* A Distributed Proofreaders Canada eBook *

This eBook is made available at no cost and with very few restrictions. These restrictions apply only if (1) you make a change in the eBook (other than alteration for different display devices), or (2) you are making commercial use of the eBook. If either of these conditions applies, please contact a https://www.fadedpage.com administrator before proceeding. Thousands more FREE eBooks are available at https://www.fadedpage.com.

This work is in the Canadian public domain, but may be under copyright in some countries. If you live outside Canada, check your country's copyright laws. IF THE BOOK IS UNDER COPYRIGHT IN YOUR COUNTRY, DO NOT DOWNLOAD OR REDISTRIBUTE THIS FILE.

This eBook was produced by: Mardi Desjardins & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net

GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

Vol. XX.      March, 1842      No. 3.

Contents

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

J. G. Chapman.        R. Hinshelwood.

The Crowning of Powhatan.

Engraved for Graham’s Magazine from an Original Picture

GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

Vol. XX.    PHILADELPHIA: MARCH, 1842.    No. 3.

The settlement at Jamestown was begun in 1606. Among the earliest of the adventurers was the chivalrous Captain Smith, whose life was a romance even in those romantic days. He soon came to be the leader of the colonists, and it was through his exertions that the settlement was kept up, amid privations and dangers almost incredible. The story of his capture by the Indians, and his preservation from death by Pocahontas, has become a national tradition, and poets have sung, orators declaimed, and novelists penned volumes to record the bravery of the Captain, and the love of the Indian maid. But, perhaps, nowhere is the story told with such effect as in the “Generall Historie” of the gallant Smith himself, a work published in 1624, and still to be met with in the libraries of the curious. The book is a rarity. It is adorned with maps,—not the most correct, to be sure—and with engravings setting forth the various perilous situations of the author, over which a book-worm would gloat for a month. The narrative is written in a plain, frank, unassuming style, and the author is always spoken of in the third person. To this book we are indebted for an account of the crowning of Powhatan, and our only regret is that our limits will not suffer us to give the quaint language of Smith.

This singular ceremony took place in 1608, and was performed at the instigation of the council at home, who sent over the necessary insignia by Capt. Newport from London. The object of the ceremony was to propitiate Powhatan, and induce him to guide the colonists to the country of the Monacons, whom the dreamy adventurers, exaggerating the casual hints of the Indians, had pictured to themselves as a people of boundless wealth. It is evident, from the “Generall Historie,” that Smith did not approve of the measure, for he says appositely—“As for the coronation of Powhatan, and his presents of Basin and Ewer, Bed, Bedstead, Clothes, &c., and such costly novelties, they had been much better spared than so ill spent, for we had his favor much better only for a plain piece of copper.” The measure had been resolved on at home, however, and Captain Smith had no alternative but to obey. Accordingly, he sent a messenger to Powhatan to come and receive his presents; but the Indian monarch, with the spirit of an Alexander, replied, “If your King have sent me presents, I also am a King, and this is my land: eight days I will stay to receive them. Your father is to come to me, not I to him.” The Captain now sent the presents “a hundred miles by river,” as he tells us, to Powhatan. Here a masked ball and other festivities came off, in which the Captain seems to have been quite a favorite with the Indian belles. At length the ceremony of the coronation was performed, but, if the bold Captain speaks aright, it must have been a sorry crowning. He says, “But a sore trouble there was to make him kneel to receive his crown, he neither knowing the majesty nor meaning of a crown, nor bending of the knee, endured as many persuasions, examples and instructions as enraged them all. At last, by bearing hard on his shoulders, he a little stooped, and those having the crown in their hands put it on his head, when by the warning of a pistol, the boats were prepared with such a volley of shot, that the King started up with a horrible fear, till he saw all was well.” A graphic picture. A sturdy old republican was Powhatan, having no notion of their crown! We imagine we can see the perturbation of the good Captain and his followers when they found that the old warrior would not kneel, and the glee with which they regarded their success, when, by pressing hard on the royal shoulders, they surprised him into being duly crowned.

The honor, however, failed of its object. Powhatan would give no aid to the colonists in their designs on the Monacons, although that people was a sworn enemy to his race. He proudly said that he needed no ally—that he could conquer his foes alone. The only return he made for the gifts of the council was a present of an old pair of slippers and a mantle to Capt. Newport. The picture, by Chapman, graphically pourtrays the ceremony.

HEINRICH HEINE.

———

BY HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.

———

Ludwig Börne, the well-known author of Letters from Paris, once said, that Voltaire was only the John the Baptist of Antichrist, but that Heine was Antichrist himself. Perhaps he paid Heine too great a compliment yet the remark is true so far as this, that it points him out as the leader of that new school in Germany which is seeking to establish a religion of sensuality, and to build a palace of Pleasure on the ruins of the church.

This school is known under the name of Young Germany. It is skeptical, and sensual; and seems desirous of trying again the experiment so often tried before, but never with any success, of living without a God. Heine expresses this in phrases too blasphemous or too voluptuous to repeat; and Gutzkow, his follower exclaims: “Let the only Priest, that weds our hearts, be a moment of rapture, not the church, with her ceremonies, and her servants with parted hair;” and again with a sigh: “Alas! had the world known nothing of God, it would have been happier!”

Thus the old and oft-repeated follies of mankind come up and are lived over again by young men, who despise the wisdom of the Past, and imagine themselves wiser than their own generation. Nor are these young men without their admirers and advocates. Madame Dacier, of classic memory, defended Sappho’s morals, and in reply to the hereditary scandal against her, coldly said: “Sappho had her enemies.” Nearly in the same way is Young Germany defended; and even theologians have not been wanting, to palliate, excuse and justify.

In this country, there are certain persons, who seem disposed to enact this same tragic farce; for we too, have our Young America, which mocks the elder prophets, and cries “Go up, bald-head!”—Young ladies read with delight such books as Festus, and think the Elective Affinities “religious almost to piety.” Young men, who profess to be Christians, like the Pagan of Lafontaine, believe in God by a kind of patent-right,—par bénéfice d’inventaire. Nature, we are told, must not be interfered with in any way, at any time; and so much is said about this, that many respectable people begin to say with old Voss, “Dear Nature! thou seemest to me quite too natural!”

I do not, however, propose to discuss these points in the following sketch; nor to consider Heine’s plans for regenerating society, which, at best, are but vague opinions thrown out recklessly and at random, like fire-brands, that set in a flame whatever light matter they fall upon. It is the Author only, that I shall attempt to sketch.

Henry Heine was born in 1797 at Düsseldorf on the Rhine; and studied at the Universities of Bonn, Berlin, and Göttingen. He afterwards resided in Hamburg, Berlin and Munich; and since 1830 has lived in Paris. His principal writings are Buch der Lieder, a collection of lyrical poems; two tragedies, Almansor and Radcliff; the four volumes of Reisebilder; the Beiträge zur Geschichte der neuern schönen Literatur in Deutschland; the Frangësische Zustände; and Der Salon,—the last two being collections of his various contributions to the German newspapers. The most popular of his writings is the Reisebilder, (Pictures of Travel.) The Beiträge has been translated into English, by Geo. W. Haven, under the title of Letters auxiliary to the History of modern Polite Literature in Germany, Boston, 1836. The same work, with many additions, has been published in Paris, under the title of De l’Allemagne.

The style of Heine is remarkable for vigor, wit and brilliancy; but is wanting in taste and refinement. To the recklessness of Byron he adds the sentimentality of Sterne. The Reisebilder is a kind of Don Juan in prose, with passages from the Sentimental Journey. He is always in extremes, either of praise or censure; setting at nought the decencies of life, and treating the most sacred things with frivolity. Throughout his writings you see traces of a morbid, ill-regulated mind; of deep feeling, disappointment and suffering. His sympathies seem to have died within him, like Ugolino’s children in the tower of Famine. With all his various powers, he wants the one great power—the power of truth! He wants, too, that ennobling principle of all human endeavors, the aspiration “after an ideal standard, that is higher than himself.” In a word, he wants sincerity and spirituality.

In the highest degree reprehensible, too, is the fierce, implacable hatred with which Heine pursues his foes. No man should write of another as he permits himself to do at times. In speaking of Schlegel, as he does in his German Literature, he is utterly without apology. And yet to such remorseless invectives, to such witty sarcasms, he is indebted in a great degree for his popularity. It was not till after he had bitten the heel of Hercules, that the Crab was placed among the constellations.

The following passages from the Reisebilder, will give the reader a general idea of Heine’s style; exhibiting at once his beauties and defects—his poetic feeling—his spirit—his wit—his want of taste. The first is from his description of a Tour to the Harz Mountains; the second from his Journey from Munich to Genoa.

——

SCENE ON THE BROCKEN.

In the dining-room of the inn I found all life and motion; students from various Universities; some just arrived, are refreshing themselves, others are preparing for their departure, buckling their knapsacks, writing their names in the Album, receiving Brocken-bouquets from the servant girl; there is pinching of cheeks, singing, dancing, shouting; questions are asked, answers given,—fine weather,—footpath,—God bless you—good bye. Some of the departing are a little jolly, and take double delight in the beautiful view, because a man when he is drunk sees all things double.

When I had somewhat refreshed myself, I ascended the observatory, and found there a little gentleman with two ladies, one of them young, the other oldish. The young lady was very beautiful. A glorious figure,—upon her curling tresses a helm-like hat of black satin, with whose white feathers the wind sported;—her delicate limbs so closely wrapped in a black silk mantle, that the noble outlines were distinctly seen;—and her free, large eye quietly gazing forth into the free, large world.

I sought without more ado to engage the beautiful lady in conversation; for one does not truly enjoy the beauties of Nature, unless he can express his feelings at the moment. She was not intellectual, but attentive, sensible. Of a truth, most aristocratic features. I do not mean that common, stiff, negative aristocratic bearing, that knows exactly what must be let alone; but that rare, free, positive aristocratic bearing, which tells us clearly what we may do, and gives us with the greatest freedom of manners, the greatest social security. To my own astonishment, I displayed considerable geographical knowledge; told the curious fair one all the names of the towns that lay before us; found and showed her the same on my map, which I unfolded with true professional dignity, upon the stone table in the middle of the platform. Many of the towns I could not find, perhaps because I looked for them rather with my fingers, than with my eyes, which meanwhile were investigating the face of the gentle lady, and found more beautiful excursions there than Schierke and Elend. It was one of those faces that never excite, seldom fascinate, and always please. I love such faces, because they smile to sleep my turbulent heart.

In what relation the little gentleman, who accompanied the ladies, stood to them I could not guess. He was a thin, curious-looking figure; a little head, sparingly covered with little grey hairs, that came down over his narrow forehead as far as his green dragon-fly eyes, his crooked nose projecting to a great length, and his mouth and chin retreating anxiously towards the ears. This funny little face seemed to be made of a soft, yellowish clay, such as sculptors use in forming their first models, and when the thin lips were pressed together, a thousand fine, semi-circular wrinkles covered his cheeks. Not one word did the little gentleman say; and only now and then, when the elderly lady whispered something pleasant in his ear, he smiled like a poodle-dog with a cold in his head.

The elderly lady was the mother of the younger, and likewise possessed the most aristocratic form and feature. Her eye betrayed a morbid, sentimental melancholy; about her mouth was an expression of rigid piety; and yet it seemed to me, as if once it had been very beautiful, had laughed much, and taken and given many a kiss. Her face resembled a Codex palympsestus, where, beneath the recent, black, monkish copy of a homily of one of the Fathers of the Church, peeped forth the half effaced verses of some ancient Greek love-poet. Both of the ladies, with their companion, had been that year in Italy, and told me all kinds of pretty things about Rome, Florence and Venice. The mother had a great deal to say of Raphael’s paintings at St. Peter’s; the daughter talked more about the opera and the Teatro Fenice.

While we were speaking it began to grow dark; the air grew colder, the sun sank lower, and the platform was filled with students, mechanics, and some respectable cockneys, with their wives and daughters, all of whom had come to see the sun set. It is a sublime spectacle, which attunes the soul to prayer. A full quarter of an hour stood we all solemnly silent, and saw how that beauteous ball of fire by slow degrees sank in the west; our faces were lighted by the ruddy glow of evening,—our hands folded themselves involuntarily;—it was as if we stood there, a silent congregation in the nave of a vast cathedral, and the Priest were elevating the Body of the Lord, and the eternal choral of Palestrina flowing down from the organ!

As I stood thus absorbed in devotion, I heard some one say close beside me,

“Generally speaking, how very beautiful nature is!”

These words came from the tender heart of my fellow lodger, the young shop-keeper. They brought me back again to my work-day mood, and I was just in the humor to say several very polite things to the ladies about the sunset, and quietly conduct them back to their room, as if nothing had happened. They permitted me to sit and talk with them another hour. As the earth itself, so revolved our conversation round the sun. The mother remarked, that the sun, sinking in vapors, had looked like a red, blushing rose, which the Heaven in its gallantry had thrown down upon the broad-spreading, white bridal veil of his beloved Earth! The daughter smiled, and expressed herself of the opinion, that too great familiarity with the appearances of nature weakened their effect. The mother corrected this erroneous view by a passage from Göthe’s Reisebriefen, and asked me if I had read the Sorrows of Werther. I believe we talked also about Angola cats, Etruscan vases, Cashmire shawls, macaroni and Lord Byron, from whose poems the elderly lady, prettily lisping and sighing, recited some passages on sunsets. To the younger lady, who did not understand English, but wanted to read Byron, I recommended the translations of my fair and gifted country-woman, the Baronese Elise von Hohenhausen; and availed myself of the opportunity, as I always do with young ladies, to express myself with warmth upon Byron’s ungodliness, unloveliness and unhappiness.

Reisebilder, Vol. 1.

——

STREET MUSICIANS.

When I returned to the Locanda della Grande Europa, when I had ordered a good Pranzo, I was so sad at heart that I could not eat,—and that means a great deal. I seated myself before the door of the neighboring Botega, refreshed myself with an ice, and said within myself:

“Capricious Heart! thou art now forsooth in Italy—why singest thou not like the lark? Perhaps the old German Sorrows, the little serpents, that hid themselves deep within thee have come with us into Italy, and are making merry now, and their common jubilee awakens in my breast that picturesque sorrow, which so strangely stings and dances and whistles? And why should not the old sorrows make merry for once? Here in Italy it is indeed so beautiful, suffering itself is here so beautiful,—in these ruinous marble palaces sighs sound far more romantically, than in our neat brick houses,—beneath yon laurel trees one can weep far more voluptuously, than under our surly, jagged pines,—and gaze with looks of far sweeter longing at the ideal cloud-landscapes of celestial Italy, than at the ash-gray, German work-day heaven, where the very clouds wear the looks of decent burghers, and yawn so tediously down upon us! Stay then in my heart, ye sorrows! Nowhere will you find a better lodging. You are dear and precious to me; and no man knows better how to father and cherish you, than I; and I confess to you, you give me pleasure. And after all, what is pleasure? Pleasure is nothing else than a highly agreeable Pain.”

I believe that the music, which, without my taking note of it, sounded before the Botega, and had already drawn round itself a circle of spectators, had melo-dramatically accompanied this monologue. It was a strange trio, consisting of two men, and a young girl, who played the harp. One of the men, warmly clad in a white shaggy coat, was a robust fellow, with a dark-red bandit-face, that gleamed from his black hair and beard, like a portentous comet; and between his legs he held a monstrous bass-viol, upon which he sawed as furiously, as if he had thrown down a poor traveller in the Abruzzi, and was in haste to fiddle his windpipe in two. The other was a tall, meagre graybeard, whose mouldering bones shook in their thread-bare, black garments, and whose snow-white hair formed a lamentable contrast with his buffo song and his foolish capers. It is sad enough, when an old man must barter for bread the respect we owe to his years, and give himself up to buffoonery; but more melancholy still, when he does this before or with his own child! For that girl was the daughter of the old Buffo, and accompanied with the harp the lowest jests of her gray-headed father; or, laying her harp aside sang with him a comic duet, in which he represented an amorous old dotard and she the young coquettish inamorata. Moreover the girl seemed hardly to have passed the threshold of childhood; as if the child, before it had grown to maidenhood, had been made a woman, and not an honest woman. Hence that pallid, faded look, and the expression of nervous discontent in her beautiful face, whose proudly rounded features as it were disdained all show of compassion;—hence the secret sorrowfulness of the eyes, that from beneath their black, triumphal arches flashed forth such challenges;—hence the deep mournful voice, that so strangely contrasted with the laughing, beautiful lips, from which it fell;—hence the debility of those too delicate limbs, around which a short, anxious-looking robe of violet-colored silk, fluttered as low as it possibly could. In addition to this, gay, variegated satin ribbands flaunted from her faded straw hat, and emblematic of herself, her breast was adorned with an open rose-bud, which seemed rather to have been rudely torn open, than to have bloomed forth from its green sheath by its own natural growth. Still in this unhappy girl, in this Spring which Death had already breathed upon and blasted,—lay an indescribable charm, a grace, which revealed itself in every look, in every motion, in every tone. The bolder her gestures became, the deeper grew my compassion; and when her voice rose from her breast so weak and wondrous, and as it were implored forgiveness; then triumphed in my breast the little serpents, and bit their tails for joy. The Rose likewise seemed to look at me imploringly; once I saw it tremble and grow pale,—but at the same moment rose the trills of the girl so much the more laughingly aloft, the old man wooed still more amorously, and the red comet-face murdered his viol so grimly, that it uttered the most terrifically droll sounds, and the spectators shouted more madly than ever.

*      *      *      *

The little harper must have remarked, that while she was singing and playing, I looked often at the rose upon her breast; and as I afterwards threw upon the tin plate, with which she collected her honorarium, a piece of gold, and not of the smallest, she smiled slily, and asked me secretly, if I wanted her rose.

*      *      *      *

Think no evil, dear reader. It had grown dark, and the stars looked so pure and pious down into my heart. In that heart itself, however, trembled the memory of the dead Maria. I thought again of that night, when I stood beside the bed, where lay her beautiful, pale form, with soft, still lips—I thought again of the strange look the old woman cast at me, who was to watch by the dead body, and surrendered her charge to me for a few hours—I thought again of the night-violet, that stood in a glass upon the table, and smelt so strangely. Again I shuddered with the doubt, whether it were really a draft of wind, that blew the lamp out?—or whether there were a third person in the chamber!

Reisebilder, Vol. 3.

——

The minor poems of Heine, like most of his prose writings, are but a portrait of himself. The same melancholy tone,—the same endless sigh,—pervades them. Though they possess the highest lyric merit they are for the most part fragmentary;—expressions of some momentary state of feeling,—sudden ejaculations of pain or pleasure, of restlessness, impatience, regret, longing, love. They profess to be songs, and as songs must they be judged, and as German Songs. Then these imperfect expressions of feeling,—these mere suggestions of thought,—this “luminous mist,” that half reveals, half hides the sense,—this selection of topics from scenes of every day life, and in fine this prevailing tone of sentimental sadness, will not seem affected, misplaced nor exaggerated. At the same time it must be confessed that the trivial and common-place recur too frequently in these songs. Here, likewise, as in the prose of Heine, the lofty aim is wanting; we listen in vain for the spirit-stirring note—for the word of power—for those ancestral melodies, which, amid the uproar of the world, breathe in our ears forever-more the voices of consolation, encouragement and warning. Heine is not sufficiently in earnest to be a great poet.

———

BY EDGAR A. POE.

———

DRAWN BY T. HAYTER.        ENGRAVED BY H. S. SADD, N.Y.

THE YOUNG WIDOW.

Engraved Expressly for Graham’s Magazine

LINES WRITTEN BENEATH A MINIATURE.

A LEGEND OF THE DELAWARE.

———

BY ALFRED B. STREET.

———

———

BY WM. WALLACE, AUTHOR OF “JERUSALEM,” “STAR LYRA,” ETC.

———

———

BY ANN S. STEPHENS.

———

(Continued from page 82.)

The princely pile, known as Somerset House, remains even to this day unfinished, and at the time of our story was, with the exception of one block, scarcely raised above its foundations. The large square court and every empty space, for many rods around its site, were cumbered with building materials. Piles of rude stone—beds of newly made mortar—window-sashes, with the lead and rich glass that composed them, crushed together from the carelessness with which they had been flung down—cornices with the gilding yet fresh upon them—great fragments of carved oak—beams of timber with flags of marble, and even images of saints, broken as they were torn from their niches, lay heaped together promiscuously and with a kind of sacrilegious carelessness. That block of the building, which runs parallel with the river, alone was completed, while that portion of the square, which forms its angle on the strand, was built to the second story so far as the great arched entrance. But all the rest was only massed out by a line of rough stones sunk into the earth, and in places almost concealed by the heaps of rubbish which we have described.

Notwithstanding the unfinished state of his palace the Lord Protector had taken possession of that portion already completed, and from the sumptuous—nay, almost regal magnificence of its adornments, seemed determined to rival his royal nephew and king, in state, as he had already done in power.

We have been particular in describing the Lord Protector’s residence, for, at the time our story resumes its thread, it contained the leading personages who rendered themselves conspicuous in the St. Margaret’s riot.

Once more the gray of morning hung over the city of London, a faint hum of voices and the sound of busy feet rose gradually within its bosom. With the earliest glimmer a host of workmen came to their daily toil upon the palace, and were seen in the yet dim light swarming upon the heaps of material gathered in the court, and creeping, like ants drawn from their mound, along the damp walls and the scaffolding that bristled over them.

Though the hum and bustle of busy life swelled and deepened in the streets the light was not yet strong enough to penetrate the masses of heavy velvet which muffled three tall windows of a chamber overlooking the Thames, and a slope of rich, but trampled sward that rolled greenly down to its brink. So thick and deeply folded were the curtains that it was broad day in the streets, though the sun had not yet risen, before sufficient light penetrated the chamber to draw out the objects which it contained from the deep tranquil gloom that surrounded them. By degrees a soft, warm light came stealing through a fold or two of the crimson drapery as if a shower of wine were dashed against them, very faint and rich it was, but sufficient to reveal a mantelpiece of clouded marble surmounting an immense fire-place at one end of the room—tall chairs of dark wood, heavily covered with cushions of crimson leather enveloped with gold, standing in solemn magnificence around, and a massive bed supported by immense posts of ebony, each carved like the stems of a great vine twisted together and coiling upward to the ceiling, where they branched off and twined together, a superb cornice of foliage cut from the polished wood, and intermingled with clusters of fruit so roundly carved that they seemed ready to break loose from the rich workmanship of tendrils and leaves which bedded them. The broad footboard was carved to a perfect net-work; its glittering black only relieved by the Somerset crest exquisitely emblazoned in the centre. The head was surmounted by a slab of broad ebony even more elaborately wrought than the other, more nicely touched and interworked like a specimen of Chinese ivory. In the centre, just over the pillows, a basket of golden apples gleamed through the delicate dark tracery, which seemed to prison it, and caught the first faint light that struggled through the windows. As this light deepened and grew stronger within the room, a counterpane of purple velvet sweeping over the bed began to glow, as if the grapes above were red, and had been shaken during the night over the lovely girl who lay in an unquiet slumber beneath it. The counterpane was disturbed and lay in purple waves over the bed—for the Lady Jane Seymour had started up more than once during the morning, and after gazing wildly about in the dim light, sunk to her pillow again, in that state of unquiet drowsiness, which is neither wakefulness nor repose. Now and then, as she seemed most soundly asleep, her lips moved with restless murmurs, and her fair brow was knitted as if in pain beneath the crushed lace of her night-coif. She was lying thus with closed eyes, and yet scarcely asleep, when a door opened, and the old woman who had escaped from the riot on the previous day, stole softly into the chamber, bearing in her arms a bundle of green rushes and a basket of flowers—humble things, but fresh and with the night dew yet upon them. She laid her burthen on the floor, and approaching the bed on tipt-toe, bent down and kissed the small hand which crept out from a fold of the counterpane, as if the beautiful sleeper had been half aware of her approach. More than once did the kind nurse bend over and caress her charge, but timidly and as if fearful of arousing her. At length she went to her basket, took a bunch of wild violets from the blossoms it contained and laid them upon the pillow. A faint smile beamed over that fair face as the perfume stole over it, and Lady Jane murmured softly as one who received pleasure in a dream.

The nurse hurried away, and untying her rushes, began to scatter them over the oaken floor. After casting down a few of the flowers upon the fragrant carpet, she selected others to fill an antique little vase which stood on a table richly wrought, like everything in the chamber, and surmounted by a mirror which hung against the wall, in a frame of ebony and gold, twined and drawn heavily together. The light was yet very dim, so the good nurse cautiously drew back a fold of the window-curtain. A sun-beam shot through and broke over the steel mirror plate, as if a golden arrow had been shivered there. A flood of light, more than she had intended to admit, filled the chamber and completely aroused the Lady Jane. She started up in her couch, gazed wildly upon her nurse, who stood almost terrified by what she had done, with the half filled vase suspended over the table, and then bending her head down upon her hand, seemed lost in thought, which ended in a fit of weeping.

“Nurse,” she said at last, but without lifting her face.

The old woman set down her vase, and moving to the bed drew the young girl to her bosom, and putting back her night-cap, affectionately smoothed the bright hair gathered beneath it, with her hand.

“Tell me all that happened, good nurse,” said the Lady at length, “I know that something is wrong, that I have been in strange places, and amid a host of people, but it all seems very long since, and strange, like the dreams that haunt one in sickness.” She paused awhile, very thoughtfully, and resumed what she was saying.

“You were with me, and I remember now! they whirled you away in the crowd. There was a little evil looking man came to me after that. He rode by them. The church! the altar! that window! and Lord Dudley in the grasp of rude soldiers! Nurse—tell me, where is the Duke? where is my father? I must see my father! Go to him, and say that his daughter has been ill, very ill, and would speak with him before he rides forth for the morning. Go quickly, I am very well, and can robe myself.”

As she uttered these hasty directions, the Lady Jane flung back the bed-drapery, and springing to the floor, snatched a robe from the chair to which it had been flung on the previous night, and thrusting her arms into the loose sleeves, began eagerly and with trembling fingers, to knot the silken cord which bound it to her waist. All at once her hands dropped from the task, and her exalted features contracted with a sudden and most painful thought.

“Do not go,” she said in a stifled voice, but without lifting her face, “It was my father who bade them tear the church down upon me. It was he who flung Lord Dudley back among those bad men. Do not go.”

The nurse, who had seemed reluctant to perform the mission desired of her, returned, and taking up her young lady’s slippers, knelt down to place them on her feet, which were heedlessly pressing the chill floor, but putting the good woman gently aside, Lady Jane began to pace slowly up and down the apartment, sweeping the rushes with her loose robe, and crushing beneath her small white feet, the wild blossoms that had been scattered among them. At length she stopped suddenly and clasping her hands, turned a look full of wild anguish upon the good woman, who stood meekly by the bed, with the rejected slippers in her hand.

“Did you think that my father would ever have cursed me?” she said. “That he would revile the bravest and most noble being in all England, before a mob of riotous men; that he would let them seize him and trample me to the earth; me, his youngest child—who loved him so.”

“Nay, sweet Lady—you have been ill, and all this is a feverish fancy. You should have seen with what tenderness my Lord The Duke, bore you up from the barge, in his own arms, and would not rest till we brought him word that you were safe in bed here, and asleep,” replied the nurse.

Lady Jane shook her head and smiled sadly. “It was no dream,” she said, “dreams are of the fancy, but such things as happened yesterday, sink into the soul, and will not pass away.”

“And yet,” replied the dame, “it was but now the Lord Duke took such care of your repose, my gentle Lady, that he forbade the workmen wielding a hammer or crowbar in the court, lest your rest might be disturbed too early. I met him scarcely ten minutes since, on the way to his closet, where he is about to examine my Lord Dudley, and that strange looking man who was brought here on his lordship’s horse, while the brave young gentleman came by water with a pack of soldiers at his heels. The Duke, your father, was in haste, but he took occasion to inquire after your welfare, and bade me observe that no one entered this chamber, or disturbed you in the least, till you were quite restored.”

Lady Jane took the slippers from her attendant’s hand, and hastily thrusting her feet into them, began to arrange her dress once more.

“Said you that Lord Dudley was with my father now?” she enquired, turning from the steel mirror, before which she was hurriedly twisting up her hair.

“He may not have left his prisoner in the new rooms near the arch yet,” replied the dame, “but I heard the Duke give orders that he should be brought out directly with that fellow in the sheep-skin cap. If we were but on the other side, nothing would be easier than to see them with the guard, filing through the court.”

“And has my father gone so far? Lord Dudley imprisoned in our own dwelling with a felon knave like that?” murmured Lady Jane, folding her arms and looking almost sternly upon the floor, “alas, what is his offence, what is mine, that a parent, once so good and kind should deal thus cruelly with us!” Tears gathered in her eyes as she spoke, and advancing to the nurse she took her arm, and moved resolutely toward the door.

“Whither are you going my lady?” said the nurse, turning pale with apprehension.

“To my father,” replied Lady Jane calmly, “I would learn the nature of my offence, and if accusation is brought against my affianced husband I would stand by his side. Do not turn pale and tremble, nurse, I am not the child which I went forth yesterday, though but a day older; intense suffering is more powerful than time, and I almost think that my youth has departed forever. Let us go!”

“I dare not,” replied the old woman, “the duke has forbidden it.”

“Am I also a prisoner, and in my father’s house?” demanded the lady, “well, be it so! When the falcon is caged the poor dove should but peck idly against her wires,” and sitting down the unhappy girl folded her arms on the dressing-table, where she wept in bitterness of heart. The noise of heavy feet passing along the corridor to which her chamber opened aroused her.

“It is the soldiers with Lord Dudley in charge,” said the nurse in reply to her questioning look, “I will go and see.” The good woman arose and softly opening the door looked out. Lady Jane gazed after her with intense earnestness. When she stepped into the passage and the sound of low voices came into the room the anxious young creature could restrain herself no longer, for the tones were familiar and made her heart thrill, burthened as it was with sorrow. She moved eagerly toward the door, and, as it was swung open by the returning nurse, caught one glance of Lord Dudley’s face. It was stern and pale as death. He saw her and tried to smile, but the rude voice of a soldier bade him move on; he was hereby excited and the effort was lost in a proud curve of the lips, which chilled the unhappy young creature who gazed so breathlessly upon him. It was the first time that she had ever seen a shadow of bitterness on those lips, for her presence had always a power to bring sunshine to them in his sternest mood.

“Oh, what changes has one day brought,” she murmured, burying her face once more upon the table, “my father’s curse upon me—Dudley, my Dudley, estranged. My mother—alas! when has the morning dawned that her kiss failed to greet me. Now, on this wretched day,” she broke off, locked the small hands which covered her face more firmly together, and again murmured, “Heaven help me, for I am alone!”

“No, not alone—is your old nurse of no account? If they have made her your jailor is she not a kind one?” said the good-hearted attendant, bending over her weeping charge. “Come, take heart, lady-bird, dark days cannot last forever; the stars, so beautiful and bright, are sometimes lost in black clouds, but they always find a time to shine out again. The duke cannot intend to deal harshly with you or he would never have appointed your own fond old nurse keeper to your prison. Besides, Lord Dudley will be set free directly; he bade me tell you that a messenger had been sent to the staunch old earl, his father, and that another night would not find him submitting to insult and confinement like the last.”

Lady Jane ceased to weep, but still remained sad and thoughtful; she was troubled and grieved by the absence of her mother. It seemed as if every thing she loved had deserted her, save the good old nurse. But she was naturally a cheerful light-hearted creature, and storms must sweep over such hearts again and again before hope is entirely driven forth. She was even smiling with some degree of her old mischievous playfulness at the pompous way in which the good nurse flourished her badge of office, a huge key which had not yet been put in requisition, when the door was pushed gently open and a lady of mature but delicate loveliness entered the room. She was very pale. Her eyes, naturally dark and mild, were full of troubled light, and flushed a little, as if she had just been weeping. Her morning robe was slightly disordered, and the head dress of jewels and velvet, which ornamented, without concealing her beautiful hair, was placed a little too much on one side, a sure sign of agitation in one usually so fastidious regarding her toilet.

Lady Jane was still listening with a languid smile to the well-intended prattle of her nurse, and the door opened, so quietly that she was not apprised of her approach, till the duchess stood close by her side.

With a glad exclamation, and like an infant pining for its mother’s presence, she started up with an affectionate impulse, and flung her arms around the lady, then bending her head back, and looking fondly in her face, murmured—

“Dear mother, have you come at last?”

The duchess bent her face to that of the affectionate creature clinging to her neck, but there was constraint in the action, and no kiss followed it. Her daughter felt this as a repulse, and gently unclasping her hands, stood without support, looking with a kind of regretful fondness in the face which had never dwelt frowningly on her before.

“Oh! mother, how can you look upon me thus—how have I deserved it!” she said at last, striving to check the tears which would spring to her eyes; “How is it that every one turns coldly from me. You, my kind and gentle mother,—you, that have never sent me to rest without a blessing, who scarce would let the light kiss my forehead till your lips had pressed it in the morning. You are growing distrustful like the rest. I did not think a mother’s love would chill so easily—that my mother could even find it in her heart to look harshly on her child. Nay, mother,—dear, dear, mother, do not weep so—I did not think to grieve you thus deeply. Why do your lips tremble? Why do you wring my hand so? What wrong have I done? I entreat you tell me all—my heart will break unless you love me as of old.”

The duchess was much affected, but still maintained the severity of manner which she had brought into the room, though it evidently cost her a strong effort to resist the appeal of her child. She sat down upon the bed, and, drawing Lady Jane before her, took the small hands, clasped together, in both hers, and looked searchingly into the soft brown eyes that met her gaze, not without anxiety, but still with a trustful fondness that would have disarmed a firmer heart than that which beat so full of generous and affectionate impulses in the bosom of that noble lady.

“Jane,” she said at last, glancing at the slender fingers locked in her own, “where is the ring which I gave you on the duke’s last birth-day?”

Lady Jane started at the question, and withdrawing her hand, cast a quick glance upon it, and then turned anxiously to the old woman.

“My careful nurse here, must have taken it from my finger as I slept,” she said, doubtingly.

The old woman shook her head, and Lady Jane turned earnestly to her mother, perplexed alike by the loss of her ring, and the strange effect which it produced on the duchess.

“When did you wear it last?” enquired the lady.

The young lady mused for a few moments, and then mentioned the previous day as that when she remembered to have seen it on her finger.

“Ay, I remember well,” said the nurse. “It was on my lady’s hand when she lifted it to chide Richard for his outcry in the crowd. Just then I was carried off by the mob, and jostled about till it seemed a miracle that I ever reached the barge again. I mind now that Richard saw the ring also, for when we all met at the landing, and sat waiting, hour after hour, in hopes that some blessed chance would direct the poor lady how to find us, I would have gone back in search of her, but he forbade me, saying, that no harm would befall a lady of her high condition while she carried on her fingers the power to purchase protection; so, when the night closed in, we rowed down the river, just in time to see the sweet child borne to her chamber, more dead than alive, with the ill-treatment she had received.”

The duchess turned her eyes earnestly on the nurse as she spoke, but if she thought to detect anything but an honest spirit of truth in those withered features, her scrutiny was unrewarded.

“How chanced it,” she said, turning again to her daughter, “how chanced it that you were entangled in the mob near St. Margaret’s, when you went forth to enjoy the morning breeze upon the river?”

Lady Jane looked surprised at the question, but answered it without hesitation.

“It was very early,” she said, “and the air blew chill on the water, so I bade the men pull up at Westminster Bridge, intending to take a walk in the Park, and return home, but as we were crossing up from the river, the crowd came upon us, and in my terror I was separated from my attendants and sought shelter as I best could.” Lady Jane then proceeded to inform her mother of the events which we have already described in two previous chapters; but she had been so dreadfully terrified that her narrative was confused, and though it possessed all the simplicity and force of truth, the disappearance of the ring still appeared a mystery, for she could in no way account for the manner in which it had left her possession, but stood pale and utterly overwhelmed with astonishment when informed of the charge brought against her by the artisan.

“And did my father believe this of me?” she said, turning to the duchess in the anguish of an upright spirit unjustly accused. “I could not suspect any one I loved of a base thing! Yet has my father, whom I honored and worshipped so, not only condemned but reviled me in the presence of my affianced husband, and all on the word of a base man, more despicable far, than the rudest workman who breaks stone in his court yonder.”

There was a newly aroused pride in the young girl’s bosom that gave dignity to the words she uttered. A rich color broke over her cheek, and, for the first time, those soft eyes kindled with indignation as they fell upon her mother.

“Let me go,” she continued, “let me stand face to face with my accuser. It is not well that the daughter of a noble house—the cousin of an English Monarch, should be tried and condemned, without hearing, on the word of a base varlet picked up amid the dregs of a mob.”

The Duchess gazed upon the excited young creature before her with mingled feelings of surprise, regret, and, perhaps, some little share of anger, that she could so easily depart from the humility of her usual deportment, for though a fond parent, she had even been rigid in her exactions of deference and respect from her children. The love of a mother is very powerful, but the pride of a high born English-woman, educated for her station, is, perhaps, the strongest feeling of her nature. The duchess felt the truth of all that her daughter had said, but she felt its boldness also, and her nice feelings were shocked by it.

“Your father had other reasons for doubting the integrity of Lord Dudley—for it would seem that this strange outbreak is occasioned as much by his imprisonment as your own,” said the lady in a tone of grave reproof, dropping her daughter’s hand. “We have good cause to fear that the earl, his father, has been tampering with the young king, and that he is using all secret means to supplant my noble lord in the power and station which he now fills. He has left no means untried to gain popularity in the city. That Lord Dudley has dared to appear against the Lord Protector, heading a mob almost in open rebellion, is proof that evil exists, and is spreading through the court. My lord has taken prompt measures, and in this should not be arraigned by his own child. If the Lord of Warwick and his son are still loyal to the Protector let them prove it before the king. But from this hour it is the duke’s pleasure that the contract existing between the two houses be at an end forever.”

Lady Jane stood perfectly motionless and pale as marble when her mother finished speaking, but after a moment she moved across the room and glided through the door without speaking a word, and, as if unconscious of the presence she had left.

“Poor young lady,” muttered the nurse, wiping her eyes and casting a look, which would have been reproachful but for awe, upon the duchess—“her heart was almost broken before, but this will be the death of her.”

“Peace, good dame, peace,” said the Duchess of Somerset, in her usual calm and dignified manner. “My daughter must learn to make sacrifices when the honor of her house is concerned. From the first I acquitted her of all wrong intention regarding the diamond, and I deeply grieve at the annoyance it has produced both to her and us. But regarding Lord Dudley and his alliance with your young mistress—it can never be thought of again. Let it be your duty, good dame, as the most cherished attendant of my child, to reconcile her to the change.”

With these words the Duchess of Somerset left the chamber just in time to see the Lady Jane disappear from the extreme end of the corridor which led to the duke’s closet.

(To be continued.)

———

BY THOMAS HOLLEY CHIVERS, M. D.

———

———

BY FRANCES OSGOOD.

———

Beautiful, bewitching May! How shall I describe her? As the fanciful village-poet, her devoted adorer, declared;—“The pencil that would paint her charms should be made of sunbeams and dipped in the dewy heart of a fresh moss-rose.” Whether this same bundle of beams and fragrant rose-dew would have done full justice to her eloquent loveliness, I cannot pretend to say—having never attempted the use of any brush less earthly than are made of hog’s bristles, nor any color more refined than a preparation from cochineal. Her eyes were “blue as Heaven,” the heaven of midsummer—when its warm, intense and glorious hue seems deepening as you gaze, and laughing in the joyous light of day. Her hair, I could never guess its true color; it was always floating in such exquisite disorder over her happy face and round white shoulders—now glistening, glowing in the sunshine, like wreaths of glossy gold, and now, in shadow, bathing her graceful neck with soft brown waves, that looked like silken floss, changing forever and lovely in each change. Blushes and dimples played hide and seek on her face. Her lip—her rich sweet lip was slightly curved—just enough to show that there was pride as well as love in her heart. She was, indeed, a spirited creature. Her form was of fairy moulding, but perfect though “petite!” and her motions graceful as those of the Alpine chamois.

Reader, if I have failed in my attempt to convey to you an image of youthful grace, beauty and sweetness, I pray you repair my deficiency from the stores of your own lively imagination, and fancy our dear May Evelyn the loveliest girl in the universe.

And now for her history. Her father, of an ancient and noble family, had married, in early life, a beautiful but extravagant woman, who died a few years after their union, leaving him with two lovely children and an all but exhausted fortune. On her death he retired from the gay world, and settled with his infant treasures in Wales, and there, husbanding his scanty means, he contrived to live in comfort if not in luxury. There, too, brooding over the changes of human life—the fallacy of human foresight, and the fickleness of human friendship, he became “a sadder and a wiser man.” His two beautiful children, Lionel and May, were the idols of his heart, and well did they repay his love.

May’s first serious trouble arose from hearing her father express one day his desire to purchase for Lionel a commission in the army. The boy was high-spirited and intelligent, and had cherished from childhood an ardent desire for military life; but there was no possibility of raising sufficient money for the purpose, without sacrificing many of their daily comforts.

At this time May was just sixteen; but there was in her face a childlike purity and innocence, which, combined with her playful simplicity of manner, made her appear even younger than she was. She hated study, except in the volume of nature; there indeed she was an apt and willing pupil. Birds and streams and flowers were her favorite books; but though little versed in the lore of her father’s well-stored library—she had undoubted genius, and whenever she did apply herself, could learn with wonderful rapidity.

The only science, however, in which she was a proficient, was music:—for this she had an excellent ear and, when a mere child, ere her father’s removal to Wales, had been under the tuition of a celebrated master. Her voice was rich, sweet and powerful, and her execution on the guitar, piano and harp, was at once brilliant and expressive. She had, also, a pretty talent for versifying, and often composed music for words, which, if not remarkable for power or polish, were certainly bewitching when sung by their youthful authoress.

During most of the day, on the morning of which Mr. Evelyn first mentioned his wishes with regard to Lionel, the sunny face of our heroine was clouded with sorrowful thought; but towards evening, as her father sat alone in his library, the door suddenly opened, and May, bounding in, her eyes beaming with enthusiasm, exclaimed—“Papa! papa! I have just thought—I know what I’ll do!—I’ll be a governess.” Her father gazed at her in astonishment.

“A governess, May! What can have put such an idea into your head? Why should you be a governess?”

“Oh! for Lionel, you know. I can soon earn enough to buy his commission.”

“And it is this then, my child,” said Mr. Evelyn, tenderly, “that has so repressed your usual spirits!” But while he spoke seriously, he could scarcely repress a smile at the thought of the wild, childlike being before him, transformed into a staid, dignified teacher.

During the six weeks following, the devoted girl deprived herself of all her usual outdoor amusements, and, with wonderful energy applied, under her father’s guidance, to study. At the end of that time, she laughingly declared that she knew a little of everything; but still her passion for birds and flowers was far greater than for books.

Ere the six weeks had well expired, she heard from some young friends, who were on a visit to Wales, from London, that the earl of —— was in want of a governess for his four children. She begged them, on their return, to mention her. This they did, and with youthful exaggeration extolled her talents to the skies.

The Earl understanding that she was the accomplished and amiable daughter of an aged naval officer, saw, in his mind’s eye, a learned lady of a certain age, who would, perhaps, prove a mother in kindness and usefulness to his orphan children, and gladly acceded to the desire of his young friends, that he should make trial of her.

The poor things were not aware what a little ignoramus they were recommending; for the youthful Lionel, who, sometimes took a peep into the library, and stared in surprise at the various apparatus for study, had boasted all over the village in which they resided, that his sister knew everything under the sun, and had mentioned, in corroboration of this sweeping declaration, that she was always poring over French, Spanish, Greek or Latin books. This, her enthusiastic young friends, who, by the way, had only known her a fortnight, took care to make the most of—and the result was, that May was considered, by the Earl, as a most fitting instructress for his children, and dreaded by them as a prim and severe restraint upon their hitherto unchecked amusements.

——

CHAPTER II.

It was the morning of the day on which the dreaded governess was expected, Julia, Elizabeth, Georgiana and William—the first 15, the second 10, the third 8, and the fourth 7 years of age, were at play in the garden of the Earl’s country seat. They had heard awful things of governesses from some of their young companions, and the younger children had been whispering to each other their dread of the expected tyrant. They had, however, resumed their gambols, and forgotten the matter, with that charming versatility which makes them so interesting, when their nurse appeared with the news that the governess had arrived, and was waiting to be introduced to her young charge in the school-room. A sudden change was observable on the countenances of all. It was amusing to watch the expression on each of those young faces. Julia—the pensive and graceful Julia sighed, and bent her soft eyes sadly on the ground, as she instantly turned her steps towards the house. The little wilful and spirited Willie began to strut manfully backward and forward, declaring that the others might do as they liked, but that he would not go near the ugly old woman. Georgy pouted—and Lizzie burst into tears. At the sound of weeping, Julia turned back—soothed and cheered them all by turns—kissed away the tears of one sister—smoothed the other’s frowning brow with her soft and loving hand, and laughed at Willie till he was fain to join in the laugh in spite of himself. She then desired them to follow her to the school-room—which they did—clinging to her dress, however, as if they expected to see a monster in the shape of a governess; but as they reached the flight of steps which led from the lawn to the house, their courage failed, and, leaving Julia to ascend alone, they suddenly and simultaneously turned to escape, and hurrying away, concealed themselves in the garden, where they soon resumed their sports.

In the meantime Julia had ascended the steps and stood gazing in silent astonishment through the glass door opening into the school-room. The object of her dread was there—but not as she had pictured her—a prim, severe old-maid. A girl apparently younger than herself, with a sweet glowing face, shaded by a profusion of lovely hair,—her straw bonnet flung on the floor, and her simple white dress looking anything but old-maidish—was stooping to caress their favorite dog, Carlo, while the pet-parrot sat perched on her shoulder, mingling his gorgeous plumage with her light brown curls, and crying with all his might, “old-maid governess! old-maid governess!” As our heroine raised her head, wondering at the strange salutation, (which, by the way, master Willie had been maliciously teaching him for some time previous,) her eyes encountered those of the smiling Julia, who, equally surprised and delighted at the scene, already saw, in Miss Evelyn, a friend after her own heart, such an one as she had long ardently desired.

At this critical moment, the good old nurse entered from the lawn, and seeing the mutual embarrassment of the parties, said simply to May—“This is your oldest pupil, madam.” At the words “madam” and “pupil,” both May and Julia tried hard to repress the smiles which would peep through their eyes and lips—in vain. The dimples on the cheek of the youthful governess grew deeper and deeper—Julia’s dark eyes flashed through their drooping fringes more and more brightly, and, at length, the smothered merriment burst irresistibly forth. No sooner had the latter’s eye caught the arch glance and her ear the musical laugh of May, than she sprang forward to clasp her readily extended hand, exclaiming, “I am sure you will be my friend!”

“That I will,” said May, “if you won’t call me ‘old-maid governess’ again.”

“Old-maid governess, old-maid governess,” screamed the parrot from his cage.

May began to look grave, and Julia, blushing with vexation, led her gently to the cage, outside of the door, and pointed to the bird in silence. “How stupid I was!” exclaimed May; “I quite forgot the parrot when I saw that beautiful dog. I do so love dogs—don’t you?”

“Yes! but I love you better,” said Julia, affectionately, throwing her arm around her new friend’s neck, and sealing her avowal with a kiss.

At this moment, Willie was seen peeping and stealing slyly round the shrubbery—his roguish face subdued to as demure a look as it could possibly assume. For a moment he stared at the pair in amazement, and then clapping his hands, he shouted,

“Georgy! Lizzie! Georgy! come and see Julia kissing the governess!”

“Oh! you lovely boy!” exclaimed May—bounding down the steps, “I must have a kiss!” and away she flew after the little rosy rogue—he laughing so heartily as to impede his progress, till at last helpless, from very glee, he fell into her arms, and allowed her to kiss him half a dozen times before he remembered that she was the teacher so dreaded by them all. When he did recollect, he looked up half incredulously in her face.

“You are not old!” said he,—“no, nor yet prim, nor cross. I don’t think you are so very ugly either, and maybe you don’t know much after all. I say, governess, if you please, ma’am, can you spin a top?”

“No!” said May.

“Hurrah! I thought so—hurrah, Georgy! she don’t know so much as I do now—hurrah! hurrah! I’ll stand by her for one!” and, tossing his hat in the air, he sprang into the lap of May, who had sank into a low rustic seat, quite exhausted from her exercise—her cheeks glowing—her hair in disorder, and her lips parted with smiling delight.

By this time the two little girls, who had been peeping a long while, ventured, followed by Julia, to approach;—Georgiana leading, or rather dragging the shy but lovely little Lizzie in one hand, and holding in the other a freshly gathered rose-bud, which she timidly presented to our heroine, as if to bribe her not to be harsh with them. May stooped to kiss the intelligent face whose dark and eloquent eyes looked so pleadingly into hers; while Julia, who stood behind her, stole the rose from her hand. “Let me wreathe it in your hair,” she said. At that moment, while she was yet engaged in her graceful task, the Earl suddenly appeared before them. It must be remembered that he had seen, from his library window, the before-mentioned chase, and rather curious to know who the beautiful visiter could be, (not having been apprised of Miss Evelyn’s arrival,) he had followed them to the spot on which they were now assembled—May on the seat, parting the dark curls from Lizzie’s bashful and downcast brow; Willie on her knee; Georgy gazing up in her face, and Julia placing the rose-bud in her hair. All started at the sudden appearance of the Earl. Willie sprang to his arms, and little Lizzie, afraid of every new comer, laid her curly head on the knee of her newly-found friend, and turned up her bright eyes inquiringly to her father’s face.

“Do not let me disturb your play, my children,” said the Earl. “I only come to remind you, that your governess will soon be here, and that you must welcome her with respect and attention. But, Julia, you must introduce me to this merry young friend of yours, who runs as if her heart were in her feet;” and so saying, he playfully patted the drooping head of the blushing and embarrassed girl, who, all this while, had been striving to hide her fears and her confusion by pretending to be deeply occupied in twisting Lizzie’s silken ringlets round her little taper finger. The moment she had heard Willie exclaim, “papa!” all her former dread of that awful personage returned, and, with it, for the first time, a full sense of her own inefficiency to perform the task she had undertaken. His voice so deep and yet so sweet and playful, banished half her dread, but only increased her confusion.

Julia, however, came instantly to her relief, with a tact and delicacy uncommon in one so young—saying simply and seriously, “This is our governess, papa. Miss Evelyn, this is our dear papa.”

The Earl started back,—tried to repress his smiles, bowed low to conceal them, and then taking her hand respectfully in his, bade her welcome to the castle.

The word “governess” had acted like a spell upon May’s faculties; it restored her to a sense of the dignity of her situation, and rising instantly and drawing her beautiful form to its full height, she received and returned the compliments of the Earl with a graceful dignity and self-possession, that astonished him, as much as it awed the poor children. And when, in his courteous reply, he begged her pardon for his mistake, in a tone at once gentle and deferential, she found courage, for the first time, to raise her eyes. It was no stern, old, pompous nobleman, such as her fears had portrayed, who stood before her, but an elegant man, in the prime of life, with a noble figure and singularly handsome face, full of genius and feeling.

His dark eyes were bent upon her with a gaze of mingled curiosity and admiration; but, as they met hers, he recollected himself, and wishing her and his children good morning, and resigning Willie, as if it were a thing of course, to her arms, (a circumstance, by the way, which he could not help smiling at half an hour afterwards,) he passed on and left them.

And now came innumerable questions from all but the silent Georgy, who contented herself with nestling close to the side of our heroine as they wandered through the grounds—and gazing with her large soft eyes into her face, now dimpled with the light of mirth, now softening into tenderness, and now shadowed by a passing thought of “papa, and Lionel, and home.”

“And oh!” said Lizzie, “you won’t take away my doll and make me study all the time, will you?”

“No, indeed, darling! I would much rather help you dress your doll.”

“And I may spin my top all day if I like—may I not?” asked Willie.

“Yes, if papa is willing.”

“Oh! but papa told us to obey all your commands.”

“Commands,” thought May, “oh, dear, I shall never do for a governess!”

The day passed on in sport. Our heroine’s duties were to commence on the next; but she would not allow her fears for the morrow to interfere with her present delight. In the meantime, the Earl, amid his important duties, was haunted all day by one bewitching image;—a fair sweet face glanced brightly up from every book he opened, from every paper to which he referred; and, in his dreams that night, he led to the altar a second bride, more lovely, more beloved than the first.

——

CHAPTER III.

Early the next morning, as May sat teaching Willie to read, with a demure face, through which the rebel dimples would peep in spite of her assumed dignity; while Julia, with a look equally demure, was bending over an Italian book; Georgy drawing, and Lizzie hemming a wee bit ’kerchief for her doll—the Earl entered the school-room from the lawn.

Unseen, he paused at the open door to contemplate the lovely tableau within;—the governess in her pretty girlish morning dress, with her long ringlets shadowing half her face and neck, as she bent over the boy, pointing out to him the word;—Willie by her side—one hand holding the book, the other his top, kicking the chair impatiently—first with one foot, then with the other, and looking round every minute to see what his sisters were doing;—Georgy smiling as she drew; Lizzie sitting upright in her little chair, with a doll almost as large as herself on her lap, ever and anon trying the ’kerchief round its neck to see the effect; and the simple, modest Julia, looking even older than May, with her dark hair smoothly parted—raising at times her eyes with looks of loving sympathy to those of the youthful teacher.

It was indeed a sunny scene; but the silence was broken by the voice of Georgy requesting assistance in her drawing. The young governess rose, and taking her offered pencil, retouched the sketch in a few places, at the same time giving the child directions how to finish it. Suddenly the pencil trembled in her hand,—the sweet low voice stopped—went on—faltered—ceased again, and May burst into tears! The Earl had stolen behind them to watch the progress of the drawing. May had felt, rather than heard, his approach,—and confused by his presence, half suspecting her own deficiency in the art, yet afraid to discontinue her directions at once, her face suffused with blushes, she tried in vain to proceed. Little Lizzie saw her tears, and springing from her seat, climbed a chair to caress her, exclaiming, “Don’t cry! papa won’t hurt you! Papa loves you dearly—don’t you, papa?”

Here was a situation! It was now the Earl’s turn to color; but the artless and innocent May, who had as yet known only a father’s and a brother’s love, did not dream of any other in the present case; on the contrary, she was soothed by the affectionate assurances of the child, and, smiling through her tears, looked up confidingly in the Earl’s face. Charmed with the childlike sweetness of her expression he could not resist taking her hand, with almost paternal tenderness, in his, while May, reassured by the gentleness of his manner, ventured to acknowledge her own ignorance, and to request his assistance in the sketch before them. This, to the delight of all, he willingly consented to give, and when, at two o’clock, the nurse came to take the children to dinner, she found May seated alone at the table, intent on a newly commenced drawing—the Earl leaning over her chair and instructing her in its progress—Julia singing “Love’s Young Dream,” and the three children gone no one knew where.

The next day, and the next, the Earl was still to be found in the school-room, sometimes spinning Willie’s top, sometimes reading an Italian author aloud to his daughter and her governess—often sharing the book with the latter, and oftener still, blending his rich and manly voice with hers as she sang to the harp or piano. One day a visiter asked Willie how he liked his new governess? “Oh!” said the boy, “papa is governess now. May is only our sister, and we are all so happy!”

Thus passed a year—Julia and May daily improving under their indulgent and unwearied teacher—and imparting in their turn instruction to the younger branches of the family. May had confided to Julia all her little history. She had written often to her father, and had received many letters in return. From one of them she learned, to her great joy and surprise, that Lionel had received his commission from some unknown friend. At the same time, her father advised her, as she had engaged for a year, to be contented until the expiration of it. “Contented!”

The last day of the year had arrived—May had lately been so happy that she had forgotten to think of being separated from the family she loved so much.

On the morning of the day, the Earl was in his library, Julia making tea, and May on a low ottoman at his feet, reading aloud the morning paper. Suddenly she paused, dropped the paper, and covered her face with her hands. The Earl, alarmed, bent tenderly over her, and Julia was by her side in a moment.

“What is it, dear May?” she said.

“Oh, the paper—look at the paper, Julia!”

The Earl caught it up—“Where—tell me where to look, May?”

“At the date—the date!”

“The date—it is the first of June—and what then?”

“Oh! did I not come the first of June and must I not go to-morrow? I am sure I shall never do for a governess!” and she hid her face on Julia’s shoulder, and wept afresh.

The Earl raised her gently—“Perhaps not; but you will do for something else, sweet May!”

“For what?” she asked earnestly—half wondering whether he could mean housekeeper!

“Come into the garden with me, dear, dear May, and I will tell you,” he whispered in her ear.

At once the whole truth flashed upon her heart. “She loved—she was beloved!” She was no longer a child—that moment transformed her; and shrinking instantly from his embrace and blushing till her very temples glowed again—she said in a low and timid voice, “I think I had better go home to-morrow—perhaps to-day: my father will expect me.”

“Julia,” said the Earl, “run into the garden, love, and see to Willie—he is in mischief, I dare say.” His daughter was out of sight in a moment. May stood shrinking and trembling, but unable to move. The Earl gazed, with a feeling bordering upon reverence, at the young girl, as she stood alone in her innocence. He drew slowly towards her—hesitated—again approached, and taking her hand with respectful tenderness, he said—“You know that I love you, May—how fondly—how fervently—time must show for language cannot:—will you—say you will be mine—with your father’s consent, dear May—or say that I may hope!”

Her whole soul was in her eyes as she raised them slowly to his and dropped them instantly again beneath his ardent gaze. “But—papa!” she murmured.

“We will all go together, and ask ‘papa,’ dearest; and now for a turn in the garden. You will not refuse now, love?” And May Evelyn, blushing and smiling, took his offered arm, wondering what “dear papa and Lionel” would say to all this.

It was a lovely evening in the early part of June, that, while Mr. Evelyn sat dozing in his arm chair and dreaming of his absent children, a light form stole over the threshold, and when he awoke, his gray hair was mingled with the glistening locks of his own beautiful and beloved May—his head resting on her shoulder, and her kiss warm upon his cheek!

“My Lord,” said May, demurely, as she entered, with her father, the drawing-room in which the Earl awaited them—“papa is very glad that I have given satisfaction;—he thinks your visit a proof of it—although he could hardly have expected so much from his little ignoramus, as he will persist in calling me.”

“My dear sir,” said the Earl, cordially pressing the offered hand of his host, “she has given so much satisfaction, that I wish, with your consent, to retain her as governess for life, not for my children, but myself.”

The reader has already foreseen the conclusion. Mr. Evelyn’s consent was obtained;—Lionel was sent for to be present at the wedding;—the ceremony was quietly performed in the little church of the village;—and for many succeeding seasons in London, the graceful and elegant wife of the Earl of —— was “the observed of all observers,” “the cynosure of neighboring eyes.”

———

BY PARK BENJAMIN.

———

———

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

———

A cold and dark northeaster had swept together a host of straggling vapors and thin lowering clouds over the French metropolis—the course of the Seine might be traced easily among the grotesque roofs and gothic towers which at that day adorned its banks, by the gray ghostly mist which seethed up from its sluggish waters—a small fine rain was falling noiselessly and almost imperceptibly, by its own weight as it were, from the surcharged and watery atmosphere—the air was keenly cold and piercing, although the seasons had not crept far as yet beyond the confines of the summer. The trees, for there were many in the streets of Paris and still more in the fauxbourgs and gardens of the haute noblesse, were thickly covered with white rime, as were the manes and frontlets of the horses, the clothes, and hair, and eyebrows of the human beings who ventured forth in spite of the inclement weather. A sadder and more gloomy scene can scarcely be conceived than is presented by the streets of a large city in such a time as that I have attempted to describe. But this peculiar sadness was, on the day of which I write, augmented and exaggerated by the continual tolling of the great bell of St. Germain Auxerrois, replying to the iron din which arose from the gray towers of Notre Dâme. From an early hour of the day the people had been congregating in the streets and about the bridges leading to the precincts of the royal palace, the Chateau des Tournelles, which then stood—long since obliterated almost from the memory of men—upon the Isle de Paris, the greater part of which was covered then with the courts, and terraces, and gardens of that princely pile.

Strong bodies of the household troops were posted here and there about the avenues and gates of the royal demesne, and several large detachments of the archers of the prevôt’s guard—still called so from the arms which they had long since ceased to carry—might be seen every where on duty. Yet there were no symptoms of an émeute among the populace, nor any signs of angry feeling or excitement in the features of the loitering crowd, which was increasing every moment as the day waxed toward noon. Some feeling certainly there was—some dark and earnest interest, as might be judged from the knit brows, clinched hands, and anxious whispers which every where attended the exchange of thought throughout the concourse—but it was by no means of an alarming or an angry character. Grief, wonder, expectation, and a sort of half doubtful pity, as far as might be gathered from the words of the passing speakers, were the more prominent ingredients of the common feeling, which had called out so large a portion of the city’s population on a day so unsuited to any spectacle of interest. For several hours this mob, increasing as it has been described from hour to hour, varied but little in its character, save that as the day wore it became more and more respectable in the appearance of its members. At first it had been composed almost without exception of artisans and shop boys, and mechanics of the lowest order, with not a few of the cheats, bravoes, pickpockets, and similar ruffians, who then as now formed a fraternity of no mean size in the Parisian world. As the morning advanced, however, many of the burghers of the city, and respectable craftsmen, might be seen among the crowd; and a little later many of the secondary gentry and petite noblesse, with well-dressed women and even children, all showing the same symptoms of sad yet eager expectation. Now, when it lacked but a few minutes of noon, long trains of courtiers with their retinues and armed attendants, many a head of a renowned and ancient house, many a warrior famous for valor and for conduct might be seen threading the mazes of the crowded thoroughfares toward the royal palace.

A double ceremony of singular and solemn nature was soon to be enacted there—the interment of a noble soldier, slain lately in an unjust quarrel, and the investiture of an unwilling woman with the robes of a holy sisterhood preparatory to her lifelong interment in that sepulchre of the living body—sepulchre of the pining soul—the convent cloisters. Armand de Laguy!—Marguerite de Vaudreuil!

Many circumstances had united in this matter to call forth much excitement, much grave interest in the minds of all who had heard tell of it!—the singular and wild romance of the story, the furious and cruel combat which had resulted from it—and last not least, the violent, and, as it was generally considered, unnatural resentment of the King toward the guilty victim who survived the ruin she had wrought.

The story was in truth, then, but little understood—a thousand rumors were abroad, and of course no one accurately true—yet in each there was a share of truth, and the amount of the whole was, perhaps, less wide of the mark than is usual in matters of the kind. And thus they ran. Marguerite de Vaudreuil had been betrothed to the youngest of France’s famous warriors, Charles de La-Hirè, who after a time fell—as it was related by his young friend and kinsman, Armand de Laguy—covered with wounds and honor. The body had been found outstretched beneath the surviver, who, himself desperately hurt, had alone witnessed, and in vain endeavored to prevent, his cousin’s slaughter. The face of Charles de La-Hirè, as all men deemed the corpse to be, was mangled and defaced so frightfully as to render recognition by the features utterly hopeless—yet from the emblazoned surcoat which it bore, the well-known armor on the limbs, the signet ring upon the finger, and the accustomed sword clenched in the dead right hand, none doubted the identity of the body, or questioned the truth of Armand’s story.

Armand de Laguy, succeeding by his cousin’s death to all his lands and lordships, returned to the metropolis, mixed in the gayeties of that gay period, when all the court of France was revelling in the celebration of the union of the Dauphin with the lovely Mary Stuart, in after days the hapless queen of Scotland.

He wore no decent and accustomed garb of mourning—he suffered no interval, however brief, due to decorum at least if not to kindly feeling, to elapse before it was announced that Marguerite de Vaudreuil, the dead man’s late betrothed, was instantly to wed his living cousin. Her wondrous beauty, her all-seductive manners, her extreme youth had in vain pleaded against the general censure of the court—the world! Men had frowned on her for awhile, and women sneered and slandered!—but after a little while, as the novelty of the story wore away, the indignation against her inconstancy ceased, and she was once again installed the leader of the court’s unwedded beauties.

Suddenly, on the very eve of her intended nuptials, Charles de La-Hirè returned—ransomed, as it turned out, by Brissac, from the Italian dungeons of the Prince of Parma, and making fearful charges of treason and intended murder against Armand de Laguy. The King had commanded that the truth should be proved by a solemn combat, had sworn to execute upon the felon’s block whichever of the two should yield or confess falsehood, had sworn that the inconstant Marguerite, who, on the return of De La-Hirè, had returned instantly to her former feelings, asserting her perfect confidence in the truth of Charles, the treachery of Armand, should either wed the victor, or live and die the inmate of the most rigorous convent in his realm.

The battle had been fought yesterday!—Armand de Laguy fell, mortally wounded by his wronged cousin’s hand, and with his latest breath declared his treasons, and implored pardon from his King, his kinsman, and his God—happy to perish by a brave man’s sword not by a headsman’s axe. And Marguerite—the victor’s prize—rejected by the man she had betrayed—herself refusing, even if he were willing, to wed with him whom she could but dishonor—had now no option save death or the detested cloister.

And now men pitied—women wept—all frowned and wondered and kept silence. That a young, vain, capricious beauty—the pet and spoiled child from her very cradle of a gay and luxurious court—worshipped for her charms like a second Aphrodite—intoxicated with the love of admiration—that such an one should be inconstant, fickle!—should swerve from her fealty to the dead!—a questionable fealty always!—and be won to a rash second love by the falsehood and treasons of a man, young and brave and handsome—falsehood which had deceived wise men—that such should be the course of events, men said, was neither strange nor monstrous! It was a fault, a lapse of which she had been guilty, which might indeed make her future faith suspected, which would surely justify Charles de La-Hirè in casting back her proffered hand, but which at the worst was venial, and deserving no such doom as the soul-chilling cloister.

She had, they said, in no respect participated in the guilt, or shared the treacheries of Armand—on the contrary—she, the victim of his fraud, had been the first to denounce, to spit at, to defy him.

Moreover it was understood that although de La-Hirè had refused her hand, several of equal and even higher birth than he had offered to redeem her from the cloister by taking her to wife of their free choice—Jarnac had claimed the beauty—and it was whispered that the Duke de Nevers had sued to Henry vainly for the fair hand of the unwilling novice.

But the King was relentless. “Either the wife of De La-Hirè!—or the bride of God in the cloister!” was his unvarying reply. No farther answer would he give—no disclosure of his motives would he make even to his wisest councillors. Some indeed augured that the good monarch’s anger was but feigned, and that deeming her sufficiently punished already he was desirous still of forcing her to be the bride of him to whom she had been destined, and whom she still, despite her brief inconstancy, unquestionably worshipped in her heart. For all men still supposed that at the last Charles would forgive the hapless girl, and so relieve her from the living tomb that even now seemed yawning to enclose her. But others—and they were those who understood the best mood of France’s second Henry—vowed that the wrath was real; and felt, that, though no man could fathom the cause of his stern ire, he never would forgive the guilty girl, whose frailty, as he swore, had caused such strife and bloodshed.

But now it was high noon, and forth filed from the palace gates a long and glittering train—Henry and all his court, with all the rank and beauty of the realm, knights, nobles, peers and princes, damsels and dames—the pride of France and Europe. But at the monarch’s right walked one, clad in no gay attire—pale, languid, wounded and warworn—Charles de La-Hirè, the victor. A sad deep gloom o’ercast his large dark eye, and threw a shadow over his massy forehead—his lip had forgot to smile! his glance to lighten! yet was there no remorse, no doubt, no wavering in his calm, noble features—only fixed, settled sorrow. His long and waving hair of the darkest chesnut, evenly parted on his crown, fell down on either cheek, and flowed over the broad plain collar of his shirt which, decked with no embroidery lace, was folded back over the cape of a plain black pourpoint, made of fine cloth indeed, but neither laced nor passemented, nor even slashed with velvet—a broad scarf of black taffeta supported his weapon—a heavy double-edged straight broadsword, and served at the same time to support his left arm, the sleeve of which hung open, tied in with points of ribbon. His trunk-hose and his nether stocks of plain black silk, black velvet shoes and a slouched hat, with neither feather nor cockade, completed the suit of melancholy mourning which he wore. In the midst of the train was a yet sadder sight, Marguerite de Vaudreuil, robed in the snow-white vestments of a novice, with all her glorious ringlets flowing in loose redundance over her shoulders and her bosom, soon to be cut close by the fatal scissors—pale as the monumental stone and only not as rigid. A hard-featured gray-headed monk, supported her on either hand—and a long train of priests swept after with crucifix and rosary and censer.

Scarce had this strange procession issued from the great gates of les Tournelles, the death-bells tolling still from every tower and steeple, before another train, gloomier yet and sadder, filed out from the gate of the royal tilt-yard, at the farther end of which stood a superb pavilion. Sixteen black Benedictine monks led the array chanting the mournful miserere—next behind these, strange contrast!—strode on the grim gaunt form, clad in his blood-stained tabard, and bearing full displayed his broad two-handed axe—fell emblem of his odious calling!—the public executioner of Paris. Immediately in the rear of this dark functionary, not borne by his bold captains, nor followed by his gallant vassals with arms reversed and signs of martial sorrow, but ignominiously supported by the grim-visaged ministers of the law, came on the bier of Armand, the last Count de Laguy.

Stretched in a coffin of the rudest material and construction, with his pale visage bare, displaying still in its distorted lines and sharpened features the agonies of mind and body which had preceded his untimely dissolution, the bad but haughty noble was borne to his long home in the grave-yard of Notre Dâme. His sword, broken in twain, was laid across his breast, his spurs had been hacked from his heels by the base cleaver of the scullion, and his reversed escutcheon was hung above his head.

Narrowly saved by his wronged kinsman’s intercession from dying by the headsman’s weapon ere yet his mortal wounds should have let out his spirit—he was yet destined to the shame of a dishonored sepulchre—such was the King’s decree, alas! inexorable.

The funeral train proceeded—the King and his court followed. They reached the grave-yard, hard beneath those superb gray towers!—they reached the grave, in a remote and gloomy corner, where, in unconsecrated earth, reposed the executed felon—the priests attended not the corpse beyond the precincts of that unholy spot—their solemn chant died mournfully away—no rites were done, no prayers were said above the senseless clay—but in silence was it lowered into the ready pit—silence disturbed only by the deep hollow sound of the clods that fell fast and heavy on the breast of the guilty noble! For many a day a headstone might be seen—not raised by the kind hands of sorrowing friends nor watered by the tears of kinsmen—but planted there, to tell of his disgraceful doom—amid the nameless graves of the self-slain—and the recorded resting-places of well-known thieves and felons. It was of dark gray free-stone, and it bore these brief words—brief words, but in that situation speaking the voice of volumes.

Three forms stood by the grave—stood till the last clod had been heaped upon its kindred clay, and the dark headstone planted. Henry, the King! and Charles, the Baron De La-Hirè; and Marguerite de Vaudreuil.

And as the last clod was flattened down upon the dead, after the stone was fixed, De La-Hirè crossed the grave to the despairing girl, where she had stood gazing with a fixed rayless eye on the sad ceremony and took her by the hand, and spoke so loud that all might hear his words, while Henry looked on calmly but not without an air of wondering excitement.

“Not that I did not love thee,” he said, “Marguerite! Not that I did not pardon thee thy brief inconstancy, caused as it was by evil arts of which we will say nothing now—since he who plotted them hath suffered even above his merits, and is—we trust—now pardoned! Not for these causes, nor for any of them—have I declined thine hand thus far—but that the King commanded, judging it in his wisdom best for both of us. Now Armand is gone hence—and let all doubt and sorrow go hence with him! Let all your tears, all my suspicions be buried in his grave forever. I take your hand, dear Marguerite—I take you as mine honored and loved bride—I claim you mine forever!”

Thus far the girl had listened to him, not blushingly, nor with a melting eye; nor with any sign of renewed hope or rekindled happiness in her pale features—but with cold resolute attention—but now she put away his hand very steadily, and spoke with a firm unfaltering voice.

“Be not so weak!” she said. “Be not so weak, Charles de La-Hirè!—nor fancy me so vain! The weight and wisdom of years have passed above my head since yester morning—then was I a vain, thoughtless girl—now am I a stern wise woman. That I have sinned is very true—that I have betrayed thee—wronged thee! It may be, had you spoke pardon yesterday—it might have been all well! It may be it had been dishonor in you to take me to your arms—but if to do so had been dishonor yesterday, by what is it made honor now? No! no! Charles de La-Hirè—no! no!—I had refused thee yesterday, hadst thou been willing to redeem me, by self-sacrifice, then from the convent walls!—I had refused thee then, with love warming my heart toward thee—in all honor! Force me not to reject thee now with scorn and hatred. Nor dare to think that Marguerite de Vaudreuil will owe to man’s compassion, what she owes not to love! Peace! Charles de La-Hirè—I say, peace! my last words to thee have been spoken, and never will I hear more from thee! And now, Sir King, hear thou—may God judge between thee and me, as thou hast judged. If I was frail and fickle, nature and God made woman weak and credulous—but made man not wise, to deceive and ruin her. If I sinned deeply against this Baron De La-Hirè—I sinned not knowingly, nor of premeditation! If I sinned deeply, more deeply was I sinned against—more deeply was I left to suffer!—even hadst thou heaped no more brands upon the burning. If to bear hopeless love—to pine with unavailing sorrow—to repent with continual remorse—to writhe with trampled pride!—if these things be to suffer, then, Sir King, had I enough suffered without thy just interposition!” As she spoke, a bitter sneer curled her lip for a moment; but as she saw Henry again about to speak, a wilder and higher expression flashed over all her features—her form appeared to distend—her bosom heaved—her eye glared—her ringlets seemed to stiffen, as if instinct with life “Nay!” she cried, in a voice clear as the strain of a silver trumpet—“nay! thou shalt hear me out—and thou didst swear yesterday I should live in a cloister cell forever!—and I replied to thy words then, ‘not long!’—I have thought better now—and now I answer ‘never!’ Lo here!—lo here! ye who have marked the doom of Armand—mark now the doom of Marguerite! Ye who have judged the treason, mark the doom of the traitress!” And with the words, before any one could interfere, even had they suspected her intentions, she raised her right hand on high, and all then saw the quick twinkle of a weapon, and struck herself, as it seemed, a quick slight blow immediately under the left bosom! It seemed a quick slight blow! but it had been so accurately studied—so steadily aimed and fatally—that the keen blade, scarcely three inches long and very slender, of the best of Milan steel, with nearly a third of the hilt, was driven home into her very heart—she spoke no syllable again!—nor uttered any cry!—nor did a single spasm contract her pallid features, a single convulsion distort her shapely limbs! but she leaped forward, and fell upon her face, quite dead, at the King’s feet!

Henry smiled not again for many a day thereafter—Charles De La Hirè died very old, a Carthusian monk of the strictest order, having mourned sixty years and prayed in silence for the sorrows and the sins of that most hapless being.

———

BY N. C. BROOKS.

———

———

BY MRS. EMMA C. EMBURY.

———

“Well met, Harry,” exclaimed Edward Morton, as he encountered his friend Wilford in Broadway, “I have two questions to ask you. In the first place, what do you call that odd-looking vehicle in which I saw you riding yesterday? and in the second, who was that pretty little sister Ruth seated so demurely beside you?”

“My new carriage,” said Harry, laughing, “having been invented by myself, has the honor to bear my name; it is called a Wilford; I will sell it to you cheap, if you like it, for that booby Danforth has ordered one of the same pattern, and I will never sport mine after he comes out with his.”

“And so because a fool follows your lead you throw up your cards; you will have enough to do if you carry out that rule in all your actions. Thank you for your kind offer; but really I am neither rich nor fashionable enough to drive about town in such a Welsh butter-tub. Now, answer my second question; who is the lady;—has she been named in honor of the vehicle?”

“No, but she will probably bear the name of its inventor in due time.”

“Can it be possible, Harry? have you really determined to turn Benedict before the pleasures of freedom have palled upon your taste? Have you seriously reflected upon all you are about to relinquish? Have you thought upon the pleasant tête-à-têtes, the agreeable flirtations, the many delicious ‘love-passages’ which the admired Harry Wilford is privileged to enjoy while he roves at large, but which will hereafter be denied to him who wears the clanking fetters of matrimony?”

“I have thought of every thing, Ned; and, to tell you the truth, I am beginning to get tired of the aimless, profitless life I now lead.”

“And, therefore, you are going to turn merchant and marry; you will have a considerable amount to add to profit and loss by these experiments. Pray who is the enchantress that has woven so wondrous a spell of transformation?”

“She bears the primitive name of Rachel, and was both born and bred in the little village of Westbury, where, as I am told, a fashionably cut coat or one of Leary’s hats would be regarded as a foreign curiosity. She has never stirred beyond the precincts of her native place until this spring, when she accompanied a newly married relative to our gay city. Indeed she has been kept so strictly within the pale of her society, that if her cousin had not fortunately married out of it, the lovely Rachel would probably have walked quietly to meeting with some grave young broad-brim, and contented herself with a drab bonnet all her life.”

“So your inamorata is country bred. By Jupiter I shall begin to believe in the revival of witchcraft. Is she rich, Harry?”

“I see the drift of your question, Ned; but you are mistaken if you think I have looked on her through golden spectacles. She is an orphan with sufficient property to render her independent of relatives, but not enough to entice a fortune-hunter.”

“Well, if any one but yourself had told me that Harry Wilford, with all his advantages of purse and person, had made choice of a little rusticated Quakeress to be his bride, I could not have believed it,” said Morton; “pray do you expect this pretty Lady Gravely to preside at the exquisite dinners for which your bachelor’s establishment has long been famous? or do you intend to forego such vulgar enjoyments for the superior pleasures of playing Darby to Mrs. Wilford’s Joan in your chimney corner?”

“No quizzing, Ned,” said Wilford, smiling, “Rachel has been well educated, and the staid decorum of the sect has not destroyed her native elegance of manner.”

“But the drab bonnet, Harry:—can you, the pride of your tailor and the envy of your less tasteful friends,—you, the very prince of Broadway exquisites,—you, the American Brummel, who would as willingly have been caught picking a pocket, as wearing a glove two days, a hat two weeks, or a coat two months,—can you venture to destroy the reputation which you have acquired at such cost, by introducing a drab bonnet to the acquaintance of your be-plumed and be-flowered female friends?”

“Wait awhile, Edward; Rachel has not yet learned to admire the gayeties of our city; her eyes have been too long accustomed to the ‘sober twilight gray,’ and she is rather dazzled than pleased with the splendor of fashionable society, but she has too much of womanly feelings to continue long insensible to womanly vanity.”

“Well, success to you, Harry, but let me beg you to lay an interdict on that ugly bonnet as soon as you have a right to exercise your marital authority.”

Wilford laughed, and the two gentlemen parted; the one to fulfil an engagement with the pretty Quakeress, and the other to smoke a cigar, drink a mint julep, and laugh at his friend’s folly.

Harry Wilford had been so unlucky as to come into possession of a large fortune as soon as he attained his majority. I am not in error, gentle reader, when I say he was unlucky, for daily experience bears witness to the fact, that in this country, at least in nine cases out of ten, a large inheritance is a great misfortune. The records of gay life in every large city prove that the most useless, most ignorant, most vicious, and often the most degraded among the youth, are usually the sons of plodding and hoarding parents, who have pawned health and happiness, aye, and sometimes integrity—the very life of the soul—to procure the gold which brings the destruction of their children. Wilford had passed through college with the reputation of being one of the most gifted and most indolent of scholars, while his eccentric fits of study, which served to give him the highest rank in his class, only showed how much more he might have done, if industry and perseverance had been allowed to direct his pursuits. Like his career in the university had been his course through life. With much latent energy of character he was too infirm of purpose to become distinguished either for virtue or talent. The curse of Ephraim seemed to have fallen upon the child of prosperity, and the impressive words of the ancient Patriarch: “Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel,” might have shadowed forth his destiny. His fine talents were wasted in empty witticisms; his classical taste only served to direct his lavish expenditure, and his really noble feelings were frittered away in hollow friendship, or in transitory attachments. Handsome, brilliant, and, above all, rich, he became the idol of a coterie, and intoxicated by the incense which smoked before him, he did not perceive that its subtle influence enervated all his nobler faculties. Yet Wilford had escaped the contagion of vice. The dark stain of criminal excess, which too often sullies the cloth of gold more deeply than it does the coat of frieze, had never fallen upon his garments. He could not forget the trembling hand which had been laid upon his infant head when he offered up his innocent prayers at a mother’s knee. He remembered her dying supplication that her child might be kept “unspotted from the world,” and her gentle face, beaming with unutterable purity and love, often interposed itself between his and his tempter, when his heart would have failed from very weakness.

Harry Wilford had completed his thirtieth summer and yet he was a bachelor. The artillery of bright eyes and brighter smiles had been levelled at him in vain; the gentler weapons of sweet words and soft glances had been equally ineffectual. His heart had been captured again and again, but it was a far easier task to gain than to keep it. Indeed it was like an ill-garrisoned border fortress, and generally surrendered at discretion to the first enemy that sat down before it, who was sure to be soon driven out in turn by another victorious assailant. He was too universal a lover, and until, like Apelles, he could unite in one woman the charms which he admired in twenty, there seemed little probability of his ever being won to wear the chain. The truth was, that of the many who courted the attentions of the handsome Mr. Wilford, there was none that seemed to have discovered the fine gold which lay beneath the surface of his character. The very exuberance of flowers and fruit which the soil produced, prevented one from expecting any hidden treasure, for it is not often that the precious things of earth are found beneath its gay adornments. We look for the diamond, not under the bank of violets but in the rugged bosom of the mountain, and thus Wilford’s friends, content with the beautiful blossoms of fancy and wit which he lavishly flung around, suspected not the noble gifts of intellect which he possessed.

Wilford had frequently imagined himself in love, but something had always occurred to undeceive him and to resolve his pleasant fancies with very disagreeable facts. He had learned that the demon of selfishness often lurks under the form of an angel of light, and he began to distrust many of the fair beings who bestowed upon him their gentle smiles. He had received more than one severe lesson in human nature, and it was very soon after officiating as groomsman at the bridal of a lovely girl whose faith had once been pledged to him, that he first met the young and guileless Quakeress. There was something so pure and vestal-like in the delicate complexion, soft blue eye, and simply braided hair of the gentle Rachel, that Wilford was instantly charmed. His eye, so long dazzled with the gorgeous draperies, glittering jewels, and well-displayed beauties of fashionable belles, rested with a sense of relief on the sober French gray silk, and transparent lawn neckerchief which so carefully shaded the charms of the fair rustic. He saw the prettiest of tiny feet peeping from beneath a robe of far more decorous length than the laws of fashion then allowed—the whitest of white hands were unadorned by a single jewel—and the most snowy of necks was only discovered by the swan-like grace which rendered it visible above its envious screen of muslin. Even in the society of Friends, where a beautiful complexion is almost as common to the females as a pair of eyes to each face, Rachel was remarkable for the peculiar delicacy of hers. It was not of that waxy, creamy tint, so often considered the true fashionable and aristocratic complexion, because supposed to be an evidence that the “winds of heaven” have never visited the face except through the blinds of a carriage; nor was it the flake-white and carmine-red which often claims for its possessor the reputation of a brilliant tincture of the skin. Even the old and worn-out similes of the lily and the rose, would have failed to give an idea of the delicate hues which added such a charm to Rachel’s countenance, for the changing glow of her soft cheek, and the tracery of blue veins which adorned her snowy brow could never be imaged by a flower of the field. Harry Wilford thought he had never seen anything so exquisitely lovely, so purely fair, as that sweet face when in perfect repose, or so vividly bright as it seemed when lighted by the blush of modesty. There are some faces which require shadows to perfect their beauty; the eye, though bright, must flash beneath jetty lashes; the brow, though white, must gleam amid raven tresses or half the effect is lost. But Rachel’s face, like that of joyous childhood, was all light. Her hair was silky and soft as an infant’s, her eyes blue as the summer heaven, her lips like an opening rose-bud—it was a face like spring sunshine, all brightness and all beauty.

Rachel had been left an orphan in her infancy, and the relatives to whom she was indebted for her early nurture were among the straitest of a strait sect, consequently she had imbibed their rigid ideas of dress and manners. Indeed she had never wasted a thought upon the pomps and vanities of the ‘world’s people,’ until she visited the gay metropolis. The sneers which her plain dress occasioned in the circle where she now moved, and the merry jibes which young and thoughtless companions cast upon her peculiar tenets of faith, aroused all the latent pride of her nature, until she actually felt a degree of triumph in exhibiting her quaint costume in society.

If Wilford had been charmed with her beauty, he was in raptures with her unsophisticated character. After ringing the changes on sentiment until his feelings were ‘like sweet bells jangled out of tune,’ it was absolutely refreshing to find a damsel who had never hung enraptured over the passionate pages of Byron, nor breathed the voluptuous songs of Moore, but who, in the simplicity of her heart, admired and quoted the gentle Cowper, as the prince of poets. “She has much to learn in the heart’s lore,” said Wilford to himself, “and what pleasure it will be to develop her innocent affections.” So he offered his hand to the pretty Quakeress, and she, little versed in the arts of coquetry, modestly accepted the gift.

One morning Rachel sat by the window, looking out upon the gay throng in Broadway, when her cousin entered with a small packet in her hand.

“Here is something for you, Rachel, a love token I suppose,” said Mrs. Hadley. Rachel blushed as she opened the envelope, but her color deepened to an almost angry hue when she unclosed a morocco box, and beheld an exquisite set of pearls.

“Beautiful!” exclaimed Mrs. Hadley.

“I shall not keep them,” said Rachel quietly.

“Not keep them! pray why?” asked her cousin.

“Because I should never wear them, and because Mr. Wilford has not kept his word with me. He promised never to interfere with what he called my style of dress, and I told him I would never lay aside my plain costume, though I was willing to modify it a little for his sake.”

“Here he comes to answer for himself,” said Mrs. Hadley as Wilford entered. “You are just in time,” she continued, “for Rachel is very angry with you.”

Rachel could not repress a feeling of pride and pleasure as she looked on the graceful form of her lover, who, taking a seat beside her, whispered, “Are you indeed displeased with me, dearest? Pray what is my offence?”

She replied by placing in his hand the box of pearls.

“Do you then reject so simple an offering of affection, Rachel?” said Harry, “you should regard these gems not as the vain ornaments of fashion, but as the most delicate and beautiful productions of the wonderful world of ocean. Look, can any thing be more emblematical of purity?” and as he spoke he placed a pearl rose upon the soft golden hair which was folded above her white forehead.

Rachel did look, and, as the large mirror reflected her beautiful face, she was conscious of an impulse, (almost her very first) of womanly vanity.

“I cannot wear them, Harry,” said she, “necklace and bracelets would be very useless to one who never unveils either neck or arms, and such costly head-gear would be ill suited to my plain silk dress, and lawn cape.”

Wilford had too much tact to press the subject. The box was consigned to his pocket, and the offence was forgiven.

“Ce n’est que le premier pas qui coute,” said he, as he walked home, “my fifteen hundred dollars has been thrown away for the present; I must proceed more cautiously in my work of reform.”

The morning fixed for the marriage at length arrived. Rachel was in her apartment, surrounded by her friends, and had just commenced her toilet, when a small parcel, accompanied by a delicate rose-colored note, was placed in her hands. She, of course, opened the note first; it was as follows:

“Forgive me, my sweet Rachel, if on this morning I venture to suggest a single addition to your simple dress. There are always idle persons standing about the church door on such an occasion as a wedding, and I am foolish enough to be unwilling that the careless eye of every indifferent spectator should scan the exquisite beauty of your face to-day. There is something extremely painful to me in the thought that the blushing cheek of my fair bride should be the subject of cold remark. Will you not, for my sake, dearest, veil the rich treasure of your loveliness for one brief hour? I know I am selfish in making the request, but for once forgive my jealousy, and shade your brightness from the stranger’s gaze.”

The parcel contained a Brussels lace veil of surpassing richness, so delicate in its texture, so magnificent in its pattern that Rachel could not repress an exclamation of pleasure at the sight.

Her toilet was at length completed. A dress of plain white satin, finished at the neck by a chemisette of simple lace, her hair folded plainly around her small head and plaited in a single braid behind:—such was the bridal attire of the rigid little Quakeress.

“And the veil, Rachel,” whispered her cousin.

“Why, rather than shock Harry’s delicacy,” said she, half smiling, “I believe I will wear it, but I shall look very ridiculous in it.”

The veil fell in rich folds nearly to her feet, and nothing could be imagined more beautiful than her whole appearance in this plain but magnificent costume.

“You want a pearl comb, or something of the kind, to fasten this veil properly,” said one of the bridesmaids.

“What a pity you had not kept the box,” whispered her cousin. Rachel smiled as she replied, “if I had ever dreamed of wearing such an unusual appendage as this perhaps I might have retained the rose at least.”

Rachel had taken the first step when she consented to adopt the veil, the second would have cost her less trouble.

Immediately after the ceremony, Mr. and Mrs. Wilford set off for the Springs. A servant had preceded them with their baggage, and Rachel soon found herself in the midst of a more brilliant circle than she had yet seen. The day after their arrival she was preparing for a ride, and a crowd had collected on the piazza to admire Wilford’s elegant equipage and fine blood-horses. But an unforeseen annoyance had occurred to disturb the bride’s feelings. Attired in a dress of dark lavender-colored silk, she folded her white cashmere around her shoulders, and opened the band-box which contained her bridal hat. This had only been sent home on the morning of her marriage, and having been instantly forwarded with the other baggage, she had not yet seen it. How was she startled therefore to find, instead of the close cottage hat which she had ordered, as the nearest possible approach to her Quaker bonnet, a gay-looking French affair, trimmed with a wreath of lilies of the valley. What was to be done? it was impossible to procure another, and to despoil the bonnet of its flowers gave it an unfinished and slovenly appearance. Harry affected to condole with her, and finally persuaded her to wear it rather than expose herself to the charge of affectation by assuming her travelling calash.

“Ce n’est que le premier pas qui coute,” said he, to himself, as he saw the blush mantle her lovely cheek when she contemplated her reflection in the mirror.

“What shall I do?” exclaimed Rachel, “it does not half cover my head; I never wore such a flaunting, flaring thing in my life: I wish I had my veil, for I am actually ashamed of myself: ah, here it is, coz must have put it into the box, and I dare say it is she who has played me this trick about my bonnet.”

So, throwing on her splendid veil to hide her unwonted finery, Rachel took her husband’s arm and entered the carriage, leaving the gentlemen to admire her beauty and the ladies to talk about her magnificent Brussels.

Six months after her marriage Mrs. Wilford was dressing for a party; Monsieur Frisette had arranged her beautiful hair in superb ringlets and braids, and was just completing his task when the maid accidentally removing her embroidered handkerchief from the dressing-table discovered beneath it the box of pearls.

“Ah voilà Madame, de very ting—dat leetle rose vill just do for fix dese curl,” said Monsieur.

As she continued her toilet she found that Madame M*** had trimmed the corsage of her dress in such a manner as to preclude the possibility of wearing either cape or scarf according to her usual habit. She could not appear with her neck quite bare, and nothing remained but to cover it with the massy medallions of her pearl necklace. In short, when fully dressed for the party, some good reason had been found for adopting every ornament which the box contained.

“Just as I expected,” said Wilford, mentally, as he conducted her to the carriage, “Rachel has taken the first step, she will never put on the drab bonnet again.”

*    *    *    *    *

Three years after the events just recorded, the fatal red flag of the auctioneer was seen projecting from one of the upper windows of a stately house, and crowds of the idle, the curious, and the speculating were entering the open door. It was the residence of Harry Wilford.

“Well, how things will turn out,” said a fat, frowsy dame, as she seated herself on a velvet sofa and drew a chair in front of her to keep off the throng, “sit down Charlotte,” continued she, addressing a newly married niece, “sit down and let us make ourselves comfortable until the auctioneer has done selling the kitchen furniture. Only think—the last time I was here before Mrs. Wilford had a great party, and the young folks all came in fancy dresses, and I sat on this very sofa. That is only three months ago, and now everything has gone to rack and ruin.”

“How did it all happen?” asked a pleasant-looking woman who stood near.

“Oh, Mrs. Wilford was awfully extravagant, and her husband thought there was no bounds to his riches, so they lived too fast; ‘burnt their candle at both ends,’ as the saying is. They say Mrs. Wilford hurried on her husband’s ruin, for he had been speculating too deeply, and was in debt, but his creditors would have waited if she had not given that last dashing party.”

“How do you know that fact!” asked the other.

“Oh, from the best authority, my husband is one of the principal creditors,” replied the dame with a look of dignity, “he told me the whole story as we were going to the party, and declared that he would not stand such dishonest dealings, so the very next morning he was down upon Mr. Wilford, and before twelve o’clock he had compelled him to make an assignment.”

And it was among such people—men and women who would sit at the hospitable board with murder in their hearts—who would share in the festivities of a household even while meditating the destruction of that pleasant home—it was among such as these that Wilford had lived—it was for such as these that he had striven to change the simple habits and artless manners of his true-hearted Rachel. It was the dread laugh of such as these which had led him to waste her energies as well as his own in the pursuit of fashion and folly.

Wilford had succeeded even beyond his intentions in imbuing his gentle bride with a love for worldly vanities. His wishes delicately but earnestly expressed, together with the new-born vanity which her unwonted adornments engendered in the bosom of Rachel, gradually overcame her early habits. One by one the insignia of her simple faith were thrown aside. Her beautiful neck was unveiled to the admiring eye—her ungraceful sleeve receded until the rounded arm was visible in its full proportions—the skirt, following the laws of fashion, lost several degrees of longitude, until the beauty of Mrs. Wilford’s foot was no longer a disputable fact. In short, in little more than two years after her marriage, her wealth, her beauty, her elegance of manners, and her costly dress made her decidedly a leader of ton. Wilford could not but regret the change. She was ever affectionate and devoted to him with all the earnestness of womanly tenderness, but he was ashamed to tell her that in obeying his wishes she had actually gone beyond them. He hoped that it was only the novelty of her position which had thus fascinated her, and yet he often found himself regretting that he had ever exposed her to such temptations.

But new and unlooked-for trials were in store for both. The estate of Mr. Wilford had always been managed by his uncle, a careful merchant, who, through the course of his whole life, had seemed to possess the Midas-like faculty of converting every thing he touched into gold; and satisfied that, as he was the old man’s only heir, the property would be carefully husbanded, Wilford gave himself no trouble about the matter. But the mania for real estate speculation had now infected the whole nation. The old gentleman found himself the ridiculed of many a bold spirit who had dashed into the stream and gathered the gold dust which it bore along; he had long withstood the sneers of those who considered themselves wise in their generation, because they were pursuing a gambling scheme of wealth; but at length he could no longer resist the influence! He obtained the concurrence of his nephew, and thus furnished with double means struck boldly out from the safe haven where he had been ensconced. Every thing went on swimmingly for a time; his gains were immense—upon paper, but the tide turned, and the result was total wreck.

It was long ere Wilford became aware of his misfortunes. Accustomed to rely implicitly on his uncle’s judgment, he reposed in indolent security until the tidings of the old man’s bankruptcy and his own consequent ruin came upon him like a thunderbolt. He had been too long the child of prosperity to bear reverses with fortitude. He had no profession, no knowledge of business, nothing by which he could obtain a future livelihood; and now, when habits of luxury had enervated both mind and body, he found himself utterly beggared. He brooded over his losses in moody bitterness of spirit long before the world became acquainted with his situation. He even concealed them from his wife, from that mistaken and cruel kindness which thinks to lighten the blow by keeping it long suspended. “How can I overwhelm her with sorrow and mortification by telling her we are beggars?” he cried, in anguish. “How can I bid her descend from the lofty eminence of wealth and fashion and retire to obscurity and seclusion? How can I be sure that she will bear the tidings with a patient spirit? I have sown within her young heart the seeds of vanity, and how can I hope to eradicate now the evils which have sprang from them? Her own little fortune is all that is now left, and how we are to live on that I cannot tell. Rachel cannot bear it—I know she cannot!”

His thoughts added new anguish to his regrets, and months of harrowing dread and anxiety passed away before Wilford could summon courage to face manfully his increasing misfortunes.

Mrs. Wilford had long intended to celebrate her husband’s birth-day by a brilliant party, and, quite unconscious of the storm which impended over her, she issued her cards nearly a month previous to the appointed evening. Harry Wilford knew that the party ought not to be given; he knew that it would bring discredit upon him, and perhaps censure upon his wife, for he was conscious that his affairs were rapidly approaching a fatal crisis; but he had not courage to own the truth. He watched the preparations for the party with a boding spirit; he looked sadly and fondly upon the brilliant attire of his young wife as she glided about the gorgeous apartments, and he felt that he was taking his last glance at happiness and comfort. The very next day his principal creditor, a fat, oily-faced, well-fed individual, remarkable for the regularity of his attendance, and the loudness of his responses at church—a man whose piety was carried to such lengths that in the fear lest his left hand should know the good which his right hand did, he was particularly careful never to do any—a man who would sit first at a feast and store up the careless sayings of convivial frankness to serve his own interest in the mart and the market-place—this man, after pledging him in the wine-cup and parting from him with the cordial grasp of friendship, met him with a legal demand for that which he knew would ruin him.

The fatal tidings could no longer be withheld from Mrs. Wilford, and she was roused from the languor which the fatigue of the preceding evening had left both on mind and body, by the tidings of her husband’s misfortunes.

“It is as I feared,” thought Wilford, as he observed her overwhelming emotion, “she cannot bear the degradation.”

But he was mistaken. There is a hidden strength of character which can only be developed by the stroke of calamity, and such was possessed by Rachel Wilford. A moment, and but a moment, she faltered; then she was prepared to brave the worst evils of her altered fortunes. Wilford soon found that she had both mind to comprehend and judgment to counsel. Ere the morrow had passed half his sorrow was assuaged, for he had found comfort and even hope in the bosom of his young and devoted wife. There was only one thing over which she still deeply grieved, and this was her fatal party.

“Had you only confided in me, Harry,” said she, “worlds would not have tempted me to place you and myself in so dishonorable a light. How could you see me so unconscious of danger and treading so heedlessly on the verge of ruin without withdrawing me from it? Your own good name, Harry, aye, and mine too, have suffered. Our integrity has been doubted.”

“I did it for the best, Rachel; I would have spared you as long as possible.”

“It was most ill-judged kindness, Harry; it has ruined you and deeply injured me. Believe me, a wife is infinitely happier in the consciousness that she possesses her husband’s confidence, than in the discovery that she has been treated like a petted child; a being of powers too limited to understand his affairs or to be admitted to his councils.”

Mrs. Wilford did not merely meet her reverses with fortitude. She was resolved to act as became a high-minded woman. Her jewels were immediately disposed of, not stealthily, and as if she dreaded exposure, but by going openly to the persons from whom they were purchased; and thus realizing at least two-thirds of their original cost. This sum she immediately appropriated to the payment of household debts; and with it she satisfied the claims of all those who had supplied them with daily comforts. “I could not rest,” she said, “if I felt there was one person living who might say I wronged him out of the very bread I have eaten.” The furniture was next given up—nothing was reserved—not even the plate presented by her own friends, nor the work-box, the gift of Harry. Lodgings quiet and respectable but plain and cheap were taken in a private boarding-house. Every vestige of their former splendor was gone, and when all was over, it was with a feeling of relief that the husband and wife sat down together to form plans for the future. The past seemed like a troubled dream. Scarcely six months had elapsed since their stately mansion had been the scene of joyous festivity, and the very suddenness with which distress had come seemed to have paralysed their sense of suffering.

“I received a proposal to-day, Rachel, which I would not accept without consulting you,” said Harry, as they sat together in their neatly furnished apartment. “Edward Morton offers me the situation of book-keeper, with a salary of a thousand dollars per annum.”

“Take it, by all means, dear Harry,” said his wife, “constant employment will make you forget your troubles, and a thousand dollars,” added she, with a bright smile, “will be a fortune to us.”

“I suppose I had better accept his offer,” said Wilford, gloomily, “but it cuts down a man’s pride to be reduced to the condition of a hireling.”

“Do not make me ashamed of my husband, dear Harry,” was the earnest reply, “do not suffer me to blush for the weakness and false pride which can think only of external show. We can live very comfortably on your salary, especially when we have the consciousness of integrity to sweeten our privations.”

“You forget that you are not quite so much a beggar as your husband, Rachel. The interest of your twenty thousand dollars, added to my salary, will give us something more than the mere comforts of life.”

“What do you mean, Harry?” asked his wife, turning very pale.

“Why you do not suppose I was scoundrel enough to risk your little property, Rachel; that was secured you by a marriage settlement, and no creditor can touch it unless you should assign it.”

Rachel made no reply but fell into a long fit of musing.

It was but a few days after this conversation that Wilford, conquering his false pride, entered upon his duties in the counting-room of his old friend Morton. He returned early in the evening, wearied, sad, and dispirited, but his wife met him with a face so bright that he almost forgot the annoyances of the day.

“How happy you look, Rachel,” said he, as she drew her chair beside his and laid her hand upon his arm.

“I am indeed happy, dear Harry, for I am now no richer than yourself.”

“I don’t understand you,” replied Wilford with a puzzled look.

“You gave me a most unpleasant piece of news yesterday, Harry, when you told me that my paltry little fortune had been preserved from your creditors, and now I am happy in the consciousness that no such reproach can attach to us. I have been closeted with your lawyer this morning; he told me about twenty thousand dollars would clear off all claims against you, and by this time I suppose you are free.”

“What have you done?”

“Handed over my marriage settlement to your assignees, Harry”—

“And reduced yourself to a bare subsistence, Rachel, to satisfy a group of gaping creditors who would swallow my last morsel if they knew I was left to starve.”

“The debts were justly due, Harry, and I would rather that the charge of illiberality should attach to them than of dishonesty to us.”

“You have never known the evils of poverty, my poor child,” said Wilford, despondingly.

“Nor do I mean to experience them now, dear husband; you will not let me want for comforts, and you seem to forget that, though you have tried to spoil me, my early habits were those of economy and frugality.”

“So you mean to adopt your simple Quaker habits again, Rachel,” said Wilford, more cheerfully; “will they include the drab bonnet also?”

“No,” returned the young wife, her face dimpled with joyous smiles, “I believe now that as much vanity lurked under my plain bonnet as ever sported on the wave of a jewelled plume; and yet,” said she, after a moment’s pause, “when I threw off my Quaker garb I took my first step in error, for I can trace all my folly, and extravagance, and waste of time to the moment when I first looked with pleasure in that little mirror at Saratoga.”

“Well, well, dearest, your first step has not led you so far astray but that you have been able most nobly to retrace your path. I am poorer than I ever expected to be, yet richer than I could ever have hoped, for had I never experienced a reverse of fortune, I should never have learned the worth of my own sweet wife.”

Harry Wilford was right, and the felicity which he now enjoys in his own quiet and cheerful home—a home won by his own industry and diligence—is well worth all the price at which it was purchased, even though it cost him his whole estate.

IN THREE CHIMERAS.

———

BY LOUIS FITZGERALD TASISTRO.

———

TAKE ME HOME.

———

BY DR. REYNELD COATES.

———

I was wandering in the streets of a populous city—thousands crowded the thronged thoroughfares—jarring and jostling along,—each intent on his own petty schemes. Here, a merchant rushed onward with a rapid step—for it wanted but five minutes of three o’clock! If clouds had overspread his countenance an hour before, they had given place to a determined expression, that seemed to say, “safe till to-morrow, anyhow!” There, a belle flaunted in costly attire, with a curl on her lip and pride in her tread that spoke, more plainly than words, “conquest is my right! for my beauty and wealth are alike undisputed, I have but to smile and win!”

At one moment, my eye was attracted by a young couple in the spring-tide of their promise, associated by that magic feeling which comes over us but once in a life-time. At the next, it rested on a pair of unfortunates with locked arms but gloomy brows and half averted faces, convinced, by twenty years of bitter experience, that it is wise to preserve appearances, even when doing penance for that most common, but most fatal indiscretion of youth—an ill-assorted marriage!

A little girl, upon the door-step of an elegant mansion, stood gazing upon the passing crowd and the unbroken line of splendid equipages hurrying by, glancing her eye occasionally upward at the tall trees that shielded her from the sunshine, or the bright blue sky and fleecy vapor which seemed to rest upon their summits. The breezes of May waved the translucent ringlets athwart her snowy shoulders, while the leaves danced and rustled mirthfully in the wind, and a little bird, upon a neighboring bough, poured out its joyous song! The child threw back her head and laughed long and merrily: yet there was nothing in view to awaken laughter!

Guarded, and clad,—and nourished,—and incognisant of care,—the bounding pulse of youth felt keenly in every fibre,—existence itself, with her, became delight! and she laughed in the fulness of irrepressible joy—that the skies were bright and the leaves were green!—On the pavement beside her, a barefoot and ragged boy leaned for support against a post. Famine and fatigue were legibly stampt upon his sunken cheek and attenuated limbs. The sound of merriment awakened him, and he turned his dull eye in wonder upon the beautiful object before him!—But he comprehended it not!—joy was to him a stranger!

These, and a hundred other episodes in the selfish history of common life claimed, in turn, my attention;—and each might have furnished subject matter for a month of thought or a volume of moral deduction. But there was one group so peculiarly striking that it still dwells upon my memory with more than usual vividness of coloring.

In the most luxurious portion of the city, where palaces of marble and granite rose on every hand, and the very air was redolent of the incense of exotic flowers, a coach, dusty with travel, suddenly drew up before one of the most conspicuous residences. The liveried footman instantly threw open the door, and a delicate young girl, with a highly intellectual, but care-worn and sorrowful expression of countenance, began to descend the steps. But, before she could reach the pavement a masculine arm was projected from the vehicle to arrest her progress, and a voice, tremulous with age and grief, exclaimed, “No! no! not here! not here!—Why will you not take me home!—I must go home!—I am old and sick!—Do take me home at once!”

The attempt to draw the young lady back within the coach endangered her foot-hold, and courtesy obliged me to spring to her assistance, lest she should fall beneath the wheels. Adroitly lifting her from the carriage while the footman hastened to ring the bell, I obtained a view of all the parties interested in this little incident.

The half fainting girl, still leaning upon my arm, might have numbered about fourteen summers, and within the coach were two other individuals, in both of whom the same family traits were visible. One of these, a woman about thirty-five years of age, was evidently the mother. She was still beautiful, though strong traces of habitual thought and mental suffering were perceptible upon her brow. The other was a man of noble figure, probably advanced to seventy years, with locks of snowy whiteness, but dressed with a degree of richness and precision, not usually observed among the old. It was evident that he had been familiar with the world—that wealth and luxury were no novelties to him. The forms of society had been his study, if not the business of his life. Yet, what a satire upon the vulgar misconceptions of the means of happiness was the aspect of that face! The broad brow was furrowed with deep lines of mental distress. The boldly chiselled nose was thinned, rather by muscular contraction than by age. The model of the lip still presented the curve of pride and habitual authority, contrasting most painfully with the tremor of helpless suspicion and childish anxiety.

“Why will you not take me home?” he exclaimed again—and his eye wandered restlessly from side to side, peering through the door and windows of the coach, as if in search of some object once familiar—with an expression of hopeless distress that it was difficult even to witness with fortitude.

To one familiar with large hospitals, the scene was clearly intelligible. Insanity from disappointed hope was mingled with the fatuity of premature old age.

Propriety would have dictated my immediate retreat, after the necessary care of the ladies in alighting; but perceiving that the united persuasions of mother and daughter were likely to fail in inducing the grandfather to quit the coach without too strongly inviting public attention towards a private misfortune, I felt bound to inquire, “May I not save you, madam! from some embarrassment by begging you to enter the house? I will engage myself to place your father under the protection of your roof, in a very few minutes, and without annoyance.” Nothing insures such instantaneous confidence with the gentler sex as self-dependence in a man, and grave, though courteous authority of manner. The offer was accepted with a glance of mute thankfulness, and handing the ladies to the door, I returned to the carriage.

“Come, my dear sir,” I said to the elderly gentleman, “allow me the pleasure of assisting you to alight! your horses are a little restive.”

“No, sir!” he replied; “you are in league with them!—You lead me from place to place, and every where you tell me I am at home!—Oh! I shall never find it!—I wish to repose in my own house, and my own garden!—my mother’s house!—and you bring me here and tell me this is my house!—Do you think I have grown so weak and imbecile as not to know the chamber where I was born?—the garden where I played when a child?—No!—I will not go in!—They are kind to me here, but I am not at home!—Do, take me home!—You seem to think that I cannot tell the difference between this great palace, with its rich carpets and its marble columns, and our own little cottage, with its arbor of grape-vines and wild-creepers, where my mother used to nurse me to sleep in the old carved rocking-chair!—Oh! take me home!”

Long habituated to the management of lunatics, I had learned to guide the tangled reins of a disordered mind, and found but little difficulty in persuading the old man to rest awhile in the parlor on the plea of examining whether his granddaughter, to whom he was much attached, had not received some injury by stumbling in her descent from the coach. Seating him upon an ottoman, it was easy, by the same innocent deception to withdraw to another apartment in company with the ladies: and there, after tendering any further services which their affliction might render desirable, I heard, with deep attention, the history of their woes.

Mr. A——, the old gentleman, was, as I had inferred, the father of the elder and the grandsire of the younger lady. At an early age he came into hereditary possession of a handsome capital, and a range of ample stores near the centre of the commercial mart of ——.

His mother, who was esteemed rich in those early times (soon after the revolutionary war) retained the family homestead in addition to her dower; and, in this venerable mansion, distant about a mile from the borders of the then small, but flourishing city, her son continued to reside; for he preferred the society of his remaining parent, and the quietude of rural life in the intervals of business, to the gayer scenes and more luxurious habits of the town. Thither, he soon conveyed a young and beautiful wife; and there his happiest years were spent in the midst of a family circle bound together by ties of the warmest affection.—Even their dead were gathered around them:—for the white monuments of their departed friends peered over the stone wall of the family grave-yard, from the grove of funereal pines behind the garden.

But this peaceful life of domestic enjoyment was not destined to continue. Within a few years subsequent to his marriage, there occurred one of those sudden revolutions in trade which periodically sweep, with the force of a deluge, over the commercial interests of our country.—Mr. A⁠—— was ruined!—He became dependent upon the resources of his parent for the support of his wife; but pride would not permit him to grant the urgent request of his mother that he would share that support himself; and he fled his native country for a time, to woo the breeze of Fortune beneath other stars.

After two long years of toil and danger among the furs of the North-West, the hides of California, the biche-le-mer and birds-nests of the Eastern Archipelagoes, he arrived at the great entrepot of the Celestial Empire with a cargo insuring him an ample competence, just in time to receive intelligence of the death of his wife, leaving to his charge an only child! She had been the star of his destiny!—That star was set, and darkness enshrouded his soul!

Recovering from this terrible shock, he shunned the very idea of returning to the scene of his former happiness. She for whom he had braved the deep!—had toiled—had grappled with the sun of the tropics,—the ice of the pole—had left him desolate!—the infant, whom no parent welcomed to this world of trial, was a stranger to him!—one whom he had never beheld! and the only remaining link which bound him to his country was his affection for an aged mother.

But who is not aware that the noon of manhood—its mid-day strife and bustle—are unfavorable to the glow of filial affection? Maternal love,—the deepest—the purest—the least selfish of human emotions!—knows no ebb—no diminution on this side the grave! Time, which may sap or shatter every other sympathy, adds strength to this at every revolution of its fatal glass!

Not so the attachment of the offspring!—Like a delicate flower which sheds its fragrance freely on the morning or the evening air, but denies all sweetness to the bold glance of noon, this feeling flourishes only at the commencement and the close of our career. When, at length, in the decline of our energies, both mind and body verge once more towards the feebleness of infancy, how painfully the affections of earlier years flow back upon us!—Then would we gladly repose our aching temples—aching with the memory of many an unkind word or action—upon the bosom from which we first drew sustenance! and we yearn after a mother’s love with a longing that will not be repressed!

It is not surprising that Mr. A⁠——, thus suddenly cut off by death from her whose welfare had been the chief purpose of his life, should have buried his gloom in the cares of business. Such is the usual resource of those who bound their vision, as, alas! too many are prone to do! within the narrow limits of this sublunary theatre of action! For thirty years he pursued the search of wealth beneath the burning skies of India, with singleness of purpose and untiring zeal.

He remitted large sums, from time to time, for the convenience of a mother to whom he was ever dutiful, and a daughter that he had never seen; but his letters were cold and formal. His child was married,—he congratulated her. A grand-child was born to him;—he sent her his blessing. His daughter became a widow;—he condoled with her upon her loss. But nothing could arouse him from his bootless labor for superfluous gold!

At length, as age approached, he felt wearied with his monotonous existence. With the decline of his bodily powers came the desire for rest:—with the weakening of his mental energies, the longing for sympathy grew stronger and stronger. He did not wish to die alone! Dreams of his juvenile days came over him, and he sighed for the quietude of the old family mansion, and the warm welcome of his mother on his return from the cares of business. When the sudden twilight of the tropics sunk abruptly into night, he dreamed of the lingering glories of an American evening. When he heard the cry of the bramin kite, the harsh call of the adjutant crane, and the chattering of a thousand obscene birds retiring to their roosts, gorged with their horrible repast on the corpses that pollute the Ganges, he longed for the wild notes of the whip-poor-will, the rushing sound of the night-hawk, and the melancholy hooting of the owl, that render night musical in the bright green woods of his native land.

He knew that the growing city had swept far beyond the retreat of his earlier days—that many magnificent residences had risen over the site of his boyish play-grounds, and that even the relics of his dead had been removed from their original resting-place, to make room for the house of the stranger. He had permitted—he had even advised these changes, but, he could not realize them! The old mansion with its broad elms, the garden, and the pine-grove with the monuments beneath its shade, were ever present to his mind, and his letters were painfully charged with allusions to scenes and persons whose existence was blotted from the page of history.

With every year, these feelings became more and more intense, until incipient childishness made its appearance, and he became affected with a confirmed nostalogia. At length he closed his concerns, remitted the unappropriated balance of his earnings, and launched himself once more upon the ocean, on his homeward route.

As he drew near his native shore, memory retraced more and more vividly, the scenes of other days, until his failing intellect began to confuse the present with the past, and, at times, he dreamed of once more welcoming the little circle of the loved and cherished, in the same old wainscotted parlor,—around the same wide, hospitable, antique fire-place, where he slept with head reclined upon his mother’s knee when the presence of company obtained him the privilege of sitting up an hour beyond his usual bed time.

The vessel neared the port. The pilot, ever the first to welcome the wanderer home, ascended the deck and distributed the “papers” of the previous day. With one of these, Mr. A⁠—— hastily retired to the cabin. Not even the blue hills of his native land, now full in sight, could wean him from the fatal record. His eye glanced rapidly over the leading article, but the struggle of contending candidates had no charm for him. He furtively regarded the items of foreign news;—was shocked at the long record of crimes and casualties made piquant and racy with details and comments which the purer manners of his early years would not have tolerated; and, for the first time in his life, he turned from the price current in disgust, but why did he start, turn pale, and tremble when his eye rested upon the ominous black lines that cross the final column of the second page? The identical paper is still preserved, and I extract the notice!—Read!

Died, suddenly, of apoplexy, on the 29th inst., in the 96th year of her age, Mrs. C⁠—— A⁠——, the venerable relict of the late Hon. W⁠—— A⁠——, and mother of Mr. H⁠—— A⁠——, the distinguished American merchant at ——.

The cup was full! There breathed not in the land of his birth one kindred being to unite him with the past!—His daughter!—she was a stranger! How should he recognise her in the stranger crowd!—The mind, already weakened, was crushed!—The cracked vase was shivered!

The moment the anchor dropped, he leaped into a boat, and hurried on shore. Calling the nearest coach he ordered it in haste and sternly, “To ——’s lane, half a mile from the turnpike gate of the —— road!”

The astonished driver stared as he replied, “There’s no such lane now, sir! I heard of it when I was a boy, but it’s all built up long ago, and I never knew even where it was!”

“Then drive me to my mother’s,” cried Mr. A⁠——, in a voice almost of fury; and holding forth the paper, which had never left his hand, he pointed to the notice. An old man, standing by, struck by the haggard and maniacal look, perused the article and simply said, “Drive to the marble building, No. 20 —— Place.”

The grieving survivers of the family of Mrs. A⁠—— were sitting silently in the darkened parlor, on the morning after the funeral, when a loud appeal at the bell startled the whole household—so ill did it accord with the silence of grief brooding over all who had lived under the mild influence of the departed! A female attendant hurried to the door, and was instantly thrust to the wall by one who rushed furiously past her, crying aloud and wildly, “Where is my wife!—my mother!” Mr. A⁠—— actually sprang into the presence of the ladies; for he was endowed for the moment with unnatural strength by the intensity of feeling. The figure of the elder lady, as she started to her feet in terror on the sudden intrusion, appeared to awaken some long dormant recollection, for he checked, on the instant, his precipitate advance, regarded her intently for a moment, and approaching gently, but before her alarm permitted her to move, he laid his hands upon her shoulders, and read her features with a steady and protracted gaze that seemed to search her very soul! “No! no!” he cried, “You are not my Jane!” and fainted at her feet.

In the cemetery of ——, where the eye stretches wide and far over beautiful wooded slopes and a broad expanse of water—rock, ravine, spire, hamlet, and the distant city—where all is peace, and the weary soul is tempted to covet the repose of those who wait beneath,—now rest the remains of Mr. A⁠——.

Standing beside his grave, as the moon-beams flickered on the marble, contending with the shadows of o’erhanging leaves that rustled in the night-breeze, I thought how rapidly every haunt of my own bright, holiday youth was yielding to the inroads of another populous capital. The pond on which we used to ply the armed heel when winter ruled the year, has disappeared.—Its site is occupied with civic palaces. The shady glen where the winged hours of starry summer nights flew all unheeded by in converse with the loved who are no more, lies bare and sered beneath the August sun!—The very stream that wound so gracefully among the trees is dry!—The dews of heaven that fed its crystal sources fall now in vain upon a mountain mass of marble—column,—plynth and dome—rising in mockery of posthumous benevolence,—a long enduring witness of perverted trust! Where are the few and fondly cherished who shared the converse of those happy hours?—One lies deep in the coral groves of the Hesperides!—One fell a victim to a philanthropic spirit when the plague of Indoostan ravaged the vallies of the West!—Another!—Strangers tread lightly round his narrow house in the gardens of Père-la-Chaise!—The last—

But why repeat these woes that are the lot of all?—Who is there that has learned the value of the baubles that entice us here—Wealth! Fame! Power! or sublunary Love!—but will join in the secret aspiration with which I left the silent resting-place of a perturbed spirit—“Take! oh! Take me home!”

———

BY GEORGE P. MORRIS.

———

A STORY OF MOORISH SPAIN.

———

BY MARY S. PEASE.

———

Many years ago there dwelt, not far from Seville, in a castle so old it was a wonder what kept it from tumbling down, a Spanish hidalgo, remarkable for but two things—a very beautiful daughter, and the very strict manner in which he secluded her from the world. In every other respect this hidalgo was like other hidalgos, full of pride, sporting a pair of Spanish mustachios, and wearing a stiletto by his side.

The wonderful beauty of his daughter, the Doña Ysabel, had somehow—in spite of the seclusion in which she was kept—become proverbial, and the fame thereof had spread from Gibraltar to the Pyrenees. Not a caballero of that chivalric country but would have given his best steed for one glance from the eyes of the hidalgo’s daughter—eyes which shrouded under their long lashes, were like diamonds winning across the midnight. Her hair was silky and soft, darker and more glossy than the raven’s wing—and in such luxuriance did it grow that she might almost have hid herself in it, as did “the lady of the golden locks” in the fairy tale. Her face was fitful as an April day. It was the clear and faithful mirror to the warmest, purest heart in all Spain. And never did a young heart beat within a lighter and more graceful form than that of the Doña Ysabel.

The castle where the hidalgo resided with his daughter was built on a rocky eminence, in one of the wildest parts of the country. Tradition said it had been erected by a powerful and wealthy Moor, from whom it had been conquered by the strong arm of one of the present occupant’s ancestors. The father of Ysabel had resided there but rarely until the death of his wife; but, after that event, he had retired almost broken-hearted to this wild retreat. Here, from early childhood, the Lady Ysabel had been brought up. Wanting the care of a mother, she had always been left to have her own way, and a more self-willed, impetuous sylph never dashed the dew from the wild flowers that grew so luxuriantly around the Moorish castle.

One day, when the Doña Ysabel had nearly attained her sevententh year, the Count de Llenaro, her father, stood within the deep embrasure of the richly carved corridor, absorbed in thought. His eyes were fixed on the shadows that played so fancifully on the rocks below. A light step was heard and a fairy form entered the apartment.

“Bella mi cara nina, I was thinking of thee, I would speak with thee.” And the gentle girl stood beside the proud lord. “What wouldst thou my father?” The maiden’s voice was low and silvery soft. Her dark eye looked up into her father’s with an expression soft and confiding as childhood. One little snow-white hand rested upon his shoulder, while the other nestled within his own.

“How old are you, Ysy?”

“I shall be seventeen come next Michaelmas.”

“ ’Tis even as I thought. Thou art getting to be a great girl, Belle,—I have something to say to thee; wilt thou listen?”

“Dear papa, thy word is my law.”

“Is it so?” and the father fixed his eyes upon the girl with a look so penetrating that her own eye fell, and the rich warm blood rushed from her young heart and burnt upon her brow.

Llenaro seated himself upon a low turco, and drawing his child towards him, he fondly kissed her glowing cheek.

“I fear, Belle,” said he, putting back the world of curls that had fallen over her brow, “thy will hath never yet been broken. Thou art but a wild one.” Count Alcaros fell into a long fit of musing. The silver breathing tones of the Doña’s soft voice broke the stillness.

“What wouldst thou with thy child, papa? my birds, and young flowers, even now mourn my absence.”

“And canst thou not give one hour unto thy father, Ysy? What will thy birds and flowers do when I bring thee a right noble bird, an eagle among birds, for thine own? Wilt thou then give up all others and love but only that?”

“What does my papa mean?” tremblingly replied the maiden.

“I mean that thou art to be a child no longer.”

“But, papa, all my pretty birds and⁠—”

“Thou shalt have a bird worth the whole, a right proud gallant bird. Ysy, dost thou remember the Marquis of Talavera?”

“What of him, dearest papa?”

“Dost thou remember him?”

“Yes, papa.”

“This Marquis hath sought thee, Belle, in marriage, and I have said thou shalt be his bride.”

The girl started to the ground in unfeigned surprise.

“Why, papa! he is old enough to be my grandfather, and besides, he is ugly enough to⁠—”

“He is just the age of thy father, Ysabel. His years will serve to guide thy wayward ones. He is all that is brave and noble, besides being one of the richest, and most powerful lords in Spain. You may know, Belle, how well I think of him—he is almost the only one of my many friends, that I admit into this our wild retreat.”

“But, papa—”

“Nay, Belle, I will have no buts. It must be as I say.”

“But, papa.” The Count’s brow darkened. “But, papa, I do not love him.”

“Love—pah!”

“Papa, I cannot love him.”

“Pah!”

“Papa, I will not love him!” and the Doña’s eyes grew bright and large.

“Ysabel!”

“Dear papa,—I mean I cannot—” and the little lady burst into tears.

“Ysabel,—hear me—I have said thou shalt become the bride of the Marquis of Talavera. What I say I never unsay—that thou knowest. Two weeks from this. The day thou art seventeen—is the day decided upon. It must, it shall be so! Wilt thou do thy father’s bidding, Belle?”

The girl answered not a word but her eye lit up and her little mouth was tightly compressed. Every line of her statue-like form expressed firmness and resolution.

“Wilt thou do thy father’s bidding, Ysabel?” again demanded the Count.

“Thou hast ever been an indulgent father to me, never hast thou crossed my slightest wish, and now, father, I must say firmly no! I never can become the bride of him thou namest.”

“Girl! thou shalt not even be consulted. Thou hast had thine own way seventeen years, now I will have mine. Thou shalt wed the Talavera if I have to drag thee to the altar. Nay, no fawning.” The girl had twined her soft round arms about her father’s neck—her eyes looked beseechingly into his. But he pushed her from him, saying—“Go to thy room, Ysabel, and there remain until thy reason comes to thee. Dost thou hear me?”

The Spaniard strode from the room, and the weeping lady sought, with a heavy heart, her own turret.

It was the first time her father had been unkind to her, and she threw herself down, on a low couch, in all that utter hopelessness of grief youth alone can feel. It was her first sorrow.

There came a soft rap at the door,—but she heeded it not;—and not until a hand, soft as woman’s, held her own,—and a voice, whose deep, low tones were breathing music, whispered in her ear, did she know her father’s handsome page was kneeling by her.

“Weep not, mi cara Ysabel,” soothingly said he, “or rather let me share thy grief. I know it all—thy father hath told me, and sent me here to bring thee to reason, as he said. Can I do it sweet lady?” and the handsome page smiled.

It was wicked in him to smile when her heart was so full of grief—and so the lady thought. But she had learned to love, and when love is warm and new, all the loved one says or does is more than right.

The Doña Ysabel loved her father’s page,—loved him as an ardent-souled daughter of sunny Spain knows how to love. The father!——he did not even dream of such wickedness. (If he had he could not have slept for at least six months)—the unpardonable wickedness of a daughter of his—his bright, beautiful Ysabel—the high born lady of Llenaro,—loving her father’s page!—a nameless page!—and so he slept secure. The thought was too preposterous. And the Doña Ysabel loved. Love is all trustfulness, all watchfulness, all hopefulness. The page was handsome; the page was graceful, witty, accomplished. He was indeed an uncommon page;—and so thought the Doña’s father,—and so thought her father’s daughter. He could sing to the music of Ysabel’s guitar, most divinely; he could dance, fence, was perfectly skilled in all horsemanship, moreover he was acquainted with all the then lore of bright Spain. He wrote poetry too; and sang the words of his own composing. In sooth he was a most marvellous page—a perfect paragon of a page; and then his eye—why it was wilder than lightning shot from a midnight sky. The servants all feared and hated him. To Ysabel alone was he all that was gentle,—and to her father, for her sake. He was her teacher; her patient, faithful, untiring teacher. They drank together at the pure well of learning—a well too often untasted in those days of fair Spain.

“Weep not, sweetest; thy noble father would see thee wed with the Marquis of Talavera, and thou canst not love him. And it is for that thou weepest. Is it not so sweet lady?”

“I was happy,” replied the sorrowing girl. “I did not dream of love, or that I had a heart. I only felt that I was happy. And now⁠—”

“And now, my gentle Ysabel?”

“And now,” said the Señorita, deeply blushing, “now I feel I have no heart to give.”

“Bless thee, dearest, for those words. Ysabel hear me for I must speak. I love thee Ysabel—I am other than I seem. I am no hireling—I am the heir to a noble house. One year ago, having heard so much of thy wondrous beauty, and full of curiosity and daring, I contrived to get admitted into the castle as thy father’s page. To see, is to love thee—but to be near thee day after day—to read thy gentle thoughts—to gaze in thy liquid, truthful, soul-beaming eyes—to feel thy soft hand within my own. Ysabel, a being cut from granite to see thee thus could not help loving thee. I love a soul—a soul thou hast sweet Ysabel—a reflecting, gentle, trustful, ardent, heart-ful soul. Ysabel I love thee, wilt thou love me?”

“Jose, I will, I do love thee”—and the girl’s eyes were soft as she rested them in his.

He took her hand—her little, warm, white hand, and covered it with kisses. Then drawing her gently towards him, he clasped her silently to his heart. She nestled like a bird in his bosom—and rested her head there. At intervals a low sob swelled her little heart, like that of a wearied infant, worn out with much crying. At length her sighs came less and less frequent; and when the page bent over to gaze upon her face, she had sunk into a calm, gentle sleep. A bright tear still glistened on her silky lash—that long black fringe that reposed so quietly on her pale, fair cheek.

There is something inexpressibly touching in the quiet and calm repose of a beautiful girl. And when we feel that that youth and beauty is all we love on earth—that it is near us—nestling in sweet trust within our arms—our all—our own—life of our life—heart of our heart—soul of our soul—what other happiness can earth give more pure, more holy, more unalloyed?

The page Jose almost wished the Doña might never awake—but she did awake. And when she did, she looked up in his eyes and smiled. There was everything in that smile, love, hope, faith, gentleness, truth, trust, joy. It was a droll smile too; there was archness in it—Jose never forgot that smile!—Strange, that an outward symbol of the inner world can express so much.

The page attempted to kiss the bright smile into his own heart—but the lady’s mood had changed. Half ashamed, half in sport, she broke from him with a laugh—her own peculiar laugh—bird-like in its silvery clearness; and like a bird, as wild, and sweet.

“Sit down, dear Ysabel—I would talk with thee calmly—wilt thou be mine? Ysabel, I love thee. Oh! how I love thee. Naught on earth is half so dear as thou—life—ten thousand lives, were they mine, would I give for thy love. Wilt thou be mine? my own?”

The girl put both her little hands in his—that was her only answer. And then the page drew her again to his heart and kissed her brow and lips. And then—and then—and then—why then, and there, right up before them—with curled lip and cloudy brow—stood the castle’s lord!—the proud hidalgo!—the Count Alcaros de Llenaro!—the Doña Ysabel’s father!—the handsome page’s master!

“Ha!” exclaimed he, “is this the way ye obey my commands? Ah, I see! Thou’rt doing my bidding, sir page. Hast thou won the self-willed lady to think as I do? Away, girl!—Back, I say! Away with thee, page!”

Pale, drooping, quailing beneath her father’s angry glance, the gentle girl silently twined her arms around his frame, and strove to kiss away the angry spot upon his brow.

“Back! Judas!” exclaimed he, pushing her rudely from him. “When thou hast learned to do thy father’s wishes, then will he accept thy caresses.”

Frightened—crushed—she shrunk within herself, like the sensitive plant at some rude touch, nor dared to raise her gentle eye to the fire-darting ones of her angry sire.

And the page?

The father glanced from the drooping form of his daughter to the unbending one of the presumptuous lover.

“And so, sir menial, thou art aspiring—we like ambition. Thou thinkest to love my daughter—the daughter of the noble house of Llenaro—good!”

“Count of Llenaro—hear me. I ask of thee thy daughter. My house, proud lord, is full as noble as thine own—perhaps more ancient. I am no page—I am the only son of⁠——”

“I will not even hear who thou art—wert thou the monarch of the universe, thou shouldst not wed my daughter. I have sworn she shall become the bride of the Talavera—I never recall an oath.”

The group as they stood there would have made a picture for the pencil of a Salvator. The proud, determined figure of Llenaro, standing with his arms folded, looking lightning on the no less proud form of the handsome page, as he stood in the glow of his young manhood’s strength and beauty. Then the shrinking form of the Doña Ysabel—slightly leaning forward, with clasped hands—her head partly raised—the speechless, imploring agony of her lovely face.

The room contributed not a little to the scene—all around was purely, beautifully feminine. The low damask ottomans—the bright-eyed birds in their glittering gold cages—the rich, mellow paintings hanging around the room. Among them was her own soft eyed mother. The sweet, dreamy eyes of the Italian seemed to look down on the father of her daughter reproachfully for his harshness to that daughter. The parting beams of the sun, as he bade adieu to his love the fair earth, streamed in the room, gilding with their warm glow the expressive faces of the three. A ray more softened fell on the calm, angel face of the wife,—the mother.

“Alcaros de Llenaro, I entreat thee to listen to me. On my knees I supplicate thee to give me thy daughter. Doom her not to misery. She loves me. Think upon thy child’s mother—on the love vows given and taken before thy child was born. When she—the mother, the wife, was all in all to thee. Thou didst love once, and she thou didst love, was the mother of the child thou’rt dooming to wretchedness—and now that mother looks down upon thee, imploring happiness on her child.”

Alcaros glanced at the image of his wife. He fancied, as the warm, red sunlight fell upon it, the gentle eyes looked a reproachful gaze on him. He was not a hard-hearted man. Pride was his ruling passion. False pride it might have been; whether false or true, it fastened on him then, driving back the kindlier feelings the memory of his wife had roused within him. He checked the tear before it came to his eyes, and putting on a heavy frown—

“Rise, sir minion,” said he, “I have told thee my daughter shall wed the Talavera—and she shall!”

“Never! as I live, never!” said the girl. “Never shall a Llenaro become the bride of the man she cannot love!—never!”

The lady looked her father’s child—as though she had been born to be obeyed. The softness of the mother had gone. Her slight, round figure, straight as a young Indian’s, had risen to its full height. Her eyes dilated—those eyes, where shone her soul—those warm, black eyes, whose every glance kept time to the throbbings of her impulsive heart.

“Ysabel,” said Llenaro, sadly, after a pause, “thou forgetest I am thy father.”

“My father! dearest papa!—my own father, forgive me. Thou art my father! but do not,” her tones were low and earnest, “oh! do not force this hated match on thy child. She will do anything—all thou wishest—but oh! do not seal her misery forever.”

The count permitted the ardent caresses of the maiden, then putting her gently from him, he told her to remain in her turret. He had much to say to her. He would seek her when he was ready to tell her what he had to say. Then turning to Jose, he added, “Follow me, sir page, I have somewhat to say to thee also.”

The maiden watched the receding forms of the two until they had disappeared, and then she murmured, “He spoke kindly to me,” and Hope warmed her heart. A bright Hope! Hope the deceiver! What would the world be without thee, fairy Hope? Thou comest like a dream, whispering in our soul’s ear thy witching fancies, until they seem realities—and the is to be, stands before us a living now! Great is thy power, fair Hope—and thou knowest it,—and so thou goest on deluding mortals,—making the dim shadowy perspective a glorious foreground. So, when our hearts feel sad and weary, and long to burst the chain that binds them to this dark earth, thou comest with the dews of heaven fresh glistening on thy lips—and tellest us fairy tales, and singest us fairy songs—and kissest our hearts with thy cool, dewy lips. And we believe thee, syren, and let thee deceive us again and again.

The Lady Ysabel rested her wild, black eyes—beaming with a thousand thoughts—upon her mother’s picture, and kneeling before it, she clasped her little hands and implored her gentle mother to look down kindly on her daughter. “And, mother,” continued she—her lute-like voice scarce audible—“ask Him, the mighty one—whose throne is in high heaven—to forgive thy erring child, if she forgets, in her love for the creature, the Creator. God forgive me if I love him more than I ought, for I cannot love him less.”

The Lady Ysabel watched all that evening for her father, and the next day—and the next—and the next—and then her cheek began to pale, and her eye grew dim with weeping. For Hope had grown weary and fled. She could not dream either why the page came not—a little indignation mingled with her sorrow.

The duenna did all she could to restore her young lady to her right mind, as she said. At length she brought her a letter—saying⁠—

“Take it, mi señorita, a holy friar gave it me for thee. Learn from it, Señorita Ysabel, to control thy too great grief. It is sinful and wrong to indulge in sorrow as thou dost.”

The Lady Ysabel knew the writing—tremblingly she broke the seal, and read,

The lady sat before her scrutoire to write to him she loved, when she heard her father’s step. She had only time to crumple his letter in her bosom as the father entered. Ever obedient to her heart’s impulse, she sprang towards him, and throwing her white arms about his neck, she called him her dear, dear papa, and burst into tears.

“Calm thyself, my Ysabel. I would tell thee frankly why I ask thee to sacrifice thyself—to seal thy misery, as thou sayest.” He led her gently to an ottoman, and seated himself beside her.

“Ysabel, wouldst thou see thy father penniless, homeless, a beggar?”

“Papa!” looked the wondering eyes of Ysabel.

“I repeat it, Ysy, wouldst thou see thy father resign all these fair acres, and starve a houseless beggar? Wouldst thou, Ysy?”

“What meanest thou, papa? in mercy tell me.”

“If by one act of thine, it were in thy power to make thy father’s happiness, wouldst thou not do that act?”

“Dear papa, thou knowest I would—but oh! tell me all. What am I to do? And yet I know—but why? tell me why”⁠—

“Ysabel, by becoming his bride, thou canst save thy father from becoming a beggar.”

The girl shuddered but said in a low calm voice,

“Father, tell me why—tell me all. Make a confidant of thy child. I can bear anything. See! I am calm.”

“Ysabel, I will! in as few words as possible. A year ago, you may remember, Talavera was here. He has not been here since. A short time after that, his last visit, the page came—though it is not of him I would speak. We played—Talavera and I. At first I won—in the success of the moment I staked high—and lost. I still played on—every throw swept off acre after acre of the lands my fathers owned. Midnight saw me without a farthing—and without a foot of earth to call my own. Then came a bond. I signed it. It gave me back my broad lands—my wealth—but it deprived me of the only thing I had on earth to love—of you, my Ysabel! See! here is the bond.”

The lady’s heart was still—very still—so still it almost frightened her. Her cheek, lips, hands, were cold and bloodless. It seemed as though her blood had all gone to her heart—and frozen there! Her eye was passionless, it was so calm. She held the open paper before her, and without reading or seeing, she read and saw enough to know that the fair grounds and castle of Ysolo-Rosse—where she had lived from her infancy—where her father had loved her mother—were to go into the hands of the Talavera, unless she became his bride.

“Ysabel, I have sworn thou shalt be his bride, but I will recall my oath if thou sayest so. What is thy decision?”

“I will wed him,” replied the girl.

Llenaro clasped her to his heart, and kissing her cold brow, he added,

“The day thou art seventeen was the day decided upon—it will be here in a week. But if ’twill be too soon, no doubt the Marquis will”⁠—

“ ’Twill not be too soon.”

“Ysabel, thou frightenest me, thou art so pale—I will not force thee into what would be thy unhappiness.”

“Nay, papa, I had much rather be unhappy myself than to see thee so. But I will not be. To-morrow thou shalt see me more cheerful.”

The wily lord had learned the way to make his daughter’s will his own. He loved that daughter, and felt a father’s pity for her. But he thought although she suffered then—and it pained him to the soul to see it—she would soon forget her youthful passion, and, as the wife of the Talavera, she would gradually learn to be happy. Her future husband was all that was noble and good—all this thought the father—and then he thought “the Castle of Ysolo-Rosse will still be mine.” The father’s conscience was almost quieted.

“I have foresworn playing, Belle,” said he, sadly, “never, should I live forever, will another card pass through my hands. Ysabel, my darling child! do not look so sad,—seek the cool air, it will revive thee. Go and gather thy favorite wild flowers: they will divert thy mind from its sorrow. My noble, generous girl.” He fondly kissed his child and then withdrew.

Ysabel left to herself mechanically sought the garden. She wandered over her favorite haunts, scarce knowing what she did. Her heart, her thoughts were still as the grave. She reached her bower—the little vine-clad bower, where the page and she had so often sat listening to the music of each other’s voices. And there, on the very seat where they were wont to sit—was Jose! the page!

“Ysabel! beloved!” exclaimed he in unfeigned delight—and the girl was in his arms.

“Dearest, best, my gentle Ysabel! am I once more permitted to see thee?—to clasp thee to my heart? But, sweetest, how thou hast changed. How pale thou art. Go with me dearest, I will be thy father, brother, husband, friend. Leave this hated castle—now—speak, dear one, wilt thou go with me? Dear, dear Ysabel, tell me.”

“Jose, I cannot—I have promised to become his bride!”

“But, dearest, they shall not force thee to do what thou dost not wish.”

“Jose, I had my own free choice.”

“And thou didst choose—”

“To become his bride.”

“Will nothing induce thee to alter thy determination?”

“Nothing!”

“Good bye, Ysabel.”

“Jose! Dear Jose—” but the page was gone.

The next morning found the lady Ysabel in the spot where the page had left her. Then followed many days of sickness. Her life was despaired of. Day after day she lay, pale, cold, insensible. Reason had forsaken her throne. Her sweet smiles were gone; and the speaking glances of her dewy eyes had fled. Her voice too—for she had not spoken since that night. Even the pulsations of her heart were silent. Life alone remained—life without its light. And how her father watched over her—and how bitterly he lamented, and cursed himself for having brought her thus. At length light shone in her eyes—the light of life. Morning dawned in upon the darkness of her soul.

“Good bye, Ysabel,” said she.

“My own child, what dost thou say?” asked the father, bending anxiously over her.

“Good bye, Ysabel—” and she looked up in her father’s face and smiled.—That smile! it haunted him to his grave!

“Are you better, my own Ysabel? my dearest child?”

“Yes papa,—I am well. What a strange dream I have had. Ah! now I recollect—” and she sunk into a gentle sleep.

Day by day she gained health and strength. The father never left her side.

“Papa,” said she one day, “will you let me see that paper again? you know the one I mean.”

“No, my child, you never need see or think of it.”

“Do let me take it, papa—you do not know how well and strong I am—do, dearest papa?” And the father was prevailed upon. She saw she could save her father from ruin, and her mind was made.

“How old am I, papa?”

“Three weeks ago saw you seventeen.”

“Does the—does my future husband know of my illness?”

“He has sent repeatedly to inquire after your health. His courier was here this morning.”

“Will you send him word I am well—and am ready in two weeks from now to become his wife?”

“Are you in earnest, Ysabel?”

“Perfectly so.”

“Is it of your own free will you speak?”

“It is, papa.” And the father was deceived—perhaps too willingly so.

The Lady Ysabel was able now to revisit her favorite haunts. Every thing she saw brought the page vividly before her eyes. Sometimes an inscription on a tree—the walks, the flowers, the bower where last they met—all, all brought with them the memory of him. She strove to banish, as high treason to her happiness, all thoughts of him—and the firmness of her nature conquered. She familiarised herself to all the old spots where she had loved to be with him—and she thought she was happy—almost—happy.

The day at length came—clear—cloudless—sun-bright. And then the lady’s heart misgave her—she said not a word, however, but let them deck her in her bridal gear, scarce knowing or caring what they did.

Evening came. The chapel was brilliantly lighted. The bright red wine flowed freely—and joy danced in all hearts, save one.

Ysabel was pale, very, very pale when she entered the chapel. The orange buds that wreathed her hair were not more pale.

The Talavera had not yet come. All was ready. The priest in his long flowing robes—the father—the bridesmaid—the guests; for the father had invited many a noble house to witness his daughter’s nuptials. All were ready, and still the bridegroom came not. At length was heard a confused movement, and, in the midst of that joyous mass of life, the Marquis of Talavera had been thrown from his carriage, and the servants, in their fright and dismay, scarce knowing what they did, had borne him in his litter to the chapel.

The Lady Ysabel grew even more pale, as she looked upon the bier. There lay the lord who was to have been her husband! She gazed on him in a sort of nightmare fascination—a weight seemed taken from her heart—a feeling of relief mingled with the horror of the hour.

The Doña Ysabel enjoyed one short month of tranquillity—and then came news from the castle of Talavera. The will of the marquis had been read. He had bequeathed to his son and heir all his vast estates together with the Lady Ysabel, should he himself die before the marriage took place. The bond still held good!

A letter came from the young marquis to the count, demanding his daughter’s hand in marriage. The letter was gracefully written, and told how he had long heard of the wondrous beauty of the Doña Ysabel, and how ardently he desired to become the possessor of it.

Again the lady yielded to her father’s persuasion. The present marquis was young and handsome—so the objection of age was removed. All Spain knew he was noble, and brave—and all the bright-eyed daughters of Spain might well look envy on the favored Ysabel, that the young Talavera had chosen her.

He was then travelling in the interior of Europe. His letter was dated, Vienna. One year from the day of the elder Talavera’s death was the day fixed upon to celebrate the bridals of the bravest cavalier and loveliest flower in all Spain.

Ysabel yielded, and tried to seem cheerful, but her step grew slower and slower, and her fair face paler and more pale. As her days went on did she each day lose some part of this earth, earthy. So very gradual was the change that neither her father nor those around her seemed to observe it. So passed seven months. Four months more were to find her a new home in the heart of the Talavera.

She daily visited the spot where she had last seen him, in the hope of——she knew not what.

The Doña Ysabel was in her bower—neither reading, nor sewing, nor watching her flowers—but in a state of listlessness, half reclining on the cushioned seat, when suddenly her name was spoken! It was not her father’s voice. The next instant saw the Doña close to the heart of the page, Jose! Neither spoke—the heart of each was too full for words—dull words cannot express our strongest emotions, when the heart is too big for utterance, speech is but a mockery. Words came at length, and the page told her how much anguish he had suffered, and how he could no longer stay away from her he loved. That he came, hardly expecting to see her, and if he did see her, he feared he should find her changed.

“And, dearest Ysabel, thou art changed—not in thy love—but thou art but the shadow of the Ysabel that in days syne, bounded so joyfully over these hills.” He held up her hand⁠—

The Lady Ysabel told the page all. How that she had consented to become the bride of the young Talavera. The page learned the reason from her too, why she had consented to become the wife of one she could not love. He smiled when he heard that the Talavera must become master, either of the castle and property of Ysolo-Rosse, or of the lovely Lady Ysabel.

When Ysabel retired to rest that night, it was with a light heart. Day after day witnessed the meetings of the lady and the page—and day after day witnessed her returning bloom of face and buoyancy of heart. She was once more that glad, bright Ysabel as when the page first came to her father’s castle.

The father, without inquiring the cause, saw his child happy and smiling, and he was satisfied. And she was happy and smiling—the smiles never left her little dimpled mouth—soon as one went another came. Even in her sleep, her joyous heart beamed from her face.

The morning came bright and sunshiny as it had done just one year before. The chapel was again illuminated—again were the guests assembled—and again, surrounded by her bridesmaids, came the Lady Ysabel into the chapel. But oh! what a different Lady Ysabel from the one of the year ago. The bridal wreath encircled her brow—and below that fair brow beamed out the happiest pair of eyes imaginable! What could it mean?

There was heard among the guests a universal murmur of admiration as she made her appearance. So beautiful, so bright, so radiant a being they had never seen. Her face appeared actually to emit light—so truly did the bright sunshine of her glad young heart shine through.

A slight movement at the great double door of the chapel—and the bridegroom, the Marquis of Talavera was announced!

Quite as great a sensation did the noble, manly figure of the young marquis create, as had the softer and more gentle one of the Lady Ysabel.

The father seemed struck dumb in sudden surprise!—at length, burst from his lips—“The page!”

Any of the old gossips of Spain will tell you the rest of the story—and what a joyous wedding there was—and how every one said there never was so well matched—so noble a pair, as Don Jose, Marquis of Talavera, and his gentle bride, Ysabel! They will tell you, too, that the honey-moon, instead of lasting but thirty-one days, did outlast thirty-one years!—and the love that was true to the sire could not but bless the son.

So endeth the story of “The Lady and the Page.”

PRESSED IN AN OLD COPY OF SPENSER.

———

BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

———

It is so long a time since a poem of any serious pretensions has made its appearance before the British or American public, that we have almost ceased to look for new metrical productions, divided into books or cantos. We have been contented with the light, fugitive strains of the periodicals, and have not asked for grand overtures—such as used to absorb the whole interest of the reading public, twenty, thirty, fifty and more years ago. In the middle of the last century, a man, to be recognised as a poet, was required to issue some single work of a thousand lines. Quantity was more considered than quality; intellectual labor was judged of rather by the amount of its achievements than by their kind.

Poetry has at times been criticised by a different rule than Painting. That age never was, when an artist acquired a reputation in consequence of the number of his pictures: one gem of art has always been more highly esteemed than a million crystals. In all days past, as in the day present, it might be said of a single head by a master, small, faded, stained, yet beautiful through the rust of age,—“that little bit of canvass is worth more than a whole gallery of fresh portraits, though after living models, as beautiful as Aspasia, or as stately as Alcibiades.” But a solitary brief poem was never so valued in comparison with a voluminous production. Even now, formed and polished as the public taste pretends itself to be, there lurks with us that prejudice which more highly ranks the author of a book of verses than the author of a sonnet. Though the book may be as negative in merit as the correct hand of gentle dullness could make it, and the sonnet as perfect as the best that Petrarch wrote, in the intensest glow of his love and his genius—except by the few, the former would be regarded as the more arduous, the more commendable performance.

The philosophy of this prejudice, is a sort of respect mankind entertains for a constant fulfilment of the original curse. We love to see hard work done or indicated. We look at a mass of printed leaves and exclaim, “Goodness! what an industrious individual the writer must have been! How much he has accomplished!” It may be that, upon examination, his work may have added nothing to the available stock of literature; it may be that it will prove useless lumber, destined to dust and obscurity in men’s garrets, and not worth the corners it will encumber. “What of that? the author had to work hard to do it—didn’t he?” Yes! such is the question put by people who seem to love labor for its own sake. They look upon men of talent very much in the same light that old Girard of Philadelphia considered poor people who existed by the employment of their arms and legs.

At a season of distress, some day-laborers applied to Girard for assistance. There was a huge pile of bricks lying in the vicinity of the house of Dives. “Take up those bricks,” said he, “and place them yonder, and then I will pay you for the task.” The men obeyed; the bricks—to use a verb for which we are indebted to Dr. Noah Webster and the Georgia negroes—were toted from one position to another, and the stipulated price demanded. Girard paid it cheerfully. “But,” said the laborers, “what are we to do now? Must we be idle while we spend this money, and starve by and by? We shall come to you again in a week. Keep us employed—bid us perform another task.” “Yes,” said Girard. “Take up those bricks from the place where you have put them, and carry them back to the place whence you removed them.” Pretty much as Girard used the poor operatives does the public treat the man of genius. Let him write the immortal sonnet, bright and beautiful, to be fixed hereafter, a star in the firmament of fame, and his contemporaries, in reply to his demand for praise, will say, “What has he done? What book has he written? What is he the author of?”—They want to see work—honest labor, and plenty of it, though that labor be as useless as the toting of the bricks.

Not without some qualifications must these remarks be considered strictly true, with regard to the present age, or to our own country. There are facts to the contrary, though not sufficient to disprove the general truth of what we say. We have no poet, who is more generally, or more highly esteemed, than Halleck; and yet his truly great reputation has been built up on some four or six short pieces of verse. On the other hand, Mr. Sumner Lincoln Fairfield, has lumbered the bookseller’s lofts with ream after ream of printed paper, and nobody but an occasional crazy reviewer, calls such a dunce, a poet. Nevertheless, we maintain the verity of the general observation, that those poets have heretofore been most esteemed, who have done the most work. It is downright astonishing, how much some of them did do. We look over their long poems, with a sentiment of wonder, and reverence, and we are awfully perplexed to determine, how vast a length of time it must have taken these modern Cheopses, to build their pyramids. Hamlet’s account to Polonius, of the graybeard’s book he was reading, appears to us a pretty comprehensive description of many of these vast metrical diffusions—“words, words, words.” It exceeds our powers of conjecture, how the writers could have completed their whole task, so labors the line and so slow runs the verse. We have seen a sturdy blacksmith pound a piece of iron, for hours and hours, till it became as malleable as lead; we have seen a woodsawyer saw, and saw, and saw, up and down, down and up, till the very sight of him made us ready to drop with imaginary fatigue; thy still-beginning, never ending whirl, oh weary knife-grinder, have we also contemplated with feverish melancholy—still for the endurance of all these, have we been able satisfactorily to account; drilled by habit, ruled by habit, habit is to them a second nature. But for the perpetration of a long, tedious poem for the manufacture of verse after verse, the last drier and duller than the preceding, there is no possible manner of accounting. It is an infliction, which can be borne by neither gods, men nor columns. Your médiocre man may be forgiven for talking one into a paralysis, or writing prose, till every word acts like a mesmerist and puts you to sleep; but for his writing verses, there can be, there ought to be no forgiveness; he should be consigned to the cave of perpetual oblivion, and over its entrance should be inscribed, “Hope never enters here.”

Were we to follow in the track of reviewers in the Quarterlies, who always seem to think it necessary to make a considerable preliminary flourish to the solemn common-places they are about to utter, we should observe that the foregoing remarks had been elicited by a work on our table, entitled “Imagination, a poem in two parts, with other poems, by Louisa Frances Poulter.” But as the work did not call forth the remarks, we shall observe nothing of the kind. The moment we wrote the title of the poem, and saw that it consisted of nearly eleven hundred lines, we began to reflect that very few long poems had been written lately, and our pen scampered over the paper at a rail-road rate, till we reached the dépôt at the end of this paragraph.

Pausing here, we first look back over what we have said; it pleases us—let it stand, therefore, and let us now employ ourselves with reading Miss Poulter’s poem in two cantos. We have not the slightest dread of it—no! it seems a pleasant land, of which we have had delightful glimpses in a transient survey. With these glimpses we mean to entertain the reader, besides giving him an idea of the face of the country.

In limine, we ought to confess ourselves amiable critics, when we are called upon to pronounce on the works of a female writer, and more particularly of one who is a new claimant for distinction. It is our desire to encourage the intellectual efforts of the gentle sex, if for no better purpose, at least for that of inciting women to assert their claims to the honors and the rewards of authorship. These pages are scrutinized by many a brilliant pair of eyes, ready to flash indignation upon the slightest disparagement of female genius. Far be it from us to evoke from those mortal stars any other beams than those of softness and serenity. Lovely readers! smile therefore upon this article as kindly as upon the prettiest story in the Magazine, and think well of him who seeks to win no better guerdon than your approbation.

Miss Poulter has put upon her title-page a striking passage in French from some essay of Bernardin de St. Pierre, which may be thus literally translated. “Tasso, while travelling with a friend, one day ascended a very high mountain. When he had reached the summit, he exclaimed: ‘Seest thou these rugged rocks, these wild forests, this brook bordered with flowers, which winds through the valley, this majestic river, which rolls onward and onward till it bathes the walls of a hundred cities? Well, these rocks, these mountains, these walls, these cities, gods, men—lo! these are my poem!’ ” On the page immediately preceding the principal poem in the volume, “Imagination,” there appears the following from Stewart’s Outlines of Moral Philosophy, “One of the principal effects of a liberal education is to accustom us to withdraw our attention from the objects of our present perceptions, and to dwell at pleasure on the past, the absent and the future. How much it must enlarge in this way the sphere of our enjoyment or suffering is obvious: for (not to mention the recollection of the past) all that part of our happiness or misery, which arises from our hopes or our fears, derives its existence entirely from the power of our imagination.”

We are pleased with these quotations. They augur well for the original words that are to follow. They prepare the mind of the reader for something almost as good as they are. The talent, or rather tact of quoting well is no mean one; it is not possessed by many, scarcely possessed at all by those who say that a quotation should be as strictly appropriate as a title. It is enough that a quotation be one naturally appertaining to or suggestive per se of the subject matter. Mottoes, it should be remembered, are not texts, but simply prefixes, intended rather as ornaments than things of use. They are to books, chapters, and cantos, what jewels are to the clasps of a fair lady’s girdle, not indispensable to the clasps, but decorating them. In the choice of the jewels and the style of their setting the taste of the wearer is manifested.

The reflection which first suggests itself to us after a consideration of this poem, is that the author preferred rather to indulge her inclination for roving from topic to topic, than to confine herself to any exact method. She does not so much consider the power of imagination or its effect upon life as she does the places and persons upon which this faculty of the mind would choose to expand itself. The single word, therefore, which constitutes the title, might be regarded as too pretensive, as demanding too much, more than it is within the capacity or education of the writer to give. Her modes of thought seem to be too independent of the influence of “Association,” and it would confuse a philosophical thinker to follow the diversities of her fancy. Perhaps, however, the person who reads only to be amused, would derive more gratification from Miss Poulter’s disregard of rules than were she more correct and less fervid.

The poem opens with a picture of sunset after a storm, and this affords an apt and natural illustration for the Power of the Imagination. The first topic pursued is the fact that childhood is but little under the influence of Imagination, being led away by the pleasures of the present moment and apt to resign itself wholly to the object by which it is temporarily attracted. Illustrative of this is the following admirably drawn scene⁠—

The following figure illustrates the toilsome ascent of youth to Greatness:

After showing that imagination is most powerful in youth, and the different manner in which it operates upon men, leading some to public life, and some to retirement; after drawing a picture of domestic felicity, and dwelling upon the question whether the happiness derived from the indulgence of an ardent fancy is not ill exchanged for a reasonable view of human life,—the poet speaks of the moral influence of a fine imagination; and here occur these lines⁠—

The next subject of contemplation is the death of a beloved and distinguished friend; afterwards the poet goes on to describe the influence of sublime scenery in awakening corresponding sensations in the mind. An address to the Deity is attempted: next it is shown that external beauties alone cannot soothe a wounded heart; a fact happily illustrated by the disappointment of Tasso on his return to his native Sorrento⁠—

The poetess then describes the anguish he endured.

This is all that we can extract for the reader’s recreation from the first Part or Canto of this meritorious poem, with the exception of a very touching ballad. The verses are supposed to be repeated by an Indian mother, over the grave of her departed child. Let us call them

Of the second Part or Canto, the following is a brief analysis. The poet first addresses the Spirit of Ruin; then displays various forms of destruction—a shipwreck: the descent of an avalanche. The topics next treated are intellectual decay; the fatal effects of an ill-regulated and warm Imagination; the power of Love in youth; the influence of Imagination in our choice of life; the love of Fame; an active life necessary to a person of vivid Imagination; the thirst of some overcoming the love of life. Next occurs an apostrophe to the noble and patriotic and sainted spirits of the heroes of Switzerland and America—Arnold de Winkelried and George Washington. It is then shown that Imagination represents them as still living; the power of Imagination in old age is portrayed, and the poem concludes.

From this part, we regret that we have room but for two extracts; for these are of so excellent a character that the reader, like Oliver Twist, will be certain to ask for more.

Our first extract is a description of the life of an Alpine shepherd. The lines are eminently good.

Our second, and last, extract is one the spirit and force of which every devotee of Freedom, every true American heart cannot fail to acknowledge.

From the remarks, with which this article began, it is clearly enough to be inferred that we are no admirers of long poems, unless they be of extraordinary and sustained merit. This praise cannot be awarded to Miss Poulter’s production: We believe that we have taken pretty much all that is excellent, though a fine passage or two may be left in the exquisite volume which we have just now cut to pieces—not metaphorically, but literally. It was sad to destroy so charming a library book; but what were the exquisite typography and clear white paper of one of Saunders & Otley’s editions, when compared with the amusement of the friends of Graham’s Magazine? Nothing. Moreover, we should not have quoted so largely as we have, had we not felt assured of the fact that the volume to which we refer was the only copy of Miss Poulter’s poem in America. Such works are not in the least likely to be reprinted here; and our readers would therefore know nothing about them, were it not for the pains we are happy to take in their behalf.

———

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

———

A DASH AT A CONVOY.

It was the second night after our brush with the corvette, when a party, composed of Mr. St. Clair, his niece and daughter, together with several of the officers, stood at the side of the ship. It was a lovely evening. The moon was high in heaven, sailing on in cloudless splendor; her silvery light tipping the tops of the billows, and stretching in a long line of effulgence across the waters. A gentle breeze was singing, with a clear musical intonation, among the thousand tiny threads of the rigging. The water rippled pleasantly against the sides of the ship. Not far off lay a small rakish schooner, from which the sound of a bugle, borne gently on the night air, floated in delicious melody to our ears. The decks were noiseless. The quiet moon seemed as if, by some magic spell, she had hushed the deep into silence, for scarcely a sound rose up from the heaving waves, which, glittering now in the wake of the moon, and now sinking into sudden shadow, stretched away in the distance until they faded into the dim mystic haze of the distant seaboard. The whole scene was like a vision of romance.

The group which I have mentioned stood at the gangway of the ship. A boat was rocking gently below. The passengers, whom we had rescued from the brig, were about transferring themselves to the schooner lying-to a short distance off, which we had spoken about an hour before, and which proved to be a small privateer bound in for Newport. As we were off Block Island, and the run would consequently be a short one, Mr. St. Clair had resolved to avail himself of this opportunity to place his daughter and niece safely on shore. The party were now about to embark.

“I shall never forget your kindness,” said Mr. St. Clair, addressing the captain, “and I am sure that my daughter and niece will give you their especial prayers, as the best return they can make for the obligations they owe you. And as for my friend, Mr. Cavendish—I hardly know how to express my thanks. You will come and see us,” he continued, turning frankly to me, and taking both my hands, “Pomfret Hall will always open its doors gladly to welcome the preserver of its owner.”

I promised that I would not forget it, and turned away to hide the emotion occasioned by the kind tone of Mr. St. Clair. As I moved away my eyes fell on Annette. Her gaze was fixed on me with an expression I shall never forget, but which I would have given the world to have been able to interpret. There was an expression of the deepest interest in that look, and the eyes, I fancied, were partially humid. As soon as she caught my gaze, she blushed deeply, and looked down. What meant that earnest gaze—this sudden embarrassment? Did she then really love me? My heart beat fast, my brain fairly swam around, my emotion, for an instant, almost overpowered me. I could, if no one had been present, have rushed to her feet and told my suit. But a moment’s reflection changed the current of my thoughts. Perhaps she had noticed my feelings while her father had been speaking. If so, her subsequent emotion arose from being detected in observing me. I ran over everything which had happened since she had been on board, and could find nothing corroborating, directly, the idea that she loved me. Her manner had always been frank and kind; but what had she said or done to give me hope? As these thoughts rushed through my mind my towering hopes fell. The revulsion was extreme. I despaired now as much as I had exulted but a moment before. I was about to turn gloomily away, when the voice of Isabel called me. I looked up. She was beckoning me gayly toward her as she leaned on Annette’s arm.

“Why, I declare, Mr. Cavendish,” she said laughingly, “you seem to be determined to leave us depart without even saying ‘adieu’—a pretty gallant you are, to be sure! Here is Annette really displeased at your coldness.”

A look of silent reproach was the only reply of her cousin, who dared not raise her eyes to mine. With the vacillation of a lover my sentiments again underwent a change. Had Annette really been wondering at my coldness? How unjust then had been my suspicions. I advanced eagerly to her side. Yet when I had done so I knew not what to say. Isabel seemed not only to see my embarrassment but to enjoy it. She continued gayly—

“There, now, do your devoir like a gallant knight and soldier—coz, have you no glove or other favor for him to wear on his bosom in battle? Ah! me, the days of courtesy and chivalry have gone forever. But there I see uncle ordering down my package, I must see that he does not let it drop clumsily over-board,” and she tripped laughingly away.

Left almost tête-à-tête with Annette—for every eye was that moment turned to the gangway where some of the passengers were already embarking, I yet felt unable to avail myself of an opportunity for which I had longed. A single word would decide my fate, and yet that word I could not pronounce. My boldness had all disappeared, and I stood before that fair girl equally agitated with herself. At length I looked up. She stole a furtive glance at me as I did so, and blushed again to the very brow. I took her hand, it was not withdrawn. Words of fire were already on my lips when her father turned toward us, saying—

“Annie, my love, they wait for you—Mr. Cavendish, a last good-bye”—and as he spoke every eye was turned toward us. The precious moment was past. I could do nothing but lead Annette forward. Yet I ventured to press her hand. My senses deceived me, or it was faintly, though very faintly, returned. I would have given worlds, if I had them, for the delay of a minute, that I might learn my fate from the lips of that fair girl. But it was not to be. We were already in the centre of the group. Mr. St. Clair took his daughter and lifted her into the chair, and in another moment her white dress fluttered in its descent to the boat. My heart died within me. The golden moment had passed, perhaps forever; for when should we meet again? New scenes, new friends would in all probability drive me from Annette’s remembrance before we should next see each other. These thoughts filled my mind as I leaned over the bulwark and waved my hand while the boat put off. Mr. St. Clair stood up in the barge and bowed in return, while I thought I could see, through the shadowy moonlight, the fair hand of Annette returning my parting adieus.

I watched the receding figures until they reached the schooner, and even after they had ascended the deck, and the two vessels had parted each on its own way, I continued gazing on the white dress of Annette until I could no longer detect the faintest shadow of it. When at length it disappeared totally in the distance, I felt a loneliness of the heart, such as no language can express. To a late hour I continued pensively walking the deck, unable to shake off this feeling, and it was only a gay remark of one of my messmates that finally aroused me from my abstraction. I shook off my pensiveness by an effort, laughed gayly in reply, and soon sought my hammock, as my spirits would not permit me much longer to carry on this double game.

For a week we cruized in the track of the homeward bound fleet from the West Indies, but without success. During this time Annette was constantly in my thoughts. Her last look—that gentle pressure of her hand thrilled through every vein, as often as they recurred to me. Never could I forget her—would she continue to think of me?

More than a week had passed, as I have said, since we had parted from the St. Clairs, yet still we had not spoken a sail. At length one day, when I had the morning watch, the lookout hailed from the cross-trees, that a sail was down on the seaboard to leeward. Chase was instantly given to the stranger. The breeze was fresh, and we were in consequence soon close enough to discern the character of our neighbor. She had not from the first appeared to avoid us, and no sooner did we show our colors, than she ran up the ensign of France. We were going on different tacks, and, as we approached, both ships lay-to for a moment’s conversation. The French merchantman was a noble ship, and as she came up gallantly towards us, her long bowsprit sunk far down into the trough of the wave, and then, with a slow swan-like motion she rose on the ensuing swell until her bows were elevated almost clear of the water, while the bright copper dripping with brine glistened gloriously in the sunbeams.

The Frenchman backed his topsails as he drew near, and the two vessels stood head on, while we sent a boat on board. The merchantman proved to be upon her homeward passage, and had consequently no intelligence from Europe to furnish us. But the French skipper told us what was far more interesting to us. He mentioned that he had, but the day before, fallen in with the homeward bound English fleet, from the West Indies, amounting to some sixty sail. The fleet was convoyed by four men-of-war. Our captain, however, resolved to have a dash at the convoy. He conceived the daring project of cutting off a portion of the fleet, under the very batteries of the men-of-war. The French skipper wished us a “bon voyage,” and the two vessels parted company.

We cracked on all sail, during the whole of the day and night. The next morning, at the dawn of day, our lookout descried the English fleet, on our larboard-side. Luckily, we had the weather-gauge. We kept crowding on our canvass, however, during the whole forenoon, and as we gained on the convoy, we saw sail after sail rising in the seaboard, until the whole horizon was dotted with them, and the lookout reported more than fifty, in sight. By this the men-of-war had caught the alarm, and were firing guns to keep their flock around them. The dull sailers, however, fell rapidly behind. This forced one of the English frigates to leave the advance, and run astern of the fleet. During the whole day we kept coquetting to windward of the fleet, but no demonstrations against us were made on the part of the men-of-war.

“A cowardly set, by the Lord Harry,” said our old boatswain, who often beguiled a dull hour with a yarn, “here are we giving them a chance for a fair stand-up fight, and the cowardly lubbers haven’t the pluck to come up and take or give a thrashing. I can’t stand such sneaking scoundrels—by St. George,” and the old fellow energetically squirted a stream of tobacco-juice from his mouth, as if from a force-pump.

“We’ll have a brush with them, nevertheless, Hinton,” said I, “or I know nothing of the captain. He has got his eye on more than one rich prize in that fleet, and depend upon it, he’ll make a dash for it before long.”

“Ay! ay! you’re right,” answered the boatswain “and he’ll do it, too, before two bells have struck in the morning watch.”

The night shut in squally and dark. The fleet was some three miles to leeward, for during the whole day we had carefully maintained the weather gauge. As the darkness increased we lost sight of the enemy’s ships, but their numerous lights glistening like stars along the seaboard, still pointed out to us their position. The wind was uncertain, now coming in fitful puffs, and then blowing steadily for a quarter of an hour, when it would again die away and sweep in squalls across the waste of waters. Scud clouds began to fly across the face of the heavens, obscuring the few stars, and giving a wild and ominous appearance to the firmament. Down to the west the seaboard was covered by a dense bank of clouds, out of which occasionally a flash of lightning would zig-zag, followed by a low hoarse growl of distant thunder. It was evident that a tempest was raging, far down in that quarter. On the opposite horizon, however, the sky was nearly free from clouds, only a few fleecy vapors being discernible in that quarter, through which the bright stars twinkled clear and lustrous. The English fleet lay between these two opposite quarters of the horizon—the right wing of the convoy stretching down almost into the utter darkness in that direction, and the left wing skirting along the horizon to the eastward. Along the whole expanse of seaboard, more than fifty lights were now glittering, like so many fire-flies winging through the gloom along the edge of a forest, on a summer eve. The scene was one of surpassing novelty, and drew forth the admiration even of our veteran tars. Now and then the vapors in the east would clear entirely away, leaving the firmament in that direction, sparkling with thousands of stars; and then again the murky shroud would enclose them in nearly total darkness. Occasionally, as if in contrast to this, a brighter flash of lightning would gleam, or a louder burst of thunder roll up from the dark bank of clouds enclosing the tempest to the westward.

The night had scarcely settled down before the ship’s course was altered and we bore down upon the fleet—taking the precaution, however, to put out all the lights on board except the one at the binnacle. Meantime the men were called to quarters, the tompions of the guns removed, the ammunition served out, pikes, cutlasses and fire arms distributed among the crew, and every preparation made for action. As we drew nearer to the convoy the darkness of the night increased, until, at length, we could see but a few fathoms ahead into the gloom. The eastern firmament now became wholly obscured. Not a star shone on high to guide us on our way. Had it not been for the long line of lights sparkling along the seaboard, betraying the positions occupied by the various vessels in the convoy, we should have possessed no guide to our prey,—and nothing but the confidence felt by the enemy in his superior force could have induced him to continue his lights aboard, when otherwise he might have run a chance of dropping us in the darkness. But he never dreamed of the bold swoop which we projected, into the very midst of his flock. He would as soon have thought of our blockading the Thames, or burning the English fleet at Portsmouth.

The plan of Captain Smythe was indeed a bold one. Bearing right onwards into the very centre of the fleet, he intended to cut off one of the wings from the main body, and then board and take possession of as many of the merchantmen as he could carry in the obscurity. We judged that the men-of-war were in the van, with the exception of a frigate which we had seen before nightfall hovering in the rear of the fleet to cover the lagging merchantmen. This frigate, however, we supposed to be on the extreme right of the enemy. We therefore bore down for the opposite extremity of the fleet.

For more than an hour, while, with every rag of canvass abroad, we were hastening to overtake the enemy, scarcely a word was spoken by the crew,—but each man remained at his station eagerly watching the gradual diminution of the distance betwixt us and the convoy. Indeed silence was, in some measure, necessary to the success of our plot. Even the orders of the officers therefore were given and executed with as little bustle as possible. As the darkness increased we noticed that the lights ahead began to diminish in number, and it was not long before we became satisfied that the foe had at length awoke to the probability of our being in the vicinity. At length scarcely more than half a dozen lights could be seen. These we judged to belong to the men-of-war, being kept aloft for the convoy to steer by.

The difficulty of our enterprise was now redoubled, for, if the darkness should increase, there would be great danger of a collision with one or another of the fleet. This peril, however, we shared in common with the merchantmen composing the convoy. Our only precaution consisted in doubling our look-outs.

Another hour passed, during which we steered by the lights of the men-of-war. By the end of that period we had run, according to our calculation, into the very heart of the fleet, leaving a man-of-war broad on our larboard beam, a mile or two distant. This latter vessel we fancied to be the frigate which had been hovering towards nightfall in the rear of the fleet. Our anxiety now increased. We were surrounded, on every side, by the vessels of the convoy, and the obscurity was so profound that we could not see a pistol shot on any hand. Our progress, meantime, was continued in utter silence. The only sound we heard was the singing of the wind through the rigging, the occasional cheeping of a block, or the rushing of the water along our sides. Suddenly, however, I thought I heard a sound as of the bracing of a yard right over our starboard bow.

“Hist!” I said to the boatswain, who happened that moment to be passing, “hist! do you hear that?”

The old fellow stopped, listened a moment, and then shaking his head, said,

“I hear nothing. What did you hear?”

“Hark! there it goes again,” I said, as the sound of a sail flapping against a mast came distinctly out of the gloom.

“By St. George, you are right,” exclaimed the old water-rat, “ay! ay! young ears are arter-all the sharpest!”

He had scarcely spoken before the tall masts of a ship, like a spectre rising through the night, lifted themselves up out of the obscurity in the direction whence the sound had proceeded, and instantaneously we heard the tramping of many feet on the decks of the stranger, the rapid orders of the officers, the running of ropes, the creaking of yards, and the dull flapping of sails in the wind. At the same time a voice hailed,

“Luff up or you’ll be into us,” and then the same voice spoke as if addressing the helmsman on board the stranger, “up with your helm—around, around with her—my God! we’ll be afoul.”

The consternation of the British skipper was not without cause. No sooner had Capt. Smythe discovered our proximity to the stranger, than he formed the determination of running her aboard, taking her by a sally of our brave fellows, and then, after throwing into her a party sufficiently strong to maintain possession of her, keeping on his way. During the minute therefore that elapsed betwixt the discovery of the merchantman, and the hail of her affrighted skipper, the boarders had been called away and the quartermaster ordered to run us bows on to the quarter of the stranger. Instead of luffing, therefore, we kept straight on in our course, and as a score of lanterns were instantly shown on board both ships, sufficient light was thrown over the scene to guide us in our manœuvre. As the English ship wore around, bringing the wind on her starboard quarter, our helm was jammed to port, and swinging around almost on our heel we shot upon the foe, striking her in the stern galley, which we crushed as we would have crushed an egg-shell. The English ship was heavily loaded, and in consequence our bowsprit ran high above her decks, affording a bridge on which our brave tars might easily pass on board. At the moment we struck, the captain dashed forward, and summoning the boarders to follow him, had leaped, sword in hand, into the centre of the enemy’s crew, before her skipper had ceased giving orders to the perplexed seamen, who were running to and fro on her decks, in the vain hope of preventing any damage resulting to them from this collision, with, as they thought, a sister vessel. The consternation of the master may well be conceived when he found his ship in possession of an enemy. For some minutes he imagined it to be a jest, for he could not conceive how any foe would have the audacity to cut him out from the very heart of the fleet. His rueful countenance when he discovered his error, I shall never forget, nor the bad grace with which he consented to be transferred with a portion of his men to the Aurora. In less than five minutes, however, this necessary precaution had been carried into effect, and a prize-crew left in possession of the merchantman. The officer in command was ordered to haul out of the fleet, and gain a position as speedily as possible to windward. Then the two ships were parted, and we stood away as before on the larboard tack, while the prize braced sharp up, hauled her bowlines, and went off close into the wind’s eye.

“By Jove,” said a reefer, elated with the part he had acted among the boarders, for he had been one of the first to step on the decks of the merchantman, “by Jupiter, but that was neatly done—eh! don’t you think so, Hinton, my old boy?”

“Shut your dead-lights, you young jackanapes,” growled the old boatswain, by no means pleased with such a salutation, “and keep your tongue for cheering against the enemy: you’ll have enough of it to do yet before you turn in. Avast! there! I say,” he continued, perceiving that the youngster was about to interrupt him, “go to your post, or I’ll report you, you young whelp. None of your blarney, as your thick-tongued Irish messmate would say—away with you.”

When Hinton’s ire was up the safest plan was to retreat, for he would brook no retort unless from the captain or lieutenant. Over the young reefers, especially those who were in disfavor with him, he domineered with a rod of iron. The youngster who had forgotten for a moment, in the elation of his first victory, the awe in which he held the boatswain, was recalled by these words to a sense of the authority of the old tar, and he shrunk accordingly away, disdaining to reply.

“Ay! go, you varmint,” chuckled Hinton, as the reefer walked to his post, “and give none of your long shore palaver to a man who had learned before you were born to hold his tongue before an enemy as his first duty. Isn’t it so, Mr. Cavendish?”

I was a great favorite of the old fellow, and always made a point of humoring him, so I nodded an assent to his remark, although I was tempted to ask him how long since he had forgotten this important duty of silence. I restrained, however, my question, and the smile which would fain have preceded it: and listened for several minutes in return for this complaisance to a long philippic on the part of the old fellow, against what he chose to call the almost universal presumption of midshipmen. From this tirade, however, the boatswain condescended to exempt me. How long he would have dilated upon this favorite subject, I know not; but, at this moment, a hail came out of the gloom ahead, and every eye was instantly attracted in the direction from which the voice proceeded.

“Ship ahoy!” shouted a herculean voice, “what craft is that?”

The tone of the speaker betrayed a latent suspicion that all was not right with us. Indeed he must have been so close to us in our late encounter with the merchantman, that he necessarily heard many things to awaken his doubts. As he spoke, too, the tall figure of a heavy craft loomed out from the obscurity, and while we were yet speculating as to the answer the captain would make, a dozen lanterns flashing through as many open port-holes, revealed that our neighbor was a man-of-war.

“What ship is that?” thundered the voice again, “answer, or I’ll fire into you!”

Our dauntless captain waved his hand for the batteries to be unmasked, and springing into the mizzen rigging, while a neighboring battle-lantern now disclosed to the night, flung its light full upon his form, he shouted in an equally stentorian voice⁠—

“This is the Aurora—commissioned by the good commonwealth of⁠——”

“Give it to the canting rebel,” roared the British officer, breaking in on this reply, “fire—for God and St. George—FIRE!”

“Ay! fire my brave boys,” thundered our leader, “one and all, for the old thirteen—FIRE!”

From the moment when the enemy had disclosed his lighted ports, our gallant tars had been waiting, like hounds in the leash, for the signal which was to let them loose upon the foe. The silent gesture of the captain, when he sprung into the mizzen rigging, had been intuitively understood by the crew, and the orders of the proper officers were scarcely waited for, before the ports were opened, the battle lanterns unmasked, the guns run out, and the whole deck changed, as if by magic, from a scene of almost Egyptian darkness to one of comparative light. Nor were the men less ready to discover the moment when to open their fire. The first word of the British officer’s haughty interruption had scarcely been spoken, when the gunners began to pat their pieces and squint knowingly along them, so that, when the command to fire was given, our whole broadside went off at once, like a volcano, and with deadly effect. Every gun had been accurately aimed, every shot was sent crashing into the foe. Not so the enemy. Although the British captain had certainly viewed us with suspicion, his crew had apparently thought us deserving of little caution; and the reply of our leader, and the order of their own to fire, took them, after all, with surprise. Nearly a minute accordingly elapsed before they delivered their broadside, and then it was done hurriedly and with little certainty of aim. The first fire is always more effective than the ensuing six; and the advantage of the surprise was decided; for while we could hear the crashing of timbers, and the shrieks of the wounded, following our discharge, the shot of the enemy passed mostly over our heads, and, in my vicinity, not a man of our crew was killed. One poor fellow, however, fell wounded at the gun next to mine.

“Huzza!” roared Hinton, leaping like a lion to fill the place of the injured man, “they’ve got their grog already. Have at ’em, my brave fellows, again, and revenge your messmate. Never mind, Jack,” he said, turning to the bleeding man, “every one must have a kick sometime in his life, and the sooner its over, my hearty, the better. Bouse her out, shipmates! Huzza for old Nantucket—the varmints have it again on full allowance!”

For ten minutes the fight was maintained on our side without cessation. The enemy, at first, rallied and attempted to return our broadsides promptly, but the injuries she had suffered from our first discharge had disheartened her men, and, when they found the spirit with which we maintained our fire, they soon gave up the contest and deserted their arms. Still, however, the enemy did not strike. One or two of her forward guns were occasionally and suddenly discharged at us, but all systematic resistance had ceased in less than five minutes.

By this time, however, the whole fleet was in an uproar. Lights were dashing in every quarter of the horizon, and, as the darkness had been clearing away since our brush with the merchantman, our lookout aloft could see through the faint, misty distance, more than one vessel bearing down toward us. The majority, however, of the fleet, seemed to be struck with a complete panic, and, like a flock of startled partridges, were hurrying from us in every direction. It soon became apparent that the ships, bearing down upon us, were armed; and before we had been engaged ten minutes with our antagonist, no less than three men-of-war, from as many quarters of the horizon, had opened a concentric fire on us, regardless of the damage they would do their consort. Still, however, unwilling to leave his antagonist without compelling her to strike, our leader maintained his position and poured in a series of rapid broadsides which cut the foe up fearfully. Yet she would not strike. On the other hand, reanimated by the approach of her consorts, her men rallied to her guns and began again to reply to our broadsides. Meanwhile the hostile frigates were coming up to us, hand over hand, increasing the rapidity of their cannonade as the distance betwixt us lessened. Our situation was becoming momentarily more critical. Yet even amid our peril my eye was attracted by the sublimity of the scene.

The night, I have said, had partially cleared away, but the darkness was still sufficiently intense to render the approaching frigates but dimly visible, except when a gush of fire would stream from their ports, lighting up, for the moment, with a ghastly glare, the smoke-encircled hull, the tall masts, and the thousand mazes of the hamper. Often the whole three vessels would discharge their broadsides at once, when it would seem for an instant as if we were girdled by fire. Then, as the smoke settled on their decks, they would disappear wholly from our sight, and only become again distinguishable, when they belched forth their sulphureous flame once more. In the west, the scene was even more magnificent, for in that quarter, was unexpectedly the nearest of the three men-of-war, and as she came up to us close-hauled, she yawed whenever she fired, and then steadily discharged her pieces, doing more damage than all her other consorts. The gallant manner in which she delivered her fire—the measured, distinct booming of her long twenty-fours—and more than all, the inky hue of the sky, in the background, brought out into the boldest relief, by the light of her guns, made up a picture of gloomy grandeur, which the imagination can compare to nothing, except the fitful, ghastly gleams of light shooting across the darkness of that infernal realm, which Dante has painted with his pen of horror. While, however, I was gazing awe-struck, on this scene, I noticed that the dark bank of clouds behind the frigate, was visibly in motion, rolling up towards us. Our superior officer had, perhaps, noticed the same phenomenon, and knowing what it portended, had remained by his antagonist, when otherwise, our only chance of escape would have been in an early flight. Some of the older tars now perceived the approaching tempest, and paused instantaneously from the combat. Indeed, not a moment was to be lost. I had scarcely time to look once more in the direction of the other frigates, and then turn again to the westward, before our antagonist in that quarter, was completely shut in by the squall. The wind had, meantime, died away, leaving us rocking unquietly in the swell. A pause of a minute ensued, a pause of the most breathless suspense. The men had instinctively left their guns, and stood awaiting the directions of their leaders to whom they looked in this emergency. We were happily nearly before the wind, which could now be seen lashing the foam from the billows, and driving down upon us with the speed of a race-horse. Another instant and the squall would be upon us. All this, however, had passed, in less time than is occupied in the relation, for scarcely a minute had elapsed, since I first saw the approaching squall, before Captain Smythe shouted,

“Stand by to clew down—quick there all!”

The command was not an instant too soon. His opening words were heard distinctly in the boding calm that preceded the squall, but the concluding sentence was lost in the hissing and roaring of the hurricane that now swept across our decks. The captain saw that it was useless to attempt to speak in the uproar, and waving his hand for the quartermaster to keep her away, while the men instinctively clewed down the topsail-yards, and hauled out the reef-tackles, he awaited the subsidence of the squall. For five minutes we went skimming before the tempest, like a snow-flake in a storm. On—on—on, we drove, the fine spray hissing past us on the gale, and the shrill scream of the wind through our hamper deafening our ears. Whither we were going, or what perils might meet us in our mad career, we knew not. We were flying helplessly onward, enclosed by the mist, at the mercy of the winds. Even if the intensity of the squall would have allowed us to bring by the wind and reef, prudence would dictate that we should run before the hurricane, as the only chance of escaping from the clutches of our foes. Yet, surrounded as we were by the merchantmen of the fleet, we knew not but the next moment, we might run down some luckless craft, and perhaps by the collision, sink both them and ourselves.

For nearly half an hour we drove thus before the hurricane. More than once we fancied that we heard the shrieks of drowning men, rising high over all the uproar of the tempest, but whether they were in reality the cries of the dying or only the sounds created by an overheated imagination and having no existence except in the brain of the hearer, God only knows! A thousand ships might have sunk within a cable’s length of us, and not a prayer of the sufferers, not a shriek of despair have met our ears. There was a fearfulness in that palpable darkness, which struck the most veteran heart with an awe akin to fear. When men can look abroad and see the real extent of the peril which surrounds them they can dare almost anything; but when surrounded by darkness their imaginations conjure up dangers in every strange intonation of the tempest, in every new outbreak of the surge. They tremble at what they cannot behold; in the language of the scripture “their joints are loosed with fear.”

At length the fury of the squall began to subside, and the dark bank of clouds which had encircled us, undulated, rolled to and fro, and finally flew in ragged vapors away, flitting wildly past the stars that once more twinkled in the sky. As the prospect brightened, we looked eagerly around to see what damage the squall had occasioned. The fleet was scattered hither and thither over the horizon, torn, shattered, dismantled, powerless. Far up in the quarter from whence the hurricane had burst could be faintly seen the body of the convoy; but on every hand around some of the less fortunate ships were discoverable. Whether, however, most of the merchantmen had attempted to lie-to, or whether we had scudded before the gale with a velocity which none could rival, it was evident that we had passed away like a thunderbolt from the rest of the fleet, leaving them at a hopeless distance astern.

Owing to the rapidity with which our canvass had been got in, we suffered no material injury; and, when the gale subsided and the wind came out again from the north, we lost no time in hauling up and getting the weather-gauge of the convoy. The ship was put once more in trim—the crew then turned in, and the watches were left in undisturbed possession of the decks. As I stood at my post and watched the bright stars overhead, shining placidly upon me, or listened to the cry of “All’s well!” passed from lookout to lookout across the deck, I could not help contrasting the peace and silence of the scene with the fearful uproar of the preceding hour.

When morning dawned, not a vestige of the fleet remained on the southern seaboard. Our anxiety was now turned to the fate of the merchantman we had captured and that of the prize-crew we had thrown into her. But toward the afternoon watch, a sail was discovered on the horizon to windward, and when we had approached within a proper distance we recognized our prize. Our joy at rejoining may well be imagined.

The prize proved to be laden with a valuable cargo, and, as this was the first capture of any moment we had made, it raised the spirits of the men in a commensurate degree. The skipper of the merchantman could never comprehend the justice of his capture. Like the generals whom Napoleon has been beating at a later day, he protested that he had been taken against all the rules of war.

After keeping company with us for a few days, the prize hauled up for the coast with the intention of going into Newport. We subsequently learned that she accomplished her aim, but not until she had run the gauntlet of an English fleet. As for ourselves, we stood towards the south on the look out for a new prize.

BALLAD.

THE POETRY BY T. HAYNES BAYLY, ESQ.

THE MUSIC BY J. P. KNIGHT.

———

Philadelphia: John F. Nunns, 184 Chesnut Street.

———

The first point to be observed in the consideration of “Charles O’Malley” is the great popularity of the work. We believe that in this respect it has surpassed even the inimitable compositions of Mr. Dickens. At all events it has met with a most extensive sale; and, although the graver journals have avoided its discussion, the ephemeral press has been nearly if not quite unanimous in its praise. To be sure, the commendation, although unqualified, cannot be said to have abounded in specification, or to have been, in any regard, of a satisfactory character to one seeking precise ideas on the topic of the book’s particular merit. It appears to us, in fact, that the cabalistical words “fun,” “rollicking” and “devil-may-care,” if indeed words they be, have been made to stand in good stead of all critical comment in the case of the work now under review. We first saw these dexterous expressions in a fly-leaf of “Opinions of the Press” appended to the renowned “Harry Lorrequer” by his publisher in Dublin. Thence transmitted, with complacent echo, from critic to critic, through daily, weekly and monthly journals without number, they have come at length to form a pendant and a portion of our author’s celebrity—have come to be regarded as sufficient response to the few ignoramuses who, obstinate as ignorant, and fool-hardy as obstinate, venture to propound a question or two about the true claims of “Harry Lorrequer” or the justice of the pretensions of “Charles O’Malley.”

We shall not insult our readers by supposing any one of them unaware of the fact, that a book may be even exceedingly popular without any legitimate literary merit. This fact can be proven by numerous examples which, now and here, it will be unnecessary and perhaps indecorous to mention. The dogma, then, is absurdly false, that the popularity of a work is primâ facie evidence of its excellence in some respects; that is to say, the dogma is false if we confine the meaning of excellence (as here of course it must be confined) to excellence in a literary sense. The truth is, that the popularity of a book is primâ facie evidence of just the converse of the proposition—it is evidence of the book’s demerit, inasmuch as it shows a “stooping to conquer”—inasmuch as it shows that the author has dealt largely, if not altogether, in matters which are susceptible of appreciation by the mass of mankind—by uneducated thought, by uncultivated taste, by unrefined and unguided passion. So long as the world retains its present point of civilization, so long will it be almost an axiom that no extensively popular book, in the right application of the term, can be a work of high merit, as regards those particulars of the work which are popular. A book may be readily sold, may be universally read, for the sake of some half or two-thirds of its matter, which half or two-thirds may be susceptible of popular appreciation, while the one-half or one-third remaining may be the delight of the highest intellect and genius, and absolute caviare to the rabble. And just as

so will the writer of fiction, who looks most sagaciously to his own interest, combine all votes by intermingling with his loftier efforts such amount of less ethereal matter as will give general currency to his composition. And here we shall be pardoned for quoting some observations of the English artist, H. Howard. Speaking of imitation, he says:

And these remarks upon painting—remarks which are mere truisms in themselves—embody nearly the whole rationale of the topic now under discussion. It may be added, however, that the skill with which the author addresses the lower taste of the populace, is often a source of pleasure because of admiration, to a taste higher and more refined, and may be made a point of comment and of commendation by the critic.

In our review, last month, of “Barnaby Rudge,” we were prevented, through want of space, from showing how Mr. Dickens had so well succeeded in uniting all suffrages. What we have just said, however, will suffice upon this point. While he has appealed, in innumerable regards, to the most exalted intellect, he has meanwhile invariably touched a certain string whose vibrations are omni-prevalent. We allude to his powers of imitation—that species of imitation to which Mr. Howard has reference—the faithful depicting of what is called still-life, and particularly of character in humble condition. It is his close observation and imitation of nature here which have rendered him popular, while his higher qualities, with the ingenuity evinced in addressing the general taste, have secured him the good word of the informed and intellectual.

But this is an important point upon which we desire to be distinctly understood. We wish here to record our positive dissent (be that dissent worth what it may) from a very usual opinion—the opinion that Mr. Dickens has done justice to his own genius—that any man ever failed to do grievous wrong to his own genius—in appealing to the popular judgment at all. As a matter of pecuniary policy alone, is any such appeal defensible. But we speak, of course, in relation to fame—in regard to that

That a perfume should be found by any “true spirit” in the incense of mere popular applause, is, to our own apprehension at least, a thing inconceivable, inappreciable,—a paradox which gives the lie unto itself—a mystery more profound than the well of Democritus. Mr. Dickens has no more business with the rabble than a seraph with a chapeau de bras. What’s Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba? What is he to Jacques Bonhomme^[3] or Jacques Bonhomme to him? The higher genius is a rare gift and divine. Ὡπόλλων ου παντι φαεινεται, ος μιν ιδη, μεγας ουτος—not to all men Apollo shows himself; he is alone great who beholds him.^[4] And his greatness has its office God-assigned. But that office is not a low communion with low, or even with ordinary intellect. The holy—the electric spark of genius is the medium of intercourse between the noble and more noble mind. For lesser purposes there are humbler agents. There are puppets enough, able enough, willing enough, to perform in literature the little things to which we have had reference. For one Fouqué there are fifty Molières. For one Angelo there are five hundred Jan Steens. For one Dickens there are five million Smolletts, Fieldings, Marryatts, Arthurs, Cocktons, Bogtons and Frogtons.

It is, in brief, the duty of all whom circumstances have led into criticism—it is, at least, a duty from which we individually shall never shrink—to uphold the true dignity of genius, to combat its degradation, to plead for the exercise of its powers in those bright fields which are its legitimate and peculiar province, and which for it alone lie gloriously outspread.

But to return to “Charles O’Malley,” and its popularity. We have endeavored to show that this latter must not be considered in any degree as the measure of its merit, but should rather be understood as indicating a deficiency in this respect, when we bear in mind, as we should do, the highest aims of intellect in fiction. A slight examination of the work, (for in truth it is worth no more,) will sustain us in what we have said. The plot is exceedingly meagre. Charles O’Malley, the hero, is a young orphan Irishman, living in Galway county, Ireland, in the house of his uncle, Godfrey, to whose sadly encumbered estates the youth is heir apparent and presumptive. He becomes enamoured, while on a visit to a neighbor, of Miss Lucy Dashwood, and finds a rival in a Captain Hammersley. Some words carelessly spoken by Lucy, inspire him with a desire for military renown. After sojourning, therefore, for a brief period, at Dublin University, he obtains a commission and proceeds to the Peninsula, with the British army under Wellington. Here he distinguishes himself; is promoted; and meets frequently with Miss Dashwood, whom obstinately, and in spite of the lady’s own acknowledgment of love for himself, he supposes in love with Hammersley. Upon the storming of Ciudad Rodrigo he returns home; finds his uncle, of course, just dead; and sells his commission to disencumber the estate. Presently Napoleon escapes from Elba, and our hero, obtaining a staff appointment under Picton, returns to the Peninsula, is present at Waterloo, (where Hammersley is killed) saves the life of Lucy’s father, for the second time, as he has already twice saved that of Lucy herself; is rewarded by the hand of the latter; and, making his way back to O’Malley Castle, “lives happily all the rest of his days.”

In and about this plot (if such it may be called) there are more absurdities than we have patience to enumerate. The author, or narrator, for example, is supposed to be Harry Lorrequer as far as the end of the preface, which by the way, is one of the best portions of the book. O’Malley then tells his own story. But the publishing office of the “Dublin University Magazine” (in which the narrative originally appeared) having been burned down, there ensues a sad confusion of identity between O’Malley and Lorrequer, so that it is difficult, for the nonce, to say which is which. In the want of copy consequent upon the disaster, James, the novelist, comes in to the relief of Lorrequer, or perhaps of O’Malley, with one of the flattest and most irrelevant of love-tales. Meantime, in the story proper are repetitions without end. We have already said that the hero saves the life of his mistress twice, and of her father twice. But not content with this, he has two mistresses, and saves the life of both, at different periods, in precisely the same manner—that is to say, by causing his horse, in each instance, to perform a Munchausen side-leap, at the moment when a spring forward would have impelled him upon his beloved. And then we have one unending, undeviating succession of junketings, in which “devilled kidneys” are never by any accident found wanting. The unction and pertinacity with which the author discusses what he chooses to denominate “devilled kidneys” are indeed edifying, to say no more. The truth is, that drinking wine, telling anecdotes, and devouring “devilled kidneys” may be considered as the sum total, as the thesis of the book. Never in the whole course of his eventful life, does Mr. O’Malley get “two or three assembled together” without seducing them forthwith to a table, and placing before them a dozen of wine and a dish of “devilled kidneys.” This accomplished, the parties begin what seems to be the business of the author’s existence—the narration of unusually broad tales—like those of the Southdown mutton. And here, in fact, we have the plan of that whole work of which the “United Service Gazette” has been pleased to vow it “would rather be the author than of all the ‘Pickwicks’ and ‘Nicklebys’ in the world”—a sentiment which we really blush to say has been echoed by many respectable members of our own press. The general plot or narrative is a mere thread upon which after-dinner anecdotes, some good, some bad, some utterly worthless, and not one truly original, are strung with about as much method, and about half as much dexterity, as we see ragged urchins employ in stringing the kernels of nuts.

It would, indeed, be difficult to convey to one who has not examined this production for himself, any idea of the exceedingly rough, clumsy, and inartistical manner in which even this bald conception is carried out. The stories are absolutely dragged in by the ears. So far from finding them result naturally or plausibly from the conversation of the interlocutors, even the blindest reader may perceive the author’s struggling and blundering effort to introduce them. It is rendered quite evident that they were originally “on hand,” and that “O’Malley” has been concocted for their introduction. Among other niaïseries we observe the silly trick of whetting appetite by delay. The conversation over the “kidneys” is brought, for example, to such a pass that one of the speakers is called upon for a story, which he forthwith declines for any reason, or for none. At a subsequent “broil” he is again pressed, and again refuses, and it is not until the reader’s patience is fairly exhausted, and he has consigned both the story and its author to Hades, that the gentleman in question is prevailed upon to discourse. The only conceivable result of this fanfarronade is the ruin of the tale when told, through exaggerating anticipation respecting it.

The anecdotes thus narrated being the staple of the book, and the awkward manner of their interlocution having been pointed out, it but remains to be seen what the anecdotes are, in themselves, and what is the merit of their narration. And here, let it not be supposed that we have any design to deprive the devil of his due. There are several very excellent anecdotes in “Charles O’Malley” very cleverly and pungently told. Many of the scenes in which Monsoon figures are rich—less, however, from the scenes themselves than from the piquant, but by no means original character of Monsoon—a drunken, maudlin, dishonest old Major, given to communicativeness and mock morality over his cups, and not over careful in detailing adventures which tell against himself. One or two of the college pictures are unquestionably good—but might have been better. In general, the reader is made to feel that fine subjects have fallen into unskilful hands. By way of instancing this assertion, and at the same time of conveying an idea of the tone and character of the stories, we will quote one of the shortest, and assuredly one of the best.

Now this is an anecdote at which every one will laugh; but its effect might have been vastly heightened by putting a few words of grave morality and reprobation of the conduct of his troops, into the mouth of O’Shaughnessy, upon whose character they would have told well. The cock, in interrupting the thread of his discourse, would thus have afforded an excellent context. We have scarcely a reader, moreover, who will fail to perceive the want of tact shown in dwelling upon the mirth which the anecdote occasioned. The error here is precisely like that of a man’s laughing at his own spoken jokes. Our author is uniformly guilty of this mistake. He has an absurd fashion, also, of informing the reader, at the conclusion of each of his anecdotes, that, however good the anecdote might be, he (the reader) cannot enjoy it to the full extent in default of the manner in which it was orally narrated. He has no business to say anything of this kind. It is his duty to convey the manner not less than the matter of his narratives.

But we may say of these latter that, in general, they have the air of being remembered rather than invented. No man who has seen much of the rough life of the camp will fail to recognize among them many very old acquaintances. Some of them are as ancient as the hills, and have been, time out of mind, the common property of the bivouac. They have been narrated orally all the world over. The chief merit of the writer is, that he has been the first to collect and to print them. It is observable, in fact, that the second volume of the work is very far inferior to the first. The author seems to have exhausted his whole hoarded store in the beginning. His conclusion is barren indeed, and but for the historical details (for which he has no claim to merit) would be especially prosy and dull. Now the true invention never exhausts itself. It is mere cant and ignorance to talk of the possibility of the really imaginative man’s “writing himself out.” His soul but derives nourishment from the streams that flow therefrom. As well prate about the aridity of the eternal ocean εξ ουπερ παντες ποταμοι. So long as the universe of thought shall furnish matter for novel combinations, so long will the spirit of true genius be original, be exhaustless—be itself.

A few cursory observations. The book is filled to over-flowing with songs of very doubtful excellence, the most at which are put into the mouth of one Micky Free, an amusing Irish servant of O’Malley’s, and are given as his impromptu effusions. The subject of the improvisos is always the matter in hand at the moment of composition. The author evidently prides himself upon his poetical powers, about which the less we say the better; but if anything were wanting to assure us of his absurd ignorance and inappreciation of Art, we should find the fullest assurance in the mode in which these doggrel verses are introduced.

The occasional sentiment with which the volumes are interspersed there is an absolute necessity for skipping.

Can anybody tell us what is meant by the affectation of the word L’envoy which is made the heading of two prefaces?

That portion of the account of the battle of Waterloo which gives O’Malley’s experiences while a prisoner, and in close juxta-position to Napoleon, bears evident traces of having been translated, and very literally too, from a French manuscript.

The English of the work is sometimes even amusing. We have continually, for example, eat, the present, for ate, the perfect—see page 17. At page 16, we have this delightful sentence—“Captain Hammersley, however, never took further notice of me, but continued to recount, for the amusement of those about, several excellent stories of his military career, which I confess were heard with every test of delight by all save me.” At page 357 we have some sage talk about “the entire of the army;” and at page 368, the accomplished O’Malley speaks of “drawing a last look upon his sweetheart.” These things arrest our attention as we open the book at random. It abounds in them, and in vulgarisms even much worse than they.

But why speak of vulgarisms of language? There is a disgusting vulgarism of thought which pervades and contaminates this whole production, and from which a delicate or lofty mind will shrink as from a pestilence. Not the least repulsive manifestation of this leprosy is to be found in the author’s blind and grovelling worship of mere rank. Of the Prince Regent, that filthy compound of all that is bestial—that lazar-house of all moral corruption—he scruples not to speak in terms of the grossest adulation—sneering at Edmund Burke in the same villainous breath in which he extols the talents, the graces and the virtues of George the Fourth! That any man, to-day, can be found so degraded in heart as to style this reprobate, “one who, in every feeling of his nature, and in every feature of his deportment was every inch a prince”—is matter for grave reflection and sorrowful debate. The American, at least, who shall peruse the concluding pages of the book now under review, and not turn in disgust from the base sycophancy which infects them, is unworthy of his country and his name. But the truth is, that a gross and contracted soul renders itself unquestionably manifest in almost every line of the composition.

And this—this is the work, in respect to which its author, aping the airs of intellect, prates about his “haggard cheek,” his “sunken eye,” his “aching and tired head,” his “nights of toil” and (Good Heavens!) his “days of thought!” That the thing is popular we grant—while that we cannot deny the fact, we grieve. But the career of true taste is onward—and now more vigorously onward than ever—and the period, perhaps, is not hopelessly distant, when, in decrying the mere balderdash of such matters as “Charles O’Malley,” we shall do less violence to the feelings and judgment even of the populace, than, we much fear, has been done to-day.

“Il y a à parier,” says Chamfort, “que toute idée publique, toute convention reçue, est une sottise, car elle a convenue au plus grand nombre.”—One would be safe in wagering that any given public idea is erroneous, for it has been yielded to the clamor of the majority;—and this strictly philosophical, although somewhat French assertion has especial bearing upon the whole race of what are termed maxims and popular proverbs; nine-tenths of which are the quintessence of folly. One of the most deplorably false of them is the antique adage, De gustibus non est disputandum—there should be no disputing about taste. Here the idea designed to be conveyed is that any one person has as just right to consider his own taste the true, as has any one other—that taste itself, in short, is an arbitrary something, amenable to no law, and measurable by no definite rules. It must be confessed, however, that the exceedingly vague and impotent treatises which are alone extant, have much to answer for as regards confirming the general error. Not the least important service which, hereafter, mankind will owe to Phrenology, may perhaps, be recognised in an analysis of the real principles, and a digest of the resulting laws of taste. These principles, in fact, are as clearly traceable, and these laws as readily susceptible of system as are any whatever.

In the meantime, the inane adage above mentioned is in no respect more generally, more stupidly, and more pertinaciously quoted than by the admirers of what is termed the “good old Pope,” or the “good old Goldsmith school” of poetry, in reference to the bolder, more natural, and more ideal compositions of such authors as Coëtlogon and Lamartine^[5] in France; Herder, Körner, and Uhland in Germany; Brun and Baggesen in Denmark; Bellman, Tegnér, and Nyberg^[6] in Sweden; Keats, Shelley, Coleridge, and Tennyson in England; Lowell and Longfellow in America. “De gustibus non,” say these “good-old-school” fellows; and we have no doubt that their mental translation of the phrase is—“We pity your taste—we pity every body’s taste but our own.”

It is our purpose, hereafter, when occasion shall be afforded us, to controvert in an article of some length, the popular idea that the poets just mentioned owe to novelty, to trickeries of expression, and to other meretricious effects, their appreciation by certain readers:—to demonstrate (for the matter is susceptible of demonstration) that such poetry and such alone has fulfilled the legitimate office of the muse; has thoroughly satisfied an earnest and unquenchable desire existing in the heart of man. In the present number of our Magazine we have left ourselves barely room to say a few random words of welcome to these “Ballads,” by Longfellow, and to tender him, and all such as he, the homage of our most earnest love and admiration.

The volume before us (in whose outward appearance the keen “taste” of genius is evinced with nearly as much precision as in its internal soul) includes, with several brief original pieces, a translation from the Swedish of Tegnér. In attempting (what never should be attempted) a literal version of both the words and the metre of this poem, Professor Longfellow has failed to do justice either to his author or himself. He has striven to do what no man ever did well and what, from the nature of language itself, never can be well done. Unless, for example, we shall come to have an influx of spondees in our English tongue, it will always be impossible to construct an English hexameter. Our spondees, or, we should say, our spondaic words, are rare. In the Swedish they are nearly as abundant as in the Latin and Greek. We have only “compound,” “context,” “footfall,” and a few other similar ones. This is the difficulty; and that it is so will become evident upon reading “The Children of the Lord’s Supper,” where the sole readable verses are those in which we meet with the rare spondaic dissyllables. We mean to say readable as Hexameters; for many of them will read very well as mere English Dactylics with certain irregularities.

But within the narrow compass now left us we must not indulge in anything like critical comment. Our readers will be better satisfied perhaps with a few brief extracts from the original poems of the volume—which we give for their rare excellence, without pausing now to say in what particulars this excellence exists.

Some of these passages cannot be fully appreciated apart from the context—but we address these who have read the book. Of the translations we have not spoken. It is but right to say, however, that “The Luck of Edenhall” is a far finer poem, in every respect, than any of the original pieces. Nor would we have our previous observations misunderstood. Much as we admire the genius of Mr. Longfellow, we are fully sensible of his many errors of affectation and imitation. His artistical skill is great, and his ideality high. But his conception of the aims of poesy is all wrong; and this we shall prove at some future day—to our own satisfaction, at least. His didactics are all out of place. He has written brilliant poems—by accident; that is to say when permitting his genius to get the better of his conventional habit of thinking—a habit deduced from German study. We do not mean to say that a didactic moral may not be well made the under-current of a poetical thesis; but that it can never be well put so obtrusively forth, as in the majority of his compositions. There is a young American who, with ideality not richer than that of Longfellow and with less artistical knowledge, has yet composed far truer poems, merely through the greater propriety of his themes. We allude to James Russel Lowell; and in the number of this Magazine for last month, will be found a ballad entitled “Rosaline,” affording excellent exemplification of our meaning. This composition has unquestionably its defects, and the very defects which are never perceptible in Mr. Longfellow—but we sincerely think that no American poem equals it in the higher elements of song.

That Lord Brougham was an extraordinary man no one in his senses will deny. An intellect of unusual capacity, goaded into diseased action by passions nearly ferocious, enabled him to astonish the world, and especially the “hero-worshippers,” as the author of Sartor-Resartus has it, by the combined extent and variety of his mental triumphs. Attempting many things, it may at least be said that he egregiously failed in none. But that he pre-eminently excelled in any cannot be affirmed with truth, and might well be denied à priori. We have no faith in admirable Crichtons, and this merely because we have implicit faith in Nature and her laws. “He that is born to be a man,” says Wieland, in his ‘Peregrinus Proteus,’ “neither should nor can be anything nobler, greater, nor better than a man.” The Broughams of the human intellect are never its Newtons or its Bayles. Yet the contemporaneous reputation to be acquired by the former is naturally greater than any which the latter may attain. The versatility of one whom we see and hear is a more dazzling and more readily appreciable merit than his profundity; which latter is best estimated in the silence of the closet, and after the quiet lapse of years. What impression Lord Brougham has stamped upon his age, cannot be accurately determined until Time has fixed and rendered definite the lines of the medal; and fifty years hence it will be difficult, perhaps, even to make out the deepest indentations of the exergue. Like Coleridge he should be regarded as one who might have done much, had he been satisfied with attempting but little.

The title of the book before us is, we think, somewhat disingenuous. These two volumes contain but a small portion of the “Critical and Miscellaneous Writings” of Lord Brougham; and the preface itself assures us that what is here published forms only a part of his anonymous contributions to the Edinburgh Review. In fact three similar selections from his “Miscellaneous Works” have been given to the world within a year or two past, by Philadelphian publishers, and neither of these selections embrace any of the matter now issued.

The present volumes, however, are not the less valuable on this account. They contain many of the most noted and some of the best compositions of the author. Among other articles of interest we have the celebrated “Discourse on the Objects, Pleasures and Advantages of Science”—a title, by the way, in which the word “pleasures” is one of the purest supererogation. That this discourse is well written, we, of course, admit, since we do not wish to be denounced as blockheads; but we beg leave to disagree, most positively, with the Preface, which asserts that “there was only one individual living by whom it could have been produced.” This round asseveration will only excite a smile upon the lips of every man of the slightest pretension to scientific acquirement. We are personally acquainted with at least a dozen individuals who could have written this treatise as well as the Lord Chancellor has written it. In fact, a discourse of this character is by no means difficult of composition—a discourse such as Lord Brougham has given us. His whole design consists in an unmethodical collection of the most striking and at the same time the most popularly comprehensible facts in general science. And it cannot be denied that this plan of demonstrating the advantages of science as a whole by detailing insulated specimens of its interest is a most unphilosophical and inartistical mode of procedure—a mode which even puts one in mind of the σκολαστικος offering a brick as a sample of the house he wished to sell. Neither is the essay free (as should be imperatively demanded in a case of this nature) from very gross error and mis-statement. Its style, too, in its minor points, is unusually bad. The strangest grammatical errors abound, of which the initial pages are especially full, and the whole is singularly deficient in that precision which should characterise a scientific discourse. In short, it is an entertaining essay, but in some degree superficial and quackish, and could have been better written by any one of a multitude of living savans.

There is a very amusing paper, in this collection, upon the authorship of Junius. We allude to it, now especially, by way of corroborating what we said, in our January number, touching the ordinary character of the English review-system. The article was furnished the Edinburgh Quarterly by its author, who, no doubt, received for it a very liberal compensation. It is, nevertheless, one of the most barefaced impositions we ever beheld; being nothing in the world more than a tame compendium, fact by fact, of the book under discussion—“The Identity of Junius with a Distinguished Living Character Established.” There is no attempt at analysis—no new fact is adduced—no novel argument is urged—and yet the thing is called a criticism and liberally paid for as such. The secret of this style of Review-making is that of mystifying the reader by an artful substitution of the interest appertaining to the text for interest aroused by the commentator.

The title of this work explains its nature with accuracy. To human knowledge in general, it is what a map of the world is to geography. The design is chiefly, to classify, and thus present a dependent and clearly discernible whole. To those who have paid much attention to Natural History and the endless, unstable, and consequently vexatious classifications which there occur—to those, in especial, who have labored over the “Conchologies” of De Blainville and Lamarck, some faint—some very faint idea of the difficulties attending such a labor as this, will occur. There have been numerous prior attempts of the same kind, and although this is unquestionably one of the best, we cannot regard it as the best. Mr. Park has chosen a highly artificial scheme of arrangement; and both reason and experience show us that natural classifications, or those which proceed upon broad and immediately recognisable distinctions, are alone practically or permanently successful. We say this, however, with much deference to the opinions of a gentleman, whose means of acquiring knowledge, have been equalled only by his zeal in its pursuit, and whose general talents we have had some personal opportunity of estimating.

We mean nothing like criticism in so brief a paragraph as we can here afford, upon a work so voluminous and so important as the one before us. Our design is merely to call the attention of our friends to the publication—whose merits are obvious and great. Its defects are, of course, numerous. We mean rather to say, that in every work of this nature, it is in the power of almost every reader to suggest a thousand emendations. We might object to many of the details. We must object to nearly all of the belles-lettres portion of the book. We cannot stand being told, for example, that “Barlow’s ‘Columbiad’ is a poem of considerable merit;” nor are we rendered more patient under the infliction of this and similar opinions, by the information that Vander Vondel and Vander Doos (the deuce!) wrote capital Dutch epics, while “the poems of Cats are said to be spirited and pious!” We know nothing about cats, nor cats about piety.

The volume is sadly disfigured by typographical errors. On the title-page of the very first “province” is a blunder in Greek.

Mr. Howitt has here given us the only complete and faithful account of the Student-Life of Germany which has appeared in any quarter of the world. The institutions and customs which his book describes, form, to use his own language, “the most singular state of social existence to be found in the bosom of civilized Europe,” and are doubly curious and worthy of investigation—first, on account of the jealousy with which the students have hitherto withheld all information on the subject, and secondly, on account of the deep root which the customs themselves have taken in the heart of the German life. The Burschendom, of which we have all heard so much, yet so vaguely, is no modern or evanescent eccentricity; but a matter of firm and reverent faith coeval with the universities; and this faith is now depicted, con amore, and with knowledge, by a German who has himself felt and confessed it. To the philosopher, to the man of the world, and especially, to the man of imagination, this beautiful volume will prove a rare treat. Its novelty will startle all.

Professor Smyth’s system of history is remarkable, if not peculiar. He selects certain periods, and groups around them individually those events to which they have closest affinity not only in time, but character. The effect is surprising through its force and perspicuity. The name of Professor Sparks would be alone sufficient to recommend these volumes—but in themselves they are a treasure.

This little book forms, in the original, the first of a series of First or Elementary works on Natural History, arranged by Messieurs Edwards and Comte, two gentlemen distinguished for labors of the kind, and who enjoy the patronage of the “Royal Council of Public Instruction of France.” The translator is well known to the reading world, and there can be no doubt of the value of the publication in its present form.

This is, in many respects, an excellent book, although the principal claim of Dr. Comstock is that of having cleverly compiled. His method of representing, or notating, the modulations of the speaking voice, is original, as he himself states, but there is little else which can be called so. Originality, however, is not what we seek in a school-book, and this has the merit of tasteful selection and precision of style.

This work is republished, we presume, not so much on account of its intrinsic merit, as on account of the present émeute in our immediate vicinity and elsewhere, on the subject of Animal Magnetism. “Sturmer,” the principal story, is, nevertheless, well narrated and will do much in the way of helping unbelief. The minor tales are even beautiful. “The Mother and Daughter” is exceedingly pathetic.

Mr. Hawthorne has received high praise from men whose opinions we have been accustomed to respect. Hereafter we shall endeavor to speak of his tales with that deliberation which is their due. The one now before us is a simple and pretty story.

We like Mr. James far better as the historian or biographer than as the novelist. The truth is, it is sheer waste of time to read second-rate fictions by men of merely imitative talent, when at the same expense of money and labor we can indulge in the never-failing stream of invention now poured forth by true genius.

These volumes are satirical and have some fair hits at Mr. Cooper, against whom they are especially levelled; but we like neither this design of personal ridicule nor the manner in which it is effected.

This book excited and still excites great attention in England. It is needless to speak of its merits, which are well understood by all students of Physics.

A republication from the Dublin Review of three able articles in defence of Catholicism.

We need only say of this volume that it is a combination of the “First Book” just noticed, although sufficiently distinct in itself.

This is a very passable satirical fiction, in the manner of Gulliver. We should not be surprised if it were the composition of Dr. Beasely of this city.

An eloquent tribute to the memory of an eloquent and in every respect a remarkable man.

This is a very clever and amusing jeu-d’esprit, in which the oddities, or what we regard as the oddities of “Life in China,” are divertingly caricatured. The work is handsomely printed, and the designs by Leech are well conceived and executed.

The publisher, in his preface, states that three editions of this work, comprising eight thousand copies, have been sold; and of this we are pleased to hear; but we are not equally pleased with the information (conveyed also in the preface) that a new set of illustrations is given. If these “illustrations” are new, then “new” has come to be employed in the sense of “old.” The plates are not only antique but trashy in other respects. Of the poems themselves we have no space to speak fully this month. Some of them are excellent; and there are many which merit no commendation. Mrs. Sigourney deserves much, but by no means all of the applause which her compositions have elicited.

It would be easy to cite, from the volume now before us, numerous brief passages of the truest beauty; but we fear that it would be more difficult to point out an entire poem which would bear examination, as a whole. In the piece entitled “Indian Names,” there are thoughts and expression which would do honor to any one. We note, also, an unusually noble idea in the “Death of an Infant.”

Spring Fashions 1842 Latest Style

Transcriber’s Notes:

Table of Contents has been added for reader convenience. Archaic spellings and hyphenation have been retained. Obvious punctuation and typesetting errors have been corrected without note. Greek phrases in this ebook contain characters which may not display in some devices based on the fonts and character sets available.

The Duello can be found in the February 1842 issue of Graham’s Magazine.

[The end of Graham's Magazine Vol. XX No. 3 March 1842 edited by George Rex Graham]