered a very wealthy man—at least in Germany. I knew that the good professor had possessed the reputation of being so; but I was not before aware to what extent his accumulations had gone. My good friend the banker advised me to have the amount invested for the time in public funds, offered his assistance and advice as to its future employment, and ended by inviting both myself and Father Bonneville to dine with him on that day week.

I accepted for myself, but expressed a fear that my old companion would not be well enough to go into society, and then took my leave, for it was by this time late, and the banking-house was at the far end of that dingy, busy, industrious ant-hill called “the city.”

When I got home to our little lodging, I found that Father Bonneville had returned, and was waiting dinner for me; and I could see by his face in a moment, that whatever had been the object of his expedition in the morning, he had been disappointed. I gave him a general account of what had occurred, told him the amount which we might annually count upon, and in the end gave him the letter which had been sent to the authorities at Hamburgh, which seemed to afford him some satisfaction, but not so much as I had anticipated. He made very few comments upon the letter itself, but pointed to the title of Count which had been given to me with a melancholy smile, saying, “You have a right to it, Louis, but if you take my advice, you will not assume it in this country.”

“I do not intend, my dear friend,” I replied; “but really all these mysteries are painful to me. The time must come when all these things should be explained, and I would fain know when that will be.”

“Yet a little, yet a little, Louis,” replied the good father, with a deprecating look. “It may be one or two years, but not more, I think—not more.”

“But, good father,” I answered, “you ought, at all events, to give me the means of tracing out my own history, even though I use them not for the time you mention. Life is uncertain, and were you taken from me, I have not the slightest clue.”

“You will find it amongst my papers, whenever death calls me hence,” replied Father Bonneville. “Every information and proof I collected long ago; and in all the passages which we have lately undergone—in exile—in poverty, and in peril, I have preserved them safely. But I really would not take this name of Count—I would call myself merely Mr. De Lacy. That is a common name in England; and you may very well pass for an Englishman—the other title might do harm.”

I again assured him that I had no intention of assuming any title at all. But however strong might be my resolution, I found it difficult to keep. The banker’s clerks knew me by that title; and the banker himself, when I went to dine with him, used it in introducing me to several people. I declined it, however, wherever I could do so without affectation, and made it sufficiently apparent that it was no assumption of my own.

The party was large; the house in the west end of the town, most magnificent; and a great number of persons were present, some of whom I found were of the élite of London society. It was very much the same sort of party as all others in great capitals; and most of my readers must have seen a thousand such. There were several insignificant puppies, several equally insignificant, but very pretty young women, a majority, however, of highly respectable, well-informed, gentleman-like, but not very interesting people, and two or three of higher qualities, polished, but not worn down in the polishing, with hearts as well as minds, and not only with information, but with the will and the power to apply it. It fortunately happened for me that some of these sat near me at the table. One was a lady of the middle age, who was called Lady Maria, and whose husband, a Commoner, and an eminent lawyer, sat higher up the table; and another was a young man, dressed in the very height of the fashion, and having a somewhat foppish air, which at first prejudiced me a little against him. I soon found occasion to change my opinion however; for, though he did not talk much, whatever he did say was to the point; and allusion having been made to one of those very common cases in great cities, where a man of high rank had behaved very ill to a lady somewhat inferior in station, my friend with mustaches, on the right, burst suddenly forth in a strain of indignant reprobation, which made some of the other guests smile, and one of the ladies say, laughingly, “You have been so long away, Charley, following your uncivilized trade of fighting, that you have forgotten how delicately such civilized vices require to be treated.”

“They shall never be treated delicately by me, my dear aunt,” replied the young gentleman; “and at all events, I haven’t forgotten one thing in my trade of fighting, that there is such a thing as honor, which must be remembered as much in our conduct toward a woman, as in our conduct toward a man.”

When the ladies had retired, he remained next to me, and we had a good deal of conversation. I found he was a cavalry officer, who had seen some service, notwithstanding his youth; and was in London for a few months on leave of absence, in order to recover completely from a severe wound in the chest. He once or twice called me Count; but as we grew better acquainted over the wine, I begged him to drop the title, as it was not my intention to assume it at all, while in England at least.

“It is my right, I believe,” I said; “but I quitted France at a very early period, and have never been so called.”

“Well, I think you are right,” he replied. “Since England has become the exile’s home, as we are proud to call it, we have had such a crowd of Counts and Marquises of different kinds, that we have a difficulty in distinguishing the genuine from the false. You would, of course, pass muster, both from your appearance, and from the fact, which our good friend the banker here has taken care to communicate to tongues that will spread it, that you are that phœnix amongst Counts and Marquises—a rich émigré. But the title of Count would do you no good amongst our best people, who will like you quite as well as plain Mr. De Lacy; and as such, if you will permit me, I will ask for you to-morrow.”

I expressed the great pleasure I should have to see him, giving him my address. But I will not dwell longer on this dinner-party, as the few incidents I have related were the only ones which occurred that had any effect upon my fate.

GLIMPSES OF THE LOST.

New circumstances justified many new arrangements, upon which I will only dwell for a moment. The morning after the dinner-party at the banker’s, Father Bonneville and I had a long conversation in regard to our future proceedings. The sum I now possessed seemed almost as large to the good Father’s notions as to my own; for, to say truth, he had not much more experience in money matters than myself. It was agreed that we should set up house-keeping together, I insisted that he should have a little vehicle—one of those neat one horse equipages, in producing which England excels the whole world—and he hinted that I had better have a saddle-horse, when one man would do for both. Between twelve and one o’clock my new friend, Captain Westover, came to see me, and was taken into our councils. He somewhat clouded our sanguine views of wealth, by explaining to us the expenses of English living: but still with all allowances made, we found that we had ample means for any thing within our ambition, and in the course of the explanations which took place, I learned that, in addition to what I had myself, Father Bonneville counted on receiving from some source or another, the sum of three hundred pounds per annum. After half an hour’s chat, Captain Westover proposed to drive me out in search of horses and houses, in a machine of his, then very fashionable in London, called a tilbury, which had brought him to the door. His servant was turned out, and I took the vacant place. He advised me strongly, for a time at least, to take a furnished cottage at some little distance from London. “You can come in when you like,” he said, “and there you will be more out of harm’s way. Excuse me, De Lacy,” he continued with a laugh, “but every man entering a great town like this, must be a little green at first, whatever may be his experience of other places. It would be better for you to come to a knowledge of London by degrees, and that can only be done by living a little way out of it. With all its vices, its knavery, and its abomination, there is no place like this great capital of ours in the world for the comfort of having every thing that one can want, or desire, or dream of, ready for one in an instant. Each man can choose according to his means or his ambition. From the St. Giles cellar of the thief or the professional beggar, to the princely palace of the nobleman or the great merchant, every thing is at hand, and two or three taps of an enchanter’s wand bring it into presence in a moment. So I will answer for it, that we shall find what you want in the way of a house, in two or three hours; but don’t have it too big: otherwise people will be coming to dine with you and stay all night, a most harmonious and agreeable way of being eaten out of house and home.”

Though brisk, active, generous and dashing, Captain Westover was a good man of business, knew whatever he did know, well, was aware of the right price of every thing, and I believe in the course of the next two or three weeks, saved me several hundred pounds, besides putting me completely in the way of doing the same for myself at an after period. I will not dwell upon all our perquisitions. Let me come to the result. Behold me, in the spring of the year, possessed of an exceedingly neat, detached cottage, close upon Blackheath, with a beautiful garden filled with shrubs and flowers, furniture excellent and abundant, two horses in the stable, as pretty a little pony carriage as it was possible to imagine, and a middle-aged groom, who though an active, honest and excellent servant, had just been dismissed by a noble lord, because he had got the asthma, and puffed like a grampus. He did his duty well, however, and I did not mind his puffing. His name, moreover, was Lucas Jones, or Jones Lucas—which, I never could make out, and I do not think he knew well himself.

Napoleon Bonaparte threatened an invasion of England, and fondly fancied he could swallow up that stubborn little island as easily as he had gulped down half the kingdoms of the continent; but little did he know the spirit that he roused in the people of the land by the very threat. All Great Britain was bristling in arms, and instead of men being dragged away from their homes by forced conscriptions, people of all ranks, classes and degrees, of all ages and characters, of all parties and sects, were rushing in to enroll their names among the defenders of their country, and submitting day after day, to toilsome drills, and unaccustomed modes of life, to the loss of time and money and convenience. But not a lip murmured, not a heart was depressed.

Blackheath was the great training-ground in the neighborhood of London for this military race; and every day in my rides, I met with large bodies of men, in red, and green, and blue, marching and counter-marching, going through the manual, and expending great quantities of powder and perspiration. Magistrates, lawyers, clerks, shopkeepers, and draymen, were all jostling side by side in the charge; and the first battle in England, would have left upon the ground, the most motley assemblage of professions that ever was found in one place.

By pausing often to watch the manœuvres of the volunteers, I accustomed my horse to stand fire very well, and it was with great delight I heard from Captain Westover, that in order to try the skill and precision of the volunteers, a great sham-fight was to be given on Blackheath itself, in which were to be enacted all the operations that might be supposed likely to take place, if a French force were to sail up the Thames, and effect a landing near the little town of Greenwich. I told my gallant informant, that although I had been in the middle of a great battle, and had crossed a considerable portion of the field between the two lines, I had not the most distant idea of what it all meant.

“No, nor have half the men who were in the battle,” said Captain Westover. “We do what we are told; we fight; we succeed, or are beaten off; but all that we know about it is, that there’s a great deal of smoke, a great deal of dust, and a great number of men tumbling down round about us, with a very awkward expression of countenance; and two or three weeks after, when the newspapers come from England, we hear all about the glorious victory we have obtained from the dispatches of the general in command. This is generally what a subaltern knows of the matter; but somehow or another, more comprehensive views are beaten into our heads after awhile, and I will try, if possible, to give you some notion of what is going on on Wednesday. But there is some talk of making me an aid-de-camp for the nonce, which will be a great bore; for I have a whole troop of lady friends coming down to see, without peril, a battle without bullets.”

The day came; and good Father Bonneville, who had a great objection to noise and bustle of any kind, and whose recollections of the battle of Zurich were not the most agreeable, retreated for a couple of days to an inn, at a place called Bromley, while I remained to enjoy the sight.

I must dwell with some detail upon the events of that morning, as they were more important to me than those of any engagement I ever was in.

At an early hour I was out, walking round the scene where the mimic fight was to take place. All was already in a state of bustle and preparation. Cannon were planted: troops were taking up their position: long lines of what were called fencibles, armed with pikes, were stationed on the river bank, and a number of persons were arriving every moment from London to witness the gay scene.

Expecting that the hospitalities of my cottage might be called upon, I had laid in ample provisions, and soon after my return about nine o’clock, Westover was there, mounted on a splendid horse, and dressed in brilliant uniform. He came hurrying in, would not sit down to eat any breakfast, but stood by the table, and dispatched a roll and a cup of coffee while my horse was being saddled.

“We must be quick,” he said. “We must be quick; for I expect the whole staff on the ground by ten, and I wish to introduce you to some good people first.”

We were soon upon horseback, and cantering over the field. My companion led me to the head of several regiments, and introduced me to their colonels, who were generally old soldiers retired from the service, who had sprung into arms again at the first news of danger. One I particularly remember, a Colonel C——, as the finest looking man I almost ever beheld. He could not have been much less than seventy, but he was as upright as a pike-staff, his face blooming like a boy’s, and his hair loaded with a red sort of powder, called I believe, marechal powder, common in his youth. He swore a good deal; but in every other respect, he demeaned himself with an easy, dignified courtesy which I have never seen surpassed.

He was surrounded by a great number of very pretty women, who seemed to adore him, and rather inconvenienced him by their presence; for after giving one or two gentle hints that they had better betake themselves to spots appointed for spectators, he exclaimed, with a wave of his sword, which somewhat frightened them, “Damn it, my dear girls, you had better get out of the way, or by —— we shall have some of the soldiers’ bayonets in your eyes, which would be to my loss, your loss, and all the world’s loss. I’m going to order the charge in five minutes, and though no gallant gentleman will doubt your powers of resistance, we shall carry you at the point of the bayonet, I’ll answer for it. Captain Westover, will you and your friend take my niece Kitty, and these darlings, up to the mill there, where the carriages have been stationed? You had better get on your horses, and drive them before you like a flock of geese.”

We accomplished the service, however, more easily; and I learned from Westover that the gallant old colonel had been one of Wolfe’s officers at the taking of Quebec.

Not long after, the fight began; and by my companion’s management, I remained with the staff during the greater part of the day. I need not pause to describe the roaring of cannon, the firing of musketry, the charging of lines of troops, the taking and retaking of different positions; but I must notice one little event, which occurred about the middle of the day. There had been a sort of lull in the noise and confusion, when suddenly a carriage and four came dashing over the ground toward the mill, just as a battery horse-artillery was galloping like lightning across in a different direction to take up a new position, while at the same moment a cavalry regiment was dashing up to support a party on the right. The gayly dressed post-boys tried to pull in their horses, but men, horses, and ladies in the carriage, were all equally scared, and before they knew what they were doing, were enveloped on every side by the troops. The commander-in-chief spoke a word to Captain Westover; for it was a great object to all that the day should pass over without serious accident, and one seemed now very likely to take place. Away went Westover. Away went I after him, and just arrived in time to turn the horses off the road before the guns were upon them.

“Oh, good Heaven, what shall we do?” exclaimed a lady in the carriage, with her head covered with ostrich feathers.

“Drive across to that little road, and off the ground as fast as you can go,” shouted Westover to the post-boys. “You will get these ladies killed if you do not mind.”

“You cannot see at all, madam,” answered Westover, impatiently. “If you wanted to see, you should have come earlier—Drive on and clear the ground, boys.”

Away the postillions went. The lady drew back her head from the window with an indignant air, and I saw just opposite to her, in the carriage, the loveliest face I ever beheld. Delicately and beautifully chiseled, every feature seemed to me perfect, in the brief glance I had. But that was not the great charm; for there before me, for that single instant, were those beautiful, liquid, hazel eyes, with the long fringe of dark lashes, which I had never seen any thing like since I had last beheld Mariette.

My first impulse was to gallop after the carriage as fast as possible; but the troops swept round, the carriage dashed away, and all I could do was to ask my companion if he knew who were its denizens.

“Not I,” he answered, hurriedly—“Some vulgar people they must be—none but vulgar people get themselves into such situations as that—a devilish pretty girl in the back of the carriage though, De Lacy—Why, what’s the matter with you, man?”

“Why, I think I know her,” I replied, “and have been looking for her and her mother for a long time.”

“Well, then, ride away after her,” answered Westover; “the post-boys will insist upon feeding their horses, depend upon it; and you will find them either at the Green-Man, or at some of the inns down below. Join me again at the mill after it’s all over; for I intend you to give me some dinner; and I must see all my aunts, and cousins, and mothers, who are congregated there, if it be but for a moment, before they go back to London. They have thought me rude enough already, I dare say.”

I followed his advice, and I believe that I would very willingly, at that moment, have given at least half of all I had in the world to catch that carriage; but I sought in vain. Not a trace of it was to be found, and though there were post-boys enough at all the inns, I could not see one in the same colored jacket as those I was in search of.

“Could it be Mariette?” I asked myself. The features were very different; much more beautiful than those of my little companion. The face was no longer round, but beautifully oval. The hair seemed somewhat darker, too, but the eyes were Mariette’s; and I asked myself again, “Could it be Mariette, or had some other person stolen her eyes?”

Sad, thoughtful, disappointed, I rode slowly back up Blackheath hill, little caring what I should find going on above. But I had been absent nearly two hours; the sham-fight was now over; drums and fifes, trumpets, and all manner of instruments, were playing gay and triumphant airs, friends and enemies were sitting down on the dry grass, eating the plentiful viands prepared for them, and post-boys were leading up strings of horses to draw back the gay parties who had come to witness the scene, to dinners and festivities afar.

I directed my course at once toward the mill, from which several carriages were already driving away; but as I approached, I saw Westover still there, on horseback, at the side of an open vehicle to which the horses had just been attached. He was talking to some ladies inside, one of whom I had seen on the night when he and I first met, and who noticed me by a gentle inclination of the head. Another was a much handsomer and somewhat younger woman, but still past her youth. She seemed to be taking little notice of any thing, and there was a deep, grave melancholy upon her face, not harmonizing well with the gay and exciting scene around. I did not go very near; for the drivers had their feet in the stirrups, ready to mount, two servants in livery were already on the box, and there was no time for conversation. Westover’s aunt, however, beckoned me up, saying, “How have you been pleased, count?” and at the same moment, the other lady fixed her eyes full upon me, and I could see her turn deadly pale. She said a few words to her companion, however, in a hurried and eager manner, although I was replying with some commonplace answer at the moment.

My acquaintance turned her head, saying, loud enough for me to hear, “The young Count de Lacy. Shall I introduce you to him, Catherine?”

There was no reply. The other lady whom she called Catherine, had sunk back in the carriage, and her eyes were closed. She looked to me very much as if she had fainted. I saw her face, but Westover did not; for I was upon his left hand, and his aunt was between him and her companion.

The other nodded her head, and the word was given; but as they dashed away, I said in a tone of some anxiety, “Do you know, I think that lady has fainted.”

“They are both my aunts,” he answered, turning his horse sharply. “You ride on to your hut, De Lacy; I’ll join you in a minute, when I see what has befallen dear Aunt Catherine. She is never well, and rarely goes out. This has been too much for her.”

Away he darted, and I, less pleased with the events of the day, I suppose, than most others there present, took my way slowly over the least incumbered parts of the heath, toward my cottage on the other side, threading my way amongst groups of soldiers, and large masses of gorse. At the pace I went, and by the course I pursued, it took me nearly half an hour to reach my own gate; but I had already dismounted, before Westover overtook me, although he came at a quick trot, with an orderly following him.

I remarked that he was very grave, but his only comment on what had just passed, was, “You were right, De Lacy. My aunt had fainted. Poor thing, she has not strength for such scenes. And now, my friend, I have taken a great liberty with you by inviting in your name, two foreign gentlemen, who could get no dinner anywhere else—for Greenwich is as completely eaten out as an overkept cheese—to come and dine with you. In revenge, you shall come and dine with me next week, and eat and drink enough for three if you can.” I told him I was very glad to see his friends, and the rest of the day passed pleasantly enough, although I must say, I never saw Westover so dull and thoughtful, notwithstanding all his efforts to be gay. The two gentlemen, who followed him soon to my house, I need not notice particularly, as I never saw them afterward, and never cared about them at all. They were the sort of things that do very well to fill a seat at a dinner table, or to be shot at in a line of battle, behaving creditably in both situations, but doing very little else.

OLD FEELINGS AND NEW ACQUAINTANCES.

I did not go to bed till nearly two o’clock in the morning, not that my guests stayed late—far from it. They all took their departure about ten o’clock; but the events of the day, trifling as they may seem, had produced upon my mind an effect difficult to be conceived, or even accounted for. I felt convinced that it was Mariette I beheld, and I reasoned upon her state and condition at the time, without guide it is true, but with more accuracy than might have been expected. I by this time knew the situation of emigrants in general in Great Britain. They had been treated with great kindness by the people of the country; subscriptions had been opened for them, aid had been afforded them; but most of them had fled from France in a state of destitution, and were actually in extreme poverty at that moment. Some were eking out the means of subsistence by teaching, others by mere handicraft employments. I had no reason to believe that Madame de Salins had carried much away with her, and on the contrary, I had much reason to believe, from the wretchedness of the lodging in which she must have dwelt in Swallow street, that she was at one time, at least, in actual distress. The beautiful girl I had seen in the carriage was exceedingly simply dressed, and I asked myself whether my pretty Mariette, as so many had done, might not have engaged herself as a governess in some family, and might not, even now, be undergoing all the miseries and scorns of that most painful situation.

But this was not all. In regard to Mariette I had been guided in my conclusions—to some extent at all events—by plain, simple reason. There were other impressions, however, upon my mind—other matters for cogitation, with which reason had far less to do, and which gained their importance, perhaps from the active embellishment of imagination, perhaps from some of those deeper and more mysterious operations of the mind, or of the heart, which leave reason far behind in their rapidity, and surpass imagination by their truth. The face of that lady, whom they called Lady Catherine, haunted me. The manner in which she had gazed at me—the eager, keen, almost wild glance which she had given me, the paleness which had overspread her face so suddenly, and the fainting fit into which she had fallen immediately my name was mentioned, were not matters of marvel to me, but of deep thought and consideration. It was very natural, where such a mystery hung over my birth and early fate, that I should feel inclined to connect it with every thing strange and unexplained which I saw. But there was something more than all this—something that I cannot explain or describe; which seemed to bear down all thought and argument against it, and which made me feel a conviction, stronger than any reason could have supplied, that there was some tie between that lady’s fate and my own. I did not recollect her in the least—not one feature in her face was familiar to me; but yet the very moment I beheld her—before she even turned her eyes upon me, the sight seemed to waken in an instant, dreams of happy early days—sweet thoughts and feelings, which had slumbered for years unawakened by the careless storekeeper, Memory.

It was therefore over these thoughts and feelings that I paused and reflected, for so many hours.

I have often remarked in the course of life—in others as well as myself—a somewhat curious phenomenon: namely, that when some great and important—shall I call it change? No, not change. There are no changes in human fate. They are all steps—steps toward a certain goal—That when some great and important step, then, in human fate, is to be taken, we feel an impression of the coming fact—we see, as it were, with the eyes of the spirit, without the interference of the cold, hard, short-sighted intellect, the awful magnitude of that which is before us; and we are impelled to mark what at other times would seem the merest trifles with anxious acuteness—to scan, as it were, the very pebbles in our path, lest a rolling stone should make us lose our footing, and hurl us over the precipice which we feel to be near at hand, though the mists and darkness of our earthly being may hide the actual presence of the yawning gulf.

What was to me a lady fainting in a carriage? What was there extraordinary in a delicate woman giving way after an exciting scene, and long and unusual fatigue? What was there in all that I had seen, which could not be explained by a multitude of ordinary circumstances—which I should not have left, at any other time, to rest unthought of amongst the common, insignificant events of a day? And yet I sat and pondered for four long hours, and even after I retired to bed I could not sleep, but was kept awake with the same anxious thoughts.

Father Bonneville returned about two o’clock on the following day; but with a lack of confidence which I rarely showed toward him—for he was so gentle and so good, who could want confidence in him—I did not mention at all, the little incident which had occurred at the mill. I told him, however, all about the supposed sight I had caught of Mariette, but the good Father only smiled at me.

“You are always thinking of Mariette, Louis,” he said, “and if you go on so, I shall really fancy you are in love with her memory.”

“And so I am,” I answered frankly, “I can imagine a father would so love a child, as I love Mariette; and I shall always love her so.”

“My dear boy,” replied Father Bonneville, laying his hand impressively upon my arm, “that is impossible. You and Mariette are no longer children; you might love her as a brother when you last saw her; but if you love her at all, you must love her otherwise now.”

I fell into thought, and I felt that he was right. He gave me but little time to ponder, however, asking me who else I had seen, and I mentioned several names, Colonel C——, the commander-in-chief, a number of young officers, the two strangers who had dined with me, and lastly, in as easy a tone as I could assume, Westover’s two aunts.

Father Bonneville asked their names, and I replied, “Lady Winslow, and a lady they called Lady Catherine—I suppose Lady Catherine Westover; for he said, in the course of the evening, that she was his father’s sister.”

I looked somewhat keenly at Father Bonneville as I spoke; but my words did not seem to produce the slightest effect worth noticing.

“It is droll,” he said. “I do not remember the name of Westover in the English peerage. It must be some new creation, I suppose.”

“I should think not,” I replied, “for there is a calm quietness about them—a want of all arrogance and presumption—an easy, self-possessed tranquillity, which I have always remarked, in this country, accompanies ancient rights, and well assured position.”

“Do you know,” said Father Bonneville, suddenly darting away from the subject, “that it has once or twice struck me, Louis, that there is a great deal of likeness between your friend Captain Westover and yourself?”

I smiled; for I could not conceive two men more different in appearance—in complexion—in eyes, in height; for I was much taller, and dark, while he was fair; but still the good Father’s words lingered in my mind, and I determined the next time I saw my friend to learn, if possible, something more of his history.

It was with great satisfaction then that, on the Friday morning, I received a note from Westover, asking me to dine with him, either on the Tuesday or the Wednesday following, and to name which day.

“Do come, De Lacy, on the one day or the other; for there are some people, who will come on either day, to whom I much wish to introduce you. My leave will soon expire, and I may not have another opportunity.”

I immediately answered his note, fixing the first named day, and then, as it was a beautiful morning in the spring, I went out to fish in a river which ran at some miles distant from my cottage, and where I had hired a right—for the English are as tenacious of the right of stream and wood as any old feudal lord that ever lived.

I had been engaged in the sport for about an hour, wandering along through the beautiful meadows, and had done tolerably well, when I saw a gentleman, of the middle age, walk slowly across from the other side, and pause upon a little wooden bridge, observing my proceedings. He was a tall, handsome man, about fifty, but thin and pale, dressed in a sort of military blue coat, richly braided, but not very new; and his air was exceedingly gentlemanly and prepossessing, though his riches were evidently of Nature’s giving, not the world’s. After watching me a few minutes, he came up with easy grace, and asked, with a strong foreign accent, “If I had had good sport.”

I replied that it had been pretty well, adding a French proverb of no particular significance.

I replied in the affirmative; and he soon began to ask all sorts of questions, in that courteous manner which renders inquisitiveness not impertinent in a Frenchman. I told him I had quitted France very early, and recollected but little of my native land; to which he replied, that was a “malheur,” asking the year of my emigration.

I told him, and he replied, with a smile, that it was the same in which he had left France; but added, that he had returned there since, and fought in La Vendee. He then asked me if I knew many of my countrymen. I replied in the negative, saying with a smile—for the opportunity seemed too good to be missed—that there were only two, whom I had known so well in my boyhood as to make me very anxious to hear of them again.

“May I be permitted to ask their names?” he said, quietly. “I am acquainted with several, though, indeed, not very many; for my means are too limited to allow of my mingling much in society.”

My new acquaintance paused and mused, as if he were trying to recollect some circumstance, such as where he had heard of them, and I began to entertain some hopes of information.

“Perhaps,” he said, at length, “I may be able to assist in your search in some degree, although I am not sure. May I ask how old you were when you quitted France?” and his eye ran over my person, which perhaps showed signs of age beyond what my years warranted.

“Ay! and you have remembered them so long,” he said, in a tone of interest. “Well, I will do my best to give you news of them. But I know not where to send it to you, if I should prove fortunate enough to be able to do so.”

I immediately gave him my card, which he examined, repeating the name, and then turned the conversation in another course. I found him exceedingly agreeable, mild and dignified in his manners, and full of general information, though probably not a very learned man. He asked me if I had been to pay my respects, while on the continent, to his majesty the king—afterward known as Louis the Eighteenth—and expressed himself sorry when he heard I had not.

“I think it would have been advisable in many respects,” he added. “This madness will not last forever in France. Nor can the other powers of Europe ever consent as a body to the existence of a state of things in that country antagonistic to all their interests and all their principles. Napoleon Bonaparte, in making himself emperor, has performed an act which places France in a false position that she cannot maintain. As long as he was merely the head of the republican party—the incarnation of the spirit of revolution—he was certain of support at home, and under no absolute necessity to protract the war with foreign powers, one moment after they chose to make peace with the republic. As emperor, however, he has taken upon himself an obligation to wage eternal warfare; for by war alone can he maintain himself as emperor. He may have gained a little with other monarchs by recognizing the monarchical principle, but he has lost more with the French people. France was divided into two. He has now divided it into three, and put two parts against him. The one that he wields, the military part, may be the most powerful for the present, but its adherence to himself depends upon two conditions—war and success. Thus his dynasty can never stand; for no civilized nation can ever be entirely military; and he who attempts to make it so, will always fall as soon as the military part cannot command success; and unless the whole nation be military, success can never be ensured. My belief is that in a few years our old race of kings will be upon the throne again.”

He talked with me for more than an hour, while I continued my sport; and I then returned to my little cottage, very well satisfied with my interview.

Father Bonneville seemed very well satisfied too, when I told him my hopes of discovering the abode of Madame de Salins. He asked me many questions about the gentleman I had met with, and made me describe him accurately. When I had done, he said, nodding his head slowly with a smile, “I think we shall find them now, Louis. I think we shall find them now, and I am almost as glad of it as you are; although I trust they have not been suffering so much from poverty as you imagine.”

A day or two passed on, however, without any intelligence, and the Tuesday came on which I was to dine with Westover, in London. I dressed myself with some care; for I knew that my friend was moving in the most fashionable circles of the capital, and I drove in with the groom in the little phæton, so as to be at his door at the very moment named. He was lodging in a very handsome house in Brook street, and I found him dressed for dinner, but alone.

“My other friends will not be as punctual as you are, De Lacy,” he said, shaking me warmly by the hand; “and I dare say you will have to wait half an hour for your dinner; but in the meantime I can introduce you to them as they come in.”

In about ten minutes, two young and dashing men made their appearance, and I was made acquainted with them in form. Then, five minutes after, came an old peer, stout, beetle-browed, heavy in look but not in intellect, and exceedingly loose in his apparel, which seemed to have been thrown on with a pitchfork, but which did not at all detract from the indefineable something which marks the gentleman. He had not been there two minutes when the door again opened, and the Earl of N—— was announced.

“Ah! your grandfather,” said the last comer. “That is an honor for a grandson, Captain Westover.”

“I consider it as such, I assure you,” said my friend, as he advanced to meet his relation, and I need not say that my eyes fixed eagerly upon the father of Lady Catharine.

He was a tall, thin old man, of very distinguished appearance. I learned afterward that he must have been a good deal over seventy; but he certainly did not look more than sixty. He was perfectly straight and upright, though not stiff in appearance, and was dressed entirely in black, which was not usual in England at that period. Every article of his apparel fitted exactly. His shoes, in which he still wore buckles, were as polished as a looking-glass, and his gloves fitted him as if they had been made upon his hands. His linen was marvelously fine, and as white as snow; and his hair probably would have been as white as his linen, even had it not been filled with powder. His face was very fine, and his complexion peculiarly delicate; but there was no effeminacy about him. There sat a world of resolution on his broad, towering brow, and his teeth, of which he did not seem to have lost one, were always pressed firm together when he was not speaking. His step was slow and deliberate, but still there was none of the feebleness of age in it, and there was a strong composure, if I may so express myself, which never varied but for one moment.

Between the two peers there was no need of an introduction; and they shook hands with each other cordially. One of the other gentlemen, Lord N—— knew also; and the third was introduced to him. Westover then turned, and presented me as Monsieur De Lacy. For a single instant, as he spoke, the earl seemed moved. A slight change came over his face, a twitch of the muscles about the mouth, evidently involuntary, and passing away in one moment. He forgot not his courtesy, however, in the least, did not shake hands with me, but bowed gracefully, and said a few words about France and England, not at all depreciatory of my own country, although he expressed a hope that I would not find my enforced residence in Great Britain altogether without compensation.

He then turned to speak with his grandson and the other gentlemen. Two others were added to the party, and shortly after we moved in to dinner.

By Westover’s arrangement I was seated next to his grandfather; but at first he did not seem inclined to take much notice of me, and, to say the truth, I was very busy with my own thoughts, and inclined to be somewhat silent. After a time, however, a gentleman opposite engaged me in conversation, and something I said seemed to please or strike the old earl, for he joined in with a good deal of tact and wit. That conversation dropped, but the earl continued to talk with me, with his heart a little opened, perhaps, by good wine and good food, which I have remarked have a great effect in producing urbanity—especially with Englishmen. His lordship asked me how I liked the country, whether I had seen much of it, and where I intended to pass the summer. I answered briefly that I had seen very little of the land, and that my plans were all unsettled.

“It is a pity that Charles must so soon rejoin his regiment,” said the earl, “otherwise he might have shown you a good deal that is worth seeing in England, and what is more, you could not be in safer hands. I need not tell you, Monsieur De Lacy, that, for a young man, and a stranger in this country, it is highly necessary that he should choose his acquaintances well.”

“I am quite aware of the fact, my lord,” I replied, “and I consider myself highly fortunate in having been early introduced to Captain Westover. I have few if any acquaintances but those to whom he has introduced me, and the banker to whom I had letters.”

“Ha!” replied the earl, thoughtfully, and after meditating for a moment, as if something puzzled him, he said, “I think I heard you called the Count De Lacy, in society—have you dropped the title?”

“I never took it willingly, my lord,” I replied, “although it is mine, I believe, by right. I was driven out of France very early, and probably never should have known of my countship; but it so happened that I formed some connections in the city of Hamburgh, which led to a considerable bequest from an old friend there, and that caused a communication, in regard to myself, to take place between Hamburgh and England.”

“But how did they know that you were a count, in Hamburgh, if you did not know it yourself?” asked the earl.

“By a letter from England,” I answered, perhaps a little dryly. “It referred to some money matters, of which, to say the truth, I understand nothing; but it was addressed to some of the authorities at Hamburgh, and in it I was designated by the title of count. The same title was repeated in after correspondence, and thus it happened to be given to me here, much to my annoyance; for I would fain drop the countship altogether, not having the means to maintain any distinguished position.”

“Ha! I see, I see,” said the earl, “you speak English remarkably well, Mr. De Lacy. You must have learned it very young.”

“That is singular in France,” rejoined the old nobleman. “Did your father speak English?”

I could feel a cloud come over my face, and I replied with very painful feelings, “I never knew my father, my lord, and am not aware of who or what he was. I have heard that he was murdered—but that is all I know.”

“I beg pardon—I beg pardon,” said the old earl; “I did not intend to wound you. There are painful subjects in all families—may I drink wine with you?”

During the rest of the evening his tone toward me became a little less stiff and more kindly. He asked no more questions, however, but conversed entirely upon indifferent subjects, and seemed well pleased with my remarks. He retired early, indeed, and I remained for some time longer, in the hope of being able to draw something more from Westover, regarding his aunt, Lady Catharine. I had lost the opportunity of the favorable ten minutes during which I was alone with him before dinner, and no other presented itself for any private conversation. I could only venture to express a hope before others, that his aunt, Lady Catharine, had not suffered seriously from the fatigues of the review. He said she had not been at all well since; and I remarked that I thought her very beautiful.

“She was once the loveliest creature in all England, I am told,” was my friend’s reply; “but that is past, and she can hardly, I think, be called beautiful now—except, indeed, as a beautiful ruin.”

He spoke very gravely—nay, very sadly, and I did not like to press the subject further. I remained some time longer to see if the other guests would go, but they showed no intention of doing any thing of the kind, and as I had a long drive before me, I took my departure, Westover promising to ride down in a day or two, and take me upon some expedition.

THE LONGED FOR MEETING.

Habitual reverence is a curious thing—more strong than most other habits. I was certainly of a somewhat impetuous disposition, eager and impatient of delay, notwithstanding all the drilling I had had in long wanderings and many difficulties and distresses; but yet the habitual reverence which I entertained for good Father Bonneville was not to be mastered. It was one of those impressions received in youth, which, like the foot-prints of certain animals that we discover in the rock, had been pressed down there when the substance was soft, but had been rendered indelible as it hardened. I returned from London disappointed in one of my expectations, and I would fain have had a long conversation with good Father Bonneville, in regard to all the doubts and mysteries surrounding my own peculiar fate. The promise he had given of knowledge at a future time did not satisfy me, and I thought that if he would but touch upon the subject again, I would press him hard for further explanation. Nay, more, I judged that the very party at Westover’s would open the way, and resolved that I would not fail to take advantage of the very first opportunity.

When the good Father came down to breakfast, however, with his calm, placid countenance, and his usual quiet taciturnity, although there was nothing in the least repulsive, none of that impenetrability which sometimes characterizes the Roman Catholic priest, yet I felt a repugnance to the idea of urging upon him a subject which he had shown so much anxiety to avoid, and he certainly gave me no direct encouragement. He merely asked if I had met a pleasant party at Captain Westover’s; and when I in return told him of whom that party consisted, and dwelt somewhat particularly upon the appearance and demeanor of the Earl of N——, he seemed, I thought, a little surprised, and I could not help fancying that a shade from some strong, and not pleasant emotion, passed over his countenance: yet he asked not a question, and made no observation of any kind. I then suffered the subject to drop, notwithstanding all my resolutions.

Some days passed quietly and dully enough. English people are not fond of making new acquaintances. None of our neighbors had yet called upon us, and the gentleman whom I had met by the side of the brook, did not make his appearance. Quiet tranquillity is the most burdensome of all things to an impatient spirit; and I confess I fretted myself a good deal during those dull three or four days. It seemed to me as if all the world had forgotten us; and I felt much more solitary there, with every comfort around me, than I had done in my long wandering from Switzerland to Hamburgh, when I might very well have believed myself almost alone upon the earth.

It rained, too, incessantly; and I began to feel very English, and to abuse the climate heartily—though, by the way, it is the best I ever saw, except, perhaps, in the central parts of France. I could not ride out. I got tired of reading. I had nobody to write to. I was weary of myself and the whole world—even Father Bonneville’s calm, sweet placidity, his tranquil employments, and patience under the load of dullness, half vexed me.

It was on the Saturday morning early, however, that a change took place; the sky became clearer; light clouds, like enormous flakes of snow, succeeded the dull, gray, pouring banks of rain; blue sky appeared here and there; and, to complete all, as I looked out of the window, after breakfast, I saw Westover riding up toward the house, with a servant behind him, and a little valise behind the servant.

There was no horse or carriage-way up to the house, which was approached by a path through a pretty little garden; and as he dismounted at the gate, I heard my friend desire his groom to bring in the valise, to take the horses to the inn, and to give Miss Kitty a feed and a half. He then walked slowly up to the house, nodding to me as he came; and I could not help remarking that he seemed pale and ill.

He was in his usual good spirits, however, and shook hands with me and Father Bonneville heartily, saying, “Did you hear my order, De Lacy; to bring in my valise? An unlucky thing for you, my friend, that I was at the taking of your house, and know that you have a spare room; for I come to beg quarters of you till Monday.”

“I have been unwell for the last few days, and they tell me I should leave that bustling, tiresome town of London; so I have come to see if you will give me quiet lodging here, just as a trial—not that I think it will do me any good.”

“Oh, nothing but that tiresome ball,” he replied, laying his hand upon his chest. “It has taken another move I suppose, and set me spitting blood again.”

“No, no, it is there for life, they say, be life long or short; and it is the strangest thing in the world, how a trifle like this—having an ounce of lead in one, without knowing where to find it—will weigh upon a man’s spirits, how it is ever present to his thoughts—a something he cannot get rid of—the sword hung by a single hair over his head, during the whole of the great festival of life.”

“Well, we will keep you here quietly,” I answered; “which we can do with the most marvelous perfection.”

“If you had been here during these last three days,” said Father Bonneville, with a quiet smile at me; “you would have had quiet enough, Captain Westover—more quiet than our friend Louis likes, I believe; for, as you may remark, he has literally worn the carpet by walking from that table to the window. I always think we may gain good lessons from the brute creation. God teaches them what is best under all circumstances; and I copy the cocks and hens, and the great dog, all of which, I remark, invariably sit quite still, and take every thing quietly during rainy weather, knowing, that walk as fast as they would, or as much, they cannot change the wind, or make the clouds withhold a drop.”

“It is not exactly quiet I am seeking, my reverend friend, but to be out of the air, and the parties, and the smoke of cities, and the impertinent chattering, which is the smoke of society. No, no—no quiet for me. If I am soon to ride with my troop, I may as well ride here, and so I intend to make De Lacy mount his horse, and gallop away with me to Eltham or Esher, or some of those places memorable in the past, where we can sit down, and play the part of Volney for an hour, amongst the ruins of empires. Then to-morrow, I intend to go with you to Mass; for all Protestant as I am, I cannot help admitting that you sing a great deal better in your worst chapels than we do in our best.”

Father Bonneville looked at me with a faint smile, and I informed Westover that we had both of us, in the course of the last two years, abandoned the church of Rome.

“It was not from any motives of interest, Captain Westover,” said Father Bonneville, “neither from fear nor for favor, but from pure conviction. The fact is, that in a time of great distress and anxiety, I found so much consolation in the Bible, that I could not remain attached to a church which denied it to my fellow men, and, moreover—without being uncharitable—I thought I could see the reason of its being withheld from men in general, in its manifest condemnation of the practices of those who withhold it. Louis came to the same conclusion while we were far apart; and parting as Roman Catholics we met as Protestants.”

Westover seemed much more surprised, and even moved by this intelligence than I could have expected. He shook me warmly by the hand, congratulating me, and saying—

“I am glad of it, De Lacy, I am glad of it. That makes a very great difference—I am sincerely glad of it. We will talk no more of going to Mass; though I do like to hear a good Mass well sung—so much so, indeed, that my noble grandfather is every now and then in terror of his life, for fear I should turn Papist, in which case, as he is the most ultra Protestant that ever lived, he would, doubtless, cut me off with a shilling, and be very sorry that he could not deprive me of the fortune my Uncle Westover left me, lest I should spend it in favor of the Propaganda—but come, De Lacy, let us take a walk to the inn, mount our horses, and ride.”

We were soon upon our way, and as we passed slowly along through the little village of Lewisham, Westover, who was looking round him, exclaimed, “Good heaven, what a beautiful face!”

I turned my head sharply, but could see no one. The road was vacant, except where a laboring man was wheeling a barrow, and a carrier was taking a trunk out of a cart. At the side of the road, indeed, was one of those little picturesque cottages, only to be seen in England, where fine taste and love for the beautiful, has decorated with a thousand charms the very lowliest of dwellings. It was only one story in height. The windows were mere lattices, with diamond-shaped panes of glass, rattling in leaden frames. The roof was thatched, and the door seemed hardly tall enough for the entrance of a man, but the thatch was covered with the rich green house-leek, and the whole front of the house was in a glow with roses, trained beautifully between the little windows, and every here and there holding out a long blossom-bearing arm, as if to invite the passing stranger.

“She’s gone,” said Westover, “run away at the sight of two men on horseback, as if it were the first time in life she had seen that sort of Centaur. But I certainly never did see a more lovely creature.”

I made him describe her to me; but what description can ever give an idea of a face? His was incomplete enough, but he said she had the most lovely eyes in the world, and that was quite sufficient to set my foolish fancy filling up the outline with the features of Mariette. I caught myself in the midst of this portrait-painting, a new sort of castle-building, and could not help smiling at my vain imaginations.

“At myself, Westover,” I replied. “The truth is, your description is so like some one I have been long seeking, and would give both my hands to find, that, for a moment, you set my fancy wild with the idea that she and your cottage-girl might have been the same.”

“O, ho,” said Westover, with a laugh; “but if your love affair has been of long duration, this cannot be the same, for she seemed quite young—not more than seventeen or eighteen.”

“That might well be,” I answered; “and yet my love affair, as you call it, might date from twelve years ago. The person I seek is the companion of my youth, one who is now an emigrant like myself, and I much fear that she and her mother both, may be in some distress, while I have the power of relieving it, and know not where to find them.”

“Yours must be a strange, curious history,” said Captain Westover. “I wish, some dull evening, when you have nothing better to do, you would tell it me, point by point. I am fond of a dreamy talk with a man over his past times.”

“I should have thought there were attractions enough in the metropolis,” I answered, “to occupy all the time of you men of fashion, in other ways than that.”

“Attractions,” replied Captain Westover, “which either leave no remembrance, or a sting. Take my word for it, De Lacy, there are multitudes of us who would gladly leave wax candles to blaze, and champagne to sparkle, and bright eyes—with no heart behind them—to shine, in order to sit beneath a shaded lamp with a man of real action, who has seen something of different countries, and a different world, and a different life from ourselves, and listen to tales of the heart’s realities, while all else around us is but the tinseled pageantry of a dream. Come, when shall it be, De Lacy?”

“To-night, if you will,” I answered; “we are certain of being uninterrupted.”

“But the old man,” he said. “Young men can never talk with open hearts before old ones. There is a power in age which controls us even when there is no real authority.”

“O, he goes to bed always at nine,” I said; and so we arranged it should be, and so it was.

When we returned after our ride, Father Bonneville informed me that there were some persons in the neighborhood, upon whom he wished me to call with him on the Monday following; and Westover and I went up to dress for dinner—a much more important operation than it has since become, even within my own knowledge. We had the usual English dinner, a small turbot, some boiled chickens and ham, preceded by soup after the French fashion, (which I knew Father Bonneville could not do without,) and followed by the inevitable apple-tart. After his coffee, the good Father remained for an hour or so, then lighted his candle, and having apologized, with the grace of an old courtier, for his early habits, retired to rest. My story was then told much as I am now telling it, only with more brevity, and I must say that Westover not only listened with the fortitude of a martyr, but showed a deep interest, if I may judge by his questions, in many parts of my narrative. Once or twice he rose, and walked up and down the little room, sitting down when I paused, and saying, “Go on, De Lacy, I am listening.”

I could not finish the whole in one night; but on the Sunday evening the tale was concluded, and on the Monday, in spite of remonstrance, he set out, saying he was going back to London. Why, I know not, but I watched him from the window, across the heath, meditating on the state of his health, and the risk he ran in joining his regiment again, with an unextracted ball still in his chest.

Suddenly, to my surprise, I saw him pull in his horse, at the distance of some five hundred yards from the house, beckon up his servant, and speak to him for a moment. The master then took the left-hand road, which led toward Lewisham, and the groom rode upon the way to London.

It is utterly impossible to describe the sensations which I experienced at that moment. There was a mixture of anger, and suspicion, and jealousy, which I can hardly characterize even to my mind at present. Fancy was as busy as a fiend; and I felt quite sure that he was going back toward the cottage, in order, if possible, to form some acquaintance with the beautiful girl he had seen. I persuaded myself in a moment—although I had unpersuaded myself before—that she must be Mariette; and I pictured to myself, Westover, with his handsome person and winning address, making instant love to her, and banishing poor Louis de Lacy for ever from her heart.

It took me an hour’s struggle to overcome such feelings, and when I had done my best I was still dissatisfied.

Toward twelve o’clock, Father Bonneville proposed that we should go out for our visit, and for the first time, I asked where that visit was to be.

“Why, Louis,” he replied, “you seemed so indifferent when I spoke of it on Saturday, that I did not tell you the acquaintance you made while fishing, came to call upon us during your ride with Captain Westover. He is a gentleman of good family, and we must of course return his visit, even were it not that I believe he can now inform us where to find Madame de Salins.”

“I believe so,” replied Father Bonneville, with a smile; “but let us go, I said we should be there before one.”

I did not delay him, but I must confess, I thought he walked marvelously slow, and wished from the bottom of my heart, that I had ordered the pony carriage for our excursion. He took his way straight toward Lewisham, turned to the left in the village, keeping on the left-hand side, directly to the cottage with its roses. I do not know what had got into my heart; but it brought to my remembrance a trick which I had seen a charlatan play with an egg, which, by some contrivance, he made to jump out of a pot the moment it was put in. He stopped at the door—at the very door, and then suddenly said:

“O, nothing, nothing,” I replied, and knocked hard for admittance. I was red enough then. A small servant-girl opened the door, and Father Bonneville asked—“Whether Monsieur Le Comte was at home?”

My hopes about Mariette began to fail, and diminished to a very small point when, on entering a little room, containing a good number of books, I found my acquaintance of the brook-side alone, and without a vestige of woman’s occupation any where visible.

He shook hands with us both, welcomed us heartily, and in common civility I was obliged to repress my curiosity for a time.

“This is my little study,” he said, after some preliminary conversation, “where I teach a few young pupils French, in order to eke out the small means of subsistence I have left. But I thank God for all things, and only regret that I have not enough to aid those of my countrymen who have even less than myself.”

“That is what I fear,” I answered, “that there are many, and amongst them some I deeply love, who may be suffering great distress, while I have a superabundance.”

“There are, indeed, many, Monsieur De Lacy,” he said; but as the words were upon his lips the door opened, and a voice of music said, “May I come in?”

“Certainly, my child,” he replied; but she had taken it for granted, and was in the room. There were the same eyes, the same look, the same beautiful face which I had seen in the carriage, but with a figure, how full of exquisite grace, how perfect in all its symmetry!

If my heart had not told me, at once, that it was Mariette, the glad spring forward with which she flew to the arms of Father Bonneville would have shown me the fact at once.

What possessed me I cannot tell, but I could not speak a word, and stood like a fool, the more confounded from feeling that the eyes of a stranger were upon me—yes, he gazed at me, earnestly, inquiringly. I must, somehow, have betrayed myself.

“Know you!” I cried, and if the whole world had been present, I could not have refrained from taking her in my arms and kissing her cheek.

“Know you!” I repeated, “O, yes, I knew you the very first moment I saw you in the carriage on Blackheath.”

“And I did not know you,” said Mariette, artlessly; “but how should I, Louis? Here, you are a great tall man, six feet high; and yet you’re still the same—the same eyes, and the same mouth, only your hair is darker and not so curly.”

“I rode after you all through Greenwich,” I replied, apropos to nothing; for my whole head was in a whirl, and she had left her hand in mine, which did not tend to stay the beating of my heart, “but I could find no trace of you.”

“Sit down, sit down, my children,” said the master of the house, “you are both agitated with your young memories. I will go and call your mother.”

“Let me—let me,” said Mariette, and running to the foot of the little stairs, she exclaimed, “Mamma, mamma, here are Louis and Monsieur De Bonneville.”

Madame de Salins ran down lightly and eagerly, and indeed she was very little altered—looking, perhaps, better than when I had last seen her. It was clear she was sincerely glad to meet us again; and seated round the table, a thousand questions were asked, and about half the number answered. All old feelings and memories revived. We talked of our little cottage on the Rhine, of our meeting in Paris, and our adventures by the way. The stranger joined in frankly and familiarly, evidently knowing all that had befallen us. We formed again, as it were, one family, and at length, emboldened by this renewal of old associations, I turned smiling from the gentleman of the house to Madame de Salins, saying, perhaps abruptly—

“Do you not know him, Louis?” she exclaimed, with a look of surprise. “It is my husband—The Count de Salins. How else should I be here?”

“You forget, mamma, you forget,” said Mariette. “Louis always thought that he was dead,” and casting herself upon her father’s neck, she shed a few tears over the memory of the terrible days when first we met.

I looked surprised and bewildered, as well I might; and looking round at Madame de Salins, I murmured—

“I thought so when I told you so, Louis,” she replied, “I saw him fall before my eyes, wounded in several places, and to all appearance dead. But a glimmering of hope, springing from what source, I know not, led me to trust my child to you and hurry back to the court of the château where he had fallen. The assassins were gone; my husband’s blood was still reeking from the ground; but his body was not there, and after a long period of terrible suspense—it was but two hours, but it seemed an eternity to me—I found that one of our good farmers had carried him away, and was nursing in his own house a feeble spark of life which he had found yet remaining. I flew to him; I tended him many weeks in secret; I saw him recover consciousness and hope. None who beheld him then, however, would have recognized the gay and handsome De Salins; and it was agreed that he should be carried some ten or twelve leagues by night, and thence removed to Paris in a litter as a dropsical patient going to seek the aid of our good friend Doctor L——. All the peasantry were in our favor. It was but the people of the cities who were infected with the epidemic madness of the times. Every one aided—every one was as secret as death. The very dogs of the farm-houses seemed to comprehend and enter into our purposes. They barked not when the litter entered the yard, but moved round us watchfully, as if to defend, rather than betray us. It was necessary that I should part with him, however; for my presence would have discovered all; and I hurried back to seek my child, and meet him in Paris. Monsieur L—— was already prepared for his coming; but he did more than could have been expected or even hoped. He took him into his own house, and kept him there in profound secrecy for some months. During that time I lay concealed under the appearance of abject poverty. Mariette visited him every day, upon the pretence of carrying little articles of food to the good Doctor’s house; and neither by word or look, did she betray the secret—even to you, Louis. Do you forgive us?”

I put my hand in my bosom, and drew out the ring which Madame de Salins had given me, and which still remained suspended round my neck by the little gold chain. I pressed it to my lips for my only reply; and gently bending her head with a sweet smile, she proceeded, saying, “I could see him but seldom—I dared rarely venture; but at length Dr. L—— formed the scheme for us of making our escape from Paris, crossing the Rhine, and waiting there for my husband’s coming. He was to follow as speedily as possible, in the character of an officer of the Republican army, who had been wounded at the battle of Jemappes. A thousand obstacles intervened, however, and I remained in terrible anxiety, till at length a letter informed me that he whom I had well-nigh given up for lost, had crossed the Rhine in safety, and was then at Dusseldorf waiting my coming. It was still necessary to maintain the most profound secrecy; for emigrants were surrounded by spies and traitors, and one indiscreet word might have brought the head of good Doctor L. to the block. I joined my husband in safety with Mariette, however, and our good farmers had gathered together a sum of money sufficient to enable us to cross the sea to this island, and to live for some time obscurely here. That sum would have been exhausted long ago, had we not by a fortunate chance been driven from our small lodging in Swallow street by a brutal man, whom I believe to be a spy, but who had once received great favors from our family when a poor apothecary in Paris. He, a sensual, horrible patron, the Marquis de Carcassonne, had no mercy upon us; but having purchased the house, turned us out in the street four years ago. We heard of this little cottage and took it; and a blessing it was; for Monsieur de Salins has obtained a little class of pupils, by which our small means have been somewhat saved.”

“We sought you in that house in Swallow street,” said Father Bonneville, “Louis was impressed with the idea that you must be in want, and he has been hunting for you far and wide ever since we came to England.”

“Real want, we have never known,” said Monsieur de Salins, “though we have been poor enough—ay, so poor, as to induce me to let my child go on a long visit to some rich and vulgar people, in order to economize our little pittance. They thought that Mariette de Salins was reduced so low as to accept the hand of their coarse son, and think it an honor and a favor; but they have learned better now.”

“And did you visit that house in Swallow street?” asked Madame de Salins, looking at me with an anxious and inquiring glance. “Who did you see there?”

I told her all the particulars, Father Bonneville adding a word here and there, and the account seemed to strike both Monsieur de Salins and his wife with much surprise.

“He does not know,” said Madame de Salins, in a low and thoughtful tone, turning her eyes upon her husband, “he does not know.”

“And so you found Monsieur de Carcassonne in poverty and distress?” said Monsieur de Salins, “the one viper, I suppose, has stung the other. God of heaven, my dear wife, how thankful we should be to Him on high, that we sit here, and eat the daily bread of his mercy, with consciences clear of offense, and hearts unloaded by a weight of guilt. Let them take all from us, but our innocence and our honor, and we shall be rich compared with these men, even were they wealthy and powerful as in days of old.”

“And is it possible, Monsieur de Salins,” I asked, following the line of thought in which my mind had been principally running, though there were many other subjects eagerly appealing for attention, “Is it possible that you, and dear Mariette, and Madame de Salins, have been living here in comparative poverty, while I have been enjoying wealth and all that wealth can give? This must be no longer——”

I saw a slight shade come over his countenance, and I added, “Madame de Salins has been a mother to me; Mariette has been a sister. I have sought them eagerly, daily since I have been in England, in order to perform toward them the duties of a son and a brother. Surely Monsieur de Salins,” I continued, taking his hand in mine, “you will not suffer my having the good fortune to find you with them, to deprive me of my right of adoption?”

“Dear, noble, generous Louis,” said Mariette, throwing her beautiful arm round my neck, as if I had been indeed her brother.

“Why, I taught her to read and write,” I said, drawing her gently toward her father. “She was my first and dearest pupil—I have all her little books now, in which she spelt her early lessons.”

“All, all safe through all my wanderings,” I replied. “Come, Monsieur de Salins, I have a beautiful little place hard-by—ample means for all of us. Every thing shall be soon prepared for you, and Madame de Salins, and dear Mariette. We will share house and fortune and all, and be one family again, as we were in our sweet cottage by the Rhine.”

I knew not what it was I urged—all the objections that a father’s eye might see—all the difficulties in regard to the world, and the world’s opinion; and I was not aware, till I found that even Father Bonneville remained silent, and did not second me, that I was asking too much.

Monsieur de Salins, for his part, smiled at my enthusiasm, while Madame de Salins wept at it; but he answered kindly and affectionately, putting quietly aside all points difficult to deal with, and saying jestingly, “Why, you would not have us quit this little, rosy dwelling where we have been so happy; but be assured, my dear young friend, that no guest will be more loved and honored within its walls than the Count De Lacy.”

I felt from his tone, that it would be in vain to press my request further that day; but I knew the effect of perseverance, and I had hope for the future. At all events Mariette and I had met again. I was resolved that nothing should make me lose sight of her thenceforth, and like all young hearts, I gave myself up to the present joy with trustful confidence in the happiness of to-morrow.

Several hours glided sweetly by, and it was late in the day when Father Bonneville and I retrod our steps to our own dwelling, each full of thought.

I woo thee, Spring, and I wed thee, Spring,

To a kindly-thoughted lay,

And I sing thee, Spring, in thy blossoming,

Through the lee-lang sunny day!

When young loves bud and old loves bloom—

When the warm earth bans all shade of gloom,

And bees hum summerly.

I woo thine ears to a kindly tale,

And what shall the story be?

I will tell thee dearest bonds are frail,

And that stars and flowers flee.

I will tell thee a tale of woful wings

That rive from the soul its precious things,

And shadow sweet fantasy.

I will tell thee of some that have fled away

Since last we saw thy face;

And some that are gone from the sheeny day

To the lonesome burial-place.

And of joys, like a string of pearls unstrung—

Like treasured flowers to the fierce wind flung,

That sleep with the buried grace.

O, I woo thee, Spring, and I wed thee, Spring,

To a sadly-thoughted lay,

And I sing thee, Spring, in thy blossoming,

Through the lee-lang cloudy day!

For the lone day dies through purple bars—

And a misty grief enwraps the stars,

And our hopes are ashen-gray.

But the flowers bud and the flowers blow

And the mossy streams are sheen,

And the downy clouds to the Norland go,

While the blue sky laughs between;

And the light without, to the dark within,

Would seem to say—“Will ye up and win

While the paths of life are green?”

But the outer joy on the soul’s annoy

Looks in and laughs in vain—

For the inner chains of the spirit’s pains

May ne’er be reft in twain;

And the song that erst in joy begun

Sinks into wail ere the setting sun,

A sad and deathful strain.

So I woo thee, Spring, and I wed thee, Spring,

To a dreary-thoughted lay,

And I sing thee, Spring, in thy blossoming,

Through the lee-lang weary day!

Through the lee-lang day and the plodding night—

When no golden star’s in the lift alight,

To brighten a weary way.

It was night, black night all over the world, and denser night within the dwelling of Margery Starveling. Now and then, the half-moon broke through the clouds that obscured the face of heaven, and some straggling and uncertain beams slanting through the narrow south window, gave to the low, homely apartment a ghostly sort of glow that was gloomier to see than the dark. Yet the night was one to make timid hearts beat quick, especially in a dismal old house, where there was no light save occasional glimpses of the half-moon. But Margery was not afraid—she was used to darkness and solitude, and needed not the interchange of humanities for her comfort, else she would have aroused from the sleep which had fallen upon her, the child, who—with cheek leaned against the rough stone jam—was alike unconscious of the dark, and the rats gnawing hungrily at the floor, or loosening the hearth beneath her feet. It may be that bright dreams came to her, even there, for what shall stay them from innocence? and the rough jam may have seemed a pillow of down, and the chill moonlight, as it fell against her, the golden curtaining of a pleasant couch.

All was quiet within doors, save the digging and the gnawing I have mentioned, but in the woods that partly encircled the place, and darkened close against the western gables, the winds went blindly moaning up and down, and the dead boughs creaked against each other, filling the time with music when the ill-boding owls muffled themselves away.

It was very still in the house, I said, for though Margery was busy, her work made no noise, till laying aside the great fleece of wool from her knees, which her skinny fingers had been picking apart, she spoke aloud, and on this wise—

“I will stir with my staff the embers from which the glow is well-nigh perished, that my child may feel in her sleep its comfortable influence, for evil dreams may come of unrest, and evil dreams make evil thoughts, and when they have once taken possession of the heart, how hardly are they charmed away.” So, having taken the fleece from her knees and laid it over a wooden stool at her feet, she arose, and fumbling in the chimney-corner opposite to that where the child slept, produced a great knotty staff, the lower end of which was blackened and charred. With this she stirred the gray ashes from the fiery log that lay beneath, and beating and breaking it into coals, gathered the dry cinders together that were scattered about, and having spread them over the freshly-broken coals, a blaze sprung up, slight and blue at first, but reddening and deepening till the rafters over-head, and the oak slabs below, the walnut bedstead in the corner, with its antique carving, and elaborately wrought tester, and the huge chest with its iron padlock, the wrinkled visage of the old woman, and the pale hair and plump, naked feet of the child, were all distinctly visible.

“Charity, my pretty darling,” called the old woman, as she resumed her seat and the fleece of wool, “Wake, and betake thee to thy wheel for an hour, and I will tell thee of the plan I have made to keep our house full of cheer and music all the while, even when thou weariest of the wheel, and thy tongue prattlest not.”

The child rubbed her eyes, lifted her head from the stone jam, saying in a voice sweet and plaintive, as we sometimes hear a bird’s—

“I have spun my task, grandam—six wisps of flax into as many hanks of thread, and thou seest my distaff is naked—but I will wind it with another wisp and spin, at least till thy task is done.”

Her naked feet pattered across the slab floor, and climbing on a ladder, she took from a peg in the rafter a fresh wisp, and as she wound the distaff peered through the south window at the half-moon, or rather at the yellowish color in the clouds behind which the half-moon was concealed.

“It wears near the midnight, good grandam,” she said, shoving her wheel aside: “I will pick on the fleece, and so thy voice will not be drowned as thou tellest the plan thou hast mused of.”

“As thou sayest,” answered Margery, “it wears near the midnight, as is told by the shrill cry of the cricket, to say nothing of the aching in my bones, and the dizzy feeling that creeps along my forehead now and then;” and laying her skinny fingers over the wrinkles on her brow, she bowed her head forward for a minute, looking more like a witch making some unholy incantation, than a live human being, and a woman as she was. Her dress, summer and winter, was composed of cow-hide shoes, clasped over the ankles with buckles of brass, a gown of dark woolen stuff, made in a straight, stiff fashion peculiar to herself, and she wore over her shoulders a small circular cape, that had once been part of a tiger’s hide. On her head she wore no cap or other covering, and her gray hair was parted on the crown and combed either way, one half being cut in a straight line above her forehead, and the other on her neck.

She seemed seventy, or thereabout—nevertheless, her hair was neither thin nor very white.

“Thou hast wrought too hardly, grandam, mayhap,” said the child. “Fold up thy hands now, and the portion of the fleece that remaineth be mine to do;” as she spoke, she wound her arm about the neck of Margery, for she loved her, albeit she looked so repelling.

“Nay, child,” answered the dame, “it is not often we have so pleasant a light, and pity ’twere to lose it. We must improve the advantages we have, little one, else want will be staring us in the face, and reproaching us with negligence when it is too late. I cannot work as I could with forty years less weighing me down, so I must do what I may.”

“I saw,” said the child, “when I went to Farmer Jocelin’s, for the measure of meal thou wottest of, three good tallow-candles alight in one room. The noonday sun were scarce brighter,” she continued in amazement, both at the wondrous light and the prodigality. “He must have great estates, grandam, to maintain such indolent and luxurious life. True, Mistress Jocelin was at work with some knitting, but not heedfully nor diligently, but more attentive to the reading of a book, which, indeed, to look upon was very beautiful, for as Farmer Jocelin held it near the light, the edges of the leaves glittered like gold, and the leathern cover was bright as the bosom of the bird that sings in the peach-tree, here, in summer. But Master Lawrence—what, think you, he did by all that flood of light? Why, nothing for thrift; for he sat on the matting of the floor, cutting pieces of smooth brown paper into a kite. Yet he had a sweet smile, and seemed to have a good heart withal,” added Charity, and her fingers flew more nimbly through the wool, “for as he served round a salver of apples, at his mother’s bidding, he urged me to take one so earnestly, yet kindly, that I might scarce refuse, and when I did—for that I might not rob Farmer Jocelin of his substance, giving him nothing in turn—he forced one into my lap and ran laughingly aside, so that I might not return it.”

“Alas! alas!” said Margery, “have I reared thee thus carefully in vain, that when thou escapest from my sight, but for a moment, thou yieldest to sinful temptation, eating the fruit thou hast not earned.”

“Nay, grandam, thy conclusion is over-hasty. I kept the fruit unbruised and untasted, though its sweet fragrance made it hard to resist, and when the maid brought in the measure of meal, I gave it to her hand, and she restored it to the salver; but when Master Lawrence saw it, he looked as though he would have cried, even in such beautiful light, and with so much fair brown paper, to fashion as he would.”

“I am glad thou hast wit to serve thee upon occasion,” spoke Margery, her fingers flying nimbly as the child’s; “and if Farmer Jocelin burns three good tallow-candles at one time, and that at no merry-making or gala-night, his children will be the likelier to sit in the light of fagots—and Master Lawrence was wastefully cutting smooth brown paper. I am glad thou hadst wit to refuse the apple, but thou shouldst have frowned smartly the while. If I see the young scapegrace this way, as belike he may come, with further temptations, I will make my tongue as a chisel, cutting such a lesson of wisdom and reproof upon his heart, as he hath never heard, mayhap.”

“But Master Lawrence meant kindly,” said Charity, and casting down her eyes, she continued, “if we cannot burn tallow-candles, we, at least, may have the light of dry sticks—shall I not gather more to keep light as thou tellest the plan thou hast? I would it could make our home cheery as good candle-light, and a salver of apples, with rinds all russet and red and yellow.”

“It were good thou hadst not seen the apples,” spoke the dame, querulously; “better still thou hadst not seen the boy.”

“But the plan, grandam—thou forgettest the plan. Is it that the famous chopper, Patrick Malony, is to come and fell one of the great hickory or maple trees of which the wood is full; and are we to have a huge log, and big, smoothly split sticks to fill the great empty fire-place every night with light and warmth; or meanest thou once more to saddle Lily-lace, the mare, and ride to the mill with a full bag of wheat; and am I to go to the market-town once more, in my black kirtle and straw hat, and bring home in exchange, for my basket of eggs, butcher’s meat to broil on the coals, and fragrant tea to fill the little china cups, with tobacco for thy long empty pipe—in faith, grandam, have I not guessed shrewdly?”

“My pretty darling, I see thou hast thy head filled with the wildest extravagance; thou wilt be teasing next for a farthingale of dimity, ruffles of lace, and blue ribbons for thy hat, or other such like gear. Thy guesses tally not with prudence, Charity; thou mayest guess again.”

“Ay, then,” said the girl, sorrowfully, “I was wrong from the saddling of Lily-face to the full pipe of tobacco;” and casting her eyes about the cold, empty room, she continued, with greater energy—“I have the very pith of thy thought. Thou wilt unlock the great chest, and take thence the dainty linen sheets and the thick wool blankets thy hands have wrought from fleece and flax, and make the bed—wherein we now shiver the night through, ridden with nightmares and plagued with ugly dreams—into beauty and comfort. Surely I have guessed thy plan, for the moth is more wasting than the wear.”

“Foolish child, thy extravagance would be the ruin of me, though I gave thee management of my affairs but for a day. Were the sheets of linen and blankets of wool to be used as thou sayest, the chest would soon be empty, and then how should we fare?”

“As well as now,” thought Charity, but she spoke not, save to say—“that she should guess no more.”

“Once more, little one,” and Margery patted the child on the head with one hand, and taking the great staff in the other, she stirred open the coals vigorously, and as the light flashed upon the girl’s cheek, tears, large and bright, were seen to stand there, like drops of dew on a lily.

But the old woman urged her to renew her guess with such earnestness and tenderness that, brushing away the tears, she essayed once again; but the fervor was gone from her tone, and the light from her glance, as she said—

“Thou hast planned the mending of the door and window, that the snow may not drive to great ridges across the floor, and the wind and the rain beat against us as we sleep.”

“Not so,” answered Margery. “While the winter blows the larger crevices may be stopped with straw, and the smaller ones with clay, both of which may be easily removed when the May Queen is dancing on the hills, and our house be the pleasanter for free air and streaks of sunshine.”

“It may all do very well,” said Charity, “but to-night I can see nothing so pleasant as great log-fires, tallow-candles, and a salver of red apples; and, mayhap, it would take Master Lawrence to complete the picture.”

“Burned not thy cheek to speak it?” continued Margery, peevishly: and the two wrought at the fleece for a time in silence.

“Thou knowest Lily-face?” said the ancient dame, at length, “that she groweth old and stiff of limb; thou canst not remember the time when she nibbled not in my pastures; I think belike, also, she fadeth in the sight of her right eye, for when, at the last Christmas time, I rode her to the mill, my old bones were jeopardized by her stumbling, and often turning of her head to one side, betrayed her defect of vision. But though she were sound as the silver coin that lieth in the bottom of the chest, yonder, I must needs barter her away, for that she eateth more than she earneth, since I may no more buckle round her the girth.

“Thou requirest much exercise in thy growing, Charity, to keep supple thy joints—thou canst sometimes walk to the market-town for our absolute wants, which are not many, and as for the wheat-grist, thou shalt have a mortar and beat it into flour; so Lily-face would but burden us now, and the corn and the oat-sheaves, and the hay that have been heaped in her manger, may be sold.

“One beast is enough for a poor body like me, and thou knowest I will neither barter nor sell Wolf-slayer till the time cometh for the nailing of the boards to my coffin. And forget not, Charity, that they lie in the loft, well-seasoned for the using, and for thy life, let them not buy others in their stead.”

“Far away be the time, good grandam,” sighed the girl. “But the young die, too; and should I need them first, wilt thou not keep a light, at least of fagots, the whiles I am dead in the house?”

Foolish child! though it were darker than tempest may make it, and I the while slept never so sound, no harm could come to thy white corse, if Wolf-slayer lay by thy coffin.

At the sound of her name, a great black beast, with eyes burning like coals, and lean and shaggy, crept from the darkest corner of the room, and laying her head in the lap of Margery, licked her jaws and whined piteously. “Away with thee, saucy image,” growled the mistress, “thou hadst the third part of a corn-ear at the sunset, and thinkest thou, black wench, I will give thee more?” and crouching and whining the hungry beast slunk back to the corner, and curling herself together, filled the room presently with her snore.

“Poor Lily-face!” said the child, speaking as it were to herself, “how can I let thee go! Morning and evening, since I could toddle, I have put my arms around thy glossy neck, broken the ears of corn into small bits, and pressed the golden oat-sheaves through thy manger—and thou hast neighed and put thy face against mine, for thou lovest me, as I thee. Poor Lily-face! I cannot let thee go!”

“What if thou mightst look in the corner here and see the bright, shining face of a pretty clock instead of the cobwebs and the hanks of yarn—if thou couldst hear the pleasant tick, and ever and anon the musical ring of the hours—a clock, bethink thee, bright of color as the autumn oak-leaves, and tall as thy grandam.”

“It would be pretty and comforting, surely,” said the child, “for the ticking and the stroke of the hours would be company in the lonesome nights, but I would not give Lily-face, that knows me when I speak, and looks at me and loves me, to have a clock bright as the oaken autumn leaves, and tall as thou, grandam, in place of the hanks of yarn and the cobwebs.”

“Thou knowest not thy own mind,” said Dame Margery; “the clock will neither eat nor drink, but will tell us the time of day and night; which Lily-face hath not wit to do. By the light of the last sunset, I have no mind that she shall longer stamp in that stall of hers.

“The miller hath a clock,” she continued, “which ticked at his grandfather’s funeral, and hath kept the time of many funerals, and marriages, too, since; a pretty piece of mechanism, as I saw with my own eyes, and taller than I; and the miller wanteth the mare for the tread-wheel, and to have her his own, will barter the pretty clock.”

“It must be as thou sayest, but I have little pleasure in the plan,” said Charity. “Hath not the miller a milch cow that he would barter in place of the clock?”

“Thou growest officious,” answered the dame. “Would not the cow eat oats and corn as well as Lily-face? And have we not hitherto drunken water and flourished, and must we needs have milk?”

Charity spoke no more, but sat turning the wheel for pastime—for the fleece was finished, and the mind of the dame was not to be altered by childish fancies, as was manifest from her rising and removing the hanks of yarn to another peg, and brushing with her hand the cobwebs.

The wind kept moaning along the woods and rattled the broken door and window—the coals grew fainter and fainter and died, and the gray ashes blew over the feet of Margery and the child as they sat silently musing—the one of the pretty clock that it would cost nothing to keep, the other of poor Lily-face; haply at times there came a thought of the log-fire and the tallow-candles, and the salver of red apples which Master Lawrence had served with such a sweet grace.

The next day came the miller, and wrapt in a great bed-quilt and laid in the bottom of his cart was the clock. Margery clapt her hands in glee when she saw it, but Charity sighed as she sat close on the hearth-stone for the sake of its little warmth, though she felt not the cold now. Faster and faster spun round the wheel, and lower and lower she bowed down her head to conceal the tears—but it would not do. When she heard the neigh of poor Lily-face, and knew that her hands would never feed her any more, she hurried to the window, and pressing her face against the pane, she could see her dear pet shrinking consciously from the hand that tied the strong rope about her neck and led her away. Margery was busy with dusting the bright face of her pretty clock, and looked not forth even when the long-drawn howl of Wolf-slayer (who, lifting her fore paws on the clapboard gate, manifested her sorrow as a dumb brute may) smote dismally upon her ears.

The days came and went and Charity spun on the same, but Margery brought forth no new fleece. Scarcely had she stirred or spoken since the treasure came—even when the girl heaped on dry sticks and broken branches till the warmth filled all the house, she did not reprove.

Then Charity bethought her that the old dame had scarcely tasted food for days, and looking upon her, she saw that her eyes waxed dim and her countenance pale, and a great fear came over the child’s heart; and setting aside her wheel, she ran fast to farmer Jocelin’s, and begged a cup of honey and a pitcher of sweet milk, telling of the strange disorder that possessed Dame Margery.

As she went homeward, Master Lawrence ran from his work in the field and bore the pitcher of milk, and comforted her with hopes that her grandam was less ill than she feared.

Without question Margery partook of the milk and honey; and when Lawrence brought sticks and logs and heaped the fire, she laid her withered hand on his head and said, “Thou art a kind boy and good.” She then took a key from her bosom and told Charity to unlock the chest and bring forth blankets—as many as would keep her warm.

“Surely, grandam, thou art distraught,” said Charity, as she hastened to obey. But the sweet smile of intelligence that met her inquiring glance belied her fears; and as she wrapt the warm covering about the withered form, she said, “Nay, child, I am sane at last—but too late.”

At midnight she ceased to speak or to be conscious. Kind hands presently removed the thick covering, and spread over her a dainty white sheet; but she was warm enough; others brought from the loft the boards of seasoned walnut wood, and the next midnight Charity and Wolf-slayer—the one at the head and the other at the feet, watched by the old dame’s coffin.

The following day came the miller with Lily-face harnessed in his little cart; he went forward, and a train of neighbors followed—amongst them Charity, sorrowfulest of all.

When the summer came, she planted bright blossoming shrubs about the grave, and never in her life had Margery half so pretty a house as this narrow one.

The old house was given up to the rats and the winds, after the removal of the cheat, and the clock, and the hanks of yarn that hung all along the rafters. In course of time it fell into a heap; and one day, as Charity, who dwelt not far away, sat on the heap of stones where the hearth-stone had been, she saw a fair-faced youth searching up and down the lanes, over the meadows, and through the hedges hard-by, as though he missed something; but when he saw the girl, he left searching and bent his steps toward her, and as he came near she knew him for Master Lawrence—well grown, but with something of the boyish look and manners yet. The prettiest of all the lambs of the flock was gone, and though he had gone over all the pastures, he could not find it. The heart of Charity was touched, and leaving her sorrowful musing, she joined in the search.

Whether the stray lamb was found I know not, but as Charity crossed the fields to go homeward under the twilight’s reddening wing, her hair was full of daffodils and daisies, and a flush of wildering happiness was on her cheek, that had never been there before.

When the harvest was gathered and the orchard fruits weighing down the boughs, Charity rode to the market-town on a pretty brown jennet of her own; and as she went homeward the horns of her saddle were hung with great bundles; she had bought a white ribbon instead of a blue for the new straw hat her fingers had been braiding so busily—a muslin gown, that was white, too; a pair of pretty slippers, and a dozen other things that I have not time to enumerate—enough, that the next full moon shone upon Mistress Lawrence Jocelin.

Not a village maiden that would not have envied her but for her own happiness, for all joined in the merry-making; a dozen tallow-candles were burned at once, and more than one salver of red apples was served round, with loaf-cakes and sweetmeats, and ripe broken nuts. Workmen were employed to clear away the rubbish that had once been Dame Margery’s house, and a pretty new cottage soon rose in its place; and the next summer sweet shrubbery hedged it in, and myrtles and honeysuckles curtained the windows; bees made honey from the flowers, sleek cattle fed in the pastures, and in all the neighborhood there was no home so full of comfort and plenty.

The hanks of yarn which Charity had spun long ago were taken to the weaver’s and came back in rolls of damask and bright-flowered carpets; the linen was taken from the chest, and the wool blankets; and after being washed white as snow, and dried in the sun, were spread upon beds soft as down could make.

When the second winter came round, the cottage was a-glow with wood-fires and tallow-candles; and in place of the starved Wolf-slayer, there lay before the hearth, in a cradle of white willows, the plumpest and fairest baby that ever Lawrence and Charity Jocelin had seen.

The snow lies deep upon the ground,

All icy is the air;

The trees a winding-sheet have found

By the wild wind’s care.

The beast stands trembling in his shed—

The sheep within his fold:

Without, all life is stiff and dead—

Within, all chill and cold.

Why is the air so cold to-night?

The owl shrinks in his nest!

Why does the moon gleam out so bright?

The traveler is at rest!

O, keen the wind and cold the air

Above the Phantom Field!

Yet ghostly forms are stalking there,

Armed with a sword and shield.

And gathering slow in serried rank,

They turn toward the west:

Five thousand coffins guard each flank—

Five hundred stand abreast.

In battle rank, with noiseless tread,

They hurry to the height,

Where stand ten thousand other dead,

Uncoffined for the fight.

O, cold the wind and keen the air

Around the Phantom Height!

Yet spectre men are battling there

In fierce, exultant fight.

And shields are rent, and swords are bent,

And limbs bestrew the ground,

Yet skeletons, with strength unspent,

Strike where a breast is found.

And skulls are cleft on right and left

Till shines the morn o’erhead—

Till twice five thousand coffins stand

Alone, flanking the dead.

O, keen the wind and cold the air

That sweeps above the plain!

Yet must the hollow coffins bear

The skeletons again.

O’er the silent field they haste,

To gather limb and bone:

Though skulls and limbs are wide displaced,

Each coffin knows its own.

Soon every limb is gathered in—

Soon every lid is fast—

And falling into rank again

They turn toward the East.

And marching o’er the frozen plain,

With swift and gliding tread,

They stand beside the graves again

Where sleep the evil dead.

Two death’s-heads stand above each mound;

A fearful watch they keep!

The coffins sink into the ground,

Another year to sleep.

But when another year is fled—

When comes St. Stephen’s night,

The death’s-heads shall unloose their dead

To battle on the height.

And when five hundred years have passed,

The penance shall be done;

The skeletons shall sleep at last,

And moulder, limb and bone.

“They—the rats, of course—were a strange, heathenish set, and no respecters of persons, but first chased the cat on shore, and then made a hurra’s nest of the cabin—polishing their long whiskers with spermaceti—planning surprise-parties in the pantry—running to’gallant races over your nose in the sleeping-berths, and gauging every hollow vessel in the ship, with tails a fathom long, from the oil-casks and the scuttle-butt down to the pickle-jars and the captain’s barrel of New England. They were a sleek, long-bodied race, as black as imps of darkness, and as fearless as if they possessed as many reputed lives as grimalkin herself. I was weary of watching their capers, and of the sound of Catherton’s tread, expecting him every moment to call me up; when turning in my berth, I noticed that the after-cabin door was standing open. While I was wondering at this, a feeling of awe stole over me, thinking of the conversation I had overheard among the men the night before, and that very moment, as I was looking intently at the spot, a figure in white passed swiftly and silently out of the store-room into the cabin, closing the door behind it. I would afterward have given worlds to have been able to pursue it, but could not, for the power to move a limb was dead for the time being, and I lay still staring after it, with mouth agape and the cold drops on my forehead, palsied, as it would seem, by that sort of instinctive abhorrence with which humanity revolts against a disembodied spirit that has assumed, for some mysterious end, the form and garniture of its house of clay. It was a woman’s shape—the head bare, and the long dark hair hanging down to the waist, and, before the door closed, the light for an instant flickered on the face, ghastly and white—as the man-of-war’s man had said—with the mouth closed and the lips drawn tightly in. Its back was toward my berth, until it turned into the after-cabin, and it seemed to me that it had something clutched in its hand; but the hollow look of the sunken eyes froze my very heart’s blood, as they glared back at the lamp, from behind the bloodless and bony cheek. I was first roused from my trance by the sound of some one coming down the companion-way, and it was not until Catherton had thrice called me, laying his hand upon my shoulder, the third time, that I started at last to my feet, when he must have noticed my looks, as I still stared past him at the cabin-door.

“ ‘It wants but a few moments of the time, Mr. Miller,’ was all he said, and if I had died for it, I could not have answered, but huddling on my clothes in silence, mechanically followed him on deck. All was there as still as death. The moon had not yet risen, and you heard the sound of the ebb plashing against the Tartar’s bows, and rippling and gurgling in the eddies astern, as it swept through the strait.

“ ‘The watch are asleep in the galley,’ the captain whispered, as I prepared to go over the side; ‘you remember the place and the signal—a plover’s whistle twice repeated?’

“Nodding my head, I descended into the canoe; he cast off the warp, and keeping in the shade of the ship, with my brain in a whirl, I paddled close to the starboard shore. I had little time to think, for the current ran strongly round the points, and I seemed blindly impelled by the hand of fate to stem its force, even while my frame still shook like a frightened child’s.

“I had hardly a thought of my purpose; nevertheless, instinctively plying my paddle, I passed through the passage, and reached the rift of sand under the castle without being challenged.

“High above me, concealed from my eyes by the rocky steep, was the stronghold where, according to report, the sultan kept both his harem and his treasures. The danger, in some measure, restored my presence of mind, and the canoe had hardly hung for a moment on the hot, glassy tide, when I heard the signal, and immediately upon my answering it, an Arab arose from the sand, and two others appeared coming hastily down a narrow gully, along which a sort of causeway ran from the stables of the sultan’s stud to the beach. Seeing more figures than I had been taught to expect, as another appeared from behind a rock, leading two saddled horses, I was about to back farther off, when the chief’s voice called out to me in a low tone to be quick, and forcing the bow of the canoe upon the sand, not another word was exchanged, until Halil had placed the slender form of the Circassian, vailed as she was from head to foot, under the awning.

“The chief then seized my hand and carried it to his head, pointing with his right in the direction of the ship.

“Wishing him ‘God speed,’ I wrung his hand; he pushed off the canoe, and I paddled round for the ship. Glancing back, I saw him spring into the saddle, with one attendant, both sitting as motionless as statues while the canoe kept them in sight.

“Heavily armed, and mounted on a splendid charger, from what I knew of his strength and spirit, it struck me forcibly that in his present enterprise he was more than a match for most men. There was little chance, however, of the conspiracy succeeding, unless the assassination of the sultan were the first overt act, as he was greatly beloved by his people. However, I had previously understood that the Oualé of Muscat, and all the principal chiefs at Moutrah—the last a considerable town in the vicinity—were implicated, which showed that the party of the old Imaum, the sultan’s deceased uncle, was much more extensive than I had ever deemed.

“It was not with thoughts like these that I approached the ship, for the recent horror oppressed me so strongly, that I hardly knew what I was doing when the captain received Zuma from my arms at the stern-post. After this I fastened the canoe in its place, and looking, as it were by the mere force of habit, into the binnacle, found that I had been absent but twelve minutes. I then went for’ard where the two fellows who held the anchor-watch were sleeping soundly. As I kicked them up, the old carpenter came out of the steerage, rubbing his eyes, and muttering imprecations on the rats.

“ ‘They’re a considerable spry set, Mister Miller,’ said he, as I made some remark to divert his attention, ‘and, cuss me, if I half like the ways on ’em—rattlin’ past my berth atween decks, as if every beggar on ’em had shoes on his feet, and turnin’ the’r varmentish heads to listen, with more life in the slack of their tails than there is wit in the for’ard part of the ship. They comed aboard, sir, in my opinion, at an island where the ship touched on the Japan coast, and jist tuk full command of the ship at once, trampoosin’ her from the ground-tier to the tops, and crawlin’ out of the bunts of the old courses, when sail was made at daylight, or jumpin’ from the boats, when a rush was made to lower away. Hows’iver,’ he added, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, without which he was never seen on deck in these latitudes, ‘I hope, sir, they’ll stick to the ship, if it’s only for luck’s sake.’ As he said this he gave me an oblique glance of his cold, fishy eye, and then looked earnestly at the bowl of his pipe, fussing with a paper of cut tobacco.

“In the humor which I was in at the time, the most trifling incident that occurred in the ship seemed to leave an impression upon my mind never to be forgotten; however, I was not to be sounded by old Charley Toppin, cunning as he thought himself; so I answered him at random: ‘I hope not, carpenter; and as for luck—why—’

“ ‘Hist! sir,’ interrupted he, in a startled voice, pointing aft—‘what tale does that tell?’

“Turning quickly round, I saw them dropping from the poop by the dozens—one steady plump! plump! plump! till the deck was black with them, creeping in a living mass on the forecastle, down the cable, as it seemed, into the water, where we could see them swimming for the island across a broad patch of starlight, until the last of them disappeared. Captain Catherton was standing aft, looking at the frigate through his night-glass. He never stirred, and, as I thought, did not notice them. The sight seemed to shake old Kennebunk wonderfully.

“ ‘You’re wrong,’ said I, ‘they’re swimming off to the shore to fill their stomachs with something green, if they can find it. They’ll be back presently, and then, if you cover the hatchways, you can call all hands to a rat-hunt.’

“The carpenter looked at me, and then at the poop, significantly enough; a look of intelligence suddenly crossed his blank, weather-beaten face, as he moved close to my side, with his hand to his mouth and his eye still fixed aft: ‘Do you know, sir,’ he whispered, bending his brows and looking me hard in the face, ‘do you know who are your shipmates in this here craft?’

“At that moment the captain called out in his deep, calm voice, and I went up on the poop, where, pointing to the frigate, which lay now within half a pistol shot of us, outside of the passage, he put the glass in my hands, without saying a word. The first look I took through the instrument explained his meaning. The frigate’s starboard broadside was sprung to bear on us, and the long tiers of guns frowning full upon the ship. They were even lighting their battle-lanterns, and groups of turbans and pointed caps were visible in every part of the upper deck.

“ ‘I understand it,’ said he composedly, in reply to my look—‘wait a couple of hours longer, and the scene will change. In the meantime come below, and let us have a glass of grog.’

“He swept the harbor carefully with his glass, dwelling some time on the landing-place, which is at the mouth of a drain, or sort of canal; the town itself being hidden from our sight by the lofty castle-crowned crags to the north and east. The Soliman Shah, after changing her old berth, had anchored off Fisher’s rock, a small islet lying off the north point of Muscat Island.

While Catherton was thus engaged, the thought of what Halil and the rest of the conspirators could be doing at that moment, together with my adventures that night, whirled a confused crowd of images before my mind, in the midst of which black Hadji’s face was preëminent. The stories which I had heard of his craft and cruelty occurred to me so strongly that it was a relief when the captain closed his glass with a snap, and led the way to the cabin.

“ ‘Steward,’ said he to the mulatto, who seemed to make it a rule never to be caught in his hammock when his master was up, ‘set out the liquor-case, and a bottle of that old Bourbon whisky we got out of the Frenchman—and then be off to your roost.’

The fellow obeyed in his usual deferential way, and placing a lighted joshstick and a bundle of sheroots on the table withdrew.

“ ‘To-morrow,’ said Catherton, ‘we’ll tow out into the bight of the current, go how things may; and here,’ he added, pouring out a tumbler of grog, and pushing me the bottle, ‘here’s good-bye, forever and a day, to the key of the Persian Gulf.’

“I pledged him accordingly, and he went on in a very frank, easy way, I thought, considering the case in which we stood.

“ ‘A troublesome coast this to clear, Mr. Miller; the currents hereabouts are as treacherous as the heart of woman. Why,’ said he, seeming a good deal at his ease, as he poured out another glass, though I was in the other case, my eye stealing to the cabin doors in spite of me, ‘I’ve been drifted in this old ship forty miles in-shore, in a thick fog and a calm, between sunset and dawn, and no signs of a set on the surface any more than there is on this deck.’

“ ‘Yes, sir,’ said I, compelling my attention to answer him, ‘in clear weather they keep you continually taking observations—and in a fog, as you say, why—’

“ ‘Try that case-bottle of Bourbon whisky,’ interrupted he, ‘you don’t seem to relish the brandy. Here’s to the sultan! And may he wake up to-night in Paradise.’

“Here he went on in a discursive way to talk of the cholera, saying that he had had a touch of it himself on the Malabar coast.

“ ‘However,’ said he, filling up his glass a third time, ‘hang care—here’s luck!’

“ ‘The fact is, Mr. Miller,’ he continued, setting down his glass, ‘I’ve taken a great fancy to you, during the little time we’ve been together. If it lasts out to the end, depend upon me, I’ll put something handsome in your way.’

“I bowed over my glass without speaking, and he kept on in the same confidential manner, as if he made up his mind to see how we stood at once.

“ ‘I’ve made one prime voyage for my present owners in these seas, and this one—mark you—I intend for myself. Now I want a friend whom I can trust, body and soul, and, if I am not far out of my reckoning, you are the very man.’

“I met his sharp, scrutinizing glance as he said this, and remembering the carpenter’s words in the galley, I now felt sure that the captain had some scheme of villainy in his head in which he wished me to become a partner. There was the more reason to be careful of the grog, since I could not mistake his manner, and the sharp, sinister look full as deep as the occasion called for, whatever that might be. However, I thought it best to affect to do so, and answered accordingly, that I had no fears of further trouble with the crew when we were once clear of the coast.

“His fierce eyes watched mine as a tiger might a stag’s, and with a dark smile which seemed to say, ‘You’re a deep one, I see.’ He nodded his head and touched his glass again. Still he seemed to hesitate, and to be fast losing his self-possession, as if either the liquor he had drank, or something in the way I received his first hint, had flustered him. I did not think at the time that he doubted me, either; so I sat still, smoking my sheroot, and watching the traces of irresolution gleaming across his sun-seared face, until, making a strong effort to control himself, he suddenly asked if I was a married man. On my replying in the negative, he tacked ship again, asking me if I ever read poetry, alluding particularly to Moore’s Lallah Rookh.

“ ‘I don’t care a rope’s end for the Veiled Prophet or Nourmahal,’ he said, while I wondered again what he was driving at, ‘but I always admired certain descriptive parts of the Fire-Worshipers, which I always thought Byron must have touched up for Moore—for instance

‘—’Mid damp and gloom and crash of boughs,

And fall of loosened crops that rouse

The leopard from his hungry sleep,

Who, starting, thinks each crag a prey,

And long is heard, from steep to steep,

Chasing them down their thundering way.’

“ ‘Yes,’ I answered, hardly knowing what to say, ‘and a wretched place enough it is, in spite of Moore’s fancy.’

“ ‘Why,’ he said, still beating the bush about me, ‘there is some difference between the sultan’s palace, plain as its outside is, and the emir’s porphyry walls which the little Irish nightingale sang about—not so much though, to my mind, as between a merchant dreaming of a full cargo to-night, and waking to hear of a wrecked ship and no insurance in the morning—ay, or a captain making two good voyages and finding himself still in debt—ay, deep as the fathomless sea in debt—to his owners.’

“ ‘That, I suppose, you would call a species of blank-verse, Captain Catherton,’ said I.

“ ‘Ay,’ he answered, with a fierce, tiger-like gleam of his dark eyes, ‘but the beauty of the thing is, this cargo will balance accounts, and it’s a long back stretch from ‘Oman’s green water’ to the sandy shores of Bedford Bay.’

“This was starting the devil with a vengeance, so I determined that he should show his purpose clearly before I gave any reply to the hints he had thrown out.

“ ‘Captain Catherton,’ said I, fixing my eyes firmly upon him, ‘I am no greenhorn to rush into any man’s schemes blindfolded. If you wish my services in any thing that is to my taste, you must speak out.’

“He emptied his glass again, in a way which showed that he was hardly sensible of the action, and, ‘Mr. Miller,’ said he, ‘there is that about you which reminds me of old days, and that, perhaps, is one reason I’ve taken a fancy to you. It doesn’t matter a rope-yarn whether you join me or not; my mind is fixed to its course. You shall hear the whole, however, and judge for yourself before you decide—which is more than I would care to reveal to any other man that breathes.’ He flung his sheroot on the deck as he spoke, and mechanically setting his foot upon it, bared his sinewy arm to the elbow, in the lamp-light. ‘Do you see those initials?’ he said, in a tone of unnatural calmness. Sure enough there they were—his wife’s, I had no doubt—E. S. B., dotted in India ink, and two hearts, worked one within the other, under them. As I looked in his face for the explanation which was to follow, I saw that it was fearfully changed; and although his eyes met mine, at first steadily enough, a strange sort of a spasm contorted the muscles of his jaw, as if he looked, as it were, through me at some horrible sight, with his teeth set, and his thin nether lip drawn tightly in. The truth, or at least an inkling of it, I had had already from the second mate, and in spite of the terrible doubts in my mind, and the rascally scheme he had hinted at, I confess I could not help feeling somewhat softened toward the man. Perhaps he noticed this in my looks, for, with a shivering sigh, he placed his elbows on the table, and covering his eyes with his hands, although not a groan or a moan escaped from his lips, I knew by the tears which forced their way through his fingers, and the quiver of his strong frame, that some hard struggle was going on. I sat still in pure wonder at this sudden outbreak of feeling—the initials, as it were, staring me full in the face, and the man’s damp forehead, with its mass of dark curls within reach of my hand—until a strange thought that I had seen him before in some old, familiar place, came slowly thrilling into mind. Where this might have been I could not, at the moment, conjecture; but as he removed his hands and I looked anxiously at his features, I felt almost sure that it had been years before, in some scene of summer-revelry, with trees and horses in front, and woman’s soft eyes on the background. Perhaps it was the altered look of Catherton himself, which brought the last into my mind in the cabin of the old Tartar, to be associated in some unaccountable way with that tall, muscular frame, and that dark, gloomy face, frowning as if ashamed of his emotion, though it might be, the tears had done him good. At any rate, the idea oppressed me so forcibly that, before he composed himself to speak again, I glanced nervously round the cabin, taking in every object as well as I could by the smoky light—from the state-rooms, on the larboard side, with their musty, sickening smell, to the rack in the recess between the cabin doors, and thence from the starboard ones up to the chart-rack and the broad transom, where the two models, one of a whale-ship, the other of a first-rate, both made of a sperm whale’s jaw—guns, boats, spars, and even the miniature brail-blocks, all fashioned out of glistening white bone, were resting on their mimic ways. Of course I saw nothing there to account for the impression, faint as it grew again while I gazed, and half deeming it the delusive trace of some forgotten likeness, or of something which I had read of or dreamed, I turned my eyes again upon Captain Catherton.

“ ‘Mr. Miller,’ said the man, as calmly as if he were sitting at home, it might be, in his nursery, his wife within reach of a whisper, and something in the subdued, moist look of his eyes in devilish accordance with the drowsy quiet of a domestic scene, ‘we are not all as philosophic as Cato—nor as vile as the man made immortal in infamy by Horace—non omnibus dormis—you remember the satires.’

“As I stared again at this, a forlorn ghost of a smile flitted over his face, and with his next breath the mystery of the thing vanished. I have often wondered since what it was that kept me fixed to my seat like stone; perhaps it was the reflection that my own accursed folly had been the wreck of us three—him, the wretch—myself, and her—perhaps it was the awful suddenness of the shock which stunned me like a heavy blow; I cannot say; but stifling the groan which rose to my lips as the horrible truth flashed upon me, while the very air seemed to thicken before my gaze, and his words to come with terrible distinctness through the gloom, I sat still on my seat and heard him out.

“ ‘I was born,’ he said, ‘at the village of ——, a few miles from Philadelphia, and abandoned my home, like a fledged petrel, as soon as I could comprehend the map of the world with its thousand ports and its endless stretch of sea. It is a strange thing, Mr. Miller, this young fancy of ours for being blown about by the wild winds, and rocked out of a life of ease by the cunning waves of the deep. To my mind there was once nothing so joyous in life as the roar of the gale at its height, when you slid from the top of a sea to the trough—the dripping dash of a head sea on the prow—or the rush of cleft waters astern, as you sat conning the chart.’ Little did that careful old pedagogue dream, as, day after day he chuckled over my progress in this department of knowledge, what restless longings disturbed the breast of his pupil, like the instinct of the unfledged albatross when it hears the sound of the sea from its nest on some sheltering cliff.

“ ‘It was but last night,’ he continued, in a tone of melancholy widely at variance with the usual sound of his voice, ‘that I dreamed of the old man—his thin, white hairs brushed back from his brow—his spectacles set straight on his nose, as he traced out on the revolving globe the voyages of Columbus and Vasco de Gama, pausing, with his rod stayed at some particular point, to enlarge on the daring spirit of each. It was little wonder that I early yearned for the sea; and yet, as I afterward learned, great was his astonishment, not unmixed with chagrin akin to remorse, when he found that I had cut and run. However,’ he said, putting his hand to his forehead, ‘we met again, and the matter was thoroughly cleared up between us.’

“Here he paused in thought, his eyes fixed in a troubled way on my face, while the changes wrought by time and the sea seemed to disappear from his own, and I wondered that I ever could have been so blind as not to have known him at once: a triple sense of condemnation oppressed me; and the soft eyes and the sweet face came vividly up, until I actually shuddered to think, as the whole name, Ellen Symington Blount, was as plain as day; what terrible tale which linked her fate with his might be still lurking behind. I could well understand, too, his allusion to Lallah Rookh, which was her favorite poem, and how it was that he had no recollection of me, having never seen me but once, and that for a moment by starlight. Old Charley’s riddle was read, though it was hard to tell how he became master of it, and stifling my feelings as I best could, I awaited in silence for the captain to resume.

“His eyes dropped to the floor, where the rats were again creeping about unheeded: presently they scampered off, and I heard the hasty pit-pat of naked feet as one of the anchor-watch came aft to the binnacle, when the ship’s bell struck one. The stroke was instantly followed by a clang from the Arab frigate, and then by a sort of stir, which loomed up as it were on the sultry gloom of night, in the midst of which you seemed to hear the cries of the sentries on shore, calling from tower to tower, through the pestilential air; and when these died away, with the nearer echoes of the bells in the harbor, you heard again the sound of the man’s feet pattering along the deck, as if he, too, had paused to listen before rejoining his watch-mate, who perhaps, like myself, was spinning some old yarn.

“When all was still again, the silence seemed to press on my ears like the distant splurge of a tide, while the lamp drowsed and the rats crept to Catherton’s very feet, scuttling off, however, as soon as he stirred, breaking abruptly out of his reverie.

“ ‘I made a trading voyage round the globe, and returning to the village twenty-six months after I left it, was received like one from the dead. I was bent upon giving old Blount, the schoolmaster, a surprise—as much so, it seems to me now, as if I had run away from school for that sole end.

“ ‘Accordingly, I was out of the stage and bang into his garden, where he sat smoking his pipe, with his back toward the walk, before he had the least notion of what had turned up.

“ ‘Hillo! old ship! What cheer?’ said I, and round he swung to my hail, dropping his merschaum and staring at me in the summer-twilight, as I stood rigged out in a full suit of blue, swinging my cynet-hat, until I could stand it no longer, but just broke out into my old laugh, which brought his daughter tripping out from the back-porch, when, of course, the recognition took place. After the old man was over the heat of his surprise, and I took time to notice that Ellen had grown, in proportion, quite as much as myself, and how beautiful she was—and that she had been the first to divine that I had gone to sea—my heart beat quickly again with a feeling strange as sweet, and somehow I was not so much shocked as I might have been, when her father, taking off his spectacles and sobering his face, informed me that my uncle had died a year before. To be sure, I had never known a parent’s care, and Colonel Catherton, living as he did, almost alone with his books, was a man rather to be feared than loved by a child. Besides, I cannot remember ever to have had strong feelings for a human being before I became aware of my attachment to Ellen. I rather loved to lie behind some hill which shut out all but the sky from view, and dream of the sea—or to sit under the lee of the woods in a gale, with a book of voyages in my hand, intent upon scenes of battle and wreck, with the last year’s leaves under my feet, and the wild roar in my ears.

“ ‘It was in the whole stock, and, in fact, I have heard that my father and two of my uncles, at different times, had all been lost at sea. However, the colonel, who had been a great merchant in his time, had left some property—not so much though as was supposed from his style of living—and as I was his only heir, they persuaded me from taking another cruise until the estate was settled. This, of course, only left me leisure to fall all the deeper in love—the rock, Mr. Miller, on which, it seems, the gentlest as well as the roughest of us must split. Many were the consultations I had with old Blount, and strongly he urged me to settle at home as a professional man, never dreaming—old proser as he was—that the thing was too deeply grained in, ever to be coaxed out, even by Ellen’s eyes. The upshot of it was that I remained at home for two years longer, until the property was sold, doing nothing but reading nautical works and growing more and more enamored of Ellen. There was a soul in that girl’s voice like the sound of the surf as it breaks upon some enchanted shore, off which it might be, you lay waiting for day to dawn—a spell in her dark eyes more like the ideal dreams of old, than the influence of woman over man in these degenerate days. If ever mortal had fair excuse for anchoring his faith on the sandheads of—but, excuse me, Mr. Miller, they are all of a piece, as you may have discovered before this—some one says to be rated only by their different capacities for mischief.

‘Helen laid thousands on the shelf,

Dido only burned herself:

As Helen’s beauty was the rarer,

Her claim to mischief was the fairer—

A rule in courts that firm hath stood

Before and ever since the flood.’ ’

“As he ran on in this wild way, eating his heart, as it were, in sheer desperation of feeling, something in my look, as I felt my soul struggling to rise against the mendacious wretch, sent him from his vile sneers and accursed Hudibrastic lines, back to his narrative. Garbled and imperfect as that was, I was mad to hear it to the end; for while bitterly rueing the ruin which my own folly had wrought, I could not help burning to know by what damnable arts or eloquence she had ever been persuaded to yield her hand to him.

“His eyes sunk before mine and he moved restlessly on his seat as a sound, so like to a sigh that it made me start, came apparently from the door of the closed state-room; it might have been the Circassian—or the rats in their ramblings—and drinking off a brimmer of grog, he resumed in a different tone.

“ ‘At the end of the time I spoke of, the old man fell sick, and somehow his friends had dropped off, so that I spent most of my time almost alone with him. At last he consented that we should be married at his bedside. He had been growing weaker day by day, and I was the more anxious for the match, as his house was close to a place of fashionable resort, and Ellen had, somehow or other, become acquainted with some of the young blades from the city. There was some talk about her and one of them, while I was absent on a tour to the great lakes, that had like to have set me mad on my return. However, the youngster—who was, by all accounts, to the full as deeply in love and as fiery as myself, besides being, at least, my equal in fortune and connexions—had got himself involved in a quarrel with an acquaintance about this same report, which, in the end, sent one man to his grave and the other out of the country. As the duel made a great noise in the city, I determined to marry Ellen privately, and to remove from the village altogether as soon as her father died.

“ ‘Well,’ continued he, in a husky tone, ‘the thing was done, and when we rose from our knees, after the prayer, the old man was dead. We had no idea that he was so near his end, and I leave you to imagine, Mr. Miller, the horror of my bridal-night.

“ ‘However, when this was over, and we were alone together in the world, Ellen seemed to cling the closer to me, and it was not long, as you may suppose, before we left —— behind. I directed my course to Boston where I had made arrangements to enter into business with an old shipmate, a son of one of the firm in whose employ I had sailed on my first voyage. In the course of a few weeks I found myself comfortably settled at last, with most of my funds invested in the purchase of a ship and a brig, engaged in a trade to the Spanish Main. I commanded the ship myself, and for several years things went well—when by the villainy of my partner, suddenly as a whirlwind strips a ship, the house went by the board. After this I commanded vessels on the African and Brazil coasts, until the last ship was sold to a whaling house at New Bedford. I had agreed to deliver her into her new owners’ hands, and, as my wife’s health was rather unsettled at the time, I took her with me for the sake of the jaunt. It was then that I received offers from the man who had purchased the ship, which first directed my attention to this particular service. It was true that I knew nothing of the business, and had a sailor’s prejudice against it; but the man treated us with such considerate kindness, and made me offers so tempting to a broken man, pointing out how easily the difficulties might be obviated in time, and enlarging on the importance of having good navigators in the Indian seas, that, in an evil hour, I consented to take charge of my old ship.

“ ‘I removed from the hotel to a house in the upper part of the town, and after making the necessary arrangements for a protracted absence, and three weeks from the time I went into the Wisemans’ employ, I found myself at sea. The first voyage—and it was a short one, not exceeding a twelvemonth—put me up to the business, and investing all I had cleared in the ship, after a stay of six weeks on shore, leaving my wife to mingle in the best society which the place could afford, I put again to sea. It was on the homeward bound passage, in a full ship, after an absence of little more than fifteen months, that within a degree or two of the line I spoke a clean ship, with letters on board from my wife and the owners. Before I could board her, however, we were separated by a sudden squall, and night coming on lost sight of her altogether. We did not see her again, and it was when giving way to some natural vexation at the accident that I received the first intimation from Mr. Jinney, my mate, of the secret intimacy which had long existed between Ellen and the younger Wiseman. The man’s tale was a straight one, corroborated by several circumstances too trivial for notice at the moment of their occurrence, yet of sufficient importance, when taken together in connection with his story, to darken the past and cast an ominous shadow over the time to come.

“ ‘Though I had thought to strike her dead at first sight, with the stretch of sea between us, yet old ocean, wiser than a thousand graybeards, played the soother again, even in this great sorrow—the faster it bore me toward her, as the ship heeled to the trades—the wilder the gale I encountered off the very shores where she breathed, the more it seemed to uplift its voice against the tempest of fury which must have inevitably involved me in the ruin it brought down. It was well done,’ he exclaimed fiercely, ‘here’s to thee, old theme of the poets—broad pathway for spirits like mine to sweep! Neither the frailty of woman nor the malice of man’—here his voice grew too hoarse for utterance, and drinking off the liquor like water, he dashed the glass to the deck, walking the cabin with hasty strides, like a tiger chafing in his cage—while I, with a curse on my lips for what, as God is my judge, in spite of the man’s emotion, I believed to be a lie, sat chained to my seat, as by some predestined spell.

“Although my faith in the innocence of Ellen was as strong as in the angels of heaven, still he plainly believed all he avouched of her guilt; and still, as I clung to the one redeeming thought that nothing on earth could have tempted a spirit like hers astray, still something would whisper that she might have changed toward him, or have been made the victim of some infernal conspiracy, with woman’s malice, perhaps, at the bottom of the scheme. Strange stories in the history of the Cathertons, before they came over from England—which I had heard years before—flashed across my mind, and I felt sure—I knew, it must have been the circumstances growing out of my unfortunate duel—which, no doubt, he had twisted to the furtherance of his own purposes, which had induced her to marry him when her heart was elsewhere.

“I had little time to think of this at the moment, as you may suppose; for the sight I had seen that night, and the story of the second mate’s, with the frightful thought of what she must have endured to the end, was enough to craze my brain, until Catherton, breaking out into a laugh more like a fiend’s than a man’s, and halting directly in front of me, said—‘You look wild, Mr. Miller—perhaps you, too, have trusted woman. I tell you,’ he hissed through his teeth, as I arose and leaned against the mast, as it were, from pure weariness—staring at him in a blank way, while the blood seemed congealing to ice in my veins, ‘I tell you she was false—false as the whole sex—false as the hollowest heart of them all—though the oaths I had sworn, and the plans of revenge we had laid, kept me still.’

“ ‘No! no!’ reiterated he, laughing again in his horrid way, ‘by that time I had learned something of endurance; and, as I had no children—for I was spared that misery—it was not worth my while to thrust my neck in a halter for the sake of a profligate woman. Ha! ha! I thought better of it—it was a sweeter and safer revenge to have her here in the ship, while she knew that I was cruising the seas to beggar her paramour—for, fool-like, his money went at the gaming-table faster than it came, and I had persuaded him, in conjunction with the mate, to invest his all in the purchase of this ship—to see her, amid the healthful breezes of ocean, dying a death to which the direst of Eastern tortures are mercy—’

“ ‘Devil!’ I broke out at last, striking him full in the face with one hand, as I snatched a cutlass from the rack with the other, sending the iron scabbard, in my fury, straight across the cabin against the door of a state-room; he reeled a pace or two, laying his hands upon a half-pike at the mast. ‘Fool!’ I exclaimed, seeing that he still hesitated, ‘come on—I am S——!’

“He shortened the pike and darted at my face on the instant, but catching the thrust on the edge of my blade, I threw the point up into the deck-beam; that instant had been his last, for his defenseless head was within fair sweep of my sword, when from that very state-room, the door of which had been forced open by the flying scabbard, the same figure which I had seen before that night, again appeared, gliding now swiftly and noiselessly between.

“The cutlass fell with a clank on the deck, and I stood with outstretched arm, my soul riveted to my gaze, striving in vain to speak, while Catherton staggered back against the mast, covering his eyes with his hands. In the rigid and ghastly lineaments of death I saw, as my heart stood still, the likeness of Ellen; the frozen eyes seemed to hush my very breath; the thin, clay-like lips moved, and, like sigh from a coffin-lid, the whispered words met my ears, ‘Not thus—not thus!’

“ ‘What—what art thou?’ I gasped out—when old Charley’s voice sounded on deck; a sort of scuffle appeared to get up in the companion-way, and Halil Ben Hamet and his attendant, both sprinkled with blood and covered with soil-stains from sandal to turban, suddenly appeared on the scene.

“I stared from the apparition to the chief, and when I looked again, the place where it had stood was vacant.

“ ‘All is lost, my friend,’ said Halil; ‘they are hard on my track, and I have come hither to die with Zuma.’

“At these words the captain recovered himself, and stepping from behind the mast, waved me on deck.

“By a sort of instinct I felt compelled to obey him, as it seemed, for a space longer; and making mechanically for’ard, I roused out the anchor-watch, who, as usual, were caulking it in the galley, and not a soul else on deck, though the heat was so great, that I wondered how it was possible for a living thing to sleep. After this I again went aft to the binnacle, glancing at the watch to see if the last bell had been struck, and looking over the side, wondering if the boat in which the chief had come off, had gone adrift. I then walked to the waist again, where, hardly knowing what I was doing, I stood looking up into the dark blue where the stars were burning, until, as I gazed, a feeling of the utter vanity of earthly hopes came over me, as I thought that these same stars which had shone so calmly on men’s deeds for thousands of years, would shine the same on my grave. It seemed to me, then, that not only the feelings involved in the fate of Ellen, but all the experience of the past, all the changes of time and clime, faded away into nothingness before those twinkling, far-away lights; and a something of peace which I had never known before, swiftly as the thought seemed to travel through space to the winking planets, slid into my soul on the slant of the star-beams. Then my ear caught the splurge of the tide—a faint air from the sea fanned my cheeks—and a low growl of thunder came rumbling up into the cove. I remember, too, to have noticed lights moving on shore, while a stir arose on the beach close to the landing, but in the mood I was in at the time, I paid little attention to this.

“The Tartar lay moored stem and stern just within the entrance of the strait, midway between the island and the main, shut out by the rocks on the larboard hand from the walled town and the castles which kept the restless Arabs in awe. One or two of the little round towers, said to have been built at their gloomy and apparently inaccessible altitudes, by the old Portugese, might be seen looming thrice its real size above the hot outline of the topmost crags, over which the moon was rising, casting a strong yet dubious light on Muscat Island, which, with the bats wheeling continually about it—the patches of sand in its narrow gulleys, and the rough stones standing out of them, with here and there a stunted cypress, reminded me strangely enough of a Turkish grave-yard, and did not greatly tend to remove the impression, now uppermost in my mind, that something you’d give the world to avoid was soon going to take place. I looked intently at the Arab frigate, while the moonlight stole upon her rigging, creeping slowly down the taut sticks and back-stays to the spar-deck, where twenty red-caps and turbans were visible over the side, showing that her quarter-watch at least were wide awake, when, my thoughts wandering again, I fancied some desperate, wild-eyed wretch—such as I had often seen creeping about the slave-market and the narrow lanes of the bazaar—stealing, step by step, to her magazine, blowing the slow match in his fingers, and staring by its lurid glow at the hammocks which he passed, until I actually caught myself grasping a shroud, and watching for the upward shoot of her masts, in the broad red glare and the shock that was to follow. Then I recalled the image of Ellen as she once was, and the unsated fury burned again in my breast, fed by my belief in her innocence; then came her spirit gliding across my bewildered mind, ghastly as I had seen in the cabin; then the thought of what Catherton could be doing, until I was no longer capable of thinking at all, but just walked on the forecastle again, for the mere purpose of diverting my mind from the horrid tangle it was in. It was some relief to enter into a conversation with one of the watch—a strong, heavy-headed fellow, as green as a parade-ground—about his home among the hills of the Hudson, and the old story of the trouble which sent him to sea, which, no doubt, I listened to intently at the time, although I never afterward could remember a syllable, except something about a certain Sukey Fairlamb, who turned out to be a jilt, and one Jonas Weatherby, who took the wind out of his (the Tartar-man’s) sails. I also recollect his remarking how much hotter it had got within the past ten minutes, and looking aloft, I saw the light scud flying across the stars, though the flutter of air on deck had already died away. A noisome steam was rising out of the forecastle-scuttle enough to choke one, while a dog which we had on board lay on the fore-hatches, panting for breath, without so much as looking at the bucket of water, which some one had placed within a foot of his nose. All at once I heard the sound of oars, followed by a hubbub of voices—and a large boat, filled with men, appeared in sight, pulling from the landing toward the ship. As I started aft I saw the captain disappearing down one hatchway, as the carpenter and the cooper came up another, and as soon as the boat came alongside, I hailed. Receiving no answer, I hailed again in Arabic, when a voice answered in the same tongue, ‘Be silent, we are coming on board in the sultan’s name.’ I ordered the carpenter to make fast the warp which they threw, when the first person that appeared over the side, I knew at once to be a little French renegade, the captain of Syed’s guards; the next was the accursed eunuch himself; and if the one glance which I had of his face by moonlight had not been enough, the sight of the two Zanzibar mutes who followed him—the stealthy, cat-like looks of their eyes fore and aft the deck, and the rush of the soldiers behind, would have convinced me at once that Halil Ben Hamet’s time was come.

“ ‘Have de goodness, Monsieur Capitaine Miller,’ said the renegade, who knew me well, ‘to make de muster of de sailors on de forecastle, by de sultan’s orders, sare.’

“As it was useless to refuse, I ordered the two men of the anchor-watch to call the people for’ard, while the cooper and his crony roused out the boat-steerers in the steerage, the noise having already awakened the mates, who were sleeping in the house under the poop. The whalemen seemed bewildered enough, as they tumbled up the scuttle, and gathered for’ard of the windlass, although I noticed that they collected the handspikes in a heap—some of old Charley’s party, headed by the wild man-of-war’s man, showing signs of a determination to clear the decks. This, within half a pistol shot of the frigate’s batteries would have been sheer madness; accordingly I spoke to one or two of the men by name, ordering them to keep quiet, when two sepoys came for’ard, with drawn sabres in their hands, and ordered me into the cabin. Armed sentries were posted at all the hatchways, and naked cimiters glanced round the eunuch and the captain of the guard, seated at the table in the long cabin, where Catherton stood leaning leisurely against the bulkhead, cool and collected, with his arms folded across his breast, the imminence of the danger having apparently restored his presence of mind.

“ ‘This is my mate,’ said he, to the Frenchman, as I entered; ‘you may examine him, if you see fit.’

“Hadji Hamet turned his turbaned head, recognizing me by a doubtful smile, while the French renegade, bowing to the deck, asked me, in his broken English, if I had commanded the watch that night.

“ ‘No, monsieur,’ I answered, rather sullenly, ‘it is not customary—in Christian ships, at least—for the chief officer of a ship to head an anchor-watch.’

“ ‘Certainement non, sare,’ he replied, with something of the ineffable polish of his nation, ‘we know dat—have de goodness, monsieur, to show me de visitors in de ship—de runavays, if you please, Monsieur Miller.’

“I felt the eunuch’s devouring eyes creeping, in their slow, malevolent way, from the deck up to my face, as I answered.

“ ‘That is easy enough, monsieur—provided any such be in the ship. You cannot suppose us such fools as to receive deserters in a full ship, with plenty of idlers already on board. If the men are in the Tartar, they must have been concealed by the people for’ard, and I advise you to look in the fore-peak.’

“He interpreted what I said to the eunuch; Hadji then made some remark in an under tone, and the renegade, shrugging his shoulders, addressed me again.

“ ‘Monsieur Capitaine Miller,’ said he, decidedly, yet still with as much suavity as before, ‘you will confer de grand obligation to make de plain answer, sare, vidout de bagatelle. C’est bien malapropos à present,’ muttered he, taking snuff out of a gold box, and glancing aside at the two mutes, as they stood near Hadji’s seat, their small, serpent eyes never off of his face for a moment, and their jetty, tattooed arms folded across their naked breasts. Before I could devise an answer, groping in the dark as I was, upon gaping ground, two Arabs pushed into the throng, leading the mulatto by the collar. The fellow was terribly frightened, and looked round as if for some one to address, when his eyes lighting on the captain of the Tartar, he seemed to turn dumb as a mute at once. However, the fatal moment was not to be staved off longer, for Hadji, with a look of devilish cunning, drew a small golden whistle from the folds of his juma, and blew it till the cabin rang again; I started to hear a sort of scratching, struggling noise in the after-cabin, and the next moment some sort of an animal, between a rat and squirrel, ran through the crowd, cowering at the eunuch’s sandaled feet. A smile of triumphant malice played upon Hadji’s face, and the Frenchman, snatching up his sword, rushed through the group to the cabin-door. At that instant the thick gloom, which had been setting bodily down on deck for the last ten minutes, was rent by an awful glare of lightning, and, as the parted air collapsed, with a crash which made the ship tremble to her keel, I saw the Arab chief, standing, pistol in hand, at the door; the renegade reeled back against one of his men, while the redder flash of the pistol again illumined the cabin, and bounding like a tiger in its leap, cimiter in hand, Halel sprang over the table at the eunuch. The lamp was extinguished in the fray, and had it been the chief’s intention to escape on deck, perhaps he might have done so in the confusion which followed; for the lightning glared incessantly through the stern-ports, while the thunder, reverberated by the rocks, crashed over our heads in one continuous peal, till you’d’ve thought the hoary granite was piling over you. The first rush of the swell in the cove broke over the ship, deluging her fore-and-aft, as it heaped up in the strait in one tremendous surge, which tore the frigate from her anchor, and dashed her high against the rocks. The lighter craft fared no better, being swept from their moorings like drift wood; however, while the horrible work was going on below, the second mate had let go a second anchor, while the stern-hawser parted like pack-thread, and showing the head of the foretopmast-staysail, while some of them aft managed to get the spanker-gaff partly hoisted, and others jammed the helm hard down, the ship brought up with a surge which shook her in every timber; and, as you drew another breath in the melee below, where one man was contending with fifty, you heard the hurricane roaring over her mast-heads, like the rush of Milton’s legions to the field.

“I was thrust hither and thither, splashing in the water, nearly knee-deep on the deck, amid the clash of steel and the shrinking back of the Arabs, until a blade whizzed past my ear, falling with a dull ring on the head of some unhappy wretch, whose hot blood spouted in my face. Half blinded, I stumbled over a prostrate body, clearing my eyes as I brought up against my own berth, when another flash showed every object distinctly, and I saw the two mutes throw themselves before the eunuch upon Halil; then followed a deadly struggle from the mast through the cabins to the transom, during which Hadji’s shrill voice screamed to the executioners to use dagger or bowstring—then a heavy fall and a gasp—woman’s fearful shriek—and again you heard over all, the defying roar of the tempest.

“Torches, which had been extinguished by the wind on deck, were now relighted in the cabin, revealing a sight which was terrible to look upon. Three dead bodies lay on the deck, or across the table, besides that of the Arab chief, who had been thrice stabbed, and afterward strangled. Scarlet caps, cleft turbans, and pieces of rent apparel were washing about, with the fragments of the swinging lamp; while the table and the cabin partitions were reeking with gore.

“The Frenchman was dead as a door-nail when they raised him up, which was some comfort, though the three blacks had escaped without a scratch, except one of the mutes, whose hands were gashed with a dagger. The soldiers now closed the doors between the cabins, having first dropped the dead-lights, and after the eunuch came out, the bodies were removed out of sight in the sail-room, all except that of the chief, which was laid on the table, a dreadful sight, after the fever of the thing was past, since you could not keep from looking at the blackened face, with the eyes staring out of it, as if he were ready to start up again—the frown being still on the brow, though the orbs were glazed, and the arm hung nervelessly down.

“I shall never forget the feeling of satisfaction which arose within me—when some one threw the folds of a turban over the face—as I thought that every blow he struck had been home; only if he had cloven the eunuch’s hard head to the jaw, I had been almost happy, in a sort of religious submission to fate, as if all who loved too well on earth, must pay the penalty in some shape or other, at last.

“It appeared that the cabins had been twice searched before I was brought down, but Catherton had hidden the fugitives under a false bulkhead, so artfully contrived, that had not Hadji and the guard been so hard on Ben Hamet’s track after the attempt to assassinate the sultan had failed, they might have escaped detection. The little animal, which had revealed their presence, after all, was a pet of Zuma’s, a flying lemur from one of the Indian archipelago: woman-like, she had brought it away in her dress, and by the knowledge which black Hadji had of its habits, it was thus made instrumental in betraying the pair.

“Neither Catherton nor the steward were to be found below, after the murderous fracas was over. I had no particular desire to remain myself, as you may suppose, and no opposition being offered to the movement, accordingly I went on deck.

“The wind was now at its height, having blown every thing moveable off the poop into the seat which was breaking in awful rollers at the bottom of the cove, the squall having come from the north-west. The ship, with two anchors down under the lee of Muscat Island, rode safely enough after the first danger was over; but the Arab frigate was lying broadside on to the rocks, grinding to pieces, with nothing standing but her lower masts. She could plainly be seen, not only by the flashes, but by a strong phosphorescent gleam which pervaded the atmosphere, reflected, perhaps, from the sea, each gigantic surge sparkling with living fire, heaped up in the smothering foam of its crests, as it rolled down on the wreck. I could even see the brine pouring from her lower deck-ports, as she lifted bodily against the rocks, and fancied I could hear the despairing cries of her crew, as one by one, her heavy guns, torn from their tackles, were hurled across the decks.

“I had little time, however, to dwell on the sight, terrible as it was, for the carpenter and man-of-war’s man came driving the length of the deck before the blast, when old Charley shouted in my ear that the steward was taken with the cramp in the forecastle, and thinking he was going to die, wished to see me. Accordingly, I struggled for’ard, with a foreboding that the horrors of the night were not yet over. A knot of our men were standing in the waist, and I passed the Arabs crouching under the booby-hatches and the fife-rails, from the fury of the wind, which howled fore-and-aft the deck. I was about to descend into the forecastle, when Captain Catherton, with his Indian boat-steerer and three of the mates, came up on the other side. He waved me aft, shouting, at the full pitch of his strong voice, to the mates behind him, who held on to the windlass, and looked from him to me without moving a finger. However, the boat-steerer lifted a handspike, and his superior—who was now grown desperate, having received an inkling of my errand from the Indian—presented a pistol at my head, and pulled the trigger. It flashed in the pan; and before he could level another I closed with him, pitching him back into the scuppers, where old Charley and Frank lashed him to a spar, hands and feet. One word to the mates about his plan of running away with the ship, and I sprung down in the forecastle, where the mulatto lay on his back, raving for them to keep the captain back, while two of the men were rubbing his writhing body with whale-oil and hartshorn.

“The second mate and most of the starboard watch were standing around, looking on helplessly enough, though the moment the steward’s eye caught mine he ceased to struggle, moaning and mumbling, like a dog, till I got my ear close to his mouth, when he muttered something about searching the run under the after-cabin, where the powder was kept. The violence of the spasms interrupted him, and although there was an urgent meaning in his wild eye, and he pointed repeatedly aft, in his agony, I was awfully at a loss what to make of it, until, looking up, I encountered old Charley’s curious glance, and the ghost flitted, as it were, across the maze in a moment. The second mate must have seen the same thing himself, for without a word on either side, our eyes met in one startling flash of intelligence, and he followed me close, as snatching up a heaver, I drove along the deck, knocking the Arabs to the right and left, tumbling down the narrow stairs from the poop in my haste, with two-thirds of the ship’s company at my back—mates, boat-steerers, forecastle-men, and all—though the most of them tramped down the companion-way into the for’ard cabin, where we heard them battering at the doors and cursing the Arabs; the carpenter and myself ripped up the table and the scuttle under it. Parker stood by with a torch; I jumped down, lowering the light, and you may guess gentlemen, what I saw; for it seems,” said the master’s mate, passing his rough hand to his brow, “that long years, spent in trying to drown the sight, has hardly given me nerve to tell.

“It was Ellen, herself,” continued he, after a pause, “lying, motionless, on a heap of old bunting; but whether life had gone, or no, it was impossible for me to answer, as I took her up—staggering under my burthen, light enough, God knows, as it was. The second mate caught her from me, and I stumbled, helpless as a child, about the mouth of that horrid hole, hardly noting its secrets, until the men burst into the cabin, and I heard old Charley say she was dead.

“ ‘Here,’ I answered, leaping out among them, every vein in my body running with liquid fire—the one thought of revenge on her murderers raging in my heart, and upon my tongue. However, the mates—aroused from their stupor at last—threw themselves upon me, as I glared round for a weapon. A wild uproar began to rise among the men, crowding upon each other to catch a look at her face, hanging over the second mate’s shoulder, with a look of mute appeal, as he told me afterward, on the wasted features set in death, by the red torch-light.

“In the midst of this, Hadji summoned his soldiers from deck: I saw his malignant purpose, and my calmness came back, as I made up my mind that, at all hazards, he should not approach the corpse. Breaking from those who held me, I burst through the throng, and pointing to the half-pikes leveled against his party, ordered him, in Arabic, to clear the cabin of his scum. He laid his hand on the hilt of his krungar, scowling like a fiend of darkness upon me from a crowd of his men; but the menacing look of the mass in front of him—all of whom had armed themselves—not to speak of the tone of my own voice, admonished him, devil as he was, to think better of it.

“ ‘That’s the sort, mates,’ said the carpenter; ‘if they don’t top their booms at a minute’s warning, we’ll spit the heathens to the beams, and then hang Jonas to the yard-arm.’

“ ‘Silence, there!’ said I. ‘One minute more,’ looking at the eunuch, and grasping the weapon which some one had thrust into my hand, ‘and it will be too late.’

“He felt that he was overmatched, and turning slowly round, still keeping his baleful glance fixed on my face, ordered his followers on deck, retiring last himself, just as I caught Frank’s pike traveling in his rear to freshen his way.

“As soon as the cabins were cleared of the Arabs, I took the second mate a little aside from the rest.

“ ‘Now, Mr. Parker,’ said I, ‘you will take charge of the Tartar. All I ask is, that you will not give up the female that Hadji Hamet has confined in that state-room, to the tender mercies of the sultan, if you can possibly avoid it—and a cast home for myself, if you can get an offing for this ship, and I am allowed to leave Muscat in her. I will pay my passage in Persian rupees, or if you prefer it, in Spanish dollars. One thing more,’ said I, seeing that he was about to interrupt me, ‘I know something of the country: if you would save yourself a mint of trouble with the sultan’s divan, you will put Catherton at once in double-irons, and keep him secure, at least, until you are clear of the land.’

“ ‘Sir,’ said he, ‘I, for one, am content to obey your orders till the v’yage is up. What say you, my lads, is Captain Catherton fit to be trusted with the ship, after what has happened?’

“ ‘No, no!’ was the universal answer, mingled with execrations and oaths of vengeance.

“ ‘Mister Miller,’ they answered, with one voice, ‘for he only can take the Tartar off this coast.’

“ ‘Well, my lads,’ said I, wonderfully moved, I confess, seeing that I had something to live for yet, although, a moment before, I had thought that my hold on life was slackened for ever, ‘if you will have it so, I’ll do my best. I tell you fairly that the captain confessed to me last night, in this cabin, that he intended to sell ship and cargo, on the passage home, in return for some private wrong which, he said, one of the owners had done him—though,’ said I, solemnly, ‘as surely as God’s eye beheld this accursed deed, yon pale clay was as innocent as the angels of heaven of aught like crime toward him.’

“ ‘We know it, captain—we knew it all along!’ they answered, even those whom I had considered the most hardened, shedding tears, while curses and vows of vengeance were freely vented around.

“ ‘She was too good for the bloody-minded villain,’ said the carpenter; ‘and, so help me, if there is nobody else—’

“It was time to stop this, as we had quite enough of blood for that night, so I checked old Charley in his oath, and called back the Indian boat-steerer, who, at first, had seemed disposed to side with the captain, but who was now stealing up the companion-way, in an empty-handed, errandless way, though I saw the thing in his eye, and the gleam of a knife in the sleeve of his shirt.

“ ‘My lads,’ said I, ‘we will leave him to the law. He shall not escape, I promise you. Mr. Parker, you will have Captain Catherton put in double-irons, and placed in the steerage for the present.’

“ ‘Ay, ay, sir,’ he answered, and accordingly the villain was well secured, with one of the trustiest men in the ship standing sentry over him.

“After this, the cabin was cleared of all but a strong guard, armed to the teeth, and I went on deck, leaving Zuma, who had recovered from her swoon of terror, kneeling in silence by the body of the chief. I had resolved to save her as soon as I could see any possible way, though I knew that her life and my own, perhaps, depended upon our getting under weigh, as soon as the weather would permit.

“The fury of the squall was over. One of the mates told me that it had been raining a perfect deluge a few moments before I came up, and, in fact, though it was slackening off, the decks were all afloat, and I could even see by the great flashes of waste lightning which still illumined the passage, the spherical shape of the rain-drops, as they fell. I mention this, gentlemen, to show how deeply the most trivial incident in that terrible night was impressed upon my mind, never to be forgotten while memory lives with me.

“The wind soon freshened again, blowing fiercely in gusts over the rugged top of Muscat Island, but gradually sunk as the atmosphere cleared; the stars showing themselves, here and there, in patches of clear sky, before the day dawned. Then, as the sun rose behind the lofty rocks to the east, the wind failed altogether, and it seemed fast growing as hot as before, while a vague notion got into my head, looking at the Arab soldiers on the poop, that the events of the past night, terrible as they seemed, were now but the ghosts of things that had been.

“A sort of calm, too, prevailed in the ship, as the heavy swells began to subside in the cove. The cook was in his galley, attending to his usual duties, the blue smoke rising from the funnel, straight as a pine tree, half-way to the top. The people hung in knots about the forecastle, apparently waiting for eight bells to summon them to breakfast, while the mates stood together on the larboard gangway, with a glass among them, examining the shore and the wreck of the Arab frigate, now firmly wedged in between two precipitous rocks.

“The black dog of a eunuch, secure, as it seemed, in the shadow of his master, walked the poop with as proud a stride as if his foot was already on our necks—not a muscle of his grim, relentless face moving beneath his showy turban, flecked, as it was, with blood, while, as I met his deadly, sinister glance every time he turned, I fancied to myself—as, indeed, I had done on former occasions—what a hell of secrets must lie hidden, from all but God’s eye, in the black pit of his soul. The pagan wretch was said to delight in shedding human blood, and in every variety of torture, having been cognizant of many acts of atrocious cruelty in the time of the old Imaum. His only qualities were a brutish devotion to the sultan, and a species of slow, long-breathed cunning, of which report said Syed Ben Seeyd had often availed himself in penetrating the secret designs of his enemies.

“However, when I thought of Catherton’s villainy, it could not be denied, that black or white, Christian or heathen, human nature devoid of a regulating principle, was essentially the same, differing only in the modifications of climes; and, singular as it may seem to you, several passages of the New Testament illustrative of the same idea occurred to me at the time, and I could not help feeling that it was utterly impossible for me, even if I had been differently brought up, to deny for a moment—thinking of the wisdom of the parables—that it was truly God who had spoken on earth with the lips of man: reflecting that the thirst for vengeance for a supposed wrong had made Catherton even more wicked than Hadji himself, who would probably, under any circumstances, have disdained such a dastardly scheme of revenge as the former had partially broached, thinking to have bribed me to join him, in the situation I was in at the time, partly by offers of pecuniary advantage, and partly by his tale, which had so puzzled me at first, little dreaming that he was the man who had married Ellen. I was almost confident now that the whole diabolical story of her guilt had been one of the mate’s own planning—he, I mean, who had gone to his account—and horrible as the thing seemed, I had no doubt now Parker’s notion was correct, and that the captain either in fear, remorse, or hate, or from some curious commingling of the three, had sacrificed the entire boat’s crew to get rid of his accomplice. How the body of Ellen, dreadfully emaciated as it was, came to be found in the run after the second mate’s account of her loss, was yet a mystery to me, unless Catherton, with the assistance of the steward, had palmed that story on the crew, while he secretly held her confined in the hold to starve by slow degrees. However, as I had no wish that the matter should be cleared up in the sultan’s divan, after my recent promise to the crew, I aroused myself to make the attempt to get the ship to sea.

“The cove of Muscat is less than a mile in depth from its entrance at Fisher’s Rock, but how to get out of it into the current, with no wind, against the heavy swell, was the puzzle. The two forts were to be counted as nothing when the ship was once under weigh, as they merely commanded the passage, and the risk we ran from the one on the western shore was not to be thought of, if we had a chance, when it fell calm enough, to tow the ship out into the currant setting from the Persian Gulf. The land-wind was almost certain not to blow before sunset, and the Arabs were sure to board the ship from the shore before that time, although not a single craft or boat of any kind was to be seen afloat, as I swept the harbor with my glass, and I had not the least doubt but the Soliman Shah, the corvette which had anchored off Fisher’s Rock the day before, had been driven from her anchors with the frigate.

“Another hour passed, as I anxiously watched for the swell to go down, when we saw them making preparations to get off two balitas, lying aground on a spit of sand nearly in front of the palace. As I turned to look at some persons who had appeared on the divan, a large and airy veranda, overlooking the sea, the second mate exclaimed that one of the Arabs was making signals to the shore with his turban. In the desperate case we were in, it was neck or nothing; so, as I really began to have some hopes of getting to sea in the want of crafts to board us, I instantly ordered two guns to be run in and pointed aft; the carpenter clapped a bag of musket-balls in the muzzle of each, and while Parker and the man-of-war’s man stood by with matches lit, I hailed the Arabs in their language, giving Hadji notice, that at the smallest sign of a repetition of the act I would sweep the poop. This seemed to appal them. A few moments after, while part of the people were taking their breakfast on deck, word was brought me that the steward was easier and wished to see me again.

“Directing Parker to keep a bright look-out, I dove down into the forecastle where the poor wretch was now lying in the cook’s bunk. I almost started as I looked upon him by the lamp burning at the beam over his head. His face seemed shrunken to half its usual size; the cheek-bones stood out, the eyes were pulled in, and the lips blue and puckered. His hand was clammy, cold as ice, and shriveled like a bomboat-woman’s who washed for the fleet. Though he felt no pain, there was a look of anxiety in his dim, sunken eyes, as he turned restlessly round, which, with his fluttering pulse and exhausted look, told that his hour was come. In fact, he was sinking fast into the long sleep of death, worn out, like the elements, by the fierce convulsions which had racked him. His mind was clear, and he spoke more calmly than might have been expected, though his head tossed from side to side like a dying billow. His voice was small and choked, hoarse as it seemed, from the agony which had wrung the sweat like rain from his pores. Anxious as I was to hear what the wretch had to communicate, it was with a strong feeling of repugnance that I approached my ear to his lips, for a film was vailing his eyes and the death-stupor already clouding his brain. He roused himself when spoken to, and recognizing me, confessed in a few broken words which one of the crew took down, that the mate and he after agreeing with the captain to drown Ellen, had made up their minds to secrete her in the run, and suffer her to escape from the ship at the first port they visited. In order to deceive Catherton the steward had prepared a figure when the boats were off and thrown it into the sea on the night on which Ellen was supposed to be lost. He said nothing could have tempted him to murder her, although the captain and the mate had both sworn to him that she was false. He was certain that Catherton had lost the mate’s boat intentionally, and added, that fearful of a similar fate he had not slept in his hammock more than an hour at a time since the day of the mate’s death. Immediately afterward he sunk into a lethargy from which it was useless to attempt to rouse him. From what I had heard, coupled with the sights I had seen, I had no doubt that, either from the difficulty of conveying her food, or the intention of the mulatto to starve her, she had sometimes been reduced to the necessity of seeking food for herself at night in the cabins. As the after one was generally kept locked, with the keys in the steward’s charge, she must have lived there part of the time, more than a fortnight having elapsed since the night she was thought to have gone overboard from the stern. This,” said the master’s mate, solemnly, “may account, gentlemen, for the man-of-war’s man’s story of the shriek; but nothing will ever dissuade me from the belief that it was a moving corpse which I saw that night in the cabins. That she was locked in the starboard state-room when I tried the door on the day when the sultan and his party went through the ship, I have not the least doubt now—so inscrutably mysterious is the course of fate! However, to resume my tale—for the watch is nearly out. I went on deck just as a boat from the shore was reported to be making for the ship on the long, angry swells which still dashed heavily on the western shore, impressing your mind with a vague yet overawing intimation of their might, as you heard them break half-mast high, without a breath of wind, whitening the dark range of bare rock, and leaving great gouts of foam hanging in the clefts and ledges far above the sweep of the back-wash. However, it was easy to see, watching them steadily for a few moments as you listened to their heavy, monotonous roar, and watched the birds hovering over the rocks, that in less than an hour more it would be calm enough to tow out with the tide; so I hailed the boat as soon as it came near enough, directing the man in her to go to the palace with the message that we intended to send Hadji and his party on shore as soon as the sea fell. (As I mentioned before, we had secured all the boats on the cross-beams over the quarter-deck, so that we lost none of them when the swell boarded us.) Hadji attempted to speak, advancing to the break of the deck as the messenger was cautiously turning his boat’s head in-shore, but the second mate blew his match, while a party of musket-men, whom he had placed under the high bulwarks, lest one of the soldiers might slip over the stern and swim on shore, leveled their pieces at his turban. He walked back to the taffrail sullenly enough, and I now gave orders to prepare the boats for the attempt to tow the ship out into the current, which at this season runs at the rate of about four knots an hour, thinking on the low, sandy point which we had to double. We soon found that they had collected a fleet of small boats and catamarans in the drain, evidently for the purpose of coming off to the ship, and strings of horses had been attached to the bailitas, while we could see the Bedouin Arabs galloping about near the spot, and the divan crowded with the sultan’s attendants, no doubt watching every movement in the ship.

“At ten, we dropped six boats containing thirty-six men, and as soon as they were in range of the hawsers—the ship being stern off to her anchors on the first of the ebb—as I expected, a shot from the fort on the main whistled past her bow just as the axes were lifting to cut the cables. Down they came in quick, effective strokes, and the men gave a long pull together as the heavy chains rattled out of the hawse-holes, and once more the old Tartar was in motion seaward.

“ ‘Frank, my man,’ said I to the man-of-war’s man, whom I retained on board with some of the steadiest of the men, ‘jump aft and hoist a red rag of some sort at the gaff—their own colors, you know—if it’s only to puzzle them. Stand by, carpenter, to sweep the poop when I give you the word.’ When a shot better aimed than the last struck the mizzen-rail, narrowly missing a shroud, and scattering the splinters right and left among the Arabs. Down they went on their faces, out of the way of their friends’ balls, all except Hadji, who stood it without flinching, while my hands itched, I confess, for a chance to send an ounce bullet from the barrel in my hand through his heart.

“ ‘Hurrah!’ shouted Frank from the midst of them, as up went the cook’s shirt, tacked to pieces of bamboo to give it spread. I saw them pointing their glasses at it from the veranda of the palace, and shouted to the mates to give way strong, for they were launching their rafts and a whole fleet of boats, filled with soldiers, whose spears and long match-locks glistened in the sun now rising over the rocks to the north-east. The castles and the forts began now to fire in earnest, sending their iron about the cove in every direction, though the ship in some measure shielded the boats from the few guns which bore upon them. Many balls hurtled through the air past us, but only four struck her hull, doing no particular damage. I looked at every flash to see some of the sticks go, and ten minutes more would have brought the Arabs down on us with a force which it would have been worse than useless to resist. In fact, when I saw them training their match-locks on the boats, though we were then clear of the passage in the eddy of the current, I gave up the game as lost, thinking of calling the men on board, with the desperate notion of fighting it out to the last on board, when looking over the side at the ship’s way, I saw Muscat Tom’s broad flukes and glistening back, within fifty feet of the sternmost boat. The soldiers now opened their fire to drive the men from their work—I caught the second mate’s flushed, hopeless look, as he turned his head from tugging at his steering-oar, and then the black fiend’s triumphant grin, with a malicious glance from the whites of his eyes, as much as to say: ‘you’re in for it for a good long spell, my lads’—when the sight of the whale in the desperate emergency of the case, seemed to put it into my brain what to do.

“ ‘Mr. Parker,’ I hailed, ‘have you lines and harpoons in the boats?’

“ ‘Ay, ay, sir,’ he answered, while the men looked up at the ship as if they wondered what next.

“ ‘Cast off the larboard hawser, then,’ I shouted, ‘bend irons on to the starboard one, and strike that whale. Let the other boats come alongside.’

“ ‘Ay, ay, sir,’ he answered again, just, it seemed, as he would have done had I ordered him to fasten to the moon, supposing that it had been shining to seaward. However, the five boats were alongside and hoisted up in no time, and Parker, as soon as he was up to the dodge, wild as it seemed, did the thing in true whaleman’s style, bending triple plies of the line to the hawser, driving both irons socket up in the whale’s back, as he lay like a log on the sea. For one single instant the enormous animal remained motionless, while the boat backed off from his flukes; then I saw his mighty, flexible tail, with its million stripes of freckled gray, heave up until his whole back was plainly to be seen to the dorsal fin, when down it came like a dark mass of iron, driving a cloud of spray in the air, and off he headed to sea, the water being too shallow for him to sound. The hawser stood the surge, and away the old ship went to her tug, the second mate giving a chase, while the men echoed back the yells of the disappointed Arabs amid the crack of match-locks and the bellowing thunder of the cannon. We soon had Parker’s boat towing astern, and Tom, if any thing, increased his speed, stretching the hawser—which, like the rest of her gear, was bran new that voyage, as taut as a harp-string. Every time he raised the edge of his flukes for a downward stroke of his tail, the men cheered; in fact, the fellows danced about the deck like wild men round a war-post, or negroes under a tamarind-tree; it was no manner of use to try to restrain them; while the poor devils of Arabs, with the black at their head, stood looking their last—with Allah’s name on their lips—at castle, rock and tower. However, the thought of what was lying in the cabins seemed to strike the crew all at once; and then, as they ceased capering and pitching their hats at each other, fixing their eyes upon me as one man’s, the old, desolate feelings came back to my heart all the heavier for the contrast.

“Still the whale held right on off the coast, and we had nothing but to fold our arms and look on, wondering when the tough, pliable irons would break or draw out—or looking for him to sound, which, you know, would cause us to cut the tow-line. The axe was ready in the second mate’s hands, and we were already in the strength of the current, which he took tail on, increasing his speed, of course, toward some old sleeping haunt of his, as I thought, possibly in the Gulf of Mageira, under the lee of some low island or coral reef. The oldest whaleman in the ship could not wonder enough at the strength of the monster—a hundred feet long, as he was, and more. He neither yawed nor slackened his pace, but kept straight on to double the sandy point broad on our larboard bow by this time. It was a strange thing, to be sure, to feel the ship slipping along, stern on to the current, with a man standing soberly at the wheel to steady it, all her sails furled, and the whale’s flukes kicking up a white dust ahead, like one of Loper’s screw-propellers. Parker told me a story of a vessel in the Greenland seas being towed by a ‘right whale’ for an hour and a half, in the teeth of a strong breeze, with the yards brailed aback; so that, at that rate, there was no estimating the powers of a full-grown ‘finner,’ a much larger and more powerful fish of the two; he might tow us entirely clear of the coast, provided the harpoons did not break off at the ‘withers,’ or ‘draw,’ which last, the mate said, was the way in which the matter was likely to end. Indeed, the event proved his knowledge of the habits and resources of this species, as we doubled the point safely enough, at the distance of two miles, in sight of a body of horsemen, who pulled up from their useless chase, on the very edge of the strand.

“A hundred wild thoughts of things which I had read of or seen, flashed across my mind, as I caught a view of the interminable blue expanse before me; now it was Mazeppa on his wild horse swimming the ‘bright, broad river’—now a Gaucho scouring the pampas—now the naked trapper running for life from the Blackfeet, over the plains of prickly pear—or, last of all, the voyages of Sinbad the Sailor, which coming up, as they did, from the days of my boyhood, when the wreck of the only woman I ever loved was lying thus strangely in the cabin, with the eunuch’s black face glooming over it, oppressed me like some monstrous dream. I was aroused from this by a voice calling out that there was a large ship right in the whale’s track. Accordingly, after a little we made her out with our glasses, rolling on the long ground-swell, a frigate-built ship, which I took, from the whiteness of her canvas, to be either French or American, though the leanness of her dark hull, with its single tier of guns, as she rose on the swell when we drove nearer to her, and the improbability of one of our own cruisers being upon this coast, made me almost certain she was the first. Accordingly, when we were within gunshot, up went the old Bourbon colors at the mast, as the smoke of a gun puffed out of one of her midship ports, and you had a notion what sort of a stir was on her decks at the moment, at the sight of a large ship bearing down on her in a stark calm, with more than twice her drift; then you heard the roll of her drum beating to quarters, as if they thought ’twas Sathanas himself afloat. To ease their minds, I ordered the red rag to be hauled down, and the stars and stripes to be run up at half-mast in their stead.

“All was still as death, except the surge of the Tartar’s bows to the strain of the hawser and the creak of her hamper aloft, as the whale sheered to port, and we passed within half a pistol shot of the corvette’s broadside—her crew at quarters staring at us in a queer enough sort of a way, as if catching a sight of the American flag, and the whale-boats at the cranes, they made sure all was right, strange as the sight was—until, as if to break the spell, their little mad-eyed captain jumped on the hammock-netting and hailed.

“ ‘Bon voyage au diable, mes amis!’ he shouted, waving his cap round and round, as if he meant to jerk it into the sea, to the glorification of some Yankee invention or other, the moment we slipped past him—when Hadji’s turban and the scarlet cape on the poop caught his eye, and he sung out something which I did not hear, for the whale went down like a flash, burying the Tartar’s bows to the forecastle, deep as she was, before Parker, taken by surprise, could cut the hawser, which, after all, he had no occasion to do, as you knew by the feel of the deck, as the ship rose, that the whale was free. We hauled the slack of the hawser, looking for Tom to rise, when one of the harpoons was found broken off at the head, and the other drawn out. I never saw Muscat Tom again; and it is likely, as the old hands said, that he never rose from his dive. My yarn, gentlemen,” continued the master’s mate, “is nearly spun. The frigate’s boats boarded us, of course, when part of the tale was rehearsed to her captain. He was bound to Mocha to look after some atrocities which had been committed upon subjects of France, during a recent revolt, and at once offered to land the eunuch and his men there, and to protect the Circassian, and carry her back with him to France. However, when we entered the cabin, it was found that she was beyond the reach of mortal arm, whether to shield or destroy. She lay by the side of her lover, dead by poison, as it seemed, yet still so beautiful in death as to surprise the Frenchman. In the end he took charge of all the prisoners, as the crew of the Tartar in a body stoutly refused to do duty while Catherton remained in the ship. The French captain promised to hand him over to the American authorities on the first occasion that offered, and the remainder of the day was spent in clearing up the cabins and taking depositions in French and English.

“Just before sunset the bodies were removed to the frigate, that of Ellen in my boat, while Parker took charge of Zuma’s and the chief’s. At my request Ellen was buried immediately. Both crews were mustered in the gangways, and the ensigns hanging at half-mast as the French chaplain read the service. The last glimmer of day was fading from the west as we listened to the prayer, and a star shot its beams on the spot where the corpse went down.”

Here the master’s mate made a brief pause, during which seven strokes on the frigate’s ponderous bell proclaimed that the watch was nearly out. Before the vibrations had ceased on the ear we heard the schooner’s, like the reverberations of an echo, faintly sounding, far to leeward. The moon had sunk; the sails flapped heavily in the dying breeze, and entranced as we were, that distant clang seemed to strike a chord in each listener’s soul. In a low voice the mate resumed. “A breeze ruffled the water up as they piped down, and bidding farewell to the Frenchman, we hastened on board, and made sail on the ship.

“It was a terrible passage—such as every man in that ship will remember to his dying day—from the cape latitudes to Pernambuco, where I put in to recruit.

“The very next morning after we anchored, an agent of Don Jose Maria came on board to inquire after Captain Catherton. You may swear that he departed, with his sallow visage considerably lengthened, when he heard the news. I learned privately from the American consul, in the course of his investigations, that Don Jose was a man of great wealth and influence in the province—your very worthy and hospitable Senhor de Engenho in the country, and merchant, slave-dealer and broker in any kind of business, in which a mil reis was to be turned up in the city. I never saw the old gentleman myself, as he did not do me the honor to show his powdered head, and the long cue, which the carpenter particularly instanced, in the ship while I commanded her, although the second mate was careful that the counter-skipper whom he sent to ask after his worthy associate, should take on shore with him the exact value of the cargo on board, so far as we had advices respecting the market at home. In fact, from some estimates which I found among Catherton’s papers, I had no doubt that old Charley’s suspicions were correct, and it had been settled, when the ship touched here on her outward passage, that Don Jose should become the purchaser of the ship and cargo. Upon questioning the carpenter in private, I found that years before he had got hold of a portion of my history, from a shipmate of his, who had known me in ——, and whom I recollected to have met in the West Indies, on the very voyage, when he pointed me out at the door of a cafe to Toppin. Singular as it may appear, too, it was not until we had run up the S. E. Trades, that Parker showed me the letter which he had found in his jacket in the Persian Gulf, and which I now discovered was addressed to myself. The perusal of it had nearly driven me to share her grave in the waters, victim as it clearly showed her to have been to Catherton’s arts from the first, and, as I had supposed, murdered at last by an infernal conspiracy of his mate’s, or rather of his wife’s, as was discovered when we reached the States. It was shown that some resemblance existed between Ellen and the woman-fiend; and, from her own confession in the prison, to which she was consigned for the rest of her life, that she had been played off on Catherton for his wife, by the connivance of Jinney. The motive for the victim’s ruin did not appear so clearly, the woman herself declaring that she knew not why she hated and had sworn to destroy her. There was not a single creature in the smallest degree acquainted with the facts, who doubted Ellen’s innocence; and the tears which was shed over her unhappy fate, and the execrations poured upon her destroyers, were the best evidences of this. An undue intimacy between the ship’s owner and the mate’s wife was proved on the woman’s trial; and out of this, it was supposed, in some way the accursed plot had its origin.

“However, for myself; as soon as the news of Catherton’s escape from the French frigate reached the States by another ship, I started again, with a vow on my soul to roam the world, until I should hunt him down. Year in and year out, wherever there was a prospect of meeting him—on the African and Brazilian coasts—on the Spanish Main—and in the sea-ports of the East, I sought him with a hatred which gathered intensity from time. Twice I heard of him in command of a free-cruising craft, and once in Port Royal he narrowly escaped me. The third time, as sailors say, is lucky—the saw lied though, in this instance,” said the mate, hoarsely, “for I found him three days ago, cut in two by a round-shot, on the quarter-deck of yonder schooner.”

We started to our feet as he said this, partly from surprise, and partly because we heard the boat-swain’s mates at the hatchways.

The second day after that the Constitution was lying at anchor with her prize in the bay of Naples; and to have seen Harry Miller gazing out of a port at the world renowned shores which environ it—or turning his back on a crowd of chattering officials, whom curiosity brought off to the schooner—or in a shore-boat, with a party on leave of absence, you never would have supposed, from the look and bearing of the man, that he had been the relator of that wild yarn.

Sampson was a Nazarite. He drank no wine nor strong drink; and so long as he kept the pledge and the secret of his strength, was indeed a giant. Read the scripture narrative.

“Then went Sampson down. . . . And behold a young lion roared against him.

“And the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he rent him as he would have rent a kid; and he had nothing in his hand.” Judges xiv. 5, 6, etc.

SECTION I.

O, help me to escape that oblivion which is more fearful than death! Who would fall with the common herd, like rain into the ocean—lost in eternity! Even as the lightning is born of conflicting vapor; is born to penetrate, change, and subdue. So, of every age, and of the breath and roar of the people, is born one to rule, and mould, and make his time. Go then, and get power. Get it by the sword; since, even in our day, blood buoys the strong swimmer onward to greatness. Get it by arts of policy; since men will be ruled, and most honor those who rule them most sternly. Get it by the pen; a voice which fills all time, reaches every ear, fashions the intellect of millions, and makes it your own. Who would not float down through endless ages upon a strain of such music, the multitudinous echo of a spirit chosen of God? The shade of Tubal rests upon my hand, and guides it.

The gentle dew falls in silence, unmarked; the print of its footsteps disappear before the growing light; yet the earth acknowledges its presence in the livelier green it puts on to make glad its children. In the narrow valley lives an honest worker; one who, with years of labor, has subdued the hardy soil. Even now, the yellow grain bends beneath the weight of its own wealth, and wakes a joy which ambition never knew. Think you that his days are unrecorded in the Book of Life? Upon his broad shoulders rests the State. Ariel’s soul is content.

Thus, early in time, to these two were given, in divided empire, the passions which now govern the sons of Adam; and have built up, giving and receiving mutual aid, all our glory.

SECTION II.

As the adventurer, he who first traversed the Amazon, lost in the wood which covers, thick, the base of Chimborazo, shutting out day and night, listened with large wonder, mixed fear and joy, to the war of elements unchained within its bowels; so Erix and Zella, with all their tribe, listened to the first voice of that strange instrument which Ariel, gifted of God, after many days, raised high, midway the mountains and the sea. He had caught and tamed, to answer to the touch of a skill creative, the sure interpreter of matter and of mind; and the vast soul which, in these latter days, is well shadowed forth in that book of love, called The People. He, in a page resplendent with holy fire, and with a name here unrecognized, is given to every true believer as the builder of the Organ, and inventor of that art which raises man close to the footstool of his Maker; and as the notes—new to mortal ears—rose deep, heavy, filling the forest wide, overcoming the distant murmur of the sea, overcoming all voices of all life, rumbling, changed to the clangor of great strifes run for in the future upon many an unbattled plain, to close in a hymn so soft, so melting, so full of sweet acknowledgment of the power by God intrusted to a noble end: even Zella, who had watched his toils and marked their purpose, fell prostrate; while Erix and his brethren, trembling, fled; nor turned till the music, wild with joy and that laughter which leaps from youth, and health, and a breast vacant of all care, soothed their unknown fears, and drew them with a golden cord, slow tracing back their steps, again to listen, again to wonder, and again to admire; till, grown familiar, they expressed with cries, sad shouts, and gestures violent, their new bliss, and circling, danced. Then, catching the measure, as Ariel’s marvelous hand poured forth a song of high gratitude for the gift of chiefest excellence in all that store of heaven’s bounty by himself enjoyed, they gave rhythm for rhythm.

SECTION III.

SECTION IV.

Thus Ariel played; and from day to day, even as his brother at the forge found new devices, added knowledge to knowledge in his high art, to be lost in that flood which washed, whiter than wool, the sins, of the world. And from day to day there came, from tribes far distant, many to whom rumor had spoken of this joy late found; and of them, one so fashioned in love’s mould, that she drew after her, ever as she moved, the eyes of men. Not Aglaia and her sisters, of the heroic age of poesy universal, could match her qualities, of an excellence so rare, that the oldest, who remembered Eve, called her Eve’s daughter. Now, alone, her sole attendant a young gazelle, hung with garlands woven by her hand, and tamed to reflect, in the soft lustre of its eyes, eyes more soft and more lustrous far, she stood aloof, then nearer drew, and halting, drank in with greedy ear, as one long famished, the liquid melody which floated, beating, upon the air. She listened till her very breathing hung upon each note, and grew, or was fined away, in consonance with the measure; and as the master closed, she bowed before him, low, in reverence, even to the ground; and rising, asked—

Then first did Ariel’s eyes rest upon the maid there standing, bright, as a vision from that land which he in childhood sought, to lose forever; and fire ran through every vein, and that passion which enforces unity of person and of will.

“Fairest of Eve’s daughters, such worship is not mine. To Him who clothed thee with His beauty, alone belongs reverence, with prayer.”

“Noble, even as thyself, with twice thy stature, majestic; and upon his front supreme burns a star, inextinguishable, the covenant of mercy for that act of which I may no further speak.”

Deep night overcame them suddenly, and swept past, as the rushing of a strong wind.

Then turned the maid and fled; in fleetness outstripping the garlanded beast which hastened to catch her steps, retreating, lighter than its own. And as, upon the plains of Arcady, Melanion did strive with Atalanta in the race, in king Jason’s time, so Ariel, pushed by a power that knows no let, followed quick upon love’s course, nor stayed, till he caught the frighted deer, full many a league removed, panting, upon a bed of violets which lay smiling in the sunlight where the forest opened charily to the sky.

Then, in turn, he worshiped, and bowed, even to her feet, which, trembling, he embraced.

The maid, half-yielding, half-refusing, by doubt and trust in turn possessed, bent over the fair-eyed beast recumbent at her side, and stroked its smoking flanks, and played with the garlands now displaced and torn, and sought with pliant fingers to renew a labor which might conceal the passion new-born, struggling in her breast.

“Thou shall forsake thy land and dwell with me; and here, along these paths, and by the waters whose words thou hearest, and with the light, and with darkness, we will all the pleasures prove which God to our first parents gave when, in Paradise, resting, he declared all things good.”

“It was my father’s shadow that overcame us, and I fled, fearing his anger, from the music of thy tongue.”

And thus, alternating, deprecating, amid the violets standing, they sang in praise of the first-born of the earth.

SECTION V.

SECTION VI.

And Ariel led the maid, quick retracing their late course, blushing, with eyelids drooping, listening with face averted to the music of his passion, homeward to his mother; while the garlanded beast, now flying before their steps, now halting, showed mimic war, and caressed its mistress, from whose eyes it caught security and love.

Here’s the tomb of my father—how mournful the thought!

That he went to the grave ere my infantile mind

One smile of parental affection had caught,

Or his lineaments dear in my heart were enshrined!

Yes, my sire! by thy dust I am kneeling in prayer,

Where in days of my childhood so oft I have wept,

Imploring thy spirit to soothe my despair,

And at evening and morning sweet vigils have kept.

Ere my young mind could grasp them, they told me thy woes;

Of the virtues that bind thee forever to me;

Of the love of thy friends, of the hate of thy foes;

That in features and mind I was like unto thee;

And with dawning of thought is thy memory wove,

The grief and the pining that prey on my breast;

The longing to soar to thy dwelling above,

And repose in thine arms in the Land of the Blest.

I have never seen parents their children caress,

Or soothe into quiet their heart-breathing

When the storm of misfortune around them did press,

But the tears of affection arose to mine eyes:

I have ne’er met a maid by the side of her sire,

Or beheld in the festal a father who kept

Watch over his daughter, and seemed to admire

His lovely and beautiful charge, but I’ve wept.

My mother lies by him—blessed saint of the skies!

Remembrance returns thee; how gentle and meek;

I behold thee when youth filled with radiance thine eyes,

And beauty and health were illuming thy cheek;

When thy delicate form was elastic as air,

When thy bosom was white as the Parian’s glow,

When thy beautiful ringlets of long, flowing hair,

In sable threads sprinkled thy forehead of snow.

How solemn, dear mother! it seems, that the clay,

Relentless and cold, now encumbers the breast,

Where, all helpless, so oft I in infancy lay,

And, soothed by thy lullaby, sobbed me to rest;

That on earth I shall never behold thee again,

Never more feel thy rosy lips pressing my brow,

Or thy fairy hand smoothing my pillow of pain—

Thy affection and love must forever forgo!

My sister sleeps next—lovely blossom of heaven!

Ah, why wast thou summoned so early away?

Why so soon was the bond of our sisterhood riven,

And I left alone on the cold earth to stay?

Why wast thou not spared to delight and to cheer

My desolate heart ’mid depression and gloom;

With thy love-breathing counsels to gladden my ear—

With thy songs and thy smiles to enliven my home?

Sleep on, ye beloved! it is better to rest

In the halls of the dead, than to linger in life,

Where the brain and the bosom with pains are oppressed

And the soul is beleaguered by sorrow and strife;

Sleep on! though no blossoms your homes are perfuming,

There are calmness and freedom from discord and care,

The lovely and beautiful daily are coming—

And in my pale vesture I soon shall be there.

Of all the truths at which we arrive through a calm and dispassionate study of history, none appears to me more certain than this, that, as regards the career and course of empires, the rise and fall of states, there neither is, nor has been, any such thing as Fortune; that from the beginning of time, to the events born of the present day, every minute particular, every seemingly unimportant incident—or, as men are fond to call it, accident—in the affairs of nations, is part and parcel of one grand, universal, all-pervading scheme of divine world-government, projected before the patriarch kings led forth their flocks to feed on pastures yet moist with the waters of the deluge, but not to be fulfilled until time itself shall have an end.

It can hardly, I think, fail to strike the least observant of readers, that unless the civilized world had been for a long period chained together under the stagnant, and in the main, peaceful despotism of the successors of the twelve Cæsars, it never would have been prepared to receive that tincture of letters, of humanity, and above all, of Christian faith, with which it became in the end so thoroughly imbued; that in every case, without one exception, it brought over to its own milder cultivation, milder religion, the fiercest and most barbarous of its heathen conquerors.

Not a province of the Western Roman empire but was overrun, devastated, conquered, permanently occupied by hordes of the wildest, crudest, most violent, most ignorant of mankind—Goths, Vandals, Huns, Vikings, and Norsemen, Jutes and Danes, tribes whose very names to this day stand as the types of unlettered force and unsparing outrage. Not a province of that empire, though of its present population not one hundredth part can trace an approximate descent from the original Roman colonists, so vast the influx of the Pagan invaders, but in the lapse of time conquered its conquerors by the arts of peace, and so became the germ of that Christian civilization, that Christian Liberty, which—though either, or both, may be temporarily obscured for the moment—we see, in the main, steadily and consistently pervading the Europe end America of the nineteenth century.

That this state of things could have existed, by any reasonable probability at this day, in the event of Darius or Xerxes having overrun and occupied Western Europe, with their oriental hordes—in the event of Carthage having subdued Rome, and filled Italy, Greece, Gaul, Spain, Britain, with her bloody fiend-worship, and her base Semitic trade-spirit—in the event of Mark Antony having won the day at Actium, and broken up the heritage of Rome, like that of Alexander, among a dozen jarring dynasties, instead of leaving it to be centralized into an almost universal empire—in the event of the Saracen having destroyed the paladins of Charles Martel at Tours—of the Turks having conquered the Mediterranean at Lepanto, or Continental Europe under the walls of Vienna—few will be found, I think, so hardy as to assert.

Strange, therefore, as it may appear at first sight, the first germs of existing institutions may be said to have been sown on the banks of the Ilissus, the Eurotas, and the Tiber; and the deity, whom the blind superstition of the early Romans venerated as the war-god Quirinus guarding the wave-rocked cradle of Rome’s twin founders, was, in truth, the Lord of Hosts, watching over the infancy of that peculiar and appointed people which should make smooth his way before him, and prepare the nations to receive the faith of civil and religious freedom.

For all this wonderful accomplishment of wonderful designs, however, we shall find that the instruments are purely human, although the ends may be divine—that, although the men are never wanting to do His work, when done it must be, it is for the most part, if not always, in blindness, in sin, in wrath, and in the madness of ambition, that they do that work, imagining themselves, vainly, busied about their own miserable ends; and for the doing it they are alone accountable. But not so of the nations, which, having no life hereafter, no individual identity in the world to come, meet their rewards or punishments here, where their virtues or their vices have required them, and thrive or perish as they work toward the completion of His infinite designs.

Nowhere, perhaps, in the whole course of history, is this supervision of the Most High, which even religious men are wont unthinkingly to call Fortune, more clearly visible, than in the events of the Second Punic War.

At home the republic, though undaunted and unequaled of all times in heroism, was weeping tears of blood at every pore, and resisting only with a persistency savoring almost of despair, abroad it was only by the exercise of sacrifices and self-denial almost superhuman, that she was enabled to maintain her foothold in her provinces of Sicily and Spain.

It seems to us, when we read how Capua, the noblest of her allied cities, opened her gates and made common cause with the enemy, how twelve of the thirty colonies of the Latin name refused their contingents of men and money; how all the north of Italy, then Cisalpine Gaul, from the Var to the Rubicon, was in tumultuous arms against her; how all the proud and magnificent cities of La Puglia and Calabria were leagued with the terrible invader; it seems, I say, as if one superadded call on her resources must have remained unanswered; one more war-trumpet blown by a new enemy must have sounded her death-note.

And there was one moment when it appeared that this contingency was close at hand. In the year of the city 540, while all the south of Italy was in arms with Hannibal from Capua down to the Gulf of Taranto, and all the north was in that tumultuous state of disorganization which with Celtic populations is ever the herald of coming insurrection, Sardinia suddenly broke out into armed and open rebellion. Sicily, also, in which Hiero, the fast and faithful friend of Rome, had lately died at a very advanced age, rejected the Roman alliance, and a war of extermination was raging in that beautiful island between the partisans of the two rival powers, and the forces which each could spare from the home conflict to aid its faction.

At this crisis, Philip of Macedon, the descendant of Alexander, and at that time the most powerful of European princes, entered into an alliance, offensive and defensive, with Hannibal, and would in the course of that very summer have crossed the Adriatic and invaded Italy with some five-and-twenty thousand men, sixteen thousand of whom were the hitherto unconquered phalanx, provided with that arm, in the greatest possible perfection, the want of which had robbed Hannibal of the fruits of all his great pitched battles—I mean an efficient artillery.

In this respect the Greeks were unsurpassed; the Greek engineers were the wonder of the world, as was subsequently shown at the siege of Syracuse; and how great soever the superiority of the Romans to the Carthagenians in this arm of service, it was as nothing to the skill of the Greek artillerists, and the excellence of the Greek machinery.

What this combination might—I should rather say might not—have effected, it were difficult to show; more difficult to show how Rome could have resisted it. For my part, having examined the question in all its lights, I am of opinion that, had this alliance gone into effect, and Philip acted with energy and steadiness of purpose equal to his bravery and ambition, Marcellus never would have taken Syracuse, nor Scipio conquered Spain; but that from both those countries triumphant reinforcements would have poured in to Hannibal, over the Alps, across the Straits of Messina, that an Italian Tama would have sealed the doom of Rome, and a Punic ploughshare razed the foundations of the capitol.

But such—it is well for humanity—was not to be the issue of the war. Philip’s ambassadors, returning with the treaty signed and ratified by Hannibal, were taken by the Roman squadron off the Calabrian coast, and sent to the city with their papers.

A year elapsed before the treaty could be renewed; and, meantime, the Romans, awakened to a perception of their danger, found means to enkindle the Ætolians and Illyrian pirates against Philip, and in the end to organize a Greek confederation against Macedon, which gave its active and ambitious sovereign plenty of work to do on his own side of the Adriatic. At a later period he found cause to repent that he had ever meditated intervention.

Such strokes of fortune, so historians call them, as that capture of the ambassadors of Philip, which, perhaps, saved Rome—as that strong gale which blew on Christmas Eve on Bantry Bay, dispersing Hoche’s armament to the four winds of heaven—such strokes, I say, of fortune, I hold to be the visible agencies and instruments of God’s providence, in the government of nations, to the welfare of the world.

From Rome that peril was averted. The arms of Macedon abstained, perforce, from the shores of devastated Italy. The arms of Syracuse, of Spain, were wrested from the hands which would have wielded them in the behalf of Carthage. The arms even of the unbridled Numidians were turned against the masters whom they had served so fatally for Rome. And out of the furnace of that scathing war, the giant form of the chosen republic emerged, without one hair singed, one thread of its vestments injured; and that, like the faithful sons of Israel, by the especial providence of the Almighty.

Years passed, and events hurried toward their consummation. Yet still, though from this date the tide of Hannibal’s affairs began to ebb, and that of Rome’s to flow with a healthier, prouder current, it was not until twelve more terrible campaigns had been fought out in vain, that the star of the great Carthaginian set in blood at Zama, and the name of Carthage herself, all but one brief spasmodic sound of fury and despair, went out and was forgotten from among the nations.

Then rousing herself, like a galled lioness, Rome went forth to avenge and conquer.

Hitherto she had fought at home for existence, henceforth she fought abroad for dominion; and abroad as at home, until her mission was accomplished and His work done fully to the end, she was invincible, as the fruit of her labors is eternal.

The war, which had been undertaken against Philip by the Romans shortly after his giving them the first offense, had languished from the beginning on both sides, and peace had been concluded between the contending parties some three years before the decisive victory of Zama.

So soon, however, as peace was concluded with Carthage, in the year of the city 552, B. C. 200, true to the latter part at least of her famous motto,

Parcere devictis et debellare superbos,^[3]

Rome sought at once a cause of war, whereby to chastise Philip for the comfort given to her enemies in her worst time of need. Nor sought long in vain.

A deputation from the Athenians came seeking succor; the arms of Philip were too near their borders.

War was declared, the Consul Sulpicius landed at Dyrrachium with a regular army, and the campaign commenced by a series of operations in the valley of the river Erigon, in Dassaretia, the object of Philip being to prevent that of the consul to secure his junction with his Dardanian and Ætolian allies. Several sharp skirmishes occurred, in all of which the Macedonians were worsted with loss, and in one instance Philip narrowly escaped being taken prisoner; whereupon he retreated through the mountain-passes, throwing up strong field-works in every available position, but avoiding a general action.

His works all proved useless, being either forced or turned without difficulty by the active and movable legionary tactic of the Romans, against which it became at once evident that so ponderous and unwieldy a body as the phalanx could not manœuvre or fight, in broken ground, with a hope of success.

In the end Philip retired at his leisure into his hereditary kingdom, and the consul having stormed and garrisoned the small town of Pelium, on the Macedonian frontier, fell back to Apollonia on the Illyrian sea-coast, without accomplishing his object.

Still his campaign had not been useless, for he had snatched the prestige of invariable success from the phalanx, had established the incontestible superiority of the Roman soldiery of all arms to the Greek, and had defeated the Macedonians on every occasion, when they had ventured to await battle.

It is not a little remarkable, and proves clearly the singular adaptability of the Romans to all martial practices, that whereas, scarce twenty years before, we find their cavalry the worst in all respects but personal valor in the known world, and their light troops unable to compete even with the barbarian allies of Hannibal, we now observe them superior in both these arms, owing, as it is distinctly stated by all the writers, to the superior excellence of their weapons ^[4] and equipment, even to the far-famed targeteers and life-guards of Macedonia.

In the following year, Sulpicius was superseded by the new consul, Publius Villius Tappulus, who, taking command of Sulpicius’ legions at Apollonia, advanced up the open valley of the Aöus, now Vioza, with the intention of forcing the famous passes, variously known as the Aoi Stenæ, or Fauces Antigoncuses, and now as the defiles of the Viosa, rather than turning them by way of Dassaretia, as had been done previously by his predecessor. The judgment was sound, the execution naught. For, after marching to within five miles of the western extremity of the defiles, he fortified his camp in the plain, probably in the valley of the Dryno,^[5] above its junction with the Vioza, reconnoitered the position of Philip, who was very strongly posted in an intrenched camp at the most difficult point of the pass, à cheval on the river, and occupying both the mountain sides, and there lay perfectly inactive until he was himself relieved by Titus Quinctius Flamininus, his successor in the consular dignity.

This man, of the early Roman leaders, was in many respects one of the most remarkable; in one particular, with the single exception of Caius Julius Cæsar, the great Dictator, he stands alone, in honorable contrast to his merciless and cruel countrymen—though quick and vehement of temper, he was a just man, and both merciful and courteous to conquered enemies. The one blot on his character, to which I shall come hereafter, must be ascribed to the policy of his country, under direct orders from which he was unquestionably acting, not to his own wishes or disposition, to which nothing could be more abhorrent than the duty imposed upon him.

Plutarch informs ^[6] us that, in his time, “it was easy to judge of his personal appearance,” which, unfortunately, he has not described, “from his statue in brass at Rome, inscribed with Greek characters, which still stands opposite to the hippodrome, nigh to the great Apollo from Carthage.”

As, however, the whole tenor of Plutarch’s life is laudatory, and for that gossiping anecdote-monger singularly correct and clear, we may take it as a fact that the nobility of his person was not unequal to that of his character; which I consider the finest recorded of any Roman general or statesman.

“He is said,” continues the author,^[7] I have already quoted, “to have been of a temperament impulsive and vehement both in his likings and dislikings, but with this distinction, that he was quick to wrath which quickly passed away, but prompt to kindness which endured to the end. He was very ambitious and very fond of glory, ever anxious to be the actor himself in the best and greatest deeds, and rejoicing in the acquaintance rather of those who needed benefits themselves, than of those who could confer them upon others, esteeming those as material for the promotion of his own virtue, these as rivals of his own glory.”

I will add that I can find him guilty of no act—almost alone of his countrymen—of political dishonesty, or of social turpitude. To his country he was a zealous, ardent, and profitable servant; to his friends and associates faithful and true; to his enemies just and clement; and to the provincials, subjected to his dominion, a governor so affable, beneficent and equitable, that when he left their shores they mourned as for a countryman, almost a father of the country.

As a general, he committed no military error; and although his command was limited to little more than two campaigns, they were campaigns of the most important—important not merely to his own country, but to the science of war, in general—since they established, beyond a peradventure, the superiority of the tactic and armature of the legion to those of the phalanx; in other words, of the line to the column tactic.

I give to him this credit, unhesitatingly; for, although Pyrrhus was at last beaten by the phalanx in Italy, it was rather by dint of numbers and aid of circumstances than by military skill; and further, it is evident that the great bulk of his armies consisted of targeteers, little different from the legionaries, and of Samnites, Tarentines, and other Italian soldiery precisely similar to them, in arms and array.

Again, although Sulpicius had demonstrated the superiority of the individual Roman, to the individual Greek, heavy footman; he had not—nor any one else hitherto—defeated a phalanx, unless with a phalanx.

When Greeks met Greeks then was the tug of war.

For the rest, the battles of Paullus Æmilius against Perseus, were but the battles of Flamininus against the father of Perseus, less ably fought, though on the same principles at last successful.

The fact remains, that from the battle of Cynoscephalæ, of which anon, to the end of ancient history, it was an admitted fact that, unless on a very narrow and perfectly level field, where both its flanks were securely covered, the phalanx could not receive battle from the legions with a chance of success; and that as to delivering battle on wide, open plains, where rapid manœuvring and counter-marching could be resorted to, such an idea was preposterous.

Flamininus was educated to arms from his very boyhood, and that in the terrible Italian campaigns of Hannibal; through which he served with such distinction that he had already attained the post of tribune of the soldiers, equal to the modern rank of lieutenant-colonel, under that daring and distinguished leader Marcus Marcellus, and was on the field when he was slain, rashly periling himself in an affair of outposts near Venusia, in the year of Rome 546, B. C. 208, and in the sixtieth year of his own age.

After the death of his great commander, Flamininus was appointed governor of Tarentum,^[8] in the capacity of quæstor, on its recapture by Fabius Maximus; and there displayed no less ability in the administration of justice than he had previously evinced skill and courage in warfare. Seven years afterward—at the early age of thirty years—he was elected consul; and, although opposed by the veto ^[9] of the tribunes Fulvius and Manlius Carius on the ground that he lacked twelve years of the legitimate age, and that he had never filled the intermediate grades of ædile and prætor, he was confirmed by the senate, and received Macedonia as his province, by lot.

The fact is, that the wars of Hannibal had by this time taught the Romans that an overstrict adherence to prescriptive formulæ, in times of national peril, is disastrous; and that to meet the ablest adversaries the ablest men must be had, whether all the theoretic requisites to their election had been complied with or not.

Therefore Scipio, the elder Africanus, was sent to Spain with proconsular rank and a consular army, before he was of the just age to fill a prætorship.

Therefore Flamininus was elected consul at thirty, although the constitution expressly declared that no one should hold that dignity until he should have fully attained his forty-second year.

Such laws may be, perhaps, generally wise; but the breach of them is always so. Nor does history show any instances, worth remark, of youthful genius elevated by the popular call to early station, and subsequently found unworthy, from the days of Alexander, Scipio, and Flamininus, to those of Pitt and Napoleon.

Nor do I believe that the appointment of the consuls was really, though it was ostensibly, left to the chance of a lot, at least in times of actual war, and national emergency; since we invariably find the best man sent to the place where he was required, which could not always have occurred fortuitously. Doubtless those who superintended the balloting had some method of determining the result, as had the augurs and haruspices with regard to omens and sacrifices.

So Flamininus was not only elected consul at thirty, but obtained the seat of the great war for his province, and was empowered to pick nine thousand men, horse and foot, out of the Spanish and African veterans, inured to all that was known of warfare in those days by the campaigns of Hannibal and Scipio.

It appears that on his entering upon his office, Flamininus was detained some time at Rome, in order to superintend a fast and expiatory sacrifice on account of certain alleged prodigies of evil import; but it is certain that he had understood the consequences of the dilatory operations of his predecessors, and was resolute not to fall into the like error. He sailed from Brundusium for the island of Corcyra, now Corfu, which he occupied with eight thousand foot, and eight hundred horse, much earlier in the season than the preceding consuls had been wont to take the field: and, instantly passing over to the main, in a single line-of-battle ship, hurried onward by forced journeys to the camp, and superseded Villius, in the face of the enemy.

A few days afterward, his reinforcements coming up, he called a council of war to determine whether a direct attack, or a flank movement through Dassaretia, was to be preferred. The council, of course, determined any thing rather than direct action: but Flamininus, perceiving the facilities afforded by the geography of that broken, mountainous, forest-clad region, intersected by deep ravines and impracticable torrents, to the protracting of the war, resolved to take the bolder and more prudent course of trying conclusions, at once, with an enemy whose object it evidently was to act purely on the defensive, and to avoid delivering battle.

Yet, determined as he was, the difficulties of the ground were so great, and so skillfully had Philip availed himself of every defensible point, or coigne of vantage, that many days elapsed before he could decide on the mode of assault.

The river Aöus, now Vioza, an extremely large and powerful river, augmented at every half-mile by fierce mountain torrents, along the valley of which is the most direct pass into Macedonia proper, at this point breaks its way through a chain of exceedingly abrupt and precipitous, though not very lofty mountains, and forms a gorge of six miles in length, closely resembling that picturesque defile of the Delaware, with which many of my readers are doubtless familiar, known as the Water-Gap.

Forced into a space, two-thirds less than its ordinary breadth, the Aöus has here cut its way through the solid rock, between the mounts Asnaus and Aëropus, now Nemertzika and Trebusin, respectively to the left and right of the defile, which here runs nearly south-eastward. The right-hand mountain, Aëropus or Trebusin, is the loftier of the two, descending in a sheer wall of perpendicular and treeless rock to the brink of the only road, scarped out of the living limestone like a cornice above the torrent, which bathes the base of the opposite hill, leaving no level space between.

“The mountain on the opposite or left bank of the river,” says Colonel Leake, whose topography of the Grecian battles founded on minute personal inspection, is no less valuable than interesting, “is the northern extremity of the great ridge of Nemertzika, Asnaus, much lower than that summit, but nearly equal to Trebusin in height. At the top, it is a bare, perpendicular precipice, but the steep lower slope, unlike that of its opposite neighbor, is clothed with trees quite to the river. Through the opening between them is seen a magnificent variety of naked precipices and hanging woods, inclosing the broad and rapid stream of the insinuating river.”^[10]

The road,^[11] difficult in any event to an army, if defended, is impracticable.

In this prodigiously strong pass Philip had taken post, occupying the narrow road with the phalanx, and having his main body hutted comfortably among the loose crags of Aëropus, on a conspicuous summit of which was pitched his own royal pavilion, with the banner of Alexander waving over it. The slopes of the opposite hill, Asnaus, was held by Athenagoras his lieutenant, with the light troops, and all the flanking crags and salient angles of the precipitous hills were mounted with the tremendous military engines, which, though of common use in the defense and attack of fortresses, had never been brought into field service until now.

Immediately in front of this stern mountain gateway extended a small plain, midway between the Roman camp and the Macedonian lines, and here, after a fruitless parley and attempt at accommodation, from which both parties retired so much exasperated at their mutual pertinacity, that the river, which divided them, alone prevented their personal conflict, the light troops met in action from both armies.

It is scarce to be conceived how, with such obstacles against them, the Romans could have escaped destruction; but it is almost ever the case in mountain warfare that the attacking party is successful.

The gray mists of the early summer morning were still nestling among the crags, and brooding in the deep glades of the hanging woods, when the long, shrill blasts of the Roman trumpets announced the impetuous rush of the light troops; and on they went, headlong and invincible, carrying all before them, and driving in the Macedonian skirmishers like the foam of the Adriatic before the fury of the south-east wind.

There was no dust upsurging from the rocky road to shroud their advance, no smoke-clouds to veil them from the shot of the enemy’s artillery, with their bright armor flashing in the sunbeams, as they streamed down the gaps in the mountain summits, and their blood-red banners and tall plumes tossing in the light morning air, on they came, dazzling and unobscured, a fair mark for the deadly missiles, arrows shot off in volleys, vast javelins which no human arm could launch, and mighty stones hurled from the catapults, as if from modern ordnance, which tore their ranks asunder, and leveled whole files to the earth at a blow.

But their extraordinary discipline and admirable armature enabled them to endure the storm; and they made their way through all opposition, until they met the phalanx, bristling with its impenetrable pikes, its flanks impregnably protected by the rocks here, by the river there, and its narrow front offering no point assailable. Then they were checked; but, even then, not beaten back, so stubborn was their Roman hardihood, so firm their resolution to be slain, not conquered.

All day long did that deep glen quake and shudder to the dread sounds of the mortal conflict; the thundering crash of the huge stone-shot, shivering the trees and shivered on the crags; the hurtling of the terrible falaricæ; the clash and clang of steel blades and brazen bucklers; the whirlwind of the charging horse; the shouts and shrieks and death-groans; the thrilling trumpets of the legions; the solemn pæans of the phalanx.

Only when the sun set, and the full, round moon came soaring coldly up above the tree-tops, flooding the bloody stream of the Aöus, and the corpse-incumbered gorge, with silver radiance, did the weary and shattered hosts draw off to their respective camps, from a strife so justly balanced, that none could say which had come off the better, none judge on which side the more or the better men had fallen.

That night, Flamininus sat in his tent alone, anxious, uncertain how to proceed, so terrible had been the loss of life, and so small the advantage; when a shepherd was introduced, sent by Charops, the prince of the Ætolians, who should conduct a detachment, by a wild mountain foot-path, to a height in the enemy’s rear, domineering his whole position.

Four thousand chosen veterans of infantry and three hundred horse, under a tribune of the soldiers, were detailed, instantly, for the service, which would occupy three days.

They should march all night long, such were their orders, for the summer moon was at its full, and the nights light as day and far more pleasant, as being soft with fragrant dews and the cool mountain air. By day, they should halt in some deep, bosky dell or forest glade, to rest and refresh themselves securely. So far as the nature of the ground should admit, the cavalry would lead the way, then halt on the last level. The vantage ground once gained, they should kindle a fire on the summit, but abstain from all active demonstration, till they should perceive the action in the defile at its height. Such were their orders; and in high hope they parted, carrying with them as a guide the shepherd, in chains, as a precaution against treachery, but encouraged by great promises, if faithful.

On the two following days, Flamininus skirmished continually with his light troops against Philip’s outposts, relieving his men by divisions, more to divert the attention of the enemy from the stratagem which was in progress, than with any design to harass him; though in both points of view he succeeded admirably; for the superiority of the Roman light-infantry soldier to the Greek skirmisher was great indeed, and the Macedonians lost many and good men.

On the third ^[12] morning, secure that all had gone well so far, by the immovable attitude of the enemy, neither elevated by any unexpected success, nor shaken by any suspicion of his danger, the consul drew up his legionary cohorts, in solid column of maniples, along the rocky road, before the sun had yet risen, and while the mountain mists still covered the distant peaks with an impenetrable veil.

His light troops, advanced on both flanks, pressed forward along the difficult hill-sides, dashing the heavy dew in showers from the dripping underwood, and threatening the camps of Philip and Athenagoras both at once, with loud shouts and a storm of missiles.

Then were renewed the splendor, the obstinacy, and the carnage of the first encounter. Again the Roman voltigeurs drove in the enemy’s outposts; and beat back the targeteers, who sallied from their works eager for the fray, from post to post, till they came within the range of the artillery, when in their turn they began to suffer heavily.

But at this instant the sun arose; the mists melted gradually away from the bare peaks, which now stood forth glittering in the hazy sunshine. With indescribable anxiety the eyes of Flamininus were riveted upon the distant crag, indicated as the decisive point. There was a vapor floating round it dull and indistinct, and browner than the blue mist wreaths—but was it, could it be, the smoke-signal?

For a time all was an agony of doubt and suspense. His officers gathered about the consul; the legionaries, seeing their commanders’ eyes all turned in one direction, gazed that way also, anxious if ignorant.

Browner the vapor grew and browner; now it soared upward, black as a thunder-cloud, darkening the azure skies, a manifest smoke-signal.

Jove! what a shout arose from the now triumphant cohorts!—what a thrilling shriek of the shrill trumpets, answered faintly and remotely, as if from the skies, by another Roman blast, but liker to the scream of the mountain-vulture than to the clangor of the pealing brass!—what a clang as of ten thousand stithies, when the Spanish blades smote home upon the Macedonian targes!

Yet still the men fell fast on both sides, although the Romans won their way, in spite of artillery and pike and sling-shot, at the sword’s point; for the Greeks still fought stubbornly, and plied their dreadful engines with deliberate aim at point blank range, unconscious that they were surrounded.

Then came the Latin cheers, and the clang of arms, out of the clouds, rolling down the mountain side, on their flank, in their rear; the rush of charging horse!—In an instant they broke, disbanded, scattered, deserted their defenses—all was over.

In the first instance the panic and route of the Macedonians were absolute; and so utterly disheartened and terror-stricken were the men, that, had it been possible to pursue them effectually, the whole army must have laid down its arms or have been cut to pieces.

The ground,^[13] however, was for the most part impracticable to cavalry, and their heavy armature rendered the legions as inefficient in pursuit as formidable in close combat. About two thousand only of the Macedonians fell, more in the battle than in the route; but the whole of the formidable defenses, on which they had expended so much time and toil, were carried at a blow, all their superb artillery, their camp, their baggage, rich with the barbaric pomp of the Macedonian royalty, all their camp followers and slaves, remained the prizes of the victors.

Philip, after he had fled five miles from the field, that is to say, so far as to the eastern extremity of the defile he had fruitlessly endeavored to defend, at length perceiving that he was unpursued, and suspecting the reason, halted on a steep knoll covering the entrance of the pass, and sending out parties along the ridges and through the ravines with which they were familiar, soon collected all his men about his standard save those whom he had left on the field of battle, never to rouse to the trumpet or rally to the banner any more.

Thence he retreated rapidly down the valley of the Aöus, or Vioza, in a south-easterly direction to a place called the camps of Pyrrhus, supposed to be Ostanitza, near the junction of the Voidhomati and Vioza,^[14] where he passed the night; and thence by a prodigious forced march of nearly fifty miles reached Mount Lingon on the following day, where he remained some time in doubt whither to turn his steps, and how to frame his further operations.

Mount Lingon is the eastern and loftiest extremity of a great chain of hills; dividing Macedonia proper from Thessaly on the east and Epirus on the west. It forms a huge, triangular bastion, its northern base overlooking Macedonia, and its apex facing due southward, which is in fact the water-shed between the three great rivers, Aöus or Vioza flowing north-westward into the Adriatic, Penëus or Salamosia flowing eastward into the gulf of Saloniki, and Arecthus or Arta, which has a southerly course into the gulf of the same name, famous in after days for the naval catastrophe of Actium.^[15] The flanks of this ridge are steep, difficult and heavily timbered, but its summits are green with rich, open downs, and watered by perennial springs and fountains, an admirable post of observation, and commanding the descent into all the great plains of Northern Greece. After mature deliberation, Philip retreated still south-eastward to Tricca, now Trikkala, on the Penëus; and, though with a sore heart, devastated his own country, wasting the fields and burning the cities. Such of the population as were capable of following his marches, with their cattle and movables, he swept along with him; all else was given up as plunder to his soldiers, so that no region could suffer aught more cruel from an invader than did Thessaly at the hands of its legitimate defender. Pheræ shut her gates against him, and since he could not spare the time to besiege it, for the Ætolians were coming up with him rapidly, having laid waste all the country around the Sperchias and Macra and made themselves masters of many strong towns, he made the best of his way back to the frontiers of Macedonia.

In the meantime, the consul, after his victory, followed so hard on the track of his defeated enemy, that on the fourth or fifth day, after reorganizing his forces and taking up the pursuit in earnest, he reached Mount Cercetium some fifty miles in advance of Philip’s deserted station on Lingon, where he had given rendezvous to Amynander and his Athamanians, whom he needed as guides for the interior of Thessaly. Thereafter, he stormed Phaloria, received Piera and Metropolis into surrender, and laid siege to Atrax, a strong place not far from Larissa, on the Penëus, about twenty miles above the celebrated pass of Tempe, in which Philip lay strongly intrenched watching his movements, and not more than forty from the shores of the Ægean. This small place, however, garrisoned by Macedonians, offered so stubborn a resistance that Flamininus was unable to take it, until the season was waxing so far advanced, that, finding the devastated plains of Thessaly utterly inadequate to the support of his army, and having no harbors on the coast of Acamania or Ætolia in his rear, capable of receiving transports sufficient to supply him, he judged it best to raise the siege, and fall back to winter-quarters in Phocis, on the shores of the gulf of Corinth, leaving the whole of Thessaly ruined, and its principal towns either destroyed by Philip, or occupied by his own garrisons.

During these proceedings of the consul by land, his brother, Lucius Quinctius, who commanded the fleet destined to co-operate in the war, acting in conjunction with Attalus and the Rhodian squadron, had made himself master of Eretria, Calchis and Carystus, the strongholds and principal towns of Eubœa, winning enormous booty, and stationed himself at Cenchreæ, at the head of the gulf of Eghina, whence he was preparing to lay siege to Corinth, the most opulent and splendid of all the Greek cities, now held by a strong Macedonian garrison, backed by a powerful faction within the walls, for Philip.

Marching down into Phocis without opposition, for except the garrisons of a few scattered towns there was no force, on this side Macedonia, adverse to the Romans, Flamininus took Phanotea by assault, admitted Ambrysus and Hyampolis to surrender, scaled the walls of Anticyra, entered the gates of Daulis pell-mell with the garrison which had sallied, and laid regular siege to Elatia, which was too strong to be taken by a coup-de-main. The capture and sacking of this town was the last military operation of the campaign.

A political event occurred, however, at the close of it, which was even of greater influence in the end, than all the victories of the year, the ratification namely of a treaty of alliance between the powerful Achæan confederacy and the Roman republic, by the consequences of which, joined to the events of the past campaign, all northern Greece from the Isthmus of Corinth to the line formed by the Aöus and Penëus rivers, and the ridges of Lingon and Cercetium, was united under the eagles of the republic against Philip. Within that region, however, the two splendid cities—Corinth, the siege of which by Attalus and Lucius Quinctius had proved unsuccessful, and Argos—still held out for the king, and it was evident that another campaign would be needed for the termination of the war.

Well satisfied with his success, as he had indeed cause to be, for few campaigns on record have more fully and masterly accomplished their end, Flamininus retired into winter-quarters in the island of Corfu, while Attalus and the proprætor Lucius laid up their fleets in the Piræus, and passed the season of inactivity within the walls of Athens.

During the winter, after the election of the new consuls, Caius Cornelius Cethegus, and Marcus Minutius Rufus, but before it was known whether the conduct of the war would be continued to Flamininus, or one of the consuls appointed his successor, a sedition broke out in the town of Opus, and the inhabitants admitted the Romans. The Macedonian garrison, however, still held out, and while Flamininus was preparing to reduce it, a herald arrived from the king, demanding an interview in order to treat of peace. To this the consul, naturally desirous to conclude the war himself, acceded, and a singular interview followed.

A place was appointed on the shore of the gulf of Tituni near Nicæa, and thither came the Roman general, Amynander king of the Athamanes, Dionysodorus envoy of Attalus, Agesimbrotus admiral of the Rhodian fleet, Phæneas prince of the Ætolians, and with them two Achæans, Aristænus and Xenophon. These overland. But Philip came across from Demetrias, now Volo, with one ship of war and five single-banked galleys, and casting anchor as close as might be to the shore, addressed the confederates from the prow of his ship.

Flamininus proposed that he should land, in order that they might converse more at their ease; and, on the king’s refusing, inquired who it was of the company whom he feared.

“I fear none but the immortal gods,” was the haughty reply; “but I distrust many whom I see around thee, and most of all the Ætolians.”

“That,” replied the Roman, “is a peril common to all who parley with an enemy, that they can place confidence in no one.”

“Nay, Titus Quinctius,” answered Philip, “but Philip and Phæneas are not equal inducements to treason; and it is one thing for the Ætolians to find another general, and for the Macedonians to find another king such as I am.”

To this argument there was no reply but silence.^[16] Nor, when they came to speak of conditions, could any terms be effected among so many jarring interests; but it was agreed at length that ambassadors should be sent by all the contracting parties to the Senate. A truce was proclaimed for two months, Philip withdrawing, as a security for his good faith, the garrisons from all the towns of Locris and Phocis; while Flamininus, in order to give color to the proceedings, sent with the ambassadors Amynander king of the Athamanes, Quinctius Fabius, his wife’s nephew, Quinctius Fulvius, and Appius Claudius, all members of his military family.

After awhile the delegates returned. The Senate had given no decision. The province and war of Macedonia, when the consuls were about to cast lots, had been continued to Flamininus as imperator, the tribunes Oppius and Fulvius having strongly represented the impolicy of removing general after general, as fast as each got accustomed to the country and was ready to follow up a first success by a final victory. The argument prevailed, and the option of peace or war was left to the imperator. The Senate was not aweary of the strife, and Flamininus was athirst for glory, not for peace.

No further parley was granted to Philip; and these terms only dictated to him, that he must withdraw his forces from the whole of Greece into his own proper dominions, north of the river Aöus and the Cambunian mountains.

This was of course tantamount to a resumption of hostilities; and both parties, it appears, prepared with equal alacrity and confidence for the final conflict.

The first operation of Philip, who, on finding the necessity of drawing all his resources to a common centre, began to despair of maintaining Corinth, Argos, and his Achæan cities, was to deliver them over for safekeeping to Nabis, tyrant of Lacedæmon, on condition that in case of his being successful against the Romans they should be restored to himself, otherwise they should belong to Nabis.

No sooner was that done, however, than the treacherous tyrant, desirous only to retain his new power, made peace with the Ætolians, furnished the Romans with Cretan auxiliaries to act against Philip, and even entered into illusory negotiations for the delivery of Corinth and Argos, than which nothing was further from his mind, until at least he should have plundered them of all they contained most valuable, and this, with his wife’s aid, he lost no time in doing.

These circumstances, however, were but as mere preludes to the great strife which was about to be determined in the broken and uneven country of north-eastern Thessaly, not far from the ground on which Flamininus had closed his last campaign, to the southward of the Penëus, whither both parties were already collecting their powers and drawing to a head.

Almost before the opening of the spring both leaders were on the alert, and active in preparation; partly by stratagem and the insinuation of a menace, if not its reality, partly by persuasion, Flamininus had the address to bring over the Bœotians, as he had already brought over the Achæans, to the Roman alliance; and thenceforth, every thing in his rear being secure and friendly, he had nothing to do but to look forward and bend up all his energies and powers to the destruction of the enemy before him.

To this end he was well provided; for when his command was continued to him, five thousand infantry, three hundred horse, and three thousand mariners of the Latin allies, were voted him as a reinforcement to his late victorious army.

With these admirable troops, then, he broke up from Elatia, his last conquest, about the vernal equinox, and marching north-westerly by the great road through Thronium and Scarphea, on the gulf of Tituni, arrived at Thermopylæ, where by a preconcerted plan he met the Ætolians in council, and three days afterward, encamping at Xynias in Thessaly, received their contingent of six hundred foot and four hundred horse, under Phæneas their chief-magistrate. Moving forward at once with the celerity and decision which mark all his operations, his force was augmented by five hundred Cretans of Gortyna, under Cydas, and three hundred Illyrians of Apollonia, all light infantry skilled with the bow and sling; and a few days afterward he was joined by Amynander with twelve hundred Athamanians, completing the muster of the allies.

Philip meanwhile was laboring under the sore disadvantage which is sure to afflict, and in the end overthrow, all nations which engage in long careers of conquest. Incessant wars, since the days of Alexander, had worn out the manhood of Macedonia. His own wars had consumed the flower of the adults, and those who remained were the sons of mere youths or of octogenarians, begotten while the men of Macedonia were fattening foreign fields with priceless gore.

As in the last campaigns of Napoleon, Philip’s conscriptions of this year included all the youth of sixteen years, while they recalled to the standard all the discharged veterans who had yet power to trail a pike.

Of this material, however, he had constructed a complete phalanx of sixteen thousand men, the flower of his kingdom, and the last bulwark of his throne. To these were added two thousand native targeteers, two thousand Thracians and Illyrians, about fifteen hundred mercenaries of all countries, and two thousand horse. With this power he lay at Dium, now Malathria, on the gulf of Saloniki awaiting the Romans, by no means despondent, but rather confident of success. For although the last campaign had gone against him, as a whole, still the repulse of the Romans from the walls of Atrax by hard fighting, seemed to counterbalance the forcing of the gorges of the Aöus, while it was undeniable that the phalanx had fully maintained its ancient renown, and was, for all that had yet been proved, invincible in a pitched battle.

No less secure of victory, flushed with past triumphs, and athirst for future glory, Quinctius pressed on, resolved on the first occasion to deliver battle, his forces being, as nearly as possible, equal to those of the king, though he had a superiority of about four hundred horse.

On hearing of the Roman advance, Philip broke up from Dium and marched upon Larissa, intending to deliver battle south of the Penëus, with a view probably to the subsequent defense of the defiles of Tempo, in case of disaster; while Flamininus having failed in an attempt to surprise the Phiotic city of Thebes, marched direct upon Pheræ, previously ordering his soldiers to cut and carry with them the palisades, of which at any moment to fortify the casual encampment of the night.

Both leaders, thus aware of the enemy’s proximity, yet unaware of his exact position, encamped and fortified their camps, the Roman at about six, the Macedonian at four miles’ distance from the town of Pheræ.

On the following day, light parties being sent out on both sides to take possession of the heights above the town, which would seem to be the western slopes of Karadagh, formerly Mount Calcodonium—described by Leake as gentle pasture hills, interspersed with groves of oak, but swelling, a little northward on the way to Larissa, into steep, broken hills, topped with bare limestone crags—they came in sight of one another so unexpectedly, that they were mutually amazed, and neither charged the other, but both sent back for orders to head-quarters, and were ultimately drawn off without fighting. On the second day, both leaders sent out reconnoitering parties of light-armed infantry with some horse, and these encountered on the hill above the suburbs of Pheræ to the northward. It so happened that Flamininus had ordered two squadrons of Ætolian horse on this duty, wishing to avail himself of their familiarity with the country; and these, overboiling with courage and emulous of the Roman renown, so soon as they discovered the enemy, dared the Italians to the test of superior valor, and charged the Macedonians with such metal and prowess that they cut them up very severely; after which, having skirmished for a considerable time with no decisive results, they drew off, as if by mutual consent, to their own encampments.

The ground about Pheræ, being much incumbered with orchards, groves and gardens, and cut up by stone walls and thorn hedges, was very unsuitable for a general action, and both leaders, perceiving this, moved early the next morning by different routes, the great ridge of Karadagh intervening between their lines of march, and intercepting all sound or sight, upon Scotussa, a town some ten miles distant in a westerly direction, lying at the base of the hills, and on the verge of the plain.

The Romans marched to the southward, Philip to the northward of the dividing ridge; and, unaware how nearly they were intrenched, both erected their palisades for the night almost within hearing of their countersigns and trumpets.

The third morning, after they had decamped from Pheræ, was exceedingly thick and foggy; but in spite of this Philip, who had passed the night on the banks of the Onchestus, persevered in marching upon Scotussa, where he hoped to find ripe corn in the plain for his troops. The darkness, however, increased, and ere long one of those tremendous thunder-storms, for which all the limestone countries of upper Greece are so famous, or rather infamous, burst over his head, with hail, and wild whirling wind-gusts, and forked lightnings, and compelled him to halt at once and intrench himself, at the northern base of the bare, craggy hills, forming the summits of the Calcodonium, known as the Cynoscephalæ or dog’s heads, though the resemblance does not go far to justify the appellation.

So soon ^[17] as it cleared a little, though the mist was still so dense that one could scarce see his own hand, he sent out a detachment to occupy the heights of Cynoscephalæ. At the same moment Flamininus sent out his troops of horse and a thousand voltigeurs from Thetidium, where he lay, to feel for the enemy.

These latter fell suddenly into the ambushed outpost of the Macedonians, neither discovering the others till they were at half spear’s length in the gloom. After a momentary pause of amazement, they fell on fiercely, and among the slippery crags, in the dense mist and drizzling rain, the strife reeled blindly to and fro, all striking at once, none parrying, and friend as often injuring friend, as enemy enemy. On both sides, rumor reached the camps, and the Romans being hard pressed and giving way, Flamininus, who was nearest to the scene of action, reinforced his men with two thousand infantry under two tribunes, and five hundred Ætolian horse of Archedamus and Eupolemus.

On the arrival of these, the skirmish was exchanged for close combat; and the encouragement given to the Romans, by the prompt succor, doubling their courage, nor that only, but their physical strength, they charged home so vehemently, that they broke the enemy, and drove them to the steep crags; the din of battle receding from the lines of Flamininus, until the cries of his own men, and the shouts of the victorious legionaries, aroused and alarmed Philip in his camp.

He, expecting nothing on that day less than an engagement, had sent out his men to forage in the plain; but as he saw how things were going, and as the mist was beginning to melt away before the sunbeams, and the clear blue to show above, he ordered up Heracleides the Gyrtonian, commander of the Thessalian cavalry, find Leon, the Macedonian master of the horse, and Athenagoras with all the mercenaries save the Thracians, and launched them vigorously against the enemy.

Rallying upon themselves the broken and disordered troops who had preceded them, these in turn laid on with so heavy a hand, and so furious an impetus that they bore the Romans back bodily, and drove them over the brink of the heights in consternation and disorder toward their own intrenchments; nor would they have failed to do fearful execution on them, if not utterly to destroy them, but for the devoted gallantry of the handful of Ætolian horse, who charged them time after time; and, when repulsed, rallied and charged again; and so gained that invaluable time, which, as it was in this case, is often victory.

At this moment, seeing that the defeat of his cavalry and light troops was not only serious in itself, but was seriously dispiriting the rest of his army, Flamininus drew out his legions in order of battle, harangued them briefly in words of fire, which kindled every soldier’s heart to like passion, and led them straightway into action.

Almost simultaneously Philip, to whom tidings had been brought that the enemy were utterly disordered and in flight, and who was compelled by the urgency of his officers and the eagerness of his men to give battle, contrary to his own better judgment, which knew the ground to be unfavorable to the phalanx, led the right wing of it up the northern ascent of the heights, directing Nicanor, surnamed the elephant, to bring up the centre and left wing close at his heels. On reaching the summit, which had been left vacant when the Macedonian light troops drove back the Romans, he formed line of battle by the left, and thus gained the ground of vantage.

But while he was yet in the act of forming his right, the mercenaries were upon him, crushed in by the advance of the solid cohorts; for Flamininus had rallied his light troops in the intervals of his maniples, and was carrying all before him with great slaughter, himself leading his left wing, the right and centre being a little retired, with the elephants in front.

Philip thus labored at once under a double disadvantage, when, believing himself the assailant of a disordered foe, he found himself assailed—a perilous thing in warfare—and, secondly, when he was compelled to encounter an enemy in full array of battle, while above one half of his own power was in column of march, and as yet unready to deploy.

Up to this moment, the day had been one of accidents and vicissitudes; from this moment it was one of the finest generalship and the finest fighting, and in the end the best fighting carried it.

Mindful of the rule never to receive a charge but on a charge, so soon as he saw Flamininus’ eagles face to face with him, Philip rallied the retreating horse and mercenaries upon his targeteers, with whom he covered his right flank, and ordered the phalanx to double the depth of its files and prepare to charge.

We have all seen, and all know the effect, of two poor lines of modern infantry bringing their muskets from the shoulder to the charge; the thrill which the sudden clash and clatter, and the quick flashing movement sends to the boldest heart—what then must have been the effect on the spectator, when sixteen serried ranks brought down their huge sarissæ, twenty-four feet in length, from the port to the level—the rattle of the massive truncheons sloping simultaneously, like a whole field of bearded grain before a sudden blast, the clang of the steel spear heads against the brazen bucklers, and the glimmering flash of seven points protruded in advance of every shield in the front line.

Such was the spectacle which met the eyes of the legionaries as they crowned the heights of Cynoscephalæ, but no thrill did it send to those stern hearts, but that of ardor and of emulation. Never was such a war-cry heard as burst that day over the rugged hills, for not only did the combatants on both sides, as they rushed to hand and hand encounter, shout with their hearts in their voices, but all who saw it from a distance swelled the tremendous diapason.

The clang might have been heard at a mile’s distance, as the pike-points of the phalanx smote full upon the bosses of the long legionary shields, and bore back the loose lines by sheer force, orderly still and unbroken, while the Spanish broadswords of the Romans hewed desperately, but in vain, into the twilight forest of the impenetrable sarissæ.

Stubbornly the Romans fought and long; and when at length broken, they were not beaten; when borne backward foot by foot they still disdained to fly; but fell where they stood, and died fighting.

But Flamininus, who had the true eye, the true inspiration of a great general, ever the keenest and the clearest in the most direful turmoil of the headiest fight, had marked, like Wellington at Talavera, a gap in the enemy’s array.

Leaving his broken right wing to its fate, he rushed, confident at one glance of victory, to the head of his centre, and charged, with his elephants in front, by a rapid oblique movement, full upon the left wing of the phalanx, as it mounted the heights in marching, rather than in fighting, order. Here, before it could form, almost before it could level its long pikes, it was pierced in a hundred places at once; and, in almost less time than is required to describe it, the fierce Spanish broadswords of the legionaries, fleshed in its vitals, had reduced it to a weltering mass of inextricable confusion and almost unheard of carnage.

The Roman left, cheered by the triumph of their comrades, rallied upon themselves and returned to the charge; and simultaneously an unordered movement of a tribune of the soldiers, which should have rendered him immortal, although his name has not survived, decided the victory, as completely as did a like inspiration, on the part of the unrewarded Kellerman, decide that of Marengo.

This nameless tribune—a shame that he should be nameless—when the enemy’s left and centre fled, wheeled with a mere handful of men round the rear of Philip’s right, and, gaining the very summit from which he had descended, at the moment when the Romans rallied in its face, fell like a thunderbolt on the unguarded rear of its yet unbroken masses.

In any event, a rear or flank attack upon the phalanx, so ponderous a column that it could even when unassailed with difficulty form a new face, was perilous; here it was fatal.

The battle was ended as by a thunder-clap. Of the Macedonians eight thousand fell in the field, five thousand laid down their arms; their camp was taken, but before the victors entered it, it had been sacked by the Ætolians; their king, not tarrying to burn his papers at Larissa, fled without drawing bridle through Tempe into Macedonia.

Of the Romans seven hundred lay dead in their ranks on the field; so true is Sallust’s apophthegm, that audacity is as a rampart to the soldier, and flight more perilous than battle.

Yet never was a battle won which was so nearly lost, except Marengo; which it in several points resembles.

In the first place, like Marengo, it was in fact not one, but two battles, in which the victors of the first were the vanquished of the second.

In the second place, like Marengo, its last and crowning success was due to an unordered, self-originating, charge of a subordinate officer, with a mere handful of men on the flank or rear of a victorious column.

But in this, unlike Marengo, it was the eagle eye, the prompt decision, and the lightning-like execution of the general in chief, not the shrewd observation of a second in command, that redeemed the half lost battle, and changed the pæans of an exulting conqueror into groans of anguish and despair.

With Cynoscephalæ, terminates the splendor of Flamininus’ military career, but not the splendor of his life.

Philip at once sued for peace, and the general, aware that a war had broken out between Antiochus, King of Syria, and Rome, and dreading Philip’s co-operation with him, if driven to despair, at once granted him terms.

He withdrew all his garrisons from Greece; delivered all his fleet, with the exception of ten galleys; paid an indemnification of a thousand talents, for the expenses of the war; gave up his son Demetrius as a hostage, for his faithful observance of the conditions; and, to his credit be it spoken, ever continued true in his allegiance to the Romans.

At first, apprehending trouble from Antiochus, the Senate determined to keep Roman garrisons in the three strongholds of Chalcis, Corinth, and Demetrius; but so loud were the complaints of the Greeks in general, of the Æolians in particular, and so consistent did they appear to Flamininus, that he used the great personal weight and influence he had gained with the people and the Senate, not to obtain personal honors, wealth or distinction, but to procure the complete liberation of Greece, and the withdrawal of every foreign soldier from her confines.

The proudest hour of his life, save one, was when he sat in his curule chair at the Isthmian games, a spectator of the show, and heard the Roman trumpet-blast command attention, and the Roman herald make proclamation—“The Senate, and the Imperator, Titus Quinctius, having subdued King Philip and the Macedonians, give to the Corinthians, Locrians, Phocians, Eubæans, Achæans, Pthiotians, Magnetians, Thessalians, and Perrhæbians, liberty, immunity from garrisons, immunity from tribute, and the right of self-government, according to their own constitutions.”

At first men heard not, or hearing, believed not, for very joy, that such happiness could be; and they called upon the herald to repeat his proclamation.

Then such a shout arose as rang from sea to sea across the Isthmus. The like of it was never heard before or afterward in Greece. And what has often been said hyperbolically, to lend grandeur to descriptions of the human voice, was then actually seen to happen;^[18] for crows winging their way over the amphitheatre fell into the arena, stunned by the concussion of the air.

As one man, the whole theatre stood up. There was no more talk of the combatants. Every one spoke of Flamininus, every one would touch the hand of the champion, the liberator of Greece.

Two years longer he tarried among the Greeks, as commissioner to see the treaties carried out; and for a short time he fell into odium with the people he had liberated, for that, when he was warring against Nabis, the cruel tyrant and usurper of Lacedæmon, and might have dethroned him, he made peace, and suffered him to retain his blood-bought dominion. Some were so base as to attribute this to jealousy of Philipœmen. His own statement, and our knowledge of his character bears out that statement, asserts that he could not destroy Nabis, without destroying Sparta, and that in preference to destroying Sparta, he suffered Nabis to go free.

But when he left the shores of Hellas, after interceding twenty times, and mediating successfully between the Greeks and his successors, the Ætolians much desired to make him some great gift, that should prove their great love and veneration. But the known integrity of the man deterred them; for it was notorious that he would receive naught that savored of a bribe.

At last they bethought them. There were in Greece twelve hundred Roman citizens, who had been captives to Hannibal, and by him sold as slaves. Their sad case had of late been sadly aggravated, as slaves themselves and bondmen, they all saw their countrymen, many their kinsmen, some their brethren or their sons, free, conquerors, and hailed as saviors of the land, to which they were enslaved.

Titus had grieved for them deeply; but he was too poor to ransom them, too just to take them by the strong hand from their lawful owners. So the Ætolians ransomed them at five minæ ^[19] the head; and, as he was on the point of setting sail, brought them down to the wharf in a body, and presented them to him, the gift of liberated Greece. “A gift worthy,” says Plutarch, “of a great man, and a lover of his country.”

A gift, say I, which none would have offered but to—what is far greater than a great—a good man. A gift which proves alike the character of the givers, and the receiver. An honor, as few gifts are, to both.

I care not that in Flamininus’ triumph those twelve hundred ransomed Romans, of their own free will, walked with shaven heads and white caps, as manumitted slaves, and that the people of Rome had no eyes for the hostage prince, or the barbaric gold, or the strange Macedonian armor—had no eyes for Flamininus himself, but only for the twelve hundred manumitted Romans.

But I do care that the Ætolians knew, from their knowledge of the man, that there was one invaluable gift which it would gladden the heart of the incorruptible of men to receive at their hands, richer than untold gold, inestimable jewels, the priceless liberty of freeborn Romans.

It does not belong to the military career of Flamininus, but it does to the history of his life, that in after days he was sent by the Senate ambassador to Prusias, king of Bithynia, for the purpose of compelling the surrender into their hands of the aged, exiled, down fallen Hannibal; and that, rather than fall into those pitiless hands, which never refrained the scourge and axe from the noblest foeman, the old man had recourse to the

“Cannarum vindex et tanti sanguinis ultor,

Annulus.”^[20]

Nor do I choose to pass it over in silence. Since it is to be remembered that the highest pride of a Roman was to do his duty; and his duty was whatever his country ordered. So that, however odious the task imposed, and we know too much of this man’s character not to be sure that the embassy to Prusias was odious, a consular of Rome had no choice but to obey Rome’s bidding.

There was, moreover, much in the pertinacity with which Hannibal journeyed from barbarous court to barbarous court, in the hope of kindling a fire-brand for Rome’s conflagration, even after his own country was prostrate beyond the chance of resurrection, to palliate if not justify the rancor of Romans. The inextinguishable hater has no right to complain if the hatred against himself be inextinguishable.

The last office held by Flamininus, was the censorship—the highest, noblest, purest dignity in the gift of the state; and never—at least in those days—bestowed on any but the noble and the pure. It was the Corinthian capital to the career of the honored and honorable Roman magistrate, and such was Titus Quinctius Flamininus.

But he was something more than a general, more than a statesman—he was every inch a man.

“I broke off in my last without an ending, which I could not help; I am not a bit more mistress of my own time than if I was a born lady, and oh, aunt dear, but I do pity them ladies—you’d never believe how hard they work—not with their heads or their hands, but in a way twice as bad. You think it hard enough to put on your things of a Sunday. Oh! if you knew the dressing and undressing, the shopping, the driving round and round and round in a place they call a park—where there’s no sign of a mountain or any thing to raise the spirits—the visiting! not having a bit of friendly talk with those they like, but wearing the life and liveries off their servants, posting from house to house, and just leaving little squares of pasteboard at the doors.”

“ ‘Has Lady Jane Vivian never inquired how I am?’ asked my poor mistress.

“ ‘Ellen,’ she said again, a few days after, ‘Mrs. Brett tells me, Lady Jane Vivian called every day, and left cards.’

“ ‘Sure, Ma’am,’ I said, ‘what would make her leave the cards here, we’re no gamblers;’ this was when first I was own maid to my mistress—so she smiled again, and said how it was I did not understand that ladies left their names printed on pasteboard squares; and that was the same thing as a visit. Well! I had my own thought of what a cold, unnatural thing it was to send a square of pasteboard up to a poor sick lady, instead of comforting her, with a bright smile and kind words, and all sorts of cheerful discourse. But I supposed it was manners, and every people have their own; and then she asked for the cards. Now, the mistress of the house we lodged in, scrambled up every bit of them pasteboards with a title, and stuck them round the looking-glass, in her little, dingy back-parlor, for a nobility show. So I had to go and ask her to pick out all the Lady Jane Vivians, which she did, and gave them with a toss of her head, saying, ‘She did not want such a scrap of an ould maid’s title for the matter of that, she had lords and dukes! calling on her, before now.’ It was on the tip of my tongue to say, ‘Calling on your lodgers, you mean, ma’am,’ but I held my peace. Well! would you believe it? My own mistress was as proud of them five bits of pasteboard, as I’d be of five shillings! And she bade me bring her a fine chaney dish with a small tea-party painted on it, up in the air and down on the earth, beside a little railway, and little tufty houses one atop of the other, and bells at the corners—a fine ancient dish it is, like nothing on the earth or in the sea, which she says shows its imagination; well, she takes every one of the cards up in her poor, thin, trembling fingers, and then she rubs them clean and puts them right; the Misters and Mistresses, and the young Misses all down below, and the Sirs and Lords and Ladies on the top; mighty neat entirely to look at; and all the time, the darling! she was railing at the vanity of the lodging-house woman who wanted to show off the fine names, and never seemed to think that she was doing the same thing; to be sure, she had a right to them, and right is right; but the vanity, to my thinking, was all one. I had a deal more to tell you about that church—but one who knows said, it was fitter for me to hold my tongue; the reason is this, that it’s better for us, you understand, to keep on never heeding them, and not to put them in mind of what they are doing, and they will all walk, as easy as any thing, back to the fine, true, ould, ancient church of Rome: they call it High Church now, but if they’re let alone, one who knows says, they’ll soon be higher, on the highest pinnacle of St. Peter’s! so all we have to say, aunt dear, is just good luck to every poor traveler on the right road.

“Do you mind Mary Considine, who you used to call the blue-bell of the Shannon? She was the beauty of the place, I have heard, when she married her own first cousin, Ned Considine? don’t you also mind telling me how cruel hard she was to be pleased; and how, after she had married him, she said she intended taking a house, but changed her mind, and took Ned, and was greatly disappointed in taking him, for he was very deaf?

“Well, who should I chance to find out but this very Mr. and Mrs. Considine; and indeed it’s little remains of beauty she has now; the country, or rather the town life, does not agree any how with beauty, living as they do, at the back of ‘God speed,’ in a small court; though, as you will see by’n bye, they have lashings ^[21] of money: they’ve one son and a daughter. I met the young girl (she was born to them, I may say, in their old age, a last rose of their summer) at mass, and I think we knew each other by nature: my mistress gave me leave to run over and see her, and when she came to me took great delight in her smiling, innocent face, and the sweet voice I told her she had; and she sang some of the Irish melodies like an angel, if you can think of an angel singing any thing but holy psalms. And this young Mary is well brought up, quite above the common; reading and writing is nothing to her; and as to other accomplishments she’s wonderful; and can tell every fortune out of a book, except her own! Now, among the many prides her mother has gathered, the one that bothers Mary the most, is that she does not like any body to think she is Irish; she thinks she turns her tongue so purty on the English, and as my poor mistress says (for she heard her at it) with a brogue, a rale Cork brogue; not the same as our pretty, delicate Leinster accent; but (as the mistress says) ‘a brogue strong enough to carry St. Paul’s to St. Peter’s,’ and so I thought, particularly now, when it’s on the road. My mistress says it’s quite absurd to look at her courtesey; and when you talk to her of her country, to hear her cry out—‘Why then, how did you know I was Irish?’ The Irish divert my poor mistress a great deal. She encourages me to tell all about my country, and she has been more like a mother than a lady to Mary Considine.

“But about poor Mary. She was overjoyed that her father and mother took so to me, and, indeed, so was I, for the music of home is in Mary’s sweet voice; and it is the next best thing to being in my own land, to hear her sing ‘The Exile of Erin;’ and then, while the tears are wet on my cheek, she tunes up ‘Shielan-a-guira,’ with a heart and a half; her eyes are so beaming with light, that you wonder where the dark place is in them, and yet it’s all the time a light in darkness. I can’t discourse you now her features one by one, but altogether: the poor Irish never pass her in the street without a blessing, or the English without a stare—still I saw that Mary was far from happy. I have not much time to watch or inquire, but I could not sleep for thinking of her—Mrs. Considine’s mouth was full of the titles of the great quality she’d see in the Park, and she traveled about with a book she called a peerage, in her pocket, while poor Mary would show me the bits of flowers she’d pick out of the grass, or bring my mistress a bunch of violets from Covent Garden Market. As to her father, he hardly ever stirs out, except to watch that his son, who has a situation at Blackwall, does not spend his pence on an omnibus—he makes a fair god of his money; how the priest gets over it I don’t know, for he’s the greatest miser I ever heard of—a fair neager ^[22]—not like his countrymen.

“Well, aunt; at last poor little Mary let me into the very heart of her trouble. She was in love—in love with maybe you think some delicate dandy chap of an Englishman; for Mary is very little—a fairy of a thing, (God bless us!) that might pass for a real ‘fairy’ in her own country—as thin as a willow-wand, as straight as a bullrush, but small, you understand. I wanted her to tell me who it was, and she used to hide her face and cry, and then look up, blushing like a rose among the dew-drops. At last, she said she’d show him to me next evening; she was going to confession, and he would do the same, and meet her at the door. So away they went. There were three or four young men at the door, one with a sky-blue tie and a fine waistcoat. I was so sure that was him, that I never looked at any one else; but she passed on, tossing her head disdainfully at the blue tie.

“ ‘He’s not here,’ she whispered; and the little creature trembled on my arm. She soon made a clean breast, and I waited, as I had leave to do; the sky-blue tie waited also, but Mary was too quick for him, she darted round the corner, while he was admiring his own shadow, thrown by the full moon on the wall, and I after her.

“ ‘Come on,’ she said, almost breathlessly; ‘come on; that’s the man my father wants me to marry, but I’ll die first!’ We walked fast, but she took, as I thought, the wrong turning—I told her so, but she looked up in my face, and smiled. It was a narrow court, and at the far end, a smith’s forge. I heard the bang of the hammer, and saw the light, all in a glow, and a thousand sparkles like falling stars! Mary got under the shadow of the houses—she crept on, the hammer going, the fire glowing, the sparkles falling all the time, and the shadow as of a giant, forging the red bar, as if the hammer was a wand. Well, she avoided the door, but drew me on to a slit in the window, still keeping in the shadow—‘that’s him,’ she whispered. Aunt, dear, the sweetheart that mite of a little beauty had set her love on, was—just there and then—a rale giant! He looked strong enough to fling a thunderbolt, and active enough to make a play-fellow of the lightning. When he stopped, and threw back his hair, I thought I had never seen so noble a head, but his face looked pale in the flashing light. Mary never spoke but the one word, she never sighed, nor signed to him in any way, yet he wiped his brow, pulled down his sleeves, and came to the window.

“ ‘Mary, Mary,’ he whispered, and his voice was as soft as the coo of a wood-quest.^[23] ‘Speak, Mary, I know you are there, it’s no use hiding from me, I know it as well as if my eyes were looking into yours, and as if you had told me so.’

“ ‘I am here, Philip,’ she said. ‘My friend was with me, and as you were not at the Priest’s, I thought you had something to do particular.’

“ ‘Yes, Mary,’ he answered; ‘but that did not keep me. Your father came here to-night; he gave me clearly to understand, and without civility, he did not wish me to continue to keep your company; he said, your mind, as well as his own, turned another way.’

“ ‘I believed my own eyes,’ he answered, folding his great arms over his chest, his eyes glaring in his dusky face like coals of fire. ‘I went to the Priest’s door, and saw that clean, done-up youth, with his blue tie round his throat, and his boyish hands, only fit to finger a yard measure, scenting the place with his white pocket-handkerchief. O, Mary, fancy my hands dangling a scented handkerchief!’ and he dashed them passionately forward. ‘When you did change,’ he added, ‘you might have chosen a man—not a monkey.’

“ ‘And you misdoubted me,’ she said, standing firm and straight in her pride. ‘Well, then, Philip, I’ll just say good-bye at once;’ and then she struggled and struggled to untwist something from her neck, and flung it right in through the window. The fire, which had been flickering and flickering, flamed up, and there, lying on the black floor, shone a little golden locket, and a broken velvet.

“To my dying day, I shall never forget the look that strong man cast from the locket to Mary, but I know he could not see her face, it was in the darkness to him, though I saw, plain enough, her quivering lips and glowing cheeks—he stamped on the locket, and I heard it scrunch beneath his foot. She flew like a rapid over a rock of the Shannon, and was away in a minute—I turned to follow her, but the strong grasp of the smith was on my shoulder.

“ ‘Why did she come here at all?’ he said, and his voice was deep and husky. ‘What brought her? why should she come to torture me? it’s all along of the old man’s love of money, and her mother’s mad love of fine names. She told me my name, Philip Roche, was vulgar. O, to think of the love I bore her, slaving by day and night to make her a home, keeping to my pledge, and working—and well able to do it—on water.’

“Mary, I told him, knew nothing of it, she had no hand in it: I wanted to tell him how she took me to the door to see him, and not finding him there, drew me to the forge—her innocent heart full of love for him, and for him alone; the thoughts came fast enough into my head, but I could not speak them—I was bewildered, the despair written in his face haunted me—the look he gave, and the iron hand on my shoulder, stupefied me altogether, and though we walked on fast—fast after her—I trembled in every limb, and lost all power of speech.

“Words he certainly spoke betimes, and they hissed off his lips, as water hisses off a smoothing-iron. We tramped faster and faster, past the houses, and under the light of the lamps, and through the people, until we came to the court where they lived—there he stopped in sight of the door, and such a sight it was to him!—for there, on the very step, waiting to have it opened, stood Mary Considine, and the blue neck-tie. I cannot tell you, aunt dear, how it was that I felt so interested for that strange, strong smith, Philip Roche, whom I had never, to say rightly, seen. No wonder the people stopped and stared after him, for he was without a hat, and his long hair tossicated about his head: I looked up to him, and maybe it was best that I could not see his features, I only heard him mutter—‘Do you see, do you see? Has she no hand in it now?’ He staggered forward, but I caught him.

“ ‘Have patience,’ I said; ‘have patience, it will all come right, she has no hand in it.’ He threw me off as if I had been a child, and the last I saw of him was his head above the people that had gathered round the court. I walked quietly on, and when I entered the house there stood Mary, white as a sheet, while Mr. and Mrs. Considine were doing all manner of civilities to the young man, who was acting the gentleman, smiling and bowing and twisting a seal—set the likes of him up with a seal—at the end of his watch-chain—a seal which was big enough for the rapper of a hall-door—and dangling a ring he had on his starved, crooked, little finger, right in the foolish old man’s eyes. ‘And wont you sit down, Mr. Henry Highley,’ said one, ‘and wont you stop for tay,’ says the other. And seeing me staring at him, Mrs. Considine adds—

“ ‘A young lady-friend of my daughter’s, who stops mostly with a friend of her own at the West-end.’

“Now, aunt, I didn’t care about her calling me a lady, but I couldn’t bear being put on a level with my mistress, a rale lady born.

“And I said, ‘my mistress lives at the West-end, sure enough.’ Mrs. Considine frowned at me, and Mary left the little room.

“ ‘Come back, Mary,’ called her father; ‘bring her back,’ whispered her mother.

“It was well I followed her—she had fainted: I laid her on the bed, and did all I could for her. When she was coming to herself, she put up her hand—I thought, maybe, to feel for the locket, but that might be my fancy. It was long before I could make her deaf father understand that she was too ill to return, but her mother saw it at once, and after we put her to bed, and she drank a cup of tea, and said she thought to go to sleep, we left her—I staid a few minutes below, though I saw the old man wished me gone. And now, aunt, don’t be angry, but I think I could have found it in my heart to give that Cub-een of a fellow, a glass of poison: his face was not only vicious, sharp, and thin, and active, like a rat’s—but he had his eyes every where. I saw him weigh the tea-spoon on his fore-finger in a balancing sort of fashion, and then look at the mark to be sure it was silver: he drew the old people on in such a way, getting more out of Mr. Considine than ever was got out of him before, as to his property and means—getting him to talk of interest and bankers, and the like: and the old man cursed the savings banks, and said money was never so safe as in one’s own house, and that the best of all banks for him was his leather bag—the more I looked at Mr. Henry Highley, the more I hated him, and sorry enough was I to know that young Considine had gone a journey for his employer, and was not to the fore, when most wanted.

“I stole up for another look at Mary. She was, or purtended to be, asleep; but it was put into my heart to kneel down and pray for her. The words were not many, but the Lord knew their meaning. I dipped my finger in the holy-water cup, that hung at the head of her bed, and signed the blessed sign over her forehead, without touching her. She looked so helpless, and so lonely there—her young innocent face, still wet with tears, turned up to the heavens—the moonlight was hindered from shining on her by the fog that hangs about the London streets by day and night; and maybe so best, for moonlight lays heavy on a throbbing brow, and is not over lucky, particularly—as you know—when it’s full moon. So I did not go into the little room again, but hurried home, for I had overstaid my time by more than an hour. I was near my own street, when who came to my side but Mr. Henry Highley: and he said, it was dull walking my lone,^[24] and he’d see me home, and I told him I had the sight of my eyes, and could see myself and him too. And he said I was very witty, and I said, I was sorry I could not return the compliment. Then he thought to fish out about my mistress—she must be a rich lady to keep the likes of me. And I answered riches had nothing to do with that: I did not want to sell myself, or buy any one, and that I should be happier to serve for love than for money; but he stuck to the question—Had she plate and jewels? So, turning sharp on him, I said that any one would think he was a house-breaker, and I laughed: this was at the door; and there was a policeman passing, who stopped. Well, aunt, Mr. Henry Highley, without another word—with your leave or by your leave—whisked off.

“ ‘You are neither judge or jury, to be questioning me,’ I answered; for it isn’t the nature of an Irish girl to put up with a policeman.

“ ‘I mark you,’ he said very stiff—but they are all that—‘and when the time comes, young woman, I’ll find a way to make you tell,’ and he walked off.

“Now, aunt dear, sure I had enough of walking on and off that night! My mistress was angry; but I did as you told me often enough—instead of making excuses, and inventions, which come mighty pleasant and natural, I just told the plain truth—quiet and easy—all except the last, for I did not wish to make her uneasy, as I was myself, having a cruel bad opinion of Mr. Henry Highley.

“It’s mighty quare how, in this wonderful city of business and bother, how your little, peaceful sayings, darling aunt! and the songs you sung to the wheel of a winter’s evening, with none but the pusheen-cat, and myself, and a cricket or two to the fore, come into my head, or one of Watts’ hymns, in the very bustle of the town: I often dust the room to ‘Aileen Mavourneen,’ and brush my lady’s hair to ‘Eveleen’s bower,’ played on the chords of my heart. Sometimes, when I draw back the curtain, and shade the light of the pale night-lamp, with my hand, for fear it might wake her—the mistress I mean—for I never lay down until she is asleep: often, when I watch her features, worn with pain, yet so still, and gentle-looking, and see her pale, pink lips, half open, and such a sweet smile on them, I think—the sleeping face differs so from the waking one—that angels must be whispering the joys that will come. When the last dull sleep is ended, aunt, I am sure I should go mad if I thought that dear innocent woman, so tortured in this world, yet so meek in herself, so thoughtful and generous to the poor, so kind in her judgments, so fond to take the sorrows of all who have sorrow into her bosom, and turn them to blessings—I should indeed break my heart, if I believed that, for reading the one book another way, we should never meet in the world that’s to come. I can’t believe it, so there’s enough about it. As I looked at her, the song of ‘The Angels’ Whisper,’ came for a second time into my head that night, and then I crooned over that ‘Savourneen delish’ you are so fond of; and that brought poor Tom and his motherless children before me! Aunt, dear—maybe I didn’t use Tom well! I couldn’t help it: though you often told me I should not cast out dirty water until I could get clean—not a grate compliment to Tom either!—yet to be obliged, after a few words, to be a mother all out to three sharp children; and if he was cold and weary, and didn’t smile and talk every day the same, to have the creeping chill steal over me like the shake,^[25] that he was thinking of his first wife, and maybe comparing us in his own mind—that would drive me as wild as the other thing I tould you of a while ago; and yet, I own to you, I have thought more of poor Tom since I left home, than ever I did while I was there.

“The next day, and the next day, and the next passed, and no word from Mary, and my mistress was ill. Once I ran as far as the turn to the lane, and looked down at the forge. The fire was burning low, and there was no sound of the hammer on the anvil. At last, Mrs. Considine herself called; she was very full of prate: she had the dirty red book, as usual, half sticking out of her black bag: she said, that indeed Mary had demeaned herself by taking up with nothing but a smith, a great friend of her brother’s, and one she would not deny who had done him more than one good turn, and would be right well to do in the world if he had a little capital to push him on, which neither her nor her husband would give to a man of the name of Roche. Roche, indeed! Roches were as plentiful as black-berries, and as common, where she came from. Set her Mary before the priest with a Roche? No, no; Mr. Henry Highley was the man for their money, so nice a gentleman; for every sovereign her husband laid down as Mary’s fortune, he would lay down another, or could two! And such jewelery as he had; rings for every finger, and fine watches, one set with precious stones—which had belonged to his grandmother—a Talbot itself! There was all about the family printed in the peerage, and sure it wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t true—but indeed she couldn’t tell what was come over Mary: she had no pride, no spirit in her; her husband would weigh the watches in his hand, and look at the rings all day, and ask what they were worth over and over again, and take them to bed with him, if he was let, he had such delight in them. But they might be so much pinchback, for any thing Mary cared; they would have the wedding at once, and when it was over, she’d know better. Mr. Highley was so fond of her, he wouldn’t hear of delay, not even until her brother came home! She let on that Mary, when married, would be too grand company for the likes of me, but that she would not be proud. I might look in sometimes, she’d be glad to see my mistress when they got into a new lodging, which Mr. Highley said they must after the wedding—for his sake, dear, sweet, well-born, well-bred young gentleman!

“Like her impudence, it was: My mistress itself! MY MISTRESS! visit with her: och hone! What would the cards on the fine china dish say to it, if they could but speak? But, aunt dear, what do you think I did, when she, and her bag, and her book were cleared out of the house? I told my mistress every word she had said. Now it was a mercy that she was quite herself that morning, and sure enough she has a head almost as clear for business as our dear QUEEN’S! God bless it for ever, for a right, royal, noble head!—the Queen’s, I mean—She did not ponder long, but laying her spectacles in her Bible, for a mark, she set it besides the china dish.

“ ‘Ellen,’ she said, ‘have you ever seen the policeman, who spoke to you, since that night?’

“That ‘Do as I tell you,’ is the same thing as ‘Hold your tongue.’ So, aunt dear, if you please, you must just fancy me looking for a real, living policeman; and for a wonder, I found him when he was wanted. He soon stood like a statute before my mistress.

“She told him word for word what I have told you: he noted it all down in a bit of a book, and was mighty particular over the number of rings and the Talbot watch; he then looked at me, and my mistress nodded for me to leave the room. Now, wasn’t that too bad?

“I never felt more hard set to put up with any thing in my born days; but I went—and, only my mistress has nerves, wouldn’t I have banged the door? When the bell rung he was gone: she told me I was to go over in the evening, and see Mary. When I got there, Mrs. Considine was watching for the postman, who was coming down the court. She took a letter from him, which I saw was directed to Mary: she read it hastily, and tossed it into the fire. ‘My relations,’ she said, with a toss of a different kind, ‘hearing of the fine match Mary is going to make, write constantly to get them situations.’ A double story—I was so ashamed for her. Aunt dear, God bless you for teaching me that there is no such thing as an ‘innocent lie.’ The old miser of a man was in a little inner room they have, divided by a passage from the one we were in, where they sleep themselves: the windows open into a lane, dark as dungeon by day or night. He was fumbling at his leather bag, and came out talking to himself, muttering such things as these—

“ ‘At first he said it should be guinea for guinea; but now, it’s two guineas for one—two guineas for one! Ah! Nelly Nowlan, a fine match! The smith had nothing but his four bones, and would have wanted my hard-earned, little savings, and no guinea for guinea, or one to two:’ and his eyes, so dim and glassy, rolled within their seamed lids, and he rubbed his skinny, bloodless hands together, as if joy and gold were all one. ‘Money makes the man,’ he continued, ‘all England owns that: they are a wise people, the English, they never ask what you are, but what you have. When my pretty daughter sits on her own car, wont every one bow to her and I? O, if I was back in my own place, instead of poor ould Ned Considine, wouldn’t I be Mr. Edward, sir, with a ’squire to it! Ah, ah, I know the world, but the world does not know me!’

“ ‘Has there been no letter?’ I heard the low, trembling voice of Mary inquire, as she entered the house.

“ ‘The girl’s foolish to be asking after letters. One from Ireland, from our people, wanting places,’ was her mother’s reply.

“When Mary saw me, she burst into tears, and hung about my neck like a child. She whispered that she was not long for this world, that Philip had forgotten her, that she should never be happy more. She would obey her parents and die—my mistress had warned me to hear all and say nothing. I comforted poor Mary as well as I could, and was asked to the wedding the next day—I told my mistress, and again she saw the policeman. O, aunt, wasn’t it cruel of the mistress not to trust me? I didn’t care what she had to say, but I did want to be trusted. She said she did not fear my zeal, only my discretion. Wasn’t it hard?

“I went to the wedding—there was the Priest, a fine, ould, ancient Clargy, of the right sort: there was the bridegroom, looking pale and wicked, with as much finery on him as would set up a jeweler’s shop. There was the father and mother, all excited; there were a couple of bridesmaids, new-fangled acquaintances, and two or three strangers, friends of the bridegroom’s, that Mr. and Mrs. Considine made a great fuss over, and called by the finest of names: there was a dinner, half-laid out in an upper room, that no one on the banks of the Shannon ever saw the like of: little puff things, all ornamented out by a real confectioner, in a white apron, such a sight of folly and nonsense. I was quite set on one side, and looked on any thing but kindly by the whole of them, except the old man, who kept on talking about his money. They seemed all unnatural to me, as if they only wanted the bride as a part of the ceremony, while all over the world, if a woman is ever as a queen, it’s from the morning till the evening of her wedding day, what she is after that depends upon another. The bridesmaids kept going in and out, and at last, one had the manners to tell me, the bride wanted me. I knew that long ago.

“She was standing like a spirit, all in white, in the middle of her little room. She seemed turned into stone, stiff and stark as a corpse in its shroud: her mother was wringing her hands by her side, her face like scarlet, and if ever she spoke with a brogue she did then.

“ ‘Och Mary a lanna machree!—Sure it isn’t disgracing us you’d be, going back of your word, Mary, my own darlin’ child. Sure, darlin’, I hated the very ground yer father walked on, even after I had married him a good while. I was disappointed in him, dear: but when I got over thinking of love, and all that sort of nonsense, when my heart dried up, and I was all head, I knew what a fine, savin’ man I had got, who understood the value, even of a brass farthing: he was ould enough to be my father—let alone yours; but what does that signify, he helped me to grow ould before my time: and look at the money he’s able to give you, and win you, Mary mavourneen—what’s come to you, child? sure you consented all out, and what ails you now?’

“I pressed her cold hands within mine: they felt turned into bone, cold and hard and dry.

“ ‘You’re murderin’ your own child, Mrs. Considine,’ I said: ‘you are killing her as surely as if you put a pistol to her head, or poison to her lips.’

“The wicked old man called to Mary from the bottom of the stairs to go down, and added a curse on her delay: the bridesmaids—one in particular, who was as hard as the rest at first, had kept on saying—God forgive her—that love one side was like a fire, and would soon catch the other—now looked terrified, and pity-struck.

“Again the call and the curse were repeated: Mary started, as if from a dream: she drank off a glass of water from her mother’s hand, who kept repeating—‘That’s a jewel, there’s a darlin’, corra machree was she,’ and such like nonsense; to which the poor girl made no reply, but pressed her hands on her temples, and whispered to me—‘Pray to God for me!’ She walked straight into the room: the bridegroom met her with ‘Sweet Love,’ and a flourish of his pocket-handkerchief, a smile on his lips—but such oak-sticks between his eyes. She put him on one side with her little hand, and advancing to the priest, knelt down reverently before him: there was a hush in the room, nothing heard but the clink of the gold in the leather bag the old man was shaking out of pride.

“O, it would have melted a heart of stone to look at that young creature! Tears overflowing her face, so that she could not speak, and her hands wrung together.

“The bridegroom whispered something to her mother about her being nervous, but it would soon go off: I could have killed him! He then handed round the ring for us to look at; aye, while SHE was weeping and trembling at the priest’s feet. When he held it to me, I struck it down. Aunt, I could not help it! What a look he gave! It rolled along the floor; but his attention was drawn to Mary’s words.

“ ‘Father,’ she sobbed, to the priest, ‘save me—save me from my own people; save me, a young, helpless girl; save me from marrying him I hate. Oh, do not let them put the sin of a false oath upon my young head—I cannot love him. Father, you know I owned to you in holy confession, but ten days past, that I loved another—that I love him still. I will never, never speak to him, or write to him, or ask to set eyes on him again; I will quit the world, and go into a holy house if you think me fit for it—but oh, save me, save me from perjuring my soul—save me,’ she repeated wildly, ‘or I shall go mad!’ To see the holy priest raise her up; to see him place her in his own chair; to see him put his hands upon her head, and hear his words of comfort! ‘Trust in me, my dear child; I will never join a willing to an unwilling hand; be calm, my child; and you,’ he said, turning to the bridegroom, ‘and you, have you the feelings of a man, to stand by and see this, and wish to keep her to her promise?’

“ ‘I never promised him—I never promised him,’ sobbed Mary—‘the most I ever said, and that was in anger and agony—was—that I would do my parents’ bidding. Father! Mother!—you cannot be so cruel at the last.’

“Mr. Considine edged up to his reverence—‘Talk to her, holy father,’ he muttered, ‘talk to her: he’s so rich—rings, and watches and goolden guineas two to one, holy father, think of that? two to one! her mother married me for my goold, and we’ve been happy—two to one, holy father!’

“ ‘Begone!’ said the priest sternly, in such grand English, ‘and do not dare to stain this holy sacrament by the money-loving spirit that crushes your soul to destruction. If this dear child persists in her refusal, I myself forbid the marriage.’

“Oh, aunt dear, the lep I gave, and found myself at his holy feet as if he was the Pope of Rome! and surely no pope could have looked more like a guardian angel than he did at that minute.

“ ‘I must speak with you in private,’ said the bridegroom to his intended father-in-law as meek as a lamb, ‘just one word;’ and he laid his hand so gently on the old man’s arm: ‘this can be arranged.’ They went out of the room together, Mrs. Considine exclaiming, while clapping her hands so vulgarly! ‘Och-e-yah! the poor, dear young man! Ah, then! Och Mary, my gra girl, how could you have the heart to refuse such a match? and he, after promising you a car—a cab, I mean, of your own. Och Mary, darlin’, be friends with him, Mary Machree! Och yah! poor broken-hearted crayther that I am!’

“She kept on that way for some time, until a fall, which shook the house, and the dull, hoarse scream of murder startled us into silence. The priest and myself rushed to the door; but the two groomsmen came between us, exclaiming, ‘It was in the court.’ I saw the whole thing then, like a flash of lightning, bright and clear. Again the cry. We cleared the way somehow; the window of their bed-room was open, and the poor old man, blinded by the blood which gushed from a wound in his head, was groveling on the floor.

“We lifted him up: his fingers kept on grappling the air, while his cries of ‘Murder!’ and ‘Help!’ were broken by such words as ‘My money! my bag! my hard-earned money! catch him! two to one indeed! Oh let me after him!’

“It was an awful sight—the roars of the old man for his money, the shrieks of Mrs. Considine, the still more terrible calmness of Mary, who, while binding up her father’s head, said ‘This is my doing.’

“There was a scuffling at the outward door. ‘Keep a brave heart, Mary Considine,’ said the priest, ‘he’s not hurt to signify.’

“ ‘A hundred and fifty in the bag, not a farthing less, the murdering young villain; oh, I can’t live—I wont live.’

“ ‘Shame upon you,’ said the silver voice of the fine old priest. ‘Give God thanks for your deliverance, first from the man, next from your money.’

“ ‘They are both here,’ said my policeman, who came upon us unawares; ‘it would be strange if we were not up to Bill Soames. We caught him on the bound, but I managed badly this time; I ought to have saved you that tap on the head, old gentleman; though I must say it serves you right, to want to give that poor girl to a fellow once tried for bigamy, and a house-breaker to boot!’

“Aunt, I tore a silk handkerchief to ribands, trying to keep my hands off the blue tie, who stood as if nothing had happened, between two other policemen.

“ ‘It’s but a step to the court, and the magistrate is sitting,’ continued the superintendent; ‘half an hour will send my old acquaintance to his quarters.’ Of course there was plenty of people outside; and in the midst of it all the two groomsmen had cleared the table of every spoon, and Mr. Considine’s own watch, during the time we were with the old man. Oh, what a deliverance for poor Mary!

“My heart flew into my mouth—I was as light as a lark leaving the corn-field for the sky in the early morning, and from the same cause, both thankful for the new light!

“Oh, I was so happy!—‘He’s of a high family, ma’am,’ said the policeman, with a knowing look at Mrs. Considine; ‘all that I heard of, traveled at the expense of government, while some—you understand me?—’

“He made a sign round his throat, not pleasant to look at, while Mrs. Considine’s grief took a new turn, and she bemoaned the disgrace to her family, and the loss of the family plate! It was delightful how brisk the old man grew when he knew that his money was found—he called the cut a scratch, and said ‘his head would be all the better for a taste of the ould times,’ and away they went, the whole party—barring ^[26] his reverence, and Mary, Mrs. Considine (who declared nothing should force her to enter a police-court) and myself—were cleared out of the house, and I had the satisfaction of seeing Mr. Henry Highley in the grasp of two policemen; Mary came wonderful to herself, considerin’, and went to her room. I peeped through a crack, and saw her on her knees before the image of the blessed Virgin. Mrs. Considine continued sobbing, and exclaiming all the time she wandered about the house—I was just going to see how they were getting on in the court, when the priest called me back.

“ ‘Nelly,’ he says; I made my courtesy—‘Nelly,’ he says again—‘it is a beautiful dinner.’

“ ‘Indeed, your reverence,’ I answered, ‘it would be that certainly when the solid things come on the table; there was to be a roast turkey, and a ham, and such a lovely piece of boiled beef—poor Mrs. Considine was bemoaning it all to me not a minute ago.’

“ ‘A ham, a roast turkey, and a fine piece of boiled beef,’ repeated his reverence slowly, ‘besides all the kickshaws—and wine?’

“ ‘The finest of port, (thick round the bottles with age) and champagne, that the villain of a bridegroom brought,’ I answered.

“ ‘Say nothing about who brought it, Nelly, if it’s there, and he’s not,’ said his reverence—he paused awhile, but I knew by the twinkle of his eyes, he was thinking of something past the common—

“ ‘Nelly, it’s a sin and a shame to have such a dinner as that in the house, and no wedding.’

“ ‘Nelly, we must have a wedding!’ and he looked me through and through.

“ ‘Your reverence,’ I said—hardly knowing how to answer, ‘knows best; but I don’t see how at this present time; it’s my ignorance, your reverence.’ He shook his head and smiled.

“ ‘I know the secrets of more hearts than one, and instead of going down to the court, just step away to Philip Roche, and tell him what happened and how Mary kept true to her old love, and let him dress himself at once—we’re not tied to canonical hours like our neighbors—and tell him from me, to come here, and before the evening’s out, Nelly, we’ll have a wedding, and a dinner, and a dance!’

“Oh, how I flew! There was Philip in the thick of cold iron, reading a paper about emigration. I never saw a man so altered: he was but the ghost of himself, bent and bowed and broken-hearted, he seemed, and his voice as changed as himself, he knew me at once, and knew that it was her wedding day.

“ ‘It’s all over by this time, I know,’ he said, with a ghastly smile; ‘and I suppose you have brought me the bride-cake tied with green riband.’

“ ‘Here was the place,’ he continued, going across a little yard, ‘where I thought she might live quiet and content; a pretty, bright room for London, and two others inside it—she could sit in that window at her sewing, and sing; and, if she raised her head, see me at work at the forge—she never even answered my letters—for I was too hasty that evening; but it’s over now. She never can be any thing more to me; yet this day’s post brought me a letter, telling of an uncle’s death in New York, who has left a good thousand English pounds, to be divided between my brother and myself; so I’ll just sell off, and go after it. Old Considine might have kept his money; it was not that I wanted; but it’s all over!’ Such a wail as there was in the voice of the strong, broken down man, like the sough of the winter’s wind, I could keep silent no longer. I believe he thought me wild—mad; I could hardly begin my tale for joy—joy throbbing in my heart—joy beating in my throat, and keeping back my words. I got it out at last, all that passed in one little hour, on which depended so much happiness or misery; oh, aunt, he is such a great darlint! Not a bit of exultation over Mr. and Mrs. Considine; only bitter reproaches to himself for not having understood Mary better; wondering if she could ever forgive him!—and so glad her father was not badly hurt. Oh, how my heart warmed to him! And when, at last, I bid him trust all to his reverence, to see how quickly he dressed! and maybe he didn’t look like an O’Brian, or an O’Sullivan, or some of the great, grand O’s—so plenty about Killarney in the ancient times. I didn’t know my own shadow on the wall, side-beside his; and yet he was so overcome, that at times he stopped from downright weakness.

“The priest opened the door with his own blessed hands: they had returned from the police-court, and his reverence had both the old people crying. I don’t think Mr. Considine heard all he said; but, indeed, his heart was softened; he was ashamed of having been imposed on by a well-known London thief; and who can say that he was not grateful for his deliverance? for, next to his money, he loved his child.

“ ‘Come in, Philip Roche,’ said the priest; ‘there has been a bit of a misunderstanding here, which we are sorry for; but it’s well to forget and forgive. Mrs. Considine says she never believed Mary thought so much about you, or she would not have put between you: if you can make friends with the little girl up-stairs, we’ll have the wedding!—and the dinner!—and now, Nelly Nowlan, I trust to you to bring Mary Considine down, without telling her why. Leave that to me.’

“Oh, then, isn’t that priest a rale minister? The delight he took in his little innocent plot, and all to make those young people happy! He hid away Philip in the back-room, and Mary came with me, easy enough, when I told her her father and mother were crying.

“ ‘Now, Mary, my child,’ says the priest, ‘you’ll obey me, wont you?—that’s right. I must give you a penance, Mary: I saved you from one husband, my darling—I have found you another!’

“The life that had come slowly back to the poor girl seemed leaving her altogether, but Philip could not bear it—he rushed forward, and caught her in his arms.

“I can’t tell you what he said, aunt, or what any one said; but in less than five minutes the priest had opened his book.

“I had picked up the one I struck from the hand of that wicked man, and said so.

“ ‘Oh, the sinful waste!’ screamed old Considine; ‘it was pure gold.’

“He would have raked the fire out to find it, but the priest commanded him to be still. Oh, but he’s a fine man; only terrible in anger. Aunt, I’ll tell you the truth; if I had a very heavy sin, it’s not to him I’d go.

“ ‘The key of the door will do as well,’ he said; ‘it’s the sign of the Eternal Union we want, nothing more.’ No one gainsaid him, and in another five minutes they were bound together in the sight of God and man.

“ ‘And now for her fortune, Mr. Considine,’ said the good priest, so considerate.

“The young smith stood straighter than ever on the floor; straight and firm. With one arm he drew his little bride to his heart, the other he held out.

“ ‘It would all feel to me like a dream,’ he said, ‘but for this.’ He pressed her more closely to him, bent down and kissed her.

“ ‘Keep your money, Mr. Considine; cross or coin of yours, sir, I’ll never touch. Mary was all I ever cared for, and only this blessed morning did I learn that it has pleased God to give me what you think so much of. Mary, your husband has five hundred good pounds of his own: keep your money, Mr. Considine, I never cared for it; but I must say—’

“ ‘No more,’ interrupted the priest. ‘Let us have in some of our good friends and neighbors; and, Nelly Nowlan, sure it’s a comfort that the beautiful dinner wont be wasted.’

“And so, aunt darling, there’s an end of Mary Considine; for in all the books I read my mistress, there seems an end of a woman when she marries—a wife and a mother go for nothing! And maybe, I haven’t something to tell you about that, for sure enough, the women (some of them) want to change places; now who do you think with, aunt? I am sure your simple head would never find out. Shall I tell you next time?”

Course of the History of Modern Philosophy. By M. Victor Cousin. Translated by O. W. Wight. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 2 vols. 8vo.

The thinking portion of the reading public are under great obligations to Mr. Wight for his vigorous and accurate version of Cousin’s master work, and to the Messrs. Appletons for the beautiful dress in which it fitly appears. It belongs, indeed, to that rare class of works which illustrate the intellectual history of the age in which they are produced; and it deserves the attention of all readers who desire to take the first step in acquiring a taste for metaphysics. It is composed of two courses of lectures, originally delivered in Paris to large and enthusiastic audiences, whose admiration of the splendid eloquence of the lecturer soon compelled them to love the subject likewise; and when published, their influence was felt in every country into which the French language and literature penetrates, and caused a revival in philosophy, which somewhat amazed its hard and dry cultivators from its peculiarity and its extent. These lectures, indeed, made metaphysical science popular everywhere. Men and women read Victor Cousin as they read Scott and Byron. His bold and dazzling generalizations, expressed in a style of singular clearness, energy and vehemence, stimulated the most jaded minds; and the dictatorial confidence with which he settled all the problems of history, philosophy and religion, and the ease with which his solutions were comprehended, made him the universal favorite. There was something captivating, too, in the theory by which he reconciled all the various systems in his eclectic and electric method. There are four systems, sensualism, idealism, skepticism, and mysticism, each having its root in consciousness, each containing an element of truth, and each wrong as an exclusive system. Select from these what is true, place the four partial truths in their relations, and the result is the eclectic philosophy. This is a loose, short-hand statement, in unphilosophic language, of Cousin’s scheme.

It must be admitted that Cousin’s system did not long hold its ground. After the first surprise was over, the metaphysicians par eminence began to attack him with great fury, and gave him some blows from which he has never recovered; and the public, who had been carried away by his eloquence, forgot him as soon as another novelty appeared. The result has been, that of late he has not been estimated according to his real merits. He most certainly has not done what he pretended to do. He has not reconciled the philosophers or the philosophies; he has hardly formed a school; his disciples have expired, recanted, or left the inclusive for some more satisfactory exclusive system. But he is still a metaphysician of uncommon power, acuteness, insight, genius; his works are full of important truths and principles, which stimulate the mind to independent thought; his information is immense; and he is the most brilliant, comprehensible and readable of all the historians of philosophy. He is to metaphysical history what Macaulay is to civil history; and we do not see why the present work is not as capable of holding the pleased and breathless attention of the intelligent reader as the “History of the Revolution of 1688.” There is in both writers the same confident manner of settling controversies about which centuries of disputants have wrangled; and, on the first blush, it seems impossible to resist the statements of either of them, as both drive directly at the common sense of men; are clear and brilliant, while their opponents are obscure and dull; and never leave the impression of an undefined something outside of the limits of their respective systems, to puzzle and torture their readers with a latent doubt. “I wish,” said Lord Melbourne, “that I knew any thing as well as Tom Macaulay knows every thing.” This “I know,” and “I am sure,” this absence of self-distrust, is as characteristic of Cousin as Macaulay; and the mischief is that after reading either, we are apt to be as satisfied as they are themselves, and think we have thoroughly mastered the matter.

It would be impossible in our limited space to convey an idea of the contents of these volumes. Beginning with the proposition that philosophy is a special want and necessary product of the human mind, and the last development of thought, Cousin proceeds to show that it has existed in every epoch of humanity, is a real element of universal history, and contains the explanation of its various parts. He thus explains Indian Civilization by the Bhagavad-Gita, the age of Pericles by the philosophy of Socrates, the sixteenth century by the philosophy of Descartes, the eighteenth century by the philosophy of Condillac and Helvetius. He then states the psychological method in history, a method which is neither empirical or speculative, but combines the two, seeking in history the development of the human reason. After stating the fundamental ideas of history, which are the fundamental ideas of the human reason, namely, the Infinite, the finite, and the relation between the two, he treats the great epochs of history as answering to the successive development of these ideas. The influence of geography, of nations, and of great men, in history, is then stated with great eloquence, force, and subtle complication of truth and paradox. Some vigorous sketches of the historians of humanity and philosophy, in which their merits are luminously exhibited and their defects acutely analyzed, are followed by a view of the philosophy of the 19th century. The eclectic tendency of European society and philosophy is noted, and the necessity is shown of a new general history of philosophy to explain the new movement of thought. Next follows a picture of the eighteenth century, with the character and method of its philosophy. Its different systems are not peculiar to that century; and the origin, natural development, relative utility, and intrinsic merit of Sensualism, Idealism, Skepticism, and Mysticism, the four classes into which all ideas fall, are vigorously and clearly stated. The history of these is then given, in a splendid review of the Hindoo, Greek, Scholastic, and modern philosophies; and the sensualism of the eighteenth century is traced to all its sources. A criticism of Locke, running through ten lectures, and generally considered to be the ablest of Cousin’s productions, concludes the work.

It will be seen, even from this bold outline, that all the questions which have puzzled human reason, and to which it has at different periods given different answers, are stated and discussed in Cousin’s work. The splendor and the beauty, the unwearied energy and the rapid movement of his style, carry the reader on to the end with hardly a pause of distrust or fatigue; and we hope that a translation, executed with such a lavish expenditure of intelligence and industry as Mr. Wight’s, will meet with its due reward in an extensive circulation. Certainly nothing which can by courtesy be called a library can afford to be without it.

The Works of Daniel Webster. Boston: Little & Brown, 6 vols. 8vo.

This beautiful edition of the works of one of the greatest statesmen that the country has produced, contains all the speeches and legal arguments in the former editions of Mr. Webster’s writings, together with the numerous orations and addresses he has made since the year 1841, and the masterly state papers which he produced while Secretary of State in the administration of General Harrison. To these are added the celebrated letter to Chevalier Hulseman, written while in his present station. The collection is edited with much care and ability by the Hon. Edward Everett. The biography of Mr. Webster by the editor, is a clear, candid, elaborate, and somewhat frigid view of his whole life as a statesman and lawyer, giving an accurate statement of the various circumstances under which the great efforts of his mind were produced, and placing the reader in a position to appreciate their importance. The tone of the biography is cautiously moderate, indulging in none of the fervors of eulogy or exaggerations of friendship, and, on the whole, not coming up to the enthusiastic praise with which Mr. Webster’s powers are commonly mentioned by those who have had most occasion to dread or decry their exercise. Mr. Everett seems to have felt too acutely the delicacy of his position, as the biographer of a living friend; and, shrinking from the responsibility of pouring out in glowing words his own admiration of his subject, is content to import all such perilous matter from the dashing and vivid pages of Mr. March.

It seems to us, also, that Mr. Everett gives little evidence in his biography of a sustained and vigorous conception of Mr. Webster’s mind and character. We do not mean that his epithets are not appropriate, that his judgments are not accurate, that his generalities are not abstractly just; but he evinces no power of diffusing the results of analysis through the veins of narration, of making the reader feel constantly that he is following the life of a man as peculiar and individual as he is great. The Websterian quality of the subject never flashes once out from Mr. Everett’s elegant sentences. Take any page from the biography and compare it with any paragraph in the speeches, and the defect we have noticed will be apparent to the most unapprehensive reader. There is no mental and moral agreement between them. It would seem to be one duty of the biographer to translate into intelligible form the vague impression which the works of the subject of the biography leaves on the most superficial mind; to detect, to fix, to embody the subtle spirit which, emanating from character, gives unity and individuality equally to the events of a man’s life and the productions of a man’s mind. A man of the large dimensions and massive force of Mr. Webster, whose personality stamps itself so readily upon the imagination, and groups fit words round its own image by a kind of magnetism, offers few obstacles to a right psychological treatment; and we are somewhat astonished that a man of Mr. Everett’s various talents and accomplishments should have failed in this important part of the biographer’s duty.

We trust that this collection of Mr. Webster’s writings will have an extensive circulation, were it only for the good influence it is calculated to exert on the literature of the country. To one party in the United States they are invaluable as containing the best exposition they possess of their political principles—to all parties they must be attractive for the many electric passages of purely patriotic eloquence with which they teem; but to the author they are especially valuable as models of style. We use the word models not in its usual sense, for we certainly would not give any one the ridiculous advice to imitate the diction even of Mr. Webster; but we would advise every one to follow Mr. Webster’s own method of composition, which is simply the method of common sense and common honesty. The great literary sin of the day is pretension; and it is refreshing to read a man who, comprehensive and powerful as he is, modestly accepts the limitations of his genius, never borrows a thought or an emotion, and rarely uses a word which he has not a right to use. If we compare him for a moment with men who gain popularity by debauching in language, we feel at once the force of that expression which austerely limits itself within the bounds of character, and stamps on every sentence the authority of personal experience.

A Journey through Tartary, Thibet and China. By M. Huc. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 2 vols. 12mo.

These quaint and interesting volumes are the record of the travels of a Catholic Missionary in countries of which the reading world knows little or nothing. The sketches of scenery, manners, customs, religion, and character, are very graphic, and the style of composition is so direct and simple that the words form pictures in the mind without any effort on the part of the reader. The views of the religion of Thibet are very clear, and add to our knowledge of its philosophic basis. The mind of M. Huc almost realizes the ideal of the observing faculty. He sees distinctly, and gives us exactly what he sees, without modifying it by his own opinions or sentiments. To read his book, is next to walking or riding by his side, and seeing the strange objects he describes with our own eyes. His illustrations of Tartar life are especially graphic and amusing. Here is a specimen. “When not on horseback, a Tartar is generally quite idle, and passes a great part of the day crouched in his tent, drinking tea, and sometimes he lounges about like a Parisian dandy, though not quite in the same way. When he has a mind to see what is passing in the world, he mounts his horse, and goes galloping away into the desert, without heeding in what direction, and whenever he sees the smoke of a tent rising, he makes a call, and has a gossip.” His description also of the Jonathan Wilds and Dick Turpins of Tartary is quite edifying. “The robbers,” he says, “are in general remarkable for the politeness with which they flavor their address. They do not put a pistol to your head, and cry roughly, ‘Your money or your life,’ but they say in the most courteous tone, ‘My eldest brother, I am weary of walking on foot. Be so good as to lend me your horse!’ or, ‘It is very cold to-day—be kind enough to lend me your coat!’ If the eldest brother be charitable enough to comply, he receives thanks; if not the request is enforced by two or three blows of the cudgel, or, if that is not sufficient, recourse is had to the sabre.” It is the custom of these polite gentlemen, however, to rob none the less thoroughly because they use the amenities of genteel life. The poor traveler who falls into their hands is not only deprived of horse, camel, money and goods, but he is stripped of every rag of clothes, and left, with an elegant bow and smooth farewell, to die of cold and hunger. This is the very method of genteel society everywhere.

The shrewd and remorseless avarice of the Chinese is illustrated in these volumes to perfection. From the emperor to the trader, all prey on the poor Tartars. Thus M. Huc meets a member of a great commercial house in Pekin, at Blue Town, and enters into a conversation with him. The merchant claims the missionary at once as one of his own trade, which, with Spartan brevity, he describes to consist in eating Tartars. “Eaters of Tartars!” exclaims good M. Huc, “what is the meaning of that?” to which the other answers, “Our trade—yours and mine—is to eat the Mongols—we by traffic, you by prayers.” On the missionary’s assuring him that he paid for every thing as he went along, and that his mission was purely disinterested, the merchant almost choked himself with laughing at the folly of a man who should venture into such a country for any other purpose than to prey upon its inhabitants; and then proceeds to describe the mysteries and moralities of the Wall street of China. We commend his system to our glorious army of shavers and capitalists. You see, he says, these Tartars “are simple as children when they come into our towns. They want to have every thing they see—they seldom have any money, but we come to their help. We give them goods on credit, and then, of course, they must pay rather high. When people take away goods without leaving the money, of course, there must be a little interest of thirty or forty per cent. Then, by degrees, the interest mounts up, and you come to compound interest; but that’s only with the Tartars. In China the laws forbid it; but we, who are obliged to run about the Land of Grass—we may well ask for a little extra profit. Isn’t that fair? A Tartar debit is never paid—it goes on from generation to generation; every year goes to get the interest, and it’s paid in sheep, oxen, camels, horses—all that is a great deal better than money. We get the beasts at a very low price, and we sell them at a very good price in the market. Oh! it’s a capital thing—a Tartar debt! It’s a mine of gold.” This is but one specimen of a Chinese “eater of Tartars.”

M. Huc’s volumes are full of equally piquant sketches, and we know of few tourists who seize with such inevitable tact on incidents and peculiarities which illustrate the morals and the habits of whole classes of people. The work is one of the most original and novel yet published in “Appleton’s Popular Library of the Best Authors”—a collection of which no lover of readable books should be without.

The Maiden and Married Life of Mary Powell, afterward Mistress Milton. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 18mo.

It appears to us that this volume is fully as felicitous as “Lady Willoughby’s Diary.” Like that it is in the form of a journal, written in the orthography and style of the seventeenth century. The simplicity with which the whole is conceived and wrought out is exquisite. The idea of the book is taken from the well-known incident of Milton’s first courtship and marriage; and its charm consists in accounting for the disagreement between the couple on grounds of nature which do not appear in the bold statement of the fact. It is a delicious volume, full of the essential spirit of poetry, and pure, tender, simple and refined throughout.

The Yellowplush Papers. By William M. Thackeray. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 18mo.

This is one of the earliest and best of Thackeray’s delightful works. It is a sort of autobiography of a London footman, Charles Yellowplush, comprising very vigorous sketches of his various masters, and written in a style which inimitably combines shrewdness with vulgarity. The spelling alone is a work of genius. The portion relating to Mr. Deuceace has passages of great power and pathos as well as humor, and exhibits the utter lack of sentiment and principle, the hard demoniacal selfishness of a true London blood, with extraordinary closeness to the fact. “Mr. Yellowplush’s Ajew” and “Epistles to the Literati,” are also riotous with mirth. Bulwer Lytton’s coxcombry is caricatured in these last very ludicrously.

Putnam’s Semi-Monthly Library for Travelers and the Fireside. New York: George P. Putnam. 6 vols. 12mo.

This is one of the cheapest and best edited literary enterprises ever started in the United States. It is published in semi-monthly volumes, each of which is printed in large type on fine white paper, contains some two hundred and fifty pages, and is placed at the low price of twenty-five cents a volume. Two volumes are given to prose and poetical comicalities, carefully selected, humorous cuts and all, from “Hood’s Own;” three volumes consist of capital selections from Dickens’ Household Words, entitled “Home and Social Philosophy,” “The World Here and There,” and “Home Narratives;” and the last is an original production, written by Mr. Olmstead, and called, very aptly, “Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England”—an exceedingly interesting book, in which the author gives, in a homely but expressive style, his experiences among the farming population of England. We trust that Mr. Putnam’s admirable plan will be fully carried out, and that his success will be as complete as his enterprise is commendable. The price is hardly one-third of the usual cost of American reprints of equal elegance of execution.

Lyra and Other Poems. By Alice Carey. New York: Redfield. 1 vol. 12mo.

We wish that we had sufficient space this month to do justice to the qualities of mind and character impressed on this beautiful volume; but we shall be compelled to defer an elaborate view of its merits. The first glance at its pages will reveal to the reader the extreme sensitiveness of the writer’s mind to all that is beautiful, and tender, and sublime, and the swift felicity with which she embodies the most evanescent shades of emotion, and the most subtle meanings of natural objects. We regret that so large a portion of the poems should be so sad in their tone, as Alice Carey’s genius is by no means bounded by the serious side of things, but can sing cheerily as well as mournfully. The present volume, however, has more “hearse-like airs than carols.”

Isa; A Pilgrimage. By Caroline Chesebro’. New York: Redfield. 1 vol. 12mo.

This powerful story has a peculiar interest from its bearing on the fashionable ethics of certain novelists, who inculcate libertinism under the guise of liberality of thought and nobility of sentiment. The authoress shows the depraving influence of this philosophy on the noblest natures. Her insight into the workings of passion is remarkably bright and clear; and the vigorous movement of her narrative fastens the reader’s interest to the end. The chief fault of the book is its unrelieved intensity.

Tales and Traditions of Hungary. By Theresa Pulszky. New York: Redfield. 1 vol. 12mo.

To those who are interested in the recent struggles of the brave and unfortunate Hungarian people for national independence, this volume will be heartily welcome. It gives us glimpses into the manners of the people, and exhibits the strong foundations on which the national character rests. The work has been popular in England, and its authoress, now a resident in the United States, has republished it with additions. We hope it will meet with a large share of popular favor.

Two of the most exquisitely finished and delightful works that have come before our eyes in years, have lately been reproduced from the English press by two of our New York publishers, without any hint in regard to authorship, or indeed to the aim and nature of the books, whether fact or fiction. Their names stand above, and the personages to whom they have relation will be recognized as the great and good chancellor of Henry VIII., barbarously and illegally put to death for his refusal to take the oath of supremacy, and for his opposition to the unjust divorce of Katharine and marriage of the king with Anne Boleyn; and as the unhappy wife of that greatest of poets, but sternest and most impracticable of husbands, John Milton. No hint, as I have observed, is given as to authorship, but it is I think impossible that we shall be mistaken in ascribing both to the same pen; for, although the wielder of that pen has chosen to maintain an absolute incognito, his mark—though I am not altogether clear that for his we might not better read her—is not to be confounded with that of any other; nor do we recognize any other in England or America at all comparable to this.

In both works we find the same delicate and delicious freshness, like the perfume from a rich clover-field after a summer shower; the same truthfulness to nature; the same intimate acquaintance with the spirit of the times, the character and circumstances of the supposed writers; the same natural and artless pathos; the same simplicity, and, if I may so speak of writing evidently fictitious, the same authenticity and genuineness of style.

So perfect indeed is the skill and tact of the handling, and so admirably is the whole character of either work kept up, that it cannot be doubted, had they been put forth as genuine ancient memoirs, recovered by any accident you will, their success as forgeries would have been as complete as that very remarkable—but to me very dull—book, “The Amber Witch” of the Pastor Meinhold, or the supposititious letters of Shelley and other notables of the nineteenth century, which have recently created so much wonder and excitement in the literary world.

What is to me, however, even more remarkable than the excellence of these chaste and unpretending little fictions, is the total absence of bruit or loud encomium with which they have issued both from the English and American presses; for in good sooth we have hardly heard them named, while they are in every respect the cleverest and most highly wrought, and in their own line the very best fictitious works that we have seen in years.

Fiction they undoubtedly are, in some sense; but fiction of some such nature—far be it from me to write profanely—as the parables of our ever-blessed Saviour, and in their humbler sphere and lesser degree improvable to the same good end. There is not one line in either from which any mental alchemy could extract one grain of evil counsel or unholy thought; on the contrary, there is not one which prompts not to good works, and faith, and reliance in the mercy and justice of the Most High.

After the Holy Bible itself, we are cognizant of no reading which may be put more fitly into the innocent hands of a beloved daughter on a Sunday afternoon, than either of these beautiful and touching little volumes; and to render the effects more certain, as more salutary, so far is there from being any effort or straining after religionism, moralizing or lay-preaching, so apt to frustrate their own ends, that the whole tenor of each flows so naturally and with so much probability forward, the thinkings, doings and speakings of the actors springing so spontaneously from the causes, that we read on enthralled, engrossed, with a tear often stealing to the eye, hardly able to believe that we are not perusing the real memoirs of real authors; and think nothing of the moral until the book is closed and the paramount interest ended.

It is an evil sign in relation to the influence and tone of the press-criticism of any countries, when we find the vulgar absurdities and exaggerations of Cockton, the trivial and overdone flippancies of Albert Smith, or even the brilliant eccentricities of Thackeray, over-lauded to the skies, while such gems of nature, verisimilitude and poesy, as these little volumes, creep forward, almost unushered, timid and unknown to fame, into the gradual favor of the public.

In one word, I know not nor conjecture to what dead or living author, male or female, of either hemisphere they may be attributed; but I do know there is not one—no! not Sir Walter himself—who would not derive fresh reputation from their authorship; and in order to substantiate this my opinion, I proceed to extract somewhat largely from the former work, which—although I have hitherto spoken of them in general terms, and in common, as cognate compositions, and I doubt not by the same pen—is by many degrees the abler and more perfect, as far as the more agreeable and fascinating volume.

There is not a syllable in it which might not have been penned in her libellus by sweet Margaret More, bravest and best of English daughters—not one, which did not probably, in some shape or other, pass through her living brain—not one, to make an end of it, which, as we read, we do not implicitly believe, for the moment, to be of her actual penning.

There is, moreover, a fine, free humor, singularly characteristic of the age and the characters of “The Household of Sir Thomas More,” which is lacking, and which would perhaps have been out of place, in the “Maiden and Married Life of Mary Powell;” but which nevertheless beautifully relieves the soft and tender melancholy of the memoir.

It is, however, in truthfulness, if I may not absolutely say truth, that Margaret’s libellus is most clearly superior; for we are constrained, in justice, to say that the portraiture of John Milton in his domestic relations, however great his public glory, is most overweening flattery, and that the happiness ascribed to the latter portion of “the married life of Mary Powell,” is as pure a fiction as ever emanated from the fancy of the wildest romancer.

But to return to our “A Margarettâ More, libellus, quindecim annos nata, Chelseiæ inceptus;” here we have, in her own words, the incident—not accident—of its inception.

“On asking Mr. Gunnel to what use I s^d put this fair libellus, he did suggest my making it a kinde of family register, wherein to note y^e more important of our domestic passages, whether of joy or griefe—my father’s journies and absences—the visits of learned men, theire notable sayings, etc. ‘You art smart at the pen, Mistress Margaret,’ he was pleased to say; ‘and I would humblie advise your journalling in y^e same fearless manner in the which you framed that letter which soe well pleased the Bishop of Exeter, that he sent you a Portugal piece. ’Twill be well to write it in English, which ’tis expedient for you not altogether to negleckt, even for the more honorable Latin.’

“Methinks I am close upon womanhood. . . . . ‘Humblie advise,’ quotha! to me, that hath so oft humblie sued for his pardon, and sometimes in vain.

“ ’Tis well to make trial of Gonellus his ‘humble’ advice: albeit, our daylie course is so methodicall, that ’twill afford scant subject for y^e pen—Vitam continet una dies.”

Here, again, we are introduced to the younger members of the household in their moments of home-merriment and simple occupations, as usual at that unsophisticated day, before fear or grief fell upon their happy circle—and what was ever writ more naturally and unaffectedly?

“This morn, hinting to Bess that she was lacing herselfe too straightlie, she brisklie replyed, ‘One w^d think ’twere as great meritt to have a thick waiste as to be one of y^e earlie Christians!’

“These humourous retorts are ever at her tongue’s end; and, albeit, as Jacky one day angrilie remarked, when she had beene teazing him, ‘Bess, thy witt is stupidnesse;’ yet, for one who talks soe much at random, no one can be more keene when she chooseth. Father sayd of her, half fondly, half apologeticallie to Erasmus. ‘Her wit has a fine subtletie that eludes you almoste before you have time to recognize it for what it really is.’ To which, Erasmus readilie assented, adding, that it had y^e rare meritt of playing less on persons than things, and never on bodilie defects.

“Hum!—I wonder if they ever sayd as much in favour of me. I knowe, indeede, Erasmus calls me a forward girl! Alas! that may be taken in two senses.”

“Grievous work, overnighte, with y^e churning. Nought w^d persuade Gillian but that y^e creame was bewitched by Gammer Gurney, who was dissatisfyde last Friday with her dole, and hobbled away mumping and cursing. At alle events y^e butter w^d not come; but mother was resolute not to have soe much good creame wasted; soe sent for Bess and me, Daisy and Mercy Giggs, and insisted on our churning in turn till y^e butter came, if we sate up all nighte for’t. ’Twas a hard saying; and mighte have hampered her like as Jephtha his rash vow: howbeit, soe soone as she had left us, we turned it into a frolick, and sang Chevy Chase from end to end, to beguile time; ne’erthelesse, the butter w^d not come; soe then we grew sober, and, at y^e instance of sweete Mercy, chaunted y^e 119th Psalme; and, by the time we had attayned to ‘Lucerna pedibus,’ I heard y^e buttermilk separating and splashing in righte earnest. ’Twas neare midnighte, however; and Daisy had fallen asleep on y^e dresser. Gillian will ne’er be convinced but that our Latin brake the spell.”

A few pages farther, we are let into the secret of the who, and the wherefore, of the aforesaid merry damsels, “Daisy and Bess, and Mercy Giggs, and I,” who are to be our delectable companions through many a mirthful, many a melancholy page.

“As we rose from table, I noted Argus pearcht on y^e window-sill, eagerlie watching for his dinner, which he looketh for as punctualie as if he c^d tell the diall; and to please the good, patient bird, till the scullion broughte him his mess of garden-stuff, I fetched him some pulse, which he took from mine hand, taking good heede not to hurt me with his sharpe beak. While I was feeding him, Erasmus came up, and asked me concerning Mercy Giggs; and I tolde him how that she was a friendlesse orphan, to whom deare father afforded protection and the run of y^e house; and tolde him of her gratitude, her meekness, her patience, her docilitie, her aptitude for alle goode works and alms-deeds; and how, in her little chamber, she improved eache spare moment in y^e way of studdy and prayer. He repeated ‘Friendlesse? she cannot be called friendlesse, who hath More for her protector, and his children for companions;’ and then woulde heare more of her parent’s sad story. Alsoe, would heare somewhat of Rupert Allington, and how father gained his law-suit. Alsoe, of Daisy, whose name he tooke to be y^e true abbreviation for Margaret, but I tolde him how that my step-sister, and Mercy, and I, being all three of a name, and I being alwaies called Meg, we had in sport given one the significative of her characteristic virtue, and the other that of y^e French Marguerite, which may indeed be rendered either pearl or daisy. And Chaucer, speaking of our English daisy, saith

‘Si douce est la Marguerite.’ ”

Next, a little further yet, we have dear Margaret’s thoughts upon herself and her own attractiveness—

“A glance at the anteceding pages of this libellus me-sheweth poor Will Roper at y^e season his love-fitt for me was at its height. He troubleth me with it no longer, nor with his religious disquietations. Hard study of the law hath filled his head with other matters, and made him infinitely more rationall, and by consequents, more agreeable. ’Twas one of those preferences young people sometimes manifest, themselves know neither why nor wherefore, and are shamed, afterwards, to be reminded of. I’m sure I shall ne’er remind him. There was nothing in me to fix a rational or passionate regard. I have neither Bess’s witt nor white teeth, nor Daisy’s dark eyes, nor Mercy’s dimple. A plain-favoured girl, with changefule spiritts—that’s all.”

And within but a brief space we find her much in error, as to its degree, and its effect on William Roper, which she records as thus in the libellus.

“Soe my fate is settled. Who knoweth at sunrise what will chance before sunsett? No; the Greeks and Romans mighte speake of chance and of fate, but we must not. Ruth’s hap was to light on y^e field of Boaz; but what she thought casual, y^e Lord had contrived.

“Firste, he gives me y^e marmot. Then, the marmot dies. Then, I, having kept y^e creature soe long, and being naturalie tender, must cry a little over it. Then Will must come in and find me drying mine eyes. Then he must, most unreasonablie, suppose that I c^d not have loved the poor animal for its own sake soe much as for his; and thereupon, falle a love-making in such down righte earneste, that I, being alreadie somewhat upset, and knowing ’twoulde please father . . . . and hating to be perverse . . . . and thinking much better of Will since he hath studied soe hard, and given soe largelie to y^e poor, and left off broaching his heteroclite opinions. . . . I say, I supposed it must be soe, some time or another, soe ’twas noe use hanging back for ever and ever, soe now there’s an end, and I pray God give us a quiet life.

“Noe one w^d suppose me reckoning on a quiet life if they knew how I’ve cried alle this forenoon, ever since I got quit of Will, by father’s carrying him off to Westminster. He’ll tell father, I know, as they goe along in the barge, or else coming back, which will be soon enow, though I’ve ta’en no heed of the hour. I wish ’twere cold weather, and that I had a sore throat or stiff neck, or somewhat that might reasonablie send me a-bed, and keep me there till to-morrow morning. But I’m quite well, and ’tis the dog-days, and cook is thumping the rolling-pin on the dresser, and dinner is being served, and here comes father.”

But with this extract the happy days of the household are ended; doubts, darkness, dangers and the shadows of the valley of death henceforth begin to close around and above them; and if, as the old Greeks and Romans deemed, a good man struggling nobly in the toils of necessity were a spectacle for the eyes of gods, then were the sufferings of Sir Thomas and his household of the grandest and most glorious.

Now, he has thwarted the uxorious, cruel tyrant, offended unto death the ambitious Anne Boleyn, and brought his head into jeopardy by denying the supremacy of a layman in affairs ecclesiastical.

And lo! how gently, and with how exquisite a harmony of circumstances, he breaks to his favorite child his own distinct anticipation of his coming doom.

“Ever since father’s speech to us in y^e pavillion, we have been of one heart and one soul; neither have any of us said that aught of the things we possessed were our own, but we have had all things in common. And we have eaten our meat with gladness and singleness of heart.

“This afternoon, expressing to father my gratefull sense of our present happiness. . . . . ‘Yes, Meg,’ returns he, ‘I too am deeply thankful for this breathing space.’

“ ‘Do you look on it as no more, then?’ I sayd.

“ ‘As no more, Meg: we shall have a thunder-clap by-and-by. Look out on the Thames. See how unwontedlie clear it is, and how low the swallows fly. . . . . . . How distinctlie we see the green sedges on Battersea bank, and their reflected images in the water. We can almost discern the features of those poor knaves digging in the cabbage gardens, and hear ’em talk, so still is y^e air. Have you ne’er before noted these signs?’

“ ‘A storm is brewing,’ I sayd.

“ ‘Aye, we shall have a lightening-flash anon. So still, Meg, is also our atmosphere just now. God is giving us a breathing space, as he did to the Egyptians before the plague of hail, that they might gather their live stock within doors. Let us take for example them that believed and obeyed him; and improve this holy pause.’

“Just at this moment, a few heavy drops fell agaynst the window pane, and were seen by both. Our eyes met; and I felt a silent pang.

“ ‘Five days before the Passover,’ resumed father, ‘all seemed as still and quiet as we are now; but Jesus knew his hour was at hand. E’en while he yet spake familiarly among the people, there came a sound from heaven, and they that stood by said it thundered; but he knew it for the voice of his dear Father. Let us, in like manner, when the clap cometh, recognize in it the voice of God, and not be afraid with any amazement.’ ”

Again she visits him in the tower, by especial favor, after the blow has descended, and his fate, all but the doom, is fixed, and so, “ye who have tears prepare to shed them now.”

“. . . I minded to put y^e haircloth and cord under my farthingale, and one or two of y^e smaller books in my pouch, as alsoe some sweets and suckets such as he was used to love. Will and Bonvisi were awaiting for me, and deare Bess, putting forthe her head from her chamber door, cries pitiously, ‘Tell him, dear Meg, tell him . . . ’twas never soe sad to me to be sick . . . and that I hope . . . I pray . . . the time may come . . .’ then falls back swooning into Dancey’s arms, whom I leave crying heartilie over her, and hasten below to receive the confused medley of messages sent by every other member of y^e house. For mine owne part, I was in such a tremulous succussion as to be scarce fitt to stand or goe, but time and the tide will noe man bide, and, once having taken boat, the cool river air allayed my fevered spiritts; onlie I coulde not for awhile get rid of y^e impression of poor Dancey crying over Bess in her deliquium.

“I think none o’ the three opened our lips before we reached Lambeth, save in y^e Reach, Will cried to y^e steersman, ‘Look you run us not a ground,’ in a sharper voyce than I e’er heard from him. After passing y^e Archbishop’s palace, whereon I gazed full ruefullie, good Bonvisi beganne to mention some rhymes he had founde writ with a diamond on one of his window-panes at Crosby House, and would know were they father’s! and was’t y^e chamber father had used to sleep in? I tolde him it was, but knew nought of y^e distich, though ’twas like enow to be his. And thence he went on to this and that, how that father’s cheerfulle, funny humour never forsook him, nor his brave heart quelled, instancing his fearless passage through the Traitor’s Gate, asking his neighbours whether his gait was that of a traditor; and, on being sued by the porter for his upper garment, giving him his cap, which he sayd was uppermost. And other such quips and passages, which I scarce noted nor smiled at, soe sorry was I of cheer.

“At length we stayed rowing: Will lifted me out, kissed me, heartened me up, and, indeede, I was in better heart then, having been quietlie in prayer a good while. After some few forms, we were led through sundrie turns and passages, and, or ever I was aware, I found myselfe quit of my companions, and in father’s arms.

“We both cried a little at first; I wonder I wept noe more, but strength was given me in that hour. As soone as I coulde, I lookt him in the face, and he lookt at me, and I was beginning to note his hollow cheeks, when he sayd, ‘Why, Meg, you are getting freckled:’ soe that made us both laugh. He sayd, ‘You should get some freckle-water of the lady that sent me here; depend on it, she hath washes and tinctures in plenty; and after all, Meg, she’ll come to the same end at last, and be as the lady all bone and skin, whoso ghastlie legends used to scare thee soe when thou wert a child. Don’t tell that story to thy children; ’twill hamper ’em with unsavory images of death. Tell them of heavenlie hosts awaiting to carry off good men’s souls in fire-bright chariots, with horses of the sun, to a land where they shall never more be surbated and weary, but walk on cool, springy turf and among myrtle trees, and eat fruits that shall heal while they delight them, and drink the coldest of cold water, fresh from y^e river of life, and have space to stretch themselves, and bathe, and leap, and run, and whichever way they look, meet Christ’s eyes smiling on them. Lord, Meg, who would live that could die? One mighte as lief be an angel shut up in a nutshell as bide here. Fancy how gladsome the sweet spirit would be to have the shell cracked! no matter by whom; the king, or king’s mistress. . . Let her dainty foot but set him free, he’d say, ‘For this release, much thanks. . . . And how goes the court, Meg?’

“ ‘In faith, father, never better. . . . There is nothing else there, I hear, but dancing and disporting.’

“ ‘Never better, child, sayst thou? Alas, Meg, it pitieth me to consider what misery, poor soul, she will shortlie come to. These dances of hers will prove such dances that she will spurn our heads off like footballs; but ’twill not be long ere her head will dance the like dance. Mark you, Meg, a man that restraineth not his passions, hath always something cruel in his nature, and if there be a woman toward, she is sure to suffer heaviest for it, first or last. . . . Seek Scripture precedent for’t . . . you’ll find it as I say. Stony as death, cruel as the grave. Those Pharisees that there, to a man, convicted of sin, yet haled a sinning woman before the Lord, and woulde fain have seen the dogs lick up her blood. When they lick up mine, deare Meg, let not your heart be troubled, even though they shoulde hale thee to London Bridge to see my head stuck on a pole. Think, most dear’st, I shall then have more reason to weep for thee than thou for me. But there’s noe weeping in heaven, and bear in mind, Meg, distinctlie, that if they send me thither, ’twill be for obeying the law of God rather than of men. And after alle, we live not in the bloody, barbarous old times of crucifyings and flayings, and immerseings in cauldrons of boiling oil. One stroke, and the affair’s done. A clumsy chirurgeon would be longer extracting a tooth. We have oft agreed that the little birds struck down by the kite and hawk suffer less than if they were reserved to a naturall death. There is one sensible difference, indeed, between us. In our cases, preparation is a-wanting.’

“Hereon, I minded me to slip off y^e haircloth and rope, and give the same to him, along with the books and suckets, all which he hid away privatelie, making merry at the last.

“ ‘ ’Twoulde tell well before the council,’ quoth he, ‘that on searching the prison-cell of Sir Thomas More, there was founde, flagitiouslie and mysteriouslie laid up . . . a piece of barley-sugar!’

“Then we talked over sundry home matters; and anon, having now both of us attayned unto an equable and chastened serenite of mind, which needed not any false shows of mirth to hide y^e naturall complexion of, he sayth, ‘I believe, Meg, they that have put me here ween they have done me a high displeasure; but I assure thee on my faith, mine own good daughter, that if it had not beene for my wife, and you, my dear good children, I would faine have been closed up, long ere this, in as straight a room, and straighter too.’ ”

While he is yet in prison, and his sentence yet unpassed, although certain, Margaret—for she has now been for some time the wife of good William Roper—loses her baby; for when do sorrows ever fall singly—can any thing than this be more beautiful, more true?

“Midnight.

“The wild wind is abroad, and, methinketh, nothing else. Sure, how it rages through our empty courts! In such a season, men, beasts, and fowls cower beneath y^e shelter of their rocking walls, yet almost fear to trust them. Lord, I know that thou canst give the tempest double force, but do not, I beseech thee! Oh! have mercy on the frail dwelling and the ship at sea.

“Dear little Bill hath ta’en a feverish attack. I watch beside him while his nurse sleeps. Earlie in the night his mind wandered, and he told me of a pretty ring-streaked poney noe bigger than a bee that had golden housings and barley-sugar eyes; then dozed, but ever and anon kept starting up, crying ‘Mammy, dear!’ and softlie murmured, ‘Oh,’ when he saw I was by. At length I gave him my fore-finger to hold, which kept him ware of my presence without speaking, but presentlie he stares hard toward y^e foot of the bed, and says fearfullie, ‘Mother, why hangs yon hatchet in the air, with its sharp edge turned towards us!’ I rise, move the lamp, and say, ‘Do you see it now?’ He sayth, ‘No? not now,’ and closes his eyes. After a good space, during the which I hoped he slept, he says in quite an altered tone, most like unto soft, sweet music, ‘There’s a pretty little cherub there now, alle head and noe body, with two little wings aneath his chin; but, for alle he’s soe pretty, he is just like dear Gaffer, and seems to know me . . . . . and he’ll have a body agayn, too, I believe, by-and-by . . . . . . . Mother, mother, tell Hobbinol there’s such a gentle lamb in heaven!’ And soe, slept.

“He’s gone, my pretty . . . . . ! slipt through my fingers like a bird! upfled to his own native skies, and yet whenas I think on him, I can not choose but weepe . . . . . Such a guileless little lamb! . . . My Billy-bird! his mother’s owne heart. They are alle wondrous kind to me . . . .

“How strange that a little child shoulde be permitted to suffer soe much payn, when of such is the kingdom of heaven! But ’tis onlie transient, whereas a mother makes it permanent, by thinking it over and over agayn. One lesson it taughte us betimes, that a natural death is not, necessarilie the most easie. We must alle die. . . . . . As poor Patteson was used to say, ‘The greatest king that ever was made, must bed at last with shovel and spade.’ . . . . . and I’d sooner have my Billy’s baby deathbed than King Harry’s, or Nan Boleyn’s either, however manie years they may yet carry matters with a high hand. Oh, you ministers of evill, whoever you be, visible or invisible, you shall not build a wall between my God and me . . . . . . I’ve something within me, grows stronger and stronger, as times grow more and more evill; some woulde call it resolution, but methinketh ’tis faith.”

And then comes the terrible catastrophe, the glorious devotion, the patient martyrdom, the heroic womanhood. Throughout the whole of this exquisite little volume, the interest, the tone, the vigor, the pathos, the poetry, the sublimity, is ever on the ascendant; and in this splendid passage it reaches its climax. Almost as we read, we see what passeth; altogether we feel it to our own heart’s core; scarcely can we refrain to accept it as fact not fiction. What writer of any day has effected much more than this?

“And then came ye frightfulle sentence.

“Yes, yes, my soul, I know; there were saints of old sawn asunder. Men of whom the world was not worthy.

“. . . . . . Then he spake unto ’em his mind, how that after lifelong studdy, he could never find that a layman mighte be head of the church. And bade his judges and accusers farewell; hoping that like as St. Paul was present and consenting unto St. Stephen’s death and yet both were now holy saints in heaven, soe he and they might speedilie meet there, joint heirs of e’erlasting salvation.

“Meantime poor Bess and Cecilie, spent with grief and long waiting, were for once carried home by Heron, or ever father returned to his prison. Was’t less feeling, or more strength of body, enabled me to bide at the Tower wharf with Dancey? God knoweth. They brought him back by water; my poor sisters must have passed him. . . . The first thing I saw was the ax, turned with its edge toward him—my first note of his sentence. I forct my way through the crowd . . . . . some one laid a cold hand on my arm; ’twas poor Patteson, soe changed I scarce knew him, with a rosary of gooseberries he kept running through his fingers. He sayth, ‘Bide your time, Mistress Meg; when he comes past, I’ll make a passage for ye’ . . . . . ‘Oh, brother, brother! what ailed thee to refuse the oath? I’ve taken it!’ In another moment. ‘Now, mistress, now!’ and flinging his arms right and left, made a breach through which I darted, fearlesse of bills and halberds, and did fling mine arms about father’s neck. He cries, ‘My Meg!’ and hugs me to him as though our very souls shoulde grow together. He sayth, ‘Bless thee, bless thee! Enough, enough, my child; what mean ye, to weep and break mine heart? Remember, though I die innocent, ’tis not without the will of God, who could send ’s angels to rescue me if ’twere best; therefore possess your soul in patience. Kiss them all for me, thus and thus’ . . . . . . soe gave me back into Dancey’s arms, the guards about him alle weeping; but I coulde not thus lose sight of him forever; soe, after a minute’s pause did make a second rush, brake away from Dancey, clave to father agayn, and agayn they had pitie on me, and made pause while I hung upon his neck. This time there were large drops standing on his dear brow; and the big tears were swelling into his eyes. He whispered, ‘Meg, for Christ’s sake don’t unman me; thou’lt not deny my last request?’ I sayd, ‘Oh! no;’ and at once loosened mine arms. ‘God’s blessing be with you,’ he sayth with a last kiss. I could not help crying, ‘My father! my father!’ ‘The chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof!’ he vehementlie whispers, pointing upward with soe passionate a regard, that I look up, almost expecting a beatific vision; and when I turn about agayn, he’s gone, and I have no more sense, nor life till I find myself agayn in mine own chamber, my sisters chafing my hands.

“Alle’s over now . . . . . they’ve done theire worst, and yet I live. There were women coulde stand aneath y^e cross. The Maccabees’ mother—. . . . . yes, my soul, yes; I know—naught but unpardoned sin . . . . . The chariot of Israel.

“Dr. Clement hath beene with us. Sayth he went up as blythe as a bridegroom to be clothed upon with mortality.

“Rupert stoode it alle out. Perfect love casteth out feare. Soe did his.

. . . . . . . “My most precious treasure is this deare billet, writ with a coal; the last thing he sett his hand to, wherein he sayth, ‘I never liked your manner toward me better than when you kissed me last.’

“They have let us bury his poor mangled trunk; but, as sure as there’s a sun in heaven, I’ll have his head!—before another sun hath risen, too. If wise men wont speed me, I’ll e’en content me with a fool.

“I doe think men, for ye most part, be cowards in theire hearts . . . . moral cowards. Here and there, we find one like father, and like Socrates, and like . . . . . . this and that one, I mind not theire names just now; but in y^e main, me thinketh they lack the moral courage of woman. Maybe, I’m unjust to ’em just now, being crost.

. . . . . . “I lay down, but my heart was waking. Soon after the first cock crew, I hearde a pebble cast agaynst my lattice, knew ye signall, rose, dressed, stole softlie down and let myself out. I knew the touch of y^e poor fool’s fingers; his teeth were chattering, ’twixt cold and fear, yet he laught aneath his breath as he caught my arm and dragged me after him, whispering, ‘Fool and fayr lady will cheat ’em yet.’ At the stairs lay a wherry with a couple of boatmen, and one of ’em stepping up to me, cries, ‘Alas for ruth, Mistress Meg, what is’t ye do? Art mad to go on this errand?’ I sayed, ‘I shall be mad if I go not, and succeed too—put me in, and push off.’

“We went down the river quietlie enow—at length reach London Bridge stairs. Patteson, starting up, says, ‘Bide ye all as ye are,’ and springs aland and runneth up to the bridge. Anon returns, and sayth, ‘Now, mistress, alle’s readie . . . . . readier than ye wist . . . . . come up quickly, for the coast’s clear.’ Hobson (for ’twas he) helps me forth, saying, ‘God speed ye, mistress . . . . . Gin I dared, I woulde goe with ye.’ . . . . Thought I, there be others in that case.

Nor lookt I up, till aneath the bridge-gate, when casting upward a fearsome look, I beheld y^e dark outline of the ghastly yet precious relic; and, falling into a tremor, did wring my hands and exclaim, ‘Alas, alas, that head hath lain full manie a time in my lap, woulde God, woulde God it lay there now!’ When, o’ suddain, I saw the pole tremble and sway toward me; and stretching forth my apron, I did in an extasy of gladness, pity, and horror, catch its burthen as it fell. Patteson, shuddering, yet grinning, cries under his breath, ‘Managed I not well, mistress? Let’s speed away with our theft, for fools and their treasures are soon parted; but I think not they’ll follow hard after us, neither, for there are well-wishers to us on the bridge. I’ll put ye into the boat, and then say, God speed ye, lady, with your burthen.’

If I have quoted very largely, it is from the assurance that the best criticism of the author is to let him be heard for himself; and that his own words must needs be far more interesting, as more touching, than any criticism, how eloquent or analytical soever; much more, than a mere string of laudatory comments—for in this instance criticism is limited to pure laudation—intended to illustrate, and link together in something of connection, the choicest passages of this choice volume.

With the last page of the book this article shall close, and the writer rests right confident that he has proved his position and won his case, by the evidence; that the Libellus, a Margarettâ More, is the book of the season, and one that must endure for all seasons, so long as the English tongue, and the fame of one of its brightest ornaments, endureth.

At another time, Mary Powell may furnish us with a theme for more varied disquisition, if more limited quotation.

“Flow on, bright shining Thames. A good brave man hath walked aforetime on your margent, himself as bright, and useful, and delightsome as be you, sweet river. And like you, he never murmured; like you, he upbore the weary, and gave drink to the thirsty, and reflected heaven in his face. I’ll not swell your full current with any more fruitless tears. There’s a river whose streams make glad the city of our God. He now rests beside it. Good Christian folks, as they hereafter pass this spot, upborne on thy gentle tide, will, maybe, point this way, and say—‘There dwelt Sir Thomas More;’ but whether they doe or not, vox populi is a very inconsiderable matter, for the majority are evil, and ‘the people sayd, Let him be crucified!’ Who would live on theire breath? They hailed St. Paul as Jupiter, and then stoned him and cast him out of the city, supposing him to be dead. Theire favourite of to-day may, for what they care, goe hang himself to-morrow in his surcingle. Thus it must be while the world lasts; and the very racks and scrues wherewith they aim to overcome the nobler spiritt, onlie test and reveal its power of exaltation above the heaviest gloom of circumstance.

“Interfecistis, interfecistis hominem omnium Anglorum optimum.”

Our New Suit.—It is not our purpose to show off—to take airs, to be proud, to refuse to speak to anybody, simply because our new suit has come home, and we are giving it its first holyday airing—but our new type, our new coat which covers it, and the very superior quality of our whole rig is rather stared at, we know—or we should not mention the fact. Excessive modesty has been our weakness—it is the besetting frailty of most Magazine publishers, as is fully evinced in their prospectuses. Humility is tenderly nursed and taken out riding, until it has a consumptive look, and is pronounced “too good for this world.” Yet it is the fashion. Nobody—least of all Godey—or Sartain or Harper—presumes to say a word in self-praise—then why should Graham set himself up and play Captain Grand, even if he is a little stouter and haler, and has a greater extent of territory over which he can gaze like Selkirk,

“Monarch of all he surveys;”

and like Alexander, sigh for “more worlds to conquer.” Why should he be proud? That question rather startles us; but the answer is at hand—because he has the greatest Magazine in the world—and the prettiest girls, and the most of ’em—to read it! It is estimated that 60,000 beautiful women are in love with Graham—the Magazine, of course—and Graham is as proud as Lucifer about it; and Graham prides himself, too, that his subscribers read his book, and are not satisfied with the picture books, which in younger days had so many charms for innocent eyes; when the whale in the spelling-book spouted hugely, even to the top of the page, and the camel had a hump that was a wonder—when stale love-stories and most sickly verse, with fragments disjointed of the veriest cold meats of literature were a marvel—when homilies upon graces, made up of whalebones—the last agony of fashion which it is agony to look at—were food for dreams.

We hold you by the button, reader, merely to mention the various excellencies which crown the feast; that our new type and finer paper, are worthy of special mention. Whether anybody ever had such type—or paper—or ever will have, is not the question; for in these days of special self-sacrifice, it will not do to be too modest, but—Our book is Grand for June.

The Fast Press.—No allusion is made in the title of this article to the extremely fast press which prints Graham—nor to the press which is fast upon the International Magazine—nor ironically to the slow teams which drive some of our cotemporaries with their small editions dismally along; nor yet to the American Press—which is rather progressive—but to Hoe’s immortal invention—the which, in compliment to the Press of the Union, we illustrate in our present and next issues in our usual happy manner. The entire establishment of Col. Hoe is to be set forth in pictured beauty before the readers of Graham in the June and July numbers.

We have paid the artists $400 for the drawings and engravings, and merely mention the fact that those who suppose first rate wood engravings are cheap, may take breath and reform their calculations. No indifferent old block, is ever put off upon our readers as a choice and rare engraving—nor do we submit to any imposition from engravers. Our work must be of the first order—or it is not ours. Some that we have rejected, we see elsewhere, and the publishers appear to be proud of their bargains—and cry, excelsior!

“Graham for May, with twelve engravings and 112 pages of reading, is already on our table—the gem of the season. Long live Graham. Why don’t such a clever fellow get married? That’s what we want to know—and so do the ladies. Then, friend Graham, you would not be troubled so much with your batch of ‘love letters.’ ”—Gazette, Hallowell, Me.

The fact is, we have been thinking of it, for—the last thirteen years—but every month we have to get up a very beautiful woman for the Magazine, and we are always head over ears in love with a new feature. Some of these times we shall settle down quietly and be “a love of a husband”—see if we don’t!

“We think that Godey will have to acknowledge himself beaten this month by Graham; but we wish to ask Graham two questions, and hope he will answer truthfully. The first is, if he is a married man: the second, who engraved the ‘Jolly Good Fellows?’ ”—Southern Argus, Houston, Miss.

Godey says his “Book” is a “peculiar Magazine in all respects—containing matter that does not appear in other magazines, and all other matters that do.” So you see, friend Argus, that he dodges the question, which is what we never did. Devereux engraved the “Jolly Good Fellows.” As to being married—that is another question!

Our friend Duval, of “The Phœnix,” Camden, Ala., throws up his cap and hurras for Graham, and says we are “ahead of all cotemporaries, and understand our business.” It is very evident from the following from the Phœnix, that the merchants of that place do not. “Persons at a distance, looking over the columns of our Camden papers might very reasonably come to the conclusion that we have no merchants or business men in Camden. Well, that is pretty near the truth—we have none who fully understand their business, or they would more frequently make use of the columns of their village papers, to inform the country people that they want their patronage. Our merchants seem to think that all their customers are in town, and see the arrival of their new goods, never thinking, perhaps, that their country customers wait to hear the news.”

How any man, who has a desire to do business, can overlook the manifest advantage of letting people know he has goods to sell, is a marvel—and that large wholesale dealers in our Atlantic cities should overlook the advantage of advertising in the distant papers of business towns, is to be set down as a piece of stupidity only equaled by the tortoise, which shuts its shell that it may not be seen. Wherever your customers are likely to come from—there should be your advertising cards.

Table of Contents has been added for reader convenience. Archaic spellings and hyphenation have been retained. Obvious typesetting and punctuation errors have been corrected without note. Other errors have been corrected as noted below. For illustrations, some caption text may be missing or incomplete due to condition of the originals available for preparation of the eBook.

In the first article NEW YORK PRINTING MACHINE, PRESS, AND SAW WORKS., the footnote was added to clarify the meaning of a sentence which may be confusing to some modern day readers.

Fiction, Literature and Articles

New York Printing Machine, Press, and Saw Works
Edith Morton
Ferdinand De Candolles
The Ghost-Raiser
Tom Moore—The Poet of Erin
A Life of Vicissitudes (continued)
Two Ways to Manage
The Master’s Mate’s Yarn (concluded)
The First Age (concluded)
Titus Quinctius Flamininus
Nelly Nowlan’s Experience
Review of New Books
Literary Gossip
Graham’s Small-Talk

Poetry and Music

A Farewell
Lines, Suggested by Rogers’ Statue of Ruth
What Dost Thou Work For?
April
I Woo Thee, Spring
Song
The Phantom Field
Shakspeare
The Actual
The Pledge
To A Beautiful Girl
The Orphan’s Hymn
Religion
Our Minnie’s Dream
Sonnet—Pleasure
To Adhemar
Hour of Fond Delight

NEW YORK PRINTING MACHINE, PRESS, AND SAW WORKS.

“LABOR AND MACHINERY.

A FAREWELL.

EDITH MORTON.

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

LINES,

FERDINAND DE CANDOLLES.

THE GHOST-RAISER.

WHAT DOST THOU WORK FOR?

APRIL.

TOM MOORE.—THE POET OF ERIN.

A LIFE OF VICISSITUDES.

LONDON, FIFTY YEARS AGO.

BANKING MATTERS.

GLIMPSES OF THE LOST.

OLD FEELINGS AND NEW ACQUAINTANCES.

THE LONGED FOR MEETING.

I WOO THEE, SPRING.

SONG.

TWO WAYS TO MANAGE.

THE PHANTOM FIELD.

SHAKSPEARE.

THE MASTER’S MATE’S YARN.

THE ACTUAL.

THE PLEDGE.

TO A BEAUTIFUL GIRL.

THE FIRST AGE.

SECTION I.

SECTION II.

SECTION III.

SECTION IV.

SECTION V.

SECTION VI.

THE ORPHAN’S HYMN.

RELIGION.

TITUS QUINCTIUS FLAMININUS.[2]

OUR MINNIE’S DREAM.

SONNET.—PLEASURE.

NELLY NOWLAN’S EXPERIENCE.

TO ADHEMAR.

REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.

LITERARY GOSSIP.

GRAHAM’S SMALL-TALK.

HOUR OF FOND DELIGHT.

TITUS QUINCTIUS FLAMININUS.^[2]